What’s more irresistible than a gorgeous, sexy man? What’s more adorable than a sexy guy and a cute, cuddly baby?

Two lucky women might get to have both in

THEIR BABY GIRL…?

Two bestselling authors deliver two

compelling, emotional stories.

MARIE FERRARELLA

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy, and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humour and natural dialogue. This RITA® Award-winning author’s goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

THEIR BABY GIRL…?

The Baby Mission

MARIE FERRARELLA

Her Baby Secret

VICTORIA PADE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To

Patience Smith

and our bonding process

The Baby Mission

MARIE FERRARELLA

Prologue

She was back. He’d seen her. Seen Claire.

Held her.

Her eyes were closed now, but she knew it was him. He knew she knew. Because Claire was his.

Now and forever.

He’d been away for three long, aching years and when he’d finally been allowed to return, he was afraid that he’d never see her again. That she would be gone.

But he had found her, found Claire. No one else would ever have her again. Would ever touch her again.

There were no words to do justice to the emotions that were skittering through him. Elation, joy, empowerment, those were all good words, but not really good enough. Not nearly good enough to begin to describe what it was he was experiencing right at this moment, just looking at her lying here on the grass.

He sifted a strand of her hair through his fingers. Bending down, he closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply.

Her hair smelled of something herbal. Something nice.

Silky blond hair.

Hair that would continue to grow even though she no longer would. She wouldn’t have the promise of another sunrise, another star-filled night.

He sat back on his heels and looked at her.

She looked so beautiful.

In his other hand, he held a rose. A single, perfect red rose. A rose as perfect as the young woman who lay here before him.

There were bruises on her throat, which marred that perfection. But he had hidden them. Nobody would ever see.

Carefully he placed the single red rose in her hand, then arranged the fingers of her other hand around the stem. He sat back and studied his handiwork.

She looked as if she was sleeping.

Perfect.

The pressure in his chest was gone. It felt good to be back.

To have Claire again.

Because he loved her.

Chapter 1

“Guess who’s back?”

Special Agent Chris Jones, C.J. to her friends, looked up from her desk, the same desk that had kept her a virtual prisoner in the Southern California office for the past two months. She struggled against a very strong inclination to frown.

By the tone of her partner’s voice, her completely free-to-work-in-the-field-while-she-withered-on-the-vine-in-the-office partner, Special Agent Byron Warrick was either going to give her more paperwork to cope with, or worse, he had something going on in the field that she was barred from. The powers that be didn’t think a pregnant woman belonged out there.

Bracing herself, she tossed her long, straight, blond hair over her shoulder and asked, “Who?”

Warrick perched on the edge of C.J.’s desk and looked down at her. All of her. He hadn’t seen her in nearly a week, and every time he was away from her, he had to admit it was a shock when he first saw her again.

He wasn’t accustomed to seeing her this way. When they had first been teamed up, she’d weighed scarcely more than his equipment bag for the peewee softball team he used to coach. The last couple of months had certainly taken their toll on his partner.

He shook his head. She dressed well, and there was a certain amount of camouflage involved, but there was no way she could hide what was going on.

Warrick stole a peppermint from her desk and began to remove the cellophane. “You know, C.J., I can’t remember what you looked like when you weren’t pregnant.”

Why was it that men felt compelled to bury affection in a sea of banter, barbs and teasing? There were times when Warrick acted just like one of her brothers.

“Very funny.” C.J. sighed, then admitted, “Neither can I.” She pushed the keyboard back on her desk. Something was clearly up. “Okay, what has you so all-fired chipper this morning?”

“Not chipper, C.J.” Under the circumstances, that was rather a disrespectful word to apply to the situation, but then, she didn’t know yet. “Just energized.”

He played out the moment, reeling C.J. in. He felt bad for her, knowing how she felt about being stuck behind a desk. But he also felt relieved. Her reflexes had to have slowed down in this condition, and he didn’t want to have to be worried about something happening to her if she tried to go about business as usual. Business was definitely not as usual.

“Remember our old friend, the Sleeping Beauty Killer?”

Recall was instant. C.J. stiffened. The Sleeping Beauty Killer was the name she had dubbed the serial killer who had killed twelve women over the space of two years. All his victims were blue-eyed blondes, all between the ages of twenty and thirty. The name had been given him not for any missives the killer had left in his wake, but for the way he had arranged all the bodies postmortem. He strangled his victims, put a costume jewelry choker on them to hide the marks on their necks and then lyrically placed them on the ground with their hands folded around a single long-stemmed, perfect red rose. The women all appeared as if they were just sleeping, waiting for their prince to come and wake them up with a kiss.

Except that no kiss could undo what he had done to them.

Ordinarily, since all the murders had taken place in the vicinity of Orange County, the FBI wouldn’t have gotten involved unless requested to do so by the local authorities. But victim number two had been found in the parking lot of the federal court building. That made it a federal case and gave the Bureau primary jurisdiction. She’d been the first to come aboard.

Capturing the Sleeping Beauty Killer had been C.J.’s own personal crusade, one that had gone unfulfilled. The killings had abruptly stopped three years ago and the trail had gone completely dry.

The drudgery of the morning with its data inputting was forgotten. C.J.’s eyes brightened as she looked up at Warrick.

“Are you sure?” She made no attempt to hide the eagerness in her voice. If the serial killer was back, that instantly increased their chances of finally getting him for all the murders. “As far as anyone knows, he’s been out of commission for three years.”

The unofficial theory was that someone had turned the tables on the Sleeping Beauty Killer and killed him. Serial killers rarely lost the blood lust, so the abrupt termination hadn’t been voluntary. C.J. had spent countless hours scouring the crime databases herself, looking for any murders that had been committed using a similar MO. But none had come to light. Eventually C.J. decided, with no small relief, that although she wasn’t the one to bring him to justice, chances were that the Sleeping Beauty Killer was answering to a higher power for his crimes.

Obviously, relief had been premature, she thought.

“Take a look at what just came in.” Separating the photograph from the rest of the folder he was carrying, Warrick tossed it on her desk.

C.J.’s stomach tightened. She found herself looking down at an angelic face that was all but devoid of makeup. The Sleeping Beauty Killer liked them fresh, untouched by anything but death.

The girl in the photograph couldn’t have been more than twenty. Her whole life ahead of her, and now it was gone. With effort C.J. pushed down the anger that rose up within her.

She took the photograph in her hands, studying it. The girl was holding a single red rose in her hands. It was too eerily similar. But there were the three years to consider.

C.J. raised her eyes to Warrick’s face. “Copycat?” Not that that was a cause for celebration. Copycat or original, the girl was still dead.

“Maybe.” But somehow Warrick doubted it. He tapped the folder. “But he got it right, down to the last detail. Including the polished pink nails.”

It was the one detail they’d withheld from the public when the story had broken. The Sleeping Beauty Killer liked to give the women he strangled a manicure, also postmortem. He used the same shade of nail polish every time, a shade too common to be useful in their search.

C.J. shivered. “Sick bastard,” she muttered under her breath. In an unguarded moment, her hand slipped down over her belly in the eternal protective movement of expectant mothers everywhere, as if trying to shield her baby from this kind of horror. It’s not the best place I’m bringing you into, baby. She let the photograph drop back on her desk. “I guess he isn’t rotting in hell the way he was supposed to be.”

Warrick tucked the photograph back into the folder. “Guess not.”

C.J.’s eyes were drawn back to the photograph. They had to catch this killer before he struck again. She tried not to think about how many other times she’d thought the same thing. “Okay, what have we got on this?”

There was that word again, Warrick thought. We. They weren’t a “we” at the moment. And they wouldn’t be until after her baby was born. She made things hard on both of them by not remembering that fact.

“Information’s just coming in, C.J.” Looking at her, he could read her mind the way only some members of her family could. They’d been partners for six years now, covered each other’s backs on the job and offered silent support outside the job’s perimeters when the situation called for it. “Hey, this isn’t a signal to leap out from behind your desk.” His green eyes swept over her considerable bulk as a hint of a smile played on his lips. “Not that leaping appears to be in your repertoire at the moment.”

“Thanks a bunch.” C.J. shifted in her seat, wishing she could get comfortable, knowing it was a futile effort. These days comfortable was only a word in the dictionary. “I wasn’t about to leap, just walk out with as much dignity as a pregnant elephant can muster.”

He’d crossed the line and hurt her feelings, Warrick realized. So he backtracked a little. “I wouldn’t say elephant.”

“Not verbally,” C.J. countered, knowing she had him and skewering him just a little. Because he owed it to her. “But I can see what you’re thinking in your eyes. I always could, you know.”

He liked being able to read her, but he didn’t like being transparent himself. “What I’m thinking is that any normal woman would have already gone on maternity leave by now.”

She’d been over this subject ad nauseum, with both Warrick and her family. Four brothers, two parents and a partner, all of whom thought they knew better than she did what was best for her.

“We both know I don’t fall into that category,” C.J. reminded him. “And we superwomen have an image to maintain.”

He grinned. It was the kind of grin that raised women’s blood pressures and lowered their resistance. At times, C.J. mused, it was hard to remember that she thought of him as another brother and was thus immune to him. He did have one hell of a smile. Lately she kept finding herself attracted to her partner at very odd moments. For some reason, Warrick had been looking sexier and sexier to her. Had to be the hormones, she decided. They were completely out of kilter. She was usually better at keeping a tight rein on her thoughts.

“Superwoman, huh?” Warrick nodded at her stomach. “I don’t exactly picture you flying around right about now.”

She eyed the folder in his hands. It was like waving a piece of ham in front of a starving dog. “Did you just come in here with this to torture me?”

Following her eyes, he tucked the folder under his arm. “No, but it was our case. I thought you’d want to be in the loop.”

Impatient, she shifted in her chair again. It creaked its protest over the change of position. C.J. frowned. “These days I feel like the whole damn loop.”

One more month, she thought, squelching a note of desperation. One more month like this and then it’d be over. One more month and she’d have this baby so she could try to get her life back on track again. It was going to be a lot better when she could finally hold her baby in her arms instead of carrying it around like a leaden weight.

She tried not to let her mind drift. There was time enough for maternal feelings after the baby arrived, healthy and strong. Until then, she was determined to keep her emotions under tight wrap.

That wasn’t going very well right now.

C.J. noted where her partner’s eyes were resting. On her abdomen. Annoyance rose up three flights.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got my whole family watching my stomach as if it’s a pot about to boil, and I don’t need my partner doing the same thing.”

Warrick straightened. “The person you should have watching your stomach is—”

She shut her eyes, searching for a vein of strength. They’d been down this road before, too. Too often. “Don’t start, War. I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it.”

“Don’t want to hear what?” He meant to make his question sound innocent. It sounded heated instead. But he wasn’t exactly impartial when it came to the FBI special agent who, until seven months ago, had a prominent place in his partner’s life—a partner he was extremely fond of. If he felt anything else toward her, well, that was something that wasn’t going to be explored in the light of day. It couldn’t be. Never mind that, pregnant or not, C.J. was the hottest-looking woman he’d ever come across. “That your insignificant other should at least be around to lend you some emotional support?”

They’d already been through this, she and Warrick. Why couldn’t he get this through his thick black Irish head? “He’s not my ‘other’ anything, War.”

The hell the man wasn’t. He had no idea what the attraction had been, but it was obviously hot enough to get her in this condition. Hot enough for her to want to keep the baby instead of going another route.

Restless, Warrick got up. “I just think that after he got you pregnant—”

C.J. took instant offense. From the moment she’d first opened her eyes on the world, despite the fact that she had a warm, loving family, she’d been her own person. She resented the implication, even for a moment, that she wasn’t.

“Nobody got me anything. We took precautions, they didn’t work. The pregnancy was an accident.”Again her hand went over her belly, as if to block out any hurtful words the baby might hear. “It happens, okay? Now if you don’t mind, Special Agent Warrick, let’s drop the subject.”

She watched the deep frown take root on his face and tried to tell herself she appreciated where he was coming from. He just cared about her, the way she did about him. Cared the way she had when his wife of two years had left him three years ago because she couldn’t stand the instability of the life he led.

“Don’t talk to me like that, C.J., as if we’re two characters out of the X-Files, calling to each other by our titles. It’s not natural. And neither,” he added vehemently, “is walking away from a woman you’re supposed to be in love with.”

He’d never liked Tom Thorndyke, hadn’t liked him from the first moment the man had stared unabashedly at C.J. But he’d made concessions because C.J. obviously cared about the jerk. He hated to see her hurt and abandoned. For two cents proper, he’d make the man eat his perfect teeth. If he could get to him. The man had taken an assignment out of the state right after he’d told C.J. that they were better off going their separate ways.

Which was right after she’d told him she was pregnant.

“Forget about Tom Thorndyke and tell me who’s been assigned to the case.” C.J. shrugged. She’d made up her mind to only look ahead and not back. Looking back never got you anywhere, anyway.

Because he knew they weren’t going to get anywhere waltzing over old ground, Warrick backed off and told her what she wanted to know. “Rodriguez, Culpepper…”

The two other special agents who had been on the original task force. A flutter of unfounded hope passed through her. “And?”

“Me.”

C.J. knew what he was telling her. Disappointment jabbed her with a sharp, extra-long knitting needle. “But not me.”

He’d gone to bat to get her on the team over the assistant director’s reservations. On the team safely. “Unofficially.” Warrick pointed to the computer. “You can cross-check information for us, go through the files, things like that.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “I’ve got too much seniority to be a grunt, Warrick, and I’m not old enough to be stuck behind a computer.”

