He crouched down and wiggled his fingers in the water. Koi in all the colors of the rainbow came swimming up out of the darkness, their orange and red and green and blue and black and white scales reflecting in the moonlight. She realized they must be used to Shaw feeding them.
He stood and wiped the water off on the thighs of the jeans he pulled on to cover his nakedness. The top button was undone and the denim hung low, revealing his hipbones and the line of black down that led from his navel to a thick pubic bush.
She inhaled the musky smell of him. And remembered the taste of the single drop of liquid she’d licked away before taking him in her mouth.
Kate ached with need for him. She suppressed a moan of desire. Frightened by her feelings, she met Shaw’s gaze in the moonlight and said, “I want to go home. I want to leave here. You have to let me go.”
“No.”
“I don’t want to be with you.”
“Your body says differently.”
“There’s nothing else between us except this…physical…thing,” Kate said fiercely. “We’re as much strangers as we ever were. I won’t have sex with you again, Shaw. Not until I’m free to make that decision, not until I can do it with honor.”
“Not until your husband is dead?”
Kate could see he would happily kill J.D., if he could just find him. “J.D. made the choice to abandon me. There’s another man involved here besides my husband,” she said softly.
“Who?”
She’d already told him Jack was just a friend. That had been a lie of convenience. Now it was imperative to tell the truth. “Jack McKinley.”
Shaw snorted. “Your friend?”
Kate flushed. “Jack is more than that.”
“Your lover?” Shaw snarled.
She ignored the question. “I won’t deny you can seduce me. Have seduced me. I’m asking you not to do it again.”
He shoved both hands through his hair in frustration. “Then how am I supposed to get to know you?”
She wondered what it was he really wanted from her. She knew he wanted his sons. She knew he enjoyed having her in his bed. But there wasn’t much else they had in common. Or much future for them as a couple, considering that she was in love with another man.
Are you in love with Jack? Or did you grasp at Jack as a lifeline?
Kate was angry because it seemed she was looking for a way to excuse her behavior. It would be fine to make love to Shaw if she wasn’t really in love with Jack.
But she did love Jack, had loved Jack for ten years. Yes, they’d gotten together last fall at a moment when they’d both been vulnerable. But the need—and the love—had been real. On both sides.
Wyatt Shaw was causing this crisis in confidence. Before he’d come along, there had been no doubt about her feelings for Jack. She loved him.
What about his feelings for you? Why would a man who’s in love with one woman agree to move back in with another?
Jack had a good reason for what he was doing. He wanted his child to have his name. It was the circumstances that were forcing him to behave as he was.
And there was no other choice he could have made? No other way to convince Holly to postpone the divorce? Are you sure he didn’t want to move back in with his wife?
Kate hated that she was doubting herself. Doubting Jack. Jack loved her. His feelings and sensibilities deserved more consideration in this situation than she had given them.
It was one more thing to blame on Wyatt Shaw.
Kate shivered.
“You’re cold. Come back inside,” Shaw said. He reached for her hand and she let him take it and lead her back into his bedroom, where he took her in his arms and held her close. His lips found a spot between her neck and shoulder, pushing aside the nightgown to reach more of her flesh.
Before Kate could stop him, Shaw stripped the cotton nightgown up over her head, leaving her bare. He tossed it behind him and reached for her again.
“What are you doing?” Kate demanded.
“Making love to you.”
Kate realized she would have to get past Shaw to retrieve her nightgown. It seemed safer to conceal herself under the sheets. She retreated and slipped into bed, her back against the headboard, her knees drawn to her chest, the covers pulled up to her neck, and said, “This has to stop.”
“Is there a better way to get to know each other?” he asked.
“We can talk. We can—”
“Kiss? Touch?”
She lifted a brow. “Can you kiss and touch without doing more?”
“Can I control myself? I think I can manage.”
“I need a better guarantee than you think you can,” she said with asperity.
He slid into the other side of the bed. “I won’t make love to you again until—and unless—you tell me you want me,” he said through tight jaws. “Is that good enough?”
“If that’s your best offer,” she said. “I’ll take it.”
12
Jack’s cell phone woke him up. He saw it was 3:04 a.m. and that Kate was calling. He flipped open the phone as he switched on the bedside lamp. “Are you all right?” he said anxiously. “I called you six times and never heard back from you.”
“I’m fine, Jack,” she whispered. “I found the messages you left on my cell phone. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t want Shaw to hear me.”
“Wyatt Shaw’s there? Where are you?”
“I’m in the bathroom. He’s in the bedroom down the hall.”
Jack was confused. And concerned. “Shaw’s still at your house?”
“No.”
She paused so long he thought he’d lost the connection. He looked at the phone to make sure the duration of the call was still ticking off, then said, “Kate?”
“I’m here,” she whispered. “At Shaw’s compound in Houston.”
“Where?”
“He flew me and the twins here in his jet earlier this evening. He said we’d be safer here.”
“Safer? From what? From whom?”
She sighed. “It’s a long story, Jack. Where are you?”
“I’m in Houston.”
“With Holly?”
