by Rachel Lee
“I said that to get him out of my hair.”
“I figured. Anyway, he wanted to know where you’d gone, and I refused to tell him. Said I didn’t know, that you’d taken vacation.”
“Thanks, Kate. I appreciate it.” It didn’t surprise him that Manny Molina wasn’t going to go away easily, but it did surprise him that Manny would go to the extreme of contacting the D.E.A. Molinas, as a rule, had a violent, allergic reaction to law enforcement. Manny must have broken out in hives when he made that call.
“Wait, it doesn’t end there. Today I got a letter from an attorney representing the Molinas. One of those smarmy ironfist-in-a-velvet-glove letters, suggesting that this matter can be settled amicably—or not so amicably—and demanding to know your whereabouts.”
Rafe swore quietly.
“Anyway, I’m going to stonewall it. You’re on vacation, and I don’t know your whereabouts. But you’d better watch your back, compadre.”
“Yeah.” He had that feeling again, that one he’d gotten when Manny picked the kid up that night. Only this time it was stronger. More like an urge to kill. He jumped as if stung. He didn’t allow himself to feel things like that. Hell, he didn’t allow himself to feel much. Feelings clouded his brain. They were dangerous. “What does Manny think he can accomplish by this? I’m the kid’s dad.”
“I don’t know, Rafe.” Kate’s sigh was audible over the phone. “I’d feel a whole lot better if I was sure it really is the kid he wants.”
“That’s a fact.”
“As to what he can do? Bankrupt you with legal bills in a custody fight. Keep you so tied up in court that you can’t do your job. Try to prove you an unfit parent...and by the way, Rafe, your life-style the past few years isn’t going to be much of a positive recommendation. Hanging out with dope dealers, prostitutes, murderers... That could be used to paint an ugly picture in court.”
“I can paint an even uglier one of the Molinas, Kate.”
“Sure. But that takes time and money. Listen, it strikes me that it’s time for you to go undercover again.”
“What?” Rafe wondered if Kate had been sniffing something from the evidence locker.
“Seriously. You know how you play a street buzzard with everything you have? Maybe you need to play the ultimate good dad for a while.”
“I’m doing that already,” Rafe said dryly. “What other kind of dad does two feedings in the middle of the night? I’m up to my ears in baby poop. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
Kate laughed. “You might be right. Excuse me, but I’m enjoying the notion of you buried in baby poop.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Her voice grew serious. “You know what I mean, Rafe. Play it to the hilt, watch your back, and stay the hell out of Miami until we find out what the Molinas are up to. In fact, stay right where you are. I’m putting a man on it. It makes me nervous when somebody gets too interested in one of my agents.”
“Yeah, it’s making my scalp crawl, too.”
After he hung up, he stood staring blindly out the window. From where he stood in the living room, he could see Angela and the baby on the front porch. The view was so peaceful and perfect that he nearly wanted to barf. That wasn’t his life out there. His life involved living with the lowhfes of society until he could get the goods on them. His life was the existence of an avenging angel, bringing the lawbreakers to justice, not wiping a kid’s bottom.
But for now, he couldn’t let anyone know that While he might actually consider leaving the kid with his half-brother, he couldn’t stomach the thought of letting the Molinas get the peanut in their clutches.
Which meant he would probably have to keep the kid close for a while.
It wasn’t the way he had planned it, but some things were more important than his plans. Like his kid.
Running hadn’t been her brightest idea ever, Angela found herself thinking. She should have remembered to reduce her insulin this morning, but it had been so long since she’d had the heart to follow her exercise regimen that she’d forgotten that necessary adjustment. The low-blood-sugar wooziness was all too familiar to her, and she gave in, popping a hard candy into her mouth.
She didn’t understand how it worked, but she did know that exercising reduced her need for insulin. Now she had too much coursing through her system and was in danger of insulin shock.
She chewed the candy to help it dissolve faster, and popped another one into her mouth. God, how she hated this! This constant preoccupation with her illness was a bore. Even after twenty-seven years, she still resented the control it had over her.
The attitude was childish, she told herself. Diabetes was a fact of her life, one she simply needed to deal with the way other people dealt with weight problems, but sometimes she resented it so fiercely she wanted to cry. Sometimes she drowned in self-pity, wondering why she couldn’t be like everybody else in the world, with a body that took care of things automatically.
Now she was sitting here holding a baby, and rarely had she been as aware of her disability as she was now. Even if she’d been able to have her own child, she wouldn’t have been much of a mother, she thought now. She couldn’t even risk getting up, because her blood sugar was falling and she might drop the baby. Pretty damn pathetic.
The door opened, and Rafe stepped out onto the porch. She looked up at him, smiling brightly. “I think you’d better take the baby”
He obliged at once, scooping the child from her arms with practiced ease. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look pale.”
“A little low blood sugar. I got carried away with my running this morning.”
His face creased with concern. “Do you need anything?”
“I popped a couple of pieces of candy. I’ll be okay in a minute.”
“You’re sure?”
