Read Online Echoes by Laura K. Curtis - Free Book Online

water’s edge, letting the tiny waves lap over her feet, occasionally glancing back to judge her distance from the Paradis, until she considered herself positioned in much the same spot where her mother stood in the mystery photograph.
    She plunked herself down on the sand and drew her knees up beneath her chin. What had Sharon Pearson been thinking that day? Callie didn’t have much experience with children, but if she’d had to choose an adjective to describe the baby in her mother’s arms, she would have chosen “new.” Tiny, wrinkled fingers grasped the edge of the blanket wrapping her, and her face, equally wrinkled, was blotchy and red. A dozen times, Callie had tried to see herself in that baby. A dozen times, she had failed.
    â€œI’d expect you to be asleep.”
    Callie’s heart stuttered and her muscles froze before she recognized the honeyed drawl with its sandpaper edge.
    â€œI needed to unwind. I didn’t realize having my things stolen had affected me so much.”
    Uninvited, Mac settled beside her, close enough that the heat radiating off his body caressed her skin. “You handled it well. Better, as John mentioned, than most of our guests would.”
    Distracted by his nearness, it took her a minute to interpret the comment. “Is there a question in there somewhere, Mr. Brody?”
    â€œMac. And, yeah, it occurred to me you might have expected something similar, and it might not have come as such a surprise.”
    â€œI assure you, I expected nothing of the kind. If, as you claim, my shock didn’t show, it’s because I’m a tad less sheltered than your standard clientele.”
    â€œYou’re not exactly poverty-stricken.”
    She should have realized he’d pry into her background, but the sense of violation the simple comment engendered was as strong as that from the burglary. Her response sounded stilted and prudish, but she couldn’t soften it.
    â€œI’ve lived all over the world, including places where money attracts undesirable attention.”
    â€œYou traveled with your father?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAccording to the press, he was a businessman.” Another question couched as a statement. It seemed Brody’s preferred method of interrogation. She would go with it, at least for the moment. Nothing about her father’s life could hurt her, and perhaps talking about him might spark hitherto hidden memories.
    â€œHalf businessman. The other half diplomat.”
    â€œDiplomat.” The word rolled across Mac’s tongue. “Another word for ‘spy’?”
    Callie laughed, her first spontaneous outburst since her arrival. “For a while, in my early teens, I imagined him as James Bond. But no, he wasn’t some undercover hero. I meant ‘diplomat’ in the most literal sense. Let’s say you owned a big corporation”—Mac snorted—“and you wanted to open an overseas branch. You’d hire my father and he’d go first to find all the contacts you’d need. He’d pave the way with individuals and government entities, find you security personnel, work on community relations, and clean up messes your predecessors might have left behind. Sometimes, the trips we took were short. Not much in Europe, for example, took very long to arrange. A couple of months here, a couple of months there. But we spent a year in Greece when one of his employers got tangled up with some unsavory types, and two in Indonesia while he tried to mediate between various factions in and out of government.”
    â€œSounds like quite a life for a child.”
    â€œIt was. And it prepared me for upheavals, for things like having my belongings taken.” Wow. She’d just revealed more about her childhood to Mac than she had to anyone else in the ten years since she’d moved out of her father’s house. Time to turn the tables.
    â€œAnd you? Where did you grow