Tory watched Morgan with big, curious eyes. Raine's heart turned over. Mike used to look at his father like that when he was Tory's age. He thought his dad walked on water. Little did anyone know just how disastrous hero worship could be.
"Really and truly?" Tory demanded.
"Really and truly." Morgan reached out to smooth a lock of wet curly hair behind Tory's ear. He had the hands of a peasant, and yet his touch was as deft and gentle as a surgeon's.
"Did they have guns and stuff, like on TV?"
"Sure did. And some of the women I met were pilots, too. Had their own helicopters. Cobras."
Tory frowned. "Cobras are snakes."
Morgan's lopsided and just-a-little-stiff-at-the-corners smile put stars in the little girl's eyes. "That's true, but some Cobras are helicopters. Big black ones."
"With lady pilots," Tory declared with an emphatic nod of her dark head.
"Terrific lady pilots," Morgan emphasized as he rose.
"Well, well, an enlightened man. I'm impressed," Prudy said with a dimpled grin.
Don't be, Raine wanted to shout, but she contented herself with a warning frown. Morgan caught the change in expression and slanted her a thoughtful look.
Patience, she told herself as she bent to hand Prudy a towel.
"Chloe's definitely outgrowing the baby pool," she said as Prudy snuggled her daughter into the soft terry cloth. "A natural water sprite."
"It's Case's fault," Prudy said with a sigh before adding for Morgan's benefit, "Case is my husband. He spoils our daughter shamelessly, of course, which is bad enough. Much to my dismay, he also taught her how to turn on the hose when she was barely old enough to crawl. She loves water, especially with a generous measure of mud thrown in."
Morgan grinned. "Sounds very relaxing."
"Oh it is—for Chloe. Not for her long-suffering mom."
"Can I help you with that?" Morgan asked as Prudy reached for her tote bag.
Prudy looked bedazzled. "Just put it over my shoulder, thanks."
Raine drew a breath as Morgan did as Prudy asked, then reached out to run a finger over Chloe's soft cheek.
"Is it true what they say about redheads and temper?" he asked.
"Damn straight it's true," a male voice answered before Prudy could open her mouth.
Case Randolph came striding over the grass from the direction of the rear carports, his charcoal suit jacket slung over one broad shoulder and hooked on one finger, his tie askew beneath the open collar of his pale blue dress shirt. Smiling a greeting, Raine decided he looked hot and harried and more than a little dangerous, with his black hair flopping over his furrowed brow and his hard chin shadowed by a day's worth of stubble.
"Now, Case, you know that's not completely true," Prudy protested, her face aglow at the sight of her husband. "Chloe and I only lose our tempers around you."
Case slung an arm around his wife and kissed her soundly before planting a smacking kiss on his giggling daughter's cheek.
"Hiya, tootles. How's my girl?"
"Wet," Prudy muttered before glancing at Morgan. "In case you haven't already figured it out, this guy belongs to me. Meet my husband, the homicide cop."
"I figured you must be related," Morgan said with a grin as he held out his hand. "Morgan Paxton."
"Case Randolph," Case replied, his big hand taking Morgan's.
The two men exchanged measuring looks, neither giving away much, but Raine sensed an immediate understanding between the two.
"Seen you a time or two on the tube. Always glad I wasn't where you were."
Morgan chuckled. "Trust me, my job isn't as rough as yours. Not on my worst day."
Case shrugged that off with a slight movement of his big shoulders. "Welcome home. You gonna be around for a while?"
"No!" Raine interjected a shade too quickly and much too loudly.
Morgan glanced her way, one brow cocked. "Now, honey, don't make promises you can't keep." In spite of the laconic tone to his deep voice, the expression in his eyes was dead serious.
She drew in a breath and wondered if Case would turn a blind eye to the sight of one of his neighbors braining her estranged husband with a thermos of lemonade.
"Reason I ask," Case continued, gazing thoughtfully from Raine's face to Morgan's, "Saturday night a couple of other guys and me are getting together to play a little draw poker. Six-thirty, if you're interested."
