FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (13 page)

“About how lucky I am.”

He wasn’t sure he
totally believed her, but Edie chose that moment to pat her mother’s cheek and
say, “Ma muh.”

“We better go,” Kate
said. “She doesn’t stay happy for long if she isn’t moving.”

“I’ve noticed that.”

“Would you grab the
stroller. It’s in the closet by the front door.”

Once Kate had strapped
Edie into the stroller, they started down the sidewalk. Skip put his arm around
Kate’s shoulders, but his hip kept bumping against the side of the stroller handle.
Stopping, he pointed at the handle. “Mind if I do that?”

“Help yourself,” she
said. They switched places and he planted his big right hand in the middle of
the stroller handle, then scooped up Kate’s hand with his left.

They started moving
forward again. “Much better,” Skip said.

Kate thought so too,
but the tingling sensation running up her arm was making it hard to think.
Searching for a subject that didn’t require much concentration, she recalled
how, as he’d moved through the living room a few minutes ago, he had snagged
his pistol off the top of the china cabinet and tucked it into his waistband
holster in one fluid and well-practiced movement.

“I have a question for
you,” she said.

“Shoot.”

She laughed. “Actually
that’s what the question’s about. Why do you carry your gun in your waistband,
instead of using a shoulder holster? Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“Technically that’s two
questions,” he said, smoothly swerving the stroller away from a bush that Edie
was determined to defoliate. “Question number two. I’m used to it, hardly even
notice it’s there most of the time. And it’s just as easy to get to quickly as
a shoulder holster is. But a shoulder holster requires wearing a jacket to hide
it, year round.”

“You still carry it
there this time of year, when you’re wearing a coat anyway?”

“Gotta be consistent.
Don’t want to be reaching around to my back, and my gun’s not there, ’cause I’m
wearing a shoulder holster that day.”

They had reached the
end of her street and turned the corner to go around the block.

Kate realized that her
light topic of conversation wasn’t quite so light after all. Before this, her
mind had shied away from thinking about the dangers of his job. The times when
she’d seen him pull his gun in the past, he had been protecting her. She
thought of those incidents as aberrations in her life. But for him, they were
his bread and butter.

He broke into her
thoughts. “Kate, my work isn’t as dangerous as one might think.”

She looked up at him.
In a teasing tone, she said, “I’m not sure I can be with you after all, Skip
Canfield. It’s rather disconcerting that you seem to be able to read my mind.”

He chuckled. “Not
usually a good mind reader. Just with you.”

“I didn’t think I was
all that easy to read.” She knew she wasn’t. Her work required that she be able
to hide her thoughts and feelings, unless and until it was therapeutically
beneficial to share them.

He glanced down at her
upturned face. “You’re not. But I tend to pay closer attention to you than most
folks would.”

“I hope you keep on
paying close attention to me.” She grinned up at him.

“You bet. It’s
something my daddy taught me. ‘Pay attention to your woman, son, and she’ll
love you forever.’” He squeezed her hand, deciding not to bring up the dangers
of his work again.

But he wasn’t getting
off the hook that easily.

“Very wise man, your
daddy... So what did you mean?”

“About what?” he
stalled.

“That your work isn’t
as dangerous as I might think.”

“It’s not the same as
being a cop. I don’t go looking for the bad guys, or at least not the violent
ones. PI work is mostly computer searches these days and when you are doing
field work, it’s usually to catch a cheating spouse or a person pretending to
be disabled to defraud an insurance company. And even then I don’t have to
confront them, just snap some pictures.”

She snickered a little
as they turned the next corner. “Hard to visualize you hiding in the bushes
with your camera. Have to be a mighty big bush.”

He smiled down at her,
then his expression grew serious again. “Yeah, sometimes my size can be a
disadvantage, but it’s also another thing that keeps me safe. When I’m acting
as a bodyguard, I’m mostly a deterrent. The bad guys tend to decide against
trying whatever they had in mind, when they see me coming.”

All that made sense,
but she knew of at least two occasions when he
had
been actively looking
for the bad guys, and one of those times, he’d almost ended up dead.

“Don’t worry, Kate. I’m
not only a very patient man. I’m also a very careful one,” he said softly.

She punched him lightly
in the arm. “Will you
stop
reading my mind!”

