Extreme Measures

by Brenda Harlen

  She was putting laundry away in Carly's dresser when she heard the crinkle of paper. She lifted the stack of T-shirts and found a selection of crudely cut newspaper clippings. The headline on the top was all too familiar to her. "Hometown Hero Returns." Beneath was a file photo of Colin from his hockey days, and a silver framed photograph of Nikki and Colin on their wedding day.

  Nikki had almost forgotten that she'd given Carly the picture. Most of the mementos of her ill-fated marriage had been tucked away in boxes in the attic, but when Carly had first starting asking questions about her father, she'd given her the picture. She'd wanted Carly to know that there was a time when her parents had been in love.

  Beneath the photo was a drawing that Carly had done herself. Based on the brown hair and the green eyes, Nikki guessed that it was a picture of Colin. Except that he was wearing a pink cape and had a large D emblazoned on his chest.

  She didn't even want to think about what kind of fantasies her highly imaginative daughter had devised where Colin was concerned. Did she think that Colin was some kind of hero? Where would she ever get such an idea?

  Knowing that she had no choice but to destroy Carly's illusions, Nikki picked up the handful of items and headed downstairs to find her daughter.

  "What is this, Carly?"

  Carly's eyes widened when she saw the picture in her mother's hand, but she didn't respond to the question.

  "Is this a picture of Uncle Colin?" Nikki asked gently.

  Chewing on her bottom lip, Carly tapped the toe of her sneaker against the leg of the table. With obvious reluctance, she nodded. "But please, Mommy, don't tell anybody."

  "Don't tell anyone what?"

  Carly glanced around, as if to ensure that no one else was within hearing distance. The room was empty, but still she pitched her voice to a whisper. "That Daddy's a superhero."

  Daddy? Superhero? She didn't know which part of her daughter's matter-of-fact statement disturbed her more. Did Carly know that Colin was her father, or was she only wishing that he could be? And how did superhero status figure into the equation?

  "You have to promise not to tell anyone, Mommy." Carly sounded frantic now.

  Nikki sighed and pulled her daughter into her lap, desperately trying to unravel the mystery. "Uncle Colin's not a superhero," she explained patiently, hoping that she could ignore the "daddy" issue for even a few minutes longer.

  Carly nodded her head. "I know. Uncle Colin's like Kitty. But Daddy's like Cosmic Cat." She was whispering again.

  If Nikki had been confused before, now she was completely baffled. Kitty? Cosmic Cat? What did any of this have to do with Colin?

  "I don't understand," Nikki said, but then the newspaper clipping caught her eye again. The words "Hometown Hero" blazed from the headlines, words her daughter, with her rudimentary reading skills, had somehow managed to decipher. Suddenly Nikki was all too afraid she did understand.

  "Every superhero has a secret identity," Carly explained. "Then the bad guys can't find them. That's why Daddy was pretending to be Uncle Colin."

  Nikki cringed inwardly, wondering why she'd ever thought it was a good idea to keep the truth from their daughter. Wondering if it was possible to undo the damage she'd done.

  "You know that Uncle Colin is your daddy?"

  Carly nodded. "But he was in disguise."

  It was time, Nikki decided, to cut through all the lies and illusions with the unvarnished truth. Her daughter deserved no less.

  "Uncle Colin is your daddy," Nikki confirmed, feeling as if an enormous weight had been lifted off her chest as she spoke the words. "But he's not a superhero. He doesn't fight crime or bad guys, and he doesn't wear a pink cape." Or if he did, she'd never seen it. But that wasn't the point, anyway.

  "He can't fly without a cape," Carly said.

  "He can't fly without a pilot," she responded dryly.

  "He told me he was flying to Texas."

  "He was. He was going to Texas in an airplane. Like when we went on an airplane to visit Grandma in California last year. Do you remember?"

  "Oh." Then, "But he told me he was going away for a job."

  "That doesn't make him a superhero," she said gently.

  "Then why can't he work here?" Carly's lower lip jutted out, her eyes filled with tears. "Why did he have to go away?"

