Kate glanced through the door’s window, at the brave little angel sleeping inside. What kind of courage did it take for a child to confront his demons head-on, the way Dillon had? A whole lot more courage than Kate had had when she’d been hiding from her family nightmare for years. Or all morning, when she’d been having a running conversation with herself over not being freaked by how fast things were moving with Stephen.
“We can’t keep him here, or at either of our houses.” Stephen drew her around to look at him again. “Too many people know we’re searching for the family. It would be too easy for someone to figure out. But I already have an APD contact looking into a safe house. And you know a doctor who could look after Dillon, until I can get things squared away.”
He waited, letting her decide. Clearly wanting her with him, but giving her the chance to walk away from the risk they’d be taking.
And suddenly, the rightness of trusting Stephen’s instincts made it seem like a no-brainer. They were going to do what they had to do, together, and they were going to make this work.
“I’ll page Robert at the hospital,” she said. “I’m sure we can stay the night at his house. Marsha can bring me whatever we’ll need to monitor Dillon’s condition. I’ll keep him quiet and make sure he rests. But he needs more tests. He’s—”
“Very sick. I know.” Stephen’s relief tempered his worry. “We’ll get through this as fast as we can. First, I’ve got to get to Manny before he does something stupid. He must be going out of his mind worrying about Dillon. Once I have his whole story, I’ll take it to the INS or the DEA or whoever will promise protection the fastest.”
“And then?”
This could still blow up in their faces.
“Then you and I, and my boss and my APD contact and Martin’s DEA contact and whoever else we need to get involved will do what I love best about my job.” Stephen’s gaze held hers. “We’re going to manufacture this family a miracle.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MARTIN GRITTED HIS TEETH and pushed against the Nautilus weight platform, extending his legs.
“Balance the weight between both legs,” Carmen Lender said.
Not that you could call fifty pounds weight.
“When do we take off the training wheels?” Martin asked around a grunt. “Back home I used to press two-fifty on a machine just like this.”
“If the weight’s too much, we’ll take it down.” Carmen eyed the sweat coating Martin’s body. “More reps is the key, not the resistance.”
“The key—” Martin pressed again, ignoring the shaking in his right leg “—is for me to be able to take a shower without having to call my big sister to get my ass out of the tub.”
“You’re still not going to let me schedule any X rays, are you?” Carmen had been pissed when she’d discovered the tenderness in Martin’s hip and he had admitted to not getting checked out after his fall. “You could have broken something.”
“I’m just…” Martin clenched the handgrips on either side of the seat. His legs slipped the last few inches, sending the weight crashing down. “Sore.”
Carmen calmly removed the pin from the stack of weights. There’d be no more reps that afternoon, not even with training wheels.
“You’re going to permanently injure yourself,” she warned, “if you don’t stop expecting the impossible. You’ve made amazing progress, but—”
“I need to accept my limitations. Yeah, got it.”
Martin swiveled off the bench, grabbed his crutch and stood, remembering all of Lissa’s warnings to the same effect, her voice full of love and fear and belief that he could get through this. That they could still have a chance.
A chance he was tempted to believe in again, more each time he saw her.
“Let’s work on the bars,” Carmen advised. “Then we’ll cool down with some stretching and a massage.”
She always started him with stretches, before he walked with the aid of a torture device that resembled a gymnast’s parallel bars. Then came the weights, and finally, at his insistence, back to walking. Because no matter what he could do on a mat or a piece of weightlifting equipment, it didn’t mean dick if he couldn’t walk without the crutch that felt like it had become a permanent part of his body.
He positioned himself between the bars. Carmen stood to the side, spotting him.
“Just a few steps this time,” she cautioned. “You’ve pushed a bit too far already.”
Ignoring her, he set off, tentatively sliding—sliding—his right foot forward, while loosening his hold on the bars and lifting his hands. Letting the right leg bear his weight, he inhaled and raised the left off the ground. His right leg promptly gave out, its muscles spasming as the ground rushed up to meet him. He caught the bars with his arms, and Carmen supported him as much as she could, while he struggled to get his legs back under him.
Every curse word he’d ever known came tumbling out, one right after the other.
“Martin!” Suddenly, Lissa was holding him on the side opposite Carmen. “Are you all right?”
“What the hell are you doing here!” His body leaned into hers, as if he had no say in the matter. And to make things worse, the area immediately south of his waist responded to her nearness again. “Can’t you get it through your head, I don’t want you here.”
Clearly his body did, but that didn’t mean he intended to do anything about it, even if Carmen had given him the all-clear to enjoy his reawakened libido. Hell, he couldn’t even put one foot in front of the other.
“Back on the bars,” Carmen said now. “I’ll get your crutch.”
His damn arms were weak as noodles as he fought to support his weight on his own.
“Get away from me,” he growled at both women. “I’m fine.”
Carmen must have been satisfied. She turned and retrieved his crutch, then headed for the side room, where she’d massage the kinks out of his muscles on a low table he’d barely be able to roll off of once she was through.
