As Edouard had spent the last eight weeks whining about the extra work of covering for Penny, Dani knew it was the perfect threat.

“I’ll let you tell him,” she said.

“I can’t wait.”

LORI WAS STARTLED to find a woman lurking on Gloria’s front porch. In this upscale part of Seattle, the houses were mansion size, the lawns perfect and no one lurked.

“Can I help you?” Lori asked as she slipped her key in her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest. While the woman was perfectly well dressed and seemed normal, Lori had a bad feeling she couldn’t explain.

The woman smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Cassandra. Cassie to my friends. I’m a reporter. I recently wrote an article on Reid Buchanan.”

No need to define which article. In recent weeks there had only been one anyone would remember. “An article, huh? Is that what you’re calling it?”

Cassie smirked. “Oh, so you’re one of his little fans.”

Lori might have a stupid crush on Reid, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Besides, this wasn’t about her feelings, it was about using one’s position to try to destroy an almost innocent—well, innocent—person.

“Do I look like one of his little fans?” she asked bluntly. “I’m actually just a person who wonders about today’s standards of journalism. There’s a difference between reporting and being mean. You got away with what you wrote because you’re a woman. If the situation had been reversed, the article wouldn’t exist.”

Cassie shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m getting great play out of the story. It’s all true. He was lousy in bed, but as I said, that’s just my opinion. Others don’t seem to agree. Is he home?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lori said, staring at the woman and refusing to even glance at the door.

“I can’t find him anywhere and I don’t think he left Seattle. There aren’t that many places he could go to hide.”

“What about with one of his fans?”

Cassie laughed. “Reid commit to one woman? I don’t think so.”

Which was kind of how Lori saw him, but she was going to ignore that for now.

“You’re trespassing on private property,” she said. “Please leave.”

“Sure. No problem. Oh, by the way, do you spend much time on the Internet?”

“What? Not really.”

“Then you probably haven’t seen these.”

Cassie passed her several photos. Lori glanced down automatically, then wished she hadn’t.

There were about a half-dozen glossy images of Reid having sex. Each picture showed him with the same woman. The pictures were crude, explicit and grainy. But they made the point—he was a man who loved women.

Doing her best not to react, Lori passed them back. She felt like she needed to wash her hands or something. “Thanks, but not before breakfast.”

“These are online. Even a ten-year-old could download them. Are you sure you want to protect him? We should stand together against men like Reid Buchanan.”

Despite the sick feeling in her stomach, Lori shook her head. “I’m not interested in standing with you on anything.”

She waited until the woman left before she headed inside. The sick feeling didn’t go away. What horrible pictures. Did Reid know about them? Had he posed for them? She wanted to believe the pictures had been taken without his knowledge, but how could she be sure? She knew almost nothing about him. Wanting him to be one of the good guys meant absolutely nothing. Based on how he lived his life, he was most likely the guilty party.

That should take care of her little crush. It wouldn’t, of course, but it should.

“YOU NEED TO WALK,” Lori said, hanging on to her patience with both hands. “Just across the room and then we can be done.”

“I’m done now,” Gloria snapped. “It’s enough that damn physical therapist pushes me. At least he knows what he’s doing.”

“You either do your physical therapy and get better, or crawl back in bed and die.”

“You keep threatening me with death,” Gloria snapped, “and I’m still standing.”

Lori stared at the old woman hunched over a walker. “Barely. Don’t you want to get strong enough to kick my ass?”

“What I want is to be rid of you. Get out. Get out now!”

The last couple of words were nearly a scream. Lori ignored them and patted the bed. “Eight steps,” she said cheerfully. “Seven if you don’t shuffle.”

“I don’t shuffle,” Gloria told her icily.

“Looks like shuffling to me.”

“I loathe you with every fiber of my being,” the old woman said.

“I’m sure you do. Now walk.”

Gloria slowly, painfully, made her way across the study. When she reached the bed, Lori steadied her as she lowered herself onto the mattress and slowly lay down.

“Great job,” she said, careful to keep her voice neutral. She wasn’t gloating and didn’t want Gloria to think she was. At least their workout together was a distraction. Lori wanted to stay busy enough to forget the photos she’d seen earlier. Speaking of busy…

She opened the tote bag she’d brought with her and set several catalogs on the table.

“You have a lot of choices,” she said, fanning out the pages. “DVDs, books on tape, your basic shopping, although all my catalogs are discount, which I’m guessing you don’t do.”

Gloria looked from the shiny pages to her and frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Something to fill your day. Currently you’re staring at these four walls, being cranky and, frankly, getting on my nerves. You need to do something else. Get interested in a soap, read, listen to a book, watch a movie. I would normally add ‘visit with family’ but you seem to be avoiding them.”

Gloria stared at the window. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Interesting. Kristie told me that one of your grandsons stopped by early yesterday evening. Walker. That he’d called first and you’d told him not to come, but he’d shown up anyway.”

The information had stunned Lori. After all, in her mind, Gloria had been the abandoned elder of the family. But first the old woman had refused to see Cal and now she’d told Walker to go away. As much as Lori hated to admit it, Reid might have had a point when he’d said his grandmother was a little difficult.

Gloria narrowed her eyes. “This is none of your business. You mention my family again and you’re fired.”

Lori pretended to yawn. “I’m sorry. What? Did you say something?”

“Don’t think I can’t,” Gloria told her. “One call to the agency that employs you and you’re gone.”

