Secrets of Paternity (14 page)

He stripped her where they stood, finding the white lacy bra and panties he'd known he would find, then removing them, neither gently nor slowly. He peeled off his own clothes, lifted her so that her legs straddled his hips and then carried her to her bedroom.

Feminine, just like her, he thought, aware of the room. A cream-colored bedspread and pillows with lacy edges. He dropped her in the middle of the bed and came down on her, merging mouths that were on fire with need and expectation. He stayed there attacking her mouth until she breathed as though she'd run a marathon. He moved down her body, drew one hard nipple into his mouth, then the other. His tongue swirled and teased. His lips measured and pulled. His teeth scraped. He filled his hands with the soft flesh surrounding the hard peaks.

After a while he pushed himself lower; she lifted her hips higher. He tasted her, cherished her, then slowed down, gentled his actions, taking his time. Her hands pushed against his head; she grasped his hair. She rocked, arched. Enjoyed. He lunged over her, plunged into her, felt
her hot, tight welcome. Was surrounded by it. Didn't want to give it up. But his body had other ideas, other needs.

She pulled his head down for a kiss, openmouthed, demanding, without tenderness, with unchecked passion. Without caution, with urgency. They hit the pinnacle together, and there was something in the mutuality that shot him higher, made it last longer.

He kissed her, a long, lingering kiss meant to soften the impact. She looked as serious as she had before they'd fallen into bed.

“Do you promise you won't do anything yet?”

No, he couldn't promise. Things could happen. He didn't know, couldn't predict for sure. “I can't promise, Caryn. I've told you what the plan is. And you can't take time off from work, anyway. You've already told me you could lose your job if you don't show up.”

“Do you know how many restaurants are in this city? Three thousand. Think I can't get another job?”

“One as good?”

“One better.” She shifted.

“I understand Kevin being mad at me, but not you. You should be seeing the big picture.”

She sighed. “I can call you?”

“As often as you like.”

“Don't be mad,” she said with a smile.

“I'm not mad.” He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, but it would only complicate things when they returned and he had to let her go.

As if just having sex with her wouldn't complicate—

He hadn't used birth control. None. Hadn't even considered it. Neither had she said anything. What were they thinking? They could not, at their ages, find themselves
pregnant. Kevin already couldn't deal with explaining James. What about if they had a baby together?

Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. He had to wait, like a teenager after prom night had gotten out of hand.

Except…why did the idea make him start imagining a family again, but this time, people with faces he could put to them. And personalities.

The image took root, and held. He kissed her goodbye but didn't linger. Fate would do what it would do.

“I
owe you for this,” James said to Nate and Sam as they waited in an interview room for the highway patrol officer who'd investigated Paul's accident. “You've got other jobs to do.” Hell, they were two of the owners of the ARC. Partners. He was just an investigator on staff.

“First,” Sam said, “we look after our own. Second, it's kind of entertaining watching you fall head over heels.” He glanced at Nate. “We've both been there and done that. I don't know about Nate, but I didn't realize how stupid I got while I was falling in love with Dana. You need someone at your back, because you won't be thinking straight.”

Nate laughed quietly. “Amen, brother.”

James might have opened up and talked about his concerns to Cassie, but these were the power guys. He couldn't tell them how tenuous his relationship with Caryn was, or the reason behind it. They would…scoff? Advise him to
just do what he wanted to do, that Kevin would come around eventually? He didn't want that. He wanted Kevin to come around first, he thought, as Sergeant Hal Bodine walked in and set a folder on the table in front of James. He remained standing. Pushing fifty, James decided, and in top physical form.

“I remember everything about this one,” Bodine said. “I only brought the file to show you the photos. The kid, the son of the victim, kept coming in and cornering me to keep looking for different answers.”

James dragged the open file close, angling it so that Sam and Nate could see it, too. They flipped through the photos. He winced. “Kevin, the son, he didn't see these, did he?”

Bodine stared at James. “No.”

They read and talked about the report—how it had been raining, how a cement truck had dumped a load the day before right on that curve. “I figured Brenley started into a slide and never righted it. There was still some gravel and sand on the road from the cement truck. It was wet.”

“Could it have been hit-and-run?” Sam asked.

