At First Sight

by Linda Cajio

  “Where’s the damn kid?” the man shouted at her as he darted around the room. “Where the hell’s that kid!”

  Angelica understood two things at once. That the waiter was no waiter, and that he wanted Patrick. Overwhelming fear shot through her, and then she realized that the man had no idea where Patrick was … for the moment.

  Galvanized into action, she scrambled to her feet, just as the man started toward the open bedroom door.

  “No!” she screamed, grabbing up a vase. She threw it at him and, to her horror, missed.

  The man turned around in complete astonishment as the vase sailed past him before smashing into the wall. “What the hell—?”

  Angelica literally launched herself into the air, as the maternal urge to protect rose to a peak within her. She slammed into the man, and they both went down in a tangle of arms and legs. She quickly sorted herself out, and sitting atop his chest, swung her fists wildly and continually, hitting anything and anywhere she could. The man yelled and tried to fend her off. From somewhere deep inside her she found the strength to avoid his stronger hands and keep pummeling. She heard his pleas for release, and ignored them with a primitive satisfaction. Her brain chanted over and over, “You won’t touch my baby.”

  Hands, too many to fight, were suddenly pulling her off the waiter. Her arms were pinned to her body. She screamed in vindictive fear that he was being rescued and Patrick would be taken from her.

  “Angelica! Angelica!”

  She struggled to break free from the person holding her so tightly.

  “We got him, Angelica. It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. You’re safe. He won’t touch you again.”

  The red haze cleared, and she became aware that it was Dan speaking to her, holding her. She stopped her wild movements. It filtered into her brain that the room was filled with people in organized chaos. Excited voices reached her returning senses.

  “Hotel security … Detective Marshall … I think she was trying to kill me.… Yeah, yeah, he’s breaking my heart, Ralph.… We got your girlfriend.… He used to work here.… Get up, creep.”

  “Angelica, are you okay?” Dan asked, tilting her head up.

  She nodded shakily. “I told you room service isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “I think you’re right,” he said, his eyes searching hers as he held her even more tightly to him.

  She swallowed back a sudden rush of tears and wrapped her arms around his neck. Their mouths fused together frantically. The fear faded, and she felt safe and protected and comforted … and wanted. How much she needed Dan’s arms around her right now, she thought. And how much she needed to be kissed like this … as if she were the one woman on the earth for him.

  Suddenly she remembered Patrick, and she instantly broke away from Dan.

  “Patrick!”

  Dan cursed, and the two of them raced into the other room. Patrick, still strapped into his rockerseat, looked up at them and smiled angelically. He had somehow managed to pull some papers off the coffee table and had happily mouthed and crumpled them into a wet accordion.

  Angelica breathed a sigh of relief, as tears dripped down her cheeks.

  “You little stinker,” she said happily. “That’s my only copy of the Mark IV contract.”

  Dan laughed.

  “Thank goodness, Jane Smith wasn’t really Patrick’s mother,” Angelica said. “Hand me a sleeper.”

  Dan acknowledged with a nod that he couldn’t have agreed more with her. “Mickey Mouse or Pound Puppy?” he asked.

  “Pound Puppy.”

  He dug out the appropriate sleeper from the back of the changer shelf and gave it to her. He had other, more important things to discuss, but he was waiting impatiently until they were finally alone.

  “Still,” he said, deciding to pick up on her comment about Jane Smith, “she and her ex-hotel waiter boyfriend did put Patrick in my bedroom that day. I suppose we should thank them for that.”

