by Julie Miller
Inhaling a breath of the cool night air, he gathered his wits about him and turned his back to the swirling red and blue lights, and yellow crime-scene tape. He climbed inside his vehicle and immediately straightened up the mess he’d left there. The tripod needed to lie flat on the floor behind the seat. The camera needed to be returned to the proper compartment of its carrying case. He pulled the fabric refresher from the glove compartment and sprayed his clothes, needing to get rid of the lingering smell of smoke that clung to him.
And then he saw the bright green neon of the Shamrock Bar’s front window sign and smiled at the fortunate omen. There were three leaves on a shamrock. Three. The tension inside him evaporated and everything came into balance.
Two members of KCPD’s SWAT Team One had thwarted his efforts to destroy his intended victims, but the third one with the temper would not.
His first attempt to abduct Josie Nichols from the hospital and kill her in a more private location had failed.
Ditto with the bomb. His second attempt at murder had failed.
But the third time would be the charm.
Josie would be his third female victim in Kansas City. This would be his third attempt.
Three was perfection.
He laughed out loud as he started the engine. He checked his side view mirror once, twice, three times before pulling out into the deserted street. This time, he’d put his considerable skills to the test. He’d do Josie Nichols right under the noses of KCPD and SWAT Team One.
And then he’d be free again.
Chapter Ten
Josie tossed in her sleep, desperately trying to wake herself. But the terrors in her dreams refused to let her go.
“Help me. Help me!” she cried, her voice lost in the rush of wind whistling past her ears. She was flying through the air, propelled by clouds of fire. Flaming tendrils reached out like clawing hands, grabbing at her limbs, singeing her skin.
And then she was falling, crashing down into the darkness. Black shadows swirled around her, blinded her eyes, swallowed her up in a bone-deep chill. “Stop.” She was losing her strength now. The ping-pong effect of heat and chill, light and dark, flying and falling, was confusing her mind, draining her energy, exhausting her spirit. “Stop it. Please.”
The chill remained as the darkness turned and took form. She was surrounded by so many shadows. They reached out, tangled in her hair, touched her face. She jerked away, but there was another shadow, curling around her arm, pulling her farther into the abyss. “No. Stop!”
She tore herself free, but there were other shadows, other hands, waiting. She was buffeted from unwanted touch to unwanted touch. They had her feet, her hands. They were pulling her down, pinning her helplessly in the dark, descending upon her.
“Help…” One stuffed up her mouth. Another touched her belly. No!
She couldn’t move. She had no control. The shadows played with her at will. No matter how she twisted, how she fought, she couldn’t escape.
More hands were on her now—shapeless, darkly translucent hands—but with strength, with purpose, with a terrible intent as they pressed down on her belly and seeped beneath her skin to find the precious life she carried inside. And every place they touched was cold, so cold. She was too cold to move, too cold to fight. They were killing her. Killing her baby. Killing.
Josie screamed and thrashed valiantly against the unseen faces in the shadows. But there were so many and she was so alone.
“Help me. Help,” she begged.
Some of the shadows parted, giving her a glimpse of light. Not the burning fire of before, but a cold, dark light. The faces took form. Some were distorted, some masked. But the eyes on every face were the same—icy, colorless, evil. “No.”
The eyes moved nearer as cold shadow fingers closed around her throat. Josie clawed at the hands choking her, but they were all mist and malevolence. Strength, but no substance. She had nothing to fight. They were squeezing the very life out of her and her unborn child, and she was powerless to stop them.
Other faces took shape in the mist. Her father. Patrick. Uncle Robbie. She reached out for help, begged them not to leave her—to save her, protect her, love her. But one by one, they turned away, leaving her alone in the shadows.
“No. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!”
The eyes vanished and the shadows swirled around her, filling her inside and out with their darkness.
“Josie.” The hands were on her shoulders, shaking her, keeping her from reaching out.
“No. Don’t leave…” She slapped at the hands, twisted free.
“Wake up.” These hands were warm. They had substance. “Honey, come on, you’re scaring me.”
