Sam came over and touched my shoulder. I reached up and patted her hand. She was the only thing that had gotten me through Peter’s death. She was always there for the darkest moments of my life. When my mom made me get this awful perm in high school. When I fought with my boyfriend. When I was injured in Afghanistan and had to choose between leaving the military and taking a clerical position. When the love of my life left me standing at the altar…she was the only one who knew all my darkness and still loved me.
I squeezed her hand. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d be just fine. I’m the one who would fall apart.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I let her believe it just the same.
Sam started for the door and opened it at the same moment Hayden, one of our assets, had his hand raised to knock.
“Hey, grandma,” he said, his eyes moving slowly over the length of Sam.
She glared at him even as she tugged at the bottom edge of her pink cardigan.
“Go to hell, Hayden,” she said as she brushed past him.
“I’m sure I will. Someday.”
He watched her go, naked interest in his eyes as he did. The two of them got along like oil and vinegar. They were either going to sleep together or kill each other. I was rooting for the former rather than the latter.
“What can I do for you, Hayden?”
“Has she always dressed like that?”
“She thinks she’s quite fashionable.”
The truth was, Sam did tend toward the conservative in her style of dress, but it came from the fact that her mother was one of those nearly crazed, ultraconservative Christians. It was hard to break out from under that sort of control, even for someone as strong and together as Sam was.
Hayden shook his head.
“So I was in the office last week when that pregnant woman came in to speak to you?” He studied my face, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement. I gestured for him to continue. “I thought I recognized her. And, this morning, I realized why.”
He pulled a photograph out of an envelope he had in his hand and slid it into my hands. My heart stuttered when I realized what it was.
“You took photos at Peter’s funeral?”
“I was a SEAL. This sort of thing is kind of second nature to me.” He moved up beside me and touched a portion of the photograph that showed a couple of people standing behind the chairs that had been set out for family. “Isn’t that her?”
I held the photograph up a little higher so that the light would shine on it just right. Sure enough, Amber Zavalas, a thin veil over her face, was standing at the back of the crowd, off to one side, almost as if she didn’t want anyone to notice her. But she was there.
“She told Cole and me that she didn’t know Peter was dead.”
“Looks like she was lying.”
I stared at the picture a moment longer, noticing something else.
“Do you have more of these?”
“Yeah. A dozen or so.”
“Can I have them?”
“Of course.”
Amber’s face wasn’t the only odd one in the crowd. There was another face I recognized, one that shouldn’t have been anywhere near that funeral.
Kurt Sanchez.
He bullied Peter in high school and then went to work for a rival telecommunications company. They’d gotten into it a couple of years ago at some sort of conference. He absolutely hated Peter. Why would he be at his funeral?
It bothered me all the rest of the day. When I finally got home that night, all I could think about was a hot bath and bottle of wine. I lay there under the suds, my mind going round and round. But, as it often did, my thoughts began to drift toward Luke. He was my first love. My only love. We met as children and began dating my sophomore year of high school. All through high school, the military, everything, we stayed together. And, finally, he was ready to settle down.
“It’s all over, babe.”
That’s what he said. Like me, he’d gone into the military right out of high school. But after a year in the SEALs, he was recruited into the CIA. He couldn’t talk to me about what he did there, but we managed to sneak out time together between his missions and my work in the military. And when I left the military and started my company, there was even more time. And those weekends…it couldn’t possibly be that perfect with anyone else.
We had dreams. We’d talk about them on those weekends. And then he finally gave me a ring, told me no one else would ever be to him what I was. We went through the process of the engagement photos, the parties my mom threw. Laughed over the invitations with the tissue paper that my mom insisted on, discussed cakes and flowers and wine. Even bought a tuxedo that had to be custom made to fit his broad shoulders. We were going to do it.
The night before, we went to the rehearsal dinner together. He was relaxed, laughing with Peter and Cole, promising to never hurt me, pretending to be afraid of their threats to hurt him if he broke my heart. But then he got a phone call. He kissed me, told me he’d be right back, and disappeared.
To this day, I couldn’t make myself believe he walked away from me because he was afraid of commitment. I knew him. I knew him like I knew the back of my hand, the curve of my jaw. I knew he would never do that to me no matter what the note he left said.
Luke wouldn’t leave me unless he felt like he had no other option.
I called the CIA. They had no information they would share. I called his mother, but she was suffering early onset Alzheimer’s. She didn’t know any information. I called his friends, spoke to his landlord, interviewed everyone I could think of who might know something. But Luke was a CIA agent, and he knew how to drop out of someone’s life without leaving any loose ends.
I closed my eyes and sank under the surface of the water, lying there as long as I could, until I simply couldn’t stand the pain in my lungs.
I might not be able to do anything about Luke. But I could find out why Kurt Sanchez was at Peter’s funeral, why Amber lied about knowing that Peter had died, and what really happened the night of Peter’s car accident.
