January scrambled to her feet. “Are you all right?” she cried, looking at Sean as she quickly took inventory of all the visible places on his body.
“Yeah,” Sean started to answer her. “I think that I’m—”
“Sean!” January screamed as she saw the supposedly dead drug lord raising his gun. He was aiming it directly at Sean’s back.
Alerted, Sean spun around and fired his weapon at Mercer again. Mercer’s gun dropped out of his limp hand as the drug lord fell over again, this time totally immobile.
Not leaving anything to chance, Sean placed two fingers against the killer’s neck and checked for himself. There was no pulse.
“He’s finally dead,” Sean told January. And then he smiled grimly at her. “You saved my life, January.”
It was as if all the air had suddenly been drained out of her. She slumped against Sean, quietly sobbing. “You’re welcome,” she said, unable to still the quiver in her voice.
Sean spun around when he heard the door being opened, his weapon raised and ready.
“Hey.” Donavan raised his hands. He looked relieved to find them both alive. “We come in peace,” he quipped. Looking at the bloody scene, the detective said, “Looks to me like you two could really use some peace. What the hell happened?”
“Mercer had a completely different future in mind for his daughter than we did,” Sean told the other detective.
Donavan nodded. “We got the three men he brought with him,” he told Sean. “My guess is that they wanted to live more than their boss did.” Donavan looked from Sean to the visibly shaken woman beside him. “You two okay?” he asked, concerned.
“Well, there’re no bullet holes,” Sean answered, glancing first at January, then down at himself. “And with Mercer no longer presiding over his drug empire, I’d say that the rest of the situation is looking pretty good—at least for now.” He knew that nothing remained permanent in the cartel world. He slipped his arm around January’s shoulders. “I’m going to take January home. Tell your lieutenant I’ll be there in the morning to file all the reports he needs.”
Donavan nodded, a small smile curving his mouth. “That’ll definitely make his day. But as for Mercer’s drug empire, killing him is like cutting off the head of a hydra. No matter how hard you try to prevent it, another head is bound to pop up, and then it starts all over again.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sean agreed with a sigh. “But with any luck, there’ll be some breathing space in between heads.”
“We can only hope,” Donavan said as he went to join the rest of his team to canvas the aftermath of the crime scene.
Sean looked back at January. “Are you ready to go home?”
It was a rhetorical question. He was taking her home whether she was ready or not. She looked drained and exhausted.
“Your home or mine?” she asked.
“You pick,” he told her. This wasn’t the time to pressure her in any way. She needed to feel like she had some sort of control over her life, however minor.
“Could we go to yours?” January asked. “I don’t think I’m up to facing Maya yet. When I see her, I’m going to have to tell her that her daddy’s dead.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I need some time to figure out how to do that.”
Before going to the safe house, they had left Maya back at January’s town house. Both of her sisters and her cousin Carly were taking turns looking after the little girl. Because Maya seemed to have taken to all three of them, January felt she didn’t have to worry about leaving the little girl with them, although she hadn’t reckoned on being gone for so long.
And now, even though she wanted to go rushing back to see Maya—had it really been almost three days?—January knew she couldn’t go, not until she had had a chance to get her thoughts organized so she could explain to Maya what had happened. She needed to use the calmest, most neutral manner she could to sign to the girl and explain why she wasn’t going to be going back to her father.
“Maybe we can break it to her later,” Sean suggested. “For now, until all this is ironed out, maybe one of us should think about adopting her.” He looked at January, trying to read her expression. “Does that sound like it might be a possibility?”
“Yes, it is,” she agreed, then said, “Although there is another possibility.”
Sean’s eyes met hers and he knew what she was suggesting—or at least he thought he did.
“We could adopt her together,” Sean said.
Although that thought had been what she was entertaining, the moment she heard the words out loud, January knew that was what she wanted to do. Adopt Maya together with Sean.
But there was one problem with that standing in their way.
“They won’t allow two single people to adopt her,” she pointed out.
She was surprised to see Sean shaking his head. “Not a problem,” he told her.
She wasn’t going to question him about that. Or push his statement to its logical conclusion. She didn’t want to be disappointed in case she was wrong.
For now, she was just going to take solace in the fact that they were both alive and that a horrible, horrible man no longer posed a threat to any of them. Most importantly, not to Maya.
Eventually, January fervently hoped, Maya would come to realize that, as well, and see that her life was actually so much better off without a narcissistic man in it. A man who made his living selling poison to anyone who could come up with the money to buy it, even if it meant that they would be committing their own horrible crimes in order to get it.
That thought, however, was far too wearying to contemplate right now. All she wanted to do, January thought, was to sink into Sean’s arms and find comfort there.
He didn’t even have to mean anything by it, she thought. All he had to do was just be. The rest of it, if there ever was going to be a rest of it, could take care of itself tomorrow.
