Someone Like Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

again.”
    A hint of acerbity crept into his tone. “Do you think I’d get lost?”
    “I pass Sam’s place on my way home. I won’t stop.”
    He nodded. “Then thank you.”
    It was getting harder for him to squeeze those thankyous out, Lucy judged. Clearly, he wasn’t in the habit of being in anyone’s debt.
    Once again he held open the door for her, the courtesy automatic. At least he was polite.
    Outside, she said, “It’s called Doveport Bed and Breakfast. You’ll see it on the right, about half a mile from here. There’s a sign out front.”
    He nodded, pausing on the sidewalk while she opened her car door and got in. More good manners, Lucy realized; in Seattle, a woman might be in danger if she were alone even momentarily on a dark street. Maybe his mother had instilled some good qualities in him, before she disappeared from his life.
    However that happened.
    Her forehead crinkled. How old had he been when his parents divorced, or his mother went away? Twenty-three years ago, he’d said. Surely he wasn’t more than in his mid-thirties now. So he probably wasn’t even a teenager when he lost her.
    Was he bitter at what he saw as abandonment? Lucy hadn’t been able to tell. Since she’d handed him the driver’s license and photo in his office, he’d seemed more stunned than anything. She’d almost had the sense he was sleepwalking, that he hadn’t yet figured out how to react. At least, she hoped that’s what he was doing, and that he wasn’t always so unemotional. Because if he was, she hated to think of the hat lady consigned to his care.
    Lucy made sure the lights of his car were right behind her until she reached Sam’s B and B. His headlightsswept the sign, and his turn signal went on. She accelerated and left him behind, wondering if she’d arrive at the hospital tomorrow and find he had already made plans to have his mother moved to Seattle.
    She shuddered to think of the gentle, confused hat lady waking to the stern face of this son she didn’t remember, her bewildered gaze searching for other, familiar faces.
    Unhappily she wondered if finding him had been the right thing to do after all.

CHAPTER THREE

    S TRANGELY , WHEN Adrian lay in bed that night, he kept thinking about Lucy Peterson instead of his mother. Maybe he was practicing avoidance. He didn’t know, but he was bothered by the fact that he didn’t understand her. He prided himself on being able to read people. The ability to anticipate reactions made him good at his job.
    He’d long since learned that self-interest was paramount in most people. But if a single thing Lucy had done for his mother—and now for him—helped her in any way, he couldn’t see it. So what motivated her? Why had she noticed his mother in the first place? Downtown Seattle was rife with homeless people, sleeping in doorways, curled on park benches, begging on corners, huddling from the rain in bus shelters. To most people, they fell somewhere between annoying and invisible. When had Lucy first stopped to talk to his mother? Offered her a meal?
    Why had she cared so much that she’d been determined to find the confused old lady’s family?
    He kept puzzling it out and not arriving at any answers. That bugged him. Yeah, she might just be the nurturing kind. But even people like that didn’t usually nurture a homeless person. Anyway, she wasn’t a completely soft touch, ready to expect the best of everyone. She’d certainly made a judgment about him before she even met him. She was doing her best for him because of his mother, but she didn’t like having to do it.
    That stung, which bothered him, too. Why in hell would he care what a small-town café owner thought of him?
    He shifted restlessly in bed, picturing the way she looked at him, her eyes seeming to dissect him.
    Adrian fell asleep eventually, but his dreams were uneasy and he jerked awake several times. The damn bed was too soft. The down pillows kept wadding into lumps beneath his