Because of a Boy

by Anna DeStefano

  His uncomplicated forgiveness filled Kate with a sense of rightness she hadn’t felt since that morning, when she’d been wrapped in Stephen’s arms.

  Stephen squeezed her hand.

  “May I see Dillon?” Manny’s request was formal, despite his desperate search of his surroundings.

  “Of course.” Kate made herself move away from Stephen. “He’s upstairs sleeping. If you’d like to rest with him for a while…”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She motioned Manny up the stairs, then followed. Stephen’s cell phone rang, and she glanced back, her steps slowing. He ducked into the den before she could read his expression. But his body language had been enough.

  He might have spent the afternoon doing the impossible—tracking down Manny Digarro and persuading the man to trust them—but the miracle they needed for the Digarros was far from complete.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, father and son reunited and resting as comfortably as possible, Kate retraced her steps to find Stephen still on the phone, pacing the length of the den.

  “Keep digging, Kelly.” He clicked his cell closed. “Neal’s been working over e-mail with my assistant, scouring INS precedents where the defendant was permitted to stay in the country for medical reasons.”

  Stephen shrugged off his coat, took Kate’s hand and urged her to join him on the couch.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He absently rubbed her palm, as if he was trying to decide where to start. “The best we have so far is that the INS might delay Manny’s deportation until Dillon’s condition is stabilized. The boy’s medical situation should be enough to keep him here indefinitely, but we’ll have to approach the INS as soon as possible so they can begin to process a provisionary visa. The jig will be up anyway, as soon as he’s readmitted to the hospital.”

  “But if you contact the INS, they’ll—”

  “Want to know where Dillon’s father is.” Stephen was shaking his head. “If only we knew how long it’ll take to get the DEA on board….”

  “Martin said Tony Rivers is pushing his DEA contact to do more.”

  “We need local operatives involved now.” Stephen stood and began to pace. “Manny’s holding on by a thread. It took forever for me to convince him to come here—that there’s no chance anyone would connect Robert to him or his son, at least not before we get them to the safe house Curt is working on with the APD.”

  “Where else would Manny be?” Kate brushed at the chill racing down her arms. “He’s talking about running? Alone? He wouldn’t do that to Dillon.”

  “He would to protect him.” There was a hint of acceptance in Stephen’s voice.

  Resignation.

  “How is losing his father going to protect Dillon? He thinks Manny hangs the moon. I’m supposed to be making him all better, so he and his father can keep running together. If Manny leaves without him…I don’t even want to think what that would do to Dillon’s recovery. His condition’s already so weak.”

  Stephen came back to the couch and sat, concern etched in every line of his frown.

  “Manny told me what happened in Bogotá. He probably has something the DEA could use. But—”

  “So he’ll tell the federal authorities whatever they want to know, in exchange for being able to stay in the U.S.”

  “He’s too scared to wait.”

  “Scared of going back home? You said you could hold the INS off for a while, until—”

  “No. Scared of the Colombians that are tracking him. Scared of them ‘taking care of things’ before the DEA can make a decision.”

  “Taking care of…” Kate swallowed. “The Colombians who are after Manny don’t want to bring him back to Bogotá, do they?”

  “No.” Stephen’s touch gentled even further. She could feel how much he wished he was wrong about whatever he was about to say. “They want to make sure he—or what he knows—is no longer a threat to a very dangerous, well-financed man. And if I don’t get Manny some police protection soon, if the DEA doesn’t want his information badly enough—”

  “Then Manny’s going to make sure he’s nowhere near his son when the Colombians find him.”

  It was exactly what she should have known Manny would do.

  It’s always been about me, Dillon had said.

  “Curt’s telling me there’s word on the street that Vargas’s men may already be in town,” Stephen explained. “Clifford Reynolds at Second Ponce heard from some of the other shelters that you weren’t the only one asking about the Digarros. Manny and Dillon are in a lot of danger.”