* * *
Sean drove up to January’s town house. Parking his vehicle directly in front, he got out and rounded the hood to get to the passenger side. He opened her door and put his hand out to her, silently indicating that she should take it.
When she did, he closed his fingers over hers, helping her out of her seat.
“Let’s go inside,” he told January. “You need your rest. You went through a lot today.”
The smile she gave him was one that looked exceptionally weary. “So did you.”
“Yes, but there’s just one difference. It’s my job. I deliberately signed on for it. You didn’t.” And then he smiled as he recalled, “Instead, you barged your way into it.”
“You know why. I wanted the stage that we set to be believable,” she told him quietly. “If I wasn’t there, since Mercer knew I had custody of Maya, it wouldn’t be believable. Besides,” she said with a smile playing on her lips, “Not everyone can play ‘pretend’ effectively with a doll.”
Sean blew out a breath. “I know, and I’m not about to argue with you over that,” Sean told her. “The end result is that Maya is no longer in any sort of danger from her father or because of her father. And she has you to thank for that.”
Still holding her hand, Sean slowly guided January to her front door. He waited for her to hand him the key to her town house. When she did, Sean put the key into the lock, disarmed the security system and opened the front door.
Once he ushered January inside, Sean rearmed the security system, going through the motions in order to make her feel safe.
And once he was finished, then and only then did the detective who had fallen so deeply in love with her take January back into his arms and proceed to make her feel personally safe while holding her against him.
CHAPTER 22
The tall, dark-haired, willowy young woman had fire in her light brown eyes as she came storming into the police station a little more than thirty-six hours
after Mercer’s demise had become the news media’s lead story.
“Is it true?” were the woman’s opening words to the desk sergeant.
Sergeant Wallace Harrison had been selected for his present position because nothing flustered him. He looked now at the Latin whirlwind who had planted herself squarely in front of his desk. “Well, ma’am, you’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” Harrison told her in a warm Southern drawl that had been known to disarm the most indignant of people.
Ruby Duarte took a deep breath, doing her best to sound at least a little calmer. The dark-haired cashier with aspirations of becoming a nurse and who was presently enrolled in online courses toward that end attempted to appeal to the robust looking sergeant’s best instincts. “The news bulletin on TV saying that Elias Mercer was killed yesterday while breaking into a safe house,” she said as she tried to start from the beginning.
This was above the sergeant’s pay grade to discuss. “Why don’t I have you talk to one of the detectives involved in that case?” Harrison suggested.
Ruby was not about to be put off. “I don’t want to talk to a detective,” she cried. “I want to find out if my daughter was there.”
“Your daughter?” the desk sergeant repeated, doing his best trying to follow her.
Despite her young age—she was twenty-four—Ruby Duarte was ordinarily a very quiet, reserved person. Mercer and his henchmen had used brute force to keep her from seeing Maya for years now. Not to be put off, she had come up with another plan. She had been secretly putting money aside and attempting to better herself. Her plan was to one day be able to steal her daughter away from the cartel drug lord.
“One day” had come sooner than Ruby had anticipated. She was eager to make it a reality before something else wound up separating her from her little girl. She was not going to put up with anything else keeping them apart.
“Yes!” Ruby declared, desperate to finally be reunited with Maya. “Someone told me that she was brought to this police station. Her name is Maya.” Maybe a description would shake up the desk sergeant’s memory. “She’s five years old and she’s hearing impaired. I need to see her,” Ruby cried. “Please.”
A light went off in his head and the desk sergeant nodded. The pieces were all beginning to come together. Harrison knew who she was talking about. “You wait right here,” he told the frantic young mother, getting on the phone. He put in a call to the Narcotics Division.
“Yeah, hi,” he said to the detective who answered. “This is Sergeant Harrison at the front desk. Is Detective Stafford still up there?” He was given an affirmative answer. “Great. Would you ask him to come down to my desk? There’s someone here claiming to be that little girl’s mother. Right.”
Hanging up, Harrison looked at the distraught young woman in front of him. “Detective Stafford said he would be right down. You can wait over there if you like.” He pointed to several chairs that were lined up next to one another by the far wall.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait right here,” Ruby told the sergeant, afraid she might miss connecting with the detective if she was anywhere else in the police station. There was a great deal of activity going on in the area.
* * *
Because she wanted to be sure that all her t’s were crossed and her i’s dotted so that nothing would get in the way of her being able to adopt Maya, January had come with Sean to the police station. She gave her statement about what had taken place at the safe house and then signed all the necessary documents. She wanted no oversights or holdups getting in her way when the time came.
The adoption was beginning to look more and more like a real possibility. She and Sean had been up half the night, discussing the matter. They had come to the mutual agreement that the best thing for the little girl would be if they got married so that the adoption could go off without a problem.
January knew that, in Sean’s case, getting married was just a means to a desired end—being able to adopt Maya. But she wasn’t going to dwell on that.
