[Kate's Boys 05] - A Lawman for Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  Which was how Mike found them as he walked into the room with Miranda. He looked from one sibling to another. “What’s this all about?”

  Travis was quick to volunteer the information. “Kelsey ran Morgan off so fast, he forgot his jacket and his wallet.”

  Okay, enough was enough. “I did not run the man off,” Kelsey protested.

  Shifting over to stand beside her sister-in-law, Miranda draped her arm across Kelsey’s slender shoulders. “Stop picking on your sister, Mike.”

  “Me?” Mike cried incredulously. He pointed a finger at the triplet closest to him.

  “Travis was the one who said she ran Donnelly off.”

  “Okay, then all three of you,” Miranda amended, bringing Trent into it just in case he’d said something before she walked in. “Stop picking on your sister,” she said with the kind of feeling reserved for someone who was part of the family.

  the kind of feeling reserved for someone who was part of the family.

  Kelsey flashed her sister-in-law a grateful, conspiratorial grin. “Thanks, Miranda. Will you tell my mom that I had to run an errand but that I should be back in a little while?”

  Miranda turned so that her back was to the male members of the family. She mouthed, “Unless you get lucky” to Kelsey.

  “Not looking for that to happen,” Kelsey assured her with feeling.

  Grabbing her purse from the table by the front door, she was out of the house before anyone could say anything else to her. Donnelly was going to need this, she told herself, briskly walking down the driveway. She was only being responsible. Although, she could have just as easily called up and left a message on his machine, telling him that he’d forgotten his jacket.

  She was fairly certain that Morgan would have realized he’d left his wallet in his jacket pocket without her having to mention it. That way, he wouldn’t have known that she’d gone through the pockets.

  Reaching her car, she opened the driver’s side and tossed his jacket on the passenger seat before getting in. She started the car, then backed it out of the driveway. Traffic was light. She glanced at the jacket again. As a rule, men didn’t like having their pockets—especially their wallets—ransacked. Because that was where they kept their secrets, she thought, remembering. Her jawline hardened. Had she not absently browsed through Dan’s wallet, waiting for him to finish his shower, she would have never found the wedding photograph he kept stuffed between two credit cards. The pain of that discovery returned to her in spades, twisting her gut.

  She recalled looking at the creased photograph for a long time, trying to come up with excuses for its existence. Excuses that explained why he stood beside a woman wearing a wedding gown. Excuses that explained why, if that woman was either his ex-wife or his late wife, he hadn’t gotten around to mentioning that little fact. Even after he’d started talking about marriage.

  The moment Dan had come out of the bathroom, a towel loosely wrapped around his hips and water still clinging to his hair, and seen her holding the photograph, he’d stumbled over his tongue. She’d never seen him so flustered.

  A man who had nothing to hide, who wasn’t guilty of abusing her heart, wouldn’t have stumbled over his own tongue, wouldn’t have alternated between anger and repentance, she thought.

  God, but she’d been such a trusting idiot, Kelsey upbraided herself.

  Amid a barrage of angry words, she’d thrown Dan out and then called Travis, asking him to have his firm’s investigator find out all he could about Dan. It didn’t take long. All her worse fears were proved correct. He was married. With a baby on the way. Dan had still tried to explain his way out of it, but she refused to listen. Instead, she warned him that if he ever came near her again, she would call his wife and tell her everything. She never saw Dan again.

  Remembering that, remembering how she’d felt, knowing she’d been duped, Kelsey suddenly pulled over to the side of the road. Putting the car into Park and pulling up the emergency brake, she let the car idle as she took the wallet out of Morgan’s pocket.

  The mental tug-of-war went on for less than a minute. She needed to know she wasn’t setting herself up again. Needed to know that Donnelly was exactly what he seemed, a single man.

