The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [62]
Simon fell into step beside her, liking the way her long-legged stride matched his own. A station wagon pulled in the drive, and Dina waved.
“Hi, Mrs. Evans. Polly finished your wreath this morning. It’s all ready for you—”
“I’ll get out of your hair.” Simon stopped by the front of the Mustang. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” She waved good-bye as she waited for her customer near the door to her shop, then turned to bless him with a smile.
He wondered what would happen to that smile when she found out what he knew.
You shouldn’t have done that, Simon lectured himself sternly as he drove away. Bad, bad, bad move.
At best, going out with Dina—a central figure in an investigation—was a conflict of interest. At worst, she could well see it as nothing more than a ploy to use her—once she did find out the truth.
“I hadn’t planned on asking her out,” he said aloud, wondering why he felt he needed to defend himself to, well, to himself. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
Simon had to admit she’d looked fine. Better than fine. She was beautiful.
And she was obviously none the worse for having endured Simon’s dream the night before, he noted wryly. Apparently he had been the only one to suffer the ill effects of that.
He slipped a CD in the player he’d recently had installed in his vintage car. He was in the mood for some Jerry Lee Lewis. Pounding piano, hot fifties rock ’n’ roll.
Breathless.
“That pretty well sums it up,” he muttered.
That was pretty much the way Dina made him feel. Breathless. Mesmerized. Drawn to her, he’d found it impossible to look away when she was near. It wasn’t just her beauty, or the warmth that radiated from her. He’d had a heightened awareness of everything—her, himself, sights and smells—just being in her company, just having her look up into his eyes when she spoke, just hearing her laugh.
Just feeling that twist in his gut when he looked at her.
And he’d learned something in the brief amount of time he had been with her, something that helped him to understand events that were thirty years old: when a woman like Dina looked at you the way she had looked at him, you felt like a million dollars. In that moment, he’d known exactly why Graham Hayward had been willing to give up everything he had—power, family, position—for the sake of a woman. Simon had never felt that surge before, that flash to his core that was part sexual attraction and part recognition of something within himself.
And that was why he had asked her out. Given the opportunity, he couldn’t not. It was as simple as that. Not good reporting, maybe, but there it was.
Besides, if Norton was right and there was some danger to her, shouldn’t someone be keeping an eye on her?
It might as well be him.
From her bedroom window Jude had watched Simon drive away. Her focus on him had been so intent that she’d barely noticed the dark van parked at the far end of the trees or the figure that stood back near the picnic benches, sheltered in the shadow of the pines.
“You don’t understand what you are asking of me,” she argued into the phone.
“It’s time. Way past time,” the caller told her.
“I don’t know what this will do to her.” She bit her bottom lip to force back the tears. “She’s never had any reason to doubt that she was my child. How can I tell her that she isn’t?”
“I’m sorry, Jude,” the voice softened. “You should have told her the truth long ago. You’ve had almost thirty years.”
“I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Every time I tried, I just couldn’t get the words out.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to find a way now. She needs to know. She can’t protect herself if she doesn’t know.”
“Do you really think that she’s in danger?”
“I think that she needs to know the truth so that she can be aware that someday—perhaps someday very soon—someone might be looking for her. God knows what will happen if she’s found. . . .”
Jude wandered from room to room, the words ringing in her head.
God knows what will happen if she’s found. . . .
And if Dina was found,