Wedlocked?!. Pamela Toth

      “If that’s the way you want it,” Cole muttered, swerving and hitting his horn when a car in the next lane cut them off. The other driver didn’t appear to notice.

      For the next few moments, Cole’s attention was divided between the directions she gave him and speculation about what she must really be feeling. The former was straightforward enough; her expression yielded no clues to the latter. Finally they turned into a small strip mall and he stopped the car beside a faded blue bug with a hot-pink windsock attached to its antenna.

      In front of them was a rather plain storefront with simple black lettering on the glass door. Annie Jones, Private Investigator, it read, followed by a local phone number. Her office was flanked by a dry cleaner on one side and a hobby shop on the other. Its grimy window was filled with a stack of faded cardboard boxes, the type plastic model kits come in, and dead flies. Neither business bordering hers looked especially prosperous.

      Cole was trying to think of a comment—something neutral—when Annie got out of the car without a word and unlocked the front door of her office.

      “Coming?” she demanded when he made no move to follow her.

      Flushing, he grabbed his briefcase from behind the seat, locked the rental carefully and went inside. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not the comfortable clutter that greeted him. With painful clarity, he pictured the tiny, cheerful apartment she’d had before—shabby, eclectic and welcoming. In some ways, Annie hadn’t changed.

      “Have a seat,” she told him as she grabbed a stack of manila folders from a chair facing a scarred metal desk, and dumped them on top of a file cabinet. “I’ll just be a minute.” Sitting down behind the desk, she picked up the phone.

      While she checked her voice mail, Cole cleared a spot in front of him for his briefcase and took the opportunity to look around. Modern computer equipment shared space with battered file cabinets and crammed bookcases. On the one bare wall were several framed citations. Cole figured he’d better wait to examine them more closely. On another wall was a calendar still turned to the month before. On the counter were two dirty coffee cups and an apothecary jar filled with lemon drops. Annie might be as organized as a surgical team, but neatness wasn’t any more of a priority now than it had ever been.

      Cole wondered if he could work in the midst of such clutter. The top of his own desk in Denver was always bare except for his current project. His files and baskets were color-coordinated, his books shelved according to subject and cataloged on his computer.

      Now he looked at the self-stick notes dotting the side of the computer monitor and sighed.

      The closing of a drawer drew his attention back to the woman seated across from him. She’d taken out a yellow legal pad and uncapped a cheap pen.

      “Let’s start from the beginning,” she said, her gaze boring into him as though she were about to interview a suspect. “Tell me everything you know about the case.”

      For the first time in a long while, Annie could find no peace, no relaxation in the condominium she’d taken such pleasure in decorating the year before. Even her cat, rescued from a shelter to become Annie’s number one fan, failed to distract her from her thoughts tonight. It had been a long afternoon, going over the facts of Lily Cassidy’s case with Cole and planning her strategy to poke holes in the state’s theory of how and why the crime had been committed. All they needed for an acquittal was reasonable doubt.

      “Not now, Sluggo,” Annie murmured distractedly when the cat jumped into her lap and began butting his wide head against her hand. Gently she deposited him back on the carpeted floor, barely aware of his sharp meow of protest. Devoted he might be, but the big orange tabby was also unused to being ignored. Annie knew she’d have to placate him later for the slight she’d dealt his pride.

      No matter. There were too many thoughts chasing each other around in her head for her to be able to focus on her cat, the Celine Dion CD she’d put on her stereo, or the glass of Merlot she’d poured herself when she’d first gotten home.

      It was obvious that Cole didn’t want her on the case, and just as obvious that both his mother and Ryan did. For the last reason, and because Annie knew what it was like to be wrongly accused, she’d ignored Cole’s lack of enthusiasm toward her over lunch and accepted the assignment. She hoped that neither she nor Lily Cassidy would live to regret it.

      With a sigh, Annie opened the denim tote she used in lieu of a briefcase and removed the notes she’d made that afternoon. Once they’d gotten started, she and Cole had covered a lot of ground. His memory for detail was phenomenal. They’d worked well together, their thought processes operating in a similar fashion that eliminated lengthy explanations between them. Indeed, they’d each picked up on what the other had been trying to communicate with a speed that reminded Annie painfully of the way they’d meshed six years ago. Sometimes back then words hadn’t been necessary at all, just touch and taste—

      Annie leaped to her feet, scattering papers and scaring the cat, who ran behind the couch. This was getting her nowhere! Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly through her mouth, she gathered up her notes and sat back down. Kicking off her shoe, she tucked her foot beneath her, sipped her wine and stared at her own barely legible handwriting.

      She would have liked to ask Cole about his life in Denver. She was curious as heck about what he’d been doing for the last six years, but she wouldn’t admit it—not to him. No, the last thing she wanted to hear was how, up in Colorado, he’d found the perfect woman, or, even worse, a whole string of perfect women to keep him company.

      He wasn’t wearing a ring, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. Would Ryan have mentioned whether Cole was married? No, there was no reason for that—just as there was no room for personal feelings here. Not anger, not bitterness and certainly not regret. No matter how she felt about Cole, she knew what it was like to face the endless stares and questions from people who’d already decided you were guilty, all the while wondering if your life would ever be the same.

      It made not the slightest difference that the woman facing a similar ordeal was the mother of the man who’d walked out when Annie had needed him desperately, ripping out her heart as he went. How satisfying to be instrumental in getting Lily Cassidy off, and in knowing that from now on her son would owe Annie for something he could never hope to repay. When he thought of her, the feelings in his heart would be obligation and gratitude, however reluctantly given, and not the somewhat distant indifference he’d shown her today.

      Two

      “Where have you been?” Cole asked Annie as soon as the temp he’d hired had shown her into his borrowed office and departed, closing the door behind her. “I expected to hear from you before this.” He picked up the gold pen his father had given him upon graduation from law school and rolled it between his fingers.

      Not his biological father, Cole reminded himself with a wry twist of his lips, just the man who’d raised him like a son. The man he’d believed to be his real father until just a few weeks ago.

      “It’s only been two days,” Annie replied, dropping her purse and a denim bag on the floor next to an empty leather chair. “I had things to do.” Gone was the trim gray power suit she’d worn with a white blouse and button earrings at lunch the other day. Only her hair was the same, piled into a curly mass on top of her head.

      Silver hoops dangled from her ears and sparkled when she turned her head. A blue sweater hugged her breasts and barely covered her midriff. Snug jeans, the fabric bleached nearly white and fraying around the pockets, and thick-soled sandals completed her outfit.

      She followed the direction of Cole’s gaze. “My field uniform,” she said with a saucy little shimmy of her hips.

      Cole nearly stepped on his tongue. Next to her, he felt overdressed and stodgy. Irritated, he straightened the knot of his tie. “Now that you’re here,” he said, tapping the folder in front of him, “I want to go over this paperwork with you.”

      Instead of plopping obediently