He filled his hands with her hair and dragged her down until his mouth caught hers. The deepening kiss reeled them both in. And then she arched her body and drew him into her, pinning him down with her slight weight.
Clay grasped her hips as she began to move. The pace grew faster and faster until they reached the familiar summit and took it together.
She cried out his name, the sound muffled against his lips.
And when she lay against him, spent, trying to regulate her breathing again, he could only marvel at this creature he’d pushed away once. But not again.
Drawing in air, it took him a second to catch his own breath. “You are full of surprises.”
He felt her heart hammering against his chest, felt her hair gliding along his skin as she raised her head to look at him.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she told him.
Maybe not, he thought, but he was going to spend the rest of his life learning. It was a life sentence he now knew he was more than willing to assume.
Andrew sat on the family room floor, hunched over a table. Alex sat opposite him, his attention fastened to the artfully arranged dominos between them. The boy’s mother had to go back for another meeting with Janelle over more questions that were being raised. The indictment hearing was at the end of the week and they wanted their presentation to be air tight.
He was baby-sitting, not that he minded. There was another reason he wrestled with a dampening sorrow.
The holidays were coming soon. Thanksgiving was just around the corner and then came Christmas. This used to be his favorite time of year. For the sake of his family, he still put on a show, now aided and abetted by an impressive spread. And sometimes it worked. He got caught up in it, and the pain that he lived with, the pain that grew acute this time of year, would hide behind a cloud, waiting. Biding its time until he had a free moment, and then it would creep up behind him and explode all over again.
He moved another domino into place, then sat back as Alex concentrated. Even after all this time, after fifteen years, he still missed her, still grieved. Still periodically took out all the information in the case file he’d kept active all these years because he refused to believe she was dead.
Gone, but not dead. He knew in his heart that his Rose had somehow managed to escape that watery grave and was somewhere else.
He supposed that made him a fanatic. Everyone else had accepted what they said was the inevitable. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t.
Maybe it was ridiculous, but he felt that if he did, then she really would be dead, that all chances of someday finding her would be erased.
He had to go on believing.
He had a wonderful family, children he loved, nephews and nieces he was proud of. Many men had less. A great deal less.
He wanted more.
He wanted Rose.
These days he waited until everyone had left for the precinct before he took out the file. He didn’t want anyone pitying him or making any unwanted comments. He knew how much this bothered Rayne, who’d finally put it all behind her. He didn’t want to jeopardize the progress she was making.
So he waited until they were all gone and the house was empty before going over the case again.
Except that these last few weeks, the house was never empty. Most of the time Ilene and the boy were here. But that was all right, too. It was good to have someone young around like Alex. It reminded him of better times, especially since the boy looked so much like his sons and nephews had when they were his age.
Alex moved another rectangle into place, then crowed as he held up his hands. All his game pieces were gone and there were none left to draw on. Andrew laughed, marveling at the sharpness of the boy’s mind.
Dutifully, Andrew wrote down the number of pieces he still had in front of him. Alex had won three games in a row. When his kids were younger, in the rare instances that he was around to play with them, he’d always arranged it so they could win. He hadn’t had to do that with Alex.
“Can we play another game?” Alex wanted to know.
He looked at his watch. “Okay, one more and then I have to start dinner.”
“I’ll help,” Alex volunteered.
Andrew laughed. “You sure you’re only four?”
“Five,” Alex corrected mechanically as he began collecting the black rectangles and placing them face down on the table.
He stared at the boy, certain that he had misheard. “What?”
“Five,” Alex repeated. He looked up before mixing up the dominos. “I’m not four, I’m five.”
“Your mother says you’re four.”
The information made the boy pause, as if he was trying to reconcile it with what he knew to be true. And then he shrugged as he melded the pieces around one more time for luck. “Mama’s sad. Maybe she forgot.”
“Mothers don’t forget something like that,” Andrew assured him.
Alex began to count out his share of pieces. “Then she made a mistake. I’m five.” Pausing, he held up his right hand, using his fingers and thumb to illustrate. “See?”