Lori shook her head. “You don’t want me gone. I’m tough on you and you respect that. I care about you and you need that. You can’t be mean enough or crabby enough to scare me away, and that’s new for you. So here’s the question. Why are you trying so hard to live your life alone?”

Gloria pointed at the door. “Get out. Get out now.”

Lori was about to argue when she felt a queasiness in her stomach. She nodded and left, heading directly for the kitchen. By the time she hit the back hallway, she was shaking and feeling close to fainting.

A quick glance at her watch told her she’d gone too long without food. She knew better, but between the reporter’s ambush and her morning workout with Gloria, she hadn’t noticed the time.

She walked into the kitchen only to find the one person she most didn’t want to see. Reid.

He looked up from the thick stack of papers he was reading and smiled at her. “I heard shouting. Should I be worried?”

She was already pretty weak, what with her blood sugar crashing, so the last thing she needed was a visceral reaction to a useless, possibly horrible, man.

But there it was—a sudden fluttering of her heart, a trembling of her thighs that had nothing to do with needing to eat and everything to do with needing a man.

But why did it have to be this one?

“We’re good,” she said and walked to the refrigerator, where she’d stashed a bottle of juice. But before she got there, he was on his feet, next to her.

“Lori? What’s wrong? You look like crap.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m serious.” He touched her cheek. “You’re sweating. And shaking.”

The light brush of his fingers was nothing. Less than nothing. Yet she found herself leaning into the contact and imagining him touching her everywhere. So humiliating. She had to remember there wasn’t an actual person inside. That he was nothing more than a pretty shell. A shell who liked to take pictures.

“I have low blood sugar. I’m crashing. Go away, I’ll be fine.”

He ignored her much as she ignored Gloria’s demands that she go away. “What do you need?”

Oral sex? No, wait. That wasn’t right. “Juice. Food.”

“Done.”

He pushed her into a chair and then got her a glass of orange juice. She gulped half of it, then let the high-sugar liquid sit on her tongue for a few seconds before swallowing.

The results were nearly instantaneous. The trembling stopped, her body relaxed and she started to feel almost normal.

“Better,” she said, looking at him. “Thanks. Go away.”

“That’s nice,” he said sarcastically. “Who crapped on your day?”

“Honestly? You. There was a reporter waiting for me outside your grandmother’s front door this morning. She wanted me to confirm you were staying here, which I didn’t. Just to put a little sparkle in my schedule, she showed me some pictures she’d downloaded from the Internet. Guess who was the star?”

His expression tightened as he swore. “I thought they were gone.”

“You knew about them?” She couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

“They were taken about six years ago,” he said grimly. “Without my knowledge. This woman I was with wanted proof to show her friends. One of them suggested she get a little more publicity, so she posted them online.”

He sounded embarrassed and mad and frustrated. Lori wanted to believe he wasn’t to blame, but it was difficult. “How have you been living your life?” she asked. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen to normal people. The pictures, the reporter. You need to get your act together.”

“I’m trying. But stuff like this makes it impossible. I even got a court order that the pictures be removed from the Web site. But they’re still showing up on other sites. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You feel okay now?”

The change of topic caught her off guard. “Yes. I have to eat something.”

“To maintain a higher blood sugar?”

She nodded. “Chocolate would be best. Preferably from Seattle Chocolates.”

“You’re kidding. That can’t be good for you.”

“It’s not.” Like him. “But it’s my fantasy and I can have it if I want to.”

He shook his head and muttered something under his breath. “Okay. Let’s see what real food we’ve got.”

He opened the refrigerator again and began pulling out ingredients. Shredded cheese, some cooked chicken, salsa and large flour tortillas. Food she didn’t remember being in there before.

“Did you go to the grocery store?” she asked.

“I went online and they delivered. There wasn’t anything in this kitchen.”

At least the Internet was good for something, she thought. “Gloria’s meals are delivered fully cooked. I bring in my own stuff.”

He shrugged and dug around for a large frying pan. “Now we have real food.”

“What are you doing?”

“Making you a quesadilla.”

She wasn’t sure which shocked her more—that he knew how, or that he was making one for her. “You can cook?”

“I have a few specialties. I’m very multitalented.”

“I brought my lunch.”

He glanced at her. “No, that’s not it. Let me think. Oh, yeah. How about ‘Reid, thanks so much for making me food and saving me from death.’”

She smiled reluctantly. “You have a well-developed sense of the dramatic.”

“I’m used to being adored.”

She was sure of that. Although some of his fans had turned against him.

She wondered what it would be like to be so much in the public eye, then decided it couldn’t be a good thing. Complicating an already difficult situation was the fact that Reid had a real habit of making lousy choices when it came to women.

As he heated the pan and assembled the quesadilla, he asked, “How’s it going with Gloria?”

“Great. She’s making progress.”

“She’s a challenge,” he told her. “You can say it.”

“Not even under threat of torture.”

He raised his eyebrows. “So I was right. Admit it.”

“I won’t. I still believe her family helped make her the way she is. She’s alone and lonely.”

“She’s crabby, difficult and mean.”

“She’s not mean. Not to me.”

“You don’t know her well enough,” Reid said as he slid the folded tortilla onto the hot pan.

Lori set down her empty glass and tried to find something to look at other than the man at the stove. If she didn’t distract herself, she was afraid she’d start drooling.