Secrets of Paternity (10 page)

If she answered, it was silent, too. She lifted toward him. Her arms slipped around his waist. Their lips touched. Melded. Opened. She rose on tiptoe; he wrapped her in his arms to keep her steady…and close…and closer yet. Hints of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream flavored the kiss. What started cool, heated. Mint and chocolate gave way to destiny. There was no other way to describe how he felt, how she felt to him, how they felt together, as if they'd both been waiting for this moment since they'd created a life together anonymously all those years ago.

He angled closer, pressed her to the tree. His chest cushioned her breasts, which had nourished his son, their son. He slid his hands to her sides, his palms pressing the sides of her breasts. She stopped kissing him back, stopped moving, and waited instead, not breaking contact, but just waiting. He lifted his head, held her gaze, moved his hands until he covered her breasts, her nipples hard against his palms. After a moment she grasped his wrists. He stopped, but she shook her head, closed her eyes and used her hands to make his move.

Ahh. Permission. He watched her face transform with ecstasy as he toyed with her nipples through the lightweight T-shirt and flimsy bra. He slipped a leg between hers, pressed his thigh to the apex and reveled in the way she tipped her head back farther, her lips parted, a low,
throaty sound more than hinting at her response. He nipped at her earlobe, dragged his tongue down her neck, under the neckline of her shirt. He caught her knee, dragged her leg up and alongside his. She drew a long, hissing breath as he moved his thigh in circles against her. She whispered his name. He closed his mouth over her breast, pulled lightly at the hard peak under the two layers of fabric.

Then she moved her hands, pressed them to his chest and pushed him back, not roughly but with determination.

“I can't,” she said, panting, her forehead pressed to his.

“Can't what?”

“Do this. Us. It's so fast. There's so much to consider. Not just how good it would feel for now, for the moment. There's later….”

How good it would feel.
He had no doubt it would feel spectacular. How she found the strength to stop amazed him. Her wholehearted response taunted him. He wanted to pleasure her, just to feel her go wild in his arms. He didn't care if he didn't…

“Just let me—” he kissed her, ran his tongue around her lips “—take care of you.”

Her breath went raggedy. “I can't…let you…do that.”

“Sure you can.”

“But…what about you?”

“Another time, maybe. Let me, Mysterious. Please.” Their lips were touching, breath mingling. The air was saturated with the scent of her arousal, a silent beggar demanding satisfaction.

“What would you do?” Her voice was hushed, her interest clear.

“Let me show you.” He waited a few seconds. He would give her a preview of what they could have together, even
if only for a little while. An affair to satisfy their curiosity and get that out of the way. Those questions would be answered, and their relationship could settle in without ever having to wonder what it would've been like to make love. “You don't want to leave it like this.”

“You're right. I don't want to, but I have to. I'm sorry.”

He took a step back, not angry but surprised and disappointed.

“I should go,” she said, hesitation turning her words almost into a question.

“Okay.” He had to believe there would be another time, another opportunity.

“I'll see myself out,” she said, before moving quietly through the yard and into the house. He roused himself from his stupor and followed her, arriving at the bottom of his front steps just as she pulled away from the curb. She waved. He just watched.

Then as he started back into the house he noticed a car parked nearby. Dark, two-door sedan, typical of cop undercovers. He saw the silhouette of a man inside. It struck James that the same car had been there earlier, when he'd come outside to greet Caryn—yet the guy hadn't followed her when she left a minute ago, a good sign. James walked close enough to see the license plate, then closer still to check out the man inside, who turned away as James approached. He kept walking, past the car to the newspaper rack at the corner. He bought a paper and headed back to his house.

Hours later the car pulled out.

In the morning it was back.

J
ames had a plan. He called Cassie, and she agreed to drive to his house, park out of sight of the stranger, then follow if he followed James. A direct confrontation would've suited him more, but would accomplish nothing except to hear a lie, probably, and tip the guy off that he'd been spotted. It was better to know who and where your enemies were.

Cassie reached James by cell phone when she arrived. Deciding that if he were a target of some sort, he would've been hit the night before, he went down to his garage and backed out his work car, as if nothing were different. He hit the speaker phone and dialed Cass's cell number as he headed up the street.

“He's not following you,” Cassie said.

James could see that and was glad to be wrong, although he wondered who in the neighborhood was under
surveillance, and by whom, and why. “Stay put for a few minutes. I'll come around and park behind you, then you can take off. I want to see what he's up to.”

“Sure. How's every— Hold on. He's getting out of his car…. Jamey, he's opening your side gate. He's in your backyard.”

James sped up. “Is he carrying anything?”

“Nothing I can see. I'll go for a little stroll in front of your house.”

“Yeah, okay. You armed?”

“Yep.”

He made the final turn that brought him back to his street, spotted a parking space and spent little time trying to park straight. He slammed the gearshift into Park and jogged toward his house, turning his cell phone to vibrate as he ran. With gestures only, he signaled Cassie to stand at the bottom of his steps, then he pulled out his gun, lifted the gate latch and crept into his yard until he could peer through some bushes at the back of the house.