He looked so genuinely worried that she felt a laugh rise inside her, but she swallowed it. She didn’t know him well enough to risk offending him. “I’m sure.”
He planted himself in the other chair with the air of a man who didn’t intend to budge. “I’ll just sit with you for a couple of minutes.”
She was torn between feeling touched and irritated. “I really don’t need a caretaker,” she said. “I’ve been living with this for twenty-seven years. I know what to do.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“You don’t need to sit with me.”
“Maybe not.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Yep. Are you?”
She was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Do you always tell people who are concerned about you to get lost?”
She could feel a hot blush rising in her cheeks, a feeling she wasn’t used to since she’d left girlhood behind. “Yes,” she said finally. “I guess I do.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
His answer astonished her, driving out her irritation. Finally a helpless laugh escaped her.
He shrugged, tilting his head to one side. “I just call the shots the way I see them.”
“Funny, I would have thought a D.E.A. agent was more... circumspect.”
“Most of them probably are. Me, I have a major flaw. I tell the truth.”
“Even to drug dealers?” She was sure she had him with that.
“Even to drug dealers. You’d be amazed how many of them laugh themselves sick when a guy who looks like something that was just scraped out of a back alley comes up to ’em and says he’s with the D.E.A.” He shook his head. “Can’t understand it, but they never believe me.”
Angela found herself laughing again. “Oh, I can understand it,” she said. “Believe me, I can understand it.”
He looked down at himself. “I don’t think I look that disreputable.”
That sent Angela off into another gale of laughter.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Honest, I walked up to a street pusher once—in fact, it was my first undercover assignment. I was suppos
ed to make a score so we could start reeling him in. Usual procedure when you’re working a local dealer. The guy looks at me and says, ‘Who the hell are you?’”
He shook his head. “I got so rattled... I mean, I didn’t expect that kind of question. I expected him to fob me off because he didn’t know me, so I’d probably have to come back a few more times before he trusted me enough to deal me some crack. Or maybe that he wouldn’t say anything at all, would just sell the stuff to me. But I didn’t expect the question. Anyway, I was so startled, I said, ‘I’m Rafe Ortiz, D.E.A.’ The guy laughed himself sick and sold me a gram of crack. That’s when I decided that honesty was the best policy.”
“But not every time, surely?”
He shook his head. “Not every time. But often enough.” His gaze grew distant, and he looked away from her, evidently lost in some corridor of memory. After a moment he returned his gaze to her. “You meet all kinds in this business. I’ve pulled up to a corner dealer in my car with government plates, flashed my badge and asked him what he had to sell me. The jerk actually gave me my choice. I figure he thought I wanted something for my personal use and was offering him protection when I flashed my badge. Or maybe he just didn’t think at all. Not very many of these types are really bright.”
“But it can’t always be that easy.”
“No. Depends on what you’re after. Some of the big boys—well, it can take months or years to get close enough to major dealers and importers. They’re a lot more cautious. Just figuring out who they are is a job all by itself, and then you have to get the goods on them. Not easy. But street pushers—they’re a dime a dozen. Easy to crack. Hell, they practically hand you the evidence on a silver platter.”
“What do you mean?”
“Suspicious traffic catches somebody’s attention. Too many cars pulling up to an out-of-the-way place, or to a house, that kind of thing. It doesn’t take long to make a few buys from these guys. But it always amazes me how many of them actually keep books. Just like businessmen. I’ve found detailed ledgers in more of these guys’ houses than I can believe.”
Angela nodded and popped another candy into her mouth. “I wouldn’t even have thought of that.”
“It surprised me the first time I saw it,” he agreed. Suddenly he stiffened. “Um...you’ll have to excuse us. We’re wet.”
Just then the baby let out a cranky cry. Rafe stood, and Angela could see that his slacks were damp.
“Diaper bypass,” he said with a shrug. “You going to be okay?”
“I’m fine now. Really. Thanks for worrying about me.”
He nodded, then looked down at her from eyes that were suddenly empty. “Just don’t make too much out of it.”
Angela stared after him as he disappeared into the house and wondered if it would be better to clobber him or give him the cold shoulder “Don’t make too much of it” indeed!
Of course, she admitted a few minutes later when her annoyance had died away, he did radiate high-wattage animal magnetism. There was something about Rafe Ortiz that drew even a disinterested woman’s mind—such as her own—to places it didn’t ordinarily go.
Unfortunately, she was afraid her straying thoughts had been written on her face. Why else would he have said anything to her about it?
He must just be used to women throwing themselves at him. That was all it could be; he couldn’t possibly be a mind reader.
But now that she was alone, she indulged in a few moments of remembering how he’d looked sitting beside her. He had very broad shoulders, and when the fabric of his slacks stretched across his thighs, it was easy to tell that he had strong legs.
The direction of her thoughts surprised her, because she didn’t notice these things about men anymore, and hadn’t for years. Pheromones, she decided. He must exude some very powerful ones. What else could it be?
And he was arrogant, she decided. All the more reason to keep a polite distance.