“Yeah, I see,” Andrew said slowly. And he did.
Tonight, after dinner, he was going to get back in the game again and do a little investigating of his own.
Chapter 14
A
ndrew closed the computer and leaned back. Around him the house was still. Everyone else had long since gone to sleep. Even Rayne. He’d heard her creeping in half an hour ago. It was close to one. He had no idea how the girl managed to keep going.
Batteries, probably.
He stared at the screen, thinking. He had his information. Looking up birth certificates was sinfully easy now when you knew what to do. He wasn’t nearly as technologically naive as his children thought he was. It just served his purpose to pretend, get others to do his legwork. But he knew his way around the Internet better than any of them.
Alex O’Hara hadn’t been born four years ago as Ilene had told them. The boy had been born five years ago. It was there, plain as day in the county records. She’d lied.
The only reason Andrew could come up with for Ilene’s deception was that she didn’t want Clay to know that he was the father. Which made Alex his grandson.
He smiled to himself. He’d had a feeling all along….
“We’ve got a grandson, Rose,” he said softly to the eight-by-ten photograph that stood within a silver frame on his desk. “I know, I know, you’re too young. So am I. But we’ll get used to the idea.”
His first instinct was to tell Clay, but that was the father in him talking. The detective within him advised caution and careful examination. There might be reasons he didn’t know about. He needed to talk to Ilene first. Alone.
And that, he thought as he shut down the computer, was not going to be an easy matter. He was going to have to wait until everyone left in the morning.
From where he was standing the night seemed very long.
Clay had seemed antsy to her all last night, and it had only intensified this morning. Every time she asked him if there was anything wrong, he’d denied it, sometimes with a laugh, sometimes he would kiss her and they’d progress onto other things. Basically, he was shutting her out, she thought as she watched him from across the table. Maybe it was the beginning of the end. Again.
What else could it be?
Ilene picked at her toast, her appetite a no-show this morning. Maybe he was bracing himself to deliver the inevitable words: So long. She couldn’t fool herself into thinking this was going to continue indefinitely, not with the indictment coming up tomorrow. Once that was behind them, things would all be out in the open. The news media would descend, and the D.A.’s office would do something formal for her and Alex’s protection.
Which probably meant leaving here.
She didn’t want to go.
Briefly she made eye contact with Clay, but then he looked away. Her heart began to sink. He was going to initiate another breakup. Things had been going too smoothly, which meant they were getting serious. He didn’t like things to get too serious.
Last night the lovemaking had seemed a little off. Though he’d denied it, he’d been preoccupied, only half in the room. Was the other half getting ready to pack its bags and flee?
She watched him now as conversation flew around the breakfast table. He’d taken little part in any of it, allowing his siblings and the three cousins to dominate the table. He answered only when the occasional comment was directed his way.
And then, abruptly, he was getting up. Leaving. Something inside of her screamed
Mayday.
“I’ve got to get going,” he told his father, pushing his chair back under the table.
Busy serving up seconds to Shaw, Andrew nodded. “See you tonight.”
Without waiting for an invitation she feared wouldn’t come, Ilene rose to her feet, ready to walk him to the door. And to ask him one last time if there was anything wrong.
The way she knew there was.
She never got the chance.
He stopped short of the door, drawing her into the living room inside. “You know how you asked me earlier if there was something on my mind?”
Her heart had somehow crawled up in her throat, making breathing a real challenge. She felt as if everything she held dear was suddenly on the line. “Yes?”
“Well, there is.”
Unconsciously squaring her shoulders, Ilene braced herself, ready for anything. Except for what she heard.
“Marry me.”
For the first time in her life, her jaw dropped open, as if all the bones had suddenly been sucked out. “What?”
Clay held up two fingers. “Two words. First word,
marry,
rhymes with
carry.
Second word,
me,
rhymes with—”
There was this buzzing sound in her head, blotting out his voice. She went on staring. “You’re serious?”
