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Thanks to Brady.
Now word was that Bill Armstrong had taken to drinking, his wife had threatened to leave him and his job was in peril.
“I heard you almost killed another kid tonight,” Armstrong said, coming to a halt six feet away from Brady. The overhead lights illuminated the thatch of sandy hair that continued around his face in a trimmed beard.
“You heard wrong,” Brady said. He didn’t want to waste time with Armstrong, but he didn’t want to turn his back on him, either.
“I heard Jason Briggs got shot and that you were there.”
Brady waited.
“That little gal who left when you murdered my son is back in Riverport.”
“Who told you that?”
He tapped his forehead with a finger. “I just know. Maybe it would have been better for her if she’d stayed away.”
Brady advanced a few steps. “She was a counselor to your kids,” he said. “She tried to help them. She’s an innocent in all this.”
Armstrong backed down a little. He looked in the direction of his shoes as he said, “Do you suppose she’d miss you if some concerned citizen took it in his mind to eliminate a public menace?”
Brady’s gut tightened. His decision to stop carrying a gun suddenly seemed shortsighted.
“I don’t, either,” Armstrong said. “But killing you is too easy.” His voice caught. “I want you to know what it’s like to lose someone you love,” Armstrong continued, his eyes moist now. “If you had a son it would be perfect. An eye for an eye. Poetic justice.”
“Where were you tonight?” Brady said softly.
Ignoring the question, Armstrong said, “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a kid.”
With total sincerity, Brady said, “I’ve told you a dozen times how sorry I am about your son. I had no choice. There was no time. He pulled a gun.”
Please, God, let that be true…
For a second, Armstrong looked ready to throw his weight at Brady. And then he rocked back on his heels and steadied himself by grabbing the hood of the closest car.
Brady picked his helmet up off the seat. “Stay away from Lara Kirk and Jason Briggs,” he said.
Armstrong shook his head. He took a deep breath and glared at Brady. “You’re not a cop anymore, Skye. You’re a washed-up has-been just like your old man. Maybe the other cops let you off the hook for murdering my kid, but I won’t. You’ll pay for what you did to me and mine.”
“I know,” Brady said. “You’re going to take me for every dime I have.”
The smile that broke Armstrong’s face was worse than his sneer. “That’ll be a start. We’ll see where it ends.”
Brady got on the bike and started the engine.
Was Armstrong a grieving man, more bark than bite, or was Brady’s gut feeling Lara was in terrible danger more than his guilty conscience at work?
At any rate, he wasn’t going to leave her alone tonight. He’d swing by his place and grab a toothbrush and some dry shoes and clothes. Trade the Harley for his truck in case they needed to go somewhere. Like it or not, she had a guard tonight.
WHAT WAS KEEPING Brady?
Lara stood by the front windows, freshly showered, wearing old sweats she’d found in a bottom drawer. She was still cold even though she knew it was a warm night, summer at its apex. When she closed her eyes, the cold river flooded her head.
Before the night was over she would tell Brady what she’d come back to Riverport to tell him.
She’d wanted to tell him forever.
The sitting room, as her mother called the room to the left of the foyer, was typical Victorian with very high ceilings and tall, stately windows. A rose and ivory Oriental carpet, its silk soft against Lara’s bare feet, covered the hardwood floor.
“Lara?” Lara turned at the sound of the housekeeper’s voice. “Everything is quiet upstairs,” Myra added. “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Of course. Thanks for your help today. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I’m just glad I didn’t go on that cruise with your mother like she wanted. I did that once a couple of years ago and if you don’t mind my saying, it wasn’t much of a vacation for me.”
Lara nodded. She could imagine. As Myra left the room, a pair of headlights pulled up in front of the house. Lara recognized Brady’s green truck parked under the streetlight and she left the room, headed for the front door, suddenly aware her feet tingled and her palms felt sweaty. She took a deep breath as she pulled open the door.
He looked up as he took the last few steps. He’d obviously taken a shower and changed clothes and in the porch light, dressed in black jeans and a gray Henley, he looked lean, capable and focused.
She stood aside and he entered the house. He paused in the foyer, his gaze traveling up the broad, curved staircase as though looking for an invading army. Then his eyes met hers.
“You left the hospital.”
“Myra called. She was having trouble—”
“What kind of trouble?” He covered the few steps between them and caught her arm. She recoiled and he dropped his hand.
“I’m sorry. I forgot about your wound.”
“It’s okay. There’s a huge bandage on it. The doctor said there might be a scar but there was no permanent damage.”
“Good. What kind of trouble did the housekeeper have?”
She looked away for a second, then back at him. “It didn’t have anything to do with tonight, Brady, honest. I found a cab outside the hospital and took it home. Myra had to pay the man. I’d forgotten I no longer have a purse or a wallet. Do you know how Jason is doing?”
“I called from my place. He’s out of surgery, but it’s still touch and go.”
