Undercover Dad

by Charlotte Douglas

  At the anguish in her tone, Stephen stopped the vehicle, turned toward her and took her hand. “First thing tomorrow we’ll contact Maitland’s office and find out where he’s staying in New York. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  She sighed in frustration. “What if Maitland’s New York alibi is solid?”

  “That won’t mean he’s not guilty. He could have hired others to do his dirty work, just like the kidnapping. If he did, we’ll find them. I’m tired of being the hunted in his cat-and-mouse game.”

  She looked through the windshield, peering into the darkness. “Why did you stop the car?”

  He drew her against his chest and tightened his arms around her. She smelled so good, felt so right. “Because there’s something I have to do right now, something I’ve been wanting to do all day.” He unfastened his seat belt, glided his fingers across her shoulders, down the length of her arms and tipped her face toward him.

  She came willingly into his embrace and lifted her arms around his neck. Her curves conformed to him with the effortless ease of remembrance, sparking every cell in his body with exquisite need. This perfect fit had been imprinted on his mind, and he never wanted to let her go. Tangling his fingers in her hair, he kissed her, reveling in the sweet, familiar taste of her.

  Her response was immediate. With a soft moan she caressed his shoulders, urging him closer, offering him a safe haven in a storm of need.

  Minutes later he raised his head. “Solving this case is more important to me than ever now.”

  “Why?” Her eyes sparkled in the dim light, and her voice was breathless, skewering him with renewed desire.

  “I want to marry you, Doc. I want you and Jessica and me to be a family.”

  An ominous stillness descended on her, and the light went out in her eyes. “That’s...not possible.”

  Confusion broadsided him. She’d said she loved him. He’d felt it in her kiss. Had he read everything wrong, including his memories of her?

  “As much as I love you,” he argued, “anything’s possible.”

  She pushed away and avoided his eyes. “There’re too many things you don’t remember. Too much about me you never knew in the first place.”

  He grasped her chin and gently turned her face toward him. “I know one thing for sure. There’s nothing you can tell me that will make me stop loving you, Doc.”

  “Don’t.” She pressed her fingers against his lips. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  He covered her hand with his, kissed each of her fingertips and flashed her a reassuring smile. “We can clear this up right now. Tell me what I should know, then I’ll prove how much I love you.”

  She drew away, her eyes misting with tears. “It isn’t that easy.”

  Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her back against his chest and stroked her hair. “Sure it is. Just say the words. I’m listening.”

  “Will you do me a favor first?”

  “Anything.”

  “Will you kiss me one last time?”

  “I’ll gladly kiss you, Doc, but believe me, it won’t be the least”

  She lifted her lips to his, kissing him with a fierceness that fired his blood again. Surrendering to desire, he abandoned all conscious thought, exploring the planes and contours of her back, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her thighs.

  With a sweet reluctance she pulled away. “I’d better tell you now before I lose my courage.”

  “I’m listening.” He smiled again to encourage her, thinking nothing she could tell him was as grave as her expression suggested.

  “After I graduated from medical school,” she began, “I was supposed to marry Brad, whom I’d known since I was three. Our families were close, we had dated through high school and college, and everyone expected us to marry.”

  Her hands fluttered nervously in her lap. He placed his over them to still them. “Relax. Just tell me. Then everything will be okay.”

  The grief in her eyes indicated she didn’t believe him, and an uneasiness began to gnaw at his confidence. Had he been wrong to trust her, to love her? He shoved the unsettling question aside. The way he felt about her now, nothing could shake his love for her.

  She took a deep breath and plunged ahead into her story. “The wedding was supposed to be the social event of the summer in Raleigh. My parents had spared no expense, and Brad’s folks had planned a huge reception at the country club. I was standing in the church vestibule with Dad, waiting to walk down the aisle, when Brad’s best man delivered the note.”

  “Note?”

  “Brad had run away. At the eleventh hour, he’d found the strength to admit he didn’t love me, that he’d asked me to marry him because everyone expected it, but he didn’t have the courage to tell me face-to-face.”

  “Did you love him?” Stephen asked gently.

  “At the time I thought I did.” She met his gaze, and her smile was bittersweet. “Now I know what real love is.”

  He resisted the urge to kiss her again. Telling her story was an obvious and painful effort, and she needed to get whatever was bothering her off her conscience.

  Gently he prodded her. “What happened next?”

  “The wedding was canceled, of course. At the time I thought my heart was broken, my life ruined. Looking back, I realize I was more humiliated than hurt. I threw myself into my FBI training and never looked back.”

  “Never?”

  She shook her head. “And I vowed I would never allow anyone to hurt me the way Brad did.”

  “I can understand your feelings, but that’s not such a terrible secret. Knowing it certainly doesn’t make me love you less.”

  “That’s not the secret,” she said softly with a look of such agony that it made him want to cry. “I told you that same story years ago. It’s only background.”

  At her pained expression, his throat tightened with a premonition that her story was about to take a turn he wouldn’t like. “Then you’d better tell me the rest.”

