“Nobody else has ever seen this stuff,” she admitted.
The pounding in his head increased. If anyone familiar with his father’s murder case had looked at her records, they would have figured it out. They would have recognized that one of her sources knew too much about the murder scene, things that only the killer would have known. She never would have had to go into hiding, never would have had to keep his child from him. “Why the hell not?”
She lifted her chin with pride. “My dad taught me young to respect the code.”
“What code?”
“The journalist code,” she said. “A true journalist
never
reveals a source.”
Ignoring the pain, he shook his head with disgust. “After the attempts on your life, I think Stanley Jessup would have understood.”
She chuckled. “You don’t know my dad.”
“No,” he said, “you never introduced me. I was your dirty little secret.”
“He would have been mad,” she admitted. “He wouldn’t have wanted me anywhere near you, given your reputation.”
“Good,” Brendan said. He’d worried that the man had put her up to it, to getting close to him for a story. “And if he cared that much for your safety, he would have understood you breaking the code.”
She nodded. “Probably. But I didn’t think so back then. Back then, I figured he would have been happier for me to die than reveal a source.”
“Josie!” He reached for her, to offer assurance. He knew what it was like to feel like a disappointment to one’s father. But when his arms closed around her, he wanted to offer more than sympathy. He wanted her...as he always did.
“But I realized that he wouldn’t have cared about the code. He would have cared only about keeping me safe when I had CJ,” she said. “CJ!”
She said his name with guilt and alarm, as if something bad had happened to their child.
“What? What about CJ?”
* * *
P
ULLING HIM OFF
her, leaving him, had killed her earlier. She hated disappointing her child. So she’d kept her promise and had brought Brendan with her to pick up their son.
And for the entire day they had acted like a normal family. CJ had proudly showed Brendan all his toys and books, which the rumored mob boss had patiently played with and read to the three-year-old boy. Brendan had also looked through all the photos of their son, seeing in pictures every milestone that had been stolen from him.
Through no fault of his own. It was her fault for not trusting him. But she’d felt then that he had been keeping secrets from her. And she had imagined the worst.
As Brendan, with CJ sitting on his lap, continued to flip through the photo albums, she felt every emotion that flickered across his handsome face, the loss, the regret and the awe. He loved their son.
Could he ever love her?
Or had her lies and mistrust destroyed whatever he might have been able to feel for her? If only she’d known then what that damn story would wind up costing her...
The only man she would ever love.
He glanced up and caught her watching them, and his beautiful eyes darkened. With anger? Was he mad at her?
She couldn’t blame him. She was mad at herself for all that she had denied him and her son. So today she’d tried making it up to them. She’d made all CJ’s favorite foods, played all his favorite games, and she’d pretended that last night had never happened.
The gunfire. The explosion.
She was actually almost able to forget those. It was making love with Brendan that wouldn’t leave her mind. She could almost feel his lips on hers, his hands on her body.
Feel him inside her...
She shivered.
“Why don’t you take a shower,” he said. “Warm up.”
God, did she still look like hell?
“It’s getting late,” she said. “CJ should go to bed, too.” The little boy had already had his bath. Brendan had helped give it to him. His rolled-up shirtsleeves were still damp from playing with the ducks and boats in the tub.
“I’ll put him to bed,” Brendan offered, as if he didn’t want to waste a minute of the time he had with his son.
She had longed to clean up, so she agreed with a silent nod. But knowing that her little boy had to be tired, she leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. “Good night, sweetheart.”
Over the red curls of their son, she met Brendan’s gaze. His eyes were dark, but not with anger. At least not anger she felt was directed at her. But he was intense, on edge.
As if he were biding his time...
To leave? Was his desire to tuck CJ in so that he could say goodbye?
* * *
T
HE HOUSE WAS
small, but it had two bathrooms. So while she was soaking in the tub in the one off her bedroom, he’d used the small shower in the hall bathroom. But when he pushed open the steamed-up door, she was standing there—wrapped in a towel, waiting for him.
