Millionaire in a Stetson (18 page)

Charles’s assistant Kelly showed no surprise at Sawyer’s appearance.

“He’s inside reading,” Kelly told him. “Go on in.”

Sawyer pushed open the oversized oak door, finding his uncle behind a massive cherry wood desk. The windows were ajar, allowing a breeze to waft across the rose garden, partially dissipating the scent of old leather.

Charles looked up, peering over the top of his reading glasses. “What are
you
doing here?” he demanded without preamble. “If you found it, you should have called right away.”

“I haven’t found it.”

“Then get your ass back to Colorado. I don’t care if you’re sick of cow dung and black flies.”

“I’m not sick of Colorado,” said Sawyer. “I’m staying in D.C. for a few days. Check things out from this end.”

“Niki Gerard’s not here,” his uncle said flatly, setting down the report and removing his glasses. “You can’t make her fall for you if you’re not even in the same state.”

“Well, the diary is not in Colorado,” Sawyer countered.

Charles squinted, deepening the wrinkles around his eyes. “You know that for a fact?”

“I know that for a fact.”

“How?”

Sawyer helped himself to a caramel candy from the small dish at the edge of the ornate desk. “Leave the details to me.”

“I want to know what’s going on.”

“Want and need are two different things.” Sawyer pulled on the ends of the wrapper, untwisting the gold foil.

Charles paused, his brain obviously sorting through the information. “Are you saying it’s better if I don’t know?”

“It’s better if you don’t know,” Sawyer echoed. It was better for Niki, rather than Charles, but Sawyer felt no compulsion to add that information to the mix.

“Hans Koeper has been calling,” said Charles.

Sawyer went on alert. “Asking about the diary?”

“His questions were oblique, but I think we can count him amongst the lucky winners of the Gabriella lottery.”

“Does it bother you—” Sawyer stopped himself.

“That she slept with other men?” Charles finished. “That was a long time ago, Sawyer. And she was never a long-term proposition. What bothers me is that it might come back to haunt me.”

“You know about anyone else?” Sawyer asked.

“Other than Harbottle, Carter and my suspicions about Newlin? Nothing new from my sources.”

Sawyer sat down in one of the two guest chairs positioned to face Charles’s desk. “You ever think she might not do anything?” he asked.

“Who might not do anything?”

“Niki Gerard.” Sawyer watched his uncle’s expression carefully. “She hasn’t made any move so far, except to run away to Colorado. She might want to put this all behind her.”

“You’ve been hanging around Midwesterners too long.”

“Not everyone in D.C. is dishonest.”

“Everyone in D.C. has an angle. Nobody throws away that kind of leverage.”

“Niki would.”

Charles sat up. “What do you mean Niki would? How would you know that? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m telling you the woman I met in Colorado seems to want to stay there and live a quiet life.”

“She’s lying about her identity.”

“True,” Sawyer was forced to agree.

“She’s laying low and biding her time.”

“Or, she’s trying to leave the past behind.”

Charles’s voice boomed in anger. “You don’t know these women.”

“You only knew one of them,” Sawyer countered.

“I know human nature,” said Charles. “Now, quit second-guessing me and do your job.”

* * *

It was nearly five o’clock when Sawyer made it back to the guest house. His sister and her fiancé had dropped by and caught him as he was leaving Charles’s office. They wanted to bring him up to speed on their wedding plans, and there was no plausible reason for him not to stay and talk.

Afterward, starving, and assuming Niki must be feeling the same way, he stopped by the kitchen and loaded up with a couple of sandwiches, some plums and a bottle of wine.

Now, he entered the cottage and found it quiet. He paused in the doorway, noting it was far too quiet.

He could have kicked himself for staying away so long, or maybe for having left Niki alone in the first place. Although he couldn’t imagine any reasonable person running off on her own through D.C. under the circumstances. He knew she was operating on emotion and adrenaline, rather than reason, at the moment.

He moved farther into the room to set down the food, and there he saw her. She was on the sofa, lying on her side, legs curled up, with her head on the mini plaid pillow. The tension evaporated from his body, and he moved automatically toward her.

