by Adrianne Lee
The evening wind that blasted her face carried his subtie, mind-bending scent. She lifted her chin a notch higher. She would not respond to him, not to the way the breeze riffled his sleek raven hair, not to the way his damnably compelling eyes glowed as they caressed her face, not to that cocksure tilt of his head, nor that mischievous-littleboy grin dimpling his cheeks.
“Hi.”
Hi? As if his being here were the most natural thing in the world. As if his being here could mean anything but disaster. She lashed out at him in fear more than anger. “What did you do—go back and harass my mother until she told you?”
“Told me what?” His raven brows tipped low, accentuating the amber of his eyes, and she saw genuine confusion in their heated depths. “I haven’t been back to the hospital today.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about Relief slithered through her. He didn’t know about the twins. A man of his passion would demand the truth from her otherwise, not feign ignorance. “Then how did you know where I lived?”
He ignored the question. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Cold wind sliced through Kerrie. She glared up at him, hugging herself against the chill. Nick was wearing his body cleaving Levi’s, cowboy boots and a heavy black leather jacket But fresh from the shower, her hair still damp, she wore a threadbare old sweat suit and fuzzy slippers—neither of which offered protection against the stormy night. “Why should I invite you in?”
He grimaced, hunching into the collar of his coat. “Because it’s cold and rainy out here and what I have to say may take a while.”
Kerrie laughed derisively. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
Roman bit back a grin. God, she was breathtaking and beautiful…and as stubborn as an old mule. “Whether you want to or not, you are going to hear me out.”
“Really.” She laughed again. “You overestimate your powers of persuasion. What’s it like having an ego the size of the Kingdome?”
She reached for the door.
Nick slapped his palm against the door and shoved inward. “I’d rather not have an audience for what I want to discuss with you, but if you insist, we will.” He caught her by the wrist and pulled her out onto the porch.
“Stop it! Kidnapping is against the law. I’ll have you arrested.”
“Okay. You can call from McRory’s.”
“No!” She dug her heels in. “I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
She floundered frantically for an excuse. “Be-because it’s raining…and I’m not wearing a coat or shoes.”
“I’ll carry you.” He bent as though to scoop her into his arms.
His scent surrounded her and memories of his embrace doubled her panic. Where was her gun when she needed it? She shoved him away. “No! I’m expecting a call from…from Mom.”
Nick sprang past her and leaned against the door frame, effectively blocking her reentrance into the house. He folded his arms across his wide chest and arched a raven brow. “Then invite me in. We are going to talk and it is going to be now.”
Kerrie blew out a breath as hot as the anger bubbling through her chest. “What don’t you understand about the word no?”
“Nothing. But no isn’t a word that’s going to stop me, Irish. I can be as stubborn as you any given day. You are going to hear me out!”
Kerrie was breathing hard. “Why should I?”
“Because I’m after Loverboy, too.”
Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth dipped open, but she quickly recovered. “A-after him?”
“Yes.” Pain etched in the fine lines around his eyes and mouth. “His first victim, Wendy Waring, was as close as I’ll ever come to having a kid sister.”
His simple statement robbed the fight from her. An icy chill—the kind her mother would call someone walking over her grave—swept Kerrie. Loverboy’s second victim had been her ex-partner’s fiancee. She had suspected Loverboy might be one of many things Nick Diamond and she had in common, but not once had it occurred to her that victims would be the link.
“May I come in now and explain?”
She bit her lower lip. Kerrie Muldoon, mother and woman, feared this man more than any she’d ever met. What if the twins awoke? One look at Gabriella and…
Could she take the chance? Kerrie Muldoon, homicide detective, argued that she should. If Nick Diamond had vital information about Loverboy, even one small clue that could lead to the killer’s identity, she had to take the risk; or another woman might die.
“Irish?”
