The truth or a lie? Though it gave him no real pride to admit it, he had the knack of telling either with equal credibility.
Because lying grated against every principle of decent behavior his parents had instilled in him, however, he preferred to stick as closely to the truth as the circumstances of the interview permitted. More importantly, the quick intuitive tug in his gut told him she would resent a lie if it was ever revealed. Which, in his experience, had a way of happening at the worst possible moment.
He sat back and kept his gaze steady on hers. "Yes, I think that one way or another he was responsible. The evidence was too sketchy to make a case, however, and the charges against him were dropped. We kept him under surveillance, of course, but he managed to slip out of town undetected during a bad snowstorm."
It jolted her, he saw, but she pulled herself together enough to ask calmly, "When … when did this happen?"
"December 2nd last year."
"I met Jonathan on December 27th."
"Where exactly was that, Doctor?" Seth asked.
"On board the SS Holiday Pleasure. My father and my brother had arranged for the cruise as a surprise."
"You went alone?"
"Yes." She took a breath, then looked down at her hands. Her nails were filed short with clear polish. She wore no rings. A platinum-and-emerald wedding set had been included on the list of stolen property. Hers from her marriage to Fabrizio, he assumed.
"My daughter Lyssa was severely injured in the accident that killed her father. She was in ICU for weeks with major internal injuries and then in and out of the hospital for months after that." She drew a breath. "The paramedics said that it had been a miracle Lyssa had survived. As it was her legs had been broken and one side of her face had been badly cut."
"No airbags?" Gresham asked quietly.
She shook her head. "My husband had just finished restoring an old Jag XK-150 and he'd driven it that weekend because he wanted to show his father. The state trooper who investigated said he probably would have survived if he'd been driving my Lexus or his Cherokee, both of which have airbags."
"You weren't with them, then?" Rafe asked, although he was pretty sure she hadn't been.
"No, Mark and Lys had gone down to the vineyard for the weekend, but I'd stayed home to catch up on case notes."
"Vineyard?" Gresham asked.
"Mark's family owns Fabrizio and Sons Wine. My father and brothers run Mancini Vineyard. The two properties adjoin one another in the foothills west of Ashland which is close to the California border."
Gresham's eyes lit up and he broke into a grin. "Great wines! I especially like Mancini's Pinot Noir."
Rafe shot him a look and he lost the grin.
"Thank you," she said with a brief smile.
"How is your daughter now?" Rafe asked before lifting the mug to his mouth for a sip.
"Bouncing back, finally, but it was a long haul."
"How about you? Are you bouncing back, too?"
Following his example she took a sip and tried to decide how much of herself to reveal. "It's funny," she said finally. "I ran a workshop in grief management when I first started practicing. I had all the tools, but somehow I was so busy taking care of Lys and trying to keep my practice going I guess I forgot to use them." She lifted an impatient hand and skimmed back the thick hair that still shimmered like a raven's wing in the sun when she turned her head. Her face had grown pale, highlighting the freckles splashed over the bridge of her nose. He'd counted them once between teasing kisses. Now he no longer remembered—or cared—how many there had been.
"I had sort of a meltdown on what would have been our twelfth anniversary. My family was already worried about me, and after that my father decided I needed to get away and relax. He arranged everything, even had my secretary reschedule my patients for the ten days I'd be away. I flew from Portland to L.A. the day after Christmas and boarded the boat the next day. I met Jonathan when he sat next to me at dinner the first night out." Her face tightened. "If he'd come on to me, I might have been suspicious, but he was a perfect gentleman."
She rubbed her palm up and down her arm as though trying to warm herself. "It seems even more horrible when I think about him touching me with the same hands he might have used to … to kill someone."
Suddenly, her cheeks turned the color of putty, and sweat broke out on her forehead. With a garbled moan, she set her mug on the glass-topped coffee table, then struggled to push herself out of the deep cushions.
Rafe put his own mug on the table with a sharp crack and got to his feet. Gresham did the same. Rafe reached her first.
