by Julie Miller
“Ah, girlie.” Robbie lowered the compress and leaned forward in his chair. “I’d never let you or the wee one be hurt. I’m sorry. It’s me own mess. I’ll get meself out of it as quick as I can.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head as he stood. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about me. Tomorrow, I’ll look in the phone book for one of those Gamblers Anonymous meetings.”
“Do it tonight.” She stood to give him a hug. “I love you, you old fool.”
“I’m not quite the hero your father was, am I?”
Josie pulled away, her pretty face marred by a frown. “Dad wasn’t perfect. None of us is. He always looked up to you, and was glad you brought him to the States. He’d be the first one to say you can beat this gambling addiction. That’s one thing we Nicholses have plenty of…” She glanced back at Rafe, reminding him of the conversation that had been interrupted earlier. “…stubbornness.”
“I wish I had your faith, Josie.” Robbie picked up the whiskey she’d been using for medicinal purposes and headed toward his apartment upstairs. He paused for a moment in the doorway and asked for a favor. “Take care of our girl, Sergeant.”
“I will.”
When the door had closed behind her uncle, Josie hurried around the desk. “Rafe, do something.”
If he’d been thinking she’d want to resume that conversation about the baby, he’d been mistaken. “Like what? Give him the money? I can pay off his debt, but if he doesn’t get help with his addiction, he’ll get into trouble somewhere else.” He could handle daggers better than the despair that was coming from those big blue eyes. “Those two who tried to shake him down for the money aren’t talking, but I’m guessing they’re already on the vice squad’s radar. I’m guessing Robbie is, too.”
Had the circles beneath her eyes been that noticeable before? “You think KCPD is watching Robbie? What do they suspect him of?”
“Probably nothing.” He held up his hands, hoping to placate her distress and get her to sit again before she collapsed. “But I’m sure they’re thinking that someone who drops that much money every month can lead them to the lowlifes like Thug One and Thug Two back there that they are trying to catch.”
“Tell them to stop, or it’ll be like Patrick all over again.” So calming and sitting was a no-go. “My family has sacrificed too much already. I’ve lost a father and a brother to crime.” In one jerky movement, she choked back a sob and grabbed at the small of her back. “I won’t lose the only family I have left.”
“Honey, I can’t tell vice squad what to do.” Oh, man, she was hurting—physically and emotionally. Rafe inched forward, wanting to ease her pain, yet needing her to see the sense in what he was saying. He understood the dysfunction of a fractured family, and had learned long ago, that sometimes, love and wishing it so just wasn’t enough to make one come together again. “We tried to keep Patrick away from the drugs and dealing. Hard talks. Consequences. Intervention. Failed rehabs. Both of us know Patrick was the only one who could save himself from the road he was on.”
She gripped the corner of the desk as she sniffed back the next sob. “You’ve butted in and taken over my life, trying to fix everything that’s wrong with it. Why don’t you butt in and fix Robbie’s problems, too?”
Butting in? He was trying to do the right thing here. Trying to keep her safe. Trying to keep a promise.
The first tears spilled over and he knew she was physically and emotionally exhausted.
Take care of Josie. Whether the order came from her father or Captain Cutler—or that well-guarded cache of emotions inside him—it was one he would always follow.
“Hey. Shh.” Despite a token protest, Rafe pulled Josie away from the desk and into his arms. With her forehead brushing against his collar, and her elbows wedged between them, she trembled on her feet and her tears ran in stilted, noisy sobs. He reached behind her to loosen the band holding her hair up so tightly, then sifted the weight of the sable waves through his fingers. “You’ve got more than Robbie in your corner. Remember that. I’ll do what I can to protect him. I’ll keep him safe. I’ll keep all of you safe.”
“But—”
“Shh.” He recalled her words from that night in the truck, and perhaps, tonight, he was just beginning to understand what she’d meant. “That’s how it is in a relationship. Sometimes, one half needs more than the other at a given time.”
