Never Too Late

Chapter 2

Kate stared at him. He looked perfectly rational, his eyes dark and intense as he stood there in the cold night air with the soft snow sifting down around him like powdered sugar. But looks could be deceiving, she thought.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? She’s probably in Florida! The last address I had was Dade County.”

“Sunshine sounds nice right about now.”

No wonder, she thought. Since his release, sunny days had been few and far between in Utah. The state had seen a wet, cold fall—a boon for the ski resorts but probably not so enjoyable for someone who had been incarcerated for more than two years.

She had to admit, though she had grown to love the Utah mountains, the first place she would head if she had just been released from prison would be somewhere with an ocean view. Somewhere she could bask in the sun and lick salt from the air and dig her toes into warm sand.

But how could she ask him to travel across the country for her on little more than a whim?

“I haven’t heard from Brenda in nearly a decade,” she said. “She might not even be in Florida anymore. Heavens, for all I know, the woman could be dead.”

“Then I’ll find out where she’s gone. Or at least where she’s buried.”

He said the words with complete confidence. She would have thought it an idle boast if he hadn’t been such an outstanding detective. But if Hunter Bradshaw put his mind and energy into finding someone, he would. He had been dogged about his job, completely focused on it.

She had so many unanswered questions. Since finding out she had been kidnapped, her mind seemed to be racing on an endless loop of them.

Why had she been taken? Not for ransom, certainly, since the McKinnons said no one ever contacted them. And why her? What about Kate had made her a target of the kidnapping?

If Brenda had taken her, why had she then just surrendered Kate to the foster-care system, keeping only enough contact to ensure that no one could adopt her?

Finding the answers to those pressing questions was tantalizing. But the idea of Hunter Bradshaw offering to help her baffled her.

She was nothing to him, only the roommate of his younger sister. She couldn’t even say she was a friend. Before his arrest and imprisonment, he had always been distantly polite to her but never more than that. She had even wondered if he disliked her because he seemed to go out of his way to avoid situations where they might be alone.

Yet here he was offering to chase after her past.

“Why would you do this for me?” she asked.

“Why not?” Hunter asked. In the dim light, his eyes wore an inscrutable expression. “You deserve to know the truth. I know how frustrating unanswered questions can be, just as I know what it’s like to be punished for someone else’s sins. I’d like to help you find out why.”

She wasn’t sure why—perhaps something in those shadows in his eyes—but she sensed another reason, something deeper. “What else?”

Hunter turned away from her to lean his forearms on the deck railing and gaze out at the shadowy mountains.

“Because I can.” His voice was low and without inflection but suddenly his offer of assistance made perfect sense. It had nothing to do with her at all, she realized, but with him and his new freedom.

He had spent nearly three years of his life behind bars, where his choices had been severely limited. Others told him what he could eat, where he could go, even how he could dress. What a heady sense of control he must find in the idea that he could pick up and drive across the country on a whim!

“I see,” she murmured.

He slanted a look at her. “Do you?”

“You know, you could take a trip wherever you want without having the burden of tracking down a drug addict and a prostitute who could be anywhere.”

“I’ve been at loose ends since my release. I could use a distraction. This is a good one.”

“It might take weeks, Hunter. I can’t ask you to give up so much of your time.”

His shrug rippled the fabric of his well-cut suit. He had always been a good dresser, she remembered. Back when he was a detective, he always took care with his clothing.

Before his arrest, he would sometimes stop by Taylor’s house after work for some reason or other. Even with his tie loose, a hint of dark shadow stubbling his jaw and his white shirt perhaps not as crisp and starched as it had likely been in the morning, he had been enough to make her mouth water. She had always thought Hunter Bradshaw was strong and masculine and gorgeous.

She wasn’t sure which she preferred, that slightly rumpled end-of-day Hunter or this elegant man in evening wear.

“You didn’t ask, I offered,” he said in answer to her earlier comment. “Anyway, my time is my own now.”

“So take a cruise around the world if you want to go somewhere!”

Kate knew that like his sister, Hunter didn’t need to work. He could spend the rest of his life traveling the world if he wanted to. Both of them had fathoms-deep trust funds that would support them forever if they wanted to live lives of luxury and ease.

Their parents had come from old money, although like Taylor, Hunter had always shunned the accoutrements of wealth. He had become an underpaid Utah public servant and lived quietly here in the family ski cabin.

