Before she could finish the sentence, his mouth was descending on hers.
She tried to keep his mouth from reaching her by pushing against his shoulders.“Don’t do that…” She moaned into his mouth.
Then her brain cells ceased to function.
When he lifted his head, they were both breathing hard.“If you keep telling me you can do things yourself, we’ll end up making love before the end of the day.”David growled and closed the car door.He took her hand and, stunned, she let him.
Making love.Immediately, the two words conjured images of their entwined bodies.The heat from his hand around hers spread lightning-quick through her bloodstream, making it difficult to breathe.
“David, d-don’t,” she stuttered.
He pulled her hand through his arm and walked in the direction of the front door.“Then accept that I want to help you.”He smiled, and lifting her hand, he kissed her fingers.“Let’s find out what really happened, and then we can get on with the rest of our lives.”
That warm feeling she kept experiencing when he was around opened up inside of her again, and she swallowed.If she wasn’t careful, this man might steal her heart.Having had her fair share of bad dates, some of which her friend Caitlin had blogged about, she’d learned that most men are only interested in their own comfort and are usually so full of themselves they hardly noticed anyone else who needed help.
But not David.It was as if he knew what she needed even before she realized it herself.But she had to remember this was a temporary thing.As he’d just said, after this, they’d be able to go on with their lives.
He was on a mission to help her, but once the puzzle had been solved, once he’d done what he’d set out to do, she’d probably only see him again at family gatherings.As a family friend.Which was a good thing.Wasn’t it?
They’d reached the front door and David knocked.
*
Half an hourlater David drove them away from the big house.Dana was silent.He glanced at her.He was learning to read her body language.
When she became quiet, like she was at the moment, she was trying to sort things out in her head.
“He was very friendly,” David said.
She turned her head in his direction.“Very.”
“But…” they said simultaneously.
Dana smiled.“Yeah, but… His smile never wavered, but he was a bit vague, don’t you think?He never answered a direct question.”
David nodded.“I agree.For one, he never answered your question about whether he knew for sure if your dad was also selling Hastings’s product.I wonder why.”
“Plus, I still don’t know what his part in the whole thing was.He managed to evade all questions about that.”
“Well, he definitely marketed the product and received commissions.But it’s obvious he’s never spent any time in jail.The guy we’re going to see in Caledon, Toby Johnson, went to jail for a year.There were several articles about him, but I couldn’t find anything else on Sam.And he evaded all our questions about that.”
Dana fell silent for a few minutes.“He has a big house,” she remarked.
“It would be easy enough to find out when he bought it and what the price was,” David said.
“You could do that?”
David smiled.“Finding things out was my job for about ten years, remember.I was an investigative reporter; I investigated.”
Dana became quiet again, and David turned onto the N2 toward Caledon.This part of the Western Cape was known as the Overberg, literally meaning over the mountain.In front of them lay the beautiful countryside.Nowadays kilometers of vineyards could be found alongside the highway, but the region was mostly known for producing wheat.
It was a beautiful summer day, and although talking to these people was not something he wanted to be doing, driving through this part of the country with Dana next to him was quite something.
“So, why didn’t you finish your story two years ago?I mean, I know you were angry with the editor, but didn’t you want to know how the whole thing ended?That is, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“No, it’s fine.It’s not as if I haven’t asked myself the same question, you know?But I was so ticked off, had been for a while actually, and this story was just the final straw.It was also around that time Don asked us if we wanted to join his business.For me it was a no-brainer.Although I loved the reporting bit, the politics wasn’t for me.The paper I was working for was also moving in a direction I wasn’t comfortable with.Yes, I believe the public has a right to know, but it was relying more and more on a sensational kind of reporting, wanting us to draw conclusions, and as far as I’m concerned that wasn’t my job.My job was to report facts.That’s why I was so angry.I very specifically told the editor I was still checking facts, but he wanted to sell newspapers and ran with the story.So I simply walked away, turning my back on everything.”
“So, why do you want to get involved again?”