  The pair had confessed to the police that they had abandoned Patrick. The boyfriend had been fired from the hotel recently, and they had thought it a kick to dump the baby on the “rich bachelor” in the top-floor suite. It wasn’t until they had seen all the publicity about his and Angelica’s engagement and marriage that Jane Smith had decided such people might just be willing to pay to keep a baby, especially since they were getting married for it. A pair of amateurs through and through, they had planned to extort money for signing over the baby, then kidnap Patrick back, go elsewhere, and try it again with another wealthy couple. The girl had panicked, and run from Angelica when she’d realized the authorities were already involved. But she’d later decided the plan would still work if she offered to sign the necessary papers after getting the money. She’d thought Dan would be more willing than Angelica to fork over the cash. Jane Smith and her waiter never would have gotten away with it, Dan thought with satisfaction, although Angelica did prove the point pretty thoroughly with the boyfriend. He was the weaker, more nervous of the two, the police said, and he’d given them quite a bit of information.

  Including some about Patrick’s real mother.

  Dan shook his head sadly. She had been a runaway teenager, and ironically in foster homes most of her life. She had lived on the streets before hooking up with Jane Smith and her boyfriend. Dan could only wonder what had driven the girl to them. Maybe she was desperate for a place to have her baby. She’d been too scared to go to a hospital. She had been killed in a car accident a few days before Patrick had suddenly appeared in his room. The other two, of course, hadn’t wanted the child and so they had gotten rid of him the easiest way possible.

  “Actually they did Patrick a big favor,” Dan said, staring down at the baby. “I think his mother would have been … pleased.”

  “I know.” Angelica was quiet for a moment. “They said she called him Jimmy. I’ve tried, but I can’t think of him that way. He’s been Patrick too long for me.”

  The baby turned his head at the sound of his name.

  “I think he wants it, Angelica,” Dan said. “I think he knows somehow that he’s starting over.”

  She smiled. “I like that.”

  “Martha said that her department can release him now for adoption.”

  She nodded, almost absently, to his disappointment.

  “I keep thinking about her,” she said. “The mother, I mean. I get furious and I want to cry for her at the same time over the senselessness of it. She clearly fell through all the cracks in the system. At least her child will have a better life.”

  Patrick never questioned the special kisses he got that night, or the extra hugs. He simply took them as his rightful due.

  When the baby was settled at last in his crib, Dan immediately took Angelica’s arm and led her into his bedroom.

  “I have to talk to you. I’ve needed to all day, but we’ve had too damn many interruptions.”

  Angelica slipped out of his grasp. She put some distance between them—too much for his liking—before she turned around to face him. “I agree that we have some things to settle.”

  That sounded ominous to him.

  “Maybe I can settle them,” he said, hoping to rectify matters between them. “I found out today just how stupid I am about trust. I was completely and totally wrong—”

  “I can understand why you were so angry yesterday,” she interrupted. “I should have told you. I know I should have done what you did.”

  “Angelica,” he said forcefully. “You did what she told you to do. That was a right decision, too.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, you were right. I realized that.”

  “Dammit!” he exclaimed. “Forget that part. Can you ever forgive me for the way I acted?”

  “Lord,” she murmured, beginning to smile. “I wish I had a tape of this.”

  He stood directly in front of her. “The hell with the tape. Can you forgive me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. End of argu
ment.”

  He reached out and touched her arm, loving the feel of her warm, soft skin. He knew he couldn’t live without the touch of her each day. He began to bring her closer.…

  She resisted.

  He blinked. “Angelica—”

  “I’ve been giving this marriage some revaluation.”

  His stomach tightened at her words.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said.

  She gasped. “Dan—”

  “I love you. Don’t leave me.”

  “I can’t,” she murmured brokenly, coming into his arms. “I thought I could. I … it would be best. But I can’t.”

  He held her tightly, knowing he had been so close to losing her through his own foolishness. Never again, he thought fiercely. Never again.

  “We need some ground rules,” she finally said.

  He cursed under his breath. His world was definitely back in order. “Ground rules?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of ground rules?” he asked warily.

  “That we never not fight.” Her voice caught. “I didn’t realize how good and healthy arguing loudly could be—until you went cold on me.”

  “Me! You went to your.…” He snapped his jaw shut for a second, then said, “I agree to shout at the top of my lungs about everything, as long as you agree that we always go to bed together no matter how hurt or angry you are.”

