The Marriage Profile (11 page)

Justin closed his eyes, tried to make his mind go blank. Yet despite the fact that he'd put in a long day and had spent a good portion of the night sating his passions with Angela, sleep continued to elude him. After ten minutes he opened his eyes and admitted it wasn't going to happen. While his body craved rest, his mind refused to shut down. Probably because for the first time in a long time, he was thinking about the future. A future that went beyond his job and family.

Who was he kidding? He was thinking about a future with Angela.

Surprisingly the admission didn't disturb him nearly as much as he'd thought it would. What did disturb him was the fact that he had a great deal going on right now, with the rumblings within the Mercado crime family since Del Brio had replaced Carmine, the open murder investigation of Carl Bridges, the kidnapped baby, the potential ramifi
cations if Haley Mercado really was alive and that missing child belonged to her.

While he had made light of Angela's theory that Haley was the woman Luke had slept with and the mother of the missing baby, he was almost sure it was true. With any luck, he'd be able to confirm those suspicions soon enough. He should tell Angela. He wanted to tell Angela. And he hadn't told her because of Ricky, he admitted.

Justin grimaced. He didn't like the hotheaded Italian, had never gotten along with the man. Perhaps Hawk had been right that it was his own jealousy of Ricky's relationship with Angela that was at the core of that friction. Ricky had known Angela longer than he had, and Angela was fiercely loyal to the other man. Which meant that he couldn't put her in the middle. She would want to tell Ricky, and he couldn't afford for Ricky to know—not without putting a lot of innocent people at risk.

He looked down at the woman sleeping in his arms, felt a fist tighten around his heart. Somehow he would have to work with her to find the child without sharing full information. Angela wouldn't be happy about it when she learned he'd held out on her. But it wouldn't stop her from doing her job. It couldn't stop him from doing his, either. They would find the little girl, he vowed. He refused to believe otherwise. But once her job was done, would Angela want to stay? Suddenly the thought of her leaving rent a hole the size of Texas in his gut.

So he would have to convince her to stay. While he didn't delude himself into thinking that the mind-blowing sex meant Angela was looking for a reconciliation, he knew her well enough to know that she'd never have slept with him unless her feelings were involved. It was a start, he reasoned, and breathed a little easier.

Staring up at the ceiling, he ran his fingers up and down
her spine and considered the obstacles that lay ahead. Eventually, they would have to talk. He'd do his best to put to rest her concerns about the children issue. There was always adoption, and if that didn't appeal to her, he'd be content being an uncle. Rose and Matt Carson had already provided him with one nephew. Between his sister Susan's marriage to Michael O'Day and Hawk's marriage to Jenny, he figured it probably wouldn't be too long before he had another nephew or niece to spoil, as well.

Justin smiled at the idea of a horde of little ones racing around the ranch calling for their uncle Justin. The smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come as he realized that the logistics of his and Angela's jobs was something else that they would have to work out. Despite all the headaches that came with being sheriff, he enjoyed his work. He liked the feeling that he was giving something back to the community he'd grown up in by keeping the county safe. It was home. His family was here. He'd been born in Lone Star County, and it was where he'd expected to die someday. But Angela didn't have those same ties. Her career hadn't taken off until she'd gone to San Antonio. Would she be willing to give it up to move back here with him? What if she wasn't? His arms tightened around her. Would he leave Mission Creek to be with her? As much as he hated the idea of leaving, he hated the idea of staying and being without her even more.

“What is it?” Angela mumbled sleepily. She lifted her head slightly, her eyes all fuzzy with sleep. “Is it time to get up already?”

“No. It's not time to get up,” Justin murmured, and loosened his hold slightly. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”

Her head drooped down to his chest again. Within moments, she was once more fast asleep. He was a long way
from being faced with the decision of where he would live, Justin admitted as he lay there with Angela in his arms. He watched her sleep, wished sleep would come as easily for him.

Sleep did come for him finally shortly before dawn—but only after he'd formulated a plan.

 

Justin put his plan into action early the next morning. Or at least he tried to, greeting Angela with a kiss. She draped her arms around his neck, nuzzled close and was well on her way to going back to sleep when he said, “Come on, sleeping beauty. Time to get up.”

