“Hi,” he said. A brilliant opening. Witty, yet concise.
She was wearing those silly flannel pajamas she seemed to like so much, but his hand had slipped between the top and the bottom to rest against the smoothness of her back. At this proximity, the freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose were so adorable his heart nearly stopped, the blue of her eyes the closest thing to perfection he’d ever seen.
She gazed into his eyes for a long moment, searching, then shook her head slightly. “Harry, I don’t want—”
He kissed her, unwilling to hear what it was she didn’t want. She resisted for all of one one-hundredth of a second before she melted against him. And when he deepened the kiss, she was right there with him.
It was wrong of him to do this, wrong of him to rid her of all that flannel so he could feel the smoothness of her skin against him. It was wrong of him to touch her the way he was touching her, to kiss her harder, deeper, to settle between her legs and to enter her with one smooth thrust as she raised her hips, inviting him to do just that.
He pulled out right away. What was he doing? When it came to this woman, he was completely out of control. “Condom,” he said.
“Top drawer,” she answered.
If there was a Guinness World Speed Record for that sort of thing, he would have broken it, no question.
Still, she pulled him back to her as if he’d taken ten years instead of ten seconds, and within moments she had him exactly where he’d been before sanity had taken over. She began to move beneath him, slowly, languorously. It was delicious, the perfect sleepy pace for the early-morning hour. He moved with her, pushing himself hard and deep, but still so slowly, inside her, and her arms tightened around him.
“Yes,” she whispered.
One thing about Allie, when it came to sex, she knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t shy about getting it. Still, he’d cut her off before. She’d been about to speak.
“What don’t you want?” Harry asked, lifting his head to look down at her. “Tell me what you were going to say.”
Her eyes were half closed, and she made a soft sound of pleasure as he slowly filled her again.
“I was going to say I don’t want to make love to you right now,” she told him. She smiled crookedly. “I think it’s safe to assume I wasn’t being quite honest.”
He hesitated. “Are you sure, Al? Because …”
Because what? Because he cared more about her than he’d let her believe? Because this wasn’t just mindless sex, it was making love—it had been right from the start. He’d just been too damn blind to see.
He was in love with this woman, completely, hopelessly in love with her.
He’d sat there last night, talking about staying in town, talking about how hard it was for him to give up his hunt for Michael Trotta, talking about the best way to regain Shaun and Emily’s trust and love. But he’d been too chicken to bring up his feelings for Allie. Too scared to ask what he could do to regain her trust and maybe, dear God, gain her love. Too afraid to tell her that he loved her, afraid to mention marriage, afraid she’d look at him again with that pity in her eyes.
So he’d said nothing at all.
Allie pressed him even more deeply inside of her and he felt like crying, it was so good. “Kiss me, Harry,” she murmured.
He did, as sweetly and as tenderly as he possibly could, hoping she’d know from his kiss just how much he truly loved her.
Shaun stopped short as he went into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Harry said.
Out of all the people he expected to see sitting at the kitchen table, his father was probably one hundred and forty-two on the list.
His knee-jerk reaction was to turn around and walk out of the room. Go back upstairs.
Instead, he went to the cabinet and opened it, pretending he was taking his time to choose between Cheerios, Raisin Bran, and Frosted Flakes, when in truth he never had anything but Cheerios for breakfast. “Who let you in?” he asked, his back still turned.
He heard Harry shift in his seat. “Actually, I have a key.” He cleared his throat. “Which is good, seeing as how I’m going to be moving in.”
“Here?” Shaun turned to face him.
“Yeah.” Harry had obviously made an effort to clean himself up before coming over. His hair was freshly cut, his chin clean shaven, his jeans slightly stiff from the wash.
“You’re going to live here?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean … when you’re in town?”
“Yeah.”
Shaun turned back to the cereal. Of course that’s what he’d meant. And of course, Harry was in town only once a year. “Yeah, right.”
