17
The vision that walked toward his open office door differed mightily from the broke college student he’d last seen a few years ago. Jeremy Kincaid forgot all about the exciting new investment opportunity in a high-tech night vision equipment start-up. Adeline Winters seemed to float with each smooth, graceful stride. She could just as easily be on a catwalk as in his reception area.
Her endlessly long legs made the light gray trousers wave as she moved. The open lapels of her knee-length black trench coat offered glimpses of slender hips beneath the fitted hem of a gray button-up vest. Modest cleavage peeked out from above a soft, silky yellow shirt, very business-like. Thick, shoulder-length blond hair fanned out. He drank in the sight of her. By the time she stopped at his office door, her porcelain skin and naturally pink lips arrested him next, and then her keen, light blue eyes snapped him out of his trance.
He stood, feeling as though he might have to control his drool. Clearing his throat, he got a hold of himself and stepped away from his chair. Did she have the same reaction to seeing him again? She held a leather padfolio in one arm. Her gaze took in his form as he came around the desk, but he couldn’t be sure the same electric sexual awareness afflicted her.
“Ms. Winters. Thank you for coming.” He shook her soft hand.
“Adeline. Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Jeremy.” He smiled as he looked down at her attire. “College seems to have agreed with you.”
A slight answering smile curved her perfect lips. “My business is growing. Maybe after this meeting, it will grow even more.”
She’d turned her criminal justice degree into her own private investigation agency. When he’d learned that, the wheels in his head had started spinning. Not only did he admire anyone with the know-how and courage to blaze their own path—he’d built his own business on the same steam—he could use her expertise.
Putting the padfolio down on one of two plush brown leather chairs facing his big, cherrywood desk, she removed her coat and draped it over the arm. She had a gun holster and an ammo pouch fastened to her belt. While he wondered about that, she looked up at his thirty-six-by-forty-eight black-and-white picture of the moon, half in sunlight and half in shadow.
“That was taken by an imaging satellite,” he explained. “The founder of a start-up I invested in sent it to me.”
She looked over the rest of his office. A whiteboard covered one wall and pictures of ranch land accented a conference table. A credenza took up the space behind his desk.
After taking those in, she returned her attention to him. “You like ranching and stargazing?”
“Ranching is in the family. Not me. I’m a businessman.” He looked over the photos. “I like investing in technological concepts, seeing entrepreneurs take an idea and turn it into a success. I built my first company from nothing and started investing after I sold it.”
“To the moon and back.” She smiled wider than before. “I knew you invested but I didn’t know you sold your first company. Tess never mentioned that.” She wandered to the whiteboard where he kept a list of tasks and an unclassified flowchart of a new night vision scope for a military rifle.
“I didn’t have much money. I had my engineering degree and a partner with an innovative idea to make a garage door opener that could read license plates. Kind of like electronic toll optics.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know some people who have one of those.” She turned to face him. “Fascinating.”
“My partner bought my share of the company. That’s what I used to build this.” He opened his arms.
She met his eyes with softening warmth. He hadn’t known her long before his wife had died. He and Tess had chosen her from a donor pool.
He suspected she was thinking of that time along similar lines, perhaps how she didn’t really know him, either.
Tess had been so excited with the prospect of having a baby. He had been thrilled to make her that happy. The sting of loss caught him as it often did. He still could not let her go.
Lingering too long on the sparkle in her glowing eyes, he gestured to the chairs. “Please, have a seat.”
He stepped back and then around to his chair behind the desk. She adjusted herself until she found a comfortable position, crossing her sexy legs and leaning back to patiently await his purpose in inviting her to his office.
“Is there a reason you’re armed?” he asked. The college student he once knew wouldn’t have packed heat.
“Only when I work cases that make me nervous.”
“Hopefully that doesn’t mean me.” He kept his tone light. If she had any idea why he’d asked her to meet, she’d have a good reason to be armed.
A brief breath left her, seeming to stem partly from a response to his lightness and partly from patient tolerance. “No. A mother hired me to track down a drug dealer her son has gotten mixed up with.”
“Ah.” He leaned back with his fingers to his jaw. “You do target practice?”
“I wouldn’t have a gun if I didn’t. I assure you, I’m legal and qualified.”
“I wasn’t questioning your experience as an investigator.” He knew nothing about her experience. Her website had glowing reviews from clients, and everything about her presented professionalism. He’d take a chance on her, which was better than he’d get from the local sheriff’s department. Other than Knox Colton, he didn’t trust anyone.
“Why did you ask me here, Mr. Kincaid?”
“Jeremy. I want to talk to you about Tess.”
Adeline’s gaze faltered with the mention of Tess, making him wonder if that part of her past bothered her, being an egg donor and surrogate to fund her college tuition, giving up her baby.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been two years,” she said.
“Yes. The first year was pretty hard on me and Jamie.” He’d spent the next year trying to get deputies to look into the car accident that had killed her. That had proved futile.
Her eyes lifted and he saw the hungry need for more information about the boy. Jeremy couldn’t deny her link to him, and Jamie had influenced his decision to call her.
“He’s doing much better now. He misses his mother, but he’s adjusting,” Jeremy said.
Adeline only met his eyes, seeming to be caught in ponderous thought.
“He looks like you.” Jeremy didn’t know why he’d said that. After Jamie had been born he’d focused on thinking of him as his and Tess’s baby. But it had been difficult not to make the comparison. “He’s got blond hair and blue eyes.” He breathed a laugh and pointed to his dark, short cropped hair and brown eyes. Tess had dark hair and gray eyes.
Adeline made no comment and lowered her gaze. Talking about Jamie must make her uncomfortable.
He used to tell himself that Jamie’s bright blue eyes resembled Tess’s. Jamie had a lot of his own features, but the blond hair and blue eyes were always Adeline’s. He’d often felt he had to convince himself that Jamie was his and Tess’s and not his and Adeline’s.
“Sometimes