The Baby Chase

“Monica was blackmailing him. I know. Milking him for shares of the Fortune company, from the time she found out Jake was born on the wrong side of the blanket. If she exposed him, he was afraid he’d lose everything. I know all the family dirty linen, Gabe, and I know the mistakes my brother made. I know he’d been drinking a lot and had been screwing up at work. That the pressure split up his marriage, and set him against Nate. It still doesn’t mean he killed her.”

It was pretty rare that two and two didn’t add up to four, Gabe thought, but it was hard to argue with such blind loyalty. “I just thought you might need to recognize how bad it looks,” he said gently.

She surged out of the chair, suddenly as restless as a wet cat. “You know what I recognize? That Monica Malone has somehow managed to hurt my family for two generations—she’s dead now, and it still isn’t over. The old witch was guilty of kidnapping, sabotage, infidelity, stalking, theft, blackmail—you name it, she did it against the Fortune family, starting way back when she had an affair with my father. I swear she’s hurt us for the last time. It’s got to stop.”

“Rebecca,” he said patiently, “go home.”

“No.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe someone did come in this house after your brother left, and murdered her. But if there’s a shred of proof in this house pointing in that direction, I promise I’ll find it.”

“I know you would try. And I know you’re good. But you don’t have a woman’s eye, Gabe. There’s every chance I could see things that you couldn’t.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. No point in continuing in that direction, so he tried another. “There’s a tiny element you may not have considered, Red. Finding evidence that someone else murdered Monica doesn’t mean you’re going to be any happier. I know the whole story of how she preyed on your family. But that’s the point. If there is another suspect, it could well be another member of your clan. There’s no shortage of motives all through the Fortune family.”

“It wasn’t any of us,” Rebecca said firmly.

“I hate to tell you this, but it’d be tough to prove that viewpoint in court. Some misguided folk might think you were coming from blind loyalty instead of from rational, objective thinking.”

“Well, they’d be wrong. That woman was a greedy, selfish, conniving shrew her whole life, Gabe. She could have had a thousand enemies besides us. And…oh God, I can’t just sit here…. I’m going to start looking.”

She shot toward the door and out before he could stop her. Not that Gabe would have tried. Reasoning with the woman was like trying to get through to a mule. He cast a longing glance at the bottle of whiskey.

He didn’t believe she would find any evidence clearing her brother, but there was a slim chance it existed. And if the thousand-to-one odds that Rebecca was right paid off, there was still a real murderer out there. A cold-blooded killer wouldn’t likely appreciate anyone poking and probing for the truth. Gabe had never mentioned that threat of danger to Rebecca, but the nasty, rotten thought crossed his mind that someone had better watch over her.

It wasn’t his problem. If worse came to worst, he could sic her mama on her. Kate Fortune could make a battalion of marines behave with a look.

It was just for this night that he was stuck with her. When he got home, there’d be ample time to dip into a consoling shot of whiskey. While he had to be around Rebecca, he definitely needed all the wits he could beg, borrow or steal.

Rebecca propped her fists on her hips. Monica Malone’s bedroom was about what she’d expected—a study in a vain, greedy, self-indulgent woman.

Monica’s world had definitely revolved around Monica. She had two oil portraits of herself on the wall, for Pete’s sake. Walk-in closets stuffed with plunging necklines and more shoes than Madame Marcos. The bed was heart-shaped—how corny could you get?—with satin sheets and a plump satin headboard. Probably had to kill a whole whale to get all the bones and wiring in her corsets; the aging Monica had definitely been into pushing up, shoving out and, above all else, displaying her boobs. The vanity was sardine-packed with more bottles and vials than a cosmetic company could produce—and since the Fortune family had founded a dynasty in cosmetics, Rebecca ought to know.

She’d already rifled the drawers and closets. While she was in the sybaritic malachite bathroom, she’d also yanked down her jeans—away from Gabe’s eagle eyes—to figure out why her fanny was hurting so much. There were certainly enough mirrors to display a nasty bruise already turning rainbow colors. Her forehead throbbed, her behind was killing her, and the long scrape on her chest and ribs refused to stop smarting.

