Summer Secrets - Barbara Freethy [67]
Tyler frowned, searching for what happened next. There didn't appear to be any further reports. The man seemed to disappear after the race. Tyler supposed that wasn't unusual for someone who had almost drowned. Then again, K.C. had looked in fine health when he'd confronted Duncan in the Oyster Bar several hours earlier.
Tyler tapped his keyboard impatiently. What he really wanted to know was what K.C. had done between the race and now. He'd tried to get the information from Duncan, but Duncan had been strangely quiet on the subject, despite consuming enough whiskey to float a boat. While Duncan had spewed forth endless tales of racing victories, he'd refused to say anything about the girls or K.C. Finally, Tyler had given up when Duncan called over more of his pals to share tales with.
Giving the bartender a twenty-dollar bill and instructions to make sure Duncan got a cab ride home, Tyler had returned to his hotel, hoping that Kate wouldn't be called out yet again to rescue her father. Not that she'd thank him for getting in the middle, but he was there, no doubt about it. And he was more than a little curious about K.C.
Who was this man? Duncan's friend? His rival? His enemy? Had there been something going on between K.C. and Kate's mother, Nora, as K.C. had implied? And what was K.C.'s motive for bringing the Moon Dancer to Castleton?
"It doesn't matter," Tyler muttered to himself. So what if K.C. had slept with Kate's mother? They weren't the ones who'd given Amelia up for adoption. He had to get his focus back. Rubbing the tense muscles in his neck, he rolled his head back and forth on his shoulders. He closed his eyes, trying to relax and de-stress, but now all he could see in his mind was the hurt look in Kate's eyes when her father had criticized her.
A quiet knock brought his eyes open. The clock read just past nine. He got to his feet and opened the door. Kate stood in the hallway. As always seemed to be the case when he saw her, his body tightened and his heart began to race. It was ridiculous, the way she made him feel tense and uncertain.
He knew what he had to do with her, and it wasn't at all what he wanted to do with her, which was to drag her into the room, and make love to her.
Wearing blue jeans and a pale pink sweater, her hair loose about her shoulders, she could have passed for younger than twenty-eight, until one looked closer and saw the tiny lines around her mouth and the shadows under her eyes. She'd lived a long life in those three years at sea. Maybe a longer life since then, as she'd tried to hold the family together.
"Hello," she said with a weary note in her voice. "I bet I'm the last person you expected to see."
"You could say that."
"Can I come in?"
"Sure." He stepped aside and motioned for her to enter.
"It's nice," Kate said, looking around the room.
He followed her gaze. It was a basic hotel room, although the Seascape Inn had provided a nautical-themed wallpaper trim as well as some interesting seascapes on the walls. "It's okay. "
Kate nodded, standing awkwardly in the center of the room. "Is the bed comfortable? Sometimes they're so hard in a hotel you can bounce coins off the mattress. Caroline used to do that ..." Her voice drifted away. "I didn't come here to talk about hotel rooms."
"Do you want to sit down?" he asked.
She glanced over at the desk where his laptop was open. "Are you researching me?"
"Why are you here, Kate?"
"I need a favor."
Now he was surprised. "What kind of a favor?"
"Information."
"About?"
"K.C. Wales." She walked over to the computer and stared unabashedly