She stopped when she realized Gemma was there now, and he left them to chat for a moment while he made sure Flash was comfortable. When they were back in the SUV and ready to leave, Gemma watched her sister walk back into the building.
“She still thinks they stole her dogs, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” Dante said, knowing it was no secret. “But I wish she’d keep a lower profile about it. Drawing the attention of either Noel or Evan Larson could have nasty consequences.”
“I think...” Gemma hesitated.
“What?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think she might have dated one of them once.”
He blinked. “Patience? And one of the Larson brothers?” He was astonished and knew it rang in his voice.
“I saw her with one of them a couple of times, and when I asked she said it was nothing, but...”
Dante stared at the training center building, where Patience had gone back inside. “I hope it really was nothing,” he said, and he couldn’t help the ominous tone.
Any woman foolish enough to get involved with a Larson was asking for trouble.
* * *
This was so...domestic, Gemma thought.
They’d gotten Flash home, and when he’d been about to jump out of the SUV, Dante had instead gently lifted him out and set him down.
“I know, buddy,” he told the dog, “it’s humiliating, but it won’t be long. And if I know you, by the time you’re feeling better, you’ll have decided you like all this attention and you’ll start milking it.”
Gemma had laughed but had sneaked the dog an extra treat once he was ensconced in his chair inside.
“Shh,” she said, very audibly, “don’t tell Dante.”
“You mean the guy who already gave him a treat when I put him in the car?”
They’d ended up laughing together and were still smiling now, a couple of hours later, as she played with the twins and he got ready to grill steaks on the small barbecue on the patio. She’d never seen the appeal of these quiet togetherness scenarios before, but now a long, uninterrupted string of evenings like this seemed like the most wonderful thing imaginable. Especially if the evenings were capped off with nights like the last couple of weeks.
In fact, if it wasn’t for the girls, she’d be over there luring Dante into stripping down right now, just so she could run her hands over him. How had she ever thought Dev good-looking? He paled to blandness beside Dante. Those piercing dark eyes, that thick dark hair, even the stubble on his strong, masculine jaw... And the rest of him, from broad, strong chest to flat belly to narrow hips, to—
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t forget it.”
He’d come up behind her and slipped his arms around her. “Not a chance,” she said.
There was a long silent moment before he said against her ear, “Sometimes when you look at me like that, I—”
Her cell rang. “I am,” she said crankily, “going to throw that thing into Wyoming.”
He nuzzled her ear. “They’d probably just throw it back. Not going to answer?”
“No.” She glanced at the screen. Sighed. “Yes. It’s Layla.”
She felt him go very still, and that quickly the mood was shattered.
This is what it will be like, being with a cop.
When she used to think about why the officers she met through her fund-raisers did what they did, why they were willing to put their lives on the line, she hadn’t really thought about the other aspect of it, that their spouses and families had to be just as willing. For if the day ever came when that risk came true, it would be they who were left in pain and anger and grief.
One day it could be her, if she stayed.
On the other hand, leaving him was too high a price to pay for peace of mind.
“Gemma?”
She snapped out of her thoughts. “Sorry.” She answered the phone, then handed it over to him. “I’ll guard the steaks.”
He grinned at that; Flash had been eyeing the two lovely rib eyes since they’d come out of the fridge. Then Dante took her phone and walked back inside to get the list of phone numbers.
He was back in less than five minutes. Looking glum but not angry.
“No luck?” she asked.
“No match,” he confirmed. “Only number on the list that hit was from dispatch, and Frank already told me he’d called.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t be. It was a big help to have her do that and saved me a lot of time and frustration.” He gave her a sideways look. “She’s pretty sharp, your sister.”
“Runs in the family,” she said airily.
He grinned then. “Yes. In various disguises.”
They fed the girls, and as usual it was an adventure, since neither of the twins was certain they liked the new, solid food. Once that was cleaned up, they ate their own dinner—Dante had this grill thing down, she thought as she savored the last bite of her steak—and settled into the living room with the babies in their playpen, working hard on crawling.
“My money’s on Lucia,” he said as he fired up his laptop, no doubt to go to work again; he might have been dealt a setback, but Dante wasn’t a quitter. He’d solve whatever this was, no matter how long it took.
“To get crawling first?” she asked. He nodded. She looked back at the two consideringly. “I’d agree. But only because I still think Zita’s going to go straight to walking and skip crawling altogether.”
She heard him let out an audible breath. “And I’m terrified.”
She almost laughed at the idea of the intrepid cop being frightened of two tiny babies, but there had been something in his voice, some sort of undertone, that told her he meant much more than the prospect of the twins being mobile.
“Do your cases always go in a straight line?”
He blinked. “What?”
“They change as you go, don’t they? As you learn new things, find new evidence?”
“Of course.”
“So you have to adapt, change your thinking about it.” She waved toward the twins. “It’ll be the same with them. And we’ll adapt. Whatever, whenever, we’ll deal with it.”