“Which is going to be all the time from now on,” Harry added, “seeing as how I’m going to be faxing my boss a letter of resignation on Monday.”
All the time. Hope raced through him, but Shaun ruthlessly crushed it back. If he’d learned anything over the past two years, it was that hope only made the disappointment hurt worse.
He took down the Cheerios from the cabinet, his movements jerky as he opened the box and poured some into a bowl. “You’re quitting your job, and that’s supposed to just make it all better? You move back, and we’re one big happy family? Just like that, you’re den dad for Em’s Brownie troop, and oh, hey, maybe you could help coach my baseball team.”
“I will if that’s what you want.”
Shaun slammed his bowl onto the table and the Cheerios went flying. “No, Dad, it’s not what I want because I don’t have a goddamn baseball team. Kevin was into baseball. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not Kevin. I’m a dancer. I happen to love to dance.” He took the milk from the fridge and poured some into his bowl, sloshing it over the side. “And no, before you even ask, just because I’m a dancer doesn’t mean I’m gay, all right?” He sat down at the table and began shoveling cereal into his mouth.
“Slow down,” Harry said. “That’s a good way to get a stomachache. I know you’re a dancer, and I guess I assumed that since you’re only fourteen, questions about your sexual preferences wouldn’t really be an issue yet. But maybe I’m wrong—I’m the first to admit I’m way out of touch.”
Shaun snorted. “Understatement of the year.”
Harry cleared his throat, as if maybe this wasn’t as easy for him as he was pretending. “I understand you’ve got an audition down in Denver today for a summer dance troupe.”
Shaun stared across the table at him. “You know about that?”
Harry nodded. “I know you’re not Kevin. I don’t want you to be Kevin. He was …” He cleared his throat and forced a smile. “He was one of those people who just always had it easy, you know? All his life. Everything was a piece of cake for him—school, sports, the social scene. He never had to fight for anything, and because of that, he was never particularly good at anything. If there was one thing I’d’ve wished for him, it was that he’d have had a little friction in his life. It’s easy to just drift along when everything goes your way. But when you’ve got to stand up and fight—that’s when you become a man.”
He paused, waiting until Shaun looked up, until Shaun met his gaze.
“I see that in you, kid,” he continued. “You’re not afraid to look me in the eye. Hell, you’re not afraid to spit in my eye. And that’s good. I’m proud of you for that. I wish I’d been around to help with the fights, but you did more than okay on your own. And I hear you’re one of the best dancers in northern Colorado. I’m proud of that, too.”
Shaun pushed his chair back from the table and tossed his cereal bowl in the sink. He took a sponge and mopped up the mess on the table, stalling for time, afraid his voice would break, afraid of letting his father know how much his words had mattered. “Well, that was heart stirring, Harry, but two years is too long for you to be able to buy your way back in with one moving speech.”
“I know that,” Harry said quietly. “I know it’s not going to be that easy. But I’m a fig
hter, too, Shaun. And I’m telling you, we’re going in for counseling. I’ll contest the shit out of your petition for change in name and custody if I have to. I’m home, I’m sorry, and we will work this out, even if it kills us.”
Shaun fought the tears that came to his eyes, fought the hope that kept trying to grow inside him. “You don’t know how badly I want to believe you.”
“You don’t have to believe me. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t do this halfway,” Shaun told him, his voice shaking despite his attempts to hold it steady. “If you’re going to do it halfway, if you’re going to go back to New York next week or next month or even next year, just go now, okay?”
“I’m telling you, I’m not—”
“Right after the accident, right after Mommy and Kevin died, after we moved here with Marge, I couldn’t sleep at night,” Shaun told his father. “I knew you were in New York, hunting down the men who killed Mommy and Kevin. And I was so scared. I would just lie awake at night, making myself sick with worry that you were going to get yourself killed, too. I spent about a year nearly throwing up every time the phone rang, because I was so sure it was going to be the call telling us you were dead.
