Suddenly he heard a strangled cry coming from the shower

Without thinking, Mac threw back the curtain.

“What is it…Grace? What’s wrong?”

Stark naked, she stared at him with wide eyes. Her mouth formed a perfect little O.

Even as he tried to reassure her that she was okay, he couldn’t help but absorb the details of her body.

An unexpected heat of desire knocked him on his heels. Good to know past betrayals hadn’t killed every impulse in his body, but talk about poor timing. He tried to turn away, but Grace ran shaky hands across her flat tummy.

And then he finally understood her distress.

Across her belly, vertical lines, so faint they were all but invisible.

The lines a woman’s abdomen acquires as her body stretches to accommodate a pregnancy.

She was somebody’s mother.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

As we ring in a new year, we have another great month of mystery and suspense coupled with steamy passion.

Here are some juicy highlights from our six-book lineup:

 Julie Miller launches a new series, THE PRECINCT, beginning with Partner-Protector. These books revolve around the rugged Fourth Precinct lawmen of Kansas City whom you first fell in love with in the TAYLOR CLAN series!

 Rocky Mountain Mystery marks the beginning of Cassie Miles’s riveting new trilogy, COLORADO CRIME CONSULTANTS, about a network of private citizens who volunteer their expertise in solving criminal investigations.

 Those popular TOP SECRET BABIES return to our lineup for the next four months!

 Gothic-inspired tales continue in our spine-tingling ECLIPSE promotion.

And don’t forget to look for Debra Webb’s special Signature Spotlight title this month: Dying To Play.

Hopefully we’ve whetted your appetite for January’s thrilling lineup. And be sure to check back every month to satisfy your craving for outstanding suspense reading.

Enjoy!

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Undercover Babies
Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

This book is dedicated, with love, to my son,

Officer Joseph Sharpe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Sharpe met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327. SASE for reply is appreciated.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Grace—She wakes up in an alley, dressed in rags, with no idea who she is or where she belongs. Only an overpowering anxiety and the marks on her body that signify she has given birth keep her going.

Travis “Mac” MacBeth—The former whistle-blowing cop, now a private detective, was abandoned early in his life by his mother. He makes it his mission to reunite Grace with the baby she can’t remember.

Police Chief Barry—For political reasons, he’s mounting a vendetta against Mac that will keep him from reclaiming the career he loves. Is there nothing Barry won’t do to discredit Mac?

Beatrice Dally—Mac’s elderly aunt. She senses immediately that Grace isn’t a homeless addict and helps Mac recognize the first clue to her identity.

Elvis—Who is this flamboyant Elvis impersonator, and why does he keep showing up at the most opportune of times?

Casey Bellows—How does this terrifying killer always seem to stay one step ahead?

Doctor Daniel Priestly—The doctor of Boward Key, Florida. Has this arrogant, autocratic man set in motion the disaster that befalls Grace, or is it Grace’s past catching up with her as he insists?

Paula Priestly—Though she always has and still does support her husband without reservation, she’s also been a friend to Grace when she needed one.

Officer Neville Dryer—This lawman makes it clear he believes Grace’s unsavory past is responsible for her current problems.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

The minute she opened her eyes, she knew everything was wrong.

The coarse pavement on which she half sat, half lay. The iron stairs disappearing up the side of the cinder block building above. The row of padlocked doors, each with no number, no window. The Dumpster she leaned against. The crumpled cardboard boxes. The dark crevices. The pervading stink of rot and abandoned hope. All wrong.

And the rain. Half sleet. Cold. Icy. Miserable.

Wrong.

She tried sitting straighter and felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder. She rubbed it with numb fingers. The tattered sleeve of her red-and-black plaid coat alarmed her. She checked out the rest of her clothing. No hat. That explained the rain dripping off the end of her nose. Grungy gray pants, no socks, brown boots that looked and felt as though they belonged to someone else, a man, maybe.

She got to her feet, her bare toes rubbing against the wet leather. She ached, head to toe.

What was she doing dressed this way? What was she doing in this alley?

Another question knocked her back against the Dumpster.

Who was she?

Panic pushed the air out of her lungs, left her gasping. She racked the recesses of her memory, pleading with the synapses to wake up. Give me a name, a purpose, a home, something…anything, she begged. Moments passed and she found herself still lost in a fog as murky and unfathomable as the gray puddles at her feet.

Lost, inside and out.

She looked up and down the gloomy alley. No answers, but one end looked brighter than the other and the light drew her. Within a few halting steps, an uneven edge of worn pavement caught the toe of her boot and sent her plummeting to the ground. She landed in a heap, one cheek imbedded in gravel, the other pelted by biting rain. For a while, she lacked the drive, the energy, the will to move. Eventually, survival instincts kicked in and she struggled back to her feet.

Gray mud dripped off the front of her coat. A new tear in her pants rubbed against a matching slash in her knee as she staggered forward. Reaching the light at the end of the alley became a goal of tantamount importance. Salvation lay in the light.

The sound of footsteps from behind startled her and she stumbled to one side of the alley, cowering near a short flight of cement steps all but obscured by soggy drifts of wet newspaper. The approaching figure evolved into a man with a stride so menacing she couldn’t look away though she yearned to do so. Her heart thundered in her chest as he came abreast.

Rain hammered the brim of his hat, the shoulders of his black mackintosh. Pausing, he stared straight at her, eyes as dark and flat as the shadows from which he’d materialized. If she’d harbored even a glimmer of hope that she could turn to this man for aid, it died in that instant.

And then he moved off toward the coveted light at the end of the alley. Shivering as rivulets of freezing water found their way between her shoulder blades, she fled in the other direction, toward the dark end of the alley, toward an obscurity as far-reaching as the vacuum inside her head.

TRAVIS H. MACBETH, known to everyone but his favorite aunt as Mac, was sick of the rain. The fact that the new year had just begun and the bulk of winter lay ahead didn’t help. Welcome to Billington, Indiana, January-style.

He should be home tallying up nice, dry numbers and sipping something hot and fortifying instead of slogging through the wet, cold evening.

