Her Reason To Stay. Anna Adams

delivery?” Raina read the next circled item. “You’d find that fun?”

      “Fun?” Daphne shook her head. “I need a job. Fun isn’t part of the equation.”

      “But you’d like to enjoy what you do, wouldn’t you?” Raina studied her sister. “Do you ever wonder if you might be prejudiced against wealthy, spoiled women?”

      Again Daphne admired Raina’s ability to laugh at herself. Another surge of affection warmed her.

      “I thought of one other thing last night,” Raina continued. “I had one paying job.” Suddenly fascinated with the blue lid from the silverware box, Raina twirled it with her index finger and thumb. “I wrote papers for other students one term in college. If anyone had ever found out…”

      Daphne formed the word What? with her lips, but couldn’t produce sound. Already, she’d built an image of her sister. Listening while Raina blew it up was like hearing a nuclear explosion. “You—?”

      “My father was angry because my grades weren’t—” she lifted her head and shook it “—what he expected from an Abernathy. He threatened to cut off my tuition. I had to make money.”

      “You cheated?” Daphne covered her mouth, but too late as the guy from the counter leaned in for a closer look.

      Raina followed Daphne’s eyes. By the time she turned back, her skin was burnished pink. “You never did anything wrong?”

      Daphne stared at the breakfast Raina had brought. “Plenty of bad stuff. Probably worse than you can imagine. But I never—”

      “Well, now you know I’m not perfect.” Raina pushed her chair back. She waved at the plastic on the table. “Just throw that stuff away when you finish.”

      “I’m not going to throw away your silverware. Raina, wait. Talk to me. I was surprised. I never meant…”

      “You didn’t like what I said.”

      She disappeared in a whirl of pink tweed before Daphne could gather up the silverware and damask and plastic and her own bag. Finally, with everything in her arms, she ran to the door.

      As it closed in her face, she hit the glass, elbows first. Her right funny bone sang a teeth-clenching song.

      “Hey,” said the kid behind the counter.

      Daphne looked at him as she fumbled with the metal handle.

      He nodded toward the square outside. “She’s mean.”

      “She isn’t.” Already, she was protective of Raina, who’d dared to confess one sin. “Leave her alone.”

      She finally got the door open and peered both ways on the sidewalk. A woman in red was pushing a stroller, and Daphne hopped back to give her room. A guy in a suit that had never touched a rack looked her up and down so deliberately she could almost see herself burying her fist in his stomach. Maybe she had something against rich, spoiled men, too. A little boy sailed his big, green plastic airplane just beneath her chin, roaring an engine noise.

      She couldn’t see Raina.

      “What’d you say to her?”

      The kid from the counter had followed. Not much else to do.

      She shrugged. “That I was disappointed in her.”

      “I hate when my dad says that.”

      She glanced at him. He nodded, wise despite his youth and coffee-stained Cosmic Grounds T-shirt.

      “I was the mean one,” she told the kid.

      She pulled out her phone and dialed Raina’s cell number. It rang and rang until voice mail took over. “Raina? I’m sorry. The things I did as a teen you wouldn’t believe.” Wrong tack. The truth was, she’d been shocked, a little dismayed that Raina’s halo had slipped.

      Which was ridiculous. Raina would have good reason to board her windows and lock the doors when she finally heard the whole truth about her sister.

      “Please, just call me. Trying again might be our best thing. I wouldn’t have the courage to ask you if you hadn’t come to me in the coffee shop yesterday.” She could hardly say her mistake might be a good thing, even though it made her see how much Raina already meant to her. “I think we’re starting to be sisters because I seriously need to explain.”

       Chapter Four

      MITCH ESPY CAME around his desk to take a check from Patrick’s hand. Every so often Lisa called Mitch with a request for money. Blackmail. As long as Patrick paid her, she stayed away from Honesty. And Will.

      “Don’t worry.” Mitch laid a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “If Lisa comes back, we’ll be ready for her.”

      “She’ll be back. Don’t think for a moment she won’t. Just come up with a cogent argument for the day she takes us back to court. I’ll never allow her to be alone with Will again as long as I live.”

      Mitch nodded. “I understand, but no judge in his right mind will allow her visitation until she takes care of the problem.” He waved the check. “This will keep her at bay a while. It’s money she wants.”

      But Patrick, whose anger at her almost consumed him, didn’t believe that someday she wouldn’t remember how to love Will again.

      “She wants the money for drugs, Mitch. I’m paying to keep her high.”

      “I can’t argue the morals of that again. Will’s safety has to come first. Besides, if she could admit she’s addicted, she’d be in treatment.”

      Talking about it—hell, thinking about it—made him too angry to think straight. “Send her the damn check and add the usual note. After she’s in treatment, she can get in touch.” His skin crawled when he thought how easily she could make her way back to town and into his son’s life.

      Moments later, he was out on the sidewalk, hurrying toward his office. He still had an arraignment and a deposition to deal with before he picked up Will from his mother’s house.

      Just then a spring breeze gusted across the square, lifting the hem of a printed, pale orange sundress on the woman seated on a bench. Daphne caught her hem and smoothed it over her crossed knees.

      He slowed down. Adjusted his tie. Longed not to care so much that her bare legs looked long and smooth and he could imagine the infinite pleasure of stroking her skin.

      “Daphne?”

      She looked up, her eyes blank as her mind was obviously elsewhere. But when she recognized him, her body seemed to take over. She sat up straighter, lifting her breasts, tightening the cross of her legs.

      “Hey, Patrick.”

      Her voice was about three octaves huskier than Raina’s, and the sweet tones got inside his head.

      “What’s up?” It wasn’t much. It was the best he could manage. “Did you get a new room?”

      She looked blank again. “Oh. That.” She scooted aside in an unspoken invitation for him to join her. “I got distracted on my way to the office. The lock’s fine.”

      “Are you nuts? You need iron bars, but the chain should at least work. Call the hotel and have them fix it while you’re out.”

      Her smile mocked his naiveté. “You saw the place. I’m not sure that guy at the desk could unfasten his a—himself from the seat of his chair. He’s certainly not up to installing hardware.”

      “Either change rooms, have him fix it, or I’ll come fix it.”

      She stared at him.

      “Most women would think I’m overstepping,” he said.

      “Uh-huh.”