by Adrianne Lee
“Kerrie? Is that you?” Glynna’s voice floated out to them.
For the first time in an hour, Kerrie grinned. “You’ll have to excuse me, gentlemen, I’m being paged.”
Against the stark white hospital sheets, Glynna Muldoon’s vibrant hair stood out like a scarlet rose on freshly fallen snow. She looked relieved to see Kerrie. “I’m so glad you’re here. Maybe you can talk some sense into that…that…doctor. I told him I was perfectly fine. All I need is to go home and be with my girls.”
Glynna had recently combed her hair and applied makeup—both testaments to her well-being, which reenforced Kerrie’s belief about Jon Vauter’s motives in making her spend the night here. The last of Kerrie’s stretched nerves relaxed. “You’ll be home with us tomorrow.”
“Don’t tell me you’re siding with Jon? Ye Gods, I’m not some feebleminded old fool downed by the ravages of one shocking incident.” She tapped her chest in the general area of her heart, her neatly polished nails brilliant against the faded hospital gown. “This fifty-six-year-old ticker is as sound as any half its age.”
“Nevertheless, you gave me quite a scare.” Kerrie smiled at her and moved to the edge of the bed. “What exactly happened?”
Glynna sighed. As she leaned into the two pillows propped against her back, she clasped her right hand over Kerrie’s. Her left hand was fisted against her side, as if she held something precious in her grasp.
“Well, it was my lucky day, I’ll tell you that. I was downtown, shopping. Last minute Christmas items, you know.” She flinched. “That reminds me. I don’t know what became of my packages. Do check on that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Glynna always began Christmas shopping the day after Memorial weekend. For her not to be finished this late in October was rare. But Christmas shopping was the last thing Kerrie wanted to talk about now. “Mom, tell me what happened?”
Glynna’s gaze had settled on something above and behind Kerrie’s shoulder. Kerrie glanced around. Nick Diamond. He stood near the door, the lower half of his face partially shaded from view. His ebony hair was still damp, giving it a provocative sheen and his seductive amber eyes were warm pools of concern. Her throat tightened with emotion. The fear she recognized and admitted, but the other emotion she would neither accept, nor acknowledge.
Roman strode toward them, stepping from the shadows into full light.
With a rustle of sheets, Kerrie’s mother sat straight up in the bed, her soft green eyes wide with alarm. “Do I know you, young man?”
“No.” Roman tipped his head to one side, supposing the fright he saw in the woman’s eyes was from the scare she’d had earlier. “I’m here with Iri…Kerrie.”
Kerrie sputtered, “Yes, ah, he’s, er, a—”
“Roman Donnello,” he said, having decided he could straighten Kerrie out about his name later. He ignored her surprised expression.
“Donnello?” Glynna shook her head. “No, that’s not the right name.”
Her gaze drilled into him as if she were trying to place him, as if she thought she did know him. Why? They’d never met, and to his knowledge, Irish had no pictures of him.
“Ye Gods!” Glynna’s gaze flicked sharply to her daughter and she drew in a sharp breath. “Kerrie Carleen, he looks just like Gab—”
“Mother!” There was an hysterical edge to Kerrie’s voice. “I don’t think Mr…Mr.—”
“Donnello,” he stated again. What was the matter? What had caused the sudden uneasiness that permeated the room like an invisible, yet chilling, fog? Kerrie was shaking.
“Mom, Mr. Donnello, doesn’t look like anyone we know.” Her voice held a pointed edge, as though she was warning her mother about something. “Do you suppose we could get back to what happened to you today?”
Roman bit down his frustration as the two women exchanged an anxious glance. What the hell was going on?
Stiffly Glynna settled back against the pillows, her gaze riveted to Kerrie. “D-did I mention I’d been Christmas shopping?” Her voice quavered slightly.
Kerrie nodded, and pulled in an unsteady breath, too aware of Nick’s presence and the danger it posed—now that her mother realized who he was.
“The streets were so crowded today,” Glynna said. “Lunchtime and all. Anyway, a large group of us were gathered at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. Someone kept bumping against my backside, so I moved forward a step and that’s when I felt it.”
