Heart of a Hero

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Yours hasn’t.” The moment the words were out, she cursed herself. She had absolutely no idea what had made her say that.

  The smile that slipped over his face as he slanted a look at her was nothing short of sexy. Dakota felt it clear down to the bone. “I’ve got a job to do. Catch me once this is over and I’ll show you what a brain in meltdown looks like.”

  Her throat suddenly felt dry. She decided that her own brain had to have suffered a temporary meltdown of its own, otherwise, there was no plausible explanation for why she said, “Maybe I will.” Embarrassed by the unguarded slip, she nodded toward the house. “Are you sure those devices work?”

  He tested them on a regular basis, as he did all the equipment left in his care. “Only one way to find out.”

  He surprised her by stopping the car. Getting out, Rusty went to the trunk and opened it. He leaned in and did some adjusting to the surveillance receivers before turning it on slowly.

  From the device he’d planted in the kitchen, there was nothing. The area was empty. But there were both voices and images coming in from the device he’d planted in the living room. He could make out both Del Greco’s head of security and one of his soldiers discussing the merits of a showgirl both men seemed to know in the absolute sense of the word.

  Rusty smiled at Dakota as he gestured toward the small screen. “Houston, we have liftoff.”

  They switched cars, situating the cable truck where the rental car had previously been. It was the last thing done quickly.

  The rest of the day was spent straining to hear the sounds of a childish voice, or to catch a glimpse of a small boy hurrying through one of the two rooms. Neither happened. People came and went, voices changed, but none belonged to a small boy.

  Dakota began to feel that Rusty’s effort had been both hopeless and useless.

  “Look, maybe if we just sneak onto the property after everyone’s in bed…”

  Patience was always the last thing to go for him. He still had enough to gently point out, “You’re just being punchy.” Shifting in the crammed interior, he rotated his shoulders. As everything else, they felt stiff. “Security’s too tight. A spider doesn’t stand a chance of sneaking in without being detected.”

  He was right and she hated him for it. “Well, we just can’t sit here,” she insisted.

  “Yes,” he told her, his quiet voice firm, “we can. We can sit here and watch and wait. Sooner or later, if Vinny’s staying there, he’s got to use the front door or the back door. And then we’ll see him. There’s no helicopter landing pad on the roof, no other way in or out of the house. If your son’s there,” he assured her, “we’ll see him.”

  She shrugged, knowing he was right. Knowing her reaction was born out of frustration and irritation. She was tired of waiting, tied of worrying. Tired of running. Dakota closed her eyes, exhausted. Every bone in her body ached. “You know, these chairs aren’t exactly the last word in comfort.”

  “Best they could do on short notice.”

  Her eyes opened and she looked at him accusingly. “Do you always have to be so damn cheerful and logical?” she snapped.

  “Don’t see much point in losing my temper.” He fined-tuned one of the monitors that had temporarily become fuzzy. “I pick my battles.”

  “Meaning I should pick mine?”

  She sounded as if she just had. He held up his hand. “No, meaning that—”

  But she’d raised her own hand to silence him. Alert, she’d picked up the sound of a new voice coming from the transmitter in the living room. A smooth, cultured voice. She’d only been in the man’s presence twice, but he had left an indelible impression. One that haunted her worst nightmares.

  “Del Greco.” Dakota indicated the image on the black-and-white screen.

  The small, thin man carried himself with dignity, like the unchallenged ruler of an empire. But the emperor was old. And frail.

  Sitting up straight, Dakota scrutinized the image, scanning the area around him.

  There was no sign of her son.

  She felt as if her heart was constricting within her chest.

  Del Greco was talking to one of his chief soldiers, asking him something about the pending arrival of a package. Package. Was that some code word he was using for Vinny?

  She grabbed Rusty’s wrist as she listened. And prayed. The harder she prayed, the harder she squeezed his wrist, her nails digging into his flesh. She was oblivious to everything but the sound of Del Greco’s voice.

  Finally, the man went out of range and the camera went dormant. Del Greco had said absolutely nothing to enlighten them.

  They were no better off than before.

  Dakota sighed, falling back like an inflated doll that suddenly had all the air siphoned out of it. Hysteria began clawing at her, threatening to break loose. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep any tears from seeping out.

  Her voice was shaky. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Rusty contradicted. Dakota opened her eyes to look at him. “You’ll take it until we find Vinny. You’re a lot stronger than you think, you know.”

  She didn’t feel very strong right now. She felt weary. Weary clear down to the bone. Maybe even further than that. “Is that part of your pep talk?”

  “No, just part of the instincts you’re paying me for.” He continued to watch the living-room monitor. But there was nothing. It appeared that the key players were calling it a night.

  “I thought I was paying you to find my son.”

  “That, too.” Rusty glanced at his watch. It was almost ten. “Why don’t we call it a night?” He saw resistance rise in her eyes. “There’s no reason for a cable truck to be here this late. Not with what overtime costs these days. If anyone’s noticed the truck, it’ll look less suspicious if we leave now and come back tomorrow.”

