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  “I couldn’t risk being seen. I need your help,” she said, verifying his hunch. “Please—”

  “You’ve got some nerve.”

  He flicked the safety on his gun, stomped across the room and shoved the automatic into its holster on the table beside the bed. A man as ticked off as he was shouldn’t have a loaded gun in his hand. Besides, if he’d looked into those tear-drenched eyes another second, the feelings he’d tried to purge for the last two years would have made him do something he’d regret, like kissing her breathless.

  “I don’t want your help for me.” Desperation elevated the pitch of her voice. “It’s for my baby.”

  Her unexpected appearance had hit him like a sucker punch, but learning that she had a child, he felt he was going down for the count. He cleared his throat, not trusting his voice. “Baby?”

  “My boy, Chip.”

  A baby. That certainly put a new twist on things. Unwelcome suspicions crystallized in his mind. “How old is he?”

  “He just turned one.” Her words tumbled out too fast, as if she’d rehearsed them.

  A one-year-old baby. Dylan worked some mental arithmetic. The kid had been conceived only three months after Heather walked out of his life. Maybe the father had been the cause of her leaving.

  “Please.” She wrung her hands in her lap and choked back a sob. Her distress reproached his resentful heart. “He’s been kidnapped. You have to help me find him.”

  And what would he get from helping her, except more heartache? “Why me? Shouldn’t your husband be handling this?”

  She looked dazed, ready to go into shock. “Husband?”

  “The boy’s father.”

  “There was a…car accident.” She stumbled over the words. “He’s been dead a long time.”

  He slammed the lid on his brief flare of sympathy and squelched a hundred personal questions he longed to ask. He had ached from missing her, had longed to talk to her again, but not like this. The sight of her had wrung his emotions and hung them out to dry. With the pleading look on that unforgettable face and the quiver of her soft lips, how could he maintain the cool detachment needed for dealing with a kidnapping? An abducted child was the kind of case every police officer dreaded. Too often the outcome was tragic. Shoving personal feelings aside, he let his training take over. “Tell me what happened.”

  Heather drew a shuddering breath. “This morning, I dropped Chip off at day care—”

  “In St. Petersburg?”

  She nodded.

  “Why didn’t you alert the St. Pete police instead of coming here?”

  Her moss-green eyes, flecked with brown, were pools of misery. “He says he’ll kill Chip if I go to the police.”

  “The kidnapper? You know him?”

  She shook her head. “I never saw him before. When I took Chip out of his car seat, the man came up behind, grabbed me and forced us toward his car.”

  “He tried to take both of you?”

  “I thought so at first.” She raked her fingers through her hair in a characteristic gesture of impatience he’d once found endearing. “But I’m not sure. Look, can’t I explain in the car? He already has a half hour’s head start.”

  Heather was making a valiant attempt to hold herself together, but to Dylan’s trained eye, she was only inches from hysteria. He knelt before her and grasped her gently by the shoulders. “It’s doubtful we’ll pick up his trail now. We should go back to your house and wait.”

  “Wait? You’re crazy if you think I’ll sit around doing nothing while some…some pervert has my baby!” Her composure shattered and sobs racked her.

  He pulled her into his arms, trying to ignore how right she felt in his embrace again. He tamped down dangerous emotions. She had hurt him once. He wouldn’t let her break his heart again. Steeling himself against her softness, he held her until her weeping eased, then released her, grasped her chin and tilted her face toward his. “If you want my help, you’ll have to trust me, okay?”

  She nodded, and the familiar fragrance from her hair, a subtle scent of orange blossoms, triggered memories, more yearning. He reached for a box of tissues on the bedside table and handed it to her. “It’ll only take a minute for me to dress.”

  He grabbed socks and a shirt from his bureau and pulled them on hurriedly. After lacing on a pair of work boots, he slid his shield into the back pocket of his jeans and attached his holstered gun to his belt.

  When he turned toward her, she had pushed to her feet, and a contradictory combination of panic and determination radiated from her in waves. Tenderness spilled through him at her courage, but he shoved it aside. She loved another man and had come to Dylan to save another man’s child. Because Dylan was a cop, he would try to help. Heather was just another case. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

  “Let’s go.” He lifted her by the elbow and guided her toward the bedroom door.

  “The back way,” she insisted. “I can’t chance the kidnapper seeing me here. My car’s parked on the next block.”

  He followed her out the back door, locked it behind him and sprinted after her across Mrs. Riley’s backyard. If he had a choice, he’d be back in bed for some much needed sleep, but he couldn’t refuse any mother whose child had been snatched.

  Maybe once she reached home, he could calm her down and convince her to call in the local cops. He’d stay until the St. Pete police took over, then hotfoot it for home before she ground his battered emotions into raw hamburger again.

  On the next street, Heather stopped beside the sand-colored Taurus she’d bought the week before she walked out of his life.

  “I’ll drive,” he said.

  She was in no condition to operate a vehicle. In her state of mind, she’d done well to survive the thirty-mile drive from St. Petersburg to his house.