Chapter 9
Amber
Cole balanced the baby’s car seat on his hip as he struggled to unlock his apartment door.
“I can do it.”
“I got it.”
The door popped open a second later, revealing a large, open space that would probably hold three of my trailer. He gestured for me to go in, snatching the small duffle off the floor that contained the clothes his mother had brought to the hospital for the baby and me. I was wearing a brand new pair of jeans and a soft pink blouse that were both so new that they rustled a little when I moved. I’d never had new clothes before. My mom always got my clothes from Goodwill and I followed suit, trying to save a dime or two. But this hadn’t come anywhere close to Goodwill. If it wasn’t from some fancy boutique in the mall, I’d be very surprised.
Cole carried the baby into the living room and set him gently in front of the couch. He was sleeping—finally!—so he sort of tiptoed around him.
“You want something to eat? Or a drink?”
“Some water?”
“Bottled? Tap? I think there might be some sparkling something in there, too.”
“Why do you make it so complicated?”
He shrugged. “I never know what I might want at any one time.”
I shook my head, but I was distracted by the huge space in which he lived. I walked around the room, slowly taking everything in. He didn’t have much by the way of furniture. A big sectional couch. A coffee table and a couple of end tables. That was about it. But he had pictures scattered here and there, some stacked on tables, some already hanging on the walls. Happy family pictures of him with his parents, Megan, and Peter. I found myself staring at one picture in particular that must have been taken at Peter’s college graduation. Megan was standing by Peter in uniform, Cole beside her in jeans and a rock band concert tee, a cocky grin on his face. They were a
ll so young, but…I couldn’t take my eyes off of Peter.
“How about sparkling?” Cole asked, moving up behind me and slipping his arm around me, dangling a dark blue bottle from his fingers. I felt a blush come up over my face, my thoughts dark and confused.
“You guys look so much alike.”
“Peter and I take after Dad. Megan looks more like Mom.”
“You think?”
“You should see pictures of Mom when she was younger. She and Megan could be twins.”
I took the bottle and moved away from him, confused by the heat that burned through my body whenever he stood that close to me. I could feel him watching me as I continued moving around the room, touching things that didn’t belong to me, that would never belong to me.
“Mom and Dad said they set up the nursery. Do you want to go up and take a look?”
“Sure.”
I followed him slowly up the stairs, glancing back to where the baby was sleeping on the floor.
“He’ll be fine,” Cole said, catching my hand and tugging me the rest of the way up the stairs. There was a small hallway that was divided by three closed doors. He opened the first and I gasped. It was absolutely beautiful. They’d bought everything a baby could possibly need. A beautiful, white crib that was decorated with a sheet and comforter with big baseball appliques sewn onto it. There was a matching dresser, a dressing table, and a beautiful mobile hanging from the ceiling. They’d even thought to buy one of those fancy things that people put dirty diapers into.
“Look at this.”
Cole opened the closet door and there were dozens of clothes hanging from these precious, tiny hangers. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I turned away, afraid Cole would think my tears were ungrateful.
“They went a little overboard. But that’s how Mom and Dad do things. They can’t just do a little something. They have to go all the way.”
“It’s too much. They shouldn’t have done so much.”
“They did it for the baby, Amber.”
“I know. But…it’s so much. I can never pay them back.”
“They don’t expect you to. That’s why it’s called a gift.”
I turned to the crib and ran my hand over the silky, painted wood. I never would have been able to afford this, not in a hundred years working at that diner. Yet, they just walked into a store and pointed—and here it was. It was crazy the difference between the haves and the have-nots.
Cole moved up behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“This is my parents’ way of saying they want to be a part of yours and the baby’s lives.”
“But I can’t expect them to buy everything for him. He’s mine.”
“I know. And I’m sure they know that, too.”
I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m a terrible person that I look at all this and see what I can’t do and what they can.”
“No. I think you’re human.” He turned me around, his fingers brushing lightly against my jaw. “I know all this is a little overwhelming. But you need time to rest, to recuperate from the baby’s birth. And you need time to decide what you’re going to do next. I want you to have that time.”
“When I am recuperated?”
“We’ll take things one step at a time, okay?”
I nodded. He studied my face, and I felt this heat burning through me again. I didn’t understand it. My body hurt so badly from everything I’d been through with the baby’s birth, and my breasts were heavy with a need to feed him. But there was something about the way Cole looked at me that made my body ache in a new, different way from anything I’d known before. It scared me a little because I didn’t understand it.
“I don’t want you to feel obligated to take care of me.”
“I don’t. I feel obligated to provide safety and security to my nephew.”
That sliced right through me. I moved around him and headed back downstairs.
“Amber…”
Cole followed, grabbing my arm just as I reached the top of the stairs. I pulled away, moving back against the wall.
“Please don’t do that.”
“I’m sorry. I just…that didn’t come out right. I only meant that I want to help you because that’s what Peter would have wanted me to do.”
“Because of his son.”
“Because Peter was a good man and he was always helping people.”
