The door opened, but she didn’t look up. When it closed again she knew it was Alex. And once again she couldn’t decide if she should wrap herself around him or beat him in the head with the bedside lamp.
He stepped up behind her and when his hands closed around her waist, she leaned back against him.
“What are you thinking about?” he whispered in her ear.
“Sean Devlin.” She felt him stiffen, but he didn’t move away. This was something they had to meet head-on, and they both knew it. “I’m remembering some of the conversations we’ve had over the years.”
“I swear I didn’t do it to hurt you, Grace.”
“You knew where I was.”
She felt his face against her hair. “Yes, I did, and it killed me a little bit more every day. You didn’t want me. You were happy being mother to another man’s child, but I couldn’t let you go. I couldn’t go the rest of my life without hearing your voice again, even though it ripped my heart out every time you called me Sean.”
“Why didn’t you…how much could it have hurt if you weren’t even willing to say anything?”
“This may surprise you, but I have a really hard time swallowing my pride.”
She laughed and bent her head so he could kiss the side of her neck. “Have you ever tried?”
“Only with you, Grace. And I can almost do it without choking now.”
“Do you know how many times while I was talking to Sean I wished you could be like him?” Alex stilled, his forehead resting on her shoulder. “I always thought if you were more like Sean, we may have had a chance. That if Sean were Danny’s father I wouldn’t have been the one teaching him to ride a bike or playing catch with him—which I totally suck at, by the way. But he wasn’t you and you couldn’t be that guy, so I was alone.”
He said nothing, but wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed. Grace couldn’t even see what lay beyond the window anymore. The sheen of tears blurred her vision, but wouldn’t fall. She was tired of crying. Tired of regrets and what-ifs and if-onlys.
“And now I find out you are that guy. You are the guy I wished you could be. And Sean is you, and I can’t…I don’t know to feel about that. I’m angry and hurt and relieved and hopeful and pretty pissed off.”
He turned her slowly in his arms, then tilted her face up to his. “I like the hopeful part.”
She didn’t. She wanted to squash the hopeful part immediately and mercilessly. There could be no future for them. Period. But right now, with his dark eyes devouring her face, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
She knew he was going to kiss her, and she froze, torn between lifting her face to his and turning away. If she let him kiss her, she knew she was a goner.
She had to give him credit for not pouncing on her indecision. Alex waited until she rocked up onto her toes. Then his lips touched hers, softly, their breath mingling.
“How’s your head?” he whispered against her mouth.
“Clearly not screwed on straight at this point.”
“I want to make love to you, Grace.”
She’d already guessed that from the hard length pressed against her crotch. Smiling, she reached for her top button. “As long as you don’t bang it against the headboard, I’ll be fine.”
But she was confused when he stayed her fingers with his own. “I’m not talking about a quick tumble.”
“A not-so-quick tumble works.”
Alex captured her face in his hands, one thumb slowly stroking her bottom lip. “Not a tumble at all, Grace. I want to make love to you. Slowly. I want to savor you, with nothing between us. No lies. No secrets.”
She felt herself being stroked into submission by the low, sweet caress of his voice. One last time. “One for the—”
Alex put his finger over her lips. “Don’t say it. Not now.”
And that would be between them, she thought. The pretense of there being a tomorrow for them. Perhaps not a lie, but not the truth, either. An undercover mission in which they played two people madly in love with each other. Two people looking forward to growing old together. And maybe, in another time and place, that’s exactly what they would have done.
Alex pressed his mouth to hers, and she sighed against his lips. His kiss was gentle and long…sweet. So different from the hard urgency that usually overcame them in the bedroom, or wherever they happened to be. Grace raised her hands to cup the back of his neck and tried to lose herself in the tenderness.
It didn’t work—the pretending would break her heart and they both deserved better. She turned her face away and ducked out of his hold. “I can’t, Alex.”
“I’m not ready to let you go yet, Grace.” She shook her head, but he reached for her hand. “Is this about Sean Devlin?”
“No, Alex. It’s not about where we’ve been, but where I’m going.” The pain of stepping away from his touch was almost too much to bear. If he could have just let her establish they were having a farewell fling, they’d be naked right now. But she loved him too much to lead him on. “We’re over, Alex.”
Chapter Twelve
Alex refused to believe he’d never hold Grace Nolan in his arms again. Even now the loss of her body against his was like a cold front passing over him. No way in hell was he feeling that for the rest of his life.
She was ready to get Danny and go home. He knew that. He’d seen the change in her over the past several days—the gradual falling away of Grace the Devlin Group agent and the reemergence of Grace, Danny’s mom.
He knew she was done. There would be no more repelling from classified military helicopters. No more dodging bullets or seeing how fast they could get in and out of a secure compound without being seen. Her life with the Devlin Group was over now, and it was up to him to convince her that didn’t mean she had to leave him behind, as well. Pretty damn tricky considering he’d confessed he was Devlin himself.
