Rules of Attraction. Susan Crosby

She waited for Marie to shut the bathroom door down the hall, then walked into the living room and let her frustration spill out. “You didn’t tell me the cops were looking for you.”

      “The D.A., not the cops. They followed me for weeks. So what? No big deal.”

      “Is that why you left?”

      “I left because you told me to.”

      Claire gritted her teeth. She didn’t believe her. “I’ll ask you again, Jenn. Do you have the money Craig Beecham embezzled?”

      “And I’ll answer you again. No, I do not.”

      “Then why did you run?”

      “Who says I ran?”

      “You left me a note, which is a cowardly way to leave, and you know it. You left your car and your clothes behind. Now you’ve changed your cell phone number. You ran,” she said again.

      “I’m starting the life I always wanted, that’s all. Listen, I gotta go. Later, okay?”

      Claire punched the off button and banged the phone down on the bottom stair. She blew off some steam by walking into the foyer then back into the living room again until Marie joined her.

      A movement outside caught her attention—a gray sedan pulling up across the street. Recognizing Quinn Gerard, she closed her eyes and groaned. Great. Just great. She’d been sanding kitchen cabinets all morning and hadn’t even showered yet. She’d twisted her hair up off her neck with a big clip. Of all days for him to show up.

      She resisted the temptation to pat her hair and smooth her clothes.

      He got out of the car, his expression serious as he stood for a moment and stared at her house. He looked like a bearer of bad news.

      Quinn should’ve done the polite thing and called before dropping in on Claire. In fact, he could have given her the information over the phone. Yet he was here, outside her house, feeling more hesitant than when he’d asked Melanie Davison to the homecoming dance eighteen years ago. Why did this fresh-faced, seemingly harmless woman have the ability to intimidate him?

      He climbed her stairs, eight of them, then stood under the portico for several seconds. Hell. He should just get in his car and drive away. Call her from his cell phone. Tell her what he’d found out. And keep on driving.

      He blew out a breath. Big, fearless Quinn Gerard, who’d earned a reputation for uncovering secrets others couldn’t, for clinging unnoticed to the shadows of the city, for hacking into other people’s computers without remorse for violating their privacy—that Quinn Gerard was quaking in his boots at facing a first-grade teacher with philanthropic tendencies?

      Idiot.

      He started to knock but the door opened. A tall redhead was chattering and smiling. “I only crashed two cars,” she was saying. “And that was years ago.” Her smile changed, as did her body language, when she almost bumped into Quinn.

      “Well, hi, there,” she said, not quite à la Mae West, but in a definitely flirtatious way.

      “Good morning.”

      Rase charged out of the house, right at him. “Sit,” he said. Rase’s rump hit the ground but his body was in motion. Quinn had never seen a dog grin like that. He scratched the dog’s ears.

      “Traitor,” he heard Claire say.

      The redheaded woman put out a hand. Her wrist jangled with at least ten silver bracelets. “I’m Marie DiSanto.”

      He shook her hand. “Quinn Gerard.”