Until last night, she’d even thought she might like to stay in south Florida permanently.
With a groan, she set off on her run. The air was still a bit cool and crisp, a perfect day in the making. She headed for the beach. Leonardo had refused to buy a house directly on the water out of deference, he said, to hurricanes. As if living a quarter-mile “inland” would make any difference. But Mollie had learned as a tot not to quarrel with his incomparable logic. In Leonardo’s mind, he’d made a prudent decision in choosing his lovely, tasteful home tucked between, rather than on, the Intercoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. It didn’t matter that he could smell salt in the air on his terrace, even hear the waves washing the nearby beaches, or that shorebirds regularly visited his yard.
Mollie jogged along A1A, past resort hotels and condominiums on the water, until her legs were screaming and her mind was clear. It was early enough that traffic was light and the only other pedestrians were fellow runners and a few bleary-eyed couples pushing very awake babies in strollers. She stifled a jolt of loneliness before turning back, jog-walking to Leonardo’s, her run having had the cathartic effect she’d hoped it would.
Her shorts and top clung to her, her arms and legs glistening with sweat as she rounded the corner to her street. Leonardo’s house wasn’t ostentatious or even that big by Palm Beach standards, but its Spanish lines, red tile roof, and lush, tropical landscaping made her feel as if she were living somewhere exotic and deliciously different. Coral bougainvillea dripped from the balcony of the guest quarters. She couldn’t begin to afford such luxury herself and meant to enjoy it while she had the chance.
She ducked through the front gates, which she’d left unlocked while out on her run. House-sitting for Leonardo involved learning to deal with his extensive security system, his housekeeper, his gardener, his poolman, his bug man, not to mention neighbors curious about the thirtyish blonde who’d taken up residence above his garage. Mollie was accustomed to managing with three locks on her door in Boston and a primitive intercom system—and no household help.
A few cool-down stretches, she thought, a shower, and breakfast on the terrace by the pool and she’d be ready for her day. If Tabak had been at the Greenaway on her account, he’d have followed her home last night. She felt quite certain he would still be a man of incredible wiles and gall.
An engine rattled on the street, and she glanced up, going still, as if she could somehow camouflage herself, when she saw a brown pick-up paused at the end of Leonardo’s driveway.
It had to be the brown truck from last night. Tabak’s truck.
A dark-haired man in sunglasses peered across the seat and out the passenger window, his features not quite distinguishable from where Mollie stood. Unfortunately. No way could he miss her in her sweaty running clothes. Her heart beat wildly. She was breathing hard from her run, but she wasn’t so low on blood sugar that she’d be hallucinating. No, it was eight o’clock in the morning, and Jeremiah Tabak was on her doorstep. There was no getting around it.
“Well, well, well. Mollie Lavender.” It was his lazy, easy, rural Florida drawl, laid on thick and twangy. She hadn’t forgotten it. She hadn’t forgotten how it could melt her spine. He grinned at her. “Ain’t you a sight for these poor, sore, old eyes.”
“Excuse me? May I help you?”
She squinted at him, as if he were a tourist stopping to ask directions to the Breakers. Her profession often required her to think on her feet and be coherent under pressure. If he thought she didn’t recognize him, maybe he’d just go on his way.
But, of course, this was Jeremiah Tabak she was dealing with. He climbed out from behind the wheel and studied her over the roof of his truck. Sexy, confident, absolutely convinced she knew who he was. He adjusted his sunglasses, his amusement easy to read even from where she was standing. “Hi, there, darlin’. It’s been a while.”
Mollie blinked in the bright sun. She’d shoved her own sunglasses up on her head a mile into her run, after they’d slipped down her sweaty nose. She tried to look as if she hadn’t thought about him in ten years and couldn’t figure out who he was. It might not be an effective strategy, but it was the only one she had. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
He laughed. No hesitation, no doubt, no guilt. His natural cockiness had to help him do the kind of work he did, sorting through muck and crime and corruption and making people see the tragic complexity of it all, confront the unsettling, contradictory, complicated emotions that clarity brought. He was a good reporter, even if he’d stepped over the ethical line with her.