He didn’t have a lot of time to convince her they could have a life together—all three of them, as a family. If Danny wasn’t waiting, he’d consider kidnapping her and not letting her go until she admitted she wanted it as much as he did.
“So what are you going to do?” he asked in as nonchalant a tone as he could manage under the circumstances. If he pushed, she was going to shove back, hard.
“I’m going to get Danny and my parents,” she said as she checked the bedroom one last time for any left behind items.
“I meant after that.”
She stopped roaming and looked directly at him. “I don’t know. We’ll probably spend a few days with my parents, and then…I don’t know.”
She sat on the bed, her shoulders hunching a bit. “Will you go home?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Alex. Danny loves it there. He has friends and his activities and I don’t want to tear him away from all that.”
“With Contadino gone, if we come in and rehab your security, there’s no reason to move.”
“It’s not only that,” she replied, and Alex could tell this had been weighing on her for a while. “What if he talks? What little boy isn’t going to tell his friends his mom shot people while jumping out of a helicopter?”
Alex sighed and sat next to her on the bed. He could see where that might be a problem. “If you really like the town, it’s manageable, Grace. While we’re not in the Yellow Pages, we’re not a ‘now we have to kill you’ kind of company, either. Call a meeting with the police chief, his teacher, the principal and the guidance counselor and lay it all out for them. We can make it work.”
“We.”
She said it flatly, then she headed for the door, grabbing her bag on the way. Alex braced himself mentally for the battle of wills to come. “You know, considering the chaos of the circumstances at the time, and your interpretation of what happened and lack of faith in me, I understand why you ran. And I forgive you for it. But that bridge has been crossed, and you can’t go back over it. I will not be kept from my son again.”
She paused at t
he door and gave him a look so cold somebody who didn’t know her so well wouldn’t see it was a front. “I’m already back over that bridge, Alex. Don’t come after us.”
Then she was gone and it was several moments before Alex trusted his temper enough to go after her.
With their goodbyes said before Carmen left to take Gallagher to physical therapy, there was nothing to stop Grace as she swept out of the suite and down the hall. Every step she took was like a spear jabbing straight up into her heart.
Her throat ached, and she prayed she could hold back the tears until she was safely ensconced in a cab. Then she’d quietly let them fall and put them behind her before Danny threw himself into her arms.
But Alex caught up with her before she could get out of the building. He grabbed her arm, whirling her to face him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You think I’m some asshole chump who’s going to walk out of here and forget I have a child?”
Grace absorbed his pain and shoved it down deep with her own. “It’s what’s best for Danny.”
“Bullshit. I’ll blow up that damn bridge and use the pieces to beat some sense into that thick head of yours if that’s how you think it’s going to go.”
Cold seeped through her veins and she embraced it, using it to fight the anguish. “If you come at me, Alex Rossi, you’d better make sure I don’t know you’re coming.”
Alex jerked back as if she’d physically slapped him across the face. “Jesus, Grace, do you hear yourself? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know!” she screamed, throwing her bag against the wall. Every emotion she’d felt in the last week was bottlenecked in her throat, fighting to get out. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Alex. All those years I was trying to be the perfect mother to Danny, and a part of me just wanted to be here. And now I’m here and I just want to be with Danny. I can’t be what I’m supposed to be, and the only thing I know is this world—your world—is no place for an eight-year-boy.”
He was shaking his head, but she just kept talking. “We’re going to disappear now. Totally. New identities. No ties to the past. I’ll walk away from it all—the network, the computer work—”
“Me. You think you’re going to walk away from me?”
“What I was—what you are—almost got Danny killed. I can’t live in both your world and his.”
“I won’t walk away from you again, Grace.”
“Can you give it all up? All of it?”
She willed him to say yes. One word and she could wake up next to this man every day for the rest of her life.
She watched his throat work, then he shook his head.
“Then you don’t have to walk away from me again. I’m the one walking away this time.”
He stopped her, his grip on her arm nearly painful. “I love you, Grace.”
There it was. The pain of it should have killed her. “I love you, too, Alex. Goodbye.”
She picked up her bag, walked down the hall and out into the overwhelmingly bright sunshine, aware he was following her, but refusing to turn back. It was time to get Danny and disappear off the radar again. And this time…
Grace stopped, staring at the spot where Alex’s sporty rental car had been parked. “What the hell is that?”
He looked past her at the red vehicle filling the driveway, then grinned, setting off alarm bells in her head. “They tell me it’s called a minivan.”
“I know it’s a minivan. They downgrade your rental car plan?”
“It’s not a rental. I bought it from…a guy I know.”
The alarm bells started clanging at a feverish pitch. Alex Rossi was anything but a soccer dad.
“Even I don’t drive a minivan,” she said, wondering what the hell he thought he was proving.
“It has a DVD player.” He crossed his arms and smiled down at her. “Danny will have movies and volume control and cup holders and his own heating and AC controls. I won’t even go into the safety rating this thing has.”
Her heart softened just a little. He was trying so hard to be the man she needed him to be, unwilling to accept it wasn’t in him.