  “When I came to Savannah, I was assigned as your partner. For four years we worked well together, and I thought we were just good friends—”

  “Brother and sister, you said.”

  She nodded, and even in the dimness of the dashboard lights, he could see her blush.

  “Several times you asked me to marry you,” she said, “but I always thought you were teasing. I didn’t realize that in my efforts to forget the pain Brad had caused me, I’d closed off my emotions so effectively that I couldn’t recognize my own feelings, much less anyone else’s.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself. That’s a natural protective response.”

  “But it caused a lot of trouble—and a horrible mistake.”

  “What kind of mistake?”

  She shuddered. “I’m getting ahead of myself. I already told you about our lovemaking the night of your going-away party. Until recently, I’d convinced myself that it happened because we’d had too much to drink.”

  “What really happened?” His sense of uneasiness grew. He loved her, and he didn’t want her to tell him anything that might shake that love.

  Tears pooled in her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. “You loved me. I can see it now.”

  “And you?”

  “I loved you, too. I was just too afraid of being hurt again to admit it. So after the party, I wouldn’t take your calls or see you again. I convinced myself that we would both be too embarrassed by what had happened, and I didn’t want to spoil the memories of our friendship with regrets about that...uncomfortable encounter.”

  Stephen shifted uneasily. “So I left for Atlanta without seeing you again?”

  “You tried.” She forced a weak smile through her tears. “You almost wore out my phone with your calls, and you came by my apartment, but I never answered the phone or the door.”

  “I just moved to Atlanta, and you never heard from me again? I should be the one with the guilty conscience.”

  “Please.” She
laid her hand on his arm. “Don’t make this harder by trying to take the blame.”

  Relief blew through him like a sea breeze. She’d been tormenting herself over a simple misunderstanding. “Sounds like there’s blame enough to go around on both sides. Maybe we should just forget it ever happened and start over.”

  “There’s more.” Her voice was so soft he struggled to hear her.

  “More?” His apprehension returned.

  “Three months after you left, Jason told me you’d met a woman in Atlanta—”

  “Anne Michelle?”

  She nodded. “And you were going to be married.”

  “I remember all that. And I told you I only thought I loved her. What drew me to her all along was that she reminded me of you.”

  “What you don’t know,” Rachel said quickly, as if afraid she’d lose her nerve if she hesitated, “is that the same day I heard about your engagement, I discovered I was pregnant with Jessica.”

  He blinked in confusion. “You’ve lost me. When did Jessica’s father enter the picture?”

  She raised her head and looked at him with eyes filled with guilt and tears. “You are Jessica’s father.”

  It took a few seconds for that fact to sink in. When it did, emotions swamped him.

  Astonishing joy.

  Incredible pride.

  And burning anger.

  “I have a daughter, and you never told me?”

  “You were getting married. I didn’t want to jeopardize your happiness. Or make you feel obligated to me.”

  Conflicting emotions battled within him. In his furor at her for not telling him about his daughter, he wanted to smash something. He also wanted to climb out of the truck and dance for joy.

  He had a daughter.

  How could she hide such a thing from him? “I had a right to know!”

  “I can see that now,” she said. “I don’t blame you if your feelings for me aren’t the same now as they were before I told you.”

  “But—”

  The cell phone in his pocket rang, but he ignored it.

  “Your phone,” she murmured.

  “Forget it.” It wasn’t every day a man became a father. He wanted time to banish his anger, to savor the moment.

  “It might be Jason.”

  Regretfully, because he had so much he wanted to say to her, so many questions to ask, he answered the call.

  “May I speak with Rachel?” a strange male voice said.

  Stephen handed her the phone.

  “For me?” she said with a puzzled look at Stephen.

  He nodded.

  “This is Rachel,” she spoke into the phone.

  As she listened, Stephen watched the blood leave her face. She began to tremble.

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” Rachel finally said. “We’re on our way.”

  “Jessica?” Stephen asked when she switched off the phone. “Is she ill?”

  Rachel shook her head, her eyes glowing with panic. “She’s been kidnapped.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jessica, kidnapped!

  The killer who stalked them had her baby. Fear and guilt roiled through Rachel like acid, until she feared she would faint from the pain.

  “I never should have left her,” she said, fighting the hysteria that inundated her in waves. Stephen’s anger at her deception seemed small compared to the risk to her daughter’s life.

  Stephen grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. When he spoke, his voice was stern. “Wallowing in guilt won’t get Jessica back. Tell me what your father said.”

  Stephen’s example of putting personal feelings aside helped. She had watched him struggle between fury and elation when she broke the news of his daughter.

  And now that daughter had been stolen from her bed.

  She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself. “Mrs. Kidbrough put Jessica to bed after dinner, then went to check on her a little while ago. She wasn’t in her crib. Before they could call the police, the phone rang.”

  “A ransom demand?”

  Fighting back tears, she nodded. “A man. Dr. Kidbrough didn’t recognize the voice. The kidnapper warned if they contacted the police or the FBI, he’d...kill Jessica.”

