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In spite of that, they’d evolved a good working relationship—as good as a cop and a reporter ever had, at least. Tom occasionally fed Jacy information both on and off the record. She sometimes passed him facts or rumors. They met for drinks sometimes to exchange information and argue about who owed whom. Over the past year they had become friends, or very nearly.
If Jacy had taken a little too much care with her clothes and makeup for those meetings, she’d told herself it was wounded feminine vanity that made her care how she looked. Tom had always made it clear he considered their meetings strictly business.
Until the last time they got together—on June tenth, two months and four days ago. He’d called that Friday to ask her to meet him for a drink. She’d gone, expecting business as usual, thinking he wanted a name, maybe, or the down-and-dirty gossip on some public figure. They’d met at the usual place, a bar not far from police headquarters.
From the moment their gazes had tangled that night, she’d known he didn’t have police work in mind this time. And she’d been thrilled.
Infatuation. Jacy’s lip curled in a sneer as she left the elevator and headed down the long hall, following the desk sergeant’s directions. She’d been as blindly, stupidly infatuated as any teenage girl who didn’t know better. She’d not only wanted the man, she’d admired him for his integrity, his strength. Around him she’d felt...different. Softer. More alive.
Well, he’d cured her of that, hadn’t he?
But at least, she thought, when the subject came up someday, she would be able to tell her child that it hadn’t been all physical attraction. Not on her part, at least. Her child...
The clutch of panic, cold and clammy, added to her anger. When the nameplate outside the last office on the left announced that she’d reached her destination, she shoved the door open without knocking—and stopped two feet inside the room.
Tom sat behind his desk, his thick mustache framing a scowl that held all the friendly charm of a half-starved timber wolf. His office was stark, orderly, all-business—pretty much what she’d expected. The only color came from the row of framed photographs behind him, and the one on his desk—a large, professional photo of a pretty young woman in a checked dress.
Another time Jacy might have had to acknowledge what she felt when she saw that prominently displayed picture. Not now.
She and Tom weren’t alone. Another man, a stranger, grinned at Jacy from where he sat on a wooden chair. He was as dirty, disreputable and smiling as Tom was clean, controlled and angry.
It hurt. It shouldn’t have, not anymore. But Tom truly hadn’t wanted to see her or speak with her. Not even for these few moments. She’d had to threaten to tell the sergeant downstairs why she’d come before Tom would agree to see her—and he still hadn’t bothered to grant her privacy.
Well, so be it. She straightened her shoulders and marched up to his desk.
“I don’t care much for your methods,” Tom growled. “I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish, but—”
“Shut up, Rasmussin.” She slapped the folder she’d been clutching on the desk between them. Then, for the first time in two months, she met his eyes.
Oh, God. His eyes...colorless as rain, looking at her...looking right through her. Her stomach jumped, and lower down a knot of feeling tightened and spread electrically. A hateful, detestable feeling. She couldn’t crave this man anymore. She wouldn’t.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me, Tom?” the dirty stranger asked, still grinning.
“Shut up, Raz.” Tom reached for the folder that held the papers she’d drawn up after some of her research. “What the hell is this?”
Raz? Mr. Law-and-Order had had a brother, she remembered. A brother who worked undercover. She gave the bum in the wooden chair a measuring glance, then turned back to face the neatly groomed bum behind the desk.
Jacy smiled a nasty, satisfied smile. Tom really should have agreed to talk to her privately.
She leaned over his desk and tapped the folder. “This is a summary of my probable medical expenses, with the amount my insurance should cover indicated. I’ll expect you to pay for half the remaining balance. That’s not negotiable. I’ve also made some suggestions about support payments and visitation rights. Do take your time to think this over—just as long as you get back to me by Monday. That way you’ll save us both some legal fees and court costs...Dad.”
His face went as suddenly pale as hers had at the doctor’s. Satisfied, she turned around and marched out.
