Hero in the Nick of Time Read online

  “No, I’m not.” But even as she said it, Mac suddenly realized that she wanted to be. Wanted to be his mommy and Cade’s wife. Wanted this kind of warmth as her own. Maybe she wanted it, she thought, because it, this man, and his life, felt so far beyond her reach and there was a safety in pretending.

  Or maybe she was finally ready to take the chance on loving someone.

  For the life of her, she wasn’t sure.

  “Hey, Lieutenant.” One of the uniformed officers stuck his head in. “We need you for a second.”

  Moved by what he’d just witnessed, Gray called back, “I’ll be there in a minute,” and approached Cade. Thinking of his own son, he ran his hand along the boy’s hair. “A lot of people are going to be very grateful to you two. We found over a hundred files so far. A hundred kids adopted under suspicious circumstances. As near as we can figure it out right now, the organization had several photo studios in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Unsuspecting parents would bring their newborns and toddlers in for photographs, and the studios showed the shots to Lambert and his partner who made their pick and the ‘leg man’ would go into action. The addresses and pertinent information were all on file at the studios. As close to catching fish in a barrel as you are going to come. It’s going to take a lot of people working around the clock to unscramble this, but in the end, there are going to be a great many relieved families.” He looked at both of them. “Anything either of you need?”

  There was only one thing that he wanted now. “How about an escort to the airport?” Cade suggested. He glanced at Mac for confirmation. She nodded. “I think we’d all like to go home.”

  It was the least he could do for them, Redhawk thought. “You got it.”

  Word of the black-market baby ring breakup had preceded them.

  When their plane landed at John Wayne Airport, the terminal was crowded to overflowing with the news media. Cameras, microphones and a sea of questions swirled around Cade and Mac as they tried to make their way from the gate to the escalator that would take them to the ground floor and freedom.

  Mac hugged a whimpering Heather to her. The child was clearly frightened. Even Darin was clinging tightly to Cade. Cade tried to shield them all as best he could, walking ahead of Mac and Heather.

  “How the hell did they manage to find out so soon?” he shouted to her above the noise. Aware of the high profile this case would receive, he still hadn’t thought he’d have to face the media frenzy so soon. All he wanted was some time alone with his son.

  “Someone in my family must have told someone.” Mac had called her mother on the cell phone the first opportunity she had, even before they boarded the plane. She wanted to set everyone’s mind at ease, especially Moira’s. Her parents were closemouthed and she doubted they’d told anyone beyond the immediate family, but her brothers were a different story. Danny and Randy thought happiness was something to be shared.

  Mac had made another call as well, but she was willing to bet that no one on that end was the source of this media “leak.” It was expressly for this reason that she’d told her family not to come. That she would bring Heather to them at home. Moira, though released from the hospital, was still in no condition to encounter this kind of media circus.

  He laughed shortly. Every second, there seemed to be more people joining the throng. “Looks that way.”

  And then he saw a familiar face. A police detective he’d met through Sam. The latter had gone through the police academy with Ben Underwood. Behind Ben, Cade could make out Sam and Rusty coming toward them. Before he knew it, they had formed a human ring around them. He’d never been so glad to see them as he was at this moment.

  Megan brushed a quick kiss to his cheek. “We thought we’d run interference for you. Welcome home, Dad.” She beamed at the boy in Cade’s arms. “You are the most welcome sight, Darin Townsend.” Remembering, she suddenly produced a battered stuffed animal out of her bag and gave it to Cade’s son.

  Recognition and glee were instantaneous. Darin squealed as he immediately hugged the toy to him. “Spotty.”

  Cade was speechless. And utterly grateful. “What made you—”

  Megan held up her hands. “Wasn’t my idea. Mac called me. She had a hunch you still had this old thing lying around somewhere. She suggested I round it up and bring it to the airport.” Megan grinned as she watched Darin. “Looks like she was right.”

  So it had been Mac who had summoned them. And Mac who, even in the middle of her own reunion, had thought to help him bond with his son. Not knowing what to say, Cade looked at her over his shoulder and mouthed “Thanks.” Her smile told him that she understood.

  And then, the news media closed ranks around them, tightening the circle despite the human wall there to protect them.

  “C’mon, Cade, give us a few words—” a newscaster directly in front of him coaxed.

  They’d been good to him, the media, he thought. As much as he wanted just to go home with his son, Cade knew he owed these people something. They had put his story on page one, following it up periodically. And through his story, they had brought people into his life whom he had been able to help. And brought one person who had inadvertently helped him by leading him to his son. He couldn’t turn his back on them now.

  Cade paused and looked at them, not seeing a single face clearly. There was too much going on inside of him to focus or see clearly. That would come later, when emotions settled down to a subdued roar.

  He grinned at the newscaster directly in front of him and bent over his microphone. “I’ll give you a few words. It looks like ChildFinders, Inc., finally has that perfect record now.”

  Everyone loved a happy ending, and the people of the media were no different. They enjoyed being the bearer of good news as well as the intriguing, the mystifying and the bad. Questions continued flying at Cade, coming from all directions. Holding his son to him, smiling for the cameras, he fielded the ones he could make out to the best of his ability.

