Authors: Linda Howard
“How could that possibly work out between us?”
“I love you. You love me. It’s a natural progression.”
She raked her hand through her hair, more upset than she’d thought possible at a marriage proposal from him. It was unexpected, and tantalizingly sweet, but the enormity of the problems facing them if they got married was almost too much to comprehend. And part of her was terrified. He’d mentioned not just marriage, but children, too. How could she?
“Getting married wouldn’t be smart,” she said.
He turned and watched her with those dark, grave eyes, studying her, waiting for her to continue.
“Between us, we have enough emotional baggage to fill an airliner. I probably need to be in therapy.” She gave a cracked laugh. “And you’re an assassin. What kind of job security is that? I don’t even know what I want to do, if I should keep on with Finders or go into teaching the way I’d always planned. Part of me wants to quit, but how can I? I’m good at what I do. I’m just so tired and—”
“Afraid,” he said.
“Of the future? You bet.”
“No. You’re afraid to be happy.”
She stared at him, frozen by the accuracy with which he’d seen behind the smoke screen of solid reasoning.
“Have you really convinced yourself that you don’t deserve anything because you let Justin be taken from you?” he asked, relentlessly pinning her down. “You think you can’t have a husband, another baby, because—what?—you were a bad mother and didn’t hold on to him tight enough?”
Her throat worked as she tried to swallow. She felt as if her lungs had seized, her heart stopped. No one had ever said it was her fault; she’d fought for her baby, had fought nearly to the death. Only a knife in her back had stopped her. And yet, for over ten years, she’d struggled with the bone-deep knowledge that she’d failed to protect her child. “I . . . I shouldn’t have had him at the market,” she said, her voice stifled. “He was just six weeks old. He was too young—”
“You couldn’t have left him by himself. What else were you going to do?”
Her lips trembled. God, how that question had gone around and around in her mind! What else could she have done? There had to be something else, something she hadn’t thought of, hadn’t seen, because she’d let those men take Justin from her.
“Haven’t you bought enough redemption for yourself, with all the other lost kids you’ve found? What will it take for you to forgive yourself?”
Her baby home, safe and sound, and that was never going to be.
Diaz left his post by the door and squatted down in front of her, folding her hands in his. A cold, wet wind tangled her hair, lifted the curls. “Is that why you gave him up? To make yourself pay?”
“No. I gave him up because it was the right thing to do.” She saw him shiver, and realized he’d been outside all this time without even a jacket. Impulsively she opened up the blanket and invited him inside its warmth. He was fast to accept, but when they settled back down, she was somehow sprawled half across his lap, with the blanket tucked over and around them and her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Their combined body heat quickly chased away the chill.
“It’s okay to live,” he said softly, stroking her face, tracing the lines of it with one finger. “It’s okay to be happy again.”
Just the idea made her feel as if she were balancing on the edge of a cliff, with a stiff wind trying to push her over. “It’s too soon.”
Even admitting that she might one day allow herself to be happy, to get on with life, was like lifting one foot and letting it dangle over the cliff.
“It’s been ten years. You’ve found your son, and you’ve done what was right by him. How is it ‘too soon’?”
“It just is.” Once again, she sought refuge in logic. “By being happy, you mean getting married to you.”
“I can make you happy.”
And she could make him happy, she thought, feeling dizzy at the prospect. He was a complicated, difficult man; if she turned him down, given his solitary nature, he would in all likelihood never marry. She was his one shot at a family, at a halfway normal life.
As if any life with James Diaz could ever be normal.
“How can we get married? What do we know about each other? I don’t even know how old you are.”
“Thirty-three.”
She paused, taken aback and immediately sidetracked from the other salient points she’d been about to make. He seemed older, even though there was no gray in his hair and his face was unlined. “That’s my age. When’s your birthday?”
“August seventh.”
“Oh, my God, I’m older than you! My birthday is April twenty-seventh.”
She was so dismayed that the corners of his mouth kicked up. “I’ve always wanted to sleep with an older woman.”
