Undercover Father (6 page)

“That’s where Lawrence is putting her up. I haven’t been in the area for a long time, and last time I looked, it was pretty rough.” He glanced out the window, at a neighborhood that was still iffy, but heading in the right direction. “I went past it on my way home, and thought I’d check to make sure she got in safely.”

“On your way home?”

“Okay, I made a wrong turn.” That was so true it hurt. “And I thought, since I was there, it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

“Lindsey lived there when I met her, and Jack’s lived there. In fact, LynTech is in the process of buying the building from the owner, Jack’s new father-in-law, George Armstrong, one of the last hippies around and one of the biggest LynTech stockholders.”

The garish van. That explained that, at least. “It doesn’t look too bad, actually.”

“I take it everything’s okay?”

“It is now. When we were on the phone, she screamed and the line went dead. Seems some huge orange cat got in and scared her to death.”

Zane laughed out loud, then finally said, “That’s Joey. Someone should have warned her, I guess. He came with the loft, and we tried to bring him over here, but he runs away, and always shows up back there. I’ll have to tell Lindsey that he made it back again. He’s been gone for four days.”

“He’s there, big, fat and scary.”

“A perfect description,” Zane said with a chuckle. “I need to get going, but wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“Sure, everything’s fine,” he replied, the lie almost sticking in his throat. “Just fine.”

“See you tomorrow,” Zane said, and hung up.

Rafe tossed the cell phone onto the seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Fine,” he said again, just to hear the word and willing it to be so. It wasn’t, but he’d keep saying it, hoping that somewhere down the line, he might wake up one morning and things would be fine.

By the time Rafe got home the boys were asleep and Carmella was ready to leave. She’d jumped at the chance to come to Houston so she could spend time with her sister. “A paid vacation,” she’d told him with delight. She’d been with the boys since they were born. She was a short, kind woman who had raised her own children, and now she was helping to raise his.

She’d spent the day with the boys, getting them ready for the day care center tomorrow, explaining, as Rafe had instructed her, that they would be called Diaz. It was a game for them, and they’d fallen into it easily. They were excited about going to the center, about the game and being near Rafe. That was a relief. Rafe walked her out to her car so she could go to her sister’s, and waited until she was heading through the gates at the end of the driveway before he turned and went back inside the adobe ranch house.

As soon as he closed the door, he started his routine, checking all the windows, all the doors, locking everything, then finally setting the alarm system he’d had upgraded the day he arrived. Compulsive, some called him, obsessed with the ritual, but he needed to do it. Needed to know his home was secure.

He walked back through the darkened house, which was spread out on one level in a long U, with Spanish tile everywhere. The ranch house sat on a ten-acre property, with lots of room for the boys to run and play and have their dogs and horses. They’d never lived here before, and he’d only used it occasionally, when he had to be in the area. He’d bought it as a tax write-off, but now that he was here, he found he liked that it didn’t have a lot of memories built into it.

He checked on Gabe and Greg in their bedroom, and found them in the same bed, the second one barely mussed. They were snuggled up together, sound asleep. He stared down at them, and could almost hear Gabriella saying they were his boys, looked just like him. He thought they looked like themselves. He pulled the covers up over them, kissed them both, neither of them stirring.

He crossed and checked the windows, then finally went into the master bedroom right across the hall from them and flipped on the lights. The first thing he saw was the massive king-size bed on the wall opposite the French doors. It was made of heavy, rough-hewn timbers, dark and impressive, and looked very empty at that moment. He turned away, stripped off his uniform, put his gun in the lockbox in the closet, put on his bathing suit, then crossed to the door that looked out onto the terrace. He turned off the alarm for the doors, then went out into the softness of the night.

Eschewing the pool beyond the security fence straight ahead, where he swam laps, he opted for the hot tub on the terrace. He slipped into the warm water, sank down and rested his head on the back support, staring up at the starlit sky. He let the heat seep into his body, willing himself to relax, but it didn’t happen. He couldn’t shut off his mind, and no matter what he did to reroute his thoughts, he kept reliving that rush up to the loft, Megan throwing herself into his arms, and his raw fear for her.

He closed his eyes, but the images played out, anyway. Megan looking up at him, Rafe trying to get her out of the loft to protect her, then seeing her there again, right in the line of danger. And his rage, his relief...

