First-Class Father

by Charlotte Douglas

  Her eyes met Dylan’s, and a cramp of longing closed around his heart. He wanted to see Heather every morning when he awoke, to share breakfast with her, to hear the sweet music of her laughter and bask in the radiance of her smile.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “A hundred percent.” She lifted her bandaged arm and beamed a smile that would thaw an iceberg. “I don’t need the sling anymore.”

  Love, powerful as a tsunami, washed over him. Threatened as she’d been, other women might cower and snivel, but Heather had never allowed adversity to squelch her invincible spirit To keep from touching her, he settled in a chair at the opposite end of the table.

  “How about you?” Sid poured Dylan’s coffee. “Get any sleep?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Dylan sipped the strong, hot brew, remembering his long talk with Sid after Heather had fallen asleep last night. Sid had listened to his summary of Heather’s connection with Talbot Moore and agreed with the theory that Charles Wilcox was somehow involved.

  While Sid grabbed a few hours’ sleep on the living room sofa, Dylan had called Starke and talked to a prison official who promised to collect the data Dylan requested. Later, when Sid awakened to stand watch, Dylan caught some sleep. They both needed to stay alert. The would-be killer was getting desperate.

  Sid, his coffee mug almost hidden in his beefy hand, leaned his bulky frame against the counter. “I called the station. One of the guys is bringing you an unmarked car from the motor pool until your Jeep’s repaired.”

  The buzz of the telephone interrupted Dylan’s thanks. He jumped up and snatched the receiver off the wall phone. “Wade, here.”

  Warden O’Brien’s hearty voice reverberated in his ear. Dylan listened carefully to the man’s report, thanked him and hung up.

  “Well?” Heather asked. “What did he say?”

  Attempting to assimilate the significance of O’Brien’s findings, Dylan sank back into his chair. “In the short time Charles Wilcox has been at Starke, he’s corresponded with only two people, his sister Irene and her son Blain.”

  “Phone calls?” Sid asked.

  “None.”

  “Visitors?”

  “Only one, a few days ago. Irene Moore.”

  Heather winced in surprise. “But Irene is in France.”

  “Maybe.” Dylan fixed her with a steady look as pieces of the puzzle tumbled into place. “She visited Charles the day before Chip was kidnapped.”

  “Looks like,” Sid suggested, “this Irene isn’t as content with her divorce as the Sinclairs seem to think. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, remember?”

  Dylan nodded grimly. “Check to see if Irene returned to France. If she didn’t, we’d better find her and bring her in for questioning.”

  HEATHER ADJUSTED her sunglasses, a part of her disguise, against the glare of the afternoon sun, and peered through the car window. In exasperation, she jerked the straw hat from her head and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “How much longer?”

  Dylan, wearing a Blue Jays cap and aviator lenses, eased the Ford LTD around a corner. “Are you tired?”

  “After eight solid hours of driving up and down every street in Dolphin Bay?” She couldn’t keep the edge from her voice. Her wounded arm ached and her nerves unraveled further by the minute. “Why should I be tired?”

  “Because you’ve been through hell the past few days.” His comforting tone soothed her as much as his strong fingers, massaging the back of her neck.

  She regretted her petulance. “Do you think we’ll find Irene?”

  “Every department in the county is searching for her and the two vehicles she’s been seen in. Sid and his detectives are calling hotels and motels in case she’s registered under her real name.”

  “In a resort area like this, she could be at any one of thousands of places. Finding her could take days.”

  “Patience. That’s what police work is all about.”

  She shifted her scrutiny from the passing landscape to Dylan. He exuded calm, from the shadowed planes of his face and his relaxed posture to the tranquil brown of his eyes. Easygoing, Dylan had patience in spades and was slow to anger, even when provoked. A wonderful quality in a husband.

  She quashed her longing for the unattainable and reminded herself that Dylan’s involvement in her case was based on two things: his desire to protect his son and his dedication to his job. Once he caught Irene, Heather wouldn’t see him again.

