Undercover Dad

by Charlotte Douglas

  “If my feelings for this woman are so strong, why am I not remembering her instead of wanting to make love with you?”

  “Because I’m here and she’s not.” Rachel straightened her sweater he had disarrayed and slung her purse over her shoulder. “We’re talking in circles. I’m going for a walk.”

  “Alone?”

  Her green eyes flashed. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

  Before he could protest further, she was out the door and gone.

  RACHEL WELCOMED the chill breeze against her heated cheeks, but wished she’d stopped long enough to grab a jacket. The sun had dipped lower in the sky, and the temperature was falling with it. Cooling off, however, was what she needed, so she didn’t return to the hotel for a coat.

  Instead, she headed toward downtown and the address listed on Anne Michelle’s business card. She needed to imprint on her mind everything she could find about the woman Stephen loved, to remind herself of his commitment to someone else before she did something very foolish.

  Cars and trucks clogged Peachtree Street, but pedestrian traffic was sparse as she hurried along the sidewalk. She glanced over her shoulder and realized she should be able to tell easily if someone was following her—on foot. But someone in a car could keep her under surveillance easily without her noticing in the rush hour congestion.

  Less than twenty minutes later she approached the receptionist at the Creative Marketing offices on the eighth floor of the glass-clad skyscraper. “I’m looking for Anne Michelle Logan.”

  “Ms. Logan isn’t taking any more appointments today,” the pert young woman with bouffant blond hair announced.

  “She’s here?” Rachel asked in surprise, wondering if Stephen had failed to warn Anne Michelle after all.

  “Yes, but she’s not seeing anyone else today,” the receptionist reiterated. “Would you like an appointment for tomorrow? I have a ten o’clock opening.”

  Rachel thought fast. If she could talk with Anne Michelle without revealing Stephen’s whereabouts, the woman might have knowledge of who was after them. And, Rachel admitted, Anne Michelle should be warned that she, too, could be in danger. Tomorrow morning might be too late.

  “I think Ms. Logan will see me,” Rachel said. “Tell her I’d like to speak with her regarding Stephen Chandler.”

  The young woman look flustered. “Stephen Chandler?”

  “She’ll know the name.”

  The receptionist frowned. “Without a doubt, but—”

  “I don’t have time to play games. Tell Ms. Logan it’s a matter of life and death.”

  The young woman looked as if she was going to refuse before she relented with a sigh. “Your name?”

  “Harriet Bond,” Rachel said, reluctant to reveal her identity in case her pursuers contacted Anne Michelle’s office. “I’m with the FBI.”

  With obvious reluctance the receptionist rose from her desk, scurried down a hallway to the right and disappeared into an office. Within seconds she returned. “Ms. Logan will see you now.”

  Rachel followed the receptionist’s earlier path down the hall and entered a spacious office with floorto-ceiling windows that offered a spectacular view of Stone Mountain in the distance. Behind a French provincial desk of bleached oak sat a woman in her early thirties, her blond hair swept into an elegant twist, her green eyes a few shades lighter than the Chanel suit that showed off her perfect figure.

  She stood when Rachel entered. “Have a seat, Ms. Bond. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here about Stephen Chandler.”

  “That’s what Peggy said. How is Stephen?” Anne Michelle’s voice was polite, but cool.

  “He’s disappeared.”

  “He does that often when he’s working on a case. Part of the job, he always told me.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  Anne Michelle gave an ironic laugh and jammed her hands into the pockets of her expensive jacket. “I don’t think I can be much help. I haven’t seen Stephen since last May.”

  “Last May?” Surprise robbed Rachel of breath, and she sank into an upholstered Empire chair in front of the desk. “But aren’t you and Stephen married?”

  “We were only engaged,” Anne Michelle said with a frown. “For an FBI agent, your intelligence isn’t very up-to-date. Stephen broke our engagement six months ago.”

  “Stephen broke the engagement?”

  Anne Michelle shrugged. “It happens.”

  “I’m sorry. I... didn’t know.”

  “Obviously. Am I a suspect in his disappearance?”

  Rachel shook her head. “I, uh, that is, the Bureau thought Stephen might have contacted you, told you where he was going and why.”

  The attractive blonde settled into her desk chair, picked up a sterling silver letter opener with a filigree handle and twirled it between her fingers. “As far as I’m concerned, Stephen disappeared a long time ago. We haven’t been in contact since our breakup.”

  Rachel’s mind boggled at the fact that Stephen apparently didn’t love Anne Michelle, and she was having trouble thinking straight.

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel repeated.

  “Don’t be,” the woman said with a warm smile. “It was for the best. One of the things that attracted me to Stephen in the first place was his honesty. He was straightforward enough to admit it when he realized he’d been attracted to me because I reminded him of someone else.”

  Rachel’s bubble of happiness burst. “You reminded him of someone else?”

  Anne Michelle nodded. “A green-eyed blonde he called Doc. Know her?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Doc? Stephen loved her?

  Was that why he’d tried so often to call her after his going-away party and for weeks after his move to Atlanta? He’d been in love with her, and she’d been so afraid of being hurt again she’d refused to recognize his feelings for what they really were.