“Not in this lifetime.”
He grinned down at her.

“So what were you and
Maria talking about, while I was changing Edie?”

Skip’s grin widened.
“Well, I was going to surprise you but... I asked her to call Rose to see if
she’s available for some guard duty tonight so we could go out.”

She matched his grin.
“And here I was thinking that your fluency in Spanish was yet another good
reason for keeping you around. But now I’m not so sure, not if you and Maria
are going to conspire behind my back.”

He lifted the hand he
was holding to his lips and kissed her fingers. “Pretty lady, will you have
dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

The zing of electricity
shooting up her arm was making it hard to breathe. “I would be delighted,” she
finally managed to say. “Although it may be hard to keep from creating a
scandalous scene.”

“Why’s that, darlin’?”

“Cause we seem to have
great difficulty keeping our hands off each other.”

They rounded the next
corner. “At least now that’s only a problem
in public
. In private, I can
have my way with you.” He looked down at her with a lascivious grin. “You have
no idea, Kate, how hard it’s been to keep from grabbing you and kissing you the
last few months.”

“Oh, I most certainly
do. I was having the same problem. It’s a good thing that you can’t
always
read my mind, ’cause I was fantasizing about ripping your clothes off on more
than one occasion.”

She suddenly stopped
and turned to him, her face serious. He brought the stroller to a halt. “Skip,
I’m sorry I made you wait so long. I hope you don’t resent me for it.”

“Not for a moment,
darlin’. It was agony at times, but I do understand why it needed to be that
way.” He brought her hand to his lips again, but this time he turned it over
and kissed her palm. Her knees almost buckled under her.

“Better to have waited
so that I’d have you... for the long haul,” Skip said softly.

He started to lean down
to kiss her, but Edie chose that moment to fuss. Why weren’t they moving was
what she wanted to know. Kate chuckled. “Afraid that’s something you’ll have to
get used to, having to compete with my daughter for my attention.”

“It would never occur
to me to think of it as competition,” he said, as he started the stroller
rolling forward again.

They walked in silence
for a few minutes, as Skip struggled with his feelings. He had loved this woman
for months without being able to declare that love. Now he felt so good, he
wanted to say “I love you” every five minutes. But she had only said it once,
last night when emotions were running high.

He realized he was
terrified. What if he said too much too soon, moved too fast and scared her
off? The thought that he could still lose her...

Waltzing around the
subject of permanency was a new kind of torture, he was discovering.  He wasn’t
used to feeling insecure like this. Or at least not in the last couple decades.
He’d been a  late bloomer and the scrawny sixteen-year-old inside of him had
never quite gotten used to the idea that he’d grown up to be a hunk.

But being handsome had
its advantages in the world of relationships. In his senior year of high school
he had gone from the guy no girl would even consider dating to the one who
could have just about any girl he wanted. He’d never particularly worried about
getting his heart broken before, but then he’d never felt like this before.

Damn it, one of the
things he loved about Kate was that she was such a straight-forward person. She
didn’t play games. It would be okay to just ask. Or would it?

He didn’t realize that
he had tightened his grip on her hand.

“What’s the matter,
Skip?” she asked softly.

He stopped moving and
looked down at her. “Kate, I’ve been holding back for so long, it’s hard for me
to go slow now. I’m... afraid I’ll push too fast.” He turned his face away,
staring off into the distance. She watched him swallow hard. “I don’t want to
lose you, now that I’ve finally got you.”

She reached up and
turned his face back toward her, then brushed his hair out of his eyes. He
groaned softly at the touch of her fingers.

“Sweetheart, you’re not
going to lose me,” she said. “I don’t spook easily. I’ll let you know if you’re
moving too fast.”

He breathed an audible
sigh of relief. Then his hand tensed around hers again. “Would I be moving too
fast if I asked if you love me?”

She looked up at him,
laughter in her eyes. “I thought we’d established that fact last night.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t
sure that... maybe that was just in the passion of the moment.”

She started to simply
say it, then thought of a better way to reassure him. “Skip, I told Liz
Franklin weeks ago that I was in love with you.”

“You did?” His face lit
up.

“I did. I love you,
Skip Canfield.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down
to kiss him.

