Amanda Stevens Bestseller Collection: Stranger In Paradise/A Baby's Cry

by Amanda Stevens

  How many times had he seen her do that same thing when she was upset? How many times had he taken her in his arms and comforted her when he’d seen her looking so distressed?

  You don’t know her anymore, Dillon reminded himself grimly. You never really did.

  She’d been his fantasy, an impossible dream.

  But the woman sitting before him now was all too real, and his reaction to her was anything but reassuring. “Why are you here, Taylor?” he asked bluntly.

  Her blue eyes met his, and she straightened, backing her shoulders as if mustering the last vestiges of her courage. She took a deep breath and said, “I think Brad was murdered, Dillon, and I want you to help me prove it.”

  Dillon stared at her in astonishment. “Did I hear you right?”

  Taylor nodded. “I’m convinced Brad was murdered, but no one believes me. Not even the police.”

  “You’ve already talked to someone about this?” he asked sharply.

  “Sergeant Jackson. He was the one who handled the initial investigation into Brad’s death.”

  “Then he’s the one you should be talking to now.”

  “But I did! He wouldn’t listen to me. He thought the newspaper clippings were some kind of prank. He wouldn’t even consider—”

  Dillon held up a hand to halt her. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you have some kind of evidence that Brad was murdered and Jackson wouldn’t hear you out?”

  She hesitated. “Not exactly.”

  Dillon’s dark brows drew together. “What exactly does that mean?”

  Taylor folded her hands together to try to hide their trembling. This meeting was so important to her. She couldn’t mess it up. Dillon had to believe her. He was her last hope.

  “I don’t have any concrete evidence,” she admitted. “But I have this feeling—”

  “Feeling?” Dillon glared at her. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that from the relative of a suicide? It’s the hardest thing in the world to believe that a loved one would choose to take his or her own life.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong,” Taylor said. “Until two days ago, I believed with all my heart that Brad had taken his own life. It was almost too easy for me to believe it. But something happened at his funeral and again two days ago to make me think otherwise. And I also remembered something he told me the night he died. When I put it all together, it started to make some kind of terrible sense, and if you’ll just hear me out, I think you’ll agree.”

  Dillon looked as if he were about to argue with her. He didn’t want to hear a word she had to say, Taylor realized, but then he shrugged and seemed to reconsider.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Take all the time you need.”

  Taylor drew a deep breath. She hardly knew how to begin. She hadn’t expected to be this nervous, this unsure of herself. She’d known facing Dillon again would be difficult, but everything about him stirred so many memories. The way he stood. The way he cocked his head slightly when he listened.

  The way he looked at her.

  His frank perusal a few seconds ago had left her shaken and wondering if the changes the past ten years had wrought inside her were just as obvious on the outside.

  The notion was hardly comforting, and she wished suddenly she hadn’t taken quite so much time with her appearance. She might look as if she were trying too hard and not succeeding.

  Better that she had just come here in the jeans and sneakers she usually wore to school and let him see her for the way she really was. The woman she had become.

  If he’d been disappointed, disillusioned, what did it really matter? Neither of them had escaped the passing of ten years—hard years for Taylor—and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

  As if he’d grown impatient waiting for her, Dillon got up and paced to the window. Much to Taylor’s dismay, she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from him. The changes in him were not so much disconcerting as they were arresting. Not so much disappointing as intriguing.

  He looked taller for one thing. Taller and stronger and more mature, but that look of brooding intensity that had once frightened her as much as it attracted her still hovered in the depths of his dark brown eyes, and the small crescent-shaped scar above his left brow made him seem tough, streetwise, and more dangerous than ever.

  When he turned suddenly to meet her gaze, Taylor caught her breath. The anger glinting in his eyes was perhaps the most disturbing change of all. After all this time, she had thought—hoped—all the emotions between them would be dead. But if the way her heart pounded inside her chest was any indication, she’d been wrong.

  Terribly wrong.

  “Well?” he prompted. “I’m waiting, Taylor. What makes you think your husband was murdered?” He placed a small, but sarcastic emphasis on the word husband, then added, “And why should I be the one to help you prove it?”

  “Because you’re a policeman,” Taylor said. “And you always did have a very fine sense of justice.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Did I? Funny, I don’t seem to remember that.”

  “Then why did you become a cop?”

  He gave her an enigmatic smile. “After dropping out of law school, I didn’t exactly have a lot of choices.”

  It was on the tip of Taylor’s tongue to ask him why he’d dropped out of law school in the first place, why he’d felt compelled to leave town so abruptly.

  Why he hadn’t even had the decency to call her.

  They’d fought horribly that last night together, and Taylor had known Dillon’s pride was hurt. They’d both said some terrible things to each other, but she’d never dreamed he’d just up and leave town. Disappear without even saying goodbye.

  But now was not the time to go into all that. Taylor hadn’t come here to mend fences. She’d come here for help.

