“She does.” He moved his wife Emily’s photograph forward. The frame fell, face first, into a pile of folders. “My advice to you is, go home to your wife, Al.”
Picking up the photograph, Biordi righted it on the opposite side of his desk. A devilish gleam entered his eyes. “Yeah, I think I just might at that.”
As Angus got up to leave, he nodded at the bullet still on Biordi’s desk. “You’ll let me know if you come up with something?”
Biordi rose to his feet. “You’ll be the first to hear.”
Angus was backing away slowly. He’d settle for being in the top five. “And if a missing person report comes in on her—?”
Biordi rolled down his second shirtsleeve, then reached for his jacket. “First button I hit on the speed dial,” he promised.
Maybe not the first, but pretty close, Angus was willing to bet. “You’re a prince.”
Biordi stopped, one arm about to slide into his jacket. He grinned. “Captain doesn’t seem to think so, but thanks.”
He slammed down the telephone, shattering the still air around him. Struggling for composure, he crossed out another hospital on the list he’d printed out.
She wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there.
He was tired of repeating the same question. Tired of getting the same answer.
She hadn’t gone home, he knew that for a fact. Hadn’t gone home, hadn’t crawled off to die. Hadn’t gone to any of the hospitals or walk-in clinics he’d called.
People didn’t just vanish.
He was going to make her pay for this when he found her. And he was going to find her.
It was just a matter of time.
Composed again, he tapped out the next number on his list.
Angus had put one foot inside the apartment when the aroma greeted him like a warm, seductive woman, seeping into his senses before he even realized it. The delicious smell evaporated any words that were on his tongue.
Surprised that smells so good could be coming from his apartment, Angus paused, trying to place the aroma. All he knew was that his reaction to it was instantaneous—hunger, deep and overwhelming, taking large chunks out of him.
A different kind of hunger had eaten away at him this morning when he’d seen Rebecca standing there in his jersey. But it had been just as instantaneous, just as intense.
Seeing her that way had made him remember, completely without his consent, that it had been a while between women. A long while. And far longer since he’d cared about a woman in any other than the most cursory manner.
Over seven years, to be precise. Jane had been the only one to whom he’d ever opened up his heart. And hadn’t that turned out just dandy? he mocked himself.
But they’d had their moments, their time together before it had gone sour. It wasn’t that Jane hadn’t loved him—she had. He knew that. She’d just loved her freedom more. And he had wanted her so badly, he hadn’t understood. Hadn’t realized that if you loved someone, freedom was the greatest gift you could give them.
All he’d felt at the time was betrayed.
Now, in a way, he understood. But it was a lesson he figured he was never going to get a chance to put to use. Because he wasn’t ever going to paint himself into that kind of corner again.
That the thought, the memory, should turn up now, skimming across his consciousness, made him wonder a little. Then he shrugged it away.
The aroma grew more tempting as he came closer.
Just the way Rebecca did.
His reaction to her was something he was going to have to shrug away, too, he told himself. There was absolutely no use in setting himself up for another fall. Once was plenty for any man—and more than enough for him.
With all this firmly in place in his mind, Angus indulged himself a moment. Leaning against the wall of the tiny entranceway, he watched Rebecca in the kitchen, moving around the small space like a whirlwind.
Vikki was trying to keep up. That tickled him most of all. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he’d wandered in on a scene right out of some family program on TV.
TV was all he could liken it to. There hadn’t been any scenes like this in his own life.
He pushed away the longing that suddenly rose up.
“Lucy, I’m home,” he announced, grinning, just as two sets of eyes looked his way.
Angus saw the pleased smile on Rebecca’s face and felt himself reacting to it. She was getting to him, he realized. He should have left Biordi’s office, Angus thought, before the man thought to tender his “advice.”
Vikki wrinkled her nose as she rubbed an itch away with the back of her wrist. “Who’s Lucy?”
“Someone on a classic sitcom,” he told her. He laid a hand on her shoulder by way of a greeting. “It just seemed appropriate at the time.” He looked at Rebecca. She took this cooking thing seriously, didn’t she? “What are you two up to?” And what was Vikki doing here, now that he thought of it? He’d left her at Jenny’s when Rebecca and he had gone out. Angus looked from his daughter to his houseguest. “Everyone all right?”
Rebecca had more than an hour embroiled in preparing a meal that she felt far more confident about when she began, than when she finally slid the pan into the oven. Looking at Angus now, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “That all depends.”
Angus had the strongest desire to nibble on her lip for her. It took a lot of willpower to drag his eyes away. “On what?”
“On whether you like Italian food.” She tried to sound nonchalant. It was silly to feel this way. But there was very little in her world right now—and every correct turn, every minor success, was important. That included cooking a meal for someone who had been good to her.
“Love it,” Angus swore. He thought of the place near his office he liked to frequent. “There’s a little rest—”
“Homemade Italian food,” Rebecca interjected before he could start reciting the virtues of yet another restaurant. She was beginning to suspect that as far as Angus was concerned, the stove was just a fixture that came with the apartment—like electrical outlets.
“Whose home?” he asked guardedly, turning his eyes toward Vikki.
