Secrets of an Old Flame
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Jill Limber
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15.5K
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17
Chapter 1
Lucky for Joe Galtero that Nikki Walker wasn’t armed, because she was tempted to shoot him before he could make it to her porch.
Nikki watched him in the fading afternoon light through the narrow beveled glass window beside the front door, surprised he could still arouse such contrary feelings in her after a year apart.
She’d always had a sixth sense when it came to Joe. She’d known it was him when she’d heard the car. He parked opposite the house, slid out of the unmarked sedan and walked across the street as if he owned it.
Unwillingly, she drank in the sight of him. His black hair was shorter, cut in the latest style. He wore a suit and tie—always a classy dresser. Too bad the big cop inside the expensive clothes had turned out to be such a double-dealing weasel.
The cold terrazzo tile chilled her bare feet and goose bumps roughened the skin on her arms, but the heat inside her raged. Watching him move toward her house with his unhurried grace started a flutter deep in her belly. She placed an unsteady hand low over her stomach, pressing hard on the spot that warmed to the memory of his clever mouth.
Disgusted by her reaction, she knew she had to be on her guard. As much as she might hate him, he still had the power to take her breath away.
Memories she didn’t want came rushing back. She’d fallen for him like a fifteen-year-old in love for the first time. Instantly and completely.
Blindly she’d trusted him and let him use her.
She felt foolish because she’d known he was a cop, known his job was to investigate her father’s mysterious disappearance. Still, she had believed he cared about her. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Two short weeks into the affair, she’d found out he was using her to get to her missing father. He thought her father had disappeared on purpose, to cover a hideous crime.
Devastated, she’d run away, as far and fast as she could.
How foolish to think she could come back to her father’s house and avoid Joe even for a few days.
She’d come back to tell him about the baby, but she wanted to settle her affairs and be back on her feet financially before she did. One step away from being homeless, she felt too unprotected. Joe had already proved he wasn’t above taking advantage of her vulnerability.
She glanced down at her son’s stroller, then pushed it into the hall closet, staying back in the deeper shadows. If she didn’t answer the door he’d leave and she wouldn’t have to face him.
The thought caused her to let out a short bitter laugh as he stepped up onto the porch. There was no point trying to avoid him. He’d just come back. His good looks, killer grin and warm brown eyes hid the tenacity of a bulldog.
Besides, why should she hide? He didn’t want her. He wanted her father.
He’d made it very clear the day she left a year ago he would do anything to find M. Raymond Walker. Including manipulate her any way he could. Too late she realized like a fool she’d fallen right into his plan.
Joe stood on the elegant porch and stared at the imposing front door. He still had a key but knew better than to use it. Instead he pounded on the front door and waited impatiently.
Nikki was inside. He could see her shadowy form in the entry hall. Judge Murphy’s clerk had called him to tell him the judge had given permission for her to stay in the house temporarily.
“Damn it Nikki, open the door.” He leaned on the bell, the muscles in his shoulders bunched into tight knots. He wasn’t leaving until she talked to him.
He had his fist raised to pound on the solid oak when she opened the door. The sight of her hit him like a fist in the gut.
He thought he’d remembered how beautiful she was.
He’d been wrong. Dead wrong.
He ran his gaze up and down her body, taking in changes.
She was thinner, her blond hair longer and a few shades darker. Her blue eyes were shadowed by fatigue. Had she been ill? The possibility bothered him, but from her scowl he figured this wasn’t a good time to ask personal questions, no matter how much he wanted answers.
He’d never stopped wondering. Where the hell had she been for the past year? And who had she been with?
Fury like he’d never felt before threatened to engulf him. Born of jealousy, his anger teetered on the edge, ready to spill over whenever he let himself think of the possibility of her with another man.
He hated the weakness he felt because of her.
Feet apart, she held the door with a stiff arm like a shield. “What do you want?”
Same rich, sexy voice. The sound of it after all this time made him want to grab her and kiss her until she made that little wanting noise that drove him nuts. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her.