Reluctantly she nodded, waited for him to move aside, then entered the house. Her gaze darted down the hall to the twins’ closed door. Please, God, let them sleep through the night as they usually do, she prayed, bending and scooping up the spilled plant. She carried the fern to the kitchen, with Nick at her heels. Nearing the counter, she spotted Maureen’s plastic bib gaily decorating the bottom of the sink, and once again her heart climbed her throat.
Quickly she plopped the plant on top of the bib. Had Nick seen it? She gathered the courage to turn and face him.
He smiled at her. “If you’ll show me where you hide your broom, I’ll sweep up the rest of that mess in the entry.”
“I’ll do it later.” Kerrie exhaled painfully. He hadn’t seen. “Right now, I’m only concerned about saving the plant.”
She set to work making a pretext of saving the plant, covering the bib with more dirt. Her-heart thundered at the near calamity, at the possibility that she’d left out something else of the babies’.
Roman watched Kerrie pick bits of colored clay from the dirt and the roots of the large plant, then glanced away, taking the moment to inspect her kitchen. He liked the effect, lots of oak and creamy tones with dabs of bright green, like her eyes. He drew a deep breath. “That coffee smells good. Mind if I help myself?”
Kerrie turned from the sink, giving the kitchen a rapid, surreptitious once-over. Was there less air in the room, or was she having an anxiety attack? Finding no telltale signs of the twins’ existence, she breathed a little easier and gazed at Nick with returning confidence. “You won’t be here long enough to drink any coffee.”
His mouth quirked in humor. “As much as you’d like me to disappear—”
“Yes, I would.” She wiped her hands on the dish towel she kept draped over the refrigerator handle. “Just like three years ago, but—”
“But I’m not going to.” He helped himself to one of the mugs hanging from the cup rack and filled it with coffee. “In fact, what I have to say might last as long as it takes us to finish this pot.”
“This conversation is going to start and end with Loverboy. Anything else you can keep to yourself. I’m not interested.”
“I think you’ll change your mind. Besides, this doesn’t start with Loverboy.” He frowned. “But it must tie in somehow.”
“Really, Nick—”
“No. My name’s not Nick Diamond. That was an alias I was using three years ago.”
Kerrie rolled her eyes. “Big surprise. How many have you used over the years?”
“Dozens.” He filled a second cup with coffee and offered it to her.
Kerrie ignored the proffered cup. “I guessed as much.”
“Yeah, but I’ll bet you never guessed the correct reason why.”
“I’d take that bet.”
“You’d lose.” He shoved the mug toward her again.
“I doubt it.” Deciding the quickest way to get him out of her house was to humor him, she begrudgingly accepted the cup. “So, what’s your real name? Oh, let me guess, Roman Donnello.”
“That’s right.”
“Sure, and I’m Garth Brooks.”
Roman chuckled. “No offense to Garth, but he never looked as good as you.”
“Could we get back to Loverboy?”
“Eventually.” He carried his cup to the antique dining table that seemed too formal for the room, too formal for Kerrie’s tastes. Her mother�
�s? He started to pull out a chair.
“No! Not there,” Kerrie chirped in alarm. The second he pulled the chair away from the table, he’d see the child’s booster seat. “I’d prefer we did this in the living room.”
He lifted an eyebrow suggestively, seductively. “Because a kitchen is too cozy?”
The air between them seemed to evaporate.
“Something like that.” Letting out a painful breath, she led him into her elegant, if overcrowded little living room, the one area of the house she’d straightened after dinner, the one area of the house she could swear contained no telltale sign of the twins.
Again, Roman guessed the straight-backed sofa and delicate tables, fussy lamps and somber colors were not of Kerrie’s choosing. In fact, they reminded him of Philip Waring, Wendy’s father. Philip’s tastes ran along similar lines as these. He kept the thought to himself, set his mug on a glass panel of the coffee table and removed his jacket, tossing it casually over the back of the ruby Victorian sofa.
The heavy jacket looked graceless, as odd as he felt, perched on a sofa that was too dainty and rigid for his size and comfort.
