The Right Thing Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Other books by this author

  Connect with me online

  The Right Thing

  by

  Donna McDonald

  * * * * *

  Copyright 2011 by Donna McDonald

  Cover by Dara England

  Edited by Toby Minton

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

  This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

  *** *** ***

  Acknowledgements

  I was sitting inside a local cafe one afternoon when I saw an older man ride up on a bicycle and take a package to the shipping store next door. When he came back, I remember admiring how physically fit he seemed, automatically crediting the bicycle which he hopped back on and zoomed away. He never noticed me, but I ended up drafting a three page rough outline of this book before I left. Sometimes stories just come and their birth in my creative mind is still a mystery to me.

  The man I saw reminded me of my grandfather who rode a bicycle until he was in his eighties. My grandfather also had a lady friend he used to visit a couple weekends a month until his eyesight failed and he couldn’t pass his driver’s license test. When my grandfather went to see his lady friend, he would put on his best clothes and a cardigan sweater Mr. Rogers and his whole neighborhood would have envied. My grandfather called his visits “courting”.

  Looking back on the situation from my advanced age of fifty plus now, I believe “courting” was my grandfather’s euphemism for sex because he came home from those visits smiling and tired. He never remarried after my grandmother died. He never shared his reasons, but looking back I can see that our complicated family structure might not have supported a second marriage for him well. Whatever the nature of his relationship to women in later life, I have a sense that my grandfather did what suited him best. Looking back on it, I hope my grandfather’s “courting” made him as happy as it does my character Gerald which he helped inspire for this novel.

  Chapter 1

  The last thing fraud investigator Morgan Reed expected to be doing during his recuperation from a gunshot wound was investigating his own father. But he had no choice. A mysterious seven-hundred-dollar cash withdrawal every month for the last nine was not chump change for a seventy-two-year-old man on a fixed income. Retirement and Social Security only went so far, and Morgan well knew Sedona, Arizona, was not a cheap place to live.

  He was now in his fourth day of surveillance, which included following his father around to see what kind of life the man he’d lost touch with over the last few years really lived.

  Using the small field binoculars he’d purchased at a pawn shop yesterday, Morgan watched his father coast his ten-speed mountain bike to a full stop before hopping off in front of a restaurant. His father seemed impervious to the Sedona heat, despite the fifteen block ride he’d just completed.

  Morgan had the air conditioning in his rented SUV cranked down low enough to make icicles, and still felt like he was struggling for every breath. How his father handled the intense heat was a mystery to him.

  Wiggling his injured leg to keep it from going to sleep on him as he squirmed uncomfortably in the seat, Morgan watched a woman open and hold the restaurant door for his father.

  He lifted his surveillance camera with its telescopic lens and zoomed in for a closer look. He’d originally brought the camera intending to use it for pictures of Sedona’s amazing red rocks. Instead he had been busy collecting pictures of his father and the multiple women he courted.

  When Morgan snapped the picture, his father’s hands were gently holding the woman’s face.

  So far the women in his father’s life had been his age or somewhere close to it. The restaurant woman definitely looked much younger. In fact, Morgan would have guessed the woman to be closer in age to his own forty-four years. While his father certainly maintained his level of fitness, and looked at least ten years younger than his real age, Gerald Reed was still a good deal older than the woman.

  Morgan almost dropped the camera in astonishment as his father kissed her soundly on the mouth while she laughed at his actions. After his father released her, the woman yanked him inside, smacking him lightly on the back of the head as he walked by her.

  “Damn, Dad. You big flirt,” Morgan said aloud, his voice barely louder than the roaring fan blowing cool air at his heated face.

  He absolutely didn’t want to think about how jealous he was of his father’s easy familiarity with what appeared to be a damn good-looking woman by his own standards. Morgan had no idea what it was like to kiss a woman with the ease his father just did. Truthfully, he hadn’t realized how devoid his life was of real companionship until he’d spent two months alone in Las Vegas recuperating from a gunshot wound.

  None of the women he slept with over the last couple of years had even bothered with a phone call to see how he was faring after his release from the hospital. Apparently, his value as a male was nil when gratuitous sex was out of the question. It had taken the shock of that knowledge for Morgan to see that he wasn’t even friends with any of them.

  In fact, it was hard not to be jealous of his father in every way.

  He had watched the man who raised him move from woman to woman in the last few days as if the entire older female population of Sedona existed only for his enjoyment. It was damned humbling to discover how romantically active the old man was compared to the inactivity of Mason’s own love life.