“I heard you were back.”
Silent, she eyed him suspiciously, making him feel like a stranger who had shown up at her door to sell her something.
“What do you want?” she repeated stubbornly, not giving an inch.
You, he was tempted to say, remembering the short time they’d been lovers. Her voice, telling him things in the dark, had set him on fire. He wanted to push his way into the entry, kick the door shut and pin her up against the wall where he could feel the length of her body against him.
Joe cleared his throat, fighting his arousal. He didn’t want to have this conversation on the porch with the door between them.
“May I come in?”
The look on her face changed from anger to disbelief. “What makes you think you’d ever be welcome in this house again?”
“I didn’t ask for a welcome.”
“Tell me what you came to say,” she spat the words at him.
“Have you heard from your father?” He looked her in the eye, trying to focus on what he had come for and ignore the urge to grab her.
“My father is dead.” She looked at him as if he was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
“Are you sure?” He wasn’t.
For a moment her expression of disdain faltered. “Yes.”
She stared at him steadily with those gorgeous blue eyes. She didn’t blink or fidget. Either she was telling him what she believed, or she had learned to lie in the past year.
“Would you tell me if you had heard from him?”
“No.” Nikki closed the front door in his face and he heard the dead bolt slide home with a snap.
Joe stood on the porch and watched her through the window as she retreated toward the back of the house. The dark interior swallowed her up.
He turned and headed back to his car. No goodbye, no threats of what she would do if he came back. He frowned at her easy dismissal of him, as if he were just another door-to-door salesman.
Galtero, he thought as he rubbed the back of his neck, you were a fool a year ago and you haven’t learned squat.
He had lost his shield with the San Diego Police Department for a month because he had slept with her while he had been working her father’s case. He felt lucky he hadn’t been permanently busted down to traffic control.
His job on the force meant more to him than anything.
But just now, if she’d invited him, he might have risked it all again and followed her upstairs to her bed without a second thought.
Hell, they never would have made it up the stairs.
History had proved where Nikki Walker was concerned, he had no self-control, and that made her dangerous to his career and his self-respect.
That fact scared the hell out of him. No matter how tempted he might be, he couldn’t give in.
He couldn’t survive a repeat of last year’s disaster.
Shaking, Nikki made it up the back stairs to her room and sank into the Queen Anne chair. Her infant son, Michael, slept in the playpen wedged between her bed and the wall. She listened to her baby’s soft breathing and struggled to calm down.
For a year she’d told herself that Joe Galtero meant nothing to her anymore. The two minutes he had been on her front porch had made a liar out of her.
When he ran his gaze over her she’d remembered the feel of his hands on her as if they’d just made love.
Rubbing her damp palms on her slacks, she vowed she wouldn’t do a thing about the attraction. If she hadn’t been desperate she never would have returned to this house.
She hadn’t come back out of choice. All her money was tied up in her father’s company, and the IRS had frozen all assets when her father and his partner disappeared. Tomorrow she would go to see the family’s attorney. She needed to try and separate her finances from her father’s bankrupt company.
She had to rebuild her life so she could take care of her baby. For her own survival, that life couldn’t include Joe.
Nikki tipped her head back against the silk upholstery and wearily closed her eyes. She knew how vulnerable the little pig in the straw house must have felt when the big bad wolf showed up at his front door.
“Sir?”
Annoyed, Joe looked up from files on M. Raymond Walker to see a rookie cop standing beside his desk. He looked excited about something. Joe couldn’t remember the last time he felt like this kid looked.
“Yeah?”
“My partner and I just worked a home invasion. On the way back to the station he remembered you had an open case involving a member of the victim’s family.”
Joe went still. He knew the answer before he asked the question. “Name?”
“Walker, sir. Brick mansion in Mission Hills.”
“When?” He stood up. He’d been on Nikki’s front porch two hours ago.
“Around six. We were the first ones there,” he said, pride evident in his voice.