His pulse quickened, and his body hardened with desire. Her gaze flicked down him and then up again, her pupils wide with longing.
“Guess I should have locked the door,” he remarked even as he reached for her. He slid his fingers between her breasts, pulling loose the ends of the towel she’d tucked in her cleavage, and then he dragged the towel off her damp body. He pulled the thick terry cloth across his own wet skin as she squeaked in protest.
“Hey!”
“Oh, I thought you’d meant to bring me a towel, like a good hostess.” All day she’d played the perfect host, making sure that he and CJ had everything they’d needed. As if she’d felt guilty for keeping them apart.
Was that why she was here now? Out of guilt?
He wanted her, but not that way. God, he wanted her though. She was so damn beautiful, her silky skin flushed from her bath, her curves so full and soft.
He curled his hands into fists so that he wouldn’t reach for her. He had to know first. “Why are you here?”
“Why are you?” she asked. “I figured when I got out of my bath that I would find you gone.”
He’d thought about it. But he’d had trouble getting CJ to keep his eyes closed. Every time he’d thought he could leave the little boy’s bedside, CJ had dragged his lids up again and asked for Daddy.
Brendan’s heart clutched with emotion: love like he’d never known. He’d felt a responsibility to his father to find his killer. But the responsibility he felt to CJ was far greater, because the kid needed and deserved him more. Brendan had to keep the little boy safe—even if he had to give up his own life.
“Why would you think that I would be gone?” he asked. Had becoming a mother given her new instincts? Psychic powers?
“I can feel it,” she said. “Your anxiousness. Your edginess.”
“You make me anxious,” he said. “Edgy...”
She sucked in a shaky breath. And despite the warmth of the steamy shower, her nipples peaked, as if pouting for his touch. He wanted to oblige.
“You make me anxious,” she said, “that you’re going to sneak out.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you learned something from going through my files earlier,” she said, and her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Are you ever not suspicious of me?” he asked, even though this time he couldn’t deny that she had reason to be. She’d nearly lost her life, several times, because of him. He wouldn’t let her put herself in danger again. She had so much more to lose now than she’d been forced to give up before.
“I wouldn’t be,” she replied, “if I ever felt like you were being completely honest with me. But there are always these secrets between us.”
“You’ve kept secrets, too,” he reminded her. “One of them is sleeping in the other room.”
As if remembering that their son was close, she grabbed a towel from the rack behind her and wrapped it around her naked body.
He sighed his disappointment and hooked the towel he’d stolen from her around his waist. He’d wanted to make love with her again. He’d needed to make love with her again...before he left her.
But she opened the door first as if unable to bear the heat of the bathroom any longer. He followed her down the hall to her bedroom. Like the rest of the house, she’d decorated it warmly. The kitchen was sunny-yellow, the living room orange and her bedroom was a deep red. Like the passion that always burned between them.
“The difference between us,” she said, “is that I don’t have any more secrets.”
He closed the door behind his back before crossing the room and grabbing her towel again. “No, no more secrets.”
“You can’t say the same,” she accused him.
“I know how you feel,” he said. “How you taste...”
And he leaned down to kiss her lips. Hers clung to his. And her fingers skimmed over his chest. She wanted him, too.
He slid his mouth across her cheek and down her neck to her shoulder. She shivered in reaction and moaned his name. “Your skin is so warm,” he murmured. “So silky.”
He skimmed his palms down her back, along the curve of her spine to the rounded swells of her butt. She’d been sexy before, but thin with sharp curves. Now she was more rounded. Soft and so damn sexy that just touching her tried his control.
He had to taste her, too. He gently pushed her down onto the bed. He kissed his way down her body, from her shoulder, over the curve of her breasts. He sucked a taut nipple between his lips and teased it with the tip of his tongue.
She squirmed beneath him, touching him everywhere she could reach. His back. His butt...
He swallowed a groan as the tension built inside him. Another part of him other than his head throbbed and ached, rubbing against her and begging for release.