He stared at her for a moment. “You have...quite a way of putting things in relatable terms.”
She grinned. “It helps.”
“It works,” he returned.
She smiled. After a moment she said, “I’m thinking about planning another fund-raiser for the K9 unit. My father’s always funded it in memory of Layla’s mom, but now that Layla’s wedding has been postponed because of that maniac killer...”
She regretted saying it, and linking the two, as soon as the words were out. But Dante didn’t look puzzled.
“It’s that bad at Colton Energy? That your sister has to marry Harrington for the cash infusion?” She flushed. Dante shrugged. “It didn’t take much logic.” His mouth quirked. “It’s a very iffy field.”
“He is quite taken with her,” Gemma said, but it didn’t make her feel much better.
“If he’s as...smarmy as his son,” Dante said rather sourly, “I hope she wakes up and changes her mind.”
Gemma had no idea why Layla had agreed to the outlandish bargain in the first place, so she couldn’t say what it would take for her to do that. “It could happen,” she said. Then, giving him a pointed look, she added, “I certainly did.”
For a moment he just looked at her. Then, his voice rough in that way she loved, he said, “How do you feel about hot, steamy sex in front of two six-month-olds?”
“Afraid not,” she said, her own voice a bit husky. “But just think how it will be if we let it build for another hour until they go to bed.”
She was right.
Chapter 31
By morning Gemma was deliciously sated, yet still wondering if th
ey had time to indulge in another round of that glorious connection they had, when her phone rang.
“Definitely Wyoming,” she muttered under her breath as she reached to grab it from the nightstand before it woke Dante, who had had a very, very busy night. But she hadn’t reckoned on his ingrained reaction to early-morning phone calls; he was awake and sitting up by the time she glanced at the phone’s screen.
Layla.
“Hey,” she answered, curiosity over the second call clear in her voice.
“I like your cop,” Layla said without preamble.
She liked the sound of that “your cop” so much it was a moment before she could answer. “So do I. A lot.”
“A lot lot?”
“More.”
Layla sighed. It was a bittersweet kind of sound. “I’m happy for you.”
Gemma wanted to ask if she should be happy for her in turn, but she knew her sister had to have called for a reason; Layla didn’t have time for idle chitchat these days. Even as she thought it, her sister went on briskly.
“Can I talk to him again?”
“Something new?”
“Yes. I found one of his numbers.”
Gemma turned to Dante, who was watching her intently. She held her phone out to him. “It’s Layla. She found a number.”
She saw something flare in his eyes. Realized suddenly that this was a man who did everything worth doing full bore, be it following every trail in an investigation or...making love to her.
Life with him—and his little family of twins plus dog—would be full, challenging, sometimes frightening, but never, ever boring.
She wanted that. All of it. And she let it show in her eyes as she handed him her phone. And knew by the way he just stared at her that he’d read her expression perfectly.
In your court, Dante Mancuso. You know what I want.
He took the phone. But he never took his eyes off her. And before he said anything else, he whispered, “Yes.”
* * *
Dante was having a little trouble focusing. His life was changing so rapidly and it showed no sign of slowing down. But he also might have just been handed the thread that could unravel all the way to their crooked cop.
And all because of another Colton—one who had gone the extra step and run his list of numbers against calls not just to the utility, but to its repair workers, who had company-provided cell phones for callouts, as well.
He pulled in behind the station, parking in the back corner of the lot that the K9 unit had claimed as their own. He thought about leaving Flash in the car, but the bloodhound was already up on his feet, so he opened the back and lifted him out to the ground.
“I swear you’ve put on ten pounds overnight,” he said to the animal, who gave him the aggrieved look the comment deserved.
But Dante only smiled as his mind filled with memories of his own overnight. There wasn’t an inch of Gemma he hadn’t explored with eyes, hands and mouth. That had been delicious enough, but then she’d turned the tables and taught him how little he had really known of what his body was capable of feeling.
He wanted this case over and this damned crooked cop put away so he could spare a moment to think about the future. A future that had now changed irrevocably with the twins—and Gemma. Because he wanted her in that future.
For all his sins, his brother had truly loved his wife. And in fact, they’d been perfect for each other in their own dishonest way. It was the one thing Dante had always marveled at, that Dom had found someone so perfectly matched to his view of life and its opportunities.
Gemma came from a very different world. Yet behind that glamorous facade she used so well was a genuine, laughing and loving woman. And despite his doubts, she’d proven herself with the twins, learning fast and laughing at the inevitable mistakes in a way that charmed them...and him.
“Mancuso!”
He snapped out of his reverie at the sound of the chief’s voice. He turned and saw Finn Colton heading toward him from his own official vehicle.
“I heard your partner got hurt,” Finn said, looking down at Flash.
“A little. He’ll be okay.”
He liked how the chief was always concerned about the welfare of his troops, human and canine. Wondered what the man would say if he knew he’d interrupted Dante’s mental planning of a blissful future with his cousin.
