The Once and Future Father Read online

  He pointed out the obvious. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

  She readily dismissed that. “I’ve rested enough to carry me through the next ten years. I don’t need much rest.” Their eyes met as she raised them. And held for a long moment. “Remember?”

  Yeah, he remembered. Remembered making love with her all night, feeling exhausted and invigorated at the same time. Remembered being amazed that her stamina surpassed his. Everything about Lucy always amazed him.

  Things hadn’t changed all that much, he thought now. Before he could think not to, Dylan touched her cheek, momentarily allowing himself a tiny respite from the ongoing vigil he was attempting to maintain over himself.

  Lucy felt the pulse in her throat accelerate. It was hard for her to think when he was looking at her like that. She forced her mind onto other things. “Hungry?”

  He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to drop his hand from her soft skin. But for his own survival, he did. “Not after seeing that dirty diaper.”

  “Let’s see if we can fix that.” Instead of placing Elena back in her infant seat, she handed the baby to him. “Here, you hold her, I’ll finish the salad.” She grinned at him. “Fair’s fair.”

  Dylan doubted she really meant that. Fair would have been placing the baby into her seat and removing the infant from his line of vision. It wasn’t fair to hand her to him, to make him hold her. To make him feel things.

  He didn’t want to feel things. Feelings only opened doors to places he had struggled to keep shut away. Places he had sealed years ago.

  Places being with Lucy had managed to reopen again.

  But he swallowed the very vocal protest that was hovering on his lips. Instead, he took Elena when Lucy thrust the infant into his arms. He took her and found himself looking down into wide blue eyes and a pouty little mouth that somehow managed, despite all his best efforts to the contrary, to bore a hole straight through his chest. Right into his heart.

  He raised his eyes to look at Lucy’s back. She was working quickly, competently, to complete the last component of their meal.

  “I don’t think you know the meaning of the word fair.”

  Because her back was to him, he didn’t see the smile widen on her lips.

  “So, she talked you into letting her come in.”

  Alma’s words of barely veiled disgust were meant for Dylan as he walked into the store behind Lucy, loaded down with the infant seat and a bag crammed full of necessary infant paraphernalia. Lucy had Elena in an infant sling snuggled warmly against her chest. Abandoning what she was doing, Alma crossed a length of floor that was almost completely cleared of debris to reach Lucy and the baby.

  She cooed over Elena before glancing up at Dylan again. “Certainly shows what you’re made of. I would have expected more of a show of strength from you. Serves me right for thinking highly of you, I guess.”

  The woman certainly didn’t pull punches. “It’s against regulations to tie up a new mother,” he said tersely, unloading his burden on the first available surface he came to. “And there was no other way she was going to stay put.” He looked at her darkly. “As her friend, you should know that.”

  His attention shifted to Lucy. He didn’t like the idea of her being here, out in the open like this. Granted, the construction going outside tended to put people off and for the most part kept them from coming in, but that still left her rather accessible to the world at large.

  Dylan stopped her as she began to slip the baby out of the baby sling. This was important and he wanted her full attention, even though he’d already told her this once. Odds were that she hadn’t been listening.

  “I’ve got a man outside. He’s working as part of the crew fixing the street. Anybody suspicious comes in, you call him.”

  Alma laughed shortly. Glancing out the window, she couldn’t tell one orange-draped man from another. “And what’s he going to do, pave the suspect?”

  Dylan didn’t even look in her direction. “He’s a cop, he’ll know what to do.”

  If Dylan wasn’t going to kiss her, Lucy wished he’d stop finding reasons to get so physically close to her, she thought. It was ruining her ability to concentrate. And it certainly wreaked havoc on her determination to get over him.

  “Moonlighting?” she managed to ask.

  As if suddenly realizing that he was still holding on to her, he dropped his hands from her shoulders, trying to block the impression of how small, how vulnerable she seemed.

  “He owes me a favor.” The explanation fell carelessly from his lips. He’d saved Gabe Saldana’s life by pushing the other man out of the way and taking a bullet meant for him. It was part of the job as far as Dylan saw it. Saldana saw it differently.

  There was probably a lot he wasn’t saying, Lucy thought. She looked down at her daughter. She was being lulled by the sound of her parents’ voices and her eyes were drifting shut. “I guess so do I for all this protection.”

  The less she felt she owed him, the better. Dylan avoided her eyes. “You’re feeding me regularly, so we’re even.”

  “Not by a long shot,” she murmured.

  A noise outside the shop had Elena starting. Fully awake, she seemed to stare at her surroundings. On a whim, Lucy held the infant up as if to allow her to get a better view of the store. “Someday, little one, all this’ll be yours.”

  “Hey, don’t scare the kid her first time here,” Alma chided, drawing closer to Lucy. “Let her get used to responsibility gradually.” She looked pointedly at her best friend, her voice dropping. “After all, remember who her father is.”

  Dylan stopped in the doorway. Though Alma’s voice was low, he’d heard. Curiosity came first, but it didn’t outdistance jealousy by much. Telling himself the emotion was childish and that he had no right to it did nothing to mute it. His eyes all but pinned Alma to the wall. “Who is Elena’s father?”

