“Dylan, I haven’t made love with anyone in over nine months,”

Lucy said.

Maybe, if he tried very hard, he could resist his own urges. But Dylan couldn’t resist her. Hadn’t the strength to turn his back on what she was offering him so willingly, not when every fiber of his body wanted her.

Not when he wanted her.

Ever since he’d walked out on her, he’d felt as if half his soul were missing. A soul he’d only found the very first time he made love with her. When she had shown him that making love was more than a matter of body coming to body. She’d shown him that there were souls involved, and feelings that transcended the physical.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Rising on her toes, her lips a scant breath away from his, she whispered, “Very sure.”

The last thread of his fraying resistance gave way….

The Once and Future Father
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Tiffany Hsiang,

For all the wonderful things you are,

and

all the wonderful things you will be

Contents

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 1

“Some guys just don’t have any luck, you know what I mean?”

The burly police detective abruptly stopped talking, a coughing fit seizing him. “I mean, this is supposed to be one of the safest cities of our size in the country, and this poor jerk gets wasted right here, in beautiful downtown Bedford.”

Separated by a four-foot-high partition, Dylan McMorrow could hear the crinkle of cellophane. Alexander, the man who was talking, was dipping into his supply of hard candy. Cellophane wrappers marked his trail in the precinct wherever he went.

“Maybe not,” Hathaway, Alexander’s partner, speculated. “The body was moved, remember?”

“Yeah, but it was found here, so that puts it in our jurisdiction.” The sound of drawers being opened and closed in quick succession floated over the partition. Alexander was always looking for something to write on. From the sound of it, he hadn’t found it. Dylan concentrated on shutting the distraction out. He had an overdue expense report to get out. “This is my first homicide. You ever handle one before?” Alexander asked Hathaway.

The other man’s laugh was tinged in disbelief. “I’m from L.A., remember?”

“Sorry.” Alexander shoved another drawer closed. “Well, at least we’ve got an ID on him. Ritchie Alvarez.”

Dylan’s long fingers froze on the keyboard. The squad room, like everything else within the Bedford Police Department’s three-story, modern building, was the last word in precision, neatness and state-of-the-art equipment. There were computers on every detective’s desk rather than a faltering, centrally located electric typewriter the way there had been at his last precinct.

But Dylan wasn’t thinking of his last precinct, or even what had brought him back here to Bedford, California, after a requested six-month loan-out.

He was thinking of a woman. A golden-skinned woman with hair the color of a sensual midnight sky, honey on her lips and laughter in her dark eyes.

Lucy.

He felt his gut tightening the way it always did when he thought of her. Dylan reminded himself to breathe. Slowly.

Alvarez was a common-enough name among those with even a marginal claim to a Spanish heritage. And as for Ritchie…

How many Ritchie Alvarezes were there in a city the size of Bedford?

Getting to his feet, Dylan looked over the partition at the two other detectives. “How do you know his name?” he asked.

Detective Marcus Alexander was startled by Dylan’s question and almost dropped his coffee mug. He steadied it at the last moment, glaring at Dylan.

“Jeez, McMorrow, don’t you know better than to sneak up on a man like that?”

There was no expression on Dylan’s face. There usually wasn’t. It made it harder for people to second-guess him that way.

“I didn’t sneak. You were standing next to my cubicle. Talking rather loudly.” Dylan’s voice, like his manner, was low, with an edge to it that warned the listener not to test him. “How do you know his name?” he asked again.

Reaching into his pocket, Alexander took out a clear plastic pouch. Inside was a single sheet of wrinkled paper.

“It’s on this bank statement. We found it crumpled up in his inside pocket.” Alexander held the pouch out for Dylan’s examination. “Killer must have missed it when he took the victim’s wallet.”

The other detective, Mick Hathaway, turned around the chair he was sitting in and looked up at Dylan, curious. “Why? You know him?”

Dylan regarded the bank statement. It was to notify one Ritchie Alvarez that his checking account was overdrawn. Again. That was Ritchie to a T, Dylan thought. He gave the evidence back to Alexander. “Might.” His eyes shifted to Hathaway, the more experienced of the two. “You have the crime scene shots on you?”

“Right here.” Brushing his jacket aside, Hathaway reached into his inside pocket. One by one he lay down on the desk the four instant photographs taken of the victim. Hathaway slanted a glance in Dylan’s direction.

“Damn,” Dylan commented.

“Then you know him?” Hathaway asked.

Dylan dragged his hand through his unruly black hair, wishing he’d been wrong. “Yeah, I know him. Knew him. The name’s right.”

“Know if he has a next of kin?” Hathaway questioned.

Dylan blew out a breath, and tried to blow back memories he didn’t want crowding him. It didn’t work. “A sister. Last I remember, he was staying at her place. Always did when he was down on his luck.”

Hathaway shook his head. “Looks like he got even more down.”

“Looks like.” Dammit, Ritchie, why weren’t you more careful with your life? Dylan wondered.

Disgusted at the waste, bright shining moments shimmering in his mind’s eye, Dylan let the photograph drop back amid the others. He fought a brief tug-of-war between his conscience and his need for self-preservation. It wasn’t much of a contest.

He looked at Alexander. “Look, I know it’s your case, and I’m not trying to horn in here, but if you need someone to break it to his sister—”

Alexander looked relieved beyond words. “Hey, be my guest. I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Belatedly, he looked at Hathaway. “Okay with you?”

Collecting the photographs, Hathaway carefully tucked them away again. “More than okay. If you want to take down her statement—”

Dylan nodded. Lucy wouldn’t have had anything to do with whatever it was that had brought Ritchie to this miserable juncture. But to say so might arouse further curiosity, and the two other men were already looking at him as if he’d just bared his soul to them. Though partnered, Dylan kept to himself most of the time, and he made a point of never saying any more than he had to. It gave the other guy too much ammunition that way.

He glanced at his watch, but he knew what time it was even without checking. He was on his own time right now. He’d come in early to finish up the expense report, but that would have to wait until he got off later. “I’m not due for my shift until another couple of hours. The sister’s statement probably won’t be much to take down.”

As Dylan began to leave, Hathaway rose to block his path. Dylan saw the questions beginning to form in the other detective’s eyes. Maybe Dylan shouldn’t have said anything, but to leave this kind of news for a stranger to break to Lucy just didn’t seem right.

“Where do you know him from?” Hathaway asked.

Dylan sidestepped the older man. “We shared a couple of classes.” It was far more than that, but he didn’t want to get into it. Into the friendship they had enjoyed and what had come after.

Surprised, Alexander called after him. “You mean he’s from around here?”

“Born and raised” was all Dylan said as he walked out the door.

He knew the way to Lucy’s place by heart.

Lucy would probably say he didn’t have a heart. Not that he could blame her. But he’d done what he’d done more for her than for him. Someday, she’d appreciate that.

Or not, he amended. Eventually, it would all be one and the same. Time would see to that. Maybe it already had, he mused. Over the last nine months, he’d purposely lost track of her, purposely stayed away from all the old haunts where he thought he might run into her.

The only place he couldn’t escape her was in his mind. But he would. Eventually.

He’d known Ritchie a number of years before he ever met the sister that Ritchie was so fond of. There had been something different about Lucy from the first moment Dylan saw her, but he’d tried not to notice, tried not to pay any more attention to her than he would any one of a number of beautiful women who passed through his life. But she’d been more, right from the start. And for a while, for eight precious months, he’d deluded himself that he could have a normal life, the kind he’d only heard about.

Part of him figured he had to be crazy, seeking Lucy out after nine months of a self-imposed moratorium. Dylan knew he wasn’t in a place where he could say he was over her. He doubted that he would ever really be over Lucinda Alvarez, but at least it had gotten to the point where she didn’t start and end each day, lingering in the perimeter of his thoughts like the deep scent of roses. He’d managed to get through whole chunks of the day without so much as thinking of her.

Or what they could have had.

If he had been someone else.

But another part of him knew he had to do this. Owed it to her for the history they had. She didn’t deserve to hear about Ritchie from either Alexander or Hathaway, good men both, but not exactly sensitive when it came to something like this.

Yeah, right, like he was Mr. Sensitivity, he silently mocked himself as he waited for the traffic light to change.