Joe nodded, his heart beating painfully hard in his chest.
“Was she injured?” He’d find the bastards who’d broken in and kill them with his bare hands if they’d hurt her.
The rookie took a step back from Joe’s desk and shot him a nervous look. “Not badly. She refused medical treatment.”
Joe grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and started for the door when the cop’s next words halted him in his tracks.
“She was more worried about her kid than herself. Claimed she didn’t know why they’d broken in.”
Kid? What kid? His gut tight, he turned and faced the young cop. He had to take a few deep breaths before he could talk.
“How old was the child?” Joe demanded, his voice harsh enough to send the man back another step.
He looked wary. “I don’t know much about babies. It wasn’t very big.”
Palms sweating, his mind tried to find a reasonable explanation. Nikki was an only child. Couldn’t be a niece or nephew. Don’t jump to conclusions, he cautioned himself. Could be she was looking after a friend’s child.
But as far as Joe knew, Nikki no longer had friends in town. They had pretty much disappeared from her life when the scandal about her father had become public.
Who was he kidding? Joe knew odds-on who the child belonged to. He felt blood rush to his head and roar in his ears. A child. More than likely his. He rubbed his fist over his head. He had a child, he thought, dazed. He felt a flash of anger that she had withheld something so important from him.
The possibility had him moving. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem.”
Joe was already jogging out the door as he heard the rookie’s reply. Why hadn’t Nikki said something this afternoon?
From the precinct parking lot it took exactly eight minutes to get to the Walker house observing the speed limit. Joe pulled up behind the black-and-white in under five, his mind in a turmoil.
Worry for Nikki and anger that she kept such a vital fact from him warred in his head.
Two vans from local news stations were already on scene. Apparently the press wasn’t done covering last year’s crime. When two of the city’s wealthiest men had disappeared along with their company’s assets, leaving nothing behind except a dead secretary, the media had had a field day.
He ignored the knots of neighbors standing across the street. Upscale neighborhoods rarely saw police activity and people had come out to watch. The reporters were harder to avoid, but he held up his hand and kept walking, muttering a curse that made them step back.
Damned vultures. The publicity a year ago had upset Nikki to the point of making her ill.
Joe fished his badge out of his pocket, flipped it open and slid it into the breast pocket of his jacket. A uniform at the door put up a hand to stop him, then spotted his badge and stepped back to let him pass.
“Where are they working?” He needed to get to Nikki, but he didn’t want to barge in and contaminate a crime scene.
The patrolman pointed. “They’re on the north side of the house. Perps came through the side doors.”
Joe remembered the French doors that led from the garden into the breakfast room. Easy to breach. “Where’s Ms. Walker?”
He wanted to see her, alone.
The uniform gestured. “Upstairs.”
Taking the graceful, curved stairs two at a time, Joe poked his head in Nikki’s room. Empty. It looked the same as it had a year ago. Smelled the same too. Sweet and spicy. Like her.
A scent that got stronger when she was naked, and aroused.
Joe muttered a curse under his breath as his body responded to the memory.
He found her in the next room. She was sitting in the dark, wrapped in a blanket and huddled in a big stuffed chair. The only light came from the hallway behind him and didn’t reach across the room to touch her.
Joe stopped in the door and took a deep breath to steady himself.
“Are you all right?” He reached for the light switch.
“Don’t turn on the light,” she said in a flat, unemotional tone.
Ignoring her, he flipped the switch. He needed to see her, make sure she was okay.
She flinched against the flood of brightness, tucking her chin against her chest. He took a step into the room and glanced around.
“Go away. I don’t want you here.” Rhythmically she rocked from side to side.
He had no intention of leaving until she answered the questions buzzing in his head.
The way she was rocking bothered him. He’d seen enough traumatized victims do that in times of stress. She must be much more upset than she sounded.
Now that he saw she was not badly injured physically, her child was uppermost in his mind. He wanted to know everything, but given her current mental state he curbed the urge to interrogate her like a suspect. It would be best to lead up to the subject.