Two
At 10:20 that night Jacy pulled into the parking lot of her apartment. She wore a yellow T-shirt with the sleeves torn out over a hot-pink leotard and turquoise bike shorts. Her windows were down, though the temperature still hovered near eighty. After a workout she liked to feel the wind on her damp skin as she drove home, even if it was only muggy city air lifting her hair from her neck.
Another woman might have called a friend after the confrontation with her baby’s father. Although Jacy considered a couple of people at the paper good friends, it didn’t occur to her to call them. Not then. Instead, she’d driven for hours, using the excuse of an interview to hit the highway. When that didn’t help, she’d gone to her gym to try to work through her emotions physically.
That hadn’t done much good, either.
Jacy’s neighborhood straddled the line between respectable and scary. Her apartment complex was fifty years old and hadn’t been anything special even when new, but it was centrally located and she liked it. The walls were thick, the plumbing worked and every spring the azaleas burst into exuberant bloom.
No flowers bloomed this late in the summer. Tonight the air smelled of exhaust fumes and charcoal from the fast-food place down the street.
Jacy turned off the engine, rolled up her windows, grabbed her tote in one hand and her pepper spray in the other. She’d taken three steps away from her car when she saw the man sitting on the outside steps to her apartment. Waiting. Watching her.
She froze.
Night and the harsh light from the lamppost nearby laid hard black shadows across the man’s face and form, turning him into a fluidly changing study in black and white as he stood. His hat threw his face in shadow, but she didn’t need to see his features to know whose body uncoiled from one of the lower steps.
“If you have to carry pepper spray to walk from your car to your apartment, you’re in the wrong neighborhood,” Tom Rasmussin said.
The sudden starkness of Jacy’s face hit Tom like a blow to the stomach. He hadn’t meant to frighten her. But then, he hadn’t intended most of what he’d done to this woman, had he?
Guilt had a bad taste, yet there were worse emotions. “We need to talk,” he said.
She walked slowly toward him. Damn, it ought to be illegal for women to wear those exercise clothes in public. Especially a woman like her. Jacy had a body that could make a strong man beg, a body he remembered only too well.
His gaze slid to her belly, mostly hidden now by the yellow T-shirt. It looked flat still.
“You picked a lousy time to talk,” she said. “It’s late.”
“This isn’t exactly the time I picked. I’ve been waiting here two hours.”
For the first time she smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant expression. “You would have waited longer if I’d known you were here.”
He didn’t doubt that. “I’d like to come up.”
She studied him a moment longer before nodding. He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know how reluctant she was to let him in—every stiff muscle of her body as she passed him on the stairs spoke clearly of how little she wanted to be around him. He didn’t much blame her. The night probably wouldn’t get any better for her, either, considering what he had to say.
Her apartment made him jumpy. The large living area overflowed with color and clutter... and memories of the one other time he’d seen it. Books and magazines were scattered everywhere, from the hedonistic couches crowded with pillows to the small dining table where her computer sat.
The book on top of the nearest pile had a picture of a mother and a baby on the dust jacket. Tom looked away.
She’d told him no that night. After a long, hot kiss, she’d told him he was going too fast. His hand had been on her breast. She’d looked up at him with eyes slumberous with hunger and shiny with feelings he should have respected—and he’d never hesitated.
It hadn’t been hard to change her mind.
Tom took a deep breath. He’d known this wouldn’t be easy, hadn’t he? He took off his hat and bent to set it on her coffee table.
“You want a drink?” Jacy asked.
He looked at her, standing stiff and wary at the other end of the red couch. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders as if she’d just climbed out of bed. He had a sudden, visceral memory of her, of how she felt from the inside—and he wanted her. Oh, yes, he did want her, wanted to touch her one more time, wanted the thrill and insanity of losing himself in her, letting the fire have them both until everything else, past and future, was burned away. He’d never experienced fire like hers before that night, their one night together.
Memory melted into fantasy. What would it be like if he reached for what he wanted and tumbled her down onto one of the brightly colored couches? What if he slid his hand up under that yellow T-shirt as they fell...
Hell, was he completely crazy? He ran a hand over his hair, shaken by how quickly he lost control. “You shouldn’t drink, in your condition.”
