Egan Cassidy's Kid

by Beverly Barton

  “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

  Egan didn’t know how to respond to Bent’s direct question. What would his son say if he admitted that he had no intention of allowing Grant Cullen to live?

  “If necessary,” Egan admitted and sought his son’s eyes for a reaction.

  Bent nodded, then glanced away as if he couldn’t quite accept the truth. “It won’t be the first time that you’ve killed someone, will it? You were a soldier in Vietnam and then you were a mercenary.”

  “It wasn’t the life I would have willingly chosen. I did what I had to do. Most people have choices. My choices were limited.”

  “After…after Cullen is eliminated,” Bent continued, “then Mama and I can go home, back to our normal life. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “What about you?” Bent asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Will you go back to Atlanta, to your normal life?”

  “That depends,” Egan said. “On you and your mother.”

  “Do you really still care about her?” Bent shuffled his feet nervously.

  “Yes, I still care.”

  “What about Mama? Do you think she still cares about you?”

  “You’ll have to ask her,” Egan said.

  “You’d better not ever hurt her again.” Bent glowered at his father, his stance boldly aggressive. “She’s got me now and I won’t let you or anybody else hurt her.”

  “I’m glad you love your mother and that you want to protect her, but you don’t have to protect her from me.”

  “If she doesn’t want you to be a part of her life, then that’s fine with me,” Bent said. “I don’t need you. I’m practically a man now. What do I need with a father? So when Mama and I go home, you’d better just go on back to Atlanta and leave us alone.”

  “If that’s what you and Maggie want, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “If Mama says it’s all right for you to come back to Parsons City with us—for a visit—then that’s okay, too. But only if it’s what she wants.”

  “All right. We’re in agreement.” Egan held out his hand. “We’ll leave the decision up to Maggie. We’ll both abide by whatever she decides.”

  Bent stared at his father’s hand for several minutes, then reluctantly accepted it in a hardy handshake. It took all of Egan’s willpower not to jerk the boy forward and into his arms. This was his son, his and Maggie’s child. And he’d never held this boy when he’d been a baby, never rocked him, never cared for him when he’d been sick. Bent had grown into a fine young man without ever having known the love and support of his father. Despite what Maggie had said, maybe Bent didn’t need him, but Egan knew one thing for sure and certain—he needed Bent.

  Now that he knew he had a son, there was no way he could ever walk away and leave him. More than anything, he wanted a second chance. A chance to make things right with Bent, to try to become a father to his son.

  He held Bent’s hand in his a little longer than necessary, until finally Bent pulled free and stood there staring at Egan.

  “In case I don’t get the chance to tell you tomorrow before you and Maggie leave, I want you to know that I’m proud you’re my son and I’m sorry that I haven’t been around since you were born.”

  A fine mist formed over Bent’s eyes. He cleared his throat. “I guess we’d better let Mama know that everything’s cleared up now and I understand why things happened the way they did.” Bent headed for the door.

  “Bent?”

  “Yeah?” He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Thanks.”

  Bent nodded, then opened the door and called out to his mother. Maggie came to the door, then glanced back and forth from father to son.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Bent said. “Egan told me all about Grant Cullen and why he’s been trying to find a way to get revenge all these years. I understand, so you can stop worrying. I don’t blame Egan for what happened.”

  Maggie sighed with relief. “Good. I’m glad.”

  Egan crossed the room, stopped at Maggie’s side and turned to Bent. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  When Egan left the room, Maggie called out to him. She smiled at Bent. “I’ll be right back. I need to speak to Egan for just a minute.”

  “Sure,” Bent said. “Just hurry back. Okay?”

  Maggie nodded, then rushed out into the hallway to catch Egan. He seemed intent upon escaping, so she ran down the corridor and grabbed his arm.

  “I thought everything was all right between you and Bent,” she said. “He understands now and he doesn’t blame you for what happened with Grant Cullen. Right?”

  Egan placed his hand over hers where she gripped his shirt. “Bent is a boy trying very hard to act like a man. He does understand about my relationship with Cullen and he even understands why I left you fifteen years ago.” Egan tapped the side of his forehead with his index finger. “He understands with his mind. But in here—” Egan pounded his fist over his heart “—he’s a little boy who can’t forgive me for hurting his mama and for not being there for you and him all these years.”

  “Oh, Egan, give him time. Once he gets to know you—”

  Egan grabbed Maggie’s shoulders. “Is that what you want? Do you really want me to become a part of Bent’s life…a part of your life? Our son has made it very clear to me that unless you’re willing to give me a second chance, he doesn’t want to have a thing to do with me.”

  “I see. So, you’re saying that Bent expects us to come as a package deal. If you take the son, you have to take the mama, too.”

  “Your son loves you and doesn’t want to see you get hurt.” Egan eased his hands down Maggie’s arms, grasped her wrists and then released her. “So, you think about things while I’m gone. And when I come to the Blackwood Ranch to let you know that y’all are safe from Cullen, you can tell me what the future holds for us.”

  “Egan, I—”

  By placing his index finger over her lips, he silenced her. “Don’t make a rash decision. Take your time. Whatever you decide will affect all three of us, for the rest of our lives.”

