Or I can stay with Colby when he comes back,” she added deliberately. She even smiled. “He’ll take care of me.”
His black eyes narrowed. “He can barely take care of himself,” he said flatly. “He’s a lost soul. He can’t escape the past or face the future without Maureen. He isn’t ready for a relationship with anyone else, even if he thinks he is”
She didn’t rise to the bait. “I can count on Colby. He’ll help me if I need it.”
He looked frustrated. “But you won’t let me help you.”
“Colby isn’t involved with anyone who’d be jealous of the time he spent looking out for me. That’s the difference.”
He let out an angry breath and his eyes began to glitter. “You have to beat the subject to death, I guess.”
She managed to look indifferent. “You have your own life to live, Tate. I’m not part of it anymore. You’ve made that quite clear.”
His teeth clenched. “Is it really that easy for you to throw the past away?” he asked.
“That’s what you want,” she reminded him. There was a perverse pleasure in watching his eyes narrow. “You said you’d never forget or forgive me,” she added evenly. “I took you at your word. I’ll always have fond memories of you and Leta. But I’m a grown woman. I have a career, a future. I’ve dragged you down financially for years, without knowing it. Now that I do…”
“For God’s sake!” he burst out, rising to pace with his hands clenched in his pockets. “I could have sent you to Harvard if you’d wanted to go there, and never felt the cost!
“You’re missing the point,” she said, feeling nausea rise in her throat and praying it wouldn’t overflow. “I could have worked my way through school, paid for my own apartment and expenses. I wouldn’t have minded. But you made me beholden to you in a way I can never repay.”
He stopped pacing and glared at her. “Have I asked for repayment?”
She smiled in spite of herself. “You look just like Matt when you glower that way.”
The glare got worse.
She held up a hand. “I know. You don’t want to talk about that. Sorry.”
“Everyone else wants to talk about it,” he said irritably. “I’ve done nothing but dodge reporters ever since the story broke. What a hell of a way to do it, on national television!
Everything’s fine.”
“Except that Cecily’s pregnant,” Matt Holden offered, grinning at Tate’s exasperated glare and Leta’s shocked gasp.
“What do you mean, Cecily’s pregnant?” Leta burst out. She hit her son’s arm with her open hand. She hit him again. “You hooligan, how could you! How could you?”
Tate defended himself with both arms. “How do you know it was me?” he teased.
“Who else could it be?” Leta raged. “Do you think my baby would let another man touch her? Would she jump into bed with any other man in the world except you? Are you crazy?”
Tate actually looked sheepish, and there was a new light in his eyes. Matt, after contemplating the two of them for a minute, sauntered off into the general direction of the kitchen, leaving mother and son alone together for the first time since the tempest had started.
Tate stuck his hands into his pockets and stared down at his pretty little mother. “If you haven’t finished hitting me, I think there’s a spot or two you missed,” he pointed out, touching his arm and grimacing.
She realized at once that he expected trouble and that he was used to handling deadly situations. It was the first time she’d actually seen him do it, despite their long history. It gave her a new, adult perspective on his lifestyle. No wonder he couldn’t settle down and become a family man. She’d been crazy to expect it, even in her fantasies. He was used to danger and he enjoyed the challenges it presented. It would be like housing a tiger in an apartment. She sighed as she saw the last tattered dream of a future with him going up in smoke.
Tate looked through the tiny peephole and took his hand away from the pistol. He glanced at Cecily with an expression she couldn’t define before he abruptly opened the door.
Colby Lane walked in, eyebrows raised, new scars on his face and bone weariness making new lines in it.
“Colby!” Cecily exclaimed with exaggerated delight. “Welcome home!”
Tate’s face contracted as if he’d been hit.
Colby noticed that, and smiled at Cecily. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, looking from one tense face to the other.
“No,” Tate said coolly as he reholstered his pistol. “We were discussing security options, but if you’re going to be around, they won’t be necessary.”
“What?”
“I’m fairly certain that the gambling syndicate tried to kill her,” Tate said somberly, nodding toward Cecily. “A car almost ran her down in her own parking lot. She ended up in the hospital. And decided not to tell anyone about it,” he added with a vicious glare in her direction.
“Way to go, Cecily,” Colby said glumly. “You could have ended up floating in the Potomac. I told you before I left to be careful. Didn’t you listen?”
She shot him a glare. “I’m not an idiot. I can call 911,” she said, insulted.
Colby was still staring at Tate. “You’ve cut your hair.”
“I got tired of braids,” came the short reply. “I have to get back to work. If you need me, I’ll be around.” He paused at the doorway. “Keep an eye on her,” Tate told Colby. “She takes risks.”
“I don’t need a big strong man to look out for me. I can keep myself out of trouble, thank you very much,” she informed Tate.
He gave her a long, pained last look and closed the door behind him.
As he walked down the staircase from her apartment, he couldn’t shake off the way she looked and acted. Something was definitely wrong with her, and he was going to find out what.
I won’t be responsible for helping you move someplace where you’re at risk. For one thing, Tate would kill me if anything happened to you.”
