Do Not Disturb (2 page)

Angel knew Cooper Jones—Katie Whitney's uncle—was stalking her.

Not physically—she stood apart from him and the fifty or so others waiting quietly on the oceanside bluff where the private farewell ceremony was to take place. But behind his dark lenses she felt his gaze following her, the sensation of being closely watched as tangible as the Pacific-cooled breeze tugging at her hat.

Pulling the hat's brim lower on her forehead, Angel kept tabs on the dark-haired figure from the corner of her eye. He was standing by himself on the other side of the small crowd, his arms crossed over his chest, bodyguard-style. When a gust of wind flapped the hem of his suit jacket and whipped his too-long hair over his face, he shook it back with a single toss of his head.

Obviously a guy who didn't waste movement. In
general, she liked that in a person, just as she, in general, wasn't averse to intense scrutiny from attractive men. But it was vibes of distrust, not desire, she was picking up from this one, so she figured it best to stay out of his way.

“Hello, there,” a voice from behind her said, its friendly tone loud enough to be heard over the unceasing rush of the ocean. “Are you a friend of Stephen's, or a relative?”

Angel froze.
It's just a casual question,
she assured herself.
Nothing to feel jumpy about
. Her name was even on the guest list—her legal name, although it wasn't the one she'd been born with. Lifting her lips in a polite smile, she turned to face the—

Priest? Friar? What did you call a man wearing an ankle-length brown robe and heavy silver crucifix with Berkenstock sandals?

The stranger smiled gently back. “Friend or relative?” he asked again.

And should you, could you lie to such a man? Angel swallowed. “Neither, I suppose. I'm an, uh, observer.”

It was true enough. Biology aside, nothing had connected her to Stephen Whitney in well over twenty years, not since he'd dumped her and her mother for his muse and free rent in an artist's colony in Big Sur.

“I'm Angel Buchanan,” she added, holding out her hand.

The robed stranger shook it. “And I'm Brother Charles, from the monastery over the hill.”

She blinked. “I had no idea there was a monastery nearby.” Though her intern at the magazine, Cara, had gathered a copious amount of information on the artist
as well as the area where he'd lived, Angel had stashed the files in the trunk of her car without glancing through them.

“Ah, well, the Sur holds several surprises.”

Angel could only nod in agreement to that.

“Much of the land is under federal protection,” Brother Charles went on, “but there are also private residences scattered around, as well as our monastery. Even a fancy inn or two like that one.” Brother Charles gestured up the zigzagged flights of steps they'd taken to reach the bluff. At the top was the elegant, Victorian-style Crosscreek Hotel.

Angel's gaze lingered on the place. Cara had booked her at an inn farther south on Highway 1, closer to the Whitney compound. Angel hoped her accommodations would be on par with the well-appointed luxury the Crosscreek Hotel promised. Even now she could almost taste steaming breakfast muffins, thick grilled steaks, luscious pillow chocolates.

She'd reward herself each day with a bit of pampering, she decided, because surely Cara had selected an inn that would offer the most up-to-date spa services. Floating off on daydreams of herbal wraps and aromatherapy sessions, it took her a moment to register that the man in the robe had half-turned and was beckoning someone closer.

“Brother Charles, what are you doing?” her voice croaked out.

The man glanced over. “I want to say hello to Cooper. Cooper Jones,” he explained. “Stephen's brother-in-law.”

She was already shuffling backward, trying to look
casual as the soles of her black pumps slid along the gritty sandstone.

“Don't run away.” Brother Charles reached out, looping his elbow through hers to lasso her back. “I'll introduce you.”

“We've already met,” she demurred. “And perhaps this isn't the best time to further our acquaintance.” Not to mention that she was planning on avoiding Mr. Cooper Jones and his patent mistrust for the rest of her life.

“Well…” Brother Charles looked back toward the other man, then dropped her arm. “Never mind. Lainey, the widow, is coming down the stairs. She'll need Cooper now. You can see that they're a very close-knit family.”