Well, she could soak once she got home. Now wasn’t the time. She refused to admit to being exhausted, even though it had to be three in the morning. Thunder boomed outside. The frustrated scowl on her forehead was just as dark and gloomy as the pitchy, witchy night outside.

Gabe didn’t believe there was any evidence to find, she knew. He didn’t want her around. She knew that, too. The rancid slug of whiskey had finally warmed her from the inside, though, renewing her determination. For some idiotic reason, she’d actually hoped Gabe might believe in her brother’s innocence. It was obvious he didn’t—no different from everyone else.

It wasn’t the first time Rebecca had felt alone. As her gaze scanned the width of the room, she automatically rubbed the gold charm bracelet on her wrist. The symbol of family always sustained her. As diverse as the Fortune clan was, Rebecca had always felt different, not one to fit in or follow anyone else’s pattern or values. It didn’t matter. It had never mattered. Family meant loyalty. Love. The precious and unbreakable bonds of blood. She’d find a way to clear her brother’s name or die trying. There’d never been any question about it.

Looking around, she rubbed and rerubbed the gold chain, idly wondering if Gabe even had a family. He never spoke of siblings or family members. Neither a wife nor babies seemed anywhere on his priority list. He came across as a self-sufficient loner, but in some quiet corner of her mind, Rebecca sensed that he was a deeply lonely man.

He’d undoubtedly crack up if she dared suggest such a thing, she thought, and then, abruptly, she forgot Gabe. Her eyes shot to her bracelet, then swiftly around the room. Jewelry. That woman had to have a ton of it. Undoubtedly the expensive stuff was stored in safe-deposit boxes—or the lawyers had absconded with it through the whole estate probate thing. But Monica had never been photographed when she wasn’t decked out in trinkets and baubles of all kinds. Surely there had to be some jewelry boxes around here.

There were.

She found two freestanding jewelry chests in the back of one closet—both packed to the gills. Crouching down, she pulled out all the little drawers and started pawing through yards of glittery bangles and cheap baubles.

Her mood picked up anticipation. No, she didn’t know what she was looking for, didn’t know where to look, didn’t even know if there was anything to find. But if there were secrets to find about Monica, Rebecca strongly intuited they were in this bedroom. Maybe a guy hid secrets in his truck or his desk, but a woman always stored her secrets in her bedroom. It was her cache, her stash, her private hideaway, in a way a man would never understand.

In the fourth drawer down, her fingertips hit a bump. She ran over it again. Definitely a bump. Hustling, she upturned the drawer of baubles on the white closet carpet, shook the drawer good and then peered into the bottom. The bump showed up as a ripple in the satin lining.

The satin lining ripped out as easily as a candy wrapper.

Several snips of paper drifted out with it. One was a telegram so old that the yellow paper looked like a wrinkled napkin—some poor misguided dude announcing he loved Monica. Rebecca tossed that, then reached for the next—a love letter from another guy, who’d signed himself “Your faithful hound.” She wondered dryly if the guy had been a dog as a lover, but then studied it more seriously. The love note was dated ten years before, too old to be of any relevance that she could imagine, but she tucked it near her knee anyway. If Monica valued the thing enough to hide it, it might mean something.

Most of the paper scraps were simply personal memorabilia, nothing that Rebecca could imagine having even a remote relationship to the woman’s murder. Rebecca grimaced as she found more evidence of Monica’s perfidy. She found proof that Monica had been behind the attempted theft of the secret youth formula, had encouraged Allie’s stalker, had people break in the lab and had even been behind the threats to deport Fortune scientist Nick Valkov—a threat that had prompted their marriage, the first of the rash of weddings in the Fortune family. At least Monica had done something right. But none of this was any use in clearing Jake’s name.

Until she came to the letter. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she read, then reread, the last missive.