“But then I realized,” he continued, “that it really didn’t matter. Because you were already gone. The part of you that was Dad was killed along with Kev and Mom.” His voice broke again, and he stopped to take a deep breath and to clear his throat. “I still can’t shake this séance feeling I get every time I see you. It’s kind of like a scheduled haunting—a yearly sighting of a ghost from the past.”
“Ouch,” Harry said. He didn’t bother to hide the tears that were glistening in his eyes.
“Yeah,” Shaun said tightly. “It still really hurts me, too.” He rinsed out his cereal bowl. “So. If you’re going to exhume yourself and stick around, you better plan to stay until Em’s high school graduation. If you can’t do that, leave now.”
“I’ll be here when you get back from Denver,” Harry told him.
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Shaun headed for the door. “Excuse me, I’ve got to go pack my overnight bag.”
“Break a leg, kid,” Harry said. “I love you.”
Shaun paused but didn’t look back. “The jury’s still out on that one.”
* * *
“Harry, wait!” He was getting into his car when Marge came out onto the porch. She came down the steps and along the concrete path. “I think you better come inside and hear this.”
“Can’t it wait? I was just going to get my stuff and check out of the motel and—”
“There’re about two dozen messages for you on the answering machine. I turned the phone off last night and let the machine pick it up because I’ve been getting prank calls from some of my students. I didn’t turn it on again until just now, and—”
Her words didn’t make sense. “Messages? For me? No one knows this number. No one knows I’m here.”
“It was someone calling from the Farthing FBI office. You should listen to the messages, Harry.”
The implications of her words literally rocked him back on his heels. Good thing his car was there or he would’ve fallen on his ass. Somehow, someone from the Bureau had tracked him here. But how? He pushed himself forward and ran toward the house.
“There were calls for you every half hour,” Marge continued, following him. “The last was just a few minutes ago. They say it’s urgent.”
Christ, how they’d found him didn’t matter. What mattered was that if the FBI had managed to track him here, Michael Trotta wouldn’t be far behind. Jesus, he had to find Allie.
“Get Shaun and Emily into the car right now. Don’t pack, don’t do anything. Just get into the car and go.” Harry shouted up the stairs. “Shaun! Emily! Get down here right now! Time to go.” He took the wad of cash he always carried from his pocket and handed it to Marge. “Buy whatever you need, but don’t use a credit card. Don’t stay in the hotel where you’ve got reservations. Don’t go to Shaun’s audition—”
“What?” Shaun said, coming down the stairs. Emily was right behind him, still in her pajamas, her hair tangled around her wary face.
“Just go to Denver, go to the FBI headquarters there,” Harry continued. “Demand protection—tell them who you are and that I’m afraid Michael Trotta might try to use you to get to Allie. Her real name’s Alessandra Lamont, and Trotta wants her dead. He’s got a two-million-dollar contract on her head.” He turned to Shaun. “I’m so sorry, kid.”
“You said you were quitting!”
“I am,” Harry said, “but someone forgot to tell Michael Trotta that.”
“I don’t goddamn believe this!”
Harry caught Shaun’s arm, pulling him out to Marge’s car. “Please,” he said. “I need you to help me. Trotta will grab you and Em and kill Marge without blinking just to prove to me that the threat is real. You need to go now. Don’t stop, go straight to Denver—do you understand?”
Shaun nodded, his face pale as Marge helped Em with her seat belt.
Harry pulled his son into his arms for a quick hug. “I’ll be right behind you with Allie, and I’ll explain everything when we get there, okay?”
Shaun’s arms tightened around him. “Be careful, Dad.”
“I will.” He leaned into the car and briefly touched Em’s hair. She looked up at him, her eyes wide.
“Is Allie the president?” she asked.
Harry didn’t get a chance to answer, didn’t get a chance to even guess why the hell Em had asked that.
Marge pulled out of the driveway, and he ran into the house to call the Farthing office and find out what the hell was going on.