But keeping a polite distance vanished a few minutes later when he returned to the porch with a glass of orange juice. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “It’s better for you than that candy.”
Then he disappeared back inside, leaving her to wonder what was going on in his mind.
Chapter 3
“Well, this sure isn’t getting us anywhere, Peanut,” Rafe said.
The baby was squirming on the floor, happy now with a fresh diaper, trying to creep toward a squeaky toy that was a few inches away.
“I can’t hole up here indefinitely,” Rafe said. Maybe it was time to go talk to the sheriff and lay it all out. Better than skulking around, anyway, and he’d never been much good at skulking. He also wasn’t any good at hanging around and doing nothing.
What had he been thinking, anyway? Coming out here to check out his half-brother made sense, but he should just have told his story. If he started poking around and asking questions, people were just going to run to Tate, anyway, and tell him what was going on. Then he would be explaining to Tate why a D.E.A. agent was asking questions about him. Not a good way to begin a familial relationship.
“I must have left my brain in my other pants, Peanut.”
Peanut cooed.
“Yeah, I agree.” He packed the baby into the car seat, slung the diaper bag over his shoulder and carried the whole kit and caboodle downstairs.
Angela was still sitting on the porch, half a glass of orange juice in her hand. He paused, looking down at her. “Are you okay? Really?”
She looked up, but there was no smile for him. “I’m fine.”
He hesitated. “You don’t look fine,” he said.
“Too bad.”
“Oh.” It dawned on him that she was annoyed with him. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Just quit hovering, okay?”
“Okay.” He stepped away, just one step. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Explain to me where you got the notion that every woman within ten feet has to be attracted to you.”
“Did I say that? I never said that.”
“You implied it.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t imply anything. Why? Are you attracted to me?”
“No, I’m not!”
“Then there’s no problem, is there?” He flashed a smile, the one Rocky used to call his thousand-watter. “I’m glad we have that all straightened out.”
“We don’t have anything straightened out. And you are a maddening conversationalist.”
“Actually, this isn’t a conversation. It’s more like a cross-examination.” He watched as another blush stained her cheeks and tried not to notice how pretty it made her. “Look, I’m sorry if I said something that made you think I think you’re attracted to me. Because it never entered my head. I’m not your type.”
“What?” She looked stunned and disbelieving. “You don’t even know me. How can you say any such thing?”
It was pathetic, Rafe thought, but he was actually enjoying this ridiculous farce of a conversation. “Maybe because you’re not my type,” he said finally, then descended the steps, whistling as he went.
“Just answer me one thing,” she called after him. “Do you ever talk in a straight line?”
“What’s the point?” he asked over his shoulder. “Nobody ever believes me, anyway.”
He buckled the baby into the car, then climbed in behind the wheel. He cast a glance toward the woman on the porch and saw that she was still sitting there, looking utterly uncertain. Maybe he shouldn’t have made that crack about her not being his type. Maybe that had made her feel bad.
Nah, he decided as he pulled away from the curb and headed down the street. She was a blonde. In his experience, blondes thought they had the world by the tail.
But maybe that wasn’t a fair assessment. He turned it around in his mind for a minute, then dismissed the concern. When all was said and done, it didn’t matter one way or the other, because they would shortly go their own ways and never meet again.
And why, he wonder
ed suddenly, had he started to care what total strangers thought of him? Concerns like that could only get in the way of his job—if he still had a job when all this was over.
Oddly, that prospect didn’t make him feel as gloomy as he had expected. It was the baby thing, he decided. The arrival of Rafe Jr. in his life had overshadowed everything else. He needed to do something about that.
He parked in front of the sheriff’s office and sat for a few minutes, contemplating what he was about to do. For years now he’d pretty much had to fly by the seat of his pants, making snap decisions in dangerous situations, but this was different. This time he had the luxury of reflection, and he had the choice of not acting at all. It would be easy to walk away right now and never tell Tate that they were half-brothers. He could just turn his back on the whole idea and make other plans for himself and his son.
Or he could walk in there and shake up Tate’s life and his own with a revelation that might not be at all welcome. Too, now that he was getting closer to the prospect, he found that the idea of dumping Peanut on a relative didn’t sound half so good as it had sounded back in Miami. If nothing else, the kid deserved better of him. Then, there was that responsibility thing. He’d always been a responsible person, and ditching his kid with a near stranger didn’t strike him as at all responsible.
“Hell,” he said.
He gave some serious thought to turning around right then and letting the proverbial sleeping dog lie, but it struck him that if something happened to him, Peanut was going to be in serious need of some family besides the Molinas.
That was enough to make him get out of the car, retrieve the baby and diaper bag, and head into the sheriff’s office. Apparently he hadn’t been thinking too clearly over the past few months, not since he’d found out about the baby. Where in the world had he gotten this harebrained notion to look up a brother he’d never met and dump his kid on him?
Nate Tate was standing in the front office talking to the dispatcher. He was a tall, sunburned man with a strong face that had been creased by the elements. His voice was gravelly as he spoke to the dispatcher, an old prune of a woman who was filling the air with her cigarette smoke.