  “Because of me.” Kate pushed off the couch, following the facts to their next logical conclusion. “Let’s forget for a minute that we’re talking about Dillon losing his father. What’s going to happen when the INS or the DEA want to know where Manny is, and he’s nowhere to be found. You’re on record as his lawyer.”

  Stephen stood, too, and sunk his hands into the pockets of his perfectly pressed jeans. He stared at the toes of his high-priced sneakers.

  “You’re going to catch hell,” she answered for him. “I haven’t just fixed things nicely for the Digarros, I’ve screwed you, too. Does Neal Cain know any of this yet?”

  Stephen nodded his head. “I’ve filled him in, and he’s behind whatever I decide. Even if he wasn’t, I’d do what I have to do. I promised Manny I’d keep Dillon safe, no matter what it takes.”

  “To hell with the consequences of interfering with a federal investigation? You’ll be prosecuted, all because I dragged you into this mess.”

  “I pressured you for us to work together,” Stephen reminded her. “You didn’t beg me onto this case. Dillon is a child. He deserves a life filled with security and love. You saw that, and you helped him the only way you knew how. Now, it’s my turn. Don’t you realize, your passion for helping a total stranger’s child is part of why I love you? And I—”

  “Don’t say that!” The ugly feelings raging inside Kate congealed into something so desperate, she could hardly speak. “You don’t love me.”

  “I don’t?” Stephen scowled. “Why? Because you don’t love me back, or because you’re still scared of your own feelings?”

  “You’re the one who should be scared.” She motioned to the house around them. “Robert loved me. He’d still do anything in the world for me. And I think I started running from him right about the same time we exchanged vows.”

  “What does that have to do with us?”

  “I’m not any better at feelings and trusting what to do with them than you are. I’ve shut out my husband, my brother…everyone I’ve known my entire life. Except at work. I had the work thing nailed. I was helping people at the hospital and the shelter. Now I’m destroying lives left and right even there, and you want to love me!”

  “What exactly do you think would have happened to Dillon if you hadn’t intervened? And today, without your brother and his contacts, I never would have talked Manny in.”

  “In to what? Accepting that he can’t stay with his son?”

  “Oh, get over yourself, Kate!” Stephen turned to stare out the window. Shaking his head, he pivoted back. “Manny was over his head years before he walked into your homeless shelter. The Colombians were probably already on his tail by the time he hit town. But now he’s trusting us, he’s trusting you, which gives him and Dillon a chance.”

  “That man’s nuts if he thinks he can trust me.”

  She felt it welling up, from the empty place inside she’d never been able to fill. The place that had lost faith in her parents and herself the day she’d walked in on her father brutalizing her mother—then a few hours later, had sat down with them to a nice, quiet family dinner.

  She began to pace, coming closer and closer to Stephen, until she was standing directly in front of him.

  “You’re nuts if you think you can trust me with your heart,” she insisted.

  “Why?” He sounded mystified, as if he’d reall
y believed they could make it.

  The way she’d been trying to believe all day.

  “Because I don’t trust me!” She swallowed, fighting to keep from throwing up. “It’s only a matter of time before I blow it with you, just like I’ve messed up everything else. Before I say or do whatever it’s going to take for you to realize that this is impossible. It’s better to end it now, before—”

  “End it!” Stephen’s expression was everything she’d dreaded from that moment back in the diner, when she’d begun falling for him.

  His eyes drained of all warmth. Emptied, until he was once again the calm, collected attorney she’d first met at Atlanta Memorial.

  “According to you,” he said, pinning her with a pointed finger, “it never really started. What does that make last night and this morning about? Just a quick-fix release, to tide you over for another few years—until the itch gets out of control again? Any excuse is fine, is that it? As long as you can walk away clean when things get too real. Even if it means using the Digarros’ shitty situation to do your dirty work.”

  “I’m not using the Digarros. I’m not using you!