She didn’t deserve to hear the words at all, he thought impatiently, but that was life and he hadn’t written it. All he could do was try to change some of the footnotes.

Dylan realized that he was gripping the steering wheel as if he were engaged in a life-and-death struggle and loosened his fingers. He wished he could change this particular footnote. Ritchie had been a good guy. Just incredibly unlucky.

Weren’t they all? he thought.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he whispered under his breath as he turned down her street and saw the neat dove-gray-and-blue-trimmed stucco house.

So where was Ritchie, already?

Impatient, Lucy Alvarez glanced at her wristwatch, the one with the band she had yet to replace. But she was still stupidly sentimental about the watch. It had been a gift. The first gift. When there had been promise in the air.

She sighed, squelching the temptation to look out the window again. It wouldn’t make her brother appear any faster.

Ritchie probably forgot, she thought. She’d asked him to take her to the doctor just this one time, because it was so hard for her to find a comfortable position behind the steering wheel these last few weeks. Two weeks overdue, she was painfully aware of every second that went by beyond her delivery date.

He’d promised to be here.

But Ritchie’s promises were always the same—made quickly, with enthusiasm, and then forgotten. Not from any malice, but just because that was Ritchie. He had the attention span of a gnat.

Lucy nibbled on her lower lip, debating whether or not to call a cab. She didn’t want to be late for her appointment.

However, by the time the cab finally arrived, she would probably miss it altogether.

Still, if he wasn’t here… Lucy picked up the receiver and began to dial.

The sound of the doorbell ringing had her hanging up the telephone. Ritchie was here. Finally. The fact that he was ringing the doorbell instead of unlocking the door himself didn’t strike her as particularly odd. He’d probably forgotten his key. Ritchie would’ve misplaced his head if it hadn’t been attached.

Someday, he was going to drive whatever poor woman he made his wife crazy. Until then, he was hers to look after. Moving awkwardly, Lucy made her way to the front door. The doorbell rang once more.

“What’s the matter, Ritchie, lose your key again, not to mention your watch? You’re late—”

Flipping open the lock, Lucy began to launch into a lecture she knew would do no more good than any of the others she’d given him over the course of the last few years. Her tolerant smile faded as she abruptly stopped and stared at the man standing in her doorway. Her heart leaped up, and then down, lodging itself somewhere, uncomfortably, halfway in between.

For just the briefest of seconds, she thought she was hallucinating.

But she was wide awake and he was here, filling out her doorway with his dark good looks the way he had once filled out her entire life.

Dylan.

Funny how much smarter you can become in just nine months.

Her hand on the door, she kept it where it was, half opened, half closed, a barrier to keep him out. The way he had kept her out.

Pressing her lips together, she raised herself on her toes to look over his shoulder, hoping to see the broken-down car her brother drove coming up the street. But it wasn’t in sight.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Dylan. “What are you doing here? If you’re here to see Ritchie, he’s not home. I’m waiting for him myself.”

Dylan’s mind went blank as he stared at her. At the one woman who had managed to somehow get past his defenses.

She was pregnant.

Not huge, the way Hathaway’s wife had been just before she’d given birth to their twins, but Lucy was pregnant, carrying a life inside of her, there was no missing that.

She’d said she’d love him, no matter what.

This, he guessed, was “what.”

A wild, hot jealousy rippled through Dylan, born years before he had been, a seed his father had passed down to him and his father before him. For one horrid second, it felt as if that jealousy, that seed, had taken him over, changing the very world that was around him, sending it into tints of red and closing off his air.

Dylan struggled to banish the feeling the way he’d banished his father from his life.

This wasn’t why he was here. Lucy’s life was her own. He’d given it back to her when he’d withdrawn from it, leaving her alone.

Whose baby was it?

The question throbbed through his brain like a bad migraine.

“Did you hear me?” Lucy demanded, her voice rising. “I said Ritchie’s not home. He’s working. I’ll tell him you stopped by.”

Because it hurt just to look at Dylan, she began to close the door. But his hand went out, stopping her. She hadn’t the strength to oppose it.

“What?” she demanded, trying to hang on to her temper, on to the angry tears that had suddenly sprung up inside of her, demanding a release. Why was he back now, after all this time? She was just getting her life back in order. She didn’t need this. And why was he looking at her like that?

“This is about Ritchie,” Dylan said.

She turned pale right before his eyes, holding the door now not so much to block him as for support, to keep from sinking down like a balloon that had suddenly lost all its air. His hand went out to steady her, but she ignored it, stiffening with her last available ounce of dignity. The message was clear. She didn’t need him to touch her.

Lucy felt herself getting light-headed. “What about Ritchie?” she asked, holding on to the door for support.

“Lucy, let’s go inside.”

She didn’t budge. She didn’t have the strength to budge. Ritchie was her older brother, but she had always felt responsible for him. Especially after their parents had died in a train derailment the summer she turned eighteen. Ritchie was the one who could laugh, who could see the bright side of everything even when the chips were down. She was the strength that helped them go on.

She didn’t feel very strong now.

Summoning what reserves she had left, Lucy glared at Dylan. Why was he playing these games with her? Why did he have to be the one to come and tell her whatever it was he had to say?

She clenched her teeth together and repeated. “What about Ritchie?”

Dylan didn’t want to tell her this way. Not on the steps of the house where he had once held her in his arms, breathing in her scent and contemplating things he had no right to contemplate. But Lucy was making no move to let him in, standing instead like some steadfast soldier guarding the borders of her small country, refusing him access.

He tried not to think of a time when things had been different.

Dylan looked at her face. She was fiercely trying to protect herself against what she probably knew was coming. He had no idea how to couch this, how to make something that was so utterly devastating a little less so.

Without a choice, Dylan gave her the news straight and braced himself for the consequences.

“Ritchie’s dead, Lucy.”

Lucy’s breath caught. She looked into Dylan’s eyes and knew he was telling her the truth. She knew even when she wanted to scream at him that he was lying, that he was playing some sort of horrible trick on her, the way he had when he made her believe he loved her. He had never said the words, but there had been feelings between them then, feelings she would have gone to her grave swearing were true.

Except that they weren’t. At least, not for him.

But now it was Ritchie who was going to his grave.

Everything around her began to merge into one color, one huge mass. And then the world began to swim and swirl.

“No,” she mouthed just before everything went black and swallowed her up.

Dylan realized a heartbeat before it happened that she was going to faint. The golden hue of her skin had gone whiter than the snow on the mountain where they had once gone skiing. It was almost translucent.

Dylan reached her side just in time.

The swell that was her unborn child came between them. He felt something move, something kick just as he tried to gather her in his arms. The kick caught him by surprise and he almost dropped her to the floor. The sudden jolt when he caught her seemed to travel through the length of her. Dylan swallowed a curse.

He felt the baby kick again. Amid his concern, jealousy threatened to take control of him.

She’d gone on to love someone else while he had suffered in his own private hell.

A hell, a voice deep inside him whispered, of his own making, not hers.

But it had been the only choice.

He wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything now. It wasn’t any more right now than it had been then.

As gently as possible, Dylan picked her up in his arms. Shouldering his way into the living room, he placed Lucy down on the sofa. Probably the bedroom would have been a better choice, but he couldn’t bring himself to go there.

Unbuttoning the three tiny buttons at her throat, he tried to remember what a man did in a case like this. And tried not to think about the last time he’d undressed her.

He realized that his hand was shaking slightly.

Dammit, whatever might have been between them was over now. She was carrying somebody else’s baby. He glanced at her left hand. There was no ring on her third finger, but that meant nothing. She could have taken the ring off because her hand had gotten swollen.

He should have left this to Hathaway and Alexander. At least if he had, he wouldn’t have found out that Lucy was pregnant.

Cursing himself for coming and Ritchie for being stupid enough to get himself killed in the first place, Dylan hurried into the kitchen to look for something to use as a compress. He found a single kitchen towel neatly folded on a rack. He’d once marveled how she managed to keep everything so neat, given Ritchie’s penchant for creating havoc wherever he went. Grabbing the kitchen towel from the rack, he held it under running water.

Wringing the towel out, he looked around the kitchen. A sense of nostalgia permeated. As with the living room, nothing had changed in here.

Only she had.

Not his concern, he told himself tersely.