“It's still early,” she whined, and didn't even bother to open her eyes.

“It's already after six.”

“In the morning?” she said with a groan.

Justin laughed. One more thing about her that hadn't changed. His Angela still wasn't a morning person. “Yeah, in the morning.”

“It can't be,” she countered. “We just went to sleep. Come back to bed.”

“As enticing as that offer is, I'm afraid I'll need to take a rain check. How about some breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” She opened her eyes, pushed up to her elbows and sniffed. “You fixed me breakfast?”

“You should sound surprised. It was obvious from the contents of your refrigerator and pantry that you still consider chips, salsa, ice cream and chocolate the four basic food groups.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “So what did you fix?”

Justin retrieved the tray from the dresser and lifted the napkin he'd used as a cover to reveal a cheese omelet, toast and a pot of coffee.

Angela's face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning.
“Give me two seconds,” she told him and scrambled out of bed, affording him a lovely view of her bare backside before disappearing into the bathroom.

To his disappointment, she was wrapped in a white terry-cloth robe when she exited the bathroom a few minutes later. And she didn't bother removing it before she climbed back into the bed. “This looks great,” she told him, and reached for the coffee first. She took a sip, leaned back against the pillows he'd piled up against the headboard and sighed.

“Eat,” Justin told her, and held out a slice of buttered toast.

She took a bite, sighed again and closed her eyes as she chewed it. He followed with a forkful of eggs and another bite of toast, alternating until between the two of them they'd polished off the meal.

“Hmm. That was wonderful,” she said. “I haven't had breakfast in bed since that time we went to New Orleans for the weekend when we—” She fell silent a moment. The smile slipped from her lips. “When we spent that weekend in New Orleans.”

Where they had gone with the intention of getting pregnant, Justin finished in silence. They'd been married for six months and had thought having a baby would be easy. So he'd booked the romantic getaway for them, liking the idea of conceiving their first child in the sultry city. They'd stayed in a ritzy French Quarter hotel, and on their last morning there after a night filled with lovemaking, they had ordered breakfast sent to the room. They'd fed each other buttery croissants, fresh berries dipped in cream and an assortment of decadent pastries in bed. And when they'd finished the meal, they had made love again. From the expression on her face, Justin suspected that Angela was remembering that morning, too.

The smile she gave him was overbright. So was her quipped “Thanks for the room service. If you ever decide to give up law enforcement, you'll have no trouble making it as a chef. Breakfast was excellent.”

“Glad you think so,” he told her. “But it isn't over yet.”

“No?”

“No. It comes with dessert.”

She arched one dark brow questioningly. “After breakfast?”

“It's the best time.” He took the tray, brought it over to the dresser and then returned to stand beside the bed. Never taking his eyes from her, he stripped off his jeans and joined her on the bed.

Justin kissed her. She tasted of coffee and butter and Angela. Determined to wipe away the haunted look that had crept into her eyes a few moments ago, he kissed her slowly, tenderly, lovingly. And when he lifted his head, he was relieved to see her eyes were all dreamy now, her mouth pink and warm and wet from his kisses.

He wanted to make a new memory for her, one to wipe away the sad one that had stolen its way into their morning. Reaching for the belt of her robe, he untied it and parted the folds. It was like opening a present, he thought as he took in the sight of her body. All that pale, silky skin, the gentle curves, the long limbs. He filled his palms with her breasts, brushed his thumbs over the dusky tips. Desire coiled hot and fast in his gut. It had only been a few hours since they'd made love last, but already he wanted her again. With a herculean effort, Justin reined in the hunger that rushed through his veins like a whirlpool.

He kissed his way down the slope of her hips, across her waistline to her belly. He circled her navel with his tongue, smiled at the sound of her breath hitching and
moved lower. He parted her thighs. Taking his time, he kissed the inside of one thigh and then the other. With each touch, each stroke, she trembled. So did he.

When he kissed her at her center, she lifted her hips, curled her fingers into the sheets. He stroked her with his tongue and she cried out, “Justin!”

“Don't fight it, Angel. Take it,” he urged her, and continued to make love to her with his mouth. She reminded him of a pagan goddess. All pale skin, midnight hair and those ghost-blue eyes glazed with passion. Sweat pooled between his shoulder blades with the effort it took to hold himself back, determined that he not take his release before she'd taken hers.