Allie walked into town, hoping she’d find Annarose Gerty before she left the supermarket. She’d gone to Mrs. Gerty’s house to tell her she was going to have to cancel their tentative plans for dinner tonight, but the elderly woman wasn’t home.
Under normal circumstances, Allie wouldn’t change her plans, but this was hardly normal. She suspected that after his conversation with Shaun, Harry was going to need the company of a friend. Badly. Mrs. Gerty would understand.
And Allie—fool that she was—would end up back in bed with him tonight, redefining the word friend. She sighed.
She was going to have to tell him. She was going to have to just say it. I love you. And then he could help her deal with it. But not yet. Not until he got his relationship with his kids under control. It would be cruel to drop yet another emotional neutron bomb on him now.
She briefly closed her eyes, praying that Shaun wasn’t tearing Harry into completely unrecognizable pieces.
She spotted Hunter lying calmly on the sidewalk outside the market, loosely tied to a parking meter. Good. That meant Mrs. Gerty was inside and—
Allie’s blood ran cold.
Whenever she’d heard that expression in the past, she’d assumed it was an exaggeration.
It wasn’t.
Her hands and her feet actually tingled from the sensation, but somehow, somehow she didn’t stop dead in her tracks. Somehow she kept walking even though Ivo was there, across the street, in front of the dry cleaners.
Ivo. Michael Trotta’s hired gun. Unmistakably tall, with unmistakable cheekbones and completely unforgettable eyes. He was getting out of a black luxury sedan with four other men. They split up, each going in a different direction, Ivo heading directly toward her.
* * *
“Oh, sweet Christ,” George said. “Are you telling me that this is the first you’ve heard of this? That no one from the Farthing office notified you before this?”
“They still haven’t notified me,” Harry ground into the phone. “I tried calling the number they left on the machine, but the fucking line’s fucking busy. I have to find Allie. Just tell me—fast—how bad is it?”
“Bad,” George told him. “We tracked you down through—”
“The court records,” Harry supplied. “The petitions that Sha
un’s lawyers filed. They’re all public record. Shit, I knew it. I knew there was something wrong, something I should’ve realized. Goddamn it!”
“The Colorado team was supposed to set up protection,” George told him. “Surveillance. The whole thing. Another trap with Alessandra Lamont as bait. Jesus, I’m going to kill Nicki. Harry, we already leaked your location to Trotta. The son of a bitch is completely out of control. It doesn’t make any sense, but he just raised Alessandra’s snuff price to three million. If his guys aren’t already there, they’ll be there soon enough. Christ, the agents from the Farthing office were supposed to be ready for them.”
Harry didn’t say good-bye. He just hung up and ran.
Allie’s heart was pounding so loudly, she couldn’t hear the sounds of the cars going past in the street.
From the corner of her eye, she could see Ivo pause, waiting for the traffic before he crossed.
He was heading toward her.
She put her head down and hunched her shoulders, the way Harry had taught her.
Oh, Lord, how could he have found her here? Harry had been so convinced that they were safe.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him look directly at her. She saw him look again, harder, his eyes narrowing slightly.
The sky was a deeper and darker shade of blue than she’d ever seen in New York. The morning sunshine was hot on her face, the air fresh and clean, the spring day beautiful. It was a perfect day and she drew in one breath after another, well aware that each could be her last.
Dear Lord, she didn’t want to die.
Ivo pivoted slightly so that he was heading directly for her, his hand reaching beneath his jacket, probably for his gun.
No, she didn’t want to die.
And she saw him.
Hunter.
Tied to a parking meter directly in front of her.
He stood up when he saw her coming, tugging at his leash. He only barked once, but once was enough to expose the razor sharpness of his teeth.
Still Allie didn’t let herself shy away. She fought all her instincts to flee and went toward the dog, knowing that this animal, the object of her most terrifying childhood nightmares, had the power to save her life.
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