The wet towel fell from his fingers when he heard the scream. Racing back, he found her trying to sit up. There was pain etched into the planes of her face. Lucy was digging her nails into the upper portion of the sofa, whether to try to drag herself up or to try to get away from pain, he didn’t know.

“What’s the matter?” The question came out far more sharply than he’d intended.

“The baby.” Trying to catch her breath, Lucy pressed the flat of her hand against her stomach. Her eyes were huge when she raised them to his face. “Dylan, the baby’s coming.”

Chapter 2

Her words cut through Dylan like a sharp razor. An edgy sense of panic hovered over him. “Are you sure? You just fainted, maybe—”

“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it—the baby is coming.” Her eyes widened as another thrust of pain, on the heels of the last, began burrowing to the surface. “Now.”

“Hang on,” he cautioned. Dylan could feel his own heart rate accelerating. Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed the precinct’s dispatch. “This is Detective McMorrow. I need an ambulance ASAP.” He gave the woman on the other end Lucy’s address, then flipped the phone shut. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Lucy’s breaths came in snatches, like someone, already exhausted, climbing up the side of a steep mountain. The thick black hair that had been so seductively sensuous to touch was plastered against her face. Dylan could see that she was fighting pain with every fiber of her being.

There was no use trying to distance himself from the scene. It got to him. Dylan couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

Her eyes rose to his for a single moment before she shut them again. “I don’t think that’s going to be fast enough.”

All the labor horror stories that Dylan vaguely recalled hearing came back to him now. Wasn’t the process supposed to go on for interminable hours? “You’re kidding, right?”

Unable to answer, Lucy moved her head from side to side, her teeth sinking into her lower lip so hard he was afraid she was going to bite straight through it. Momentarily at a loss, Dylan took her hand and felt his fingers immediately caught up in a viselike grip. The strength of it took him by surprise.

“No,” she said, finally managing to breathe, “I’m not. I can feel the pressure…it’s like…I’m being…pulled apart…like a giant…wishbone.” Lucy shrieked the last part of the word as a salvo of pain thundered through her. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.

He saw the fear and forgot his own. He forced himself to stop thinking of her as Lucy and start thinking of her as a woman who needed his help. After all, he was a cop and that was what he did, he helped people in need. He couldn’t let it get any more complicated than that.

But it was, a voice whispered inside of him. No matter how hard he tried to block out the truth, this was still Lucy. And he was going to have to help her give birth to another man’s child.

The realization hit hard into his soul.

With fingers that were in danger of going numb, he managed to squeeze her hand, reassuring her the only way he knew how. Silently.

“Okay, Lucy, if he’s going to come now, let’s get this going.”

Dylan thought a minute, trying to remember a class he’d been forced to take in his earlier days as a policeman. The particulars he needed now were obscure. All he could recall was thinking that he hoped he’d never have to face the situation himself. And now here he was.

Yes, here he was, and at the moment, he was all that Lucy had to cling to. It was probably his fault that she’d gone into labor in the first place. Maybe if he’d had a better way of telling her…

Water under the bridge, Dylan admonished himself. Speculation wasn’t going to change what was happening now. And that was what he had to deal with.

“I don’t think…I…have a choice.” Without consciously meaning to, she dug her fingernails into his flesh as he tried to disengage his hand from hers. Another contraction had seized her, holding her prisoner. Torturing her.

Freeing himself as gently as he could, he turned her face so that she was forced to look at him. He willed his strength into her.

“Breathe, Lucy, breathe. Small, shallow breaths. Concentrate on breathing.”

“I can’t.”

His voice was stern. “Yes, you can.”

It wasn’t encouragement as much as an order. That was what she needed right now, someone strong to help her find her way. He stowed away any stray feelings that might have still been lingering and galvanized his resolve.

Mechanically, Dylan lifted the hem of her dress and pushed it up to her waist, then as quickly as possible, he removed her underwear. He saw her body stiffen, not from his touch, but because the next contraction had begun on the perimeter of the one that was only now releasing her. She writhed in agony, holding her breath, as if that could somehow make it go away.

“Breathe, dammit!” he ordered. Catching her chin in his hands, he forced her to look at him again. “Like this.” His eyes holding hers, he took in a long breath and released it in short pants. “Okay?”

Anger, anchorless and sharp, raged through her. At him, at Ritchie, at the pain. But there was no outlet and she was not master of her soul right now. The pain saw to that.

Lucy did as she was told, holding on to Dylan’s order as if it were a lifeline, a single thing to focus that would lead her out of this ring of fire she found herself in. She had a life inside of her. A life that was struggling to be brought into this world, and she owed it to her child to help in any way she could.

And Dylan would help both of them. For this one thing, she could count on him.

Closing her eyes, listening to the sound of Dylan’s voice echoing in her head, she began to push.

She’d stopped breathing. His eyes darted back up to her face. It was contorted. Dylan realized that she was pushing. Damn it, where the hell were the paramedics? Why weren’t they here yet?

“Okay, you’re doing fine, just fine,” Dylan said. “I can see it, Lucy. I can see the top of the baby’s head.”

Dylan’s voice and the words he said barely registered inside the haze of pain surrounding her. And then they seemed to take on a breadth, a thickness of their own. The baby. Her baby. It was almost here. Hunching her shoulders forward, she fought off the waves of exhaustion that had come from the dark to encircle her and forced herself to push again. Harder this time. Longer. Until finally, too drained to continue, she fell back against the sofa cushion, gasping for air.

“Don’t stop now,” he ordered.

“Dylan, I’m so tired….”

“He can’t do it alone, and he wants to be here now.” Dylan moved behind Lucy, gathering together the decorative pillows she’d scattered around and shoving them under her shoulders to help prop her up. “Finally know what it means to want to be in two places at once,” she heard him mutter under his breath. She opened her eyes to look at him and saw him smiling encouragingly at her. Then he slid back to take up the position where he’d been.

“Okay, on the count of three, I want you to push again. Ready?”

“No.” The response was more of a sob than a word.

He raised his eyes to hers and the short, abrupt order on his lips softened in the face of the pain he saw. Damn, but she could still get to him like nothing and no one else ever had.

“Yes,” he told her softly, “you are. Okay now, one, two, three. Push!” He felt every fiber of his own body tightening in concentration as he gave her the order.

Lucy pushed. Pushed so hard she felt as if she had ejected every fiber of her body, turning it completely inside out. Pushed so hard she thought she was going to faint again as a border of blackness began leeching into the feverish red haze that was engulfing her.

The final push came with a whining scream.

Falling back, she barely had enough strength left to gulp in air. Lucy heard a small, piercing cry. Was that coming from her? Or somewhere else?

But her own lips were closed now and the tiny, reedy wail persisted. Her lashes felt damp as she forced her eyes open. She could barely focus on Dylan. He was holding something in his arms.

Her baby.

She tried to wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, barely able to move it. “Is he…is he…all right?”

When Dylan didn’t answer, a sliver of panic wedged itself in her breast, going straight for her heart like a sharp dagger. With her last ounce of strength, she raised herself up on her elbows.

“Dylan?”

He couldn’t ever remember feeling like this before. Awed, overwhelmed with something very odd squeezing at his heart. And all because of the tiny life he held in his hands.

As if it had been stored on a delayed relay system, Lucy’s tone played itself back to him. He raised his eyes to hers. A hint of a smile tugged on his lips, as if afraid to intrude on a moment this sacred.

“He’s a she.” His mouth curved a little more. “Your son is a daughter—and she’s more than all right. She’s beautiful.”

Deprived of the warm shelter that had been hers only moments earlier, the infant began to squirm and cry. The thick thatch of black hair on her head was matted and plastered to her, and when she opened her eyes, they were the most incredible shade of blue Dylan had ever seen. He raised his eyes to look at Lucy.

“Are you able to hold her?”

“Try and stop me,” Lucy said. Her heart was still racing, fueled by what she’d just been through and the exhilaration she felt now, seeing her daughter in Dylan’s arms. Weak, she still managed to hold out her own arms to him.

Very gently, Dylan placed the tiny being against Lucy’s breast. The same bittersweet feeling flittered over him. He didn’t know what to make of it, what to call it, or how to store it. So he did the only thing he could, he locked it away in its entirety.

“She’s messy,” he murmured.

Exhausted as she was, Lucy could feel her heart constricting. She’d never known she could feel this much love at one time.