  Nikki felt her own eyes stinging. This was what she'd wanted to avoid, the reason she hadn't wanted Carly to know that Colin was her father. Now she recognized the folly in that assumption. Carly loved Colin, and because she loved him, she missed him.

  She blinked away the moisture. "The kind of job your daddy wants to do isn't available around here."

  "Can't he get another job?"

  She sighed. Of course he could, but how could she explain the complexity of the situation to an almost-five-year-old?

  "Do you remember the other day, when you wanted to go to the park?" she asked. "I told you that we could go, but only after you'd picked up all of your toys."

  Carly's forehead puckered into a frown, but she nodded.

  "Well, if Daddy got a job here, it would be like having to pick up toys all the time. The job he's going to in Texas is like being able to play at the park."

  Carly considered the explanation, then she sighed. "I'd go to Texas, too."

  Nikki smiled and wrapped her arms around her daughter, holding her close. "I know you would, honey."

  Carly was silent for a long moment, and Nikki breathed a sigh of relief, mistakenly assuming that she'd survived the worst of her daughter's interrogation.

  "I want to go to Texas. I want to be with Daddy."

  The words squeezed Nikki's heart like a fist, and she couldn't help but feel rejected. First by Colin, who had once again chosen not to stay with her. And by their daughter, whose statement confirmed her worst fears: Carly would rather be with Colin than with her.

  "Why can't we go to Texas?" Carly asked.

  The "we" in the question soothed a little. Maybe Carly wasn't ready to abandon her mother, after all. Still, Nikki felt a pang of regret that she couldn't give her daughter the one thing she knew she really wanted: her mommy and her daddy. A real family.

  "We can't go to Texas because we live here. Mommy has a job here, and you're going back to school in September."

  Silence descended again as Carly seemed to digest this information. "Was it because of the ring?" she asked after a long moment, the question spoken in a hesitant whisper.

  "What ring?" But she was all too afraid she knew what Carly was going to say. And she damned Colin to hell for ever having given their daughter false hope.

  "The ring Uncle—Daddy bought for you. Didn't you like it?" Carly's green eyes filled with tears again. "I picked out one with lots of pretty stones."

  If her heart hadn't been breaking all over again for her little girl, Nikki might have smiled. Only a child would describe about three carats worth of diamonds as "pretty stones." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "It was a beautiful ring."

  "Then why didn't you want to marry him?"

  "It's complicated, honey." She winced at her own words, but she didn't know how to make her daughter understand something she wasn't sure she understood herself.

  Her reasons had seemed valid at the time Colin had proposed. Now that he was gone, they were less clear. She'd wanted him to stay. She'd wanted him to love her enough to choose her. But he'd chosen to go.

  Or maybe she'd been too rigid in her expectations. Yes, he'd wanted to go, but he'd asked her to go with him. He'd wanted to marry her again, to give them a chance to be a real family. Wasn't that proof enough that he loved her?

  He could have turned down the job, a nagging voice reminded her.

  But why would he? She'd as much as told him to go. She'd given him no reason to believe that she wanted him to stay. She'd never even told him that she loved him.

  Would it have made a difference?

  She didn't really know. But she did know that she couldn't spend the r
est of her life—and Carly's—wondering what might have been if only she'd had the courage to tell him how she felt, what she wanted.

  She was reaching for the phone when the doorbell rang.

  Dylan Creighton was almost the last person Nikki expected to find on her front porch, but she forced a smile for the detective. If she could pretend her heart wasn't broken, maybe it really wouldn't be.

  "If you're looking for Colin, you've missed him," she told Dylan. "He went back to Texas today."

  "I know. I came to see you."

  "Oh." She stepped away from the door. "Did you want to come in?"

  He stepped into the foyer.

  "Can I get you something to drink—coffee or a beer or—"

  "No, thanks," he interrupted.

  "Are you here in an official capacity?" she finally asked.

  He shook his head. "I'm here as a friend. As a favor to Colin, although I'm not sure he'll agree."

