Sins of the Flesh (28 page)

Mick tensed beside her. “Sounds like you’re warning me off,
hermanita
.”

“Just being realistic ’cause I know you, bro. You brought home strays and saved the day, but this is a situation where you may not be able to make it better.”

A muscle twitched along the hard line of Mick’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. “Duly noted. When can I take her home?”

Liliana glanced at her watch. “To be most effective, I’d like to let this run for at least another hour and a half.”

“You’re on duty, right?” he said and she couldn’t fail to grasp his real meaning.

“You want me gone,” she said, wondering if it was because he was angry with her about her comments.

Mick must have sensed her concern because he explained his request. “The less you’re involved here, the better.”

It might be a little too late to curtail her involvement, but Liliana understood his apprehension. “Call me on the cell if you need me. Otherwise I’ll be back to help you get Caterina home.”

He hugged her hard and whispered, “Don’t worry about me, Liliana. I know what I’m doing.”

She embraced him and as always, marveled at the sense of safety and strength she felt in his arms. He had always been the protector in the family. Always the hero who had come through for them.

It was why he deserved some happiness in his life.

She pulled away from him and looked at Caterina as she lay on the gurney. She knew there might not be a happy ending there.

She only hoped her brother was wise enough to realize it as well, before it was too late.

M
ick had managed to get Caterina home in the late morning with little fanfare.

She now lay tucked in bed, resting. Calls to Ramon and Franklin had yielded only the reassurance that nothing was happening. Yet.

He dialed his parents’ number and his mother answered.

“
Hola, mi’jito
. How is your
amiga
?”

“She’s doing fine,
mami
.” He hesitated, unsure of just how to broach his request, but then plowed ahead. “I need to ask a favor,
mami
.”

“Of course,
mi’jito
. What can I do? A nice
sopa de pollo
? Or maybe some
arroz con leche
to sit easy on her stomach,” she offered.

He smiled. His mother always thought the world’s problems could be cured with the right dish of food. “Actually,
mami
, I need you,
papi
, and Tony to close the restaurant for a few days. Maybe take a vacation somewhere. I’ll pay for it.”

“Close the restaurant?” Her disbelief escalated with each word, as if he had just asked her to shut down the Pentagon.

“It’s important,
mami
, or I wouldn’t ask.”

“
Pero, mi’jito
, we can’t just shut down. What about our employees and our customers? What about Tony’s classes—”

“You take vacations,
mami
. You visited
abuelita
last year, remember?” he chided, wishing that his mother wasn’t turning such a simple request into a battle. He didn’t want to tell her the real reason for the request. That would only create more of a problem.

A long silence filled the line before his mother said, “Is it that important,
mi’jo
?”

“It is and don’t ask me why.
Por favor
. Just close up as soon as you can and—”

“We’ll do it, but if you need us—”

“If I need you, I’ll call,
mami
,” he finished, eager to have them out of harm’s way.

“Mi’jo
…
cuida tu corazon
.
”

“Don’t worry about my heart. It’ll be fine,” he said and bid his mother goodbye again.

He leaned back in his chair, considered both his mother’s and Liliana’s warnings. Decided to ignore them. He didn’t know what was happening with Caterina, but he knew he had to see it to its conclusion.

He flew out of the chair and went to the guest room.

Caterina was curled up on her side, seemingly asleep, but as Mick took the first step into the room, she opened her eyes. He sat on the edge of the chair, his elbows resting on his knees. Fingers laced together as his hands hung loosely before him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Much better.”

In truth, he probably hadn’t needed to ask. The skin on
her face no longer had the flushed fever look and her voice was strong.

“I heard what Liliana said to you. She’s right, you know. This may be a lose-lose situation.”

Anger rose sharply in him. “You didn’t strike me as a quitter.”

She sat up, holding the sheet against her body to hide her nakedness. “Just being realistic, Mick.”

He leaned forward and cupped her cheek. The skin was smooth, the temperature of it sleep-warm. He met her gaze and caressed the line of her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Why don’t you let me decide what’s realistic?”

Caterina laughed harshly and shook her head. “I never liked it when my dad made decisions for me. What makes you think—”

He leaned forward and silenced her with a kiss. Kept on kissing her until she dropped her hold on the sheet and brought her hands up to his shoulders.

By the time they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily.

Mick laid his forehead against hers and said, “That’s what makes me think this is worth a try. This feeling that I can’t just ignore.”

When his gaze met hers, the blue of her eyes was as dark as the ocean at night and shimmering with unshed tears.

“Come to bed. You need to rest,” she said.

He nodded and toed off his shoes, but slipped in beside her fully clothed, unwilling to waste even a moment before he was next to her.

Enveloping her in his arms, he pulled her tight to him until every inch of their bodies was pressed together. Her
heart beat against his, strong and steady. Her head was tucked beneath his chin, the silk of her hair soft beneath his cheek. The warmth of her breath spilled against his throat.

A sense of homecoming he had not experienced with any other woman calmed his warrior’s restless soul. Peace filled his heart.