“Let me do this, Kate. You’re looking for answers and I’m looking for something to fill all this free time I’ve suddenly got. Seems to me this is a good way for both of us to get something we want.”

She looked inside the house and caught a glimpse of her family. Wyatt danced with their mother now, Lynn small and delicate next to his lean rangy height. Gage stood in one corner talking to Sam, with a tired-looking Anna in his arms.

A gust of wind blew across the deck, sending the fairy lights dancing, and Kate shivered.

She should be inside with her family. They would be looking for her soon. But despite the cold out here and the snow that was swirling around a little harder, she dreaded returning to that happy, bright group inside. The joy that lit their eyes whenever they caught sight of her scraped along her spine like a chipped fingernail.

She couldn’t be the daughter and sister the McKinnons wanted and her own failure to be open and relaxed around them sat heavy and thick in her chest.

Brenda Golightly had stolen twenty-three years of her life. She had taken so much from Kate—didn’t the woman who had caused such horrible pain in so many lives deserve to pay for what she had done?

Perhaps if Kate could find answers to some of the questions that had haunted her for six weeks since learning her true identity, she might at last be free to accept the love and nurturing this family seemed painfully eager to shower on her.

Didn’t she owe it to the McKinnons and to herself to try and reclaim some of what had been taken from her?

She blew out a resigned breath. “It won’t be easy to find her,” she warned. “She could be anywhere. Brenda was always good at slipping under the radar.”

Hunter gazed at her for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he nodded, recognizing she had decided to let him help her.

“If you have a previous address for her, I can work with that. I can leave tomorrow and start digging. I should be able to call you with information by the end of next week.”

She looked at him standing in shadow, then shifted her gaze to that bright, gleaming window again. Laughter and music spilled out into the night. Would it always be this way? Would she always be on the outside looking in, separated from her family by the walls a stranger had erected between them by snatching her away so long ago? Would she always be unable to let herself partake of the love the McKinnons so wanted to give her because of her anger and bitterness?

That restlessness prowled through her again, edgy and fretful, and she blew out a breath and turned to face Hunter again in the shadows.

“You won’t need to call me to report your progress.”

He frowned. “Why not? Don’t you think you’ll want to know how things are going.”

“Absolutely. That’s why I’m going with you.”

His mind already busy mapping a route and making plans, Hunter barely heard her. When her words pushed their way through his crowded thoughts, shock just about sent him toppling over the deck railing. She wanted to go along? Yeah, right!

He would never have suggested helping her if he thought for one second it might involve spending time alone with Kate Spencer.

“Really, that’s not necessary.”

Not necessary and not at all appealing.

“It is to me. This woman stole my life. My identity, my family, everything. If you can find her, I believe I have the right to confront her to find out why.”

Okay, he would give her that. If he had been in Kate’s shoes, he would have moved heaven and earth to locate this woman who had wreaked such havoc in her life.

He understood her need for answers and her desire to be involved in finding those answers but he didn’t think she quite comprehended the implications.

“If I were flying out there for a quick trip,” he explained, “I would have no problem with you going along. But I won’t be taking a plane. If I go, I’m driving.”

For one thing, he couldn’t leave Belle, especially with Tay and Wyatt leaving for their Cozumel honeymoon in the morning. Since his release, his Irish setter clung to his side like a mother hen watching her chick. Though normally calm and well-mannered, she turned into a nervous wreck if he left her alone for even a few hours.

He wouldn’t put her through the stress of a lonely kennel for a week or two, nor was he willing to subject her to the trauma of putting her on an airplane. The one time he had taken her on a plane before his arrest, she’d been a quivering mess for a week afterward.

He had to admit, Belle was part of the reason behind his sudden desire to drive, but she was by no means the only reason. The thought of taking off across the wide expanse of the United States with the road in front of him and Utah in his rear view mirror seemed just the thing to shake this malaise he’d suffered from since his release.

Those months he had spent on death row sure his life would end there in that miserable prison, he used to dream about hopping on his Ducati and zooming off across the country. When he would lie awake at night in that thin, lumpy cot staring up at cement walls, he had grieved for the trips he had never found time to take, for the scenery he would never have the chance to savor.

