Marie’s eyes angled downward, and she fiddled with her hands in her lap until her husband reached for her. Tattoos Alec couldn’t decipher stained the back of his hands.
“She looked everywhere for him,” Luis went on. “There was no sign of him. It was like he just vanished. She found a security guard, but her English wasn’t good, and he didn’t understand what she was trying to say. She came and found me so I could translate. We searched the entire fairgrounds. Security helped us look, but there were multiple entrances and exits. By the time the authorities got involved, he could have been anywhere.”
It was a parent’s worst nightmare, and Alec knew that nightmare well because he’d lived it. “What happened then?”
The Ramirezes exchanged looks again, and Luis said, “The police came. We told them what happened. They said they would look into it, but . . .”
“But what?” Raegan asked.
Luis glanced her way. “We were both in the States illegally then. And we weren’t married. I was also running with a gang in the city. The cops . . . they were sure whoever took David targeted him specifically because of the people we associated with. No one seemed interested in helping us. You are the first reporters who have ever asked about our son.”
Alec wasn’t surprised. Illegal immigrants, especially gang members, had very little voice. “You said you were living up in Portland. Was your son receiving help from the state? Health care, social services, that kind of thing?”
“Yes. Both of our boys were. They were both born here.”
“Do you ever remember a man named Conner Murray?” Raegan asked. “He would have been with Washington County Health and Human Services. He would have come out to your home to check on the boys. About five eight, round around the middle, with thinning hair?”
Luis turned to his wife and spoke in Spanish. They conversed back and forth a few minutes, then he looked at Raegan once more. “Yes. The name and description are familiar.”
Raegan glanced Alec’s way, and in her green eyes he saw the same thing he felt. A hint of hope.
“Do you have e-mail, Mr. Ramirez?” Alec asked.
“Yes.”
Alec pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Can you write down your address for me? I want to send you a photo of Conner Murray and see if it’s the same guy.”
“Okay.”
Footsteps sounded from the hallway while Luis jotted down his e-mail. A squeal echoed from a back bedroom, followed by a child speaking rapidly in Spanish.
Raegan looked toward the hall. “What was that?”
Luis glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, that was our son Miguel. Sorry, he must have woke the baby.”
“Baby.” From the corner of his eye, Alec saw the way Raegan’s face paled. “You had another baby?”
Shuffling sounded again, then a boy with shaggy dark hair appeared from the hall, holding a red-faced, chubby baby with tear tracks down his cherub face.
Marie jumped up from her seat and rushed to the boy’s side, taking the infant from her son as she spoke quickly in a soothing Spanish tone.
Luis handed the card back to Alec. “That’s Daniel, our youngest.”
Raegan pushed to her feet and crossed to Marie and the baby, holding out her finger for the baby to grab. “Oh my goodness. He’s adorable. Hi, there. Hi, little guy.”
The baby sniffled, eyed her with big brown eyes, and wrapped his chubby hand around her finger.
Marie held the baby out to Raegan. “Here. You hold?”
“Oh. Um.” Raegan’s eyes widened, but she reached for the boy, taking him into her arms and pulling him close against her. Naturally. Like a woman who’d held a child a thousand times before.
“Oh my goodness,” she said again, staring down at him with a mixture of wonder and sadness Alec didn’t miss. “You are absolutely beautiful, aren’t you? How old is he?” she asked, looking at Marie.
“Six months,” Luis answered.
“Six months,” Raegan repeated, staring back down at the baby as she began to sway from side to side with him in her arms. “What a big boy you are. What a sweet, big boy.”
Tears glistened in her eyes as she smiled at the infant, and as he watched, Alec’s heart contracted so hard, pain radiated all through his torso and arms and legs.
“We weren’t sure we’d ever have any more kids,” Luis said softly at Alec’s side while the two women focused their attention on the baby. “Weren’t really sure we’d even stay together after we lost David. Marie, she blamed herself. Couldn’t let it go, even though it wasn’t her fault. If I had been with him, he could have climbed out of that stroller just the same. Sometimes . . .” The man shrugged, and Alec looked his way. “Sometimes bad things just happen.”
Alec’s throat grew thick. “How did you get past it?” He nodded toward Raegan and the baby, forcing himself to keep going. “How did you get to this?”
“I don’t know. We just did.” Luis held his arm out, and the boy who’d carried the baby into the room moved to his side and sat. “We had Miguel. He needed us. When he started having trouble in school and with friends, it was a wake-up call for us.”
“Geez, Dad,” Miguel said with a sheepish smile. “I wasn’t that bad.”
Luis ruffled his son’s hair. “No, not that bad. But we were.” He looked at Alec once more. “Life goes on. That’s what we learned. You never forget. You never stop looking. But you can’t spend your time living in the past or you miss out on the present.”
God, this guy sounded so freakin’ healthy. Healthier than Alec had ever been.
“My wife and I both applied for citizenship after that. And we decided it was time we stopped pretending to be a family and finally got married. I stopped running with my gang and went to a trade school while she got a job with the school district. It wasn’t easy, and there were times I thought we’d never make it, but then we moved out here where I could work, found this house to rent. She’s still working for the schools here, but she’s taking a class to improve her English, and she wants to go to school and get her degree so she can be a nurse.”