  Now she was really confused. "Does Colin know you're here?"

  "No. But I thought you had a right to know."

  "Know what?" she asked, just a little impatiently.

  "Why Colin went back to Texas."

  "To renew his coaching contract."

  "No. He left because we found a bomb wired to the starter in his Jeep last night," Dylan explained.

  Nikki sank into a chair, stunned. "I don't understand."

  "I'm walking a fine line here," he admitted. "Revealing information about an ongoing investigation. But since the incident occurred on your property, I figured you had a right to know. And I didn't think Colin would tell you."

  "He didn't," Nikki admitted. She folded her hands in her lap, trying to assimilate everything he'd told her. "I knew about the threats and the explosion in his condo, but Colin told me an arrest had been made."

  "It had," Dylan agreed. "But the police suspected right from the beginning that the bomb was planted by a hired killer. The second bombing in Baltimore confirmed it."

  "Baltimore?"

  He winced. "He didn't tell you about that?"

  She shook her head.

  "Then let's pretend I didn't tell you, either."

  "You said you were here because I had a right to know," she reminded him.

  "And I wanted you to know we've got a suspect in custody," he said, neatly sidestepping her demand.

  "Oh." She exhaled a shaky breath. "Well, that's good news, I guess."

  "He's already indicated his willingness to make a deal—to give us the name of the man who hired him. The D.A.'s office is just working out the details with his lawyer."

  Nikki sat alone for a long time after Dylan had gone, trying to assimilate the information he'd given her and sort out the chaotic emotions churning in her. She was hurt and angry that Colin hadn't trusted her enough to tell her about the other attempts on his life. Relieved that the man who'd been trying to kill him was in jail. And confused about his motivation for returning to Texas.

  Had he left to accept the coaching job, as he'd told her? Or had he used that as an excuse in order to protect her and Carly?

  The only way to know for sure, she decided, was to ask Colin.

  Duncan Parnell sat slumped in a borrowed car, parked outside the exclusive condominium complex that was home to upper-class professional couples and corporate

  CEOs and his former hockey coach. He'd been waiting for more than an hour already—since he'd heard about MacIver's return on the midday news. He was prepared to wait as long as he had to. He wasn't prepared to let MacIver get away with ruining his life.

  He was probably inside now, meeting with his agent to discuss the new contract. That only pissed him off further. MacIver was the one who had blown their chances at the Cup, yet he was the one getting the offers. Duncan Parnell had gone the extra mile, and now he was a fugitive from the law.

  He saw the taxi pull up at the front door, paid no attention to it until he saw the woman emerge. He recognized her immediately. As soon as Boomer had mentioned that MacIver was hanging out in Fairweather, Pennsylvania, with a woman and kid, Duncan had done some research. He hadn't found anything on the kid, but he'd found pictures of MacIver and this woman in some old newspapers. She was Nikki Gordon MacIver, MacIver's ex-wife.

  He got out of his car just in time to hear the doorman directing her to the fifteenth floor.

  "Mrs. MacIver." He had to hurry to catch up with her and almost stumbled with the pain.

  She turned, a half smile curving her lips. "I haven't been called that in a long time."

  He forced a smile, offered a hand. "Duncan Parnell," he said. "If you're looking for Coach, you just missed him."

  Her smile faded. "Oh."

  "He had a meeting at the rink. I just stopped by to pick up some papers he forgot." Duncan held up the manila envelope he was carrying.

  "Do you know how long he'll be?"

  "Who knows? Sometimes these executive meetings are over quickly, sometimes they can go on for hours."

  He paused for a moment. "I'm on my way over there, if you wanted to catch a lift."

  She hesitated. "He isn't expecting me," she admitted.

  "Then I'm sure he'll be pleasantly surprised." He smiled again. His sister had always said he was a real charmer when he wanted to be.

  "Are you sure you don't mind?"

  "Of course not. As I said, I'm going that way myself."

  "Thanks."

  She followed him to his car.