Rafe opened his eyes quickly. Her parting shot still rang in his ears. She thought he was married and fooling around. Coming on to her. He actually preferred her to think that. He didn’t want her sympathy, or her saying anything like Francine had, about “passing” or “losing.”

He was a bit taken aback that her words hadn’t brought blinding pain, just anger. That coolness that returned, the way she set her boundaries, the way she dismissed him when she didn’t need him... Boundaries weren’t bad, he’d admit that, and they were probably a good thing with a woman like Megan. But he was the one who would set them. Not a woman who looked down on him for being an hourly worker, not worth very much.

He pushed himself up and out of the tub, then padded dripping wet back into the bedroom, closed the doors, reset the alarm and went to find a towel in the bathroom. After he changed out of his bathing suit, he stretched out on the empty bed and stared up at the shadows on the ceiling.

His stomach was still knotted and he felt a restlessness that he knew would keep sleep at bay. There had been so many nights he’d struggled to get through. Sleep often eluded him, and even when it didn’t, it wasn’t a peaceful rest. He’d awake tired in the morning, due to sadness, grief and guilt. Tonight was different.

Tonight he felt so very alone, and before he knew what he was doing, he was counting each breath he took, remembering Megan’s words.
You’re married. Does your wife know what you do on your way home?

He shifted, rested his hands on his stomach and felt his wedding ring. His fingers touched it, caressing the plain gold band. “Let go,” he’d been told, so often he’d lost count. “It wasn’t your fault.” He pressed his right hand over his left and closed his eyes. “Let go.”

The instant he shut his eyes, an image came to him, with such a jolt that he bolted upright in bed. But it wasn’t from his past, those images that had haunted him for almost two years. Instead the vision that came with aching clarity was of Megan Gallagher. Even sitting in the middle of the bed with his eyes wide open now, he could see her. Glancing at him from under her lashes. The fullness of her lips. The softness of her skin...

He got up, but even standing on the cold tiles, he couldn’t stop the images, driven as he was by insane thoughts that he couldn’t let himself think. The kiss... He pushed them away, banishing them. He’d never let a woman like Megan Gallagher evoke anything like that in him. He wouldn’t let her bring out any feeling that he could protect her. He couldn’t and wouldn’t ever try that again.

He crossed the room to a built-in entertainment center, found a DVD and started it before returning to bed. He crushed the pillows behind his head and stared determinedly at the huge flat-screen TV as the movie’s opening credits rolled past.

“Are you always this pushy and annoying?”

He stared at the screen, trying to push away Megan’s words, and his response to it.
“Heaven help your fiancé.”

“Pity the poor fool,” he muttered then, clasping his hands behind his head as he watched the images flashing on the television screen. Pity the man who had to deal with her attitudes and her snobbery. And the man who endured her condescension and barbs. The same man who would reach out for her and make her smile.

* * *

M
EGAN
DIDN
’
T
GET
TO
BED
until the wee hours of the morning, partly because she’d been going over the incorporation papers for the day care center she’d had in her briefcase, and partly because the cat unnerved her with the way it sat on the high walls, staring unblinkingly at her. Another part of her kept going over what had happened with Rafe.

She finally gave up working, tired of having her mind going in ten directions at once. She glanced at the telephone, truly tempted to call Ryan, just to hear his voice and remind herself what her reality was. But she couldn’t. It was the middle of the night, and she really should just go to bed.

The cat was still on the ledge, and she was going to leave him there forever if she had to, but the minute she started for the bedroom, he meowed. It didn’t take an animal psychic to know he wanted something, and from her experience with the wild cats on the ranch, the one thing they all wanted was food. She went into the small kitchen, found a couple of cans of tuna in the nearly bare cupboards and opened one for him.

She put the food on a plate, laid it on the floor, then stood back and talked to the animal. “There’s your food. Eat and leave.”

His tail swished, and his eyes narrowed.

“And the window’s going to be closed the minute your tail goes through,” she muttered, heading for the bedroom again. She looked back when she got to the entry, just in time to see the cat leap gracefully to the floor and cast her one decidedly haughty look before starting to eat.