  Rachel shoved to her feet, anxious to escape Anne Michelle’s office and order her whirling thoughts. “I’d better be going.”

  Anne Michelle’s gaze took on a faraway look, as if she’d forgotten Rachel was in the room. “Stephen said as much as he hated calling off the wedding, he’d be an even worse cad if he married me under false pretenses. Stephen Chandler is one of the most honorable men I’ve every met. Just my luck things didn’t work out between us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel murmured.

  “Did he marry his Doc?”

  “No,” Rachel said with a catch in her voice.

  “Too bad. From the way he talked about her, she was the love of his life. I’d have never had a chance with him in the first place if he hadn’t been on the rebound.”

  The woman had to be mistaken. Stephen hadn’t loved Rachel. Or had he? Had she been too blinded by her fear of being hurt to see it? Her heart constricted with the pain of opportunities missed, time wasted. Not only had she sacrificed her chance for happiness, but she’d cheated both Stephen and Jessica.

  Her vision blurring with unshed tears, Rachel headed toward the door. “Thank you for your time.”

  Anne Michelle rose and walked with her into the hallway. “Is Stephen in danger?”

  Rachel read the concern in the woman’s eyes and wondered if she was still in love with her ex-fiancé. “Stephen is a trained agent. He can take care of himself.”

  Anne Michelle’s expression was bittersweet. “When you find him...”

  “Yes?”

  “Give him my regards.”

  Rachel hurried from the office. When she reached the street, the sun was setting, shadows from the tall buildings had deepened, and the temperature had dropped. But the cold was the least of her problems.

  Anne Michelle’s revelations made her head spin. Stephen loved her? During the four years they’d worked as partners, she had closed herself off to that prospect, refusing to risk her emotions after Brad had trounced them—and her self-esteem—so thoroughly. After Brad’s deception
, she hadn’t conceded the possibility that a man like Stephen Chandler could love her. And she certainly hadn’t been willing to risk loving again, no matter how wonderful Stephen had been.

  But she’d only been fooling herself. She had loved Stephen all along. And she loved him now.

  But now was too late.

  Stephen would hate her when he discovered she’d had his child and hidden Jessica from him. Her own deception was as cruel as Brad’s had been and destroyed any chances of a life with Stephen. As Anne Michelle had stressed, he was an honorable man, and he would find Rachel’s betrayal reprehensible.

  Unforgivable.

  She trudged back toward the hotel, her heart as cold as the night air.

  STEPHEN TRIED to stretch his legs and banged his feet against the too-short sofa. He might as well get up. He hadn’t slept all night. And from the sounds of tossing and turning that had emanated all hours from the adjacent bedroom and the current splash of the shower, Rachel hadn’t slept, either.

  She’d returned from her downtown trek looking as if her world was coming to an end and refusing to talk about whatever was bothering her. Fragments of images tickled his mind. If he could only remember, maybe he could figure out what Rachel was hiding from him.

  He was certain she was hiding something. There had to have been more than an inebriated one-night stand between them. The feelings he had for her hadn’t developed out of thin air. She must be lying. Why else wouldn’t she look him in the eye?

  He kicked off the tangled blanket, rose, and was pulling on his jeans when a knock sounded at the door. He grabbed his gun from the table. “Who is it?”

  “The concierge, Dr. Newman. I have your back issues of the Constitution.”

  Stephen tucked the gun in the waist of his jeans at the small of his back and opened the door. The concierge entered and placed a stack of newspapers on the coffee table. Stephen slipped him a five, and the man left.

  “Who was that?” Rachel stood in the bedroom doorway, dressed in hunter-green tights and matching pullover, her cheeks pink from her shower, her gaze avoiding his.

  “The concierge brought the newspapers.”

  “Good,” she said, too brightly. “I’ll order breakfast from room service and help you read through them.”

  Stephen went into the bathroom to shower and dress. When he returned, a rolling table with their breakfast stood before the French doors opening onto the balcony. Rachel had opened the draperies to a gray, drizzly day.

  He sat in a chair across the table from her and poured himself a cup of coffee. Rachel grasped her cup in both hands and stared out the window, her expression as bleak as the dreary morning.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded without conviction. “I just didn’t sleep well. Must have been the strange bed.”

  He knew the feeling, but he also knew there was more to her unhappiness than a poor night’s rest. “Something’s bothering you.”

  “I’m separated from my daughter and on the run for my life,” she said hotly. “Why should anything be bothering me?”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I was just hoping to help with whatever it is.”

  “You can’t.” Her magnificent green eyes welled with sadness, “But thanks for asking.”

  “You’re not eating.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He wanted to encourage her to eat, but sensed she’d resent his prodding. His memories of her had been returning in a flurry of snapshot images, Rachel riding beside him in the car on the way to a stakeout, smiling across a table in a Savannah restaurant, handcuffing a suspect, comforting the family of a shooting victim. Along with the recollections came emotions, powerful and strong.

  How could he be married or even engaged to someone else when he loved Rachel with an intensity that shook him to his bones? And why could he recall that he loved her, but not the identities of the people who stalked them?