After a moment, the
stroller handle started jiggling in his hand. Skip looked at Edie out of the
corner of his eye. She was bouncing up and down, her arm stretched as far
forward as she could reach, trying to grab the branch of a pine tree sticking
out over the edge of the sidewalk.

He pulled away from
Kate as he nudged the stroller handle to keep the branch out of the little
girl’s reach. “Oh, no you don’t, little one,” he said, with a chuckle in his
voice. “Pine needles are not part of your approved diet, I suspect.”

He started them moving
again. They turned onto the sidewalk leading to the front porch. At the bottom
of the steps, he reached for Kate before she could take the baby out of the
stroller. But he didn’t kiss her. He just held her gently against him. Her arms
slid under his jacket to wrap around his back. He kissed the top of her head,
then rested his cheek against her hair.

They stood that way,
content to just hold and be held, breathing in each other’s scent, until Edie
started fussing.

Skip let Kate go so she
could undo straps and lift the baby out of the stroller. As she hefted Edie
onto her hip, Kate said, “Time for your nap, little girl.”

“Oh, I like the sound
of that,” Skip said, leering at Kate. “Do the adults get to take naps too,
while babies are sleeping?”

Kate chuckled and
started up the steps. Over her shoulder, she said, “So this is going to be my
fate, huh? You’re going to want to make love to me every time we don’t
absolutely have to be doing something else.”

“Are you objecting to
that plan?”

“Not in the least.” She
grinned down at him.

Kate unlocked the door
while Skip wrestled the stroller into submission and carried it up the steps.
By the time she walked inside, the baby had already fallen asleep on her shoulder.
Fresh air tended to have that effect on her.

While Skip was figuring
out how to get the folded-up stroller back into the tiny closet, Kate went into
the nursery and gently laid Edie on her back in her crib. She undid the hat and
got it off, then unbuttoned the jacket but decided to leave it on rather than
risk waking her. She flipped the switch for the overhead fan so the child
wouldn’t get overheated.

Kate went into the
kitchen. Dropping her coat on a chair, she went to the refrigerator and got out
a bottle of water. She twisted off the cap and took a long pull as she turned
around.

Skip had walked up
behind her. He put his arms around her waist. She offered him the water bottle.

He took a drink, then
put the bottle on the counter. Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his
lips and gently kissed the inside of her wrist. Her knees buckled.

“I love you, Kate,” he
whispered, as he swept her up into his arms and turned around.

He stopped in
mid-stride. Maria was standing in the kitchen doorway. Her face was white as a
sheet. “Oh, Kate,
Señor
Skip, I so glad you back.” Then she burst into
rapid-fire Spanish.

A
s Maria talked, Skip’s
arms tensed around Kate. She clung to his neck, not understanding a word but
knowing something was very wrong.

“What’s she saying?”
Kate whispered.

“I’m not sure, She’s
going too fast for me.” He set her down on her feet. “
¡Maria, no
hables tan rapido, por favor!
”

Maria repeated what she
had said, at a somewhat slower pace. “Where is it?” Skip interrupted her, his
voice sharp. She pointed with a trembling hand at the kitchen table.

He closed the distance
to the table in one stride and looked down at a piece of paper laying there.
Kate moved up beside him. YOU NEED TO LEAVE OTHER PEOPLE’S FAMILIES ALONE. OR
I’LL MAKE YOU PAY. I’LL MAKE
YOUR
FAMILY PAY was printed on the paper.

Skip put his arm around
Kate’s shoulders. “How’d they get into my kitchen?” Her voice was shaky.

“They didn’t. Maria
found it between the screen door and the inside door, when she took some rugs
outside to shake out. It must have been propped up there, so we would see it
when we came back.”

He asked Maria
something in Spanish and she responded. “She looked up just in time to see
someone walking away toward the street. They went around behind the big pine
tree just as she glanced up. But she thought it was the same person, the one
that came here posing as a lady collecting for a church.”

Kate turned into his
shoulder and he held her against him with one arm as he said something else to
Maria. A moment later, she brought him a gallon-sized baggie and a table knife.
Letting go of Kate, Skip opened the bag and slipped the knife under the note,
maneuvering it into the bag without touching it.

“We’re calling the
police,” he said.