Josie went still. She slowly blinked and peered through her lashes. There was light. The shadows were gone. Her hands flew to her belly and throat. She was safe. They were safe.
She opened her eyes fully and saw warm, whiskey-brown eyes, hovering above her, full of concern. The hands on her were real. The eyes were real.
And she was safe.
“Rafe?”
He sat on the edge of the bed, his broad shoulders heaving with a deep breath as he released her. “That was quite a nightmare.”
“Rafe!” Fully awake now, Josie scrambled to sit up. With Rafe’s help, she kicked and tugged to free her legs from the sheet and blanket. And then she was on her knees, flinging her arms around his neck and holding tight to the one tangible constant in her life. “Don’t leave me, Rafe. Everybody leaves.”
He wound his arms around her, plastering her to his bare chest, letting her feel his heat and hardness and the solid reality of his presence. He rubbed his stubbly cheek against hers. “I won’t, honey. I won’t leave you. You’re not alone.”
RAFE SQUINTED HIS eye open at the pesky beam of afternoon sunlight filtering through the blinds at the living room window.
He was probably going to wind up with a permanent crick in his neck from so many nights sleeping on a couch that was too short for his long frame. But somehow, today, he didn’t seem to mind the discomfort—not when he had a mile of creamy long legs tangled with his, and the citrusy scent of Josie’s long hair spilled across his arms and chest as he spooned behind her on the couch.
When her scream had wakened him at eight this morning, he’d gone flying into the bedroom with nothing more than his Glock and his pajama pants. His fear that Donny Kemp had somehow gotten past him and the SWAT cop parked outside his building had morphed into an equally disturbing, but very different type of fear when he found Josie thrashing under the covers. Tears wet her cheeks as she slept, and her plaintive cries reached deep beneath his emotional armor and ripped his heart in two.
He hadn’t known what to do except set his gun out of the way on the bedside table and wake her. She’d been clinging to him ever since. And he hadn’t let go.
He’d cradled Josie in his lap and rocked her back and forth until the tears had stopped. The wound in his side throbbed and his bruised and battered arms ached the longer he sat with her, but he refused to move. He’d held her like that for an endless time, with nothing but one of his black KCPD T-shirts that she’d borrowed for a night-shirt between them. Once she was cried out, and had shared the horrors of her dreams—a nightmare about feeling helpless and abandoned and completely at the mercy of the RGK that made his blood simmer—she’d dozed off, her soft cheek nestled against his shoulder.
Rafe had considered tucking her back into bed. But he didn’t want to be a room away from her anymore, and the intimacy of sharing a bed—of sharing his bed—spoke of commitment and answering to dead fathers and wanting a thing so badly he couldn’t think straight. He wanted Josie. He wanted those beautiful smiles. He wanted those soft lips reaching for his. He wanted the warmth of her curvy body and compassionate spirit to wrap him up and make him feel needed, wanted, whole. The idea of lying in his bed with Josie, even with covers demurely tucked between them, aroused something primal inside Rafe. It made him think she
could truly be his, that he could open up his heart and believe his feelings would be safe with her.
But guilt and killers and a lesson learned early in life reminded him that he didn’t deserve the precious woman—the precious family—he held in his arms.
So he wound up carrying her out here to the sofa to watch over her while she caught up on her much-needed sleep. He’d fed her a snack and waited for her to use the restroom around lunchtime, but then she’d come back to him because she was afraid the nightmare would return. They’d sat together and he did a lot of listening while she chatted about this and that—good memories of her father, Robbie’s broken leg and who would run the bar in his absence, the crib that Rafe insisted he buy to replace the junker in her apartment.
She was leaning against his shoulder, nodding off again before he could answer where he’d gotten the money to pay off Robbie’s loan shark. It was just as well. Mentioning the one thing of value his parents had left him—a small inheritance—would have spoiled the mood. He was liking this calm, this quiet he shared with Josie. Being with her seemed to soothe any anger, resentment or fear buried inside him. Being with Josie filled up a well of emptiness that he was only aware of when she was around, because it reminded him of how little he had that mattered when she wasn’t.