  She handed him the keys and climbed into the passenger seat. He eased behind the wheel. The empty baby carrier and abandoned toys strewn across the back seat reproached him. Caught up in his own sentiments, he had wasted valuable time. To have any chance of getting the boy back, he had to move fast and remain objective.

  But being objective around Heather was about as easy as keeping dry in a hot shower. He started the car and headed toward the interstate, the quickest route to Heather’s St. Pete neighborhood. “Did you get a good look at the kidnapper?”

  “I was too busy fighting to hold on to Chip.” Her words were forced as she fought back tears.

  “Close your eyes and make yourself remember,” he suggested gently, more shaken by her tears than he wanted to admit. He zigzagged through going-to-work traffic as if headed to an emergency call.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled a shuddering breath. “The man wasn’t very tall. Baggy clothes. He wore dark glasses, and a fake beard and wig, both black.”

  “You’re sure it was a man?”

  Her eyes flew open in surprise. “No, I just assumed—”

  “So it could have been someone you know, either male or female, in disguise?”

  “No one I know would steal a little boy from his mother.”

  The terror in her voice destroyed his attempts at detachment. “What about someone from his father’s family?”

  The question must have stunned her, because she hesitated. “Chip’s father was an orphan, bounced from one foster home to another.”

  Not once had she spoken her dead husband’s name. Maybe talking about him was too painful. Dylan grimaced. Hearing about him was painful enough.

  “And none of your relatives would try to take custody?”

  “That’s crazy. You know my mom and dad.”

  She was right. He’d met the Taylors. They weren’t the type to steal a child. He tried a new angle. “Did you see the kidnapper’s car?”

  “It was white, two-door, but I don’t know the make. New cars all look alike to me.”

  From the corner of his eye, he watched her cry silently, not bothering to wipe away tears that spilled down her smooth che
eks and splashed onto her dress. He knew from past cases that, in addition to fear for her boy, she was suffering major guilt. Heather’s conscience had always kept her on the straight and narrow, and her irreproachable scruples had been one of a thousand virtues he’d admired in her. He’d never been able to reconcile that quality with the way she’d dumped him.

  His anger flared briefly until the sight of more tears extinguished it. He could count on one hand the times he’d seen her upset enough to cry—and have fingers left over. He squeezed her shoulder compassionately. “Did anyone else see what happened?”

  She shook her head, dug into her purse and extracted a tissue. “It’s always chaos at the Children’s Center in the mornings. Parents coming and going, children shouting and crying. I didn’t want to wait in the long line at the entrance, so I parked down the block. Nobody seemed to notice when the man grabbed us. It all took place so fast.”

  “What happened after he grabbed you?”

  “I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. He was dragging us both toward the car, then he shoved me.”

  Dylan clenched his teeth, and cold fury spilled through him. As much as he’d studied the criminal mind, he would never understand how one human being could treat another with such cruelty. He itched to put the predator behind bars for the rest of his days.

  “I fell,” she said, “and hit my head on the sidewalk. The blow must have dazed me. When I looked up, the white car was pulling away.” She blotted her tears and blew her nose.

  Rage at the kidnapper and tenderness toward Heather filled him until he feared he’d detonate from pent-up emotion. He rolled his head on his shoulders and breathed deeply, fighting for calm. Merging the car into interstate traffic, he pressed the accelerator.

  “Dylan?”

  His heart wrenched at the sound of his name on her lips. That one soft word hammered him like the most agonizing scream for help.

  “Will I get Chip back?”

  He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. He couldn’t lie to her. The outlook wasn’t good. If the kidnapper wasn’t known to her and had simply snatched Chip at random, the boy was in deep jeopardy. If she’d gone to the police immediately, and they had put out an all-points bulletin, they might have nabbed the kidnapper and recovered the boy. But now—

  “I don’t know, Heather.”

  He glanced at her quickly before returning his attention to the traffic. Chalk white, she wore the numb expression of one who had confronted her worst fear—and was about to be destroyed by it. He was torn between wanting to reassure her and refusing to offer false hope.

  “I’ll do the best I can” was the optimum answer he could give her.

  “I know,” she said with quiet conviction. “That’s why I came to you.”

  HEATHER LEANED BACK against the seat and hugged herself in a futile effort at warmth. In spite of the steamy June day, she hadn’t stopped shivering since Chip was torn from her arms. Every time she closed her eyes, the memory of his tear-streaked face and his cries for Mommy stabbed her like shards of ice. Replaying the kidnapping was driving her insane and doing nothing to help find her baby, but she couldn’t stop the repetitive pictures in her mind.

  Turning to Dylan had been automatic. During the past two years, every time adversity struck, she had longed for his quiet strength to ease her through it.

  Adversity? She suppressed a bitter laugh.

  Who was she kidding? For the past two years, everything—good, bad or inconsequential—made her hunger for his presence. She had sworn she would never give in to the yearning.

  Until today.

  When Chip was snatched from her arms and her access to police help denied, she hadn’t hesitated. Instinctively, she had driven straight to Dylan’s, used the key she had intended many times to throw away and begged for his help.

  If she hadn’t been crazy with grief over Chip, no telling what she would have done, seeing Dylan standing there, tall and bare-chested with his jeans unfastened, his brown hair tousled from sleep and his coffee-colored eyes almost black with shock. She had longed to throw herself in his arms for the comfort of his embrace, the healing of his kiss.

