Archer Brant slipped his key in the lock of his front door,
still surly over the forced convalescence dictated by the
Bureau doc. The three-hour drive from San Francisco had at
least leached most of his anger so that he didn't feel the
need to punch something any longer. He gritted his teeth
against the pulsing ache in his busted-up shoulder and
thoughts of a beer with a Vicodin chaser crossed his mind,
but the moment he stepped over the threshold of his cabin,
the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened with a sense
that something wasn't right.
Quietly pocketing his keys, he moved to the scarred oak
cabinet where he kept his spare Glock and retrieved it
slowly from the drawer. Once the comforting weight of the
gun was in his hand, he moved through the bottom floor of
his house in a security sweep. Finding nothing, he made his
way up the stairs.
His ears pricked at an odd, unfamiliar sound coming from his
bedroom.
Creeping along the wall, he pushed open the door to his
bedroom and slid inside. Someone was in his bathroom. The
air still held the balmy, damp moisture left over from a hot
shower. He caught the sound of soft singing, slightly off
tune and he wondered what kind of idiot broke into a
stranger's house to make use of the soap and shampoo as if
it was a friggin Holiday Inn yet bypassed the valuables like
the flat-screen plasma television mounted on the wall or the
accompanying high-end Bose stereo system. He curled his lip.
Whoever was in there was murdering a classic Journey song,
and that was near enough to a crime in his book to warrant
shooting first and asking questions later. Since he was
supposed to be convalescing, he ignored his itchy trigger
finger and his protesting ear drums and just prepared to
oust his uninvited houseguest with a little force.
He moved into position along the wall, gaining an excellent
vantage point, and his disposition brightened at the thought
of scaring the life out of the trespasser. But as a figure
moved into view of the mirror, Archer blinked and frowned
with surprise. He'd been expecting a punk pimply-faced kid
or perhaps a homeless man but he was damn sure not expecting
to see dark hair cascading down a petite backside that was
nearly engulfed in his white terry cloth robe. Strong, slim
legs, rounded calves and pretty ankles met his gaze as he
assessed his trespasser. A woman. A shapely woman, he noted
with faint appreciation for the rounded swell of hips hidden
beneath the robe, and even as his hormones pumped a healthy
dose of testosterone into his veins, he looked for evidence
of a partner. A beautiful woman provided great distraction
for the thug that's about to cave in your cranium from the
back. That's not how he was going to clock out of this world.
But his quick check revealed nothing, not even a bag of
belongings. Then on the bed he saw something that narrowed
his stare and made him swear under his breath.
A baby bottle. Leaking something wet and pale onto his
five-hundred-dollar duvet. "This just ain't my day,"
he muttered, tucking his gun into his waistband. Of all the
places this wayward chick could've stopped, why'd it have to
be his? He wasn't in the mood to play host no matter what
her hard luck story was. He pinched the bridge of his nose
and exhaled a short breath before stepping into view, ready
to get this over with. "You picked the wrong house to
freeload in," he announced, taking grim satisfaction in
the woman's startled jump as she spun around to face him.
But holy hell, the air in his lungs evaporated and it felt
as though his heart had squeezed to a stuttering stop. He
knew this woman. A shaft of white-hot misery speared his
insides and his voice cracked with surprise as he managed to
murmur her name, though in truth it was a miracle his voice
worked at all, his shock was so great. As he stared at the
face that haunted his dreams and took center stage in his
most private thoughts, he couldn't help but drink in her
appearance, even if he'd never admit to anyone—least
of all her—that losing her had been as painful as
shoving a limb into a garbage grinder. And just as permanent.
"Marissa." He recovered, ashamed at his gut reaction
and the sudden leap in his heartbeat, to demand, "What
the hell are you doing here?"
Marissa Vasquez's palms found and then clutched the marble
countertop she was leaning against. She'd rehearsed a
possible explanation while in the shower but now that Archer
was standing before her, looking fierce and stony, her
well-rehearsed speech fled along with the strength in her
knees. Suddenly, she was well aware of her near nakedness,
her busted lip and the sheer improbability that Archer would
find it in his heart to help her at all.
And who could blame him, she thought bitterly. The last time
she saw him she was breaking off their engagement. The shock
in his eyes was slowly replaced by something cold and hard
and she felt her chances dwindling to next to nothing. But
desperation was a powerful motivator and she had nowhere
else to turn.
"I can explain," she said nervously as she tried to
hold on to a shred of dignity to get her through this.
She ducked down and scooped her niece, Jenna, from the floor
where she'd been hidden from view and held her close for
strength. The toddler twisted in her arms to stare at
Archer, her finger popping in her mouth as she watched him
with open curiosity.
"Please do." Archer's gaze skipped for a brief
moment to the baby before returning to her, and she realized
she wasn't sure where to start. He settled against the wall
in a totally casual pose that belied the tense set of his
jaw. She faltered and her throat closed against the rush of
fear and grief that threatened to reduce her to a puddle of
pathetic tears if she didn't just start somewhere.
"Clock's tickin'," he said with a cruelly arched
brow that emphasized just how short his patience with her
was at the moment.
She adjusted Jenna on her hip while trying to keep the too
large robe from gaping open. "Well, I—I
needed—no, thought, that, um, well, it's
c-compli-cated," she stammered. Tears welled in her eyes
but she blinked them back. Archer was not going to help her.
She swallowed convulsively when the image of her dead sister
flashed in her mind and the phantom smell of her sister's
blood filled her nostrils. He was her one and only hope. And
judging by the cool assessing stare she was getting, that
hope had been grossly misplaced. The urge to collapse in a
heap and bawl was too strong for words but she couldn't in
front of Archer. Not like this. She lifted her chin and
though her mouth trembled, she managed to say, "We'll be
out of your hair soon. I just needed a place to get cleaned
up."
