The Seven-Day Target (19 page)

He brought his mouth to hers and tasted her gently, as if he feared she might break. His lips were soft and warm, and his kiss was tinged with the faint suggestion of moisture. Cassie responded by wrapping her hands behind his neck and pulling him closer. She teased his lips open with her tongue and delighted in the way he drew nearer still, deepening the contact between them. When he broke away, they were both breathless.

Dom smoothed the loose tendrils of Cassie’s hair back and then grew still, framing her head gently with his hands. “I know you’re tired, and if I stay any longer I won’t trust myself to leave. Besides, I’m old-fashioned. Can I take you out to dinner tomorrow?”

“Yes.” She was amazed she found the breath to respond. “I’ll get a babysitter.”

He stepped away with a tilt of his head that may have been a nod. “I’ll pick you up at seven, then?”

“Seven-thirty is safer.” She stammered. “You know, with Sam’s schedule.”

He smiled. “Seven-thirty. And I’ll take you somewhere nice this time. No Chinese takeout.”

She followed him to the front door and watched as he climbed into his car and drove away. Then she locked the door and pressed her back up against it, trying to catch her breath. She had a date with a man who thought she was beautiful in sweatpants.

Her heart pumped a warm pleasure through her veins. Dom thought sweatpants were sexy? A small grin twisted her mouth as she thought of the elegant black dress she’d purchased early in her pregnancy. She ran to her closet and pulled it out, holding it in front of her before the full-length mirror in her bedroom. The fabric was stretchy and soft. The dress would fit.

She smiled at her reflection. He didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter 14

A
s tired as she was, Libby contorted into a hundred different positions, failing to find one that was comfortable. All the while Nick slept soundly beside her. She’d watched him sleep, attempting to lose herself in the steady rise and fall of his chest. Then morning broke outside her window and she gave up even trying.

She headed down the stairs and sat on the couch in her living room, listening to the silence of the morning. Last night her heart had nearly broken when Nick hadn’t carried in his suitcase. He had to leave. There was no choice. The realization had knocked her sleepless. She was in love with Nick: again, still or maybe for the first time.

No good could come of these feelings. Her life was in Arbor Falls and his was in Pittsburgh. They were both married to their careers. A relationship would only mean sacrifice, which would lead to resentment and, ultimately, heartbreak. Neither one of them should be required to give anything up. Love shouldn’t work that way.

She bit her thumbnail and then stopped, but only because there was nothing left to bite. So much for her plans at self-improvement. She pulled her knees up into her chest and leaned back against the side of the sofa. She’d worn her mother’s charm bracelet to bed, and it chimed pleasantly as she moved. Libby toyed with the tiny treasure chest, opening and closing it, imagining the treasure that could be tucked in so small a space. Tiny gold doubloons, maybe, or a little emerald necklace. Some day Sam might like to sit on her lap and play with it, just like she had when she was a child.

Libby folded a pillow beneath her head. She was in love with Nick, and so what? Even if they could figure out a way to bridge the miles between them and reconcile their work schedules, he wanted children. Her face was hot. She couldn’t enter into a relationship with him now, knowing how important children were to him and the resentment that would surely result. Much better for her to date someone who was comfortable being childless. Like David.

Her stomach plummeted. No, not like David, who was boring and passionless and liked to talk about contracts too much. She didn’t want to date David. She wanted to feel fiery and alive. She wanted to feel
powerful.
She was tired of encapsulating herself in ice and measuring every word, every move and every response. She was ready to be who she was, even if she still had to figure that part out.

She swallowed. Nick should be who he was, too. He should have the future he imagined for himself, with an exciting job and babies who had his beautiful brown eyes. A dog. And a wife who was not her.

Her hand flew to the sudden ache in her chest. This was the right thing. The good, practical thing, to let him go and to make it easy on him. But it hurt.

* * *

Nick raised the shades in the living room to admit a flood of sunlight before he realized that Libby was sleeping on the couch. She groaned and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven-thirty. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

She stretched and then sat upright, passing a hand through her hair. “I didn’t sleep well last night. Too much excitement.”

He could have guessed as much from her pale complexion and the dark circles beneath her eyes. “I’ll make breakfast. After that you can take a nap.”

She blinked at him. “No. I’ll be fine.”

She stood and followed him to the kitchen, where they prepared a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast with strawberry preserves. Libby seemed to be troubled by something, but whenever Nick pressed her about it, she shrugged it off with a casual excuse. She was exhausted from the past few days, and her thoughts were clearly elsewhere. She was probably thinking about the pile of work that would be on her desk when she returned and wondering if she should go into the office that day.

