Finding Her Dad

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He obviously wasn’t wearing a holster or weapon right now. He had on jeans and an oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up a couple of times. Athletic shoes, she’d noticed earlier, that looked well-worn. She recalled him saying that he ran for exercise.

  Oh, Lord, she thought in renewed panic. He was so beautifully fit, and she wasn’t. Well, she wouldn’t say she was in terrible shape. Goodness knows, she was on her feet most of the day and worked hard at her store and in her garden. But she’d never exercised for the sake of exercise. And…she was curvy, not sleek. She hated to imagine what she’d look like in spandex.

  She contributed to the conversation, although a minute later she couldn’t remember what she’d said. She was looking at his hands again, imagining him gripping a pistol.

  Imagining him cupping her breast.

  Her cheeks heated at the thought. She came back to herself to realize that Jon’s eyes had narrowed slightly and he was doing nothing but looking at her. His expression was razor sharp, intent. Embarrassed, she wondered if he could read her mind.

  “This was great,” she told him enthusiastically. “You lied. You can cook.”

  “My repertoire is limited.” He cleared his throat. “I should have offered you something to drink besides wine.”

  “I’m fine.” She’d sipped at a truly excellent merlot, but she hadn’t wanted to get blurry. She had been glad to see that Jon hadn’t refilled his glass, either.

  “I should offer you coffee.” His gaze was locked with hers. “But…coffee isn’t quite what I have on my mind.”

  “I…don’t have it on mine, either,” she admitted. Her voice had squeaked a little at the end.

  Jon didn’t seem to mind. He pushed his chair back and rose. “Lucy. Maybe I’m making a big assumption….”

  She shook her head.

  “Thank God,” he said roughly, and held out a hand to her.

  For a moment she stared at it, her belly cramping as she thought about the way he touched her. Then she laid her hand in his, and let him pull her to her feet.

  The next moment, he’d gathered her close and was kissing her.

  HE LOVED HER TASTE. And the lush feel of her body against his.

  Jon should have started more tenderly, but he hadn’t. He’d fitted his mouth to hers and claimed it, his tongue sliding right past her teeth and stroking hers. If she minded, he couldn’t tell. She whimpered, rose on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck. He kept kissing her until his lungs screamed for oxygen, then pulled back only to press more openmouthed kisses to her softly rounded cheek. He sucked on her earlobe, then nipped it while she trembled and gasped.

  “Let’s take this upstairs before I can’t walk,” he said huskily.

  “Yes. Please.”

  Impulse overcame him. Before her hands could leave his neck, he gripped her buttocks and lifted her. With a squeak, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Of course that meant he had to kiss her again while he squeezed her butt and moved her against him in a way that half crazed him.

  Eventually he got his feet moving, but it was lucky the place didn’t have many walls, because he might have walked into one. Jon took his mouth from hers long enough to climb the stairs, time she used to her advantage to nibble and lick on his neck. He was groaning by the time he reached the second story and started down the short hall to his bedroom.

  He didn’t set her down; he let her fall and went with her, landing right where he wanted to be, on top of her with his erection cradled between her thighs. Looking at him, her eyes were huge and startled, the brown so warm he thought of gooey chocolate-chip cookies or hot cocoa on a cold day. He loved her eyes, too, he realized.

  And her hair. It was fanned out around her on the duvet in dark waves. He tangled his fingers in it, savoring the texture of heavy, coarse silk. He imagined her astride him, that hair cloaking her naked body and tickling his if she bent forward.

  “Since the first time I saw you, I’ve imagined you here,” he murmured. He sounded drunk with pleasure already. “You’re beautiful. Perfect.”

  Her nose crinkled. “I’m short. And plump.”

  “Perfect,” he repeated. “Not all men like bony women.”

  Lucy smiled and stroked his face with one hand. “I’m glad you don’t. I’ve…been thinking about this since the first time I saw you, too.”

  “Sierra says you don’t date.”

  “She hasn’t known me that long.” She seemed fascinated by the rough texture of his jaw. “I date. Just, um, not very often.”

