TWICE UPON A TIME

by Jennifer Wagner

  "You're right. Your mother still avoids medication, but she does take vitamins." She poured herself water from the fridge and took three. She debated telling him more, but at this point it didn't matter. She turned and looked across the kitchen into his expressionless face. "The aspirin are mine. Usually this is all I need, but sometimes I wait too long and have to take the stronger stuff."

  "For what?" he asked quietly.

  "Migraines," she answered, capping the practically empty bottle and putting it away.

  "You never got headaches before."

  He looked angry, as if this change hadn't been approved by him

  "Well, I do now."

  "Since when?"

  She paused her folding of a hand towel. "Do you want the actual date?" she asked wryly, smiling a little in spite of her anxiousness.

  "Yes."

  She shook her head and glanced over at him. His arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowed and intent, he shouldn't have made her want to hug him.

  She sighed. "I don't know. Years ago. Does it matter?"

  "Do you realize you still answer a question with one when you don't want to answer it?"

  She stilled. He was right. But why did he remember so much about a woman he didn't trust? Then again, why was he so curious about her?

  "It started as headaches and the doctors thought they were a side effect of the pregnancy. When they got worse, they ran some tests to check for a tumor."

  "A tumor!"

  He'd shoved away from the half wall and approached her.

  She held up a hand. "They didn't find anything."

  He halted.

  "Instead of getting better, they got worse and didn't stop after the twins were born. For a couple of years I gave myself shots."

  Somehow she knew he held his breath and shrugged in a nonchalant way. It truly wasn't a big deal. At least, not something she couldn't deal with.

  "You hate shots."

  His flat announcement brought back a vivid memory. She, Rico and Rafael had been sitting outside their houses. No breeze moved the summer night, forcing them out of their stifling homes. People milled about, and even though midnight had come and gone, cars drove by at a crawl while the passengers yelled and waved to friends. Everyone seemed intoxicated more by the humidity than liquor or drugs.

  She'd been leaning on the porch railing, listening to Rico and Rafael argue sports when the bottles started flying from one of the cars. One hit her on the side of the head, another sliced her calf. Rico had been moving toward her as soon as it started and had scooped her up and into the house before the pain even registered. Rafael, true to nature, ran after the car with a bat, yelling curses the entire time. Rico took her to a medical clinic where they stitched her up and insisted on a tetanus shot. She'd always had a phobia about needles and argued persistently, but had been unable to talk the doctor out of it. She'd buried her face in Rico's neck and cried as he'd held her tight and murmured comforting words.

  She'd remembered that, many times, while giving herself migraine shots. Many times she'd wanted someone to hold her when the needle pierced her skin and the pain in her head had her crying. But she'd learned well that when it came down to it, she could only count on herself.

  "I still hate shots, but I didn't have a choice. Even though it's in pill form now, I sometimes need the shots if I wake up with one. Then it's too late for anything else to work."

  He looked away from her, his lips flattened.

  "It's really no big deal," she said, wondering why it bothered him so much.

  He pinned her with an angry stare. "It is a big deal. They can't tell you why they keep happening?"

  Sure she could, but oddly she didn't want him worried about something he couldn't control. The doctors felt stress was the biggest contributor, and she knew this situation would give her tons. She didn't need him to take on the Big Protector role again.

  "Nope. They said one day they might stop. Now, let's work on these names," she said, and decided to grab a drink before they started.

  "Have you seen an allergist?"

  She sighed. "Yes."

  "Neurologist?"

  She fought to keep calm as she poured a coke. "Yes. She did a CAT scan and an MRI."

  "What about—"

  "What about," she said, slapping the empty can onto the counter, "you back off and drop the whole subject? You can't fix this. Even if you'd been around when I went through it, you wouldn't have been able to do anything."

  An expression crossed his face too quickly for her to identify. He looked down and made piles of the papers and yellow legal pads he'd written on. Just as she was about to say something to break the tension, he spoke.

  "But we'll never know if I could have helped, will we? Because, as you said, I wasn't here."

  She opened her mouth to respond. His bitter self-recrimination should have been satisfying. After all, he admitted to not being around when he was needed. Then why did she feel so bad?

  "Listen. What's done is done. You're here to help us now, right?"

  He nodded, avoiding her eyes.

  "Okay, then. Let's figure this out." She waited a few seconds to see if he would ignore her suggestion. Instead his shoulders relaxed and he nodded.

  "Want a drink?"

  "Yeah. Thanks."

  She lifted her eyebrows at his tone and poured him a cola. When she turned to carry their drinks to the table, she saw him checking out the half-closed blinds – a chilling reminder to worry more about the danger they faced, rather than a past that could never be reborn.

  "These are the people you said you see the most." He held up a pad, showing her the separated columns of names. She stood behind him and to the side, deciding it was the only way to keep enough space between them.

  "These are the people you've worked with before and now. How many know about your life in Miami or about me."

  "None," she responded flatly.

  He stared up at her, disbelief and something else in his unfamiliar eyes. "No one?"

