Hold on to Me (9 page)

With a hushed ding, the elevator doors slid open, and they stepped into the corridor. Directly in front of them lay the maternity ward nursery and a different unease slid over Caitlin, trailing icy fear in its wake.

Oh, no. Not this. Not now.

With her shaking hands clenched behind her back, she looked up at Tick. “Tell me again why we’re here?”

“To make my mama happy and see my new nephew. He’s all of an hour old.”

Pain twisted through her stomach. “Why don’t I wait downstairs? A new baby in a family is a private thing and I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Cait, come on. It’s not an intrusion. Mama would have my hide if I left you downstairs to wait. We won’t stay long.”

She didn’t have a choice. If she protested, he’d want to know why. Suppressing the sickening hurt, she faked a smile. “Okay. Just don’t forget we still have a lot to do this afternoon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He knocked on the door to room 535 before pushing it open.

The pretty brunette lying in the bed opened her eyes. “Hey! You came.”

“Like I’d miss this. How do you feel?” Tick leaned over to hug her. Caitlin stood close to the door, her attention locked on the clear plastic bassinet by the bed and the blanket-wrapped bundle it contained. The urge to run consumed her.

“I’m fine,” the brunette answered, her curious gaze resting on Caitlin.

Tick waved her closer. “Cait? This is my sister-in-law Deanne. Dee, this is Caitlin Falconetti.”

Ingrained politeness forced Caitlin to move forward. “It’s nice to meet you.” She darted a quick look at the bassinet, a wild mixture of agony and hunger twisting in her. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Deanne eyed Tick with affectionate resignation. “Go ahead. I know you’re dying to pick him up.”

With a deep chuckle, Tick slid his hands under the baby and lifted him. A small fist escaped the blanket, waving, and Caitlin glimpsed a few wisps of dark hair on the tiny head. Tick settled into the vinyl chair, his nephew in his arms, and Caitlin swallowed hard. What had she been thinking when she agreed to this?

“He’s, er, adorable, Dee.” Tick’s laugh emerged muffled and choked.

“Liar.” Deanne’s proud glow dispelled the exhaustion dragging at her features. “He’s red and wrinkled, and he looks like a space alien. But he’s mine, and yes, he’s beautiful.”

“Does he have a name yet?” Tick shifted the baby in his arms, holding the infant with familiar ease. He stroked a finger over the baby’s cheek and Caitlin’s throat tightened. He’d make a wonderful father.

This was what Benjamin Fuller had stolen from her. She hoped he rotted in hell.

Deanne’s voice broke into her tortured thoughts. “We’re still arguing about it. I want to name him Carter, but Chuck thinks he needs a more manly name.”

“You don’t have one named for Daddy yet.” Tick’s mouth quirked, and he shifted the baby to lie in the crook of his knee. He folded the blanket back and placed his fingertip in one tiny palm before lifting a small foot. Counting fingers and toes, Caitlin realized. “He kind of looks like a Lamar Eugene.”

“We’re leaving that name for you to use. And I know your mama’s hoping you’ll hurry up and use it.”

“Give me time.” Tucking the blanket about the baby again, Tick glanced at Caitlin and she swallowed hard at the emotions reflected in his dark gaze, joy and pride mingled with anticipation.

She had to get out. Her own feelings threatened to suffocate her. Caitlin smiled thinly, clutching her hands behind her back, fingernails biting into her palms. “Excuse me a minute.”

With extreme care, she closed the door behind her. She walked to the restroom at the end of the hall, her vision blurred by tears demanding release. Blinking hard, Caitlin ran cold water over her wrists, splashing a few drops on her face. God, how was she supposed to deal with this?

“All right, Falconetti,” she whispered, pressing her fingertips to her burning eyes. “You’ve been over all this before. Whining and crying doesn’t change anything. Just suck it up and get on with it.”

The door behind her creaked open, followed by Tori’s cheerful voice. “Go
on
, Mama. I’ll be right there.”