He was right. I once saw Peter pay for this family’s meal because the father forgot his wallet at home and his wife was horribly embarrassed. He even left a generous tip for the waitress, Cindy, even though she wasn’t one of the better waitresses we had at the diner.
It made me wonder what Peter would have done if he hadn’t died in that car accident. Would he have taken the baby and me in just because it was the right thing to do? Or would he have done it because he really cared about us?
I brushed past Cole and went downstairs just as the baby began to fuss. I carefully slipped him out of his car seat and settled back on the couch.
“We’ll be out of your way as soon as we can be.”
Cole started to argue. But then he stopped.
It was that easy.
Chapter 10
Cole
“It’s not that big of a deal. I don’t mind spending the money.”
“You don’t get it, Cole.” Amber glanced at me over her shoulder even as she was moving the clothes on the rack. “I don’t want to have this long tab that I owe you when things go sour.”
“What makes you think things will go sour?”
“Things always go sour when more than one person lives in a house. It’s just human nature.”
“I don’t know who you’ve lived with, but I managed to share a bedroom with Peter for sixteen years and we didn’t have any problems.”
She rolled her eyes. “Somehow I doubt the two of you shared a bedroom.”
“We did.” I held up my hand in a boy scout-style swear. “My parents believed that it was a rite of passage for two boys to survive sharing everything.”
“But it was a huge room, right?”
“Well, it wasn’t as small as the room Megan had. But it wasn’t huge.”
“Sure. You probably had so much space that there was never any danger of Peter’s stuff wandering onto your side of the room and vice versa.”
The truth was, the room Peter and I shared was actually two rooms when my parents bought the house, but they had a wall torn down. So she was right, we had plenty of room to spread out without encroaching on each other. We also each had our own bathroom. But I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“We’re wandering from the point. You need clothes. I want to buy you clothes.”
“And I’d rather you didn’t.”
“So what are you going to do? Keep wearing the two same outfits day in and day out?”
She studied the rack of skirts she was standing in front of, running her fingers over the fine, expensive material.
“We could go back to my place and get my things.”
“We can and we will. But you need a couple of nice outfits. My mom is the social queen of Houston, and she’ll expect you to attend at least one or two of her parties.”
Amber turned to face me, the stroller where PJ—short for Peter Junior—was nestled in his little car seat between us.
“I accept the fact that your family wants to buy things for PJ. And I get that you want me to stay with you until I’m fully recovered and your sister is satisfied that that guy who was following me won’t be following me anymore. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel responsible for buying every little thing I need.”
“Okay. But there is a party coming up…”
She groaned, turning back to the skirts. I watched her pick through them, not sure if I should admire her for being so stubborn or annoyed that she had to argue with everything I said. She’d been at my place for just over a month and she barely let me help with anything. She didn’t even wa
nt me getting up in the middle of the night with the baby, even though I could see she was clearly exhausted. It was damned frustrating.
Megan didn’t trust her. She’d called me and told me about the photograph that showed Amber at Peter’s funeral. She thought that proved that Amber was lying to us. The thing was, I was already aware of that. I knew the moment she told me she didn’t know that she was lying. But I also suspected that Amber had a reason for lying. She was too stubborn, too determined not to look like she was using us for money, to be playing out some sort of scam. There had to be more to it than that.
I moved around the stroller, reaching down to move the thin blanket out of PJ’s face, then lifted a simple black skirt off the rack.
“This one would look perfect on you.”
Amber glanced at me. “You think so?”
“Yeah. Go try it on.” When she hesitated, I forced it into her hand and then pushed her toward the dressing rooms. “When’s the last time you had something brand new?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Trying it on isn’t agreeing to buy it.”
“No, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
She stuck out her tongue, and I laughed.
I moved around the store, pushing PJ ahead of me, picking out blouses and skirts and dresses that I thought would look good on Amber. A couple of women gave me admiring glances, but none of them said anything. They must have thought Amber was my wife, just like the staff at the hospital had assumed. I found I didn’t dislike the idea. I’d never really thought about getting married and settling down with one woman. I liked women. Many women. But playing house with Amber sort of opened up new possibilities that I hadn’t thought I’d enjoy.
I liked PJ. He was soft and smelled really good, and when he smiled—despite the fact that Megan insisted it was just gas—it made me feel a new sort of joy that was indescribable. I told myself I was just doing a job with Amber, that I was just being a good uncle to PJ, but the truth was, I was enjoying myself.
I walked into the nursery last night and watched from the shadows as Amber lay the baby on her narrow twin bed with her and lifted her nightgown to offer him a breast. The sight was…I would be lying if I said a burning heat didn’t rush through me. Amber was a beautiful woman, and now that her body was returning to its pre-pregnancy state, I could see more of what Peter saw in her. She was graceful and limber and her breasts were impossibly perky. I was only human. The sight of her lying there, her stomach and breast exposed, I did think of things that I probably shouldn’t have.
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