“She’ll clean up,” Lucy whispered. In awe of the tiny being she held, Lucy lightly passed her hand over the dark little head.

Watching, Dylan roused himself. It wasn’t over yet. He still needed to cut the umbilical cord. He hurried to the kitchen for a knife and was halfway back before he stopped. The knife needed to be sterilized.

But when he turned toward the stove, intending to hold the blade over one of the burner flames, he saw only electrical coils. There were no gas jets.

Damn. His hands bloodied, Dylan automatically felt in his pants pocket before he remembered. He didn’t smoke anymore. He no longer had a reason to carry matches.

Frustrated, he looked around the kitchen. He didn’t have time to go rifling through drawers and cabinets. “You have any matches?” he shouted.

“No, why?”

“Because I need to—”

Walking back into the living room, he stopped short when he saw a whiskey decanter on the small wet bar. He recognized it. He’d given Ritchie the decanter just before he’d left for good. It’d been to celebrate something, but he no longer remembered the occasion. The decanter was still half-full. Dylan snatched it up.

“Never mind, this’ll do.” He removed the top and poured some of the contents of the decanter over the blade, covering it liberally. Except for the baby breathing, there was no other sound in the room. He could feel Lucy’s eyes on him, watching. “I have to cut the cord.”

“I know.” She pressed the baby closer to her, though she knew it wouldn’t hurt the infant.

He looked so removed, so dispassionate as he severed the cord that connected her so literally to her baby. Had he felt the same way when he cut the cord that had existed between them? Had it taken just one swift motion and it was done?

Once she would have believed she’d meant more to him than that. Now she knew better.

“There.” The cord cut, Dylan sat back on his heels and looked at them.

The baby, still bloody, was nestled against Lucy. She had ceased crying and was dozing against her mother. It took everything he had not to touch the infant again, not to run the tip of his finger along the dewy skin.

The moment, soft and tender, hung between them. Echoes of the past threatened to overtake him. Rising to his feet, Dylan backed away.

He nodded toward where he remembered the linen closet was. “I should get something to wrap her up in.” He needed distance between them. Distance between the thoughts he was having.

The sound of someone knocking on the door penetrated. “I’ll get that.”

“Since you’re up,” she murmured weakly.

“Yeah.” He turned on his heel, hurrying to the front door. Dylan felt ashamed for feeling relieved at the reprieve. But there was far too much going on inside of him to deal with right now.

He made it to the door in less than five strides and pulled it open. The ambulance attendants had arrived. “Took you long enough.”

The two paramedics, both in their early twenties, exchanged glances. The blonder of the two pushed the gurney into the house. “Hey, we went through every red light from the station house to here.”

The other paramedic looked Dylan over. There was blood on his shirt and on one of his pants pockets. “What the hell happened to you, McMorrow?”

His adrenaline beginning to settle, he realized that he hadn’t given any details when he’d called for the ambulance, only saying he needed one. The attendants hadn’t known if they were coming to the site of a homicide or a heart attack.

He glanced down at his shirt. “I got this playing midwife. The lady couldn’t wait for you two to get here.”

Only a short distance away, Lucy heard him and something inside of her cringed. The lady. As if they didn’t know each other. As if they hadn’t held each other in their arms and made love until both of them could have sworn that the morning would come to find not a breath of life left between them.

Tears stung her eyes. She pressed her lips together, telling herself she was over him. What they had was in the past, long gone and buried. There was someone else who needed her now.

The younger of the two paramedics looked at Lucy as he lined up the cot beside the sofa. He gave her a warm smile.

“Looks like you did half our job for us, Detective.” The paramedic glanced at Dylan. “Nice work.”

Dylan made no comment, standing off to the side as the two paramedics quickly took vital signs from mother and daughter. It was only when Lucy’s eyes sought him out that he moved from the sidelines. He’d had every intention of leaving, but there was something in her eyes that had him changing his mind.

“I’ll follow you in the car.”

The paramedic closest to Dylan spared him a glance once they had secured mother and child on the gurney. “You might want to change that shirt first. Unless you want everyone to think you were in an accident.”

An accident.

It had been in an accident that he had allowed himself to feel something, to give way to a temporary lapse in judgment and actually believe that he could be like everyone else.

That he was free to love and feel like everyone else.

But he knew better.

“I’ll change later,” he muttered as he followed them out the front door.

Dylan pulled it shut behind him, making sure the lock was secure before he hurried to his car. It was only as he waited for the driver of the ambulance to start the vehicle that Dylan allowed himself to sag, resting his head against the steering wheel. It was the only outward sign of fatigue he allowed himself. And only for a moment. Anything more and his control could break.

He was too numb to think. He wouldn’t have let himself think if he could. It was better that way.

Or so he told himself.

Since he knew the ambulance’s destination, he actually made it to Harris Memorial’s emergency room parking lot a hairbreadth behind the vehicle. He was out of his car and at the ambulance’s back door just as the attendant was opening it. He helped the man lower the gurney, then took his position at its side as Lucy and her baby were guided through the electronic doors.

Dylan curbed the urge to take Lucy’s hand, curbed the urge to touch her. The less contact he had with her, the better. There’d already been far more than he’d bargained on.

Then what was he doing here, trotting beside the gurney if he had no intention of getting any closer than he had? he demanded silently. He was supposed to be on duty, taking his turn at maintaining surveillance, not halfway across town on the ground floor of Bedford’s most popular hospital.

What he was doing here, he told himself, was being a friend. To Ritchie if not to Lucy. And Ritchie’s sister had been through a great deal. She’d had both death and life flung at her within the space of less than half an hour. Even if there had been no history between him and Lucy, if ever he saw a woman who looked like she needed a friend, it was her. Process of elimination made him the closest one she had around.

“I have a doctor here,” he heard her saying weakly to the attendant walking just ahead of him beside the gurney. “Sheila Pollack.”

Dylan was vaguely familiar with the name. He’d heard several of the men at the precinct mention the woman, saying their wives and girlfriends swore by her. He grasped at the tidbit, needing something to do, to make himself useful. Anything to keep him from coming face-to-face with the past and have to deal with it.

“I can have her paged,” he told the paramedic. He turned to go to the registration desk.

“Don’t bother, we’ll call her office,” an amiable, matronly-looking nurse told Dylan as she came up to join the delegation around the gurney.

He fell back without a word, feeling useless.

“Don’t go,” Lucy called to him. “I want to talk to you. About Ritchie.”

“It’ll have to wait until we get you cleaned up, honey,” the nurse told her. “My, but that is one beautiful baby. You do nice work.” She glanced at Dylan. “Is this the baby’s daddy?”

Lucy forced herself not to look in Dylan’s direction. “No.”

Dylan tried to grab at the excuse the nurse had inadvertently given him. It was a legitimate way out of this uncomfortable situation. And he did have to get to the stakeout.

But Lucy’s eyes were imploring him to stay. The excuse died on his lips before he had a chance to say it. There was no way around it. They had unfinished business to tend to.

“I’ll wait in the hall until you’re ready,” he called after her.

She raised her voice. They were almost around a corner. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Her voice lingered after she disappeared from view. “I’ll hold you to that.”

His lips curved before he could think better of it. “I know.”

Chapter 3

Dylan straightened up slowly. His back had begun to ache, and it felt as if it was taking on the shape of the hospital wall he’d been leaning against. He’d been waiting out in the maternity ward corridor far longer than he figured he should have.

He glanced at his watch. It was time to go.

He’d put in another call to dispatch the moment Lucy’s gurney had disappeared behind closed doors. This time he’d had them patch him through to Dave Watley, the man he’d been partnered with off and on over the years. The message was short, terse. He was going to be late. Watley had been surprised, but he’d hung up before the man could ask why.

Even as he’d rung off, Dylan had fought his own silent battle over the wisdom of hanging around outside Lucy’s hospital room.

He had a job to do and it wasn’t here.

Still, he hadn’t given Lucy any sort of accounting about her brother. In his defense, there’d been next to no time. But that didn’t change the fact that he owed it to her.

Frustrated, he shoved his hands into his pockets, purposely avoiding looking in the general direction of the nursery. He didn’t need that sort of distraction right now.