She nodded. Touch and go. “Poor kid.”
They each stared at the floor for a moment, then spoke at the same time.
She said, “Let’s go sit down—”
And he said, “I’m staying here tonight—”
They both stopped talking, he turned his hand palm up as if to give her a turn first. She repeated herself. He sat down on the second from bottom step and patted the space next to him.
Lara understood that he felt uncomfortable in her mother’s house and was reluctant to stray too far inside.
“You’re nervous,” he said.
She nodded.
“I want you to know I didn’t follow you out to the river. You told me not to come, but I happened to see Jason riding his bike and—”
She put her hand on his arm and he met her eyes. “You saved my life. You saved Jason. How could you think I would resent you being there?”
“Well, you’re nervous.”
“Not about that.”
“And you’re angry with me.”
“Oh, Brady. It’s been a long year.” Tears stung the back of her nose and she struggled to keep them out of her eyes and her voice. Though they didn’t fall, the emotion behind them must have showed, because he covered her hand with his.
His face was very close. She could smell soap and aftershave and toothpaste. She stared at his lips. Flames licked her groin.
And just like that, their lips drifted together, inevitably, touching in a way that was at once familiar and bittersweet. These lips she’d thought she’d never touch again. Soft and warm with the power of life behind them.
But not for her. Not ever again.
She drew away and took a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s me. My emotions are all over the map.”
“I won’t let it happen again,” he added. “I promise you.”
She nodded.
“What do you want to tell me?” His hand had slipped from hers.
She bit her lip and finally decided how she should share her news. “Come with me,” she said, standing. He stood as well and seemed startled when she led him up the stairs. Was he remembering the first time they’d climbed these stairs together, two and a half years ago when her mother had taken off for the Aegean Sea and Lara had used the opportunity to show him the room in which she’d grown up?
Things like that were impossible when her mom was in the house for the simple reason her mother didn’t like Brady. She was one of those people Brady talked about, one of those who based their opinion of him on his family name. To Lara’s mother, Brady was and always would be, “One of those worthless Skye boys.” Slightly less troublesome than the younger boy, Garrett, but not to be trusted just the same.
She led Brady into her old bedroom. The light was low, the bed was covered in white eyelet just as it had been years before when she lived at home with her mother. Knowing she was coming, Myra had filled vases with roses from the garden and placed them around the room. Their fragrance perfumed the air.
“This is why I rushed home from the hospital,” she said softly.
His brow furrowed as he looked at the bed, which suddenly seemed to glow with remembered passion. She moved aside so he could see what occupied the far corner.
So he could see the crib.
“Myra needed help getting Nathan to sleep,” she said.
She watched his face as realization dawned. It was like watching the sunrise. He glanced at her and she nodded once, sniffing back tears before they could glisten in her eyes.
He moved toward the crib like a sleepwalker and stood staring down at the slumbering infant within.
Chapter Four
“He was conceived on our wedding night,” Lara said. “His name is Nathan.”
He had a son?
Just like that? One moment alone in the world, the next moment, a son?
Very slowly, he lowered his hand until the backs of his fingers grazed the baby’s round cheek. How could skin be that soft? The baby tucked one tiny fist close to his chin. A bubble blew at his lips and then he made a sudden face, a frown, and scrunched up his tiny body before relaxing again, hands flung to the side.
His son. Nathan.
“You named him after your father,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Brady kept his gaze glued to the infant because he didn’t trust himself to look at Lara. Men usually had a few months to prepare themselves for fatherhood. Time to get used to the idea of a baby, to merge the dreamy possibilities of the future with the uncertainties of the past. Time to reckon.
But she’d deprived him of this.
She hadn’t trusted him with the knowledge he was to become a father. She’d gone through pregnancy and birth and the first three months of his child’s life alone rather than trust him.
She’s here now, a small voice whispered in the back of his mind. They’re both here now.
He wasn’t ready to listen. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he turned to face her.
Their eyes locked for a heartbeat before she lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry, Brady,” she said so softly it might have been his imagination. “I was frightened.”
That made it better? Now she not only didn’t trust him and didn’t like him, she was afraid of him?
“Later,” he forced himself to say. He needed time to think.
“I just want you to know I didn’t know I was pregnant when I first went away, and when I found out—”
He held up a hand to still her.
The baby made a little noise and Lara leaned over, her shoulder brushing Brady’s arm. She grabbed her own arm, wincing, and he remembered her injury and how close he’d come to losing her. Good God, if she’d died tonight, would anyone have bothered to tell him about Nathan?
“Will you lift him for me?” she said, glancing up at him. “Or shall I call Myra?”
Brady blinked a time or two. “I can do it.”
“It’s easy, just make sure you support his head,” she said.
And so he lifted his son for the first time, careful to put one hand behind the little guy’s heavy head. The baby kicked and squirmed and Brady held on tight, terrified he’d drop him.
“Relax,” Lara said. “You’re doing fine.”
