Risking It All (4 page)

What did he see when he looked at her? Could he see right through her? Could he sense the uncontrollable thoughts that flew at random through her mind these days? That even now, standing there with his tie in her hands, an act she’d done for him countless times, she couldn’t stop trembling because every breath filled her lungs with his clean, spicy scent? Or that she longed to discover the scent on his skin?

“Do what?” His voice drifted quiet and pensive between them.

“I’m not one of your criminal cases.” She concentrated on pulling the wide end of the tie through the knot and not on the way his intense gaze called to her. If she looked up at him right now, he’d no doubt see right through her. Kyle could read her like nobody else. As if she were made of glass. “You won’t find any clues on me.”

“Actually, I wondered if you’d be okay here by yourself tonight.”

“Does that mean I can stay?” She cinched his tie and finally forced herself to meet his gaze.

His eyes searched hers, his worry clear in the crease that formed between his brows. The corners of his mouth curled upward, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Did you really expect me to say no?”

“Thank you. I’ll be fine.” She shook her head and settled a hand on his chest, needing to soothe the worry and awkwardness between them. “You worry too much.”

He glanced at his watch. “Shoot.” When he met her gaze again, his eyes filled with regret. “I can stay if you need me to. I have plenty of unused sick days—”

“Go to work.” She desperately tried to ignore the solid muscles and warm body beneath her hands as she gave him a playful shove toward the bedroom doorway. “You have cases to solve and bad guys to catch.”

He studied her for a moment, the crease on the corner of his mouth deepening. The decision apparently made, he cupped her chin in his palm, his thumb sweeping gently from side-to-side. “We’ll talk later, I promise.”

When she nodded, he placed a tender kiss to her cheek. The way he used to before tension had taken over their relationship. Then he pulled back, offered a gentle smile, turned, and strode from the room. Cecelia released her held breath, the air rushing from her mouth in a whoosh, and let her shoulders slump. Somehow, someway, she’d get ahold of these wayward emotions. She had to. It was time to heal the rift between them, and it started by squashing whatever the hell these longings were.

With a decisive nod, she followed him around the corner and into the living room. “Please be careful.”

Kyle didn’t do anything without thinking through every possible angle, but she couldn’t help saying it, if only to make herself feel better. He had an important job serving their community. People depended on him to do his job well, and he’d saved more than a few lives. The thought of what could happen to him still scared her more than a little. The thought of him getting shot made her sick to her stomach.

He shot a reassuring smile over his shoulder. “Always am, Ceci. You know me.”

When they reached the front room, she stopped and leaned against the wall, eyeing him as he crossed to the door. “Kyle?”

His hand on the knob, he turned sideways, his brows lifting as he glanced back at her. “Hmmm?”

“Thanks. For everything, I mean.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.” Doing a bad impression of a Southern accent, he tipped an invisible hat, but the humor in his tone didn’t quite reach his eyes. His gaze searched hers for a long moment, worry clearly written in the depths; then he turned and left the apartment.

When the door clicked shut, the silence enveloped her and the weight of her worries pressed down on her again. She slumped back against the wall, taking refuge in its solidity, as a tide of questions swamped her. How could she give her child a future when she had no past? She didn’t remember the first seven years of her life. Who doesn’t remember the first seven years of their life? And what had happened to her parents? How could she give her baby the mother he or she deserved when she spent half her life in fear, with holes buried so deep inside she didn’t feel like a whole person?

She had no idea where the feelings came from, but an aching emptiness lived inside of her she’d never been able to shake. Like she was missing something, and some way, somehow, she’d find the answers. When Kyle got home tonight, she planned to ask him—again—to help. She only hoped this time, he wouldn’t turn her down.

A deep male voice shouted demands. A loud crack exploded through the air. The acrid scent of gun powder burned her nostrils, and something heavy dropped with a dull thud onto the carpeted floor. She turned her head. Sun filtered through the wooden frame of an unfinished wall, creating a checkerboard pattern on the opposite surface. Dust particles floated in the thin beam of light, disturbed only when she breathed out, swirling like frenzied bugs around a streetlight.

