Paper Rose (22 page)

She realized at once that he expected trouble and that he was used to handling deadly situations. It was the first time she'd actually seen him do it, despite their long history. It gave her a new, adult perspective on his lifestyle. No wonder he couldn't settle down and become a family man. She'd been crazy to expect it, even in her fantasies. He was used to danger and he enjoyed the challenges it presented. It would be like housing a tiger in an apartment. She sighed as she saw the last tattered dream of a future with him going up in smoke.

Tate looked through the tiny peephole and took his hand away from the pistol. He glanced at Cecily with an expression she couldn't define before he abruptly opened the door.

Colby Lane walked in, eyebrows raised, new scars on his face and bone weariness making new lines in it.

“Colby!” Cecily exclaimed with exaggerated delight. “Welcome home!”

Tate's face contracted as if he'd been hit.

Colby noticed that, and smiled at Cecily. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, looking from one tense face to the other.

“No,” Tate said coolly as he reholstered his pistol. “We were discussing security options, but if you're going to be around, they won't be necessary.”

“What?”

“I'm fairly certain that the gambling syndicate tried to kill her,” Tate said somberly, nodding toward Cecily. “A car almost ran her down in her own parking lot. She ended up in the hospital. And decided not to tell anyone about it,” he added with a vicious glare in her direction.

“Way to go, Cecily,” Colby said glumly. “You could have ended up floating in the Potomac. I told you before I left to be careful. Didn't you listen?”

She shot him a glare. “I'm not an idiot. I can call 911,” she said, insulted.

Colby was still staring at Tate. “You've cut your hair.”

“I got tired of braids,” came the short reply. “I have to get back to work. If you need me, I'll be around.” He paused at the doorway. “Keep an eye on her,” Tate told Colby. “She takes risks.”

“I don't need a big strong man to look out for me. I can keep myself out of trouble, thank you very much,” she informed Tate.

He gave her a long, pained last look and closed the door behind him.

As he walked down the staircase from her apartment, he couldn't shake off the way she looked and acted. Something was definitely wrong with her, and he was going to find out what.

 

Cecily had made more coffee and Colby brought the tray into the living room before he sat down across from Cecily, scowling. He put the electronic jammer in place with a wry smile. “He still doesn't know, I gather?” he asked at once.

She shook her head, lifting her mug from the tray and adding cream and sugar to it. “He won't ever know if I have my way.” She leaned her head back against the seat. “Maybe I should just find a job somewhere away from here, in a small town.”

“I don't think you should leave.” He shifted on the sofa as if it hurt him to move.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Bullets hurt,” he said. “It missed the artificial arm by two inches, damn the marksman. I hate people who can't shoot straight.”

“How many this time?” she asked with a smile.

“Just one,” he said. “In the shoulder. It's much better now.” He shook his head. “I'm getting too old for this. I've got so many broken bones that I can't move fast enough anymore.”

She smiled wider. “Someday you'll find a woman who's worth giving up the danger for.” The smile faded. “You're like Tate. He loves his work. He probably lives on adrenaline. Funny. I never understood that before. Now suddenly everything is clear. I was living on pipe dreams.”

He sighed. “It was more than his heritage that kept him away from you,” he said. “I knew, but I couldn't explain it to you. Work like ours demands sacrifice. Any loved one can become a hostage. Any relationship can take away the edge we need when we're under fire. A man with something to lose isn't a man to send on a potential suicide mission. Take your mind off the objective for one minute, and you're dead.”

“I understand that now,” she said.

He let his gaze drop to her waistline. “What are you going to do?”

“Go away,” she said with determination. “You're going to have to help me. I don't want Leta or Matt to find out about the baby, either. I have to have a new job in a remote location, so far from a city that reporters would have to hunt me with pack animals.”

He grimaced. “That isn't the best place for a pregnant woman alone.”

“Neither is here,” she said earnestly. “At least if I'm inaccessible, I stand a better chance of not getting killed!”

“Oh, boy.” He put his face in his hands. “Cecily, this is a no-win situation.”

“Don't I know it?” she muttered. “All those lectures Tate used to give me in my teens about prevention, and look at me!”

He grinned in spite of the gravity of the situation. “It suits you,” he said. “You have a radiance about you.”