She thumped him on the chest, which earned her a kiss that was deeper than she’d expected, and longer. When he released her she buried her cold nose against his throat, inhaling the warm scent of him. She wanted to say yes. She loved him, more than she’d thought she would ever love a man again. As difficult as he was, in so many ways they perfectly complemented each other. With her he talked, he joked, he even laughed. Something about her opened him up; something about him pulled her away from the rigid path she’d set for herself.
But she was right about the problems they’d face, and she knew it. Getting married would only compound those problems. “What would you do for a job? If we got married, you couldn’t keep chasing all over Mexico looking for the bad guys, maybe getting killed—” She stopped, because she couldn’t continue with that thread.
“I don’t know what else I could do, but I’ll find something.”
There weren’t many job openings for retired bounty hunters/assassins. She couldn’t see him in any kind of office setting, or doing anything that required him to work with the public. Just what kind of job could he do?
She was thinking about the future, she realized. Things were moving too fast, and she still didn’t have her feet under her, emotionally speaking. “I can’t say yes,” she said. “Not yet. There are too many problems we have to work through.”
He kissed her again, closing his eyes as he hugged her to him. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll ask again next year,” he said, standing up with her in his arms and maneuvering to open the door.
Ten minutes later, as he moved between her opened legs and settled into place, she realized that this was December. Next year was in three weeks.
30
“Mama! Thane’s tearing up my homework! Make him
stop
!”
Milla stirred the spaghetti sauce and cast a harried eye toward the living room, where the shrieks were growing louder. “James! Get Thane away from Linnea.”
He was already on his way. The screams grew louder, evidently while he was in the process of peeling Thane away from his eight-year-old sister’s homework, but in just a few minutes blessed peace settled over the household, except for an occasional grumble from Linnea as she set about redoing her pages. Diaz appeared in the doorway with a giggling Thane draped around his neck. “What do I do with him now?”
“Play with him. Or tie him to a chair. Something.”
Six-year-old Zara was sitting at the kitchen table industriously practicing her letters, working to get them exactly right. Her dark eyes were serious as she said, “He won’t like being tied to a chair.”
“I was joking, honey.” Of their three children, Zara was the most like Diaz, with his somberness and intensity. Linnea was bustling and confident, meeting life head-on, while Zara stood back and watched. Milla took the time to give her youngest daughter a reassuring hug, while Diaz carried Thane outside to distract him with something energetic and, Milla hoped, nondestructive.
Thane was a surprise baby, born two days after her forty-first birthday. They hadn’t intended to have any more children, content with their two daughters, but a broken condom had resulted in a little boy that they should more accurately have named Hurricane. Even before he could crawl, Thane had been squirming to be put down so he could explore. When he learned to crawl, the entire household was off and running, trying to catch him before he could get into whatever mischief he’d found. Now that he was two, Milla was beginning to consider a straitjacket—for herself.
It was funny how things had worked out. She and Diaz—she still had to remind herself to refer to him as James—had been married for nine years now. She’d held out on marriage until some of their problems had been worked out, namely her own work and his. She was still executive director of Finders, but the day-to-day operation had been turned over to Joann Westfall, while Milla herself concentrated mostly on fund-raising, which never ended. She drew a salary now, her hours were more regulated, and she was never away from her children overnight.
Diaz field-tested weapons for a firearms manufacturer and did some consulting work with the El Paso police department, the sheriff’s department, and private security firms. She’d been relieved almost to the point of tears when he told her what he was doing, because she’d been worried to death there was no legitimate job where he could use his particular skills. They would never be rich, but they had enough money to support their children and afford a few luxuries, so that was fine.
Living in her condo, with so many close neighbors, had made him antsy. He hadn’t complained, but Milla had seen how restless he was, and increasingly jumpy. By the time she was five months pregnant with Linnea, he was getting on
her
nerves so much she knew they had to do something, so Diaz had scouted around and found a house far enough away from other people that he could relax, but not so far away that Milla felt isolated. It was an older house, pleasant, with shade trees in the yard and four roomy bedrooms. At the time, they hadn’t known they would need all four of them. They had bought the house, fenced in the yard for the baby’s safety, and settled in.