Angel squinted to study the small group descending the final flight of steps from the hotel. There was the girl—Katie—close beside a dark-haired woman in her thirties.

Angel frowned. “Wait. There are two women. Twins.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Brother Charles nodded. “Elaine and Elizabeth. Lainey was Stephen's wife and Beth was Stephen's business manager.”

That's what you get,
Angel thought, annoyed with herself again. If she'd prepared like she would have for any other story, she would have known about the twins. About the daughter. But no, for all those years she'd resisted even submitting her father's name to an internet search engine, which forced her to play catch-up now.

As a matter of fact, Angel had never walked into one
of the Whitney Galleries—as common in American malls as Starbucks and multiplex theaters. The only thing about Stephen Whitney she hadn't been able to evade was the knowledge of his mass popularity and his goody-goody reputation.

But all that was going to change.

Studying the women walking toward the crowd, Angel noted their similar-but-not-matching knee-length suits, one in a soft yellow, the other in green. Their hair was styled differently as well, a layered style for the twin in yellow, a sleek bob for her sister.

“The widow, Lainey, is the one in the green, I assume,” Angel said. Even from this distance, she could tell the woman had been crying.

“No, that's Beth.” Brother Charles's voice filled with concern. “I hope Judd is keeping a close eye on her.”

Angel didn't look away from the small group. “Is Judd another brother?”

“A family friend. Judd Sterling is the gray-haired man just now putting his arm around Beth's waist.”

The family friend was forty-something and prematurely gray, with handsome, chiseled features. He continued to support the widow's sister, while the worrisome Cooper character wrapped one arm around Katie and the other around Lainey Whitney.

So that's what it looks like when a man comes through for a woman in a time of need
.

Startled by the stabbing thought, Angel took a hasty step back. There was no call for bitterness, she reminded herself. She only desired the truth.

“It looks as if the service is ready to begin,” her companion said. “We're being signaled forward.”

“I think I'll stay right where I am.” As she saw the others drawing together, her throat was tightening, just as it had in the church. “I'm only here as an observer,” she said again.

Not as a mourner. Not as a daughter. The fact was, she didn't even have one simple memory of the man who'd fathered her.

Brother Charles sent her a compassionate look. “I understand. Some people find it difficult to face death.”

Angel's spine snapped straight. “I don't find it difficult to face anything,” she protested, but Brother Charles was already moving away. Her avoidance of Stephen Whitney had nothing to do with fear.

So to prove that to them both, she wiped her palms on the skirt of her dress and without further hesitation made for the circle the others were assembling near the edge of the bluff. Though she quickly found a place, she suffered another pang of—of
something,
when her eye happened to catch Katie's. Edging back again, Angel created a gap between herself and the person next to her.

Of course, she paid for it.
That's what weakness gets you,
she told herself grimly as Mr. Sunglasses-and-Suspiciousness instantly stepped in beside her.

She pretended not to notice his presence, though, as a sudden gust of wind yanked at her hat, forcing her to quickly clap her palm against the straw crown.

“You might want to take that off”—his murmur was a mere notch above the low thunder of the ocean below—“or the wind will do it for you.”

And give him a chance to look at her naked face? She
thought not. Now was not the time to throw caution—or her hat, for that matter—to the wind. Without answering, she tugged it farther down her forehead and blessed its elastic band, hidden beneath the hair coiled at her nape.

At the farthest point in the circle from Angel, another berobed man began to speak. It was difficult to hear him over the sound of the waves below, but now and then the wind tossed a word her way. “Nature,” “beauty,” “reunion.”

“Family.”

Family
. Ducking her head, Angel sucked in a sharp breath. The air tasted salty on her tongue. Like tears.

A large hand closed strongly over hers.

Angel jumped, her chin jerking up. From beneath her wide-brimmed hat, she shot a glance at the dark lenses of Cooper Jones's sunglasses.

“We were asked to join hands,” he explained.

She wrenched free of him anyway, then her gaze took a turn around the circle. Everyone
was
linked, except for her. Everyone was staring at her too.