“And,” he continued, “it’s bullet-proof, explosion-proof, has voice-printed access for the doors and for the hidden rear compartment. And you wouldn’t believe how they were able to supercharge that engine. The gas mileage will suck, but she can really scream if she has to.”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “No rocket launchers?”
“I thought that would be overkill.”
She laughed despite herself, and waved a hand at the suburban tank. “Won’t driving a minivan tarnish your image?”
His dimples flashed. “No way. That red is sexy as hell. Plus all the seats fold flat, so we can get a sitter and then find a porn drive-in and act out the scenes in the car.”
Oh, how she wished that thought didn’t get her fired up. “I don’t think we have any porn drive-ins around. What a shame.”
Alex rested his hand lightly on her lower back. “No problem. It has a DVD player, remember? We can act it out in the driveway for all I care.”
Grace stepped away from his touch, trying to remind herself of all the reasons she was leaving this man. No matter how badly she wanted to watch X-rated movies with him in the minivan, the thought of Danny being targeted again someday made her stomach hurt.
“Don’t you see why this is wrong?” she demanded, her voice more hoarse than she would have liked. “You want to drive around in a minivan like every other suburban parent, but yours is bulletproof, Alex. What does that say about your life? The Devlin Group is the reason this happened, and you want me to invite the so-called Sean Devlin himself into Danny’s life?”
The boyish charm disappeared from Alex’s face so quickly she took a step back. “You need to deal with a few things, Grace. Number one—this did happen to Danny. You shutting me out isn’t going to erase what happened to him. And they needed leverage to get to me, but Contadino took Danny because of you. Because of what you used to do and what you used to be to me. And you can’t make that go away. Whether you and I ever get naked in the back of that minivan or not, the connection between us will always exist. And two—this isn’t about Danny.”
“It’s all about Danny.”
“I’m Danny’s father, and I’m going to be a part of his life forever, Grace. The only question is whether I take him to a ballgame and then drop him off at his mom’s, or if I take him to a game and then curl up under the covers with his mom.
“I love you, Grace. And I want to spend the rest of my life being cold at night because you’re a cover hog and eating store-bought cookies and buying you flowers because they make you smile.”
“But not enough to give up the Devlin Group.”
“I can’t give it up. We do a lot of good. And even if I did walk away now, it would only make me weaker. I can’t transform myself into some suburban insurance salesman. I’ve made a lot of enemies. There are powerful men behind bars or destroyed financially or politically because of the Devlin Group, and if I take my finger off the pulse of that world, it’s going to eat me alive.
“Knowledge is power, and I have to stay in the game. I’ll leave the field for the most part, but I do this work because it needs to be done and I’m damn good at it. So are you. And we can keep Danny safe. We can educate him, help him be smart.”
“He is smart,” Grace snapped, hating the defensive note in her voice. On some level she knew he was right. If she shared more of the dangers of her former work with her son and taught him a few things, he wouldn’t have fallen for their ruse. He wouldn’t have been controlled so easily by threats against her. He may have gotten away.
“Don’t,” he said softly. “Stop over thinking this. And stop hiding behind our son.”
“Screw you.” She turned away, but she couldn’t deny that, though she believed the Devlin Group could maybe someday put her son in the path of danger again, she also had other fears she hadn’t give
n voice to. “What about me, Alex?”
“What about you?”
“What am I supposed to do while you’re at work? Hell, we already know I can’t bake cookies. I know what you do. We both have scars, and each one could have been two inches higher or an inch to the left. I would know every single time you walk out that door there’s a damn good chance you won’t come home. I can’t live with that. Especially since I’m your partner. How long can I be torn between begging you not to go and strapping on a gun and going with you?”
She had to stop then, since her voice was choking off and all she could do was wave her hand in some what then? gesture.
Alex cupped her face in his hands. “You won’t go with me. You’re done in the field, and we both know that. But you seem to be forgetting I’m damn good at what I do. If I had some cushy office job you wouldn’t try to shield me from commuting two hours in eighty-mile-an-hour bumper to bumper traffic, would you?”
“Oh, don’t give me that ‘I could get hit by a bus tomorrow’ bullshit,” she snapped, jerking her face away from his hands. He’d been quick to reject that argument when she’d thrown it at him earlier. “There’s a big difference between what you do and commuting.”
“The difference is training, instincts and experience, Grace. If I compare what I do to commuting, I’d be a commuter rolling down the highway in an armored vehicle with proximity sensors, anti-impact measures, grenade launchers and an on-board Porta-Potty.”
Grace laughed. “You mean like that minivan?”
He didn’t laugh with her. “I told you I’ll stand down from high-risk fieldwork. I’ve got some good guys now who don’t have little kids waiting at home to play ball in the backyard, and I can recruit a few more.”
He stepped forward until he was right in her face. “We love each other, Grace. We have for years. And we have a son. We have what it takes, babe, if you could just trust in me.”
72 Hours Page 11