  He bent to nuzzle her face. “How often?”

  Breathless, she managed to say, “Not…very.”

  He sank into her for a deep, hungry kiss. His hips rocked against hers, and his hand found her breast under her shirt. Damn. He had to get her out of that bra. With a groan he rolled to his side and began peeling the shirt over her head.

  In the act of reaching around her for the clasp, he stopped simply to look at Lucy. The bra, satin and lace, was a dark rose that matched her cheeks with the soft flush. Beautiful skin the delicious color of milk darkened with a dollop of coffee.

  “So pretty,” he said in a thick voice, finally unhooking the bra then slipping a finger under it to pull it away from her gorgeous, generous breasts.

  Her nipples were already taut with arousal. Perfect. He licked the broad, dark aureoles and kissed creamy skin and the tight nubbins of her nipples and finally suckled while she arched toward his mouth, gripped the back of his head and let tiny gasps and moans escape.

  At one point he realized she was unbuttoning his shirt and he helped by shrugging out of it. It damn near killed him to pull away eventually to untie and kick off his shoes and tug off first his jeans then hers, but the reward was the sight of her delectable body, small but perfectly proportioned. Tiny waist, breasts that filled his large hands, hips that curved the way a woman’s should and legs long for her height. Her belly was soft instead of firm with muscle. He liked that. He liked it so much, he had to slide down and lay his cheek against it before going lower yet, to the nest of midnight-dark curls with the same texture as the hair spilling over his bed.

  He saw her head rise from the pillow. “Jon?” She sounded shocked. “Wait. What are you—”

  Hadn’t any man ever tasted her here? he wondered, bemused. She bucked at the initial stroke of his tongue. He muttered words of praise, telling her that she was spicy and sexy and how desperately he wanted to be inside her.

  She was panting, her hips rising and falling rhythmically when he finally crawled up her length. He was at her damp entrance when common sense slammed into him.

  “Damn. I almost forgot.” Swearing, he rolled away from her and groped in the drawer of his bedside table.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not on birth control.”

  “Don’t worry.” He tore open the packet and rolled it on. He hated wearing a condom. If he asked, would she start on birth-control pills or a patch?

  When he came back to her, she whispered, “I’m not very experienced.” What did that mean? He made himself stop again, although he was already nudging at her entrance. “You’re not a virgin?”

  “No. I just…haven’t done this in a long time.” She sounded embarrassed. “I hope you didn’t expect—”

  “Sweetheart, all I expect is you.” He lifted himself to look down at her, his weight resting on his elbows, and cupped her face in his hands. “All I want is you.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes searched his for a moment. Her teeth bit into her lower lip. “Okay,” she finally whispered. “I want you, too.”

  “Good.” He grinned at her, vaguely aware that he probably looked more savage than reassuring, but he didn’t think he could wait another minute. Another second. He began pushing forward, trying to go slowly, but oh, damn, she felt good. Tight, but slick, too. Her eyes were unfocused and her fingers were clenching his biceps, tiny bites of pain from her nails that somehow heightened all the other sensations.

  Once he was
seated as deep as he could go, he unclenched his jaw to ask, “Are you all right?” When she nodded, he began moving. He couldn’t go slowly, not this time, and she didn’t seem to want him to. Her hips rocked to meet his every thrust, and it seemed to him she was demanding that he lunge deeper, harder, faster. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to draw this out long enough for her, but he’d barely framed the fear in his mind when she convulsed. Gritting his teeth against the staggering pleasure, he let himself go and had the distant thought that he’d never felt anything like this.

  He sagged on top of her, a part of him knowing he was too heavy to sprawl on her this way, but the will to roll away was missing. Her arms closed around him tightly, almost fiercely. He felt her kissing his shoulder, and thought, well, hell, where else could her mouth go?

  With a groan that came from deep in his chest, he levered himself up and came down on his side, pulling her with him so that their bodies stayed pressed together.