  She shook her head.

  "Why?"

  She shrugged.

  "Annabella…" His voice held an unspoken plea to confide in him.

  "Don't call me that!"

  He kept staring at her, making her stomach clench with all sorts of emotions.

  "You didn't have to be embarrassed about telling people the truth. Single mothers aren't branded by society anymore. Besides, you know I'd have come back to you if I'd known about the children."

  She sucked in air at the verbal slap.

  "Wait, Anna. I just meant—"

  "No! It doesn't matter what you meant. It really doesn't." The last she repeated for her heart, which was being cruelly squeezed by his words. She turned and took a few steps away, hurrying when she heard his chair scrape roughly across the floor. With the table between them, she reached across and pulled the legal pad to her.

  "Which column do you want to start with?"

  She ignored his curse. Staring at the names, but not reading them, she could see him out of the corner of her eye, raking a hand through his hair.

  Finally he sat back down, and relief lowered her heart rate. She leaned on the chair with a one knee. Standing above him made her feel a little more relaxed.

  "Start with the first one," he answered, coolly polite.

  It was so easy for him to control his emotions.

  She'd better start taking lessons.

  * * *

  An hour and a half later she pushed the pad across the table with more force than necessary. It glanced off his chest and gave her a childish satisfaction.

  "This is ridiculous. That plumber was here three years ago! Don't you think he'd have done something by now?"

  Rico massaged the bridge of his nose. "I'm not leaving anyone out. Have you seen him since?"

  She had the strong urge to pout. "No."

  "Then cross him off."

  "Great. I'm feeling better already," she scoffed.

  He ignored he
r. "I think we have a good preliminary list. Your aunt Clare, Brooke, Pete Joncaluso, Dana, your boss at the paper, your mailman and the Johnsons and the Burkes down the lane. They're the only ones who moved in after you.

  "As far as brief contact, there are twenty or so possibilities … from the cashier at the supermarket to the woman who jogs by every morning."

  Anna let her head fall back, the stretch loosening tense muscles. "Including Aunt Clare and Brooke is ridiculous. Couldn't it be someone I don't know who's watching the house?"

  "Yeah, but it's unlikely. Whoever looked into my files started the day I arrived. Mike tried to track them, but they covered up well. He made sure it wasn't real estate agents for the house or insurance companies doing a routine background check." He leaned his elbows on the table. "We never figured someone would be suspicious right away. The odd thing is they started their check using my Gage social security number."

  "How on earth did they get ahold of that?"

  He rubbed the scar on his throat. "I don't know. I expected it to start with that name or the license plate run on the Jeep. This changes things."

  "I need the paper back," she said, reaching for the pen and catching the sliding yellow pad.

  Before she could start writing, she saw him smile.

  "What?"

  "You always hated puzzles."

  "Puzzles?"

  "Yeah. Unanswered questions. Mysteries. They drove you crazy until you figured them out."

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "So?"

  "So, you're doing it again. You're going to solve this. Not that I mind the help, it's just good to see some things never change."

  His words tightened the cold band around her heart. "You're wrong. Everything changes."

  She ignored what her words did to him and concentrated on writing down ways someone could get his social security number. After a few minutes she looked up to find his intent stare. "What have you used it for?"

  "I can have Mike check the background ID again and see exactly what documents it's on. Offhand, it would be on credit card accounts, college transcripts, my driver's license."

  She nodded and kept writing until a stray thought interrupted her. "How did you arrange to stay at Jim and Emily's?"

  "Pure luck. Jim Henderson was in the military with my superior. He arranged it. They're at their daughter's, but they'll go on a month-long tour of England when they're ready, courtesy of the government."

  "How … nice."

  "The government can be generous."

  She let that one go.

  "All right, here's my list— Wait a minute. Why can't the person behind all of this be from the government?"

  His eyes narrowed.

  "Did you see Clear and Present Danger?"

  He nodded.

  "The secretary is having an affair with the drug dealer's right-hand man and inadvertently feeds him information. It could be someone in the office of your superior or someone with access to the computers."

  She could practically see the faces of the people who worked for his boss as he mentally flipped through them.

  "Could be," he murmured. "Girlfriend. Relative. Blackmailer." He flipped open his cellular, dialed and, after a few seconds of listening, punched in more numbers.

  "Hey, Bonnie. Is Clyde there?" he said, a warm grin tugging his lips to the right. She fought the immediate questions that barraged her about the woman on the other end and concentrated on what was missing from his smile. New dental work. No, that wasn't it. Lips? No, the bottom was a bit fuller.

  His mouth formed words, but she didn't hear them. He stopped talking, and the tip of his tongue slid along the bottom lip from corner to corner wetting it. The shine it left behind caused a blossom of heat to warm her stomach and spread to her toes and fingertips.

  It reminded her of a night not so long ago, out on the porch, when moonlight had reflected off the shine on his lips after his mouth left hers.

  The night she'd been wrapped in Gage's arms as he awakened her body with electric sensations.

