Make Mine a Marine (62 page)

"Things aren't going exactly the way I had in mind. Your mother and Mr. Gallagher aren't working together very well."

"But Drew's nice."

"I know, sweetie." She reached down and smoothed the bangs from Kerry's forehead, absorbing strength from the hopeful blue eyes that looked up at her. Kerry's lip pouted and she looked at her doll. Faith got the message and smoothed yarn bangs as well. "That's what makes it so hard for your mom."

Kerry shrugged her shoulders, enlightening Faith with seven-year-old wisdom. "He's not a very good reader. He made up words that weren't in the book. But I liked his story better. When Mom reads it, the frog turns into a prince. But when Drew told it, the princess turned into a frog."

Faith's laughter faded before Kerry's. The old fairy tale seemed like a sordid retelling of the horror story she'd inadvertently created for Jonathan Ramsey. Still, she kept her promises. She'd watched over Emma and Kerry because Jonathan had loved them so. She'd dropped clues and created distractions and used every power available to her to reunite the family so horribly torn asunder.

But since little Kerry was the only human she could clearly communicate with, her options were limited. She doubted that Emma or Jonathan would believe the direct approach, anyway, and listen to her explanation of the truth.

No, she had to bargain and scheme and push and pry. And none of those qualities would help her earn her wings.

The nightlight beside the bed shuddered. Faith threw her hands wide and spoke to the light. "That is the idea, isn't it? I learn my lesson? Get my wings?"

"Faith?" A small hand clasped her fingers. "Are you in trouble?"

"Seems I always have been, sweetie."

"I’ll put in a good word for you when I say my prayers tomorrow night."

Kerry's innocent trust reminded Faith of the reason she had interfered in the Ramseys' lives in the first place. "Thanks." She squeezed the girl's hand to reassure her. "I hope putting Mr. Gallagher on the case will help your mom find the truth faster."

The girl's big yawn signaled the end of her visit. Faith kissed Kerry's cheek and the little doll tucked in beside her. She gathered herself into a gentle light and floated to the foot of the bed.

"Faith?"

"Hmm?"

"Angelica doesn't have any wings, either."

Faith smiled at the toy's name. "Your doll? That because she's not an angel, sweetie."

"Will you get your wings when my mom is happy again?"

"That's not up to me."

Kerry rolled onto her side, her eyelids already heavy with sleep. "If you don't get any, I'll make you some. Okay?"

The urge to cry swelled inside her and burned her throat. But she had no time for tears. "I'd like that, Kerry. I'd like that very much. And when I get mine, I'll be sure Angelica gets her wings, too."

So much faith for one so small. Faith felt her power grow, strengthened by one little girl's hopes and dreams.

This time, she would not fail. Come… oops—she glanced up and apologized before the word slipped out—high water, she would not fail. Of course, that meant working a bit harder, thinking more clearly, planning more carefully.

She drifted to the top of the stairs, and eased Emma's tired tread with an invisible kneading of her shoulders. Emma turned at the comforting gesture, but Faith knew she saw nothing.

Once mother and daughter had said their good nights, Faith hurried from the house and sped toward her last best chance to turn this whole mess around.

Her good intentions were a test she'd failed one too many times, on earth, and at the citadel. She had her work cut out for her.

She'd keep trying until she got it right.

She'd keep trying until someone who could make a difference believed in the truth.

She'd keep trying until Jonathan Ramsey came home.

Chapter Six

Emma sat pretzel-style on the study floor, half buried in the stacks of letters and photo albums. The tissue box beside her had been opened and put to use, though she felt a twinge of guilt to see that the box was still nearly full. Three or four years ago, even six months ago, the box would be half empty. But as the evening outside blackened into the deepest part of night, she discovered she had less of a need to cry, and more of a willingness to say goodbye, to pack these things up with loving care and store them in the attic instead of the easy access of the hall closet.

She turned the page of the photo album in her lap and traced the pictures with careful reverence. Her gaze touched on an image of a windblown Jonathan, standing tall and broad with that ready smile on his face. Bits of leaves and twigs clung to his short, dark hair and bright red sweater. Emma touched her finger to the spot where his hand rested over her tummy in the picture. Her pregnancy with Kerry was just beginning to show. He was home between missions and quite enamored of her rounding figure.

Raking leaves had become an impromptu opportunity for them to roll together in a pile while he kissed her senseless. Jas and her camera had come along just in time to remind them that the backyard was a fairly public place. Even in the photograph, Jonathan's blue eyes twinkled with the promise of more to come, and she remembered him resuming the seduction later that night.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to recapture the joy of that day so long ago. Though ten years her senior, Jonathan had rejoiced like a kid at the prospect of becoming a daddy. God, how he had loved his little girl. Building things for her, collecting trinkets from around the world, writing her little notes even before she was born.

