The Tempted Read online

  “It had better,” Jared had told her gravely. “Because if I have to, I’ll get the governor involved in this case.”

  “Really?” Sergeant Cross had given him one of those cool, assessing glances that cops seemed to master so easily. “And just what is your interest in this case, Mr. Spencer?”

  “I’m a friend of the little girl’s mother.”

  No comment at that, but a slightly raised eyebrow had warned Jared that Sergeant Cross wouldn’t take kindly to outside interference.

  His gaze came back to settle on Tess. “Have you been here every day since your daughter disappeared?”

  “No, not at first. The police wanted me to stay home by the phone, even though they’d put a tap on the line and a deputy was there twenty-four hours a day to monitor the calls. But I almost went crazy waiting for the phone to ring, praying that the next call would be news of Emily, and praying that it wouldn’t be. So I started coming down here where I felt I could be more useful.”

  Jared glanced up at one of the posters on the wall. Again he experienced an inexplicable sorrow, a deep gnawing worry for the little girl’s safety. “Could we go somewhere and talk?”

  Tess looked startled. “No, I don’t think so. There’s a lot to do here—”

  “It won’t take long.”

  She glanced down at the young woman in the wheelchair beside her. Jared had noticed her when he’d first walked in, but Tess had made no move to introduce them. He’d assumed she was a volunteer and that perhaps Tess didn’t know her all that well, but now, as the young woman glanced up at him, Jared was struck by the coolness in her blue eyes, the bitter curl of her full lips.

  She was very beautiful, her features almost angelic on first glance. But beneath the perfect facade, a hardness lurked. Something Jared couldn’t quite define glinted in her eyes.

  He happened to be looking at her when Tess murmured, “I’ll be right back, Melanie.”

  The hostility that flashed across the woman’s face was almost breathtaking, but she schooled her emotions before glancing up at Tess.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked softly.

  Tess put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, as if to reassure her. Then she turned to Jared and nodded toward the far side of the room. “There’re some offices just down that hallway. We can probably find an empty one.”

  She led the way, and as they crossed the community center, Jared’s gaze lifted to a faded banner across the stage. Eden, Mississippi. Where Heaven Meets Earth.

  A chill shot through him even though the air was quite warm inside the hall.

  TESS WALKED straight over to the window and stared out.

  There was a park across the street, but it was too early for children to be out and about. Later, a few would come to play, but not alone. Never alone since Emily’s disappearance. The older ones would come in groups, the younger ones accompanied by their parents. They would swing and slide and climb on the jungle gyms while the mothers huddled together on the benches, talking in low tones, wondering aloud how something like this could happen in their town. And all the while, thankful, so terribly grateful, that it hadn’t happened to their child.

  “Who is the young woman in the wheelchair?” Jared asked behind her.

  Her attention was so focused on the playground that for a moment Tess thought he was referring to someone in the park. She turned to face him. “Excuse me?”

  He nodded toward the door. “The woman in the wheelchair. You called her Melanie. She looks familiar.”

  “You don’t remember her?” Tess asked in surprise. “I guess you never met her, but she was driving the car the night I was in that accident. The same night I was arrested.”

  He frowned. “I was told the accident wasn’t serious. You walked away with barely a scratch.”

  And Melanie hadn’t walked away at all, Tess thought with a pang of guilt. “I was led away from the emergency room in handcuffs, to be exact,” she said with an edge of defiance.

  Jared winced. “I didn’t know about that, either. I looked everywhere for you that night.”

  “When all along, there I was, sitting in jail.”

  “You sound as if you’re proud of that accomplishment,” he said accusingly.

  Tess lifted her chin. “I’m not proud of a lot of things that happened back then, but they did happen. And they are in the past. I don’t see any point in looking back.”

  His gaze on her deepened. “It was always easy for you, wasn’t it? Everything was always black and white.”

  “Easy for me?” She gave a caustic laugh. “That’s good, coming from you. The fortunate son.”

  “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? You were always such a snob, Tess.”

  She sputtered in astonishment. “A…snob? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” One eyebrow lifted. “You think only people with money can be snobs? You never tried to hide your disdain for the north side of the lake. For people anywhere who had wealth. But especially for my family. You wore your working-class background like a badge of pride, and I used to wonder sometimes if that’s what drove us apart. If that’s why you really left that summer.”

  “You know why I left.” Tess strove to keep the bitterness from her voice. “It was either leave town or go to jail.”

  “I never would have let that happen, and you know it.”

  “There might not have been anything you could have done to stop it.”

  His gaze on her narrowed. “You never did give me much credit, did you?”

  “On the contrary,” she said coolly. “I always gave your entire family a great deal of credit.”

  “Hard to believe,” he said grimly. “Six years later, and nothing has changed between us.”

  She shrugged helplessly. “So why are you here?”

  “At the moment, I’m damned if I know.” His gaze searched her face, as if he expected to find the answer in her expression. He turned away in frustration, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ever since I saw you yesterday, I’ve been asking myself why you did take that bracelet. It wasn’t for its value. You scorned money.”