The Ducati would have to wait since December wasn’t the greatest time for a motorcycle trip—not to mention the minor little detail that he hadn’t yet taught Belle how to hang on behind him. But he could enjoy a cross-country trip from inside the brand-new Jeep Grand Cherokee he’d bought just days before.

What better way to celebrate his newfound freedom than loading up his dog and trekking across the country—eating in greasy diners, blasting his favorite songs on the radio at top volume, outrunning his past with every white line passing under his tires.

He would have thought his announcement would be enough to dissuade her, but Kate didn’t seem at all fazed by his declaration. “Driving is fine. I don’t mind a road trip,” she answered.

Damn. So much for his peaceful jaunt across the country.

“Don’t you have to work?” he asked, not willing to give it up just yet. “I thought residents worked sixty hours a week without a day off.”

The Christmas lights sparkled in her glossy hair as she shook her head. “I’m free until I start my new rotation on Christmas Day. That gives me two weeks of freedom. This is a perfect time for me to go. I should have thought of it myself.”

Now what the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just come out and tell her she couldn’t go. For one thing, he was oddly loathe to hurt her feelings. For another, from his admittedly limited experience with Kate, he knew she was enough like Taylor that she would push and poke at him until she pried out the reason he didn’t want her along.

He was well and truly stuck. He should have kept his big mouth shut about the whole thing.

It would take them a bare minimum of two days to drive to Miami. Two days alone in a car with Kate Spencer. For a man who hadn’t been sexually intimate in nearly three years, that prospect was guaranteed to be a recipe for disaster.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sleep with his sister’s best friend just to slake his hunger. If he did, he would be exactly the kind of beast he’d been trying to prove to the world—and himself—that he wasn’t.

“Look, Kate—” he started to say, but his words were lost when the door opened and Lynn McKinnon walked out onto the deck, her lovely features concerned.

“There you are, Charlotte!” She winced and reached for Kate’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Kate. I keep forgetting. It’s just that I’ve thought of you as Charlotte for so long. But I’ll get it, I promise.”

“It’s fine,” Kate murmured. The animation of the last ten minutes was gone from her features as she gazed at the small, energetic woman who looked so much like her.

“You’re going to catch your death out here! Is everything all right?”

“We were just enjoying the snowstorm.”

“Your father is still waiting for his dance.”

“Of course.” Even in the pale light, Hunter thought her smile looked strained. “I just need a few more minutes of air, okay? And then I’ll be in.”

Lynn’s mouth softened as she gazed at her daughter, and Hunter thought she would have reached up and grabbed the moon for Kate if she asked for it. “Take as much time as you need, darling. Sam will be there whenever you’re ready.”

Kate managed another smile before her mother slipped back inside, though Hunter was surprised to see a bleakness in her eyes.

He muttered a string of curses in his mind. He couldn’t leave her here twiddling her thumbs while he went off dragon hunting. This was her life.

Of all the people at this wedding gig, he could certainly understand her need to take back some kind of control over the circumstances that had buffeted her for the last six weeks. If finding and confronting her kidnapper would help her achieve some measure of peace—would help her move past her pain and be ready to accept the McKinnons’ love—how could he deny her that?

Surely he was tough enough to control himself around her for a week.

“What time are we leaving?” she asked after Lynn closed the door behind herself and returned to the festivities, leaving them once more in the still, quiet night.

“Early. I’ll pick you up at eight. Does that work?”

“Perfectly.”

Was it just his imagination or did the pinched look around her mouth ease just a little?

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this,” she said. “Going after Brenda is a brilliant idea.”

“Let’s see how brilliant you think it is after a week on the road.”

This had to be the craziest idea she had ever come up with.

Worse, even, than the time when they were second-year med students and she and Taylor had tried to break into the anatomy lab for a little extra study time working on their cadavers.

In the cold, pale light of a December morning, what had seemed so logical the night before seemed shortsighted and foolish when faced with the cold, hard reality of spending at least a week in intimate quarters with Hunter Bradshaw.

Kate stood at the front window of the small second-floor apartment she had moved into the month before, watching for him to pull into the driveway below.

A quick glance at the clock on the microwave told her that even if he was obsessively punctual, he wouldn’t arrive for at least ten minutes, but she couldn’t seem to pry herself away from the window where she stood tracing the filigreed frost collecting on the other side.

