by JM Stewart
She supposed that was normal to a certain extent. After all, she’d read once that children didn’t form permanent memories until around three. But surely normal people remembered bits and pieces of early childhood? Kindergarten? First grade? She remembered nothing. Nothing but a vague sense of foreboding and a deep, hollow ache in her chest. Like she was missing something, or perhaps someone.
She turned her head, buried her face in the pillow, and inhaled Kyle’s spicy scent again, filling her lungs with the soothing aroma. How was it that he wasn’t even here, but the mere scent of him somehow made everything okay? That was why she’d come, and why she’d asked to stay.
After he’d left for work, she hadn’t been entirely certain how she’d feel spending the night in his bed. Lying here was intimate. He slept here, night after night, and, chances were, he’d made love to another woman in this bed at some point.
It made her seem a bit, well, childish she supposed, but she needed him. Even if all that meant was sleeping in his bed until he got home. Above and beyond those stirrings of attraction, Kyle had the ability like no other to make her feel warm and safe. He was the only person alive who did.
Finally fully relaxed and centered in the here and now, she rolled over to stare at the clock. One fifteen. Kyle ought to be done soon. His shift ended around one thirty, though if he’d had a call come in, and he was out somewhere on a crime scene, it could be hours before he came home. Either way, that would be time enough to figure a way to broach what memory told her would be a difficult subject between them.
She wanted to find out about her parents. What happened to them. Who they were. Gran had told her once they were gone. Gone how? Were they dead, or had they simply left her? Why had she had the same nightmares for most of her life? Why couldn’t she shake the horrible images? She’d always hoped one day they’d go away.
She had this awful feeling Gran knew more than she wanted to say. But why would she do that? Why would Gran lie to her? She needed answers, now more than ever. Being pregnant had brought up all those insecurities, all those long-standing questions. Therapy had never brought any relief. Oh, she’d recovered a memory or two. A two-story house. People she didn’t recognize but whose faces brought about a familiar ache in her chest.
She wanted to feel whole, for the ache in her chest to finally heal. And she wanted to get past these stupid dreams.
Over the years, she’d done a bit of amateur sleuthing. She’d searched everywhere she could think of and had made use of the Internet and websites designed for this purpose. According to her birth certificate, she was born in the state of New York. She’d even called the hospital listed, but they hadn’t found any record of her. Like therapy, three years of searching turned up nothing but more questions. Why couldn’t she find even a single record of herself outside of her birth certificate? Most people could search for their ancestry. Lila, Chase’s wife, had done exactly that once. She and Chase were attempting to have a baby, and she’d wanted to know, for curiosity’s sake, what her relatives looked like. She’d found pages and pages of records.
But her or Gran? There was simply no mention of them. It was as if they’d never existed. How the hell was that even possible? Kyle was her last hope.
The problem was, they’d been here before, and every time she’d brought it up, it always created tension between them. She’d asked Kyle to help the first time Gran had gone into the hospital. The fear of losing Gran had brought the need to know. He’d told her he hadn’t found anything, but surely there was a record somewhere, one he hadn’t uncovered yet? Surely someone knew who she was? She and Kyle didn’t need any more tension between them, but she needed answers.
***
“Kyle Morgan, don’t you dare bring that thing into this room.”
Ceci’s voice, raspy from sleep, came from within the darkness of the bedroom. Kyle froze in the doorway, his pistol in his right hand, its muzzle pointed at the floor. The moonlight came through the miniblinds in bright streaks, adding light to the otherwise pitch-black room, but Ceci remained little more than a human-shaped shadow among the darkness. By the shape of her, she leaned on an elbow. The tone of her voice told him she was likely staring daggers at him.
It had been a long damn night. He’d spent the evening interviewing a potential suspect. He’d gotten nowhere, and he was exhausted. He had to admit, knowing he’d come home to her was a double-edged sword. Part of him looked forward to it. He was usually careful not to take the job home, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. The dead deserved to have someone to speak for them, but not every case got solved, and those unsolved cases hung on him. Tonight was one of those nights, and Cecelia provided a lure he knew he had to resist.
