The Cradle Will Fall

by Maggie Price

  “I’ve complimented you before on your acting skills.” His dark gaze locked with hers, his eyes revealing none of his thoughts. “Your reaction in Harmon’s office was no act. What’s going on, Grace?”

  Because he was so close—too close—she stepped around him and moved to the heavy, antique bureau. She had opened her entire life to him, while he’d given her nothing of his. That she and Ryan were going to have a child was one of the few things she hadn’t shared with the man whose presence had hung like a dark cloud over the last year of her marriage. She didn’t want to share that with him now.

  You have to, the cop in her countered. Her reaction in Harmon’s office was proof that her losing her child had an impact on her ability to effectively pull off Grace Calhoun’s role. She and Mark were undercover; their very lives might depend on knowing in advance how each other would react in the presence of the bad guys.

  For that reason, she owed Mark an explanation.

  “I didn’t tell you before because I had no idea I would react that way.” She unhooked the diamond bar pin from the collar of her blouse and placed it in a drawer. “It…just hit me.”

  “What hit you?”

  Outside the temperature had dropped; the wind-driven rain was now mixed with sleet that pecked against the windows. Feeling as though she would never again get warm, Grace wrapped her arms around her waist, then turned and met Mark’s gaze.

  “Ryan and I decided to start a family,” she said quietly. She felt no need to tell Mark that she’d hoped a baby would close the emotional distance that her past with him had put between herself and Ryan. “We’d always planned on having a huge house filled with kids.”

  She trailed a hand through her hair. “I felt sick a couple of mornings in a row and suspected I was pregnant. I didn’t tell Ryan, because I wanted to be sure. Didn’t want him to be disappointed. I took two home-pregnancy tests. They were both positive. But I still didn’t tell Ryan because I wanted the doctor to confirm it.

  “His nurse called me late one afternoon with the results. I was so excited. Jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to share my news with Carrie or Morgan, both of them, but Ryan first. He was working the swing shift. I called and asked him to meet me at a certain restaurant on his dinner break.” Grace pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “I was so anxious, I got there nearly an hour early.”

  She paused to collect her thoughts. Mark stood across the room, watching her. Silent. Waiting.

  “When I told Ryan, he was as excited as I was. Maybe more.” She smiled, remembering. “I’d had this sense all along that the baby was a girl, so right then we started picking out names. Ryan and I couldn’t wait to tell our families. We sat in the booth, ignoring our food while we made calls on our cell phones.

  “After dinner Ryan paid the bill and I went to the rest room. When I came out, the cashier said he’d gone out to the parking lot. I turned toward the door and heard the shot.” The pain swept through her, thickening her voice. “I knew. Somehow I knew that Ryan… I yelled for the cashier to call 911, grabbed my gun out of my purse and raced outside. I spotted the guy. He still had the gun in his hand and he was running away. He had a strange gait, a limp.

  “Ryan was still alive when I got to him.” Tears formed in Grace’s eyes, clogged her throat. “He…said my name…and then he was gone.”

  His face grim, Mark moved to where she stood, placed a hand on her arm. “Grace—”

  “No.” She shifted from his touch. “Let me finish.” She drew in a choppy breath. “What happened affects our job, so I need to finish.”

  “All right.”

  “After that, things were a blur,” she continued softly, her voice barely loud enough to be heard over the sleet pinging against the windows. “I don’t remember doing it, but I gave the patrol cops the suspect’s description. One of them pegged the guy because of the limp. They arrested him that night, still with the gun.”

  “Bran told me he’s on death row now.”

  Grace nodded. “My family, Ryan’s—they were all there for me. I couldn’t have gotten through… No one blamed me for what happened.”

  Mark narrowed his eyes. “Why would they?”

  “I kept thinking if only I’d waited until Ryan got home that night to tell him about the baby. If I hadn’t called him, chosen that restaurant for us to meet at, then he’d probably still be alive.”