Caitlin grabbed a couple of rough paper towels to dry her hands. Tori paused just inside, letting the door swing shut. “Cait? Are you okay?”

She closed her eyes against the concern in the other woman’s voice. She nodded and drew in a deep, fortifying breath before turning around. “Fine. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seemed…sad or something.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated with a mocking little laugh. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she straightened her blouse.

Tori nodded, remnants of suspicion on her face. “Sure.”

Caitlin pulled up her best bureau smile, a brittle expression that made her cheeks ache. Pride and self-preservation demanded she convince Tick’s sister nothing was wrong. “I’m going to make a couple of phone calls. Would you let Tick know I’ll wait for him downstairs?”

She left the restroom and took the elevator to the ground floor. She turned in her guest pass and walked out into the hot afternoon sun. Despite all her efforts, the tears fell. Damn it, she hated crying, and she hated having a runny nose. She rummaged in her bag for tissues, trying to smother the sobs that rattled her chest.

God, what had she been thinking? She should have run as soon as they stepped out on the maternity floor. Or as soon as she’d seen him at that damned chicken farm, filthy and sweaty and still attractive as hell.

She wanted him. But the wanting went deeper than the physical desire. She wanted him, the man, all of him. She wanted him to love her, and she wanted him to be the father of her children. It was too late for all of that and the futility made her want to scream.

Instead, she began the slow process of pulling herself back together.

“Hey, lady, you all right?” An orderly pushing an empty wheelchair back to the main door paused, concern etching deeper lines around his eyes. “Somebody die or something?”

His bedside manner was atrocious. Laughter bubbled in her throat and she covered her mouth, stifling the sound. “Yes, I guess you could say somebody died.”

Benjamin Fuller needed her dead so she couldn’t want another man. She still wanted, but Fuller had succeeded in killing the woman inside, the one who planned for a hazy future. She was left with the shell and clear, cold reality.

Fuller had killed more than her spirit.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So am I.” Caitlin dragged in a deep breath of humid air, redolent with the scent of camellia blossoms and coming rain.

“Anything I can do for you?”

“No.” She dried her eyes again. “There’s nothing anyone can do. But thank you.”

In the confusion of having most of his family, including his aunts Ella and Maureen, in Deanne’s room at once, Tick failed to notice immediately that Caitlin didn’t return. Once Chuck’s four older children arrived with their maternal grandmother to see their new brother, three-year-old Charlie burst into tears because the baby was in Uncle Tick’s arms.

Returning the baby to Chuck, Tick swung Charlie up into his embrace, blowing raspberries on her neck and making her giggle through her tears. He laughed, too, affection thrumming through him. “Come on, Charlie, don’t you want to see your baby?”

“No.” Her bottom lip jutted again and he grinned. Her pout was a miniature version of the one Tori sported when irritated. He held her close, catching a glimpse of glimmering emotion in Chuck’s eyes as he settled the baby in Deanne’s arms and brushed a soft kiss over her mouth.

Tick shifted Charlie higher on his arm. Hell, it was too damn easy picturing himself in the same situation, with Caitlin. A holdover from too many nights dreaming of her while he’d been undercover.

Holding Chuck’s son earlier, he’d watched Caitlin, heat slamming into him as he wondered what it would be like to make love to her again, knowing he might give her a child.

She hadn’t returned. Frowning, he glanced around at the crowd and passed Charlie off to Tori. “Where’s Cait?”

She pressed a kiss to Charlie’s chubby cheek, her expression serene. “She went to make a couple of calls. Said she’d wait for you downstairs.”

Apprehension tickled through him. “When?”

“I don’t know…five or ten minutes ago. What’s the problem?”

“No problem. None at all.” He swallowed hard, forcing a cheerfulness he didn’t feel. “Mama? I’m gone.”

He caught an elevator, worry over Caitlin’s absence churning in his stomach. She was making calls, so why was he getting edgy? It didn’t make sense, but his instincts were screaming.