When she’d shivered with the chill of the apartment’s air-conditioning, he’d curled up beside her to give her the heat of his body. Finally, knowing his friends were keeping a round-the-clock watch on his apartment, fatigue claimed him, too.
Now he was wide awake and his body was on fire. Her sweet little derriere was nestled right against him and he was shamelessly aroused. A breast that was fuller, firmer than he remembered strained against the cup of his hand through the thin cotton barrier separating them. His other hand rested with a possessive claim on her hip.
What excuse could he make now about keeping his distance? He’d made a tactical error in thinking his bed was the only place where this raw intimacy could get inside his head and make him think this was how good his life could be.
Rafe nuzzled his lips against the crown of her hair, willing his body to cool its desire before his baser urges broke the spell of serenity surrounding them. He tried to imagine what Aaron would say to him. Maybe nothing so crass as “Get your hands off my daughter,” but definitely something that would make him think before he acted. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Remember your promise to protect her. I don’t want my little girl to get hurt. So be sure—be very sure you’re the man who’ll always cherish her.”
His fingers slid, ever so lightly, around the curve of Josie’s hip. He could feel the taut stretch of her skin through the plain cotton panties she wore. Would he feel the same way if this was his daughter? Would he give the same sort of speech to a son when it came time to discuss the facts of life? Would he be around when that time came? Would he be any part of Josie’s life then?
Holding the rest of his body perfectly still so as not to wake her, he brushed his fingers along the hem of the T-shirt she wore, silently measuring the growing curve of her belly. What would Aaron say about how Rafe had treated his daughter now? Would the excitement of having a grandchild override any blame he might place?
And then he felt the tremor in Josie’s tummy and he snatched his hand away. Was that a muscle spasm? Had he disturbed the baby’s slumber?
With curiosity drawing him as much as trepidation was warning him away, Rafe lifted his arm and moved his hand around Josie again. He’d read in his book that the mother could feel the baby’s movements even before the sixth month of her pregnancy. Could he? His hand hovered over her belly. His fingertips brushed the T-shirt she wore.
“Here.” Josie splayed her fingers over his hand and pulled it firmly against her.
Too late. He realized from the changing rhythm of her breathing that Josie was awake. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake…”
Rafe fell silent as she guided his hand to the ripples of movement inside her.
“You have every right to get to know Junior, too,” she whispered, shifting from her side onto her back.
Her sweet, round bottom rubbed against him, stirring things to life again. But Rafe was too awestruck by the baby’s movements to immediately notice Josie’s effect on him.
The baby rolled inside her, almost pushing against his hand as if eager to meet Daddy’s touch. Rafe raised himself up on one elbow to see if he could see what he was feeling. Josie pulled up the hem of her T-shirt to let him see the subtle shifts in her belly. Amazing.
“I told you the little one likes to be active when I’m trying to rest.”
“Is it…?” That was wrong. Rafe corrected himself the way Josie once had. This was a real, living child moving beneath his hand. His child. “Is the baby okay? After that tumble across the parking lot last night? Are you hurting any?”
Still holding his palm on her belly, Josie reached up with her other hand to stroke her fingers across his jaw. “Other than a few scrapes, the doctor at Truman cleared me. I’ll call my OB later just to make sure. But Junior’s fine. I’m fine. Thanks to you.”
When she slid her hand behind his neck to bring his mouth down to hers, Rafe didn’t hesitate. He returned the chaste kiss Josie offered. When he pulled away, her eyes were looking straight up into his. Pools of deep blue beauty, they sent him a dozen messages. “Sometimes you make me crazy, Delgado. And sometimes you make me want to cry.” A tear sparkled in the clear blue depths, but she blinked it away. “You’ve never touched a pregnant belly, have you?”
