“You can let go now,” Dylan said dryly.
She glanced at him. “Sorry?”
He raised his hand, clutched tightly in her own.
She flushed, released her grip. “Sorry.”
“I really didn’t mind holding your hand.” He grinned. “Until you started to cut the circulation off in mine.”
“I guess I was a little tense.”
“A little,” he agreed.
She knew he was teasing, but she could sense tension in him as his eyes narrowed, scanned the opposite set of bleachers. It was his cop stance—alert, focused—and it set off her own internal alarms. “Dylan?”
“Hmm.”
“Is something wrong?”
He smiled, but she could tell it was forced. And his gaze continued to peruse the park. “No, I just…” He shook his head, finally turned his attention back to her. “Never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
“Nothing,” he insisted. Then, in a blatant attempt to change the subject, he said, “My dad always took me for ice cream after a big loss.”
Despite the obviousness of the ploy, it worked. She forgot about Dylan’s distraction and turned her attention back to the players’ bench and her son.
“I never expected it could be this bad. What do I do? How do I handle this?”
“Ice cream,” he said again.
“Ice cream?” she echoed dubiously, watching as the coach huddled the kids together. She was relieved when she didn’t hear any yelling come from the vicinity of the bench, more so when she saw him pat each of the boys on the head before sending them on their way.
“Double scoops,” Dylan told her, nudging her up off the bleacher.
Natalie climbed down to meet her son. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Jack look so miserable, and she felt like crying right along with him.
Jack kicked the toe of his shoe in the dirt. “We really sucked, didn’t we?”
Ordinarily she would have taken exception to his language, but she figured her son’s ego needed a boost more than a lecture. “You went three-for-four with two RBIs,” she pointed out.
“Three RBIs,” Dylan corrected.
Jack brightened. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”
“And you need to remember that this is the first game you’ve played together as a team,” Dylan said. “You’ll get better as the season progresses.”
“That’s what coach said,” Jack told them. “But it was the other team’s first game, too.”
Time for a serious distraction, Natalie decided. “Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge or Rocky Road?”
“Are we going for ice cream?”
“Of course. It’s not every day you get to celebrate your first hit of the season.”
“Is Dylan coming, too?” Jack asked.
Natalie turned. “Are you up for some ice cream, Lieutenant?”
“I could go for some Rocky Road,” he agreed.
She was so relieved by the success of the plan she didn’t notice the man hiding in the shadow of the trees, or the camera and telephoto lens in his hand.
Because Dylan had been so helpful and supportive during Jack’s baseball game, Natalie didn’t have the heart to send him away when he followed her home after their trip to the ice-cream parlor. At least, that was the explanation she gave herself. In her heart, she knew it was simply that she didn’t want him to go.
After Jack was tucked into bed, she sat with Dylan under the stars, just talking, for a long while. She’d missed this—the simple companionship they’d briefly shared. She’d also missed the intimacy of being with him. So when he slipped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer, she didn’t protest. When he finally lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers, she welcomed his kiss.
He kissed her thoroughly, deeply, and she responded in kind. When he finally drew away, they were both having trouble breathing. He wrapped his arms around her and just held her for a long moment.
“How long are you going to continue denying what we both want?” he finally asked.
She leaned her forehead against his chest and sighed. “I’m afraid of getting involved with you again,” she admitted. “I’m not the only one who could get hurt this time.”
“Do you really think I’d do anything to hurt your son?”
She shook her head. “Not intentionally.”
“But you don’t trust me to stick around,” Dylan guessed.
“I don’t expect you to stick around,” she corrected. “We’re not your responsibility.”
“You don’t expect anything, Natalie, and that really pisses me off.”
The restrained anger in his voice startled her as much as his words.
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Don’t you realize how incredible you are? You deserve more than a few nights or a few weeks. You deserve someone who can make a commitment to you and Jack.”
She managed a wry smile. “Where do you think I’ll find this someone?”
“I guess I can’t blame you for asking that question, because I don’t even know that I can be that someone. But I want to try.” He touched his lips to hers gently. “After Beth died, I didn’t want any kind of emotional entanglements. I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on until I met you.”
“Me?” she asked softly. “Or Jack?”
He frowned. “What?”
“You pulled away from me when you found out I had a child. Then you came back for the same reason.”
“I came back for you. It had nothing to do with your son.”
She wasn’t convinced.
“I didn’t even know about Jack that first night,” he reminded her.
“That was a case of proximity and hormones getting out of control.”
“I was attracted to you, Natalie. No one else.”
She sighed. “How can I know that? How can I believe anything when there have been so many secrets between us?”
“Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.” He slid his hands up her back, his thumbs skimming over her ribs, brushing the sides of her breasts. Her nipples pebbled, aching for his touch. Her heart trembled, aching to believe.
He kissed her softly. “I want you, Natalie.”