She left him to his tuna and went into the bedroom, a fairly stark room with a large bed angled toward the high windows, a dresser, a couple of nightstands with lamps sitting on them. She was a bit taken aback when she lifted her luggage by the dresser and found it was empty. Whoever had brought her things from the hotel had also unpacked for her. She found her nightshirt, a well-worn T-shirt from college that she truly wished a stranger hadn’t seen, folded neatly in the top drawer. She grabbed it and went into the bathroom, only to find all of her makeup and toiletries laid out near the sink.

She tugged at the shower curtain on the ring over the tub, turned on the water, then stripped off her clothes. It felt glorious to step under the spray of warm water.

She never had fantasies, but this burst on her, fully formed and riveting. She could almost picture herself coming home every night to her husband. But this time he wasn’t Ryan. He had midnight-dark eyes, black hair, a sleek body, deeply tanned, and a wedding band on his left hand.

CHAPTER FIVE

M
EGAN
OPENED
HER
eyes quickly, scanning the empty spaces around her. Steam rose in the air, and her hands were pressed to her stomach. She took a deep, gulping breath and reached blindly for the faucet to turn off the water, then stepped out of the shower onto the cold floor. She was tired and crazy from the pressures of this trip, the engagement, everything. And Rafe Diaz had been thrown into the mix—where he didn’t belong.

She tossed the towel over the sink, slipped on her T-shirt and hurried into the bedroom. She’d taken two steps before her foot hit something that hissed and squealed on impact, and as Megan screamed, it darted off into the shadows.

“You dumb cat!” she called after him, and heard something thud to the floor. She hurried to the main room, turned on the nearest lamp and saw the tail of the cat disappearing through the open transom window. On the floor by the computer was her briefcase. He’d knocked it off the table while making his escape.

She looked at the window and for a moment thought of climbing on the worktable to close it. Then she decided she wouldn’t bother. Instead she crossed to the bed, climbed into it and settled into the soft linen.

She curled onto her side and cautiously closed her eyes. But there were no surprises, no man with dark eyes, and she sighed with relief.

* * *

M
EGAN
WAS
JERKED
out of sleep suddenly, and looked up at the wall by the door, the place the cat had been each morning for the past three days. Sure enough, he was there. In the filtered light of early morning she saw him staring down at her, his tail twitching from side to side. She considered rolling over and trying to go back to sleep, but didn’t bother. She knew he’d start to meow if she ignored him.

She got out of bed and went into the kitchen to give him the last of the tuna. According to the call she’d received from Lindsey Holden, the cat’s name was Joey, he loved the loft and she’d have food delivered. “Just let him hang out there,” Lindsey had told her. “I’ll try to figure out what to do about him later.” So Joey hung out, got fed, kept his distance and stared at Megan for what seemed hours while she worked.

She left the food for him this morning, and the ritual began. He slowly walked along the tops of the partial walls, waited for her to get a good distance from the food, then he gracefully jumped to the floor. He checked on her again to make sure she was leaving, then he began to eat.

She’d never had an affinity for animals when she was a child on the ranch, no more than she’d had an affinity for playing with dolls or rescuing wounded birds. She’d never liked getting dirty, and she would have rather read than do anything else. And this cat was just plain annoying at best, but she’d let him hang out.

She went back into the bedroom and automatically crossed to the bathroom. But as she had for three mornings, she hesitated before taking a shower then finally did so as quickly as she could—in and out. It was simple. No time for any weird thoughts or fantasies. Then she dressed in pale beige slacks, nipped in at the waist with a narrow gold belt, along with a soft, silky green shirt with cap sleeves, and low heels. She brushed her hair up into a twist, and with just a hint of lipstick, she was done—at barely seven o’clock.

She’d been told to be in at nine o’clock, so it was far too early to head into the office, and far too early to wake Ryan up with a phone call. They had a routine. She called him at nine in the morning, her time. If she didn’t reach him, he’d call her in the evening. So she settled at the workstation with a cup of hot water and the last envelope of instant coffee she found in the kitchen, then worked on the figures Mr. Lawrence had given her of the funds raised at the ball. She didn’t know where the cat had gone, but by the time she looked up, he’d disappeared and the clock read eight-thirty.

She got her things together, put on her earpiece and slipped her cell phone into her pocket, then decided to try Ryan early. She hit the connect button. “Ryan. Home,” she said, and waited to be connected as she opened the loft door and looked out into the hallway.