Much as he had battled for country and family, he knew as he held her that he would fight for her.

For them.

And this was one battle he did not intend to lose.

Caterina woke him with the gentle whisper of her lips against his. Invited him to join with her.

“Are you sure?” Mick asked, his voice husky from sleep.

“I’m sure,” she replied. So that there would be no doubt about it, she grabbed the hem of the T-shirt he wore and made short work of pulling it off his body.

She pressed against him, warm skin against skin. The hard tips of her breasts brushing the smooth flesh of his chest as they kissed over and over. Beside the soft flatness of her belly, his erection jerked to life and began to harden.

Laying her hand over him, she caressed the shape of him beneath the denim and he groaned into her mouth, reached down and undid his jeans.

The hard length of him sprang forward and she encircled him with one hand, stroking him. Urging him onward as he cupped her breasts and teased her nipples with his hands, drawing a pleased sigh from her.

“Make love to me,” he said and sat up against the headboard.
He urged her over him with the gentle grasp of her hips and she needed no further invitation.

She held onto Mick’s shoulders and sank down onto him, gasping as the length and width of him filled her. As the comfort of his arms surrounded her and drew her near until she was tight against his chest.

She couldn’t move, overwhelmed as she was by the sense of unity in his arms. With her possession of him.

She sucked in another rough breath and trembled in his arms, but his body echoed the movement with a sympathetic shudder.

“When I’m with you… it’s like my soul is filled with music,” she said. He cradled her face in his hands and tenderly brushed his lips across hers before moving them to her cheeks and then to her forehead.

“It’s special for me, too,” he whispered, the words so soft she thought she might have imagined them until she met his gaze and it confirmed his sentiment.

“Very special,” she responded, earning a smile from him which she kissed, memorizing the feel of it against her lips as a talisman for what would be the hard days to come.

He returned the kiss and then she moved on him, offering herself up to him. Accepting what he offered in return.

As a climax ripped through her and pulled him along to his own release, she held him close and realized there was no lose-lose in his arms.

Caterina vowed to battle beside him so that she might have more time to spend with him. She’d waited too long to find something as fulfilling as this was with him and she wasn’t about to give it up now without a fight.

F
orty hours to go, Mad Dog thought as he drove east on the expressway. Bradley Beach was less than two hours away from the hotel in Philly where he had set up his base camp. The town wasn’t far off the Garden State Parkway. It consisted of a quaint Main Street lined with bakeries, restaurants, and the occasional ice cream parlor.

The library was a few blocks off Main in a redbrick building on a well-maintained plot of land. The walk to the large wooden doors situated beneath an ornate portico was lined with deep green low-growing plants. He parked around the corner from the library on a quiet residential street, walked to the library, and entered.

A perky young teenager manned the checkout desk inside. He didn’t approach at first, scoping out the interior of the library and the number of patrons within.

You never knew when you’d have to start shooting.

Satisfied that no one presented an immediate threat, he approached the teen, eliciting a cheery reaction from her.

“May I help you?” she asked as she stamped a date onto a card and slipped it into a sleeve in a book that she returned to the patron by the desk.

“I have an old friend in the area, but can’t remember
how to spell his last name, so I can get an address for him. I know he attended the local high school and I was hoping you would have some yearbooks I could search.”

“What year was he? Maybe I know him?” she said, but Mad Dog shook his head.

“He’s a lot older, but he had a younger brother not much older than you—Antonio Carrera,” he advised, and the young girl’s tweezed eyebrows narrowed as she mulled over the name.

“Sounds familiar, but I can’t say I know him. Maybe Bill would, though. He’s been around forever.”

She walked to a wall at the back of the desk area and then around behind it. He heard the murmur of voices and seconds later the young woman returned with an older man in tow who had an ex-military look.

He wore a dark blue security guard’s uniform and was brushing off some crumbs from it, probably because the young girl had interrupted him during a break.

The man could be a problem, he thought, but kept a neutral look on his face.

The security guard eyeballed him up and down before asking, “What can I do for you?”

“Looking for an old Army buddy. Last name is Carrera.”

Mad Dog noticed the
Semper Fi
tattoo on the older man’s forearm. The ex-Marine squinted at him and then shot him a curious look once again. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, sir,” he answered with military precision. “From the Boston area, sir. Just came to win some money down in Atlantic City, but figured I’d drop by to see my friend.”

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, the grizzled
ex-Marine motioned with a gnarled finger toward the back of the library.

“Phone books, yearbooks, and Little League directories are all in the reference area. You might find what you need back there.”

He thanked the man and headed to the back, where another helpful librarian handed him a couple of yearbooks based on the dates Mad Dog had found for Antonio Carrera. He hit paydirt in the second yearbook, which had a picture of Antonio in his suit and tie. The young man was a dead ringer for his old friend Mick. Probably a younger brother.

As he flipped through the pages of the yearbook, he realized that Antonio had been on not only the lacrosse and football teams, but also the baseball team.