Her lips tightened. “You have a pretty low opinion of me, don’t you?” She turned. “I’m having a diet soda. Join me or not, as you choose.”
He watched the sweet sway of her hips in that skintight thing she was wearing and hardened even more. She damned sure didn’t look like a mother-to-be. Jock, he thought, but didn’t say. He’d called Jacy that on more than one occasion, giving her a hard time because she liked to work out—partly because it bugged her, but mostly because it had helped him pretend he didn’t see her as a woman.
He forced his eyes to move up, and said the first of the things he’d come there to say. “How sure are you that I’m the father?”
She stopped a few steps away and turned slowly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I used protection. Both times. Before I accept responsibility, I want to know why you picked me for the father instead of one of your other lovers.”
She moved fast. He would have had to really work at it if he’d wanted to stop her. He didn’t.
Her slap rocked his head back. When her arm drew back to repeat the action, he caught her wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said as gently as he could while struggling with his own pain—a dull, terrible ache trying to swallow him, an ache that had nothing to do with the way his cheek stung from her blow. “I had to ask.”
He couldn’t doubt her anymore, as much as he wanted to.
She was carrying his baby. Oh, God, she was carrying his baby. Abruptly he turned away, stalking over to the window, where floor-length drapes closed out the night. He stood with his back to her.
There was no doubt in Tom’s mind what he had to do. Twenty years on the force hadn’t destroyed his belief in certain absolutes. He would do what was right.
He didn’t expect it would be easy, though. Or without cost. “You think I could still have that drink?”
The last thing he expected was her low, ragged laugh. “Sure, why not? Wish I could join you. Scotch, right?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” On the times they’d gotten together for a drink to exchange information, Tom had usually had a single shot of scotch, neat. He wasn’t surprised that she’d noticed. Jacy was damn good at her job—good enough to be a royal pain at times—and reporters of her caliber paid attention to details.
Of course, he knew what she’d had to drink at every one of their meetings, too—everything from orange juice to diet cola to tequila. Jacy liked to have candy bars or greasy hamburgers for lunch and steamed vegetables for supper. She was the least consistent health nut he knew. He’d told her that, too, in the past. Back when they were friends of sorts.
He took his time turning around, waiting until he had himself back under control. When he did, she was nowhere in sight and a brief, absurd spurt of panic stirred in him.
“I can’t find the scotch,” she said. Her voice came from beyond the dining alcove, where an open doorway gave him a glimpse of a tiny kitchen. “Is beer okay?”
What had he thought—that she’d left? Gone to the store? Moved out of town? “Whatever you’ve got is fine.”
He started moving around the room, examining it with his own eye for detail. He wanted—needed—to know more about this woman who would be the mother of his child. He’d lusted after her for nearly two years, but he’d been careful not to learn too much about her.
It was an absence, not a presence, he noticed first. There weren’t any photographs, either framed or in albums. No family photos, because Jacy didn’t have any family.
Emotion welled up inside him like blood from a gut wound, a feeling livid and nameless in its complexity. Guilt was part of it. And fear.
Tom believed in honesty the same way he believed in the rule of law. One was necessary to keep the jackals from taking over; the other was essential to keep a man’s soul clear of the unpayable debt of regrets. Yet in that moment he knew he would do whatever he could to keep Jacy from learning the truth about the night he’d taken her to bed.
The knowledge didn’t comfort him.
Jacy’s tastes in reading were eclectic. She seemed to like everything from Sartre to Garfield the cat. A text on agricultural methods sat on the coffee table next to a ragged Rex Stout paperback and a slim book on aromatherapy... and several volumes on childbirth and parenting.
He took a ragged breath, fighting back the welling emotion.
So. She was bright, and curious about pretty much everything. He’d known that much. She was also messy. In addition to the books and magazines scattered around the living room he saw two pairs of shoes and a shopping bag. The coatrack near the door held an umbrella, a fanny pack, a T-shirt and a towel.