Bodine gave an exhausted sigh, as if giving a stock speech he'd given a dozen times before. “There's not as much evidence with bikes as with cars. But we can still put facts together. The majority of the damage was on the left side of the bike, as you can see. He slipped and never recovered, went over the embankment.”

“Did you
look
for hit-and-run?” James asked.

“I
looked
for everything.”

“I wasn't insulting you, Sergeant,” James said. “I need to lay this to rest for the son.”

“The kid came to see me, five maybe six times. What am I supposed to tell him? He says how his father knows
that road, every inch of it. That he's a careful man. Well, I know that road, too, and I've almost lost it on that curve myself a few times. There is no evidence to indicate foul play. It could've been a hit-and-run, intentional or otherwise, but I don't think so. I found absolutely nothing to indicate otherwise.”

“Does anything indicate he applied the brakes?” James asked.

Bodine raised his brows. “Are you saying this could be self-inflicted? Intentional on Brenley's part?”

“I'm asking, not saying.”

The sergeant scratched his cheek, then he flipped through the photos until he came to the one he wanted. “No skid marks, but the road was wet,” he reminded them. “And personally if I was gonna take my last ride, it wouldn't be here. It'd be a mile up the road. If Brenley knew the road as good as the kid said he did, he'd know that, too.”

James nodded.

“Do you think the boy will rest now?” Bodine asked. “I've got a kid about that age. I kept wanting to hug him. He was struggling for answers.”

“I'll do my best to convince him,” James said, standing and extending his hand. “Thanks a lot.”

“What next?” Sam asked when they left the building.

He thought about Caryn, who was going about her life, being patient, he hoped. And he thought about Kevin, probably still ticked off—as if he needed more fuel to dislike James. And he thought about Venus, whom he'd decided was as much a victim as Caryn and Kevin.

What next?

He didn't have a doubt in his mind.

 

James got the last flight back to San Francisco that night, the longest Sunday of his life. He should just go home, fall into bed, and sleep until he'd had enough, even if he didn't get up until noon. He couldn't see Caryn and Kevin until after three o'clock, anyway.

He glanced at his dashboard clock as he pulled onto Highway 101, leaving the airport. Almost midnight. He wanted to see Caryn, talk to her, tell her what they decided to do. He could've told her over the phone, but he needed to tell her in person, because
he
needed to be with her.

His cell phone rang, and he knew it was her without even looking at the screen. “Mysterious.”

A pause, then, “How'd you guess it was me?”

“Just lucky.” Her voice flowed through him like liquid fire. Even though he'd been sure nothing would happen while he was gone, a part of him worried anyway, as a man does about a woman he…loves. His heart slammed against his sternum. “How are you?”

“Fine. Not sleepy, though. Could you come over?”

“Kevin—”

“Went to sleep a couple of hours ago. He sleeps like the dead. I just…I just want to talk. I can't wait until tomorrow.”

And he wanted to hold her, kiss her, sleep beside her. That's all. Just sleep. He didn't have that right. Would never have that right.

“Please,” she added.

He should take his moments while he could, he supposed. What difference would it make in the long run? “Okay. I'm about twenty minutes out.”

“I'll be watching for you. You won't have to knock.”

“See you soon,” he said, knowing he was just opening
himself up to heartache, but also knowing he couldn't live his life any other way. His son and his son's mother would come first. Now and always.

 

“What can I get you?” Caryn asked after James eased out a kitchen chair and sat at the table. “Have you had dinner?”

“Hamburger at the airport. What I'd really like is hot chocolate.”

“Comfort food?” she asked, studying him. He hadn't attempted to hug her since he'd arrived. She was so tired of waiting to hear what happened. He'd put her off twice during the day, with flimsy excuses. No more excuses now.

“It's been a long day,” he said.

She grabbed milk and a pan, then the box of powdered cocoa. No microwaved stuff, no watered-down cocoa, but the old-fashioned kind. Besides it gave her something to do—stir the milk so it wouldn't scorch, keep herself busy. She kept her back to him, waiting for him to set the pace and give her the facts, but her pulse thundered with expectation.
Tell me, tell me, tell me.

“It was an accident, Caryn.”

