Page 11 of Untouchable

She carefully walked over to sit on an upholstered chair across from the couch. “I thought you might be dead.”

Maybe the words sounded heartless, but this was the woman who’d left her own daughter for no good reason.

“Not yet,” her mother said, still clipped, emotionless.

“So what are you doing here?”

“I’ll get to that soon enough.” She glanced at Kelly’s leather bag, which she’d dropped on the floor. “You were meeting a client?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve made a success of yourself, which can’t have been easy with such a silly line of work.”

Kelly shrugged, finding it hard to be pleased at the approval when her mother was studying her like a pinned insect. “I do all right.”

“Your client didn’t show up?”

“No, he—” She broke off and sucked in a sharp breath. “How do you know he didn’t show up?”

“Because I was the client.”

Kelly was too dazed to put any pieces together. None of this made sense. “I spoke to a man on the phone?—”

“An acquaintance of mine since the voice needed to be male. But I arranged for the meeting in the park.”

“But why? You didn’t show up there.”

“No. I didn’t intend to.” Her mother folded her hands in her lap in an ironically ladylike gesture. “But you met someone else there, didn’t you? A man with a German shepherd?”

Kelly gasped again, her mind whirling helplessly, trying to figure out what was happening. “Yes. How did you?—”

“He always goes to that park on Saturday mornings with that dog of his.”

“You wanted me to meet him? Why? Why do you give a damn what I do?”

“You’re my daughter, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” There was bitterness in Kelly’s tone now—a bitterness she couldn’t hide. She’d had no fantasies about her mother being here for any sort of peacemaking or family bonding. She’d never really thought her mother was particularly fond of her as a child, and she’d been sure of it after her father died. An obsessive need for vengeance had consumed the woman, hardening her softer feelings, until she’d completely tossed her daughter aside.

Kelly had learned that lesson well, and any maternal feelings her mother had ever had were deadened now.

“You’re my blood,” her mother said, pinning her with a cool gaze. “And that’s more important than you think.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll hear you out, but I’m an adult now, and I make my own decisions about my life.” Kelly was pleased when she sounded calm and confident since she felt nothing of the kind. “Who was the guy in the park?”

“His name is Caleb Marshall.”

If Kelly expected the identity of the sexy, arrogant man to be significant, she was sorely disappointed. She blinked. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Yes. If you loved your father at all, you would know who it is.”

Kelly actually jerked in response to the brittle words. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means justice for your father was never important to you and now you’ve wiped it all from your mind completely, as if it never happened.”

Justice was important to Kelly, but she was too jaded now to believe any such ideal was possible in the world. And her mother was right about her wiping the trauma with her father completely out of her life. She made a point of never thinking about it—any more than she had to—since it simply hurt too much.

But it wasn’t gone. It was still happening to her.