by Diana Palmer
“Don’t worry, in about four years you’ll understand a lot more than you do now,” his mother said, patting him on the head.
Winnie laughed with them, but she was depressed. It was inevitable that someone was going to see her and tell him. Well, if they could find him. Winnie had no idea where he was. She only hoped that he hadn’t gone overseas on some dangerous mission. What Jay Copper had said must have caused him some more pain.
The media was having a field day with Senator Will Sanders. He was in jail awaiting arraignment and there were satellite trucks all over the street where the detention center was located, not to mention all around the senator’s home. Pat had escaped back to Nassau. Hank Sanders was also out of touch with his associates. Nobody knew where he was. Just like Kilraven, Winnie thought. She touched her belly and smiled. She loved being pregnant. Maybe she could go and live in Nassau, too, and have the baby and raise it there and Kilraven would never have to know. She pursed her lips. The Jacobsville Baby Hiding and Beachcombing Society. She burst out laughing. When she told them what she’d been thinking, so did they.
KILRAVEN HAD SPENT two weeks in his apartment, out of touch with the world, even with his brother, while he finally grieved for his little girl. He had videos of her that he’d never had the nerve to watch. Now, he took them out and savored every smile, every little laugh. There she was at her first birthday party, in a frilly dress, looking wide-eyed at the camera, walking and falling and picking up toys and putting them in her mouth. And laughing. Always laughing.
There she was at her second birthday party, with little friends, playing with the birthday cake while Monica fussed and Kilraven chuckled and got odd camera angles while he filmed her. Then it was her third birthday, and she was very pretty and wearing a scarlet dress with white hose. She ran to her daddy, knocking the camera. It lay on the ground, filming feet, while Kilraven picked her up and swung her around, and she was laughing, laughing, kissing his cheek and saying, “I love you, Daddy. Always remember.”
“Always remember.” He said it aloud, with her, and his eyes filled with tears. Until Winnie, he’d never shed a single one in seven years. He’d held the memory away, pushed it aside, ignored it, used his anger and rage to avoid facing what he faced now: the certainty that his child was dead and that he would never see her again in his lifetime. He would never watch her go on her first date, buy a pretty dress, go through the agony and ecstasy of adolescence, graduate from high school, go to college, have a career, get married and have a family. He’d miss all that. Now he sat in front of his big-screen television, staring at that beautiful little face that was so much like his, as if at a flower that had just blossomed and was cut down in the same instant. Melly was dead. Melly was dead.
He put his head in his hands and let the tears fall. They blinded him. They comforted him. They helped to heal him. After a few minutes, he forced himself to look at the screen. He pushed the start button. And there was Melly, still alive, still laughing, still saying, “I love you, Daddy. Always remember.”
“I will, sweetheart,” he said huskily. “Always. As long as I live.”
Later, he found the framed pictures of her that he’d put away when she died. He took them out, dusted them and put them on the table next to the television.
“We got the man, Melly,” he told her smiling face. “We got the man who ended your life. And he’ll pay with his own. You can rest easy now, sweetheart. He didn’t get away with it.”
He touched the framed picture and managed a smile. “I love you. Always remember.” His voice broke on the last word.
THREE MONTHS LATER, just back from an assignment to an African nation that he could never admit he’d visited in the line of duty, he walked into the 911 center as casually as if he was taking a tour of it, dressed in an expensive pair of slacks with a black turtleneck sweater and a cashmere jacket over it. Same polished shoes, same arrogant walk. But he wasn’t quite as confident as he appeared. Especially when Winnie spotted him as she walked out of the canteen and stopped dead.
He didn’t understand why she was so upset until he looked down and saw the evidence that her stomach gave to her condition. She was wearing the standard uniform that 911 personnel donned for the job, a navy blue shirt and dark slacks. But the shirt wasn’t tucked in, and it was pulled fairly tight over that firm little mound. She looked very sexy, he thought.
She let out a sigh and looked resigned, as she realized the jig was up. She walked toward him and stopped. He was so tall. He towered over her. She looked up at him with resignation in her soft brown eyes and waited for him to blow up and walk away.
The last thing in the world she expected was for him to produce a small cloth grocery bag and hand it to her.
She frowned. “What is this?”
“Strawberry ice cream and dill pickles,” he said smartly. He grinned. “I’ve been reading these books, and they say that pregnant women can’t resist them.”
She was still trying to adjust to the smile. The ice cream was freezing her hand. The pickle jar was heavy. Kilraven had lost his mind.
He bent and kissed her very gently. “Look deeper,” he whispered.
