And it was petty, but she wanted them to worry a little.
The ring that alerted her to a message sounded, and with a sigh she pulled into the post office parking lot and called her voice mail.
‘‘Hi, Firebird, it’s Ann. Jasha wanted to talk, but I knew he’d nag you to come home, so I wouldn’t let him. But we thought you should know the boys and your mom went to visit Miss Joyce this morning. She confessed to switching babies. She, um, didn’t exactly say where she got you. She only said that you were one of ‘the abandoned ones.’ I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.’’ Ann cleared her throat uncomfortably.
One of the abandoned ones . . . What exactly did that mean?
But Ann continued, ‘‘But she also said she took the newborn boy and drove to Nevada and left him in the desert. Very biblical.’’
There was more. Some fond comments, a report on what Aleksandr ate for breakfast, a few discreet questions about Aleksandr’s daddy, and Ann signed off.
Crap.
Firebird beat on her steering wheel.
She didn’t want this. She didn’t need this. She was an independent woman. If there was one advantage to discovering she was not a Wilder, it was that she wasn’t bound to the pact.
Yet here she was, having second—or was it third?—thoughts.
Because what had really changed? Douglas had been furious at her. She had been defensive. Her pride had taken a knock. Her faith in her own will-power had been justifiably shaken.
Yet he was still the father of her child.
She pulled the DNA test out of her pocket and looked at the prepaid envelope. The lab techs at the Seattle Swedish Hospital knew the Wilder family, and they’d promised to expedite the proceedings.
She deposited it into the drive-up mailbox and headed back to the street.
Her personal feelings didn’t count. Not now. She couldn’t allow herself to be driven away by a few harsh words, by Douglas’s doubts in her, by the tantrum she wanted to throw because fate had done her wrong. The destiny of her family, the only family she’d ever known, rested in Douglas’s hands.
More important, Ann had reminded Firebird of a very important fact—the house was small, the family loving, and a person who lived with them had no privacy. Firebird missed her baby, but she didn’t want to go home yet.
She turned her car toward Douglas’s house. She took a deep, calming breath.
She hadn’t slept for over thirty-six hours, and in those thirty-six hours, she’d faced more trauma than any one person should have to face. She was pooped. Maybe she had been overreacting. Certainly, as her anger faded, she knew she was walking back into the lion’s den. But she would return to the old Quackenbush place. She was going to climb in Douglas’s bed and take a nap, because he might be a cold, heartless bastard who made love to a woman, then stood, straightened his tie, and walked out, but at least he never asked questions about her feelings. As far as she could tell, he didn’t care about her feelings, and right now, that was okay with her.
She pulled into the driveway, around the side of the house, parked, and got out.
Douglas Black cared about one thing—himself.
As Doug pulled up to the front of his house and parked his patrol car—the town still called it the Quackenbush place, but it was his—he told himself it would be a hell of a lot easier if Firebird had left. And she had. She’d laid rubber getting out of his driveway. Guess she didn’t want him for her son’s father as badly as she thought she did.
He slammed the car door and strode into the house.
Too bad. She couldn’t call him off now. He knew about the kid, and damned if he was going to let his son grow up like he did, always wondering who his parents were, what he’d done to make them hate him so much.
He glanced around the kitchen. It was empty.
And damned if he was going to let those brothers she adored so much be substitutes for him. She could just get used to the idea that Doug Black was in her life for good.
He climbed the stairs, his boots thumping hard on each tread.
She didn’t realize it yet, but she was going to need him when—
From down the hall, he caught her scent, lingering persistently.
She was going to need him when his plans came to fruition. It wouldn’t be too long now before . . .
He stood in the doorway of the bedroom and stared.
There was a woman-shaped lump under his comforter.
He walked with belated caution to the side of the bed and stared down.
Her blond hair was mussed on the blue linens. One side of her face was rosy and impressed with wrinkles from the pillow. Her eyes were open, and she stared up at him in disgust. ‘‘Could you be a little louder?’’
‘‘I thought you’d run away.’’
