Shattered

2

Kate was expecting Jack McKinley, so she answered the knock at her door with a smile on her face. Her heart skipped a frightened beat when she saw who was standing there.

“You look surprised to see me.”

Kate felt a visceral response deep in her womb as she stared into Wyatt Shaw’s steel-gray eyes. Without wanting to, she remembered Shaw as she’d left him in the middle of the night, asleep amid tangled sheets, dark lashes lying soft on sharp cheekbones, rough beard shading the rugged planes and hollows of his face.

“May I come in?”

His raspy voice raised gooseflesh on her arms. He’d used that mesmerizing voice to murmur his approval as she caressed his powerful body, measuring the breadth of his shoulders with her palms and teasing the whorls of black hair on his chest with her fingertips.

He stood quietly at her front door, patiently awaiting her invitation to come inside. All his attention was focused on her, as it had been that long-ago night.

She tried to speak, to send him away, but her heart was caught in her throat. He’d been patient that night, too, coaxing her compliance. She’d been heartsick, feeling unloved and unlovely, a rejected woman seeking revenge against her husband.

Kate closed her eyes to shut out the too-vivid memories, but in her mind’s eye she saw the soft play of light and shadow on his face above her and the fierce look of desire in his eyes. She had never felt more cherished. She had never felt more loved.

“Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes, but it didn’t help. She’d kept the memories at bay for long years, but now that the flesh-and-blood man stood before her, they rushed back with frightening clarity.

She remembered most the urgency of his need. And how it had healed the hurt. The heady feeling as she realized this man craved her body as a dying man craves water in the desert. The soothing balm of his raspy voice as he extolled the pleasure he found in the petal softness of her skin. The laughter that tumbled from her lips as she reveled in the power of knowing he couldn’t get his fill of her. That he could never get enough. That he would always want to touch her, taste her, love her.

She would never forget the satisfied masculine sound in his throat as he’d felt how wet and ready she was for him. At his urging, she’d wrapped her long legs around his whipcord lean hips as he moved inside her. In the throes of passion, she’d gripped handfuls of his thick black hair, running her fingers through the silver wings at his temples that had made her guess his age as much older than he was.

He’d been only twenty-nine.

Which made him thirty-eight.

Her glance skipped to his mouth. She remembered bowed lips that had been soft to the touch, his first kiss so tender it had made her throat ache with unshed tears. There were no signs of softness in him now. His lips were pressed flat and bracketed by deep grooves. His eyes, deep-set and gray, reminded her of thunderous storm clouds.

Shaw hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t moved a hair, but she felt the threat of his presence, the threat of…his desire for her.

He was wearing a Savile Row suit that should have made him look civilized. Instead, she saw the tension beneath the masterfully tailored cloth, the power in corded sinew and bone. She felt her nipples peak as his nostrils flared, inhaling the scent of her like a stag in rut. Felt the blood fill her nether lips as she stared into heavy-lidded eyes that told her how much he wanted—needed—to be inside her.

She had to remind herself who he was. Yes, this was the stranger with whom she’d spent the most passionate night of her life. But Wyatt Shaw was also the son of mob boss Dante D’Amato. And a suspected murderer.

Her gaze skipped down to his long-fingered hands. Those hands had caressed her with infinite tenderness. Had they also strangled the woman found naked in his bed? It had only been six weeks since the sensational story had hit the tabloids. Billionaire businessman Wyatt Shaw was accused of murdering a call girl in his suite on the top floor of Shaw Tower.

A call girl?

That gave their night together an entirely new complexion. Had Shaw thought she was a call girl, too? Had she left before he’d put his money on the bedside table? Was the magical night she remembered merely one more sexual encounter with a call girl for him? Had she been lucky that long-ago night to escape with her life?

Kate was afraid to look back up into Shaw’s eyes, afraid the question—the accusation—would be there in her own.

Her knees felt rubbery, and she stiffened them. She glanced beyond Wyatt’s shoulder, searching the street for Jack’s SUV, hoping he would stay away until she could get rid of this apparition from her past, this stranger who’d ruined her sleep for far too many nights over the past nine years.