  Stephen swore under his breath. “How much ransom does he want?”

  “He doesn’t want money. He wants us.” She raised her gaze to his. Misery swam in his dark eyes, deep lines edged his generous mouth, and his forehead wrinkled, as if in pain. He looked as devastated as she felt.

  He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “It’s our stalker. He’s using Jessica as bait to draw us to him, the stinking coward. What type of human being places the life of a child in danger?”

  “The same kind who murdered Milton Carver and Ralph Fulton.” Rachel could no longer hold back the tears. Sobs racked her body, and she ached to hold her baby. That someone wanted to kill Rachel seemed insignificant compared to someone putting Jessica in danger. If anything happened to her daughter, even if Rachel survived, emotionally she would be as good as dead.

  Was the kidnapper keeping her baby warm? Calming her fears? Was Jessica frightened, crying for her mother?

  “If Harold Maitland’s behind this,” Stephen threatened through gritted teeth, “when I get my hands on him, he’ll wish he’d never been born.”

  Remembering the rest of her father’s message, Rachel scrubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “We’d better get moving. We’re supposed to be at the I-85 rest area at the Georgia-South Carolina line by midnight.”

  “The kidnapper said he’d bring Jessica there?”

  Rachel shook her head. “He said we’re to wait by the public phones for a call that will give us instructions.”

  “I know that rest area,” Stephen said with a frown. “It’s surrounded by rolling, wooded hills, the perfect spot for an ambush.”

  “I have to be there,” Rachel insisted. “I have to get Jessica back, no matter what the risk.”

  “I know.” He pulled her close. “But that doesn’t mean we have to go alone.”

  She jerked from his embrace. “What are you saying?”

  “We’ll alert the FBI. Have them comb the rest area before we arrive.”

  “No! He threatened to kill her if we brought in anyone else.”

  Stephen started the car and headed along the dark, waterlogged road toward the highway.

  “You’ve handled enough of these kidnapping cases, Doc.” The gentleness in his voice generated fresh tears. “You know the statistics. Jessica will have a better chance of coming through unhurt if we notify the authorities now.”

  Her intellect warred with her emotions. Her head knew Stephen was right, but her heart wanted to trust the kidnapper not to harm Jessica if Rachel did as he asked.

  But Jessica was Stephen’s daughter, too.

  “We can’t take that chance. Don’t forget that Jessica is your daughter—”

  “I won’t forget,” he said sharply, “although it may take some time to get used to that fact.”

  Rachel ignored the sarcasm in his tone. “And you still think we should risk calling in the Bureau?”

  He hesitated only slightly before nodding. “We’re several hours’ drive from the rest area. A phone call now to Jack and Pete in the Atlanta office will mobilize the FBI and their resources. They can be in place at the rest stop before we get there.”

  Rachel struggled for objectivity. She couldn’t help Jessica if she didn’t think straight, so she forced herself to set aside the risk factor and consider the advantages of Stephen’s suggestion. “Jack and Pete can set up a phone tap so we can pinpoint the kidnapper’s location.”

  Stephen slowed for a stretch of deeper water on the swampy road. “And they can arrange for teams to scour the rest area and its surroundings to flush out a sniper. Otherwise, we’ll be easy targets for someone with a night-vision scope and high-powered rifle.”

  He pressed the accelerator and sped down the dark road, and the
Blazer threw sheets of water in its wake. Rachel watched the lines tighten around his eyes and tried to swallow against the choking guilt that blocked her throat. Guilt at not being there when her daughter needed her, guilt at not telling Stephen about Jessica. He hadn’t known he had a daughter, and now, before he’d had a chance to know and love his child, the kidnapper might—

  Stop it! Don’t even think it!

  She gave herself a mental shake and assured herself that Jessica would be all right. They’d rescue her, just as they had Margaret Maitland.

  But Margaret Maitland almost died, an inner voice taunted her. And your childhood friend Caroline. No one saved her.

  She forced the terrifying thoughts from her mind and tried to concentrate on something else. She recalled Stephen’s reaction when she’d told him he was Jessica’s father. She’d seen anger tense his muscles, spark in his eyes. Before her confession, he’d promised to love her, no matter what she told him.

  “Stephen?” Her voice shook with apprehension. She needed his love now more than ever.

  “Yes?”

  She reached deep inside for courage. “Can you forgive me for keeping Jessica a secret from you?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road, and his expression remained fixed, hard. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time. Our first priority is getting Jessica back.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Rachel slumped in her seat. Rescuing her daughter was all that mattered. She would deal with a broken heart after Jessica was safe in her arms.

  STEPHEN HUNG UP the pay phone outside the gas station where the swamp road met the highway and returned to the Blazer.

  Rachel looked at him expectantly as he climbed into the driver’s seat. The terror in her green eyes, the pallor of her face and the nervous quiver in her hands made him want to grab her close and affirm that everything would turn out fine. But he couldn’t allow his emotions to interfere with the job he had to do.