It had all started out so straightforward. Help an old friend’s father collect data in his bid for the next mayoral race. Maybe do some good, maybe shake up the status quo, maybe, if he was really lucky, help give the boot to both the current mayor and Police Chief Barry.

What Mac hadn’t figured on were his own compulsions.

At thirty-seven, a private detective with at least two careers behind him, shouldn’t he be wise enough to avoid situations like this one?

As he sloshed through the sludge, the answer was clear—apparently not.

Of course, he didn’t need to make the rounds of Billington’s less desirable localities. No one made him walk this dusk patrol and, in fact, he’d been warned by his former partner on the police force that his presence down here annoyed the hell out of the reigning powers that be. Of course, he already knew this. He had the citations for breaking laws no one else even knew existed to prove it.

As for the street people he encountered? Night after night, the same weary faces regarded him with the same indifference. His presence here warmed no one’s heart, least of all his own.

He knew it, he just couldn’t seem to stop himself.

As he approached the alley right before Broadhurst, he slowed his pace. Inside a soggy paper sack, he carried a giant roast beef and Swiss cheese hoagie. He wondered if Jake would be waiting for his sandwich in such horrible weather. On the other hand, where else did the old man have to go? Jake wasn’t a homeless shelter kind of guy.

So every night on his walk, Mac made it a point to mosey this direction and bring the old boozer a sandwich, one packed with as much protein and as many calories as possible. Jake seemed to appreciate the gesture, so there went Mac’s earlier speculation that no one cared if he patrolled these back streets.

Jake cared. Well, probably.

A man had to settle for what he could get.

From his peripheral vision, Mac saw a dark shape charge from the mouth of the heavily shadowed alley. He braced himself for an attempted mugging, then he recognized Jake’s coat, a red-and-black hunters plaid that always looked out of place buried in the city. He relaxed. Big mistake. The old man plowed into him so hard it rocked Mac on his feet.

“Damn it, Jake, what in the hell’s going on?” Mac growled as he grabbed bony shoulders and twisted the slight figure away from him. The deli sack bounced against the old man’s chest as Jake wrapped a muscular arm around his attacker’s throat, tight enough to stop further aggression, not so tight as to hurt him. “Since when do you assault people? And jeez, man, what in the world did you tangle with? No offense, but you stink.”

As he spoke, he moved the two of them into the weak light of a street lamp and was surprised to see how dark the top of Jake’s gray head looked. From the front it had always appeared so gray.

Jake went slack.

“That’s better,” Mac said. If turned loose, would Jake attack the next passerby? Mac looked up and down the abandoned street and admitted there likely wouldn’t be a next passerby, not on this wild winter night.

Old Jake suddenly grumbled a half dozen words in a voice that shook Mac down to his shoes.

“Jake? Is that my name? Jake?”

Mac withdrew his arm as he backed away. That wasn’t Jake’s alcohol-soaked slur.

He found himself staring into the dazed eyes of a young woman in her early twenties. Short black hair lay plastered against her head. Large blue eyes dominated her face though high cheekbones and a surprisingly sensual mouth demanded their share of attention, as well. She seemed half child, half woman, a rather beguiling combination marred only by blue-tinged lips and the aura of fear mingled with shock that hovered around her like the wavering halo around a winter moon.

She was also wearing Jake’s coat and what looked like his boots.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

She blinked. She looked confused and miserable, and he wished he had an umbrella to offer her.

“Is Jake my name?” she repeated.

“You don’t know your name?”

As she shook her head, his heart sank. She had to be homeless, penniless, adrift in a fog of drugs or booze or mental illness. She had to be someone’s daughter, someone’s lover, a beauty faded before it blossomed with such a shocked look in her eyes that it brought to mind a small animal trapped by a larger one.

Eyes like his mother’s eyes, so many years ago.

He resisted the urge to turn away from her but it was there, growing more pronounced by the moment—the desire to turn away, to shield himself from her raw pain and the subsequent feeling of helplessness it engendered in his soul.

She rubbed her throat where he’d manhandled her.

“Sorry about that,” he said and, as an act of penance, took off his favorite gray felt hat and pushed it down on her head.

Engulfed by the hat, she stared at him still, her eyes glittering slits beneath the brim. “Do you know me?” she insisted.

He shook his head. “No.”

Her voice turned to a pathetic squeak as she mumbled, “I’m not Jake?”

“No, but you seem to be wearing his clothes. Where is he?”

She managed to look even more bewildered and he knew she didn’t have an answer. He also knew he couldn’t leave her like this, nor could he call the cops and risk their sometimes heavy-handed treatment with the down and out, not when it was so obvious she struggled just to stay on her feet. It also wouldn’t help her win hearts if the cops found her with him. There was a shelter within walking distance, one run by two ex-nuns with medical training. He’d take her there.

But first, he’d make sure she hadn’t clubbed old Jake and stolen his clothes. “Come with me,” he demanded, moving toward the alley.

She stood her ground, if that teetering sway could be called standing.

Opening the sack, he produced the hoagie. “Hungry?”

She stared at the sandwich for a moment before nodding.

“Then come with me. You can eat while we take a shortcut through this alley.”

Still, she hesitated though her gaze never left the tightly wrapped hoagie he offered as bait.

“Listen,” he said, suddenly impatient. It was cold and his head was wet, thanks to the impetuous gift of his hat. He was worried about Jake. He’d testified in court that day and thus wore a suit under his raincoat, which meant he also wore his good shoes that might never recover from standing around in this torrential downpour. The day had been long and arduous, and he still had paperwork to do.

Taking a couple of powerful steps toward her, wincing as his approach caused her to shrink inside her pilfered clothes, he said, “If I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d have already pulled you into the alley. I wouldn’t have waited around risking pneumonia and I wouldn’t have offered you a perfectly good sandwich. Come with me or stay here, it’s your call.”

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded, suddenly straightening her slender body and, for a moment, transcending her environment. She wiped the rain from her face and extended a hand. “Please,” she added.

