Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

Jason unlocked the front door to his house, stepped inside and listened for any sound that shouldn't have been there. He could hear the hum of the air-conditioner. The rhythmic swish of the brass pendulum in the grandfather clock in the foyer. The TV was on low volume in the living room.

All seemed well, but he wasn't about to take that at face value.

Yes, he was paranoid.

That could happen when only ten hours earlier someone had come close to killing Lilly and him.

There was a plainclothes cop watching TV from the sofa in the living room. Jason nodded and tried to convey his appreciation that the man was guarding the place in his absence. Unfortunately, the guards were a necessary precaution that might have to continue for a while.

Jason didn't even want to think about how long a while might be.

He continued down the hall. Listening. Staying vigilant. Erica was in the playroom, and even though she was holding a magazine, Jason didn't think she was reading it. She tossed it aside and practically leaped to her feet when she saw him. But Jason motioned for her to sit back down.

"Where's Megan and Lilly?" he whispered.

There was little change in Erica's expression, just a soft intake of breath that had a hint of frustration to it, and she aimed her index finger in the direction of Lilly's room. "Lilly insisted on having Megan with her," she said.

Uh-oh.

That had probably caused an argument or two. Not from Megan. But from Erica. Things had probably not gone smoothly while he'd been at headquarters. Still, it couldn't be helped. He'd had to do reports and he'd wanted to help with the investigation and interrogation of the suspects. Plus, Lilly had needed some rest. And it was a necessity to get her out of headquarters, away from Wayne Sandling and Raymond Klein. For that to happen, he'd had no choice but to send her with the police escort back to the house. Unfortunately, that meant Lilly had had to deal with Erica on her own. He was sorry he hadn't been here to run interference.

Jason turned toward Lilly's room, and because the door was open, he spotted her immediately. She was napping not on her bed but on a brightly colored patchwork quilt stretched out on the carpeted floor.

She had a sleeping Megan cradled in her arms.

He smiled, leaned his shoulder against the door frame and watched them. This was one of his favorite moments—watching Megan sleep. When she was awake, she was always on the move, and it was impossible to concentrate on the sheer joy she'd brought to his life. But now, with her resting peacefully, Jason could study her tiny face and relive all the wonderful things that he loved about her. If he accomplished every career goal he would ever have, it wouldn't come close to the fulfillment he'd gotten just by being Megan's dad.

And that brought him back to Lilly.

She could take fatherhood from him, but he no longer thought that she would. He mentally shrugged. Maybe that was what he wanted to believe, anyway.

The files that Lilly had brought from her office were scattered on the desk tucked in the corner. She'd no doubt been reading through them while watching Megan. Double duty. He'd done a lot of that himself over the past eleven and a half months.

"Lilly's rushing things," Erica whispered, walking up behind him. She folded her arms over her chest and didn't take her gaze from Lilly. "It'll confuse Megan."

Jason made a sound to indicate he didn't agree. "Megan doesn't look confused or rushed." She looked as if she belonged right there in Lilly's arms.

Erica stayed quiet a few moments, and Jason braced himself for the fallout. It came. "I don't know how you can welcome her into your home. Not after what she did to Greg."

Fallout, indeed. Any other time, he might have agreed. But this wasn't any other time. It was now, and whether he wanted it or not, things were changing between Lilly and him. They had to change, for Megan's sake.

"Oh, I get it," Erica concluded on a rise of breath. "You're being nice to Lilly because you're worried she'll take Megan. That's it, isn't it?"

He wished that was it. Jason wished the attraction he felt for Lilly was all part of the custody issue and the love both of them felt for Megan.

But it wasn't.

He wanted to kiss Lilly. He wanted her in his bed. Hell, he just plain wanted her. That didn't have a thing to do with Megan.

"Please don't tell me you're willing to have a relationship with Lilly for Megan's sake?" Erica went on.

Jason didn't know the answer, and he didn't want to explore it now. Especially not with Erica.

Because this wasn't going to be pleasant, he gently took Erica by the arm and led her down the hall so they wouldn't wake Megan and Lilly. He only hoped there wouldn't be shouting, but it was a distinct possibility.

He considered several ways to go about this, but decided to use the direct approach. "Erica, I think it's time for you to leave."

She went board-stiff. Stared at him. And then jerked away from him as if he'd slapped her. "What do you mean?"

He continued with the direct approach. "I mean that Lilly and I have enough to deal with right now, and your being here isn't making things easier."

"I see." Keeping her gaze pinned to him, she stepped back. She swallowed hard. "Did Lilly talk you into doing this?"

