Christian turned his face toward her, drawing her closer. “Alma’s father abused her for years, starting when she was a child. In every way possible.” He saw horror wash over Cate’s face and knew she understood. “She didn’t tell anyone until we were teenagers. When I found out, I told her father I’d kill him if he ever touched her again, but I think it was Uncle Henry who was the reason why he disappeared.” A slight smile curved his mouth. “Uncle Henry had ‘a few words’ with Alma’s father.” That was the way the old man had put it, but Christian was certain that fists had been involved. “Henry was a lot more formidable than I was back then.
“After that, my mother took Alma in, tried to make things right for her. But Alma was like a sparrow with a broken wing that could never heal.” The years came rushing back to him. It was hard trying not to react. They’d left their mark on him. “She was afraid her father would come back, afraid to be left alone. She begged me to take her with me when I went away to medical school.” He could still hear her voice, pleading with him. “And I loved her, so I took her with me.”
He took another breath, then blew it out, as if fortifying himself against the rest. “We got married before I graduated. Had Dana almost immediately.” His voice softened when he mentioned his daughter. Sometimes, saying her name was almost too hard for him to bear. Her little life had been snuffed out almost before it had begun.
“I honestly thought that would do it for Alma, that it would make her put her past behind her. For a while, it did. She stopped drinking, tried to be a good mother to our daughter.” He’d been so hopeful back then. Hopeful and happy, convinced everything would turn out well. “And then she started slipping back.” He set his mouth grimly, putting the blame where he felt it belonged. On his shoulders. “I was too busy to see it, but things just kept getting darker and darker for her.
“There wasn’t any one thing I could even look back on and point to that sent her over the edge. Maybe it was everything. But I thought things were good. I’d just been accepted by Blair Memorial, we were making plans…” He paused, trying to pull himself together. Trying not to let the past take him apart.
“That last weekend, I went back to the reservation to help out at the clinic. She insisted that she and Dana come with me because she didn’t want to stay behind in our house.” A bittersweet smile played on his lips as he thought of the place he had long since sold. “I bought her that house to make her happy. Her first real house.”
But it hadn’t made Alma happy. And he would never know what would have. Pain began to crowd his chest, chasing away the air as he went on. But he refused to stop until all the words were out.
“I went to the clinic, figured I’d be there most of the day. After a while, Alma waited until everyone was gone, then she left with the baby. When she didn’t come back, no one thought anything of it at first. Everyone just assumed Alma was visiting someone on the reservation, showing off the baby.”
His throat tightened, making it hard to talk. He pressed on, his whispered words hollow. “And then some of my mother’s neighbors came. They said that Alma had walked out onto the tracks just as the train was coming. She had Dana in her arms. The engineer saw them, but there was no way he could stop in time. He almost derailed the train trying.”
Christian had to pause to work his way past the years that had gathered in his throat, all but cutting off his air supply.
Beside him, Cate lay perfectly still, listening. Horrified.
“I kept thinking that if only I had seen it coming, if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own world, in becoming a doctor…”
Cate thought her heart was going to break. Reaching out, she brushed away the single tear that had managed to break free and had slid down along the side of his face. She felt as if she was looking into the mirror of her own pain when she had lost Gabe.
“It’s not your fault.” She said it so fiercely, he looked at her. “Just like Gabe getting killed in the second tower wasn’t mine.” She said the question that came into his eyes. “I was supposed to take some time off and go with him when he was sent to New York for that meeting. We both worked for the bureau together,” she explained. “Gabe wanted to make a holiday of it, but at the last minute, I changed my mind and decided to finish up some work. I told him we could go to a bed-and-breakfast inn the following weekend instead.”
She moved her shoulders in a vague shrug. “The following weekend never came.” Her eyes met his. “For the next full year, I just wanted to die. Couldn’t understand why I was still alive and he wasn’t.” The question had haunted her, waking and sleeping, for all that time. “I wouldn’t let anyone comfort me, but eventually I realized that some things just happen and there’s nothing we can do about them.”
Without a word, Christian turned his body toward hers and drew her into his arms. Still silent, he sought the comfort he saw in her eyes. Sought to give her comfort for the pain she’d felt as well.
This time, the lovemaking was more tender, less frantic though no less intense in its effect. And somewhere in the night, two broken souls came together to form one new whole one.
“You’re not going?”
Cate stared at Lydia incredulously the following Monday morning. It was the first day back into her own world. The weekend had been spent with Christian in his. More specifically, in his apartment, where she wore his shirts when she bothered to wear anything at all, cooked for him and tried to pretend that the outside world, both past and present, didn’t exist. That there was nothing beyond the moment. And him.
But Monday came, as it was wont to do, with Monday’s responsibilities, dragging the world in its wake like some giant, off-kilter pull toy. She’d gone to her apartment in the wee hours of the morning for a change of clothes and a shift of attitude. She’d succeeded in one out of two.