He handed her the sandwich and turned away, aware when she fell into step behind him, pleased that she had at least enough street smarts to give herself a little running room in case he turned into an ogre. After all, who knew if she’d stay at the shelter or leave as soon as they fed her properly? If she wound up back on the street, she’d need to be wary if she planned on surviving.

Wary, like his mom.

The girl stayed in the middle of the alley, eating her sandwich with a determination that surpassed mere hunger and spoke of elemental need. As she ate, her gaze darted this way and that, as if she expected a ghost—or worse—to materialize at any moment.

Mac moved aside boxes and shined a small flashlight into dark corners, into Dumpsters, under stairs and in old doorways. The girl stayed close by, moving forward as he did, quiet but watchful. When he upset a nest of empty bottles, the clatter made her jump.

“Your old stash?” he said with an oblique look.

She shook her head, thought about it a moment and then shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Maybe. I…I don’t recall…er…drinking.”

She smelled as though she did, not only her clothes, but her hair. He didn’t know if Jake smelled like booze. Jake had never allowed Mac close enough to get more than a cursory whiff. Jake was little more than a darting hand, an occasional grunted thanks, a turned back. For that matter, Jake wasn’t really Jake. Mac had pinned that moniker on him.

They reached the far end of the alley without finding a single sign of Jake. This was the first time Mac had actually entered this particular alley, so there was no way for him to tell if things were the same as usual. After this brief but thorough tour, however, he doubted Jake actually slept there. Not enough cover, not enough privacy. He probably just dropped by at dusk on his way to panhandling drinking money on a busier street, waiting for Mac and his nightly hand-delivered sandwich for fortification.

Mac could think of nothing else to do but get rid of the girl and take himself home. “I know where you can sleep,” he told her.

She looked suspicious so he added, “Would you rather stay here in the alley?”

Her answer was immediate and delivered as she glanced back over her shoulder. “No. Please, don’t leave me here.”

“Then come with me. I know of a shelter run by a couple of fine women. They’ll give you a bed for the night and maybe allow you the soul-satisfying pleasure of earning your keep by mopping a floor tomorrow morning. You’ll like them.”

She wadded up the paper that had surrounded the late, great sandwich and stuck it in her pocket. Jake’s pocket…

“I’ll be happy to earn my keep,” she said softly. She punctuated this statement with a yawn that she covered with wet fingers.

She looked so damn pitiful that Mac wanted to fold her in a hug and protect her from the rain, from her confusion, from herself. Instead, he walked away quickly, checking every now and then to make sure she followed, not sure what he’d do if she stopped. What could he do? Who knew better than he that you couldn’t help someone who didn’t want help?

Her trust in him would have been heartwarming if it wasn’t so obvious she was lost enough to follow anyone who offered a ray of hope. It was a big responsibility, being trusted in this way, one that made him antsy lest he fail her. He didn’t want to make her significant problems worse, but he wasn’t equipped to save her, either. It had taken him most of his life just to save himself and, come to think of it, he hadn’t been terribly successful at that chore. If he had, Jessica wouldn’t have left him, right?

Thinking about his ex-wife wasn’t Mac’s idea of a good time, and he approached the shelter with a sigh of relief.

The door to the place stood wide open. Sister Theresa stood framed in the open doorway, talking to a man wearing a long, old-fashioned-looking raincoat. The man carried a compact black bag.

A doctor? If Mac paid the guy for his trouble, would he examine the girl and help her out?

Sister Theresa called to him. “Mac? Is that you? Come in out of the rain. Have a hot cup of coffee or some cocoa. And bring your friend. Everyone’s welcome here.”

He felt a tug on the back of his coat and turned swiftly. The girl was shaking her head, trembling from the cold or a bad case of nerves, or maybe something less obvious.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, trying to reassure her.

She peered around his side, then back at him. My, she had pretty blue eyes. “Is that the woman you mentioned? The kind one?”

He furrowed his brows. The quaint phrasing of the question sounded odd, especially coming from this drowned rat of a woman whose sodden clothes probably outweighed her.

“That’s Sister Theresa, though you’d never know it by the way she dresses. As you can see, the good sister doesn’t go in for the traditional habit. Seems it’s your lucky day. Her visitor looks like a doctor—”

He stopped talking because the girl had wrenched herself free and was now walking away from him as fast as she could, which wasn’t all that fast but was decidedly determined. He called out to Sister Theresa that he’d be back and trotted after his waif, calling for her to wait up. She pulled the hat down farther on her head and kept walking.

He caught up with her easily and even as he seized her arm, he wondered why he bothered. Reasonable or not, she was a grown woman with the right to make any decision she so desired. No cop would arrest her for changing her mind about a shelter. So far as he knew, she’d done nothing wrong and hurt no one, not even herself. But he couldn’t ignore the vulnerable slump of her shoulders or the way her gaze faltered when their eyes met.

She was afraid. If not of Sister Theresa, then of what? Or whom?

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She cast a wary look toward the still lighted doorway and the two figures who had turned back to their conversation. She shook her head as though unable to put this new fear into words.

“Is it the doctor? Do you know him?”

Again she shook her head.

“Then let him examine you.” He touched her hand. “Come on—”

Again, he was talking to thin air as she’d managed to dart away. Instead of walking, she’d broken into a run. He’d seen a flash of terror in her eyes before she turned and that flash now yanked him after her.

“Wait,” he called, but she only ran faster. The clomping of her boots echoed on the wet sidewalk. A gang of five or six boys parted like the Red Sea as she plowed heedlessly through their midst. He heard them heckle her. Wearing that plaid coat and a man’s hat, they probably mistook her for Jake. He doubted she heard a single word.

Then he was among the kids, a few of whom he recognized from the dozens of times he’d seen them roaming the streets. They ignored him, he ignored them. Determined not to lose the girl, he kept up the pace.

It was inevitable that sooner or later the icy sidewalk would claim her and it did as she rounded a corner. He saw her feet slip out from under her and heard her cry as she hit the concrete.

He was there in a second but she was already scrambling to her feet, driven it seemed by panic, more powerful than any drug.

But of what? Of a doctor she’d never met? Of a nun?

