Topaz Dreams Read Online Free Page B

learning ballet and tap, she was learning the
disciplines of tae kwon do and jujitsu. By the time Lou and her father
had left the Bureau to open their own agency, Steve had a B.S. in
criminology and was headed for law school at Georgetown, because that
was the way her old man had done it.
Occasionally she had felt a
touch of envy for the pretty, popular sorority girls, but she had
accepted the fact that she was a brainy Plain Jane, with her straight,
short-cropped brown hair, dark hazel eyes, and freckles on her ordinary
nose. At any rate she had been too busy studying and turning her firmly
muscled body into a weapon to be bothered about a few silly school
dances. The irony was that she almost fit in now that it was the style
to have a hard body and a boy's haircut.
In her last year at
Georgetown, Vinnie Barbanell had turned her quiet life around.
Inexperienced as she was, he had easily dazzled her with his footwork
and passionate kisses. Steve had been so overwhelmed that such a
handsome young man wanted to marry her that she hadn't really listened
to his reasons for choosing her. She had agreed to remain in Virginia
with him and to put off her career until they started their family.
Thank God she had retained enough sense to finish school before
succumbing completely to his charm.
Though he had never admitted it,
her father was terribly disappointed when she had not returned to San
Francisco to take her place in the Dokes-O'Hara Agency. But Steve had
never stopped trying to reassure him that all their plans were not
forgotten, only postponed, until she gave Vinnie the family he wanted
so badly. Her husband had promised they would move west in a few more
years.
Steve had never had the chance to back up her promises and to
set things right between her and her father. The man she had always
considered invincible died in a car accident during a high-speed chase
one month after her second child was born.
A second devastating blow
had followed immediately after the first Each time Steve had tried to
talk to Vinnie about beginning her career it had ended in a screaming
battle. During one of their fights he had stated that no wife of his
was going to work outside the home and leave his children with
strangers, and especially not at a job where she would endanger her
life. Steve had then realized that he had married her assuming that she
would be so grateful to him she would always remain a dutiful wife.
Well, she had certainly been the perfect candidate—shy, plain, and a
virgin, with a healthy body that would bear the brood of children he
had anticipated having.
By the time their son was six months old,
Vinnie had found someone who understood him better than his
disagreeable wife. He had even managed to forget that he was the father
of two small children. The divorce had been ugly, but Steve had
survived—fawner baby, Vince, Jr., his two-year-old sister, Mary Ann,
and the promise she had made to her father.
Three and a half years had passed since then. Sometimes it felt like a lifetime, sometimes like it was only yesterday.
Lou
finally wound up his tale. "Michael Ohara was one of the best there
ever was, and don't you forget it, little girl." He paused a moment and
rubbed his eyelids with his forefinger and thumb, as if it was a strain
to remember that the child who had worshipped him and her father was
now a thirty-three-year-old woman and his business partner.
"Listen,
Steve, you don't have to prove anything anymore. No one doubts that
you're a good investigator, and we all know you can hold your own in a
bad situation. Hell, you probably could without all that karate shit.
But if you keep up the cowboy, or perhaps the correct term is
cowperson, routine, your luck is bound to run out one of these days
just like your dad's did. You have got to put a leash on that Irish
temper of yours. I know you've got a good brain. Use it! No more stupid
heroics. Got it?"
Steve's suspicious nature came alert She had
expected at least another