  There wasn’t much in his wallet beyond his license, his police ID, his insurance card and a few bills in a separate compartment that added up to thirty-three dollars. The last place she checked was inside the fold intended for credit cards. That was when she found it. A single incriminating photograph. The kind of professional photograph taken in a studio. Her heart hurt as she stared at the photograph of Morgan standing beside a slender woman with long, blond hair. In his arms he was holding a little towheaded girl between them. She looked to be younger than two years old.

  In a hazy, bizarre way, Kelsey was aware of cars whizzing by.

  Damn it. Kelsey closed her eyes. They stung. Donnelly wasn’t worth the tears that seeped out between her lashes, she thought angrily.

  “When are you going to learn?” she demanded angrily, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “When the hell are you ever going to learn?”

  Furious with herself, with Morgan, Kelsey started the car again. She almost plowed into an SUV, slamming on her brakes at the last second and pulling back onto the shoulder of the road. Her heart pounding, she watched through tears to make sure that there was no other vehicle about to barrel into her before she pulled back onto the road.

  The bastard!

  The lousy bastard. Acting so reserved, so damn polite when all the time…

  Kelsey pushed down on the accelerator. For once, she drove without checking her rearview mirror every few minutes to make sure there was no police car behind her. She was far too angry for that.

  She got to Morgan’s single-story house in record time. Leaving her car parked askew in his driveway, she had to double back to shut her door. She’d left it hanging open.

  Her anger building with each passing second, Kelsey strode up to Morgan’s front door and rang the bell. When there was no instant reply, she started knocking, then pounding on his door with her fist.

  “Damn it, Donnelly, I know you’re in there. Open the damn door!”

  The door opened just as she was about to pound on it again. He appeared puzzled and more than a little surprised to see her. Guilty and worried, most likely, Kelsey thought hotly. His wife was probably around somewhere and he would have to explain what she was doing here if he couldn’t get Guilty and worried, most likely, Kelsey thought hotly. His wife was probably around somewhere and he would have to explain what she was doing here if he couldn’t get rid of her.

  Good. He deserved to be skewered, she thought angrily.

  Kelsey threw his jacket at him. “You forgot your jacket,” she snapped, pushing her way past him and striding into the living room.

  “Thanks.” He glanced down at the crumpled jacket. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized he’d left it. Kissing Kelsey had played havoc with his mind. But at least he wasn’t playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the same time, like Kelsey was. “Are you all right?” he asked, closing the door again.

  “I’m just ginger peachy,” Kelsey ground out.

  He assumed that her anger was somehow connected to her bringing the jacket over.

  “You could have just called and I would have come back for the jacket. You didn’t have to go out of your way to drop it off.”

  Instead of calming her, his words had the exact opposite effect. “You would have preferred that, wouldn’t you? That way, you could be sure that I wouldn’t run into her.”

  Kelsey strode around the room, glancing toward the hall as she raised her voice so that it would carry to other parts of the house. “Been lucky so far, but luck only hangs on so long, right?”

  He draped his jacket over the arm of the sofa, staring at Kelsey. “What are you talking about?”

  She swung around to glare at him, her hands fisted at her waist. “Don’t play dumb. I’m talking about your wif
e.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Everything inside of him went eerily silent and dark. And then he asked, his voice hardly louder than a whisper, “What?”

  Oh, no, she wasn’t buying into that dumb act. She was through being a trusting idiot. To think she actually had been entertaining the idea of sleeping with him. God, but she was hopeless.

  “You have a picture of your wife and daughter in your wallet.” She threw the accusation at him. “Don’t bother denying it.”

  “That I’ve got a picture of them? Why should I?”

  “No, that you’ve got a wife and daughter.”

  His eyes narrowed as the first part of what she’d said suddenly replayed itself in his head. “You went through my wallet.” His voice was flat.

  “No, I’m clairvoyant,” she retorted flippantly. “How else would I know about them? Of course I went through your wallet.”

  “Why?” The single word shimmered between them, lethal. Loaded.