‘‘Run away?’’ She sat up and stretched. ‘‘From what?’’
Okay. She did a good job of putting him in his place.
Whatever place that was. Casual lover? Aleksandr’s father?
What would she think when he became her savior?
‘‘What are we doing for dinner?’’ She swung her legs out of bed.
She was completely dressed.
Damn it. ‘‘We could eat here.’’
‘‘Your refrigerator is empty.’’ She sounded so like the girl he’d known, the one who loved to cook and eat, the one he’d built his kitchen for. . . .
If he’d been thinking, he would have bought groceries. But he hadn’t. He had expected her to leave. Instead, here she was, acting airy and down-to-earth—in fact, acting as if they hadn’t fought, as if nothing had happened.
‘‘So what are we doing for dinner?’’ she repeated.
‘‘There’s a fancy place up on the cliff, serves seafood. It’s good.’’
Impatiently, she asked, ‘‘What’s the best?’’
‘‘Mario’s Pizza and Italian, in an old house about three blocks over.’’ He tilted toward her. He didn’t lean. Leaning would be too revealing. But he tilted.
She didn’t notice. Instead she stood right up. ‘‘Then that’s where we’re going. I could ride in your patrol car. I’ve never been in a patrol car.’’ She smiled as if the idea appealed to her.
Whether he liked it or not—and he didn’t—her anticipation made his heart lift. But he didn’t smile back.
Sometimes, he thought he’d forgotten how. ‘‘It’s for official business only.’’
Her face fell.
‘‘We’ll take the Beamer,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s nicer.’’
‘‘You want to show off your Beemer,’’ she teased. Going to the mirror, she ran her fingers through her hair, pinched her cheeks, and shook her head. ‘‘I’ve got to freshen up.’’ She sashayed into his bathroom with such assurance she might as well own this place.
He stared at the closed door, feeling pleased and disgruntled at the same time, and vaguely interested that he felt anything at all. The last time he’d allowed himself hope, he’d ended up alone, angry, and shattered, and he’d sworn no one would ever break through his barriers again.
Now, here she was playing every chord in his soul like some master pianist on an inferior instrument.
No. She wasn’t going to break him again. This time, she was going to cooperate. She had no choice. He knew where she lived. He knew about his son— and whether she liked it or not, he would share the boy’s custody—share Aleksandr’s custody . . . until other arrangements could be made.
His gaze shifted to her purse, sitting on the bed table.
Without compunction, he opened it and rifled through the contents. He found her wallet with about a hundred dollars in bills, cheap sunglasses, a small organizer crisscrossed with notes, an envelope full of photos, lipstick, powder, and her cell phone.
Flipping the latter open, he noted that the last call had come this afternoon from a Washington number. He looked through the menu at her stored numbers and found it was from her home. He found other numbers, too, family numbers for J
Wilder, R Wilder, A Wilder, and T Wilder, the number for Seattle Swedish Hospital, and business numbers listed under the Szarvas Art Studio.
He copied her home number, the Szarvases’ number, and her brothers’ numbers into his notebook.
She was not getting away from him again.
As he put everything back, she said from the doorway, ‘‘What are you doing?’’
Casually, he glanced her way.
She looked the same—a little damp around the hairline, but still beautiful. Yet now her blue eyes were icy, her generous lips compressed, and she tapped her foot.
He returned her purse to its place. ‘‘It fell over.’’
‘‘I thought you might be checking to see if I was carrying a concealed weapon.’’
‘‘No.’’ He returned to the spot in the middle of the floor.
She walked into the room, examining him from every angle.
Had Firebird somehow found out what he was up to?
And if she had, what would she do for him to keep those phone numbers private?
Chapter Fourteen
‘‘Nice car.’’ Firebird punched buttons. She heated her seat, lowered the temperature on his side of the car, changed from recorded music to a radio station, opened the sunroof, then with a shiver, closed it. ‘‘How can a cop on a salary afford a BMW X5? This is a sixty-thousand-dollar SUV.’’