  She opened her purse and took out the newspaper clippings. “A woman at Brad’s funeral handed me this newspaper article. I didn’t have a chance to read it at the time, so I put it in my pocket and forgot about it until I received this one in the mail two days ago.” She got up, walked over to Dillon and handed him the clippings.

  He scanned the articles and looked up. “Did you know the woman?”

  “She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. There were a lot of mourners at Brad’s funeral, people from the hospital and so on, that I didn’t know. I just didn’t give it much thought. But when I received the other clipping in the mail, I started wondering what the connection could be.”

  “You think they both came from her?”

  Taylor shrugged. “It seems the obvious conclusion.”

  Dillon didn’t comment. His brow furrowed as he studied the articles. “Do you have the register from Brad’s funeral? Have you been over the names of the people who attended?”

  Taylor shook her head. “Brad’s mother took it, and I haven’t asked her to see it. I don’t…let’s just say, she’s not in the frame of mind to cooperate with me just now. She…blames me for Brad’s death.”

  Dillon lifted a brow slightly, but didn’t comment. “You said you remembered something Brad told you the night he died.”

  Taylor related the strange conversation. She realized now that she should have questioned Brad further, insisted he tell her what he meant about the secrets at the Westcott Clinic, but that conversation had been just one of many.

  Brad had always called her when he was drinking, and that night, Taylor had just about reached the end of her rope with him. She’d wanted the phone call to be over with and so she hadn’t pushed him for an answer.

  “Did you tell Jackson about the conversation?” Dillon asked.

  “Yes, but I truly believed at the time that Brad’s death was a suicide. It wasn’t until two days ago that I started to think otherwise.”

  Dillon plowed his hand through his dark hair as he stared down at the clippings. He wore his hair shorter than Taylor remembered, but it was still just as dark and thick, and
she wondered if it would feel just the same. Wondered how many women over the years had run their fingers through the luxurious texture.

  “Look,” Dillon began. “I can see how you might reach the conclusion you’ve obviously come to. These articles are a little bizarre, I admit. But they’re hardly evidence. And as for your conversation with Brad, the secrets he talked about at the Westcott Clinic could be just the ramblings of a very disturbed and bitter man.”

  “I know that.” Taylor forced herself to remain patient. “I’ve told myself all that. But I have this feeling that just won’t go away. I know Brad was murdered for something he found out about the Westcott Clinic, and I think Elliot Westcott knew about it. I think that’s why he got Brad suspended from Mercy General Hospital. He was afraid Brad might talk.”

  Dillon gave her an incredulous look. “Are you saying you think Elliot Westcott killed Brad?”

  “I’m not accusing Dr. Westcott of anything,” she said. “I just want the truth. I want to find out what really happened to Brad, and I want to know if the Westcott Clinic is, or has been, involved in any form of baby-swapping, as that clipping seems to imply. I have to know, Dillon. I…can’t rest until I do.”

  He gave her a long, hard look. Their gazes clashed, and, for all his experience, it was Dillon who looked away first. “It won’t bring Brad back, no matter what you find out.”

  “It won’t bring Brad back. But…” Her fingertips fluttered to her lips. She said, almost in a whisper, “I might find out what happened to my own baby.”

  “Your baby?”

  Taylor’s voice took on an urgent tone. “Don’t you see? My baby was born at the Westcott Clinic. That’s why I can’t let this rest. I have to know. What if my baby didn’t die that night? What if he was swapped for another baby?”

  She took a long, tremulous breath. “My child would be nine years old now, Dillon. What if he’s out there somewhere and in trouble? What if he needs me? I have to find him. I’m his mother…”

  So that was it. Dillon’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach. He knew about Brad and Taylor’s baby. His mother had written to him in Houston and told him that the child had died shortly after birth, and Dillon’s first instinct, even though he was miles away and still hurting from Taylor’s betrayal, had been to rush to her side, to try and take away her pain.

  But that had been her husband’s duty, not Dillon’s. And from the look and sound of things, Brad Robinson had done a damn poor job of it.

  Everything Taylor had told Dillon pointed to one thing. No matter what she said to the contrary, she was grasping at straws, trying to make some sort of sense out of the deaths of her baby and her husband. There was nothing Dillon could do for her.

  There never had been.

  He turned back to the window and stared out. “Go home, Taylor. Find a way to put all this behind you and get on with your life. I can’t help you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  He shrugged.

  There was a long silence, then Taylor said softly, “Not even if the child I’m looking for is yours?”

  Chapter Four

  Dillon didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring at her.

  “Say something,” she begged. “Please.”

  His stare turned even icier. “What would you have me say?”

  “I don’t know.” Taylor hugged her arms around her middle. “You can tell me how you feel. What you think about what I just told you.”

  He turned to her. “I don’t know what I feel. I don’t even know if I believe you. For all I know, you could be trying to pull something over on me to get me to help you.”

  His words stung her to the quick. “I’m not! I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t lie about something this important.”

  One dark brow rose in an incredulous arch. “You wouldn’t lie? You sure as hell didn’t mind withholding the truth from me, now did you?”

