by Diana Palmer
Tonio just nodded. It was easy to say it. Hard to do it. He wished he could help his friend.
“I have to go.”
“You said something about a movie?” Tonio asked.
John grimaced. “I’ve got to work Saturday and Sunday, on this case,” he said apologetically. “So we’ll have to take in the matinee on Saturday,” he added gently. He’d gotten to his feet, but he sat back down and looked at the boy. “Tonio, I’m not being a good father to you. I’m sorry that I’ve let my job separate us so badly. That’s going to change, when I wrap up this case. What I’m doing right now is more important than I can tell you. It may save many lives.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Tonio interrupted. “I know you do the best you can. You miss Mom, too, don’t you?” he added.
John’s eyes were sad. “I miss her every day. We knew even in grammar school that we’d marry one day. Even if I hadn’t loved her, she was my best friend. She was the best of both of us, Tonio.”
Tonio bit his lip. “Yeah.”
John got up and turned away. It hurt to talk about Maria, which was why he rarely did it. He shrugged into his coat and put on his hat. “Hey, did you make a snowman?”
Tonio laughed. “I made a snow cat. He’s out back.”
“I’ll have a look in the morning. Is he a good snow cat?” he teased.
“He looks more like a big mound with sticks coming out of him,” the boy confessed.
“Art is good if you think it’s good,” John scoffed. “What do art critics know?”
Tonio laughed. It had been a long time since his dad had joked with him. He thought about Sunny and wished she could meet his dad. They’d be perfect for each other. But that wasn’t likely to happen.
“I’ll be late. Do your homework and don’t stay up all hours playing that game,” he added.
“Got nobody to play it with right now. The military guys went on maneuvers and my friend’s hurt his hand so he can’t play.” He grimaced. “I’m just soloing stuff.”
“Bummer,” his dad said.
Tonio chuckled. “It’s a great game. Even if I have to play it alone.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later.”
“Sure, Dad.”
He paused. “What was your friend’s name? David, wasn’t it?” he added with a smile, trying to show that he did take at least some interest in the boy’s life. “He can cuss like a sailor, but if you like him, he must be a good kid.”
“He is a good kid,” Tonio said.
“Nothing like friends to help get you over the rough spots,” John said. “See you later, son.”
“Okay. Be careful. The snow’s deep.”
“Snow in Jacobsville,” John mused, shaking his head. “Miracles never cease. I’m gone, Adele!” he called loudly.
“Okay. Be careful out there!”
“You, too,” John muttered, but he grinned as he opened the door and went out to the SUV.
TEN
Sunny trod through the snow, laughing at the rare treat, exchanging smiles and greetings with neighbors and strangers as she made her way to the hospital, stomping her feet before she entered to get the snow off.
Her face was flushed and pretty with happiness when she spotted Tonio in the canteen.
“Hi,” she greeted. “Isn’t the snow beautiful?!”
“Yes, it is.”
“You weren’t here Friday,” she said. “I was worried.”
“I got a stomach bug. I’m much better,” he added, glowing because she was concerned.
“I was off for two days,” she said. “I never take sick days or vacation days, so I had to start taking some of them or lose them. I’ve missed talking to you,” she added.
He beamed. “I’ve missed seeing you, too.”
She got hot chocolate and a nut bar and sat back down. “That friend of mine that I wanted you to talk to...” she began.
He hesitated. “I talked to David,” he said. His face was pale under its light olive tan. “He’s so scared,” he said. “His sister’s scared, too.”
“Why?” she asked gently. “Has something else happened?”
He bit his lip. He wanted to tell her, so badly. “I can’t say,” he said. “That guy, the detective. If he’ll promise to be careful, I’ll tell him. I won’t tell you,” he added, his face grim, his big brown eyes eloquent. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Sunny.”
Her high cheekbones flushed. Her eyes brightened. “That’s very sweet of you. But I want to help. I don’t want you hurt, either.”
He felt warm inside. He felt as if he’d known her all his life. “But he has to make sure nobody knows,” he said. “David’s got throwaway phones. It’s the only way he can even talk to me, and not for more than a couple of minutes.”
This sounded serious. She drew in a breath. “I’ve trusted him with my life,” she said after a minute. “I told on Rado, when it happened,” she added. “I told him, because I knew that Rado did it. He kept my confidence, even though he could never prove that Rado was directly involved. If Rado had known that I told Cal, he’d have killed me, too.”
He relaxed a little. “Okay, then.”
“Cal comes here on cases. Not very often, but if there’s something like that boy who was shot, it’s not unusual for him to be in the hospital.” She grimaced. “He’s easily recognized, because he’s in the news so much.” She smiled. “Female TV newscasters love him. They won’t even talk to Rick Marquez, they go straight to Cal,” she added, laughing. “He’s a widower.”
“Oh, like...” He almost said, like my dad, but he caught himself just in time. “I see.”
“Do you want to try tomorrow after school?” she asked.
He hesitated. He was still uneasy about it. But if it would save David, maybe it was worth the risk. If he did nothing, his friend could die. “Okay,” he said.