So she didn’t spend a lot of time picking up. That might be a problem, he conceded. He preferred order. But he didn’t see dirt—no unwashed glasses, empty pizza boxes, crumbs or spill marks on the couches or carpet.
Untidy, but clean. He nodded. He could live with that.
The dining table held a computer, printer, printouts, books, newspapers—everything that a reporter might use in a home office. Her mail sat there, as well, in two piles—one opened, one not. He picked up the unopened pile instead of the opened one—his version of respecting her privacy—and was sorting through it when she came out of the kitchen with a glass of pop in one hand, a mug of beer in the other and a scowl on her face.
He wondered if she was going to throw the mug at him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
He put her electric bill back in the unopened pile. “The same thing you’d do if you were at my place, I imagine. You and I may not have much in common, but we’re both nosy by nature and by profession.”
She grimaced and held out his mug.
He couldn’t help smiling as he took it. She knew he was right, and as much as she wanted to, she wouldn’t deny it. That was one of the things he’d liked about Jacy from the start, one reason he’d fought to overcome his damnable reaction to her to achieve some sort of working relationship—she was scrupulously fair.
It was a rare quality. It was also why he couldn’t doubt her anymore. If she was certain he was the father, then he was.
He lifted his mug and downed half the beer.
“If you’re that eager for oblivion, I’ll be glad to hit you over the head with something.”
“You already have,” he muttered.
“It’s obvious you aren’t exactly thrilled by my news.” Her chin was up, but he saw something in the depths of those jungle green eyes, something very much like fear.
“Hell.” He set his beer on a clear spot on the table. “I’m not going to duck out on my responsibilities.”
“Are you going to sign the child support agreement I suggested, then?”
“Paying child support won’t turn me into a father.”
She got that look again, the one that had troubled him earlier, when she saw him waiting for her on the steps—a stark, anemic look, as if something vital had drained out. He hated it.
“No, it won’t. And if that’s your attitude, well, I’ll still take you to court for the money because it’s only right. It can go into a college fund. But you can forget about visitation rights.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He ran a hand over his hair. Lord, couldn’t he do any of this right? “You aren’t going to have to take me to court to get me to support my child.”
“You just don’t want to be bothered with spending time with the baby, then?” she said, her upper lip lifting in a definite sneer. The expression looked damnably gorgeous on that exotic face. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll do fine without you.”
“No, dammit, listen. I meant that, however much of a shock your news was, I want to be a father to my child. A real father, not a once-a-month baby-sitter.”
She didn’t give herself away by much...the movement of her throat as she swallowed. The pause that went on a little too long while she collected herself. Another man might not have noticed, or understood that she fought to control emotions swinging in wild, breath-stealing arcs.
Tom noticed.
“Well, good,” she said at last. “I’d thought—hoped—you were the sort of man who would want visitation rights, would want...it’s important, you know. A child should have a father who wants to be a father.”
Tom knew Jacy hadn’t had a father. Or a mother. “What about you?” he asked quietly. “Are you well? You and...the baby?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “The doctor didn’t mention any problems, anyway. I feel fine.”
Yeah, she was just fine. Pregnant and alone and scared—though she would deny it. He had a feeling he could have found her in a dead faint and she would deny feeling anything as vulnerable as fear.
“Look,” she said, “if I give you the name of my doctor, will you go by and fill out his forms?”
“I want to do the right thing, Jacy.”
“Good. That’s good.” She even smiled—not an entirely successful effort, but she was trying. “With both of us wanting what’s best for the baby, we can work things out.”
“You do want to do the right thing, too, don’t you?”
“Of course.” The smile tilted into a frown quickly enough.
“All right, then.” He took a deep breath and got it said. “Will you marry me?”
She just looked at him, as expressionless as if he’d spoken in another language. In spite of every reason he had not to, he couldn’t keep from smiling at her blank expression. “Marriage,” he said. “You have heard of it?”
“You’re crazy,” she said.
“That’s not quite the response I’m looking for.”
Jacy stared at Tom. She had trouble believing she’d heard what she’d heard. “It’s all you’re getting.” Nuts, she thought. The man is Obviously nuts.