It was a carbon copy of a letter, written not to Monica, but by Monica. Although the message contained only a few short lines, it was dated ten days before her death, threatening a woman named Tammy Diller about “showing up for their meeting” or risking “more trouble than you ever dreamed of.”

Pay dirt.

Elation thrummed through Rebecca’s pulse. Something about the woman’s name struck a vague chord in her memory, but she couldn’t place it…and that didn’t immediately matter, anyway. The letter itself was enough. Maybe the missive was no proof that her brother was innocent. Maybe it wasn’t proof this Tammy woman had done anything, either. But it was sure proof that another person had been in the picture around the time of Monica’s death…and their relationship hardly sounded amicable.

Ignoring every ache and pain, Rebecca scrambled to her feet. Handling the letter as if it were precious china, she jogged out of the bedroom and into the hall, yelling loudly for Gabe.

Later it occurred to her that her screaming might have aroused his alarm and made him think she’d done something to half kill herself, because she saw him fly up the winding front stairs three at a time. Just then, the only things on her mind were elation and relief and excitement that she’d found something real and concrete that could link someone else to Monica’s murder besides her brother.

When Gabe flew toward her, she flew straight at him.

It was perfectly logical to throw her arms around him. Any woman would have understood the perfectly natural, emotional impulse.

Gabe, though, didn’t quite seem to see it that way.

Three

The way Rebecca was charging down that hall, Gabe naturally assumed demons or monsters were after her—or a killer. Maybe he’d been retired from the Special Forces for the past seven years, but certain responses were as well-honed as instincts for him. He was braced to yank her behind him, out of harm’s way, and protect her. He was braced to confront serious danger.

He was braced for just about anything but the damn fool woman throwing her arms around him. The exuberant hug was so sudden. And maybe she aimed that sassy smack for his cheek, but it collided an inch short. On his mouth. With the impact of a bullet.

Gabe had been shot. Twice. The experience was something a man never forgot, although it hadn’t hurt either time—not at the instant of impact. It had felt more like a sudden burn, a burst of stunning heat.

Bullets had nothing on Rebecca.

He’d known she was trouble. Known at some gut-instinct level that keeping his hands off her could avert the core source of that trouble. But initially he grabbed her because his brain was responding to the threat of danger. Initially adrenaline was pumping through his veins at the speed of light. A millisecond later, that adrenaline rush was sabotaged by the flooding pump of straight testosterone.

The long hall was dim and dark, so empty that his heartbeat echoed loudly, bouncing off the silence. Whyever in hell she’d hugged him, her head suddenly reared back. Velvet green eyes connected with his. The huge smile curving her lips suddenly faded, softened. She didn’t drop her arms. She didn’t do anything any sane, normal, rational woman would do. She lifted up on tiptoe, not unlike a kitten hell-bent on being curious, and kissed him.

She tasted like spring winds and innocence. She tasted like nothing that had been in Gabe’s life for a long, long time…nothing he’d missed or even wanted, dammit. Until that moment. Her mouth was softer than a baby’s behind, the scent of her skin as wholesome as Ivory soap, and something was in one of the hands that scratched his neck. Paper? But her other hand suddenly clutched the dark hair at his nape, and her small breasts flattened against his chest, and suddenly Gabe couldn’t breathe.

All right, he tried telling himself. It’s all right. There was nothing happening here but a little overflow of testosterone. Just hormones. He’d been celibate for a while, and he damn well hated being celibate, and even if Rebecca drove him nuts, she was two-hundred-percent female. The sizzle of desire bolting through his system was natural. Simple biology.

Nothing seemed real simple at that moment, though. His fingers found their way into that messy tangle of red hair, so silky, so soft, and her mouth opened under the pressure of his. Her tongue was wet, as small as a secret, and if that woman had a repressive instinct in her, it didn’t show. She kissed with abandon. She kissed like pure, untouched emotion. She kissed like she’d never been on a roller-coaster ride before and was utterly captivated by the whole experience.

Rebecca could totally immerse a man in quicksand in three seconds flat—if he let her.