  His father visited one woman in the nursing home, closing the door of her room and hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign out for an hour. This was the first stop every day. Morgan couldn’t get access to that room without raising suspicions, but it was obvious from what he did see through binoculars and a discreet walk-by, that his father was a regular and well-known visitor.

  Another woman he visited was in the hospital. His father had charmed all the nurses as well as her. Dressed as a janitor with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes, Morgan hadn’t drawn too much attention pretending to sweep the hall outside the room as he watched his father holding the woman’s hand.

  Then there was the afternoon woman his father had sex with twice in the same week, or at least it had been twice already in the three previous days Morgan had followed him. It was just lunchtime now, but hell, if his father went back to see her for sex again today, Morgan would for sure feel the urge to laugh at his own single life. He was lucky to have a bed partner a couple times a month, and even then it wasn’t for all
night.

  It had been almost scarring the first time to watch his father practically ravish the woman against her front door when he left. Morgan had ended up having to look away from what they were doing when his father’s hands got too busy exploring. But he hadn’t missed seeing the way the woman watched his father leave with an adoring expression on her face.

  Truthfully, Morgan was just guessing they had sex. God only knew what they really did alone together at their age, but Morgan didn’t doubt his father was proficient at it—whatever the hell it was.

  And now his father was openly kissing yet another much younger woman that Morgan might even have considered dating himself, if he had been looking for a date in this town. Morgan laughed at irony as he picked up his cell phone, connected the camera to it, and downloaded the pictures onto the memory card.

  Damn horny old coot, Morgan thought sourly, even as he smiled in pride. Evidently, his father had trouble keeping it in his pants nowadays, which was quite a change from the man who wouldn’t date at all for years after Morgan’s mother had died in her early sixties.

  Part of Morgan was glad that his father was having a final go at being cavalier. He could only hope his own senior years would see that much action, but it wasn’t likely.

  His work tended to make serious drinking followed by a quick bedroom tussle for relief more of a priority than any kind of long-term, more friendly relationship. Sadly, Morgan hadn’t even felt the rut of his love life until work hadn’t been a distraction for him anymore. Two months of total bed rest had forced an introspection that had sent him running to Sedona for the remaining four months of his six-month medical leave. There was nothing much for him in Las Vegas other than a job that had might have killed him if the guy’s aim had been better.

  Morgan looked at the clock in the dash of the SUV and wondered how long his father would be in the restaurant. While he waited, Morgan decided to run a scan on the business. It didn’t take long to find the chamber of commerce site and the listing. The site listed the restaurant as belonging to Angus Carmichael. He bookmarked the link and saved it too.

  Inspired by the phone call for his father about the cash receipt innocently left at the bank, it hadn’t even sunk in that there was a problem, despite the amount. It had never crossed Morgan’s mind to question what his father was doing with the money at the time. Morgan had just created the online login to the bank account, originally intending to teach his father how to check his account balance and pay bills without riding his bike all those blocks to the bank every other day. The last thing Morgan had expected to see in his father’s bank account was the regular withdrawal of a large sum of cash for a period of several months now. It was a serious drain of cash that left his father very close to the end of his income every month.

  In his line of work, Morgan had seen people spend money on just about everything imaginable and seen them rationalize lots of unconscionable activities. Not that Morgan had found any signs of high living or expensive hobbies in his father’s life.

  There were no drugs, no gambling, and no prostitutes, a fact not surprising because the man obviously didn’t need any more women.

  There weren’t even any reasonable hobbies other than the expensive mountain bike which Morgan had bought for him years ago. In fact, when it came right down to the bare bones facts, there was not much of anything in his father’s life except the women.

  When Morgan had tried to gently ask his father some questions, telling him about the forgotten receipt, his father had side-stepped the discussion neatly by saying it was a one-time instance. Even if Morgan hadn’t seen the record of the withdrawals, he would still have known the statement was a lie the minute his father said the words. Being a walking bullshit detector was just one of the many side effects of investigating liars for a living.

  Morgan could pretty much recognize a lie no matter who said it.

  What he had learned over fifteen years was that everyone lied every day, but some people just lied about bigger things. In his father’s case, Morgan understood that the seven hundred dollars going out of his account every month was equivalent to someone in a business embezzling thirty percent of the profits. Giving up thirty percent of your income every month was not something you did without a damn good reason.

  So here Morgan was, spending the first extended time off he’d had in years tailing his elderly father and wondering which of the women was bilking his old man for the cash. One of them had to be behind it. That was the only possible explanation.