He looked at her for a long moment. She should never have gotten involved with that character. For once it seemed as if her keen instincts had completely failed her. “Should have thought of that before you tripped the light fantastic with old shoot-and-scoot.”

She’d never been long on patience. Pregnancy had cut her lag time in half. She struggled to hold on to her temper. “Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped with the cute references?”

“I’ll stop when he materializes out of the Bermuda Triangle to live up to his end of it.” He looked at her long and hard. “And there’s nothing ‘cute’ about a man who ducks out on his responsibilities.”

She’d given the matter a great deal of thought even before she’d told Thorndyke about the baby she was carrying. She’d found herself drawing up a list of the man’s pros and cons. Disgusted, she’d crumpled them up. Love and marriage was not decided by a safe, sane list of pros and cons, but on a gut feeling, a lack of breath and an X-factor that defied description. None of the latter applied to Tom Thorndyke. The relationship, short as it was, had been a mistake. A misjudgment on her part because she’d been lonely, and she took full responsibility for it.

She just wished Warrick would let it drop. “The worst thing in the world would have been for Thorndyke and me to get married.”

Part of him felt that way, too. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. “If you felt that way, why did you sleep with him?”

Very simply because she hadn’t thought about any consequences arising from the liaison. For once in her life, impulse had guided her. But once she’d discovered she was pregnant, changes in her outlook followed. She saw Tom’s true colors. And maternal instincts came out of nowhere. She never once doubted that she wanted this baby. But even so, she refused to allow herself the luxury of making plans. Plans had a way of falling through, dragging disappointment in their wake.

She looked at Warrick. “Since when do I owe you any explanations?”

Holding the folder in one hand, he opened his arms wide and shrugged. “You don’t.” With that, he turned away.

Annoyed at him and herself, C.J. called after him. “You can have a serving of ice cream without wanting to marry the ice cream vat.” Warrick stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. She shrugged. “Besides, it was just one of those things that happened. It would be a mistake to have three people pay for one night of passion.” And a birth control method that had failed, she added silently.

He crossed back to her slowly. “I guess that makes sense.”

She’d known all along that Warrick hadn’t liked Tom. Maybe, in some perverse way, that might have even spurred her on, although she couldn’t have actually explained why. In any event, as far as she was concerned that was all behind her.

“Okay, enough atonement, Father Warrick.” She put her hand out for the folder. “Give me the information. Do we know who the victim is?”

He nodded. There’d been no mystery here. “Same as always.” Warrick handed her the folder. “There was a wallet. He doesn’t get his jollies challenging us.”

As far as serial killers went, the Sleeping Beauty Killer wasn’t unduly cruel. He’d always made a point of making sure that the victim could be readily identified, that her next of kin, if there were any, could easily be contacted and informed of the person’s death. The only secrecy was his identity. And why he killed in the first place.

C.J. glanced at the information. She felt heartsick for the family. No one should have to put up with this kind of thing happening.

“A serial killer with heart. How lovely. Damn it, Warrick.” She slapped the folder down on her desk. “I want this guy in the worst way.” Emotions weren’t going to catch the killer. Only cold, hard, deliberate investigation would do it. And a great deal of luck. “What do you think made him stop for so long?”

He perched on her desk again. She was wearing a different perfume, he noted. It was sexier. He couldn’t help wondering if she was trying to compensate for her present state. At a different time…

He caught his thoughts before they could slip off to somewhere they shouldn’t.

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just shifted his base of operations,” he theorized. “Maybe our guy discovered that the world is a hell of a lot larger than just Orange County in California.”

It was a theory, but not one she subscribed to. Not after all the hours she’d logged in, looking for the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s pattern and coming up empty. “I don’t think so. No other murders matched this particular, meticulous MO. No, something made him stop. How do you crawl into the head of someone like this?” she wondered out loud.

He looked at her. There was a danger in that. “Careful that once you crawl in, you don’t forget how to crawl out again.”

She laughed, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “Been watching Al Pacino in Cruising again?” Though he denied it, the award-winning actor was clearly one of Warrick’s favorites.

“Hey, things like that happen,” he protested. “You become one with the criminal and forget where you end off and he starts.”

She shivered. “Never happen. There’s no way I would ever mentally bond with this character. He gives me the creeps.” Just touching the folder made her skin crawl. He had to get these women to trust him, played on their vulnerability and then struck. He was a loathsome creature of the lowest order.

Warrick was more concerned about her right now than the Sleeping Beauty Killer. “Why don’t you knock it off for a while?” He glanced at his watch. It was close to two. If he didn’t miss his guess, she hadn’t left her desk, except for bathroom runs, since she’d come in this morning. “Want to pick up some late lunch?”

She tilted her head, studying his face, suppressing a grin. “You buying?”

“No way.” Warrick laughed shortly. “I’ve seen the way you eat lately. We’ll go Dutch.” He moved behind her. “I will, however, help you out of your chair.”

Another crack, however veiled, about her weight. She could do without that, even though she’d gained a good twenty-eight pounds in the past two months. Before then, she’d stayed rail thin, actually losing weight because of an extra-long bout of morning sickness.

“Forever the gentleman. Thanks,” she waved him away, “but I’ll pass.” She opened the folder and spread it out on her desk. “I want to go through this file.”

Serial killers were not something a woman about to give birth should be concentrating on. Maybe that made him old-fashioned, he mused.

“You know, you could start thinking about decorating that spare bedroom of yours.” He knew from her brothers that she still hadn’t bought a single thing to reflect her pending motherhood.

C.J. looked at him sharply. Not him, too. He was the last one she would have thought would bother her about this. “Bad luck.”

He shook his head. “I never took you to be the superstitious type.”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a vague gesture. “We’re all superstitious in our own way.” It had taken her time to come to terms with this phase of her life, but now she wanted this baby, wanted it badly. And was afraid of wanting it. “I don’t like counting on anything unless it’s right there in front of me.”

Her comment surprised him. It wasn’t like her. “I thought I was supposed to be the cynical one.”

Her smile went straight to his inner core. It never failed to amaze him how connected he and this woman were. Even more so than he and his wife had been. As a rule he wasn’t given to close relationships, always keeping a part of himself in reserve. But there was something about C.J. that transcended that rule.

“Spend six years with someone,” she told him, “some bad habits are bound to rub off. But if you must know, you didn’t have anything to do with this one. My mother’s four aunts did a number on me once the cat was out of the bag.” Aided and abetted by her enduring trim figure, it had taken her five months to tell her family about her condition. They’d been wonderfully supportive, and ever so slightly annoyingly intrusive. “They had a dozen stories about miscarriages to tell me. Each.”

He leaned over the desk. A strand of her hair hung in her face, and he tucked it behind her ear. In typical obstinate behavior, she shook her head, causing it to come loose again. He wondered why he found that so damn attractive. He shouldn’t.

“You’re eight months along and the doctor gave you a clean bill of health. I don’t think you have to worry about miscarrying. Just about how to make the spineless wonder pay his fair share.”

Warrick was definitely too close—and making odd things happen inside her. C.J. pushed herself away from the desk—and her partner. “Warrick, I know that in your own twisted little way, you care about me. But get this through that thick head of yours. I don’t want anything from Tom Thorndyke. As far as I am concerned, this is my baby and only my baby.”

He crossed his arms before his chest. “Another case of the immaculate conception?”

Her temper was dangerously close to going over to the dark side. “Byron—”

He winced at the sound of his first name. One of these days, when he got a chance to get around to it, he was going to have it legally changed. Lord Byron had been his mother’s favorite poet while she was carrying him, but there was no reason that he had to suffer because of that.

“Okay, I’ll back off.”

“Thank you.”

He started to head for the door. “Want me to bring you back anything?”

She glanced at the folder on her desk. “Just the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s head on a platter.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Afraid that’s not the special of the day.” Warrick paused for a moment longer, looking at her. There was affection in his eyes, as well as concern. “Take some personal time.”

She just waved him off, then watched appreciatively as he walked away. The man had one hell of a tight butt.

“Damn hormones,” she muttered to herself as she began to pore over the folder he had given her.

Her hands braced on the arms of her office chair, C.J. pushed herself up to her feet. It was late, but she wasn’t finished yet. Time for her hourly sojourn to the bathroom.

She hated this lumbering girth that had become hers. In top condition since the age of ten when she’d picked up her first free weight to brain her older brother, Brian—an occurrence her father had prevented at the last moment—C.J. hated physical restrictions of any kind. The last two months of her pregnancy had forced her to assume a lifestyle she disliked intensely.

The only thing that made it bearable was knowing that she was doing it for her baby’s good. But it was rough being noble, especially as she watched War rick team up with other people, handling cases she wanted to be handling. She’d never been one to sit on the sidelines and it was killing her.

“Ah, I see you’re ready to go.”

Turning around, C.J. saw Diane Jones coming toward her. She didn’t remember making any arrangements to meet her mother at the office. “What are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to greet your mother?” Diane pressed a quick kiss to her daughter’s temple. “Ethan had a deposition to take not far from here. He dropped me off.” She tapped her wristwatch. “Chris, your Lamaze class starts in half an hour. At this time of day, it might take us that long to get there. Let’s go.”

She’d only gotten halfway through the details in the reports. Besides, she wasn’t in the mood to stretch and lie on the floor. Class wasn’t as much fun now that Sherry and Joanna were gone, each having given birth.

“I was thinking of not going,” she told her mother.

Protests had never gotten in Diane’s way. She hooked her arm through her daughter’s, tugging her in the direction of the door.

“Fine. And you can continue thinking about it on the way there.” She used her “mom” voice, the one that had allowed her to govern four energetic boys and a daughter whose energy level went off the charts. “Let’s go, Chris. Don’t make me get Warrick in here to convince you.”

Funny how much a part of her family her partner had become. “He’s out in the field.”

Diane picked up on her daughter’s tone. “You’ll be out there, giving me heart failure, soon enough.” She gave C.J.’s arm another tug. “Now let’s go.”

Resigned, C.J., sighed and got her purse from the bottom desk drawer. “Yes, Mother.”

Diane nodded, pleased at the capitulation. “Well, it could be a little more cheerful, but I’ll take what I can get.”

So saying, she gently pushed her daughter out the door.

“We have to stop at the bathroom,” C.J. told her.

Diane’s smile didn’t fade. “I never doubted it for a minute.”

Chapter 2

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Lamaze instructor Lori O’Neill whispered to C.J. as the class began breaking up.

Handing her pillow to her mother, C.J. looked at the perky, rather pregnant blond instructor. The session had run a little long tonight. All C.J. wanted to do was drop her mother off at her house and go home herself.

She’d been preoccupied throughout the entire session, her mind constantly reverting to some stray piece of information about one or another of the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s victims. Twice her mother’d had to tap her on her shoulder to get her to pay attention to what was going on in class.

This was a far cry from the way the classes normally used to go, Lori thought. It wasn’t all that long ago that she, Lori, Sherry Campbell and Joanna Prescott would go out together after class to a local, old-fashioned ice cream parlor where they would indulge their insatiable craving for sweets. But Sherry and Joanna were no longer part of the class, or the inner clique Lori had pulled together and whimsically dubbed the Mom Squad. Sherry and Joanna had each given birth and with new men in their lives as well, were on their way to no longer being single mothers.

C.J. shook her head. “I don’t think—”

On a mission of mercy, Lori was not about to take no for an answer. “You’ve been looking a little down these last two sessions, so I called up Sherry and Joanna and invited them out for the evening. They’re waiting for us at the ice cream parlor.”

She really didn’t need the extra calories. Even so, C.J. could feel her taste buds getting into gear. Still, she felt she needed to review the personal notes she’d kept at home dealing with the serial killer’s various victims. There just had to be something she was missing.

C.J. grasped at a plausible excuse. “But I’ve got to drop off my mother—”

The excuse died quickly. “Not another word about it,” Diane protested. She was already digging her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ll just call your father and he can come to pick me up.” Her blue eyes sparkled lustily as she grinned at her only daughter. “Did I ever tell you about the first time he picked me up?” She sighed dramatically. “Your father was the handsomest thing on two legs, and I would have followed him to the ends of the earth.” She winked at Lori. “Luckily, I didn’t have to. His apartment was right around the corner.”

C.J. had grown up hearing the story in its various forms, originally amended because of her age, then updated on every occasion. In its time, it had made a wonderful bedtime story, but not tonight. She cut her mother off before she could get rolling. “You don’t mind calling him?”

Diane pressed a single number on the cell’s keypad. “Not in the slightest.” Her eyes took on a glow as a male voice echoed in her ear. “James? Chris can’t drop me off, would you mind coming to get me?” Catching her daughter’s eye, she shook her head tolerantly. “No, she’s not going out in the field.” Diane covered the cell phone with a well-manicured hand. “He worries about his little girl,” she confided to Lori.

C.J. rolled her eyes. “I’m probably the only FBI agent who has to look over her shoulder to make sure her father isn’t trailing after her.” Her father would have been a great deal happier with her if she’d put her law degree to use and followed him into the firm, as her three older brothers had. Even Jamie, the youngest, was studying law. She was the only maverick in the family—and she liked it that way.

Lori laughed, slipping an arm around C.J.’s shoulders. “Hey, it’s nice having a family care about you. I’d give anything to have my dad trailing after me.” Both of her parents were gone now. The only family Lori had left was her late husband’s older brother.

Diane flipped her phone shut. “There, all settled.” She tucked the cell phone into her purse. “Your father’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” She shooed the women off. “Go, have an ice cream for me.” She looked down at a figure that was still trim by anyone’s standards except her own and sighed. “Anything I eat goes right to my hips. No passing go, no collecting two hundred dollars, just directly to my hips.”