She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t ignore the entreaty in his voice. She couldn’t ignore the yearning of her body. She wanted him, too. Despite the fact they hadn’t resolved anything, she couldn’t deny the feelings he stirred inside her.
It was those same feelings that had got her into trouble with Jack’s dad. Okay, so they weren’t exactly the same. She’d been a lot younger then, and foolishly impressed by his position at the university, his standing in the community. She’d been fascinated by his mind, not awed by his body. The result was the same, though. She’d put her heart on the line and had it broken.
She’d vowed not to risk it again.
“Having sex isn’t the answer, Dylan.”
“It’s a start.” His lips skimmed down the column of her throat, his tongue traced the line of her collarbone. She shivered, helpless to control the instinctive response of her body to his touch. “Trust your instincts, Nat. Let yourself believe.”
She wanted to. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to believe what Dylan was telling her, to lose herself in the mindlessness of passion. But she was afraid to trust that he could really open up his heart to her, and she’d already given hers to him. She’d started to fall in love that very first day he’d walked into her office, all arrogant swagger and cocky grin.
But she’d thought she was in love with Eric, too. How could she trust the feelings she had for Dylan? How did she know they were real?
She knew there were no guarantees in life. She also knew that nothing had ever felt more real than Dylan’s arms around her. Right now, that was the only thing that mattered.
So she took him by the hand and led him into the house and upstairs to her bedroom.
The first time they’d made love, it had been a frenzied exploration of nee
ds and desires. She remembered the excitement, the anticipation and the apprehension.
There was no nervousness this time, no fear, no hesitation.
And the anticipation was all the sweeter because she knew what it was like to make love with Dylan. She knew how the hard length of his body would feel pressed against hers, she’d experienced the rhythmic thrusts of his manhood between her thighs, the friction of the movements that drove them both to climax.
But everything was different this time.
He kissed her slowly, endlessly, until the world faded away and there was nothing but the two of them. He touched her gently, patiently, until her body was quivering. He seduced her, until she was completely and helplessly seduced.
And finally, he slipped inside her.
Chapter 13
Natalie sat alone in the bleachers, watching as Jack practiced fielding the ball. Despite the team’s abysmal loss Thursday night, he was showing good instincts and a genuine love for the game already, and she was thrilled with her decision to enroll him in the sport. She was a little less thrilled with early Saturday-morning practices, but she knew they needed them.
“Ms. Vaughn?”
She turned, spotted Sandra Todd standing a few feet away, clutching her purse in both hands. It had been Dylan’s suggestion that Natalie speak to Sandra. Because Ellis Todd’s wife had already approached Natalie about the case, he believed Sandra would open up to Natalie more readily than she would to anyone else.
“Call me Natalie,” she said, and smiled, hoping to ease some of the other woman’s obvious discomfort.
Sandra took a few steps closer. “Why did you want to see me?”
“I wanted to talk to you about your son.”
The woman’s already pale face lost any remaining vestige of color, confirming Dylan’s supposition that whatever had happened three years earlier concerned Sandra and Ellis Todd’s child.
“Lucas? What about Lucas?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Natalie said.
Sandra frowned, but she sat on the edge of the bench in front of her.
“I think you’re right about your husband being set up,” Natalie told her.
“Then you’ll drop the charges?” Sandra asked hopefully.
“I can’t. Because regardless of what I believe, the evidence all points to your husband as the man who killed Roger Merrick.”
“He didn’t. He couldn’t.”
“Why did Ellis leave Denby & Witter to work for Zane Conroy?”
Sandra’s pale blue eyes filled with tears. “Do we really have to go through all this?”
“If you want to help your husband, I need to know what happened.”
Sandra sighed. “It started about three years ago. Actually, it started a few years before then, but Zane didn’t really start applying pressure until about three years ago.”
“Pressure about what?”
“He wanted Ellis to work for him.”
“In his capacity as an accountant?”
“I can’t imagine Ellis doing anything else. He’s a whiz with numbers.” There was genuine pride in her voice. “And I imagine someone dealing with the kind of money Zane has would want to make sure the figures all added up.
“Ellis refused his initial offer. The money was good, but we talked about it and agreed that we didn’t want to get involved in whatever Zane was doing.”
“Do you know what kind of business your cousin is in?”
Sandra shook her head. “I know he has some legitimate business interests, more that are less so. I don’t really want to know. I’ve heard rumors about some of the things he’s done, and I don’t want to believe that even half of them could be true. But I know Zane is ruthless. He’ll do anything to get what he wants.”
“What does this have to do with your son?”
Sandra folded her hands in her lap, stared fixedly at the simple gold band that still encircled the third finger of her left hand. “Three years ago, Lucas was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. It’s a rare, often fatal, disease that results when the bone marrow fails to produce blood cells.”
Natalie didn’t need to know all the details to understand the nightmare that this woman had lived through. The weeks that she’d been separated from Jack had seemed like a lifetime. She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—what it would be like to be faced with the possibility that her child could be taken away from her forever.