  “I doubt Irene is staying at a motel or hotel,” he said.

  “You mean we’ve been wasting our time?”

  “We’ve checked every hotel with a parking garage with no luck. If she’s smart, she rented some place with a two-car garage where she hides her vehicles.”

  “Then how will we find her?”

  “She has to come out sometime. Every officer in the county is on the alert for her and those vehicles. It may take time, but we’ll get her.”

  Time?

  Heather couldn’t spend much more time with Dylan without losing her mind. Being near him was an exquisite torture. She sighed, pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window and yearned for Chip. His sunny disposition had helped her through many a bad time in the past. When this nightmare was over, she’d no longer have Dylan, but at least she’d have her son. His son.

  “That was a heavy sigh,” Dylan said.

  “I was thinking about Chip. I hope he’s not missing me too much.”

  “We’ve done enough today. I’ll head back to the house, and you can give him a call. Maybe hearing his voice will make you feel better.”

  But it didn’t.

  Back in Dylan’s kitchen, she hung up the phone after her conversation with Chip. He hadn’t cried, but she’d heard the plaintive tone in his precious voice. She craved to hold him. He was so small, and he didn’t understand why his mommy wasn’t with him.

  Her stomach knotted, her throat ached and her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to snuggle with him before bedtime as she’d done every night since his birth—until a few days ago.

  “You miss him, don’t you.” Dylan moved toward her, draped his arms over her shoulders and pulled her close.

  “It’s like losing a part of myself.” Surrendering to his solace, she buried her face in his shirt and inhaled the earthy, male scent of him.

  He closed his arms around her and breathed against her temple. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For the things that have happened.”

  “The attacks?”

  “Those, too, but mainly for how things turned out between us.”

  “There is no us.” Her old anger flared like a Roman candle.

  He held her tight. “For that, I’m sorriest of all.”

  At his words, her heart skipped, her pulse revved, and she fought back fresh tears.

  “Me, too,” she whispered against his chest.

  He lifted her face, and she glimpsed the passion glowing in his eyes before he covered her mouth with his. At the contact, an explosiveness erupted between them, as if the air had ignited. Helpless against her need, she abandoned herself to his kisses, to the ravenous exploration of his lips and tongue, the nip of his teeth at her neck.

  Winding her fingers through his hair, she nestled closer and molded her body to his, while his large, strong hands caressed her, electrifying every nerve ending they touched. Like dry ground to a soaking rain, she opened herself to his raw and sensuous power, drinking in the sweet, remembered taste of his kisses, absorbing the river of heat flowing from his fingers.

  A warning sounded in the back of her mind, a reminder that commitment, not transitory pleasure, was what she needed. She pulled back, but when Dylan swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, passion numbed her consciousness, curbing all awareness except how much she wanted him.

  He toppled her onto the bed, covered her with his body and pushed aside her clothes in his haste. With sha
king fingers, she helped peel away the layers of fabric between them. At the contact of his naked flesh with hers, two years of repressed desire burst free, magnifying her need.

  “Now,” she begged. “Please.”

  He drove into her with a force that took her breath away. The fury of his pent-up longing kindled her response, stoked her passion and consumed her in a conflagration of sensations that drove out all consciousness except the two of them, wrapped in each other’s arms.

  A while later, he shifted off her but kept his arm around her, drawing her close to his side. His lips moved against her forehead. “I love you, Heather. I will always love you.”

  Floating in blissful tranquillity, she realized, for now, love was enough. If commitment never came, at least she’d had tonight.

  With that consoling thought, when he drew her atop him, she went gladly into his arms.

  THE SQUAWK AND STATIC of the two-way radio on the bedside table roused Dylan from a deep slumber. His watch read two in the morning.

  He snatched up the radio and stepped into the hall to avoid waking Heather. “Wade here.”

  “We’re out front.” Sam’s voice crackled loudly. “And we’ve got her.”