“Five minutes, and your ass is mine again,” she said as she went. “Your hip’s already tight. You’re not going anywhere tonight until I’ve worked you over from head to toe.”
And he wasn’t going anywhere near her table until his raging hard-on was under control.
“You can’t be here,” he said to Lissa in as close to a civil tone as he could manage.
“Martin…” She felt so right beside him, touching him.
It was bewitching. Terrifying. It made him want to throw his crutch away and lean on her instead. Forever.
Except, even with his manhood intact, he was still half the man she deserved.
“I…” He sighed. Time to cut to the chase. “I can’t handle you being here, making me feel the things you do, when…”
“You don’t like the way I make you feel?” She glanced down, then let her gaze slide back up his sweat-slicked body. “Wanna run that one by me again?”
“Yes, I’m hard.” He clenched his jaw. “It seems all you have to do is walk in the room the last couple of days, and I want you.”
She smirked.
“Be careful, Martin, or you might just turn my head.”
“Fine, as long as I’m turning it away.” He eased out from between the bars and, on his one-and-a-half good legs, went to finish the day’s physical therapy.
Lissa, of course, put her two bewitching legs to work and cut him off at the pass. Leggings…She was wearing black leggings beneath her coat and the oversized sweater that hugged her thighs and butt.
“Damn it, get out of my way!”
“I’ve done that long enough.” Fury heated her expression. “I don’t care how afraid you are of me or us or whatever it is you’re feeling, I’m not going anywhere tonight, or any other night, until I damn well want to. And right now, I want to be in your way, more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life.”
It wasn’t a good idea—he might not be able to get up again—but he headed for the nearest bench and seated hims
elf on it with a groan.
He couldn’t bear being close to what he couldn’t have, no matter how many times she offered him his dream come true.
It was Lissa’s turn to sigh.
“Is it really possible?” She was standing in front of him.
“Is what possible?”
“That you’re more afraid of me than you are of never having complete use of your body again?”
Martin leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He still saw her, though. She’d always be in his mind, even after she’d given up and was gone.
“Anything’s possible,” he conceded.
At Lissa’s soft touch on his cheek, he opened his eyes. She trailed her fingers down his chest and the ancient muscle shirt he’d worn. Then those legs he had nightly fantasies about were straddling him as she slowly, carefully lowered herself to his lap. His instant response jerked beneath her.
“The question is, why?” she purred.
“Why?” He gripped her waist, filling his hands with her sleek softness. His fingers tightened against his body’s demand to sample more. “Because I don’t have the strength to move you off me and walk away, not even for your own damn good. And screw sex. I can’t be what you need outside the bedroom, either, and we both know it.”
She rocked forward, her expression turning dreamy as she draped her arms around his neck.
“I know this feels wonderful.” She lowered her head enough to lick the inner curve of his ear. “And I know your big, bad heart—and how much you’re worried about hurting me—turns me on even more than your body does.”
Her lips fluttered against his throat. His hands began to roam.
He’d touched her, held her, made out with her back in Oakwood. But that had been a long time ago, when he’d been carefully courting her and hiding the parts of himself she shouldn’t have to deal with. There was nothing careful about the need coursing through him now.
He wanted to be the man for her, the one she couldn’t leave behind. The way she’d always be the woman for him. No more lies. No more secrets.
“Get away from me.” He ordered his hands to stop their descent, dropped his arms to his side and opened his eyes.
“Why?” She didn’t budge, her eyes wide. “So you can console yourself instead of dealing with the dirty work of living with what you really want? You refuse to let yourself reach for happiness, Martin. That would mean trusting that together you and I can handle the good stuff, as well as whatever’s bound to go wrong next.”
A not-so-hushed cough was their only warning.
“Would you two mind postponing the good stuff?” Carmen asked. “I’ve got dinner plans, and—”
“No problem.” Lissa rocked forward and back again, then she slipped to her feet.
But she didn’t back off. She just stood there, only an inch away. Martin’s hands reached for her before he realized what he was doing. He clenched them. Pressed them against the bench. As he stood, his chest accidentally brushed hers.
Like hell it had been an accident.
Her next breath took his away, his body was so sensitized to the feel of her against him. And she noticed.
She’d always noticed everything about him. About them.
“We’re finishing this tonight,” she promised.
“EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN how keeping a sick child away from the hospital is a good solution?” Robert asked Kate in his living room. “His father doesn’t know where he is, and you don’t have legal authority to make Dillon’s medical decisions. You’re taking an awfully big risk.”
Kate had known Robert would help, even though it meant another endless discussion of how she let taking care of everyone else consume her life. Stephen was off somewhere scraping together a miracle. She could endure her ex-husband’s good-intentioned nagging.
“You’re a brilliant doctor,” she countered. “Dillon couldn’t be in better hands.”
“I’m a surgeon.”
“I’m assuming that means you had to go to the same medical school as pediatricians.”
“The boy needs a specialist, and—”
“And you have a huge Buckhead home, where no one’s going to come looking for the Digarros anytime soon,” she said in a hushed voice.