He glanced at the glowing face of his watch and, for her sake, forced a laugh. “Listen to you. In my bed, in my apartment, telling me I can’t enter my room so I can put my pistol away. It’s two thirty. Shouldn’t you be asleep anyway?”
“Kyle . . .”
Her voice softened, pleading with him. Instinct told him her reprimand had come from fear.
He shook his head and moved slowly into the room, giving her time to adjust. “Sorry, but I have to put the gun away. I figured you’d be asleep when I came in. Close your eyes. It won’t take me long. I’ve already unloaded it. I just need to lock it up.”
She huffed and flopped back on the bed. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, the small amount of moonlight affording him enough light to realize she appeared to be covering her eyes with her hands.
As he crossed to the nightstand, his eyes, with a will of their own, searched out the curves and swells of her body. She had absolutely no idea how torturous it was to know she laid in his bed. He wanted desperately to say, “To hell with it,” and climb in beside her. The urge to lie in the dark and talk to her, to unload, the way they used to once upon a time, was damn near irresistible. The effort it took not to twisted his body into a mass of tension. His shoulders knotted painfully.
But he couldn’t. He flat-out didn’t trust himself. Right now, knowing she was pregnant with another man’s baby, a baby he wished for all the world were his, made him long for all those things he’d spent the last six months tamping down. To tell her he loved her. To make her a permanent part of his world. To come home every night knowing she waited for him. Christ, he wanted it. Every cell in his body ached to have it. It would so easy between them, so . . . natural.
Yeah. Sleep would be a long time coming tonight.
“Did you have a good night?”
The soft sound of her voice drifted around him like a lure as he unlocked his nightstand drawer and pulled out his gun case. He fought back the urge to tell her more than he ought to. “Not really. I spent it interviewing a suspect. One of the cases we’re working is going nowhere, and I had to let him go.”
“You sound stressed.”
He bit back a sardonic laugh. She had no idea.
“Mmm. I am. We can’t catch this bastard and I can’t let it go.” He set his pistol and the full clips into the storage case and closed the clasps, then returned the case to the drawer. He moved by feel through his keys, searching out the small one that went to the lock on the cabinet. Her gaze burned into him, and the silence filled with that unbearable awkwardness.
“Want to talk about it?”
Those words from her mouth had his fingers tightening around his keys. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to shake his head. “Yes, but I won’t. I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.”
“You always did have trouble not bringing it all home with you.”
“Hard not to. The victims’ families deserve peace, and I can’t give it to them.” Finding the right key, he inserted it into the lock and turned it, then pocketed his keys. “I’m all done. You can come out of hiding now.”
His pistol safely locked away, he turned and headed for his closet. He needed only a pair of sweats to sleep in and the extra blanket on the shelf, and he could get out of this blasted r
oom. If he were lucky, sleeping on the couch would at least afford him a few hours. He wasn’t sure he could sleep with her in the house, but he’d have a better chance of it in another room.
Behind him, the bedsprings creaked as she shifted, no doubt uncovering her eyes. His mind filled with an image of her rolling over, and the urge to crawl in with her came again, stronger this time. He tamped it down as quickly as it hit and pulled open the closet door. “I’ll be out of your way in a minute. I just need to grab a couple of things.”
A blip of silence filled the room, during which her thoughts filled the surrounding air. Finally, she drew a barely audible breath.
“You don’t have to leave, you know.” Her voice drifted through the darkness, quiet, shy almost. “I’m not kicking you out of your bed.”
He paused, a pair of sweats clutched in his fingers, and closed his eyes. He knew without asking what she referred to. She wanted him to stay with her. She wanted exactly what he wanted—for him to crawl in beside her, wrap himself around her, and lie with her, hold her, talk to her. All those things that had been commonplace for them once upon a time. They’d done it a lot over the years. It was what made her being in his bed so damn difficult. Crawling in with her would be second nature.
