First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1 (38 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Two weeks had passed since Garth had abducted Katie and Sky. Two weeks since she had been forced to shoot and kill her own brother. Two weeks since a thirteen-year-old girl had survived the ordeal of a lifetime… As far as Sky was concerned, two weeks was fourteen days too many for Katie to wait to resume living.

Sky had spent fifteen heart-wrenching years recovering from her father’s murder, and she wasn’t about to let Katie lose a chunk of her life like that. The child needed time to heal, but she also needed to take the first step toward recovery, to make a beginning—now—before rigor mortis set in.

Sky didn’t bother to knock a third time on the door. Katie clearly wasn’t going to invite her into her darkened cave of a room. Tough. She pushed the door open with her foot and swept into the bedroom with a laden tea tray. “I made sandwiches and sugar cookies and strawberry milk. Well, your dad actually made the milk, so I shouldn’t take credit.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“Sorry, we’re all out of sushi. Besides your dad says strawberry milk is your favorite, which is kind of cute, because I know it’s his favorite too.” After setting the tray on a nightstand, Sky brisked over to the window and unapologetically flung open the drapes. Sunlight flooded in, and a rosy glow scrubbed the dim walls, but the air remained stained with a musty, closed-off smell. She opened the window just enough to admit a hint of freshening breeze and motioned for Katie to eat up.

Katie sat on the edge of her bed, spine iron-rod straight, arms closed across her chest. “I’m not hungry.”

“I get that. But you need to eat something anyway.”

“You’re not my mother, you know. In case you didn’t get the memo, my mother killed herself.”

Without hesitation, Sky sat down on the bed and pulled Katie into a relentless hug, expecting Katie to fight the embrace. But Katie didn’t resist. Instead she collapsed into Sky’s arms, and her shoulders began to shake.

“It’s okay to be mad, Katie. And it’s okay to cry.” She heard the crack in her own voice and felt her own body shiver.

“I haven’t seen you cry.”

Her throat burned and tears pricked at her eyes. She blinked them back.

Before she could gather a response, Katie added, “Maybe you shouldn’t have saved me. Maybe I’m not really supposed to be here.”

Maybe I’m not really supposed to be here
. Like a bell rung too close, Katie’s words echoed in her ears and reverberated through her chest. Giving in to a hard wave of grief, she felt tears flood her eyes and stream down her cheeks. She loosened her hold on Katie and leaned back. “Look at me, sweetheart. I’m crying now, and I’m not a bit sorry for it.
Of course
you’re supposed to be here.”

“But how do you know? How do you really
know
? Maybe Garth was supposed to kill me. Maybe I’m supposed to be with my mom. Why is she gone, and I’m still here?”

Why is she gone, and I’m still here
? “Katie, what happened to your mom—it’s not your fault. She didn’t kill herself because of you.”

“I know it’s not my fault. Dad and Aunt Faith always say that. Like I’m stupid or something. I understand I didn’t do anything bad to make my mom depressed. I was just a baby, and Aunt Faith says Mom had a chemical imbalance. But somehow, it still feels like I don’t deserve to be here. Why doesn’t anybody understand that?”

She understood so well her throat closed. Smoothing Katie’s hair and pressing a waterlogged kiss on her forehead, she said, “Listen to me. Every breath any of us takes is a gift. You absolutely deserve to be here, and more than that you deserve a full, wonderful life.”

Katie shook her head hard. “I don’t
feel
like that. My mom wasn’t happy. That sheriff got killed helping us. Why should I be the one who gets to be happy?”

Katie’s question started that too-close bell pealing loudly in Sky’s ear again, set her whole body trembling. “Why
shouldn’t
you get to be happy, Katie? How does it help your mother or the sheriff or anyone at all for you to be miserable? I wish I could wipe away everything that’s happened to you, but I can’t.” Her hands grew steady and her thoughts grew clear. There was one thing she could do for Katie. “Promise me you’ll trust me about one thing though.”

“What?” A faint undertone of hope wormed its way into Katie’s voice.