“Connecting Ryan. Home,” the computer voice said in her ear as she scanned the hallway, thankfully finding no huge biker or a security guard out to save the world. No, the biker was probably still asleep after the party she’d heard going on next door last night, and the guard was probably where he’d been for the past three mornings—at home with his wife and a bunch of kids, sitting around a huge table for breakfast.

She hadn’t seen Rafe again at LynTech and again assumed he worked nights. That was okay. In fact, it was perfect. She didn’t want to see him.

By the time she got to the first floor, Ryan’s answering machine had picked up and hung up. Then she went out into a clear, warm day with only a hint of the humidity that she knew was going to come later. Her car was still there, untouched, and had been each day, despite Rafe’s ominous warnings. She was surprised to see Trig’s motorcycle and the other two bikes gone. They must have taken the party to a new location, she thought.

She drove through the morning rush-hour traffic that clogged the downtown streets, and as she did she found herself looking for a large black SUV, the way she had every other morning. Rafe had said he was “passing by,” so she assumed he lived around here somewhere with his wife and family. But the more she saw of the neighborhood in daylight, coming and going, the more she knew he couldn’t have been going by her place on his way home. What housing there was in the refurbished area would be costly, and even the loft she was in didn’t come cheap.

But if he hadn’t been on his way home, what was he up to? A married man looking for something outside of the marriage? That brought a sick feeling to the back of her throat. It seemed better to think that maybe he hadn’t believed her reason for being in Mr. Lawrence’s office. She’d heard that security had been beefed up recently, but no one she’d talked to seemed to know why. Just that they were “tightening” things as a precaution. And Rafe was definitely taking that seriously.

She pulled into the LynTech garage behind two other cars, parked and turned off the car. Then she put in another call to Ryan. She just wanted to hear his voice, to think sane thoughts again. But the answering machine picked up once more, so she left a message, and said they could talk that evening. As she got out of her car and went inside, heading toward the elevators, Megan wondered where Ryan was and why he wasn’t there to receive her usual morning call. When she stepped off the elevator, the receptionist, Ellen, was in her usual place, behind the desk.

When she saw Megan, she waved to her. “Megan, just a minute?”

The woman was a gossip, and Megan didn’t have the time or stomach to listen to speculations about the newest couple on the block, or who was getting a divorce. But she made herself smile and cross to the desk. “Good morning.”

Ellen had hair so blond it looked silver, and she wore too much makeup. But she was pleasant enough and smiling. She picked up a folder and leaned across the desk to offer it to Megan. “Mr. Lawrence left this for you. He wants you to go down to the day care center and speak to Mrs. Garner right away.”

“Oh, okay,” Megan said, shifting her briefcase to her other hand to take the folder and glance at it. “Mary Garner” was written in the top right corner. She hadn’t met Mary Garner yet, but Ellen had spoken about the woman a couple of days ago.

“Mary Garner and our Mr. Lewis, the founder of this whole company are...well, what you’d call good friends.” She’d lifted one eyebrow slightly. “If you get my drift.”

Megan made a mental note right then not to share any gossip with this woman for any reason. “It’s on the lobby level, isn’t it?”

“You bet. Back down the elevator, ground floor, bright doors with the sign ‘Just For Kids’ on them.”

“Okay, I’ll just put my things in my office and—”

“I wouldn’t take too much time,” Ellen said quickly. “Mrs. Garner’s waiting and, as I told you before, she and Mr. Lewis...” She held up her hand, crossing her middle finger tightly over her forefinger, and all but whispered, “She’s got important friends, and Mr. Lawrence said she needed you down there as soon as you arrived.”

“Okay, I’ll head right down.”

“You just watch when you meet Mary, and—”

Megan was saved by the ringing of the phone. “Catch you later,” Ellen said just before she answered the call with polite formality. “LynTech Legal. How may I direct your call?”

Megan went back to the elevators and headed down to the day care center. She glanced at her watch: nine o’clock exactly. She stepped out at the lobby level, spotted the doors to the center and caught a flash of movement to her right. She glanced that way and saw a security guard alongside a businessman in a tailored suit. The man looked like Zane Holden, although she hadn’t formally met him, only talked to his wife, and the guard was Rafe. She didn’t have any doubt. He walked quickly down the hall with Holden, then they both disappeared into a side corridor.