Lori gave C.J. a quizzical look. C.J. was quick to provide an explanation. “Mom’s a Monopoly enthusiast.”

Diane leaned in and confided to Lori. “She’d say ‘freak’ if I wasn’t here.” The look she gave her daughter spoke volumes. “We all have our little obsessions.”

Her mind on other things, C.J. couldn’t help thinking about the Sleeping Beauty Killer and the women he had singled out to eliminate. “Yes,” she agreed quietly, “we do.”

The ice cream parlor, with its quaint booths and small tables, looked as if it belonged to another era, nestled in another century. C.J. felt completely at ease here. There was something soothing about the decor. It spoke of innocence and simplicity, something she found herself longing for.

By the time she and Lori arrived, Sherry and Joanna, both now enviably slim, were already seated at a booth. Sherry waved to them the moment they walked in.

There was no need to place an order. The instant the waitress saw the four of them, she began making notations on her pad. The women’s choice almost never varied.

“I’m really glad you called,” Sherry told Lori as she settled back with her hot-fudge sundae. “I’ve been meaning to get in touch.” Her eyes swept over the faces of the other two women. “With all of you.” Leaving her spoon buried deep within the mountain of French vanilla ice cream, she dug into her purse and pulled out three official-looking ivory envelopes. She handed one to each of them. “I’m not economizing on stamps,” she explained. “I just thought the personal touch was nicer.”

Taking a generous spoonful of ice cream, Sherry savored the taste as she watched her three friends open up the lacy envelopes.

The tearing of paper was followed by squeals of enthusiasm and mutual joy.

C.J. was the first to collect herself and say something closer to a level pitch. “You’re getting married.”

Sherry grinned. If anyone had told her three months ago that she would be marrying one of the richest men in the country, not to mention one of the best looking, she would have told them they were crazy. But here she was, wildly in love and engaged. Life had a funny way of working things out with excellent results. “Yeah, I know.”

Joanna tucked the invitation away into her purse and began sipping her strawberry ice cream soda in earnest. “Talk about the lengths that a journalist is willing to go to in order to get an exclusive interview…”

A reporter for the Bedford World News, Sherry’s assignment had begun as a challenge. To get a background story on an elusive, successful corporate raider dubbed Darth Vader. Things had gotten tangled up when she’d suddenly gone into labor at his mountain hideaway. St. John Adair had wound up delivering her baby. From there, everything had just escalated.

Sherry looked at her friends. They all knew her story. She’d become as close to them as she was to her own family.

“Exclusive is definitely the key word here.”Sherry sighed, temporarily forgetting about the sinful dessert. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” Her grin widened. “Part of me feels that it’s got to be illegal to feel this happy.”

Reaching over the table, C.J. squeezed her hand. “Enjoy it while you can. As far as I know, they haven’t passed a law against that yet.”

Since her sundae was beginning to drip a little around the edges, Sherry’s attention reverted back to her dessert. “I tried to time the ceremony so that it didn’t interfere with either of your due dates.”She looked at the two pregnant women. “You will come, won’t you?”

She could use a little happy diversion in her life, C.J. thought. “Try and stop me.”

Lori patted her stomach affectionately. “Count me in. This little darling’ll be out and smiling in time for you to exchange your vows.”

“Babies don’t smile until they’re at least six months old,” C.J. contradicted. She saw Lori begin to protest. “Those funny little expressions you see on their faces is just gas.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Joanna interjected with all the confidence of a new first-time mother delving through the mysteries of babies. “My baby smiles at me all the time. And at Rick.”

“That’s not surprising,” Sherry commented. “A stone would smile at Rick.” Her eyes shifted toward C.J. The FBI special agent was the next one due and had plied both her and Joanna with questions about what giving birth actually felt like. “So, are you getting excited?”

C.J. had gone from excited to nervous to feeling twinges of encroaching panic. With the big event less than a month away, she was now banking down any and all thoughts regarding the pending experience. It was easier getting through the day that way.

“I’m trying not to think about it.” She took a long sip of her mint chocolate-chip shake and let the coolness slide down her throat before continuing. “I’m not much on anticipating pain.”

Or dealing with the fear that had descended over her, she added silently. For probably the first time in her life, she found herself afraid of the unknown. Afraid of what she did know about the unknown. Afraid of what came after, as well. Because, despite the support of her family and friends, she was afraid of screwing up.

Joanna waved away the comment. “That’s just a small part of it,” she assured C.J. “It’s true what they say, you know. You do forget.”

C.J. curled her lip cynically. “Probably because it hurts so much, you black out.”

Lori looked at her in surprise. “I’ve never heard you sound so negative before.” She studied her for a second. “Anything wrong?”

C.J. sighed, pushing her straw into a glob of ice cream. “Just feeling sorry for myself, I guess.” She saw the others were waiting for a more detailed “My partner’s out in the field, tracking down a serial killer.”

Sherry was the first to break the silence. “Serialkiller envy.” Exchanging looks with the others, she laughed incredulously. “Boy, that’s definitely not my thing.” And then she became serious. “You’re a mom-to-be, C.J. You’re supposed to be agonizing over what shade of blue or pink to paint the nursery, not about wanting to go chasing after the bad guys with a gun strapped to the inside of your maternity bra.”

They didn’t understand, C.J. thought. Though she gave the appearance of being flamboyant and quick to act, deep down, she felt a strong commitment to her work. She defined herself by it. There was this overwhelming need within her to put “the bad guys,” as Sherry called them, away.

“Speaking of nursery,” Joanna, ever the peacemaker, interjected, “have you decided to finally let us give you baby presents?”

It was a sore point with everyone, C.J. sensed. Even her brothers were commenting on it. Warrick’s crack this afternoon had made it unanimous. She shook her head, a curiously shy smile creeping along her lips. “There’s no need to give me presents.”

“Yes, there is,” Sherry insisted. She waved her hand around the table, taking them all in. “It’s part of the bonding process.”

Sherry thought back to when they had all initially gotten together. She knew as far as she went, talking with the women had gone a long way toward helping her remain calm about the challenges that were ahead of her. She had her parents, whom she loved dearly, but there was something infinitely comforting about being able to turn to women who were in the exact same rocky boat as she was and be able to talk out the fears that plagued her.

“We’re all in this together, so to speak,” Sherry pointed out. “C’mon, C.J., why won’t you let us give you anything?”

“After,” C.J. told them. “Once he or she is here.”

This time it was Joanna’s turn to shake her head. “I can’t believe that you’re the only one of the four of us who had an amniocentesis done and you didn’t ask the doctor to tell you what you were having.”

She had her reasons. “I always liked opening up my gifts at the end of the day, not the beginning.”

C.J. didn’t add that she was afraid if she knew the sex of the baby, she’d start thinking of it as a real person. This way, if something unforeseeable did happened and she lost the baby, she could still mentally divorce herself from it somehow.

Just the way she had from Tom.

All her protests to Warrick and her family notwithstanding, when Tom told her that he thought it was best if they just stopped seeing each other, she’d felt cruelly disappointed. She’d honestly thought that for once, she’d found someone she could count on. Someone who felt as strongly about her as she did about him.

That was what happened when you expected too much, she told herself. You wound up with too little. Or, in this case, with almost nothing at all.

But she was determined that no one would suspect how she really felt. It didn’t go with the image of herself she wanted to project.

Wanting to change the direction of the conversation, she looked at Joanna. “So, your turn. How are things going with you?”

Joanna’s eyes glowed. She pushed aside her almost depleted dish of dessert, wiping off the area in front of her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Digging deeply into her purse, she pulled out a small white album that was almost bursting at the seams. It was crammed full of brand-new photographs of her brand-new baby.

Sherry laughed as she dug into her own purse. “I’ll meet your stack—” she plunked down her own album “—and raise you five pictures.” “You’re on,” Joanna declared.

Lori exchanged looks with C.J. “I think we’re about to get babied to death.”

“Bring them on,” C.J. encouraged. “I can’t think of a sweeter way to go.”

* * *

Last night had been nice break, but it felt good to get back to work, C.J. thought as she sat, reading over the folder that Warrick had left with her yesterday. She was reviewing it for the umpteenth time.

The office was empty, except for her. There were times she welcomed the quiet.

She enjoyed getting together with the other women. That in itself was a constant source of surprise to her. Apart from her mother, she’d been raised in a world of men. With three older brothers and one younger one, C.J. found that she had a difficult time relating to other women.

But Lori, Sherry and Joanna were different. Maybe because, for different reasons, they had all found themselves approaching motherhood while in a single status. Facing the biggest event in their lives without a life partner beside them had given them all something in common.

Something in common.

What did these thirteen women have in common? she wondered, staring down at the photographs spread out on her desk. Beyond the obvious, of course. If you looked quickly, and myopically, they almost looked like photographs of the same person.

Of her, she thought grimly. Because she bore the same eerily similar physical features as the dead women. She was a blue-eyed blonde within the age range that the Sleeping Beauty Killer gravitated toward.

There but for the grace of God…

C.J. shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t know if it was the thought or the unnerving twinges she kept feeling that was getting to her.

What had made the Sleeping Beauty Killer snuff out these women’s lives, executing them politely but firmly? Why them? Why not green-eyed redheads or brown-eyed brunettes?

There had to be a reason. Something.

One by one she held up the photographs of the young women, taken while they were still alive, and examined them closely. Did they represent some kind of fantasy woman to the killer? Someone in his life who had been unattainable to him? Who perhaps had spurned him?

Or was there some kind of other reason behind his choice?

She just didn’t know, and not knowing frustrated her to the nth degree. Muttering an oath, she tossed down the last photograph, taken of the last victim. A Bedford University sophomore named Nora Adams.

“Did you know him, Nora? Did you talk to him? Smile at him? Or did you not even see him?”

“Don’t you have a home to go to?”

Startled, C.J. almost jumped. It took a moment for her heart to stop slamming against her rib cage. Turning around, she saw that Warrick was standing not five feet away from her. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

C.J. took a deep breath and gathered the photographs together again. “Since when did you decide to become my keeper?”

As if that was possible. “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.”

This pending motherhood with all its emotional baggage was getting her too jumpy, she thought disparagingly. Her nerves felt scattered and dangerously close to the surface. She just wished she didn’t ache so. “How’s the investigation going?”

He’d been on his way home when he’d decided to take a detour and stop at the field office. He had a hunch C.J. would still be here. There were times, such as these, when he felt that his partner didn’t have the common sense of a flea. Not when it came to herself, anyway.

Warrick shoved his hands into his pockets. The case was as frustrating to him as it was to her. There were dead ends as far as the eye could see. Just like the last time.

“No more dead girls, if that’s what you’re asking. No more clues, either. No fingerprints, no bodily fluids, no sloppy anything left in his wake.” He laughed shortly. “It’s like the guy’s a ghost.”

He’d put into words the thought she’d just been entertaining. “Maybe he is.” Warrick looked at her sharply. “What do you mean, like Casper?”

“No.” He knew she didn’t mean that, C.J. thought in exasperation. “Like someone nobody notices. One of those people who pass through our lives who we never take any note of.” Caught up in a fast-paced existence, she was as guilty as everyone else. “The kid bagging your groceries, the toll booth guy making change. The postal worker who weighs your package. People we see every day without really seeing them at all.”

She could be on to something. That could explain why no one ever noticed anyone out of the ordinary hanging around, Warrick reasoned. “That doesn’t mean he won’t make a mistake.”

She sighed, flipping the folder closed. She shifted again. Her back was aching in the worst way. She tried to remember if she’d done something to strain it. “He hasn’t until now.”

“And odds are, he won’t tonight.”

She looked at Warrick quizzically. What was that supposed to mean? Had he heard something? “Tonight?”

“Yes.” Pulling her chair back from her desk, he turned it around to face him and leaned over her. “Go home, C.J. You look tired.”

Feet planted on the floor, she scooted back. “Bad lighting.”

There was no such thing as bad lighting as far as C.J. was concerned. She looked good in shadow and in sunlight. Rousing his thoughts, he waved around the office. “Everyone else is gone.”

She raised her chin defiantly, knowing she was baiting him and enjoying it. “You’re not.”

“That’s because I’m checking in on you.” He stopped, knowing this was going to go nowhere. With C.J. it never did unless she wanted it to. “God, but you are a stubborn woman.”

She pulled up another program on her computer. Maybe a fresh perspective would help. “Wouldn’t have lasted all this time with you if I wasn’t.”

“Hey, the only reason we’re together is because I’m the patient one. You’re the one who’s always running off half-cocked.”

The ache began to sear through her body. “No running tonight,” she muttered.

He gave it one more try. “C’mon, C.J., let me take you home.”

She splayed her hand over her chest. “Why, Warrick, this is so sudden.”

Not really. The small voice in his head came out of nowhere, implying things it had no business implying. Damn it, what had gotten into him tonight?

He raised a brow at the wordplay. “Your home, not mine, partner.”

It was late and she didn’t know how much longer her energy would last. Maybe something she came up with here would ultimately save someone. “Later.”

He felt the edge of his temper sharpening. “Now.”

C.J. looked away from her screen, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “You’re not the boss of me, Warrick.”

He gave up. Drop-dead gorgeous or not, she was stubborn as a smelly mule. “Fine, sound like a two-year-old. You’ll be good company for that baby of yours.”

She knew he meant well, but so did she. There was a man out there killing women because they looked like real-live versions of Barbie, and she had to put a stop to it. “I don’t feel like going home, War. There’s a stack of dirty dishes in the sink waiting for me, and a pile of laundry held over from the Spanish Civil War. If I’m here, I don’t feel guilty about not cleaning.”