“But we’re not in a relation… Uh.”
He dropped his other hand down to the small of her back and gently kneaded his fingers into the knot of muscles there. Josie gasped in pain and tensed against him, her fingers fisting in the front of his starched, dusty shirt. But he kept massaging until the tension eased and she went limp against him.
They stood like that for countless minutes, with Josie’s curved body snugged against his. Her tears quieted into a steady rhythm, soaked through his T-shirt to warm his skin, and then ceased altogether.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Rafael Delgado?” She shifted her stance to wind her arms around his waist and nestled closer. “I thought I was getting a lecture.”
“You are.”
He leaned back to cup her face and tilt it up to his. Her eyes widened, then drifted shut as he dipped his mouth to kiss her forehead. He gently kissed each eyelid, easing the fever there. Then he moved lower, supping up the salty tracks of her tears over her cheeks and jaw. And then he hovered over the decadent fullness of her unadorned lips, letting his breath caress her mouth, feeling her breath tickling across his skin. He waited until her eyes fluttered open, denying himself what he wanted most until he saw the light of acceptance, of welcome, of answering need in her eyes.
Josie anchored her hands on his shoulders and rose up on her toes to meet him halfway before he closed his mouth over hers with a hungry claim. Her soft lips parted beneath his and he plunged his tongue inside to find hers waiting, daring him to dance along with hers. Rafe kissed her hard, kissed her softly. He lapped up the remnants of her tears and offered comfort, strength, desire. Whatever she needed, it was hers for the taking.
And what he needed… Oh, what he needed. Every foray of her tongue, every press of her lips, every needy grasp of her fingertips against his skin—he absorbed it like a blessing. He fed on the gift of her passion, let her inside the shield of his soul, filled himself up with the need to love this woman and be loved by her.
But he could lose her. He could lose so much if he ever let Josie Nichols too far inside him.
He wasn’t the man she thought he was. He didn’t know about kids, didn’t know about real relationships. He was over six feet tall, knew more about guns and bombs and violence than most people knew about the TV shows they watched. He’d killed men, put down threats, faced danger every damn day of his life.
Yet he was afraid of this beautiful pregnant woman. He was afraid of Aaron Nichols’s daughter. He was afraid to really, truly love her.
Because love meant pain.
Love was believing his father wouldn’t knock him out cold if he crossed his path on a drunken rampage. Love was believing the apology after strips of skin had been flayed from his back.
Love was believing a fiancée would understand his commitment to his work and support him for who he was instead of humiliating him at the altar.
Love was a brave little boy, dying in his arms—believing Rafe could save him.
Love was believing.
And after thirty-four years of love like that, he just couldn’t believe anymore.
His screwed-up self would be a hell of a burden for any woman. And he would never be that burden to Josie.
So he ended the kiss. He tore his mouth from hers and rubbed his cheek against her silky hair, crushing her in a hug until he could stop up the emotions she inevitably unleashed inside him.
Once he eased his grip and her heels sank to the floor, he felt Josie smile against his neck. “I like this new style of lecturing, Rafe.”
Oh, yeah, that.
He eased
her back and cupped her face again. Something inside him got stuck out of place and refused to completely shut down the emotions that still hummed at the sight of her trusting eyes and beautifully pinkened, kiss-stung lips.
“Don’t you ever, ever put yourself into the middle of something like that again. Understand? I’m not just trying to protect you from a killer—I’m trying to protect you, period.”
With a nod, she freed herself from his hands and snuggled against his chest again. He tried to distance himself, tried to keep his hands off her, but he lost the battle. “We need you, Rafe. I thought I could do this alone, but I can’t. We need you.”
He folded his arms around her and rested his cheek against the crown of her hair, feeling a possessive sense of rightness and that seductive calm that filled him when Josie Nichols got around the barriers he tried to keep in place.
THE MAN SET his camera in his lap to watch the black pickup truck drive away from the Shamrock Bar’s parking lot.