  “Me!” she squeaked. “But you didn’t ask me to come to bed. You let me go! Dammit, Dan, what else was I supposed to do?”

  “Come to bed like a proper wife,” he said, grinning. “And then I would have acted like a proper husband, and we would have made up and made love. We were both at fault for being so damned stubborn. So from now on we will fight and we will make up and we will above all have a perfectly normal marriage.”

  She smiled. “I love you, Danny Roberts.”

  “I love you, too, wife,” he whispered. “Can we make love now?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  His lips came down on hers in a searing kiss.

  Epilogue

  “He said ‘bird.’ ”

  “He’s pointing at the bell.”

  “No, he’s not. His eye are following the bird.”

  “Bur!”

  “See!” Dan said triumphantly, waving a small bird ornament at his two-year-old son. “Patrick said bird.”

  Angelica stopped sorting through the Christmas decoration boxes for a moment and watched the child gleefully jab his finger at the glass bell hanging on the bottom branch of the Christmas tree. She stared up at her husband from her position on the floor. “Daniel, open your eyes, please. Our son is playing with the bell, therefore he is saying ‘bell.’ Now quit fooling around and get this tree decorated, otherwise Santa Claus will never get here tonight!”

  Dan set the bird ornament on an upper branch and said, “That’s what I get for marrying a lawyer. You’ll fight about anything.”

  “I never fight with you, my love,” she said, smiling demurely.

  He laughed as he bent down and kissed her. “I love you anyway. Now Patrick will settle the bird or bell question. Hey, buddy, is it ‘bird’ or ‘bell’?”

  Patrick smiled happily and said, “Poo.”

  “We know what that means,” Angelica said, laughing as Dan picked up Patrick and raced for the bathroom.

  She had just begun to sort through the boxes again when the doorbell rang. She awkwardly pushed herself to her feet, muttering under her breath at her foolishness for kneeling on the floor. No woman should do that in her seventh month, she decided. She also decided that at the rate she and Dan were going they would be lucky to see their bed before five in the morning.

  She walked through her cathedral living room toward the double front doors of their suburban Seattle home. It was a shame, she thought, that they hadn’t been able to get to the island for Christmas this year. Maybe next year their work would ease up. She hoped.

  She opened the front door … and froze when she saw Martha Canfield standing on the porch holding the hand of a tiny Eurasian girl, not more than four years old.

  “Merry Christmas, Angelica,” Martha said jovially.

  Angelica’s gaze was helplessly locked on the little girl, on the pinched features, the eyes that held a hopeless fear. Her mind raced with implications. Finally she found her voice. “Martha, Merry Christmas. Come in.”

  “This is Mai,” Martha said, entering the house. “She was just found this evening wandering along the pier, and the police caught me at home. Unfortunately, nobody has reported her missing. We need a temporary shelter for her, and I was wondering if you could help me out.…”

  Oh Lord, Angelica thought, her heart flipping over.

  “I promise it will be very temporary,” Martha added.

  Angelica merely raised her eyebrows. She’d heard that one before. Turning, she smiled at the girl and held out her hand. “I could use some help with the Christmas tree, Mai. And I have some cookies.”

  The little girl stared dumbly at her, then let go of Martha’s hand and took hers. The short fingers wrapped trustingly around her adult ones.

  “Thanks, Angelica,” Martha said. “I really didn’t know what to do.”

  “Martha Canfield, you know exactly what you’re doing.”

  Martha grinned.

  Angelica grinned back, then she thought of Dan. Taking in another child, however temporarily, should be a joint decision. She hadn’t consulted him on this.

  Then she realized it wouldn’t matter. Like her, he would take one look at Mai and remember another child—their son now. Of course, he would make a semblance of anger that she hadn’t discussed Mai with him. But once the yelling was done, he’d be in full agreement with her.

  “Oh, Danny!” she called out. “There’s someone here you should meet.”

