FOR THE CHILDREN Read online

  Their protests were halfhearted, and as she led them away she looked over her shoulder at Damien. He sat on the couch and watched them, agony etched on his face. His eyes haunted her thoughts as she watched the twins change their clothes and brush their teeth.

  He was sitting at the table in the kitchen when she walked out of the twins' room, a glass of soda in front of him. He looked up when she walked into the room and gave her a strained smile. "I put a frozen pizza in the oven. I hope that's all right."

  "I'm not particularly hungry. That'll be fine."

  Abby sat down at the table and looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in front of her. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "Don't be. It's perfect. The fort is a depression in the rock behind the house that Tyler and I discovered. I'll take the girls there tomorrow, then they can tell me what happened that day at Janna's office."

  "There must be another way." She reached out and took his hand, needing to touch him.

  He turned her hand over and twined their fingers, then brought her hand to his lips. "There might be, but this is the opportunity I've been handed. I'll make it work."

  "Oh, Damien, I'd do anything to protect you from this pain," she said, her heart breaking.

  "I don't want to be protected, Abby. This is my job, remember? This is why we came to Cameron, so the girls would trust me enough to tell me the truth."

  "There are other things in life besides your job," she cried, tempted to shake him. "You don't have to tear yourself apart like this for your job."

  "It's not just about my job," he answered, and his hand tightened on hers. "It's about you and Maggie and Casey. The sooner I find out what they know, the safer you'll all be."

  "I don't want you to be hurt," she said, her voice a whisper. At that he stood up and gathered her into his arms. "It'll be all right, Abby. I can handle it. You and the twins are what's important."

  No, she wanted to cry. Your pain is equally important. But she knew he would never agree. So she swallowed hard and leaned back to look at him. "Tell me what I can do to help."

  He smoothed her hair away from her face, and she quivered inside at his touch.

  "You don't have to do a thing, Abby. All I'm going to do is sit in an uncomfortable hollow in a rock and talk to them." His mouth curled up in a slight smile. "Although some cookies might help. The girls and I can bond over chocolate."

  "I think I can manage cookies."

  Damien gently set her away from himself. "Ready for that pizza?"

  She nodded. He clearly didn't want to talk about tomorrow, so she grabbed plates and set the table.

  For the rest of the evening they managed to avoid any talk about the case or what would happen the next day. After eating the pizza, they sat on the couch and talked about themselves and the books they liked to read, the kinds of movies they liked to watch and their opinions of the California sports teams. They deliberately kept the conversation light, Abby thought as she watched Damien's mouth curl into a smile as he talked about a movie he'd seen recently. They both seemed to know that their time together was precious, not to be wasted on worrying about tomorrow.

  Finally, stifling a yawn, Damien stood up and extended a hand to Abby. "I've had it for today. You coming up to bed?"

  His eyes took on a gleam as he spoke, and Abby felt a sudden rush of heat. "What exactly did you have in mind?" she asked carefully.

  Damien pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. The kiss he gave her was full of longing and desire, but after a few minutes he pulled away. "That's up to you. I don't know how you feel about making love while the girls are in the house."

  "It didn't seem to make any difference to you the first time," she teased.

  His eyes darkened, and she saw the hot passion swirling underneath his carefully casual surface. "The first time I wasn't thinking about anything but you, and the fact that I would die if I didn't touch you. I'm trying to be rational while it's still possible."

  Abby licked her lips as she watched him. Her whole body was throbbing with need. She wanted him. How many more nights would they have together?

  "The girls are very sound sleepers," she murmured. "But they do wander during the night, and sometimes they end up in my bed."

  He swallowed hard. His hands tightened on her shoulders, then slid down to her hands. "Then I'll kiss you good-night at your bedroom door."

  "That's not what I meant," she protested. Reaching for him again, she pulled his head down to hers. "What I was trying to say is that I didn't think we should sleep together," she murmured against his lips. "I didn't say anything at all about what might happen before we fall asleep."

