by Sylvie Kurtz
“Okay, but Mom, you’re hurting me.”
Juliana loosened her hug and grasped Briana’s shoulders, suddenly desperate to make Briana understand the enormity of what had happened. “This wasn’t a good game. You have to understand. This can’t happen again. Ever. You know better than to go anywhere with a stranger.”
Briana frowned up at her. “Willy’s not a stranger.”
Juliana shook Briana’s shoulders slightly. “I’ve told you and told you that you have to ask permission before going anywhere with anybody.”
Briana’s bottom lip drooped into a pout. “It was a surprise, Mommy. You like hide-and-seek.”
“I don’t like the idea that someone can take you away from me so easily.”
Briana’s gaze dropped to her cards. Her lower lip trembled.
Juliana’s grasp tightened. “Do you understand, Briana? Do you understand how worried I was? How scared I was?”
“Juliana—”
“No, you stay out of this.” Her gaze snapped to Lucas, and she unleashed her arsoned feelings at him. “This is between my daughter and me. I’ve taught her. I’ve told her. She knows better than this. Yet he took her away from me.”
He rose. “Juliana—”
She ignored him. Tears stung her eyes. “I thought you were never coming back, Briana. I don’t ever want you to do anything like this again. Is that understood?”
Briana’s gaze narrowed and hardened. “It was a game!”
“It was a bad game.”
Briana threw her cards on the table, knocking over the glass of milk. As she got up to run from the room, her forgotten magazine tumbled from her lap to the floor.
Her sobs, as she stomped up the stairs toward her room, were like a slap in the face. The fire gushing through Juliana’s veins quenched instantly, leaving behind a sick feeling.
She had hurt Briana.
She’d wanted to protect her daughter from all the pain of the world, and instead, she herself had hurt her.
Willy had played hide-and-seek with her. Lucas had played cards with her. She had been unable to control her fury and done the unthinkable—she’d lashed out at the most important person in her life. “Oh, God. What have I done?”
Chapter 8
Juliana sprang up to follow Briana upstairs, but as she passed Lucas, still standing beside his chair, he grabbed her wrist. She pulled, but he held her firm.
“Let her go,” he said.
“She’s my daughter. She needs me.” She tugged harder. His insistent grip did not waver. He moved slowly, deliberately, a wall now between her and Briana. A bullet of panic ricocheted through her.
“She needs to be alone for a little while,” he said. “And you need to cool down.”
She looked at her captive wrist, felt her pulse beat against the warmth of his skin, the steel of his determination. “She’s hurt. She needs her mother.”
“She’s hurt. She needs time.”
With slow, unerring precision, he closed the space between them. She stiffened against the sudden surge of need to be held, to be comforted. The scent of him, the heat of him, the memories of him twined with the guilt, the fear, the worry, making her dizzy. She tried to back away. He captured her other wrist.
“Give her a few minutes.” His voice, like music from a snake charmer’s flute, shivered down her spine.
She turned her head away, peered at the stairs, then closed her eyes, held her breath. She was twenty-two again, awkward, confused, needful. No, that part of her life was over, done. The intoxication of youthful passion had drawn her to Lucas. She knew better than that now. She was all grown up, a business owner, a mother responsible for a child’s welfare.
“How can you presume to tell me what’s best for my child?” Juliana said in an explosion of loosed breath. “What do you know about kids?”
“About Briana—practically nothing. About children—a thing or two.”
“How?” Turning her wrists over, she pressed her hands against his chest, intending to push away. Instead his heartbeat drummed under her right palm and she flattened her fingers against the strong familiar rhythm. Safe.
“My sister has four of them. She lives in Florida, and when I was in Miami, I spent a lot of time with them.”
“Briana has cousins?” Like a balloon pricked with a pin, something burst inside of her. The thought of nieces and nephews had never occurred to her.
“An aunt. An uncle. A whole family.”
Her mouth opened in a silent gasp. She’d deprived Briana, not just of a father, but of the thing she’d been trying to build since her own mother’s death. Family. Picnics and laughter and teasing. Holiday chaos. Love.
“A grandmother, too.”
Lips trembling, she looked into Lucas’s eyes. “A grandmother.”
Her own Grandma Bea had been a small imp of a woman who knew how to turn any occasion into a special memory. Sharing a birthday tea in a fancy Boston restaurant. Shopping for that special Easter dress. Baking gingerbread girls to hang on the Christmas tree. What was Lucas’s mother like?
“A grandfather?” she asked.
He shook his head. His eyes clouded with pain. “My father was killed while attempting to arrest a bank robber when I was fifteen.”
She hadn’t known. She should have known. A bruise nicked her heart. She knew small, inconsequential things about him. He squeezed the toothpaste tube from the middle. He liked spicy foods and ice cream. He was slow to fall asleep, fast to awake. But she knew precious little about what had made him who he was. “In Hopewell?”
“In Hopewell.” Hopewell was a small town, smaller than Aubery. If any place should have been safe, Hopewell was it. Was no place safe at all?