  Chapter 17

  "I don't understand why you're hesitating." Ian sounded genuinely confused. "The offer is more than fair."

  Colin nodded his agreement absently. The pen was in his hand, poised over the contract. All he had to do was sign his name and his life would once again have purpose. The dotted line beckoned, tempted. Or tried to. In his heart, he just wasn't ready to make this commitment.

  He dropped the pen and pushed away from the table. He caught a glimpse of the scowl that marred his agent's face, but he ignored it as he strode over to the window to stare unseeingly at the city spread out below.

  He'd spoken on the phone to both Dylan Creighton and Detective Brock before Ian had shown up. Dylan had even faxed him a picture of the suspect, and Colin had recognized him immediately as the solitary man from the zoo. He broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about how close the killer had been to Nikki and Carly. But Louis "Boomer" Parker was behind bars now, and Nikki and Carly were safe.

  Dylan had also told him that, in exchange for a deal, Boomer had provided proof of Duncan Parnell's involvement. Colin was both surprised and disappointed by the confirmation that it was Parnell who had set this whole thing in motion. He never would have guessed the young man harbored so much hatred, resentment and bitterness that he would have gone to such extreme measures to seek his revenge. All because of a game.

  He could almost hear his father's voice speaking those words. Words that would have infuriated Colin in the past now seemed so fitting.

  Once upon a time, hockey had been his life. That time had passed. He still loved the game and everything it entailed, but it was no longer the center of his world.

  Unfortunately, it was all he had left. He'd severed ties with Nikki and Carly to come back here. He'd made Nikki believe that he'd left her because he couldn't give up the chance to coach again. Would she ever believe otherwise?

  "Are you going to tell me why you seem to be on the brink of throwing away your future?" Ian asked.

  Colin turned away from the window, scanned the familiar surroundings of his apartment. It was a spectacular apartment—spacious, inviting. The decor was tasteful if somewhat bland. Everything in cool neutral tones of cream and taupe. Nothing at all like the splashes of color that permeated Nikki's house.

  The carpet was plush beneath his feet, spotless. No grape juice had ever been spilled on it, no dirty sneakers had trod upon it. The sofa—a cream and tan stripe—was as comfortable as it had been expensive, the glossy table was some kind of antique, and the blown-glass bowl at its c
enter was the work of some up-and-coming local artisan.

  Everything in this apartment was what he'd always thought he wanted, and yet it had never felt like home. Home, he now realized, was wherever Nikki and Carly were.

  He missed them unbearably.

  Moving back to the window, he thought of Carly, with her glowing eyes and infectious laughter. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could breathe in the soft, baby-powder scent that would forever remind him of her. He could almost feel her little arms wrapped around him, the slight weight of her sleepy head on his shoulder. And he'd never forget the disappointment in her eyes when he'd told her he was going away.

  He blinked the memory away along with the moisture stinging his eyes. Carly would be okay, she had Nikki.

  Nikki.

  He missed her as much as he missed Carly. He missed her smile, her touch, her taste. He missed everything about her.

  He'd made so many mistakes where she was concerned, and he'd missed so much by turning away from her five years earlier. He'd hurt her when he'd left her—alone and pregnant. It wasn't surprising that she still didn't trust him.

  And now he'd hurt her again—deliberately this time—by turning away from her and returning to Texas. How could he expect that she'd ever give him another chance? How could he ask her to trust that he wouldn't walk out on her when he'd done exactly that twice already?

  He watched a cab pull up to the curb, did a double take when he saw the woman emerge. Nikki?

  He shook his head. Of course it wasn't Nikki. She was in Fairweather and he was on the fifteenth floor looking down on the sidewalk. From this vantage point, he could imagine that any blond woman was Nikki.

  "Colin?"

  He forgot about the woman on the sidewalk and turned back to his agent, casting another cursory glance around the room. By all outward appearances, he was a man to be envied. The truth was a different matter. Job or no job, without Nikki and Carly, his life was empty. Meaningless.

  And that was why he had no intention of hanging around in Texas when they were in Fairweather.