"You know I can't be talked into anything that I don't feel is right. This was my idea. Lilly needs time to be with Megan, and Megan needs time to be with her. That won't happen with you around. Megan will keep turning to you, and that'll only cause friction between Lilly and you."

Erica pulled in a breath and gave a shaky nod. "You're certain about this?"

"Positive. I'll give you a month's severance pay and a reference, but I want you to consider this your two weeks' notice—"

"Two weeks' notice isn't necessary. I'll leave today—for Megan's sake. And yours." Erica looked down at the floor. "I'll pack a few things and arrange for someone to pick up the rest. I won't be long."

"There's no need for you to rush."

"Yes. There is." When she lifted her head again, Jason had no trouble seeing the tears in her eyes.

Great. He felt like a jerk. But he would have felt like a bigger jerk if Lilly had had to battle Erica just so she could spend time with her daughter. This was definitely a case of one too many moms.

Swiftly wiping away her tears, Erica headed in the direction of her room, but then stopped and turned back around to face him. "I'm sorry things didn't work out so I could stay. And just for the record, no hard feelings." With that, she walked away.

Jason was a little surprised with her reaction. It was amicable and the decent thing to say. The right thing. If Erica was sincere, that is. But he wondered if she truly was.

"Anything wrong?" He looked back to see Lilly standing in the doorway of her room.

Man, she was a welcome sight, and there was no amount of denial that would make him feel otherwise. There went another slam of guilt. First, over Erica. Now, over this giddy feeling he got whenever he saw Lilly. It'd been that way since he'd kissed her the night before at her office.

Since giddy and guilt just didn't go together with a police investigation, Jason renewed his vow to start rebuilding some barriers between Lilly and him. Not anger barriers. Not hate. Just a few mental fences to remind him that this was a woman his brother had loved. Even if he wanted her—and, yep, he did—having her would make them both miserable.

He needed to remember that.

She'd changed since he'd last seen her at headquarters and now wore a sleeveless silk dress that was the color of ripe peaches. One of the articles of clothing she'd no doubt had the cops pick up for her from her house. The dress suited her, skimming along her body and stopping several inches above her knees so that it exposed a great deal of her legs.

She was barefoot, and he could see that she'd painted her toenails pearl white. For some reason, even with the guilt-producing discussion he'd just had with Erica and the guilt/giddy pep talk he'd given himself, those bare feet captured his attention.

"What happened?" She followed his gaze to her feet and flexed her eyebrows. "Am I about to get a lecture on the dangers of going barefoot?"

"Not from me." He forced a smile because he thought they could both use it.

"So, what's wrong?"

"Erica's leaving." He kept his voice low so he wouldn't wake Megan. Erica would want to say goodbye to her, of course, but he hoped she would save that goodbye for another day. "She's packing her things now. Once she's done, I'll have the officer drive her where she wants to go."

Lilly's eyes widened, and she walked closer, until they were only a few inches apart. She touched his arm and it soothed him far more than it should have.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be. It's for the best." He hoped. Jason also hoped that Erica's cool farewell wasn't a smoke screen for some sinister plan.

Yep.

That paranoia was still hanging around and was snowballing out of control. It was mixing with Lilly's scent and creating a fog in his brain. She smelled like cinnamon applesauce. Not exactly a scent that would normally turn him on, but it seemed to be doing the trick today.

"How's Megan?" he asked. Best to keep the conversation on a safe topic.

She gave him a suspicious look, as if she'd expected him to say something else. But what he had on his mind, he had no intentions of saying.

"Megan's napping." Lilly checked her watch. "She fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago."

So, it'd be at least an hour, probably twice that long, before she woke up. That would give Erica plenty of time to pack and it'd give him plenty of time to fill Lilly in on what had happened.

"Did you find out anything about Corinne's car?" Lilly worked her fingers through the crown of her hair to scoop it away from her face.

"Yes." And Jason hadn't cared for the news any more than Lilly probably would. "Corinne reported it stolen, but she didn't do that until several hours after the incident at the security gate."

Lilly bunched up her forehead. "Why'd she take so long to report it?"

He'd asked himself the same thing. "Corinne said she didn't notice that her vehicle was missing until she left work that evening. It wasn't in the parking lot so she claims she has no idea who took it or when."

"Do you believe her?"

Jason shrugged. "I don't know what to believe. And it gets even better—guess who works in the same building as Corinne? Raymond Klein and Wayne Sandling. They're partners in the consulting business these days, and they work just three offices away from her."

"Sandling and Klein," Lilly repeated. She pulled in a hard breath. "Their names keep coming up."

Yeah, and not in a good way, either. Either of them was brassy enough to have taken Corinne's car and driven it to the security gate.