“I never joke when I’m rhyming.” Nerves danced wildly all through him. Clay had never thought he’d get the proposal, such as it was, out. Now that he finally had, this wasn’t the way he’d hoped she would react. Like someone who found herself standing barefoot in a minefield. He went with the only conclusion he could. “You don’t want to.”
Like a woman possessed, she began to shake her head back and forth. “No, oh, God, no—”
Confusion intensified. Could he have been that wrong? He needed it spelled out. “‘Oh God, no’ as in, how could you think of asking me?”
Again she could only stare at him. How could he possibly even think that? “No, I want to marry you,” she said quickly, “I’ve always wanted to marry you, but—why are you asking?”
It seemed rather a strange question, given that men had been proposing to women since they came out of the caves and donned shoes. “Because I decided to stop being a coward. And because I love you.”
He loves me.
The words echoed in her brain. He loved her. She was afraid to clutch them to her breast. “No other reason?”
He definitely was not following her thought process. “There’s more?”
Her brain jumbled, she struggled to find the words that would make him understand. “I mean, Alex doesn’t have anything to do with it?”
So that was it. She was worried about how all this would affect her son. “Sure, Alex has something to do with it. I want him, too. I know the two of you are a package deal and—”
She couldn’t bear to have him go down the wrong path. Ilene placed her finger to his lips, her heart hammering madly. Her moment of reckoning, she knew, had finally come. “I need to tell you something.”
“Go ahead,” he said warily.
“Alex isn’t four, he’s five.” The sound of the back door opening and closing vaguely registered. Were people arriving or leaving? She wanted to flee with them. She took a deep breath. It didn’t help. Ilene pushed on. “He’s also yours.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was deadly still, devoid of all emotion. She couldn’t read the look in his eyes.
Words crashed together in her head. She had to make him understand. “I was the reason my parents got married. I was the reason life was a living hell for all of us. I wasn’t going to let Alex go through that.”
“Are you like your mother?”
“No.”
He pinned her in place with a look that was darker than any she’d ever seen. “Am I like your father?”
“No.”
“Well then?”
Her back to the wall, she fought back. This wasn’t all on her. He deserved part of the blame.
“But you never once said you wanted to settle down, even someday. You thought marriage was okay for other people, but you made a point of letting me know that you weren’t in that group.” He began to say something, but she anticipated his protest. Clay probably thought she blamed him for that. “That’s not to fault you, that’s just dealing with what is.”
He didn’t know her, he thought. Not at all. Everything he’d thought he’d known, he didn’t. She was a stranger. “If you’d only told me—”
“You would have done the honorable thing. Yes, I know.” She closed her eyes to keep the tears from falling. She didn’t even know if they were from anger or sorrow. Her eyes flew open again and she looked at him squarely, her hands clenched at her sides. “I didn’t want the honorable thing. I wanted the I-can’t-live-without-you-because-it-hurts-so-badit-rattles-my-teeth thing. There
is
no other reason to get married,” she insisted. “Sometimes, that isn’t enough, but it’s a hell of a foundation, and without that, you’ve got nothing.” She laughed shortly. “Believe me, I lived through it every day for eighteen years. I know. The second I turned eighteen, they got divorced and I left home.”
The entire time they’d been together, she had barely mentioned her parents, but then, he hadn’t really talked about his family, either. “I never knew.”
She shrugged, dismissing the past. It did no good to dwell on it. Nothing could be changed.
“You never asked. You never wanted to know any real personal details about me,” she reminded him. “Another hint that we weren’t destined to experience the I-can’t-live-without-you thing.”
He had a son, a five-year-old son. And she hadn’t told him. He felt as if someone had just kicked him in the gut. “I don’t believe it.”
She sighed. She supposed she should have seen this coming. It was a typical male reaction. “Alex is yours, there’s never been anyone else.”
“No, I’m not questioning that he’s mine.” She’d been a virgin when they’d first made love. “I just can’t get past that you lied to me.” Suddenly, a great deal of anger surged within him, anger he didn’t know what to do with or how to channel. “I
asked
you if Alex was mine and you said no. You lied,” he accused. “I would have bet the world would end before I would ever hear you utter a lie about anything.”