Kate shuddered at the thought of Texas Ranger Jack McKinley confronting Wyatt Shaw with his gun drawn. She didn’t want Jack killing the father of her sons. Or Wyatt killing the man she loved.

“We need to talk,” Shaw said.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

He lifted an arrogant brow that accused her of the terrible wrong she’d done him. But said nothing.

“You can’t have them.” Kate knew the instant the words came out of her mouth that she shouldn’t have spoken them.

“By them do you mean my sons?” he said, the sudden menace in his voice raising the hairs on her nape.

She tried to slam the door, but he was too fast for her. He simply caught the frame with his palm, waited until she let go, waited another moment until she stepped back, then strode inside and closed the wooden door with a quiet snick behind him.

She turned to face him in her tiny living room like a lioness defending her cubs, even though the twins were at school and wouldn’t be home for another hour. “You can’t have them. They’re mine.”

“And mine,” he said inexorably.

She could see that denial was futile. Somehow he’d found out the truth. “Who told you?”

“A private investigator hired by your mother-in-law.”

Kate groaned and lowered her face into her hands. She suddenly lifted her head and asked, “Does Ann Wade know?”

“I have no idea. The P.I. who contacted me was killed shortly after he left my office.”

Did you kill him? The words stuck in Kate’s throat. There was no sense asking, since he was unlikely to tell her if he had.

“When did you know the twins were mine?” he asked.

Kate felt a frisson of fear skitter down her spine. She had never been a good liar. The telltale pink blotches on her creamy skin always gave her away. But she was terrified of what the man standing in her living room might do if she told him she’d known within weeks of that fateful night that she’d gotten pregnant during their liaison.

The same day she’d gotten a positive result on a home pregnancy test, she’d seduced J.D., who’d gloated at how brief her sex boycott had been after she’d caught him in bed with another woman.

“You were a stranger I met in a bar,” she said to Shaw. “I didn’t know your name. I didn’t know how to contact you.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” he said, anger simmering in his eyes. “When did you know?”

“I couldn’t be sure my husband wasn’t the father,” she lied. And felt the sudden heat on her throat and cheeks.

His eyes narrowed. “It’s a simple question.”

Whenever she’d felt guilty over the years that she hadn’t sought out the stranger from the bar to tell him the truth, she’d reminded herself of the circumstances of their encounter. It was a night out of time.

She’d felt vindicated when she’d discovered who he was.

“What did you expect me to do when I found out I’d gotten pregnant while having sex with a perfect stranger?” A stranger accused of graft and corruption, of extortion and murder. And that was before a woman was found strangled to death in your bed.

His brows arrowed down at her admission that she’d known from the start what he’d just learned.

“You could have gone back to the hotel,” he said. “There were people there who knew me. You could have found me.”

“To what purpose?” she demanded. “I was married. For all I knew, you could have been married, too.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t know that. Besides, there was always the chance that my husband—”

“You’ve cheated me out of knowing my sons for eight years.”

Kate’s blue eyes flashed up at him. “I notice you never came looking for me!”

“I couldn’t find you. And not for want of trying.”

Kate was startled. He’d searched for her? Why? “Just because the sex was good—”

“The sex was fantastic. But that wasn’t why I came looking for you.”

Kate knew she’d regret asking, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Why, then?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Irritated by his reticence, she snapped, “So why are you here? What do you want?”

He met her gaze with annoying calm and said, “I want to meet my sons.”

“No.” Kate’s throat was tight with dread, but she forced herself to add, “They believe J.D.—my husband, who was killed serving in Afghanistan—was their father.”

“I don’t want my sons growing up without a father.”

As he had, Kate realized. The first time she’d seen Shaw on TV was the day he consoled Dante D’Amato on the steps of the federal courthouse in Houston after his two grown, legitimate sons had been killed by a car bomb. The mob boss was on trial for RICO-related offenses, and the reporter suggested that D’Amato’s sons had been murdered in an effort by underlings to wrench control of the mob from D’Amato’s powerful hands, in expectation that he would be convicted and go to prison.

When a roving TV reporter asked a grieving D’Amato who would take the roles in his business left vacant by his sons’ deaths, D’Amato slid his arm around Wyatt Shaw’s broad shoulders and said, “I have all the help I need right here.”