“Who broke in, Nikki?” He struggled to keep his voice low and calm. He wanted to strangle the bastards who’d hurt her.
“I already told the detective. I don’t know who they were.” Her face still averted, she huddled deeper into the blanket pulled up around her shoulders. She looked like a turtle retreating into a protective shell.
“What did they want?” He wanted to cross the room and tip her chin up so he could see her expression while she spoke, but he’d leave her be, for now.
She gave a bitter little laugh. “The same thing you want. My father.”
He was barely holding on to his temper. “Who knew you were here?”
She didn’t answer. He thought he detected a slight shrug of her shoulders.
Joe heard someone coming up the stairs.
He turned and saw the patrolman who had been at the front door.
“Detective McCully wants to see you downstairs.”
He should have guessed his partner Mac McCully would remember Joe’s past transgressions where Nikki Walker was concerned and try to protect him from making more.
McCully would want to investigate the break-in without him. Convenient for his partner that the 911 call tonight had come in when Joe was out of the precinct.
He stared hard at the uniformed cop. “Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
The man shifted his weight from foot to foot. “He said I should tell you to get downstairs right away.”
“Tell him I’ll be down,” Joe growled at the uniform, who backed up quickly, turned and left.
Joe turned his attention back to Nikki.
Ignoring the fact that she hadn’t answered his last question, he decided to bring up the subject that had been burning in his gut since he’d left the station. “Where’s the baby?”
She went very still. “Go away, Joe.”
He hadn’t heard her say his name for a year. He didn’t realize just how much he had missed it. “Tell me, Nikki. Where is the child?”
“Please, go away.” Her voice broke on a little sob.
The sound tore at him. “Nikki—”
“Galtero, are you nuts?” His partner’s familiar voice came from behind him and Joe muttered a curse under his breath.
“Go away, McCully.” Joe didn’t take his eyes off Nikki as he spoke to his partner.
He could see her shaking from across the room.
“You want to lose your shield for good?” McCully whispered fiercely in his ear.
Joe spoke without turning around. “I know what I’m doing.”
McCully snorted. “I doubt that. You’re thinking with your zipper again.”
Joe shrugged. “I’m here as a friend of the family.”
That comment earned Joe an expletive. Then McCully said, “I just heard her say how much she wants you here.”
Joe shrugged. “Go investigate, McCully. I need to talk to Ms. Walker.”
“You have five minutes, then I’m coming back,” McCully muttered under his breath, turned and headed toward the back stairs.
There wasn’t any more time to coax her. McCully was such a mother hen Joe would be lucky if he gave them the full five minutes before he returned.
Joe crossed the room in three strides and reached out to tip her face up. He needed to see her expression when he asked her again about the baby.
Nikki twisted away from the palm he had cupped under her chin and hunched back down into the blanket, but not before he saw her wet cheeks and the purple bruise along her jaw.
“Son of a bitch.” A red haze of anger blotted out what little rational thinking he’d been doing since he’d heard about the baby.
How badly had they hurt her? He hooked his hands gently around her upper arms to lift her out of the chair.
She gave a startled yelp of protest and twisted away from him. The blanket slid off her shoulder. Her shirt was open down the front and he saw the infant she held to her breast.
Jostled by the sudden movement the baby began to wail.
Stunned, Joe stared, unable to take his eyes off the child.
Nikki curled her body protectively over the dark-haired baby and guided the small searching mouth back to her swollen nipple. She crooned and stroked the tiny cheek until the baby started to nurse again with a little huff of indignation.
Awkwardly Nikki tried to pull the blanket back over her shoulder with one hand.
“No, leave it.” He breathed the words, wonder displacing some of his anger. He pushed the blanket down farther so he could see more of the baby. He’d never seen anything more perfect. A feeling of awe and wonder bloomed in his chest.
She had the infant angled across her lap, tiny feet dangling just past the crook of her elbow. The baby’s lips looked pink against her white breast, and one perfect little fist curled against a small rounded cheek.