There was no way to measure how awful, how guilty she felt. But it wasn’t fair, she’d done it all for the best of reasons. To protect her son. “I’m sorry I’m not perfect.”
He wanted to take her by her shoulders and shake her. She’d shattered his faith in her. She’d robbed him of something precious. “I didn’t want you to be perfect, just honest.” Suddenly he began backing away from her. He had to get away before things were said that couldn’t be taken back. “I’m sorry, but this is a little more than I can digest right now.”
Before she could say anything, he yanked open the front door and stormed out, feeling angrier than he could ever remember.
“I know where she’s staying.”
Sitting at his desk, John Walken stiffened as the voice on the other end of the line finally said the words he’d been waiting to hear.
He didn’t have to ask who it was. There was only one person on his mind these days, one person who stood between him and the resolution he’d been pinning all his hopes on.
“Well, don’t just sit there talking to me, you know what you have to do,” he snapped.
The woman had already proven that she was un-bribable. So it came down to this: Simplicity Computers was out of options. He was out of options. If the indictment was to go away, he needed to have Ilene O’Hara out of the picture. It wasn’t something he relished having done, but there was no other way.
The other man replied with a graphic curse, then said, “It’s not that simple. She’s staying with Andrew Cavanaugh.” There was a pause, and when nothing was said, he added, “The whole family’s big in law enforcement.”
The smooth, unruffled manner he was known for had completely deserted him. “So you make your move when the family’s not around. They work, don’t they?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good, do it then.” He slammed down the receiver, breaking the connection.
Frowning, Walken took a few deep breaths, then looked at the painting he had on the wall. It was an original and had set him back a fortune. Ordinarily the colors soothed him.
But not today.
Life would have been a great deal better if he’d never hired that woman, he thought angrily. But her death wasn’t going to be on his conscience. He’d given her a way out and she hadn’t taken it.
This was on her head, not his.
“Everything all right?”
Caught off guard, Ilene swung around from the door that had just slammed. Clay’s father stood behind her. There was sympathy in his eyes.
Tears threatened to fall from hers. With effort she raised her head, sealing her emotions inside.
“Just peachy,” she answered. What was one more little lie in the face of the one she had committed herself to?
Andrew drew closer, his voice low. Understanding. “You told him?”
For the second time that morning, her mouth dropped open. She’d been so careful. Or thought she’d been. “How did you…?”
“Alex told me.” Seeing her bewildered look, he was quick to explain. “He said he was five, not four.” His voice was kind, nonjudgmental, completely unlike his son’s. “Birth certificates aren’t all that hard to look up.”
There was no use denying it. She felt like crumbling. Everywhere she looked, her life was caving in on her. “How long have you known?”
“Just since last night.”
She thought of the scene she’d just gone through. “Why didn’t you tell Clay?”
The look on Andrew’s face told her that wasn’t the way he operated. Above all else he was fair. And she hadn’t been. “I wanted to talk to you first. Find out why you never said anything.”
“Because I didn’t want him marrying me for the wrong reasons.”
“Love is never the wrong reason.”
She looked at him. That had been the whole point. She didn’t know if Clay loved her. “He never said anything about loving me.”
He shook his head. There were times when, like George Bernard Shaw, his favorite playwright, he was utterly convinced that youth was wasted on the young. “Then take off your blinders, girl, because everything about that boy says he loves you. It’s right out there for everyone to see.”
If it was, she hadn’t seen it. And she needed the words. “Well, not anymore. Not after this.”
He knew Clay. Knew that his son had a tendency to blow up, then calm down again. To varying degrees, all his children did. They took after their mother that way. “Give him time, he’ll come round.” And then he smiled at her. “And thank you.”
“Thank you?” she echoed, confused. “For what?”
He smiled warmly. “For giving me a wonderful grandson. He’s a lot less of a handful than the five I got the first time around.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “The others have gone. You want to sit and talk?”