They started walking through the section of the lot where officers parked their personal vehicles. He saw that Finn was watching Flash carefully, and after a moment he nodded. Then he shifted his gaze to Dante.
“Any progress?”
Dante didn’t want to have to explain how he’d gotten the piece of information Layla Colton had handed him this morning. Not yet, anyway. “Some,” he said. “A good lead, maybe. I’m here to check on something.”
Finn nodded and let it go, trusting him. “I’m about to win the betting pool, you know.”
“The what?” Then Dante remembered what Finn had told him—that there had been a pool going on how long Gemma would last playing at being a nanny. “Oh.”
“I was the only one who said she’d last a month. She is going to, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said, rather fiercely. Then, when Finn’s gaze narrowed, he added with an attempt at humor, “Unless the twins take her out in the next week.”
Finn laughed. “I was fifteen when my youngest sister was born. I remember thinking one tiny thing couldn’t possibly be so much trouble. I can’t imagine what two of them must be like.”
“She’s doing great with them. And they respond to her.”
Finn’s expression changed again, now full of speculation. “And you?”
There was no denying the question inherent in those words, and Dante grimaced. “Last I heard, she’s already got a big brother.”
“Yeah,” Finn said, deadpan, “but I’m better with a shotgun.”
Dante would have laughed, but he wasn’t entirely sure his boss was joking. And when it came down to it, he liked that Finn was concerned about Gemma. So he held the man’s gaze steadily.
“You won’t need it,” he said.
“Glad to hear it,” Finn said. “You’re a good man, Mancuso. You’ve had to fight some preconceptions to get to where you are. I admire that.”
“Gemma’s fought a few of those herself,” he said. Including my own.
Finn looked surprised, then thoughtful. “Hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but you’re right.”
“I—” Flash’s sudden stop cut him off. The bloodhound was next to a silver coupe parked at the end of the row, head and tail up as he sniffed the trunk. Dante frowned. “Whose car is that?”
“Don’t know,” Finn said. “Why’s he so interested?”
“He’s not just interested. See his tail, how it’s up and to the right like that? That’s his tracking signal. He’s on to something.”
“In that car? What?”
“All I can say for sure is that something he’s tracked before is in there.”
They exchanged a glance, and Dante knew Finn had reached the same conclusion—that the dog had alerted on an officer’s private vehicle when they were looking for a dirty cop couldn’t be a coincidence. Finn pulled out his phone and made a call. Waited silently a moment, then came back with a name.
The same name that went with the phone number Layla had given him.
“That’s it,” Dante said. At Finn’s look he quickly explained what he’d learned. The phone number, the power outage, the call made to a utility worker and what hadn’t been on those security videos.
Finn frowned. “How you got that number could get tricky, but the way you did it was smart. And I just happen to know a judge who would be happy to get me that court order in a hurry.”
“Oh? I figured it would take forever.”
“Remembe
r that Ponzi scheme the Larsons were behind but we could never prove it?” Dante nodded; he’d studied every case the Larsons had been even tangentially connected to. “The judge’s niece got sucked into that one and lost a chunk of money.”
Things happened fast after that. Within an hour, Finn had a court order not only for the phone records, but to search the vehicle Flash had alerted on. Within the next hour, they had the missing phone, secreted inside the spare tire in the trunk; sometimes Flash’s nose still amazed him. And with the phone was a debit card from a bank down in Rapid City. Dante guessed a check of that account would show exactly how much the Larsons had paid to have that phone stolen from the evidence room.
Paid Al Collins. Duke’s partner. Which likely explained how the shooter had found them, both at the apartment and at home; Duke could easily have mentioned something. And later, all he or one of Larson’s goons had to do was follow Gemma and the twins.
And twenty minutes after that they had an at first protesting and then grimly silent cop in custody. The phone itself had been wiped, and the man clearly wasn’t about to give up who hired him, but Dante had no doubts. The recent transfer was their guy.
“That’s why the whole routine with the pen. So you could lean over the counter and see exactly where Ron put the phone. What, did the utilities guy owe you one? You let him off on a ticket or something?”
Collins made an obscene suggestion. Dante ignored it; they’d find out the whole story eventually.
“I’m glad you’re the dirtbag,” Dante said as Collins was dragged away. “Better than one of our own.”
“Too bad Lambert didn’t take you out,” Collins snapped, then lapsed back into his determined silence.
But Dante stared after him, the name he hadn’t had until this moment echoing in his ears. The name of the man who had fired the warning shots at the apartment where they’d found the phone that this stinking cop had stolen out of evidence.
The man who had attacked Gemma and the twins.
And had caused his brother’s death.
Chapter 32
Dante came home as happy as he could be given they’d just found a dirty cop—and walked in on a disaster. Two wailing twins and a frazzled-looking Gemma amid toys and clothes strewn about and...something orange in an artistic streak up one wall in the kitchen. He had the inane thought that if this were a crime scene and that was blood, it’d be classified as arterial spray.
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