Nikki didn’t look at him. She continued to stroke the baby’s hair and rock from side to side.
“Is it mine?” Joe breathed the question, but he already knew the answer.
He had a child. Nikki had carried his baby for nine months. The baby had to be about three months old. All that time and she hadn’t told him.
A sharp stab of anger sliced through him. How could she keep something so important from him?
Finally she spoke. “Michael’s mine,” she said fiercely without looking up.
A boy. He had a son.
Overwhelmed, he stared at the baby, trying to take in the fact that Nikki had given birth to his child.
She’d known they’d made a baby for a year and never contacted him. He had seen her just this afternoon and she hadn’t said a word. If she hadn’t had the break-in, he still wouldn’t know.
Emotion came surging back in a hot rush. He took a step back, not trusting himself to keep his hands off her. He’d never put his hands on a woman in anger, but right now he wanted to shake Nikki.
“Galtero.” Joe glanced over his shoulder. McCully stood in the doorway.
“What?” he said, the agitation he felt plain in his voice.
Joe blocked his partner’s view while he covered Nikki and the baby.
“Joe, I need you downstairs. Now.”
In the worst way he wanted to turn a deaf ear to his partner but he knew it would be best if he left until he could get a grip on himself.
“Yeah, coming.” He took a deep breath to calm himself, then slid his hand under Nikki’s chin again and pulled her face up again until she had no choice but to look at him.
“Stay right here. I’m coming back.” He drew back the blanket and with a shaking hand he cupped his palm over his son’s head, his fingertips feeling the pulse beating in the soft spot on top of his son’s skull. “I’m coming back.”
Nikki watched him turn out the light and leave the room, her emotions a confusing jumble of dread and arousal. He was furious she hadn’t told him about the baby.
Stay here, he says, she thought bitterly. As if she had a choice. As if there were anyplace she could go.
Utterly weary, Nikki leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. If she’d had a choice, she never would have come back to San Diego.
Resentment bubbled up. She’d told herself she was over him. He’d hurt her so badly a year ago. How could she still have feelings for him? But those treacherous emotions were still there. Her breast burned where he had touched her while stroking Michael’s head.
How could she hate him and want him at the same time? She must be crazy.
The baby stopped sucking. “Come on, Michael, just a little more.” She stroked her son’s cheek, urging him to eat.
No matter how out of control her life might be, she had to keep herself together. Her first responsibility was her child. He’d been fussy and she’d suspected he’d sensed her tension after Joe’s visit this afternoon.
Thank God she had gotten him to sleep upstairs before the break-in. She took a deep breath and exhaled, willing herself to relax.
Nikki looked up and once again saw Joe’s frame filling the doorway. The light from the hallway turned him into a menacing silhouette.
He slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned against the door frame, watching her. She could see the glint of his badge, clipped to the pocket of his jacket.
Finally he spoke. “What exactly did the men who broke in ask for?”
“Information about my father.” She was tired of the question. His partner, McCully, had already asked her a dozen times.
He stared at her hard before he spoke. “You didn’t tell them where he is.”
Near tears with frustration and fatigue, she snapped, “He’s dead.”
He must be dead, she thought desperately, or he would have let her know where he was. He wouldn’t have just abandoned her.
Joe continued to stare at her without moving.
Just the fact he was here and she remembered how good it felt when he’d held her in his arms unnerved her. The temptation to turn to him for comfort scared her. There was no way she could go down that road again and survive.
“Go away.” She felt brittle from the strain of coming home and the assault, but she had to stand up to him. If she sought the shelter of his arms her resolve would crumble and she’d be back where she’d been a year ago.
He ran his hand through his hair in a familiar gesture of frustration. “Nikki, be reasonable.”
Why was it whenever they differed, she was the unreasonable one? She felt herself being drawn into his argument, and she simply didn’t have the strength, emotionally or physically. She hadn’t fully recovered from a difficult pregnancy and nightmare birth.
