Fall from India Place (On Dublin Street 4)

Until she’d left him. Or he’d sacrificed Diana to his pride and left her. Kam had never really figured out which.

After that catastrophe, he hadn’t even bothered to rein in his instinct for isolation. He’d been entranced by Diana’s elegance and sophistication, her beautiful body and a face that could make a man like him crazed, it was so beyond his experience. He’d been hypnotized into sacrificing his freedom.

It suddenly struck him that the more refined Kam had recently made a reappearance since coming to Chicago. Yes, his cosmopolitan impression was less consistent than it had once been, and probably a hell of a lot less convincing. But he’d definitely been donning the once-familiar role again.

He’d been doing it because of Lin, and for no other reason.

“Kam?” Lin murmured a minute later as he pulled on his pants, her sleep-roughened voice in the darkness causing goose bumps to rise on his neck and arms.

“Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. I thought I should go. I’m moving over to the apartment in the morning.”

“I’ll send a driver to the hotel who can help you transport all your things,” Lin said in a hushed voice.

“It’s okay,” he assured, whipping on his shirt and buttoning it rapidly. “I can carry it all, no problem. I’ll take a cab.” He hesitated next to the bed, now fully dressed. Her low, melodious voice, graceful arms and soft-looking form beneath body-warmed covers pulled at his consciousness.

“I’ll see you at two o’clock?” he said, reaching for his discarded jacket.

“What?”

“At the new apartment,” he reminded her, determinedly looking away from the appealing vision of her. “You said you’d be my test subject.”

“Oh. Right. Okay,” she said sleepily.

“Ian told me that you have a workout facility for the managers at Noble. Do you use it?”

“Yes,” Lin said, sounding a little puzzled.

“Can you use it sometime before you come to the apartment tomorrow? I’ll send over a sensor and some instructions. I’ll need to get your resting and exercise heart rate and your blood pressure. This part of the protocol is pretty straightforward. Just use the instructions and then bring the sensor with you when you come. I’ll extract the information from it. I’ll send over a quick questionnaire about your general medical history, too.”

“Sure. I’ll just do my workout before work.”

“Good. I’ll see you this afternoon then.” He started for the door.

“Kam?”

He paused. “Yeah.”

“Thank you for a nice night.”

For some reason, discomfort swamped him. He didn’t know what to say. He almost walked out the door without a word, but instead found himself taking two long strides back to the bedside. He leaned down and kissed her, at first hard, and then lingering.

Which made it all that much harder to walk away a moment later.

•   •   •

“Did you hear anything back from the courier service we hired to pick up Angus from the airport?” Lin asked Maria the next day after she’d finished her workout. She carried the surprisingly small sensor that Kam had delivered to her in order to gather data. He’d been right; using it had been straightforward and easy.

“Yes. The ‘goods’ are supposed to arrive at O’Hare at two forty-five this afternoon. Given the check-in time and evening traffic, Angus should be downtown by four thirty or so,” the administrative assistant told her, smiling. “I actually wish I could be there to see Mr. Reardon’s surprise. I got the impression from Phoebe Cane, the woman who was watching Angus, that they have quite a relationship.”

“Kam and his dog?” Lin murmured, distracted.

“Well, now that I think of it . . . them, too.”

Lin blinked, her gaze sharpening on Maria where she sat at her desk. The small hairs on her nape seemed to stand on end. She walked toward the other woman.

“What do you mean?”

Maria chuckled and shook her head, as if to say, It’s nothing of consequence. It suddenly felt as if she’d swallowed lead. Lin smiled congenially, even though her lips felt stiff.

“Are you suggesting that Kam and this Phoebe woman are an . . . item?”

“She certainly asked a lot of personal questions about Mr. Reardon for your typical dog watcher,” Maria responded with a significant glance.

“Well it’s not too surprising, I suppose.” Lin attempted to make light of the matter. “Kam’s a very good-looking man. He’s bound to get a lot of attention from the women in that village.”

“Right,” Maria said, turning to her computer.

Lin wavered in her heels. Something in Maria’s tone told her there was more to the story. “What sort of things did this Phoebe woman say?” Lin asked, despising herself for not being able to just walk away and dismiss the whole thing.

“Oh, the usual things like, whether or not Kam seemed to be enjoying his stay in the States, when he was returning, and if he missed Angus and Aurore Manor.”

“Anything not so typical?”

“Well,” said Maria, turning and putting her elbows on the desk and leaning toward Lin in a confidential, girl-talk manner. “She did mention that Angus was having trouble sleeping and had run away on several occasions. Then Ms. Cane made a comment like, ‘Angus is just like her master. I can’t keep him in my bed for more than an hour or two before he gets restless and is running for the countryside as well.’”