Lucas stroked the inside of her wrists with his thumbs. Heat spread through her like molten gold, settled low in her belly, and thrummed an echo of his caress. She meant to shift position, to create more space between them, but when her head moved, it slanted naturally into the crook of his neck and rested in the comforting spot seemingly created especially for it. Secure.
Tears wanting to shed burned in the knot in her chest. Her body sighed as it fitted snug like a puzzle piece against Lucas’s body. His answer was bold, unmistakably hard against her stomach. No, no, no, her mind rebelled. Not now. Not with him. But she could not move away from the comfort of his solid warmth.
“I hurt her,” she whispered, ignoring her body’s longings for the past, concentrating on the present. Her heart felt too heavy for her chest. Blinking, she tried to stop the tears from falling, but they ignored her and coursed wet and hot down her cheek. “I just wanted her to know how serious what she’d done was.”
She swallowed hard. In the heat of her anguish, she’d been cruel. Not once, but twice. “I hurt you.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her, but there was compassion in his eyes. “Deeply.”
She slipped her arms around his waist and held on tight, wanting with all her might to turn back the clock. “I never meant to.”
His hands cupped her nape, his thumbs tilted her chin up. A furrow of pain creased his forehead. “Why?”
“I thought….” She looked down, shook her head against his neck, felt his breath hot against her hair. “I thought I was doing what was best for all of us.” Mistakes. She’d made so many of them in her quest to protect her daughter. Her throat ached. Her chest felt as if it were bleeding. “It made sense then….”
“But not now.”
“I was wrong,” she admitted. “By the time I realized you had a right to know, you were gone. Your office… they wouldn’t tell me where you were. I thought you didn’t want me to find you.”
“I didn’t know.” He leaned back, separating them so he could look at her.
“After she was born.” She shrugged. “I wanted you to know. I wanted her to know you.”
“Yesterday?”
Was it only yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime. “You’re FBI. He’d told me not to contact the police. That
he would hurt her. I was afraid for Briana’s safety. She had to come first.”
“And now?”
“Now?” Now she was more confused than ever. “Everything’s changed.”
Something vibrated against her hip. His body moved away, making her shiver with loss. Hands still resting against her neck, he lowered his forehead against hers. In his eyes, she saw warmth, sadness, and regret. “My phone. I have to make this call. They need to know about Willy and Cindy Marchand.”
She nodded. Business, it would always come first. Yet for an instant, she’d seen something in his eye, something that gave her hope, if not for herself, then for Briana.
“We can find Willy through her and put him in jail where he belongs.”
“Yes, of course.”
A knock rattled the door. Ella poked her head into the kitchen. “I saw you drive in. I couldn’t wait any more. How’s our little princess? Oh, I’m interrupting something—”
“No, Ella, come on in. Briana will be so glad to see you.”
Lucas’s grasp slowly slipped from around Juliana’s neck. Only a slight hesitation of his fingertips against her pulse interrupted the smooth flow of the movement. As if seeking to keep the contact longer, the beat bumped harder. Then Lucas turned and moved away. Without a look back he picked up the phone and dialed. Juliana wrapped her arms around her middle and faced Ella with a shaky smile.
“Briana’s in her room. I’m afraid I made her cry. I—” She shook her head, fighting ready tears, not sure she could explain what demon had temporarily possessed her. “Maybe you can comfort her.”
“Oh.” Worry floated in Ella’s eyes. “Of course. I’ll go right up.”
Lucas hung up. He’d closed himself off again. She could read nothing on his face but stony aloofness. “I have to go in.”
“Of course.” She reached for the sponge in the sink and mopped at the spilt milk on the table.
He placed a hand over hers and stopped the frantic action. “You and Briana have to come along, too.”
“No!”
“I either take you in, or they come get you.” His smile was flat, mirthless. “What would the neighbors think?”
* * *
Lucas had given his best shot to protect his daughter from the intrusion of an FBI questioning, but Regan wouldn’t budge from his position without an explanation, not after Lucas had let the Phantom slip for a third time, and Lucas wasn’t about to give him one.
In the once organized tapestry of his life, Juliana, Briana, the Phantom, even his own future were all tangled threads for which he couldn’t seem to find the ends. And right now, he couldn’t afford to get lost in the knot where they all snarled. His concern had to be safeguarding Juliana and Briana from the law he was sworn to uphold.
He glanced at Juliana, busily mopping the milk spill from the table. All the while he’d held her, he’d damned the attraction filtering even through his anger, cursed the ready need of his body to consume hers, condemned the familiar fit of her so right in his arms. He’d wanted, needed the anger to get his job done, but when he’d dug down for it, all he could find was frustration, and regret at what he’d let go without a backward glance.
Despite everything that had passed between them, he didn’t want to separate mother and daughter. They belonged together. And as strong as Juliana was, jail would break her. He didn’t want to see the expressive light in her eyes die. Not when she’d just shown him her feelings like an open book.
She still cared. She didn’t want to, but she still did.
She’d wanted him to know about their child. This time it would be different. He would be there. He would protect her, take care of her, of Briana.
“Juliana,” he said, taking the sponge from her hand and dumping it in the sink with a splat. “We have to talk.”