  As she listened to Cade, Mac suddenly felt a hand on her arm. Turning quickly, she saw Megan at her elbow.

  “I’ve got my car parked pretty close to the terminal,” Megan whispered into her ear. “Your family’s waiting at the office for you. C’mon,” she urged. “Let’s get you out of here. This might take a while.” She nodded toward Cade.

  Mac wanted to remain. To listen to Cade talk. To watch the light in his eyes and on his face. This was his moment and it had been deservedly earned. The man had been to hell and back and had not only survived, but beaten devastating odds.

  Somewhere in her heart she also knew this would be the last time they’d be this close to each other.

  She wanted to stay.

  But there was responsibility beckoning to her. There was still that last leg of the journey to make before she had fulfilled her promise. She’d promised to place Heather into Moira’s arms.

  Her family was waiting.

  Grateful for Megan’s help, Mac nodded at her. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  Catching his eye, Megan signaled to her brother that she was leaving with Mac and Heather. Rusty gave her the high sign as he kept close to Cade, his large frame holding back the crowd on one side. Looking over her shoulder as she followed Megan from the floor, Mac mouthed “Goodbye” to Cade. She knew he didn’t see her, certainly didn’t hear her, but then, she hadn’t expected him to.

  It was enough that she had said it. If her heart ached a little as she left, she was determined to ignore it.

  It was driving her crazy.

  It had been two whole weeks now, and Mac still couldn’t get rid of the restlessness. You would have thought that once she’d brought Heather home, once the dust had all settled and people stopped coming around to talk about the kidnapping and the rescue and Cade, life would get back to normal.

  It didn’t.

  The restlessness that had accompanied her on this odyssey not only to recover Heather, but also into self-awareness as well, was still with her. Shadowin
g her every move.

  To make things worse, bits and pieces of “Me and My Shadow” insisted on playing, over and over again, in her head. Haunting her. Giving her no peace.

  He didn’t call. She wanted to, but didn’t. It wasn’t her move to make. Forceful though she was, she wasn’t about to be told that what they’d had was “just one of those things.” One old song ricocheting in her mind was more than enough.

  She couldn’t find a place for herself. Couldn’t go on with her life because, like scratchy branches, the events of the recent past kept snaring her. Pulling at her. Holding her back. Having every parent who brought their child into her office ask her for details didn’t help, either. It certainly didn’t allow her to put any of it behind her no matter how much she tried.

  As soon as she’d returned to her own home, Mac had written the agency a check for the agreed-upon amount, plus a large bonus as a donation. She would have done the latter even if her father and brothers hadn’t given her the money. Cade, she knew, was going to keep the agency going. He’d told her so on the plane trip back. There was a need for a firm like his, one that specifically concentrated on finding lost and abducted children and reuniting them with their families.

  She’d read a confirmation of the same in the paper just the other day. The newspaper and news programs were the only way she was getting her information about Cade these days.

  But then, she hadn’t really expected him to call once this was over. They’d had a unique, fleeting relationship. They’d been a team on the road. A good team. But the playing season was over, and it was time to hang up the uniform. And the memories.

  Even if she didn’t believe it, she thought, slipping her lab coat on, Cade obviously did. Otherwise, he would have tried to call her. God knew she’d checked her answering machine and the caller I.D. listings often enough.

  His number never appeared. His voice was never there.

  He wanted to put everything behind him, her included. She couldn’t fault him.

  The hell she couldn’t.

  Frustrated, Mac pushed the movable arm on the exam chair so hard, it groaned.

  But faulting him or not, it didn’t make a difference. Cade wasn’t in her life by choice, and she wasn’t about to make a monumental fool out of herself and show up on his doorstep no matter how much she ached to. His life was obviously full without her.

  And hers felt oddly empty, no matter how hard she worked, how busy she kept.

  Served her right for letting herself care. She’d known what a risk that would be. And now she was experiencing it all firsthand. She was just going to have to work through this until it faded.

  And how long was that going to take?

  She’d been working nonstop since the day after she returned. When there was a lull in her own patient load, she took on some of her father’s and brother’s. Mac’s intent was to keep at it until she dropped. And couldn’t think.

  Because they sensed something was wrong, that she needed to keep up this frenzied pace until she worked something out of her system, her father and Danny sent patients her way. And hoped for the best.

  It wasn’t working. Instead of getting better, it was becoming worse. Moreover, the pace was catching up to her. Not to where she was liable to make errors in judgment, but like a soldier stationed at the front lines, she was beginning to feel the effects of battle fatigue.

  And she wasn’t even enlisted in the war anymore.

  Mac tried to think and remember what day it was. Tuesday? Thursday? They were all beginning to run together for her. She hated this feeling. Hated this hurt. When was it going to stop?

  She rubbed the bridge of her nose, wishing she could rub away the headache that persisted in lingering there. The headache was well into its second week, showing no signs of retreat. It figured.

  Mac debated taking two more aspirins, but her consumption of late already rivaled that of the entire population of Los Angeles. Taking more wouldn’t help. Nothing was going to help, except for time.

  Maybe.