Being with Christian like that, making love when the spirit moved them, enjoying just sharing the same space, the same air, had made her fiercely yearn for life again the way it could have been. The way she’d once planned for it to be.
It was hard now to pretend that there were no strings and that she was happy about that. Because she desperately wanted those strings.
But nothing could be resolved now and so she placed her desires on hold as she walked into the room she shared with the others on the task force.
The first words out of Cate’s mouth had knocked her for a loop, given Friday’s scene in Juanita’s house—not to mention what she knew to be Lydia’s frame of mind.
Maybe she’d heard wrong.
But Lydia looked completely serious when she delivered her news. Cate realized she didn’t look upset.
“I decided that for once everyone else was right,” Lydia told her. “I was allowing this case to consume me. To turn me into an obsessed person. And this case shouldn’t be about obsession.” She moved her shoulders beneath her fawn-colored jacket in a vague gesture of surrender. “Whether I bring the case to a close or you do doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is brought to a close.” A very maternal smile found its way to her lips as Lydia splayed her hand over her still very flat belly and the baby she knew was there. “I owe something to the life I’m carrying, too.” She dropped her hand to her side with a resigned sigh. “Susan would understand.”
But Cate had her hand up like a police officer halting the flow of oncoming traffic. “Back up.” She stared at Lydia, sure she wasn’t hearing correctly. “Me?”
Lydia nodded. “I talked it over with Sullivan. He was reluctant at first, but I got him to agree to it. He’s very impressed with you.” If he was, Cate thought, it was all Lydia’s doing. “Besides, you know Slavic languages.”
“I know Polish,” Cate was quick to correct. “That hardly qualifies me to travel through the Ukraine.”
Lydia’s eyebrows drew together in a puzzled expression. “Then you’d rather pass?”
“Hell, no.” If Lydia wasn’t going, then she wanted to. Desperately. This was true hands-on field work in its
purest sense. She would actually see the results of what they were doing here, behind the scenes. “I just want you to know my limitations. Of course I won’t pass.”
There was nothing else she would have wanted more than to bring one of the key men in this filthy enterprise down and to justice. She didn’t fool herself into thinking that arresting Baker would be the end of it, but it might be the beginning of the end for this particular monster.
“The hard part,” she confided to Lydia, “will be to keep Baker unbruised during the trip home.” She realized that she might be jumping to conclusions. “I take it that your investigation didn’t clear Baker.”
Again Lydia shook her head. “It nailed him. Made him the right man in the right place.” She told her about the final nail in the coffin. “I showed an array of photographs to Katya yesterday. She picked him out of the crowd without any hesitation. He’s our man, all right.”
“Now we just have to get him stuffed and mounted.” Since there was this kind of evidence against Baker, she knew the State Department would be quick to distance itself from the man. So his butt belonged to the bureau. “When do I leave?”
Now that it had been finally put in motion, the ball was rolling fast. “As soon as you can get your passport updated and throw some clothes into a suitcase.”
“I’m already gone.” She was halfway toward the door before she paused to look over her shoulder at Lydia. “Does Lukas know you’re passing on this?”
“Yes.” This had been decided between them first, after a very long, satisfying night. She’d decided that maybe she’d allowed her work to take precedence over what really mattered in her life. Sullivan hadn’t been pleased at first at the change in plans, but he had accepted her reasons once he knew them. And now she was faced with a desk job for the next eight months. But she had survived worse. And the grin on her husband’s face had made it all worth it. “And he’s very relieved.”
“I just bet he is.”
Cate lost no time in getting home.
On her way back to the office, Cate decided that no one’s nose would be out of joint if she took a small detour and stopped by the hospital first.
Her intention was to check on Katya, who was being released soon.
And to see Christian.
She looked for Christian first. After a couple of inquiries, she tracked him down to his office, where he was still seeing patients.
The nurse at the reception desk was not the same woman she’d met previously. This one appeared to be efficiency personified and was not about to interrupt “the doctor” while he was in with a patient unless she was about to go into labor and give birth to triplets right in the waiting room in the next five minutes.
There was a hint of a British accent as the nurse told her, “If you just leave your card, I’ll be sure the doctor gets it.”
“No, I—”
And then Cate abruptly stopped. Maybe it was better this way, she thought. The weekend had been wonderful, but it was just two days out of a lifetime. Maybe she was making more out of the situation than it warranted. Than Christian would have wanted her to.
She needed to put things in perspective.
The problem was, things were moving so fast, it was hard to see everything in its proper light.
“All right.” Cate took one of her cards out of her pocket and wrote down, “See you when I get back,” across the back of it. With a faint smile, she handed the card to the nurse and left the office.
Cate squared her shoulders as she hurried off. Okay, now focus on what you’re supposed to do. Bring back the bad guy.
She was halfway down the corridor, on her way to the exit, when Christian finally caught up to her. Grabbing her arm, he turned her around to face him.
