Haunting Rachel by Kay Hooper

a little hesitant.
    “Oh? Who is he?”
    “He says his name is Delafield, Miss Rachel. Adam Delafield. He says.”
    Rachel frowned at the housekeeper. “Did he say what it was about?”
    “Something about your father, he said.”
    “All right. Show him in.” Since her parents had died, she had been getting calls and visits from people they had known, and in particular from people who had been helped in some way by her father.
    “Miss Rachel—” Fiona hesitated, then turned away, muttering something under her breath. And crossing herself.
    So Rachel probably should have expected her visitor to present something of a shock. But she didn’t. And when the blond man walked into the room a few moments later, she could only stare at him in astonishment.
    “Hello,” he said, his voice low and curiously compelling. “I’m Adam Delafield. It’s nice to finally meet you, Rachel.”
    His eyes were definitely blue.
    He was tall and athletic in appearance, with wide shoulders and an easy way of moving that spoke of an active life. His lean face wore a tan that had obviously come from time spent outdoors over the years. He was dressed casually in dark slacks and a black leather jacket worn over an open-necked white shirt, and looked perfectly at ease.
    He also looked, amazingly, incredibly, heartbreakingly, like Thomas.
    Of all the questions swirling around in Rachel’s mind, the first one to find voice was “Who are you?”
    He smiled slightly. “I just told you.”
    She got up and went toward him, stopping when she could rest her hands on the back of a chair, keeping it between them as a barrier. “You told me your name. But
who are you?
Why have you been watching me? Why did you leave the accident and—and come to my hospitalroom, and how do you know my name?”
And how is it that you look so much like him?
    “Lot of questions.” His smile remained. “Can we sit down while I try to answer them?”
    Rachel hesitated, then gestured for him to sit on the sofa while she chose the chair across from it. She couldn’t take her eyes off his face, and even as he began speaking in a voice that was—surely it was!—eerily like Thomas’s, she realized that he was not as at ease as he appeared. There was tension in him; she could feel it. And those blue eyes held a muted intensity that stirred a new and wordless uneasiness in her.
    “My name, as I said, is Adam Delafield.” He spoke slowly, consideringly, and his gaze was intent on her. “And the simple answer to all your questions is that I knew your father.”
    “How did you know him?”
    “He invested money in a … project of mine.”
    Rachel frowned, trying to take in what he was saying, to separate his words from the overwhelming confusion of his looks. “I don’t recall seeing your name on any of Dad’s financial records.”
    “No, you wouldn’t have. The investment wasn’t through the bank. He used personal money and there were no records of the transaction.”
    Her frown deepened. “I know Dad occasionally invested his own money in ventures he considered too risky for the bank, but no records? A handshake deal? How could he report his profits or losses if there was no paperwork?”
    “In my case, he didn’t expect either profit or loss. The deal was simple, a turnaround of the money. He invested a considerable sum, which I was to repay within ten years.”
    “Interest free? That sounds like a loan rather than an investment. And a pretty good deal for you.”
    Adam Delafield nodded. “An excellent deal for me. But he called it an investment because he was sure we would do business together in the future. That was a little more than five years ago. I expect to be in a position to pay off the … loan—within the next six months.”
    “And that’s why you showed up here? Why you watched me from a distance for days?”
    “You make me sound like a stalker.” His voice was light, but that intensity lingered and lent the words shadows. He sighed.