A short, muscular man with a shaved head stood at James's back door, running his fingers around it, probably checking for a security system.

Baldy inched to a nearby window, peered in, then checked it for wires, too. To get him for breaking and entering, James had to be patient and let him do what he'd planned. The silent alarm would trigger a signal to a pager in James's pocket, which he'd already turned off, and at his office, which meant that his boss, Quinn Gerard, would come running, if he was there.

Baldy pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket and appeared to punch a speed dial button. James picked up a word now and then but not whole sentences. He gathered
that the guy was asking for advice. James heard the words
alarm
and
risk.
Then the cell phone was put away and he looked around the yard. James jerked back, out of sight. The sound of glass breaking followed. Baldy had broken in. The alarm was triggered, but he didn't know it yet.

James peeked around the corner again. The guy stood in place as if waiting for an alarm or a neighbor. When he decided enough time had passed, he reached through the broken glass on the back door and unlocked it. Glass crunched under his feet as he tiptoed into the house.

James followed.

He crouched as he ran under the windows then slipped silently into his house, scraping the glass bits from the bottom of his shoes before he stepped onto the kitchen floor. He swore silently. He hadn't let Cassie know he'd gone in. Bad move, going in without backup, even though he'd done it for years as a bounty hunter. He knew better. Too late now, though. At least she would be guarding the front.

Noise came from his office, the sound of paper being shuffled. He moved with his back to the wall, inching his way toward the room. When he reached the doorway he peered in. Baldy was stuffing Paul's papers into the boxes James had emptied last night. All that work, all the sorting James had done, was in shambles.

“Hands up!” James shouted as he entered the room, blocking the doorway, his weapon drawn.

Wearing his panic like a too-big overcoat, Baldy sought an escape route.

“Put the box down and your hands up,” James said, making a point of aiming his gun at the man's heart.

Baldy bent over then suddenly heaved the box at James's midsection, spinning him around and almost knocking him
over as the crook sped out of the room, adrenaline giving him extra speed and strength. James had no defensible reason to shoot him, so he went after him, lunging, catching him by the jacket and yanking, but the guy slipped out of the sleeves and kept going—through the kitchen, across the broken glass, out the back door, into the yard, over the fence.

James followed, but the guy was at least fifteen years younger, and he cleared fences in a single bound. He was long gone by the time James climbed the second fence.

He made his way to the sidewalk. Cassie spotted him and came running. Quinn pulled into his driveway. The gang was all there.

James hooked a thumb over his shoulder as Cassie reached him. “He does a helluva superhero imitation. He's gone.”

“What's going on?” Quinn asked when he reached them.

“Let's go in the house.” His ego stung, James led the way. He remembered why he'd gotten out of the bounty hunting business. He couldn't keep up with the young outlaws who could run faster and longer than he could. It struck him then that another six or seven years from now when his hoped-for child would want to play baseball with him, that he might not be able to. The thought depressed him further.

He caught Quinn and Cassie up to speed on Caryn and Kevin, and placed two calls—first to the police to report the break-in, then to arrange to have the glass in his back door replaced.

James scooped up the jacket he'd pulled off Baldy, found no ID but did find a cell phone.

Quinn got a plastic bag to preserve prints for a later check, then took it with him into the kitchen. “I'll deal with this.”

“What do you think, Jamey?” Cassie asked. “Was the guy after this paperwork in particular or anything he could get his hands on?”

“My guess is he's connected to Caryn, or rather Paul, somehow.”

“But she paid them off.”

“Someone else he owed money to, maybe? Something altogether different? Baldy would've had to have been watching her place and saw her put the boxes in the car. How else would he know where to find them?”

“Baldy?”

“For lack of a another name,” he said.

“Are you going to tell Caryn?”

“Yes.” He rubbed his forehead. He wanted to sort through the papers again and really dig in now. There had to be something to give him a clue, something Caryn had overlooked.

“Does she need protection?” Cassie asked.

He'd been wondering the same thing. And if she was in danger, so was Kevin. And now that James had chased off Baldy, would they bring someone else in? Someone who would take more violent action?

“Maybe,” he said to Cassie.

“You should move them in here.”

Quinn stormed into the office. “Can't release that information, my ass,” he said, apparently to himself. “I need to use your computer.”

James and Cassie smiled at his belligerence. Quinn was probably trying to get information on Baldy's cell phone by going through legal channels, something he'd been doing for only a year, since he'd become a legitimate P.I. instead of a shadow man who straddled legal and illegal as
necessary to do the job. “Have at it,” James said then turned to Cassie. “Baldy wasn't staking out Caryn.”

“
This morning
he wasn't.”

“Let's go take a look at the car,” he said.

“It's a rental,” Quinn said as he typed. “I already checked it out.”

“Rented by John Doe?” Cassie asked.

“John Deer.” He grinned. “The cleverness of crooks.” His expression turned serious again as he searched for information.

“The only way I could get Caryn and Kevin to move in here is if Caryn told him the truth about his father's debts.”