Or was Irish the reason he couldn’t quite relax?
She’d chosen one of the two chairs facing him, perching on the edge like, a bird ready for flight. He wanted to kiss away her frown. He wanted to run his hands through her wild mane of hair. He wanted to strip off her sweat suit, touch her magnificent body with his hands and his mouth; he wanted to bury himself inside her until she cried out in sweet bliss.
“Loverboy?” she prompted.
Roman started at the name, thinking for half a second that she’d read his thoughts, realizing as quickly that she meant the killer. She let out an impatient breath. Obviously all she wanted him to do was finish his confession and leave. He’d bet he could change her mind. He suppressed a grin and scooped up his cup. “I was undercover at C & F Importers three years ago—same as your partner, what was his name…Bud Grimes. It had taken a year to gain Casale’s and Fabrizio’s trust, and I wasn’t about to let the Seattle PD blow my cover—which you damned near did.”
“Undercover?” As a cop? Unbidden her gaze raked from his mussed hair to his audacious mouth, to the way his clothes fit his incredible body. Nothing about this man said cop. Even though she didn’t believe it for a minute, she asked, “Are you saying you’re FBI or something?”
“Or something. My agency has a lesser known set of initials, but that’s neither here nor there, except as it relates to my telling you the truth.”
The truth. Did he know the meaning of the word? Maybe she should give him her definition and see how close he could come to it Oh, she was sure he’d make it sound like the truth; the man could spin a fairy tale with the skill of Hans Christian Andersen.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I have proof—credentials.” He set aside his cup and stood slowly. Her gaze lifted with him, pulled by some invisible force she couldn’t control. Damn the man looked good in Levi’s. She shoved aside the images that flooded her mind. He withdrew a wallet from his back pocket and handed it to her as though he hadn’t a secret in the world from her. She prayed her own secrets were fast asleep in the bedroom down the hall.
With a trembling hand, she opened the wallet and, beginning with his Washington, D.C., driver’s license, examined every credit card, every credential. All claimed he was Roman Donnello. All looked genuine. Official. Her boneless grip dropped the wallet to her lap, and through a numbing fog, she gazed up at him. He really wasn’t Nick Diamond. Hood or hitman. He was a federal cop whose agency, a cross between the DEA, FBI and CIA, she had heard of. Respected.
Dear God, everything she’d ever believed about this man, ever felt about him, was wrong. All lies. He’d made a fool of her. Cost her years of unnecessary anguish. Fear.
Fury, white-hot and all consuming, shot through Kerrie. Feeling returned to every inch of her. She lurched to her feet. The wallet bumped the carpet She flung herself at Roman, slapped her fists against his chest, and screamed, “You jerk! You blew our investigation! It cost me a promotion. And set Bud back two years.”
Roman grasped her wrists and held her off, infuriating her all the more. Her face felt feverish and her body chilled as if ice flowed through her veins. He said softly, “It could have cost us all our lives.”
“No!” She glared at him, her scalding breath tangling with his. “Not if you had leveled with me.”
“Leveled with you? The way you leveled with me?”
“I didn’t know who you were. Everything you said to me was a lie.”
He shook his head, and his eyes flickered like the amber glow of twin candles. “Not everything, Irish.”
Heat filled her face. She didn’t want to remember the truths he’d told her, didn’t want to deal with them. God help her, she couldn’t face them.
“Bull. This was nothing more or less than professional jealousy. The big Fed didn’t want the little locals messing in his case.” She meant to spit the words at him, but her anger was subsiding, the truth starting to sink in, starting to shatter the armor of anger in which she’d sheathed her heart.
She’d spent so much time hating this man she could hardly process the fact that her reasoning had been totally amiss. But it had. From day one. Roman was none of the hateful things she’d thought him to be.
Worse yet, he’d disappeared three years ago as much to save Bud and her as to keep from having his own cover blown. She’d likely have done the same in his place and could only respect his actions.