And Lucy didn’t need to listen to the grisly details about her brother’s death right now, he thought. She certainly wasn’t in any shape to answer questions. Though part of him wanted to get this all over with and put everything behind him so he could start fresh again, he knew it’d be better for both the department and Lucy if he came back later, when she was up to it.

Or maybe not at all. Maybe if someone else handled this, it’d be for the best all around.

“Excuse me?”

Having made up his mind, Dylan had turned toward the elevators and his escape route. The low voice, aimed in his direction, momentarily put his plans on hold. Dylan looked over his shoulder to see a refined, tall blonde comfortably attired in a white lab coat that partially covered a blue sundress. She was looking straight at him. “Are you Detective McMorrow?”

“Yes?”

The verification was tendered slowly, cautiously, telling Sheila Pollack that this man was more accustomed to receiving bad news than good. And that, police detective or not, the tall, rangy man before her was a private person. Not a bit like her Slade.

With a smile meant to put him at his ease, she offered him her hand.

“Hi, I’m Sheila Pollack, Lucy’s doctor. She told me you delivered the baby.” She smiled and offered Dylan her hand.

He shook her hand mechanically, surprised at the firmness of the woman’s grip. “The baby more or less delivered herself. I was just there to catch her.”

“That’s not the way Lucy tells it.” Her smile grew sunnier. “Nice job.”

Dylan shrugged, accepting the compliment the way he accepted any compliment that came his way, offhandedly and with little attention. It was criticism that helped a man grow, not empty words. His father had beaten that one into him until he’d been able to defend himself.

He looked over the doctor’s head toward the room where they had taken Lucy and her baby. “How she’s doing?”

“Mother and daughter are fine, no small thanks to you. Right now, they’re both asleep. I think the ordeal exhausted them.” She studied him for a moment. “Lucky for Lucy that you were there.”

“Yeah, lucky,” he muttered more to himself than to the statuesque woman. She was looking at him as if she could read his mind. Annoyed with himself, he dismissed the thought as ridiculous. “Well, I’m on duty, Doctor. I’d better go.”

Sheila nodded. She had other patients on the floor to look in on. And a roomful waiting for her back at her office. But because each of her patients was more than simply just that to her, she paused where she was for one more second.

“Want me to tell Lucy anything when she wakes up?” When he made no reply, she asked, “Will you be back to see her?”

Dylan thought it an odd question. For all she knew, he’d just been someone passing by at the right time, or the wrong time, depending on whose view you took. But, then, he amended, maybe Lucy had told her that they’d known each other once.

For the sake of brevity and to prevent any possibility of further discussion, he said, “Yeah, sure,” and quickly walked away.

Sheila spared herself a moment to watch him go, aware that she had just been brushed off. Instinct told her that there was a great deal more going on here than was evident at first.

Turning away, she smiled to herself. He’d be back. Whether he realized it or not, he’d be back. She was willing to lay odds on it.

Detective Dave Watley glanced up from the video camera he was adjusting. It was perched on a tripod, its powerful telephoto lens aimed at the entrance of the restaurant five stories below and across the street. “What the hell kept you?” he asked Dylan when his partner entered the apartment.

Pulling up a folding chair to the partially curtained window with one hand, Dylan placed the paper tray with its two cups of coffee on the unsteady card table. Besides a beaten-up sofa that had been abandoned by the last tenant who lived in the apartment, the card table and two chairs represented the only furniture in the studio apartment. Watley had brought the table. He needed someplace to put the puzzles he was so fond of working on.

“I was detained.” Dylan pried his own cup from the holder, leaving the one he’d picked up for Watley where it was.

Watley looked at him with good-natured disgust. “No kidding, Sherlock. I kind of figured that part out for myself. Detained how?”

As far as Watley knew, his rather closed-mouth partner had no personal life to speak of, no relatives he ever mentioned, and certainly no woman in his life. The man lived and breathed the job, which made him a good man to have watching your back, but not exactly the best to share a long stakeout with. And this one had all the signs of being a long one, even though it was just in its third day.

Because nothing else came to him and he knew that Watley wasn’t the kind to back off once he started asking, Dylan gave him an abbreviated version of what had happened. “A woman went into labor.”

Watley stopped fooling with the camera. “And you took her to the hospital?” he asked.

Dylan scanned the street below. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening at the Den of Thieves. This was the restaurant’s busiest hour, but there was no one entering or leaving who aroused his suspicions. So far, none of the usual players in what was reported to be a money-laundering scheme were evident.

“It was too late for that.” He took off the lid from his cup and dropped it on the table.

“So you did what?” Picking up the discarded lid, Watley dropped it into the empty box he’d converted into a wastebasket. “Helped her deliver?” he prompted.

“Yeah.”

With his wife a brief six weeks away from delivery, Watley was facing his first time up as a new father. Thoughts of the restaurant they were staking out were forgotten. “So, what did it feel like? Holding that newborn in your hands? You did hold it, right?”

“Yes, I held her.”

“Well, what was it like?”

“Messy.”

Usually a very easygoing man, Watley threw his hands up in exasperation. “Dammit, McMorrow, you’ve got a heart made out of stone, you know that? There you were, with the miracle of life happening right in front of you and you’re thinking of cleanup detail.”

“Somebody has to.” Dylan paused, taking a long sip of the coffee that was already getting cold. His thoughts kept returning to the event. He’d felt like a bystander and a participant all at the same time. “It was kind of strange,” he finally added.

Watley’s interest was instantly piqued. “Strange?”

“Like it wasn’t real.” Dylan looked at his partner. “Except that it was.”

“Right.” Watley slanted him a glance, then grinned. “That’s probably the most eloquent I remember ever hearing you get.”

Dylan didn’t feel like being eloquent. He didn’t feel like being anything but the cop he was being paid to be. It was too complicated any other way. Dylan nodded toward the building across the street. “Anything going on in there?”

Clearly bored, Watley shook his head. He took the lid off the puzzle he’d brought with relish. “Nothing more than usual. I’m beginning to think this is just a wild-goose chase. Haven’t seen any of the big boys go in or out yet. Maybe the tip was bogus. God only knows where that accountant disappeared to.” The operation had begun in earnest on the word of one Owen Michelson, the restaurant’s accountant. But neither he nor the information he’d promised had turned up at a rendezvous he’d arranged last week.

“Chambers said he thought he saw someone he recalled seeing on a poster going in this morning, but he’s not sure,” Watley remarked. Dumping out the puzzle’s pieces on the table, Watley smiled to himself. “I think it’s just wishful thinking on his part, but we sent a copy of the photo he took to the feds for positive ID.”

“And?”

Watley shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

Dylan blew out a breath. “And the wheels of justice turn slowly.” He took another swig from his coffee before setting the cup down in disgust. It hardly met his criteria for coffee beyond being liquid. Restless, he ran his hand along the back of his neck and told himself to calm down. “Doesn’t matter, we’re not going anywhere.” Watley groaned his agreement.

Dylan wished he had a cigarette.

Dylan pulled up the hand brake on his beat-up sports car. He’d bought it with the first money he’d earned the day before he left home. It still ran well. A single turn of his key cut off the engine and the low murmur of music that had been playing on the radio.

He sat in the stilled vehicle, looking at the back entrance to Harris Memorial and wondering if he’d lost his mind.

Getting off work half an hour ago, he’d had every intention of picking up some takeout at the new Thai restaurant near the stakeout and heading straight back to the place where he slept and ate when he wasn’t on the job. It wasn’t really home, but it served in lieu of one. Dylan hadn’t thought of a place as being home since his mother had died.

But instead of doing that, somehow, he’d ended up here instead, with no takeout sitting on the seat beside him and no claim to sanity even remotely in the vicinity. The smart thing, he knew, was to send either Alexander or Hathaway here. They were the ones handling the case, not him.

He frowned, absently watching a couple rush through the electronic doors.

Lucy didn’t need to see him again, it’d only upset her. And he sure as hell didn’t need to see her again.

Dylan began to turn the key in the ignition, then stopped, silently cursing himself. He couldn’t do it. There was a sense of right and wrong instilled in him, the one thing his mother managed to accomplish with her rebellious son.

He dragged his hand through his hair. It was his mother’s fault that he was here.

And his father’s fault that he shouldn’t be.

C’mon, fish or cut bait, McMorrow.