The tone was casual. The question was not.
She accessed the GPS history.
He reached out, caught her hand, and removed it from the controls. ‘‘I saved.’’
‘‘You bought a house, too. That’s a lot of savings.’’
‘‘I gamble.’’
‘‘Really?’’ She sat back in her seat and considered him by the glow of the instrument panel. ‘‘You gambled this into existence?’’
He pulled into the parking lot at Mario’s, killed the motor, and turned to her, his arm stretched across the back of the seats. ‘‘Do you doubt it?’’
She examined him, considering what she knew of him, examining what she could now see. ‘‘No. I think you’ve got a great poker face, and when you gamble, you win.’’
‘‘Exactly.’’ He got out, came around, and helped her out of the vehicle. ‘‘All of life is a gamble, so play to win.’’
As they approached the door, Mario himself flung it open. ‘‘Wel-a-come! Wel-a-come! It is-a chilly tonight, yes? Big-a storm coming in! Come in before you freeze-a!’’ His Italian accent was as phony as his extravagant mustache and his red-checkered table-cloths, but his pizzeria was warm, with a fire in the hearth and the scent of stone-oven-roasted pizza. Although it was late, after nine, and almost no tourists were in town, the restaurant was more than half-full— Mario really did make the best meal in town.
As Mario escorted them to a table, Doug nodded to the people he knew. A single nod, acknowledging them, but not inviting affection.
He found it easier to remain aloof than to make friends. Friends expected him to talk, to be convivial, to remember their names, their kids’ names, their dogs’ names. They’d want him to share his experiences, talk about where he came from and who he was. For a man like him, friends were way too much trouble.
‘‘Here you are. The corner table! My best table!’’ Mario held Firebird’s chair. ‘‘You, my dear patrolman, you can put-a your back against the wall. I know the cops, they like to put-a their backs against the wall. Yet your pretty lady can sit by the window and look out over the valley and ocean. Perfect, yes?’’
‘‘It really is.’’ Firebird patted Mario’s hand. ‘‘Thank you. You’re the ultimate host.’’
Doug watched Firebird visibly relax as she looked out over the raging ocean, the dark clouds split by slivers of setting sun, and the lights that came on below, one by one, like constant fireflies.
And he smiled. Briefly, painfully, but he did smile.
‘‘Such a pretty lady!’’ Mario used his hands to frame her face for Doug. ‘‘But you know that, heh? For you, tonight, I give you my best waiter, Quentin. And you-a will have the meal of your life, prepared by these very fingers!’’ He wiggled them over the table, then waltzed off toward the kitchen.
Firebird watched him with an incredulous smile. ‘‘What a nice man he is.’’
‘‘That accent . . . he’s no more Italian than you are.’’
She flinched as if Doug had stuck a knife in her. ‘‘You never know. I could be.’’ Before he could blink, she went on the attack. ‘‘And you’re the last person to quibble about whether a person is who he says he is.’’
‘‘What do you mean?’’
‘‘There’s a lot you haven’t told me about yourself.’’
Yes. And a lot more he didn’t intend to tell her.
‘‘We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about our son, to decide how we’re going to handle introducing me to him.’’
‘‘Don’t worry about that. He’s expecting you. I told him I was going to get his daddy.’’
Doug stiffened. He’d been so pissed about missing Aleksandr’s first years, he hadn’t considered actually meeting the kid. What did Aleksandr expect? Would he be disappointed? Doug knew his way around children; when he was growing up, he’d had to take care of the others, and as a peace officer, he’d had to deal with frightened or hurt children.
But this . . . this was different. This was his son.
‘‘What did he say?’’
‘‘He wants a daddy. He’s always wanted one.’’ She smiled as she watched him struggle with stage fright. ‘‘You are his dearest fantasy.’’
‘‘I’ve never been anyone’s dearest fantasy before.’’
‘‘I wouldn’t say that,’’ she whispered.
The peach-soft curve of her cheek, her tender smile, reminded him of those early days of their courtship, when she looked at him as if he were her knight in shining armor.