“The knife?” Roman asked.
She blinked at him. “My, no! A knife? Why would you think…Ye Gods, is that what—?”
“Yes.” Kerrie frowned at Roman. “Please, go on. We’ll try not to interrupt.”
Glynna swallowed. “What I felt was something under my right shoe. I lifted my foot and there was a penny. Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you ‘ll have good luck. The second I bent over to pick it up, the woman beside me let out an odd little gasp. I’d supposed I’d jostled her with my packages, or stepped on her foot or some such, so I grabbed the penny and straightened, intending to apologize and explain. But the woman’s face was all contorted as if she were in agony. Reminded me of the day your father—”
Glynna broke off. She shuddered, remembering either today’s stabbing or her husband’s death. “Before I could ask what the matter was, the woman grabbed me and started sliding toward the pavement. The light changed and people flooded around us. I thought the woman had fainted. I tried getting someone to help me, and that’s when I noticed the blood on my hand, on the woman’s coat. All over her side, a huge dark patch that just kept getting bigger and bigger. I must have screamed, because suddenly lots of people were offering-assistance. I remember an ambulance, but not much else. It’s all sort of hazy.”
Roman’s neck prickled. Something about this incident bothered him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he’d felt this same gnawing in his gut before. When Wendy died. Did this stabbing have something to do with Loverboy?
Kerrie caught a puzzling emotion in Nick’s eyes, as though after hearing Glynna’s account of the incident he were more concerned about her welfare than he’d been earlier. Nonsense. This day had her so rattled she was finding worries where none existed.
She smiled at her mother. “I’m just glad that you’re all right.”
Glynna lifted her left hand and slowly uncurled it. A penny lay in her palm. She stared at it. “Lucky is what I am.”
Roman had always heard picking up a penny was bad luck. Real bad luck. The gnawing in his gut increased. Glynna Muldoon had been lucky. Today. But he had an awful feeling that her luck had about run out.
Irish needed to know.
But would she listen? Frustration flashed through him. She was one pigheaded woman. She. might not listen just to spite him. He wanted to pull her out into the hallway, insist she go somewhere with him so they could talk in private. But she and her mother exchanged another anxious glance. He realized whatever was going on between them—whatever tension he’d unwittingly heightened—took precedence at this moment.
Without being asked, he excused himself and left the two women to hash out their problem. He stifled the urge to eavesdrop. As curious as he was, he needed to think, to figure out why he thought Glynna Muldoon, not the other woman, had been the intended victim of the stabbing.
Was it because something about this stabbing produced the same prickly feeling he’d had when Wendy was murdered?
He leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. Hell, he couldn’t prove a case on feelings. Damn it all. He didn’t know how this fit into the puzzle he was trying to solve. And yet every instinct he had told him it did.
He shoved away from the wall as Kerrie emerged into the hall. Spotting him, she rolled her eyes. “I was hoping you’d be gone.”
“I still need a ride to my hotel.”
“Get a cab.” She hurried ahead of him to the elevators and punched the Down button.
“Are you going to put a guard on your mother’s room?”
“Was it?”
She eyed him suspiciously. Did he know something she didn’t? “Do you have proof to the contrary?”
“No, but.” How could he explain his gut instincts without sounding ridiculous?
She shook her head at him and punched the Down button again. “It’s not your concern. Just stay out of it, okay?”
“I can’t.”
“Then maybe I should have you booked and investigated.” She wheeled around, her eyes shooting daggers. “Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
“Really?” He tipped his head and a lock of his raven hair danced across his high forehead, highlighting the gleam in his amber eyes, the sensuous smile tugging at his irresistible mouth. “I could think of something that would give you far greater pleasure.”
The visual filled her head before she could stop it, spilling heat into every part of her. She growled, spun away from the elevators and slammed into the stairwell.
Roman followed, his long legs easily overtaking her shorter ones on the lower landing. He grabbed her wrist and pinned her against the wall. “Dammit, will you listen to me?”