  His hands framed her face as he stared down at her, hunger etched in the angles of his mouth and cheeks. "I can think of a lot of things to do before we fall asleep."

  "I was hoping you might," she whispered.

  He kissed her again as desire flared hot between them, pressing her so close that she couldn't mistake his need for her. Then he took her hand and led her up the stairs toward the bedroom.

  * * *

  Abby awoke to feel the sunshine streaming in through the window, warming her face with its early-morning heat. The house was silent, and as she turned over in bed the scent of her and Damien's lovemaking wrapped itself around her. Scrambling out of the covers, she hurried across the hall to look in the door of the twins' room.

  "They're still asleep." Damien's voice came from the loft where he had slept. She spun around at the sound, only to look down at herself when she saw the light in his eyes.

  Her nightshirt barely covered her, and her face flamed bright red as she turned to scurry into her room. Damien's chuckling voice trailed her there. "Now, that's the way I like to start my morning."

  As she changed into a pair of worn denim shorts and a light blue T-shirt, Damien's face lingered in her mind. He had propped himself up on one elbow on the couch, a wide grin crinkling the corners of his eyes. His face had looked alive and full of devilish amusement, without a trace of the shadows that usually haunted him

  That's the way you should always look, Damien, she told him silently. Full of life, not pain. But would he ever be able to relinquish that pain? She didn't know. She only knew that she wanted to help him try.

  When she emerged from her room a few minutes later, Damien was already up and dressed. But a light still lingered in his eyes. "Decide you could use some more clothes?"

  "I forgot that I wasn't wearing my pajama bottoms," she answered with all the dignity she could muster. "When I didn't hear the girls, I was afraid something was wrong and I didn't stop to think."

  "They're just tired. They were busy yesterday." The smile that still lingered in the corners of his mouth began to fade. "Let's go down to the kitchen so we don't wake them up."

  She nodded and headed for the stairs, the bubbles in her mood beginning to flatten. Today was the day he would take them to the fort and question them, and she wasn't any more eager than Damien for them to wake up and set the process in motion.

  An hour later she heard the sound of the girls' voices drifting down from the second story, and her hand tightened around her coffee mug. Then suddenly the twins were at the loft railing.

  "Hi, Aunt Abby," Casey shouted as she ran down the stairs and skidded to a stop next to her aunt. "Hi, Damien."

  Maggie followed her sister into the room and went over to Damien. "Can we go to the fort now?"

  "How about we have breakfast first?" he said. Abby was amazed at how unconcerned he could act. Damien smiled at the girls as they ate, telling them jokes and making them laugh. Tension hummed beneath the surface, but it was carefully hidden from Maggie and Casey.

  When they finished eating, Damien said, "Who's ready for an adventure?"

  "I am, Damien! I am!" both girls shouted.

  "Get your shoes on, then, and we'll go find a fort." Abby's hands shook as she filled one plastic bag with chocolate-chip cookies and another with juice boxes. "Isn't there another way?"
she said softly to Damien as he stared out the window at the hills behind the house.

  "No, Abby, there isn't." His voice was equally soft, but he didn't look back at her. "This is perfect, in fact."

  He slowly turned around, and she drew her breath in at the sorrow in his eyes. "Maybe it's time I faced the fort, anyway. I haven't been there since Tyler died."

  "Oh, Damien," she whispered, and reached out to pull him close.

  He resisted for a moment, then he wrapped his arms around her as if he would never let her go. They clung together until they heard Casey's excited voice at the top of the stairs. Then Damien stepped away, bending to kiss her cheek. "Thank you, Abby." He managed a smile. "It's all right. I'll be fine."

  The next second he turned to Maggie and Casey and looked them over with mock seriousness. "Hmm, you look like you're ready for an adventure. I've got the supplies." He held up the bags with the cookies and juice. "Ready to go?"