Yet here they were, almost three years later, with a bitterness between them that would not easily heal. ‘‘You ran away.’’
As she stared at him, the warmth slipped away, leaving a woman who had recognized trouble when she saw it. ‘‘Sometimes fantasy is just another word for nightmare.’’
‘‘What did I do that made you decide I was a nightmare?’’
‘‘You changed.’’
He recoiled. What did she mean?
Her lids drooped, hiding her thoughts. She drew an envelope out of her purse, took the first photo out, and placed it on the table. ‘‘That’s Aleksandr reading a book.’’
That was changing the subject with a vengeance. He should pursue the truth, but she said he had changed. For the first time, he put his anger and his grudge aside and wondered, Was this separation somehow his fault?
Then he saw a sturdy toddler sitting in a huge recliner, frowning intently at some kind of women’s romance paperback. The child held the book upside down, and, unable to resist, Doug reached for the photo, picked it up, and let emotion swamp him. He cleared his throat and studied the picture, cleared his throat again, and asked, ‘‘Isn’t he a little young for that kind of material?’’
‘‘You’re never too young for romance.’’ She placed another on the table. ‘‘That’s Aleksandr playing in the snow. Last week we got eight inches in one night.’’ She realized what she’d said and blinked, then hurried on as if she hoped he hadn’t caught on. ‘‘Here’s Aleksandr doing a puzzle.’’
The boy had the brown eyes Doug saw every morning in the mirror.
‘‘Here’s Aleksandr with his uncles,’’ she said.
Two tall, strong men bearing an obvious family resemblance stood in a crowded kitchen. They held their hands out, palms up, and Aleksandr stood balanced with one foot in each hand. Three identical mischievous grins lit up the photo.
‘‘I wasn’t there when they took that, or they wouldn’t have taken it.’’ Firebird shook her head. ‘‘My brothers think Aleksandr is their own personal plaything, and if it were up to them, he’d
spend all his time running laps, climbing trees, and learning to shoot.’’
‘‘Shoot?’’ Doug raised his eyebrows. ‘‘At two and almost a half?’’
‘‘Baskets. My brothers are nuts about basketball.’’
‘‘Um-hm.’’ Doug didn’t believe that was what she meant at all.
‘‘Here’s my mom carrying Aleksandr around while he’s asleep.’’ Firebird’s face softened as she smiled at the picture. ‘‘He’s almost bigger than she is, but she won’t put him down. She says he sleeps better when she carries him.’’
The woman was petite. The boy was sturdy. The affection with which she held the child was obvious. ‘‘She’s stubborn,’’ Doug said.
‘‘She’s Rom. Gypsy. The most loving woman in the whole world, but don’t get on her bad side. She’ll cut your heart out with a sharp spoon.’’ Firebird took the last photo out of the envelope and placed it before him. ‘‘Here’s Aleksandr with his grandpa.’’
Doug inspected the photo of the boy sitting proudly in the old man’s lap. ‘‘Your father’s ill.’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘What’s wrong?’’
She tried to smile. ‘‘He’s suffering from a condition brought on by a combination of old sins, a good marriage, and a pact with—’’
The waiter appeared and presented their wine with a flourish. ‘‘Sir?’’
The worst Goddamn timing in the world. Doug could have kicked him across the restaurant.
Quentin knew it, too. ‘‘I can come back,’’ he said hastily.
Doug glanced at Firebird. She kept her head downturned as she scraped the pictures into a pile.
‘‘No.’’ The moment was gone.
He glanced at the label on the bottle. ‘‘Let the lady taste it.’’ Her family was in wine—her dad grew grapes, and her brother owned a vineyard, and Doug had always been amazed at her knowledge.
While Quentin poured a small amount in the wide-bottomed glass, Firebird put the photos back in the envelope and pushed them toward Doug. ‘‘I brought them for you. I thought you’d want to have them to look at while you . . . think.’’ She tasted the wine and nodded. ‘‘Very good. Douglas, would you order for us?’’