She’d been happy. Though she’d still had her doubts when they finally did get married, almost a year after he first asked her, she’d been almost deliriously happy with him.
Watching him with their children was a delight that still made her heart squeeze. He’d approached Linnea cautiously, as if she were a time bomb, but he’d doggedly learned how to change diapers and all the other things one needed to know with a baby. Discipline was a theory he hadn’t quite managed to understand; he’d explained to Milla, with complete and rather baffled seriousness, that the kids cried if he scolded them, so he’d had to stop. The situation had to be dire for him to get stern, with the result that all three children were shocked into instant obedience if he so much as raised his voice. It wasn’t fair; Milla sometimes felt she could scream her head off and the children wouldn’t pay the least bit of attention to her. That was an exaggeration, because they were normal, bright, inquisitive, generally obedient kids, which meant that some days they were a real pain.
She loved that she could be exasperated with them. One of her greatest fears, while she’d been pregnant, was that the tragedy of the past had turned her into an obsessive, overprotective, stifling sort of mother. She hadn’t been certain she was fit to be a mother. Thank God Linnea had been such a capable child; by the time Zara had arrived, Milla had relaxed. Then they’d had four peaceful, mostly idyllic years—until Thane. The two years since his birth had been joyous, but definitely not peaceful.
“Want to wash your hands and help me set the table?” she asked Zara, who obediently moved her homework off the table and ran off to wash her hands.
Linnea said, “I want to help,” and rushed out of the living room, following Zara to the downstairs bathroom to wash her hands, too.
Milla set the big bowl of salad on the table, then checked on the rolls in the oven. They were a nice golden brown, so she took them out and put them in the bread basket. Diaz came back in with Thane, and took him to wash the worst of the dirt from his face and hands while Milla poured the spaghetti in a colander to drain.
The girls were busy putting out the plates and flatware when the doorbell rang. Milla sighed. It never failed; if there was going to be an interruption, it invariably happened as they were sitting down to eat. “I’ll get it,” she said, passing Diaz as he came out of the bathroom with Thane tucked under his arm.
She opened the door and looked up at a tall young man, with blond hair and blue eyes. Her knees went weak and she sagged against the door, tears burning her eyes.
She knew. From the instant she saw his face, she knew.
He was nervous. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I—are you Milla Edge?”
“Milla Diaz, now,” she managed to say.
He cleared his throat again, and darted a wary look over her shoulder. She knew Diaz had come up even before his strong hand slid around her waist and drew her against him in support.
“I—uh—I’m Zack Winborn. Justin. Your son,” he added, unnecessarily.
Her face was wet, her eyes overflowing; the tears blurred his features. A sob burst out of her before she could stop it, and an alarmed expression crossed his face. Just as suddenly the sob turned into laughter, and she reached out and took his hand. “I’ve waited so long,” she said, and drew him into the house.
About the Author
L
INDA
H
OWARD
is the award-winning author of many
New York Times
bestsellers, including
Dying to Please
,
Open Season
,
Mr. Perfect
,
All the Queen’s Men
,
Now You See Her
,
Kill and Tell
, and
Son of the Morning
. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two golden retrievers.
By Linda Howard
A LADY OF THE WEST
ANGEL CREEK
THE TOUCH OF FIRE
HEART OF FIRE
DREAM MAN
AFTER THE NIGHT
SHADES OF TWILIGHT
SON OF THE MORNING
KILL AND TELL
NOW YOU SEE HER
ALL THE QUEEN’S MEN
MR. PERFECT
OPEN SEASON
DYING TO PLEASE
Copyright © 2003 by Linda Howington
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Howard, Linda, 1950–
Cry no more / Linda Howard.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PS3558.O88217C79 2003b
813′.54—dc22
2003045140
eISBN: 978-0-345-46989-2
v3.0