A shadow moved across the hole in the wall, and terror tightened in her chest. An endless stream of hot tears poured down her cheeks, her body shaking uncontrollably. She clamped her hand over her mouth to keep as quiet as possible.

Another angry shout came through the wall, the words indiscriminate.

“No. Please. I don’t know where she is. Please . . . No!” The female voice let out a horrified scream.

Another loud crack exploded through the air, and something else thudded as it hit the floor, so close this time it shook the framework of the walls around her. The frenzied dust particles renewed themselves, swirling around her head.

Oh God.
She drew her knees tighter against her belly, rocking in a terror-filled effort not to cry out. Her vision blurred with the tears running down her cheeks. Mama said to stay quiet. If they hear her, they’ll find her. They mustn’t find her.

Footsteps thudded beyond the wall. She froze, holding her breath. Don’t make a sound.

The footsteps receded. In the distance, a door slammed. She dared to turn and peek through the hole. Were they gone? Was she safe now? Where was Mama? Her gaze caught on the red blood that seeped across the tan carpeting. She leaned over, needing to see, but the faces blurred behind a veil of tears.

Cecelia awoke with a gasp, jackknifing upright in bed. Her heart pounding, she darted a glance around the room, dazed and disoriented. The vivid dream continued to play through her mind, and for a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Eerie shadows swayed and danced along the far wall, reminiscent of the shadows in her dream. The wind howled past the building, reminding her of the woman’s scream. Tiny raindrops pelted the small window on the far wall, sounding too much like the tap of little fingers trying to get in. The steel belt around her rib cage tightened.

Oh God. Trembling from head to toe, she swallowed hard and jerked her gaze in the other direction, sucking in deep breaths to fill her oxygen-starved lungs.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Her shirt stuck to perspiration-dampened skin, but she pulled the quilt tighter beneath her chin, needing its sanctity.

Finally, the red glare of the digital alarm caught her attention, grounding her in reality. The scent of warm male and a subtle hint of a familiar, spicy cologne drifted beneath her nose. Kyle’s apartment. She was in Kyle’s apartment, in his bed.

Relief shuddered through her. The safety and familiarity of her surroundings once again settled around her, and the tightness in her chest eased. She bent her head, pressed her nose in the quilt, and inhaled, filling her lungs with his familiar scent, let it wrap around her.

With a sigh, she settled back in the bed. The nightmares had come again. They’d plagued her, off and on, all throughout her childhood. She hadn’t had one in some time, though. For a while, after Gran died, the dreams had come frequently, but as the pain of losing Gran lessened, the dreams had eased. Now that she was pregnant, the dreams had started again.

When she woke from one, the terror was always the same. For a few moments, she’d sit in bed, trying to remember where she was, terror tightening in her chest. None of the images made any sense. The dream was a mishmash of images and sensations that always left her feeling as if vital pieces were missing. In the end, all it did was leave her confused. It was the same dream, the same horrifying images, the same feelings of abject terror knifing through her chest, over and over, night after night.

Yet the dream came with the distinct feeling of a deeper meaning. Like those images, those sounds and scents, meant something to her. As if, somehow, she’d experienced the horrific scene, as if she’d lived it. But that wasn’t possible. She’d have remembered living through something like that. Wouldn’t she? And she distinctly didn’t have memories like those.

Then again, everything before she’d moved in next door to Kyle was gone. The first seven years of her life were a hole in her mind. She’d tried. Talking through things with her therapist, she always hoped they’d make her feel safe enough that the memories would come forward, but they never did.

She supposed that was normal to a certain extent. After all, she’d read once that children didn’t form permanent memories until around three. But surely normal people remembered bits and pieces of early childhood? Kindergarten? First grade? She remembered nothing. Nothing but a vague sense of foreboding and a deep, hollow ache in her chest. Like she was missing something, or perhaps some
one
.

