Summer of Love - Carly Phillips Page 0,70

the moment. They glanced up to see the light had turned green and Ryan stepped on the gas.

She exhaled a long, slow breath.

“How about you? Anybody serious in your life?” he asked. “I assume by your family’s reaction to your turning thirty and still being single that the answer is no, but a mystery woman like you could be hiding a secret or two.” His lips twitched in amusement.

She shook her head. “Nobody serious. In fact, my last relationship was brief and more a distraction from boredom than anything else.”

She and Marco, the guy who’d been assigned to guard her at the safe house, had generated serious physical sparks and had helped pass some long, lonely hours by the end of her stay there. But nothing emotional had ever come of it. Nothing emotional ever did.

Until now, she thought, staring at Ryan’s satisfied expression and handsome profile. He caused butterflies to ripple around her insides, emotions she ought to peg as adolescent and silly, yet everything about her feelings for Ryan were completely adult in nature.

And way too serious.

He drummed his fingers on the wheel, and her gaze fell to his strong hands and what she knew to be a deft touch capable of arousing inexplicable pleasure.

“So not much time to socialize, not many close friends, and no serious relationships at the moment. We have more in common than you’d think, wouldn’t you say?”

She murmured a noncommittal reply, hoping his question was a rhetorical one.

Before they could discuss anything else, the bus station loomed before them. He pulled into a parking space in a large lot and suddenly all the things they had in common took a back seat to those that pulled them apart.

Ryan strode into the terminal, Sam’s keys in his pocket. Though it wasn’t easy, he tried to push aside all that they’d discussed during their trip here. His questions during the car ride were so obviously meant to get her to think more about them that they were laughably transparent. Yet she still fought the notion. Considering all that was going on at the moment, he welcomed the time to bring her around.

He refused to contemplate the possibility that she wouldn’t recognize their compatibility or the depth of her feelings for him. Nobody, not even this stubborn woman, would opt to be alone forever.

At least he hoped not, or he was doomed to the same fate.

He approached the customer-service counter and the grumpy-looking man seated behind it. “Hi, there.”

The man took his time lifting his gaze from the crossword puzzle on his desk. “Yeah.”

Ryan placed Sam’s key on the counter. “Does this look familiar to you?”

Yawning, he reached for the key. “Looks old, but yeah it’s one of ours.”

“Can you tell me who this locker number is registered to today?” Ryan asked.

The man shook his head. “No. None of your business.”

Zoe slipped up beside him and leaned forward on her elbows. “We’d just like to know if Faith Baldwin’s name is still on locker 811.”

“Did you say 811?” His voice perked up suddenly.

“Yes. It’s on the key if you’d bothered to—Ooomph,” Ryan grunted as Zoe nudged him in the ribs.

“Does that number sound familiar to you?” she asked sweetly.

“Another man was here asking about that locker number around lunchtime.”

Ryan took the man’s words like a punch in the stomach.

“Can you describe him?” Zoe asked before Ryan had had a chance to catch his breath.

“Tall, gray hair, wearing a suit.” He rolled his eyes. “He looked like any businessman with money who comes through here every day. What do you people want from me, anyway?”

Zoe patted his hand reassuringly. “You’re doing just fine. Now can you tell us if you keep old paperwork on file from people who’ve rented lockers in the past?”

“I’ll tell you what I told the other guy. He said it could have been rented as long as seventeen years ago, and that’s too long a time for us to keep anything we might have found in that locker.”

The description along with the time frame cemented the fact that Uncle Russ had been here asking questions about Sam’s keys. He was involved in something and had an agenda, just as Zoe had thought. Disappointment churned in Ryan’s gut, but he reminded himself that he didn’t know why his uncle had interest in the keys. Maybe there was a plausible explanation.

“What did the gentleman say to that?”

“Stormed off, angry.”

Now that sounded like his uncle when he didn’t get his way, Ryan thought.

Zoe shook her long