He shook his head and turned his gaze to see the wonder of how perfectly his hand spanned the bump where the baby was playing another round of pinball. He hated the memory that crept into his head. “I remember my parents getting into a fight once. My mother wanted to have another baby, I guess.” The vile words constricted his chest. “He told her he wasn’t going to live with a fat cow he couldn’t have sex with the way it had been when she was pregnant with me.”
“Oh, my God. Rafe.” Josie pushed herself up to a sitting position, momentarily breaking the contact between them.
But Rafe didn’t want any space between them. He scooped her up and sat her on his lap. There was no hiding his desire pulsing against her thigh. He brushed the fall of hair out of her eyes so she could read the sincerity in his. “You’re beautiful, Jose.” With a little less hesitation this time, he cupped his hand over her belly. Her hand was there immediately to link them together. He shook his head. “I can’t imagine any man thinking like that, saying such an ugly thing. The baby only enhances your curves. Your skin is so soft and pink. There’s nothing more feminine and womanly…” His fingers were tunneling into the rich silk of her hair. “I’ve always thought you were so beautiful. But now…”
She tiptoed her fingers around his neck. “Now…?”
Something earthy and hungry lit a fuse that burned through his blood. “The book I’m reading says you can safely make love well into your third trimester—as long as it’s comfortable for you and you’re having a healthy pregnancy.”
Josie’s fingers tightened at his nape. “I’m very healthy.”
Rafe turned her in his lap, splaying her legs open to straddle him. “I want you, Josie. I want to show you how beautiful I think you are. I want to do this right and be the man that you deserve.”
She pressed her fingers over his lips, silencing him. “The man I deserve? You saved my life, rescued me from my nightmares and just shared a priceless, tender moment when you felt the baby for the first time. How could you ever doubt…?” He could see the temper brewing in her eyes, but he could see something else there, too. “Like I said, words aren’t your best thing. Maybe you’d better show me what you’re feeling.”
She rose up onto her knees to replace her fingers with her lips. The sweet innocence of her kiss lasted for only a few seconds. Then her fingers were digging into his shoulders. Her breasts were pillowing against his chest. And when she moaned with the same frustration building
inside him, her lips parted and he deepened the kiss, letting her explore his mouth with the same brazen thoroughness with which he plundered hers.
In a flurry of greedy tongues and stroking hands that was every bit as needy as that first time they’d made love, Rafe stripped the shirt off her and closed his mouth over the hard tip of her taut, responsive breast. He licked, he squeezed, he pulled on her until her hands were fisting in his hair, locking his mouth against her as she whispered, “More. More.”
She writhed in his lap, peppered kisses over his eyes and jaw, nipped at the unexpected bundle of nerves cording along the side of his neck. Despite the rapid countdown of the time bomb ticking inside him, Rafe was determined to make this last, to make this right for Josie.
Capturing her close to his chest, he stood, anchoring his hands beneath her bottom and urging her to wrap her legs around him and hold on while he carried her into the bedroom and laid her on top of the tangled covers. Rafe quickly shed his pants and followed her down, shifting onto his side to avoid putting any pressure on her belly.
“Beautiful.” He kissed her temple, nuzzled her neck, swept his tongue over the distended peak of her breast. “So beautiful.”
“Rafe.” His name was a husky gasp that teased his ears and settled like a caress deep inside him. “Rafe.”
He hooked a finger beneath the elastic of her panties and tugged them down her legs, inch by inch, kissing each new curve, each new hollow, each irresistible expanse of velvety skin until she was sitting up, sliding her hands over his hot skin, begging him to end the sweet torment.
Rafe eased her back onto the pillows and crawled over her, holding himself up on his hands and knees as he leaned down to reclaim her lips. His arousal brushed against her belly, nudged against her thighs. Her breasts rose and fell with deep, ragged breaths that matched his own. And as she welcomed him into her mouth, mating her tongue to his, she flattened her palms against his chest, scraped her fingers over his taut nipples and sent a shock wave of desire straight down to his straining shaft. Then, as if sensing her own power over him, she reached down and took him in her hand.