“It's just morning sickness,” she assured him dryly, “and a touch of heartburn.”

“You look healthy enough.”

“I'm living on decaf, strawberry milkshakes and crushed ice, actually. Come on, Colby. You have to help me find a place to hibernate until this blows over.”

“The best place would be with Tate,” he said.

Her heart jumped. “We don't have a future together.”

He let out the breath he'd been keeping back. “I do understand how you feel, believe me. But running is the worst thing you can do. I saw one of Tate's men by the entrance when I came up. You're watched constantly now. I won't be responsible for helping you move someplace where you're at risk. For one thing, Tate would kill me if anything happened to you.”

“He might maim you a little…”

“I'm not joking,” Colby said quietly. “You don't understand how he is about you. He isn't normal when you're threatened, in any way.”

He studied her for a long moment. “Cecily, how do you think it would affect him if he knew you were carrying his child?”

Her heart almost jumped out of her chest. She put a hand over her slightly swollen waistline and sighed. “I don't know. He…loves little things,” she said after a minute, smiling as she recalled Tate with a succession of her pets over the years. “He likes children, too. We always had a Christmas party at the school on the Wapiti reservation every year, and Tate would help pass out presents. The kids were crazy about him.”

“He loves children,” Colby agreed. “He'd want his own child.”

She lowered her eyes to the carpet with a sigh. “Maybe. Or maybe it would just make him feel trapped all over again.” She put her head in her hands. “It's all such a mess,” she murmured. “I don't know what to do.”

“In which case, you should do nothing,” Colby said firmly.

She didn't quite meet his eyes as she smiled. “Good advice.”

Which didn't mean she was willing to take it, she thought an hour later as she packed a suitcase. She couldn't tell Colby her plans for fear he might tell Tate. She couldn't tell Matt or Leta for the same reason. Her only logical solution was to get on a bus or a train or an airplane and just…vanish. So that's what she did.

A
n airplane would have been a better choice, but Cecily had applied to and been hired by a small community museum in Tennessee. The town in which it was located had no airport. She'd have had to fly into Nashville and hire a car to drive to Cullenville. It was easier to get on the bus line that went through the little town.

She'd put most of her things in storage and had all her utilities disconnected before she left Washington. She had only the clothes she'd need and some of her most important papers and books to carry. It was a little awkward to use her luggage carrier with a sprained wrist, but fellow travelers had been kind to her.

It had been a wrench to leave her job at the museum, and before Leta and Matt came home, too. But it was for the best. Tate had been suspicious about her reason for swearing her doctor to secrecy. He didn't like mysteries, and he had a good track record for solving them. She wasn't about to throw a spanner into the works by letting him find out about the baby. Not now, when he and Audrey were planning a Christmas wedding.

It was nice that he'd been concerned for her safety, but then, that was just an old habit. In the long run, this move was for the best. She could never get over him so long as they were living in the same city. Eventually he'd make up with Leta, if not with Matt, and Cecily would have to hear about him and Audrey secondhand for the rest of her life. Running was better than that, if cowardly.

Colby had been furious at her when she phoned him from the bus station in Washington—without saying where she was—and informed him that she was on her way out of town. He pleaded with her to let him know where she was going, but she wouldn't tell him a thing. She hung up the phone.

The bus trip was long and difficult, because of the nausea that seemed to be her constant companion now. The first thing she'd have to do was to find an obstetrician. The museum had guaranteed her a nice little rental house to live in, with utilities included. It as only two blocks from the museum, which was dedicated to Paleo-Indian artifacts in the Tennessee Valley. It wasn't big, nor was the salary, but it would suit her, and fit right into her area of expertise. She'd been lucky to find a job so quickly.

In the back of her mind, she worried that she might be placing her child, not to mention herself, in danger. But if she covered her tracks well enough that Colby couldn't find her—and she knew he was going to try—then hopefully the gambling syndicate couldn't find her, either. As for Tate, well, he'd more than likely find her disappearance a relief. He could get on with his life with no further distractions.

 

Tate Winthrop was having a long, and reluctant, telephone conversation with Audrey, who'd convinced herself that she and Tate were getting married at Christmas.

“We aren't getting married,” he said shortly. “I've told you that.”