They returned the rental car that Nick had been driving, and then they picked up her car from the lot at the District Attorney’s Office, where it had been parked all week. They took a walk around the park at the foot of Arbor Falls in a companionable silence. Any conversation would have been drowned by the roar of the falls, anyway. They ate pad Thai at one of Libby’s favorite restaurants. Then they returned to Libby’s home, and a stiffness settled into his limbs.

He had to ask her. About them. About what would happen when he returned to Pittsburgh and then moved on to Washington. But Libby was bustling around the house, suddenly too busy to sit still as she straightened shelves and dusted or cleaned out anemic vegetables from her refrigerator. Then she picked up the phone to call her sister. She was avoiding the discussion, too. The realization left him cold.

He’d rehearsed his speech in the shower. “Libby, I think we should try again.” But damned if he knew how; he always stopped when he came to that part. Living five hours apart was bad enough, but ten? How, exactly, were they going to manage
that?

But they would. He knew it. Maybe he could be reassigned to Manhattan instead of Washington, and if Libby could move to a different office... He straightened. There were options. There had to be, because the only thing he couldn’t imagine was returning to Pittsburgh and leaving her behind as if the past week had never happened. Now that he’d found her again, he couldn’t go back to being without her.

He waited in the living room for her to finish her phone conversation. He wiped his palms on his pants and ignored the way his stomach was turning. This was no time for nerves. Libby stomped into the room and he looked up with a start. “What’s wrong?”

“My sister.” She put her hands on her hips. “You know that she’s going out tonight? With Dom?” She paused. “Why are you smiling?”

He shrugged. “Good for them. I thought there was something going on. They’d be good for each other.” He stretched out one arm. “Come sit next to me.”

“No.” She huffed and folded her arms across her chest, clearly displeased with his response. “What about her son? All these strange men...she won’t even tell anyone who his father is!”

Nick frowned. “I’m sure Sam won’t remember any of this, Libby. For all we know, they could end up married.” He shifted on the couch. Her mouth was pulled tightly, her entire face set in a frown. “What’s wrong? Why are you so upset about this?”

“Because she’s acting like a child. Because she’s being irresponsible with her son. She can’t continue to do whatever she wants. She has to put him first!”

His skin prickled. Something was wrong. Libby adored her sister, and he’d never heard her stand in such strong judgment of her before. “I know how much you love your nephew, but Cassie’s a good mother, Libby.” He rose and approached her. “She loves Sam, too, and she won’t do anything to hurt him. Dom’s a good man.” Even as he said it, he felt a punch in his gut about the things he’d said to Dom yesterday. He’d gotten carried away.

Libby wouldn’t look at him. “She barely knows him. Sam’s too young for all of this.”

He rubbed her tense shoulders. “It’s okay. She’s a new mother. She deserves a night out.” He gave her a kiss on the ear. “You’ll feel the same way one day.”

He felt her go rigid. Then she pulled away from his arms and spun around to face him. Her eyes were steely. “I won’t.”

His gaze trailed across her features. Her chin was tilted at him defiantly, daring him to question her. He tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a cough. “Right. You’ll be supermom. It’s not a fair comparison.”

“You don’t understand.” Now her chin trembled slightly, but she struggled to keep her composure. “Nick, I can’t have children.”

* * *

He stared at her blankly for far too long as he tried to process that statement.

“I found out when you were in Quantico. It’s because of the cancer treatments.” She hated the way her voice cracked. She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “So, I won’t ever know what it’s like to be a new mother and to want a night out.”

He took a step back. He was staring at the floor, but he lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I didn’t know.”

“Almost no one knows. I never told my dad. I haven’t told Cassie.” She swiped her hand beneath her nose. She was
not
going to cry about this.

“But you knew when we were together.” He frowned. “You kept this from me.”

A strange defensiveness pulled her straight. “I didn’t want your pity.”

“My pity?”

He stared at her, his eyes wide. Libby had rehearsed this moment a thousand times. In each iteration she’d imagined Nick to be angry, or dismissive or hostile. But now he was none of those things. He was hurt. “We were engaged. We talked about having a family together....” He froze. “Wait. Is this why you broke off our engagement?”

“We both deserve to be happy. If I’d gone to Pittsburgh with you, I’d have lost a job I love and you’d have lost the family you always wanted.” She balled her fists. “Anyway, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to worry about it.”