  Her dental assistant, Angie, popped her head in the small room. “Heads up, Dr. Mac, you’ve got a new patient coming your way.”

  Another child to win over, Mac thought with resignation. Initial trips to the dentist were not viewed in the same light as first trips to Disneyland. Normally, she thought of this as a challenge. But she didn’t really feel up to challenges anymore.

  Still, she couldn’t very well send the child to her father, who was the only other dentist in this morning. Her father had an intimidating quality about him that did little to set children’s minds at ease.

  With a nod, she took out a new box of plastic gloves and placed it on the counter. “Send her on in.”

  “It’s a he,” Angie corrected her, handing her the brand-new folder.

  “Okay, send him on in.” Wearily, she turned the folder around to read the name that was typed on the side. She read it once, then blinked and read it again. It was too much of a stretch of the imagination to think this was just a coincidence. Mac raised her eyes to her assistant. “Angie, is this someone’s idea of a joke?”

  Angie didn’t answer. The tall, dark-haired man behind her did.

  “No, we’re very serious about our teeth, aren’t we, Darin?” he asked the small boy whose hand he was holding.

  Darin nodded, trying to look solemn. The next moment, he launched himself at Mac. Achieving target, he wound his arms around her somewhere in the vicinity of her hips as he buried his face against her hip bone. An open, happy child by nature, he’d clearly made great strides in the last two weeks. Even during the flight back from Phoenix, he’d begun to take a shine to Mac.

  He looked up at her, a lopsided smile on his lips. “Hi, Mac. Is it going to hurt?”

  Her hand on Darin’s silky hair, she looked at the boy’s father. Why didn’t he look the way she felt? No one had a right to look that good, she thought. “He’s my new patient?”

  For two weeks, Cade had tried to strip his mind of her. He’d tried to harness his emotions and go back to life the way it once had been. But the small niche no longer worked. He had his son back, and a purpose to his life. But he needed more. He needed her.

  Cade’s eyes held hers as he wondered where to begin. How to tell her what he was feeling. “You’re a pediatric dentist, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Cade gestured toward his son, who was still clinging to her. The two looked as if they belonged together. It just confirmed what he’d been feeling all along. “And he’s pediatric-size.”

  “So he is.” She looked down at the boy. “No, Darin, it’s not going to hurt. Not even a little bit. I promise.”

  Concentrating on making Darin comfortable and not on what his presence here actually meant, she picked him up and placed him in the examination chair. It took her a moment to remember what to do next. She reached for the Polaroid camera on the far end of the counter. A gift from Moira when she graduated from dental school.

  She aimed the camera at Darin. “Smile.” It was a needless instruction. The boy was grinning ear to ear. She snapped twice.

  A moment later, the camera spit out first one photograph, then another at its heels. She presented the first one to Cade. “A photograph to take home to remind you of his first examination.”

  Cade noticed that she kept the second one herself. It was a nice touch, he thought. Darin had his hand out, and he gave him the photograph. Like a child watching a magic act, Darin stared intently at the photograph as his image began to materialize right before his eyes. He was properly impressed.

  “I don’t think I’ll need a photograph to remind me,” Cade told Mac. “But I wouldn’t mind taking the dentist home with me.”

  If Mac didn’t know that it was medically impossible, she would have said her heart stopped beating. Collecting herself, she pointed toward the overhead TV set. There was a children’s video running.

  “Why don’t you watch that for a few minutes, Darin? I’d like a word
with your father.”

  Cade followed her to just outside the door. “That has an ominous sound to it.”

  She whirled on her heel, her eyes flashing. It took effort to keep her voice low when her temper was flaring so high. “You bet it does. You don’t even pick up a phone in two weeks to ask if I’m alive and now you stroll in here like nothing happened—”

  “A great deal happened,” he interjected quietly, stopping her before she could get up a full head of steam. “That was just the trouble. I had to sort it all out.” The words were still not coming together the way he would have liked. He just had to trust that she would understand. “When my wife died, I swore to myself that I’d never love anyone again. It wasn’t a hard promise to keep because something died inside of me along with her.” His eyes held hers and he remembered what it was like, making love with her. And wanting to do it over and over again. To get lost in her strength and her vulnerability. “At least I thought it did, until you walked into my office and my life. And into parts of me I could have sworn were gone for good.”

  “And that’s why you didn’t call?”

  He knew it sounded strange, but it was true. “Yes, that’s why I didn’t call. Because I tried to tell myself I was reacting to the situation, to the moment. And then, to the elation of finding Darin. With all that going on, it’s easy to lose your perspective. But it wasn’t my perspective I lost.” Cade wanted to touch her, to hold her. He appeased himself by looking into her eyes. “It was my heart.” Resistance proved futile. He cupped his hand to her cheek, caressing her softly. “Like it or not, I’m in love with you, McKayla.”

  There were a hundred things Mac had called him in her mind. If her life depended on it, she couldn’t remember a single one.

  “I like it,” she said softly.

  Relieved, Cade took her into his arms. “Good, then this next part might just work out.”

  “What next part?”

  He could make her happy, he knew he could. And he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing it if she let him. “Marry me.”