“Cecily put it in the paper,” she said huskily. “You must have told her. And about that dreadful episode when she was a teenager, too. Goodness, she must hate you, to embarrass you so badly in public.”

Tate was thinking the same thing. It infuriated him that Cecily wouldn't answer her phone or her door to him since the day they'd talked. He found that he missed her enough to affect his job as well as his sleep. He was worried for her safety, despite the man he had watching her apartment now. He shouldn't have argued with her. He should have told her the truth about Audrey. But, of course, Cecily had dug her own grave there, embarrassing him in print with news of a wedding that wasn't going to take place. She denied it, of course.

“I've given Cecily a hard time,” Tate said in her defense. “But despite that story in the tabloids, I don't have any plans to get married. You know that. We were friends, Audrey, and we dated. It was never anything more.”

There was another pause. “Don't think she'll take you back now,” Audrey said in a venomous tone. “I told her you didn't want her. I told her you were never going to marry her, and that she needed to get out of your life and leave you alone.”

His caught breath was audible. “You told her what?”

“She knows you hate her,” she purred. “She didn't even argue. She's such a fool. So besotted with you that she'll do anything to make you happy, even stand aside to let you marry someone else. When I told her we were getting married, that I even had the wedding gown, she never questioned it. When I told her I was living with you, after you came back from South Dakota, she never questioned that, either.”

He was only beginning to realize how much damage Audrey was responsible for. No wonder Cecily was barely civil to him. And he hadn't even explained…!

“If you don't marry me,” Audrey continued, her voice slightly slurred, “your reputation will be ruined. I'll give the tabloids a much better story about you and Cecily when she was in her teens. I can find out things about her. I'm rich. I can pay a private detective,” she added, threatening.

“If you hurt her, in any way,” he said in a deceptively soft tone, “you'll pay for it. You might remember what I did for a living before I worked for Pierce Hutton. If you have one skeleton in your closet, Audrey, you'll read about it in the same tabloids you used to embarrass me.”

“You wouldn't!”

“Try me.”

He hung up, barely able to contain his fury, and phoned a reporter he knew. It was payback time. Audrey could read about their “cancelled wedding” in all the morning papers, along with the lies about Cecily. It wasn't much in the way of damage control, but perhaps it would help Cecily keep her job at the museum.

He tried calling her again, but there was nothing, only a message that the phone had been disconnected. He slammed the receiver down furiously. She'd unplugged the damned thing.

He ran a hand through his hair and thought about the turmoil of his life since Cecily had dumped crab bisque in his lap. He'd lost his heritage, discovered that he had a father he didn't even know about, seduced Cecily, turned against his own mother, been crucified by Audrey in the tabloids…and on top of that, Cecily didn't want anything to do with him. Tate couldn't find one single reason for her to want him, especially after his smug certainty that she'd be willing to live with him after they'd been intimate. He'd treated her very shabbily over the past two years, especially over the past two months.

He looked around his high-tech apartment with dead eyes. He had his work and somehow he would come to terms with his parentage and make peace with his mother. But he'd done irreparable damage to his relationship with Cecily. It was the fear of love that had kept Cecily out of his life. He hadn't wanted to let her that close, for fear that it wouldn't last. He'd had so little love in his life, except from his mother. He didn't trust it to last, mainly from seeing his mother's misery with Jack Winthrop and remembering his own tormented childhood at the man's hands. If that was love, he wanted no part of it.

But then he remembered Cecily's soft arms pulling him closer in his office, her loving generosity at a time when he'd needed comfort so desperately. He groaned. Cecily had wanted to love him for years, and he kept pushing her away. Even when he'd seduced her, his motives had been selfish. He'd even blamed the tabloid stories on her, when somewhere in the back of his mind he'd known that Audrey was obsessed with keeping Cecily out of his life.

He'd made so damned many mistakes. Now he was faced with a life that didn't contain Cecily or his mother, the only two women in the world who he really loved. His father hated him, too. Well, he couldn't blame his father for punching him, not after what he'd said to Leta. He smiled sadly. The man had a vicious temper. He was pretty good with his fists, too. He remembered what Holden had said about Morocco. Impulsively he turned on his computer and connected to the Internet to do some searching.