She fell again, on hands and knees this time. Another sob, another mad scramble to her feet. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward him. She came kicking and screaming, out of control. She kept crying, “No, No. Please, no.”

He wrapped her tightly against him. “It’s okay, honey,” he said. “Calm down.”

“I don’t want—”

“I know, I can see that. I’m not going to make you do anything. Tell me what you want me to do.”

She collapsed against his chest.

Another group of teenagers—apparently the only people willing to brave the elements—passed on the other side of the street. Mac could see more people peering from sheltered doorways.

He couldn’t abandon the quivering mass of flesh and bones who clung to him for support. He just couldn’t—not here, not like this.

“Try to walk,” he told her. “Let’s get out of here.”

With his arm around her, he helped her along, but not back toward the unknown terror of the doctor or the Catholic nun.

But where?

The shelter seemed to be out of the question. Making a snap decision, he said, “I’m taking you to my place for the night. You’ll be safe there. Tomorrow, we’ll think of what we should do.”

Even as these words left his lips, he recognized the foolishness of this decision. He was promising this extremely needy young woman a haven for the night and help the next day; he would keep his word, but the motivation for his offer had as many facets as an octopus has arms.

Oh, well.

Where before she’d followed, now she leaned on him heavily, her slight weight no problem, but her sudden emotional withdrawal unnerving. He tried asking her questions, but she ignored him and seemed to put all her energy into the act of walking. She must have hurt her knee when she fell; he noticed she’d developed a slight limp and a whimper when she stepped hard on her right leg.

Eventually, he got her back to his car. By now, he was as wet and smelly as she was. On the way around to the driver’s door, he found a spanking new parking ticket tucked under his windshield wiper. Jeez, did these guys follow him around and wait for a meter to run out? The citation went into the glove box with all the others. If the cops didn’t knock off all these tickets, he was going to have to go to the D.A. and complain.

It took several minutes to navigate his way across town. During the drive, he tried not to inhale deeply. The two of them smelled like old rubbish stewed in street grime and booze. He’d probably have to fumigate his car.

The girl rubbed her left shoulder and said nothing.

For once, there was a parking spot within a block of his apartment. If anything, the rain had grown icier and more vicious, and, heads down, they made their way to his place. A short flight of stairs seemed like more of a challenge than she was up to; without hesitation, he swept her into his arms and carried her up the stairs.

By the time he unlocked the door, she seemed more zombie than human. He didn’t want her clothes, or his outerwear, either, for that matter, inside the apartment proper. He wasn’t sure how to tell her she had to strip.

Thankfully, the entry floor was tile, as they both dripped a river of rainwater. An opposing door that locked on its own led to the apartment itself, providing a nice barrier for cold winters. Now, it gave him a staging area for getting his guest ready to come inside. He carefully locked the door to the outside, wondering when the girl would realize she was trapped, tense because he knew he was taking a chance and unsure why he’d put himself in this position.

Wouldn’t Chief Barry just love to have him investigated for kidnapping or assault….

Taking off his own coat and hanging it on a hook, he found his testify-in-court suit still relatively dry and clean. His shoes were hopeless. “Take off your clothes down to your underwear,” he told her softly. “I’ll get you a robe.”

She stared down at her clothes as though she’d never seen them before.

“Okay, then,” he said, and unlocked the second door. Turning on all the lights as he went, he made his way quickly to his bedroom, the carpeted floor a welcome cushion under his sock-clad feet. He grabbed the raw silk robe his aunt had brought him back from Hong Kong a decade before and hurried back to the entry.

She was still standing where he’d left her. Her eyes were closed and she looked as if she’d fall down if he blew on her. His first thought was to call a doctor. He quickly dismissed that and comforted himself with the thought that she’d rally after a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.

“I’ll help you,” he told her.

That seemed to rouse her a little. A least she opened her eyes. In the bright light, her irises looked as blue as a summer sky and as guileless as a picnic. Again, he felt a surge of protective ardor that was totally out of place.

He unbuttoned her coat. Jake’s coat. Where did she get this awful garment? Under what circumstances did a burned-out boozehound give up his coat on an icy winter day? For money? This girl didn’t look like she had two coins to rub together. Out of some kind of loyalty or caring? Did Jake know this woman?

He removed his ruined hat from her head, peeled the wet coat from her body and deposited it on the tile floor. She stood facing him in a flannel shirt so dirty it was hard to tell its original color. Her pants were way too big and tied around her waist with a length of rope. The boots on her feet suddenly looked huge, like clown shoes. He knelt down and untied them, but it really wasn’t necessary. They slipped off in his hands and he found she was barefoot underneath. Her tanned feet were damn near frozen to the touch.

“You might want to take the rest of these wet things off,” he said, raising the robe between them as a privacy shield.

He heard nothing and ventured a peek. She stood there, swaying.

“All-righty then,” he said, and biting the figurative bullet, hoped a sense of modesty didn’t pay her a belated visit. Talking all the while about the virtue of hot water and soap, he unbuttoned her shirt and stripped the wet cloth away. He tried to do this without looking, but that proved impossible, especially after he caught a glimpse of what lay hidden under the shirt.

Black silk. A tiny glittering sea horse sewn on to a wisp of black lace.

It was like peeling an egg and finding a diamond instead of a yolk.

Though he tried not to notice, he was a man, after all, and he couldn’t help but take heed of the size and shape of her breasts. Not as large as Jessica’s, but firm looking and beautifully rounded, this woman’s breasts filled the cups of her bra with what appeared to be damn near perfection.

“Pretty underwear,” he said, hoping the comment might startle her into speech. More likely, it would earn him a slap across the face, a slap he deserved if his increasingly wayward thoughts were to be considered. She didn’t move.

That’s when he noticed her staring at the inside of her left arm. He followed her gaze and saw what so mesmerized her were several needle marks and surrounding bruises.

Damn.

Here he’d just about decided she wasn’t a druggie and, pow, proof. Would she start climbing the walls when her latest hit wore off? “Are you okay?” he demanded. “Talk to me.”