“What’s this?” he wanted to know, holding up the card. “I walked out with my patient and Joyce handed this to me.” He looked down at it. “‘See you when I get back,” he read. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I wanted to tell you in person, but your nurse is very protective of you. She didn’t want to interrupt you and I couldn’t wait around. I’m in a hurry.”
A flash of impatience flirted across his face before he blocked it. Christian drew her over to the side, out of the path of foot traffic.
“In a hurry to go where?” he asked.
“Lydia changed her mind about going to the Ukraine. I’m taking her place.”
All sorts of concerns and thoughts began to pop up throughout his head, crowding his mind. “Just like that?”
She nodded. “That’s how it happens sometimes. Long spates of nothing, followed by frantic moments. We have to move fast, before this guy gets word that something’s wrong and maybe starts destroying evidence.”
He didn’t want her leaving, didn’t want her going to a foreign country where she would be even more exposed to danger than she already was. But he had no right to tell her not to go. No right at all.
“How long will you be?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Not sure.” Not long, she hoped.
Words rose in his throat. Words of caution. Crazy words, asking her to stay. He struggled to hold them in check, but he could feel himself losing the battle.
Christian frowned. “I know I don’t have a right to say anything.”
She didn’t want him to tell her not to go…and yet…“I think my letting you know kind of gives you the right.”
He said the only thing he knew he could, fairly. “I don’t like you going.”
“I know.” She could feel her heart lighting up. He cared. At least a little. “I won’t say it’s as safe as crossing the street, but it is necessary and I’ll be careful.”
His frown deepened. “It’s not always a matter of being careful.” He didn’t know if he liked what was happening. Control over his life was slipping from his fingers again. But he couldn’t make himself back away. At least, not yet. “You know, I think that for the first time, I realize what Lukas has to go through with Lydia.” He took her hands in both of his. And didn’t want to let them go. “Call me when you get there.”
“It might be the middle of the night before I get the chance,” she warned.
He laughed shortly. “I’m not exactly a stranger to middle-of-the-night calls.” He grew serious again. “And even if I were—call.”
“Okay. I’ll see you.” She began to walk away, but then he caught her by the wrist, turning her around again. Her eyes searched his face. “Something else?”
“Yes. Something else.”
And before she could ask what, Christian swept her into his arms. Kissing her long and hard.
Chapter 34
Her knees were the first to abandon her.
Forgetting for a moment that they were standing in the middle of a busy hospital hallway, Cate threw her arms around his neck.
She sank deeper into the kiss, wild sensations scrambling her pulse and turning everything upside down. Alarms went off in her head. If she didn’t get him to stop kissing her right now, she knew she wasn’t going to be responsible for what came next. Exercising supreme control, she ended the kiss.
It took more than a few erratic beats of her heart for her bearings to return. Cate drew in a breath and released it again before she trusted herself to speak coherently and above a squeak. She wished she was home, in bed.
With him.
She did her best to reunite herself with a smattering of composure. “Wow. Will that be waiting for me when I get back?”
He thought about being cagey, about holding back. About his own survival, all of which dictated a flippant retort. But this was about absolute moments. And the thought that she might not return completely decimated all the safeguards he told himself he should be reconstructing. Instead, he smiled warmly at her, remembering their weekend and wanting to feel that there would be others to savor with her. “Count on it.”
Cate pressed her lips together, still tasting him. Why wasn’t there more time? “Then I’
ll be sure to come back.”
Abruptly turning on her heel, she hurried off to see Katya before she said anything more stupid than that. Or dragged Christian off to a supply closet to jump his very provocative bones.
“What will become of me?” Katya asked the question haltingly, mixing what she knew of Polish together with the brand-new English she had been picking up.
The girl was like a sponge, Cate thought. Despite what had happened to her, she was eager to learn, eager to have a life.
Pressed for time, Cate still answered her, both in Polish and then in English, hoping that somewhere between the two languages, the girl would understand and continue to find hope. With hope anything was possible. Cate knew that firsthand, because somewhere in the barren garden of her own soul, hope had begun to sprout again.
“You’ll be taken into the child services system.”
The words meant nothing to Katya and Cate didn’t know the term for it in Polish.
Katya read into her friend’s tone and drew her own conclusions. “Is orphanage?”
Cate heard fear surrounding every syllable. “No, it’s much better,” she said quickly. Because the situation demanded it, she cut to the wished-for happy ending. “And then, after a while, maybe a nice couple will adopt you.”
Katya’s brown eyes widened and there was a spark of hope in them. “You? You adopt?”
Cate’s heart felt heavy. The word no came automatically to her lips, but she suppressed it. There was no way she could stand being the one to squelch Katya’s hopes. So she began to turn the question, the idea, around in her head. She certainly hadn’t been thinking, even remotely, of adopting or even of having a child of her own at this point in her life. But Katya needed someone.
And she needed someone.
Maybe one need could cancel out the other one and they could both be the better for it. It was worth thinking about. “I’ll look into it.”
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