  I’m trying to—”

  “Sure you are. The same way you use your past every time someone gets close enough to make you nervous. That makes you a coward, Kate. Not the fighter I thought you were. I should know. I’ve been the same kind of coward since I wasn’t much older than Dillon. Then I met you, and I was just stupid enough to believe…” He went to the couch for his coat, slipped it on, pulled something from his pocket and stared at it for several seconds before looking up. “I really thought I’d found someone who understood…who needed some thing, someone, to believe in again, as much as I did….”

  He placed whatever he’d been holding on the coffee table and headed for the foyer.

  “Stephen—”

  She should let him go.

  But she was rushing after him instead, needing to hear him say he believed in her again, despite everything. Needing him to keep saying it, until she could find a way to believe herself.

  “I’ll be back once I have confirmation from Curt on the safe house,” he said over his shoulder, his tone professional, impersonal. “I’ll get in touch with Martin and have Tony Rivers and his DEA guy contact me on my cell. Any problem taking another day off to keep an eye on Dillon if we need you to?”

  “I’ll take more personal time.” She had an endless supply that Robert and Marsha had been hounding her to use. “Whatever you need me to do.”

  Stephen turned, the pain in his expression adding to the ache in her heart.

  He deserved to be loved and taken care of. And he’d let himself need both from her.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” she whispered.

  He nodded. All emotion drained from his features.

  “I’ll be helping Kelly at the office.” He opened the door. “If there’s a legal way to keep Manny and Dillon together, we’ll find it.”

  The door closed behind him and the house grew silent.

  She headed back to the den, and that’s when she saw the car Stephen had left on the table. The plastic, dime-store car Manny Digarro had bought for his son. It had been a father’s promise to always come back.

  She and Stephen would keep fighting to give Manny a chance to keep his promise. But they weren’t fighting together anymore.

  Kate had never felt more of a prisoner to her past. Without Stephen by her side, wanting to believe in what they could have as badly as she secretly did, she’d never felt more alone.

  And alone didn’t feel safe anymore.

  “WE’LL BE THERE SOON,” Stephen said to the scared family in the backseat of his car the next morning.

  He turned down the side street that would deliver Manny and Dillon to the APD safe house.

  As soon as the DEA had come on board, Jenkins had been able to formally request APD protection. An APD escort had met Stephen at Robert Livingston’s place, and the officers had been on Stephen’s tail ever since they’d left Buckhead behind, on the way into the city.

  Kate had wanted to come. She’d wanted to speak with Stephen privately. But he’d said no to both requests.

  DEA would be at the safe house. Stephen had fed the agent he spoke with sketchy high points of what Manny knew. The Digarros had a chance because Manny had hesitantly agreed to give this meeting a try. The INS had been temporarily called off. But Manny would be quite literally talking for his life once they arrived at their downtown destination. There were still no guarantees.

  If things went wrong, Kate didn’t need to be there, feeling even more responsible for the family’s dilemma.

  And even if things turned out as right as Stephen hoped they would, he didn’t need her there, looking so worried—for him as well as the family they were trying to protect.

  It was clear she cared, that she maybe even loved him, too. But she didn’t trust she could be good for someone. Or maybe him loving her was the real problem.

  Before he’d said those words, he’d been a risk, but not to her heart. Now, he was one more person she was sure she’d let down, because she thought following her heart would always end in hurt.

  I love you.

  He’d never said it to any woman. He couldn’t remember far enough back to when he’d felt safe enough to think it, to say it, even as a child. But he’d been certain he was safe with Kate.

  Another APD cruiser was waiting when he pulled to the curb beside the apartment building. Curt and his partner exited the car as Stephen and his passengers did, along with the officers who’d followed them over. Two men in suits emerged from a nondescript sedan two cars down. DEA, no doubt.

  The gang was all there.

  “Let’s get everyone inside,” Curt said as he looked up and down the quiet, upscale street. “No sense taking any chances.”