“What can they do?”
Kate’s fear morphed into anger. “Protect and serve. Bullshit! They can’t do
anything until an actual crime’s been committed. Hell, even after a crime
had
been committed against Amy, they still couldn’t do anything because her crazy
mother wouldn’t cooperate. They probably won’t even take it seriously since the
person didn’t break into the house.”

“Yes, they will,” Skip
said, his jaw tight. He’d cram the note down some cop’s throat if they didn’t.
“I’m not letting them wait until Edie’s face is on the evening news!”

When Kate started
crying, he realized that probably wasn’t the best thing to say. He wrapped his
arms around her and turned her away from the note, just as they heard fussing
coming from the nursery. They had forgotten to keep their voices down.

~~~~~~~~

A
s Kate had predicted,
the police took their sweet time getting there. Threatening note left on a
front porch didn’t rate a very high priority. She was kicking herself for not
getting Detective Randolph’s phone number on Friday.

Skip had called the
precinct and asked for Randolph but was told he was not in his office. Did the
gentleman want to leave a message for him? When Skip had explained about the
note, he was told that officers would be dispatched.

So now they had to convince
the responding officers to contact the detective.

Skip didn’t even let
them get past the entranceway. As soon as the two officers stepped over the
threshold, he handed them the note inside the baggie and succinctly told them
how and where Maria had found it.

The older and shorter
of them produced the expected response. No law had been broken other than
trespassing. They would certainly file a report.

Skip interrupted him,
pointing out that this was related to several earlier incidents involving threatening
actions against Mrs. Huntington, her daughter and her niece. A Detective
Randolph had handled the kidnapping of the niece. His voice sounded calm on the
surface, his words clear and succinct, but Kate could see the tension in his
body from across the room.

She was standing in the
living room, her arms wrapped protectively around her daughter, watching the
confrontation unfold near the open front door. Fear was making her heart pound.
And her throat hurt from the sad realization that the happy bubble they’d been
living in for the last twenty-four hours had been burst.

The senior officer
still seemed hesitant about calling the detective. Skip loomed over the older
and much shorter man and roared, “Someone is threatening that little girl!” He
pointed to Edie. “You need to call that damned detective. Right now!”

Kate frantically looked
around for Maria to hand Edie off so she could intervene. But Maria was not
fond of
la policia.
She had made herself scarce.

The older cop had taken
a step backwards and was saying, “Calm down, sir. I’ll call him.”

But the younger one, a
man almost as big as Skip, had failed to take his cue from the senior officer.
Hand on the baton in his belt, he stepped toward this civilian who was trying
to intimidate his partner. Skip, his fists and jaw clenched, showed no signs of
backing down.

The older officer
reached out a restraining hand just as a compact woman inserted herself between
the two big men. “Step back, Officer,” she barked at the young cop.

The older one yanked
his partner back and stepped in front of him. He was just inches from Rose.
“Sorry, sir, he’s a rookie,” he said over her head, then looked down. “Hello,
Officer Hernandez, I didn’t recognize you at first, out of uniform.”

“Hi, Officer Lindsey.”
Rose actually flashed him one of her brief but stunning smiles.

When he didn’t react,
Kate assumed he knew Rose better than their formal greetings implied. Men
usually had their mouths hanging open for a moment or two the first time they
experienced one of Rose’s high wattage smiles.

“These folks are good
friends of mine and I know the background on the situation. There’s a real
threat here, and that little girl...” She tilted her head in Kate and Edie’s
direction. “She’s my goddaughter. Detective Randolph responded last time, but
he couldn’t do anything but file a report. ’Cause the niece’s mother wouldn’t
cooperate. But the girl had been kidnapped, looked like she’d been given
roofies. No visible injuries but the mother wouldn’t allow an exam.”

Kate had moved to
Skip’s side and he drew her up against him. In Kate’s arms, a wide-eyed Edie
was watching the adults. Kate was amazed that she hadn’t started crying when
Skip had yelled.

Officer Lindsey didn’t
say anything in response to Rose’s summation. He just keyed his portable radio.
