“And we don’t find ourselves slapped with aiding and abetting charges when Ringo changes his mind?”
“He’s going to turn himself in.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
She snorted. “Why do I find that hard to believe? I don’t think he’s ever done anything the easy way. And that sounds way too easy for Ringo.”
“High adventure does seem to follow him around,” Noah agreed. “I think it’s because he’s always operated at full speed and a hundred and fifty percent effort. He may get into trouble faster than some people, but once he gets there, he works his butt off to get out of it.” He laughed. “His life is never boring, that’s for sure.”
Claire shot him a look. “And yours is?”
He didn’t think he’d sounded even the slightest bit envious—he really was just making a statement about Ringo. “No, no,” he said. “Trust me, I don’t need to be on the FBI’s wanted list to feel fulfilled.”
“Wait,” Claire said. “Go back. I forgot. If we’re going to take that little girl home with us, we’re going to need a car seat. I’ve got an extra inside the church.”
Noah went around the block and pulled back in to the church parking lot. “Hurry,” he told her.
Gina stared at Max. He’d asked Alyssa Locke to marry him. There was absolutely nothing she could say in response to that. Except, “Oh, wow.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t think of her once last night. I mean, I just didn’t even think of her. It was like she didn’t exist.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, unable to stop her eyes from filling with tears. She, too, hadn’t thought even once last night of anyone but herself and Max. And not even so much of Max. Oh, God . . . “Maybe if you explain, she’ll understand.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Well. She’s known about you for a while. And she does understand, maybe a little too well. She says she wasn’t going to marry me anyway, so . . .”
Oh, God. “I’m so sorry,” Gina said.
“I don’t know. She’s probably right, that the reason I asked her in the first place was to force myself to stay away from you—yeah, that worked, huh? But I wouldn’t have asked her if I didn’t honestly want her to . . .” He shook his head. “I want you to know that I didn’t intentionally set out to hurt her or you or . . . I should have slowed down, because obviously I was unable to think clearly, and I should have. I should have thought it through. What kind of excuse is ‘I didn’t stop and think’? A goddamn lame one. And the truth is, there’s no excuse good enough. What I did was absolutely unforgivable.”
He really believed that. He was wrecked about this. Gina had used him to try to repair herself and had ended up hurting him more than she could have imagined. “I seduced you, Max. I kissed you first.”
He laughed. “Yeah, excuse me, but I had a choice. I chose to stay.”
“Why?” she asked him, forcing herself to look up at him. She suspected she already knew the answer, and sure enough, there it was in his eyes. She answered for him. “Because I needed you.”
“No,” Max said. “Because I wanted to.”
He was so lying. Even his being here right now had obligation written all over it. Or maybe he wasn’t technically lying. Maybe he wanted to stay because he knew how much she’d needed him.
Which wasn’t a good enough reason, when it came down to it. She’d thought it would be, but it wasn’t. Especially knowing that he really was in love with Alyssa, enough to want to marry her . . . Oh, God. Her heart was breaking for him, for Alyssa . . .
For herself.
“So where do we go from here?” Max asked quietly.
He was serious. He honestly didn’t know that the answer was nowhere. They went absolutely nowhere.
“I’m going home to New York tonight,” Gina said, “and you’re in the middle of a situation.”
“I’m going to have some, uh, time off,” he said, “starting somewhere between now and the end of the month. Is there any chance we can get together then?”
He was serious. But then again, with his need to take care of and protect everyone he’d ever met, he probably meticulously followed up on all of his one-night stands. A phone call. A lunch date. Periodic check-ins.
This was so not the way she’d imagined this would happen. She’d fairy-taled it completely in her personal fantasy version. Max should have come pounding on her door to tell her that he couldn’t live without her, that he loved her.
Not that he was in love with Alyssa and that since sleeping with Gina had completely blown his chances with her, he might as well make plans to see Gina again.
“Get together?” she asked, one part of her wanting to torment him. “You mean, like, hook up? Have sex again?” She knew damn well that he meant have lunch.
And he knew it, too. He just looked at her.
“You mean in Africa?” she asked. Now that she’d started, she was unable to stop. She’d wanted him to love her. “Because I’m leaving for Kenya next week.”
Max looked stunned. It was remarkable. She didn’t think he did stunned to that extreme. “You’re not . . . You’re still planning to go?”
“Uh, yeah.” she said, more anger creeping in around the hurt. “What did you think, Max? I’d spend one night with you and then change my plans for the next year of my life, so I could rush home and stay by the phone, hoping you’ll call when you have some time off? In between your meetings with your wedding planner?” That last comment was a little too sharp, and she stood up, hating the idea of dissolving into jealousy. All she really had right now was her dignity. Well, what little of it there was left. “Max, I don’t know why you’re here with me. You should be talking to Alyssa. I mean, if you really wanted to marry her . . .”
“Gina—”
“Talk to her. Make her change her mind.” Gina opened her door and he took it as the invitation it was. Time for him to leave. “Tell her I’m sorry. Because I am. I’m really sorry.”
“She’s not going to change her mind. I don’t want her to change her mind.”