  Stephen turned to the Digarros. A movement behind their police escort, a car pulling away from the curb, caught his eye a split second before the sound of squealing tires made everyone else turn. The car raced by, the faces of its occupants a blur. The guns they held were the only thing Stephen managed to focus on.

  “Get down!” Manny roared. He knocked both his son and Stephen to the ground as gunfire erupted from every side—from the hitmen, from Curt and the other officers and from the DEA guys.

  Pain sliced through Stephen as he dropped and covered Dillon as best he could. Manny’s grunt, his gasp for breath as he fell against Stephen, confirmed that he’d been hit, too. Metal struck metal in a deadly crash. The hitmen’s car collided with others parked just a few feet down the curb.

  Then silence reclaimed the street, punctured only by the sound of footsteps racing toward them. And Stephen could do nothing more than lie on the ground, his body curled around a sobbing child’s, as blood seeped through his clothes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KATE RACED INTO the E.R., not bothering with the reception desk. She slowed enough to pass through security and its scanners, then headed for the double doors that led from admissions to the trauma area. It took three tries to get her card to swipe, then she was running inside, desperate, her heart breaking.

  There was a shooting at the safe house, Martin had said when he’d phoned. The Digarros didn’t make it inside. Either someone was tracking your lawyer friend, or something got leaked at DEA. Sounds like APD shut everything down pretty quickly, but there were some injuries….

  Her brother hadn’t been able to tell her anything more, other than that more than one ambulance had been called, arrests had been made and that everyone who needed patching up was on their way to the hospital. Stephen’s friend Curt had been the one to contact Martin, and both of them would meet her at the hospital as soon as they could. Robert had been listening to her end of the phone call, and he’d already grabbed his keys by the time she’d hung up. After breaking every speed limit on the way over from his house, he was outside navigating the packed parking deck, while she sprinted toward a reality she wasn’t sure
she could bear.

  Were Dillon and his father all right?

  She hadn’t heard from Stephen. Was he okay?

  Was he—

  “Kate!” Marsha called from the other end of the hall.

  The trauma unit was in chaos, as usual. Less critical cases were “fast-tracked” to an entirely different area, leaving the specialist in trauma to triage and focus on at-risk patients.

  “I came down as soon as I heard about the shooting.” Marsha zigzagged through the maze of staff and patients, gurneys and other equipment, to get to Kate. “What happened—”

  “Where is he?” Kate didn’t wait for the answer. Ducking into each alcove, she stopped only long enough to check the identity of each patient being treated.

  Marsha hustled behind her. “Dillon? He’s upstairs. They’re admitting him to pediatrics, and there’s a slew of APD on the floor making everyone nervous. What happened?”

  Kate pulled her friend aside as EMTs rushed in from the ambulance bay, pushing a gurney and calling out the patient’s stats for the doctor hurrying alongside.

  “Dillon’s okay?” Kate asked through the weight of fear still pressing down on her. “Then he wasn’t shot?”

  “No.” Marsha grabbed Kate to keep her from rushing off. “He’s perfectly fine, just weak. But he’s terrified and he won’t talk to anyone. Kate, what happened? Were you with him—”

  “No.” Because Stephen hadn’t wanted her there. “I have to find him….”

  She wrenched away from her friend and checked the next examination area, knowing that the farther she went, the closer she was getting to the rooms reserved for only the most critical patients.

  “Dillon’s upstairs,” Marsha insisted, still close behind.

  “Not Dillon.” Kate turned the corner, her heart and her feet stopping at the sight of the man being treated on a gurney in the crowded, overfilled hallway outside the largest trauma suite. “Stephen!”

  He was looking away from her, into the trauma room, while an intern set stitches in his shoulder. The sleeve of his shirt had been cut away to expose the wound. What was left of the expensive knit was covered in blood. Too much blood to have come from his injury alone.