  Chapter 13

  With the bedspread wrapped around her, Maggie sat by the windows that overlooked Stonyford’s Main Street and watched the predawn sky. She had spent several hours with Bent last night and finally came to the conclusion that despite his lingering resentment of Egan, her son both wanted and needed his father in his life. But before that could happen, Bent and she would have to come to terms not only with the kidnapping, but with how Egan handled putting Grant Cullen out of commission. Permanently.

  The world was a violent place—always had been and probably always would be. But living in Parsons City, Alabama, she had been able to shield Bent from a great deal of life’s true ugliness. If Egan became a part of their lives, would he be able to leave behind that kill-or-be-killed lifestyle he had led for so many years? Could he survive without the adrenaline rush of danger and excitement on which he’d fed most of his adult life? Even if he were willing to try settling down to a normal life, would he grow bored and eventually leave them?

  In her heart, Maggie knew that if Egan’s venture into their lives turned out to be only temporary, she and Bent would be better off without him. She had survived when she’d lost Egan the first time, but what would happen if she lost him a second time? And what about Bent? How would having his father desert him, once they had bonded, affect him?

  Maggie drew her feet up onto the chair and clutched the edges of the spread where it crossed her chest. A tiny chill trickled along her nerve endings. She had fallen in love with Egan all over again and there was no use denying the truth. Perhaps in the deepest recesses of her heart, she had never stopped loving him. Poor fool that she was! She was doomed to be a one-man woman and there really wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  Egan wanted her, desired her greatly and couldn’t seem to get enough of their lo
vemaking. But did he love her? Had he ever loved her? I cared for you, she remembered him saying. Caring wasn’t love. So, would Egan make a commitment to her in order to become a father to Bent? Was he willing to take the package deal, even without loving her?

  The door to Maggie’s room creaked slightly as it opened ever so slowly. A thin thread of light from the hallway fell across the floor like a pale line of paint. Maggie’s senses heightened. Her nerves came to full alert. You’re safe, she reminded herself. Egan and Wolfe were in the room next to hers. Joe Ornelas slept in the bed beside Bent, just across the hall. And Hunter Whitelaw kept a vigil outside in the corridor.

  The moment the door opened farther, she recognized Egan’s silhouette. Undoubtedly he was as restless as she, as unable to sleep. They would say goodbye later today and go their separate ways. She and Bent into seclusion. Egan on a quest to find and destroy the threat to their lives. Had Egan been thinking about the possibility that, this time, he wouldn’t come back alive? After all, he had survived a lifetime of constant danger. And together they had saved Bent and escaped Cullen’s wrath. Did that mean Egan’s luck had finally run out? What if instead of him eliminating Cullen, it was the other way around?

  “Come in,” Maggie said, her voice not much more than a whisper.

  Egan walked into the dark room, illuminated only by the moonlight, and quietly closed the door behind him. “I just wanted to check on you. To make sure—”

  “You’ve checked on Bent, too, haven’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Egan stood just inside the doorway, his breathing slow and steady.

  “And he was sleeping?”

  “Soundly.”

  “You’ve come to say goodbye, haven’t you?”

  “Maggie, I knew you were awake,” he admitted. “I’ve been listening to you stirring around in here for the past hour.”

  “I’ve been thinking about us,” she told him. “About what might happen to you when you go after Cullen.”

  Egan didn’t move. He simply stood there in the darkness and waited. Maggie knew she would have to make the first move, extend an invitation, before he would come to her. At that very moment he was exerting superhuman control in order to keep his hands off her. She knew this as surely as she knew that in less than an hour the sun would rise in the east. The electrifying chemistry between them radiated an intense energy that drew them together, like a magnet and metal, one incapable of resisting the other.

  “I don’t want you to worry about me,” Egan said, his voice low, as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “I know what I’m doing. And I’m not going alone. Wolfe will be with me.”

  “I’m glad you won’t be alone.”

  “Once this is over…once Cullen is no longer a threat, I’d like to try to find a way to make amends to you and Bent.”

  Maggie rose from the overstuffed chair, bringing the bedspread up with her as she stood. The edge of the jacquard-style print coverlet dragged behind her as she glided silently across the wooden floor. Transparent gilded moonbeams burnished her hair with gold, deepening the rich red into a dark mahogany. Egan swallowed hard. His body hardened instantly.

  He had given himself a dozen good reasons why he should open Maggie’s door, but all of the excuses had been lies. The only truth was that he knew they would say goodbye in a few hours and he couldn’t bear the thought of not making love to her one final time.

  Before she reached Egan, Maggie dropped the spread from around her shoulders. The soft cotton throw cascaded down her hips and legs and pooled around her feet on the floor. She stepped over the puddle of material and came to him, wearing only a pair of slightly oversize panties and an equally oversize, unbuttoned shirt.

  Even in the dim light, he could make out the swell of her partially exposed breasts and the long, silky length of her gorgeous legs.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, praying that she wouldn’t change her mind. Not now. Not when he ached with such a desperate need to be inside her.

  “I’m sure.” She grasped the front edges of her borrowed shirt and opened it fully, then slid it off her shoulders, over her arms and down her back.