  Having looked into all the other women this week, especially the one his father appeared to be sexually involved with, he found nothing of concern. But Morgan’s instincts were singing about the restaurant woman.

  While she hadn’t readily returned his father’s passionate kiss, she had pulled him inside and hugged him tightly. It was obvious they were on some sort of intimate terms.

  She also hadn’t been as easy to research as the others. An accountant kept her records both for the business and her personal life. Anything he might have done would have alerted her to the fact she was being investigated, and Morgan didn’t want to alert her just yet. She might complain to his father, and then his cover would be completely blown before he could find out the truth.

  To figure out what was going on with her, Morgan was going to have to get a whole lot closer and do some more discreet in-depth digging. The thought of getting closer to her wasn’t as distasteful as it normally was when Morgan had to act interested to gain access to a person’s life.

  One thing was for certain though, if she turned out to be the one receiving the cash, then Morgan was going to front up with her and make her give all the money back. Then after that was settled to his satisfaction, Morgan would decide if charges needed to be pressed against her for scamming his elderly father.

  Chapter 2

  “If you keep kissing me that way, I’m definitely going to be ruined for all other men,” Thea Carmichael said when Gerald Reed finally let her go. She was startled as always by Gerald’s lips locked to hers for a smacking kiss.

  “If you ever find a guy who wants to take my place, let me know and I’ll stop,” Gerald told her. “I’m not slipping you tongue, doll. I save that for Lydia. I’m keeping it PG-13 with you.”

  “Get in here,” Thea told him smartly, dragging him inside and tapping him on the back of his mostly bald head. “How am I supposed to get a guy to even date me when you keep kissing me in public like I belong to you? You have enough women, Gerald Reed. I refuse to be one of your harem, even if you are the most perfect man who ever walked the earth.”

  “Any guy who sees an old geezer like me as serious competition for a woman like you is definitely not worthy of you, sweetie,” Gerald told her, patting her butt.

  “Yeah, Aunt Lydia comes in here all the time talking about what an old geezer you are in bed,” Thea teased, her voice sarcastic. “She brags so much I have to run her off. I haven’t had a real man in my life in years.”

  “You’d think she’d be more discreet at her age,” Gerald said, rubbing his chin, secretly pleased that Lydia thought he was good enough to tell Thea about it.

  Lydia lit a fire in him, one that hadn’t burned so brightly in many, many years. She was the kind of woman that made a man forget his own name.

  “Until she met you, my sixty-eight-year-old aunt was the most discreet woman I’d ever known. Aunt Lydia says you rock her world and she’s too happy to hold it in,” Thea told him, leaning against the bar as Gerald climbed up on a stool.

  “You aunt is an inspiring woman,” Gerald said, leaning on the bar and looking sideways at Thea. “So is her niece.”

  Thea rolled her eyes but smiled. “If I could clone you, I would. If I didn’t love my aunt, I’d lure you away. Instead, all I can do is feed you lunch and pine away hoping for someone just like you to walk into my life.”

  “My son is in town,” Gerald said slyly. “Morgan is forty-four. Still single. Good-looking, even if he does
look like his mother more than me–God Rest Her Soul.”

  “Is his heart as good as yours? No—I know this already. You know how I know this?” Thea demanded, watching her only waitress set Gerald’s usual half sandwich and cottage cheese in front him and stand on her toes to kiss his cheek.

  Amy liked Gerald as much Thea did. In fact, Thea doubted there was a female alive who wouldn’t fall instantly in love with Gerald Reed when he used his well-practiced flirting on her.

  “I know this because if your son was like you, he would be snapped up already with his own version of Lydia glaring me down if I even so much as looked at him. I don’t think they make men like you anymore,” Thea said, smiling at him.

  “Okay. Maybe Morgan is a little bit of a bitter bastard. It’s that damn job of his,” Gerald said, sighing. “I didn’t raise my son to have such a hard heart. It’s a shame that he does.”

  “How is Morgan’s leg healing?” Thea asked. Morgan getting shot had been the first thing to shake the man since his wife died.

  “Morgan’s fine I guess—considering he couldn’t walk until a month ago,” Gerald said, shrugging and digging into his cottage cheese.

  He didn’t like to think of what he had felt when he’d heard Morgan had been shot. His son hadn’t even told him about the accident until he’d asked to come stay for a few months. When you get old, children cut you out of their lives, Gerald had learned. Most of the time he was okay with that. Now and again, it was a huge source of pain.