  Damien watched the girls race out the door, then followed them more slowly. His heart began to pound as he headed away from the house, but he ignored the pain that hovered around in his chest. It was past time he faced the bittersweet memories that Tyler's fort held. He tried to repeat the mantra that it was part of his job, but with a jolt he realized it wasn't true. He was facing those memories for Maggie and Casey.

  The two girls had sneaked past his barriers and burrowed their way straight into his heart. What had started out as an unwelcome part of his job, a necessary evil to find out who had killed Joey Stefanetto, had evolved into an obsession that these children not be hurt. And compared to that, facing down the ghosts that waited at the fort was insignificant.

  He stood with the girls at the edge of the bowl-shaped depression in the rock that constituted Tyler's fort and waited for the pain, but it didn't come. Instead, he pictured Tyler, playing in the fort and inviting him in with his huge grin. A lump swelled in his throat as he remembered his son, happy and carefree, smiling at his father with love in his eyes.

  "Is this the fort?" Casey asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  "Yeah, it is." He turned to her with relief. "What do you think?"

  "It's cool. Can we go in there?" Maggie asked eagerly.

  "You sure can." He lowered himself into the depression, then reached up and lifted the girls down one at a time. Then he sat on one of the scooped-out areas on the side of the bowl.

  The girls promptly sat down next to him. "What's this fort for?" Maggie asked.

  "It's for secrets." Both girls stared up at him, and he felt his heart constrict again. But this time it wasn't with pain for his son. It was with love for these two children, and the need to keep them safe. "I come here whenever I have a secret I need to share."

  He reached out and took their hands. "Once I've shared my secret with this fort, then it's not a secret anymore. And I don't have to worry about it. Then the fort has to worry about it."

  Casey giggled. "That's silly, Damien. Forts don't worry."

  He wrinkled his face. "Do you think the fort's been lying to me all this time?"

  Maggie considered the question for a moment, then she shook her head. "I think it's the fairies who live in the fort that do the worrying."

  He nodded solemnly. "I think you're probably right, Mags." Drawing both girls closer, he pulled them against his side. "Why don't you try it? You have a secret you're sharing, don't you?"

  For a moment he could see in their eyes that they wanted to deny it. But then Maggie slowly nodded. "We have a secret, Damien. I think it's a bad secret."

  "Can you tell me about it?"

  Maggie looked at Casey, and once again he sensed a silent communication between them. Then both girls looked at him and nodded.

  "If we tell you, will the fairies take it away?" Casey asked.

  "If you tell me, I'll make sure you don't have to worry about it anymore." He pulled the twins closer, and suddenly Maggie climbed on his lap.

  "We were at work with Mommy," she began. Then she stopped and looked over at Casey.

  "We went outside," Casey said. Her lip trembled. "We weren't supposed to. Mommy told us to stay in her office. But we saw a rabbit, and we wanted to catch it. So we ran outside when Mommy wasn't looking."

  "And then what happened?" he prompted softly, tightening his arms around them.

  "The rabbit got away." Maggie looked at him, and her hazel eyes filled with tears. "Then we saw the man in Mommy's office. He was there before, a long time ago. We don't like him, because he yelled. So me and Casey hid in the bushes."

  "What did you see?"

  Neither of the girls spoke for a moment, then Casey said, "He was talking to another man. Then he started yelling, just like he did that other time. Then there was a loud noise, and the other man fell on the ground." Her eyes filled with tears, too. "There was red all over the ground. He made some funny noises, then he was quiet."

  "What did you do then?" Damien asked.

  "We ran back to Mommy." Maggie looked up at him and the tears spilled over her face. "We stayed with her until it was time to go home, except for when the yelling man came to talk to her. Then we hid."

  "Then Mommy told us we were going to stay with Aunt Abby, and we were glad. We thought Mommy would be with us, too, and we could tell her what happened. But then Mommy left. She had to go away for her job."

  "Why didn't you tell your aunt Abby what had happened?"

