When All The Girls Have Gone(55)

"Is she cute? Blond? A redhead? Do I need to be jealous?"   





 

"Probably not. The new receptionist is Anson."

"Ah." She gave that some thought. "Great idea."

"He needs a job and I need someone to handle things when I'm out of the office. Seems like a win-win."

She smiled. "Definitely."

"I'm going to need a new office, too. It looks like I'll be getting a partner."

"Really? Who?"

"One of my foster brothers-Cabot Sutter. I talked to him today. He's been a police chief down in Oregon for a while now. Stuff has happened. He's looking for a change. Thinks he might like to try Seattle and the PI business."

Charlotte smiled. "In other words, you are about to double the size of your business-triple it, if you count adding the new receptionist."

"That does not guarantee that the number of clients will double or triple," Max warned.

"It will," she said, serenely sure of herself. "So, what with all those big business plans you've got going, I guess you probably won't have a lot of time to miss being married-or to miss what you thought marriage would be like."

He pushed his plate aside and folded his arms on the table. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but, ace detective that I am, I have the feeling that I am not quite following the thread of this conversation."

She gulped some wine, lowered the glass and met his eyes across the table. "I was just wondering if you think that, at some point in the future, you might want to consider getting married again."

"I have been considering it since the day I walked out of the elevator in Louise Flint's condo building and saw you."

She almost stopped breathing. "Really?"

"Really. What about you? Ready to consider marriage again?"

Her heart was so full she was afraid she might cry. "Yes. Yes, I would absolutely consider marrying you. I mean, it's way too soon for either of us to be sure, of course."

"Of course."

"We've been through a lot of drama together. We need time to really get to know each other before we do anything drastic."

"You mean you need time to find out if I'm going to bore you to tears," he said.

"No. That's not what I meant, not at all."

He got to his feet, caught her by the shoulders and gently hauled her up out of the chair. "We've both been burned, so we've both got reasons to take this slowly. But for now can we just go back to the first question? My answer is yes, I would consider marrying you."

"And I would consider marrying you."

"Let's stop right there for tonight."

She put her arms around his neck. "Okay," she said. "We can stop there. For tonight."

"I won't change my mind," he said.

She smiled. "Neither will I."





CHAPTER 70




He awoke to the gentle sound of rain on the window. It was still dark outside, but dawn was on the way. He could feel it. He turned on his side and gathered Charlotte close against him.

She stirred and stretched. "Morning yet?"

"Almost," he said. He levered himself up on his elbow and kissed her tumbled hair. "I've been thinking."

"About your new business plans?"

"No, about us. Will you marry me?"

She turned a little and opened her eyes. "I thought we were going to take our time. Get to know each other."

"I know everything I need to know about you," he said.

She smiled and touched the side of his face with her fingertips. "Do you?"

"I told you, one of the tenets of my work is the fact that people don't change-not deep down at their core. You are the woman I want to marry now and you will always be that woman."

"Is that a way of saying I'm predictable?"

"No, it's a way of saying I love you."

"That will work out nicely because I love you. But, then, you probably already knew that, didn't you? What with me being so predictable and all?"

He smiled. "Sometimes it's important to hear the words."

"Yes, it is."

She pulled him down to her and kissed him.





CHAPTER 71




Max stopped on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

Charlotte looked at him. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes," Max said, "I do. But you two don't have to go in there with me."

"Sure we do," Anson said. "Family."

"He's right," Charlotte said. She glanced down at her hand. Max's fingers were locked around hers, covering her engagement ring. She raised her head to meet his eyes. "Family doesn't let family do this kind of thing alone."   





 

"Damn straight," Anson said.

"There's something else to consider," Charlotte said. "In addition to feeling very curious about the half brother they never knew they had, your brother and sister may also be feeling really, really awkward. Maybe even guilty."

Max frowned. "Why would they feel guilty?"

"They may be afraid that you'll resent them because they got the father you never had," Charlotte said.

"They'd be wrong." Max looked at Anson. "I got the father I was supposed to have."

Charlotte smiled. "Exactly. And that's what we're going to show them today."

Anson grunted, but Charlotte thought he looked quietly pleased.

"Are we going to do this?" he said. "Or are we going to stand around out here on the sidewalk until it starts raining again?"

"Let's get it over with," Max said.

He opened the door and led the way into the crowded restaurant. He did not release Charlotte's hand. He gripped her fingers as though she was a talisman.

She spotted the two people they had come to meet almost at once. There was an aura of tension around the booth at the back where a dark-haired, well-dressed man in his late twenties sat across from an attractive woman who was a few years younger. There were two cups of coffee on the table but no food.

She knew that Max saw them at the same time. A kind of stillness came over him.

Anson fixed his cop eyes on the booth where the two people sat.

"Reckon that'll be them," he said.

Max did not say anything. He started forward.

The dark-haired man in the booth was seated facing the door. He saw the trio coming toward him first and said something to the woman, who turned her head to look over her shoulder. She was tense, Charlotte thought-anxious and nervous.

The man got to his feet. He was built a lot like Max and he had the same gold-and-brown eyes. He looked wary but determined.

"Max Cutler?" he said.

"Yes," Max said.

"I'm Ryan Decatur. This is my sister, Brooke. Thanks for meeting us today."

"Thanks for making the drive from Portland," Max said.

He held out his hand.

Relief warmed Ryan's eyes. He shook Max's hand.

"Let me introduce a couple members of my family," Max said. "Charlotte Sawyer, my fiancée, and Anson Salinas, my dad."

"A pleasure," Brooke said quickly. "Will you please join us for lunch? Or just coffee, if you prefer."

She appeared braced for rejection.

"Lunch sounds good," Max said.

"Yes, it does," Charlotte put in quickly.

"About time someone mentioned food," Anson declared. "This is a restaurant, after all."

There was some scrambling around to rearrange the seating. When the dust settled, Brooke and Ryan were on one side of the table. Charlotte and Max sat on the opposite side of the booth. A waiter brought a chair for Anson, who was positioned at the end of the table. Anyone walking in the door would have assumed he was the patriarch of the clan, Charlotte thought, amused.

Once the food had been ordered, the floodgates opened. They talked about everything except the past-the traffic on the interstate, the weather, how Seattle had boomed in recent years. Ryan and Brooke bombarded Max with questions. He answered them patiently.

"Were you really a criminal profiler?" Brooke asked.

"What's the investigation business like?" Ryan wanted to know.

And then Brooke looked at Max. "I owe you more than I can say. I would never have been able to forgive myself if I had allowed that con man, Simon Gatley, to worm his way into the family."

"Forget it," Max said. "I'm sure you and the rest of the Decaturs would have figured it out sooner or later."

"It would have been later," Ryan said. "A lot later. Gatley was good. I'll give him credit for that. He even had Dad fooled."

"At first Dad didn't want to believe what his lawyer was telling him about Gatley," Brooke said. "He knew the information had come from you. He said we couldn't trust any of it. He said you probably had an agenda."

"But Dad is too good a businessman to ignore hard data," Ryan added. "He keeps a security firm on retainer. He asked them to look into Gatley. They confirmed everything that was in your report. Can't believe Gatley got away with the con for so long."

"He's still getting away with it, as far as we know," Brooke said. She shook her head. "He's moved on, but I hate to think of all the people he'll be able to scam before the authorities finally manage to nail him."   





 

"Brooke was afraid you wouldn't show up today," Ryan confided. "I was afraid that if you did show, you'd be angry."