by Nina Bruhns
Unfortunately, now was not the time to try and figure things out. After five hours on the road, it was all he could do to keep the Harley rattling at top speed and not fall off in a blaze of agony outrunning his pursuer. By the time he got to Cole's place in Pasadena he could barely stand. No doubt he still had some of Toby's grandmother's drugs in his system and that's why he was having a tough time keeping his mind focused. Or his eyes, for that matter.
He had just enough presence of mind left to draw his weapon as he pounded on the front door. He was sure that car had followed him the entire way.
A pretty woman opened the door, and he lurched past, jostling her aside. What was a woman doing in Cole's house?
Clearly horrified, she gaped at him, staring at his gun, then inched backward. He caught her arm, slamming the door shut behind them, leaning his back against a wall to gain a last vestige of concentration.
"No!" she cried. "No!"
Who was she? He cast a harried gaze around the room. And suddenly noticed it was all wrong. The wall color, the pictures, all unfamiliar. Cole never had frilly curtains and throw pillows.
He had the wrong house.
What the hell would he do now? He looked back at the woman, and something cracked through his woozy subconscious to register her extraordinary blue eyes.
Thank God. It must be— What was it Cole had called her, the mother of his child?
"Fire eyes," he croaked, then slid down the door and everything went black.
* * *
"Hey, compadre." Roman smiled up from the couch at his best friend, never so relieved to see anyone in his life. "Hell of a woman you've got yourself."
"Stubborn as a mule," Cole's wife, Rini, muttered. She stood at one end of the sofa, holding a cup of tea and attempting to look stern. But she'd already blown her forbidding nurse image, treating him gentle as a baby as she applied the gauze bandages he was now sporting everywhere. Gentle as the baby sleeping in the next room. Gentle as the baby in his dream.
Roman winked at Cole. "Thanks for the hospitality. I'll be out of your hair by morning."
"He's in no shape to travel," Rini primly informed his friend. "I saw that contraption he's riding, and—"
Chuckling, Cole rose and gave her a kiss. "No use, darlin'. He's rattled out any brains he ever had a long time ago. One trip more or less won't make any difference."
Roman closed his eyes and grinned inwardly as he struggled to sit up on the couch. Cole had done real good nabbing this one. Just the sort of woman his friend needed to keep his fancy lawyer butt in line.
When he opened his eyes again, Rini had gone, and Cole was handing him the tea. "Drink. Then you can tell me just what the hell is going on."
He eyed the tea warily then slugged it down in a grateful gulp. He was feeling considerably better. Especially since he'd been able to call his boss at the field office and report the beating incident along with his suspicions regarding the Inyo County Sheriff's Office, and secure permission to pursue things in his own way for the time being. An official investigation at this point would probably just drive the culprits to ground. He preferred the bastards behind bars for a long stretch, over instant gratification and a slap on the hand.
"I found her," he said, then reached for his jacket, which was folded over the back of the couch. Cole knew him well enough to know without asking he meant RaeAnne. He'd been in on the search from the very beginning. "Can you keep this safe?"
His friend accepted the envelope Roman handed him with a nod. "Of course."
"Good."
Roman leaned back and sighed. He felt oddly unburdened, as though a great weight had been lifted from his back. He wondered how much of it was the mysterious papers making it into safe hands, and how much had to do with the decision he'd made on the trip down.
Coming close to death had a way of compelling a man to see things a lot more clearly. And although his thoughts since leaving Toby's care before dawn this morning had certainly included his father and what this newest information meant to Roman's search for him, mostly they'd centered on one thing, and one thing alone: RaeAnne and how to keep her.
He'd thought forgiveness for the past was what he wanted, what he needed. But he'd gotten it, and guess what? It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.
He'd be damned if he'd leave RaeAnne to the likes of Philip O'Donnaugh.
He wanted her for himself.
He didn't know how he'd manage to regain her trust, but he intended to try his damnedest. And this time he wouldn't let her go without a fight.