She stared at him and shook her head. Had she gone into some kind of shock induced by cold and stress?

“Say something,” he demanded.

“I’m…I’m cold,” she stammered, hugging herself. Her left shoulder was black and blue.

And then she began plucking at the snarl around her waist, trying to untie the rope, having no luck. She cast him a helpless look and so he tried to come to her aid, but in the end, it proved necessary to take out his pocket knife. Bypassing the knot, he hacked through the rope. The pants immediately slid over her slender hips, puddling on the floor at her feet.

Her panties matched her bra—bedecked with a dazzling sea horse, feminine, expensive, out of place. They, too, covered lovely mounds of flesh, as well as a trim stomach. Both her knees were red, but the right one sported a two-inch gash that looked relatively superficial. Additional bruises marred her thighs and legs.

As she held his hands for support and stepped out of her pants, he wondered again. Who was she? A coed gone astray? A working girl whose favorite john indulged his fantasies by dressing her in fancy lingerie and then pummeling her?

Awkwardly, he pulled the robe over her arms and tied the sash around her waist, studiously trying to ignore the feel of her cold but petal-soft skin. The ripe smell of the alley helped squash amorous thoughts. Supporting half her weight, they shuffled inside the apartment. He closed and locked the door behind them, still babbling like a demented man, covering his own apprehension with the sound of his voice.

“I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the girl,’” he said. “It’s politically incorrect and after our recent familiarity, a little silly.”

No rise from her. No flicker of an eyebrow or curl of a lip. No indignant sneer, no anger. Nothing.

“How about I call you Grace?”

She stared at him, wrinkling her brow as though trying to think.

“Is that name okay with you?” he said, trying his best to force her to speak, concerned that she still could.

She mumbled something that sounded like yes and he let it be. Within minutes, he had her in the shower, underwear and all. He could almost see the hot spray coax her back to life. When she grabbed the soap from his hand, he knew it was time to step away and leave her alone.

“There’s shampoo on the shelf in there,” he told her.

She answered by handing him her underwear, which she’d wrung out.

As he dropped it in the sink, he heard a strangled cry coming from the shower, then another. Without thinking, he threw back the curtain.

“What is it…Grace? What’s wrong?”

Stark naked, she stared at him with wide eyes. Her mouth formed a perfect little O.

Even as he tried to reassure her that she was okay, that he’d leave the room or call for help, whatever she wanted, he couldn’t help but absorb the details of her body. And wow, what a body she had. Nipples like pink rose buds. Curvaceous waist and hips. Long, shapely legs. Lots of tanned skin, discreet areas of lily white.

The unexpected heat of desire knocked him on his heels. Good to know his ex-wife’s betrayal hadn’t killed every impulse in his body, but talk about poor timing. He tried to turn away, but the woman—Grace—ran shaky hands across her flat tummy and a new fear crystallized in his head. Was she going to throw up?

And then he finally understood her distress.

Across her belly, vertical lines, so faint they were all but invisible.

The lines a woman’s abdomen acquires as her body stretches to accommodate a pregnancy.

His gaze met hers. Tears streamed down her face.

She was somebody’s mother.

Chapter Two

Grace managed to gather enough wits to wash her hair and towel dry herself. The man didn’t leave the room, though she could feel his intense desire to do so. If he stayed, it must be because she looked as awful as she felt.

A pregnancy. She had a child.

She wiped the tears from her face with shaky fingers.

A baby.

Or not. Maybe the pregnancy hadn’t ended well. Maybe that was the tragedy that had propelled her into a lifestyle that ultimately led her to find herself in a stranger’s bathroom, needle marks on her arm, covered with bruises, her mind little more than a foggy cliff edged with perilous drops into nothingness.

The man handed her a tissue which she took gratefully and blew her nose.

Competing for attention with an exhaustion so acute it ate away at her joints was a growing sense of anxiety. There was someplace she needed to be, someone she needed to see, something she needed to do.

But what?

“Here, put this on,” the man said.

She stared at the blue garment and realized she’d been standing there with the towel clutched to her chest, the rest of her body stark naked. She knew what he offered was a robe, she knew he wanted her to put it on, to cover herself. She even knew, in some remote part of her mind, that he felt disconcerted by her nudity. She reached for the robe, but everything seemed to happen in slow motion. At last, she got it around her. She could feel the man’s relief.

What kind of woman is so unconcerned about a strange man seeing her naked?

She didn’t even want to contemplate the possibilities. She was too tired to ponder such a troubling question.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

He shrugged broad shoulders still encased in a gray suit jacket now stained with shower water. As she watched, he took off his jacket and draped it over a towel bar, then rolled up the sleeves of a white shirt. He had nice forearms, strong looking, dusted with fine, dark hair.

But what she’d noticed first about him still dominated his looks and those were his eyes. They were green or maybe blue, it was hard to tell, and framed with dark lashes and brows. All sorts of things seemed to swirl in them: compassion, challenge, distaste, self-awareness, humor, trouble, danger. She’d seen all those things and while some had dismayed her, others had warmed her and given her courage.

She stared at the rest of him as he dug in a wall cabinet. He was tall and powerfully built. When he’d carried her up the outside stairs, she’d felt like a feather floating on the wind, like no burden at all. He had a habit of rubbing the back of his head, ruffling the short brown hair, stretching as though there was so much going on inside his head that it put a strain on his neck.

She suspected that she herself was the cause of his current tension.

He produced a box of Band-Aids and a tube of ointment. “Sit down on the edge of the tub,” he told her, and she did as he said. Was she always this wishy-washy, this easy to control?

No. She knew she wasn’t.

Kneeling in front of her, he treated and bandaged her knee. She made herself rally to ask him a few questions. First, his name.

“Travis MacBeth,” he said, gazing up at her. “People call me Mac.”

The nun at the shelter had called him Mac. Now she remembered. The next question was harder. “Who is Jake?”

“An acquaintance.” When she stared, he added, “A homeless boozer.”

“And my clothes…they’re his?”

