Earth Angel Read Free Page A

heat …” Her voice trailed away, and she began to claw frantically around the items in the boxes. “It’s not here!”
    “What’s not here?” he asked, watching as she literally tossed things onto the BMW’s hood.
    “The codicil!” she exclaimed, then froze. “Never mind.”
    He stared at her. “Codicil? What codicil? What are you talking about, Catherine?”
    Her jaw squared stubbornly, then she made a face and sighed. “My grandfather’s codicil to his will.”
    “Allan had a codicil?”
    “Yes.”
    “But why don’t the lawyers have it? The will was read months ago.”
    She glared at him. “I know that, and I don’t know why the lawyers don’t have it. He must have put it aside or something, meaning to file it with his own people—”
    “How do you even know there is one?” he asked dubiously.
    “Because
your
grandmother’s seen it,” she said, smiling sweetly.
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really. My grandfather had a huge parcel of land in Utah he wanted preserved. He didn’t put it into trust. If I don’t find the codicil, it will be strip-mined.”
    “Yes, I know,” Miles said, remembering the original plans from several years ago. “But Allan wanted that—”
    “No, he didn’t,” Catherine said vehemently. “The family knows he wanted that land to become a preserve, but they refuse to do it because it wasn’t specified in the will. Wagner Oil wiped out an entire species of sea turtles in that Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Remember the headlines? Not to mention what it did to hundreds of miles of breeding beds and beaches. The destruction changed my grandfather. He never wanted to see such a thing happen again.”
    “I remember the spill very well,” Miles said. “Allan insisted Wagner Oil pay for the entire cleanup. It cost the corporation tens of millions of dollars that year.”
    She suddenly went very still, and he frowned at the abrupt chill in the air. “Catherine?”
    “Thank you for reminding me, Miles. I hadforgotten.” She picked up the framed picture of her and her grandfather. “I’d forgotten a lot of things. And thank you for the dinner. It was delicious.”
    She walked out of the garage.
    Catherine watched for the slightest movement to indicate the guards making their rounds. They shouldn’t be, but her heart pounded fiercely with every passing second, and her fingers tightened around the bedsheets in a death grip.
    She had decided not to do this that night … until Miles had reminded her of who and what she really was. Damn him, she thought. He had given her a kiss that shook her to her toes, then he’d calmly talked about millions of dollars in losses. She had thought for one moment of kindness that he had changed. Now she knew better. Miles Kitteridge would always care about the almighty dollar before anything else. He certainly hadn’t cared about a commitment she’d made to another man. He’d thought it a joke then, and he thought it now.
    No integrity.
    But she would never forget that night. It had turned her life into a shambles. At the time, she’d been engaged to a man she’d met at law school. After graduation they decided to open a legal aid office for the disadvantaged. Of course, they’d need her money to finance it, but it would be a partnership. He passed the bar exam the first time, but she flunked twice. The next exam was just three weeks before the wedding. The pressure had been tremendous, and not wanting to overstudy the night before the exam, she went to a friend’s party.
    Miles had cornered her there. He had touched her hair, her cheek, her shoulder, keeping only a scant inch of air between them in a way that enticed her unbearably. Perhaps she’d always had a bit of a crush on him, and for a few minutes she’d enjoyed the idea that he was attracted to her too. And then he’d lightly kissed her and suggested they leave together. The worst part was, she had wanted to desperately. Somehow she’d resisted, somehow she had gotten