She dropped the spoon to the floor, pressed her hands to her mouth. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

She hadn't heard him move, but he was there, behind her. She turned and fell into him. His arms came around her and tightened, in comfort and sympathy and celebration of an agony shattered. She could pick up the pieces and put them back together in a new arrangement, a happier one. She had James to thank for that.

He tucked her face against his neck. She hadn't known how much it had weighed on her until the weight was
lifted. Everything let loose at once—the anger and shame, gone. Grief transitioned into a gentler emotion with good memories attached instead of the horrible ones. She could remember Paul with love now.

After a while she stepped back and grabbed a tissue. James picked up the spoon from the floor, got another one out of a drawer and stirred. She leaned over and sniffed the concoction. It didn't seem to have scorched. “Where do we go from here?” She gave her cheeks one more swipe with the tissue and tucked it in her pocket.

“You want to hear my plan?”

The twinkle in his eye alerted her that she was about to be fed a line.

“I figure we need to close this out now, before anything else happens. How about a plan to have Venus tell her brother that she's turning state's evidence.” His look was mock serious. “He'll come rushing up from L.A., intending to take her home, get her out of sight. But I'll be hiding out at her place, instead, and
grab
him. Then I'll hold him hostage for the five hundred grand—that's counting interest—he owes you. When he's turned over the money, he'll be free to go.”

She grinned at the ridiculousness of his idea, grateful he'd chosen to change the mood so drastically. He always seemed attuned to her needs.

“You won't give him the option of turning himself in?”

“To the police?”

“No, to the tooth fairy.”

He managed not to smile. “Somehow I don't see him turning himself in. Better to take him down and do it myself.”

“You're not calling in the cops?”

“They'd just mess things up. They always do on TV.”

“Can I help?”

“I don't see why not.” He turned the heat off from under the pan. “Got a couple of mugs?”

She pulled two from the cupboard and set them down.

“What was that?” James asked suddenly, turning toward the kitchen door.

“What?”

“That sound.”

“Um, I just put the mugs on the counter.”

“No.” He abandoned the pan and walked into the living room, then over to the stairs.

She followed. “I didn't hear anything.” After a minute they returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, opposite each other. The cocoa was warm and sweet. Her cares were lifted. Life was good, she thought. “So, what's the
real
plan?” she asked.

“You didn't like that one?” he asked, with the same twinkle.

“Well, I hope you're going to let the legal system do their job.” If James was contemplating even for a moment the idea of going after Johnson, she'd find a way to kidnap him herself, just to keep James safe.

“Why do you hope that?”

“Because I believe in the system.”

“Even though you didn't contact the police yourself about the extortion?”

“Because I didn't. I learned. We've got enough evidence, right?”

“Maybe. Depends on his lawyers. I have to be honest, you may not see the money. Even if he's convicted, he probably won't pay up. It's hard to say.”

“I have everything I need, Jamey.”

He cocked his head at her. “That's a change from this morning, when you said you wanted your money back.”

“I've had time to think, and to get my priorities back in alignment. Sure it would be wonderful to have the money, but it's not what counts the most.”

“What does count?”

“Home, family, good food, friends, world peace.” She smiled.

“You are one of a kind.” He leaned across the table and kissed her, her mouth warm and chocolatey.

“I need to go to bed,” he said. “I'll call Kevin before he heads to school and set up a time to meet with both of you around three-thirty. Unless you want me to talk to him alone.”

“Would you be telling him anything you haven't told me?”

“No.”

“Then feel free to talk to him early in the morning. I'm sure he'll be calling you if you don't call him, anyway.”

He took her hand and walked with her to the top of stairs. “Don't come down with me,” he said.

“I have to. I need to turn the dead bolt after you go.”

At the bottom of the stairs she waited for a kiss. Instead he cupped her face with one hand, brushed his thumb along her cheek, then left.

She locked the door and leaned against it. She didn't know how long it would take before Johnson could be arrested. Days, maybe. Weeks, even. A case would have to be built. They would have to live in limbo until then, but at least some of her questions were answered.

And now there was a big one ahead. What will happen between her and James? She couldn't begin to guess. All she knew for sure was that, as crazy as it seemed, she'd fallen in love with him.