“Good. I’ll phone him when I get off duty.”
“You get off real late, don’t you?” he wondered. “Will he be awake?”
“Cal doesn’t sleep much,” she said.
He recalled what she’d said, that the guy had been a merc. “He fought, didn’t he?” he asked.
“Yes. He was in a war in Africa, a big one. The group he was with was decimated. Only a few of them came home.”
He frowned. “Why was he there?”
“The legitimate government was overthrown by a particularly vicious rebel leader. He thought nothing of butchering women and children. Cal and his friends put the elected ruler back in power. They saved hundreds of lives.”
He smiled. “He sounds nice.”
“He is. Try not to worry so much,” she added softly. She frowned. “Can’t you talk to your father about this?”
He shook his head. “He wouldn’t understand. He’d go storming to the police and David would die.”
“I see.” She had a very poor impression of Tonio’s dad. It was such a shame he wasn’t more supportive. “Well, I’ll help you all I can. So will Cal. You don’t tell anybody, okay? Especially not your friend David.”
He started to protest. Then he realized that she was right. David had let it slip about Rado’s connection to the DEA. The boy couldn’t keep secrets. “I won’t tell him,” he promised.
She cocked her head. “He knows something about Rado, doesn’t he?”
Tonio’s face was like still water. He just smiled.
“When you get older, I’m never playing poker with you,” she said abruptly.
He grinned.
“Okay, then, I’ll go to work. You be careful. Very careful. Do you live someplace safe?” she added worriedly.
He wanted to tell her that he lived on a big ranch, that it had lots of burly cowboys, that his dad was a lawman. But she was safer if she didn’t know much. Even about him. Especially about his dad. Al
l she had to do was let something slip around her detective friend, who might mention it to someone who knew his father. He didn’t dare.
“I live someplace safe,” he promised. “You be careful going home in the dark,” he added and was concerned.
“I get cabs,” she said softly. “I’ll be fine. It will work out,” she added solemnly. “You can get through anything if you just think past it, think ahead. Christmas is coming,” she added, laughing. “Santa might bring you something awesome!”
“Dad’s getting me computer software, instead of Xbox One games,” he said sadly. “The only console game I have is Destiny 2. He thinks I game too much already.”
“What sort of software?” she wondered.
“Educational stuff,” he said with absolute disgust.
She burst out laughing. “I used to get perfume.” She made a face. “I’m allergic.”
“Gosh, that’s bad,” he said.
“At least I’m not allergic to flowers, and that’s a good thing, because the ward’s covered up in them this time of year,” she added with a grin. She grabbed her coat and purse. “I wish I could play in the snow,” she said ruefully. “Maybe it will last for a little while.”
“Maybe it will. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sunny.”
“See you, Tonio.”
He watched her walk away and wondered for the tenth time if he was doing the right thing. If he got David killed by talking about Rado, he was never going to get over it.
* * *
Sunny called Hollister on her way through the lobby.
“Tomorrow,” she said when he answered. “Same time as last.”
“Good news at last. Be careful in the snow,” he added. “It’s refreezing. Slippery as hell.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said. “Good night.”
“’Night.”
She went out the door and looked around. There were usually cabs everywhere. But not tonight. Not one. She shivered faintly in the cold. It was only a couple of blocks. If it hadn’t been for the ice, she might have risked it. What if she fell? Snow wouldn’t stop Rado’s gang from looking for victims. She gnawed her lower lip, worrying.
Just as she was thinking about sitting in the lobby until a cab drove up, a big black SUV pulled up at the curb.
“Hurry,” John called. “I’ll get ticketed. My lieutenant would never let me live it down,” he laughed, throwing open the passenger door.
She ran to him, almost sliding down in the process. She jumped up into the cab and slammed the door. “How in the world...?!” she exclaimed.
“I was working on a case with ties to a bank robbery last week,” he said, looking both ways before he pulled into traffic. “Crime doesn’t keep business hours,” he chuckled. “I thought it was about time for you to go off duty.”
“There were no cabs,” she said. “I was debating whether to try and call one. Every time, I get put on hold or cut off, or I get somebody who doesn’t speak English well enough over the phone. I really need to brush up on my Spanish.”
“I’ll read love poems to you,” he teased. “You’ll refresh it very quickly.”
She laughed with pure delight. “You don’t look like a man who’s ever read a poem,” she retorted.
“I have the heart and soul of a troubadour,” he promised. “I’ll prove it to you one day. Not tonight, sadly, I’ve got to write up the report while it’s fresh in my mind. Then I’m going home for a couple of hours’ sleep.”
“You work long hours.”
“So do you, rubia,” he said gently. “We love our jobs.”
“Yes. We do.”
“My lieutenant is having a Christmas party at his horse ranch. We’re all invited. Go with me?”
“Oh, I’d love to,” she said. “But I’m working four more days this week.”
“It’s a week from Saturday,” he said.
“Next Saturday. I’ll see if Merrie York will cover for me. If she will, and my supervisor okays it, I’d really like to go.”
