Matchmakers Box Set: Matchmakers, Encore, Finding Hope (56 page)

“Um, asparagus and for dessert baked pears.”

He backed up and looked down into her deep blue eyes. “Pears?”

“You don’t like pears?”

He shrugged. “Pears yes. Baked pears, never tried them.”

A sexy smile slid across her mouth and she raised her glass to her lips. “I think you’ll enjoy them.”

“I think it will only be the start of dessert,” he said as he moved into her and kissed her hard on the mouth.

He felt her body go soft against his. Her arm encircled his neck and her mouth opened to his. There was a chance he’d misread her. Perhaps she did want all the things he was already sure he wanted.

When he eased back, she stood before him a satisfied look on her face, her eyes still closed. Her sexy smile told him she was ready for him to touch her more, taste her more, and to give her everything he had to offer.

They ate and drank wine while they made small talk over dinner. He told her about growing up in New York and she reciprocated with stories of a quiet life in Kansas City under the watchful eye of her mother and older sister.

After dessert Trevor leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach. “Well, I now know I like baked pears.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Where did you learn to cook?”

“My mother mostly. Once I was born, she stopped touring and took on a lot of different rolls. She was a teacher at Carissa’s school. Room mother in my classrooms. She took care of my great-grandma Katie and”—she motioned to the plates—“she perfected cooking.”

“She sounds well rounded.”

“Yes she does,” she said lifting her wine glass to her lips.

“Did she ever miss touring?”

“Oh I don’t think so. She wanted nothing more than to be a mother and that’s what she was—a full time, completely attentive mother.” She smiled again, but he noticed it vanished quickly and her brows knit.

“There’s something about your mother, something that’s bothering you.” He slid his hand across the table and covered hers.

“She found out about me asking you for help in finding out about Mandy and my birthfather.”

Trevor adjusted in his chair. “Found out? You didn’t tell her?”

Hope shook her head. “No. I was telling my father and she overheard. I was going to tell her. Honestly I was. But it just happened.” She let out a breath. “I broke her heart.”

“So you’re giving up? You don’t want to pursue this?”

“No. I’m not giving up.”

That wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear, but he let her continue.

“I want it over as quickly as possible.”

He could feel the evening taking a drastic turn. On one hand he could end it right there. He could tell her about Donald Buchanan and it would all be over. Then again, it wasn’t how it worked. He’d been asked to wait. He would wait.

Hope reached for his hand and ran her thumb gently over his knuckles. “What can I do to help out? What would you usually ask a client if they were looking for someone?”

“Well,” he considered. “I’d ask about name, place of birth, last time they were seen.” He sipped his wine and set the glass back down. “Then I’d ask if they had anything that belonged to the person.”

“Like personal belongings?”

“Yeah, anything is helpful.”

“Like a purse? Or at least items that would have been in someone’s purse.”

“I suppose that would do.” He looked her over as she chewed on her lip. “Do you have something that personally belonged to Mandy?”

Hope sat quietly for a moment then rose from the table. She returned with a box and set it on the table. “This is all that was left,” she said. “She sold everything she had before she found my dad and Carissa. She didn’t want there to be anything left.” She shrugged.

“May I?”

“Of course.” She pushed the box closer to him.

He opened it and looked inside. As Hope had said, the box was filled with what would have been, he assumed, the contents of Mandy’s purse and the final documents that closed out her existence. He lifted her wallet and opened it.

“There are still thirty dollars in here.”

She shrugged again. “It wasn’t mine to take.”

A warmth filled him. Only someone as sweet as Hope would still consider that someone else’s. He looked at her driver’s license and pulled it from the windowed pocket in the wallet. “Your dad never married her but she had his last name?”

Hope nodded. “He said she changed it so that it would match his. It made everything easier when I was born. They had the same last name. No questions were asked.”

“You don’t keep her death certificate in a safer place than this?” He pulled it from the box.

“It’s just a copy.”

Trevor replaced the certificate. “These are her keys?” he asked as he pulled them from the box.