All at once she needed to move. There was nowhere to go, no place to be except here, dealing with this—with him—but she didn’t have to stand still to do it. “What century are you living in, anyway?” She tossed the words over her shoulder as she paced. “People don’t get married because they have to anymore.”
“We both want what’s best for our baby. Having two parents is best.”
“Not if they can’t stand each other.” Jacy paced as if she were race-walking. When she reached the other end of the room she flung herself into a quick turn.
“I’m not surprised if you can’t stand me, under the circumstances. But I don’t feel the same.”
She scowled at him in disbelief and paused. “So maybe you don’t absolutely detest me. You don’t think much of me, period.”
“I... respect you.”
For some reason that infuriated her. “Don’t choke on it!”
“Jacy, I know you don’t want anything to do with me. But we’re not talking about what you want, or what I want.” There was something deliberate about his smile, something wicked—oh, yes, definitely wicked—a sexy twitch of his mustache, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “Though the fact that you want me almost as much as I want you ought to help us make a marriage work.”
She laughed at him. Put her hands on her hips, and laughed. “Oh, tell me another one. You want me? Sure—you took me out, took me to bed and decided once was enough. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant I’d never have seen or heard from you again unless I was interviewing you for the paper.”
“I can’t believe a woman like you could be so wrong about this sort of thing.” He started toward her.
What did he mean by that—“a woman like you”? A woman who had so many lovers she might not be sure which of them fathered her child? Jacy held herself steady against the fresh hurt. “Look,” she said, “I think this discussion is getting out of hand. I am not marrying you or anyone else.”
“Fine,” he said as he reached her. “We won’t talk for a while.”
Jacy was slow to understand. Later she would try to figure out why she’d been so slow, but now—now all she could do was step back. Only somehow she didn’t move fast enough. Or far enough. Even as she moved away he followed, reaching out.
His big hands cupped her face.
She should have been able to move then. He held her face firmly, his wolf-silver eyes fixed on hers—but she wasn’t hypnotized. She should have been able to move while he bent slowly over her.
Jacy braced herself. She knew what to expect The memory of how much Tom Rasmussin demanded of a woman made her body soften and ache for him even as she closed her mind and heart against him.
But he tricked her, damn him.
His mustache was soft. So was his mouth—soft and hot and riveting, gathering all her attention to her own lips as surely as a magnet draws iron. He passed his mouth slowly, gently, over hers. Once. Again...and again. The sweet persuasions of his lips undid her with every pass, unraveling her thoughts and her pride, leaving her balanced in some windless place where nothing existed except the quiet attention his mouth paid hers.
Her lips burned. Her breasts tingled. Her belly ached with the rich lightning pouring into her veins, while a longing as rich and forbidden as moonshine, as clear and potent as moonglow, banished sanity.
She reached for him.
In an instant the past surged up into the present. When her arms slid around him he circled her tightly, pulling her against him—body to body, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, trapped together by passion. His tongue entered her mouth. She tasted him then as she had before, and she went a little crazy.
Jacy’s hands insisted on knowing his body again. They raced over him. The ache in her intended to have more than this delirious press of clothed bodies, and her mouth silently told him this was so. In return, Tom kissed her as if he were able to do nothing else, as if his next breath depended on tasting her, knowing her.
Just like he’d kissed her the last time. Before he’d left her without a backward glance.
Jacy didn’t cool down as fast as she’d heated up. But her mind awoke, filled with thoughts as jumbled and unpleasant as the aftermath of a tornado. She wrenched herself away.
Her body was cold, separated from his. In a minute, just a minute, that cold would reach the rest of her, and she’d be able to speak.
“You understand now,” he said, his voice hoarse with strain. “I wanted you. All along, I’ve wanted you.”
“And you hated it.” She knew it was true even as she spoke—saw the truth of it in the sudden flicker of emotion in his startled eyes. “You wanted me and you hated it.” She stepped back another pace, trying to steady herself with distance. And failing. “That’s why you never called, isn’t it? Because you couldn’t stand wanting so much.”