Embarrassed, she instantly thrust her palm toward the woman on her left. She made a gesture toward Cooper with her right hand as well, but only allowed the lightest brush of their knuckles, just enough to make it
look
as if they were holding hands.

When the man in the robe started reciting some sort of benediction, Cooper leaned toward her again. “What's the matter? It's just a little thing.”

It's just a little thing
. Exactly what she'd said to him in the church, right before asking him about the Whitney widow. Oh, he had suspicions about her, all right. It
wasn't likely that she allayed them any either, by jumping about two feet when his fingers happened to brush hers once more. But she didn't want their hands touching again. Once was enough. His palm had felt too warm, too big, too solid.

That was the problem with men. They made you want to hang on to them.

That unpleasant thought caused her to miss the final “amen.” The next thing she knew, the leader of the service was directing the group into a single line, placing Angel at its head, with Cooper her faithful shadow.

Once the ceremony was over, she vowed, easing another cautious inch away from him, she'd make sure they were never in the same place at the same time again.

The robed leader was now approaching her, an elaborately carved box in his arms. “One last request to fulfill Stephen's wishes,” the man said, his voice carrying clearly this time. “Then we'll return to the hotel for refreshments.”

When he stopped at Angel, she turned her back on the ocean to face him. His smile was brotherly as he flipped open the wooden lid. “Take some in each hand,” he instructed, “and toss them into the sea.”

Angel peered into the depths of the box. Then her stomach cramped. Ashes?
Ashes
. She was supposed to take some in each hand and toss them into the sea.

Her father's ashes.

Her stomach cramped again.

This is nothing to me,
she assured herself, embarrassed by her hesitation.
I don't even remember Stephen Whitney, so it's nothing
. The ashes would feel weight
less, meaningless, more nothing in her palms. But she couldn't force her locked arms from her sides.

“To the sea,” the man with the box urged. “Stephen wanted the ashes of his last paintings to ride free on the waves.”

His paintings.

His
paintings.
Her muscles released, and, near giddy in relief, Angel quickly scooped her hands into the box. Then she spun and took a step toward the bluff's edge.

Pausing, she glanced down at her lightly clenched fists, feeling the slick, soft ash inside them clinging to her skin. The giddiness evaporated and her stomach spasmed again.

Now desperate to free herself from the ashes, from the moment, from him, she took a hasty, giant step forward and flung open her hands. As the ashes swirled up, into the air, she felt the ground shift beneath her feet.

Her heart lurched. She twisted, her pumps scrambling for purchase against the crumbling edge of the cliff.

A big hand appeared in front of her. A man's hand.

Instinct and experience warred. But when her heels ran off of solid ground, she ran out of options. To save herself, she was forced to reach for, grasp, depend upon Cooper Jones.

 

If his brother-in-law hadn't already been dead
, Cooper Jones thought,
he would have done the job himself
. Stalking through Crosscreek Hotel's terrace restaurant, he ran his gaze over the small group who had attended the ceremony, the one that had just ended in that
ridiculous throwing of ashes. It had almost been like tossing handfuls of cash off the damn cliff.

Jesus, it was
exactly
like tossing handfuls of cash off the damn cliff. Feeling a sharp cinch of his neck muscles, a sure sign of his stress level climbing, Cooper slowed down to take a few deep breaths. Funerals topped his personal “To Avoid” list and he wished he'd done just that.

Then he could have sat at home worrying about what financial stupidity had caused Stephen to sink every penny into a risky marketing venture while leaving the stipulation in his will that any unreleased paintings be burned. A year's worth of the prolific artist's work had been destroyed. Paintings that would have made a hell of a hedge against Stephen's potentially bad investment.

If Cooper had been the Whitney attorney he would have insisted on striking that clause from the will, but since his specialty was criminal defense and not probate law, he hadn't known a thing about it until it was too late. Now his sisters' and his niece's long-term security was rocking on the fulcrum of the artist's popularity.