“I assume so. Seems kind of unlikely there are two identical coats running around the back streets of Billington. Plus, this is the first night in two months that Jake wasn’t waiting for me at the mouth of that alley and the first night you were.” He paused for a second and added, “Grace? Why did you run out of that alley the way you did?”

She wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“Were you running from something or someone?” he persisted.

She was running. Toward the light? Away from the light. Away from Jake?

Maybe her face reflected the unease the hazy memory of that alley engendered because Mac patted her arm and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Do you think…do you suppose…I hurt Jake? To get his coat, I mean. Was that why I was running?”

He stared at her and then smiled. Was it the first time he’d done that or had he smiled before and she’d forgotten? At any rate, he had a good smile, the kind a person could find themselves working to see again. The kind that took years and cares off a man’s face and gave a glimpse of what lay hidden in his heart. He said, “No. I don’t think so. We looked for Jake, remember?”

They’d walked through the alley. She could recall the clanging of empty bottles and the look of disgust in Mac’s eyes as he asked if they were hers. “How old do you think I am?” she asked.

Again he stared at her. “Early twenties, maybe.”

“And I’ve had a baby.”

“You’ve apparently had a pregnancy. And a husband.”

That jolted her. “A husband?”

He touched the ring finger on her left hand. “There’s a tan line here. There are tan lines on your body, as well.”

Sure enough, there was a discernible white line on her finger. She stared at it until her eyes burned. It didn’t help. No memory of a loving husband surfaced. No memory of an awful husband surfaced, either. She felt a new spurt of anxiety and wondered if it was related to the husband whose ring she’d apparently forsaken.

Or hocked. Or lost.

Or to a baby she held in her arms, nursed at her breast, and now couldn’t remember.

It was all too much.

“Which brings to mind all sorts of questions,” Mac said.

She gazed at him and waited, but when he finally spoke, she found she couldn’t comprehend what he said. She just couldn’t. His words stretched out and away and began to seem like musical notes in some bizarre song.

Could she sing along?

What were the words?

She felt his hands on her shoulders and realized her eyes had drifted closed. When she opened them, she found Mac supporting her, his gaze filled with alarm. He lifted her off the edge of the tub and she melted against his solid chest, circling his neck with grateful arms and closing her eyes again. Wrapped in his arms, she felt safer than she had since this ordeal began.

And then she felt a creepy sensation steal over her body. Flat black eyes stared at her behind a glistening silver curtain. Red hot hands grabbed her.

Screaming, she pushed her attacker away. The jolt when she hit the floor forced another scream from her throat.

“Grace, Grace, it’s okay,” Mac said.

She was on the floor. Mac bent over her. Gathering her in his arms, he held her for a moment while the fear subsided and the tears died in her throat. He helped her to her feet and onto the bed. She looked around for her assailant. No one else was in the room.

Somewhere in her head, she knew there never had been.

Mac tucked her between snow-white sheets. She caught his hand and held it for a moment, loath to give up the connection. She wanted to thank him for helping her, but the words were swallowed by fatigue and she drifted off to oblivion…or death.

What was the difference?

MAC SAT at his desk. He downed a stiff drink in two swallows.

The desk had been his father’s. Mac had grown up doing his homework on its polished surface, shoving aside the blotter and suffering his father’s wrath when the older man caught him doing it. Mac now ran his finger over the myriad of shallow indentations that still existed, ghosts of long-ago essays and algebra equations.

He stared down the hall at the bedroom door that he’d left slightly ajar and wondered what he was going to do with this woman come morning. He reviewed the impulses that had led him to bringing her into his home. Her confusion. Her distress. Her minor injury. Her robotic behavior.

Her vulnerability.

Her fragile beauty.

The memory of his mother…

That’s how she’d gotten here.

Now he was confronted with the realization that she was, or had been, married. She’d been pregnant, possibly still had a living child waiting for her return. Had she run away from her husband and her child?

Like his mother had.

Tempted to pour himself another drink, he stayed seated instead.

She was an addict. Drugs, liquor…something. If the marks on her arm weren’t witness enough, that fit she’d had while he carried her to bed was. She’d gone berserk, sleeping like an angel one moment and screaming like a banshee the next. He would spend the night in this chair to keep an eye on her, and then the next morning, he would take her to Sister Theresa’s or back to her alley, whichever she wanted.

And what about her child?

Burying his head in his hands, he found it almost impossible not to feel that child’s loss. He understood all too well the ache for a mother who has vanished, the ache that never goes away.

But what could he do?

Find him or her?

Find Grace’s husband?

How did someone do any of that when the person he was helping didn’t seem to have the slightest clue as to who they were?

Swearing at all the ambiguities, he opened the drawer and took out a dozen pages of facts and figures. Maybe he could lose himself in his work.

Once upon a time, way back when, Mac had had a best friend named Rob Confit, an army buddy who died as a result of injuries suffered in a helicopter crash. Since Rob’s death, Mac had become close to Rob’s father, and now the elder Confit was challenging the current mayor in next fall’s mayoral race.

It was Bill Confit’s contention that the city government’s mishandling of homelessness within Billington had resulted in skyrocketing inner-city crime. Appointing a privately funded task force to investigate this situation, Confit had asked Mac to act as chairman. Who better, he’d asked, than a former cop who’d risked his career to unveil corruption within the police force?

There was no way in the world Mac would think of denying Confit’s request. At first, he’d approached it readily, able to put his own past in perspective. But gradually, he’d come to see his mother’s face superimposed on every derelict he came across and the old wounds resurfaced.

Hence the need he felt to get out on the streets and see how the people who had next to nothing managed to survive. Did they prey on one another and the public at large? Were they responsible for rising crime rates and dying inner cities, or were they the victims of apathy and budget crunches?

Mac didn’t know the answers yet, but he was becoming increasingly determined to make sure that the homeless and the defenseless didn’t take the brunt of the censure unless they deserved it.

So far, he didn’t think most of them did.

The current mayor disagreed.

The police disagreed.

Most of the committee disagreed.