Biting off another curse, Dylan got out of his car and slammed the door shut behind him. Might as well get this over with, he thought.

As he strode almost militantly toward the bank of elevators located in the rear of the building, the hospital’s small gift shop still managed to catch his eye. The little teddy bear with a jaunty pink bow over one ear in the center of the window display all but popped out at him. Stopping in midstride, he went in before he changed his mind.

The shop, with its cheerful clutter, was empty except for one other customer who was browsing on the opposite side.

“How much for the bear in the window?” Dylan asked.

His question, snapped out the way it was, startled the mature-looking, pink-smocked woman behind the counter. As she looked up, her features softened into a grandmotherly smile. “Twelve ninety-five.”

Dylan dug into his front pocket. The wad of bills that comprised change from the twenty he’d given the cashier at the coffee shop earlier tumbled out onto the counter. He isolated the proper amount.

“I’ll take it.”

“And anything for the mother?”

Head snapping up, he looked at the woman sharply. “What makes you think…?”

The beatific smile was understanding. “You have that harried, new-father look about you.”

The hell he did. The woman was probably just trying to push merchandise. Almost against his will, he saw the light blue negligee that hung just behind the woman on another display against the back wall. For a fleeting, insane moment, he was tempted. But then good sense returned.

“Just the bear.”

“Fine.” The woman accepted the money he handed her. “I’ll ring it up for you. Would you like it wrapped?”

“The baby’s only a few hours old, she wouldn’t be able to unwrap anything,” he answered stoically.

“Perhaps her mother—”

“No.”

The woman inclined her head good-naturedly. “Very well, sir.”

Three minutes later, Dylan was jabbing the up button at the elevator bank. When two elevators arrived at the same time, he chose the empty one, then pressed five. The steel doors closed, locking him in.

He had no idea what he’d say to Lucy.

Part of him hoped that she was asleep, that he could just place the teddy bear on some available surface in her room and retreat, saying he’d done his duty.

Getting off the elevator when it stopped on Lucy’s floor, he made his way to her room. He should let someone else explain the cold details to her, he thought. It’d been a mistake to think he could handle it better than Alexander or Hathaway. A mistake to think that he could handle seeing her again. He made a left at the nurse’s station. Coming back into her life, even for a few minutes, had been nothing short of disastrous.

That was why he’d left to begin with, to spare them both this kind of thing. No, he amended, grappling with an annoyance he couldn’t quite trace to its roots, it’d been to spare her, not himself.

Nothing was going to spare him.

Arriving at her room, he eased the door open and peered in. Just as he’d hoped, she was asleep. Very softly, he entered the room, then slowly closed the door behind him.

For a second, Dylan stood there, just looking at Lucy. At the woman he’d once, fleetingly, thought of as his salvation. But he’d only been deluding himself. She deserved better than the future he could give her.

The late-afternoon sun illuminated the room, bathing everything it touched in shades of gold and whispering along her face and arms. The way his hand once had. She looked like the princess in that story his mother had told him years ago, when he’d been young and the world still held promise. The one where the princess slept in the glass casket, waiting to be woken up by her true love’s first kiss.

It wouldn’t be him she’d be waiting for, he thought.

As quietly as possible, he tiptoed over to the bed and placed the teddy bear on the table that was pushed over just to the side. Because he was in a hurry, his hand wasn’t quite steady. As he took a step back, the bear toppled silently from the table, falling to the floor.

It figured. Dylan bent down quickly to retrieve it before Lucy woke up.

“Why don’t you just hand it to me?”

Her voice, soft, filled with the last remnants of sleep, surrounded him. Their eyes met as he rose again. Unaccountably, he felt like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep.” With a hand digging into the mattress on either side of her, Lucy pushed herself further up on the bed. “Just resting. The nurse just took Elena back.”

“Elena?” His own voice sounded hopelessly dumb to his ear.

He looked edgy, she thought, like he didn’t want to be here. Nothing had changed. “The baby.”

“Elena.” Dylan repeated the name slowly. Elaine had been his mother’s name. He thought it an odd coincidence. “Nice name.”

“I always thought so.” She struggled to get past the awkward feeling. And the anger that was cutting off her words, her train of thought. She hadn’t thought seeing him again would hurt so much. “It seems to suit her.”

Dylan lifted a shoulder, letting it drop carelessly. He wouldn’t know about that. Babies all tended to look alike to him, except that this one had a mop of dark hair.

Realizing he was still holding the teddy bear, he felt like a stuttering fool. He thrust it toward her, wanting to be out of here. “Well, I just came by to give you this for the baby—for Elena.”

She took it from him, surprised that he could pick out something so sweet. But then, maybe it wasn’t such a surprise. There had been sweet moments with him. Moments that had been left unguarded when he… She banked down the memory, the feelings. Reliving them would only stir things up more and she had spent all these months clearing them out of her life. “That’s very nice of you.”

“Yeah, well…” He began to edge out of the room.

“You didn’t wait.” Her eyes held his. “You promised you would.”

Feeling uncomfortable in his own skin, he looked away. “I was late for work.”

Lucy nodded. There would always be excuses between them. Excuses and lies. But now there would always be something more.

Setting the teddy bear aside on the table, she took a deep breath and pressed the button on the railing that raised her up into a sitting position. “Could you help me up, please?”

He stopped his retreat and looked at her in surprise. She was trying to get out of bed. What was wrong with her? “Look, I can get the nurse if you—”

Because she continued moving to the edge of the bed in small increments, he pushed the table out of the way and moved beside her, placing his hand to her back to keep her steady.

Only the fact that there was pain shooting through other parts of her kept Lucy from reacting to the feel of his hand along her back. “Sheila said I was supposed get out of bed later today and walk down the hall at least once.”

He stared at her. “But you just gave birth. Well, not ‘just,’ but—” He was stumbling over his own tongue and it annoyed the hell out of him. “Isn’t that a little barbaric?”

The journey to the edge of the bed, to where her legs were dangling over the side, seemed almost endless, but she finally made it, feeling a little triumphant at the accomplishment.

“They say it helps you heal faster.”

She looked at him and tried not to let the fact that his face was just inches away from hers affect her. Instead, she concentrated on the coldness she’d seen in his eyes the day he’d broken it off between them. Broken it off just when she’d thought they were building something lasting.

“Besides,” she continued, “there’s not going to be anyone to help once I get home, I need to get stronger.” Her best friend had offered, but there was the store they co-owned to see to. That would keep Alma more than busy.

Seeing she was determined, Dylan offered her his arm. Some things, he thought, didn’t change. Too bad Ritchie had never had her stubborn streak and stuck it out with something he’d begun. “You’ve always been the strongest person I knew.”

She began to smile at the comment. Her smile tightened as her feet finally reached the floor and she tried to stand. Pain ricocheted through her.

He saw her wincing and stopped immediately. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

She clenched her teeth together. “Yes, it is. Just let me hold on to your arm.” Biting her lower lip, she straightened and finally gained her feet.

It was then that he noticed. “You’re barefoot. Wait a second.” As gently as he could, Dylan eased her back onto the bed, then bent down to look under the bed. Except for a couple of wads of what looked like elastic-trimmed light blue tissue paper, there was nothing there. “Where’re your slippers?”

“I don’t have any. I came here unexpectedly, remember?” She curled her toes as more pain sought her out. She forced herself to think past it. “The hospital issued me paper ones. I think they’re under there somewhere.”

Snagging the only things he found, Dylan frowned as he straightened them out. They were slippers, all right—of a sort. “Don’t see how these are going to make much of a difference.”

“It’s all I have right now.” Lucy reached for them, but to her surprise, Dylan started to put them on her feet himself.

“You’re better off not bending and struggling just yet,” he explained gruffly. She might be tough, but she wasn’t always the most sensible woman.

Like the time she’d whispered to him that she loved him.

Carefully, he eased the elastic back on first one, then the other as he slipped them on her feet. Standing up, he offered her his arm again.

She took it, careful to tuck the ends of her gown together. Lucy held them down by pressing her elbow against her side before she straightened again.

“No robe?” He glanced around the room and had his answer even as he asked.

“No robe,” she confirmed. She felt wobbly and tried not to show it. “I’ve got a suitcase packed, but it’s at home. In all the excitement, I forgot about it.”

