If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (24 page)

“Hey, it’s okay. My parents knew better than to name me Grace, you know.” She softened the words with a smile and leaned in, pressing her lips to his. “Didn’t you say something about dessert?”

The first couple days Hope had been there, Law had kept her busy with movies and inane talk … when she wasn’t sleeping. Oddly enough, the insomnia that plagued her all too often had eased, and the first night she was there, she slept for fifteen hours. The second night, she slept for twelve hours.

On the third day, though, she decided that if he really wanted her to work, then she was going to work.

She half-expected him to tell her to alphabetize the books on his shelves or something.

But when she walked into his office, the first thing he did was jump up from his desk with a look of relief on his face and grab a huge box from the floor.

“Here. Been saving this for you,” he said, pushing it into her hands.

Hope scowled at the ridiculous piles of loose paperwork, a jumbled mess of receipts, printed pages, and handwritten notes and then she looked up at Law. “And I’m supposed to do … what?”

Law peered into the box. “Organize it. If it looks like something I’ll need for taxes this year, set it aside. If it’s a letter from a reader or something like that, put it in a file—I think I read them all, and I only print out a few of them, but I want to make sure I go through them.”

“How am I supposed to know what you need for
taxes?” Hope asked, dismayed. The box probably weighed ten pounds.

He crooked a grin at her. “Well, if it’s anything related to my office, books, writing, research, promotional crap like bookmarks, pens, postcards, or postal costs like stamps, envelopes, et cetera, et cetera … all of that is going to be needed for taxes.”

“I thanked you the other day,” she mumbled. “I think I’m going to take it back.”

“Yeah, probably. In a few days, I’ll be kissing your feet and begging you to stay, I bet. I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed help, Hope. I really, really wasn’t.”

Hope studied the mess of his office and sighed. “You’ve managed without an assistant before this.”

“Barely.” Law skimmed a hand through his hair and said, “Look, some of this crap I can keep doing, but I can write more, focus on my writing more if I’ve got some help, and there’s a bit of a problem with living here and getting help here. There are exactly three people whom I would trust with telling about this and none of them can help me.”

He spread his hands wide and said, “They work fulltime, they got stuff going on, and this is going to be a time-consuming job, especially at first.”

The master of understatement.

That was Law Reilly, Hope decided hours later as she sat at the second computer station he had set up in his office. At first, she hadn’t realized it was a computer station. The computer had been hidden behind the books, boxes, the books, the padded mailers, the books … the books. As she stretched her arms, she studied the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves he had along the length of one wall.

He owned more than one copy of eight of the books she had cleared off this desk. Of course, Law had insisted
otherwise until she had shown him the duplicates, sitting on his shelves. Then he had shrugged. “I’ll send them to Goodwill.”

Well, that had cleared out more than a dozen books and she had a feeling she could clear out probably twice that if she could get away from that eagle eye of his. The phone had started ringing a few times and she’d hoped he’d answer it, maybe wander out of the office—he never seemed to sit still unless he was writing—but all he did was ignore the phone.

Each fricking time it rang. And it rang a lot.

He ignored it with aplomb. She’d almost think he wasn’t even aware of it. But she knew better. The man seemed to notice everything.

Like the way she eyed his bookshelves. The few times she’d inched closer to study the titles, he had looked at her like she was about to pounce on a fuzzy, helpless little baby bunny, instead of looking for duplicates of books he already owned.

She might have risked it, but if he really expected her to actually work for him—and she was starting to realize he did—then she needed someplace halfway organized to do it.

That meant clearing off that frightening nightmare he had insisted was a desk.

Two and a half hours later, she had taken care of the books, somehow managed to organize most of the receipts, filed about half of the papers into recognizable order—research info, reader letters, letters from his agent—she assumed—a few reviews torn out of magazines, and a rather disturbing pile of postcards.

Blank postcards.

More than a hundred of them. She flipped through them, studying the images on the front before flipping them over. Some of them had been sitting around long
enough to have the edges worn and ragged, while others looked brand-new.

“What’s with the postcards?” she asked, glancing at him.

“Possible book locations,” he replied, his tone absent. He had a glazed look in his eyes, almost hypnotized.

She lifted her brows. “You plan on writing a book in … Adair, Iowa? What exactly is in Adair, Iowa?”

“Nothing … that I know of.” He slanted a grin at her. “That means there’s probably something. There’s always something, somewhere.”

“You’re strange, Law. Very strange.”

His only response was a grunt.

Looking back at the postcards, she grabbed a pencil and the notepad she’d been using. If he was going to keep a running list of possible locations, he could keep them more organized, she figured. A photo album would hold them all just fine. Add that to the list of fifteen other things she needed.

Along with cleaning supplies. Those bookshelves of his had a fine layer of dust, and Hope didn’t want to think about how long it had been since this room had been cleaned.

He had somebody who came out and took care of the house, but she wasn’t allowed in his office—he even had that written into a contract. The cleaning lady wasn’t allowed to open the door. Period.

He was strange. Strangely paranoid.

But then again, he was Law.

Blowing out a sigh, she looked back at the desk, ready to tackle the next chore only to realize she could actually see the desk.

It was clear.

Mostly.

Which meant she could possibly start on the mess of
paperwork in that box, the one by her desk, all but waiting to attack her. It seemed like that pile loomed higher and higher …

And his paranoia is rubbing off on you
.

“Hey, can you take care of my e-mail for me?” Law called out.