“Go now, or I’ll call McCully and have you thrown out,” she threatened.
He had to leave. She couldn’t have him here, not when she didn’t trust herself.
“Why isn’t the alarm system working?” He never took his eyes off the baby.
She sighed and shifted the baby to a more comfortable position. She hadn’t expected him to listen to what she wanted. He wouldn’t leave until he got his way. The man was as stubborn as a mule, Nikki thought, suppressing the urge to howl with frustration.
She took a deep breath and brought Michael up to her shoulder to try and coax a burp from him. She’d be damned if she’d answer his question. It was none of his business that the alarm company had discontinued service when they hadn’t been paid. She didn’t have telephone service, either, and she had no money to have either service reconnected.
He gestured over his shoulder. “McCully will be done soon. I’ll go home and get a few things. I’m not leaving you alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said through clenched teeth, knowing as she spoke he was right about her vulnerability.
The two men could return, even though she couldn’t tell them what they’d demanded to know. The thought made her frantic. But so did the thought of Joe spending the night in her house.
As she calculated the danger, Joe shifted away from the door frame and took a step into the room. She avoided his gaze but could still feel his eyes on her.
“Nikki, what if they come back?” he said, his low voice vibrating with anger.
She clutched Michael as Joe gave voice to her fears. She brought her chin up, defensive. “Why should they? I can’t tell them anything.”
“What makes you think they believed you? You told McCully the sirens scared them off, remember?” he said sarcastically.
How could she forget? Her next-door neighbor Glenn had been walking his dog, heard her screams and called the police.
The sound of hammering drifted up to them. “Glenn’s fixing the door.” Now she was grasping at straws.
He threw up his hands and gave her a look that indicated he thought she was a moron. “You think that’s the only way into this house?”
She knew there were a dozen ways in. She’d used several of them as a teenager returning home after her curfew. She raised her chin and prayed her voice wouldn’t reveal how much his questions heightened her own fears.
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. Showing weakness in front of Joe Galtero was a big mistake.
His hands balled into fists at his side. “What if they come back and go for Michael instead of you? What will you do then?”
Her breath caught in her throat. She had a vision of the big hand that had connected with her jaw hitting her son.
“What if they use him to get you to talk?” His voice lowered menacingly as he leaned toward her.
She gulped in air, seeking calm, but the image of Michael in danger was too terrifying. “But I don’t know anything.” Her voice hitched and broke.
He shook his head and spoke as if she were a backward child. “Do you think that would stop them?”
It wouldn’t. The two men who’d burst through the French doors and cornered her in the kitchen had been vicious.
One had held her arms behind her back while the other had cursed at her and shouted questions about her father. When she’d tried to tell them she didn’t know anything, he’d hit her in the face. Hearing the police sirens, they’d gotten away by going through the utility room and out the door connecting the garage to the alley.
Shaking his head, Joe approached her the way he might a suspect with a weapon, slow and steady, a step at a time. His air of command left no doubt as to who was in charge. “Would you take a chance with his life?”
Distraught, she tried to think of an alternative to Joe staying with her. She had nowhere else to go. The people she knew in New York were more acquaintances than friends. Her friends here in San Diego had faded away when the scandal about her father’s company made the national news. Not surprising, since a lot of them had lost huge sums of money when Fortuna Investments went bankrupt.
He stopped in front of her and leaned down, placing his hands on the padded arms of her chair, caging her in. “What’s your answer? Would you take a chance with Michael’s safety?”
“Of course not!”
He leaned in so close she could feel his breath warm against her face. “That’s good, Nikki. Because the alternative is that I take the baby.”
It took a moment for his statement to sink in. Her ears heard his words, but her mind tried to shove away their meaning. She stared at him in disbelief.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she breathed, hating the quiver of fear she heard in her own voice.
She pushed back into the upholstery, needing the solid feel of the chair at her back.
“Take my son? To keep him safe?” He lifted a hand and stroked Michael’s head. “You better believe I would.”
