Roxanne St. Claire – When the Earth Moves (страница 2)

Holding the door, he managed a good long look at the fitted back pockets of her jeans again. The Yankees would play at home eighty-one times this season. A jaw-dropping version of Dale Evans would only appear in his office once. He had definitely made the right choice.

“Can I offer you something to drink, Ms. Tremaine?” he asked as they entered his office and he closed the door.

“You can call me Jo. And unless you have an ice-cold Bud on tap, I’m fine.”

He chuckled a little. “Wouldn’t you know it? My office tap is out.” He suddenly remembered the six-pack of Amber Bock in his refrigerator at home. Intended for Saturday’s softball game, but easily replaced. “Or we could go somewhere else.”

“No, thanks.” She stood in the middle of the room, her gaze direct and unwavering. “This won’t take that long. I hope.”

He heard an infinitesimal catch in her voice, something only a lawyer trained to sniff out half-truths and cover-ups would notice.

He gestured toward the sofa in the sitting area of his office. “Please. Have a seat.”

She folded herself into one of the chairs, her faded denim and black boots looking oddly out of place on the chrome-and-leather divan he’d had designed when he took over the massive corner office.

“Are you from around here…Jo?” The name suited her. She wasn’t feminine. Womanly, oh, yeah. But nothing fluttered in her movements, not her fingers, not her eyelashes. Jo. He liked it.

“I’m from Sierra Springs, California.”

He inched back in surprise.

“Have you heard of it?” She sounded like she expected him to say yes.

“I can’t say that I have, but you’ve come a long way. Is Sierra Springs near the Silicon Valley?” They had clients out there, several of them. This had to be related to Futura somehow.

She shook her head, smoothing her jeans with one long, slow stroke of her hands, a whisper of a cynical smile tipping her lips. “Not that valley. Sierra Springs is on the border between California and Nevada, a hundred miles from Sacramento, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.”

His knowledge of the area geography was scarce, at best. No clients that he could think of. No potential investments. Not much of anything but the Ponderosa Ranch and some second-class gambling in Reno. “Pretty quiet up there, I bet.”

“It was. Until the earth shook us down to our boots and rattled our brains into scrambled eggs.”

“The earth?” He zipped through a mental hard drive. What was she talking about? “Oh, yes.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “I have heard of Sierra Springs. There was an earthquake there a few months ago. A big one.”

She nodded. “Five point six. And some nasty aftershocks.”

This was definitely a lawsuit waiting to happen. “Five point six, whoa. That is major. Did it affect—were you hit hard?”

His gaze traveled over those jean-clad legs again, hoping against hope that whatever her business they wouldn’t be adversaries. He’d very much prefer to counsel her. Among other things.

She shrugged. “I lost some…people.”

Staff? Family? Whoever, he had no doubt that her loss was at the root of this unorthodox meeting.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He seemed to recall five people died at one site. An apartment building. And then the image of a firefighter carrying a one-year-old from a hellhole of debris flashed in his mind. Of course—the baby found in the rubble. The story had been on every news station for days.

Did she own the building? Did Futura? Surely he’d have been briefed on that kind of potential lawsuit if they did.

“So, what do you do in Sierra Springs?” With some witnesses, the most innocuous questions cut right to the truth. He half imagined she’d say she roped horses and cattle, but more likely, she was another lawyer. They just dressed differently in California.

“I do body work.”

His pulse kicked up again. “Excuse me?”

“Car repairs. Wrecks.”

“You’re a mechanic?”

“I’m a collision repair expert.” A little light danced in her bronze-brown eyes as she narrowed them. “I own my own body shop.”

“Really.” So she wasn’t a rodeo queen or a lawyer. She pounded steel for a living.

Without thinking, his gaze slid back to her hands, long and slender and not a grease stain on them. And free of any jewelry—not even a single gold band. “Well you’ve certainly piqued my curiosity, Ms.—Jo. What brings you to New York?”

“You.”

His body tightened with a low, natural response to the single raspy word.

“Me?” Okay. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if that mouth is damn near edible. “How’s that?”

“I need you to sign a paper.”

Legal alarms sounded in the back of his head. “What kind of a paper?”

“It’s called a Petition of Relinquishment and Consent.”

He thought for a minute, his mind skimming first-year law. “Isn’t that part of the adoption process?”

For a moment she didn’t move. The tip of her tongue peeked through her unadorned lips and dampened them. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand. Why would you need my signature?”

“I’m in the process of adopting a baby. And she is a…distant relative of yours.”

He leaned forward as though she pulled him on a string. “A relative of mine?”

“She’s your…your niece.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have a niece. I have two brothers and neither one has children.” Unease trickled through his veins, but he dismissed it. If Colin or Quinn had fathered a baby, he’d know it. They had no secrets, nothing they didn’t share with one another. Could this be a ploy for money? A hoax? “I think you’ve made a mistake. Who is the child?”

“There’s no mistake,” she insisted. “She’s definitely your niece.”

“I’m utterly certain I don’t have a niece.”

She raised one beautifully shaped brow. “Don’t be utterly anything until you’ve heard the facts.”

Objection sustained. “Who is the father?”

“Her father’s entirely out of the picture, and anyway, he’s not related to you. It’s her mother. Her mother is— was—a woman by the name of Katie McGrath.”

As if he had a Rolodex in his mind’s eye, he flipped through every distant McGrath cousin he could remember. No Katie. “I’ve never heard of her.”

Slowly she crossed and uncrossed her legs. “No, you wouldn’t have. You’ve never met her. But her mother is Christine McGrath.”

His gut squeezed into a knot.

“And that is your mother,” she said calmly. “So Katie is your sister. Or was. On both counts, I’m sorry to say.”

“No. I couldn’t have a—” He was speechless.

He couldn’t have a sister? Of course he could. An odd numbness began to make his arms and legs ache. He recognized the sensation. He’d first felt it when he was nine years old, the day he watched his mom climb in a station wagon and drive away, leaving a husband and three sons forever.

But he’d gotten so very, very good at making that ache go away. Sheer mind-over-body control was all it took, and if Cam was good at anything, it was control.

Her words replayed. Katie is your sister. Or was. On both counts… “Where is my—Christine McGrath?”

“I’m afraid she and Katie were both casualties in the earthquake.”

He waited for a rush of emotion, but nothing came. No surprise there. He’d killed any feelings for his mother years ago. He felt Jo’s gaze locked on him, waiting for a response. “Sorry to hear that, but I have no relationship with my mother. If this is the same woman who—I really have no connection with her whatsoever.” He wanted his point to be crystal clear.

“Then it shouldn’t be any problem whatsoever to sign this paper,” she said, pulling an envelope from her oversize handbag.

“Whoa. Wait a second, there.” He held his hand up. “I’m a lawyer. We don’t sign anything.”

“If you need proof that she was your mother, I have it. I expected you’d want to see that.”

He stared at her, trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle together. Slowly, he reached for the envelope.

“Christine McGrath left our home twenty-six years ago and moved to Wyoming,” he said, slowly opening the paper.