"Danni—"
"Don't, please," she cried before clamping her hand over her mouth. Before he could stop her, she pushed him away and spun around to race toward the back of the house and the bathroom he remembered seeing there.
* * *
Chapter 4
« ^ »
"Danni, answer me, damn it! Are you all right?"
On her knees with her head over the toilet, Danni was too busy being miserably sick to reply. When the spasm passed, she grabbed a wad of toilet paper and wiped her mouth with a shaky hand. In recent weeks she had discovered a basic truth—morning sickness was definitely not for the fainthearted.
It was also, unfortunately, not confined to the morning.
"Danni!"
"I'm fine," she croaked.
"You don't sound fine," Rafe declared in a dangerous tone.
"You'll just have to take my word for it!" Too weak to move just yet, she sat down on the hard tile, and rested her head on her bent knees. The dizziness ebbed, only to be replaced by a growing clamminess that had her feeling hot on the inside and cold on the outside. She moaned, closed her eyes.
Obviously a man determined to have his own way, he rattled the knob. "Unlock the door, Daniela, or I swear I'll kick it in."
"Will you please go away?" she grated impatiently. "I'm being revoltingly sick in here, and I don't need an audience."
He greeted that with an ominous silence that lasted for several beats before he muttered a curse in Spanish that had her wincing. "Ten more minutes, and then I'm coming in to make sure you're all right."
Since she'd never known Rafe to make a threat he wasn't willing to carry out, she took a deep breath, then opened her eyes and pushed herself to her feet. Her head swam and bile surged to her throat. Her knees wanted to buckle.
I embrace perfect health and emotional serenity, she chanted silently. I am strong and capable and confident.
I am woman. Hear me roar.
She groaned silently. At the moment a newborn kitten had a louder roar.
Locking her knees, she forced her head up and opened her eyes. The wan face in the mirror staring back at her with hollow eyes was enough to make her queasy all over again.
After turning on the cold tap she grabbed a facecloth from the rod and bathed the hot skin until it started to tingle. She brushed her teeth until her gums felt raw, then ran her fingers through her lifeless hair and pinched color into her pale cheeks.
Oh God, could she really have married a killer?
Her lungs suddenly felt thick and sluggish, making it difficult to draw breath. How could she not have seen the violence in him? How could she not have felt it when he'd touched her? How could she know with any certainty that her judgment during therapy sessions was any sounder?
Dear heavens, what if her patients found out? How could they trust her? A humorless laugh ran through her mind. If her patients found out, she wouldn't have any patients.
Another thought rose, even more terrifying. Starved for a father's love, Lyssa had bonded with her new stepfather within only a few weeks. At the time she'd been touched by how sweet Jonathan had been with her. Now she knew it had all been part of his sick game.
She drew a shaky breath and tried not to think about the images that Rafe's words had painted. What was it Harry Truman had said? Fatigue makes cowards of us all.
As soon as Raf
e finished with his questions and left her in peace again, she would take a couple of Tylenol tablets and climb into bed. Lyssa wasn't due home until some time tomorrow afternoon, which meant she could sleep in for once.
After that … well, she would deal with the rest later. And deal she would, she vowed with more bluff than conviction. Daniela Mancini Fabrizio was no quitter. For good measure she patted the tiny cherub who was destined to come into the world without a father's love.
Don't worry, little dumpling. Mama intends to smother you with so much love you won't mind growing up without a daddy. One particular daddy, anyway.
Her jaw tightened as she thought about the legal steps she would need to take to ensure Jonathan Sommerset or Jacob Folsom or whatever he called himself would never ever have access to her child. No matter what, she intended to make sure that he never had a chance to hurt her babies again.
* * *
Determined to get past this without making it any worse than it already was, Rafe stationed himself at the end of the hall, far enough to give her privacy, but with a clear view of the door.