"Get to the explaining part, Marissa," he growled,
his expression unreadable. When her tongue seemed paralyzed,
he said mockingly, "What happened to the biotech
scientist who'd had her heart set on a tidy little condo in
Los Gatos and didn't want or need complications in her
life?" She recovered sufficiently to return an angry
stare for throwing her last words to him in her face when
she was clearly at a disadvantage. But before she could
rebound with a cutting comment of her own, he pushed off the
wall and walked toward her, sending her pulse into an
epileptic fit so that she had to breathe a little deeper to
keep from visibly trembling. "Not interested in sharing
details? How about this? Skip to the good parts. Just tell
me how it is that you're in my bathroom with a busted-up
face and a baby. I'm a pretty sharp guy but I'm going to
need you to connect the dots on this one."
Her lip throbbed. She touched the swollen flesh with the tip
of her tongue and winced with the sharp pain. It was hard to
forget that she looked like hell but now was not the time
for vanity. Besides, even if she had showed up looking like
a supermodel, it was unlikely Archer would've been swayed.
She waved him away, defeat and fear making her reckless.
"Forget it. I thought…Never mind. It doesn't
matter. We'll be out of here in a few minutes."
Something flicked across his expression—grudging
concern?—and it was that flash that made her pause
when he said her name again.
"What's going on?" he asked. "And who's the kid?
Yours?"
She thought of lying. But she couldn't, not with Archer
staring at her like he was. "I'm in trouble," she
said in a small voice.
"That's apparent," he retorted then gestured at
Jenna. "And the kid?"
"My sister's."
"Mercedes," he acknowledged softly, his sharp gaze
narrowing in thought. "So where is that wild sister of
yours, then?"
"Dead." Her voice choked on the word. "She's
dead."
He swore and looked away. A long time ago when Marissa had
thought she was going to marry Archer, she'd filled him in
on her family life that started with a single mom and an
unruly sister who was more trouble than a pack of brothers,
growing up on the bad side of Oakland. He must've remembered
what she'd told him about Mercedes. He didn't seem
surprised. "Who's the father?" he asked finally.
Marissa hesitated, unsure. Should she tell Archer the whole
truth of what was going on? As she hedged, she realized her
mistake. Archer, even after all this time, could still read
her as easily as the Sunday paper and as he waited she knew
it was pointless to lie. "His name is Ruben Ortiz. He
runs the Oaktown Boyz gang on the East Side. Mercedes met
him while she was cocktailing at a new club called Porters."
"Let me guess, this Ruben character owns the club,"
Archer surmised.
She nodded. "And when he saw Mercedes…he had to
have her. I told her he was bad news but she didn't listen.
All she saw was the fancy cars, the jewelry and the
parties," she said bitterly, looking away before the
shine in her eyes betrayed her grief. Somehow her life had
been turned into an episode from a crime drama and she had
no control over how it ended. Her biggest fear was that her
end would be similar to her sister's and the thought chilled
her blood. "And she changed. Though, at the end, it
seemed, maybe, she'd gone back to the way she was before.
But it was too late."
Archer took everything in and seemed to digest the
information, yet didn't seem overly interested in too many
details. Not that she blamed him particularly. If she
weren't knee-deep in the mess herself, she'd have steered
clear, as well.
"Get dressed and come downstairs. Something tells me I'm
going to need a beer to hear the rest of this story."
A pang of sadness, different from the grief she lived with
now, pierced her chest and she had to wonder if coming to
Archer had been the wisest decision. It was apparent water
was not under the bridge. Archer still harbored some bitter
feelings over their breakup even though it'd been nearly
three years since that sunny day on the park bench outside
her lab. She made quick work of dragging on her dirty
clothes, grimacing at the stale feeling and the lingering
smell of cigar smoke that clung to the fabric. She looked
longingly at Archer's closet and wished she could grab a
T-shirt to slip on instead but she'd lost the right to
rummage through his things with such familiarity, and so
after putting a clean diaper on the baby and grabbing her
bottle, she and Jenna went downstairs to face a man who was
their only hope for survival.
Archer's thoughts were in a twisted mess. Thank God for
training to fall back on when faced with a crisis. He could
thank the Corps for the foundation and the Bureau for the
fine-tuning. Marissa was in his house. With a baby, no less.
At first, his gut plummeted when he thought the kid might be
hers. There was no sense in lying, he'd been relieved when
she admitted the baby was her older sister's. But the relief
that followed filled him with misgivings.
He shouldn't care who or what Marissa had been up to since
the day she cracked his heart in two and handed it to him
impaled on a steak knife. As far as he was concerned she
could get run down by a runaway taxicab and he wouldn't shed
a tear.
So if that was the case, why did seeing her so visibly
scared and physically roughed up fill him with such rage
that he wanted to shoot something? Because it wouldn't be
right to walk away when she was clearly desperate. So
they've got history. So what? That part of him was dead and
long past capable of resurrection.
She came down the stairs and, even though he tried hard not
to notice, he couldn't help but remember each gentle curve
of her body and the lush breasts that seemed to fill his
palm as perfectly as if they were made just for him. He
deliberately cut away his stare, affecting a casual pose as
he cracked open his beer and took a deep slug of the microbrew.
She took a seat on the sofa, hugging the baby to her chest.
The child yawned loudly and settled against Marissa. He
wondered what kind of life the kid had been living with
Mercedes for a mother. From what he remembered, Mercedes
Vasquez had been the exotic type, with tastes that ran to
the extreme, which explained the hookup with a known gangster.
But that didn't explain why Marissa was the one sitting in
front of him looking as though she'd taken a nasty crack
across the face, holding a baby that didn't belong to her.