And to top it off, Mac couldn’t swear his own agenda didn’t sway his conclusions. Most people thought facts and figures were foolproof, that there was only one way to translate dry, hard data. As an ex-cop, Mac knew nothing could be further from the truth. There was always room for interpretation.

But tonight he couldn’t make his eyes focus on the papers. He kept seeing flashes of the woman he’d dubbed Grace. Naked in the shower, her skin and features breathtaking; crying; dripping wet in the alley, looking at him from under the brim of his hat. Her tan lines suggesting recent sunbathing, marriage and happy times.

Her image seemed to fill his mind and even a little corner of his heart. He knew it was foolish and he knew it was dangerous. Not only for him, but for her. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

Rubbing his forehead, he shuffled the papers back into the drawer and thought to walk down the hall to check on Grace. He had every intention of doing this.

Sometime later, he awoke with a start. For a second, he felt confused, wondering why he’d fallen asleep at his desk, his head on his arms.

And then he sat up. The noise that had awakened him finally registered, and he tore off down the hall toward his bedroom.

Breaking glass. That’s what he’d heard. His guest had woken up, panicked and tried to escape. She’d hurt herself if she tried jumping to the sidewalk….

Light from the hall flooded the bedroom as he threw open the door. It twinkled off the shards of glass that littered the floor beneath the only window in the room, one that opened onto the street half a floor up from the sidewalk. A jagged brick lay amid the glass.

Grace had apparently slept right through the mayhem. Sidestepping the worst of the mess, he peered out the window. Sometime during the night, the rain had turned to snow, but not the greeting card variety. Instead of making the city glow, this snow just colored the world in shades of gray.

With a lingering look at Grace’s peaceful form cuddled beneath his down comforter, Mac grabbed a heavy wool sweater from his closet and a flashlight from his bedside drawer. The entryway was as he’d left it, filled with soggy, smelly clothes and puddles of water. He hurried down the steps and along the sidewalk until he was under the window that glowed faintly above his head.

Examining the snow proved pointless. It was sludge at best. There was no hope of discerning a footprint and peering up and down the street, he could see no moving form at all. Mac stared at the distance between himself and the window and gauged how hard it would be for someone to toss a brick through the window. Not that hard.

But why? Without wings or a ladder, no one could use the broken window to get inside. Once again, he scanned the street. Zip.

That left intimidation as a motive and it didn’t take much of an intuitive leap to figure out who might want to intimidate him.

So far, the police harassment had been relatively minor. Parking tickets. Speeding tickets. Hang-up calls. Citations for breaking archaic laws like the size of lettering on his office sign and the potted plant he’d left on a step. But today, he’d testified in court on behalf of a bum accused of shoplifting. Mac knew the poor guy was innocent; he’d been in the store, he’d seen the rich kid who originally took the camera in question and then shoved it into the bum’s hands when it appeared he was going to be caught. It was Mac’s testimony that had swayed the jury to dismiss the charges.

This time, his testimony had counted. A year before, he’d been the only cop to speak out against three officers whose use of excessive force had led to the unnecessary death of an addict.

Bottom line: If not to intimidate, what was the purpose of breaking the window?

It couldn’t have anything to do with Grace. It was just coincidence that she was sleeping in that room. If it wasn’t coincidence, then that would mean someone who knew something about her knew she was here. And cared that she was here.

He walked back inside and down the hall. He found Grace sitting on the side of the bed, staring at the shattered glass, shivering in her robe thanks to the cold air now streaming through the broken window. The thought that the broken window had anything to do with her seemed ludicrous.

“What happened?” she said.

“Nothing to worry about,” he snapped, guessing she wouldn’t question anything too closely and, sure enough, he was right. She rubbed her eyes and closed them again.

“We need to get you back to bed,” he said, his voice brusque to cover the tender feeling he could sense stealing over his heart.

She nodded without opening her eyes.

Stepping around the glass, he leaned down and hoisted her over his shoulder.

She screeched, “Put me down!”

In that heated demand, the woman whose rounded bottom currently rested atop his shoulder and whose head was now upside down facing his back, had packed more passion than he’d so far heard from her and it reassured him. “Can’t have you cutting your feet,” he said as he carried her out of the room and deposited her on the sofa.

She tugged on the robe, the first sign of modesty he’d witnessed, and that, too, reassured him. As she grumbled, he found pillows and blankets in the hall closet. By the time he had made her a new bed and tucked her into it, she was asleep again.

For a while, he stood in the open bedroom doorway, ignoring the ice cold air. He stared at the brick. Should he report the incident to the police? Wouldn’t the jerk who threw it love that! There was no way the brick sported fingerprints. Better to swallow the cost of replacing the window himself than give Chief Barry the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled Mac’s cage.

This was proof, however, that as the months passed and the election neared, the stakes would grow higher.

It was also proof that the only job he’d ever wanted—to be a cop, to make a difference—was lost to him.

The only niggling worry was Grace. If someone had tracked her to his apartment, then she was being watched.

Was she in some kind of danger?

Impossible to speculate on that when he possessed so little information. Reason said no one wanted her, no one had tracked her.

He swept up the mess, closed the bedroom door and sat back down at the desk. Behind him, on the sofa, Grace slept soundly.

SHE AWOKE when the phone rang. She could hear the rumble of a man’s voice. For one blissful moment, she snuggled in the cocoon of warm blankets and thought to herself how nice it was to be warm when the world all around was cold.

Cold?

Grace sat up abruptly. Mac appeared in the kitchen doorway, two coffee mugs gripped in his hands.

“Morning,” he said, handing her one. “How do you feel?”

She’d noticed how big he was the night before. This morning, she added attractive to her observation. He’d changed into jeans and a black cotton shirt, which he wore like a second skin. His dark hair, damp from the shower, fell boyishly over his forehead. The expression in his eyes was cautious. He probably wondered if she was going to flake out on him again, if she needed a hit of some illegal substance or a drink.

The only thing she craved was the caffeine she’d just introduced into her bloodstream via the excellent coffee. She said, “I feel okay.”

“Did you remember anything about yourself?” His face now reflected how anxious he was to hear the right response. Unfortunately, she couldn’t give it to him and she shook her head. The enormity of her situation flooded back. She still had no idea who she was.