Kerrie’s heart climbed her throat. Their gazes collided, locked. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t dodge the amber heat issuing from his raven-lashed eyes, couldn’t douse the answering fire deep within her very being, couldn’t breathe for want of him.
Roman lowered his head, all thoughts of explanations, of Loverboy and stabbings, forgotten in his sudden need to possess this woman, his woman, his Irish. He captured her mouth with his and passion exploded at the contact, fierce and rough, full of freed longing.
Kerrie reached up and grabbed his neck, her hands plowing into his thick hair as he pulled her close, fitting her hard body against his harder need. The awareness of his erection spurred her on, pulled a breathy moan from her. An answering groan burst deep in Roman’s throat, resounding in her ears, her heart. His hand skimmed down her leg, grasped it at the back of the knee and lifted it to his hip. His strong fingers slipped under her tight green skirt toward her panties.
Dear God, the audio wire. Kerrie reared back, batting at his hands, shoving at his chest. “Don’t Stop!”
From somewhere below them, a door banged open and voices echoed up the stairwell. Alarm joined the dismay on Kerrie’s face. Straightening her clothing, she turned and fled down the stairs.
It took Roman a moment longer to get control of himself Then he started after her. Hell, it felt like he’d spent most of this day chasing her.
Two floors down, he ran into a group of nurses and other hospital workers coming up. He lurched toward the wall, the women copied the move. Roman veered toward the stair railing, the women did the same. One of them laughed and shrugged, muttering something about a standoff. Roman grinned without humor, bit down his impatience and retreated back onto the landing, pressing himself against the wall while they passed.
He’d lost precious minutes, but by the time he had a clear pathway, he’d recovered his senses enough to realize that he’d let Kerrie take off without hearing him out, without hearing his concerns about her mother.
He charged down the remaining floors. How much time had passed? How much of a head start had Irish gotten? He emerged on the sidewalk and squinted against the rain. She was nowhere in sight. Neither was the police van.
Anxiously he sprinted across the road, into the parking garage and up to their floor, taking the stairs two at a time. The Mazda was gone. A squeal of brakes echoed through the belly of the building. Roman swore.
KERRIE WAS SHAKING all over. What had gotten into her? Letting Nick kiss her? The image of her response blocked out everything else and she knew it wasn’t letting him kiss her that had her trembling. It was that she’d kissed him back with an abandon she’d only known one other time in her life. With Nick.
Had the attack on her mother robbed her of her senses? Or was it her mother’s shock at realizing who Nick was that had stripped away her rationality? She merged with freeway traffic headed south. She had to be insane to still feel his lips, his groping fingers, his turgid need. Her own need tingled through her.
She swallowed hard, checked her rearview mirror and changed lanes. Thank heavens, she’d come to her senses. Remembered the wire. Otherwise.
No. Nothing would have happened. Nick had simply taken advantage of her in a vulnerable moment—as she’d known he would. She let out a derisive laugh. Honestly, using his so-called concern for her mother. She shook her head. The lengths he’d gone to—hinting the attack hadn’t been random. She wanted to scream. Of course it had been random. Who would want to stab her mother?
The radio squawked, startling her out of her thoughts. Cage. She took a deep breath, then answered.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“To quote her, ‘lucky.’’’
“Yeah, I heard. You headed in here?”
“No. I’m going home.”
“Oh, yes. Obligations. I’ll do my notes on your lunch date and you can type the report in the morning.”
“Thanks.” She turned the radio off and changed lanes again, steering onto the West Seattle freeway.
Good thing she didn’t have to meet Jeremy Dane until tomorrow night. One encounter with a Loverboy-candidate a day was more than enough. The thought made the hair on her nape stand at attention, made Nick’s words about the attack on her mother not being random jangle inside her head.
She reached for her cell phone, contacted headquarters and was put through to her boss. She explained the situation, then said, “Lieutenant, could you see about posting a guard on my mom’s room?”
“Any reason?”
“Just call it a precaution.”
