it just might be Luke’s fault that Matt wasn’t there to see his son grow up.
Stevie looked like Abby, from his freckles to his wide, expressive mouth. Not a hint of Matt’s laughing brown eyes or olive complexion. Was it easier for Abby that way, not to have to see Matt in Stevie’s eyes every time she looked at him?
How old was the kid now—two? Two and a half? No more than that; if Abby had been more than three or four months pregnant the night they spent together, he’d have noticed.
His smile faded suddenly.
What if she hadn’t been pregnant that night? He tried to remember how she’d answered his questions about Stevie. Had she ever said, outright, that Matt was Stevie’s father?
A chill washed over him. They hadn’t used protection that night; they were too far gone to think about stopping for something like that. Neither of them had been thinking about pregnancy.
But she’d have told him. Abby wasn’t a secret-keeper like he and Matt had been. She’d been open, sharing her thoughts and feelings with abandon. It had been one of the things about her that had drawn him, that candor.
If their night of comfort sex had left her pregnant, she’d have told him.
When would she have had the chance?
He’d left her still asleep, a hastily jotted note of explanation tucked under her pillow. Sleeping with her—hell, just being around her—had been dangerous. Matt’s sudden death had come too closely on the heels of Cordero’s vow of vengeance. Had Cordero had him killed as part of his vendetta against Luke?
It hadn’t been out of the question. People he cared about automatically became targets.
He’d shipped out that morning for two years in Kaziristan, knowing she’d be hurt by his abandonment, hating every part of what he’d done. But it hadn’t changed his determination to cut himself off from her and everyone he loved.
He’d meant his note to be a cold brush-off. He hadn’t wanted her to try to contact him. If she’d found herself pregnant a few weeks later, he couldn’t blame her for keeping that information to herself.
He almost missed the turn onto Abby’s street. He slowed, made a quick right and reacquired Abby’s silver Honda ahead. She pulled into a parking space in front of the building.
He took an empty spot nearby, hoping the building super wouldn’t have the Mustang towed, and caught up with Abby on the sidewalk in front of the first apartment.
She jumped when he touched her arm. “Sorry,” he said, wondering if he should just go ahead and ask her about Stevie’s paternity. Would she tell him the truth?
Probably not, he realized. If she’d kept it a secret for three years, she wouldn’t spill the beans just because a couple of gunmen had thrown her into Luke’s life again.
He wouldn’t push for now. It was the least he owed her.
“It’s a mess,” she warned him as she set Stevie down on the ground and unlocked the front door of her first-floor apartment.
She wasn’t lying, he realized with dismay a few seconds later, taking in the torn sofa cushions, the books in scattered heaps where the searchers had pulled them from the bookshelf against the wall, the overturned coffee table with the shattered crystal box in shards on the hardwood floor.
“I didn’t stop to clean up,” she explained. “I needed to know if you knew what Matt might be hiding, so I just grabbed Stevie and headed out.”
He picked up a couple of the books and put them back on the shelf. “Is the bedroom as bad?”
“The mattress is ripped open, but I can probably stuff most of the filling back inside and cover it with a sheet—”
“You can’t stay here tonight, Abby. This is unlivable.”
She squared her jaw. “I’ll make it work.”
“You don’t have to make it work. Just grab some clothes, some toys for Little Bit and let’s get the hell out of here. We can regroup and figure out what to do next once we’re settled.”
Her brow creased. “Settled where?”
He looked down at Stevie, who was toddling toward the ruins of the broken crystal box. Picking him up to keep him out of the sharp shards, he settled the wriggly little boy on one hip and met her troubled gaze.
“At my place, of course,” he answered.
Chapter Three
Abby stared at him, her mind racing through a checklist of reasons why moving herself and Stevie into Luke Cooper’s house was a very bad idea. Beyond the tangled history between them, which was reason enough, she’d be putting Luke at risk at a time when he was supposed to be helping her find out what Matt had hidden and where. At least one of them needed to be able to get around San Diego without a team of thugs dogging every step.
“That’s just not a good idea,” she said.
“What’s the alternative—book a room in a motel? Do you think motel security is worth a damn?” Luke shifted Stevie on his hip and met her gaze with a look of calm skepticism. Stevie turned his head toward her and gave her an almost identical look. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
She couldn’t argue with Luke’s logic, however. She couldn’t afford a few unexpected nights at a motel, and she’d probably be in even greater peril holed up with Stevie alone in a place where nobody knew or cared who they were.
“We don’t have to complicate this,” Luke said. “There’s plenty of room for you and Little Bit there.”
Her lips twitched at the nickname he’d apparently settled on for Stevie. “You don’t owe us anything.”
He started to say something, then narrowed his lips to a tight line. After a moment, he said, “I can put you to work, if it’d make you feel better.”
“Cooking and cleaning?”
He arched an eyebrow. “No. I’ve eaten your cooking.”
She made a face, relieved by the lightness of Luke’s tone. Better than the constant strain of the past hour. “I’ve gotten better. You might be surprised.”
He smiled at her. “You always found ways to surprise me, Abs.” His smile faded and he looked down at Stevie, who had rediscovered the hawk pendant and was twirling it around his sticky little fingers. “What do you say, Stevie? Wanna come stay with your uncle Luke for a few days?”
Abby struggled not to react to Luke’s words, but guilt burned in her chest like acid. She should have told him the truth three years ago, when she realized she was carrying his child inside her. At the time, with Luke in a war-torn country continents away, settling on the easy lie hadn’t seemed so wrong, especially given how abruptly and finally he’d left her bed—and life—after their night together.
But now that he was here in front of her, holding his son without even knowing it, she knew she’d been a coward.