He might have been part of Kerry's life for only two years, but the bond between father and daughter had been full of promise and love. Not at all like Emma's relationship with her father, who'd come home some nights and looked right through her as if she were a stranger.

She pushed the unpleasant thought from her mind and closed the book. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to fixate on the memory of making love that night of the picture. Jonathan's hands skimming her legs, his fingers buried in her hair, his kiss...

… was raw and purely sensual, surprising himself as much as her, judging by the guttural gasp deep in his throat. His beard stubble grazed her skin along the arc of her neck, pricking her with the tantalizing anticipation of the moist warmth of his lips to follow. And when he found that bundle of nerves at the base of her throat, she forgot about everything else except the sensation of enveloping heat closing around her, rising within her. She pressed herself to his solid length, her body awakening from its self-imposed hibernation to the lure of someone stronger, someone harder than she. Awakening to the utterly female rush of needy hands on her back and legs. Awakening to the erotic feel of long blond hair tangled in her bare fingers.

Awakening to Drew Gallagher's passion.

"Oh, God." Her eyes snapped open, and she clapped her hand to her mouth in a wry mimicry of Drew's gloved hand covering her mouth and silencing her. Good God, what had she done?

Last night, he'd meant to keep her quiet so as not to reveal their presence. Twenty-four hours later, she was trying to stifle her own treacherous thoughts. Even now, her skin tingled with heat inside her sweater. She couldn't blame the uncomfortable temperature on the dying embers in the fireplace. Her breathing didn't grow ragged at the memory of the danger she'd escaped last night, but at the memory of her instantaneous need to be kissed and held by a man. A man who thrived on danger. A man who talked tough. A man unlike her husband in every way except one.

He made her feel safe.

Jonathan had smiled and cajoled and bargained and demanded his way through two years of courtship with her, breaking down each defensive barrier, whittling down her wall of distrust, until she realized she could be safe with a man. She could give him her body, her heart, and her soul, and know that all three would be cherished by him.

She'd known Drew Gallagher for all of two days, and already she'd made the mistake of dropping her guard and allowing her body to react to his touch in a basic, elemental, wanton kind of way. That was all it could be, she warned herself. A physical attraction. And she'd given into it because this rough, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners man of mystery and darkness had somehow managed to make her feel safe.

"Oh, God." She repeated the little prayer and opened the album once more, staring at Jonathan's picture, willing his image to replace the clearer, fair-haired likeness of Drew Gallagher in her mind

Spreading her fingers, she traced her wedding ring with her thumb, reminding herself of all it represented. The action couldn't help but remind her how Drew had taken her hand in the back room of Lucky's and squeezed it tight, telling her to be strong. He'd rubbed her palm with the rough pad of his thumb, teasing her senses, earning her trust, sharing his strength.

She had waved the ring in Drew's face last night, warning him to keep an impersonal distance. Why couldn't she follow her own request? Why did she have to be so drawn to him? Why did she feel she needed him, as she had needed no other man before or since Jonathan?

Maybe she should refuse his offer to help find Jonathan, hire someone else. But, on his own, he'd already uncovered more new leads than a cadre of detectives and officials had turned up in three years.

"I can do this," she told herself, rolling the tension from her shoulders and stiffening her spine. "I can work with him as a professional. Keep everything polite and impersonal."

Her pep talk fell on skeptical ears. Her problem with Drew Gallagher was that she'd already let things get way too personal.

"M-Mom?"

She slammed the album closed and spun around on her bottom, startled as if Kerry had somehow read her mind and caught her thinking of a man other than her father.

"Sweetie." She waited for the breathiness to subside from her voice, then reached out to Kerry. "It's after midnight. What are you doing out of bed?"

Kerry plunked down on Emma's lap and wrapped herself in her lavender blanket and her mother's hug. "I w-wanted a drink."

Emma frowned above her daughter's head, wondering what was really going on. "I left your cup of water on the bedside table."

"You w-weren't in your bed." She snuggled closer. "Are you b-being sad?"

"Oh, sweetie." She wrapped herself around Kerry's petite frame and hugged her close. "I’m just fine. What made you think I was sad?"

"Be-c-cause Faith can't get her wings."

Kerry rose and fell with Emma's sigh of frustration. "Your friend Faith has wings?"

"No. She says you have t-t-to be happy before she can get them."

Kerry's verbal language had emerged at a young age. Before the age of two, she'd begun to put together long phrases and complex thoughts without a trace of a stutter. Imaginary friends hadn't existed then, either.

She'd been so young when Jonathan disappeared. Not for the first time, Emma wondered if she had projected her own sadness, her anger and feelings of betrayal, onto Kerry. She'd worked so hard, talked to so many counselors, to keep her daughter from being victimized by her troubles. Kerry might be a tad shy, but she did well in school and had a circle of real friends of all ages. Emma couldn't explain her daughter's handicap.  Yet she couldn't cure it. So she chose not to argue about Faith this time, and worked instead on the more tangible problem she could address.