She turned her head, buried her face in the pillow, and inhaled Kyle’s spicy scent again, filling her lungs with the soothing aroma. How was it that he wasn’t even here, but the mere scent of him somehow made everything okay? That was why she’d come, and why she’d asked to stay.

After he’d left for work, she hadn’t been entirely certain how she’d feel spending the night in his bed. Lying here was intimate. He slept here, night after night, and, chances were, he’d made love to another woman in this bed at some point.

It made her seem a bit, well, childish she supposed, but she needed him. Even if all that meant was sleeping in his bed until he got home. Above and beyond those stirrings of attraction, Kyle had the ability like no other to make her feel warm and safe. He was the only person alive who did.

Finally fully relaxed and centered in the here and now, she rolled over to stare at the clock. One fifteen. Kyle ought to be done soon. His shift ended around one thirty, though if he’d had a call come in, and he was out somewhere on a crime scene, it could be hours before he came home. Either way, that would be time enough to figure a way to broach what memory told her would be a difficult subject between them.

She wanted to find out about her parents. What happened to them. Who they were. Gran had told her once they were gone. Gone how? Were they dead, or had they simply left her? Why had she had the same nightmares for most of her life? Why couldn’t she shake the horrible images? She’d always hoped one day they’d go away.

She had this awful feeling Gran knew more than she wanted to say. But why would she do that? Why would Gran lie to her? She needed answers, now more than ever. Being pregnant had brought up all those insecurities, all those long-standing questions. Therapy had never brought any relief. Oh, she’d recovered a memory or two. A two-story house. People she didn’t recognize but whose faces brought about a familiar ache in her chest.

She wanted to feel whole, for the ache in her chest to finally heal. And she wanted to get past these stupid dreams.

Over the years, she’d done a bit of amateur sleuthing. She’d searched everywhere she could think of and had made use of the Internet and websites designed for this purpose. According to her birth certificate, she was born in the state of New York. She’d even called the hospital listed, but they hadn’t found any record of her. Like therapy, three years of searching turned up nothing but more questions. Why couldn’t she find even a single record of herself outside of her birth certificate? Most people could search for their ancestry. Lila, Chase’s wife, had done exactly that once. She and Chase were attempting to have a baby, and she’d wanted to know, for curiosity’s sake, what her relatives looked like. She’d found pages and pages of records.

But her or Gran? There was simply no mention of them. It was as if they’d never existed. How the hell was that even possible? Kyle was her last hope.

The problem was, they’d been here before, and every time she’d brought it up, it always created tension between them. She’d asked Kyle to help the first time Gran had gone into the hospital. The fear of losing Gran had brought the need to know. He’d told her he hadn’t found anything, but surely there was a record somewhere, one he hadn’t uncovered yet? Surely someone knew who she was? She and Kyle didn’t need any more tension between them, but she needed answers.

***

“Kyle Morgan, don’t you dare bring that thing into this room.”

Ceci’s voice, raspy from sleep, came from within the darkness of the bedroom. Kyle froze in the doorway, his pistol in his right hand, its muzzle pointed at the floor. The moonlight came through the miniblinds in bright streaks, adding light to the otherwise pitch-black room, but Ceci remained little more than a human-shaped shadow among the darkness. By the shape of her, she leaned on an elbow. The tone of her voice told him she was likely staring daggers at him.

It had been a long damn night. He’d spent the evening interviewing a potential suspect. He’d gotten nowhere, and he was exhausted. He had to admit, knowing he’d come home to her was a double-edged sword. Part of him looked forward to it. He was usually careful not to take the job home, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. The dead deserved to have someone to speak for them, but not every case got solved, and those unsolved cases hung on him. Tonight was one of those nights, and Cecelia provided a lure he knew he had to resist.