Dimples winked around the child’s mouth as she announced proudly, “Ours.”
Cupping her chin in his hand, Angus rubbed a dab of what looked like whipped cream away with his thumb. Obviously, she had been sampling whatever it was that they were making. The image of Rebecca and Vikki, their heads together, creating something—however inedible it finally turned out to be—wanned him.
“I didn’t think anything could be cooked in our apartment. You mean the microwave still works?”
“Not the microwave. Rebecca used the oven,” Vikki informed him importantly. “Rebecca even let me turn the dials.”
“We have an oven?” He pretended to look around. “Where?”
“Here, silly.” Holding onto one arm, Vikki dragged him over to it. “See?”
He could just barely make out the shape of a pan behind the stove’s tinted glass. “And here I thought it was only for storing dirty plates in.”
Rebecca had taken care of those, washing and then stacking them in the cupboard. “Speaking of which,” she asked, one hand on her hip, “how does a man who never cooks manage to accumulate so many dirty dishes?”
He was the soul of innocence. “Talent.”
“Well, plant your other talents on the chair.” Rebecca nodded toward the table. “Dinner is about to be served.”
So saying, she took a quick peek into the refrigerator. A plate piled high with the dessert over which she and Vikki had labored, was on the top shelf, chilling. Rolled pieces of pastry, stuffed to the brim with white, foamy filling dotted with bits of dark chocolate, lay like tiny promises of ecstasy, waiting for consumption. Closing the door again, she announced, “Everything’s ready.”
He was just standing there, looking at her as if he had no idea what was going on. “You’re not sitting,” she accused.
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“I’m sitting, I’m sitting,” he obliged, moving toward the table.
A table—he noticed for the first time—that was actually set. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t begun a meal by grabbing utensils on his way to the table. There were three settings. Three. There had never been more than a deuce before. Ever. First his father had sat across from him. Then Jane. Then Vikki.
Three had a nice feel to it, he mused. Too bad it was only temporary.
Angus nodded at his plate as Rebecca took the hot pan out of the oven. “When did this miracle start taking place?”
“Just after you left.” She hoped she hadn’t left anything out of the recipe. The next moment, the thought struck her as almost ludicrous. Recipes rose up, whole and intact in her mind, and yet she still didn’t have a clue as to something so simple as her last name.
Rebecca transferred the contents of the pan to a large plate and brought it over to the table. Very carefully, she slid two wide-mouthed shells filled to capacity with meat, sauce and cheese onto his plate.
“By the way, you owe Jenny a can of tomato paste.”
“She said she wanted to have some of the mana—manni—” Vikki stopped, apparently frustrated that she couldn’t wrap her tongue around the word.
“Manicotti,” Rebecca supplied.
“Yeah, that—if it came out all right,” Vikki concluded.
Angus could feel the vibration of Vikki’s feet as she swung them back and forth, hungrily eyeing the food being placed on her plate. It certainly looked good, he mused. And smelled good.
Almost as good as Rebecca did, he thought. He caught a whiff of something enticingly sensual as Rebecca bent over Vikki’s plate.
The next moment, his mouth felt like cotton—cotton left out in the sun for a week. His caught just the merest hint of the swell of her breasts peeking out over the top of her blouse. He had trouble concentrating on what he was saying. “Then invite her over.”
Vikki looked reluctant to leave her plate.
“Why don’t you taste it first,” Rebecca suggested, “and see if you should be inviting guests?”
Was she uncertain about her efforts? he wondered. “Now you’re beginning to sound mysterious.”
She shrugged. “Just cautious.”
And maybe, just maybe, she added silently, a little proprietary. She wanted Angus to taste this first effort of hers without distracting neighbors around, no matter how likable they were. She had no idea why it meant so much to her not to share this moment with anyone else—but it did.
“Okay, Jenny can wait,” he told Vikki.
Bracing himself, Angus took a bite, knowing he was going to have to be polite about it, no matter what it tasted like. He was the first one to admit that things didn’t always live up to their promise.
But the promise was not only lived up to, it was exceeded. The manicotti all but dissolved on his tongue, leaving behind an intense desire for more.
Angus looked up at Rebecca, pleasure and wonder in his eyes. “Hey, this is good.”
She discreetly let go of the breath she’d been holding. Now she could afford to brazen it out. “You say that as if you’re surprised.”
The smile on his face was nothing if not endearing. It was the kind that could have coaxed forgiveness out of the hardest of hearts. And hers was far from that.
That much she could sense.
“Well, you did lose your memory.”
She certainly couldn’t argue with that. But apparently some fundamentals hadn’t been erased. “Selectively, it seems. I still remember how to walk and talk—and cook.”
Vikki already seemed to have sunk into ecstasy, wolfing down her portion. She grinned happily at her father, eyeing the large plate and obviously hoping for more. “This is even better than takeout, Angus.”
He winked at Rebecca, unaware of the flutter that created in her stomach. “I think you’ve just been given the ultimate compliment.” Angus watched as Rebecca slid another two shells onto Vikki’s plate. Her own was still empty. “Aren’t you going to have any?”