Still, even knowing all of that, he had to refuse. He’d barely survived last time.
“Surely you don’t expect me to sleep in there with you.” He flashed a teasing grin in the hopes of dissuading her.
“Please. I don’t want to be alone tonight.” Her whispered plea lodged itself in his heart, denting his resolve. “It’s kind of why I came.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head as he reached into the closet again and pulled the blanket down from the shelf. Careful to keep his tone light, he tossed a smile over his shoulder. “You’re a cover thief. Not to mention a bed hog.”
She had no idea what she asked of him, how hard sharing the bed would be. All too well he remembered the last time she asked, right after her grandmother had passed away. That was when he discovered his feelings for her had changed. That night had been the cruelest form of torture he’d ever experienced. He’d lain in the dark, holding as her as she alternated between crying jags and sleep. Her gran’s words a week before echoed through his mind, like a CD with a scratch. I know you love her . . .
Laying there in the dark, holding her so close he took every breath with her, her soft, slender curves molded to his length as she wrapped herself against his side, he couldn’t deny the validity of her grandmother’s words. He’d expected the realization to hit him like the slug of a .45-caliber handgun, but it hadn’t. It had slid before him, quiet and soft. An acknowledgment of truth rather than a freight train. He did love her, and holding her was as right as rain, as natural as drawing a breath.
But night after night for those two weeks, he’d lain with her, and he began to notice things. Things he couldn’t be certain he hadn’t noticed before. The soft, feminine shape of her body. She fit against him like she was tailor-made for him. God, the feel of her against him was . . . heaven. His heart skipped a beat when she smiled at him. Her silent tears and shaking shoulders as she wept made his gut ache. And slowly over the days, his body began to respond to her, whether he wanted it to or not. He recalled vividly waking one morning as hard as steel to find her wrapped spoon-style in front of him. Suddenly she wasn’t just the girl next door but a full-fledged woman, and God how he’d wanted her.
He’d felt like a heel and swore never to share a bed with her again, to find any excuse possible not to. He tormented himself that week because she was his best friend. She had to bury her only living relative, and she needed him. What kind of friend would he be if he denied her something as simple as holding her at a time when she needed him most?
She needs you now.
The voice of reason sounded in his head. Kyle gritted his teeth but couldn’t deny the truth of the thought. She’d admitted as much. And here he was, thinking only of himself. It was a fine line he walked, between insanity and torment.
“I had the nightmare again tonight.”
This time her voice wobbled, tugging at that part of him that would die to protect her, and he turned, gazing back at her. A streak of moonlight fell across her face, allowing him to see her eyes. They pleaded with him, fear shining like a beacon.
His shoulders slumped. He was toast. His resistance went up in a puff of smoke when she looked at him like that.
It didn’t help that he knew what those nightmares meant for her. They terrified her. Of course, he knew they were part of her PTSD. She’d described them to him enough to realize they weren’t just dreams. They were memories, moments in time she didn’t realize she remembered. The day she did . . . His gut knotted. It killed him to think about what she’d go through.
From the research he’d done, remembering a buried memory could take its toll. She’d be forced to face things her mind had locked away for a reason. The psychologist he’d spoken with said some people went into those memories and never came out. They ended up in psychiatric hospitals with the mentality of a child because they became locked in time.
He dropped his arms to his sides and blew out a quiet, defeated breath. He couldn’t resist her, and right then, he couldn’t think of one good reason why he should. To do so would be selfish at best. “All right. Let me go change first.”
He took his sweet time doing so, too, neatly folding his clothes and brushing and flossing his teeth. Only when he didn’t have any more stall tactics left did he rejoin her in the bedroom.