“Yes. I don’t know what they went to. Dad said she had a car and they sold it to cover her burial. But she didn’t have a house or anything else. She was staying in some motel before I was born.”

He lifted each of the four keys on the ring and then he stopped.

“Do you know what this is?” He held up one of the keys on the ring.

Hope shook her head.

“It’s a safety deposit box key.”

“Why would she have a key to a safety deposit box?”

“Why not?” He lifted everything out of the box and laid it out on the table.

Hope picked up the dishes and carried them to the sink to make more room, then sat back down.

“None of this paperwork has anything to do with a bank account,” he said.

“Don’t you think my father would have looked into that?”

Trevor nodded. “Yeah, he seems like a pretty thorough man.”

“He is,” she said warmly.

Trevor went through the wallet again and this time pulled out each item. He looked at every business card, her driver’s license, and credit cards. Nothing out of the ordinary. He sat back in his seat.

They didn’t speak. She was letting him process the information he had just acquired. He didn’t tell her the information he had in his own mind, but it wouldn’t have mattered. There wasn’t much that was new… except the key.

He ran his fingers through each of the slots. He started in the change compartment and then the bill compartment. He checked the credit card slots, one by one. The wallet was empty. Only then did he notice a small hole in the coin area. He pulled it back slightly and grinned.

Hope’s eyes opened wide. “What is it?”

“Probably nothing,” he said as he pulled out a thin shred of paper with a number written on it. “It could be a phone number.”

He handed the paper to her and she looked at it. “It doesn’t have a KC area code.”

“Where was she born?” he asked even though he had the answer to that.

“New York.”

“Doesn’t match any New York area codes either.” He looked it over and then lifted his eyes to her. He picked up the keys. “Hope, do you think this is the account number to the safe-deposit box?”

Her eyes grew wider. “I don’t know. How would we find out?”

“This is when I do my job. Can I take these?”

“Of course. What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to start by mapping out the area around where you were born. “Do you know which motel she was staying in?”

“No.”

“Do you think you could find out?” He tilted his head and he knew she understood his thought.

She blew out a breath and knit her brows. “Yeah, I suppose I could ask.”

Trevor moved toward her and kissed her on the lips gently. “At this point it can’t hurt, right?”

“Right,” she said uneasily.

“In the meantime, this is what I’ll do. I’ll pinpoint the motels in the area nearest your parents’ house. She would have wanted to be close to your father and the hospital. So chances are she was somewhere in between. Then we’ll do a map of the banks in the radius that were open twenty-three years ago.” He smiled. He loved that there was something new to a case that he’d thought he had all the information to. “Then you’ll have to step up and do some calling. Your father has the power of attorney, I assume?”

“I would think so.”

“We may have to work with him for you to get it.”

“I don’t like involving them.”

“Hope, why would she have the box? She needed something kept safe. You are the rightful owner of whatever it is.”

He watched her process what he’d said. She filled her wine glass, chewed her lip, and finally stood and leaned against the cabinet.

“I don’t want to hurt them.”

“I know.”

“What do I do?”

Trevor stood and walked to her. He placed his hands on her waist and pulled her close to him. “Walk away, then.”

“I can’t.”

“Then you have to ask.” He raised his brows to her and she sighed.

“You’re right. Okay. I’ll ask.”

“Now.” He took her wine glass and set it to the side. “As much as I adore talking business with a client, I’m sure this wasn’t what you’d planned to do tonight.”

Hope lifted her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. “You’re right.”

She consumed his mouth with hers. Her hands moved down to his chest and she began unbuttoning his shirt. She slid her hands inside the fabric and his heart kicked up a notch when her hands touched his skin.

He was going to lose control. He felt it. He wanted it.

He pulled her legs up around his waist, his mouth hot and persistent on hers. Maneuvering through her apartment, he walked into the living room.

“I’m at a loss,” he managed between breaths when he noticed there were several doorways. “Where is your bedroom?”

“Down the hall. On the right.”