Oh, the hope that crashed through her at those words was remarkable. She almost threw herself into his arms, until he added, “I want to fix this, between us. I need to make sure you’re all right. Some of the things you said last night—”
She cut him off. “I said I’d go back into therapy.”
“You’re going to find a therapist in Africa?”
“Yeah, you know, I’m betting there actually are one or two people with degrees in Kenya.”
“This isn’t a good time for you to leave the country,” Max told her grimly, as his cell phone started ringing. It was amazing it had gone that long without making any noise.
“Thank you for your concern,” she said. “I have to finish packing now and you need to take that call.”
He moved toward the door, but stopped right next to her, inches from her. And he waited until she looked up, into his eyes.
“The bitch of it is, I still want you,” he whispered. “I’ve screwed everything up, but nothing’s changed at all. I’m still dying for you, Gina.”
The heat in his eyes was incredible, and Gina was sure he was going to kiss her. Kiss her and strip her robe from her and . . .
But he went out the door and headed for his car, phone still ringing, without looking back.
“Hey,” she called, since it seemed as if he wasn’t intending to answer his phone.
He stopped, turning around only slightly, so that he couldn’t quite see her, but so that she knew he was listening.
“If you still feel that way next year, when I get back,” she said, her voice shaking only a little, “maybe you should give me a call.” She cleared her throat. “You know, provided you haven’t proposed marriage to anyone else in the meantime.”
He turned all the way around. “Gina, I’m so sorry.”
“I am, too,” she said. She wished he would kiss her good-bye, but she knew it was too much to ask
—of herself as well as him. “Thank you for last night.”
He obviously couldn’t deal with her thanking him, so he got into his car, finally answering his phone.
Gina watched him back out of his parking spot and pull out of the lot, tires squealing. She watched until he was out of sight, which didn’t take long at all.
Wherever Max was going, he sure was in a hurry to get there.
Or maybe he was just in a hurry to leave.
“My heart is pounding out of my chest,” Sam said “at the thought of seeing Haley again.”
Heavy traffic had them stopped. He was trying to pull right so he could take a side street, but the cars in front of them just weren’t moving.
“Don’t expect too much,” Alyssa warned him.
“I won’t but, ah, Lys, what if she hates me?”
Oh, Sam. “I don’t think kids that little have been taught how to hate yet.”
“What do I say to her?”
“Well,” she said, “before you even open your mouth, you need to do an immediate fuck-ectomy of your vocabulary.”
He laughed. “Fuck-ectomy. I like that. Okay. Fuck-ectomy in progress.”
“Part of doing it means you can’t say fuck-ectomy anymore.”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to say much of anything anymore,” he pointed out dryly. “So the you-know-what’s complete. What do I say? ‘Hi, Haley, I’m your daddy. Boy, have I missed you.’ ”
“That’s good. Don’t ask her if she remembers you—you’ll both feel bad when she says no.”
“When,” he said. “Yeah. Yeah. I don’t remember the last time I’ve been this nervous.” He glanced at her. “I’m nervous, too, about you meeting her. I know you said your feelings for Haley were mixed—”
“Not about loving her,” Alyssa told him. “I’m going to love her. That’s why babies are so cute. So everyone automatically loves them.” She laughed. “Everyone with a heart, that is.”
“Why do I get the feeling there’s a story there?”
Because he’d spent the past few days talking to her, and listening while she talked. Because he knew her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Well . . .”
“Let’s have it.”
“Well, it was after my mother died,” Alyssa told him.
“Why do I already have the urge to kill someone?” he asked.
“We went to live with my father’s sister—Tyra, Lanora, and I,” she said. “It was a pretty stressful time—on top of the grief and loss—because my aunt Joyce kept saying that she was going to take only Tyra and me. That Lanora had to go live with my mother’s cousin. I practically had to go to court to keep us together.”
“Mmph,” Sam said.
Alyssa looked at him.
“I can’t say anything,” he told her, “because I want to say what the fuck was wrong with her?”
“Lanora wasn’t my father’s child,” Alyssa told him. “That was what was wrong with Aunt Joyce. Apparently this was why my parents broke up. My mother was unfaithful, she got pregnant, and when my father found out, he left her. Us, too, though, you know? Which was kind of unfair. I didn’t know anything about any of this at the time. I just knew that one day he was there, and the next he was gone. But Aunt Joyce, well, she was a little too happy to fill me in. She told me Lanora couldn’t live with us because of that, because she felt no responsibility toward her.”
“Grphh,” Sam said.
“I remember I just kind of looked at her, and said, ‘But she’s still my sister.’
“And Aunt Joyce said—I remember this as clear as yesterday—she said, ‘When you’re older, you’ll understand.’ ” Alyssa shook her head. “Joyce ended up taking Lanora, too, because Tyra and I weren’t going anywhere without her, but she never gave her any affection. That sweet little baby . . . My mother’s transgressions were not her fault, but Joyce constantly held it against her. I’m much older now, and the only thing I fully understand is how completely wrong Joyce was. She shouldn’t have taken us in if she couldn’t love us all. And believe me, it wouldn’t have been hard for her to love Lanora. It must’ve been a lot of work to stay that hard and cold. But she cared more about blaming my mother—for everything from my parents splitting up to my father’s death—than she cared about the welfare of an innocent child.”