“Justin, please, I—”

She arched her back, and Justin gripped her hips to hold her as the first spasms took her. And when she called out for him again, he moved between her thighs and entered her. Justin groaned. Every muscle in his body went taut as he sheathed himself inside her. Angela locked her legs around him, lifted her hips, and the storm inside Justin broke. And as the white-hot sensations splintered around him, he heard Angela shout and he followed her over the cliff.

 

From inside the neighboring condo occupied by the newlyweds, the woman who posed as a new wife pulled back a curtain and looked over toward Angela's condo. “Hi, honey, it's me checking in as requested.”

“Funny, Harte. Real funny,” Sean Collins, the FBI agent in charge who'd posed as her husband, fired back. “What's happening over there?”

“Wainwright's truck is still parked outside the Mason woman's place. So my guess is he spent the night.”

“Any sign of Ricky Mercado?”

“No,” Annabelle Harte told him. “Just the sheriff.”

“What about the phone tap? Any calls to Mercado?”

“Not unless she used her cell phone,” Annabelle replied. “The only call she made from her place last night was to the sheriff at his home, and that wasn't until after eleven o'clock. She was all excited about some picture she had that she said might be where the little girl is being held.”

“All right. Keep her under surveillance, and let me know if she hooks up with Mercado. I'll have our man on the inside keep an eye on the sheriff.”

“Collins?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think there's anything to what the reports said about her being psychic?”

“Damned if I know.”

“If she is and really does know where the little girl is,” Annabelle began, “maybe I should see if I can get a look at that picture.”

“Forget it. With the Mason woman so friendly with the Mercados and obviously sleeping with the county's sheriff, I've got more than enough to worry about right now,” Collins told her. “The last thing I need is for you to go sneaking around her place and get caught and jeopardize this entire operation.”

“I've got news for you, ace, I wouldn't get caught.”

“I mean it, Harte. Keep out of the Mason woman's condo.”

“D
amn!”

Feeling lazy and content, it took Angela a moment to register the reason Justin was rolling out of bed swearing. Then she heard it, the annoying and incessant sound of a beeper. Since she refused to use one, she knew it was Justin's.

He scrambled around on the floor in search of his clothes, snagged his jeans and shut off the noisemaker. Enjoying the view of him naked, she felt her pleasure dim when she saw the frown on his face. “Problem?”

“I don't know. I need to make a call,” he said, and began pulling on his jeans.

“You can use my phone,” she told him, indicating the one on the night table.

“Thanks, but I'd better make it downstairs.”

Once Justin left the room, Angela grabbed her robe and headed for the bathroom, intent on getting her own show on the road. She'd barely had time to brush her teeth when she heard him running back up the stairs. “Is anything wrong?” she asked, exiting the bathroom.

“Nothing major, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you with the dishes.”

“Don't worry about the dishes. They can wait,” she told him. “I'm probably going to need about fifteen minutes. Do you want me to meet you at your office or should we hook up somewhere else?”

Justin slid on one boot and then the other and stood. “Actually I'm not sure how long I'll be. There's a good chance I'm going to be tied up for most of the day.”

“I see,” she said, disappointed and suddenly a little worried that maybe she had misread things last night. While making love with her didn't necessarily mean that Justin loved her as she loved him, she had felt that they had connected last night on some almost spiritual level in a way that they never had before. She'd actually hoped it might be a new beginning for them.

Evidently reading something in her expression, he went to her, tipped up her chin and brushed a kiss across her lips. “I'm sorry to rush off on you like this.”

“I understand,” she said, and she did, but it didn't stop her from feeling disappointed and unsettled.

“Come on, Angel. Don't look at me like that. If I could stay, I would.”

“I said I understood,” she repeated, not sure what to make of his seeming agitation. “I guess I'll just talk to you later.”

“Wait,” Justin said when she started to turn away. He sighed, raked a hand through his hair. “That call I had to make was to Dylan Bridges. I've been trying to see him for nearly a week, and he just got back into town late last night. I'm meeting him in an hour.”