He beamed. “Then it’s a date.” He made a face. “Hopefully nobody will commit a major crime that I’ll be asked to assist in solving. At least, we might get to dance,” he added.
“I love dancing.”
“Me, too.” He glanced at her with wicked black eyes. “I still remember our first dance.”
She flushed. “I felt so bad...!”
He laughed. “You’ll never know how flattered I was when my cousin mentioned what you said.” He didn’t mention that he was feeling really down when she rejected him. One of the nurses he knew had told him what Sunny said, and it had lightened his heart incredibly. Strange, to feel so deeply about the opinion of a woman he’d just met.
“You must know that you’re gorgeous,” she said shyly.
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not. But I’m very glad that you see me that way,” he added. “You fill my heart.”
Her breath caught, because his voice was low and soft and full of feeling.
“I wish things were different,” he said grimly.
Meaning, that he couldn’t get involved with her. She knew, and understood. He had some sort of complication in his life. She wondered if it was another woman, someone he’d made promises to. She knew so little about him, really.
“You’re worrying again,” he chided.
“I guess I am. Sorry. I’ve had something on my mind today.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
She shook her head, smiling. “I’d love to ask you. But it involves a young friend of mine who’s having problems. He won’t talk to anybody in law enforcement.” That wasn’t quite true. But John didn’t like Hollister and she didn’t want to set him off, when things were going so well with them.
“A patient?” he wondered.
She hesitated, just briefly. “Yes. A patient,” she lied convincingly. “He has a friend who’s being threatened.”
He pulled up in front of her apartment building and cut off the engine. He was very serious. “You don’t need to mix yourself up in anything dangerous. I can help. Tell me what’s going on.”
Her face drew up. Her dark eyes were eloquent. “I wish I could. But I made a promise not to talk to anyone about it. I put him in touch with someone I thought could help.”
“Someone in law enforcement?”
“Sort of.”
“Sunny...” he began, exasperated.
She put her soft fingers over his mouth. She loved the feel of it. He had the most sensuous lips. “I can’t,” she whispered.
He felt her fingers with a sense of wonder at the passion she aroused in him. He turned them and put his mouth hungrily against the palm.
She melted. The hunger she felt was open to him, almost painfully evident.
He ground his teeth together. “This will not end well,” he said gruffly. He let her hand go and got out of the SUV. He came around and opened her door, lifting her down. He held her there for just a few seconds, hoping to subdue the passion he felt. He couldn’t.
“What the hell,” he said roughly. He caught her hand and tugged her along with him to her door. “Open it.”
She fumbled her key into the lock. It was always like this with him. She wanted him. All he had to do was touch her, and she had no will of her own. It had to be a rare thing, this attraction. Probably every woman in the world who felt it thought that she was the only human to ever know such instant joy.
He slid off her coat, and then his. He drew her to him. “I have to go home,” he whispered as his head bent. “I can’t stay.” His mouth brushed tenderly over hers. “I want to. More than anything in the world.”
Her arms linked around his neck, pulling. “Me, too.”
He felt her shiver as his mouth crushed down on hers, gentle for all its frustrated passion. His arms contracted slowly and he lifted her
so that she was on her tiptoes, so hungry for his mouth that she had no thought of resisting.
He groaned. “I don’t have anything to use,” he said huskily. “I haven’t had a woman since my wife died. Three years...” His mouth was invasive then, passionate and demanding. “Stop me!”
She was trying to. Her mind said no. Her body was pushing up against his, pleading with him. She was a virgin. She’d never slept with anyone. She went to church. This was wrong. She should say something, do something!
While she was thinking of ways and means to subdue her hunger, his mouth suddenly slid down onto her breast and pressed into it—the damaged one, the one she had to pad so that the wound didn’t show. It didn’t seem to bother him at all.
She felt a jolt of pleasure that went all the way down into her toes. Her caught breath was audible.
He lifted his head. His black eyes were glittering with feeling. “I have scars, too, little one,” he whispered.
He bent and lifted her and carried her to the couch, still kissing her. He dropped down onto it, with Sunny in his lap.
The kiss was so drugging that she couldn’t protest even when he pushed up her long blouse and his hand trespassed onto the breast under the padding.
“Ah,” he whispered, and smiled at her. “Is that all?” he teased, and his fingers drew over the scar, so tenderly. “I have far worse ones.”
“You do?” she managed in a husky tone.
He unsnapped his shirt and pulled it to one side. His chest was broad and muscular, covered with thick, black, curling hair. He drew her hand to a long scar that ran from his left shoulder down his chest almost to his navel. “Feel it?” he asked. “I had to subdue a subject about four years ago. He pulled a knife on me before I could get him cuffed. It took a lot of stitches,” he added with a smile. He cocked his head as her fingers traced it. “Does it make me less attractive to you?”
“Oh, of course not,” she said at once.
He nuzzled her nose with his. “Then why would you think a scar would cause me to find you less attractive? It’s what you are, Sunny, not how you look, that attracts me. You make me...” He paused and searched for a word. He frowned. “You make me whole.”