Her laugh was forced. Nervous. “You used to do that when you were a teenager, but never since then if my memory serves me.”
“No, that’s not the reason,” Hunter said with a smile. He didn’t bother to deny his interest in Erica. Lillian would have been clued in when he brought Erica over to introduce her. Hell, she probably guessed when he showed up at the gala without Kelly. “She’s a beautiful woman, isn’t she?”
“Striking, certainly. Very sophisticated. In person, she’s nothing like I imagined her to be.”
“How is it you’ve thought about her at all? She tells me you’ve never met.”
She gave a nervous laugh. It was nervousness, he told himself, nothing real or spontaneous about it. “I wasn’t speaking of her physical appearance, but her…demeanor, I suppose you’d say. I’m familiar with her art—many people are, as you’ve seen for yourself tonight. You tend to wonder about the artist when you look at a piece of art. At least, I do. That’s all.”
What she said made sense, but for some reason, Hunter felt there was more to her reaction to Erica than her usual appreciation of anyone with enough talent to create art. She looked unsettled and tense. Almost fearful. Why would a conversation about Erica Stewart be anything but casual? She didn’t know her. Neither woman claimed to know the other. And yet…
He thought back to the moment when he’d taken Erica over to be introduced, a moment when he’d been puzzled by his mother’s reaction. Nobody’s social skills were more accomplished, but for a moment she’d seemed on the verge of losing her composure. She’d been…shaken. But why? There’d been no chance to explore her odd reaction as he’d been distracted by Erica’s spell. She’d had a similar reaction when he’d presented his birthday gift to her—a jacket she instantly recognized as an Erica Stewart creation. In hindsight, he saw she’d not been thrilled over it. He’d been so taken with Erica himself that he’d been blind to anything except his own opinion.
“What I want to ask might seem odd,” he told her now, “but Erica had a really weird reaction to that piece of jewelry you’re wearing tonight.”
“What?” She gave him a bewildered look.
“That pin.” He reached out and touched it with his finger. Although no connoisseur of women’s jewelry, he realized it was unique. Probably expensive. Definitely expensive, if those stones were diamonds, which without a doubt they were. More of them than he could count at a glance. And he didn’t know about opals, but he knew about his mother’s judgment in these things and he guessed they were valuable, too. Maybe the value of the piece was in its design, he thought, studying it closely. What the hell did he know about anything except the damn thing had spooked Erica. And he wanted to know why.
“What are you talking about, Hunter?” She brushed his hand aside and covered the brooch with her fingers.
“I know it sounds…funny, but when Erica recovered after her little spell, she talked about your pin, called it a brooch. Which was a kind of old-fashioned word to me, but that’s what she said.”
“You’re not making any sense, Hunter.”
He gave a short laugh. “I guess not. Anyway, she seemed to think she’d seen it before, maybe in an estate sale or something. You two have that in common, an appreciation of treasures of the past, you might say.”
“This pin didn’t come from an estate sale,” Lillian said. “It belonged to my grandmother. It was an anniversary gift to her from my grandfather. It has been in my family forever. It was willed to me when she died.”
“No kidding.” They were in the hotel foyer now, heading for the revolving doors where Morton would be waiting. Hunter didn’t want to explain his interest in Lillian’s jewelry to Morton. Besides, he was still in the dark over the whole thing himself. He couldn’t very well explain what he didn’t understand. “Erica said the jewels are diamonds and opals. Is that right?”
She made a little sound of exasperation. “Really, Hunter, I’m not used to having my jewelry vetted by a complete stranger.”
“I’ve made it sound cheesy, just asking about it, Mom. I apologize. Erica would probably flip if she knew I was asking all these questions. It’s just—” Spotting Morton waiting in their Mercedes, he decided to let it go until he’d had a chance to think more about it. He smiled at his mother and kissed her on the cheek. “I hope you had a good time tonight. I sure did.”
Standing on tiptoe she caught his arms, and it seemed to Hunter that she clung to him for a moment. “I was thrilled that you came, Hunter,” she said huskily.
“Maybe I’ll surprise you again sometime,” he said, wishing to make up for upsetting her. She was upset. He didn’t know why, but he knew it had little to do with her jewelry and everything to do with Erica Stewart.
He walked her to the Mercedes, where a valet held the door open. “About that pin, Mom,” he said. She stopped, studying him with a questioning look. “Is opal your birthstone?”
“Why, no. Why do you ask?”
“Oops.” He grinned at her, hoping to lighten her mood. “Because I’ve heard that you should beware of owning opals if they’re not your birthstone. They’re bad luck. But since yours are a legacy from the past and it’s no fault of yours that you own these, their power is kaput.”
He had failed to lighten her mood he realized as he stood at the curb waiting for the valet to seat her in the Mercedes. She looked straight ahead as Morton pulled abruptly away, but it was a night with a full moon and when the car turned the corner, Hunter saw her face. Even with the tinted windows, he could see that it was ghostly pale.
“Okay, cut the bullshit and tell me what that was all about.” At the wheel of his Nissan, Jason shot across three lanes of Southwest Freeway traffic and settled in at a nice, steady seventy miles an hour pace before adding, “And I’m not some dude who’s got the hots for you, sugar, so don’t give me that line about not eating and your stress level knocking you to your knees. I’ve seen you when stress is bad and I’ve seen you when life itself is bad. This was one of the latter, not the former.”
Erica sighed and fixed her gaze on the rear of an eighteen-wheeler just ahead of them. “I don’t know what it was, Jace. I just took a look at that piece of jewelry and it felt as if I was suddenly hurled back in time. A horrible time. I thought I was going to be sick.”
“Maybe it was the shrimp.”
“I was so busy networking, as you instructed, that I really didn’t eat anything.”
“No kidding?”
“Cross my heart.”
Jason drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. “Maybe there is something about the jewelry.”
“But what? I’ve never seen Mrs. Trask in my life. Her face was totally unfamiliar. Mr. Trask, yes. Everybody’s seen him from time to time. You’d have to live in a time warp in Houston not to. But I barely remember even looking at him, I was so busy trying to keep from passing out with horror.”
“You say you felt as if you were hurled back in time. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. You remember reading about Alice falling down the rabbit hole? Well, that’s the best way I can describe what happened. Except that I didn’t see anything or remember anything. All I felt was…emotion. I was terrified, Jace.” She bent her head in her hands. “Those people must think I’m crazy.”
“When you told Hunter and me about it, you said it felt like a déjà vu moment. A psychiatrist might suggest there’s something buried in your memory bank and the pin was like a key unlocking it.”
“Oh, please, Jason. That only happens in the movies. I wasn’t an abused child, I didn’t witness my parents doing something heinous, and my nanny didn’t lock me in a dark closet. There’s nothing traumatic in my childhood.”
“What