  He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “Where did you go yesterday when you left the hotel?”

  She sighed and raised her gaze to his. The sadness in her eyes startled him. “You have a right to know,” she said with obvious reluctance.

  Steeling himself for what was apparently going to be bad news, he nodded for her to continue.

  “I went to Anne Michelle’s office.”

  “You could have been spotted,” he said angrily.

  “But I wasn’t. I doubt anyone was watching your ex-fiancée, anyway.”

  “How could you be sure—” her words finally sank in. “Ex-fiancée?”

  Rachel pulled her hand from his and stared at her coffee cup. “She hasn’t seen you or spoken with you in over six months.”

  “She was there? You saw her?”

  “She sends her regards.”

  He attempted to clear his jumbled thoughts. He’d been engaged, then unengaged, but he had no memory of Anne Michelle Logan. “What does she look like?”

  Rachel squirmed in her chair. “She’s beautiful. Blond hair, green eyes.”

  “Like you.”

  “Not like me,” Rachel protested. “Anne Michelle is drop-dead gorgeous. And she’s several inches taller than I am.”

  No memories of Anne Michelle came to his aid. Not a glimmer of emotion except puzzlement and an overwhelming relief. His feelings for Doc betrayed no one. He was free to pursue those feelings, if she would accept them. She’d consented to his kiss, but he wanted them to share more.

  Rachel glanced at her watch. “I have to call the Kidbroughs. Mom said she would be at their house this morning so I can talk to her, too.”

  She had disappeared into the bedroom to use the phone before Stephen realized he hadn’t asked why his engagement to Anne Michelle had ended. The suspicion that Rachel knew more than she was saying nagged at him.

  She was smiling when she reentered the room. “Jessica was giggling the whole time I was talking with Mom. It’s good to know she’s happy.”

  Unwilling to ruin Rachel’s pleasant mood, he suppressed his lingering questions about Anne Michelle and nodded toward the stack of newspapers of the coffee table. “We have our work cut out for us. What do you think? Should we start with two weeks ago and work forward?”

  She shook her head. “Let’s start with today and work backward.”

  He handed her the current issue, deliberately touching her, letting his hand skim her delicate wrist. She scanned the front page quickly, then flipped it open, hiding herself from his scrutiny behind the pages. He sat beside her, draped his arm around her shoulders and began to read the previous day’s paper. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she drew away.

  With a sigh he accepted her withdrawal and concentrated on his reading. He had almost finished the local news section when his glance fell on a small headline: Killer of White Supremacist Still at Large. His own name jumped out at him from the article that followed.

  “This is it,” he said to Rachel. “I’ve found something.”

  “What?” She lowered her paper and leaned toward him. The scent of her shampoo filled his nostrils, making him momentarily forget his train of thought.

  He found his place again on the page and began reading aloud. “‘Atlanta police and the FBI have no leads in the assassination of a white supremacist who was shot in Atlanta last week—’”

  A knock at the door interrupted him.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “Room service,” came the reply.

  He glanced at Rachel. “Did you order anything else?”

  “No.”

  His instincts screamed danger. “You must have the wrong room,” he called.

  “This is 345,” the voice insisted.

  “Quick,” he whispered to Rachel, “out the balcony and down the fire escape. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She sprang from the table, grabbed her purse and darted to the French doors.

  “Hurry!” His heart raced with fear for her.

  In an
instant she had disappeared over the edge of the balcony and started down the ladder.

  Before he could follow, a crash reverberated inside the suite as the door banged open. Stephen plunged through the open French doors and swung his leg over the balcony rail.

  “Hold it right there or I’ll shoot,” a harsh voice ordered.

  Stephen turned slowly, hands raised.

  An angry-looking man in a brown leather jacket pointed a Glock pistol at him. “Where’s Rachel Goforth?”

  Stephen shrugged.

  Keeping his weapon trained on Stephen, the intruder did a quick search of the suite, then turned his attention on Stephen, considering him with a puzzled expression. “You have a lot of questions to answer, Chandler.”

  Questions?

  Stephen had a few of his own. Like why the man hadn’t shot him already. Stephen nodded toward the pistol pointed at him. “That’s a very persuasive interrogator.”

  “Get back inside,” the man said. “Keep your hands where I can see them and don’t make any quick moves.”

  Stephen flicked a glance below and spotted Rachel, sprinting across the restaurant roof toward the metal ladder that led to the ground.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. The intruder was probably going to kill him, but Rachel, at least, had escaped.

  Chapter Ten

  Believing Stephen was right behind her, Rachel dashed across the roof of the restaurant kitchen to the fire escape at the far end of the building. Turning to descend the ladder, she glanced back at the balcony and caught a glimpse of Stephen, reentering the hotel room, hands raised.

  She stopped, torn by the desire to rush back to help him.

  If he’d been captured by members of the hate group he’d been reading about in the newspaper before the knock on the door, he was in terrible danger. A new recruit, eager to earn the right to wear the infamous spiderweb tattoo, would snuff out Stephen’s life in the blink of an eye.

  She couldn’t leave the man she loved, the father of her child. Just thinking about the danger he faced froze her in indecision. She had to help him.