The light from the upstairs apartment had gone out half an hour ago. So what had the stern-faced cop and Josie Nichols been doing for thirty minutes? Sitting in his vehicle in the dark, with his telephoto lens mounted on his camera, he’d had plenty of time to think about the answer.
Plenty of time to decide how to silence Josie Nichols before he left town. He hated that a woman had been the one to see him kill Kyle Austin that day. His blood pulsed with a familiar heat. He hated that a woman had any kind of power over him. He controlled his own destiny, not a woman. He would decide where he went and what he did and who he loved, not some woman.
Since the last beating he’d taken as a teenager, when his father and uncles had abandoned him at a hospital and severed all ties with him, he’d been his own man. He’d changed his name, changed his face, and changed how he dealt with the people who interfered with what he wanted and deserved.
For all his family knew, he was dead. And so was the boy who had been Donny Kemp. He’d taken all he’d learned from his grifter family—how to charm, how to deceive, how to plan, how to punish anyone who muffed up the con—and had transformed himself into someone who would never allow anyone to control him again. No woman would take his job, refuse his heart or turn him over to the police to join his father and uncles in prison.
He’d been successful for years, meting out justice, righting the balance in his world.
He’d been successful until last year, when he’d run up against the black-suited warriors of KCPD’s SWAT Team One. They’d volunteered as bodyguards, shielding the women who’d wronged him so badly.
Despite the balmy, late-night air flowing through the open windows of his vehicle, he shivered. There was too much rage trapped inside him, too much satisfaction he’d been denied.
What was it with these SWAT cops, anyway? They’d already interfered with dispatching two of his intended victims. Two women who’d taken what was rightfully his, who’d looked down their arrogant noses at him without ever really seeing him. These SWAT men in black, with all their guns and expertise and heroics, had come between him and the women he was compelled to destroy. And now there was a third cop, watching over Josie Nichols.
He reached for a cigarette to calm his nerves. It was a dirty, smelly habit, and he loathed the stench that lingered on his clothes. But clothes could be washed or pitched, and the nicotine calmed him, allowed him to think clearly. With this particular neighborhood of downtown Kansas City shut down for the night, and the parking lot abandoned, there’d be no one to see the flare of his lighter. He inhaled a deep breath and blew the smoke out into the dampish air.
This cop guarding Josie Nichols was different from the other two SWAT cops who’d thwarted him, though. This one, with his surly moods and fearlessness for confrontation, seemed a lot like him. The way he’d shown no mercy to the first mugger, slamming him down to the asphalt and handcuffing him into submission, the way he’d pulled his gun on the man with the knife who’d gone after Josie, reminded him of skills he possessed. As he’d watched through the lens of his camera, he’d had no doubt that this cop would have pulled the trigger without batting an eye.
While he understood the cop, his refusal to leave Josie’s side presented a problem. With his other victims, there’d been social events he could use to his advantage to gain access to them. And while getting into a bar, even the Shamrock, had never been a challenge for him, the unique clientele of this particular one meant he’d have to find another way to get to her.
His fingers tightened convulsively around the camera in his lap, then relaxed as the answer came to him.
Pulling out the ashtray, he put out the cigarette, carefully smushing it down to the same height as the other two butts beside it. Then he turned on the camera and scrolled through the pictures on the memory card. He clicked past the picture of the SWAT cop holding the Glock 9 mm to the attacker’s head. He clicked past the image of the bruiser with the knife clutching Josie’s hair. There. That was his answer. He smiled and felt the tension inside him relax a bit.
He smiled at the image of Josie Nichols kneeling beside her bloodied uncle—her face frightened, her hand clutched at her swollen belly, her mouth open, pleading, shouting for the violence to stop.
The fat man’s troubles could work to his advantage. She cared about her brother in prison and she cared about Robbie Nichols. Both would be easier to get to than the woman, and that could draw her out and into his net.