  She wanted to protest, to say that they were staying right where they were until they saw something that they could work with. Something that would lead them to Vinny. They were so close, damn it, so very close. Why was this dragging out this way?

  And she didn’t know if he was right in his assessment of her, though she wanted him to be. She didn’t know how strong she was. She had had so many hard knocks in her life, but this one was the worst of all to bear. It was the one that could finally break her.

  She wanted to insist that they weren’t moving from this spot, but she knew that Andreini was right. They couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion.

  With a sigh, she climbed from the back to the front of the truck and slid into the passenger seat.

  “You’re not going to try to make me eat something, are you?”

  In the driver’s seat, Rusty started up the truck. “Lady, even would-be heroes have their limits. I wouldn’t try to make you do anything.”

  She had her doubts about that.

  But for the sake of argument, she nodded her head, watching the compound in the distance grow smaller and smaller in her side mirror. “As long as we understand each other,” she murmured.

  Not yet, he thought, but he was working on it.

  Chapter 12

  Despair didn’t actually hit Dakota until she walked back into the motel room. And then it leaped out at her, attacking with a vengeance, ripping into her heart and making her bleed.

  Walking in ahead of Rusty, Dakota switched on the light. The first thing she saw was Vinny’s beloved stuffed bear sitting on the bed, drooping forlornly against the pillows where she’d left it.

  Though she struggled against it, emotion overwhelmed her like an unruly tidal wave determined to steal the very breath out of her and smother her.

  Her eyes instantly filled with tears. The next moment they were spilling out despite her determination to keep them back.

  Biting her lower lip did nothing to quell the sudden break in control or to curtail the flow of tears. They ran freely down her cheeks. The dam had broken and all she was left with were pieces, pieces that felt as i
f they were shattered beyond repair.

  With her last ounce of strength, Dakota let out a slow, shaky breath, hoping the man walking into the room behind her wouldn’t notice that she’d suddenly begun falling apart. She desperately needed some time to pull herself together.

  She should have known better. She was paying him to notice everything.

  “Dakota?”

  Keeping her back to Rusty, she raised her hand, waving him away. Willing him to obey. When she felt his hands gently take possession of her shoulders, she wanted to lash out at him, to yell, to scream. To tell him to back off in no uncertain terms.

  But no words came.

  There was this huge lump in her throat, a lump too large to allow anything to get through. A lump that threatened to choke her.

  Rusty turned her around slowly, his hold on her gentle but firm. Valiantly, she kept her head down and to the side, wanting him to take the hint and to just leave her alone. But he lifted her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

  She hated him for it. Hated him for seeing her crumble this way.

  The second they had walked into the room, he had detected the change in her. The gladiator armor she kept so close to her body just seemed to collapse. He perceived it in the way her shoulders sagged and knew she was crying without even having to look at her face. He read it in her body language.

  When he finally succeeded in making her look up at him, the sight of her tears twisted his heart, squeezing it. Though he knew she would resist the contact, Rusty took her into his arms anyway and kissed the top of her head. She needed to be held.

  “We’ll get him back,” he promised her softly.

  He felt her quietly crying against him, her anguish making any response momentarily impossible. When she managed to pull herself together enough to be coherent, she clung to him as if he was all that stood between her and utter hopelessness.

  “It’s almost Christmas.” She’d wanted to give Vinny a wonderful Christmas full of presents and laughter. They were supposed to have gone out together to get a tree. Instead, he’d been snatched away and she was playing hide-and-seek with a crime kingpin who could, at any given moment, make the separation permanent.

  Rusty’s arms tightened around her. “He’ll be home for Christmas.”

  Suddenly, anger, the ever-protective shield she’d always reached for, always hidden behind, flared within her. “How can you promise me that?” she demanded hotly.

  It wasn’t Dakota talking, it was her desperation. He knew that. Rusty took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. Willing her to believe the promise he meant to keep.

  “Because I can.” His voice was firm. “Because it’s true. No matter what it takes, I promise you your son will be home for Christmas.”

  She knew she was a fool for believing him, and yet she needed so much to believe. Needed so much to trust this man who had come into her life uninvited, taking on her trouble as his own. Dakota sobbed, burying her face in his chest again, holding on to him tightly. As tightly as she was holding on to his words.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. I’m never like this,” she amended, her voice hitching in the middle. “I can’t remember the last time I cried this much.”

  She’d even remained dry-eyed at Vincent’s funeral. She’d heard his father call her names, but she’d been too numbed to cry, trying to make some kind of plans for her baby now that she found herself alone. There weren’t many calls for pregnant showgirls well along in their sixth month.

  “That’s okay. Under the circumstances, tears are allowed.” Moved by the vulnerability in her eyes, Rusty kissed her forehead. “I won’t tell anyone. Detective-client privilege,” he informed her with a smile, fervently wishing there was some way he could cut through all the obstacles and bring the boy to her side.

