“And?” Alec prodded, beginning to see where Jack was going.
“And when I got back from Nevada, I started doing some digging. I guess you pretty much came up with the same stuff I did. Orders for incidents were coming right from our own division.”
“You found it out a lot sooner than I did.”
“I had a tip,” Jack said.
“And you didn’t want to share your information with anyone?” Alec asked. “Me, for instance?”
“Not when I knew it was coming from someone in our own division.”
“Meaning you thought I was involved.”
“No. Hell, I didn’t think that, Alec.”
“Sure you did, Jack. That’s why you told me to play dead and take on a new identity. Why you let me believe Cait was dead. You wanted me safely hidden away.”
“I knew you weren’t involved when you got shot, damn it. And I knew it was pretty good odds you’d been marked for death. That narrowed my list of suspects to Fred or Jorge, and that seemed as far out as you being involved.”
“Hell, Jack, I can’t beat you up over thinking I was in on it. I thought the same thing about you. There were only four of us. And I knew it wasn’t me.”
“And when you learned Cait Wilson was still alive—”
“Yeah.”
“I was having you watched, in case Fred or Jorge tried anything again. And you slipped them when you came to Washington. If you’d hung around to talk to me that night, a lot of this could have been avoided.”
“If you’d just let me in on it, all of it could have been.”
Jack shrugged. “Who can say?”
“One question. Who was waiting for me at Cait’s house that night?”
“Fred. I’d put the word out to take you out of harm’s way. It never occurred to me that if I could keep tabs on you, someone could also keep tabs on me. He outfoxed the fox.
“Fred was crazy. I didn’t even guess that. Did you?” Jack asked.
“No. Not until Cait came up with a motive.”
“Yeah. Pretty weird stuff, huh?”
“It’s bad press for the bureau,” Alec said.
“You had to do it. Maybe there’s too much secrecy in this business.” Jack gave him a funny look. “Are you done raking me over the coals?”
“Yeah.”
“Then tell me, how many cars did you steal, anyway? You’re a regular one-man crime wave.”
Alec told him and they both started laughing.
Epilogue
Thursday, November 21, 3:30 p.m. MST
One year later
“Pinecone,” Allie said, holding up another of her finds. It was the fiftieth one she’d handed Alec during their short walk from the cabin. All of his pockets were bulging and his arms were filled.
She tripped over a root and plopped to her knees. Alec sent all the loose pinecones flying as he jumped forward to scoop her out of the snow. She looked at him in surprise, as if wondering how he’d gotten there so fast.
“Falldown,” she said matter-of-factly, wiping more dirt and snow on her snowsuit than she’d needed to brush off.
He kissed her forehead, the only clean spot on her, and set her back down. “Mama’s waiting for us. We better get back.”
She said something he didn’t understand and darted in the direction of the cabin. He followed her slowly, smiling a little, more at peace at that moment than at any other in his life.
That peculiar sensation of being watched stole over him and he stopped to look up at the cabin’s narrow veranda. Cait stood outside, his old serape draped around her shoulders like a poncho. Her face was flushed from cooking their Thanksgiving Day dinner and her hair stuck up in those spiky points he found so endlessly fascinating.
She caught Allie as she flew up the steps and held her tightly as she smiled down the hill at him. She looked down at something Allie said, chuckled a little, and removed Allie’s hood and ruffled her dark curls. Then she pointed down where Alec stood watching them.
Allie’s face lit up as if she hadn’t seen him in hours. Her blue eyes sparkled, her toothy grin flashed.
“Daddy!” she called. “Daddy!”
Alec’s heart constricted painfully. Wonderfully.
Cait blew him a kiss and held her hand up in greeting. Her wedding ring caught a stray beam of sunlight and glittered on her hand. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe, that if he moved a single muscle this beautiful, incredible fantasy would slip away and he wouldn’t know how to go to sleep deeply enough to dream it back again.
Cait started chuckling. “Did you leave any pinecones in the forest?” She pointed at his bulging pockets.
He stuck in his hand to pull one free and pricked his finger on a sharp point. Running the rest of the way to the veranda, he gathered Cait and Allie in his arms and held them tight, pressing his cheeks to theirs.
“It wasn’t a dream,” he declared. “You’re really here.”
Cait lifted her warm hand to his ice-cold face. “Always,” she said. “Some dreams do come true.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7958-2
CODE NAME: DADDY
Copyright © 1996 by Tracy LeCocq
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters to this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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