Morgan's eyes lighted. "Depends on the stakes. I'm pretty rusty."
"Nothing too painful," Case said, grinning at the notion of new blood.
"In that case, I'm in."
"Two houses east, look for the pink door that glows in the dark."
Stacy groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh Lord, not another one." She sighed. "I was hoping to wean Boyd away from you cutthroats," she told Case with a teasing grin.
"Not a chance, sugar. MacAuley's our prime pigeon. Keeps me in cigar money."
"Funny, that's what he says about you," Stacy retorted as she bent to retrieve the raffia basket that held towels and snacks. "Grab your thongs, Tory, and let's go."
Tory looked disgruntled, but she did as she was told. "Can I come back and visit Auntie Raine after supper?"
Stacy smiled. "We'll see," she hedged before looking Morgan's way. "It was a pleasure to meet you."
"Thanks. It's always a pleasure to be welcomed home by a yard full of pretty ladies."
"Get used to it," Case said with a wry grin as he glanced down at his wife. "In a couple of weeks or so we're expecting another female."
Morgan dropped his gaze to Raine's belly. "What about us, honey? What are we expecting?"
This time there was a definite edge to his drawl, and Raine felt her face flame.
"We aren't expecting anything. I'm expecting twin boys."
Chapter 3
« ^ »
One hour later Prudy Randolph sat like a contented Buddha on Case's side of their big bed and watched her husband sauntering into the room wearing nothing but the towel he'd slung around his neck after his shower. His thick black hair was still damp, and his tanned skin glistened like dew-kissed bronze in the light filtering through the mini-blinds.
A soft, sweet shiver went through her at the sight of the man she loved with all her heart. Even after two marriage ceremonies, one eight years before their divorce, one eight years after, she never failed to be moved by the knowledge that this man needed her in his life. She certainly needed him with an intensity so fierce, it sometimes frightened her. And every time she caught sight of the puckered scar on his abdomen, she was reminded of how close she'd come to losing him.
"Paxton seems like a stand-up guy," he said as he haphazardly swiped the thick towel over his hair.
"Mmm." Out of her loyalty to Raine, Prudy was reserving her opinion.
"Looks older in person than he does on the tube."
Prudy gave that careful thought, then decided Case was right. Raine's ex had looked pretty world-weary, as though he'd seen too many horrors and fought too many battles. Nevertheless, she refused to feel sorry for him. When Raine had needed him, he'd been chasing fame.
"He's a few years younger than you are," she said, admiring the long, clean lines of her husband's lithe body. "Forty-two or three, I think."
"Yeah? Guess that goes to show what the desert sun can do to a guy."
"Maybe. Or maybe it's guilt that put those lines in his face."
Case arched an inquisitive brow. It didn't bother him one whit to be standing there without a stitch on, while, in fact, it bothered her very much. In an extremely pleasant way, of course. Which he knew perfectly well, the rat.
"Guilt how?"
Once a detective, always a detective, she decided. "He was pretty much an absentee husband and father. He wasn't even home when their son had his accident."
"Accident?"
Prudy sighed. She wished now she'd kept her thoughts to herself. "Morgan taught his son to ski during one of his infrequent trips home. Apparently Mik
e wanted to impress his dad with how good he'd gotten, so one time when he was on a trip with a friend's family, he tackled a hill that was too difficult. He hit a tree and broke his neck. A massive infection set in and affected his heart."
She saw the change in Case's expression, giving her a quickly hidden glimpse of the deep vein of compassion that underlay his hard edge. An intensely kind man in the guise of a cynical cop, that was Case. Her big gruff, pussycat with the instincts and ferocity of a tiger.
"He … lingered for a week, calling for his father," she continued when he caught her staring. "Morgan was in Bosnia. By the time he got word and made it home, it was too late."
Case shook his head. "That's rough."
"From what little Raine told me, I gather she came close to a nervous breakdown after the funeral."
Prudy had been a nurse for more than half of her forty-two years, and yet she'd never been able to harden herself against the death of a child.