Amazingly healthy. Especially considering all the obstacles against them. Alec stared in wonder at Raegan, shifting the baby in her arms and laughing at his puzzled expression. “And the baby?”
“He was Marie’s idea. I wasn’t sure at first. Wasn’t sure we could handle it or that having a baby around wouldn’t be a constant reminder of David. But Marie was insistent. She never wanted Miguel to be an only child, and now”—he looked toward his wife and their son in Raegan’s arms—“now I can’t imagine life without him. Having him was the best thing we did for the both of us.”
Raegan’s gaze lifted from the baby and drifted Alec’s way. And when she smiled, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears, her arms still rocking the baby, something inside his heart broke open wide.
He loved her. Had never stopped loving her. And he knew some part of him would always love her no matter where he went or who he was with.
Instead of warming him, though, that realization sent a whisper of fear through his chest because he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t know if they were as strong as the Ramirezes or if it was even smart to think about trying again, considering everything he’d put Raegan through. He just knew he was tired of fighting what he felt. Tired of pretending he didn’t care. Tired of looking at her and wishing so much between them could be different.
He was just deathly afraid of fucking up all over again and making things worse for both of them if he took a chance.
Raegan stared out the passenger window as Alec drove them back to her apartment in the city. A light rain had begun to fall when they were talking with the Ramirezes, and now that it was dark, the city growing larger in the windows shimmered like white twinkle lights on Christmas morning.
She’d thought she could handle these interviews. Thought Alec was going to be the one who’d have trouble, but today he hadn’t. Today he’d been the one to speak wit
h the Ramirezes and ask all the right questions. She, on the other hand, had been useless the minute she’d seen that baby. That precious, adorable, chubby baby who’d looked nothing like Emma but made her ache in a way she felt deep in her soul.
Alec hadn’t talked to her on the ride back, and for that she was grateful. Her throat was so thick she wasn’t sure she’d be able to speak even if she tried. She told herself to pull it together, told herself she’d seen a hundred babies in the years since Emma had been gone and that she’d never reacted this way before. But then, she’d never met another couple like the Ramirezes. Now, every time she pictured them and their situation, all she could think was, that could have been us.
Her street was busy—as always on a weeknight—and Alec had to drive around the block several times before he found a space for his truck. She pulled her keys from her purse and popped the door as soon as he was parked, desperate to go upstairs, to be alone, to let these tears that were building finally fall in the privacy of her own room where no one could see.
She keyed in the building code at the front door, and they moved into the elevator in silence. The car seemed to take forever to go up to the fifth floor, and just when she was wishing she’d taken the stairs, the double doors finally pinged and opened.
Exhaustion pulled at her as she opened her apartment door, moved inside, and dropped her keys in the bowl on the entry table.
Alec closed the door softly at his back while she took off her coat and hung it on the coat tree in the entry. When she gestured for his, he slipped it off and said, “Thanks.”
She forced a smile she didn’t feel, hung up his coat, and moved into the great room. Alec’s footsteps sounded behind her as she pulled the fridge open and grabbed a bottle of water.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head, popped the top on the bottle, and took a long swallow. “You’re welcome to anything you can find. There’s also a takeout menu near the phone.”
Alec slipped his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans, looking just as worn and wrung out as she felt. “I’m not hungry either.”
She glanced away, not wanting to think about how he was feeling tonight. Not on top of everything else. Knew she’d lose it even faster if she did. Moving for the hall, she said, “Well, I’m pretty tired. I think I’m just going to go to be—”
“You were a great mother, Raegan.”
Her feet stilled at the edge of the hallway, and her heart skipped a beat.
“Emma was lucky to have you as her mom.”
It was the first time he’d used Emma’s name since she’d gone missing. Even before the divorce, when she’d known he was hurting and missing their daughter just as much as she was, he’d never used her name. He’d only referred to her as “she” or “her.”
Slowly she turned to look at him. “I don’t know if that’s true,” she said, unable to walk away, unable to move because, after all this time, he was finally talking. “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.”
His lips curved in a sad smile, one that tugged on her heart. “Emma didn’t know that. I didn’t know that either. You always seemed to know exactly what she needed. I’m the one who didn’t have a clue when it came to her.”
“Yes, you did,” she said softly. “Emma loved you.”
His eyes glistened as he looked toward the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have traveled so much. I should have taken assignments closer to home so I could spend more time with her. And you.”
He looked down at her with so much heartache and regret, it felt as if someone were strangling her heart.
The backs of her eyes burned, and she knew she couldn’t look at him anymore. Knew she was going to break if she did. Blinking rapidly, she focused on the water bottle in her hand. On something solid, something real instead of the pain swirling around her. “I think we could both spend our whole lives playing the ‘I should have’ game. It doesn’t change anything.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said softly. “Are you still seeing that guy? The one at your office? The one I met at the hospital?”
The question threw her, seemed to come out of left field when they were talking about Emma. “No.” Her brow wrinkled. “I ended it after . . . well”—her cheeks heated because she didn’t want to give too much away—“after I started looking into these cases.”