“He's Judge Bridges's son, isn't he? The one who got in some kind of trouble and left Mission Creek a long time ago. I heard he's now some kind of investor.”

“Yeah. Only Dylan is more than an investor. He's worth millions. And he lives in Mission Creek now. He and the judge patched things up and he moved back just before Carl was killed.”

“Carl Bridges is dead?”

“Yeah. He was killed about ten months ago. The lowlife
scum who pulled the trigger is in prison, but I think Frank Del Brio is the person who ordered the hit. But so far, I haven't been able to tie it to him.”

“Is that what you're meeting with Dylan about?” she asked.

“Dylan allowed me access to his father's business files, and I discovered that for the past couple of years and right up until his death the judge was in contact with a woman working as a graphic artist in London who went by the last name of Joseph. If you're right, and Haley Mercado is alive, it's possible that this Ms. Joseph is Haley.”

Stunned by the information and excited by the possible link, Angela sat down on the corner of the bed. “Then we need to contact her at once and—”

“She's gone. It seems she and her infant daughter vanished and left no forwarding address.”

Angela jerked her gaze up to Justin's at the mention of the baby. “It's her, Justin. I know it is.”

“I think so, too. It certainly would explain a lot of things.” At her questioning look, he said, “Carl Bridges stepped down from the bench to represent Luke Callaghan and his friends when they were charged with Haley's death. When they were acquitted of the charges, Del Brio swore that he'd make all of them pay for his loss. The guy's a loose canon. If he found out that Haley was alive and had somehow faked her own death, he wouldn't rest until he got back what he believed was rightfully his. And the best way to do that is to get rid of the person helping her.”

“Carl Bridges,” Angela replied.

“Exactly. Del Brio wouldn't think twice about putting a contract out on him.”

“But the baby?”

“If this Joseph woman is Haley, she'd know her baby
was in danger. You said yourself that she'd probably left the baby on the golf course with the note for Luke so that he could protect the child.”

“Only Luke's name became smeared on the note and Luke wasn't there to take the baby,” Angela added.

“Exactly.”

“And if we've figured it out, chances are so has Del Brio.”

“Yes,” Justin replied. “If he did, there's a good chance he did kidnap the little girl and is trying to use her to smoke Haley out. That's why I'm going to see Dylan, to see if he knows anything at all about this Joseph woman, or if he's come across anything about her in his father's personal papers that might lead me to her.”

“You mean lead us,” Angela corrected him. “I'm coming with you. Just give me time to throw on some clothes.”

Justin caught her by the shoulders. “I'm sorry. I can't let you come. I need to see Dylan alone.”

“But—”

“You said yourself this is a small town. People think you're here to help find that missing little girl. You go with me to see Dylan Bridges and they'll wonder why. I don't want Del Brio or anyone else involved to realize we might have put the pieces together. All that will do is put little Lena in greater danger than she already is.”

While she could understand and even agree to Justin's line of thinking, she didn't like it. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “I guess you're right. But you'll let me know what you find out?”

“Yes,” he told her, and kissed the tip of her nose. “I've got to go. I'll give you a call later.”

“Justin, what about the ranch? The place in my sketch?”

He paused at the door. “Like I said last night, it isn't
going to be easy to find it. There are a lot of places that fit that description.”

“We can find it,” Angela insisted. “I know we can.”

“All right. But it'll have to wait. After I meet with Dylan, I've got to swing by the office. But as soon as I'm free, I'll pick up some maps and then we'll see where it leads us.”

“But—”

Too late, he was already racing down the stairs. Angela walked over to the window and watched Justin's truck pull off. The problem was that she'd never been good at waiting, Angela admitted as she grabbed a pair of jeans and a blouse from her closet and headed for the bathroom to shower and get dressed.

 

“After your visit this morning I went through the files and personal papers my father kept at home,” Dylan Bridges told Justin at the sheriff's office later that day. “It took me quite a while to go through all the boxes. You wouldn't believe all the stuff he had, some of it more than thirty years old.”

Justin couldn't help think of all the years lost between Dylan and his father because of their estrangement, and with Carl Bridges dead, there would be no years for them to share in the future. He thought of his own situation and the years he'd missed out on having Hawk as a brother. It also made him realize that he'd lost the last five years with Angela, as well. While they still had to work things out, after last night surely she would see that they belonged together.

