spot the homemade noodles, chunks of chicken and other nutritious stuff.”
He nodded gravely. “I’m a professional investigator. I sleuthed out the nutritious stuff right off.”
“’Atta boy, Santini.”
He’d taken off his suit coat, loosened his crimson tie and unbuttoned the neck of his starched white shirt. Grace knew this was the first time she’d let herself relax since they walked into the adoption agency that morning, and she sensed the same went for Mark.
Sensed, too, that she had probably been nuts to bring him back to her house since she intended to keep their relationship on a professional level. The smart thing would have been to go along with Mark’s suggestion to wait at her office for the information they’d requested. It was just that the more time she’d spent in his presence, the deeper the lines of exhaustion in his face seemed to be etched.
So, why did she care if he looked tired? she wondered. Why give special consideration to a man who’d walked away so effortlessly six years ago?
With no answers to those questions forthcoming, she slid a hand into the wicker basket next to her plate, tore off two pieces of the crusty French bread she’d heated and handed one to Mark. “Butter?”
“No, thanks.” His gaze swept the kitchen. “Bran mentioned the remodeling of this place was a McCall family project. From what I’ve seen, you did a great job.”
“We think so.”
“How long did the entire project take?”
“A couple of months,” Grace answered. “Granddad and Gran oversaw things. They doled out assignments like they were drill sergeants. Everyone pitched in, carried their weight, except for…”
Mark gave her a puzzled look when her voice trailed off. “Except for?”
“It was right after Ryan died. Then I got sick…the flu.” And with her system so vulnerable, her resistance so weakened, she’d lost their baby, her final physical link with Ryan.
“Grace—”
“Anyway, I love this house,” she said, determined to force back the memories. “So do Carrie and Morgan. Having had the family’s help in breathing life back into the place makes it even more special.”
Her appetite gone, Grace set her bowl aside and squared her shoulders. “Ready to brainstorm our case?”
Mark watched her for a beat, then pushed his bowl out of the way. “Ready,” he said, while opening the file folder. “Here’s what we know so far. Nearly a year ago a fifteen-year-old girl named DeeDee Wyman gave birth to a son. The birth was without complications, the baby healthy. Wyman suddenly began hemorrhaging and died. Six months later, Andrea Grayson walked into the same clinic and became a carbon copy of Wyman, with the exception that she had a different doctor and gave birth to a daughter.”
Grace nodded. “From our checks with all three adoption agencies that have contracts with the clinic, we know none of them handled either infant, although the clinic’s records show differently.”
“Records filled out by Iris Davenport, the nurse in attendance during both births,” Mark added. “Records with the same forged signature of a former child services caseworker.”
“At this point, Iris Davenport—presently in Kansas City taking care of her ill sister—seems to be the solid link between both deaths,” Grace said. “And the two babies who have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.”
“They’re somewhere,” Mark stated, checking his watch. “The background checks we requested on Davenport and Dr. Odgers should come through on your fax soon. And I ought to hear back anytime from the pathologist with the tox results of Grayson’s autopsy.”
“So we wait.” Grace gathered up their dishes, then headed to the sink. She rinsed the bowls, turned and ran into a wall of solid muscle.
“Sorry,” Mark said, gripping her upper arm to steady her.
“I…didn’t hear you behind me.”
“Just doing my part to help clean up.” He sat the wicker bread basket beside the sink, but made no move to put space between them.
Grace caught the faint whiff of his familiar spicy cologne, and felt her insides tighten. “Always…nice to have a helper in the kitchen,” she managed. Knowing she was between two seemingly immovable forces of granite-topped counter and muscled male had her skin heating.
Mark gazed down at her with concerned intensity. “Grace, I didn’t mean to upset you before. Mentioning the house. Bran told me Morgan and Carrie bought it about the same time Ryan was killed. I just didn’t think before I brought up the subject. I’m sorry.”
“It’s…okay.”
“From the look I saw in your eyes, it clearly isn’t okay. Ryan Fox was a lucky man to have found you.”
“I’m the lucky one,” she said, her voice an unsteady whisper. She had forgotten how easily Mark’s voice could take on that soft intimate tone. They were talking about her husband’s death, yet her blood was heating over her ex-lover’s voice.
The knowledge of how quickly memories of the way she used to feel for Mark consumed her had panic flaring in her stomach. It was almost as if they weren’t memories at all.
That jolting revelation had her taking a step sideways. Then another. Good Lord, what if he touched her? Was she sure—absolutely sure—she could resist him?
His eyes stayed locked with hers. “I’m sure the past three years have been hard for you. There’s nothing more difficult than to lose people you love and need.”
As she stared up at him, it occurred to her she had no idea if he was speaking in generalities or making a personal observation. How could she know? They’d been lovers for months, yet Mark Santini had never opened up enough to tell her about his background. His family. Never once told her how he felt about her. About them.
Which, she conceded, hadn’t mattered at the time. Mark hadn’t needed to tell her anything in order to keep her in his bed.
But now, for some reason she couldn’t explain, it mattered very much.
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Tell me something, Mark. How do you know losing someone is difficult?”
His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “What?”
“Have you lost someone? Someone you loved and needed? I have to ask, since you’ve never mentioned your family to me. I don’t know anything about you. I never knew anything about you.”
“You’re wrong, Grace. You knew me better than anyone.”
What she knew was that his first and only love was, and always would be, the job. She didn’t bother to point that out. Pointing it out wouldn’t change the past, alter the present or impact the future.
Just then a telephone rang in the distance.
“The fax machine,” Grace said, glancing toward the hallway. “That should be the background information on Odgers and Davenport.” She’d no sooner gotten the words out than Mark’s cell phone chimed.
He unclipped the phone off his belt as Grace headed out of the kitchen into the hallway. She stepped into the small, cozy room she and her sisters had converted into an office. The fax machine was humming, rolling out pages.
When she returned to the kitchen, Mark was still on the phone. She knew instantly from his comments and questions that his caller was the pathologist who’d performed the autopsy on Andrea Grayson. Grace slid onto a stool at the island and separated the pages on Dr. Odgers’s background from those on Iris Davenport. While Grace scanned the info on the nurse, she was aware that Mark’s expression grew grimmer with each passing minute.
When he clicked off the phone, his shoulders were stiff beneath his white dress