“He might maim you a little…”
“I’m not joking,” Colby said quietly. “You don’t understand how he is about you. He isn’t normal when you’re threatened, in any way.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Cecily, how do you think it would affect him if he knew you were carrying his child?”
Her heart almost jumped out of her chest. She put a hand over her slightly swollen waistline and sighed. “I don’t know. He…loves little things,” she said after a minute, smiling as she recalled Tat with a succession of her pets over the years. “He likes children, too. We always had a Christmas party at the school on the Wapiti reservation every year, and Tate would help pass out presents. The kids were crazy about him.”
“He loves children,” Colby agreed. “He’d want his own child.”
She lowered her eyes to the carpet with a sigh. “Maybe. Or maybe it would just make him feel trapped all over again.” She put her head in her hands. “It’s all such a mess,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to do.”
“In which case, you should do nothing,” Colby said firmly.
She didn’t quite meet his eyes as she smiled. “Good advice.”
Which didn’t mean she was willing to take it, she thought an hour later as she packed a suitcase. She couldn’t tell Colby her plans for fear he might tell Tate. She couldn’t tell Matt or Leta for the same reason. Her only logical solution was to get on a bus or a train or an airplane and just…vanish. So that’s what she did.
What happened to you?” she asked.
“Bullets hurt,” he said. “It missed the artificial arm by two inches, damn the marksman. I hate people who can’t shoot straight.”
“How many this time?” she asked with a smile.
“Just one,” he said. “In the shoulder. It’s much better now.” He shook his head. “I’m getting too old for this. I’ve got so many broken bones that I can’t move fast enough anymore.”
She smiled wider. “Someday you’ll find a woman who’s worth giving up the danger for.” The smile faded. “You’re like Tate. He loves his work. He probably lives on adrenaline. Funny. I never understood that before. Now suddenly everything is clear. I was living on pipe dreams.”
He sighed. “It was more than his heritage that kept him away from you,” he said. “I knew, but I couldn’t explain it to you. Work like ours demands sacrifice. Any loved one can become a hostage. Any relationship can take away the edge we need when we’re under fire. A man with something to lose isn’t a man to send on a potential suicide mission. Take your mind off the objective for one minute, and you’re dead.
Yes?” he said impatiently.
There was a pause. “You wouldn’t believe how many people I had to bribe to get this new number of yours. But I didn’t think past getting you to answer the phone,” Colby said reluctantly. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“You and Cecily are getting married,” Tate drawled sarcastically, hating the very idea of it and trying not to let it show. “I can’t say it’s any big surprise. Was there anything else?”
There was another pause. “Cecily won’t marry me.”
“Tough.” Tate wasn’t going to admit how much that admission pleased him, even if she wouldn’t answer her damned phone when he tried to call her. “So?”
Colby laughed mirthlessly. “I thought this was the right thing to do. Now, I’m not sure if it is.”
“I’m not pleading your case for you,” Tate replied. His voice was icy. Then he hesitated. His heart skipped a beat as another reason for this call occurred and chilled his blood. “Has something happened to her?” he asked immediately.
“She’s not hurt or anything,” the other man replied. “It’s just than I can’t find her. Maybe they can’t find her, either,” he continued, sounding as if he was talking to himself.
Tate had a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He broke the Internet connection on the other line and turned off the computer. “What’s up?” he asked, sounding the way he used to, when he and Colby were colleagues in the old days.
“Cecily’s done a flit,” Colby told him. “She’s gone and I can’t find her. Believe me, I’ve used every contact I could find or buy. She didn’t leave a trail.
I can’t find out anything, but I’ve put together a network. I’ll find her.”
“The thing is, she doesn’t want to be found. That isn’t going to make things any easier.”
He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “Why doesn’t she want to be found?”
“Because you’re marrying Audrey at Christmas,” Colby said simply.
“I’m not marrying Audrey,” came the sort reply. “I never meant to marry Audrey. She outflanked me while I was getting used to the idea of being a media snack.”
“Well, Cecily doesn’t know that,” Colby replied.
“Great,” he muttered. “That’s just great. I leave the country and come home to find myself engaged to a woman I wouldn’t have, at any price!”
“That’s not the only reason Cecily left,” Colby said tersely. “She knew you wouldn’t forgive her for not telling you about Matt Holden.”
Tate ran a hand through his hair, missing the former length of it. “I’ve had a rough few weeks.”
“So has she,” the other man said curtly.
“She could have told me about my mother and Holden!”
“Cecily gives her word and keeps it. There aren’t a lot of people on the planet who could make that claim. She promised the senator she wouldn’t tell you anything.”
The senator. His father. Tate paced with the phone to his ear, his mind busy with possible places she might have gone to. “She might have told my mother where she was going.”
“I’d bet good money that she didn’t,” Colby returned immediately. “She doesn’t want you to find her.”
Tate stopped pacing. He scowled. “She doesn’t want me to find her?”
“Actually, she doesn’t want any of us to find her. Especially you.”