“I’m asking you to trust in the fact that I love you.”

Swiping tears from her cheeks, Katie bravely met Sky’s eyes and reached for her hand. “I love you too, Sky.”

Swallowing hard, she managed, “You will get through this, honey, and your dad and I are going to be there for you every step of the way.”

“Do you really mean that, Sky?” The masculine timbre saturated the air with warmth, seeped through her skin and penetrated her bones. As if it were a fire blazing in the hearth, she basked in the glow of her name wafting from Danny’s lips.

“Yes, but…” She inclined her head toward Katie’s half open door. “Let’s talk somewhere else.” Tiptoeing up to peck his lips, she pulled Katie’s door closed behind her, then led Danny downstairs and into his room where she shut his door tight to be sure Katie wouldn’t overhear their discussion in the unlikely event she ventured downstairs. “Of course I mean it. I love Katie very much.”

Danny’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. Closing the distance between them, he slid his big hands around her waist, and his voice turned gruff with the emotion of a father. “Thank you for loving my child. But that wasn’t the question I was asking.” He dipped his head and grazed her hair with his lips. “I know you well enough by now to know you meant it when you said you’d be there for Katie every step of the way. What I want to know, however, is do you believe what you said about every breath being a gift?”

“You think I don’t?” Her back stiffened, and yet, when she looked up at him, his face was so open, so accepting, she couldn’t maintain her defenses, and besides, she didn’t want to shut this man out anymore. Her posture softened. “Fair enough. I won’t pretend I haven’t struggled with the question of whether or not life is good, and I’m sad to say I found out when I was just a few years older than Katie is now, that
my
life wasn’t going to turn out the way I’d planned. Since the night my father was killed…”

No. That wasn’t quite right—no more hiding from the awful truth—no matter how much the words tasted like poison on her tongue. Now that she knew the truth, it was time to speak it. “Since the night
Garth had my father killed
, I’ve felt unsure that I deserved to be alive, much less that I had any right to happiness. What your thirteen-year-old daughter just did was screw up the courage to voice words I’ve been afraid to speak for years. It seemed derelict to be happy when my mother and father had suffered so, and even though I knew that feeling was irrational, I just couldn’t shake it.”

He responded simply, “I love you.”

Her brain cushioned the blow of his words by letting them through one at a time.
I
.
Love
.
You
. At the same moment her knees turned to water, her hands tightened into fists. Such happiness was impossible. It had to be. But then, Danny wrapped her in his arms and sat on the bed, pulling her down with him onto his lap. He lifted her fingers and brought them to his lips, and an unfamiliar peace descended upon her. Despite everything that had happened, she could never regret a life that had brought Danny to her.

She wanted to tell him so, but her jumbled thoughts kept her silent.

“And like you reminded Katie,” he said. “Life is a gift, and we are all worthy. We should be grateful for that gift. We don’t need to earn it.”

“I need my life to have purpose, Danny.”

“Then hear me loud and clear.” His eyes found hers and held. “I love you, Sky, and I need you in my life.” With a devilish grin, he added, “Isn’t that purpose enough?”

She couldn’t help but smile at his masculine reasoning that a woman needed nothing more than a man to complete her. Choosing her words carefully, she said, “It’s a pretty wonderful start.”

“Here’s to brilliant beginnings.” He winked, and she relaxed into his arms realizing he’d cleverly goaded her into seeing how full her life already was.

Settling her head against his chest, she felt the strong steady beat of his heart and drew strength from the thought that she needn’t hide from him. “What’s your secret, Danny? How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Loving the feel of his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek, she pressed a soft kiss against a scrap of bare skin she found near his collar—a little move that drew a rough noise from his throat. Satisfied with the result, she smiled against his shirt, and the fabric muffled her words. “The first day I met you, it struck me how happy you were. I think that’s what made you so down-right irresistible.”

“And here I thought it was my animal magnetism.”

“That too. But really, I’m interested to know. How did you keep your emotional footing after you lost your wife?”