“No. In an apartment I keep here for work. Why would you agree to go anywhere with Wyatt Shaw?”
“There’s something I have to tell you, Jack. Something important.”
“I’m here for you, Kate, no matter what.”
“I hope you still feel that way after you hear what I have to say.”
He thought he heard her sob. “What is it? What’s going on, Kate? You’re scaring me.”
Jack was out of bed, pulling a pair of jeans up over his boxers while he talked to her on the phone, expecting any minute to need to get into his SUV and come after her.
“Wyatt Shaw is the twins’ biological father.”
Jack tripped on the leg of his jeans that was only halfway up and went rolling on the carpet. He dropped the phone when he hit the floor and it slid under the bed. He grabbed for it and said, “Kate? Are you still there?”
“Jack?” he heard her cry softly. “Jack?”
“I’m here,” he said, sitting on the carpet in his boxers with his back against the side of the bed. He shoved his jeans the rest of the way off with his bare feet. He put a hand over his eyes. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
“Wyatt Shaw is the twins’ biological father,” she repeated.
“That’s what I heard. I’m just finding it a little hard—impossible—to believe.”
“It’s true. I…picked him up in a bar. I didn’t know who he was. I was trying to get back at J.D. for…It doesn’t matter now why I did what I did. The point is, Ann Wade got suspicious and hired a private investigator and Shaw found out the truth. He’s worried his father will do something to hurt the twins if he discovers they’re his grandsons. And he’s afraid J.D. will be a threat to the twins, and you know that’s one of my fears, too
. So he brought us here to live with him.”
“You and the twins just…moved in with Wyatt Shaw?”
“It’s only for a little while,” she said.
“How long?”
“Long enough for me to take a job at M.D. Anderson, and for the boys to go to a private school in The Woodlands,” she admitted. “Shaw is having the boys’ horses trailered here, and he’s arranging for Harley and Scratch to come, too.”
Jack was reeling. “What about us?”
“You’ll be living with Holly for the next four months. This seemed like the smart thing to do, under the circumstances.”
“When I left this afternoon, you told me you love me. Suddenly, you’re living with another man. Just how well do you know Wyatt Shaw?”
Jack was furious, because he felt so helpless. His love life kept whirling out of his control. First J.D. showing up alive, keeping him and Kate apart. Then Holly getting pregnant, keeping him and Kate apart. And now the twins turning out to be Wyatt Shaw’s sons, keeping him and Kate apart.
“I hate what’s happening to us,” he said.
“This hasn’t been easy for me, either, Jack,” Kate said in a small voice. “I spent one night with Wyatt Shaw nine years ago and never saw him again until today.”
“You shouldn’t have gone with him, Kate.”
“I had no choice! Just a minute…”
He watched the seconds tick off on his phone. It took her twenty-eight of them to return. She was whispering again.
“I thought I heard someone in the hall, but Shaw’s still asleep.”
“You went into his bedroom? Are you crazy?”
She hesitated. “No. I’m…”
Jack drew in a sharp breath. “You’re sleeping with him?” Having sex with him?
She didn’t answer. Which was the wrong answer.
“Do you love him?” Jack choked out.
“No! But…it’s complicated.”
“I damn well guess it is. What am I supposed to do now, Kate?”
“Go take care of your wife.”
“What about us?”
“From your conversation this afternoon with Shaw, it sounded like you’re working for his father.”
“I can’t talk about that, Kate.”
“I figure you must be involved in some kind of undercover assignment for the Rangers. The best thing you could do for ‘us’ is to put Dante D’Amato behind bars. The sooner the better.”
“Shaw’s the one accused of murder,” Jack pointed out.
“I don’t believe he strangled that woman.”
“And you base that on what?”
She didn’t answer, and he checked his phone again to make sure they hadn’t been disconnected. “Kate? What makes you so sure Wyatt Shaw isn’t a killer?”
“I asked him. And he told me he didn’t do it.”
“When was this?”
“Earlier tonight. Or rather, this morning.”
“He could have been lying. He probably was.”
“I believed him.”
“Were you in bed together at the time?”
She didn’t answer.
“What is it between you and him?” Jack said angrily. “What kind of hold does he have over you, to make you do things so out of character? This isn’t you, Kate. What am I supposed to think when you tell me you’re sleeping with some strange man?”
She started to cry. “I can’t help it. When I’m with him, I feel—”
“I really don’t want to hear this,” Jack interrupted.
“I don’t love him,” she insisted. “I love you.”
“But you’re fucking him.” He was shocked at the ferocity of his reply. And its viciousness. He’d never experienced jealousy before. He didn’t like the way it made him feel. Or the way it made him act.
Kate wasn’t his wife. He wasn’t her husband. He had to back off. He had to support her choice. At least until he was free to pursue her himself.
“That was out of line,” he said at last.
“I’m tired,” she said.
He could hear it in her voice. She’d probably been up half the goddamn night having sex with Shaw. He bit back the jealous retort at the tip of his tongue and said, “Me, too.”
“Do you still want to stay in touch?” she asked.
“Do you?”