“We’ve been talking.” She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, and finally crossed her arms under her chest, pinning her hands to her sides.
“About the Nadyenka Sapphire.” He turned a chair and gestured for her to sit.
“It’s gone. The Phantom has it.”
“You stole it. It was part of an FBI operation.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I had to.”
“It won’t matter.”
Frowning, she shook her head slightly from side to side. “What are you trying to say?”
“You could end up in jail.”
Her fists shot down at her side. “No!”
Given the importance of this investigation, it was not only probable, but likely. “We need to stick as closely as we can to the truth, but they can’t know you were at my house.” He placed both his hands on her shoulders, felt the delicate bones under his fingers. Instinctively, she curled her shoulders up. The unspoken rebuff hurt more than he cared to admit. He shook her slightly. “Do you understand?”
“No, Lucas—”
“Sit.” He walked her backward to a chair and pressed on her shoulders until she sat. Then he dragged another chair out and straddled it backwards to keep from reaching for her. “Here’s what we’ll say. I brought the brooch to your shop for an appraisal. While you were doing your job, you received word your daughter had been kidnapped. Because you were afraid the Phantom would hurt your daughter, I approved your exchange of the brooch for your child, and promised you I’d keep FBI involvement in her rescue minimal until she was safe.”
“Won’t that get you in trouble?”
To keep her free, to keep Briana home, it was a risk he would have to take. “I can handle it.”
“You could lose your job.”
Could he live with that? He wasn’t sure. This job was as much part of him as the color of his eyes. Few things gave him the satisfaction that the hunt and capture of a criminal did. He couldn’t imagine not doing exactly what he was doing. But neither could he allow Juliana and Briana to become victims of the Phantom’s game. He had much more to lose this time than a piece of heirloom jewelry.
“Do you want to spend time in jail? Do you want Briana to be turned over to Family and Child Services? That’s what’s going to happen to her when you tell them she has no family.”
Her face turned chalk white, her voice was a harsh whisper. “No, they can’t do that!”
He hated using this tactic, but her mile-wide independent streak left him no choice. He reached for her hands, felt their cold clamminess, and squeezed reassurance. “Then listen to me, Juliana. We have to get our stories straight.”
* * *
Rudy Regan, Jr. was pacing his office when Lucas finally reached it. His boss’s face bloomed red. The veins at his temples throbbed purple. Lucas didn’t want to hazard a guess at the numbers Regs’s blood pressure would register on a sphygmomanometer.
Hands loosely held in front of him, body braced against Regan’s onslaught, Lucas waited.
Nothing was out of place in Regs’s office. Though filing cabinets, books, and papers packed the small space, the area was neat. His files were in order. His paperwork was caught up. Everything was labeled. Lucas often thought that if he’d had a picture of his family, even they would have neat little labels below their images—Susan, Jacqueline, Alicia. But there were no pictures. Regan was divorced and hadn’t seen his two daughters in over four years. A victim, like most agents, of his FBI obligations.
Old Regs was taking his time, letting strained silence wear his victim down. And it was working. Lucas’s mind filled with thoughts of Juliana. Pure poison for a man in his situation.
How was she holding up? He shook his head in a small dismissive way. Juliana had been taking care of herself for a long time. She had her cover story; she’d be fine. She didn’t need him. The truth was, he was the one who needed Juliana for the next phase of his plan to work, needed her and Briana to fill the empty spot in his heart aching for… what? He searched his mind for the right word, but came up blank. The inability to label his need set off a fretful hum along his nerves.
“Close the door,” Regan barked.
Lucas complied. Not good. But then, he hadn’t expected this to be a picnic in the park. Regan wasn’t high on imagination, but following the rules with strict application had gotten him upward mobility—something he wasn’t about to give up without a fight.
“Sit.”
“I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself.”
FBI rule #1 was don’t embarrass the Bureau—which his two, make that three—failed attempts to nab the Phantom had done.
Since he’d arrived he’d learned that agents hard searched Cindy Marchand’s home and found nothing. She’d disappeared—along with Willy and any evidence that a kidnapping or a jewel theft had ever occurred. They were still waiting for lab reports on fingerprints and fibers, but Lucas didn’t hold out much hope. The Phantom was a canny specter. He was already three steps ahead of them.
“What’s with the woman?” Regan asked.
“The surveillance was stagnating. I was planning to take the brooch to several jewelers to have it appraised and get a buzz going about it. The Phantom nabbed her kid and forced her to exchange the brooch for her daughter. I agreed.”
“By who’s authority did you do this?”
“Mine.”
The silence was long and heavy under Regan’s piercing gaze.
“It’s agents like you that give the FBI a bad name. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“My job.”
Regan halted, and spun around. His jowls quivered. “Your job is to follow orders, which for some reason, you seem to think you are immune to doing.”
Regan wanted an excuse, any excuse, to jump on Lucas. Defending his position would be useless, a sign of weakness. Regs didn’t understand instinct. Lucas said nothing.
“If it were up to me, I’d have your badge before the day’s out.”
Lucas clenched his jaw, kept his temper in check, forced his body to appear relaxed.