  Alma raised both her hands, palms up, warding off any further questions. “That’s something you’re going to have to get out of Lucy, not me.” She took the baby from Lucy. “C’mon, kid, I’ve got a book in the back with your name on it.” Grinning, she added, “Literally,” before disappearing from the area.

  For all intents and purposes, that left the two of them alone in the shop.

  In terms of an investigation, Dylan wasn’t one to let an opportunity slip by. He didn’t now. Making his way to Lucy around a newly restored series of shelves, his eyes reached her first.

  “Why won’t you tell me who it is?”

  Silently, she damned Alma for her glib tongue. “Because there’s no point in your knowing.”

  He understood privacy. Lived by it. But they had been lovers. For a little while, they had been more. On some level, she owed him an explanation for finding another bed so quickly after he no longer shared hers.

  “Why?” He struggled with the red-hot poker of jealousy that jabbed at his temper. “Are you afraid I might do something to him?”

  She couldn’t tell him, no matter how much she ached to. If she told him, then if he returned to her, she would never know what governed his actions—love or a sense of duty. Her back to the wall, she took the excuse he offered her.

  “If that’s what you think.”

  He’d never given her any reason to think of him as a violent man. He’d gone out of his way to be just the opposite because there was a monster inside of him he couldn’t allow to become unleashed. “You know better than that.”

  Being near him only served to confuse her. “Me, I don’t know much about anything.” Restless, afraid of what she might admit, she looked at her watch. “Don’t you have someplace else to be instead of here?”

  He gave no indication that he heard her question. Instead, he studied her closely and realized something. “He still doesn’t know, does he?”

  Lucy pressed her lips together. He was hitting too close. She was torn between going deeper into the lie and admitting at least this much to him. What harm would it do if he knew
that?

  But she didn’t have to make the admission, he read it in her face. “Why don’t you get in contact with him and tell him?”

  Galvanizing every fiber in her body, she forced herself not to waver. Not to look as if they were talking about him. “Because he isn’t the kind of man I want as a father to my child.”

  Cynicism twisted his generous mouth. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”

  She deliberately turned his words into a personal attack. An attack was far easier to deal with. When attacked, you counter attack. You shore up your defenses. You didn’t stand there, longing to fraternize with the enemy.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Never too late to make amends. To try to fix something. His knowing wouldn’t change things from what they were. He never wanted to be a father. It was just a short fling, that’s all.” At least, she assumed that’s what it had been for him. For her it had been so very much more.

  Which made her a fool, she couldn’t help feeling.

  Dylan felt as if something sharp and painful had just been flung in his face. “I thought you didn’t believe in flings.”

  “So did I.” And if she had stuck to her guns, she would have never allowed Dylan into her bed. Into her heart. Trying to seem blasé, she shrugged. “I lost my head.” The opening notes of the “Sound of Music” disrupted the thick tension within the room, but Dylan ignored his cell phone. “Don’t you think you should answer that? It’s your life calling,” Lucy said. He certainly didn’t behave as if he had one outside the department, she thought.

  Swallowing what would have been a sharp oath, Dylan angrily pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. “McMorrow,” he snapped.

  “Damn, now I’m going to have to go for that hearing test,” Watley complained. “That’s what I get for trying to do a good deed.”

  Dylan wasn’t in the mood for games. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I thought you might want to know some guy claiming to be your father is calling the station, asking for you. He talked to the desk sergeant.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I thought you said your parents are dead.”

  “They are,” Dylan told his partner without emotion.

  “Huh. Well, this guy’s alive and he claims he’s your father. Says he wants to get in touch with you. Dispatch sent him through, thinking you were here. If you’re interested, he left a number.”

  “I’m not interested,” Dylan snapped. “Throw it away.” There was no room for argument with the instruction. “I’m on my way in.” He cut off the connection.

  Turning, he started to leave but stopped when he felt Lucy’s hand on his arm.

  Maybe she didn’t know him all that well, but she knew when something was really bothering him. “What was that all about? You turned as white as marble.”

  Instead of answering, Dylan glanced up at the recessed ceiling fixtures. “Looks like your lighting might need some work.”

  Why couldn’t he answer anything directly? Was being honest with her such a hardship? She wasn’t asking him to pledge his heart, she was asking him why the conversation he’d just had with the person on the other end of his cell phone had turned his face into a color rivaling freshly fallen snow.

  Her hand on his arm tightened, holding him still a second longer. “Don’t give me that. Whoever called just said something that got to you. Is it about Ritchie? About the break-ins?”

  “No.” Because he saw she didn’t believe him and because he knew her imagination would run away with her if he offered her a nebulous lie to assuage her fears, he told her the truth. It didn’t matter, anyway. “That was my partner. He said someone was calling in, claiming to be my father.”

  He’d never talked about his family with her, he’d just told her that his parents were both dead. She didn’t understand what was going on. “Why would someone do something like that?”

  He snapped before he caught the frayed end of his temper. “How the hell should I know?”

  Lucy read between the lines. “Was it your father calling?”

  He looked at her stonily. “My father’s dead.”

  Without another word, he walked out of the shop. The bell above the door rang and shook as it slammed shut.

