Her Man Friday (26 page)

"You miss him," Kimball said, curling his fingers between hers until their hands were joined.

Caroline closed her eyes and nodded, then mimicked his action, closing her fingers over his hand, too. It just felt so good, this simple human contact. There was nothing demanding, nothing complicated, nothing untoward in his gesture. And Caroline appreciated his mere closeness, his innocent touch, more than he could possibly know. It had just been so long since she had had anything like this. With anyone.

So long.

"Yes," she said softly, barely able to form the word. "I miss him."

"You're lonely," Kimball added, more quietly than before.

"Yes. I am." When she opened her eyes, two fat tears tumbled down her cheeks, but she knew any effort to stop them would be pointless. She blinked, and he came into focus, and she realized there was something in his eyes, too. Not tears, but something else. Something that told her he understood. "I'm surprised, Mr. Kimball, that you seem to know so much about something like that. I would have guessed…"

He expelled a rueful chuckle, cutting her off, but with the knuckled index finger of his free hand, he lightly brushed her tears away. "Looking at you," he said, "is like looking in a mirror. Mrs. Beecham… Caroline," he amended, "you and I, I'm afraid, are two of a kind."

"No," she said quickly. "No, that's not true at all. You're…"

"What?"

She shook her head, able to say only, "You're different. From me, I mean."
And from Harry Beecham, too
. "We're not two of a kind at all."

"Isolation is isolation," he said, smiling sadly as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "Whether it's self-inflicted or not is immaterial. It's still…"

"What?" she asked when he left the observation incomplete.

"Unpleasant," he finished with profound understatement.

Caroline, too, lifted her hand, thinking she would move his away, but her traitorous fingers closed over his wrist and stayed there. Another tear streaked down her cheek, and he nudged it away with the pad of his thumb. Beneath her own thumb, she felt his pulse quicken, and she realized he was as confused and uncertain about all this as she was.

And then she remembered that their reason for being there wasn't because she was lonely. Or because he was lonely. Or because they were trying to define what, exactly, was going on between the two of them, anyway. There was nothing going on between the two of them. It was that simple.

The reason they were there was because a young girl needed something more in her life to get her back on track. Caroline reminded herself that she was an educator, first and foremost, and in forgetting that, she had let one of her students down.

"Chloe," she said quietly. "We were talking about Chloe."

As if the name were an incantation, that single word broke the odd spell that had descended, and Caroline managed to release Kimball's wrist and hand and take a step away. When she did, whatever strange illusion had appeared in his eyes vanished, and his features reverted to the expressionlessness she'd grown accustomed to seeing.

For a moment, she wondered if maybe she had just imagined the entire encounter, if maybe she had read something into their conversation that hadn't been there at all. Then she recalled the gentleness of his fingers against her face, and the tenderness of his palm against hers. She remembered how lonely and confused he had looked himself. And she realized she had imagined none of it.

Maybe he was right, she thought. Maybe they really were two of a kind. But that was no reason they had to have any more to do with each other than was absolutely necessary. No reason to rush off on a pointless pursuit.

"Chloe," she said again. "We need to talk more about her, Mr. Kimball."

For a moment, she thought he would refuse, then, with clear reluctance, he nodded. "Fine," he said, sounding very, very tired. "We'll talk about Chloe. But please," he added, "at least call me Schuyler. So few people outside my family do."

It was a bad idea, Caroline thought. But if it would help get him to talk about his daughter, she'd do it. "Fine. Schuyler," she said, surprised to realize that his name wasn't so difficult to say at all, even more surprised to discover that she liked the way it felt on her tongue. "If you'd like to come back to my office, I have several suggestions for how we might go about helping Chloe."

The afternoon following that profoundly erotic, but not quite satisfying, grope in Schuyler Kimball's pantry found Leo battling no small army of anxiety as he prepared for Lily Rigby's arrival at his front door. He'd left Kimball's estate early in the day—still having discovered jack about what he needed to discover—just so he could come home and get the place ready for Lily Rigby. But as he looked around, feeling strangely helpless, he wondered if he could possibly ever be ready for something like that.

He didn't worry that the place offered any incriminating evidence of what he currently did for a living—namely, lying, sneaking around, and misrepresenting himself to a beautiful, luscious woman who may or may not have something to hide herself. In fact, his turn-of-the-century Chestnut Hill townhouse looked better than it had looked in some time. Maybe, he thought, it looked a little
too
good. A lowly bookkeeper for Kimball Technologies, Inc. probably wouldn't pull in enough in salary to live in Chestnut Hill, let alone have acquired all the electronic wonders that made a single man's life worth living, the way Leo had. Like that state-of-the-art sound system in the corner and that satellite TV system front and center. And the earth-toned leather furnishings and contemporary patterned rugs—not to mention a few pieces of original artwork—were probably also beyond the income of a working stiff like Leonard Freiberger.