She hadn’t slept well, with her nerves on edge and her mind racing. She had finally tired of her tossing and turning a few hours before dawn and had climbed out of bed to start preparing for the trip.

The few things she planned to take had been packed and waiting by the door for hours and she spent the rest of the morning wrapping her few Christmas presents and scrubbing her apartment. Since she barely spent any time at all here, she could find little to clean, but at least she wouldn’t be coming home to a mess.

With all her preparations done, she had little else to do now but stand here at the window watching for him and panicking about the sheer insanity of this situation her impulsiveness had thrust her into.

Whatever had compelled her to insist on traipsing along with Hunter Bradshaw? In what feeble-minded moment would that ever seem like a good idea?

How could she ever have been stupid enough to think she could travel blithely across the country with him when simply finding herself in the same room with the man left her flustered and giddy?

He had always made her insides tremble and her heart rate accelerate. She had been friends with Taylor since their first semester of medical school, more than five years ago. She could still remember the first time she met her friend’s older brother. She and Taylor had been cramming for finals their second semester and had decided to grab a midnight snack at their favorite all-night diner, a humble little place downtown that served divine mashed potatoes with thick, creamy gravy.

They had walked in and Kate had only a few seconds to register a gorgeous man sitting in a booth in the front window with a couple of uniformed cops when Taylor had let out a delighted laugh and dragged her over to meet the brother she often talked about.

She could still remember her first impression—that the two of them shared an obviously close, affectionate relationship completely foreign to someone who had never had siblings of her own, except in a few foster families where she had been barely tolerated.

Her second impression of Hunter Bradshaw had been far more elemental and astonishing—an intense physical awareness of him unlike anything she’d ever experienced. As she gazed into dark blue eyes while Taylor introduced them, her stomach did a long, slow roll and she felt as if something had just squeezed out every molecule of air in her lungs.

The off-duty uniform cops had been flirtatious and charming to a couple of weary young med students and had insisted she and Taylor join them. To her growing dismay, Kate found herself squeezed next to Hunter in the red vinyl booth.

Throughout the next hour she had been painfully aware of every movement he made—the way he leaned an elbow back on the seat cushion, how his mouth quirked up a little higher on one side than the other when he smiled, the way his dark hair curled just a little on the ends.

Her sudden absorption with him had been as unexpected as it was mortifying.

She had always considered herself rather cold when it came to the opposite sex. Men had never been a high priority in her life. Sometimes they hardly seemed worth the energy it took to cater to their egos and their self-absorption.

She thought perhaps she’d been passed over on the whole libido thing because most of the kisses she had experienced in her twenty-two years on the earth to that point had been pleasant, certainly, but nothing to write home about.

In that tired old diner looking out at neon gleaming in the wet street, with her pulse jumping every time Hunter’s long legs would brush against hers under the table or his shoulder would bump her, Kate finally started to get an inkling what all the fuss was about.

Taylor often gave her a hard time because she rarely dated the same man more than a few times. She never told her friend this but she was always looking for that same crazy, exciting, terrifying breathlessness she experienced whenever Hunter was around.

Not that she ever did anything about it. How could she? When she first met Hunter, he had just started dating Dru Ferrin, the ambitious, talented crime reporter at a local television station.

A few months later, Dru had announced she was pregnant and Hunter had become totally absorbed in trying to convince Dru to marry him, in the prospect of becoming a father.

Or so he thought, anyway. After Dru and her terminally ill mother were murdered, DNA tests proved Hunter had not fathered the eight-month-old fetus that had also died from his mother’s gunshot wound.

She had grieved right along with him, first at the child’s death then when he found out Dru had lied to him throughout her pregnancy. And then had come the horror of his arrest and the subsequent trial and wrongful conviction.

She had had a major crush on him. The knowledge mortified her. She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. Twenty-six years old, well on her way to being established in her chosen career path, and she had a crush on a sexy, dangerous, unreachable male as if she were thirteen years old fantasizing about a pop star.

How on earth would she keep her silly feelings to herself for a week or longer when it would be just the two of them alone on the road?

She would just have to do her best to treat him like she did male colleagues and her other male friends—casual and cheerfully friendly.

Could she pull it off? She was still trying to figure that out when she saw an SUV turn into the small parking area behind her battered six-year-old Honda.