He should have taken that into account when the ambulance came for her. It was an oversight on his part. “Can’t you call someone to bring it to you?”

There was Alma, but she was busy with the shop. For just a moment, her eyes touched his face before a curtain fell over them. Thoughts of her best friend faded into the background, nudged aside by memories of other times. “Not right now.”

“I’ll get it for you.” He bit the words off. He glanced toward the door. From where he stood, it was a long distance from the bed if measured in pain-encased inches. He still thought she should be resting. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Her voice quavered just a little as very slowly, Lucy took her first step away from the bed and toward the door.

Chapter 4

He’d thought he could contain it. Contain the question and just move on from there. Pretend it didn’t even exist. But it did exist and he hadn’t counted on it ebbing and flowing within him like a living force of nature, rising up like a tidal wave and threatening to wash over him and sweep him away entirely.

There was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Who’s the father, Lucy?” he asked.

Just crossing the threshold leading out of her room, Lucy faltered. Though she’d known she would have to face the question from him soon enough, she hadn’t expected it to be put to her so bluntly, without a preamble.

She kept her face forward, concentrating on her goal—the farthest corner of the nurses’ station’s outer desk. “Just someone I knew.”

Every word stung him, leaving behind a mark even though he told himself it shouldn’t. After what had happened between them, how could she have gone on to someone else so quickly? “That casual?”

One step after another, she chanted mentally, watching her feet. “There was nothing casual about it, but it’s over.”

“He’s not in your life anymore.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but an assumption. One he was very willing to make, though he knew it was selfish of him.

She wished he’d stop asking questions. He hadn’t the right. “Not where it counts.”

“Does he know about the baby?”

She thought of lying, but there were enough lies to keep track of. “No.”

He never could leave things alone, he thought. Even when they were the way he wanted them. “Don’t you think you should tell him?”

She spared him one glance before looking away again. “No. There’re enough complications in both our lives without bringing that in, too. He’s better off not knowing about the baby.”

He couldn’t believe that Lucy would keep something like this a secret. It seemed out of character for her. “Don’t you think you owe it to Elena to let her father know she exists?”

There was anger in her eyes when she looked at him, reminding him of the passion he’d once seen there. Passion that had belonged to him at the time.

If she could have, she would have pulled her arm away from his. But she felt too unsteady to manage the gesture. The words, though, she could manage.

“So that he can knowingly reject her? I don’t think so. Better for that to remain a question than a fact.” It cost her dearly to pull her shoulders back, but she did. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, all right?”

She had a right to her privacy. He’d always insisted on his. They’d been lovers for less than two-thirds of a year, but she’d never known anything about his family other than the few vague answers he’d given her. “All right.”

She made the next few steps in silence, nodding at the nurse who walked by them and smiled. Lucy knew from experience that Dylan could keep his own council indefinitely. “But I do want to talk.”

He heard the note in her voice and knew what it was about. “I figured.”

“Tell me about Ritchie.” Though it hurt to think of her brother being dead, she forced herself to ask. “How did he die?”

She was still weak. Otherwise, he knew she wouldn’t be hanging on to him so tightly. He didn’t want to add to what she was already going through. “Lucy, this isn’t the time—”

She wasn’t going to let him put her off any longer. And she had a right to know what had happened to her brother. “It’s never the time to hear that someone you loved is dead.” Lucy turned her face toward Dylan. “How did he die?”

“He was shot. At close range. They found him in an irrigation ditch near the farmland,” he said.

The city stood on the site of what had once been a huge farming estate owned by the Bedford family for several generations. Now there were only small, sporadic patches left. Located in the western end of Bedford, they were still coaxing forth crops of corn, strawberries and, in a few places, oranges.

Lucy looked at him, the halting progress she was making temporarily aborted. “Farmland? Ritchie would have never been there. He never liked anything remotely rural.”

Dylan tended to agree with her. The Ritchie he knew was far more likely to be found in clubs and wherever there were bright lights.

“He was killed somewhere else, then dum—left in the ditch.” Dylan caught himself at the last minute, steering clear of the detached language he usually used in referring to victims and suspects. It served to maintain his perspective. Attachments only got in the way of judgment.

But in this case, he couldn’t let himself be clinically detached. To be that way was disrespectful to the friendship he and Ritchie had once had, however fleeting.

Besides, he didn’t really need to be detached here, it wasn’t his case to solve. Only to relate. So far, in his opinion, he was doing a damn poor job of it.

“According to the medical examiner, Ritchie died sometime around seven-thirty this morning. Do you know where he was supposed to be at seven-thirty?”

Lucy’s expression froze. She knew exactly where he was at seven-thirty this morning. She knew because he was doing it for her. “He was going in to work early so that he could get the time off to take me to the doctor.”

Dylan knew what she was thinking. Separation hadn’t dulled his ability to read her thoughts. “It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Her eyes filled with tears, which she kept from spilling out through sheer force of will. She didn’t deserve the comfort of tears. Ritchie had died because of her. “If he hadn’t gone in early for me, maybe he’d still be alive.”

“And maybe he would have just been killed later.” He wanted to shield her, but at the same time, he wanted to strip away her guilt. He told her the rest of it. “Lucy, Ritchie was shot execution-style.” One bullet to the back of the head. It seemed surreal when he thought about it. Who could Ritchie have run afoul of for that to happen? He saw the horror in Lucy’s face and pressed on. “That means it was done on purpose. He didn’t just wander in on a burglary gone awry, or a car-jacking that went sour. Somebody meant to kill him.” Impatience clawed at him. There were too many people around. “Can we go back to your room? This isn’t the kind of thing to talk about strolling through the hospital halls.”

“I wouldn’t exactly considered this strolling,” Lucy answered evenly.

She was trying very hard not to let her emotions break through. Inside, it felt as if she had a pressure cooker on, full of steam, ready to explode. Digging her fingers into his arm, she turned around to face the long trip back to her room.

The pace was getting to him. He’d never been one to hurry things along normally, but there was nothing normal about this. “Why don’t I just carry you back? It’d save time.”

Lucy blocked his hand as he moved to pick her up. “No,” she snapped. “I can do this.”

She didn’t want him holding her. Not if she could avoid it. If he held her now, she would lose her strength and just dissolve against him, sobbing her heart out. She’d encountered enough setbacks in her life today as it was. She wasn’t about to set herself up for more.

Annoyance at her stubbornness warred with a grudging admiration for her grit. Dylan managed to curb his impatience until they’d returned to the door of her room. But once he opened it, he swept her up into his arms and carried her the rest of the way.

“What are you doing?” She was almost too exhausted to offer a protest.

“Cutting about forty minutes off the trip back to your bed.” Dylan caught himself thinking she still felt as if she weighed next to nothing.

He had her back in her bed in little more than four quick strides.

“Everything all right in here?”

Turning around, Dylan saw a nurse with salt-and-pepper hair in the doorway, peering into the room. She looked from him to Lucy.

“Fine,” Lucy assured her. “I just got a little tired. It was my first time out of bed.”

The nurse nodded knowingly. “Shouldn’t try to do too much first time up.” And then she smiled, her eyes washing over Dylan before they came to rest on Lucy. “A lady could do worse than have a handsome man carry her around.”

With a wink aimed at Lucy, she left, closing the door behind her.

Dylan moved back from her bed as she slowly toed off the slippers from her feet one at a time. The effort almost drained the remainder of her energy. She moved her legs under the covers, relieved to be lying down again.

With a sigh, she looked up at him. “Do you think you’ll catch whoever killed Ritchie?”

He didn’t answer her directly. “It’s not my case.”

She didn’t understand. “Then why…?”

He was asking himself the same thing. “I thought it might be easier on you, hearing the news from me.” Dylan shrugged carelessly. “Obviously I miscalculated. I hadn’t figured on you being pregnant.”

The coldness in his voice sliced through her. Defenses locked into place. “We can’t always factor in everything. So, who is handling Ritchie’s case? Do they have any leads?”

“Detectives Alexander and Hathaway, and they’re not even sure where he was killed, yet. There was no blood at the crime scene, so he was moved.” He went with the obvious first. “You said Ritchie was working. Where?”

“At a restaurant. He’s a—was a waiter.” Her mouth curved slightly. “He said they call them servers now.”