  Even in her tormented state, she’d known better. He wouldn’t have welcomed her. His anger at seeing her indicated as much. She had made the decision to end their relationship, and now she would have to live with that choice.

  No, she never would have run to Dylan if Chip’s life didn’t depend on his help. If anyone could get her son back, Dylan Wade could.

  To ease her mind from the unbearable horror of the present, she focused on the past when she had met Dylan five years ago at the university in Tampa, had initially noticed him the first night of class.

  How could she not? Every woman in the room had been aflutter over the tall, athletic man in the back row who looked as if he belonged on a movie screen instead of in a classroom. He had seemed oblivious to their attention. Polite but aloof, he had kept his distance from all of them.

  One rainy night in late October, the class ran overtime, and the dark campus and dimly lit parking lot were almost deserted when Heather hurried to her car. After a futile attempt to start the engine, she realized she’d forgotten earlier to turn off her headlights. Her battery was dead, the rain still poured, and the nearest phone was a dark, soggy quarter-mile across the now empty campus.

  She stifled a scream when someone rapped on her window.

  “You okay?” The good-looking man from the back row, rain sluicing over high cheekbones and spiking his thick lashes, stood beside the driver’s door.

  She rolled down her window a couple of inches. “Dead battery.”

  He flashed a compassionate grin that warmed her in spite of the cold night and her damp clothes. “I’ll be right back.”

  Within minutes, he jump-started her car, then insisted on following her home to make certain the engine didn’t quit on her. She invited him into her apartment to dry off.

  “I don’t usually ask in people I don’t know.” She was babbling and couldn’t seem to stop. “But you’re soaked to the skin, and it seemed the least—”

  When he removed his sodden jacket, she spotted the gun in the waist of his jeans at the small of his back. He must have seen the panic in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry. I’m a cop.”

  She inched her way toward the phone with its preprogrammed 911 button and mentally kicked herself for bringing a stranger, however helpful, into her home.

  “Sorry,” she said breathlessly, “but that explanation’s not very reassuring. It reminds me of ‘the check’s in the mail’ or ‘we’re the government and we’re here to help you.’”

  Except a late payment or bureaucratic red tape couldn’t inflict physical harm. She relaxed when his Dolphin Bay Police Department ID confirmed his identity, then apologized for jumping to conclusions.

  He settled at her kitchen table as comfortably as if he lived there, and she poured hot coffee and served tiramisu from her stash in the refrigerator. “Sorry, but I’m fresh out of doughnuts.”

  Evidently aware of the scare his gun had given her, he smiled at her feeble attempt at humor and took a bite of the rich dessert. He lifted his eyebrows in appreciation. “Great stuff. You make it yourself?”

  At his gorgeous smile, she fell for him like a plane dropping in an air pocket. She’d never believed in love at first sight, but what else explained the allover tingle, the flip-flop in her stomach, her sudden oxygen deprivation and the tremble in her hands?

  She settled across the table and cradled her coffee mug to still her shaking fingers. “I wait tables at an Italian restaurant. Free tiramisu is one of the perks.”

  “Must be tough, working and going to school full-time.”

  Wariness clashed with her warm, fuzzy feelings. “How do you know I’m a full-time student?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen you in the library, and you carry several different textbooks from the one we use in Professor Aldrich’s class.”

>   “Are you always so observant?” What she wanted to ask was whether he’d noticed her particularly or if he paid that much attention to everyone.

  “Being observant is critical in police work.”

  His appealing, slow smile and the hot coffee chased away her hesitation, and in spite of his heart-stopping good looks and her turbulent reaction to him, she felt at ease, as if he were an old buddy she’d known forever. They talked until almost six in the morning. He wouldn’t have left then, but his shift started at seven.

  They became good friends long before they were lovers, having discovered they shared similar qualities, reflected in their career choices. She was working toward her degree in education, and he had already served three years on the police force. He taught her to appreciate the nuances of professional basketball, and she initiated him to the wackiness of British comedy.

  A few months after they met, Dylan invited her to dinner. She’d visited his house in Dolphin Bay before, usually as one of his many friends invited for cookouts and to watch basketball on his big-screen television. That night, however, hers was the only car parked in the drive beside Dylan’s 1920s bungalow.

  In the small dining room, candles glowed on a table set for two and centered with fragrant flowers. She didn’t remember the meal he served, but his heated look afterward when he led her to the sofa, took her in his arms and kissed her for the first time was etched in her mind forever.

  Later, when she could finally draw breath, she had snuggled against his chest, warm and contented.

  “If I’d known how good kissing you would be,” he said, gliding his hands over her shoulders, then pulling her closer, “I wouldn’t have waited so long.”

  Pleased by his admission, she lifted her head and gazed into his languorous brown eyes. “I had reconciled myself to being your buddy forever. When did you change your mind?”

  With gentle fingers, he brushed her hair back from her face, a simple, tender gesture that seemed suddenly erotic. “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the first day I saw you.”

  “Me, too, but I never guessed—”