Dillon was in one of the upstairs guestrooms, and voices had always carried in this monstrous place.
“This should be your huge home, Kate.” Robert planted his hands on his hips. He’d just rolled off twelve hours in surgery, but he hadn’t hesitated when she’d asked him for help. He’d examined Dillon before Kate tucked him into bed, and he’d agreed to let them stay for as long as they needed. “I offered it to you in the settlement.”
“How would I pay for a place like this?” Her wave encompassed the two-story room.
“With the money I instructed my lawyer to give you, along with the house.”
“Nah.” Kate eased into the overstuffed, leather couch, and picked up one of the grilled cheese sandwiches she’d made for herself and Dillon as a late lunch. “The money and the house are better off with you.”
She’d agreed to taking her car, enough money to cover a sizable down payment for her condo, and the retirement savings and investments she’d made during the marriage. Anything beyond that would have felt mercenary.
It would have felt like letting Robert take care of her still, which was what she’d needed to escape from in the first place. Now here she was, running to him, and of course he’d taken her in.
“It’s not your fault, you know.” He sat beside her and took the other half of her sandwich.
He bit, barely chewed and swallowed. Then he looked down, as if just noticing what he was eating, and took another bite. When they’d been together, if Kate didn’t cook, he’d go for days living on whatever came out of the surgical floor’s vending machine when he shoved quarters in.
She waited for him to swallow, then handed over the remainder of her half and headed for the kitchen to make more.
“I know the Digarros’ situation isn’t my fault,” she said. “Can we please not dissect this?”
Robert leaned against the counter while she turned on the burner to reheat the pan.
“I mean our divorce.” He sighed at her glare. “I knew I wasn’t giving you what you needed in the marriage, but I let us go on pretending. It was easier than forcing the issue, and—”
“We were both busy?” Keeping busy had kept them together for years.
“Truth was, I didn’t want to talk about it any more than you did,” he admitted. “In the long run, you were more honest than me. That’s why you asked for the ending we both knew was right.”
Kate buttered bread, laid the expensive, premium cheese Robert preferred on top and turned the sandwiches into the pan.
The wall clock ticked away.
“I’m a lousy partner, Robert. And I’m lousy at being saved from myself. You on the other hand—” she flipped the sandwiches so the other sides could brown “—can’t stop yourself from wanting to help me.”
“I wasn’t trying to save you.” He crossed the tiny space separating them. “I was trying to love you.”
“Turned out to be the same thing at the time.” She hadn’t been ready to be over the past then, which had made happiness with Robert impossible.
“And now?”
Robert and Stephen had been polite when Stephen had dropped Kate and Dillon off. But her ex had been throwing protective vibes around like a force field. The closer Stephen stood to her, the deeper Robert’s concerned frown became.
“Now…I’m not sure….”
“Well, that’s an improvement, I guess.” Robert visibly relaxed at the idea of another man maybe being what he never could have been to her. “You two actually make sense together, in a way. Creighton looks as shell-shocked as you do.”
Kate slid a sandwich onto a plate. She handed it to Robert, then scooped up her own and took a warm, gooey bite.
“No one’s where they thought they would be
this afternoon.” She and her ex were having a friendly chat about her new guy; Dillon was falling asleep beneath six-hundred-thread-count pima cotton; Martin was most likely finishing up his therapy under Lissa’s watchful eye, and Stephen…Stephen was out doing what he did best, but he wasn’t doing it alone this time. He was trusting not just her but a whole team of people to help him pull off the biggest deal he’d ever tried to negotiate.
“But do you like where you are enough to want to be there tomorrow?” Robert prompted.
For him, being a surgeon was everything. He lived for it. He regretted their divorce, but it’s not as if he missed being married all that much. His life was exactly where he’d always needed it to be.
Kate had thought hers was, too.
That morning, Stephen had said he wanted even more. More passion. More working together. More supporting one another and understanding things they shouldn’t be able to but did, no matter how little time they’d spent together.
But did she?
Falling in love, loving a man who admitted to trusting the emotion even less than she did would be taking the biggest risk of her life.
“I KNOW THE DIGARROS stayed here,” Stephen said to the manager of the Second Ponce Homeless Shelter. Clifford Reynolds, according to the name plate on his beaten-up desk and the ID in the wallet Stephen still held. “Dillon told me this is where they’ve spent every day and night since leaving the hospital. I’m Manny’s attorney. His son is safe and with friends of mine, and I thought perhaps his father would be relieved to know that. Maybe want to speak with the boy.”
“And I hope you find him, so you can relay your message.” Clifford’s “I’m not following you” act, ever since he’d invited Stephen to sit across from his desk, would have been convincing—except for one minor detail.
Stephen reached over a stack of paperwork and picked up a familiar plastic race car.
“Manny gave this to me when his son was hospitalized. He trusted me enough to take it to Dillon when he couldn’t, and Dillon trusted me and his nurse enough to track us down, because he knows his father is in danger.”
Because of a Boy Page 13