As he anchored himself against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, he was so tense his muscles felt hot. As soon as he'd seen her, he'd been all stirred up inside. When he'd carried her up the walk it had brought it all back—the smell of her skin, the taste of her lips, the way she felt in his arms that night as he'd carried her from the pond to the soft grass beneath the long sheltering branches of a weeping willow.
Her skin had been translucent in the moonlight, her body as smooth as marble, her nipples dark and puckered, ripe little buds he'd been desperate to taste. He hadn't intended to do more than pet her into opening her mouth for him to explore, but when she turned wild in his arms, he'd forgotten everything but the hot pulsing need between his thighs.
Oh, he tried to play it cool. What self-respecting seventeen-year-old male would willingly admit he'd never been with a woman before? Especially one who'd been spoon-fed machismo along with his rice and beans. But inside, he'd been terrified. What if he hurt her? What if he was too clumsy to make it good for her?
As soon as he'd touched her, he'd been lost. Nothing had been more important than exploring every inch of that amazing body. His own had been so hard he'd been in real pain. When she'd touched him with those curious little hands, he'd nearly exploded.
He'd wanted to be inside her desperately, so desperately he'd ached. In the end it had been his respect for his parents and her father that had him jerking back an instant before he'd breached her maidenhead. He'd often wondered if Fabrizio had appreciated his sacrifice.
Danni sure as hell hadn't.
His heart raced as unwanted feelings crowded him hard. She'd been half-wild with hurt pride as she'd hastily pulled on her suit. No one had ever said no to Daniela Mancini on her father's land. Especially the bastard son of a Mexican field hand.
Nothing he said could soothe her. Still, in his halting way, he'd tried, pouring out his deepest feelings in a jumble of English and Spanish. All it had gotten him, however, was a slap in the face and a blast of that fine Italian temper.
After she'd stormed back inside the big house on the hill, he'd prowled the vineyards like one of the mountain cougars who inhabited the hills above the vines, walking for miles until his muscles burned and his mind blurred. Maybe that was why he'd simply stood there when Eddie and the others had come at him a little before dawn.
Mark had been leaving after visiting Danni's brother Vito and had seen them by the pond. Rafe had tried to tell them that he loved her. That he wanted to marry her. He hadn't gotten out more than a few words before Eddie had smashed his fist into his face, catching him by surprise and breaking his nose. He'd fought, but Ed's brothers, Vito and Benito, had held his arms while the two older guys had taken turns hitting him.
Stronger than most, even as a kid, he could take a lot of punishment without going down. Consequently, he'd been in bad shape by the time he'd finally passed out. When he'd come to a few minutes later, his face sticky with blood and every breath an agony, Eddie had laid it out for him, all neat and tidy. He was to leave town that very morning, on the first bus out of Ashland and never come back. He wasn't to see or contact Danni ever again. If he didn't agree to those conditions, Ed would see that his father was fired from his job as vineyard foreman and kicked off Mancini land without a recommendation.
At twenty-four, Ed was already his father's right-hand man. Both of them knew he could do exactly as he promised. Both of them knew, too, that good jobs for a semi-illiterate Mexican-American day laborer with five young kids were hard to come by.
Spitting blood and with fury burning in his gut, Rafe had threatened to go to Ed's father. El Jefe was a fair man, a decent man. He'd even offered to send Rafe to trade school to learn auto mechanics so that he could go to work maintaining the vineyard vehicles.
He would never forget the satisfaction in Fabrizio's eyes. Who do you think sent us out here? he'd said with a smirk. Even gave us money for your fare.
Years later, Rafe had been able to see the logic in it. Eduardo Mancini wasn't a cruel man, simply a practical one. Danni was his only daughter. In the way of his father and his father's father, he had promised her to the eldest son of his best friend and rival vintner, Tonio Fabrizio. No mongrel with unknown parentage and few prospects would be allowed to threaten the dynasty he and Tonio Fabrizio had so carefully planned.
Rafe had known then what it was to hate.