That made sense, didn’t it? She had ended things with Jeremy after he’d called her with news on these cases. Of course, that was right after she’d spent the night at Alec’s house, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Good.”
His footsteps sounded against the floor, and when she lifted her gaze, she discovered he was standing in front of her, focused solely on her. Sadness and heartache and regret still reflected in his clear blue eyes, but there was also something more. Heat and passion swirled in those deep cerulean depths now as well. So much her pulse shot straight into the stratosphere.
“That’s good.” He took the water bottle from her hand and set it on the end table beside him. Moving closer, he cupped her face in both of his big hands, his warm, rough fingers sending tingles all across her flesh. “Because I don’t want you to have any reason to feel guilty about what I’m about to do.”
She had one split second to suck in a surprised breath before he lowered his head and kissed her. Electricity arced through her body. Electricity and need and an awakening desire she didn’t want to fight. Unlike last night, unlike every time she’d fantasized about this very moment, this felt right. This felt right and real and perfect, and she didn’t want to ever let it go.
He drew back long before she was ready and gazed down at her, but he didn’t drop his hands from her face. And that was all the encouragement she needed.
“Do that again,” she breathed.
His eyes darkened, and his mouth covered hers once more, his kiss rocking the world right out from under her. She opened at first contact, slid her arms around his shoulders and hung on, kissing him right back until she was breathless. His tongue brushed hers with long, languid strokes she felt everywhere. And when his fingers slid into her hair, when he combed his hands through her long locks and trailed them down her spine to encircle her waist and pull her against him, she knew she was lost. Knew she could no longer go on pretending this wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted from the first moment she’d seen him sitting on a chair in that hospital hallway.
Sensations rocked her body. The hot, wet slide of his tongue along hers. The firm, wide grip of his hand at her lower back drawing her closer. The hard, insistent length of his erection pressing against her belly, telling her he felt their connection as strongly as she did, telling her he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
Her arms wound around his neck, and she trembled as he whispered, “Raegan,” against her lips. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the soft skin behind her ear, whispering, “Raegs,” again and again until she melted.
Her hands slid to his cheeks, and she drew his mouth back to hers, kissing him hard. He answered by groaning against her, kissing her deeper, and wrapping his arms tightly around her waist as he lifted her feet off the floor.
She felt herself moving, didn’t care where she was going so long as he was going with her. Didn’t ever want to let go. “Alec—”
“Want you,” he rasped, kissing the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the tip of her nose, cutting off her words. “Need you.”
“Oh . . . yeeees.” She pulled his mouth back to hers and kissed him deeply as she wrapped her legs around his hips.
An animalistic sound echoed from his chest, one that made her hotter and more desperate. She felt herself turning, knew he was taking her into her bedroom, couldn’t wait to feel his weight pressing her into the mattress.
He crossed the floor, never once pulling away from her mouth. They reached the bed, and he wrapped one hand around her waist, stretched out the other to find the mattress. The soft comforter brushed her spine, and his tongue continued to t
ease and taste and taunt her with pleasure, but when his weight pressed into hers and he rose up above her, all she could think about was him and this and them. And more.
Cool air whooshed over her belly, and he pulled away from her mouth. Realizing he was tugging up her sweater, she let go of him and lifted her arms so he could swipe it free and then reached for him.
He tossed her sweater somewhere to his right, leaned down, and kissed her again. But not before she saw his flushed cheeks, his lips swollen from her mouth, and his eyes glazed with a lust that supercharged her blood.
His kiss drew her right back into bliss. Finding the hem of his shirt, she slid her hands up and under the fabric and all across his chiseled abs, desperate to touch him. Groaning, he let her pull his shirt free, and rocked against her until she saw stars.
“Raegs.” He kissed her jaw, her throat, trailed his lips down to the V of her cleavage. “God, you smell so damn good. Better than I remember.”
Tingles spread all across her skin, wherever he touched. She closed her eyes as he kissed her, slid her fingers into his silky hair, and trembled when he flipped the front latch of her bra, freeing her breasts.
He groaned in approval, and a tingle of anticipation rushed over her skin, tightening her nipples. It shouldn’t feel like the first time, but it did. They’d made love hundreds of times, and it had always been wonderful, but she never remembered being this turned on. This excited. Wasn’t sure she’d ever felt this roaring desire for more.
His hand closed around her right breast, pulling a groan from her lips. He pressed his lips against the fleshy mass, slid his tongue around the areola, licking and laving and driving her absolutely mad. But when he found the tip, when he drew her nipple deep into his mouth and suckled, the world rocked right out from under her.
She trembled. Lifted her hips, desperate for contact, for friction, for him. He answered by palming her other breast, by kissing his way to the other nipple and drawing her deep in his mouth all over again.
Her skin grew hot. Her body ached everywhere for his hands, his lips, his touch. She pushed up on her elbows and shrugged out of her bra straps. He eased back and helped her pull the garment free, tossing it onto the ground. Sitting up, she reached for him again, desperate to feel his naked body sliding over hers, but stilled when she saw the four tattooed letters in cursive right over his heart.
Gone (Deadly Secrets Book 2) Page 15