“It's a hard thing to find out about your father, but he's eighteen, Jamey. Maybe it'll be his ounce of prevention.”

“Yeah.” He looked around the room blindly. “I need to talk to Caryn. I need to make sure she isn't being targeted.”

“Go,” Cassie said. “I'll wait for the cops and the window guy. Give me your alarm code. We'll call when Quinn's done his magic and found out who owns the cell phone.”

“Don't do anything you could lose your license over,” James said after he wrote down the code for Cassie, then left.

He wished he had his bike, but he'd even turned in the loaner since that job was done.

After fighting traffic he finally pulled into the GGC parking lot and then walked to a spot where he could see into the dining room. He spotted Venus, who smiled and waved. He mouthed Caryn's name. In a minute she came to the window and held up both hands as if to say ten minutes. He went to the employee entrance to wait for her.

She was pulling on a sweater as she came through the door. He hadn't realized how chilly it was. His adrenaline heated him as if a dial was turned to high.

“What's wrong?” she asked. “Kevin—?”

“He's fine.” James had already called him on a ridiculous pretext, had woken him up. James told Caryn what had happened.

She shivered, drew her sweater closer. “The same people, you think? Or different ones? There could be
more?
”

“I don't know yet. Cass and Quinn are working on it, too. We'll get to the bottom of it, I promise you that.” Idly he rubbed her arms, trying to warm her. She continued to shake. “Caryn—”

“I don't like the sound of that.”

“I haven't said anything.”

“You're about to say something I'm not going to like.”

“You need to tell Kevin.”

“No.”

“Yes. Because you and Kevin need to move in with me until we have answers.”

She went rigid.
“No.”

“Yes.” He loosened his hold as she tried to pull away. “I can't guarantee your safety, otherwise.”

“What makes you so sure we're in any kind of danger?”

“I don't know for certain,
but I'm sure as hell not taking any chances.
”

Caryn jumped at his tone of voice, uncompromising and commanding, with maybe a little fear tossed in. He already felt responsible for her and her son.

His cell phone rang. She walked away from him as he talked. Move in with him? Tell Kevin? She dragged her hands down her face. Life was supposed to be settling down! she wanted to scream to the heavens.

“Caryn.”

She spun around.

“That was my boss, Quinn. He says the cell phone belongs to a business in L.A. He's checking out the company, but it's probably a front for something.”

“Was he able to trace his calls?”

“He can't do that. If he got caught trying—hacking—he'd lose his license. He'd have to go deeper than he did to get the ownership info, and it's a much higher risk to track numbers. Anyway, we had to call the police, and the D.A. can probably get the information.”

“You called the police?”

“Of course I did.” He gentled his tone. “It doesn't mean we stop investigating on our own.” He touched her cheek.

She wanted to lean against him. To feel his arms around her. She was so grateful she wasn't dealing with this whole mess alone anymore. Still, she didn't want to tell Kevin, to ruin his memory of his father.

“Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Paul's death,” she said.

James did sweep her into his arms then. Tears sprang, burned. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Isn't it enough for him to deal with?” she asked. “The anniversary?”

“I'm sorry about the timing. But he needs to be told. For his own sake, he needs to be told.”

She felt his lips graze her hair. His leather jacket smelled comforting, of all things.

He moved her back but didn't release her. “After your shift, you're off for the weekend, right? And no school for Kevin, either.”

“His new job?”

“I don't think it's a good idea for him to be working where there are guns.”

“He's going to be so upset.”

“You have to help me make him see there's no choice. The job will be held for him.”

“All right.” What else could she say? “I'll talk to him this afternoon.”

“
We'll
talk to him. I'll be in the parking lot when you're done with work and follow you home. Cassie will track down Kevin after his last class and follow him. You can't tell anyone. Not even Venus.”

“Okay.”

For a second she thought he was going to kiss her. Was it just last night he'd kissed her like there was no tomorrow? And just look what tomorrow brought….

“Everything will be fine,” he said.

She tried to lighten the moment. “I bet you say that to all your…” She wasn't sure what word to use. Victims? Clients? Women?

“Friends,” she finally said.

“You're more than a friend.”

She stared at him. He cupped her face. “I don't know how that happened so fast, but it did.”

“As Kevin's mother?”

“As my…Mysterious.”

She swallowed. “That's kind of a big complication.”

“No kidding.” He brushed her lips with his, deepened the kiss slightly, then pulled her close as he changed angles.

The door opened against Caryn's back, startling her. He caught her arm, keeping her from falling.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Venus said, her eyes shining. “I didn't realize…. I'll tell Rafael you need an extra minute.” She disappeared.

“I have to go,” Caryn said, angry at herself that she'd
forgotten where she was, worried as she was about Kevin, and confused and yet happy about James.

“I'll see you at three,” he said.

She nodded, then slipped inside the building.

“Oooh,” Venus said with a grin. “Hot stuff, huh? You're so cute together.”

Caryn smiled, despite the uncertainties she faced. “Get back to work,” she ordered Venus playfully.