He glanced at the glowing face of his watch and, for her sake, forced a laugh. “Listen to you. In
my
bed, in
my
apartment, telling me I can’t enter
my
room so I can put my pistol away. It’s two thirty. Shouldn’t you be asleep anyway?”

“Kyle . . .”

Her voice softened, pleading with him. Instinct told him her reprimand had come from fear.

He shook his head and moved slowly into the room, giving her time to adjust. “Sorry, but I have to put the gun away. I figured you’d be asleep when I came in. Close your eyes. It won’t take me long. I’ve already unloaded it. I just need to lock it up.”

She huffed and flopped back on the bed. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, the small amount of moonlight affording him enough light to realize she appeared to be covering her eyes with her hands.

As he crossed to the nightstand, his eyes, with a will of their own, searched out the curves and swells of her body. She had absolutely no idea how torturous it was to know she laid in his bed. He wanted desperately to say, “To hell with it,” and climb in beside her. The urge to lie in the dark and talk to her, to unload, the way they used to once upon a time, was damn near irresistible. The effort it took not to twisted his body into a mass of tension. His shoulders knotted painfully.

But he couldn’t. He flat-out didn’t trust himself. Right now, knowing she was pregnant with another man’s baby, a baby he wished for all the world were his, made him long for all those things he’d spent the last six months tamping down. To tell her he loved her. To make her a permanent part of his world. To come home every night knowing she waited for him. Christ, he wanted it. Every cell in his body ached to have it. It would so easy between them, so . . . natural.

Yeah. Sleep would be a long time coming tonight.

“Did you have a good night?”

The soft sound of her voice drifted around him like a lure as he unlocked his nightstand drawer and pulled out his gun case. He fought back the urge to tell her more than he ought to. “Not really. I spent it interviewing a suspect. One of the cases we’re working is going nowhere, and I had to let him go.”

“You sound stressed.”

He bit back a sardonic laugh. She had no idea.

“Mmm. I am. We can’t catch this bastard and I can’t let it go.” He set his pistol and the full clips into the storage case and closed the clasps, then returned the case to the drawer. He moved by feel through his keys, searching out the small one that went to the lock on the cabinet. Her gaze burned into him, and the silence filled with that unbearable awkwardness.

“Want to talk about it?”

Those words from her mouth had his fingers tightening around his keys. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to shake his head. “Yes, but I won’t. I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.”

“You always did have trouble not bringing it all home with you.”

“Hard not to. The victims’ families deserve peace, and I can’t give it to them.” Finding the right key, he inserted it into the lock and turned it, then pocketed his keys. “I’m all done. You can come out of hiding now.”

His pistol safely locked away, he turned and headed for his closet. He needed only a pair of sweats to sleep in and the extra blanket on the shelf, and he could get out of this blasted room. If he were lucky, sleeping on the couch would at least afford him a few hours. He wasn’t sure he
could
sleep with her in the house, but he’d have a better chance of it in another room.

Behind him, the bedsprings creaked as she shifted, no doubt uncovering her eyes. His mind filled with an image of her rolling over, and the urge to crawl in with her came again, stronger this time. He tamped it down as quickly as it hit and pulled open the closet door. “I’ll be out of your way in a minute. I just need to grab a couple of things.”

A blip of silence filled the room, during which her thoughts filled the surrounding air. Finally, she drew a barely audible breath.

“You don’t have to leave, you know.” Her voice drifted through the darkness, quiet, shy almost. “I’m not kicking you out of your bed.”

He paused, a pair of sweats clutched in his fingers, and closed his eyes. He knew without asking what she referred to. She wanted him to stay with her. She wanted exactly what he wanted—for him to crawl in beside her, wrap himself around her, and lie with her, hold her, talk to her. All those things that had been commonplace for them once upon a time. They’d done it a lot over the years. It was what made her being in his bed so damn difficult. Crawling in with her would be second nature.

Still, even knowing all of that, he had to refuse. He’d barely survived last time.