Tate’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Any particular reason for that? Other than what I already know?”
“Oh, boy.” Colby made a rough sound in his throat. “I still don’t think I should tell you. But if something should happen to her…”
“Damn you, tell me!”
Colby took a breath and went for broke. “All right. Cecily’s pregnant. That’s why she ran.”
“You son of a bitch!”
The phone slammed down so hard that Colby shuddered at the noise. He put the receiver down with a grimace. He shouldn’t have blown Cecily’s cover. But what else could he do? She was pregnant and alone and an attempt had been made on her life. It Tate wasn’t told, and Cecily was hurt or lost the baby, he might never get over it. That went double for Tate.
Matt’s housekeeper let him in with a grimace.
“I’m harmless today,” Tate assured the woman as she led the way to where Matt Holden was standing just outside the study door.
“Right. You and two odd species of cobra,” Matt murmured sarcastically, glaring at his son from a tanned face. “What do you want, a bruise to match the other one?”
Tate held up both hands. “Don’t start,” he said.
Matt moved out of the way with reluctance and closed the study door behind them. “Your mother’s gone shopping,” he said.
“Good. I don’t want to talk to her just yet.”
Matt’s eyebrows levered up. “Oh?”
Tate dropped into the wing chair across from the senator’s bulky armchair. “I need some advice.”
Matt felt his forehead. “I didn’t think a single malt whiskey was enough to make me hallucinate,” he said to himself.
Tate glowered at him. “You’re not one of my favorite people, but you know Cecily a little better than I seem to lately.”
“Cecily loves you,” Matt said shortly, dropping into his chair.
“That’s not the problem,” Tate said. He leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely between his splayed knees. “Although I seem to have done everything in my power to make her stop.”
The older man didn’t speak for a minute or two. “Love doesn’t die that easily,” he said. “Your mother and I are a case in point. We hadn’t seen each other for thirty-six years, but the instant we met again, the years fell away. We were young again, in love again.”
“I can’t wait thirty-six years,” Tate stated. He stared at his hands, then he drew in a long breath. “Cecily’s pregnant.”
The other man was quiet for so long that Tate lifted his eyes, only to be met with barely contained rage in the older man’s face.
“Is it yours?” Matt asked curtly.
Tate glowered at him. “What kind of woman do you think Cecily is? Of course it’s mine!”
Matt chuckled. He leaned back in the easy chair and indulged the need to look at his son, to find all the differences and all the similarities in that younger version of his face. It pleased him to find so many familiar things.
“We look alike,” Tate said, reading the intent scrutiny he was getting. “Funny that I never noticed that before.”
Matt smiled. “We didn’t get along very well.”
“Both too stubborn and inflexible,” Tate pointed out.
“And arrogant.”
Tate chuckled dryly. “Maybe.
Matt was deeply touched that his estranged son would come to him for advice. He wasn’t going to let it show, of course. A man had his pride.
Diana PalmerColby’s resourceful, I’ll give him that.”
“You used to be good friends.”
“We were, until he started hanging around Cecily,” came the short reply. “I’m not as angry at him as I was. But it seems that he has to have a woman to prop him up.”
“Not necessarily,” Matt replied. “Sometimes a good woman can save a bad man. It’s an old saying, but fairly true from time to time. Colby was headed straight to hell until Cecily put him on the right track. It’s gratitude, but I don’t think he can see that just yet. He’s in between mourning his ex-wife and finding someone to replace her.” He leaned back again. “I feel sorry for him. He’s basically a one-woman man, but he lost the woman.”
Tate packed back to the wing chair and sat down on the edge. “He’s not getting Cecily. She’s mine, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.”
Matt stared at him. “Don’t you know anything about women in love?”
“Not a lot,” the younger man confessed. “I’ve spent the better part of my life avoiding them.”
“Especially Cecily,” Matt agreed. “She’s been like a shadow. You didn’t miss her until you couldn’t see her behind you anymore.”
“She’s grown away from me,” Tate said. “I don’t know how to close the gap. I know she still feels something for me, but she wouldn’t stay and fight for me.” He lifted his gaze to Matt’s hard face. “She’s carrying my child. I want both of them, regardless of the adjustments I have to make. Cecily’s the only woman I’ve ever truly wanted.”
Matt spread his hands helplessly. “This is one mess I can’t help you sort out,” he said at last. “If Cecily loves you, she’ll give in sooner or later. If it were me, I’d go find her and tell her how I really felt. I imagine she’ll listen.”
Tate stared at his shoes. He couldn’t find the right words to express what he felt.
“Tate,” his father said gently, “you’ve had a lot to get used to lately. Give it time. Don’t rush things. I’ve found that life sorts itself out, given the opportunity.”
Tate’s dark eyes lifted. “Maybe it does.” He searched the other man’s quiet gaze. “It’s not as bad as I thought it was, having a foot in two worlds. I’m getting used to it.”
“You still have a unique heritage,” Matt pointed out. “Not many men can claim Berber revolutionaries and Lakota warriors as relatives.
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