  “Irene?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Dylan dragged on jeans, jammed his feet into a pair of deck shoes and tugged a shirt over his head. With a final glance at Heather, her unforgettable face peaceful in sleep, her naked curves tempting beneath the thin cover of the sheet, he slipped from the room and made his way to the front lawn.

  He spotted Sid Bullock’s massive silhouette at the edge of his drive. “Where is she?”

  Sid jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Jeb’s got her in the back seat of my car.”

  Surveying the street, Dylan caught sight of a white Mercedes two houses away. “What happened?”

  “Jeb and I were watching your house when the Mercedes pulled up and the driver turned off its lights. When she stepped out of the car, we jumped out and nabbed her.”

  “I want to talk to her,”

  Sid grimaced in the moonlight. “Lotsa luck.” Dylan’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth against the fury raging inside him. He strode to Sid’s car and yanked open the back door.

  Jeb Greenlea climbed out. “She won’t say anything. Says she wants a lawyer.”

  Dylan acknowledged his statement with a curt nod and slid onto the back seat. The dim interior light illuminated a tall, slender woman with disarrayed blond hair and a wild look in her eyes. Her hands fluttered around her as if they had a mind of their own.

  “Dylan,” she exclaimed in a breathless voice, “thank God.”

  “I’m the last person you should want to see.” His voice rasped like a file against metal.

  Her hands grew suddenly still. “Why?”

  “Because it’s my son you kidnapped, and the woman I love that you almost killed.”

  “But I didn’t!” Her hysterical cry vibrated in the humid night air.

  Craving to shake the truth out of her, he leaned toward her. Only the rigid discipline of his training restrained him. “Then why was your car used to kidnap Chip? Why was your car in the alley behind Heather’s house? Why did you go to her school looking for her?”

  She launched her trembling fingers into motion again, tugging her hair, smoothing her skirt, twisting her diamond-heavy rings. Her gaze bounced wildly, landing everywhere except on him.

  He thrust his face inches from hers and demanded with a growl, “Why, Irene? Was it revenge? Or money? So your sons will get more of Talbot’s inheritance?”

  Stillness settled over her again and, when she spoke, her voice was a hesitant whisper. “I wanted to warn her.”

  “What?” Her answer wasn’t the response he expected.

  “I went to Heather’s school to warn her.” Her words spilled out in a tumble. “Before—”

  She clamped her lips together and looked away.

  Tears slipped from her eyes and caught in the fine lines of her face, but Dylan felt no sympathy. As long as he’d known Irene, beginning in the days he and Rand had played together as young boys, this helpless, insecure female had depended on others, clinging to the people around her like a parasitic plant.

  Her brother Charles had imprisoned Lily, the woman Talbot loved, so Talbot would marry his sister. Irene had allowed Charles and her sons to fight her battles for her, had made Talbot’s life a living hell, and now she had tried to kill Heather and Chip.

  She would need more than tears to gain Dylan’s sympathy. He forced a gentleness he didn’t feel into his voice. “Why are you here tonight?”

  She turned her head and met his eyes. The movement dislodged her tears, and they tracked down her bare cheeks. “I was following Blain.”

  Dylan blinked in surprise. “I thought Blain was still in France. What’s he doing here?”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place, and the horror of the answer spurred him into action. He dived out the open door and hit the ground running.

  The explosion ripped the night and knocked him backward. As he fell, flames erupted, shattering the windows of his house.

  He was too late.

  “Heather!”

  Echoes from the blast drowned his cry.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flames licked the night and thick plumes of foul smoke surged skyward, smothering the stars. Dylan scrambled frantically to his feet and raced toward his house.

  He hurdled the porch steps and flung open the front door, but a backdraft of searing flames drove him away. Choking in the acrid, superheated air, he careered around the corner to his bedroom window.