  “You can’t know that.” Reaching out, Mark grazed his fingertips down her cheek. “You can’t let yourself think that.”

  An echo of age-old grief washed over her. “I’d wake up every morning, feeling sick. I didn’t mind, because my first thoughts even before I opened my eyes were about the baby. Then it would hit me that Ryan wasn’t there. Wouldn’t be there to see his child grow up.

  “I woke up one night feeling awful. At first I thought my internal clock had gone haywire and morning sickness had hit me. But I started shivering and burning up all at the same time. I called Mom and Dad. I had a raging fever by the time they got me to the hospital.” She raised a hand, then let it drop. “I’d picked up a nasty case of the flu. Nasty enough for the doctor to admit me to the hospital. I remember lying in bed, so weak I couldn’t even raise my head, thinking that my being sick couldn’t be good for the baby. That I needed to get better for my little girl.”

  Grace felt a fist clamp around her heart as the memories closed in. “I lost her, Mark.” Every word she spoke hurt her throat. “Two days after I went into the hospital, I lost her.”

  Compassion, deep and depthless, settled in Mark’s dark eyes. “Grace, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “I was only a few months along, but that didn’t matter. It made no difference that I had never seen her, would never see her. She was my child. Ryan’s child. I could never forget her.”

  “And today, when Harmon said the baby’s mother intends to give birth and then forget about her daughter, it hit you.”

  “Yes.” Pain lanced into the soft, vulnerable part of her that still throbbed and bled. “I learned to get on with my life, but I’ll never forget. How could any woman forget a child she’s given life to?”

  “A lot of women aren’t like you, Grace. They don’t view their children as something to cherish. They hurt them. Abuse them.”

  The splinter of contempt in Mark’s voice had Grace searching his face. “Is that what happened to you? Is that what you meant when you told me your childhood was wretched? Did your mother abuse you?”

  “What happened to me while I was growing up doesn’t matter.”

  “Mark—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  His refusal to share his thoughts and his feelings behind them after she had just poured out her soul touched a nerve. What had been pain and grief flashed to simmering temper.

  “Well, Santini, let me tell you what matters to me,” she said, jabbing a finger against the center of his chest. “The minute we fell into bed, I opened my life to you. Told you about my past. What I wanted for the future.” She took another stab at his chest. “I shared my family with you. And they shared themselves with you. How many dinners did you eat at my parents’ table? How many McCall birthday parties did you attend?”

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, stilling her hand. “A lot.”

  “And what part of your life did you share?”

  “The present. I gave you what I was then. Trust me when I tell you there’s nothing in my past you would have wanted me to parcel out to you.”

  “Wrong. Like it or not, your past helped mold you into who you are.”

  His eyes glinted. “You think I’m cruel and vicious?” His fingers tightened on her wrist. “You think I go around slapping children just because they get within hitting distance? Cursing them, solely because they exist?”

  “Mark, no.” How could she hold herself aloof from that? Grace thought. Good Lord, what had he endured? “Of course I don’t think—”

  “I didn’t just walk away fr
om my past, Grace. I escaped it. It’s dead to me.”

  “Maybe you wish it was.” She eased her wrist from his hold. “What I see in your face, hear in your voice tells me it isn’t.”

  He looked away, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

  “Why do you think you have to be different from other people?” she asked quietly. “Everyone drags around baggage from their past. I’m one of those people. Which is why I just told you what it was like to watch my husband die. To lose my baby. Do you think those things are easy for me to talk about?”

  “No.” He looked back at her, his expression somber. “I know it took a lot out of you. It’s good that you told me.”

  “Of course it is,” she agreed, unable to block the sense of resignation that coursed through her. “It’s always been good that I open my life to you.” She set her jaw. Since it seemed to be a time for talking about the past, she decided she might as well go all the way.

  “We were lovers for nearly a year, yet you never let me in,” she began. “Just once, Mark. Just once I wanted to be invited into your world. I wanted to know about your terrible childhood. I wanted to know how you felt about me. About us. Know if you cared.”