He hesitated only a moment. “Considering the nature of the case you’re on, I think I can find the manpower to guard a patient overnight.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”
“No thanks necessary. I want you fresh in the morning, concentrating on catching Loverboy, and you won’t be if you’re worried about your mom. Now go home and unwind.”
“I’ll try.” But instead of unwinding, Kerrie was more tense by the time she pulled into her quiet neighborhood in West Seattle. She steered down the alleyway and up behind the redbrick house. The three-bedroom rambler with a basement and detached garage was far from new, but she loved it as much now as the first time she’d seen it five years ago.
Pride of ownership, she supposed; it was her first major purchase and she’d earned the down payment on her own, which had emptied her savings. For a year, the only furniture she’d had was her bed, one old beanbag chair and a secondhand TV.
Then her dad died, leaving Glynna lost and lonely in their grand home in Redmond. They’d decided to sell it, pool their assets and live together. It had turned out to be a godsend for Kerrie. But after today, would the household ever be the same again?
She parked in the garage, then headed three doors down to her neighbor Sophia Sommerville’s ancient, two-story house. Sophia, who had a passion for purple, had painted the place a bright lavender with grape trim.
After two knocks, Sophia opened the door. A slender woman, Kerrie had often thought Sophia might be a real beauty, but she down-played her best features, even wearing her iron gray hair permed unattractively close to her head. She was drying her hands on her mauve apron. Her fierce brown eyes widened in surprise. “Kerrie, I was expecting Glynna. She’s running a might late. Is anything the matter?”
“Yes. But she’s all right.” Kerrie quickly gave Sophia a hasty rundown. “She’ll be home in the morning.”
Sophia and Glynna had met at Riley’s Market shortly after Sophia had moved into the neighborhood last year. Widowhood gave them common ground and they’d become friends.
Sophia pulled her inside the foyer. “My goodness, you’ve had quite a day.”
If you
only knew, Kerrie thought, drawing in a deep breath rife with the scents of lemon oil and freshly baked peanut butter cookies. Her empty stomach gurgled. “Are the girls ready?”
“Yep. Been little angels, as usual. They’re in the den, playing.”
Kerrie followed Sophia. A buzzing arose from the kitchen. “Oh, my cookies,” Sophia exclaimed, excusing herself.
Kerrie stopped in the doorway to the den. Every time she came upon this sight her heart filled to bursting. Now was no exception. The twins were playing with giant plastic blocks, jabbering in a language only the two of them understood. Maureen noticed her first. “Mommy.”
She scrambled up on her two-year-old legs and toddled toward Kerrie, arms outstretched. Her sister echoed Maureen’s delighted squeal and followed her across the room.
Kerrie squatted and opened her arms to receive them. They were dressed alike in pale blue coveralls and long-sleeved white T-shirts, but her daughters were paternal twins.
Maureen resembled Glynna and Kerrie, her hair a tangle of fiery curls, her eyes a soft emerald. But from her glossy raven hair to her thick, ebony-lashed amber eyes, Gabriella was the image of the twins,’ father. Nick Diamond.
Chapter Four
Nick Diamond. Kerrie reared back from the peephole in her front door. How had he gotten her home address? What was he doing on her porch at nine o’clock at night? What was he doing on her porch—period? Had he somehow learned about the twins?
The thought brought her heart into her throat. Her pulse roared in her ears. Maybe if she was really quiet, he’d go away. She tiptoed backward…and slammed against Glynna’s antique plant stand. Visions of the giant Boston fern smashing to the hardwood floor snapped her around. Too late.
The resulting crash could have awakened the dead. Had the twins heard? Kerrie’s throat constricted. Inanely she stared at the mess, torn between scooping it up and checking on her sleeping children.
The doorbell pealed, instantly followed by Nick’s voice. “Come on, Irish. Open the door. We need to talk.”
Talk? Terror jangled through her as sharply as the pealing doorbell that echoed through the halls. If the shattering pot hadn’t awakened the twins, the blasted bell soon would. Damn the man. She stepped over the mound of fern and dirt and broken ceramic pot, and yanked open the door.