While he was surfing the Internet for tidbits of information about Morocco and Berbers, and hating himself for being so interested in his father's native land, the phone started ringing. Thinking it might be Audrey, he ignored it. Morocco was a fascinating country, he had to admit, and he wasn't keen on being interrupted. Fortunately his computer modem was on a separate phone line, or that call would have knocked him right out of the connection.

It didn't quit, even after ten rings. It could be Pierce Hutton, he thought. Maybe he should answer it. Irritably he got up and lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he said impatiently.

There was a pause. “You wouldn't believe how many people I had to bribe to get this new number of yours. But I didn't think past getting you to answer the phone,” Colby said reluctantly. “I don't know how to tell you this.”

“You and Cecily are getting married,” Tate drawled sarcastically, hating the very idea of it and trying not to let it show. “I can't say it's any big surprise. Was there anything else?”

There was another pause. “Cecily won't marry me.”

“Tough.” Tate wasn't going to admit how much that admission pleased him, even if she wouldn't answer her damned phone when he tried to call her. “So?”

Colby laughed mirthlessly. “I thought this was the right thing to do. Now, I'm not sure if it is.”

“I'm not pleading your case for you,” Tate replied. His voice was icy. Then he hesitated. His heart skipped a beat as another reason for this call occurred and chilled his blood. “Has something happened to her?” he asked immediately.

“She's not hurt or anything,” the other man replied. “It's just that I can't find her. Maybe they can't find her, either,” he continued, sounding as if he was talking to himself.

Tate had a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He broke the Internet connection on the other line and turned off the computer. “What's up?” he asked, sounding the way he used to, when he and Colby were colleagues in the old days.

“Cecily's done a flit,” Colby told him. “She's gone and I can't find her. Believe me, I've used every contact I could find or buy. She didn't leave a trail.”

Tate's abrupt intake of breath was electric. “She's gone?”

“Apparently. Her phone's been disconnected and her apartment manager says she's paid the lease for the next two months until she can get her stuff moved.”

“For God's sake!” Tate burst out. “We don't know where she is and the gambling syndicate is most likely still after her. Did you tell her that?”

“Yes, I did. Then she talked about getting out of town and I didn't take her seriously. I thought she was just talking. I told her how dangerous it would be for her to go where she wasn't protected, that if the syndicate had threatened her once they might do it again. She didn't listen.”

“Oh, God,” Tate said in a strangled tone. He thought immediately of all the dangers. Coming on the heels of her near-miss, it was devastating to think of her all alone in some strange town. Why hadn't it occurred to him that her phone might have been disconnected instead of unplugged? “Maybe she went to Nassau to see Leta.”

“Nope. I checked the airport—every flight.”

He tried to think. “Wapiti,” he said.

“No luck there, either. She's quit her job and given up her apartment. She didn't leave a forwarding address.”

A string of vicious curses came over the line. “How long has she been gone?”

“That's the thing, I don't know,” Colby said through his teeth. “I had a quick job that took me out of town. Hell, Tate, I thought you were having her watched…!”

“I was! I've had a man watching her apartment for over a week.”

“Then why didn't your man notice that she was gone?”

“I'll get back to you. Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

The line went dead.

Tate wasted no time in dialing the number of the man he'd had watching Cecily. There was no answer. That was disturbing. He tried another number and got another of his former associates.

“Where's Wallace?” he asked without preamble.

“Wait a minute. I'll ask. Anybody heard from Wallace?”

There was a muffled reply. “Damn. You don't say! And nobody bothered to tell us?”

“What is it?” Tate demanded impatiently.

“Sorry. Wallace had a heart attack and died on the spot. I can't believe none of us knew it! Three days ago, apparently…hello?”

Tate was off the phone. He spent the next ten minutes in a cold sweat, calling in markers, talking to old colleagues, doing everything possible to get a handle on where Cecily might have gone. He drew a complete blank.

He phoned Colby back. “I can't find out anything, but I've put together a network. I'll find her.”

“The thing is, she doesn't want to be found. That isn't going to make things any easier.”

He didn't want to ask, but he had to know. “Why doesn't she want to be found?”

“Because you're marrying Audrey at Christmas,” Colby said simply.

“I'm not marrying Audrey,” came the short reply. “I never meant to marry Audrey. She outflanked me while I was getting used to the idea of being a media snack.”