  Throwing up her hands, Kelsey began to pace around the room, something she did when she was very angry or very agitated. Right now, she was both.

  “Because, like an idiot, I was hoping I wouldn’t find anything. But I did.” And it broke my heart. “I thought you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them,” she accused.

  He was doing his best to control his temper and understand. “‘Them?’”

  Was he trying to play dumb, or was he just dense? “Yes, them. Men. Policemen,”

  she amended because none of her brothers or her father belonged to this hateful brotherhood of lecherous creatures who blissfully lied their way into a woman’s bed. She stopped pacing and hurdled another accusation at him. “You kissed me.”

  How could he have done that? How could he have kissed her while he was married to such a beautiful, trusting woman? She could literally see the love, the trust in the woman’s eyes.

  To rein in his anger, Morgan started to grow distant. “I rather thought it was mutual. We kissed each other.”

  “Okay, maybe,” she granted. “Only difference is, I’m not married.”

  This tirade of hers finally made sense. “You think I’m married?”

  “Aren’t you?” The second she said it, Kelsey secretly prayed that Morgan could convince her that he was single. That the woman in the photograph was a relative. A sister maybe. Even an ex-wife. Anyone but his present wife.

  If he wanted this strange connection to end, all he had to do was tell her yes, he was married. Yes, that woman in the photograph was his wife, Beth, and the little girl he was holding was his daughter, Amy. Once that was established, Kelsey Marlowe would curse him and stomp out of his life, leaving it just as empty as it had been before she’d come on the scene.

  So why wasn’t he telling her that? Why wasn’t he gratefully grabbing at the excuse Kelsey and fate had just presented him on a silver platter? It was the only sensible course of action. Telling her made sense in so many ways. And yet, here he stood, mutely watching her all but burn up like a meteor barreling into the earth’s atmosphere. Why?

  The answer was painfully obvious. Because he wanted her, wanted Kelsey, farreaching complications and all.

  “Well?” she finally demanded, breaking the silence. “Don’t you have anything to say? Are you or aren’t you married?” Her hands were back on her hips. She stood a scant few inches away from Morgan, pugnaciously challenging him. “Lie to me. I dare you.”

  “If I was going to lie to you,” Morgan finally said, his voice dangerously low. “I’d tell you that I was married.”

  It took her a second to digest that. “Then you’re not married?”

  “No.”

  Damn it, she knew how easy it was for someone to lie to her. Why was there this sudden burst of hope exploding in her chest, radiating out to all corners of her? Stay on point, Kelsey. You don’t want to be taken for another ride. Not again.

  She didn’t want to walk away from him, either. What did that make her?

  The answer was easy. Crazy.

  She needed a push in the right direction, Kelsey reminded herself fiercely. “That isn’t your wife in the photograph?”

  He looked down at it again. It still hurt to see Beth and Amy. Hurt because they were no longer in his life. Was it always going to be that way? Would he ever be numbed to the pain?

  “I didn’t say that.”

  What was he trying to do, confuse her with fancy footwork and rhetoric? “So she is your wife,” Kelsey pressed. Morgan paused for a long moment, as he waited for the pain in his gut to subside.

  “You have your tenses wrong,” he finally told her.

  Chapter Ten

  “M y tenses?” Kelsey repeated, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Now that he had opened the door, he couldn’t very well shut it in her face, even though talking about this hurt like hell.

  “Beth was my wife.”

  “You’re divorced?”

  The moment stretched out between them until she could almost swear she heard it creaking. And then he finally said, “No.”

  The moment the word was out, she understood. Understood and felt horribly guilty, ashamed and a whole host of other emotions that all but stampeded right over her. He meant that his wife was dead. And she had stirred that up for him.

  “And your daughter?” she asked hoarsely. She’d come this far, she had to know.

  This time, Morgan didn’t answer. He just looked at her and she saw it, saw the anguish that was in his soul reflected in his eyes.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, her heart aching for him. “How?”