  “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he murmured against hair that seemed to have taken on a life of its own, heavy locks lying across his chest and throat and chin.

  “Mmm.” She snuggled closer, although he didn’t know how that was possible.

  Lucy was so relaxed he wondered if she was going to sleep. He felt sated, but energized, too. He realized he was smiling. Exhilaration buzzed in him until he could almost hear the sound, nearly forgotten but familiar. He had to think to nail it down. The hum was like contented bumblebees working his mother’s garden on a hot day.

  He could close his eyes and be there again, sprawling on the lawn he’d just mowed, the sharp scent of freshly cut grass in his nostrils, listening to the hum. Being happy.

  Was that the last time he’d been this happy?

  No. His smile died. Of course not. He had been happy with Cassia. It was…a different kind of happiness.

  Jon searched himself for any feeling of guilt, and was grateful not to find it. He couldn’t even quite see Cassia’s face, although he tried to summon it. As it should be after making love to a gorgeous woman. He was a little shocked at how good he felt, how peaceful, but not in any way ready to surrender it.

  With that same, faint shock, he thought, I’m in love with Lucy.

  Sierra was a hell of a smart kid. She just might get her wish after all.

  The three of them as a family was sounding really good right now.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY MADE LOVE AGAIN before Jon took Lucy home. She hated to leave, and she could tell he didn’t want to let her. It was hard not to notice. He kissed her one more time on her doorstep, said, “Good night,” then growled, “Damn it,” kissed her again before all but shoving her inside. “Lock up.”

  She did, glad to have a moment to collect herself prior to seeing Sierra. It wasn’t that late. The living room was dark, but her foster daughter had left the hall light on and her bedroom door stood open. Apparently she wasn’t taking any chance that Lucy would sneak to bed without stopping to talk.

  Would she be able to tell anything was different? Lucy touched her cheek that she suspected was whisker burned, and her lips that felt swollen. She blushed at the mere memory of what they’d done. Oh, heavens, she probably smelled like sex.

  But Sierra was innocent—at least Lucy was reasonably sure she was—so she probably wouldn’t notice.

  Right. Uh-huh. Sierra noticed everything.

  Lucy sighed and went to the teenager’s bedroom. “I’m home.”

  Sierra was on her bed, as always, laptop open on her stomach, her head propped up with pillows enough for her to see the screen. The position looked uncomfortable but never seemed to bother her.

  “I heard you.” Her interested gaze—so disconcertingly like her father’s—swept over Lucy. “Have fun?”

  “I did.” Mistress of nonchalance, Lucy smiled. “He can cook.”

  “Cool. What’d he make?”

  Lucy told her. “No dessert, though.”

  “He said he doesn’t bake. That he eats, like, store-bought cookies.” Sierra closed the computer and scooched higher against the headboard. “What’s his house like?”

  Did Sierra mind that he’d taken Lucy there and not her? Lucy couldn’t tell. She did her best to describe it. “It’s a lot nicer than this,” she finished ruefully. “Although he says he doesn’t spend that much time there.”

  “I think he’s here whenever he isn’t out doing his running-for-office thing,” Sierra observed.

  “That’s probably true.”

  “It’s weird that, like, six weeks ago we didn’t know him.” Sierra’s forehead puckered. “You were freaked when I said I wanted to meet him.”

  Shoulder against the door frame, Lucy gave a soft laugh. “I was.”

  “But I was right. You were wrong.” The teenager grinned, looking mischievous. “Say it. I was right.”

  “It could have turned out differently.”

  “I was right,” she prompted. “And who was wrong?”

  Laughing, rolling her eyes, Lucy said, “I was wrong. You were right. Lucky, too, but right. I think…he really wants to be your dad.”

  Sierra’s smile faded. “I wish…”

  Lucy straightened in the doorway. “What?”

  Her foster daughter gave a jerky shrug. “I guess that Mom could know.”

  Gentling her voice, Lucy said, “Maybe she can.”

  “She never took me to church. I don’t think she believed in an afterlife.”