That got his attention. He tilted his head in surprise. “Not my problem? Libby, we’re...what about us? This past week?”

She braced herself. “There is no
us.
We don’t make sense together. I’m not moving to Pittsburgh and you’re not moving to Arbor Falls. This was a fling, pure and simple. And now it’s over.”

A shadow crossed his face. “A
fling?
I put my job and my life on the line for you, and that’s what you think this was?” He shook his head tightly, visibly furious. “You know, you have some nerve.”

Her stomach heaved as he began to storm around the room, pacing without purpose. “Come on, Nick. We both got carried away. It’s understandable that two people in our position would be attracted—”

“No, it’s not understandable. Not to me.” He stopped in front of her. “We have something. We have the chance to make this work.”

She stared at him. “How could this work? You want to be a father. You want that more than anything. You want the stable, loving family you never had. Are you really ready to give that up?”

He was silent. He was silent for too damn long. Then he said, “What if you adopted?”

The question struck her squarely in the heart. A part of her had been hoping that he’d sweep her into his arms and tell her that she was wrong, that he didn’t care about children. She’d wanted to hear that she was good enough for him. Just Libby, flawed and broken. But he hadn’t said that. Because he didn’t think it.

So much for not crying. She blinked back a sting of tears. “I’m not having this discussion. Not now, and not with you.”

He gritted his teeth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She narrowed her eyes. “It means I meant what I said three years ago. I don’t love you. I never have. It’s time to accept that.”

He stepped back as if she’d slapped him. “You sure seemed to love me the other night.”

“Get out.” Rage pulsed through her. Her voice was shrill and she didn’t care. “You have ten minutes to get out of my house. After that, I don’t want to see you again.”

She flew into the kitchen and set the timer on her stove to prove that she wasn’t kidding. He had ten minutes to leave.

He was gone in eight.

* * *

Her head was throbbing. Every time she closed her eyes, Libby’s mind replayed the scenes from the past week. The photo of the dead woman in her files. The sound of gunshots reverberating in an empty alley. The feel of Nick’s bare skin on hers. The sounds of their last words.

Cassie came over shortly after Nick left. She was running errands before her date with Dom, and she looked radiant when Libby opened the door. “I just dropped Sam off with Mrs. Cummings. She’s so excited—” Then her jaw dropped when she saw Libby. “Oh, my gosh. What happened to you?”

“Is it bad?”

Libby checked a mirror. Yes, it was. Her eyes were red and puffy, her nose was pink. She was pale from lack of sleep.

“You look awful.” Cassie put her arm around Libby’s shoulders. “Where’s Nick?”

That set off a fresh stream of tears, and Libby hid her face behind her palms. “He left. We had a fight. It’s over.”

Cassie pulled her sister closer and held her while she sobbed. Libby told her everything—about her infertility and the secret shame she’d been carrying for years, and about how Nick had asked her if she would adopt. “Like it was a condition of him staying with me.” She sniffed. “He’d only stay if I would adopt.”

Cassie’s face was streaked with tears. “Lib, I had no idea. I can’t believe you hid that for so long. All during my pregnancy.” She shook her head. “That must have been so hard for you. Here I was, pregnant by accident, complaining about it all the time to you....” She hugged her.

They sat down and talked for hours. They talked about their father’s death and how much they missed him, and they talked about their mother and how they should have objected when their father insisted they bury her memory in Sarasota. Cassie told Libby about Sam’s father and how she thought she’d been in love with him, but then he’d told her that Sam was “her problem.” Libby held Cassie’s hand as she cried about how much she struggled with being a single mother, feeling a pang as she thought about her angry outburst earlier that afternoon.

She squeezed Cassie’s hand. “You’re doing a great job, Cass. You deserve to go out tonight and have fun.”

Cassie’s mouth turned up in the hint of a smile. “I really like Dom. He’s great with Sam, and I enjoy his company. He makes me feel safe.”

Libby swallowed. “And that’s hard to find.”

Cassie rose when she looked at the clock and realized she had less than two hours to get home and get ready for her date. She promised to call Libby in the morning. After she left, Libby closed the door and bolted the lock. She’d lived by herself for years, but suddenly the house seemed too quiet.

She watched a television movie and fell asleep on the couch. When she woke it was nearly eleven o’clock. Libby rubbed her eyes and yawned, feeling too awake to go to bed. She wandered into the kitchen to make some tea.

Her cell phone vibrated to indicate she’d just received a text message.
Nick.
Libby lunged forward but frowned when she saw the message was from David. He wanted to come over.