Scene of the Crime Deadman's Bluff - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,21
being a good father to Samantha. She spends most of her weekends at his place and she adores him.”
“That’s important. Girls need their fathers in their lives.” She frowned. “But you shouldn’t allow your sister’s experience to deter you from having a family. I’ve seen how you are with Samantha and you’d make a great dad.”
He laughed, a deep, full-bodied sound that swept pleasurable warmth through her. “It’s easy to be a favorite uncle, but I’m not so sure that I’d be good dad material, and in any case it doesn’t matter. I have no intention of ever getting married.”
“I wonder why I got divorced?” Tamara asked, although she knew he had no answer. She found it difficult to imagine herself a married lady, but then she found it impossible to know exactly what kind of a woman she’d been before Seth had dug her out of the sand.
“Hopefully you’ll know soon,” Seth replied.
Although he said it easily, Tamara felt the pressure to remember, the need to help him find the person who had already killed two women and had tried to kill her, a man who could at any moment decide to claim another victim.
“How about an early lunch?” Seth suggested when they reached the Amber Lake Café.
“Sure,” she agreed.
As they walked into the front door of the restaurant a jingle of wind chimes sounded and Tamara had a visceral sense of déjà vu.
She said nothing as she followed Seth to a booth and slid across from him. The chimes sounded familiar, like a musical echo in the very back of her brain. She didn’t want to get his hopes up, didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.
She might have heard the same kind of wind chimes in another place, she might even possess some herself in her apartment in Amarillo. A single noise wasn’t enough to indicate that at some point in the past she’d visited this particular café.
“Hey, folks,” a blonde waitress with a name tag that read Lucy greeted them, with two menus. “Can I start you off with something to drink?”
“I’d like a diet cola,” Tamara said.
“And a glass of iced tea for me,” Seth replied.
“Be back in a jiffy,” Lucy said as she left their booth.
Tamara opened her menu and made her decision, then looked at Seth as a thought occurred to her. “Since we know who I am and where I live is it possible I can access my bank account and get out some cash?”
“I don’t see how that can be done without us driving into your bank branch and somehow explaining the situation to them. You don’t have a bank card and I’m assuming you wouldn’t know your pin number. Is there something you need?”
“A loan?” she ventured. She felt the warmth of a blush fill her cheeks. “I’d like to buy some clothes for myself instead of borrowing everything from Samantha. I’d just feel better if I had a few things to call my own.”
“I should have realized how difficult it has been for you.” Seth smiled at her. “Just tell me how much you want and I’ll get it for you when we pass by the bank.”
“Maybe a hundred dollars?” she said tentatively.
“We’ll make it two hundred and if you need more than that I want you to come to me.” He leaned forward across the table, his eyes like a gray bank of calming fog. “And it’s not a loan. We’ll consider it living expenses for a material witness in a murder investigation.”
“A material witness who can’t remember anything,” Tamara said dispiritedly.
At that moment the waitress returned with their drinks and they placed their orders. “So, I guess if we’re going to small-talk over lunch we’re going to have to talk about me,” Seth said teasingly.
“Actually, I’d like that topic of conversation,” she replied lightly. “You can tell me all about your work for the FBI and about your life in Kansas City.”
“I don’t have a life in Kansas City,” he said drily, “but I love talking about my work.”
And he did. While she ate a club sandwich and he wolfed down a double cheeseburger he talked about the cases he’d worked in the past and the evil he’d seen over the years working as a profiler.
Tamara found everything about him fascinating, from what he did for a living to the way the left corner of his mouth moved upward to begin one of his sexy smiles. She found it fascinating the way his eyes went from soft