His heart pounded as he stood at the side of the bed, eyeing the tiny space she’d left for him. An entire queen-size bed, yet she hovered a foot from the edge. There was no way he’d be able to climb in without touching her. With a deep breath, he gingerly slid beneath the quilt but kept the sheet between them. It wasn’t much of a barrier, but it made him feel better.
“’Bout time.” With a blissful sigh as sweet as it was torturous, she snuggled back against him.
He steeled himself for the contact and wrapped his body around her, settling his arm over her waist. Holding her like this was another double-edged sword. He treasured the time with her, the closeness, but the intimate way her backside settled against his pelvis had his mind wandering to places it shouldn’t. Every inch of her warm, feminine curves molded to his, and try as he might not to let it, every inch of him lit up like a bonfire.
It didn’t help that she kept shifting and wiggling her backside. No doubt attempting to get comfortable, but the excruciating sensation set fire to his groin. He gritted his teeth and froze, afraid to move for fear she’d feel his uncontrollable reaction. He didn’t even want to know what her response would be then.
Ceci kept shifting, and it slowly drove him insane. Finally, unable to stand it, he gripped her waist hard, ceasing the movement.
“Oh, for the love of Mike, Ceci, quit moving.” Despite his best effort not to let it, a strain etched his voice. To cover the tension that held him bound and praying it kept her from noticing his body’s reaction to her, he forced an easy laugh. “You remind me of Sparky, having to circle his spot five times before he lies down.”
Sparky was his oldest brother’s dog. A scraggly mutt with more energy than all three of Evan’s kids combined. He was a friendly, if not slightly quirky, dog.
“Hey.” She twisted free of his embrace and flipped over to face him, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Watch it, buster. You may be bigger than me, but I can still kick your butt.”
“I’d like to see you try.” He grabbed her finger in his fist, somehow resisting the urge to use the purchase to pull her closer, and swallowed a sigh of relief. She was damn sexy when she was feisty, but at least if she faced him, their bodies didn’t touch quite so intimately.
In the silence that followed, tension rose over her. She lay still for a moment, her gaze working over his face, searing into him. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” What she wasn’t saying, the
small, metered silences, spoke volumes.
She’d looked at him like this a lot lately, as if she had so much she wanted to say. It often made him wonder what she saw. Would she ever stop thinking of him as the boy next door and see him as a man? Had he put so much distance between them they couldn’t talk to each other anymore? Had he already ruined what he cherished?
Ceci laid her hand over his, where it rested on the bed. “You always make me feel better. I come over here feeling like crap, but somehow you always manage to make me smile. How do you do that?”
He smiled and waggled his brows, hoping, somehow, it would make her smile again. “Face it, Ceci. I’m good.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face, but her heavy emotions, her uncertainty, hung on her. She made herself comfortable again, tucking a hand beneath her pillow. “I don’t know what to do.”
“About the baby?”
She looked down at the bed, splaying her fingers against the sheets. “Babies need so much. What if I can’t do it on my own? How will I know what to do? What if I’m no good at being a mother?”
Anger roiled in his stomach. If the baby was his, that thought wouldn’t even have entered her mind. She wouldn’t have to worry about being a single mother.
He put a finger to her lips, silencing any more worrisome thoughts before they could leave her mouth. “Forget about all that. What do you want?”
“I want this baby. I will not put him up for adoption. I won’t have my child growing up wondering if I loved him, or why I gave him up.”
“The way you think your parents did with you. Ceci, you don’t know that’s what happened.”
“Yes, but I hate not knowing. I know I had Gran and she was wonderful, but I hate not knowing if my parents are dead, if they left, and if they did, why? I have questions, and I want answers.”
Pain and confusion etched her tone, shining in her eyes, and a memory slid before him. The look would forever be engraved in his mind. The first time he laid eyes on her, he was ten. She and her grandmother had moved into the empty property adjoining theirs. Despite being three years his junior, Ceci was every bit as tall as the girls his age. All legs and arms.