"I'm not sad tonight." Confused, yes. Feeling more guilty than she cared to admit. But not sad. She opened the album on their laps. "I was looking at some pictures of your father." She stopped on the page with Jonathan's formal portrait taken when he'd earned the rank of lieutenant colonel. "Here's your dad. Isn't he handsome? He loves you so much."

Kerry studied the picture. "My d-dad doesn't look like that anymore."

"You're right. He may have gray in his hair now. Or wrinkles. Do you remember what your dad looks like?"

"I know wh-what Daddy looks like."

Emma smiled and hugged her close. "You've seen his picture a lot, haven't you?"

Kerry squiggled free, pushing the album to the floor and kneeling in front of her. Her forehead crinkled into a frown as she studied Emma with a grown-up intensity. Emma pulled the seam of her lips between her teeth, fighting the urge to smile in the face of such a serious expression.

"D-Drew is my daddy."

"What?" Any urge to smile vanished.

"Faith told me. D-D-Drew is my daddy."

* * *

She sat at the main desk, greeting him with a smile that radiated from the fresh-scrubbed shine of her freckled face and made him forget the purpose of his visit. Surrounded by tiers of equipment, stacks of paper, and shades of beige from floor to ceiling, she smiled.

She stood out from the drab decor like a poinsettia stands out against snow. She had lustrous dark hair, classic features, and that sweet, sweet smile.

"May I help you?"

"Stand fast, you bastard!" A very different voice intruded, splintering the serene picture in his dreams.

"Stand fast or I'll shoot!"

The grenade pin sailed through the air. He fired his weapon and contorted his body, diving, crashing into his enemy. He was scorched by heat, numbed by pain.

"No!"

Drew thrashed in his sleep as the nightmare took hold.

He wanted it back. He wanted the peace. The momentary glimpse of beauty. He wanted...

"Don't listen." Another voice. More of a thought than a sound.

"You crazy son of a
…"

"Tenebrosa is a helluva place to die!"

His voice? Or another man's?

Certain death. Kill or be killed.

"Believe with your heart, not your head."

He twisted, fighting to pinpoint the soft-spoken source of the warning.

He'd stared at her too long to be polite, but not long enough to finish cataloguing every beautiful detail of her appearance.

"Sir, may I help you?"

"Emma?" He called to her in his sleep, a croaking plea for something just beyond his reach.

His world exploded in a flash of fire and searing pain, ripping his flesh, tearing at his heart, and plunging his mortal soul into oblivion.

* * *

Drew shot up in bed and rubbed his forehead, wiping the stinging sweat from his eyes. The top sheet and blankets pooled around his hips, exposing his torso down to the waist. The remnants of his nightmare flashed through his mind. He shivered.

Dream or vision?

He combed his fingers through the hair at his temples, smoothing the damp strands behind his ears. The jungle, the heat, the chase—the details were always the same. But now Emma Ramsey had appeared to him a second time, her face added to her distinct husky voice—the only reprieve from the indecent torment of his sleep.

"Ah, lady." He punched his pillow as if he could silence the turmoil that spun in the blank hole where his memories should be. "What the hell do you have to do with me?"

The ringing of the phone saved him from having to face sleep again. He snatched it off the night stand and hit the talk button. "Gallagher."

A moment of static answered the sharpness in his voice.

"Drew? Did I wake you?"

An unexpected calm seeped through him at the soft sound of Emma Ramsey's voice.

"What's wrong?" He snatched his glasses off the nightstand, the pleasure of hearing her voice giving way to instincts that warned him of news he didn't want to hear even before he could see the clock. Two in the morning. She didn't bother with pleasantries, and neither did he. "Em?"

"Can you come over to the house? There's something I need to discuss with you."

"Now?"

His heart went out to her as he heard her swift intake of breath. Damn. He wished he was there to hold her right now. To take her hand again. To support her with his presence if that would be all she'd accept from him.

"Yes."

"I'll be there in thirty minutes, if not sooner."

* * *

Drew paced back and forth in the kitchen, hot, strong coffee warming the mug in his hand. He stopped at the tile counter and raked his fingers through his hair, feeling totally out of his league. "So what do you want me to do? Talk to her?"

Emma matched his pacing on the opposite side of the table. "No. Yes. I don't know." She planted her hands on her hips and tipped her head up to the light of the Williamsburg brass chandelier, revealing the shadows that marred the translucent skin beneath her eyes. "I don't see how she could be so confused. You and Jonathan are nothing alike. He's taller. Dark. Incredibly structured and organized. He lives and breathes the military. You're less
…"

"Less heroic?" There was nothing like being compared to another man and coming in second to humble a man’s ego. He dared her to deny her opinion of him.