Heart of Gold - By Tami Hoag Page 0,2

daughter, Faith breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I have to get the door, sweetie.”

Lindy had already lost interest in the conversation. She was all wrapped up in putting her doll to bed in the little toy cradle Mr. Fitz had found for her in one of the attics. Faith started for the front of the house, trying to determine which of the doorbells was ringing.

The house she had purchased to renovate and open as a bed-and-breakfast inn was actually a complex of several houses. The builder, an eccentric sea captain named Argyle Dugan, had added one house onto another over the years as his fortune from his shipping business had increased. The end result after fifty-some years of work was an architectural monstrosity.

The main building was a three-story Victorian mansion, complete with a widow’s walk. The front side of the house was graced with a large porch and ornately carved double doors flanked by etched glass panels. These were the doors Faith went toward, following the impatient sound of the bell.

Who could be in such an all-fired hurry, she wondered. It had to be a tourist. No one from Anastasia would be that anxious about anything. She swung back one of the heavy doors, and everything inside her went still.

Elegance was the first word that came to her mind. The man standing on her porch seemed to radiate it. Odd, she thought, because he wasn’t dressed in formal attire. He wore black trousers and a dark gray shirt with a black tie. His long gray raincoat hung open, the collar turned up against the brisk wind coming in off the ocean. Still, as he stood there in the late afternoon gloom, with the fog bank for a backdrop, there was a sense of elegance about him. Elegance and danger.

Faith’s gaze darted nervously to the suitcase on the floor of the porch, then back up a good six feet to the man’s face. He was handsome. No one could have argued that fact. His was a lean, angular face with high cheekbones, a bold straight nose, and pale gray eyes that stared down at her with wary disdain. There was something of the arrogant aristocrat in his looks, and something that wasn’t quite civilized in his cool silver eyes. The wind ruffled his night black hair, which was cut short on the sides—for practicality rather than fashion, she guessed.

He looked like a no-nonsense sort. A no-nonsense sort with no sense of humor.

“I’m sorry,” Faith said at last, a thin nervous tremor in her voice. The fingers of her right hand automatically went to the necklace at her throat, sliding the heart medallion back and forth. “We won’t be open for business for a few more days. I can give you directions to—”

“Are you Faith Gerrard?” His low voice made her think of whiskey and smoke and rumpled sheets.

“Kincaid,” she corrected him, swallowing hard. Heaven help her, the man had a bedroom voice. Tingles raced over her skin like hedonistic fingers. She felt as if his voice had reached out and touched her intimately. Knock it off, Faith, she told herself, this is no time to fall into a romantic fantasy. “Umm—Faith Kincaid. Yes, I am.”

He reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and extracted what looked to Faith like a wallet, but when he flipped it open, there was a gold shield inside, as well as an identification card. His photograph frowned out at her with the kind of brooding quality that made GQ models rich.

“Shane Callan. The Justice Department sent me.”

“Ah.” Faith nodded, one hand gripping the door for support as her knees quivered. In spite of his heart-stopping looks, she should have recognized the glower. The people she had encountered in her dealings with the Justice Department had all been similarly humorless. With good reason, she supposed. Well, Mr. Callan’s humor wasn’t likely to improve when he heard what she had to say.

Outwardly she appeared calm and collected. She even managed a perfectly pleasant smile. She had learned that kind of control as a tool of self-preservation during her marriage to Senator William Gerrard. In truth her heart was racing and her hands were clammy. Just do it, Faith, she told herself as nerves scrambled around inside her stomach like crabs on the beach.

“I told Mr. Banks it wasn’t necessary to send you.” The words came tumbling out of her mouth, defying punctuation. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, Mr. Callan. You’ll find a