She had to be the most contrary woman he’d ever met. Nothing about her went by the book. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the nesting mode by now?”

She hated that term. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a woman, not a bird.”

“You’re a walking contradiction of terms is what you are.” Surrendering, Warrick sighed. “Never could get you to listen to reason.”

She spared him a look and grinned. “Right, why start now?”

Why indeed. There was a cold beer in his refrigerator with his name on it. It was time to start the reunion. “Good night, C.J.”

“Uh-huh.” Her attention was already fastened to the reports she knew almost by heart.

Warrick had crossed the room and was about to pass the threshold when he heard a strange little gasp behind him.

“Warrick?”

There was something in her voice that made the hair on the back of his neck rise up. He swung around to look at her. C.J. was still sitting at her desk, but there was an odd expression on her face.

“What?”

Oh, God. Her words came out measured. “How close would you say we were?”

That was a hell of an odd question for one partner to ask another. “Pretty close, I guess.” He looked at her more intently. “Why?”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth a second before answering. “I think we’re about to get a lot closer.”

Like a man feeling his way along a tightrope, Warrick slowly made his way back into the room, staring at C.J. as he came. “What are you talking about?”

Very deliberately C.J. closed the folder on her desk. The pain shot through her again. She fisted her hands against it, but it didn’t help. Her knuckles felt as if they were going to break through her skin.

It matched the sensation going on in other parts of her.

She looked up at him, telling herself not to panic. “I’m in labor.”

Warrick’s eyes widened in disbelief. C.J. was given to practical jokes. This had to be one of them, although it went beyond the pale as far as he was concerned. “The hell you’re not.”

She caught her breath, trying to keep her voice steady. From everything she’d been able to pull out of Joanna and Sherry, this was definitely the real thing. Her skirt was damp and that could only mean one thing. Her water had broken.

“The hell I am.”

Chapter 3

“This isn’t funny, Jones,” Warrick snapped as a wave of uneasiness all but drowned him. He couldn’t remember any incident in his career, recent or otherwise, that had ever had him feeling this unprepared.

The pain found her and began twisting her in two. C.J. tried to fill her lungs with air, but even that hurt. “I don’t think any stand-up comic ever gave birth for laughs.”

He didn’t like the edgy note in her voice. The hope that this was just a bad joke on her part faded. “You’re serious.”

She pressed her lips together as she looked at him. She felt fear taking a strong toehold. Don’t panic, don’t panic. “Deadly.”

“You’re really in labor.” Somehow, maybe because he didn’t want it to, the thought just refused to penetrate his mind.

She nodded her head. Damn, this was really beginning to hurt. “Like a prisoner at Devil’s Island.”

Why was she still just sitting there, gripping both armrests as if she expected the chair to somehow launch her? “Well, damn it, what are you waiting for?” He put his hand on her arm. “Let’s go.”

She didn’t budge. She was afraid to. Afraid to even move. C.J. raised her eyes to his. “That’s just the problem, Warrick, all systems are go.”

Then why wasn’t she getting up? This wasn’t making any sense. Maybe it was a practical joke after all. He’d seen her deadpan her way through more than one joke before. He gave her arm another tug, surprised at how tightly she continued clinging to the armrests.

“Quit fooling around, C.J. The faster we get you to a hospital, the better.”

Biting down on her lower lip, C.J. pushed herself upright and immediately sank down in the chair again. Her legs had buckled, giving way beneath her. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t move.

She looked up at Warrick. “New plan.”

Impatience waltzed with nerves. “What?”

She shook her head, shrugging his hand off her arm. “We need a new plan. I can’t walk.”

This was bad, he thought, becoming really concerned. C.J. just wasn’t the frail, damsel-in-distress type. She’d been shot once and had almost snapped off his head when he’d tried to help her up off the ground.

His mind scrambled to make sense of this new input. “Okay, okay, I’ll carry you—”

“No!” With a sweeping motion, C.J. batted away his hands and then grabbed onto the arms of the chair again. It was either that or rip his arms out of their sockets. The pain was back and it had brought friends. “You don’t understand. It’s too late for that.”

Did labor enfeeble a woman’s brain? She was talking nonsense. “Too late for carrying?”

Breathing and talking at the same time suddenly became a challenge. “Too late…for…anything. I’m having this…bay-BEE.”

The sudden crescendo echoed in his head, hurting his ears. “Yes, I know—”

Her efforts to the contrary, panic was definitely taking hold. C.J. looked at him. Did she have to explain everything?

“Now, Warrick…I’m having…it now.”

He stared at her, numb. “What do you mean ‘now’?” She couldn’t possibly mean what he thought she was saying. “As in this minute?”

The wave of pain ebbed back a few inches, letting her catch her breath. Perspiration was beginning to drench her. “I knew…if…you…sounded out the…letters, you’d…get…it.”

Feeling a little weak himself, Warrick sank down on his knees beside the chair, holding on to one armrest. “C.J., you can’t be having this baby now.”

“That’s…not…what the…baby…thinks. It’s breaking…OUT.” This time, C.J. did grab Warrick’s hand. Wrapping her fingers around it tightly, she squeezed and held on for all she was worth. “Oh…God…Warrick, I think…I’m having…an…exorcism.”

He felt completely powerless and lost. This was not covered in any FBI handbook he’d ever read. “What do you want me to do?”

C.J.’s answer came without hesitation. “Kill me.”

Unequal to what was happening, Warrick dragged his hand through his hair, momentarily at a loss. “Damn it, C.J., this would have never happened if you had better taste in men.”

It was lessening, the pain was lessening. C.J. took a breath and hoped her heart wouldn’t pop out of her chest. She spared her partner an annoyed look. “What…you saying? A better…class of man…wouldn’t…have slept…with me?”

“No.” Warrick shot her a look. She knew better than that. She knew he thought she was too good for the likes of Thorndyke, even if he hadn’t told her. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

He dragged his hand through his hair again, trying to think. Nothing came. He didn’t know the first thing to do in this case, other than to keep her from panicking. But it wasn’t easy, not when he felt like panicking himself.

“I’ve got a law degree, C.J., not a degree in babies. I don’t know what to do.” He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to gather his thoughts together. A small bud of hope began to bloom. “Maybe you’re just having false labor.”

She felt as if someone had taken a carving knife to her. “If this is…false…labor, I don’t…want…to be around…for the real…thing.”

Comfortable, he had to get her comfortable. The thought was almost laughable, seeing the situation. Warrick stripped off his jacket and threw it on the floor. She could lie down on that.

Unbuttoning his sleeves, he pushed them up his forearms. “Okay, let’s get you in a better position.”

C.J. pressed her lips together, struggling hard not to give in to the waves of panic that were surfing atop waves of pain. “I bet you…say that…to all…the girls.”

Determined to muster a small ounce of dignity, she tried to get out of the chair herself. Dignity took a holiday. C.J. all but slid out of the chair in a single fluid motion, landing on his jacket on the floor.

Warrick gave his jacket a couple of tugs, trying to get it flat beneath her and make her more comfortable. It was a futile effort. He knew C.J. wasn’t going to be anywhere near comfortable until this baby had made its appearance in the world.

He was in over his head.

Warrick pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling security—”

Her hand went around his wrist like a steel band. She didn’t want some stranger gawking at her while she writhed in pain. She wanted Warrick.

“No…no security.” She gave his wrist another tug. “Just…you.”

She had entirely too much faith in him, he thought. “C.J., I don’t think I can—”

She wouldn’t let him finish. Her eyes, filled with pain, pinned him. “You’re…my best friend…Warrick. You’ve got…to help me…. You can…do this.”

Entirely too much faith. Surrendering, Warrick flipped the phone closed. “Yeah, you’ve got the tough part.” He tucked the cell phone back into his pocket and drew closer to her. His voice was calmer when he spoke. If she could have that much faith in him, the least he could do was come through for her. “Okay, C.J., this is all supposed to be natural. What’s your body telling you to do?”

She grit her teeth together. “Run…like…hell.” And then her eyes opened wide like two huge sunflowers. “I’ve got…to…push!”

He knew very little about the birth process, but what he did know was that things were happening much too soon. “Are you supposed to do that yet?”

“Dilated,” she suddenly remembered. “I’m…supposed to…be…dilated.”

Warrick had heard the term in reference to childbirth before, but for the life of him, he wasn’t sure what that actually meant. “C.J.?”

The look on his face told her everything. “I’m supposed…to be…fully…opened.”

That didn’t help very much. Warrick sat back on his heels and looked at her. “I don’t know what you look like fully closed, C.J.”

Her head ached. It was hard remembering everything that Lori had told them in class. Hard to think at all. Her brain felt as if it was winking in and out. What were the words Lori had used?

“You’re…supposed to see…the crown…of…the baby’s head.” That was it. Crowning. Lori had called it crowning.

A sinking feeling was taking up residence in the pit of his stomach. “Where?”

She stared at Warrick incredulously. When she needed him most, he’d become a complete idiot. “Where…do you…think?”

He knew exactly where he was supposed to look, he’d just been hoping against hope that he was wrong. They’d shared thoughts, feelings, almost everything over the past six years, and he would have been lying if he’d said that the thought of being intimate with her hadn’t crossed his mind more than once. But this wasn’t the way he wanted to see her nude.

“Oh, God.”

The groan escaped before he could prevent it.

The next moment he got a hold of himself. He was all she had right now and he knew it.

In its own way, this was really no different from him having her back when they were out in the field on a dangerous assignment. C.J. was putting her life in his hands and he had to keep her safe—her and this baby of hers who obviously didn’t have any respect for due dates.

He offered her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “You know, when they first put us together, I used to wonder what it would be like if I’d met you on the outside.” His smile broadened a little. “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”

This was no time for them to go to places they couldn’t afford to go to. “War—rick.”

He took a deep breath, then stated the obvious because he needed to get it out in the open and out of the way. This wasn’t going to be easy for either one of them. “It’s going to have to get personal.”

Damn it, didn’t he think she knew that? They weren’t waiting for the baby to come COD by parcel post. “Warrick…do what…you…have to do…before…I start ripping off…pieces…of your body…along…with mine.”

He grinned this time. “Nice to know you haven’t lost your winsome ways. Hang in there, champ.”

As delicately as possible, Warrick lifted her skirt and removed her underwear. The moment he did, she raised her hips off the floor, crying out as another contraction, the biggest one so far, seized her in its jaws, tightening around her so hard she thought she was going to snap in two.

She wasn’t fooling around, he thought. She was really going to give birth. It was really happening right here on the seventh floor of the federal building.

“I think this is it,” he told her, his voice slightly in awe.

“That’s…what…I’ve been…trying…to tell…you!” She twisted and turned, desperately trying to maneuver beyond the pain, and failing. She began to pant hard, not knowing what else to do. The urge to push was overwhelming, and Lori had promised she couldn’t pant and push at the same time.

She was panting. What did that mean? Warrick called up every relevant medical program he’d ever watched, trying his best to fathom his next step. The first aid course he’d taken as a teenager had completely faded from his memory banks.

Instincts took over. Needing to reassure her that it was going to be all right, he made his voice become deadly calm. “On the count of three, C.J., I want you to push. One—two—”

She wasn’t about to wait on any lousy numbers. She couldn’t pant anymore. Sitting bolt upright, she squeezed her eyes shut and bore down.

“Now!” she cried.

Ready or not, she was pushing, he realized. “Damn it, C.J., you never could take instructions.” t, then looked up at her. Her face beet red, she looked as if she was going to pass out. “Okay, stop, C.J., stop!”

Like a rag doll whose stuffing had been yanked out, C.J. collapsed in a heap on the floor, panting. She felt as if she’d just run one leg of a marathon. Without securing the baton.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’d pushed the baby out and just didn’t know it. “Is it—”

“No, not yet.”

And then another contraction came, again threatening to tear her in two. She didn’t know if she could take much more of this.

She heard the sound of Warrick’s voice and strained to make out the words.

“Ready?” he asked. She was breathing hard, as if she just couldn’t pull enough air into her lungs. He glanced up to see if she’d heard him. She was nodding. Just barely. “From the top, C.J. One, two, three.”

This time she waited until the last number was uttered, then bore down as hard as she could, pushing with all her strength.

She thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head when she heard him yelling at her.

“Stop, stop.”

Gasping, C.J. fell back on the floor again. She was sucking in air, and her head was spinning badly. She was afraid she was going to pass out at any moment, and struggled to hold on to the world around her.

“It’s…not…working…is…it?”

How many times did it take to push out a baby? he wondered. One look at C.J. told him that she couldn’t take very much more of this.

He took it one step at a time. And lied. “One more time.”

But she knew better. He could fool everyone else, but not her.

“You’re…lying.” Tears and sweat were mingling in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks, pooling beneath her back. “I…can’t do…this…Warrick. I’m…not…cut out…for…this…kind of thing.” trying to push up a hill.

There was no giving up now. He couldn’t let her. “Yes, you are.” His voice was fierce. “You’re the toughest woman I know. Now c’mon, one more time.” Abandoning his post at her nether end, he brought his face up close to hers and implored, “C.J., one more time. Just one more time.”

Damn it, why didn’t he just let her die? “I…hate…to see you…beg.” With superhuman strength, she drew her elbows in to her sides and pushed herself up again. Her head was spinning worse than a top that was out of control. “Okay…let’s get…this watermelon…out…of me!”

Warrick strengthened his resolve. “Let’s get serious now. Ready, C.J.?”

She wasn’t ready, would probably never be ready again. Probably would never be able to breathe right again, either. But there was no postponing this and coming back tomorrow, refreshed and braced. She was in all the way.