“Maybe we could have lunch sometime, once I’m working at M.D. Anderson.”
“I’d like that,” he said. “Give me a call.”
“Good night, Jack.”
“Good night, Kate.” He closed the phone. And threw it against the wall.
13
Jack hadn’t slept well after he talked to Kate. He was still pissed off the next morning that she’d kept her secret about who was really the twins’ father even from him.
Of course, it was a doozy.
He got a call at the crack of dawn from Dante D’Amato’s attorney arranging a meeting with the mob boss in his home at nine-thirty that morning. It was the first time Jack had been invited inside D’Amato’s private residence, so he wanted to go. Besides, how would it sound if he said, “I can’t come because I’m helping my wife move today.”
He tried phoning Holly to let her know he was going to be late, but the only number he had was her cell and the calls kept going directly to voice mail. “Damn it!” He turned his phone off, snapped it closed and stuck it in the pocket of his Wranglers, then knocked on the front door of D’Amato’s condominium.
D’Amato’s suite took up the entire top floor of a downtown building that had been put in the shade when Shaw Tower went up across the street. Jack wondered if Wyatt Shaw had purposely built in that location just to ruin his father’s view.
Jack had never been vetted by so many guys with guns. He was ushered into D’Amato’s opulent study by a broad-shouldered, thick-trunked man with long arms, big ears, small black eyes and a flat, bald head. Long Arms had not been at the lawyer’s office. Jack saw prison tatts on the man’s knuckles. He figured he was looking at the man who did D’Amato’s wet work.
Jack felt dwarfed by the twelve-foot ceiling and hemmed in by the walls lined with bookcases of first editions that must have been worth a mint. A plush, red-and-black oriental rug was centered on the shiny black marble floor.
D’Amato was sitting in one of two gold brocade wing chairs facing a black-marble-faced fireplace, where a gas fire was burning. Wall sconces and judiciously placed gold floor and table lamps provided soft light, since the room had no windows.
D’Amato gestured Jack into the other chair. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.” He turned to Long Arms, who’d stationed himself beside an exquisite antique burled walnut desk, and said, “Leave us, Roberto. Close the door.”
The minute Jack sat down, D’Amato handed him a Montecristo cigar.
“What’s this for?”
“I’m celebrating,” the old man said. “May I trim that for you?”
Jack held out the cigar, and the mobster used a gold double blade guillotine cigar cutter to clip off the cap, which fell into a crystal ashtray on the round parquet table between them. The cutter was so sharp, Jack wondered if the mobster had ever used it to snip off a finger. Or two.
The old man clipped his own cigar, then stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He set down the cutter and picked up a small gold Aladdin’s lamp, which he used to light Jack’s cigar.
Jack puffed on his cigar and blew out the smoke, then waited while D’Amato lit his own cigar. He was both anxious and curious to know what they were celebrating. Had D’Amato caught J.D.?
“I took the liberty of having a drink poured for you.” D’Amato gestured to the crystal glass on Jack’s side of the checkered tabletop. “Jack Daniel’s Black Label. Straight up.”
“Thank you.”
“A toast,” the old man said, picking up the glass of liquor on his side of the table.
Jack picked up his whiskey and waited for the older man to tell him what was going on.
“I�
��m delighted to tell you I’ve become a grandfather. It seems my son Wyatt is the father of twin boys. Salud!”
Jack felt his heart pound harder in his chest. How had D’Amato found out? Who’d told him? “Congratulations,” Jack said, lifting his glass.
D’Amato clinked his cut-crystal glass against Jack’s and drank.
Jack nearly choked trying to get a swallow of liquor down his constricted throat. He didn’t like the self-satisfied look on D’Amato’s face. He couldn’t believe Shaw had told his father anything. So who had? D’Amato must have spies in Shaw’s household.
“I’m hoping to meet the mother of my grandsons soon,” D’Amato said. “She moved in with my son yesterday.”
“Who is it?” Jack said, playing his part in D’Amato’s little drama.
“You know her well.”
Jack lifted a brow. And waited with clenched teeth for what he was pretty sure was coming next.
“It’s a very small world, after all, Sergeant McKinley. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the mother of my eight-year-old grandsons is your very good friend, the governor’s daughter-in-law, Kate Pendleton.”
The mob boss paused but Jack didn’t rise to the bait.
“It doesn’t please me to think you knew the truth and never said anything to me, Sergeant McKinley,” D’Amato said in a hard voice.
“This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you,” Jack said.
“But it wasn’t news to you just now.”
Jack hesitated, then said, “Kate called me last night.”
“Ah,” D’Amato said. “Interesting. She called you from Wyatt’s house?”
Jack gave a jerky nod.
D’Amato continued, “The timing of this development couldn’t be better for our purposes.”
“Our purposes?”
“Capturing J.D. Pendleton and retrieving my package,” the mob boss said, all humor gone from his voice.
“How so?”
“I imagine that bastard is going to be one angry man when he finds out his wife cheated on him. He may even think he can kidnap the twins and use them as a negotiating tool with me, since they’re my grandsons.
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