this. Real homey like, you know. Almost makes a guy want to settle down and raise himself a couple of kids.”
Jarred from his dark thoughts by the sound of Seth Gresham’s perfect prep-school diction, Rafe opened his tired eyes long enough to shoot his talkative partner a sardonic look.
“Thought you were committed to playing the field.” In contrast to Seth’s cultured voice, his own was strictly blue-collar and inclined toward hoarseness when he was tired, a residual affect of the tube they’d stuck down his throat to keep him breathing. Women tended to consider the gruff texture a turn-on, something he wasn’t above using to his advantage when it suited him.
“I said ‘almost,’ compadre,” Gresham tossed back with a grin. “As long as the ladies keep smiling back, I’m keeping my options open.”
Seth nudged the seat back another notch and loosened his tie before pulling a folder from the hand-sewn briefcase at his feet. Inside were copies of Sergeant Randolph’s notes.
The man had lousy handwriting, but he knew his stuff. It was a textbook report, concisely detailed, every question Rafe might have had answered. Just in case, he read it twice. By the time he’d finished the second read, his gut was twisted into an icy knot.
It was Folsom, all right. Rafe would bet his farm on it, the one he’d bought in the Maryland countryside about ten years back when he’d felt the need to have space and fresh air around him. He felt the same way now.
“Taxi just turned the corner.”
Without moving, Rafe opened his eyes and glanced toward the end of the street. Mill Works Ridge was only two blocks long. On one side, far below the street was the mighty Columbia River. On the other was an alley leading back to Waverly Avenue, the main access road.
His gut tightened as the cab pulled to the curve in front of the house listed on the crime report as Danni’s address.
“What the hell?” Gresham muttered under his breath as he shot to a sitting position.
“Could be a visitor.”
“Definitely female,” Gresham said as the passenger struggled to get out of the cab’s back seat. Swathed in a bright red slicker, she made a vivid splash against the gray landscape.
As she emerged and straightened, Rafe felt his world tilt. It was Danni. And she was pregnant.
A driving rain stung Danni’s face and obscured her vision as she struggled to balance two bulging grocery sacks, and the large shoulder bag that served as both a briefcase and purse. Ducking her head deeper into the slicker’s hood, she edged crab-like toward the curb, only to have a sudden gust of wind bang the cab’s door against her hip.
“Thanks for all the help,” she muttered in the direction of the grossly overweight cabby with really bad body odor who had refused to leave the protection of his equally smelly cab to help carry the groceries to her front door.
“Fact of life, lady,” he said with a shrug. “I get paid to drive. Anything else costs extra.”
Extra she didn’t have. “I’d hate to have your karma,” she muttered before ducking her head against the stinging drops.
Struggling against the wind, she finally made it to the safety of the curb, then turned awkwardly to slam the cab door. As she did, one of the sodden bags tore, spilling the contents into the muddy water surging along the gutter. Cold spray hit her shins as cans thudded onto the pavement. A large can of tomato juice smashed her toes, sending pain shooting through her foot.
She jerked back, only to lose her balance. With a cry, she dropped the other bag, and reached out desperately to keep herself from falling. He came from nowhere, a large man in a dark suit moving fast. An instant later, she was wedged against a chest as hard as granite, her head tucked against a bronzed throat. Steely arms held her steady while his wide back sheltered her from the rain and wind.
“Easy, I’ve got you.” The voice came from far above her head, a deep baritone with a faintly hoarse quality. She smelled soap on damp skin and felt the edge of a starched collar against her cheek. Heart thudding, she clutched at the strong arms supporting her.
“Don’t be frightened, Daniela, we’re Federal agents.”
Federal agents? Men in Black, or in this case a lovely charcoal gray? In safe and solid Mill Works Ridge, the same community known affectionately as Maternity Row? Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat. She fought it down. Later, she would fall apart.
“If you’re IRS, you’re wasting your time. The old blood and turnip thing. I’m the turnip.”
She thought he chuckled before she remembered that government types had no humor. “Good thing we’re Treasury, not IRS, then.”
He loosened his hold but kept his arms around her. After straightening carefully, she pushed back her hood so that she could see his face. At the same time he lowered his head so that his gaze met hers, and for a moment she felt as though she were poised at the top of a ski run, with a pristine slope of freshly-groomed powder falling away in a dizzying drop below.
She knew that face. Oh, how she knew it! Once she’d held it in her mind so that she would fall asleep thinking of him. After he’d left her, his image had tormented her in dreams for months.
The proud angles and strong planes were more sharply chiseled now, but still breathtaking. Beneath slashing brows the color of sun-washed sand, his eyes were an unusual sage green with sun crinkles at the corners and dense lashes. His chin was solid, with a hint of a cleft, his features boldly drawn, as though with swift, angry strokes on an imperfect canvas—all but his lips which had the smallest of curves at one corner. Like the beginning of the sweetest of smiles.
It wasn’t really a smile, but a scar, one she’d put there herself when she’d been six and he’d been eight. He’d caught her crying because her brothers had gone fishing and left her behind, so he’d taken her to his own favorite spot along the Little Applegate.
Instead of a steelhead, she’d hooked him, then in her dismay jerked hard on the line, slicing his mouth as the hook pulled free. Blood had spurted like a fountain, and she’d gotten hysterical. He had ended up comforting her.
“My God, Rafe?”
His mouth slanted. That same cleanly defined mouth that had brushed hers in her first real kiss. “So you do remember. I’m flattered.”
Remember? How could she forget? Suddenly cold to the marrow, she shivered violently.
His face changed, growing hard. “Give me your hand. You need to get inside.”
Somehow she drew herself taller, pitting her five foot four inch admittedly out of shape form against six feet three inches of hard-bitten, decidedly intimidating muscle. “I’m not moving an inch until you tell me why you’re suddenly on my doorstep after twenty years.”
“We’ll talk inside.”
“Oh no we—”
His gaze narrowed, acting remarkably like a whiplash. She refused to be afraid. “Inside, Daniela. Maybe you’re immune to pneumonia, but I’m not.”
Without waiting for permission, he slipped the strap of her briefcase