“Can you contact Detective Randolph, 10-17 at 2610 Linden Lane,” he said into
it.

“He’ll be here as soon
as dispatch can track him down, sir,” he said to Skip. “We’ll wait outside for
him.” The officer, who looked to be in his mid-forties, smiled down at Rose and
touched the front of his hat in a small salute. “See ya ’round, Officer
Hernandez.”

Mac’s growling voice
came from behind him. “She
ain’t
available, Officer.” The younger cop
spun around, hand going to his holster.

“Cut it out, Mac,” Rose
said. “We’re just end-of-shift drinking buddies.” Mac stepped around Lindsey
and put a possessive arm across Rose’s shoulders.

Lindsey’s grin just
grew wider. “This is him, huh?” He directed this to Rose and then said to Mac,
“Don’t mind my partner. Guess he didn’t hear you approach.”

Rose, whose cheeks
currently matched her name, elbowed Mac in the ribs before he could respond.
“Yup, this is him. And you didn’t hear him ’cause he didn’t
want
you to
hear him. He was Special Forces.”

“I recall you
mentioning that,” Lindsey said pleasantly. The older man seemed to be enjoying
Rose’s discomfort, but it had a good-natured, ribbing-amongst-colleagues feel
to it. Rose’s face, despite the blush, remained blank. Kate suspected Lindsey
would be receiving some kind of payback in the future.

“We’ll fill the
detective in when he gets here and then be on our way. Try to have a good
evening, folks.” The officer motioned his partner out the door and pulled it
closed behind him.

Maria appeared and took
the baby from Kate just as Edie was starting to fuss. “
Bebé
hungry.” She
moved off toward the kitchen.

“I’m calling Rob,” Kate
said, following Maria into the kitchen to get the phone.

“I’ll handle this,
Kate,” Skip called out, his tone sharp.

She was already
punching in the number as she came back around the corner. “I didn’t say that
you weren’t, but we could use some reinforcements. In addition to Rose’s timely
intervention, that is.” Kate smiled gratefully at her friend.

Skip scowled at her.

“Take a deep breath and
calm down, Skip,” Kate said quietly. “You almost slugged a cop.”

“No, the asshole was
about to take a swing at me. And
then
I would have slugged him!”

“And he would have
richly deserved it.” She decided not to add,
but you would be in jail.

“They’re not home yet.”
Kate punched in Rob’s cell phone number while Skip watched her, not sure what
to say but still fighting mad. She walked over and stood on tiptoe to kiss him
on the cheek. “Calm down, Sweetheart,” she whispered.

He deflated and wrapped
his arm around her shoulders, as she said into the phone, “Hi, Rob. Sorry to
disrupt your evening, but we have a situation here.” She raised her face and
quickly kissed Skip’s cheek again. “I’ll be right back, Sweetheart.”

Walking toward the master
bedroom, she said, “No, dear, I was talking to someone else.” She wanted some
privacy. It had occurred to her that she should fill Rob in on a few things,
before he arrived, to give him time to digest them a little before they talked
to the detective.

In the bedroom, Kate
quickly told Rob about the newest note and that Detective Randolph was on the
way. Without her having to ask, he said, “You want my help dealing with him?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind
coming over. We had some trouble convincing the uniforms to even call him,
until Rose arrived and gave them the background information, one cop to
another.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Wait! Rob, uh...”

“Yes.”

“Skip and I are...
uh... We’ve dropped the four-foot rule.”

“Okay... I’m very happy
for you.” Rob pumped as much sincerity into his voice as he could. When she
didn’t say anything, he added, “Kate, it’s no surprise. Everybody’s known for
months
,
that you two would... get there eventually. You practically vibrate whenever
you’re within ten feet of each other.”

“Uh, there’s something
else, Rob.”

“Yes?”

“He yelled at one of
the cops and almost slugged the other one. He’s a little intense right now. Can
you be kind of a buffer, but not take charge completely?”

Rob felt the familiar
twist of worry in his gut.

“He’s just trying to
protect us...” Kate said into the silence, then her throat closed up on her.
She couldn’t figure out how to reassure Rob when she wasn’t real sure what was
going on with Skip herself.

“I know, sweetheart.
I’m leaving the office now. Be there in about ten minutes.”

So they’ve finally
stopped dancing around each other
, Rob thought, as he disconnected. He’d
have to sort out how he felt about that later. Right now, Kate needed him to
referee.