"So, we're not taking Corinne off our list of suspects?" Lilly asked.

"No one's coming off that list just yet," he mumbled, rubbing his hand over his face. "Worse, I might have to add a name to it."

Lilly didn't have to think about that for very long. "Erica?"

Jason didn't know why it surprised him that Lilly had come up with the correct answer so quickly. After all, they'd had that whole trust discussion at headquar ters. Plus, Lilly had spent the better part of a week under the same roof with Megan's soon-to-be-former nanny. Lilly probably hadn't missed the jealousy in Erica's eyes. He certainly hadn't. Just as he hadn't missed Erica's cool pseudo-goodbye that he feared would come back to haunt them.

Was Erica bitter enough to do something to get rid of Lilly?

Maybe even bitter enough to want to kill her?

"The day that Corinne's car was at the security gate, Erica was here inside with us and couldn't have done it," Lilly pointed out.

Jason had already considered and dismissed that. "It doesn't mean she's innocent, though. She could have hired someone to do the job."

"You mean a hit man?" Lilly shook her head. "No way. She wouldn't have risked that, not with Megan in the house. I might not be on her list of favorite people, but she loves Megan, and she wouldn't have put her in harm's way."

He couldn't dispute that. But there was another angle to this. "Maybe the person in that car was never meant to come inside and hurt you. Maybe it was simply a scare tactic to send you running so that Erica could have Megan all to herself."

"I'm sorry you believe that," he heard Erica say.

Oh, sheez. Open mouth, insert size-twelve boots. And here he hadn't thought this could get any harder.

Erica was at the end of the hall, her suitcase in her hand, and she had a fierce grip on the handle. She didn't come any closer, but her eyes darkened when she looked at Lilly. "You might have won this round, but this isn't over."

"This round? " Lilly repeated. "This isn't a competition, Erica."

"Isn't it? You think because you share DNA with Megan that it'll make you her mother? It won't."

"DNA is just for starters," Jason countered. He maneuvered himself in front of Lilly in case Erica decided to go berserk. "The rest will come with time. Lilly has a right to be with her daughter."

He hadn't choked on the words, either. And he wasn't especially shocked that he'd meant every word.

Erica stared at him. "Does she?"

Well, it wasn't the pseudo-cool goodbye that she'd issued just minutes earlier. "I'm ready to go now," Erica said to the officer in the living room. She didn't wait for him. She practically stormed toward the front door.

The detective followed Erica, and from over his shoulder, he issued Jason a nod. Probably of sympathy. Man, he'd really gone about this the wrong way. Of course, maybe there was no correct way to dissolve a relationship like the one that Erica had with Megan.

Erica didn't look back at him when she left, and Jason stood there and watched as the officer shut the door behind them.

"I'm sorry," Lilly repeated.

"So am I, but this had to be done. It's bad enough having suspects out there in the city. I couldn't have one under the same roof."

"Still, that didn't make it easier."

No. It didn't. But he thought his decision might allow him to sleep a little easier tonight.

"There's another problem with Erica being a suspect," Lilly continued. She went to the door, locked it and reactivated the security system. "Wasn't she here at the house with Megan the night someone tried to smother me?"

Since he'd already mentally gone over this info, he knew the answer to that one. "Erica had the night off, and my neighbor was here to watch Megan."

"Oh." She leaned her back against the door. "Okay, so that really could mean that Erica's a suspect."

It did. And it completely changed the motive for what was happening. Of course, that didn't mean Erica was the sole culprit. Jason simply couldn't picture Erica perched on a rooftop shooting at them with a high-powered rifle. So, did that mean there was more than one person after Lilly? Was this some conspiracy, or was it simply two people with two totally different sinister agendas?

"You look exhausted," Lilly observed.

Maybe because he was. Past exhaustion, really. He kept that to himself and switched to a more comfortable topic. "What did Megan and you do all morning?"

Her mouth curved slightly. A brief, amused smile. And she took a step toward him. Slowly. Not some calculated saunter, either. The limp threw off any chance of a seductive stance, and yet that limp, that slight imperfection, made her look all the more human.

As if he needed anything to do that.

"Hmm. Is that question a ploy to distract me from telling you that you look exhausted, or do you really want to know?" Lilly asked.

Well, it was clear that Lilly wasn't going to allow this to be a safe conversation. "Both."

No amused smile that time. Instead, Lilly cleared her throat. "When did we start being so…honest with each other?"

Jason went to her. So they could keep their conversation soft and not wake Megan. Or at least, that's the reason he gave himself for closing the already narrow distance between them. However, to stop himself from doing anything too stupid, he crammed his hands into his jeans' pockets and promised himself that that's where he'd keep them.