  Egan held his breath.

  She let the shirt drop from her fingers and join the coverlet on the floor. With several slow, tormenting steps she made her way to him, then stopped directly in front of him and reached up to touch his bare chest. He let out the breath he’d been holding.

  He touched her shoulders, his fingers grazing her skin with the lightness of feathers. Soft, sweet, slow. Tantalizing. Moments ticked by as his tender strokes inflamed her. Touching, but just barely. Across her shoulder, up her neck, over her chin, down her neck and across her other shoulder. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it unless he touched her more intimately, his fingertips glided over and around her breasts, but deliberately avoided her nipples.

  Maggie drew in a sharp breath when he finally circled her nipples, but never touched them. Moaning deep in her throat, the sound a muted plea for him to end her torment, Maggie gripped his biceps. Egan lowered his head until his mouth hovered over the center of one breast. He flicked out his tongue and just barely brushed her nipple.

  Maggie bit down on her lip to keep from screaming with the pure pleasure of that fleeting touch. As she held him tightly by the arms, he repeated the torture several times and then turned his attention to her other breast.

  She rose on tiptoes, tossed back her head and gasped softly. Hurriedly, Egan divested himself of his jeans and then hooked his thumbs under the elastic of Maggie’s baggy cotton panties. As soon as they were both naked, he walked her backward and toppled her over and into the center of the bed. He came down over her, straddling her hips. She gazed up at him with such desire in her eyes that he thought he’d lose it right then and there. But he was going to give her pleasure and that meant waiting. Waiting until she was begging him to take her.

  He took his sex and began rubbing it against her kernel, tempting and teasing until she bucked her hips up, asking for more. But he continued the movements, slow and maddening, building the tension inside her.

  “Oh, please, Egan. Please.”

  “Not yet.”

  After agonizing moments of torture, repeatedly petting her body with his, he finally eased the very tip inside her. When she tried to thrust upward to take more, he halted her.

  Covering her face and neck with sweet, little pecks, Egan eased in and out a few inches, but he refused her pleas to bury himself inside her. She writhed beneath him, mumbling incoherent phrases. He covered her lips with his and lunged his tongue into her open mouth. She closed her lips around his tongue, trapping him, sucking greedily. The kiss deepened, expanded, becoming a parody of the most intimate of sexual acts.

  Maggie grabbed Egan’s taut buttocks and brought his body down as she lifted up to meet him. She had taken all the teasing she could endure. She wanted every inch of him. Now!

  Egan obliged her—at long last. He thrust into her, deeply, completely. She trapped a scream in her throat. A scream of intense pleasure. And then the mating dance began in earnest. Hard, deep plunges that brought each of them closer and closer to the ultimate climax, to the perfect conclusion.

  Maggie’s entire body tensed as it reached the moment of fulfillment. One final stroke of Egan’s sex and she shattered into a million fragments of quivering pleasure. Her release triggered his and he followed her, headlong, into an earth-shattering completion.

  Their bodies damp with perspiration, their breathing ragged, they held each other while the aftershocks rippled through them and strength-robbing satiation claimed them thoroughly.

  “General Cullen,” Winn Sherman called out as he knocked loudly on Cullen’s bedroom door. “Wake up, sir, and turn on your television.”

  “What the hell!” Cullen roused from sleep, angry for being disturbed, but knowing that Winn wouldn’t have bothered him without good reason. He fumbled his fingers across the top of the nightstand, searching for the remote. The moment h
e found it, he hit the Power button.

  “What channel?” Cullen demanded.

  Winn called out the channel number. Cullen punched in the number as he sat up in bed. On screen, a pretty-boy reporter with an irritatingly phony smile stood in the middle of a street in some local town nearby. Cullen thought all small towns shared a likeness, especially those out here in the west.

  After turning up the sound, he called out to Winn, “What’s going on? Why did you want me to see this?”

  “May I come in, sir?”

  “Get me some coffee first.”

  “Yes, sir. But listen to what that reporter is saying.”

  Cullen turned up the sound and listened.

  “We’re here in Stonyford,” the pretty boy said. “We have a report that a man and a woman walked out of the mountains yesterday, after spending days being lost in the wilderness. We’re told that Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones are still inside the Stonyford Hotel and will be emerging shortly to speak to us about their harrowing ordeal.”

  Cullen shot out of bed and grabbed his silk robe. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  The reporter’s name—Travis Baker—flashed across the screen. Travis pointed his handheld microphone toward a plump, elderly woman with a shock of curly gray hair and set of bright blue eyes.

  “This is Mrs. Corrie Nesbitt, the proprietor of the hotel, where the couple is staying. What do you know about this Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones?”

  “Don’t know much,” Corrie said. “He’s a good-looking man, with a beard and mustache, about forty-five and she’s a tall redhead, a few years younger. My brother, Ed Butram, ran across them when they first showed up here after spending a couple of days lost up there in the mountains. They was a couple of sorry-looking folks, I’ll tell you. Dirty, hungry and tired.”

  “Did they share any of the details about their wilderness adventure with you?” Travis asked. “Did they explain how they got lost and what they were doing in the mountains without a guide?”