  But they still didn’t even know if Vinny was at the compound. Even if Gray could somehow come up with a search warrant to look for the boy on the estate, Rusty knew that there was no telling whether Del Greco was keeping his grandson on the premises or had had him shifted to one of his other houses in the country. For that matter, they still weren’t a hundred percent certain that Del Greco’d had the boy abducted. They needed more input and he couldn’t get it for her fast enough. Yet.

  Dakota looked up, the soft comfort of his kiss seeping into her, warming her. Stirring her. Tears marking a fresh, damp trail along her cheeks, she tilted her head upward and sought his lips.

  The reaction caught him off guard. Pleasure came immediately, like a burst of sunlight. Rusty meant only to brush his lips against hers, to offer the same comfort he’d already attempted to give.

  But the touch of her mouth to his ignited the fire in his belly that had been patiently dormant ever since he’d first kissed her. The fire that had begun the very first time he had laid eyes on her as she’d hurried by, her hand firmly wrapped around her child’s small fingers.

  A man could live for a week on the fantasies her kiss generated.

  Without conscious thought, Rusty tightened his arms around her even further, felt her body lean into his as the kiss deepened of its own accord. It was as if everything had suddenly launched into automatic pilot.

  The road ahead promised to be a bumpy one.

  Knowing that this time, if he let things go any further, he might not be able to break away as he had the last time, Rusty pulled back and looked down into her face.

  He wanted her.

  But what he didn’t want was for remorse to be the first reaction to their lovemaking. It was bad enough that it would come later.

  “Dakota—”

  She could see the words that were coming. There was a noble look in his eye, the kind of look a man had when he was about to make a sacrifice.

  She didn’t want a sacrifice, not tonight. She wanted to forget, forget everything, the pain, the uncertainty, the threat of what life would be like if she didn’t get her son back. For the duration of the night, she wanted to not think at all.

  Raising her fingers to his lips, she stopped their movement. “Don’t talk, Andreini. Just make love with me. To me,” she added, her voice low, soft, and almost supplicant.

  She was about to make a mistake, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to help her. He tried to hold her at arm’s length and couldn’t quite get himself to manage it. “You’re overwrought, Dakota. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She shook her head. Didn’t he understand? She needed this. Needed him.

  “Yes, I do. I’m saying that I want you to make this pain go away for a little while. I can hardly breathe, it’s so bad.” Her eyes searched his face for the understanding she had come, in such a short while, to know he possessed. “Please, Rusty, help me.”

  It was the first time she’d ever called him by anything but his surname. Rusty felt his resolve snapping. He knew he should back away from her, from the temptation she represented. Knew he should tuck her into bed and go out for a long walk in the night air until it cleared away the vapors from his brain and cooled the hot blood surging in his veins.

  But he didn’t go. He stayed just where he was. He had no choice.

  Cupping her face, he stayed and kissed her. Kissed her and consequently lost himself in her the way a man running through a lush, hot jungle loses himself.

  There were no markers for him to find his way out, no noble stance to take even though he knew he was breaking every damn rule he’d ever set down for himself, not to mention some that were probably on the books in the agency.

  He didn’t care. She tasted like sweet, forbidden fruit, and he didn’t care.

  Rusty couldn’t help himself. He didn’t seem to have the self-control he normally possessed. Not with her request echoing in his brain and the taste of her mouth on his.

  His body heated and he picked her up into his arms, his mouth never leaving hers. Gently, Rusty placed her on the bed.

  The stuffed animal that had initiated the sudden loss of control fell by the waysid
e as it tumbled from the bed onto the floor.

  Lying down beside her, Rusty kissed her over and over again. Her lips, her neck, her face. With each pass, the intensity grew until he felt it was almost savage.

  Like a woman possessed, Dakota kissed him everywhere, nipping on his mouth, tracing delicate lines along his throat, his face. No longer held in check, she seemed to have suddenly become frenzied.

  The thought came slamming home to him. He had to rise above his own desires, his own demanding passion and think of her, he upbraided himself urgently. He needed to back away.

  Rusty caught her hands as her fingers swiftly moved to undo the buttons on his shirt. She looked at him, dazed, bewildered.

  “What?”

  His body throbbing, his loins yearning for release, for her, he’d never exercised as much rigid control as he did at this moment.

  “Dakota, stop.” She tried to pull her hands out of his grip. “You’re going to regret this.”

  Maybe later, but not now. Now she needed to be held, to be made mindless, just a mass of pulsating needs, and she knew he could do that for her. Was doing that for her. But he couldn’t stop.

  “Don’t talk,” she begged. “Please.”

  The last of his resolve, shredded as it was, broke apart completely. The attraction he had felt from the very start flourished, completely engulfing him. There was no turning back.

  He wasn’t nearly as noble as he would have liked to believe.

  The fire in his belly spread, consuming all of him. He literally felt as if he burned for her. He’d always thought that was a ridiculous phrase. People didn’t burn, they wanted.

  Yet he burned. And only she could put out the fire.

  But he quickly learned that she couldn’t. With each passing moment, as he touched her, as he fondled and possessed her, he discovered that she could only make the fire grow hotter.

  With each response, with every movement of her body, her hands, her lips, she made the fire grow within him.