"I want to see your baby boy," Roman said, pushing to his feet and sliding his arm gingerly around his best friend's shoulder.
Together they walked to the nursery and leaned over the crib. The scent of baby powder filled Roman's nose and his heart stalled at the sight of the sweetly sleeping infant.
"He's beautiful," he squeezed out the words in a hushed voice. "You're a lucky guy."
"Better believe it," Cole said, gazing lovingly at his son. He looked up. "What about you and RaeAnne?"
A painful longing stabbed through him at the images his friend's innocent question sent spinning through his head. Of him and RaeAnne together, her belly swelling with their child, of finally being the family they were meant to be.
But first he had to deal with the good sheriff. Get her away from him. There was no doubt in his mind that as soon as he'd disappeared, O'Donnaugh had his way back into her life, making the most of Roman's sudden departure and her surefire anger over it.
"She's mixed up with some creep," he said when he found Cole staring at him brows creased. "If he hurts her, I'll kill the bastard."
"You'd do that?" Cole asked, regarding him closely.
"Yeah." The man was bad news, down to the tips of his tin star.
"Would she thank you?"
"She loves me."
Of that he was dead certain. She might deny it, might fight it to the bitter end. But holding her in his arms that last morning, he'd known. At the time, he hadn't trusted his instincts, finding every excuse to deny what he knew in his heart was true. She'd tried her best, but she hadn't been able to hide her true feelings.
She still loved him.
Before he'd been beaten to a pulp and left for dead, drugged, and ridden 250 miles through a meat grinder, he'd been resigned to accept her repeated declarations that they'd never work. That any future between them would be impossible.
Not now.
Now he realized how much she meant to him. Had always meant to him. Learning about the baby she'd lost, what she'd gone through because he'd left her, had nearly torn his heart out. He was not about to make the same mistake again. Not when he'd been given another chance to set things right.
As an FBI agent, he faced death often, sometimes daily. But his life had never meant much to him. He'd never had anything to live for. That's what had made him such a good undercover agent. Now he realized that he had something incredibly special within his grasp, if he only had the courage to reach out and grab it.
So, as he spoke quietly with his friend, stroking his new godson's soft cheek and downy hair, he decided it was time to fight fire with fire, friendship with passion, excuses with unrelenting willpower.
And take back the only thing that would ever make his life complete.
The love of his woman, RaeAnne.
* * *
Chapter 8
«^»
She heard him before she saw him. The motorcycle gave him away before he'd even crested the hill overlooking the site.
"Damn," RaeAnne swore, and glanced up toward the road, instantly filled with a host of conflicting emotions.
Roman was back.
Sure enough, silhouetted against a robin's-egg sky, he appeared atop the hill in a puff of dust, a vision in outlaw black and chrome, with silver chains glinting in the sun. There he halted the bike and scanned the valley, looking just like an updated version of a Hollywood Indian scouting out a wagon train to ambush. RaeAnne might have laughed at the image
, except she knew darn well what precious plunder was at stake. Her heart.
"What's the problem?" asked Bugs Delaney, the lanky crime scene investigator she was helping to excavate the area where the body had been found.
"Roman," she muttered, furiously cutting off a transfusion of unwanted elation the sight of him was pumping into her bloodstream.
"Santangelo?" Bugs asked.
She tossed him a glance. "You know him?"
The agent's eyes lit up. "Sure. Worked with him a couple of times. Good guy."
"If you say so."
She returned her attention to her digging and pointedly ignored the sputtering of the Harley as it headed down the hill.
"What's he doing here? I thought Dawson was in charge of this case."
RaeAnne wondered what calamity had brought Roman back. Maybe he'd heard about the body and gotten nosy. Maybe it had dawned on him she could be pregnant.
"We're old friends," she said, unwilling to speculate further on his motives. She'd find out soon enough.
"Oh," Bugs said, openly curious. Then a grin spread over his handsome face. "Oh!" he repeated, and RaeAnne instantly wanted to bean the guy with her trowel. It was obvious what he thought.