But he denied his own pleasure to prolong hers. He moved from her breasts, over the soft curve of her stomach to that apex of curls. He teased with his tongue, sliding it in and out of her.
She clutched at his back and then his hair. She arched and wriggled and moaned. And then she came—shattering with ecstasy.
While she was still wet and pulsing, he thrust inside her. And her inner muscles clutched at him, pulling him deeper. She wrapped her legs and arms around him and met each of his thrusts.
Their mouths mated, their kisses frantic, lips clinging, tongue sliding over tongue. He didn’t even need to touch her before she shattered again. He thrust once more and joined her in madness—unable to breathe, unable to think...
He could only feel. Pleasure. And love.
He loved her. That was why he had to make certain she would never be in danger again because of him. If he had to give up his life for hers and their son’s, he would do it willingly.
Chapter Fourteen
Her body ached. Not from the explosion or even from running from gunmen. Her body ached from making love. Josie smiled and rolled over, reaching across the bed. The sheets were still warm, tangled and scented with their lovemaking. He’d made love to her again and again until she’d fallen into an exhausted slumber.
And she realized why when she jerked awake to an empty bed. An empty room. He’d left her. She didn’t need to search her house to confirm that he was gone. But she pulled on a robe and checked CJ’s room before she looked through the rest of the house.
Her son slept peacefully, the streetlamp casting light through his bedroom window. It made his red curls glow like fire, reminding her of the explosion.
And she hurried up her search, running through the house before reaching out over the basement stairwell to jerk down the pull chain on the dangling bulb. It swung out over the steps, the light dancing around her as she hurried down to her den. He wasn’t there and neither were her folders.
He had found something in them. What?
What had she had?
Notes she’d taken from the conversations she’d overheard in the bar and from informal interviews she’d done with other members of the O’Hannigan family. News clippings from other reporters who’d covered the story. Sloppily. They hadn’t dug nearly as deep as she had. A copy of the case file from his father’s murder, which she’d bought off a cop on the force. Brendan wasn’t wrong that many people had a price. They could be bought.
But not Charlotte.
Too bad the former U.S. marshal wasn’t close enough to help her now. Maybe Josie wasn’t close enough, either—to stop Brendan from doing what she was afraid he was about to do: either confront or kill his father’s murderer.
“But who? Who is it?” she murmured to herself.
She’d gone through the folders so many times that she pretty much had the contents memorized. Brendan had figured it out; so could she. But she couldn’t let him keep his head start on her. She had to catch up with him.
No doubt he had taken her SUV. But she had another car parked in the garage off the alley, a rattletrap Volkswagen convertible. It wasn’t pretty, but mechanically it should be sound enough to get her back to Chicago. She had bought the car from a student desperate to sell it for money to buy textbooks.
She had never had to struggle for cash as her community college students did. Her father had given her everything she’d ever wanted.
Brendan’s father had not done the same for him. In fact, if rumors could ever be believed, Dennis O’Hannigan had taken away the one thing—the one person—who had mattered most to Brendan: his mother.
Why would he want to avenge the man’s death? Why would he care enough to get justice for him?
Was it a code? Like the one her father had taught her. She shrugged off her concerns for now. She had to wake CJ and take him over to Mrs. Mallory’s.
The little boy murmured in protest as she lifted him from his bed. “C’mon, sweetheart,” she said. “I need to take you to Mrs. M’s.”
He shook his head. “I don’t wanna go. Gotta p’tect you like Daddy said.”
She tensed. “Daddy told you to protect me?”
“Uh-huh,” CJ murmured. “He’s gonna get rid of a bad person and then he’ll come home to us.”
The words her sleepy son uttered had everything falling into place for Josie. Brendan may not have trusted her enough to tell her the truth. But he had inadvertently told their son.
* * *
B
RENDAN WASN’T SURE
who he could trust, especially now that he knew who’d killed his father. But he knew that Josie had at least one person she could trust—besides himself.