He started down the hallway and found the door to her room. He carefully moved through the room lit only by moonlight filtering through the window.

Finally, he hit the bed with his shins. “Crap!”

“Are you hurt?” She laughed and held him tighter.

“No.” He crushed his mouth back to hers as he lowered her to the bed beneath him.

With her hands wandering over his chest, he moved his body atop hers. He’d dreamed of that very moment so many times. She felt so right underneath him.

“Trevor, I’ve dreamed of you doing this to me,” she said, and he pulled back to look down at her in the shadows.

“What?”

“I’ve dreamed of you making love to me. I’ve seen your face for years.”

His mouth went dry. Was it possible for two people to find each other under such crazy circumstances?

“I’ve waited for you,” she said, pulling him down against her, pushing his shirt from his shoulders.

His hands roved between them until he managed the button on her pants, then he slid them from her hips and they landed on the floor. Placing soft kisses down her neck, he pulled her shirt over her head with only a brief interruption of his lips on her skin. Her chest rose and fell beneath his touch and when he removed her bra and filled his hands with her, she let loose a moan that ignited his core.

Hope pushed at his pants until they fell to the floor with hers. Finally, they lay skin to skin. He wanted to touch her, taste her, fill his senses with her. He wanted to take it slow, but he’d waited so long for the moment, he wasn’t sure he could.

Common sense pushed its way through as Hope ran her hands down his back.

“Hold on,” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“The condom is in my wallet. On the floor.”

“I bought some,” she whispered, and he moved back to her mouth. “They’re on my nightstand.”

Her breath was uneasy. “I hope they’re the right ones.”

He had to stop. “Why would you say that?”

“I’ve never bought them before.”

“I would have taken care of that, Hope.”

She shivered beneath him. The moonlight illuminated her, and he could see there was more than just a chill in the room or the anticipation of making love with him for the first time that caused worry to cross her face. “Hope, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I want this so much.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

He slid to the side of her, his body protesting, but his heart needed to listen before he went further.

“What do you mean?”

He felt her swallow hard and watched as she collected her thoughts. “I’ve had dreams about you. My grandmother said you’d come for me. I’ve waited. I’ve waited for you.”

Suddenly the room did grow colder and he began to shake. He closed his eyes and accepted the surreal moment. They’d dreamed of each other. She’d waited for him because her grandmother had told her he would come. Premonition? Fate? It was a lot to swallow when his body wanted to take and his heart wanted to accept. “Hope,” he said, opening his eyes and looking down at her. “You’ve been waiting for me? You’ve never made love to anyone else?” He watched as she shook her head from side to side. “Oh, God!”

Trevor sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face. He didn’t remember feeling this much pressure in the backseat of Mary Jo Roberts’s car when he was fifteen and she was seventeen. He seemed to have handled it just fine then.

“Trevor, please don’t stop.”

“Hope, how can you say you waited for me for this? You’ve known me just over a week.”

“I’ve been waiting for you. You have to trust me when I say that.”

He did. He knew exactly what it was like to dream up the woman you loved. The proof was Hope Kendal lying next to him naked ready to give up her virtue to him.

“Maybe we should wait.”

“I’ve waited long enough.” She pulled him down toward her. “I want to make love to you, tonight. Please, Trevor. Love me. Make love to me.”

Her hands ran down his arms and over his back as her mouth lifted to his. How could he say no? He couldn’t. His body and his heart wouldn’t allow it.

A moment later, he was moving atop her, rolling on the condom, ready to take from her what she’d held on to longer than any other woman he’d known.

Reminding himself to go slow and take it easy, he watched her eyes. They remained locked on his, filled with heat and passion. Her hands urged him on until he pushed himself, slowly, inside of her.

Her body trembled beneath his, but her hands held him tight against her. She moved against him, creating a rhythm. The heat between their bodies began to rise. Hope threw back her head, exposing her neck. He pressed his lips to the hammering pulse at her throat as he moved with her. Her moans vibrated against his lips, and as he climbed toward that peak, he could feel her close in tight around him.