"Just friends," she said forcefully.
And meant it. She'd slipped up once, but it wasn't going to happen again. Roman's disappearance after they'd made love had taught her a hard lesson. One she needed to remind herself of every minute he spent in her company, regardless of the results of the pregnancy test she planned to take, just in case.
He hadn't changed. He still wasn't someone she could trust with her heart. Or with a child.
It didn't matter how many times he came back. The fact remained, to come back he had to leave. She could not deal with a man who would disappear from her life with no notice, no explanation and no goodbye save a worthless scribbled drawing. And a child shouldn't have to.
"Hi," his voice rumbled above her and suddenly she felt like crying.
Steeling herself against that weakness, she glanced up. And gasped. His face was covered in bruises, cuts and small white bandages.
"My God, you're hurt!" she cried, jumping to her feet and coming out of the unit in a single motion. She grasped his arms, saw him wince, and dropped them immediately. "What happened?"
"A little accident," he said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. What happened to—"
"Anyone try to hurt you?"
"No, but—"
"Thank God." He seemed like he was about to pull her into an embrace so she stepped back. After a second's hesitation he stuck his hands into his pockets and turned to the investigator behind her. "Hey, Bugs. You working this one for CSI?"
"Yup," the other man answered, giving RaeAnne a much-needed moment out from under Roman's probing gaze to gather herself.
"Talk to me, buddy."
What had happened to him? Seeing him battered and bruised like that shook her to the core.
Bugs didn't even appear to notice. "Homicide by gunshot. Standard twelve-gauge shotgun to the back, fairly close range."
Naturally, none of her scenarios for Roman's leaving had envisioned him being hurt and unable to contact her.
"Time factor?"
"Still doing tests but a preliminary estimate would be one to two years."
Of course, that was nonsense because even if there wasn't a phone at the site, he only had to get in touch with the sheriff's office and Philip would have gotten her a message.
"Any ID yet?"
"Nothing local's popped out yet. We're running a missing persons."
"Who's the SAC?"
"Dawson." Bugs pointed to the front porch of her cabin, where the special agent in charge sat on the top step looking through crime scene photos.
"Better have a word."
Roman took hold of her hand, and to Bugs' grand amusement towed her toward the cabin like a rag doll. Which she went along with only because of the large gauze bandage wrapped around the breadth of his palm.
"Roman, you can't just ignore me and my questions."
"I'm not ignoring you. I'm assessing the situation."
"Which situation?" she mumbled.
"Both. Are you pregnant?"
"It's only been four days. I want to know what happened."
"We didn't have any condoms."
She shut her mouth in exasperation. The man was impossible when he'd determined to be obtuse. But exasperation was not good. Exasperation meant the anger had diminished.
"Santangelo!" Dawson exclaimed from the porch. "Man, am I glad to see you!" He bounded down the stairs and met them, stopping short. "What the hell happened to your face?"
"You don't want to know." Roman waved off his wounds with a grimace and shook the other man's hand. "How's it going, Dawson?"
Dawson gave him a beseeching look. "You gotta help me out, friend. There's just me and Bugs working this one. No phone. No electricity. How can I work from here? I've got to go around to the locals and see what I can dig up. Take over for me here at the crime scene, would you?"
"I'm on leave."
"Then what are you doing here?"
That's when Dawson noticed them holding hands and his eyes widened. Immediately she pulled out of Roman's clasp, but it was too late.
"Ah. I see. So then you won't mind." He grinned.
Roman gave her a quick glance but said nothing.
"Great! You follow the leads from up here, and the physical evidence Bugs turns up at the lab. I'll work it from the other end, in Bishop." With that he pushed the pile of photos at Roman and grinned. "What a break. I'll call in and let the boss know. I assume you still don't carry a cell phone?"
"Nowhere to plug it in," Roman confirmed wryly.
"No problem. Bugs has one. Okay, I'm outta here. Bugs can fill you in on all the details. I'm gonna head for the Bishop PD."