Leo was even worried about what he was wearing. What he was
wearing
, for God's sake. He still couldn't believe he'd been reduced to standing in front of his closet, wondering what Miss Rigby would be wearing, concerned about giving off the wrong impression. Would they be staying in, or going out? If they went out, would they go someplace casual, or formal? If they stayed in, just how casual would the situation be? Jeez, next he'd be subscribing to
Seventeen
magazine and reading articles with titles like "Cool Ways to Hang with Your Hottie" or "Fashion
UGHS
!" Ultimately, he'd donned a pair of charcoal gray corduroys and a wine-colored sweater. There. Let her deduce whatever she wanted from that. At least he'd found some clean underwear.

For a moment, Leo wondered if he could pawn himself off as the laboring black sheep of a wealthy family. Then he remembered he'd already told Lily Rigby that he came from a long line of oystermen on Chesapeake Bay. Hmmm… Maybe he could tell her he'd just been kidding about that. Rich families were always eccentric that way, weren't they? Lying and sneaking around and misrepresenting themselves? Hell, he'd fit right in.

He sighed heavily. He'd worry about explanations when Miss Rigby called for them. His best hope for the moment was that she would be as uncertain and confused about what was supposed to happen tonight as he was, and wouldn't even notice that his home was way beyond the means of a lowly bookkeeper.

And while he was on the subject, he thought further, just what
was
supposed to happen tonight?

What the
hell
had he been thinking to let Lily Rigby come over to his place? Leo wondered, not for the first time since yesterday afternoon—or even the hundredth time, for that matter. Obviously he
hadn't
been thinking. Not with his brain, anyway. His brain, after all, had a superior intellect that caused him to think and reason before acting. The rest of his body parts, however, weren't so favorably endowed. Well, one part was pretty favorably endowed. Just not with any amount of smarts, that's all.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, a good hour too early for it to be Lily Rigby. When he opened the door and saw Eddie Dolan standing on the other side, Leo was amazed to realize that he'd completely forgotten about calling the guy two weeks before. Man, this whole Kimball thing had him way too preoccupied. What was worse, though, was that he wasn't preoccupied with this whole Kimball thing.

"About damned time you got back to me," he chastised the other man anyway. No need to let Eddie think Leo was falling down on the job. "Just what the hell took you so long?"

Eddie pushed past him, unconcerned, a fat file folder tucked under one arm. "Hey, I ain't even gettin' paid for this," he reminded Leo. "You're lucky I took the time out of my busy schedule to bother."

Leo closed the door behind the other man with a dry chuckle. "So, is your schedule busy lately with a blonde, a brunette, or a redhead?" he asked.

Eddie wiggled his eyebrows playfully. "All of the above."

Leo laughed harder. That was Eddie. The consummate ladies' man. Which was actually kind of surprising, because he wasn't the usual stereotype. Oh, he wasn't a bad-looking sort, in a dark, brooding kind of way. But Eddie wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, either. Sure, he had a knack for ferreting out all kinds of information about people, but when it came to disseminating that information, well… Eddie was much better cast as a hunter/gatherer than as the village wise man.

And then, of course, there was that tendency of his to commit crimes like distortion, fraud, and petty theft. Which, Leo couldn't help but note, wasn't that far a cry from lying, sneaking around, and misrepresenting oneself.

Ah, well. No one was perfect.

"I brought what I could find on the royal family," Eddie said, flopping himself down on the sofa. He unbuttoned his dark, double-breasted blazer, then hiked his feet up on the brass-and-glass coffee table, ankles crossed. "The royal
pain
family, ya ask me," he added parenthetically. "Man, what money will do to people. It's a crime. They should give it all to me."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just tell me the abbreviated version of the story for now. I'll read over the whole file later."

Eddie eyed him with a critical study. "You got plans tonight, loverboy? Am I… intruding?"

"Not yet," Leo told him. "But you will be if you don't hurry up. And get your feet off the table, will you?" he added, slapping the other man's Gucci loafers as he passed. "I just dusted in here."

"Ooo, well,
excuuuuse
me, Mr. Clean," Eddie said, straightening as he lowered his feet back to the floor. "I didn't mean to leave fingerprints."

Leo let that one go without comment, then watched as Eddie thumbed through the file. When he noted the quick passage of text and photos and a variety of documents, then more text and more photos and more documents, he uttered a mumble of resignation. Looked like he'd be up late reading tonight, he thought. Unless, of course, he was up late with Miss Rigby. At which point, of course,
reading
would be the last thing on his mind. Unless he was reading her—

As quickly as the erotic images began to erupt in his brain, Eddie's rusty voice squelched them. "I'm gonna assume you already know the obvious about King Kimball," he said. "The poverty-stricken beginnings, the brilliant mind, all that cutting-edge technology he invented, the business he built from scratch—"