  His voice was flat, emotionless and all the more frightening for it. “Does it matter?”

  “No,” she answered quietly. Telling him that she asked because she felt for him, wanted to share his pain, to make it an iota lighter, didn’t seem appropriate right now. He wouldn’t believe her anyway. “I am so sorry, Morgan. I didn’t mean to hurt you by bringing it up. I was just…”

  His eyes darkened. “Just what?”

  The whisper sent chills down her spine. They weren’t the kind of chills she would have welcomed. “I was just afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  Back away. Make something up. Just get out of there, she ordered herself.

  But instead of saying something vague and shrugging him off, Kelsey heard herself telling him the truth. “Of being sucked in again. Of being made a fool of.”

  Kelsey dragged her hand through her hair and blew out a none-too-steady breath. She didn’t talk about this, ever, not to her brothers, not even to her mother who knew everything else about her. But she owed Morgan a measure of penance for stirring up memories he clearly would have preferred leaving undisturbed and for storming in on him in the first place.

  Wanting to pace, she forced herself to remain still. “I was—for lack of a better word—involved with a policeman a little over a year ago. He was handsome, charming and so wonderful I kept wanting to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe he was real.”

  “Let me guess—he wasn’t.”

  “My story, let me tell it my way,” Kelsey instructed, struggling to keep her voice matter-of-fact. It wasn’t easy. She pressed her lips together, then continued. “I wound up falling in love with him. He even talked about marrying me.”

  She was laying herself bare. The hurt in her voice burrowed into his indifference.

  “So what happened? Your brothers run him off?”

  Kelsey laughed shortly. “My brothers would have killed him if they’d found out.”

  “That he was sleeping with you?”

  She gave a half shrug. “That would have gotten them perturbed. What would have ticked them off was finding out that Dan was married.” Kelsey didn’t want to continue explaining. She looked at Morgan, praying he would connect the dots and understand. That he would forgive her over-the-top reaction. “So when I saw that photograph in your wallet—”

  “You jumped to conclusions,” Don
nelly finished for her.

  From where she stood, it sounded like a harsh accusation. But she knew she deserved it. She had no business invading his privacy, no real business going through his wallet.

  Kelsey nodded. “I have a tendency of doing that. I’m sorry.” Kelsey rounded out her apology. “I shouldn’t have gone through your wallet. I shouldn’t have carried on like that. And I wouldn’t have if I didn’t—”

  She stopped abruptly. Too much, she was giving away too much. He had enough for a valid apology. She’d ripped out her heart, she didn’t have to barbecue it. Exhaling slowly, she vainly sought some source of inner calm.

  But that still eluded her. “If you have no objections, Officer Donnelly, I really would like to start over.”

  He looked like an immobile statue as he said, “I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh.” Okay, what did she do with that? she wondered, a sinking feeling in her stomach taking hold. She needed some kind of graceful exit line. Nothing came to mind.

  “Mistakes are to learn from,” he told her. “With any luck, they wind up making you a better person.”

  Morgan paused again, wrestling with words he knew were going to hurt if he said them. But she had put herself out there to make amends. He could do no less.

  “I lost Beth and Amy two and a half years ago to a drunk driver. That was just after my father had killed himself. With my service revolver.”

  “Oh God.”

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. He laughed shortly, shaking his head. “It seems oddly ironic that everything bad in my life involved alcohol somehow. My father used to drink because he couldn’t handle life without my mother. Drank himself right into a stroke. He didn’t die, although he wanted to, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. That made him feel like half a man. Eventually, the half that still functioned killed the half that didn’t.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “There was an inquiry—”

  She didn’t understand. “An inquiry? By whom? Into what?”

  “By the police. Into me.”

  Morgan saw indignation enter her eyes and thought it almost amusing. And strangely touching. She knew next to nothing about him and yet she was indignant for him, taking offense that this had happened to him. Why?