Outside, he glanced up at the thunderclouds gathering in the western sky, backlit by the afternoon sun. He couldn’t shake the gut intuition that said Caitlin’s disappearance had more to do with him than with something case related.

She waited under the porte-cochere, leaning against a column, staring across the parking lot, tapping her cell phone against her lips.

“Cait?”

Not looking at him, she straightened. “Ready?”

Her voice sounded raw, strangled, the aftereffects of tears plain on her face. His chest tightened and he reached for her. “What’s wrong?”

She pulled free of his light hold, her movements jerky. “Can we go, please?”

“Not yet.” A couple entering the lobby cast them a curious look and he lowered his voice. “You were fine earlier and you’ve been crying. Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s none of your business and I wish you’d simply leave me alone.” She turned on him, eyes narrowed to green slits, sparking with bad temper. “Which part of ‘we’re colleagues’ did you not get, Calvert? I don’t go around sharing my personal life with Cook or Schaefer. What makes you different?”

Her anger set him back for all of two seconds before his own rose to match it. “Maybe the fact we had a personal relationship? Remember that, Cait? That’s what sets me apart from Cookie or Jeff, the fact you all but told me you loved me, the fact I’ve had you wrapped around me and screaming my name.”

“So the sex was good.” She strode toward the parking lot. “Get over it. I did.”

“No.” He caught up to her halfway to his truck, grabbed her arm, spun her to him. He leaned down, his face close to hers. “It was more than that and you know it. Something got in the way and hell if I know what it is—”

“God, you’re stubborn.” She fairly growled the words at him, pushing away, continuing toward his dusty Z71. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I met someone else while you were gone? Or maybe I decided I wanted something different? Or even that
maybe
I just didn’t want you anymore! How many times do I have to say it before it sinks through that thick skull of yours?”

Holy hell, but he was tired of this. “So that’s it?”

“That’s it.” She tugged at the door handle. “Unlock it.”

“You don’t want me.”

Ire flushed her face. “Didn’t I—”

He smothered her protest with his mouth. For a half second, she stiffened in his embrace and lifted her hands, probably to shove him away, before she clutched the front of his shirt and pulled him to her, kissing him with a hunger close to desperation. Desire barreled through him, blending with the frustrated anger, making the kiss rougher than any they’d shared before. He flattened her back against the truck, opening his mouth over hers, stroking his tongue between her lips.

She wound her arms around his waist, arching into him, and he pulled her closer, as near to him as he could get her. She stroked the bunched muscles at his lower back and he groaned into her mouth. Lord, he loved the way she touched him and it had been too damn long since he’d had her hands on him. He’d needed this since she stepped out of that car at Ash’s, since he’d come home from Missisippi. Hell, he’d needed this, needed her, the whole damn time he’d been gone, pretending to be everything he wasn’t.

He splayed his fingers at the curve of her hips. She tasted of mint and passion, the essence of her rocking him to the core. He was growing hard and heavy, an uncomfortable snugness at his groin. Heat trailed through him.

She nipped at his bottom lip, then soothed it with the tip of her tongue, pushing his need higher.

An engine rumbled on the side street and brakes whined. A horn blared, followed by a piercing male wolf whistle. Caitlin went rigid in his arms. Tick pulled away and stared into green eyes almost black with desire. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath and get his body under control.

“Now tell me you don’t want me.”

“Damn you, Calvert,” she whispered, her face pale. “Let it go. Please.”

“I can’t, Cait. Don’t ask me to.”

A tear slipped from beneath her lashes and he caught it with his thumb. She shoved his hand aside.

“We need to go to Moultrie.” Her voice quivered.

He might be stubborn, but he knew when to back off. If he pushed any more right now, she’d close herself completely off from him and he’d be right back where he started. He unlocked the door, wrenched it open for her. She climbed in and he stood in the opening while she latched her seat belt with hands that trembled.

She didn’t look at him.