Stealing Shadows - Hiding In The Shadows Part 1

HIDING IN THE SHADOWS.

By: Kay Hooper.

DINAH.

Kane Macgregor looked up from the morning news- paper as she came intothe kitchen, and reflected not for the first time that Dinah Leightonwas the only woman he'd ever known who managed to create the illusion ofincredible bustle while never moving faster than a lazy stroll. It was apeculiarly endearing trait.

"I am so late," she said by way of greeting, dropping her briefcase intoa chair across from him at the table and going around the work island topour her- self a cup of coffee. He always made the coffee 'in themorning, favoring a gourmet blend rich with taste, a selection Dinahaccepted cheerfully even though she considered the beverage merely asimple and efficient means of getting caffeine into her system asquickly as possible. "You turned off the alarm again." She didn't soundannoyed, just matter-of-fact.

"After all your long hours recently, I thought you could use a littleextra sleep. Besides, it isn't all that late. just after nine. Do youhave a meeting this morning? You didn't mention anything last night."

"No, not a meeting." She spooned enough sugar into the coffee to makehim wince, and poured enough cream to make him wonder why she evenbothered with coffee. "I just ... They allow visitors only twice a day,and I'm always too late in the evening."

It was Thursday. He'd forgotten.

"I'm sorry, Dinah. If you'd reminded me The smile she sent him was quickand fleeting.

"Don't worry about it. I still have time, I think." She put two slicesof bread in the toaster and leaned against the counter.

Kane looked at her, wondering as he had wondered often in recent weeksif it was his imagination that Dinah was a bit preoccupied. He'd thought.i.t was because of the accident, but now he wasn't so sure. She tended toget wrapped up in her work, sometimes to the exclusion of other things.Was that it? Just another story that had drawn her interest and engagedthat lively mind?

. He wanted to go to her, but didn't; he was experienced enough torecognize the warning in both her actions and her body language. She hadnot touched him, had not even come near him, in fact.

She was across the room with the island and the table between them and showing him most of her back.

She might just as well have worn a no-trespa.s.sing sign. In neon. Itirritated him.

"Will you stop on the way to work?" he asked, keeping the conversationgoing while he decided whether or not it was time to do something aboutthis.

Dinah checked the wide, leather-banded watch she wore and noddedabsently. "For a few minutes." "You don't have to go twice every week."

"Yes," she said. "I do."

"Dinah, it wasn't your fault."

"I know that." But her voice lacked certainly. She seemed to realize it,because she cleared her throat and quickly changed the subject while sheb.u.t.tered her toast. "Anyway, we'll be going in opposite directions thismorning. just as well, I expect. Steve has me chasing after thatbuilding inspector for an interview and the wretched man is never in hisoffice, so I'll need my jeep."

Steve Hardy was Dinah's ed' or at the small but it well-known magazinewhere she worked, and he tended to push her almost as hard as she pushedher- self.

"Another expose?" Kane said lightly. "Bribery and kickbacks in thecity?"

She laughed. "I wish. No, this is just for a series on our localofficials. You know-a day in the life of, and how, exactly, your taxdollars are being spent."

"Easy stuff for you."

Dinah shrugged. "Easy enough." Kane watched her load the toast withgrape jelly and take a healthy bite. She was, he decided, very matchableno matter what she was doing. She wasn't beautiful, but dammed close.Regular, not-quite- delicate features that fit together well, the bestof which being a pair of steady blue eyes that sometimes saw more thanone would guess. Her pale gold hair was cut casually short in tousledlayers-"wash and wear," she called it-and her tall, voluptuous body wasclothed in a simple tunic sweater and leans.

Dinah didn't care much about clothes, and it showed.

On the other hand, what she wore hardly mattered because the enticingfigure underneath was what caught the eye. The male eye, at any rate.

His eye, certainly, more than six months ago.

It hadn't taken them long to get intimate, but getting to know eachother had become a much more complex, drawn-out process. And a cautious one.

Both were fiercely independent, with busy careers and cluttered livesand rocky past relations.h.i.+ps that had left scars, and neither had beenin a hurry to delve beneath surface pa.s.sion.

It had been enough, for a while.

But even wary relations.h.i.+ps either evolved or fell apart, and theirs wasevolving. Almost against their wills, they had been drawn together toshare more than a bed, tentatively exchanging views and opinions andcomparing tastes and basic values.

They liked what they had discovered about each other.

At least, Kane thought so.

They were not quite living together, but after nearly four months ofmy-place-or-yours, Kane had been wondering if he should be the one tosuggest they stop the shuttling back and forth almost every night.

And then, a little more than a month ago, the accident happened andDinah began to distance herself from him. He had a.s.sumed the cause wasDinah's worry for her friend and the ridiculous guilt she felt.

For the first time, though, he asked himself if that was the case.

"I'll probably be late tonight," Dinah said, eating the second piece of toast.

"More research?" It had been her excuse so often of late. Was it time

for him to pick a fight and clear the air between them?

"Just something I need to check out. I'll probably be closer to my place than here by the time I get finished, though, so-"

"Why don't I meet you there?" he interrupted, unwilling to hear her

suggest another night apart.

There had been several recently. Too many. 'Eight?

Nine?"

Her hesitation was brief. "Eight. I should be through by then." -I'll

bring Chinese," he said. "Or would you rather have something else?"

"No, Chinese is fine. Sesame chicken.

"And no egg rolls. I remember."

Dinah sent him another brief smile, but her mind was clearly elsewhere.

Kane sipped his coffee and watched her. He could accept that her job was

important to her; his was to him, after all. So it would hardly be fairof him to protest her abstraction, to demand all her time and attentionfor himself. But was that really it?

An easy story about the city officials of Atlanta was the sort of thingshe could do with her eyes closed. But she had more than once juggledtwo stories at a time, one of them unknown even to her editor; it washer way of combining the routine work of a magazine writer with the moregritty and urgent instincts of an investigative journalist.

"Dinah?"

Finis.h.i.+ng her toast, she sent him a glance, brows lifting inquiringly.

"Why don't we go away this weekend. May- be drive out to the coast?" He

had a beach house, a peaceful retreat that both of them found a welcome

change from the hectic pace of the city.

Her hesitation was almost imperceptible. "I wish I could. But I have an appointment on Sat.u.r.day."

"Can't reschedule?"

"No, I'm afraid not." She smiled regretfully.

"There's an a.s.sistant D A. I'm supposed to talk to, and she's got a big

case coming up, so her schedule is full. It has to be Sat.u.r.day."

Kane thought she was talking to him. "Well, it was just a thought. Maybe next weekend." He let the exasperation in his voice lie there in the silence between them.

Her eyes flashed, but her voice remained calm when she said, "Relations.h.i.+ps are h.e.l.l, aren't they?"

"Sometimes."

"I gather you're feeling neglected?"

"Dinah, don't try to make me feel and sound like the typical selfish male." "There's nothing typical about you," she murmured.

He decided not to ask if that was a compliment.

"Look, I know work gets the best of both of us from time to time, and that's as it should be."

" But? "

"But there's more to life than work."

Her lips twisted in an odd, fleeting smile. "I know."

"Then talk to me, dammit."

"I don't talk about my stories, Kane, you know that. "

"I'm not asking you to betray a confidence. I just want to know what

could be so important that you barely have time to eat or sleep these days. And don't give me that bulls.h.i.+t about the story on city officials.

That isn't what's making you toss and turn at night."

Disconcerted, she said, "Am I doing that?" "Yes. Since the accident."

"Well, it's that," she said, grasping the handy reason with relief. "The accident. I've been wondering about her, and-"

"It isn't the accident. Or isn't only the accident.