It was now or never.

Sucking in one more breath to fortify her, she nodded at Warrick. C.J. screwed her eyes shut and bore down with every last fiber in her body. It felt like forever. She could swear she felt her blood boiling in her veins.

An eternity later C.J. fell back against the floor, hardly aware of what she was doing. Only aware that there was some kind of noise buzzing in her head. No, outside her head. A wailing sound that could have been coming from somewhere else. Or maybe even from her. She wasn’t sure.

Wonder was filtering through him. He was supporting an infant’s head in the palm of his hand. The emotion was almost indescribable. Warrick looked up at C.J. For a second it looked as if she wasn’t moving. “C.J., don’t pass out on me now, you’re almost finished.”

A lot he knew. She had no idea where the strength came from to form the words. “I…am…finished.”

“No, a little more,” he coaxed, infinitely grateful that God hadn’t made him a woman. There was no way he could have gone through this, he thought. “You have to push out the baby’s shoulders.”

There was no energy left to breathe, much less to push. “Can’t…you…just…pull?”

“C.J., push,” he ordered.

Swirling through her head was the vague thought that she was going to hold Sherry and Joanna accountable for not telling her that giving birth was like trying to expel a giant bowling ball through her nose and that everything inside her body felt as if it was being ripped apart by a pair of giant hands.

“C.J., you have to push!”

She had to die was what she had to do, C.J. thought in despair. No, a faraway voice echoed in her head, the baby, the baby needs you. Your baby. You can’t quit now.

“Now!”

Hating Warrick, C.J. propped herself up one last time. She knew in her heart that if the baby didn’t completely come out with this effort, she was going to die this way, midpush.

She glared at Warrick. “Count,” she gasped angrily.

If looks could kill, he’d be dead right now, Warrick thought. “One—two—three. Push!”

Glancing at her face just before he gave the command, Warrick saw the sweat pouring down into her eyes, saw the look of complete exhaustion on her face. If he could have, he would have changed places with her.

Just like he would have been willing to take a bullet for her any day of the week. She was his partner, his friend, and the person who knew him better than anyone, warts and all. He cared about her more than he cared about anyone else in the world.

The next moment, he was holding her daughter in his hands.

The wailing increased. Was something wrong? Was there something wrong with her baby? Oh, please let the baby be all right. C.J. was lying in a heap on the floor. There wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t ache and wasn’t all but smothered in utter exhaustion. It took all she had to raise her head.

“What—”

He grinned, making sure the baby’s passageways were all clear. That much he remembered from his training. She was breathing. The life he held against his chest was breathing. He couldn’t describe the feeling going on in his chest. “A girl.”

A girl. She had a daughter. She felt like crying. “What…what does she…look like?”

“A guppy in Jell-O. A beautiful guppy,” he qualified, looking up at C.J.

Something very strange was going on inside of him. There was relief because it was over and because C.J. was still alive. He could afford to admit to himself now that he had been laboring under the very real fear that something could have gone wrong during the childbirth. Something could always go wrong.

But there was also something else, another feeling that he couldn’t readily identify. Something he was unfamiliar with.

It felt as if there were suddenly a rainbow inside of him. A rainbow that seemed to be also raining sunshine.

Quickly he did a tally of the baby’s fingers and toes. All were accounted for. He looked up at C.J. “Want to see her?”

She barely had enough strength to form the word. “Please.”

Holding the moments-old infant against him, Warrick moved on his knees until he was level with C.J.’s face. But as he began to transfer the baby into her arms, he looked down at the small face. The infant had ceased crying and was simply looking up at him, her eyes as wide as spring flowers sunning themselves.

He felt as if she was looking right into him, right into his heart. Which only seemed fair since it was already hers.

“This is your mother,” he whispered to the infant. “Be kind, honey, she’s still a work in progress.”

He was surprised the words came out at all. It felt as if his throat was constricting. For all the different experiences he had gone through in his life, he had never had a moment quite like this before and he wasn’t altogether sure what to make of it.

Amid the waves of exhaustion washing over C.J. was a sense of elation. It spread out, covering her completely as Warrick tucked the baby into her arms.

She was here, C.J. thought, her baby was finally here. Her impatience, her fears, everything she’d lived with all these months were fading into the mists as if they hadn’t really existed.

Without a hand to wipe them away, C.J. blinked back her tears.

Her baby was finally here.

“Hi, baby,” she said softly to the infant warming her breast. “That was just Warrick. Don’t let him scare you.” And then she raised her eyes to her partner’s face. There really were no words that seemed adequate enough. “Thank you.”

He grinned, rocking back on his heels. “It’s not as if the two of you left me much choice.”

The two of them. It had a nice ring to it, C.J. thought.

Her heart swelling, she tightened her arms around the baby.

Chapter 4

The paramedics arrived ten minutes after he called them.

It occurred to Warrick, as he rode down in the elevator with C.J., the baby and the attendants, that had he gotten on the phone and dialed 911 to begin with, he would have been spared all the trauma he’d just gone through.

And missed out on what was probably the greatest experience of his life.

He smiled to himself as they all got out and he hurried behind the gurney. It made him glad that for once he had been slow to follow through on his original instincts.

Warrick stepped out of the way to allow the paramedics to slide C.J.’s gurney into the ambulance. At that moment, as he watched, she looked very vulnerable. It placed her in an entirely new light for him. She’d probably punch him out if she knew what he was thinking, he thought. But that didn’t change the fact that he had an overwhelming desire to be there for her, to somehow shield her, although from what he hadn’t the vaguest idea.

Had to be the high he was still running on because of the delivery, he decided.

With the gurney secured in place, Warrick started to climb into the ambulance.

The paramedic beside C.J. placed a hand out to block his entrance. “Only relatives ride in the back with the patient.” He cocked his head, scrutinizing him. “You her husband, buddy?”

“That’s Special Agent Buddy,” C.J. informed him. “And he’s my partner.”

Unconvinced as to the propriety of all this, the attendant raised his brow. “Like a life partner?”

Warrick glanced toward C.J. and saw that she was looking at him, amusement highlighting her exhausted features. That she could smile after what she’d just been through amazed him.

“Maybe as in life sentence,” he cracked. “We work together.”

That settled it for the attendant. He reached for the doors, ready to pull them shut. “Sorry, then you’ve got to follow behind in your car.”

Warrick was quick to get his hand up, blocking the doors before they closed. He looked at C.J. Hers was the only opinion that mattered in this. “You want me in the ambulance?”

Under normal circumstances, her answer would have been flippant. But these weren’t normal circumstances. She was feeling elated and teary and a hundred other things. She needed someone there with her to run interference until she could pull herself together. “Yes.”

Warrick looked meaningfully at the paramedic. “Then, it’s settled.”

The paramedic raised his hands, surrendering and backing off. “Sorry, just stating company policy, Special Agent.”

“I’ll take it up with your boss,” Warrick said, climbing on.

The trip to Blair Memorial Hospital took just long enough for Warrick to make the necessary call to her parents. He left it up to Diane to notify the others, knowing it would probably take a matter of seconds.

He was right. C.J.’s family converged on the hospital less than ten minutes after the front desk had found a room for her on the maternity floor.

The six-foot-two nurse with the kindly smile had no sooner helped C.J. slip into bed than Warrick was knocking on the door. He peered into the room just as she said, “Come in.”

Some of C.J.’s color was returning, he noted. She was beginning to look like her old self again. Feisty and contrary. He felt relieved. “Got some people out here who for reasons beyond me seem to be awfully anxious to see you. Can they come in?”

As independent of ties as she liked to pretend to be, C.J. had to admit that it felt good to know that she had family close by who cared about her. “I guess we can’t keep them out, can we?”

“You just try, sweetheart,” her father said, pushing past Warrick as he sailed into the room. Nodding at the nurse who was a shade taller than he was, James Jones elbowed his way next to the bed and took one of his daughter’s hands into both of his. His blue eyes crinkled, barely disguising the concern etched on his face. “How are you, darlin’?”

“Tired.” C.J. tried to rally, summoning what energy she could. Her brothers surrounded her bed, leaving a space for her mother directly opposite her father. “How did you all manage to get here so fast?”

“Dad broke a few speed limits,” Diane told her, attempting to look annoyed but not quite pulling it off. “What are you doing, having this baby without me? I thought I was supposed to be your coach.”

C.J. glanced at Warrick who was standing at the foot of her bed behind one of her brothers. “I had to settle for second best.”

Diane turned her attention to the man she had taken aside and charged with her daughter’s care the very first time she’d met him. “Thank God you were there to help her, Byron.”

C.J.’s eyes shifted toward her partner. As ever, the use of his given name didn’t seem to faze him when her mother called him by it. It still amazed her. She supposed he more or less considered her family to be his own. Her brothers were his friends, and her mother and father were like a second set of parents to him.

Or maybe even a first set from the little she’d managed to get out of him about his childhood. Warrick had been an only child. An accident of nature was the way he had put it once. His parents had kept him, much the way a customer keeps an item they’d accidentally broken in a shop and were forced to pay for. The relationship was that sterile.

There was no mention of love, of affection existing in his past, even remotely. He rarely spoke about them, even when she asked him direct questions. His father had died some years back and his mother had remarried and was living out of the country. Even that had not come firsthand to her. Warrick had told her mother one rainy Sunday afternoon after watching a football game on TV with the male contingent of her family.

It amazed C.J. how much information her mother could get out of her closemouthed partner. There were times when she honestly thought her mother had missed her calling, although, to hear Diane Jones tell it, being the wife of a prominent criminal lawyer and the mother of three more, plus another potential up-and-coming barrister as well as an FBI agent, was more than satisfying enough for her.

That her mother added her as an addendum was just a trademark of her sense of humor. C.J. knew that her mother doted so much on her that it was difficult for the woman not to show it.

Warrick shrugged carelessly at her mother’s comment. “C.J. did most of the work.”

“Most of it?” C.J. hooted. “Ha! I did all of it.”

“Knowing C.J., you’re lucky to have come out of the ordeal alive,” Brian, her oldest brother, said to Warrick.

Warrick poked his tongue into his cheek. “She did get a little testy.”

“Spoken like a typical man,” C.J. countered. “You try pushing out an elephant through a keyhole, see how cheerful you stay.”

Ever the referee even after her children were grown, Diane held up her hands, waving all involved parties into silence.

“Enough. The bottom line is that the baby’s here, Chris is all right, and we’re all together.” She laced her arm through her husband’s, glowing with contentment. “So, have you decided what my new granddaughter’s name is?”

C.J. shook her head. Ever mindful of the possibility that something might go wrong, she had refused to think of any names for either sex while she was pregnant. “No, not yet.”

Her father looked at her, his disappointment apparent. “Not even one name? Oh, Christmas, you even put that off?”

C.J. shut her eyes. Christmas Morgan were her official given names, laid on her by an act of whimsy on her father’s part because she’d been born on Christmas morning.

When she opened her eyes again, it was to look at the guilty party. “Well, when I do come up with a name, it’s going to be a hell of a lot better than ‘Christmas,’ I can promise you that.”

Warrick grinned. He knew this was a really sensitive topic for her. “What’s the matter with being called Christmas? Although I have to admit, it doesn’t exactly suit you.”

“And just exactly what is that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

Ethan nudged Jamie, the baby of the family. “Nice to see that the miracle of birth hasn’t changed you any, Chris.”

She was feeling better already. Having her family here was the best medicine of all. “Maybe growing up in a houseful of boys had something to do with that,” she pointed out. “I had to be twice as good as each of you just to hold my own.”

“Your own what?” Jamie cracked. As the youngest, he was forever struggling to find his own place in a family of overachievers. The fact that at six-five, he towered over all of them helped to help balance things out.

“Her own everything,” Wayne said. With two brothers born before him and a sister and brother born after, Wayne was the most even tempered of the family, given to thinking twice before speaking once. It was a trait his mother often wished out loud had been spread out amid her other children. Moving forward, Wayne brushed a kiss on his sister’s forehead. “Get some rest, kid. You look like hell.”

“Thanks.” Her eyes met her brother’s. “You always did know what to say to perk a girl right up.”

“Why don’t we all leave and let Chris get some well-deserved rest?” Diane suggested.

“Which way’s the nursery?” Brian wanted to know.

“Can we see the baby?” Ethan chimed in.

“Do they have her in an incubator?” Jamie wanted to know.

“No.” C.J. finally managed to get in a word. “She weighed in just over five pounds. The doctor said she’s strong and healthy.

“Of course she is,” her father said. “She’s my granddaughter.”

“Yes, dear,” Diane patted his face. “You deserve all the credit here.” Turning her head, she winked at her daughter.

One by one her family filed by, kissing her and taking their leave. Diane waited for them at the door, making sure her brood made it into the hallway. But when Warrick moved to follow, she shook her head.

“Why don’t you stick around a little while longer, Byron? She might like the company. Maybe even get around to apologizing for being so testy with you earlier as you put it.”

Warrick glanced over his shoulder toward C.J. She nodded. “Okay, just for a few more minutes.”

Diane paused at the door, the men in her life waiting for her to join them in the hall. Placing a hand on Warrick’s shoulder, she raised herself up on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you for being there for her.”

His smile was almost shy. “Just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.”

“I’m glad it was you.” She turned toward her daughter, beaming. Her baby had had a baby. “You did good, honey. I’ll see you in the morning. And don’t forget, think of some names.”

C.J. nodded. Warrick let the door close and then crossed to her. “You really don’t have any names?”

She shrugged her shoulders. The hospital gown slipped off one, and she tugged it back into place. “Not a one.”