For a while there, she’d thought that at least she would be able to think clearly today; the veil of exhaustion seemed to have lifted with the coming of the morning sun. But now, the old confusion was back and she felt tears welling in her eyes. She bent her head to hide them.

Mac moved away as though to give her space. “My wife was about your size,” he said, gesturing at the desktop where he’d placed a modest stack of clothes.

“Won’t she mind—”

“She’s in New Jersey and she isn’t my wife anymore, so no, she won’t mind if you use her castoffs. I’ll go scramble some eggs while you use the bathroom.”

“Wait.”

He paused for a second while she fought to find the right words. It was no use; she hadn’t the slightest idea what they might be. A plea for him not to abandon her even though she could sense he was dying to get her out of his hair? What argument could she make? The logical place for her would be a hospital but the thought of going to see a doctor terrified her. Why?

She said, “Who was on the phone?” fully aware that it wasn’t any of her business.

“Sister Theresa,” he said curtly. “Before that, a friend of mine. Before that, the building super who wanted to know why one of my windows is broken. Now go get dressed. We’ll talk after breakfast.”

Balancing the clothes and the coffee mug, she made her way down the hall into the bathroom. She could feel a draft of cold air blowing from beneath the closed bedroom door as she passed, and the night’s adventure came back to her.

A broken window. Made a person wonder exactly what Mac did for a living that someone should break his bedroom window.

The first thing she did in the bathroom was look at herself in the mirror. She found a twenty-something woman with extreme black hair cut painfully short. Blue eyes, full lips. Tanned skin. An abrasion on one cheek.

The face belonged to a stranger.

The next thing that caught her eye was the bruise on her shoulder, the bruises cascading down her left side, the needle marks on her arm, scraped knees, one of them bandaged, and, most distressing of all, the faint stretch marks on her stomach.

No memories of any of it, but the unease she’d felt the night before, the pressing urgency of a task undone, of somewhere she needed to be, someone she needed to be with, came rushing back. She put her hand on the doorknob, ready to march right out and demand—what?

Maybe she’d dress first…

She found her fancy black underwear still draped over the towel bar where Mac had hung it to dry the night before. Where did she come by such exquisite lingerie?

Mac had provided black wool-lined slacks that felt snug through the rear and a light blue sweater too tight in the chest. His ex-wife must have been a trim little woman, she thought as she pulled on socks and slipped her feet into the woman’s designer loafers, which fit a lot better than Jake’s boots had.

The clothes were warm and more or less comfortable, boring and predictable, but good quality. Still, she entered the kitchen awkwardly, feeling insignificant in Mac’s presence, wondering if he would look at her decked out like this and think of his ex-wife.

“Everything fit?” he asked as he buttered toast.

“It’s all fine. Listen, I have to go.”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “That’s great. Then you’ve remembered who you are and where you live?”

“Well, no—”

His expression reflected a disappointment almost as vast as her own. He said, “You can leave any time you want, but why not eat breakfast first?” As he said this, he handed her a plate dominated by a cheese omelet and toast.

“I can’t eat—” she began but he cast her a stern look so she shut up and sat down at the table. Her stomach was too twisted to handle food. She began to regret drinking the coffee. Mac, not knowing this, of course, refilled her mug before sliding his own omelet onto his plate. He took the seat opposite her at the small, round table.

“I have to go to work,” he said after taking a few hearty bites. “I’ll drop you off wherever you want—”

“The alley,” she said, putting down her fork and dropping all pretenses of being interested in food. For something to do with her trembling hands, she picked up the mug and was grateful for its warmth.

He repeated her destination in a wooden voice. “The alley.”

“It’s where this all started. I have to find out what’s going on. I have to know…there’s someone I need to go to…somewhere I need to be. Time is passing. I’m wasting time…”

Her voice trailed off as she heard her words. They sounded desperate, grasping. She’d walked down that alley with Mac the night before and there had been nothing there but a pile of empty bottles. And though the sense of urgency wouldn’t go away, how did she act on it when she had no idea who in the hell she was?

“I think you should go to a hospital and be examined. Maybe you suffered a head injury or—”

“Absolutely not,” she said emphatically. Her head pounded with the effort of staying focused and she rubbed her temples with one hand. “I’ll just stay here until my mind clears—”

“You can’t stay here alone.”

“Why not?”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a parody of a smile. “Well, beyond the fact that I don’t know you and am not in the habit of leaving strangers alone in my house, there’s the fact that someone broke the window of the room you were sleeping in last night.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would anyone care where I sleep?”

“Good question. Maybe no one cares. I don’t have enough information to tell.”

“Couldn’t the brick have been intended for you? Do you have any enemies?”

“A few. But my enemies would aim for my head. Unless it was a cop.”

“A cop?” As sketchy as her memory was, she knew enough to be surprised that a man who was obviously intelligent, lived in a nice apartment and dressed well had an antagonistic relationship with the police. “The cops are your enemies?”

“Not all of them. In fact, I was a cop myself until a year ago. I talked to my former partner early this morning. He confirmed that tensions are high around the precinct, but he doesn’t think anyone would stoop to a sophomoric trick like tossing a brick through a window. Maybe he can help you—”

“No police!” she said. She slammed the mug down too hard on the table. “No police!” she repeated, not sure why she felt so strongly but knowing she did.

Did she subconsciously know she’d done something wrong, broken a law, was wanted by the authorities?

“Okay, no police,” he said calmly, ignoring the puddle of coffee spreading across the table top.

She nodded, swallowed and dabbed at the coffee with a paper napkin. She felt tears burning her nose. Her stomach was a tight knot. She said, “What did Sister Theresa want?”

“She warned me that I should be careful, that you might have needs I can’t fill, that I might hurt you by trying to help you.”

“Or that I might hurt you,” Grace whispered.

“I’m invincible, so don’t worry about that. Listen, you can’t stay here and you won’t go to a shelter or a hospital. Where do you want to go?”

The response came without thought. “Home,” she said softly. “I just want to go home.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.