  “Okay!”

  A few seconds later he was standing in the living room, staring speechlessly at Mai. His gaze shifted to Martha, then to Angelica. His expression held a wealth of understanding … and a hint of anger for his wife. Then his gaze shifted back to Mai … and he melted.

  “I have some last minute Christmas shopping to do, don’t I?” he said.

  “Yes,” Angelica said, smiling at him. “It’s what I love best about you.”

  He grinned. “I know.”

  THE EDITOR’S CORNER

  Happy New Year!

  Another year may have slipped on by, but don’t let these romances slip by you! Ring in the New Year with romance starting with an electrifying journey of emotional and sexual discovery that pushes two damaged souls to their breaking point—and beyond in, RUINED, by Tracy Wolff, the first installment of The Ethan Frost Novels. Award winning author, Bronwen Evans, debuts The Disgraced Lords Series with Loveswept, book one, A KISS OF LIES -- tortured and abandoned, can two people recover and ignite each other’s deepest passions? Romantic Suspense fans will enjoy, IN THE DARK, where passion raises the stakes in Sally Eggert’s electrifying novel of deception and desire. Mary Ann Rivers launches her contemporary series with LIVE, riveting romance sure to please readers of Ruthie Knox, Kristan Higgins, and Jill Shalvis.

  Fans of Stacey Kennedy’s Club Sin Series will be thrilled to know another wicked and wild tale of submission, seduction, and love, will be available later in the month --- BARED, Cora and Aidan’s story. A little something for everyone – usher in your New Year with Loveswept.

  And, you don’t want to miss these classics:

  OMG is all I can say about Connie Brockway’s, McClairen Isle trilogy – enjoy these men in kilts, beginning with: THE PASSIONATE ONE, THE RECKLESS ONE and THE RAVISHING ONE. Then, Ruth Owen programs a code for seduction in, MELTDOWN, plus, New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen weaves the unforgettable story of a man and a woman who come together under the spell of danger—and explosive desire in, THE SPELLBINDER. Sandra Chastain’s, Civil War romance, SCANDAL IN SILVER, will touch your heart, along with, Linda Cajio’s, IRRESISTIBLE STRANGER an
d AT FIRST SIGHT. Meet single mom Kitty Reardon in Fran Baker’s heartwarming story, KING OF THE MOUNTAIN. And for those of you that missed the Grayson boys in Elisabeth Barrett’s, Star Harbor series, don’t fret, the series is being rereleased this month in an eBundle – DEEP AUTUMN HEAT; BLAZE OF WINTER; SLOW SUMMER BURN; LONG SIMMERING SPRING.

  Gina Wachtel

  Associate Publisher

  Read on for excerpts from more Loveswept titles …

  Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s

  Roman Holiday 1: Chained

  CHAPTER ONE

  The arrival of the shiny black SUV in the parking lot startled the fawn into flight.

  Ashley watched it bound out of the empty swimming pool, between the two-story rental units, and onto the beach. She tried not to hate the man who had driven it away.

  Her chafed wrists were not his fault. He hadn’t pushed her down onto this pile of mulch, nor had he chained her to the palm tree. He hadn’t insisted she launch her protest clad only in a damp bikini and a T-shirt.

  No, all of that was Ashley’s doing. She had to place the blame for this harebrained caper squarely on her own aching shoulders.

  Even though Roman Díaz was about to destroy the only place in the world that mattered to her, she wouldn’t hate him. Hate was poisonous.

  But man, she’d really been enjoying the little Key deer. It had been such an excellent distraction from all the depressing thoughts about her grandmother.

  Past the spot where it had disappeared, a slice of sunrise washed the sky in orange, and the dark silhouette of an angular palm tree framed a view straight off a Florida landscape postcard.

  Whereas the SUV was like the other kind of postcard—the tacky kind that had a smiling woman shoving her enormous, barely clad hooters toward the viewer over a neon-script tagline like “A Big Hello from Florida.”