  “Your father’s not dead.”

  Dylan felt as if his nerves had been stretched tighter than a violin string across two frets. The monotony of surveillance had been counterbalanced by Watley’s sporadic questions that thrust and parried into the fabric of the day. He was in no mood, coming to the store to pick up Lucy and her baby, to walk into the middle of an accusation.

  One foot inside the door, he stared at her, surprise robbing him of what he knew was his limited ability for a quick comeback.

  Crossing to him, trying to bottle up her own anger, Lucy closed the door behind him, shutting out the racket coming from jackhammers.

  Ignoring her, he looked around the store. “Where’s Alma?”

  “In the back.” She wasn’t about to let him divert her attention or worse, sweep her aside the way she knew he was trying to do. “She has nothing to do with this and she won’t save your hide.” Moving quickly, Lucy presented herself squarely in front of him. “Why did you lie to me? And don’t bother denying it,” she warned. “You’re not the only one with connections in this city. I had someone in Records at City Hall do a little digging for me. Your mother’s dead, she died ten years ago, but your father’s still alive. He works at SuperiorTech as a design engineer.”

  He’d never seen her really angry before, not like this. The color in her cheeks was haunting. He shook himself free. “You shouldn’t have gone digging.”

  She wouldn’t let him shift blame onto her. It was his alone to bear. “I have to when you won’t tell me the truth about the simplest of things. Why would you lie to me about something like this?” she demanded.

  “I didn’t.” The simplest of things. If she only knew how complicated it all really was. That it was his father’s fault that Dylan couldn’t let himself live with her. Couldn’t let himself love her. “My father’s dead to me.”

  “Why?” she asked when he said nothing further. “What did he do?”

  The planes on his face hardened. “That’s none of your business.”

  Lucy felt her heart accelerating. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. “I think it is. I think that whatever he did turned you into what you are today. An emotional hermit.”

  He wasn’t going to debate this with her. He wasn’t good with words the way she was. But for him, silence worked just as effectively.

  “Think whatever you want. I can’t stop you.” Determined to do what he had come to do, Dylan crossed to Elena and picked the baby up from her infant seat. Without looking at Lucy, he asked, “You ready to go home?”

  She sighed, picking up her things. “Yes. I just wish you were.”

  “You’ve been around greeting cards too long,” he told her tersely. “You’re beginning to sound like one, sentimental and syrupy.”

  Lucy made the best of it. At least he was still talking. And if he talked, maybe she could get something out of him.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” she countered. “A little old-fashioned sentiment and syrup is good for you.”

  “Only if you’re a pancake.” He was already at the door, scooping up the infant seat in his other hand, leaving Lucy to carry the bag.

  She drew the strap over her shoulder, setting her purse strap on top of that. Raising her voice, she called out, “I’m leaving, Alma.”

  “Good.” Alma’s disembodied voice came from the back office. “I’ll come out when the smoke clears.”

  Dylan’s frown deepened as he held the door open for her with his back. “You’d better tell that woman to stop listening at keyholes.”

  “Keyholes?” Lucy hooted. “When you raise your voice the way you just did, people in Maine look over their shoulders.”

  Scanning the street scene, he exchanged looks with an undercover policeman b
efore continuing on to where he had parked his car. He indicated the baby with his eyes. “Doesn’t seem to scare her any.”

  Pride had Lucy’s face softening with a fond smile. She was absolutely, completely in love with her baby. “She’s gutsy.”

  “Like her father?”

  He didn’t miss an opportunity, did he? “Maybe,” she conceded lightly, then smiled smugly. “But definitely like her mother.”

  There was no way Dylan could argue with that. In his opinion, Lucy could hold her own with anyone. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place. The strength he felt radiating from her. Strength and optimism with just a small dash of vulnerability thrown into the mix.

  If he were being honest with himself, he had to admit that had hooked him as well, though he’d always done his best to steer clear of vulnerable women. Women who reminded him of his mother.

  But Lucy’s vulnerability had just drawn out the protective side of him. That had been his first clue that he was in over his head and in trouble. Because she managed to ensnare him with every aspect of her. And being tightly wrapped around a woman would only make him that much more susceptible to the demons he knew were in his blood. Demons he’d inherited from his father. Demons that would make him eventually hurt her.

  Dylan would have rather cut off both his arms than to ever hurt Lucy. So he’d done the next best thing. He’d left.

  She groaned as she got into the car. His reflexes snapping into place, Dylan had his hand on his holster as he looked around, ready for anything. But there was nothing out of the ordinary in the scene he saw.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She fastened her seat belt, mentally upbraiding herself. “I forgot to take the pork chops out of the freezer to defrost them and the microwave is on the blink. That leaves us with a choice of a late dinner, or Popsicles.”

  “No problem.” Dylan slid in behind the steering wheel. Would that everything else were this easy to remedy. He turned, making sure the infant seat was secured one last time. “I figured you’d be too tired to cook.” He turned on the ignition, then pulled away from the curb. “There’s Chinese takeout in the trunk. If we don’t hit traffic, we can have it while it’s still warm.” He saw the smile curving her mouth as he got in. “What?”