He shook his head. She had been damned determined not to allow her pregnancy to interfere with her work. No one knew until it was absolutely necessary. The only reason he’d found out before the others was because he’d stumbled onto her condition completely by accident. While on a stakeout, she would periodically bolt out of the car and dash for the closest bathroom. It didn’t take him long to figure out she wasn’t battling food poisoning but morning sickness.

Warrick leaned against the wall, studying her. “Never knew you to be this unprepared before, Jones.”

She offered him a wan smile, her mind half a world away. This was supposed to have been a happy time. Instead she’d just joined the ranks of single motherhood with all its scary ramifications. Served her right for veering from her course and thinking that maybe she’d been one of the lucky ones to find someone special. What had led her down this primrose path was that her parents seemed so happy together. It had made her believe that marriages, if not made in heaven, certainly created one of their own. Well, Thorndyke had certainly set her straight about that.

“Some things,” she murmured, “you’re never prepared for.”

Something inside of his gut tightened. He knew she was thinking about Thorndyke. Warrick could feel his blood pressure going up several notches at the very thought of the man and his emotional abandonment of C.J. This time he kept his comment to himself. She’d been through hell, and he didn’t want to agitate her right now with any negative comments about the poster boy for slime. Thorndyke had obviously made her happy once and whatever did that was okay with him.

At least, he tried to tell himself that, although how she could be happy, even for a moment, with that shallow pretty boy was beyond him. If he didn’t know better, he would have said he was experiencing a bout of jealousy. But he did know better.

Rather than use the chair beside her, Warrick sat down on the bed and looked at C.J. for a long moment. That strange, funny feeling he’d gotten the moment he’d held her daughter in his hands hadn’t completely dissipated. On the contrary, alone with C.J. like this, it seemed to take on more depth and breadth. He still couldn’t put a name to it. Maybe it was better that way.

He looked at her pointedly. “He should know.”

She’d expected another put-down of her ex-lover. She certainly didn’t think Warrick was going to push for any sort of contact. C.J. raised her chin defensively. “He knows.”

“You called him?” There hadn’t been any time, unless she’d done it while he was filling out her insurance papers at the registration desk.

C.J. looked away, in no mood for a lecture. “I told him I was pregnant, A baby is usually the end result of that condition.”

Cupping her face, he made her look at him. “You weren’t that sure,” he reminded her.

She pulled her head back. So he was Tom’s champion now? “I don’t count.”

A very soft smile curved Warrick’s mouth as he said quietly, “Yes, you do.” And then he straightened. “Thorndyke doesn’t know he has a daughter.”

Their last conversation together, the one that was littered with words like, “no strings” and “hey, how I do I know it’s even mine?” played itself over in her head. She’d hated Thorndyke for that, hated him for making what they’d shared seem tawdry and cheap. The one time she’d let her guard down and it had to be with the wrong man.

And now her partner was just making things worse. “He doesn’t want to know.” She raised her voice. “Will you leave it alone, Warrick? He’s like you. No strings.”

Warrick’s brows narrowed over stormy eyes. There was no way he’d allow himself to be compared to the other man. “He’s not like me. I’d want to know. I wouldn’t have left you to begin with.”

The tightly reined-in emotion in his voice surprised her. “You didn’t,” she told him.

He’d almost lost it just then. Maybe this whole baby thing had him more wound up than he thought. Warrick cleared his throat. “Yeah, I know. Do you want me to find him?”

Did he really think she didn’t know where her baby’s father was? “No need.”

Warrick looked into her eyes. He was the detail person and she was the one who went in like gangbusters, but it was stupid of him to think for a second that she wouldn’t keep tabs on Thorndyke, if only to make sure there was space between them.

“You know where he is, don’t you?”

“He’s in D.C.,” she told him crisply, and then added, “And if you get in contact with him in any way, I’ll rip your heart out.”

He laughed softly, letting the matter go. After all, it was her life. And maybe he was even a little relieved that she didn’t want to see Thorndyke, though there was no way he would ever have admitted to that.

“Always the delicate lady.”

A little of the luster returned to her eyes. “And don’t you forget it.” There had been only one detail about her pregnancy that she’d planned. “Now, are you going to be the baby’s godfather?”

The request, coming out of the blue, almost rendered him speechless. It took him a second to recover. “I’d be honored.”

She shrugged, trying not to let him see how much it meant to her to have him agree to be her baby’s godfather. “Just be there. Otherwise I’d have to substitute one of my brothers and that’s like putting a double whammy on the baby. Grossly unfair.”

“Wouldn’t want that.” He rose. It was time to go. There were only five hours until morning. “So, you want me to draw up a list for you?”

The question caught her off guard. She thought of the case she’d been poring over when this had all started. “Of suspects?”

“Of possible names.” She was unbelievable. “Damn it, C.J., you just gave birth. How can you be thinking about serial killers at a time like this?”

He didn’t understand, did he? Now it was personal. “Because I just gave birth to a little girl not unlike thirteen other little girls, that’s why I can be thinking about bringing this scum in. Each one of these thirteen victims had a first day, Warrick, just like my baby. Each one of them was someone’s little girl.”

He understood where she was coming from, but he was shooting for something far less complex. Leaning over her bed, he tucked the blanket up around her waist. “Stop being an FBI agent for a few minutes, C.J. Just for tonight, be little what’sits-name’s mom.”

He had no idea what she was experiencing, C.J. thought. How hard it was to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. Maybe it was just her hormones, running amok, but she was filled with so much love, so much everything that it was a miracle she was even able to draw a breath in. It felt so crowded inside of her.

But there was no way anyone, not even Warrick, was ever going to see just how vulnerable she actually could be. Weakness was always exploited, intentionally or otherwise.

“Okay,” she finally allowed somewhat cavalierly. “But promise me you’ll keep me posted about the case.”

“Right.” There was no way one word about the case was going to reach her ears from his lips until she was back to active duty, he thought, smiling at her. “I’ll call if there’s any breakthrough.”

That was too easy. She knew him better than that. “I’m not kidding.”

“I know.” Warrick took her hands into his and looked into her eyes, his expression softening just a little. Until a few hours ago he would have said that he was as close to C.J. as he was ever going to get. He’d been wrong.

Maybe it was just the excess of emotions he was feeling, he thought, searching for a reason for what was going on inside of him. “Don’t you ever relax?”

C.J. pressed her lips together. “The last time I relaxed, I wound up pregnant.” She instantly regretted the confession, but as she watched his eyes, she realized with relief that Warrick was being sympathetic.

He shook his head. “I know this is a new concept for you, Jones, but try for middle ground.” He bent over the bed, intending to brush a kiss on her cheek. Caught off guard, she turned her head. Her lips made contact with his. It was hard to say who was more surprised.

Something that had all the markings of an electric current snaked its way through her at lightning speed, making every hair on her body stand on end. She knew it was only a matter of extreme exhaustion mingled with being emotionally overwrought, but the end effect was still the same.

Her heart was pounding almost as hard as it had when she was struggling to give birth.

Very slowly Warrick lifted his head. His eyes held hers for a beat before he took a step back. He was as unsure of what had just transpired here as he had been about the feeling that had taken hold of him in the field office.

“You missed your target entirely,” she said quietly, struggling for a fragment of composure. She felt as if she was going to shatter into a million pieces if he so much as blew in her direction. “I think you’d better get back on the firing range.”

Warrick laughed then and ran his thumb along her bottom lip, wiping off the imprint of his lips. “Don’t worry about my ability to shoot straight. I can handle my own. See you tomorrow, Mommy.”

That term was reserved for her daughter when she learned to talk. C.J. loathed couples who referred to one another that way. “Don’t call me that.”

He paused. “‘Daddy’ doesn’t seem to fit, even if you do wear the pants most of the time.”

She didn’t want him thinking of her any differently. Not because of the baby. And not because of what had just accidentally happened here. “I’m still C.J.,” she insisted.

“Yeah,” he agreed. His eyes swept over her. “You’re still C.J. But as of two hours ago, you’re now a hell of a lot more.”

He winked at her and left.

Chapter 5

That old familiar feeling came over her. The one where she felt as if she was in the right place, where she was meant to be.

After completing three weeks of her maternity leave, C.J. absorbed her surroundings as she made her way from the elevator and down the hall. The last time she’d been here, she’d been done in by exhaustion, flat on her back and strapped to a gurney on the way to the hospital with a minutes-old baby in her arms.

God it felt good to be back.

She took a moment to gather herself together outside the office she shared with Rodriguez, Culpepper and Warrick, then pushed open the door.

Culpepper was the first to see her. Portly, with a layer of muscle beneath the fat, he rose to his feet and came forward.

“Hey, looks who’s here, Rodriguez. How’s it going, Mommy?”

Tossing her purse on her desk, she glanced toward her partner. “Warrick, did you warn these people about calling me that?”

“Hey, I can’t help it if they all have the attention spans of baby gnats.” Their desks butted up against each other. He rounded his and came to stand by hers. “Speaking of baby, why aren’t you with yours?”

She took a deep breath. Slightly stale air, lemon floor polish and Rodriguez’s ever-present jar of peanut butter. It even smelled good to be back here.

“The doctor gave me a clean bill of health, said I was fit to report back for duty.” C.J. had left the appropriate papers down at personnel on her way up here. “She actually thought I would be a nicer person if I went off to work every day.”

That was because even despite the work a new baby required, C.J. found herself going stir-crazy. The ability to multitask with speed was not always a good thing. It left her with too much time on her hands. She needed to fill that time with her job. Besides, ever since she’d become a mother herself, she had this overwhelming need to make the world around her a safer place to be for her daughter. She was doing it the only way she knew how.

“Besides,” C.J. continued, “My daughter’s actually got the semblance of a sleeping schedule down, and I’ve been kept in the dark long enough.”She looked at Warrick pointedly, then turned her attention to the other two men who were part of the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s task force. “Can either one of you two fill me in?” She nodded toward Warrick. “My partner here refused to say a word about the case to me. Every time I asked, he kept changing the subject so much, I began thinking that maybe Warrick was the Artful Dodger come to life.”

“Artful anything doesn’t sound like Warrick,” Ralph Culpepper hooted.

“Never mind that.” She sat down at the edge of her seat, as if poised to leap up at any second, Warrick noticed. Same old C.J. “I need input,” she told them. “Someone brief me.”

George Rodriguez raised and lowered his wide shoulders. At six-five, everything he did was big. “Nothing to brief, C.J., our boy’s laying low again. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be another three-year reprieve.”

That wasn’t the way she saw it. “We’ll get lucky when we nail the son of a bitch.” As long as the serial killer wasn’t off the streets, he could always strike again. “So nothing’s been happening while I’ve been out of touch?” C.J. underscored the final word, sending an accusing glance Warrick’s way.

“Well, Rodriguez, here, got engaged.” Culpepper slapped his partner on the back. Sitting, Rodriguez was almost as tall as Culpepper was standing.

She hadn’t even known he was seeing anyone. “Is that true?” Squirming ever so slightly in his seat, Rodriguez nodded. “Who is she?”

Culpepper answered for him. A new grandfather, he looked upon his partner as a son. He was accustomed to doing most of the talking. “You know that cute little receptionist on the second floor?”

C.J. thought a minute. Her eyes widened as she realized who Culpepper was talking about. “You mean that little-bitty dark-haired one who looks like she wears size-one clothes?”

Culpepper grinned at Rodriguez, who was taking a considerable interest in the file he was holding open in his hands. “That’s the one.”

Talk about the long and the short of it. “What are you going to do, Rodriguez,” C.J. asked, “carry her around in your pocket?”

“For starters,” Culpepper laughed, nudging his partner and winking broadly.

Rodriguez had only been at the Bureau for three and a half years. She still thought of him as “the new guy.” “Well, I’m very happy for you, Rodriguez. Don’t forget to let me know when the wedding is.”

Culpepper sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Hey, talking about weddings, I hear there’s a rash of those going on. Any of you remember Tom Thorndyke, that tall dude who used to work down the hall?” He looked from Warrick to his partner and then at C.J. “You went out with him, didn’t you C.J.?”

Damn it, why did her heart just skip a beat? She thought she’d drummed that bastard out of her system. “Once or twice,” she allowed. She congratulated herself for keeping her smile in place. “What about him?”

Warrick slanted a look at C.J. There was no way he could prevent the conversation from continuing without alerting the other two men that something was wrong. No one else knew that the absent special agent was the father of C.J.’s baby.

Culpepper’s chair creaked. “Word is he’s getting married.”

“Married?” The word tasted like dried cardboard in her mouth. She struggled to sound only mildly interested. Anger mingled with surprise. “Really? To who?”

Culpepper scrubbed his hand over his face, thinking. He prided himself on always getting his facts right. “Somebody he met while on the job. One of the bean counters.” Every organization had them. Even the Bureau. “She moved out with him when he transferred. Got the story from the guy who used to be his partner.” He glanced at C.J. “All these weddings, must be something in the water, eh, C.J.?”

“Must be.”

She knew that Culpepper wasn’t trying to be insensitive. The oldest of them by twenty years, it was probably his fatherly way of suggesting that she herself find someone to marry, to give her baby a proper father. He had no way of knowing that he’d struck a bad chord.

Picking up her purse, she pretended to look through it. “I think I left something back in the car.” Dropping the purse, she rose to her feet, keys in hand. “I’ll be right back.”

“Pictures of the baby, I’ll bet,” Culpepper chuckled. He looked at Rodriguez. “They’ve always got pictures.”

Warrick hurried after C.J. She’d managed to get far ahead of him in the hall. He lengthened his stride.