"All right," Roman calmly agreed. "Keep in touch, compadre."
"Thanks. I owe you one, buddy. I'll check in with Bugs at his motel tonight."
Before she could utter a single word of protest, Dawson was hurrying toward his nondescript blue sedan.
"Hey wait a minute," she called after the rat, "You can't just—" He slammed the door and with a spin of his tires was gone. "Oh, for crying out loud."
Wonderful. Now she was really in trouble. An FBI investigation could drag on forever. There was no way she could be around Roman Santangelo forever. Or even another day. Just look at what had happened the last day he'd spent with her.
"No," she said determinedly. "You can't be a part of this investigation."
"Says who?"
"Says me. You can't stay here. I won't have it. Get Dawson back."
"I don't think so." Roman turned and climbed the steps. "Look, I'm about to fall over. Let's lie down and talk about things."
Lie down?
"What are you, nuts? There's no way I'm getting in that bed with you, ever again."
With a sigh, he paused at the door and said, "I was afraid of that. Mad, huh?"
"Who me? You disappear without a word for four days. I'm supposed to be happy?"
"Would it make a difference if I said I had a good excuse?"
"You had a good excuse last time, too." Firmly pushing aside a stab of guilt over his bruises, she looked around for his bike. "So why don't you just do us both a favor and hop back on your motorcycle and leave?"
He opened the cabin door. "Sorry, I can't do that. The only place I'm hopping right now is into the sack. If you feel like talking, that's where I'll be." With that he went inside.
She crossed her arms tightly and stared after him, melting only slightly when she heard a deep groan as he settled onto the mattress.
She scowled. She wouldn't feel sorry for him. She refused to give in to the sympathy that welled inside her, or to her mounting worry over how he'd come by his injuries.
It wasn't her concern. It had nothing to do with her, and she wouldn't let a few bandages shake her resolve to insist he
leave.
But she couldn't help wondering what had happened to him. A little accident, he'd said. Shoot, if that was a "little" accident, then the corpse they'd found was just a "little" dead.
Maybe she should insist he leave after he'd gotten some rest.
How had she allowed this to happen again? One minute she was mad as hell at him, and the next she was going all soft and mushy, letting him sleep in her bed, feeling the sweet sting of longing steal through her body.
She was headed for a heartache, and that was the sad truth. If he pulled rank and persisted in helping Dawson on this case—which she knew very well he had every intention of doing—she had no legal recourse. She'd have to let him stay.
And if it turned out against all odds she was pregnant, she had a sinking feeling she wouldn't be able to blast him away from her with dynamite. At least not until the next case called to him. Or the next good excuse to ride away.
She pushed out a long breath, telling herself for the thousandth time since he'd left that the man was no good for her. He was not what she needed. He was all wrong.
And she wouldn't let herself fall for him again.
It just was not going to happen.
* * *
Roman awoke to a pleasant hum in his ears and an unpleasant one in his head. Immediately he recognized the pleasant sound as coming from RaeAnne. She was humming a mindless tune as she quietly worked at the kitchen table.
The soft rustle of artifact bags and the crinkle of pages turning in a ledger filled the room with a homey atmosphere. Even the slight ache vibrating through his skull couldn't diminish the joy and satisfaction Roman felt at finding himself in such a cozy setting.
Somehow he'd managed to ensconce himself in her cabin, in her very bed, wrapped in her blanket and surrounded by the light, arousing perfume of her woman's body. He must have slept for hours and was feeling a whole lot better. Smiling, he snuggled deeper under the covers and kept his eyes firmly closed. He never wanted to move. Surely after spending about a hundred years right here he'd stop hurting completely, body and soul.
"You needn't play possum. I know you're awake," came her pert statement. "It's about time. I'm waiting for some answers."
"I'm not awake," he insisted, half hoping he was still on the mountainside hallucinating. This would not be an easy conversation and he'd just as soon skip it in favor of more pleasurable circumstance. "What time is it, anyway?"