“Fake it till you make it. That’s my motto. Hell, Sky, after Grace killed herself I wanted to crawl into a deep dark hole and hide. But I had my daughter, and she needed me. I knew if I let the darkness swallow me up, it would come after Katie next. So I fought with everything I had in me. I’m not saying I was happy at first, because I wasn’t, not by a country mile. But for Katie’s sake, I just kept faking it, and pretty soon, I didn’t have to pretend any more.”

As he spoke, his hand coasted up and down her spine, and though she knew his intent was to comfort, her body responded to his stroking with its own, less pristine, agenda. Arching her back, she shifted her bottom and felt him growing large and hard beneath her.

“Sorry,” he said, with a guttural half-laugh. “Maybe you’d better get off before we have a situation on our hands.”

Rising up, she faced him and eased her sweater off over her head. “What kind of a situation?” Her hands slid down her thighs, over her jeans, and settled between her legs. Reveling in the way his pupils widened, she said, “You mean the kind of situation that makes me want to touch myself?” Mercilessly, she shimmied out of her jeans and kicked off her panties. “Or maybe you mean the kind of situation that makes me want to touch
you
.”

Pointing toward the bulge in his jeans, he said, “You’re not helping.”

She slid out of her bra and planted her hands on her hips. “You want me to stop?”

“Oh, hell no.” He motioned come hither, and she did. His face at kissing level with her chest, he covered her bare breasts with spread hands, and then, in agonizing slow motion, he drew his fingers together to tease the peaks. Quiet, usually well-behaved nerves, reserved for just such
situations
as these, commenced zinging, and the more attention Danny gave those nerves, the more attention they demanded. Wishing he’d lick and suck the ache away, she released an uneven breath. His mouth closed over one nipple, and he flicked his tongue over the sensitized tip. A shock of heat ripped through her and left her shaking.

Grabbing her by her waist, Danny flipped her onto her back on the bed and loomed commandingly over her. “Are we done talking about the meaning of life yet?” Somehow, he managed to squirm out of all his clothes, while still pinning her to the mattress. “Because I want to talk about how good you smell and how soft your skin is and how much I want to spread your legs open…as soon as possible without cutting off this important discourse.”

“I’m not quite done with our conversation.” She pulled her knees up and opened for him.

With his erection nudging insistently against her, she bucked her hips and guided him inside. Groaning, he thrust himself deep once, twice, and then stopped.

“Don’t…stop.” She heaved a sigh. “Why did you stop?”

“Hurry up and say your peace, because I’m about to take your breath away.”

His body slick with perspiration, his face flushed with desire, he ground his hips tauntingly against her pelvis. Her body went weak, weak, weak. All liquid and soft. Then every muscle in her body went tight…so very, very tight. That fast, she neared climax, and her blood pulsating with joy, she cried out, “Don’t. Stop.”

He stopped.

She wanted to scream with need, but she knew he was waiting for her to say her peace before they lost themselves in bliss. And thank the Lord, she did have something worth saying, something worth staving off this almost unbearable desire for one more moment. Her hands reached for his, and their fingers entwined.

“I love you, Danny,” she whispered close in his ear. “With all my heart.”

His cheek against hers was moist, whether from her tears or his or both she didn’t know. She closed her eyes as he rained the tenderest of kisses on her forehead, her eyelids, her nose. The softest meeting of the lips, and then he growled and sank deep with the fiercest of thrusts, with kisses to match, and then, just as he’d promised, he took her breath away.

Epilogue

Six months later

In her arms, she held Gabriel Collins. As the baby cooed and gooed and batted her stethoscope, Sky cast a grateful glance around the interior of the modular building that now housed her medical practice. Whisking aside one of the plasticized curtains that served to partition off the exam areas, she smiled. This place might be modest, and with its paneled walls and brown chairs, it might look more like the DMV than a family medicine clinic, but it would do just fine until construction on the new office building was complete. And it had been generous, more than generous, of the mayor to convince the town council to donate the use of it for her clinic, rent-free.