“Hey, Jones, wait up. Didn’t the doctor tell you not to start jogging the same day you went back to work?” Catching up to her, he took hold of her arm, bringing her to a halt. “C’mon, C.J., stop for a minute and talk to me.”

She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to kick something, break something. Vent. But because Warrick had placed himself in the line of fire, she took it out on him.

“Did you know?” she demanded.

He didn’t know if she was hurt or about to spit fire. With C.J. it was hard to tell. “I—”

Her eyes narrowed accusingly. “Did you know?”

He made it a point not to lie. Especially not to a friend. The closest he came was to omit mentioning things. But there was no space for that here.

Warrick threw his hands up. “Hell, C.J. what do you want me to tell you? Yes, I knew. I heard via the grapevine last week just like blabbermouth in there.” He silently cursed Culpepper. Why couldn’t the man have been out of the office when she came back?

“And you didn’t tell me.” How could he? she demanded silently. How could he have known and not told her?

“Why should I?” He hadn’t told her because he didn’t want to reopen any wounds that might have been healing. “You said you moved on, remember? You told me in the hospital that you didn’t want to get in contact with him—ever.”

“I didn’t. I don’t.” Confusion was running riot through her. She honestly thought she was over the man. But if so, why this sudden onslaught of pain? What the hell was wrong with her? “It’s just that…” Anger creased her brow as she looked up at him. “Damn it, War, here I thought he didn’t want to get involved and it was that he just didn’t want to get involved with me.” And being rejected stung. “I guess it just hurts my pride, that’s all.”

He bracketed her shoulders with his hands. Wanting to protect her. Knowing she’d bite off his head if he even hinted at it. “Just goes to prove how stupid the guy really was, letting someone like you go. Look, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you reacting this way. He’s not worth it, C.J. You know it, I know it. End of story.”

“Yeah, end of story,” she echoed, then thought of her daughter and how hard it had been to leave her this morning. She’d never known she could fall in love so completely and with such little effort. But she had. And if not for Thorndyke, Joy wouldn’t have existed. And all that love C.J. felt within her at this moment wouldn’t have even materialized. “I guess I got the best part of him anyway.”

He’d been out in the field for the last week and hadn’t had time to drop by to visit C.J. “Speaking of which, how’s my future goddaughter doing?”

C.J. thought of the way she felt walking to her car after dropping the infant off. Empty, as if a part of her was suddenly missing.

“A lot better than me. I left her the center of attention at my mother’s house.” She’d never realized just how much her mother had wanted to be a grandmother. “My parents have more baby furniture and toys for Joy than I do.” This despite the impromptu shower the Mom Squad had thrown her when she’d come home from the hospital.

He saw nothing surprising about that. “Why not? They had five kids—and an attic.” He crossed his arms before his chest. “So I take it she didn’t have any—what do they call it?—separation anxiety?”

C.J. laughed shortly. “She didn’t. I did.” Even now she couldn’t help wondering what her baby was doing. Did she realize C.J. wasn’t around? Or was Mommy just another face to look up at? God, but she was getting mushy. How long before hormones adjusted themselves back into place? And then she looked at Warrick in wonder. “How do you know about separation anxiety, anyway?”

He was the methodical one. “I thought that since I’m supposed to be her godfather, I should bone up on these things.” He looked at his partner pointedly. “I should also insist that she have a middle name to go with the first name. You can’t just call her Joy Jones.”

She saw nothing wrong with that. “Why not?”

“Do you want people to call her ‘J.J.’?

“I don’t just want her to have any old middle name. I want the whole name to be special. To fit her.”

Time was running out, Warrick thought. The christening was set for next week. “Okay, what d’you say I come over tonight after work with a book of baby names, and we’ll start tossing out names at her? One of them is bound to stick.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He cocked his head and peered at her, the teasing note gone from his voice. “You going to be okay?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, raising her chin. He was familiar with that move. It was her “the world can go to hell” gesture. “I’m already okay. Just took the wind out of my sails, that’s all. Worse things could have happened, right?”

“Right. You could be marrying the guy.” They began to walk back down the hall when he stopped her again. “Hey, have you got any pictures of the baby with you?”

She thought that was an odd question, coming from him. “In my purse. Brian’s been snapping his camera so much around her, she’s probably debating getting a career as a model right now. Why?”

“Because Culpepper’s expecting you to come back with pictures.” He didn’t want the other man quizzing her and having his suspicions raised. Culpepper might come off as a busybody, but there was nothing wrong with his deductive reasoning. “He thinks that’s what you went to get from your car.”

“I’ll just tell him I made a mistake.” But as they started to walk again, she placed a hand on his arm. She had to ask. “War, does anyone else know? About Thorndyke and me?”

Warrick shook his head. “Not unless Thorndyke told them, and considering how fast he put in for a transfer to another field office after you told him, I really don’t think he did.”

“Good.” Despite the fact that she was outgoing, C.J. hated having her business plastered all over the office.

She supposed that gave her something in common with Warrick.

“It was good to go back to work, but it’s even better to come back to you,” C.J. told her baby as she let herself into her house. “I forgot how long days could feel.”

Still holding Joy in her infant seat, C.J. kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes. The rug felt good beneath her feet.

Despite her mother’s protests and her offer to make dinner, C.J. had opted to come home to snare a little peace and quiet, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. The day had been deadly dull and overly long, at least it seemed that way. Their investigation was going nowhere—slowly. At times it felt as if every minute was being individually held hostage, doubling in size before it was released.

She supposed that missing her daughter had something to do with that. At twenty-eight, she was surprised to find out something new about herself.

C.J. rotated her neck, trying to ease away some of the tension. She looked down into the car seat. Joy’s eyes were shut, long black lashes creating dark crescents along her cheeks.

“Oh, honey, are you asleep already? I thought I’d get in a little quality time with you.” She banked down her disappointment. “I guess not.” She smiled to herself. “With my luck, you’ll probably want quality time at two in the morning.”

Carrying the infant seat over to a safe, flat surface, C.J. placed it on the dining room table. Careful not to wake the baby, she unbuckled the restraining straps one at a time.

“Well, don’t get used to being a dictator. Once you figure this language of ours out and can understand me, there are going to be lines to toe, young lady, and hoops to jump through.” She laughed, nuzzling her daughter as she picked her up out of the infant seat. “Yeah, and I’ll probably be the one doing the toeing and the leaping. Just don’t tell anyone your mom’s a softie, okay? It’ll be our little secret.”

Holding her daughter in the crook of her arm, C.J. looked down at the perfect little face. “Slept right through that, didn’t you? Next you’ll be telling me I’m boring.” She thought of the news about Thorndyke and his wedding. “Maybe I am at that. Okay, enough pity. Let’s get you into bed, my love.”

The baby made no protest.

After making sure the baby monitor, with its multiple receiving units that she’d placed in each room, was turned on, C.J. gently closed the nursery door.

The doorbell rang.

She sighed. Now what?

Training had her glancing at her holstered gun on the hall table before approaching the front door. The weapon was in easy reach, just in case. “Who is it?” she called out.

“Rumpelstiltskin. Who do you think? Open the door, C.J.”

Warrick. Their conversation in the hallway came back to her. She’d completely forgotten.

About to appeal to his better nature and beg off, C.J. opened the door. She didn’t get the opportunity to say the words. Warrick walked in, juggling a large pizza box in one hand and a couple of books in the other. He held the latter aloft.

“I come bearing pizza and not one baby name book, but two.” He tossed the books on the sofa as he came into the living room. “I couldn’t decide between the two and thought I’d splurge. I figured, Murphy’s Law, the one I didn’t buy would have the name that appealed to you.” The coffee table was littered with papers. She was the only one he knew who was a worse housekeeper than he was. “Where do you want this?” He indicated the pizza. “It’s hot.”

Walking ahead of him, she moved the infant seat off the table and put it on the floor in the corner. “You didn’t have to bring that.”

He was already opening the box. The smell of pepperoni and three kinds of cheeses filled the air. “Hey, I’ve got to eat, too.”

C.J. went to the kitchen and reached into the cupboard for a couple of plates. “I could always have rustled up something.”

He shivered at the thought. “No offense but I’d rather eat my shoes.” He took a plate from her. “You’re a woman of many talents, C.J. Cooking is not one of them.” He held up the first slice, offering it to her. “My dog cooks better than you.”

She slid the slice onto her plate and sat down at the table. “You don’t have a dog.”

He took a slice for himself. “If I did, he’d cook better than you.” He sank his teeth into the slice and savored the taste. It had taken him almost four years to find the right pizza place. It wasn’t just about tossing the right ingredients onto dough, it was about care and timing and crust. Though his body gave no indication of it, Warrick loved his food. “And I’m thinking about getting one.”

She stopped midbite. “You?”

He could just hear her mocking him. “Is that so hard to imagine?”

“Yes. I can’t see you getting attached to anything.” His marriage and its disastrous termination testified to that.

“Who says I’m the one getting attached? Dogs are supposed to be the loyal ones, the ones that stand by the door, waiting for you to come home.” He had to admit, he kind of liked the thought of having something there to greet him. Though he enjoyed his solitude, there were times when there was too much of it.

“Good luck with that.” She took another bite, then looked at him. “And since when do you care about those kinds of things, anyway?”

He wasn’t about to admit to having a real need. “Seems like the right thing to do. Then my goddaughter would have something to play with whenever she came over to visit.”

“My daughter’s coming over to your house? When did this happen?”

“Well, not right now.” Polishing off the slice, he helped himself to another. “I mean later. When she can walk and talk and stuff. I haven’t even got the dog yet,” he pointed out.

C.J. laughed and shook her head. Getting up, she went to get a couple of napkins.

“If you ask me, I came back from maternity leave just in time.” She tossed several napkins on the table between them. “You sound like you’re losing your mind.”

He had to admit he’d missed having her around. “Rodriguez and Culpepper aren’t exactly next week’s contestants for Jeopardy.” At least not as far as day-to-day conversations went. “All Culpepper wants to talk about is that gopher he’s been battling since the beginning of time, and Rodriguez keeps getting that goofy look on his face whenever he thinks about his fiancée.”

“How can you tell the difference? He always looks goofy.”

Warrick laughed. “Goofier.” He realized he needed something to drink. “I didn’t bring beer, I didn’t know if you were, um, you know.”

“No, I’m not, um, you know.” Getting up, she went to the refrigerator and fetched a bottle of beer for him and a can of diet soda for herself. “The baby’s pediatrician said she needs a special formula. Seems that she’s allergic—”

Warrick held up his hand. “Too much information.” He felt this was getting into a realm he had no business being in. “That’s violating doctor-patient privilege.”

“How much privilege are we talking about?” C.J. laughed, then looked at her partner. Was that a pink hue she saw creeping up his cheek? Warrick? This was a man who’d busted a prostitution ring and walked in on two naked women without blinking an eye. “Pink is not your color, Warrick.”

He pushed the box toward her. “Why don’t you just finish eating so we can get down to business?”

She helped herself to a second slice. “Okay, but I warn you,” her eyes indicated the books, “this might not work.”

“Every known name in the world is in these books. If you can’t find a middle name here, you’re going to have to make one up.”

She hadn’t thought of that. The idea was not without its appeal. “There’s an idea.”

Warrick was sorry he’d said anything. “Let’s just leave it on the back burner until we’ve gone through this.”

“Whatever you say.”

He gave her a dubious look. “Now there’s something I never thought I’d hear from you.”

The sound of her laughter enveloped him. He’d missed that, too, Warrick thought as he got up to get the books.

Chapter 6

Warrick shook his head as he got up from the living room sofa. It was getting late and they had more than done justice to the pizza, if not to the quest for a suitable middle name for C.J.’s daughter.

The latter was not for his lack of trying. He glanced at the books on the coffee table. They looked as if they’d been run through the wringer. “You know, you’re impossible.”

C.J. rose, as well. She stretched before rounding the table to join him.

“No,” she said, “I’m selective.”

She wasn’t any happier about the situation than he sounded, but she was determined not to rush this process. Her daughter’s full name had to be absolutely right for her.

Warrick had another word for it, but kept it to himself.

“It’s just a middle name. Just pick one.” She glanced back at the books. “I don’t know, maybe I went through them too fast, but none of the names I looked at ‘feel’ right for my daughter.” She frowned.

Why did he even bother trying to win an argument with her? “You know, rather than Christmas, your parents should have named you Mary. Like in that nursery rhyme—‘Mary, Mary quite contrary.”’ He took a closer look at her. There were shadows beneath her eyes. He hoped her daughter would let her get a few hours rest. “Do you have to disagree with everything I say?”

“I don’t have to…” C.J. let her voice trail off. The further it went, the wider her grin became.

Warrick surrendered with a symbolic throwing up of his hands. He had to be getting home. There were a few things he wanted to check into before he went to bed. “You win. I give up.”

C.J. picked up the two books he’d brought and held them out to him, but he shook his head.

“You keep these and see if a name does ‘feel right’ to you.” He moved his hands around like a wizard conjuring up a spell.

C.J. put the books back down. “You’ll be the first to know,” she promised. She walked him to the door and opened it, then lingered a moment in the doorway. “Thanks for the pizza and the books.”

He pointed toward them behind her, a headmaster giving a pupil an assignment. “You’ve a week, Jones.”

She sighed. That did limit her time, she thought. “I know, I know.”

“Hey,” he leaned his arm on the doorjamb just above her head, “different strokes for different folks. It’s what makes the world go around.” He moved back a hair that was in her face. Her pupils looked as if they widened just a touch. He felt that same funny stirring in his gut. Again he locked it away. “You’re entitled to be a little strange once in a while.”