Case made a pass with the towel over his chest. "And Paxton? How did he handle it?"
"Raine said he just shut down. Blocked it out, and after a few weeks at home, went on with his career."
"Guess that was as good a way as any."
Prudy started to protest, then realized that Case's jaw had gone rigid the way it did when something touched him profoundly. His gaze had slid from hers, another sign that he was hiding his feelings.
"To be fair, he was locked into this contract that he couldn't break, although he offered to try if Raine insisted."
"And did she?"
"No. It was easier for her to handle things alone." She glanced at the photo that she kept on her nightstand of Case cradling Chloe against his big chest. "She said that their son was a carbon copy of Morgan. Had the same wavy blond hair and hazel eyes."
"Cute kid?"
"Apparently."
Case combed one callused hand through his hair a few times—his version of grooming. He'd grown up in an upper-class family in the San Francisco Bay area and could teach a course in embassy manners if pushed. Around home, however, he was wonderfully relaxed.
"You think Paxton's good-looking?" he asked in a throwaway tone.
"Actually, I would say that 'gorgeous' more perfectly describes Morgan Paxton," she said after a moment of feigned consideration.
His head came up as fast as a bull catching a whiff of danger, and he shot her a piercing look.
"Probably has women falling all over him."
"Probably."
"Well, hell," he muttered. "And I just invited the 'gorgeous' bastard to the house for Saturday night."
With a flick of his thick wrist, he tossed the towel toward the wicker hamper in the corner. It hit the wall behind the basket with a soft thump, and Case muttered something rude.
Prudy giggled. "I love it when you're jealous."
He shot her a disgruntled look before opening his underwear drawer. "What the hell?" he muttered, holding up a skimpy pair of bright red briefs with a look of stark horror on his dark face. "Care to tell me what this is supposed to be?"
Prudy folded her hands over her tummy and worked hard to keep from laughing. "What's it look like, Detective?"
Case's mouth twitched. "Something no real man would be caught dead wearing—unless he was working vice."
"There's this great new shop in the mall, right next to the Baby Boutique. Stacy bought Boyd a pair in black. They're real silk."
He closed his eyes and drew a long breath. "Silk," he said faintly. "Lord save me."
Prudy sat up straighter. This was going to be good, she decided with a delicious shiver of anticipation.
"Go ahead and try them on," she urged when he continued to stare down at his big fist. "Silk feels yummy against your skin."
"Not as yummy as other things I could name," he said, glancing over at her with a predatory grin that had her heart rate speeding.
"Behave yourself, Randolph," she ordered primly. "You heard what Luke said on my last visit. No sex until after this little darling makes her appearance."
"I heard him, the sadistic sonofagun. He actually enjoyed cutting me off." His voice was grumpy, but his eyes were hot as his gaze took in her lazy pose. So many times he'd claimed to love the way she looked with a big belly, that Prudy was beginning to believe him.
"He did have a rather devilish look in his eyes, didn't he?" she mused. "Probably because he's actually green with envy because you're a happily married man and he isn't."
"Yeah, well, this happily married man isn't about to parade around in silk Skivvies." He regarded the bright scrap of slinky material still clutched in one large fist as though it were a dead rat. Prudy bit her lip to keep from laughing.
"You said you read that book on pregnancy you made me buy you," she chided softly although she knew full well he had read it cover to cover. And then had started over, according to his partner, Detective Sergeant Don Petrov.
"What's that got to do with my underwear?" he demanded, suspicion darkening his blue eyes.
"It specifically said in chapter six that a pregnant woman's emotional well-being is vitally important."
"So?"
"So my emotional well-being would be greatly enhanced by the sight of my hunk of a husband parading around in red silk briefs."
Case groaned. "That's blackmail, pure and simple, Mrs. Randolph."
"It is indeed, Sergeant Randolph. Are you going to arrest me?"
"I should beat you, that's what I should do," he declared as he bent to jerk the briefs over first one muscular leg, then the other. When he tugged them over his hips, the waistband dipped a full inch below his navel and the thin silk cupped his sex with a mouth-watering snugness.