  Refusing to believe Heather was dead, he smashed the windowpane with his elbow and wrenched the lock open. He raised the sash, hoisted himself over the sill and plunged into the pitch-black, smoke-filled room.

  “Heather!”

  He could see nothing but flames outlining the closed door to the hall. Around him, the house crackled and popped as the fire devoured it. In the darkness, he fumbled for his bearings.

  “I’m here. I can’t see which way to go.”

  Her voice and sharp, hacking cough led him in the right direction. He stumbled against the edge of the bed and gathered her in his arms.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. “Hold on.”

  Another spasm of coughing was her only reply.

  Crouching to catch breathable air, he turned and headed for what he hoped was the window, but in the inky darkness of black smoke and blinding fumes, he lost his sense of direction.

  Erupting with a whoosh, the interior wall of the bedroom burst into flames. Heather tightened her arms around his neck.

  “Dylan!” Jeb Greenlea’s voice penetrated the holocaust. “Are you in there?”

  Following Jeb’s shouts, Dylan located the open window and lowered Heather, a sheet wrapped around her, into Jeb’s arms. As Dylan vaulted over the sill, the ceiling crashed to the floor in the room behind him.

  On the ground a safe distance from the flames, Dylan took Heather from Jeb. “Thanks.”

  Jeb smiled and socked Dylan’s shoulder. “You would have done the same for me.”

  Dylan glanced at Heather, her face streaked with soot. “You okay?”

  “As soon as I clear the smoke from my lungs.” She gasped a constricted breath, and a fit of coughing racked her again.

  Dylan pulled her close and suppressed the sob rising in his throat. He’d almost lost her. Another minute longer before he had reached her, and she would have perished when the ceiling caved in.

  The scream of approaching sirens drowned the hiss and rumble of the burning house, and three neon yellow Dolphin Bay fire trucks rolled to a stop behind him.

  “Where’s Sid?” Jeb asked suddenly.

  Dylan swung his gaze to Sid’s empty car, then across the crowd of neighbors who had gathered along the street. “And Irene?”

  A paramed
ic approached. Dylan left Heather in the paramedic’s care, then broke into a run, with Jeb alongside, around the blazing house to the backyard.

  He skidded to a stop as a bulky figure emerged from the smoke with a bundle in his arms.

  “Irene tried to force her way in the back door,” Sid said. “I had to knock her out with a punch to the jaw to keep her from throwing herself in the flames.”

  “She attempted suicide?” Jeb asked.

  Sid shook his head. “She kept screaming for Blain. I think her son’s inside.”

  Dylan peered through the smoke at what had once been his home. The roof had collapsed, and only a few blackened timbers still stood beneath the stream of water firemen poured on the ruins.

  If Blain had been inside, he was dead now.

  For the first time, Dylan felt sympathy for Irene. No one should have to lose a son in an inferno like that. Overwhelmed by his sudden need for Heather, he wheeled and sprinted toward the street.

  He found her, the sheet draped around her like a Roman toga, sitting in the back of the paramedic’s vehicle, inhaling oxygen through a mask. She had never looked more beautiful, even with her face smeared with ashes and her eyes red-rimmed from smoke.

  When she saw him, she smiled with a brightness that drove the breath from his fume-seared lungs.

  “You saved my life.”

  “No.” He wrapped his arms around her. “I saved my life.”

  She lifted her head and appraised him with a puzzled look. “But you were outside when the fire started.”

  “You—” he brushed his lips across hers “—are my life.”

  She clasped her arms around his waist. “I don’t know how to thank you for risking your life for me.”

  If she kept smiling at him like that, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. “If you insist on showing gratitude, I have something in mind.”

  “What?”

  He bobbed his head toward the watching crowd. “Later.”

  SCRUBBED CLEAN OF SOOT and the acrid odor of smoke, and dressed in clothes borrowed from Jasmine, Heather sat in Rand and Jasmine’s living room. Beyond the expanse of French doors, the sun plunged toward the shimmering waters of the Gulf of Mexico.