  She saw surprise flicker across his face a second before his hands settled on her shoulders. “You know I cared. Why else would I have asked you to move to Virginia with me?”

  “You asked me to move with you. You never once mentioned sharing your life with me.” Her fingers clenched. “Of course, there wouldn’t have been much sharing, would there? I would have been the one to give up my home, my job, seeing my family only on rare occasions. I’d have been in a strange town, left on my own while you traveled from crime scene to crime scene. We would have seen each other whenever you could fit me in. What kind of life would that have been?”

  “The only one I had to offer.”

  “Willing to offer,” she tossed back, her eyes staying level on his. “Did you ever once consider staying with me in Oklahoma City? Working out of the Bureau’s office there?”

  “I can’t stop doing what I do. I can’t turn my back on what I do best.”

  “You are the best,” she agreed. “Because you put the job first. Always first.” She hadn’t known until she’d said the words how much the truth behind them still hurt. “You shovel up facts, dig into people’s lives all in the name of catching monsters. But if anyone starts looking too closely at your life, at the man you are, the walls shoot up.”

  “Dammit, I can’t change who I am.” His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “What do you want from me, Grace?”

  “Nothing.” She closed her eyes for an instant. “We’ve been down that road. It’s a dead end for both of us.”

  All the emotion that had swirled inside her since the moment her control slipped in Harmon’s office died like an extinguished fire. Now she felt spent. Hollow. All she wanted was to soak in the tub. Immerse herself in warm, frothy water and use the next hour or so to regroup. Before she could do that, however, she had to deal with the man who towered over her, his dark eyes turbulent, his fingers like shafts of steel against her shoulders.

  “I don’t regret what we had,” she said quietly. “But I do regret that you had so little of yourself to give me. It was nothing personal—I understand that. It’s simply how you are. The man you are. You don’t allow yourself to get involved emotionally. Don’t give of yourself to anyone. It wasn’t just me.”

  When she would have stepped away, he jerked her against his chest, lowered his head. “You’re wrong, Grace, it was you. Always you. Is you.”

  The simmering storm in his eyes had every nerve in her body vibrating like the strings of a plucked harp. “Mark—”

  He dipped his head, his mouth hovering above hers. “Dammit, I can’t get you out of my system,” he said, his voice a hot sweep against her cheek. “I’ve tried to wipe you from my mind for six long years. Even when I knew you belonged to another man I couldn’t forget you.” His mouth inched closer to hers. “How’s that for baggage from the past?”

  With her breasts pressed against his chest she could feel his heart pound. She remembered all the times, long ago, when their hearts thundered while they made wild, reckless love. Long ago when she’d thought what they had might last forever.

  Even as need swept through her, she pressed her palms against his chest and looked away. Seeking the last crumbling remnants of control, she reminded herself he had come back for the job, not her. That he would leave again. Walk away. She was determined it not be with another piece of her heart.

  How unfair that she felt so good with him, she thought. That looking at her life from the vantage point of his arms revealed all the missing pieces. All the need she had locked away deep inside her.

  It was that need—aching and fathomless—that burned away the last of her resolve to hold strong. Fisting her hands against his chest, she turned her face up so that his lips could find hers.

  His mouth was firm and possessive, and hers opened to his on a moan of pleasure. He kissed her long, slow, a languid meeting of lips that lingered until she was floating on a warm sea of sensuality.

  “I am involved, Grace,” he murmured against her ear as one of his arms wrapped around her waist. Locked against him, she could feel the iron evidence of his desire for her. “I’ve been involved since the moment I laid eyes on you. I wanted you then. I want you now.”

  Her legs were trembling, her pulse hammering in a hundred places. The air was too thick to breathe, and each gulp of it made her head reel. “That…was a long time ago,” she managed weakly. “A lifetime.”