  “Maybe I came to realize exactly what it is that money can buy.” This time, Tess made no effort to hide her bitterness.

  “Meaning?

  Because with enough money, you can buy your way out of anything, she wanted to tell him. Even attempted murder. Turning back to the window, she said instead, “You didn’t drive all the way up here just to rehash the past.”

  “That’s not the only reason I came, no,” he agreed. “But I do want some answers. You owe me that much.”

  Her mouth tightened in anger. “I should have known there would be strings attached to Spencer money.”

  “Why is it,” he asked with his own anger, “that you always have to make me the enemy?”

  “I don’t. I didn’t—”

  “Yes, you did. You never could forgive yourself for falling in love with me, could you?”

  Tess opened her mouth to protest, but instead she bit back her retort because his words held an inkling of truth. Back then, Jared had represented the very things she’d grown up despising—wealth, power, social status. She’d always resented that her mother had to work for his family, and a part of Tess had felt that, in loving Jared, she was betraying who she was and where she’d come from, that she was diminishing her own self-worth somehow.

  She’d been a lot more insecure than she’d ever realized, Tess thought. And maybe Jared was right. Maybe her uncertainty in herself had driven her away from him as much as her fear had.

  Staring at him now, she saw the changes the years had wrought. He was still a young man, only thirty, but there was a new maturity in his features, a sureness in his demeanor. There was also a hardness in his eyes, a cynical twist to his mouth that bespoke his rapid climb up the corporate ladder—and what he’d done to get there. He’d grown more confident over the years, more devastatingly handsome, while Tess—

  She drew a
long breath. She didn’t want to think how she must look to him.

  He moved across the room toward her, making her stomach tighten in apprehension.

  “Why did you leave that summer, Tess? It wasn’t just about the bracelet. You had to have known I wouldn’t let you go to prison. I’ve always believed there was more to it than that.”

  She rubbed a hand across her face. “Why do you even care. You’re engaged, for God’s sake.”

  He stared at her blankly for a moment. “Engaged?”

  Too late Tess realized her mistake. If she told him about seeing the picture of him and his fiancée in the paper, he might read too much into it. He might think she’d being keeping track of him, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want him to know that even after six years, the sight of him with a beautiful woman had made her stomach churn sickeningly.

  She tried to shrug off her remark. “I just don’t understand why it still matters to you, that’s all.”

  “Call me crazy,” he said with an edge of sarcasm, “but I’ve never understood why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. We were in love, for God’s sake.”

  The nerves in her stomach clamped even tighter, but Tess struggled to keep her emotions from showing. “If you really loved me, you would have come after me.”

  “What?”

  “After I left town, you never tried to find me, did you?”

  “You said you didn’t want to see me anymore—”

  “And you believed that, just like you believed I stole your mother’s bracelet.”

  He gazed at her incredulously. “You told me you took the bracelet. You told me you didn’t want to see me anymore. What was I supposed to do?”

  Tess shrugged. “I’m just saying if you loved me as much as you say you did, if you’d really wanted to marry me, you would have come after me, no matter what.”

  Digging his fingers through his hair, he swore violently. “You always did make up your own rules, damn it. You were always putting me to some kind of test that I invariably failed, no matter what. I never could figure you out. I still can’t.”

  “Then don’t try.”

  “God, you’ve got a nerve.” The depth of his anger almost took her breath away. “I got over you a long time ago. I hadn’t even thought of you in years, and then, out of the blue, you showed up in my office yesterday. You came to me, and I’ll gladly do whatever I can to help you find your daughter. But it doesn’t come without a price.”

  Tess turned back to the window, feeling weak and shaky all over. She was running on nothing but sheer willpower these days. She could muster whatever strength necessary to search for Emily, but she couldn’t deal with Jared. She couldn’t confront their past. Not now.

  “What do you want from me, Jared?”

  He put his hands on her arms and turned her to face him. “Just answers. Just the truth.”

  Her eyes squeezed closed. “Please. I can’t do this right now. I can’t think of anything but my daughter.”

  “Tess—”

  “What are you doing to her? Let her go!”

  The frightened voice from the doorway caused them both to start. Jared glanced over his shoulder to where Melanie sat framed in the doorway, but he didn’t release Tess. If anything, his grasp on her arms tightened possessively.

  Melanie rolled into the room, her blue gaze trained on Jared. There was fear in her gaze, but also defiance. Also hatred. “Who do you think you are, bullying her at a time like this? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  Jared frowned as he stared down at Tess. “I wasn’t trying to bully you—”

  “That’s exactly what you were doing,” Melanie retorted before Tess could say anything. “You may be a Spencer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t observe common decency. Can’t you see she’s ready to collapse? My God, look at her. She hasn’t eaten anything in days, and I doubt she’s slept. She’s got enough on her mind without having to deal with you.”

  “It’s okay, Melanie,” Tess murmured.

  “No, it’s not,” she retorted.