"You think we're being honest?" he asked.

Caution flickered in her eyes. They were more blue today than green, and shimmered. "Probably not. It's hard to have a momentous air-clearing that could lead to total honesty meltdown while people keep trying to kill us." She paused. Frowned. "And there is an us in danger now. Thanks to me. Just call me Typhoid Lilly."

"So you're blaming yourself for some homicidal maniac shooting at us?" Jason asked.

"The gunman was aiming for me, and that's what put you in danger." Groaning and burying her face in her hands, she slid down and sat on the floor with her back against the front door. "I keep going over what happened. I keep kicking myself. Conditioned response—indeed. Go to my office to try to trigger some memories. And what happens? I nearly get you killed in the process."

Jason waited a moment. "Are you finished beating yourself up?" He went closer, eased his hands from his pockets and stooped down so they were at eye level.

Lilly met him at that eye level when she lowered her hands from her face. And she ignored his question. "It wasn't enough for me to be negligent in Greg's death, but last night, I almost did the same to you."

Jason didn't like the sound of that. He waited another moment. " Now are you finished?"

"No. I'm just getting started."

That pained look on her face intensified. It made him want to comfort her. But pulling her into his arms would mean touching her. And he knew for a fact that just wasn't a good idea. Not with the fatigue and this dangerous energy between them.

Still, he couldn't make himself turn away.

He couldn't stop himself from listening.

And he couldn't stop the ache he had for her.

Because this was forbidden. Taboo. And for some reason that only made him want her more.

"I replay the moments leading up to the shooting," Lilly continued, obviously not willing to drop the subject. "I replay the moments before Greg walked out of my house. I keep thinking if I could just go back and change things—"

"You can't."

Lilly blinked and seemingly listened for answers he couldn't give her. "But then how do I get past it, huh? How do you ever get to the point where you can forgive me? Where I can forgive myself?"

It was a question he'd asked himself at least a thousand times. "I don't know," he said honestly. "But I know blaming yourself won't do any good."

"Maybe not any good, but I don't see how we can avoid it." She raked her finger over her eyebrow. "And how do we get past this…stuff we're feeling for each other?"

"That's a fantastic question," he mumbled.

"Do you have a fantastic answer?"

He shook his head and met her gaze. Not good. It only made him want to move closer to her, and he was already too close as it was. "Lilly, I don't even have a bad answer. Truth is…I don't have any kind of answer at all."

"But you agree that feeling this way is wrong, that it'll only make things more complicated?"

"I agree. Massive complications. And there's that part about it causing us to lose focus while there's all this danger around us."

"Good point," she conceded. She didn't exactly sound thankful for his reminding her of that, either. Which was a good thing. Because Jason hoped the reminder would make her move away.

It sure as heck wasn't working for him.

But she didn't move. Lilly sat there, her attention fastened to him. She gave him no sultry come-on looks. No whispered invitations. No anything. Still, it happened. The air stirred between them. Everything stirred.

Especially his body.

Jason might have talked himself out of what he was thinking about doing. Might. But he didn't even try. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost the battle with reason and was functioning on some primitive level where desire replaced common sense.

Cursing himself, cursing her, cursing this unquenchable need he had for her, Jason leaned forward, slid his hand around the back of her head and tugged her closer to him.

The fire was instant. No more smoldering flames. This was white-hot, and it burned through him. Consuming him. He couldn't think. Couldn't talk. But he could feel. And right now, that was the only thing he wanted to do.

He wanted to feel Lilly in his arms.

Feel his mouth on her.

He wanted to feel everything.

Jason took her as if he owned her. Her lips, pressing against his. Her body, moving against his. Soon, it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. He tested the taste of her, touching his tongue to hers, and he quickly realized that her taste only made him want her more.

The battle started. The frenzied need for them to touch each other. They fought, grappling for position until Lilly maneuvered her way into his lap.

The kiss continued.

They took and ravished. And took some more. Both starving for what the other was so willing to give.

Jason finally broke the intimate contact when he remembered that he needed air to live. Lilly gulped in some much-needed breaths, as well, while she clung to him.

"What about Megan?" she asked, her voice broken by her breathing.

He'd already thought of that. "We'll hear her if she wakes up," Jason promised.

Lilly nodded, obviously not ready to question that, and she latched on to him and went back for more.

The second battle was just as intense. No longer content with just her mouth, Jason took his kisses to her neck. Lilly made a sound. A low, sensual moan. Definitely not a request for him to stop.

So, Jason didn't stop.