“Niki?” he asked softly, not wanting to startle her.

She didn’t stir.

On the coffee table, he placed the things he’d been carrying, coming down on one knee. “Niki?”

Still nothing.

It occurred to him that he should leave her sleeping. It wasn’t like they had to rush off anywhere.

He gazed at her beautiful face for several minutes. Her cheeks were flushed, lashes lush against her skin, her red lips were slightly parted, and her hair was sexily mussed across her forehead.

The only thing marring the picture were her glasses, which were slightly askew. He gently lifted them away from her face, folding them, then reaching over her to set them on the side table.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Hi,” she said sleepily, a slight smile turning up her lips.

“Hi, yourself,” he returned, fighting an almost compulsive urge to cradle her face and kiss her mouth.

“I fell asleep,” she told him, the tone of her voice ratcheting up the powerful emotions in his chest.

“You did,” he agreed, the urge to kiss her strengthening by the second.

He met the soft green of her eyes and felt the tiny puff of her breath. His hand lifted, thumb touching the soft flush of her cheek.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he whispered, his lips going down on hers.

She kissed him back, and it lasted a sweet, sexy, extraordinarily satisfying three seconds.

But then she jerked back. “What are you
doing?
”

“I’m sorry.” But he wasn’t.

She glanced around, pulling herself into a sitting position, wedging her knees protectively between them. “How long have I been asleep? What time is it?”

“It’s five o’clock.”

She stared at him. “You can’t kiss me, Sawyer.”

“I know.”

“You should never have kissed me in the first place.”

“I tried to stop,” he told her in all honesty.

“Yeah, right.”

“You know I tried.” He touched her arm, but she jerked away.

He did a quick mental debate, telling himself to leave it alone, but he found he couldn’t. “That first day in the river, it was me that pulled back. When we made love in the hotel room, I tried to say no. This thing with you and me was never part of the plan.”

Her expression faltered, and he knew she remembered.

“I didn’t plan on being attracted to you. I couldn’t help myself.”

Her brows went up. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“I swear to you I tried to keep it under control, but every time you looked at me, I wanted you. And when you kissed me, wrapped your arms around me, pressed against me, there was no way I could stop myself.”

“Please tell me you’re not looking for sympathy.”

He waited a beat before continuing. “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m looking for understanding. Because I still like you, Niki. And I still want you. And I know I’m making compromises to what I’m supposed to be doing, because of my feelings for you.”

“You’re making compromises because you got caught, Sawyer.”

“Getting caught is not my biggest problem.”

His biggest problem was the fact that he cared more about saving Niki than he did about protecting his family. The whole situation was a colossal conflict of interest. But he had no desire or intention to step away.

Even if she didn’t know it, Niki needed him. And he wasn’t going to abandon her. He was going to extricate her from this web of conflict and treachery, or go down trying.

“I’m still attracted to you,” he confessed. “And it’s messing with my concentration.”

Her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “You do know I’d be a fool to believe you.”

“You’re not a fool, Niki Gerard.”

“And I don’t believe you.”

He cocked his head to one side, thinking about kissing her all over again. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“Stop,” she ordered.

“Are you hungry? I brought sandwiches and wine.”

She glanced past him to the food he’d laid on the table. “I’m hungry,” she admitted.

“We can eat first and fight later,” he offered.

“This fight is over. I won. Move on, Sawyer.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “You’re attracted to me, Niki. You might as well come clean on that.”

“I was attracted to Sawyer Smith, gentleman rancher. I have zero interest in Sawyer Layton, lying, scheming, D.C. operative.”

“We’re the same guy.”

She shook her head. “Only one of you will ever sleep with me.”

“Oh, darlin’,” Sawyer couldn’t seem to stop himself from drawling. “You don’t want to be throwing down a challenge like that.”

* * *

Though Niki hated to admit Sawyer was right, he was right. Sawyer Smith and Sawyer Layton were the same person, and she was attracted to him, more attracted than ever now that she knew she couldn’t have him.