  “That was different.” She tried to quell the trembling in her voice. The last thing she wanted was for Dillon to see how very near the edge she was right now.

  But he was relentless, merciless. Taylor thought the years as a cop had trained him well, because he went straight for the jugular. “How was it different, Taylor? Please tell me. I can’t wait to find out how you justified not telling me you were pregnant with my baby.”

  Taylor fingered the pearls at her neck, trying to find the right words to make him understand. But the bitterness in his tone, the anger in his eyes, frightened her. Would she ever be able to make him understand?

  “I wanted to tell you. More than anything. But we’d had that horrible fight, remember? We’d broken up. By the time I found out for sure I was pregnant, you’d already left town. I didn’t know how to reach you.”

  “You could have found me if you’d really tried. My mother always had my address.”

  “I know, but…I guess after everything that happened between us, I didn’t think you’d want to be found.”

  His eyes were cold and distant, but in spite of his remoteness, Taylor found herself wanting to reach out to him, to take away the bitter pain that flashed through his dark eyes. She’d hurt him terribly, but there was nothing she could say to undo what had been done all those years ago.

  “You didn’t think I’d want to know about the baby? Our baby? You knew me better than that, Taylor.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “I did know you. I knew all the hopes and dreams your family had for you and the ones you had for yourself. I didn’t want you to feel trapped.”

  He swore viciously, then strode away from her and stood with his back to her, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  Taylor bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “After our baby was born…after they told me he had…died, I didn’t see the point. Why put you through the same grief that I’d gone through?”

  He turned to glance at her over his shoulder. “How very noble of you. And just where and when did Robinson come into the picture?”

  “He guessed I was pregnant before I even admitted it to myself. He was a good friend to me.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet he was.” Dillon’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  “He was,” Taylor said, refusing to back down in the face of Dillon’s anger and resentment. “He made me see how difficult it would be to raise the baby on my own, and because I knew what it was like to grow up without a father, I finally agreed to marry him.”

  “Just like that.” Dillon turned and stared at her. “How simple it all was. You must have been quite proud of yourself for the way things worked out.”

  Taylor’s temper flared. “How dare you? How dare you sit in judgment of me? Where were you? Why weren’t you there when I needed you? You’d left town without a word. I didn’t know where you’d gone, how to reach you, or if you even still cared. Brad was there for me when I needed him, and if there was anything I never doubted, it was how much he cared.”

  “Just tell me one thing. Did he know the baby was mine, or did you somehow manage to convince him it was his? Were you with him while you and I were still together?” His dark eyes seemed to dare her to admit the truth.

  Taylor wanted to hit him at that moment. Slap that accusing look right off his handsome face. She had always been faithful to Dillon, even for a long time after she’d married Brad.

  It was little wonder that even after she no longer thought of Dillon every waking second, Brad had still not managed to banish him from their bedroom. Little wonder that Brad had grown to resent Taylor’s past to the point of desperation.

  She turned away, wanting to leave that apartment and Dillon Reeves’s accusations far, far behind. But like it or not, she still needed his help. She had no one else to turn to, and so she swallowed her pride and her anger and said, “Brad knew the baby was yours from the first. He said…it didn’t matter to him.”

  “And did it?”

  Taylor closed her eyes. “Yes. It mattered. It mattered until t
he day he died.”

  She lifted her tormented gaze to his, and suddenly Dillon had a brief, agonizing glimpse into the way Taylor’s life must have been for the past ten years. Brad’s drinking. His jealousy. His battered ego that she must have tried valiantly to repair.

  Was that why she’d stayed with him all those years, even after the baby had died?

  Or had there been another reason?

  Dillon wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, but at the same time, he couldn’t bear not knowing. Something inside him, that masochistic part of himself, made him ask, “Did you love him?”

  Her gaze met his, then glanced away. She sighed deeply. “There was a time when I loved him very much.”

  Dillon put his hands to his face and scrubbed his eyes. He thought he’d known pain before. Thought he’d dealt with his jealousy years ago, but now to find out that Taylor had loved another man—it hurt. He didn’t want it to, but it did and Dillon knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  Taylor spread her hands in supplication. “I’m sorry you had to find out about the baby this way. I’m sorry for a lot of things, but don’t you see? None of that really matters anymore. What matters is finding out the truth. Knowing what really happened to our baby.”

  Dillon turned away from her. Emotions tumbled inside him. Anger. Resentment. Hurt. Disbelief.

  And a glimmer of grief.

  If what she said was true—

  “Can’t we put the past behind us?” Taylor asked desperately. “I need your help, Dillon. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “I know,” he said bitterly. “But you just may be asking for too damn much.”

  DILLON TOSSED and turned all night, unable to get Taylor out of his mind. Unable to forget what she had told him about Brad…and the baby.

  About everything.

  To make matters worse, he’d had to disappoint Casey again last night when the kid had come back later for his pizza. Dillon had ordered the food, paid for it, then sent the whole box home with Casey, who had wanted the company as much as the pizza.