If he couldn’t get to Josie through that cop who seemed to always be around her, then maybe he could get to her in another way. He could get to the things she loved.
He turned off the camera and quickly disassembled it, packing the lens and camera into the appropriate compartments of his carrying case. He set the case on the passenger-side floorboard and squared the rectangular bag up between the edges of the seat and dashboard. Finally, he started the car and pulled out onto the street. He cruised past the garish green neon shamrock hanging inside the bar’s front window before turning on his lights and merging into the three o’clock, morning traffic.
He wanted to get his hands around Josie Nichols’s throat—he needed to have her dead.
And if someone else had to suffer in order to make that happen, well, he had no problem with that.
Chapter Eight
The following Saturday had begun like every other day that week.
Josie would try to sleep in Rafe’s bed and wind up dozing in fits and starts while she stayed at his apartment, partly because she felt so guilty for kicking the man out of his own bed and relegating him to the living room couch, and partly because the crisp cotton sheets and pillows where she’d rested the last four nights had teased her with his scent and felt inexplicably cold despite the blanket spread on top. She’d awakened each morning to the sounds of Rafe moving about the kitchen, starting his pot of coffee, heating some water for her decaffeinated tea. Then, while he showered and dressed, Josie cooked some eggs and toast. They’d sit down at opposite ends of his kitchen table and go over their schedule for the day while they ate.
Rafe wasn’t the chattiest of company. But in a way, she liked that. The companionable silence gave her a chance to fully wake up and get her game face on for the day. When breakfast was done, she’d get in the shower while he cleaned the kitchen. Their routine could have been the real domestic bliss she’d always fantasized about.
Except for the bliss part.
Like that kiss in Robbie’s office after the attack on Monday night.
That embrace had been crazy, unexpected, wonderful. When she’d been expecting another stern reminder about taking unnecessary risks for others and not listening to him and endangering herself because she’d agreed to look at the face of a serial killer, she’d gotten the best massage of her life, an earth-tilting kiss and a glimpse into the heart of Rafe Delgado.
That was bliss.
Being cared for. Wanted. Feeling so necessary to someone’s existence that there was no place for the loneliness inside her.
&nb
sp; But that had been a late-night kiss and a supportive hug after a harrowing event. Apparently, this was the bliss-free reality she needed to get used to.
Somehow, even though Rafe was considerate of her needs and always seemed to be around, she felt almost farther apart than ever. It was as though that kiss in Robbie’s office, which had turned her inside out with its slow, driving sensuality and raw honesty, had tapped out all of Rafe’s emotions. A barrier had been breached that night, touching something that went even deeper than the night they’d made love in his truck. And now Rafe was shoring up his defenses. He was almost sweeter, less moody than before the kiss. But it was a shell of Rafael Delgado, a facade.
And she missed the man whose passions and convictions and deepest scars filled up a room and made him volatile and courageous and more fiercely caring than even he knew he could be.
Other than the fact that they were living together for protection purposes, she loved the man more than ever and he wouldn’t allow himself to care about her the way Josie knew he could, it was business as usual.
Although the location was a little different, reporting to this morning’s meeting at the Fourth Precinct conference room to meet with the event planners in charge of the staff for KCPD’s Spring Carnival fundraiser was like any other of the odd jobs she often took to make ends meet. Only Rafe was lurking in the building somewhere, waiting for the orientation to finish. And pretty much every cop who’d known her father had stopped her to say hi, congratulate her on the baby, and ask her who the lucky daddy was.
Did Rafe want anyone to know he was Junior’s father? Or was that another secret she’d be forced to hide away right alongside the love he didn’t seem to want?
Jeffrey Beecher, the assistant to Clarice Darnell, the platinum blonde speaking at the podium, came by Josie’s table and set a sheaf of papers on top of the tax form in front of her. That he stopped long enough to straighten the stack of handouts for her pulled Josie’s attention back to the red-lacquered fingernails dancing in the air as Ms. Darnell emphasized the point she was making.