  Tears streaked down Maggie's face. "We were afraid that the yelling man would make a loud noise at Aunt Abby, too. We didn't want her to be all red. So we didn't tell her."

  Damien crushed the girls against him, and when they twined their arms around his neck, he never wanted to let them go. They sat together for a long time, absorbing the heat from the rock surrounding them, until Casey leaned back and said, "Are those cookies you have in that bag?"

  As the girls ate cookies and drank juice, Damien marveled again at the resiliency of children. They had witnessed a murder and been frightened for over a week, but now that they thought the fairies were going to worry for them, they were happy again. He'd make sure their mother got some counseling for them, but Maggie and Casey were going to be fine.

  They stayed in the fort for the rest of the morning, playing the same kind of make-believe games that Damien had once played with Tyler. But instead of the pain he had braced for, it brought him a peace that was unexpected. Tyler seemed close to him here in the fort, and for the first time since the accident, his son's memory brought him comfort.

  Finally he said to the twins, "Maybe we should go back and see how your aunt Abby is doing."

  "Okay." The girls waited to be lifted out of the fort, then scrambled back down the hillside with him.

  As they approached the house, he saw that Abby wasn't alone. For a moment fear gripped him, then he realized that Laura Weston was with her. The Weston kids and the Johnson girl played on the patio and the twins ran up the steps to join them.

  Abby stood up and took his hands when he walked in. He wanted to kiss away the worry he saw in her eyes, but instead smiled reassuringly.

  "All three of us survived," he murmured.

  Laura stood up. "I've got to get going. I just stopped over to see if Abby needed anything from the grocery store."

  Abby turned to the other woman. "Thanks again, Laura. I enjoyed talking to you."

  Laura's smile was understanding. "Me, too. We'll have to do it again."

  They both watched Laura leave, then Abby turned to Damien. "What happened?"

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, then told her what the girls had said. "They did see the murder. They can identify the murderer, and I think he knows it. But they're going to be fine now."

  "Why didn't they say anything to me?"

  "They were trying to protect you, Abby." He smoothed her hair away from her face. "They're smart girls. They didn't want what happened to Joey to happen to you."

  "Do they know that Joey died?"

  He heard the horror in her voi
ce and held her more tightly. "I don't think so. But they're smart enough to know it was something bad."

  Abby stepped away from him and looked out at the girls happily playing on the patio. "What do we do now?"

  "I'm going to call the office and tell them what I've found out. Once we've identified the killer and arrested him, I'll take you back to Las Vegas."

  "What about Janna?" she whispered.

  "From what the girls said, I don't think she has any idea what happened. As long as she doesn't know anything, Janna should be safe. And it doesn't sound like the murderer is someone she works with, although the twins said they'd seen him once before."

  "But she sounded so funny when I talked to her."

  "I know you're worried, but we can't think about Janna right now. We have to take care of Maggie and Casey."

  Abby managed to nod. "I know you're right."

  He pressed a hard kiss on her lips. "Let me make that phone call, okay? I want to get this set in motion."

  A few minutes later he was assured that another agent was on his way to Janna's office. With any luck they'd have the identity of the killer that day. They might even be lucky enough to arrest him on the site.

  He was just turning back to Abby when the phone rang.

  "Hello." His voice was cautious.

  "Kane, this is Devlin McAllister. I thought you'd want to know that my deputies spotted two cars in town this morning with Nevada plates. The registration on both checked out to Las Vegas. And the men in the cars didn't look like tourists."

  Damien's gut tightened. "Thanks, Devlin. I appreciate the warning."

  "No problem. I'll stick close to your house tonight. If you need anything, you call. I'll be there in two minutes."

  "I will."

  He closed the phone carefully, then turned to Abby. "It sounds like our friends have figured out that we're not at Shea's anymore."

  Her face paled. "Are they in town?"

  "That was Devlin. He said his deputies have seen a couple of Nevada plates, and the drivers didn't look like tourists."

  "What do we do now?" she asked, looking out at the twins on the patio.

  "We wait."