She’d thought he was on nights. Wrong. She’d thought if or when she saw him again she’d just walk past and not give him a second glance. Not this time. She took a deep breath, exhaled, then crossed to the brightly colored doors directly in front of her.

* * *

R
AFE
HAD
ALMOST
RUN
INTO
Zane when he left the center after checking on the boys. His friend had glanced at him, and for a moment Rafe was certain Zane didn’t recognize him. Then he realized he was in a rush and looking worried. But as soon as he realized it was Rafe, they’d left the center together, headed down a back hallway and veered off into a side hall that led to maintenance storage rooms.

Zane stopped and turned to face Rafe. “There’s trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

His expression was grim. “Another leak.” He handed Rafe a newspaper he’d had under his arm.

Rafe scanned the main article above the fold in the business section of the daily. He spotted the LynTech name right away, and read about the very successful merger with EJS Corporation and LynTech, a done deal. But the next line stopped him: “With LynTech in the catbird seat with this prime acquisition, they are in a position of power to take down the Andress Group, a rumored target of theirs. Their sights are set and...”

Rafe looked up at Zane, who was watching him intently. “Is it true that you’re going after Andress?”

“Not now, but we thought about it and decided that it was too top-heavy in research to justify it.” He hit the paper with the tip of his finger. “But
if
we were going after it, it would be a dead deal now.”

“Who knew?” Rafe asked.

“Me, Matt, Jack and Robert Lewis,” Zane said, naming his co-CEO and another top-level employee, as well as LynTech’s founder. “Robert had done business with Andress before he stepped down, and he had some good input. In fact, he was the one who pointed out the flaws in the idea.”

“Then this won’t hurt you?”

“Not now. Not this time.” Zane raked his fingers through his sandy hair. “But the next time...” He shrugged. “Business is rough right now, and this only makes it rougher.”

“If only the people you listed knew about it, that makes the leak unlikely to have come from the top.”

Zane frowned. “There were a few others.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Lawrence in Legal. He did some background work on the idea before we decided to tank it.”

That pricked Rafe’s interest. “Did he do the work himself?”

“I don’t know. I’d assume that he’d delegate with discretion.”

“Can you find out who he used?”

“Sure. Any ideas?”

“No.” Rafe wouldn’t tell him about the knot that had formed in his middle at the mention of Legal.
Megan.
He’d swear she was clean, but he’d learned to never rule out anyone in an investigation. “Nothing solid, not yet, but I’ll work on it. Meanwhile, I’ve got a problem you can help with.”

“Are the boys okay?”

“Oh, they’re fine. They love the center and they seem fine with the name change to Diaz. But Mrs. Garner says she has to have an emergency contact in case something happens to the boys and I can’t be reached.”

Zane frowned. “What about Carmella? She’s available.”

“She’s not really. She’s visiting with her sister while we’re down here, doing it around her work with the boys.”

“What about
your
sister?”

“Aubrey is off playing detective.”

“Isn’t she an archeologist?”

Rafe shrugged. “The same thing. Dust, bones, excavations, off in the wilds of South America. She’s not available. And my mother’s in Boston with her sister’s family for the month.”

“I’ll think on it,” he said. “Meanwhile, you’re here, and if anything happens, which I doubt it will, you’re close. If she asks again, tell her you’re getting the information.”

“Okay,” Rafe said. “I’ll check into the staff in Legal.”

“Speaking of Legal, that woman you found in Mr. Lawrence’s office, the one who you thought was trying to crash the ball?”

He hadn’t expected Megan to come up in this conversation. “What about her?”

“Megan Gallagher, right? Tall, blonde, smart, pretty?”

“That about sums her up,” he said.

“Lindsey called her at the loft about the cat, Joey? Seems that she thought the name sounded familiar, and after she got off the phone, she remembered. Megan Gallagher is the kid sister of Quint Gallagher, our consultant, so you don’t need to do any checking on her. She’s trustworthy.”

He’d already done his checking, telling himself he was doing it for security reasons, to put any questions about her to rest. He’d found out she was an attorney from San Francisco, that she was here for a month for evaluation and that she was engaged to Ryan Baron, the son of one of the biggest importer-exporters in the country. Money and more money. But no one had told Rafe about her connection to Quint Gallagher. “Thanks for the information.”

“Sure,” Zane said. “Now, I have to get upstairs. They’re waiting for me. Just let me know what you dig up.”