Sam had managed to make the right turn and was now barreling down side streets, trying to make up for lost time. But he still glanced over at her. “Thank you for telling me that.”
“So I’m going to love Haley,” Alyssa said. “Because she’s not responsible for Mary Lou’s mistakes, or your mistakes, or my mistakes. And I’m going to love her twice as much because she’s yours. But you need to know, Sam—I’m not going to take care of her for you. When she’s with you, she’s with you. I’ll help, and I’ll be her favorite aunt Alyssa. I’m good at that. But if you really want her in your life, you’re going to have to be her father for real.”
“That’s, um, some of the best news I’ve had all day—the fact that you seem okay with the idea of spending time with me and Haley.” He glanced at her again. And then, almost as an afterthought, he matter-of-factly added, “I love you so much, Lys, sometimes it takes my breath away.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mary Lou took comfort in the fact that this house was a fortress.
The security system was on. Windows and doors were all locked. The blinds and shades were pulled. Jim Potter and Eddie Bowen were on guard at the gate, and they’d been told to let no one else in.
The man she knew as Bob Schwegel wasn’t getting anywhere near them.
At least that was what Alyssa Locke had told her when Mary Lou had called and explained what was going on.
“Don’t leave the house,” her ex-husband’s girlfriend had said in her melodious voice. She sounded like someone who reported the news, with a cool authority to her voice that actually helped calm Mary Lou. “You’ll be much safer there than in a motor vehicle.”
Why was it FBI agents didn’t just say car?
Mary Lou had met the woman only a few times. Alyssa Locke was unbelievably beautiful with flawless brown skin and slender hips and big green eyes and sleek, dark hair with reddish tints that just had to come from a bottle. Either that or God deserved to be bitch-slapped for His almighty unfairness to all other women on earth.
It was bad enough that Alyssa had that mouth, with the kind of lush, full lips that white women everywhere tried to copy by getting collagen injections.
And yet Alyssa walked around dressed like a man saying things like “motor vehicle.” Mary Lou had to wonder if Alyssa’s entire cool, reserved, professional demeanor was some kind of twisted turn-on for Sam. She’d spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering about that, jealous as hell.
She’d even found out Alyssa’s cell phone number, but she’d never gotten up the nerve to call her. Until today. Who would’ve thought, even just six or seven months ago, that she’d ever call up Alyssa Locke to ask for her help?
There was probably only one person in the world who could’ve talked her into doing that. And she was sitting here, holding his hand, watching Whitney read another chapter of Alice to Haley and Amanda.
Talk about Wonderland . . .
“It’s going to be all right,” Ihbraham told her quietly.
“I’m scared they’re going to put me in jail,” she admitted. “Alyssa told me that Sam’s cousin and his wife are meeting us over here, that they’ll make sure Haley’s okay while I’m being questioned, but . . . Could you go with them? Be with her, too?”
His smile was apologetic. “I’m certain they will wish to question me, as well.”
Because he’d been born in Saudi Arabia. Because he looked the way a terrorist was supposed to look.
“That’s not fair. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Perhaps I can help give them a description of this man you believe is behind all this trouble. I met him once, you know.”
; “I remember,” she said. “But maybe if you left now, they wouldn’t—”
“I’m happy to stay right here,” he said. “More than happy.”
Mary Lou leaned against him. He smelled so good—spicy and warm. “I missed you so much.”
He put his arm around her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get here faster. All those months in the hospital, I lost clients and it’s taken longer than I’d hoped to get my business back up to speed. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even have enough room on my credit card to get a plane ticket.”
“I can’t believe you drove all that way.”
“I’m pretty tired.” His fingers were in her hair. His touch was gentle but extremely sensuous. “I find I’m most eager to retire tonight.”
She looked up at him, and although he was smiling, the look in his eyes told her that she’d read his innuendo quite correctly.
“Unless you’d prefer we wait for our first night together until after we’re married,” he murmured.
After . . . ? Mary Lou’s heart nearly stopped. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”
He laughed, but his eyes were so serious. “I thought I wouldn’t ask—just tell. I thought perhaps if I didn’t give you a choice, you wouldn’t think about all your reasons not to marry me. Wherever I go, if there’s trouble, people will look to me.”
Mary Lou felt her eyes fill with tears. “Because they’ll say, Look at that man with his incredibly beautiful wife. Trouble must just follow them around.”
“Did you just tell me yes?”
She nodded. And the lights went out.
“Hey!” Whitney said. It wasn’t dark in there by any means, because sunlight was still coming in from behind the blinds, but she was trying to read.
There was a sound in the distance, like ripping fabric, that Mary Lou had heard before. It was a sound a person could hear only once but then never forget.
“Those are gunshots,” Whitney said, her eyes wide.
The phone rang, lighting up the button that was a direct line to the guardhouse at the gate.
Whitney lunged for it. “Jim! What was that?” She listened. “Who is this? Where’s Jim?” Her face contorted. “Oh, shit.” She held the phone out to Mary Lou. “He says Jim’s dead. He wants to talk to you.”
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