  Very softly, Lucy quoted, “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

  Sierra frowned. “What’s that from?”

  “Shakespeare. Hamlet, I’m pretty sure. I don’t know why I remember it.”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth…’” Sierra murmured, the lost look on her face tugging at Lucy’s heart. “Why Horatio?”

  “Uh…I don’t remember. Hamlet must have been talking to somebody named Horatio.”

  “That’s an awful name.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t in 1600. It might have been the equivalent of Chad, or Evan.”

  “Horatio.” Sierra grinned.

  “How come you haven’t read Hamlet?” Lucy asked. “Don’t they educate kids anymore?”

  “The only Shakespeare we’ve ever read was Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade. Out loud. It didn’t sound that great, the way some of the kids read it.”

  Lucy laughed. “I’ll bet. Read Hamlet. In fact, read something, instead of spending all your time on the computer.”

  “Dad said that the other day.”

  It struck Lucy how much more naturally Sierra was saying Dad. She felt a pang. No, worse than that—a brief but painful cramp in her chest. Sierra had a dad now. They were getting really comfortable with each other. Father-daughter. Once the election was over, wouldn’t it occur to Jon that there was no reason Sierra couldn’t live with him?

  Or…was that part of Lucy’s attraction to him? The notion of them as a family? She examined the idea and knew how seductive it was.

  But family included the in-laws, and he hadn’t met her family yet. She could just imagine introducing her. “Have I mentioned my mother? Terry Malone. She’s an ex-con and former drug addict, but she’d be the perfect grandmother to your kids.”

  Feeling sick, Lucy thought, I should have told him.

  She would. Soon. Sometime before next Thursday, when she was picking up her mom and bringing her home.

  JON SAT AT HIS DESK flipping through a pile of memos, most of which were only FYI—no action on his part required. He skimmed with only half his attention while he ate a deli sandwich. Staffing changes, new protocols, complaints about the state that conference rooms were being left in—put another way, throw out your own goddamn coffee cups. A list of recent parolees who would be taking up residence in the county. His interest was no more than idle in that one; individual units would take note of particular names depending on their areas of interest. He ran h
is gaze down the list nonetheless, his eyes stopping briefly at a child sex offender, a drug trafficker, an SOB who’d beaten the crap out of his wife, who was nonetheless apparently taking him back. Jon recognized one name, someone he’d put away for second-degree murder. Good to know Finch was already out, Jon thought cynically.

  He had already flipped to the next memo—something about a recruitment drive—when his brain processed one of the last names he’d seen. A woman.

  Terry Malone. It was the coincidence of the last name that had caught his eye. Had to be chance… But he stared in shock at the address she had given for her residence.

  Lucy’s.

  This Terry Malone been convicted of first-degree robbery and her sentence indicated it was committed with a firearm. She had a lengthy rap sheet. These days, the third-strike law would have gotten her prison for life with no possibility of parole. She’d been lucky, sentenced a few months before the law took effect.

  This was Lucy’s mother?

  The bits and pieces Lucy had told him wove together, for the first time forming a whole cloth. She hadn’t hidden her anxiety about her mother or the fact that she’d had a crappy childhood. But plenty of people had that without a parent who’d been in and out of prison during the years when said parent should have been attending parent-teacher conferences and driving her kid to soccer practice.

  Later he might care who’d done those things for Lucy. Right now anger roared through him, a white-hot sheet of it. This was why she’d talked about people making mistakes, why she’d been groping for extenuating circumstances. Why she’d plainly been worried about his lack of sympathy for criminals.

  Jon tried to rein himself in. Maybe it wasn’t her mother. Maybe this was an aunt or even a sister…. No, she’d said she was an only child, and from the list of priors this woman was too old to be Lucy’s sibling anyway.

  This had to be her mother, then. The one who had raised her daughter in places where drug deals were happening in the hall outside their door. Who had sent her to school without a lunch and maybe without breakfast. Who hadn’t seen to it that she had clean clothes. Who’d…turned tricks? God, had she done that?