Spinning around in her seat, she stared at him. “Your e-mail. Geez, Law, exactly how much junk do you plan on dumping on me?”

“As much as I can get you to do?” The smile he gave was the same one he’d given when they were kids and he’d tried to talk her into doing something she knew she shouldn’t. But it faded as he rubbed a hand down his face. “You remember how I told you I was drowning? I wasn’t lying. The last time I looked at one of my e-mail accounts was four days ago and there were over three hundred messages. It’s the one I use for my website—a catch-all e-mail.”

Hope narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we should discuss some kind of wage here.”

He named a figure that had her jaw dropping.

“You’re not serious. For answering e-mail? Filing? Cleaning up this sty you call an office? You could hire somebody for half that.”

“I am hiring somebody—you. And it’s worth it if it’s somebody I know will actually hold up her end of the bargain, not leave me hanging, and is actually going to understand the whole reason I use a pen name.” He eyed the box on the floor by her desk with the same level of dislike she had given it and added, “Besides, it’s getting rather necessary and it’s not just about the filing or the e-mails. There’s more, but we’ll work up to that. It’s about saving my sanity, but you have to agree to not leave me in the lurch—if you up and decide this isn’t working out and you have to take off, you can’t just disappear. Give me a
warning, at least.” There was a strange look in his eyes as he said it.

Something inside her rebelled at the thought—a leash. Too much like a leash … a cage. Even though she realized he had every right to expect some warning if she decided to bail, that wasn’t what this was about. He was doing what he’d been trying to do ever since he’d figured out what was going on.

He was trying to look out for her.

Part of her even wanted to let him, but Hope needed to figure out how to stand on her own two feet.

Still, she had to see this for what it was—a friend’s concern. This wasn’t a cage, and Law would never try to trap her. There was no door locking her in, no key.

She could walk away when she chose.

She had a choice.

He was manipulating her to some extent; she wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t see that, but a part of her understood. He was her dearest friend, just as she was his, and if he’d disappeared for weeks, months, years …

Don’t go there, Hope. Don’t let those memories pull you back
.

She looked away from him, staring out the window. “I won’t be able to stay here.”

“Why not?”

Hearing the frustration, and the worry, in his voice, she looked back at him and smiled. “I didn’t mean
here
here, as in the town. I meant your place. I can’t stay here indefinitely. Sooner or later, I’ll need to look for my own place.” Then she grimaced. “Not that I’ll have an easy time finding a place. No credit history, no references.”

“I’ll give you a reference. And around here, people don’t tend to worry as much about things like credit histories,” he said, his voice soft. “Small towns aren’t always bad, sweetheart.”

Not always a cage
. That was what he meant, even if he didn’t say it.

“And what do I tell people when they ask me what I do for you?” She tried for levity, waggled her eyebrows. “Am I your mistress? Your housekeeper?”

“How about just my keeper? Half of them think I’m crazy anyway.” He grinned as he said it and she saw some of the strain leaving his eyes.

She hated how much he worried about her, hated how guilty he felt. It wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could have done, after all. He hadn’t caused it.

You did—

No. You didn’t cause it and you’re not doing this
, she told herself.

Once again, the phone started ringing and she sighed quietly in relief—a distraction, even if it was just from her memories. “Does answering the phone come into play?”

“Nah. I hate talking on the phone and most of the people who need to talk to me know that.” He grabbed the phone off his desk and eyed the caller ID. “It’s my agent. She can e-mail me.”

Hope rolled her eyes. “What if it’s important?”

“All the more reason to e-mail me first and let me know it’s important, because otherwise, I’ll forget the important details.”

“You don’t forget jack.”

“Sure I do.” With that charming smile that seemed to get him what he wanted every time, he leaned back in his chair. “I forget … and I then remember later, but never when I need to. It’s all in a jumble, and e-mail makes it less jumbled.”

“You’re full of shit.”

He winked at her. “Yeah. But I’m not completely lying. My brain works on a priority scale and right now, this story is priority … especially now that you’re here.”

Taking a deep breath, she looked at Law. “Okay, boss. What e-mails and what passwords and exactly what am I supposed to be doing?”

She had a knack for this but Law had already figured that much out. Hope was the organized type, and she always had been. In school, she was the meticulously organized one who had known exactly where all of her assignments were and when they were due … and usually his and Joey’s, as well.

In the past few years, even though she hadn’t lived anywhere close to him, she was the one who helped him manage little details he would have forgotten ages ago, e-mails and names he never would have thought to keep track of.

She didn’t seem to realize it, but she had been doing this sort of thing for him unofficially for years, except for … no.

Best not to think about that time right now, because if he did, she was going to pick up on it and he’d already seen how hard she was fighting to keep level, to keep straight.

He didn’t want to rock her boat.

But he did want to kill Joey Carson in a slow and painful manner. Then he wanted to kick his own ass, but he’d been doing that for the past couple of years. Once upon a time, his gut had whispered something very ugly about Joe … very, very ugly, but he hadn’t listened.

And look what had—

“Law.”

He glanced up, saw the look of pale strain on Hope’s face. The past few years hadn’t been kind to her, but she still had the sweet, soft beauty that had drawn so many boys to her when they’d been in school. The kind that had Law hovering over her like the protective older brother he’d always felt like.

“Law, focus.”

He scowled and narrowed his eyes on her face. “I’m focused. What’s wrong?”

“That writer, Cassia Hughes—you knew her?”

Knew …

“Yeah, I know Cassia.”

“She had a heart attack.” Hope’s eyes went dark, sad. “She died this morning.”