Heart of Gold - By Tami Hoag Page 0,10

interesting trio, Shane mused as he absently raised a forkful of salad to his mouth and began to chew. His eyes widened as his teeth stopped working in midchew. He glanced at the other two women seated at the table. They both wore similar looks and had frozen with their forks lifted halfway to their mouths.

At the other end of the table Alaina Montgomery swallowed first and delicately dabbed at her lush mouth with a rose-colored cloth napkin. “Onion salad,” she said with a hint of humor in her husky alto voice. “Is this a new recipe, Faith?”

Faith took in the expressions of the other adults at the table. What had she done to the salad? As everyone watched her expectantly, she took a bite of hers and choked.

Lord, she’d thrown the entire chopped onion into the bowl!

“Sorry,” she said, shooting Shane a look that mixed amusement with annoyance. “I guess I was a little distracted in the kitchen tonight.”

“Any other surprises we ought to know about?” he asked, one dark brow crooking upward as he took the bread basket she thrust at him.

“I laced your coffee with arsenic,” she said sweetly.

He barely managed to keep his laughter locked in his chest. His eyes sparkled with rare good humor. “How thoughtful of you.”

“What’s arsnip, Mama?” Lindy asked, pausing in her game of stir-the-peas-on-the-plate.

“That’s something we give to very special guests, like Mr. Callan,” Faith said, her expression deadpan.

Something about him just brought out the devil in her, she thought, as she leaned over to cut her daughter’s meat. She had never teased William that way. Of course, expending emotion on William Gerrard had been a wasted effort. She had learned that early on in their marriage.

What William had wanted from her had nothing to do with emotion. That had been a very unpleasant reality for a young woman who had a wealth of love inside her. For a long time she had waited and hoped and prayed he would change, that she could change him, but over and over her love had been tossed back in her face. Her husband hadn’t had the time or the capacity to love another human being. His hunger for power and money had overridden that.

“Gee, Mom, I think I’m grown-up enough to cut my own meat,” Shane said dryly.

Faith jerked her head up, her startled gaze colliding with his. Out of habit she had sliced Lindy’s roast, then her own, and had somehow ended up with her knife on Shane’s plate. Her breath stuck in her throat as she stared at him. Lord, he was good-looking, and he was definitely grown-up enough to cut his own meat.

Managing to scrape together some bravado, she sat back and gave him a sassy look. “Well, you didn’t tell me you were housebroken.”

“Heck, yes, ma’am.” He sent her a dazzling smile. “I’m potty trained and everything.”

“What a pleasant surprise,” Faith commented, fighting to keep a straight face. She refused to be charmed by a man who thought she was a criminal.

“Don’t take it personally, Mr. Callan,” Jayne Jordan said, her eyes sparkling with laughter as she looked across the table at him. She tossed her mane of auburn hair over her shoulder as she shot a teasing grin at her friend. “Faith is hyper-maternal. She’ll probably try to button your coat up for you too.”

Shane couldn’t stop the fleeting image of Faith unbuttoning his clothes. Stabbing a chunk of beef, he cursed his suddenly rebellious libido.

“I’ll try to stop myself short of spitting on my fingers and combing your hair,” Faith pledged.

“Gee, thanks.”

As everyone settled into the task of devouring the excellent meal, Shane focused his attention on work. This case was a far cry from what he was accustomed to, but he was determined to do the job right. He had already been on the phone chewing out Banks about the shoddy background work that had been done. If he had been a few days later in getting here, the place would have been crawling with suspects. Faith Kincaid and her DataScam testimony might have been lying at the bottom of a cliff, shoved off by a supposed guest of the Keepsake Inn.

“What will you tell your guests when you call to cancel their reservations?”

“Nothing,” Faith said with false calm as she buttered a dinner roll. “I’m not going to call them, because I’m not going to cancel.”

“Yes, you are,” Shane said, carefully enunciating each word for emphasis. He leaned toward her, trying to intimidate her with