“He needed a bone-marrow transplant,” Sandra continued. “Neither Ellis nor I were a suitable match.
“Fortunately, or so we thought at the time, Zane was. He agreed not only to be the donor but to pay for the procedure and any follow-up treatment—so long as Ellis went to work for him.”
Natalie was appalled. She knew Zane Conroy was reputedly involved in organized crime, that he’d acquired his wealth through the drug trade and prostitution. But the blackmail of a desperate and grieving parent to promote his own interests—especially when that parent was his own cousin—seemed even more abhorrent.
“Do you have any children, Ms. Vaughn?”
“A son.” Natalie pointed toward center field. “The one in the red T-shirt.”
Sandra looked out at the field. “How old is he? Seven? Eight?”
“Seven.”
“A little older than Lucas was when we found out he was ill.” Her gaze dropped to her hands again, twisted the gold band around her finger. “You would understand, then, that a parent will do anything for a child.”
She nodded again. She knew only too well.
“Lucas might have died without the surgery.”
“Is he okay now?”
“He’s fine. A normal, healthy nine-year-old boy, except for the fact that his father’s awaiting trial on murder charges.”
She looked at Natalie, her eyes filled with emotion. “I’ll always be grateful to Zane for saving my son’s life. And I’ll always hate him for destroying our family.”
Natalie sat in the bleachers after Sandra Todd had gone, thinking. She’d thrown herself into this case, wholeheartedly convinced of Ellis Todd’s guilt. And why not? The evidence against him was certainly compelling.
Now, she wasn’t so sure. Would a man who’d fought so hard to save his child coolly and calmly take the life of another?
Possibly.
She could admit that. People committed murder every day for all kinds of reasons.
But what possible reason could Ellis Todd have had to kill Roger Merrick?
What possible reason did Zane Conroy have for wanting to send his accountant to jail?
She put both Ellis Todd and Zane Conroy out of her mind as she watched Jack jog across the field. She was looking forward to spending the day with him. It didn’t matter what they did or where they went, she just wanted to be with her son and forget about the craziness of the world for a while.
Or at least until Monday.
His eyes were bright and his smile wide as he approached her. “Mom, did you see that fly ball I caught? It was really really high and I did what coach said and just waited for it to come down and I caught it.”
Natalie laughed. Sometimes the simplest joys in life were the best. “Yes, I saw. You were great out there.”
“And Kevin asked me to ask you if I can go over to his house to play for a while. Can I, Mom? Please? He’s got a treehouse in his backyard and the new puppy and one of those cars that really drives.”
His enthusiasm was contagious, and she let him drag her across the park to meet Kevin’s mother. After ensuring that it was all right with her, Natalie let Jack go with Kevin.
She couldn’t be disappointed that her own plans for the day had fallen through when Jack was so happy. And since she had a few hours on her hands, she decided to stop by Dylan’s house to tell him about her meeting with Sandra Todd.
The woman standing in Dylan’s doorway was young, blond and gorgeous. And she was clad in nothing but a short nightshirt that did nothing to hide her slender curves.
>
“Can I help you?” Her voice was pleasant, despite the fact that this unscheduled visit had obviously woken her up.
“Um, I…” Natalie could feel her cheeks flaming and mentally cursed Dylan for putting her in such an awkward position. Okay, so he hadn’t known she’d be stopping by, but how could she have known that Dylan would be tangling the sheets with someone else?
Embarrassment gave way to righteous anger as she thought about the things he’d said, the way he’d kissed her, touched her. But even through the haze of anger, she had questions, doubts. Did she really believe Dylan was capable of making love with her Thursday night then taking another woman into his bed twenty-four hours later? Despite the evidence in front of her, she didn’t want to think so.
“I’m sorry. I was looking for Lieutenant Creighton. Is he available?”
“He’s in the shower. Did you want to come in?” The blonde smothered a yawn with the back of her hand. “Sorry,” she apologized. “We had a really late night.”
Natalie gritted her teeth. “Maybe it’s better if I catch him at another time then.”
She turned to go.
“Wait.”
She paused.
“Are you Natalie?”
Whatever she’d been expecting the woman to say, this wasn’t it. “Yes,” she admitted, after a slight hesitation.
“I’m Kelly.”
Natalie drew a blank.
The blonde folded her arms over her chest and huffed out a breath. “I guess Dylan didn’t tell you about me.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think—”
Kelly reached out and pulled Natalie into the house. “Come on,” she said. “We can discuss my brother’s total lack of manners over coffee.”
Natalie found herself following the other woman into Dylan’s kitchen. Brother, she’d said. Which made her feel like even more of an idiot. But how could she have guessed? This gorgeous woman with the blond hair and green eyes looked nothing like her dark-haired, blue-eyed brother.
Bulletproof Hearts Page 18