They’d left the guest house soon after eating and spent the night in his Georgetown penthouse. He had a massive apartment, taking up the entire top floor of an eighteen-story building overlooking Waterfront Park. It had three bedrooms. She’d taken the one farthest from the master, not wanting to think about Sawyer on the other side of a wall for the entire night.

This morning, his housekeeper had prepared omelets and provided fresh bagels from a neighborhood bakery. Niki and Sawyer sat on his veranda, breathing the fresh breeze, watching pedestrians along the walkway, hearing the hum of traffic in the distance, interspersed with the occasional blast of a horn.

“Is there a safe in your apartment?” Sawyer was asking. “A hidden compartment? Maybe something you didn’t know about?”

Niki shook her head as she bit into a blueberry bagel. “I looked behind every picture, behind the furniture, under the beds, under the rugs.”

The conversation reminded her of how baffled she’d felt in the days before she fled to Colorado.

“Weird thing is,” she told Sawyer. “She wanted me to find it. She talked about it just before she died. She told me it would keep me safe. There’s no way she purposefully hid it from me. I swear, she thought I’d know where to look.”

Sawyer sat back. “So, somewhere simple, somewhere straightforward. In plain sight?”

“It wasn’t beside her bed, or in a magazine rack, or in a desk drawer.”

“Safe-deposit box?”

“I thought of that, too. I’ve been over all the papers with the lawyers. The only place I didn’t look was in Switzerland. But why would she keep the diary in Switzerland?”

“You want to pop over there and find out?”

Niki couldn’t stifle her grin. “You know, I led a fairly opulent lifestyle with Gabriella. Beach resorts in Tahiti, skiing in St. Moritz—”

“You ski?”

“I snowboard. But that’s not the point.”

“I don’t know why that surprises me.”

“I also do a little dressage, sail and golf.”

His gaze turned speculative. “You’re very sporty.”

“So?” Where was this getting them?

“I was thinking you’d be a whole lot of fun on vacation.”

“Sawyer, stop.”

“What? A guy can’t dream?”

“No, a guy can’t dream.”

“Have you played golf at Wailea?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”

“It’s on Maui. You’d probably remember if you’d ever been there.”

“Not if I was nine years old. I’ve been golfing for a while. It gave my mother an excuse to buy memberships at exclusive country clubs.”

“She didn’t play?”

“What?” Niki couldn’t help but smile at that. “Get windblown? Break a sweat? Gabriella struck a pose a whole lot better inside the clubhouse than out on the fairway.”

Sawyer smiled in response. “We should do Wailea.”

“We’re not dating,” she pointed out.

“You can have your own room.”

“We’ve got work to do here. I don’t think we should be taking a golf trip.”

Sawyer set down his coffee cup. “That is another approach, you know.”

“Another approach to what?”

“We get out of here?”

“Out of your penthouse?” Niki didn’t understand. Was he suggesting they start combing the city for her mother’s diary?

“Out of D.C. Out of the country. We take a world tour and never come back.”

If it was just a matter of leaving D.C., Niki could have seen herself doing it. Not necessarily with Sawyer, of course. But maybe on her own, just run away and never come back.

But there was Colorado to think about now. She wasn’t willing to give up her brothers, or her sisters-in-law, her little nephew. If it came down to fight or flee, this time she was staying to fight.

Niki pushed away her plate. “I need to take a shower now. Let me know if you come up with a serious idea.”

“I am serious.” He looked dead serious.

“Wait a minute.” Niki suddenly felt as if she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning.

“Is that a yes?” Sawyer asked, brightening.

“The Congressional Country Club.”

Sawyer hesitated. “Sure. We can golf there, if you want. Not much of a trip though, and a whole lot of people who might know you.”

Niki leaned forward. “We were members.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me, given your mother’s apparent political connections.”

“I golfed. My mother didn’t. She preferred the various public and private rooms of the clubhouse. We had a locker.” Niki stopped talking.

Sawyer obviously felt the same lightning bolt. “You had—
have
a locker.”

Niki nodded.

“And she would have expected you to go there.”

“Yes.”

“Open the locker.”

“Yes.”

“She never expected you to spend three months in Colorado.”