Yeah, they did. Another attempt at depersonalizing everything, Dylan thought. He would have said it was a good thing, but there were times he wasn’t sure. Being anesthetized was close to being dead, and he’d felt dead for a long time.

Except for the time he’d spent with Lucy.

But all that was over now. He’d made his peace with the fact. He just had to remember that, that’s all.

“Do you know where Ritchie worked?”

She nodded. “It’s called Den of Thieves.” He was staring at her. His face was impassive, but she could see that she had caught him by surprise. She wanted to know why. “What?”

It was a hell of a coincidence. “Are you sure that’s where he worked?”

Why did he doubt her? “Yes, I’m sure. A friend of his got the job for him.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, Ritchie didn’t give me a name. Just someone he knew.” She should have pressed harder for an answer. She should have done so many things differently. Her eyes met Dylan’s. “Someone he said owed him a favor and this was his way of paying him back.” And then she remembered something. “I don’t know if this means anything or not—”

His eyes pinned her down, the detective in him coming out despite efforts to the contrary. “Let me be the one to decide.”

She tried to get the words just right. “A couple of days ago, Ritchie told me he was on to something. Something that would put us in the money and on the right side of things for a long time to come.” Taking a dim view of his schemes, she’d told him to forget about it then. But Ritchie had been too stubborn to listen.

“Did he say what?” Dylan asked.

She shook her head. “You know Ritchie, he gets—got—excited over things.” It was so hard to think of him in the past tense. She wasn’t sure just how she could bear it. “But he always played them close to his chest if they weren’t completely aboveboard. He said there was no reason for me to know, too. That’s what made me think it was dangerous.” She bit her lip, taking a deep breath. It didn’t ease the ache in her chest, or the one in her throat. “I told him that I didn’t want him doing anything illegal and he said he wasn’t the one standing on the wrong side of the law.” Despite her best efforts, a tear spilled out, followed by another. She brushed them away with the back of her hand. “That’s what got him killed, wasn’t it?”

He curbed the desire to wipe away her tears. The word no hovered on his lips, but he tried to avoid lies whenever possible. The only lie he’d ever told Lucy was that he didn’t love her.

“Possibly.”

He was going to have to get back to Alexander and Hathaway on this. As well as Watley. Den of Thieves was suddenly one man short. The task force could use this information to their advantage. Could plant one of their own men inside.

The fact that he was using this tragedy as a tool to further the investigation disgusted him, but he knew that ignoring it couldn’t help Ritchie now. And there was far more at stake here than just a dead man’s sister’s feelings and his own personal code of ethics. Other people’s lives were involved. Innocent people.

“What exactly did Ritchie say to you?” He saw that she didn’t understand where he was going with this. “Did he physically have something, some kind of evidence that he was going to blackmail someone with?”

Things began to crystallize in Dylan’s mind. A few weeks ago, the accountant for Den of Thieves, Michelson, had approached the local D.A., saying that the restaurant was a front for money laundering. But the man had vanished without a trace before any sort of case could be made. If for some reason the person Ritchie was looking to blackmail was Alfred Palmero, the owner of the restaurant, it would go a long way toward explaining things.

Lucy shook her head, frustrated. “I don’t know. He wasn’t specific.”

Dylan wondered how much he could tell Lucy about this, then decided that for her own protection, and that of the child she’d just given birth to, she needed to know at least some of it.

Because he knew he had a tendency to be far too blunt, Dylan tried to pick his words more carefully this time. “If he was looking to blackmail his boss, Alfred Palmero, your brother made the mistake of getting in over his head.”

“Your brother,” she echoed, looking at Dylan with disbelief. Could he really be that cold? Of course he could. Why did the fact keep surprising her? “You make it sound as if you didn’t know him.”

Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. “Lucy, I was just—”

But she was tired and angry and more than a little fed up. With him, with everything. All the hurt she felt finally made her temper snap.

“Keeping your distance, yes, I know. The way you do with everything. With me, with him, with life. You’re very good at that. Keeping your distance. Protecting yourself at all costs.” She was through crying over him. “Look, I don’t need you coming into my life right now, disrupting everything. Thank you very much for coming by, for helping me, but I’d really just rather not see you again, all right?”

Dylan felt his own temper fraying. But he knew she had a right to what she was saying. “Sure, fine. I understand.”

The thing of it was, he thought as he walked out, that he did understand. He would have probably played it the same way she had and for the same reason. For self-preservation.

But he still couldn’t shake the image of Lucy’s expression from his mind.

He supposed that it was exactly that image, playing itself over and over again in his mind’s eye, that made him drive past his own apartment complex and keep right on going until he found himself turning down her street.

Though he tried to shake himself free of it, he felt as if he needed to make some sort of atonement. The least he could do was bring Lucy her suitcase. A woman needed things at a time like this. Things to make her feel less depersonalized, more human. Like her own nightgown and her own slippers.

Dylan couldn’t give her anything else she needed, but at least he could give her a little of her outer dignity back. The hospital gowns certainly did little to preserve it.

Admittedly flimsy, it was the excuse he fed himself. It was the best he could do on short notice.

Holding on to it, Dylan parked his car in her driveway. The automatic sensors he’d insisted on putting up for her when they were still together turned on, illuminating his path. Feeling in his pocket for what he thought of as his skeleton keys, he noted a fresh oil slick on the asphalt beside his vehicle. He’d parked in the street earlier. The slick hadn’t been there then. Dylan wondered if the ambulance had an oil leak and if someone had alerted the paramedics to it.

The front door wasn’t locked.

The door gave the moment he inserted the thin metal wand into the keyhole and gave it the slightest bit of pressure.

He distinctly remembered shutting the door behind him this morning and hearing the tumbler click into place. As a cop, he’d been careful not to leave the house susceptible to invasion.

Something wasn’t right.

Very slowly, Dylan turned the knob and then released it, clearing the doorsill. He moved the door away by inches, simultaneously feeling for his service revolver. Drawing it out, he took off the safety as quietly as possible and entered the house.

The living room looked as if a tornado had been through it.

Moving from room to room at an even pace, his gun poised, ready, Dylan took it all in. If at first glance he’d entertained the thought that this had been a run-of-the-mill break-in, the fact that the television set and audio equipment had been left behind quickly squelched the supposition. Lucy’s house had been systematically tossed.

From all appearances, someone had wanted something very much. Since every room had been ransacked, Dylan’s guess was that they hadn’t found what they were looking for.

Satisfied that whoever had done this was long gone by now, he holstered his gun. All he could think of was that he was grateful Lucy and her baby hadn’t been here at the time.

“What the hell were they looking for, Lucy?” he murmured to himself. “And what was it that Ritchie had on them?”

He realized that he’d made a leap in judgment, but his gut told him that there was a connection here between where Ritchie worked and what had happened to the house. His gut instincts were rarely wrong.

The question still remained. What?

Lucy was going to have a fit when she saw this, he thought, pressing the numbers on his cell phone that would connect him to the precinct. Maybe forensics would come up with a few answers for them.

Hanging up a few minutes later, he looked around for the suitcase he’d come for originally. He found it in Lucy’s bedroom, its jaws yawning wide open, its contents scattered in a rude semicircle around it. He’d have to wait for forensics to go over the crime scene before he could remove the suitcase and the few things he judged had been in it. With a sigh, he made himself as comfortable as possible.

“Your timing is perfect, she just finished her dinner,” Lucy said, looking up from the sleeping infant at her breast. Expecting to see the nurse, her smile faded when she saw Dylan entering her room. Primly, she covered herself, her mouth hardening. Why couldn’t he leave her alone and let her heal?

“I didn’t expect to see you again.”

Her voice was cool, distant. He couldn’t blame her. Dylan nodded at the suitcase he was holding, telling himself that the sight of Lucy nursing her baby didn’t effect him one way or another.

“I thought you might need some things.” He placed it at the end of her bed.

“What are you trying to do to me, Dylan? Why are you being nice to me one minute, then the next…?”

Abruptly, Lucy caught hold of herself, breaking off her words midsentence. There was no point in upbraiding him, and she refused to lose her composure in front of her daughter, no matter how young the girl was. She had to be strong and this wasn’t the way.

With effort, Lucy regrouped, then looked at the suitcase as he flipped open the locks. Maybe, in his own way, he was trying. At least she could be civil toward him. “Thank you.”

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