Hidden Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

to hang on to Briana. “What if he hears you?”
    “He won’t.”
    Lucas pressed the recorder’s play button. He sat at the head of the table, she at the foot—as far from each other as they politely could. But even the six feet of table weren’t enough to keep the awareness of him from touching her. She hated the betrayal of her body to his presence. It hadn’t forgotten anything. She shoved the errant thought out of her mind.
    No matter what the outcome, Lucas’s return into her life would destroy the safe world she’d worked so hard to create for herself and Briana.
    Like a trail of crumbs, the portable phone, the brown envelope, the Nadyenka Sapphire, and the purple iPod scattered across the table top connected her to Lucas. Toying with the edge of the lemon-slice placemat, she concentrated on blanking her mind. But he sat there, larger than life and twice as confident. She could no more shut him out of her perception than she could stop breathing.
    She wasn’t ready to talk. She wasn’t ready to explain. She didn’t know if she even could. Lucas had possessed something vitally instinctual. Asked to explain why he did certain things, he looked blankly at his questioner, as if they were dense or missing some basic common sense. Because , he’d say—as if that explained everything. That instinct had driven his superiors crazy then; probably still did.
    This knowing, this fundamental instinct of his made him good at his job. She could appreciate that. She could look at a stone and see how it would appear set to show it off at its best. Lucas could view a clue, jump two steps ahead, and stand waiting for the bad guy before the thief himself knew his own plan. She feared this natural ability of his to hopscotch and connect unrelated dots into a logical line.
    He had always known when to push her and when to draw back, showing her with his understanding parts of herself she hadn’t known existed. Being touched and kissed and loved by this man had seemed a natural thing.
    But Lucas also possessed a ruthless side. He fought fiercely against dishonesty, betrayal, and theft every day of his life. He showed no mercy in his pursuits. And she’d lied to him, betrayed him, stolen from him. She’d kept from him a secret he had every right to know. She saw that now in a way she hadn’t then when the doctor had handed her a death sentence.
    She searched his rough-hewn features as he listened to the recording she’d made of her second conversation with the kidnapper. His dark eyes focused, hard and unyielding. Even though she understood he concentrated on the voice, analyzing the background noises, and was not specifically looking at her with his intense gaze, it took everything she had not to squirm.
    The slow ticking of the clock on the wall drove her crazy. Why hadn’t the kidnapper called? Did he know about Lucas’s presence in her home? Her pulse jumped and launched into a ragged race. She curled her fingers into the lemon-slice placemat. Would his presence in her house cause the kidnapper to panic and react in a rash way? Please, please, keep her safe .
    How was she going to get her daughter back?
    And once she did, how was she going to explain her secret to Lucas? To Briana?
    Lucas put down the earpieces and stared at her, dark eyes revealing nothing. Would he guess? Would he know? What was going through his mind?
    “So?” she asked, lubricating her dry throat with a hard swallow.
    “From the noise, it sounds like he called from a phone booth.”
    “The Caller ID was blocked. I tried the star, six, nine, but the phone just rang and rang and no one answered.” The fact she hadn’t thought of that option until the middle of the night probably might have something to do with the lack of response. “Why isn’t he calling?”
    “Maybe he’s giving you plenty of time to get home.”
    “Maybe he knows you’re here.”
    He studied her for a moment. Her stomach did flip flops. What if she didn’t get Briana