“He had letters from people he defended when he was practicing law, notes from students he'd helped when he was teaching at the university, cards from families whose
relatives came into his courtroom to thank him for his help.”

“Your father was a good man and he had a lot of friends in Lone Star County. He touched a lot of people's lives,” Justin told him.

“Yes, he did,” Dylan told him. “More than I'd realized.”

“I gave you my word that I'd find the person who had him killed. I intend to keep that promise.”

“And I intend to hold you to it.”

Justin nodded. “Those the files I asked for?”

Dylan stood, then picked up the box he'd placed on the floor upon entering the office and handed it to Justin. The thing was stuffed full of folders with legal documents and correspondence. “It's everything I could find regarding the Mercados. There's also a couple of letters in there from Isadora Mercado that date back to when she must have been in her teens. It's funny, all these years and I never knew my father had been in love with her. I mean, I knew they'd been friends all their lives, but I hadn't realized until I read her letters that he'd wanted to marry her.”

“I'm sure your dad was happy with your mother,” Justin said, wanting to console Dylan as best he could. He knew from his own father's affair with Hawk's mother how complicated and unsettling it was to see one's parents in a different light.

“Oh, I know that,” Dylan replied. “It's just there's so many things about him that I never knew and should have known. Maybe if I had come back and tried to work things out with him sooner—”

Justin clamped a hand on Dylan's shoulder. “The important thing is that you did come back and you patched things up before he was killed.”

“Yeah,” Dylan said. “I guess there's some comfort in that.”

Justin wished he could offer him something more, but already he could feel the clock ticking. “So what did you find?”

“Well, I checked on my dad's computer like you asked me to for any e-mail correspondence with this Joseph woman in London.”

“And?” Justin asked, anxious for any lead that might conclusively link the woman in London to Haley Mercado.

“And it looks like my dad didn't believe in saving e-mail correspondence. Either that, or he didn't trust leaving it on his computer. Except for some legal and business stuff, he deleted any personal messages he received.”

“I always knew it was a long shot,” Justin told him.

“Turns out it was a good hunch.”

Justin jerked his attention from the box of files to Dylan. “What do you mean?”

“There were several unopened e-mails to my dad from someone calling herself ‘ItalianGirl' that were dated just after he was killed.”

The moniker “ItalianGirl” definitely described Haley, Justin conceded. “And?”

“And all of them asked if something had happened to him. Why he wasn't answering her e-mails. The sender was obviously worried about him.”

“Did you get a return address on the sender?” Justin asked.

“Yeah, but it's no good. I tried sending a message and it bounced back.”

“Damn!” He had hoped that if this Joseph woman was Haley he'd be able to track her through an e-mail address.

“But what I did manage to do was tap into my dad's hard drive and restore the last message he sent the day he
was killed.” Dylan removed a sheet of paper from inside his jacket pocket and handed it to Justin.

Justin unfolded the paper, and sitting back down in his chair, he quickly scanned the note Carl Bridges had sent.

“You think it's her? Haley Mercado?” Dylan asked.

Justin looked across his desk at the other man. “Yeah, I do. And after reading this, I'm sure that Lena is Haley's daughter. It all makes sense now,” Justin said as all the
pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Before Haley's supposed death, she was engaged to Frank Del Brio.”

“The mob guy you think was behind my father's murder?”

“One and the same. The rumor on the street was that Haley wasn't happy about her engagement to Frank. Faking her death in that boating accident gave her a way out. But to pull it off, she would have needed help from someone who knew the ins and outs of the legal system. Someone who would not only help her, but whom she could trust to keep her secret.”

“And my father fit both criteria,” Dylan supplied.

Justin nodded. “Because of his affection for her mother, Haley would have felt she could trust him. And as a lawyer and a judge, your dad would have known what would be needed in the way of evidence to convince everyone that Haley was dead. He'd also have had the connections to get her out of the country and set her up with a new identity.”

“I could buy it all except for the fact that you said Luke Callaghan and his friends were charged with Haley's murder. I can't see my dad going along with having innocent men facing a prison term for a murder that he knew hadn't even been committed.”