  Jared dropped his hands from Tess’s arms. He took a step back from her, his features going almost rigid. “She’s right. This isn’t the time or place. I didn’t come here to make things worse for you…” He trailed off as his gaze on her darkened. “I’m sorry. In light of what you’re going through, I understand how the past would seem trivial to you.”

  Something in his gaze, in his tone, made Tess’s heart start to pound in earnest. Trivial? There was nothing about the past or her feelings for Jared that were trivial. Complicated. Dangerous. But not trivial.

  He suddenly looked very remote, very formal, very Spencerish, as if the intimate discussion of the last few minutes had never taken place. “I’ll go now. But if there’s anything I can do to help, please call me. I mean that.”

  Tess nodded, unable to speak.

  Jared strode past Melanie to the door, then turned, his gaze meeting Tess’s for one brief second. “And just for the record? I’m not engaged.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Tess! Tess! Wait a second!” Willa Banks, a volunteer at the center, came puffing across the parking lot toward Tess late that evening as she stowed boxes of flyers and envelopes in the back of her Explorer.

  Tess closed the door, and as she waited for the older woman to catch up with her, she turned toward the street, her attention caught by a faded red compact that drove by. Was it her imagination, or had the car slowed as it passed the community center? Had she seen that vehicle somewhere else?

  Before Emily’s disappearance, a passing car wouldn’t have garnered a second look, a moment’s thought, but now even the ordinary seemed suspicious to Tess. Every strange vehicle might hold a secret. Every unknown driver might be the one who had lured Emily from the playground.

  Shivering, Tess watched the car disappear around the corner before she turned away.

  Willa Banks placed a hand over her heart, trying to catch her breath as she hurried up to Tess’s truck. Her plump cheeks were bright red from her effort, and her short, gray hair coiled about her face in the heat. Twilight had fallen, but the temperature still hovered in the nineties. The hint of fall Tess imagined yesterday had disappeared with a new front that had dropped just enough rain last night to stir a sweltering humidity.

  Willa fanned her face with one hand as she thrust a white box toward Tess. “I made some cookies this morning, but I didn’t have enough to pass out to the volunteers so I saved them for you.” When Tess hesitated, she said enticingly, “Oatmeal raisin. They’re your favorite, aren’t they?”

  They were Emily’s favorite, too.

  Tess took the box and tried to thank the older woman, but she waved off Tess’s gratitude. “Oh, you know I’m happy to do what I can. After all, Emily is one of our own.” Willa was the nurse at Fairhaven Academy. Like many of the staff from Emily’s school, she’d become a regular fixture at the volunteer center. Wearing her trademark happy-face pin, she dropped by almost every afternoon and on Saturdays to dole out homemade cookies and doughnuts with the same efficient good humor with which she dispensed sugar-free lollipops and stickers to ailing students.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the center earlier today,” she said. “But I’m helping put together a safety program to present to the kindergartners and first-graders at Fairhaven on Monday. I spent most of the morning at the sheriff’s station.” Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “My father was a policeman, you know, so I’m quite comfortable working with the deputy in charge of the program. I’ve always been fascinated with law enforcement.”

  “Sounds like a worthwhile program,” Tess murmured, eager to be off. She was on her way over to her mother’s for dinner, and then the two of them planned to spend the rest of the evening stuffing envelopes. Tess fervently hoped that Melanie hadn’t said anything to Joelle about Jared’s visit to the volunteer center earlier that morning, although knowing Melanie, she might have. She’d been very upset, so much so that
she’d avoided Tess for the rest of the day.

  Tess hated to think of her friend at home, alone and frightened, but she wasn’t up to going over there tonight to make amends. She didn’t want to have to justify her actions yet again to Melanie. Tess had gone to see Jared yesterday because she’d had no other choice. It was as simple as that.

  And the reason he’d showed up at the volunteer center this morning? Tess didn’t even want to contemplate his motivation.

  “It’s so important that we teach the children how to protect themselves from strangers, but at the same time find a way to empower them,” Willa was saying. “But it’s so difficult because Emily’s kidnapping has just terrified them—” She broke off, catching herself.

  “It’s okay,” Tess said. “I understand why the children are afraid. Everyone is.” It was the same all over town. Parents didn’t want to let their children out of sight, and even adults who were caught out alone after dark found themselves glancing over their shoulders, jumping at shadows. No one felt safe. In a place that had been named for paradise, evil had come to call.

  “Well,” Willa said, patting Tess’s arm, “I just wanted you to know why I wasn’t here earlier.”

  “You don’t have to explain. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  Willa said worriedly, “What are you going to do now that the volunteer center is closing?”

  “Actually, we may be able to stay on here at the community center. Melanie is going to petition the town council for permission to use one of the smaller meeting rooms.”

  “Why Melanie?”

  “She’s a member of the council.”

  “Oh, I forgot about that.” Willa looked a little uneasy as she peered up at Tess. “I know this is none of my business, Tess, and you can tell me to butt out if you’ve a mind to. But I couldn’t help noticing when I came into the center this afternoon that there seemed to be some tension between you and Melanie. Is everything okay?”