“I’m not all that hungry.” For form’s sake, she took a single shell and placed it on her plate before retiring the spatula. “I nibbled a lot while I was making this,” she explained when he looked at her quizzically, hoping that he wouldn’t guess at her real reason.
The knot in her stomach was just now loosening. If Angus seemed surprised that she could cook well, he wasn’t the only one. When she’d gone to the supermarket with him to purchase the ingredients she needed, she’d only had a vague feeling that she knew what she was doing. Halfway back to his apartment, she had silently experienced a panic attack, afraid that she’d taken on more than she could handle.
The panic had receded as she had gotten immersed in a ritual that slowly began to feel familiar to her. She did things by instinct, not by memory. Vikki became her assistant and unofficial cheering section. She’d gone to Jenny’s to pick the little girl up after Angus had left her, because she’d needed someone to talk to. Someone to keep the void from returning for her.
And, she reasoned, Vikki needed to feel included just as much as she did. After a few suspicious minutes had passed, it became evident- that Rebecca’s reasoning was right on the money. Vikki liked being consulted, liked helping. And really liked sampling.
Rebecca smiled as she watched the two of them eat with relish. “So, I guess we can take the hospital emergency phone number off the speed dial?”
Angus nodded, washing down the last of his meal with a swig of soda. “Unless we have to go there because we’ve all eaten too much.” Not standing on ceremony, he helped himself to more. “How did you learn to—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes shifting to her face. It was a stupid, thoughtless blunder. “Sorry, wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s all right,” she said, unfazed. “You’ve done enough thinking for one day.”
“Can she stay, Angus?” Vikki suddenly asked, her mouth full.
Angus raised an eyebrow. “What?” He had heard her, but couldn’t believe he’d heard correctly.
Vikki swallowed, then took a deep breath before continuing. “Rebecca. Can she stay here with us?”
What was she getting at? “She is staying here with us.”
But Vikki shook her head. The look she shot Rebecca was entirely different from the one she’d aimed at her less than half a day earlier. Obviously, some sort of treaty had been formed in his absence. “I mean, forever.”
For a second, Vikki had left him speechless. Recovering, he tried tactfully to ease his way out of the situation without insulting Rebecca or hurting Vikki. “I don’t think that’ll work out. Rebecca has another life she has to get back to.”
Vikki didn’t quite understand. “What life?”
Angus noticed that Rebecca was leaving this all up to him. He felt like someone struggling to stay afloat in progressively stormier waters. “The one she had before she came to me.”
“But she doesn’t remember that one. Maybe it was bad. You don’t want her to go back to a bad life, do you? Can’t she stay?” she repeated. Her eyes shifted hopefully to Rebecca.
Vikki sounded as if she thought she had it all worked out. “It’s not that simple, Vik.”
“Sure it is,” Vikki insisted. She looked at her new friend. “Right, Rebecca?”
Touched, Rebecca ran her hand along the back of her neck. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle the question. She met Angus’s quizzical look over the little girl’s head.
“We bonded while you were out. Frying ground beef together will do that to you.” Taking a deep breath, she plunged into what she hoped was a good answer. “You and your father are a family. I can’t just come and move in on you.”
“But you already did,” Vikki reminded her.
“Not permanently,” Rebecca stressed. She saw distress in the girl’s eyes. Rebecca didn’t want to ruin the evening. “I tell you what, let’s just take this one step at a time and we’ll see what happens, okay?”<
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Since there weren’t any other deals up for consideration at the moment, Vikki agreed. “Okay.”
Rebecca saw admiration on Angus’s face. She also saw him beginning to take a third helping. “Leave room for the cannoli,” she cautioned.
The spatula halted in midslide. “You made cannoli?”
“We,” Rebecca corrected him. “We made cannoli.”
Vikki sat up a little straighter, evidently pleased with the recognition.
Yes, he could see that they’d bonded. In less than two days, Rebecca had made more headway with his daughter than he had in six months. He mentally took his hat off to her.
He placed the shell he’d begun transferring onto his plate. “Don’t worry, I’ve always got room for dessert.”
It was other things that he didn’t have room for. Other things like feelings for a woman who wasn’t meant to be in his life, who wouldn’t be in his life once she had a direction. And it was his job, he reminded himself, to find that direction for her.
Talk about a catch-22 situation, he mused, watching as she cleared away her own plate and Vikki’s.
Angus waited until later that evening—after Vikki had obligingly fallen asleep, and he was getting ready to bed down on the sofa—before he said what had been on his mind for most of the afternoon.
“She’s taken to you a hell of a lot faster than she did to me.”
Rebecca paused, wondering if that bothered him. He didn’t strike her as the type given to petty jealousy. She was going with instincts again, she thought, rather than any knowledge she could draw on.
She didn’t have any knowledge she could draw on, she reminded herself. But some things, you just knew.
Rebecca relieved him of the bedding. She shook out the top blanket before draping it over the sofa. Curious, she asked, “Do I remind her of her mother?”
Angus shook his head. “You’re not a thing alike. Jane was a go-to-hell type of woman from the minute she was born.” He took one end of the blanket and helped her spread it out over the cushions. “The poster child for independence. She didn’t have a vulnerable bone in her body.”
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