Like everyone else in the valley El Jefe knew exactly how much Rafe owed to the Cardozas. His birth mother had been a fifteen-year-old druggie from California, who, with some guy she'd met in a truck stop, had stopped over to pick grapes for traveling money. One night during a spring storm the girl had given birth in one of the horse stalls, then split, leaving her hours' old son wrapped in a flea-infested scrap of blanket.
At the time Rosaria Cardoza had given birth to stillborn son only days earlier and still had milk. It was natural for her to take the baby. El Jefe had paid the attorney who'd arranged for Enrique and Rosaria to adopt him as their own.
Rafe had known from early on that he'd been adopted. How could he not know, a green-eyed blonde in a family of dark-eyed, dark-haired Latinos?
He'd been eleven when one of the other workers had gotten drunk and taunted him with the details of his birth. Rosaria had managed to soothe his hurt, but after that, pride had driven him to be the best at anything he tried.
As the eldest he'd always felt a responsibility to take care of the little ones. Maybe because he'd been adopted, he'd felt that responsibility more deeply than most.
After all that Enrique and Rosaria had done for him, he'd had no choice. So he'd swallowed the hate, along with his pride, taken the money and left. His face had been raw from the fresh bruises, and one eye had been swollen completely shut. Every time he'd moved, the splintered ends of his ribs ground together and breathing was agony. But he'd been determined to walk to the bus with his head high and his back straight.
With sweat pouring down his face and his stomach cramping with nausea, he'd finally made it on to the bus without passing out. He'd gotten as far as San Francisco before the pain of sitting for hours sent him in search of a bed. For a week he stayed holed up in a seedy hotel in the Tenderloin, living on junk food and aspirin while his body healed.
On the first day he was able to take a deep breath without passing out, he'd taken a cab to the nearest Army recruiter and enlisted. He'd been in boot camp when Danni graduated from high school, in Beirut when she'd graduated from Oregon State, slogging his way through the Treasury's own version of boot camp when she'd married Fabrizio. By the time her daughter had been born, he was no longer in love with the princess of Mancini Vineyards.
"Guess she's still puking her guts out, huh?" Gresham commented as he wandered into the hall from the living room, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. Even though he'd removed his suit coat and loosened his tie, he still looked like a damn ad for twelve
-year-old scotch.
Rafe shot him a sour look. "You learn how to talk that way at Dartmouth, did you?"
"Nah, that came straight from summer camp. Guys in my cabin took turns grossing each other out. I took grand champion three years running." Looking smugly pleased with himself, Gresham propped a shoulder against the opposite wall and sipped.
Still on the sunny side of thirty, with a trust fund in seven figures and serious political clout, Seth Aaron Gresham IV had the same lack of respect for rank that had caused Rafe no end of grief in his first few shaky years—until Linc Slocum had kicked his butt. For his sins—and according to Linc, they were legend—the suits in the big building had tasked him with whipping this particular high profile, gung-ho youngster into shape.
It was almost enough to drive a teetotaler like himself to drink, Rafe thought, corralling his chronic restlessness with more difficulty than usual.
"Question comes to mind why a guy famous for never losing his cool looks ready to explode because one pretty little woman has locked herself in the can."
Rafe shot him a sour look "You ever been around a pregnant woman?"
"Not my bag, actually. In fact, I tend to break out in a sweat the minute a woman gets that nesting gleam in her eyes."
Rafe checked his watch. Her ten minutes were nearly up. "I was six when my mom had my oldest brother. Mostly I remember feeling scared for nine months 'cause she was either hanging over the toilet or bursting into tears."
Seth took a sip, flexed his shoulders. "Guess I should be grateful I'm the last of three. Came along when my sister was almost nine."
Probably never slept three in a bed with at least one brother who peed the bed either. "Important thing to remember, a pregnant woman needs special handling. Last thing we need is a witness who falls apart on the stand. Tends to make juries do unpredictable things."
DADDY WITH A BADGE Page 5