“So, in essence, this is going to be a marriage of convenience,” January had teased Sean in order to hide her insecurity.
“Trust me, convenience has absolutely nothing to do with you.” The detective had laughed just before he took her into his arms.
Sean had merely intended to continue holding January until she fell asleep. But, inevitably, they wound up making love.
January had woken up this morning with a whole new frame of mind, ready to take on the world and make everything in it right.
They had gone together to see Maya. January then went through the draining task of telling the little girl that her father was gone, and he wasn’t going to be coming back.
It took a long time for Maya to calm down and stop crying. But like the little trouper she had blossomed into, by the time they left her with Carly, Maya had started to come around.
* * *
After January gave her statement at the police station, she slowly regained her normal hopeful attitude. The adoption, no matter how it came about, was going to be a good thing for all of them, she thought—and then the desk sergeant had called, telling Sean that Maya’s mother was down there, asking for her.
“Is the desk sergeant sure this woman is Maya’s mother?” January asked, fearing the worst. “Because you know how these groupies have a tendency to come out of the woodwork, wanting to elbow their way into the limelight with some sort of made-up story.”
And then, worried, January fell silent. If this woman really was Maya’s mother, then the idea of adopting the little girl was beginning to seem like less of an option.
“We’ll go down and talk to her to find out one way or another if she’s on the level,” Sean told her.
Sensing that January desperately needed support, Sean took her hand and squeezed it as they headed to the elevator.
“But if she is Maya’s mother, how could she have put up with being separated from her child?” January asked angrily. There was no way she would have gone along with that if Maya had been hers.
“Maybe she had no choice,” Sean suggested. “You saw what Mercer was like. That guy was pretty damn intimidating. He could have threatened Maya’s mother—or both of them. And he had the backup thugs to do it.”
January shot Sean a disgruntled look. “I hate it when you’re being rational.”
“I’ll work on it,” he promised, killing the smile that rose to his lips.
The moment they stepped off the elevator, January immediately spotted Ruby in front of the sergeant’s desk. There was no wondering if she was the girl’s mother.
January groaned. “Oh lord, she looks like a grown version of Maya.”
Sean was looking at the woman, as well. “You see it, too,” he noted. “I thought maybe it was just me.”
Having heard the elevator’s bell announce its arrival, Ruby looked over in that direction. Seeing the police detective coming toward her, she lost no time in striding over to him. She wound up meeting him and the woman accompanying him halfway.
“Is she here?” Ruby asked anxiously. Desperately wanting an answer and beside herself with worry, she had no time for formalities. “Is my baby here? She’s not hurt, is she?”
“No, she’s not hurt,” Sean assured her. “But she’s not here, either.”
Ruby grew progressively more distressed. “Then where is she?” she demanded, looking from the detective to the woman with him.
It was January who spoke up. Considering the situation, her voice was deliberately calm, belying her own inner turmoil as she reassured Maya’s mother. “She’s with my two sisters and my cousin, a pediatric nurse—and she’s very safe.”
Ruby looked bewildered. Was this another detective? “Who are you?”
“I’m Maya’s social worker,” January explained, then introduced herself. “January Colton
. And you are?”
Ruby drew herself up, knowing that her appearance probably left something to be desired. But she had come rushing over in her cashier’s uniform the moment she heard the breaking news.
“My name is Ruby Duarte. Maya Duarte is my daughter.” The last words came out in an almost stifled sob.
“Duarte, not Mercer?” Sean asked. Given the situation, that probably meant the cartel chieftain hadn’t married the woman. He needed to delve deeper into the background story, Sean thought.
“Elias didn’t want me to have any claim to our daughter, but given his line of work, he wanted to keep his options open just in case having a daughter wound up being a threat to his business dealings somewhere down the line.” There were tears shimmering in the woman’s brown eyes as she told him.
January read between the lines. There was no mistaking the animosity that existed between Ruby and her daughter’s late father.
Ruby suddenly took January’s hand. January sensed that Maya’s mother thought the close contact would keep her from lying. She saw desperation in Ruby’s tear-filled eyes.
“Where is Maya?” she asked again. “Can you take me to her?”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?” Sean asked.
“Officially, not since she was a baby and Elias took her away from me,” Ruby answered.
The way she had phrased her reply begged another question. “And unofficially?” January asked.
“I have a picture of Maya that was taken five months ago. I have a friend who managed to find out where Maya was going to be one day. He covertly snapped this photograph for me.” Ruby took out her phone and showed them the picture. She smiled ruefully as she told them, “I keep it next to me on my nightstand.”
Looking at it with January, Sean nodded as he handed the phone back to Ruby. “I just need to substantiate a few things and then we can take you to see your daughter,” he told the woman.
Ruby pressed her lips together as she nodded. January saw Maya’s mother fighting back tears again. Tears that matched the ones she felt in her soul, January thought as she contemplated losing the child she had never really had.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense January 2021 Page 20