Still frowning, she reached deep into the sack and felt metal. She stopped with her hand buried in the sack, gaping at him.
“Handcuffs,” he whispered. He grinned wider.
She was aware that eyes were darting toward them from all the busy stations. She felt disquieted. He looked normal. She glanced into the bag. Handcuffs?
“You can’t be a sex slave without handcuffs,” he said, loud enough for people nearby to hear him.
“You animal!” she exclaimed, hitting him and laughing helplessly.
“You can borrow my handcuffs anytime you like, Winnie,” one of the female operators who was also a Jacobsville police officer, offered as she rushed by.
“Mine, too,” another officer chimed in.
“Nice coworkers.” Kilraven beamed. “When can I take you home?” he added.
“I was just going off my shift,” she stammered. “I have to get my coat and purse out of my locker.”
He took the bag back. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” he whispered.
She just nodded. She walked to the back in a daze. She stayed in the daze past the grinning faces of her friends, all the way out the front door and into the Jaguar, while Kilraven held the door open for her.
She got in and put on her seat belt. She looked at him as he joined her. “Are you all right?”
He smiled. “I’m all right. I’ve had a rough few weeks, but I think I’m through the worst of it.”
She smiled, too. “I guess you noticed that I’m pregnant.”
He chuckled. “A lot of people noticed it,” he said. “Marquez told me two weeks ago, but I’d just gotten back in from an overseas assignment and I had a lot of loose ends to tie up before I could come down here and start over with you.”
“Start over?”
He nodded. He pulled out into the road. “An apartment is no place to raise a child. But we’ll have to stay there while we look for a house. That okay with you?”
She was nodding blindly.
“Meanwhile, I’ve invited your family up for dinner. Jon’s cooking. Cammy’s going to be there, too.” He chuckled. “So you have no excuse not to come with me. Right?”
She was beginning to feel like treasure. “Right.”
“That’s what I like. Docile agreement.”
“Then you’d better divorce me and marry a doormat, Kilraven,” she quipped.
He laughed. “No chance of that.” He looked at her. “McKuen.”
She hesitated. “McKuen,” she said, making a caress of it.
He whistled. “Boy, does that do things to my blood pressure when you say it like that.”
“Nice to know that I’m not totally unarmed in the war of the sexes.”
He smiled and growled softly.
THEY ARRIVED AT HIS apartment to find her entire family in the lobby.
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“We didn’t have a key, and your brother Jon has to drive here from Dallas, so he’s late getting here,” Boone explained with a grin.
Kilraven laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t think about the key. Never mind.” He walked over to the security guard’s station. “I have brought an entire family here for illicit purposes,” he began loudly, while Boone’s face stretched into utter disbelief.
Winnie laid her hand on Boone’s arm. “It’s okay,” she whispered.
“I am having you drawn and quartered, Kilraven,” the guard raged.
“No, no, no, I’m a person of noble birth,” Kilraven lectured. “You have to have me beheaded.”
The guard frowned. “Beheaded.”
Kilraven nodded.
The guard pulled himself erect. “I will have you beheaded, Kilraven!”
“Much better.” Kilraven grinned as he rejoined the others. Boone was giving him a cold look.
Kilraven turned back to the guard, pointing at Boone. “I am not taking him upstairs for any sort of illicit purposes,” he called out.
“Oh, very good,” the guard nodded.
“You married a lunatic,” Boone whispered to Winnie.
“I heard that,” Kilraven said as he led the way to the elevator. “Keep Trust!” he called to the guard.
The guard grinned. “Hold Fast!”
Kilraven saluted him and motioned the others into the elevator. “It’s a Scots thing,” he explained. “He’s a McLeod. His family motto is ‘hold fast.’ My mother’s people were Hepburns. Ours is ‘keep trust.’”
“Another raving mad fan of sixteenth century Scots history,” Winnie groaned.
“There, there,” Kilraven said with a gentle smile. “You’ll adapt.”
She looked up at him with so much love in her eyes that he felt blinded by it. He slid an arm around her and pulled her close. “I’ll adapt,” she promised.
JON ARRIVED, TOO LATE to be presented to the security guard in his brother’s usual outlandish fashion, with Cammy in tow. She was introduced to the Sinclairs, and she and Gail found a lot in common, including friends. Jon moved into the kitchen and started cooking, with some help from Winnie and Keely. They sat down to a feast fit for an ancient monarch. Then they all had the courtesy to yawn and regret having to leave so soon, because they were so tired. But they ruined it by grinning outrageously as they said good-night at the door. Even Jon and Cammy.
Kilraven closed the door, shaking his head. “What a bunch. But they do blend seamlessly, don’t you think? A good omen for the future.”
