The moment his partner’s funeral had ended, her office phone had rung continually, forcing Kristin to allow the answering service to start picking up the calls. Sarah had surmised that his siblings had let his fellow officers in Los Angeles know where Dante Sinclair was going and who was going to be taking over his care. Call after call had come in to her office from the people of Los Angeles, everyone from his siblings to his poker buddies begging her to help Dante get back to normal again. Many of them had offered to do anything to help him. Certainly, Los Angeles had a lot of cops, but Sarah had never seen anything similar to the outpouring of concern for Dante Sinclair. Many of them had even offered money to help him if he needed it, mostly the individuals who probably didn’t think about the fact that he was injured in the line of duty and all of his medical expenses were completely covered. But it was pretty clear that not one of the people who called—except his siblings—knew that Dante was, along with his four other siblings, probably one of the richest people on the planet. The sorrow of these callers had been genuine, leaving Sarah to think that Dante Sinclair must have been one hell of a guy before this incident.
Pulling her car up to the gated entrance to the peninsula, she waited as the automatic gate swung open, allowing her to enter the Sinclair domain. The entire projecting mass of land beyond this gate belonged to the Sinclair family, and it was one prime piece of real estate. Sarah had always wanted to explore it but had never had a reason to enter the area . . . until now. Emily lived in a house near the end of the peninsula with Grady, but she’d always met up with her friend in town because it was easier.
A crack of thunder startled Sarah, and she looked dubiously at the dark clouds moving in as she pulled into the first driveway on the right. As she approached the house, she couldn’t help but gape as she parked her car distractedly, barely registering the fact that the short, private road to Dante Sinclair’s residence had opened up to a driveway large enough to park a whole fleet of vehicles.
The house was enormous, and built in the Cape Cod style, just like her small residence outside of town. But this home was no cozy cottage, the square footage probably at least ten times what she had in her own house.
“Who has a house this big and never uses it?” she mumbled to herself, her vision obscured as the rain began to fall, large droplets plopping onto her windshield faster and faster.
Grabbing her purse, Sarah opened the car door and made a mad dash for the front entrance. She knocked and then rang the doorbell, feeling a little anxious. While she was just fine in the office with patients, she was socially awkward in nonprofessional situations, probably a result of being accelerated so fast in school. She’d never had real friends until she’d made her move to Amesport, and most of the students she’d gone to school with had either thought she was a geek—which she actually was—or were too old to try to make friends with her because they didn’t have much in common.
Socially, things just popped out of her mouth as she thought about them. Most of her comments were probably incredibly boring to the majority of people on the planet unless they really wanted to know every scientific detail of the universe. Or any of the other millions of facts that stuck in her head, no matter how long ago she’d studied or read about them. She seemed to retain information like a computer with an unlimited amount of storage space.
Maybe she was getting used to making small talk since she’d come to Amesport, but she struggled with everyday conversations with people she didn’t know very well.
He’s still a patient. I’m just seeing him in his own home. A patient is a patient, no matter where I’m seeing him. We’ll talk about his medical condition, what he can do to speed up his recovery, and that’s it. He’s injured. He isn’t going to expect or want social conversation.
Sarah ran her hands up and down her arms, wishing he would answer the door. The porch had an awning, but the wind was so brutal that she was still being drenched with a mist of rain.
He had to be home. She was here at exactly the time that had been requested to do her initial assessment, and Dante Sinclair wasn’t exactly in any condition to be anywhere except home. She reached for the ornate latch on the door and pressed her thumb down, finding it unlocked. With a small exertion of pressure on the door, she found herself standing in the massive foyer of the house.
I can’t just stroll into his home!
But apparently, she could—and just had. Maybe she shouldn’t have, but what if he was hurt, what if he needed help?
“Mr. Sinclair,” she called hesitantly but clearly. Her voice echoed through the cavernous great room in front of her. She called louder and firmer, shedding her wet sandals at the door and starting to move through the house. Her fear for his safety was beginning to overrule her misgivings about intruding into his home. A short while later, after searching the entire house, Sarah was still unable to find her patient.
Sarah was about to give up and call his brother Grady when she heard a loud crash near the kitchen. She found a closed door that she’d assumed was a closet and opened it, realizing that it was actually the basement. She flew down the stairs and stopped dead at the bottom of the steps, watching as a massive male figure lifted what looked like an extraordinarily heavy pair of dumbbells over his head again and again in shoulder presses.
There was no doubt in her mind that she was watching Dante Sinclair.
He hadn’t heard her because he was wearing a pair of headphones, the heavy metal music blasting so loudly that she could hear it from the bottom of the stairs.