  Gage.

  The name acted like a douse of cold water, and she realized Rico wasn't talking anymore. His face came into focus, his eyes watching her with heat in their depths. Somehow he'd known what she'd been thinking. Known one night she'd been on the verge of making love to another man.

  "You okay?"

  She nodded jerkily, her body still losing the effects of a memory.

  He went to say something, then hesitated and cleared his throat "Mike wasn't home, Bonnie will let him know I called. I'll meet him online later."

  She arched a brow.

  "Bonnie is Mike's wife. She was pregnant when we were on the mission at the Balangerios. Every day Mike worried she'd deliver before we got home."

  She took a shot in the dark. "He's the one you were with that night, isn't he? The one you made sure wasn't captured with you."

  He nodded slowly. "He had a wife, a child on the way. A family. He had more to lose."

  Seconds passed. A sweet ache spread up her chest, but she stifled it before it became tears. He let Mike go because Mike had a family. And because Rico didn't.

  "I wrote to you when I found out about the pregnancy."

  "What?" She wished he shouted the word. His stiff, hollow question made her wince even though the fault was not her own.

  "I found out I was pregnant two weeks after … you left." She didn't say fight, didn't want to remind him of the other lie. She also didn't mention she'd been so violently ill from heartache and nerves, never realizing it could be due to something else. "I didn't know what to do. I finally wrote to tell you. I hoped you'd come back or at least help me decide what to do."

  She forced herself to look at him. The naked pain on his face made her want to take back the words.

  He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. Her heart fought the instinctive urge to reach out to him. Her head reminded her this wasn't her fault. She'd suffered for years because he didn't believe in her and couldn't forgive a lie.

  He stood abruptly and averted his face, then walked to the bathroom off the foyer. The soft click of the shutting door echoed through the quiet like a shot. She looked around her kitchen, a room she'd spent years in every day and wondered why it looked so different. Why everything felt different.

  She sat back in her chair, drained, and fighting righteous anger and tears. She wanted to feel only hate for the man who'd left her and never really loved her, a man just like her father. The man who'd come back searching for his mother. The man who lied and made her care and brought violence to threaten her children.

  But she couldn't find any. She sat there searching her heart and found no hate, no joy in causing the same hurt she'd felt so many times. Instead, it was as though his pain had healed hers.

  It was time to let it go.

  He didn't love her. He'd left her. He'd found her only by accident. Then he'd lied to her and let her start caring for another man. One she could never have because he didn't really exist.

  He walked fearlessly into violent situations and she couldn't watch the six o'clock news.

  But he would have helped her had he known. She could see that from his reaction. He cared for her, if only because she was the mother of his children. He desired her, something she knew would not be enough. He would be a great father, and he loved his children.

  He may not be husband material, but he was a good man. The bathroom door opened and he walked out to the front of the house, moving silently into the living and dining rooms. Without looking at her, he walked back into the kitchen and into the family room, checking the windows. Unfortunately, the sun had set and the table light couldn't penetrate all the shadows and let her see his face.

  He walked past her to the kitchen sink, leaning over to peer through partially closed blinds. Satisfied, he straightened, but kept hold of the edge of the sink.

  Time ticked by, and Anna followed through with the resolution she'd come to. She pushed
back her chair and approached him. Other than a stiffened spine, he made no move. Staring at the middle of his back, she took a deep breath and slid her arms underneath his, wrapping around to his front. She laid her head on his warm back and hugged him, silently trying to tell him she was sorry. That she understood what he was feeling.

  She didn't see the surprise on his face or see him look down at the arms around him and close his eyes. She knew he held his breath, but didn't know it was an attempt to control the remorse and guilt and fear swirling inside him.

  She had no idea how long they stood like that before he spun in her arms and yanked her sideways to the floor, covering her body with his. Somehow he slowed their descent and she didn't hit the linoleum hard. Just as she regained her senses, he barely whispered, "Don't talk. Someone's on the deck."

  Fear flowed down her spine. He leaned up slightly, giving her the room to tilt her head back to see his face.

  What she saw chilled her more than the danger on the other side of the wall. Alert, but otherwise tautly expressionless, he was poised above her, listening intently.

  Not three inches from her face was a gun.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  «^»

  Rico's heart heat against her chest; his ribs pressed against hers. Fighting his weight, she pulled much-needed oxygen into her lungs. A peek away from the inverted L shape in his hand revealed no change in his expression, no relief for her panic.

  Just then his hip started vibrating.

  All kinds of unmotherly visuals colored her mind in scarlet waves. The heat of them flooded through her, ending in stinging flags across her cheeks.

  He reached down, and she held her breath.

  "It's okay now," he said, his hand coming back up with his beeper.

  His vibrating beeper.

  "What?" she asked, trying to appear coherent while relief left another kind of tension behind.

  "It's safe," he answered, pushing a button and putting it back on his belt. Then he swiveled and put his gun in the back of his pants, the move pushing his hard chest into hers, making her fervently wish he would either get off or kiss her.