Prudy drew in a breath and let it out very slowly. Somewhere along the line, Case had picked up more than his share of sex appeal.
"Okay, look fast, because these suckers are ending up in the rag bag before the night is over," he ordered as he stood there, daring her to look, his long legs spread wide, his big hands fisted on his lean hips, the ridiculously tiny briefs a bright contrast to the burnished skin of his sinewy thighs.
Prudy smiled serenely as she let her gaze wander over her husband's broad expanse of heavily muscled chest, lingering at the triangular pelt of black-as-midnight chest hair. When they made love, she loved to bury her nose in that teasing softness, loved the way his muscles hardened when she touched the tip of her tongue to the tiny flat nipples hidden there. Her mouth went dry as she let her gaze roam lower, following the furred arrow bisecting his corded torso.
"The frontal view is quite nice," she said with a small prim nod that belied the desire rapidly building low and deep inside her. "Now I'd like to see the back, if you please, Sergeant."
Case scowled as she made a lazy circular movement with one hand. "You're really pushing this pampering stuff to the limit, sweetheart," he all but growled as he folded his brawny arms over his chest and turned his back.
Prudy was just thinking how much she loved the long, lean look of him when her gaze fell to the erratic ribbons of scar tissue just to the left of his spine. All of a sudden she couldn't breathe. The bullet that had plowed into his belly two years ago had exploded out the back, tearing flesh and spewing blood over her living room carpet. Emergency surgery, Boyd MacAuley's prodigious skill and Case's own indomitable will to survive had kept him alive. But it had been a near thing.
"Well?" Case turned to scowl at her. His feigned irritation turned to genuine alarm as he caught sight of her face.
"Prue? What's wrong?" In a wink he was kneeling beside the bed, his face tortured as he pressed one of her hands between his. "Is it time? Should I call Jarrod?"
Prudy tried to smile, but her lips were trembling too much. Case had pressed the barrel of his own .38 to his belly and pulled the trigger to keep a madman from killing her instead. She still had nightmares about that awful day.
"I… Your back. I came so close to losing y-you."
Case muttered a word that might have express
ed relief or dismay. "No way, lady. You're stuck with me this time," he said as he rose, his arms already reaching for her. "Scoot over and give me room."
She did, and then next thing she knew, she was snuggled up to her husband's warm body. Safe again.
Raine inhaled the familiar scent of brewing coffee and sighed as she reached into the cupboard for a mug. Dr. Luke Jarrod had restricted her to one cup a day, and she'd already had her entire ration. The pot she was making was for Morgan.
The wall phone rang as she was trying to decide if she should offer him something to eat, and she snatched it up, grateful for the diversion.
"Lorraine, it's Father."
She smiled. Her father was a dear, but he had a tendency to be a bit of an old maid at times. "Yes, I recognized your voice," she teased gently.
"Well, of course, you did, child." Arthur Connelly sounded impatient.
Raine glanced toward the door leading to the front room. Morgan had said something about taking a quick shower after he'd retrieved his bags from her front porch. The yellow roses he'd brought her were drooping in a crystal vase in the middle of the table. Like her spirits, she decided whimsically.
"How are you feeling today?" she asked as she pulled over a chair and sat down.
"Tolerable."
"Is the new medicine helping the arthritis?"
"It's too soon to tell." He cleared his throat. "I didn't call to talk about the vagaries of my physical condition, my dear. I called to warn you."
"Warn me?"
She heard his heavy sigh. "I had a call yesterday morning from Paxton. He asked for your phone number and address."
Raine closed her eyes. "Yesterday morning?" she repeated softly.
"I wasn't sure if I should tell you. Naturally I was concerned that the news would distress you. It took me some time to weigh the pros and cons."
"Still protecting your little girl. Dad?"
"And why not?" her father retorted in irate tones. "That man wasn't a proper husband to you or a good parent to Mike."
Raine felt a kick in the vicinity of her left kidney and winced. "Dad, we've had this discussion before. It doesn't do either one of us any good."
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