  “A lifetime I’ve spent wanting you. Only you.” His hand streaked up, his fingers fisting in her hair. “I feel like I’ve wanted you my entire life.” Dragging her head back, he latched his mouth on to her throat.

  Blood raced through her veins. Flames licked at her. Raw hunger sprang free inside her, and she could almost hear the last tenuous wire of her control break.

  Desperate for more, she tugged his mouth back to hers. She wanted to taste the heat, the need. Him.

  Her fingers fumbled at the knot of his necktie, jerked it loose. While she grappled with the buttons on his starched shirt, he yanked her blouse free from her slacks, popping buttons with ruthless disregard. The room’s cool air settled against her heated flesh as he peeled the fabric back from her shoulders, shoved it down to her elbows. With the cuffs still buttoned, she was bound by silk, wildly aroused, helpless as he toppled her back onto the bed.

  He went down with her, settling between her legs as if he belonged there. His hands were instantly on her, flicking open her bra, shoving aside lace as he loomed over her. He gazed down at her, fierce emotion churning in his eyes.

  A thrill shot up her spine when she saw the dark, reckless side of him that he kept so tightly controlled.

  “You’re as beautiful as I remember.” His voice was thick, his fingertips as soft as a wish as they traced the curve of her breast. “More beautiful.”

  The persistent ping of sleet against the windows was drowned out by the thundering of her own heart. He tore off his shirt, tossed it aside, then lowered his mouth. His teeth scraped over one budded nipple, then the other. The heat of his mouth was wild, burning with wet fire as he fed on her. Light from the small lamp glowing on the nightstand fractured into star bursts before her eyes.

  She writhed against the small, exquisite pain. Her flesh ached and hummed with an urgency that spread downward from her breasts to the pulse throbbing between her legs.

  Her blood heated, flash-firing beneath her skin, roaring in her head. Jerking her arms, she freed one wrist from the silk binding, then the other. A hum of pleasure surged up her throat while her hands skimmed across his shoulders, his back, savoring the power of sinew and muscle.

  He raised his head. The flash of passion, the hot desire that darkened his eyes as he lowered the zipper on her slacks had her stomach quivering. His hands stroked over her hips, slipping beneath the loosened waistba
nd as he peeled off her slacks. His mouth lowered, nuzzled her through the thin silk of her panties.

  Grace trembled at the first touch of his tongue, the tender, stroking flicks, until she thought she would shatter into a million pieces. She wanted to push him away, but at the same time she pressed him against her.

  Her breath snagged in her lungs as she arched back, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Time and place became nothing against a hard, driving desire for him. Only him.

  Minutes, or hours later, his impatient hands peeled away the silk.

  She tore at his remaining clothes, all sense of denial and self-preservation a memory. Sweat beaded her flesh. His kiss shifted, hardened, something reckless shimmering at its edge.

  She could hear his breath come ragged and strained as he fanned his fingers low over her belly. Their eyes locked as he grazed his thumb over the hardened nub of flesh between her legs. His other hand moved low at her back; he lifted her hips and plunged into her.

  A gasp of pleasure strangled in her throat. Memories swirled in her head, the past fusing with the present. Day and night, ice and fire. They all came together in a wild torrent of desire that lay somewhere between pain and pleasure.

  Her blood was a river now, rushing hot and fast. Greedy, she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him in deeper.

  Reality focused to the point of a pin. This man—this one man—touched something in her that she’d tried to keep safe and untouched. He made her feel when no one had made her feel anything in a very long time.

  And she had no way to keep him in her life.

  She wanted to protect her heart. Wanted to resist, to push him back before he dragged her over a line she’d sworn to never cross again. But then his mouth grew more urgent on hers, his hands more impatient, stoking the terrible, glorious heat just beneath her flesh. Thoughts of caution blurred. Faded. Her hips moved like lightning, meeting him thrust for thrust. There was no resisting the driving desire that clawed inside her, frantic to break free.