But what a mess he’d made of their lives.
Confusion dominated the emotions washing through her. What was she going to do? Tell him the truth now? Chance losing the twins? Kerrie didn’t cry easily, but she felt tears now, hot against her cheeks, and was helpless to stop them.
“Don’t cry, Irish.” Roman cupped her face in his hands and pulled her near, gently kissing away her tears. “It’s not as bad as all that.”
“But it is.” The words choked her.
“No.” He pulled her closer. His voice was a warm caress that whispered across her aching heart. “I’m still so damned crazy about you I can’t think straight.”
Kerrie welcomed the invitation to feel, not think, and greeted his lips with her own. The kiss was tender, consoling, gently touching her mouth, then her tear-dampened cheeks, her temples, her neck. He pulled back and gazed at her with such need, her heart skipped a beat. “Just being this close is driving me wild.”
Kerrie drank in his need as if she were a thirsty soul who’d wandered too long in the desert. This time the kiss was fierce, exploding with a passion she’d forgotten existed, a passion she’d missed with every ounce of her being, a passion she’d never expected to feel again.
“Mommy?”
The small voice stole the moment. Roman released Kerrie with a start, his eyes rounding in surprise, his gaze on the toddler behind them. Kerrie’s chest froze, her heart seemed to stop, her lungs to lock. Which of the girls was it? Steeling herself for the worst, she pivoted.
One sight of Maureen’s mop of red curls nearly brought her to the floor in relief. She hurried to the little girl and scooped her up. “Pumpkin, what are you doing out of bed?”
Was Gabby also awake? Kerrie darted a glance toward the hallway. It was empty. Slowly, she spun around to face Roman.
Roman couldn’t take his eyes off the darling little girl with Kerrie’s hair and her mother’s eyes. He couldn’t breathe. He was stunned. He hadn’t thought of Irish with another man. But there had definitely been one, and judging the age of this child, not long after he’d left.
“This is Maureen,” Kerrie said. “Maureen, this is Mommy’s. friend, Roman.”
“Hello, Maureen.”
Maureen tucked her face against her mother’s neck, then peeked at him a moment later, pressing the backs of her hands against her cheeks, peering through them in a shy, yet curious, way.<
br />
“She’s a little beauty—” The words choked through the jealousy raging inside him. Dammit to hell, this child should have been his. But he’d never be any child’s father. Where did he get off being jealous? He hadn’t been a monk the past three years. Why did he think a woman with Kerrie’s passionate nature should be? She owed him nothing. He hadn’t made a commitment to her three years ago, and even if she were free, he wouldn’t make one now.
Was she free? He felt his cheeks redden. “I guess I should apologize.”
Kerrie shook her head, not understanding him.
“Maureen’s father. I just assumed, presumed you were…that there wasn’t a man in your life. The truth is, I didn’t want—” He broke off. Didn’t want what? He had no right to want anything, but he did.
“He’s gone.”
Gone? Did that mean he was dead…or that he’d run off? Neither was any of his business. He could see the subject made her uneasy. If she wanted to explain further, she would. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry sounded so lame, and the way she’d swallowed warned him he’d best drop the subject. If the man had died, at least he’d left a sweet legacy behind a piece of immortality that Roman would never know. Was that why he took the most dangerous assignments, the biggest risks, looked death in the face when his peers pulled back from some sense of self-preservation he neither felt nor understood?
Maybe he could understand it…if he had someone like Kerrie to live for, someone like Maureen.
Somehow, Kerrie found her voice. “How about you…do you have a wife? Children?”
“Neither. By choice.” The lie rolled sourly off his tongue, rousing the old bitterness deep inside him. He wasn’t without family by. any choice he’d consciously made. Fate had taken that choice from him. Silently he cursed the mumps he’d had at age fifteen. No, he’d never be able to impregnate any woman. Call it pride or sheer stubbornness, he would never marry under the circumstances.