Winnie was looking at the photos on the table beside the television. She turned to him and smiled gently. “She looked just like you.”
He nodded. “She was a sweet child. It wasn’t right, to hide her away like a guilty secret for so long.”
“Yes.”
He pulled her against him and touched her belly lightly. “Is it a boy or a girl? You have those skills, like your mother. Guess.”
“We can have an ultrasound and know for sure,” she said.
He made a face. “Takes all the fun and surprise out of it. Why don’t we just wait until the baby comes?”
She smiled from ear to ear. “I was hoping you might say that.” She cocked her head up at him. “Are we getting the divorce before or after he’s born?”
“He! You said he!”
She glowered. “Figure of speech. Answer the question.”
“I suppose we could put it off for a few years. You know, until we’re grandparents. Then we can talk about it.”
She looked him up and down with soft appreciation. “I was just thinking. The doctor told me I ought to exercise. You know, to keep fit while I’m carrying the baby.”
“He did?”
She nodded. She moved closer. She ran her fingers up his chest and over the buttons. His breathing quickened. “And I was thinking that some indoor exercises are every bit as good as walking or jogging and stuff.”
“You were.” His heart was slamming away.
“Yes. So I thought,” she moved even closer and teased around a shirt button. His breathing was very heavy by now. “I thought we might get one of those Wii systems and that program called Wii Fit, so I can exercise indoors.”
“Damn!”
She stared up at him. “Damn, what?”
He pulled her hips into his. “I’ve got a hard-on so bad that I could put it through a wall, and you’re talking about a damned exercise machine?”
“Or,” she said, breathless, “we could try that thing your buddy did, where he and his wiiiifeee…!”
TEN MINUTES LATER, they were sprawled on the carpet, shivering and sweating and gasping for breath.
“Thank God I don’t have a sunken living room!” he exclaimed.
She laughed with pure delight. “It would still be worth a broken ankle,” she pointed out.
He rolled over and kissed her with enthusiastic delight. “Two,” he agreed, and kissed her again.
She tugged him down over her and nuzzled his face with hers. “I love you, McKuen,” she whispered softly.
He lifted his head to look into her wide, gentle, dark eyes. She was a fighter, a lover, a mixer, a calm oasis in a storm. She could face down killers, juggle frantic calls and dispatch help with a flair, and in bed she was everything he could ever ask for. Besides all that, she loved him.
He brushed her nose with his, and glittery silver eyes stabbed into hers. “I love you, too.”
She was surprised. “You do?” she asked blandly.
“Very much. Of course, I didn’t know it until I let you walk into that bear pit wearing a wire.” He sobered. “I thought, if she dies in there, they can just put me in the ground beside her. Because there won’t be anything left on earth worth living for, if I lose her.”
Tears burned her eyes, hot and wet. A sob escaped her throat.
He kissed the tears away. “Why are you crying?” he whispered.
“You were named for a poet,” she whispered back. “Now I see why.”
He grinned. “I can recite poetry,” he told her. “Want to hear some?” He lifted his head. “The boy stood on the burning deck…!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, not that sort of poetry!”
His eyebrows lifted. “Something more suitable to our current situation, then?” he added, looking down at her pretty nude body with a grin. “There once was a man in Nantucket…”
She kissed him, laughing uproariously.
He kissed her back. “I suppose we should go to bed.”
“I suppose.”
He cuddled her close in his arms. “On the other hand,” he murmured drowsily, “it’s warm and cozy here. So what’s wrong with the carpet, I always say.”
“I always say that, myself,” she agreed, and reached up to pull an afghan off the sofa to cover them with.
She closed her eyes and snuggled close to him, warm and loved and happier than she’d ever dreamed of being. He might be dangerous, she thought dreamily, but with courage like that to keep her and the baby safe, she had no more fear of the future. In fact, she could hardly wait to see it. Not that she lacked courage of her own. She was constantly amazed at her own part in their recent brush with death. Only a year ago, she couldn’t have imagined herself doing something so bold. Kilraven had influenced her, she thought, and so had her own mother. Perhaps courage was something that only presented itself when it was needed the most.
She glanced toward the photograph of Kilraven’s little girl on the table and thought of her own child, lying soft and safe in her belly. This child would never replace Melly. But it would help to heal the old, deep wounds.
As she closed her eyes, far away, she imagined she could hear the sound of a child laughing, a silvery, soft, happy tone; the sound of a lovely little spirit who was, like her father, finally at peace.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5611-2
DANGEROUS
Copyright © 2010 by Diana Palmer
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