Warrick wasn’t sure just what made him do what he did next. He supposed it was a natural by-product of a good evening spent in the company of a good friend, although he’d never brushed a kiss on the cheek of any of the guys he’d interacted with on the basketball court, no matter how good a game had been played.

Whatever the reason behind it, the bottom line was that he leaned over and touched his lips to her cheek, as he’d done in the hospital.

This time it didn’t stun her. It didn’t even register because just then a cat unleashed a wild screech that sounded as if it was being vivisected somewhere in the vicinity. The unearthly noise startled her, and she jerked, turning her head, just as before.

But this time when their lips met, neither one of them sprang back. Instead they drew together. And allowed the unintentional meeting of two pairs of lips to instantly flower into something a great deal more lethal, a great deal hotter than simply skin against skin.

And a great deal more pleasurable.

He didn’t remember doing it. Didn’t remember taking hold of C.J.’s shoulders and drawing her up a little higher, a little closer, helping her along as she rose on her toes. Didn’t remember deepening the kiss, even though he did.

What he did remember was thinking that now he finally knew what it felt like to be kicked by a mule. Because something sure had found him where he lived and given him a swift, sound kick right to his gut.

Damn, for someone with just a tart tongue, she tasted sweet.

This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be happening, she thought. But she was so glad it was.

For one long, everlasting moment, C.J. felt as if her connections to the real world had all been short-circuited and severed. There was no sky above, no ground below, no walls around to contain her. She was free-falling into an abyss, a wild swirling surging in her chest.

Warrick?

This was Warrick?

How the hell could this be Warrick? She’d worked alongside him for more than six years. Possibly, once or twice in an off moment, she’d fantasized what it might be like to be with him in some capacity other than his partner, but nothing that had momentarily traveled through her brain had been remotely close to this.

This was something she didn’t know how to begin to describe.

Was that her pulse vibrating so fast? Could he tell? What the hell was happening to her? She was melting all over him.

Limp, she felt limp.

No! No way this was happening to her, not here, not now. Not again.

The next moment, contact was broken. Whether she pushed him back or he’d done it of his own accord, she didn’t know. But the sky, the ground and the walls all made a return appearance.

It took all she had to remain standing where she was and not grasp the doorjamb for support.

Very slowly Warrick let out his breath. What he really wanted to do was gulp air in to replenish the lack of it in his lungs and maybe, just maybe, squelch this erratic hammering of his heart.

He looked at her, striving for the nonchalance that was one of the cornerstones of their partnership, hoping his voice didn’t give him away. “You’ve got to learn to stop turning your head at the wrong moment.”

She looked at him in surprise. Wrong moment? Did it feel like a wrong moment to him? It felt like a right one to her.

Careful, C.J. you’re vulnerable. This is what got you in trouble before. Think, don’t feel.

She clenched her hands at her sides, pressing her nails into the palms of her hand.

“Maybe if you stop going at my cheek like some hungry chicken pecking at scattered corn, there wouldn’t be any wrong moments.” One hand squarely against his chest, she pushed him over the threshold as she grabbed the door with her other one. “Thanks for the books, see you tomorrow. Bye.”

Warrick found himself looking at the closed door before he could utter a single word in response or defense. Just as well.

He drew in the air he so badly needed, then turned away and walked to his car on legs that were a little less solid than they had been when he’d made the walk to her front door.

C.J. stood leaning against the door, her mind numb. Which was fine. It went along with the rest of her body. Numb mind, numb body—it was a set.

Like someone waking up from a dream, not quite sure what was real and what wasn’t, she walked very slowly to the sofa.

And then collapsed as if every single bone in her body had just been pulled out.

“You’re here already.”

The sound of Warrick’s voice behind her had C.J. straightening slightly. She turned away from one of several bulletin boards covered with various pieces of the investigation, determined not to let him suspect that he was partially to blame for her getting only three hours sleep last night.

“Where else would I be?” Was it just her, or did her voice sound a little too high? Where was this nervousness, this uncertainty coming from? This was just Warrick, for heaven’s sake. A Warrick who had completely blown her out of the water last night. She cleared her throat. “We’ve got a serial killer on the prowl and we’re partners on the task force, remember?”

Feeling suddenly awkward, C.J. offered the box of doughnuts she’d stopped to pick up by pushing them toward him on the new appropriated conference table. “Care for a sugar high?”

Warrick made his selection without really looking, then took his prize to the coffeemaker. He’d already had a strong cup of coffee but he felt as if he needed another one. Even stronger this time.

Damn if he could explain why the sight of her alone in the room they had commandeered for their task force made him feel as if he needed to fortify himself somehow.

But it did.

She watched him pick up the mug that had once been white and start pouring. “You know, you really should wash that out once in a while. Bacteria breeds in cleaner places than that. Your mug must seem like Disneyland to them.”

“Adds to the taste of the coffee,” he muttered. Warrick took his coffee without compromise: black and hot.

She picked up her own half-empty coffee mug, now cooled to the point that it practically looked solid, and stared into it, thinking. The fluorescent lights overhead danced along the surface, adding to the trance.

She blew out a long breath. They could skirt around this, pretend it wasn’t there and it would continue to gain depth and breadth, like some white elephant in the living room no one wanted to acknowledge. Or they could address this while it was still in its infancy, clear the air and move on.

She’d always been one to grab the bull by the horns instead of leap over the fence, out of harm’s way.

C.J. set her mug down with a small thud, catching his attention. “We’ve got to talk about it.”

Warrick raised one eyebrow. “The case?” He broke off a piece of the doughnut and popped it into his mouth. A small shower of white powder rained down to the floor. “That’s why we’re here.”

He was playing games. “You know what I mean. What happened last night.”

Warrick looked at her pointedly. “Nothing happened last night. I was feeling a little protective, like a big brother I guess, and you turned your head at the wrong moment. We established that fact, remember?” He shrugged, washing the doughnut down with a sip of coffee. “If you’d turned it the other way, I would have gotten a mouthful of hair instead of a mouthful of lip.”

She scowled. “If I turned it the ‘other’ way, it would have probably been part of an exorcism because that would have meant my head was turned at a 180-degree angle.”

He knew better than that, she thought, exasperated. Why was he pretending that they hadn’t really kissed, not like partners, certainly not like a brother and sister, but like a man and a woman who wanted each other? They both knew they had.

He gave a short laugh and put a little distance between them, just for good measure. “There you go again, being contradictory. Arguing.” His eyes held hers, his voice lowering, underscoring his words, his feelings. He wanted this buried. “Well, I don’t feel like arguing, okay? Let’s just do what we’re being paid to do.”

Warrick gestured at the main bulletin board, the one that displayed photographs of the victims, both before death had found them and after. Below each young woman was a list of statistics: name, age, height, weight, what the victim did for a living and where the body was found. So far none of that or any of the other endless pages of data they’d collected was giving them any clues that went anywhere.

The next moment, before she could answer him, they were no longer alone. Whatever was to have been said had to be set aside for now.

Culpepper poked his head into the room. “Was that the sound of raised voices I heard?” He walked into the room. “Back one day and you two are at it already, C.J.?” And then he looked at the conference table. His eyes lit up. “Ah, doughnuts.”

He reached for one, but C.J. pulled the box away from him. He looked at her accusingly.

“Uh-uh, if you’re going to insult me, you can’t have any. I brought them.”

Culpepper folded his hands together, palms touching and held them up before her. “A thousand pardons, oh wisest of the wise. That was just my sugar-deprived brain, running off with my mouth. If you were arguing, it was only because Warrick was provoking you.”

C.J. laughed and pushed the box toward the heavyset man again. “Better.”

“No one was doing anything to anyone,” Warrick told the other agent firmly. He slanted a look at C.J. to get his point across. “Now feed your habit, Culpepper, and let’s get to work on this.”

C.J. tossed her hair over her shoulder, ready to do battle. “Fine with me. Let’s nail this son of a bitch once and for all before he finds another victim.”

C.J. glanced at Warrick’s profile, then lowered her eyes to her keyboard as he turned in her direction. Her fingers flew over the keys, drawing up screens she had already looked at a hundred times if not more.

She didn’t know which was driving her crazier: the fact that after a few days the murder investigation seemed to have ground to a halt again—this despite phone calls coming in all hours of the day and night from helpful and not-so-helpful citizens who gave information that only led to dead ends, if they led anywhere at all—or that there was this restless tension intermittently buzzing through her. A restless tension that seemed to rear its head every time she and Warrick were near one another.

C.J. flipped to another screen, scrolling down. She knew this was stupid. Warrick was right, she argued with herself, absolutely right. Nothing had happened. After all, it wasn’t as if he had actually tried to kiss her. It was a brotherly peck gone awry, that’s all.

She hit the keys harder. She saw Warrick giving her a curious look. Damn it all, no brother she knew had ever kissed his sister like that.

Quietly C.J. took a deep breath. She had to get a grip on herself and let this die a natural death. After all, what was the big deal? Okay, so they had reacted to each other like a man and a woman. She hadn’t been kissed by a man in almost nine months and he reacted like—well, like a man. All men took advantage of a situation if given the opportunity, some just less than others.

The kiss and her reaction had been an aberration, a freak of nature, like a thunderstorm in the wrong season, that’s all.

Why was she letting it creep into each night and snare a toehold on each day?

C.J. looked over to the main bulletin board. Her eyes swept over the faces of the women there, women whose likeness were imprinted on her heart. Rising, she crossed to it.

She had no business even thinking about something so petty as a kiss at a time like this. Warrick was her partner, her backup, her friend, and she was his. That’s all.

And that was enough.

Warrick looked at her over his computer. Her hands were clasped behind her back and she was studying the board intently.

“You’re being quiet again,” he observed. “It’s not like you. You make me nervous when you’re quiet.”

“Why, because you’re afraid I’ll pounce?” Not waiting for an answer, she turned from the board. “Just trying to get into the killer’s head.”

She looked over her shoulder, back at the board. Missing were the photographs of gruesome deaths, of savage beatings or stabbings. That wasn’t the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s style. Each victim was tenderly, perhaps even lovingly arranged. The latest victims even wore makeup that appeared to have been applied postmortem. They looked just like princesses waiting for their princes to come and wake them up. She chewed on her lips and looked at Warrick.

“You think he’s a mousy man? You know, someone who yearns after the unattainable?”

He had never been able to crawl into a murderer’s mind, maybe because he couldn’t begin to identify with the kind of person who would willingly, sometimes even joyously take another human being’s life. He marveled that C.J. could do it.

“Profiling’s your department, not mine.” Warrick moved over to the bulletin board with the map of Orange County on it. Each small pin designated a site where the victim was found. He wondered if there were going to be more pins before they caught the killer. “I just think he’s one sick bastard.” He looked at the blown-up photograph of the latest victim’s nails. “Someone who obviously has a nail polish fetish.”

Standing next to him, she studied the photograph herself. “Maybe not a fetish. Maybe he’s just trying to do something nice for them.”

He caught a whiff of her perfume. Light, stirring. He wished she wouldn’t wear it. Abruptly he directed his thoughts back to the conversation. “Not strangling them would have been nice.”

Half aware of what she was doing, C.J. waved her hand at him, asking for silence. She was piecing this together as she went. “I mean like the kind of thing a guy would do for his girlfriend.”

Culpepper came over to join them. “No guy I know paints women’s fingernails.”

C.J. frowned at the other man. “That’s because every guy you know has just learned how to walk upright without scraping their knuckles on the ground.”

“Hey,” Rodriguez protested, walking into the room in time to catch the tail end of C.J.’s comment, “I take exception to that.”

C.J. inclined her head toward the youngest member of their team. “Present company excepted, of course.” She became serious again. “But what I’m talking about is when a guy tries to pamper a woman.”

She looked from one man’s face to the other and knew that as far as they were concerned, she was speaking a foreign language. She turned her focus on Rodriguez. After all, he was the one who was getting married and should be informed about this kind of thing. Her guess was that he was generally ignorant of the little niceties that women craved.

“You know, draw her bath, wash her hair for her in the sink, do her nails.” Nothing. Rodriguez’s face was still blank, and Culpepper was laughing. She threw up her hands. “What am I, speaking in tongues here? Haven’t any of you guys ever heard of pampering a woman?”

Culpepper stopped laughing. “That kind of thing really turns women on?”

She patted his chest. “Try it tonight on Adele and see.”

He snorted, waving away the suggestion. “If I try washing her hair, she’ll probably think I was trying to drown her.”

“You’re not supposed to drag her by her hair to the sink,” C.J. pointed out, then shook her head as she looked at Warrick. “See what I mean? Neanderthal. I rest my case.”

Warrick had the impression she was saying more to him than the actual words conveyed. But then he told himself to knock it off, he was starting to babble in his head.

Wanting to kiss a woman did that to a man.

He shut his mind down.

Culpepper regarded her with blatant curiosity in his eyes. C.J. thought for a second that perhaps she had a convert. “How about you, Jones? Does that kind of thing turn you on?”

She might have known better. This was getting a bit too personal. “Solving murders turns me on.”

“Oh, tough lady,” Culpepper deadpanned.

“Yes, and don’t you forget it,” she cracked, returning to her desk. She wondered if another canvass of the area where the last victim was found would yield anything. Maybe someone remembered some thing they hadn’t mentioned the first time around.

She felt as if they were going in circles.

“Hey, Jones,” Rodriguez called. “I almost forgot. It’s your turn to field the crank calls.”

She groaned, rising again. The more time that passed since the murder, the higher the ratio of crank calls to actual informative ones. “What are they down to? A hundred a day?”

Rodriguez sat down at his own desk. “Give or take.”

She groaned louder as she walked into the adjacent room.

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