“No, he wouldn’t take a dime.” Recalling other duties, Rose opened the oven to check on her meat loaf. “He said Stan and I should send what we thought we could afford to one of the homeless shelters.”

“I see.”

“And he said he was going to think about following up on the case.”

“The case?”

“He said … something like it wasn’t right for babies to be stolen out of cribs and sold off like puppies. That there were some lines you couldn’t cross.”

“Yes, there are.” Mel snatched up her bag. “I have to go, Rose.”

Surprised, Rose shut the oven door. “Can’t you stay for dinner?”

“I really can’t.” She hesitated, then did something she rarely did, something she wished she could do with more ease. She kissed Rose’s cheek. “There’s something I have to take care of.”

*  *  *

She supposed she should have done it before. But they’d been back in Monterey for only a couple of days. Mel skimmed through a low-lying cloud on her way up the mountain. It wasn’t as if he’d gone out of his way to come and see her, she thought. He’d gone by Rose’s apartment, but he hadn’t driven a few more blocks to hers.

Obviously he hadn’t meant any of that nonsense he’d been spouting about finding her attractive, about wanting her. All that stuff about her eyes and her hair and her skin. Mel drummed her fingers on the gearshift. If he’d meant any of it, he’d have made a move by now. She wished he had. How could she decide if she would block it or not if he didn’t bother to make a move?

So she’d beard the wolf in his den. There were obligations to fulfill, statements to be made, and questions to be answered.

Certain she was ready for all of that, Mel turned into Sebastian’s bumpy lane. Halfway up she hit the brakes as a horse and rider leapt in front of her. The black stallion and the dark man on his back bounded across the gravel track in a flash of muscle and speed. At the sight of the gleaming horse and the golden-skinned man with his ebony hair flying in the wind, she was tossed back centuries to when there were dragons to be slain and magic sung in the air.

Mel sat openmouthed as they thundered up the rocky slope, through a pocket of mist and back into the stream of sun. No centaur had ever looked more magnificent.

As the echoes of hoofbeats died away, she nudged her car up the lane. This was reality, she reminded herself. The engine groaned and complained at the incline, coughed, sputtered, then finally crept its way up to the house.