The news anchor at the station had explained that Shaw’s mother had been supported by D’Amato, who’d bought her a home in Houston, but they’d never been married. Thereby suggesting, without actually saying, that Wyatt Shaw was Dante D’Amato’s illegitimate son, and that he might be expected to take over the mob if his father was convicted.

The film clip that followed showed a grim-faced man with silver-winged black hair shoving his way through a crowd of reporters as he left the federal courthouse.

It was the man she’d picked up in the bar of the Four Seasons, a man passionate beyond her dreams and tender beyond belief.

Kate had blanched with horror at the discovery that she’d lain with a man who’d been accused, along with his mob boss father, of having business competitors maimed and murdered. She’d followed the trial on TV. Neither Shaw nor his father had been convicted. The witnesses had all recanted or disappeared.

The pictures Kate had seen in the tabloid newspapers of that poor strangled woman had put an end to her romantic fantasies about the stranger with whom she’d spent a precious night of lovemaking.

She’d viciously squelched the memories that arose whenever she compared that single night of passion to sex with J.D. She’d comforted herself with the knowledge that her husband might be a selfish lover and a womanizer, but at least he wasn’t a criminal.

Or so she’d thought.

“You don’t have to worry about Lucky and Chance growing up without a father,” she told Shaw. “I’m involved with someone. I love him very much, and we’re going to be married.” She was certain Jack wouldn’t mind if she stretched the truth in a good cause. They hadn’t discussed marriage yet, but she was sure it was only a matter of time before they did.

Jack’s divorce would be final within the next month. And J.D. was…no longer in the picture.

“Since I’m going to be married,” Kate began, “I—”

Shaw was already shaking his head. “No, you’re not.”

“You can’t stop me!”

“We both know your first husband isn’t dead. Which precludes your marriage to another man.”

Kate’s face blanched. “How could you possibly…? Why would you think…?”

“I’ve done some investigating of my own in the week since I discovered I’m a father. You can’t marry another man, because you’re still married to J.D. Pendleton, who isn’t buried in Arlington Cemetery after all. He’s alive and well and left the country for Brazil the day after you were shot.”

“J.D.’s in Brazil?” Her husband had threatened to kidnap her sons and take them to South America if she didn’t pay him a quarter of a million dollars to get out of her life, but she’d been shot before she could ask one of her grandfathers for the money. Although Kate was the daughter and granddaughter of wealthy men and women, J.D. had gambled away her personal trust fund within a few years after she’d gotten control of it when she turned twenty-five.

However, J.D.’s mother had given him $250,000 in “hush money” which he’d presumably used to disappear. The governor didn’t want the world to know her son was a live deserter, rather than a dead war hero.

Kate’s greatest fear, before Wyatt Shaw had shown up on her doorstep, was that J.D. would return, once again threatening to steal Lucky and Chance, and demanding money that she didn’t have to disappear. “Do you know where J.D. is now?” she asked.

“No. But there are dangerous men out there looking for him.”

“Dangerous men?” Kate asked, confused. Your men? she wondered.

“Your husband was trading military weapons for heroin in Afghanistan.”

Kate gasped. She’d known J.D. was in trouble. He’d hinted as much to her when he’d shown up in her kitchen last fall looking gaunt and ragged a year after she’d supposedly buried his remains. But she’d never suspected him of doing anything so awful. “How do you know that?”

Shaw ignored the question and continued, “Your husband blew up that ammo dump in Afghanistan—and faked his death—to avoid paying the consequences for skimming profits on the arms-for-heroin deals he was negotiating between parties here in the States and the Taliban. He absconded with twenty million dollars worth of heroin that didn’t belong to him.

“There are people who intend to find him, get back their product—or the cash he got for selling it—and make an object lesson of your husband.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“The bad guys are closing in on J.D.”

“How do you know all this?”

He lifted a dark brow as though the answer should be obvious, although it wasn’t to Kate. Did he know about J.D.’s situation because he, personally, was chasing him? Or was it some other criminal element with whom Shaw had close ties, like his father, Dante D’Amato?

“Suffice it to say, you and your—our—sons aren’t safe with your husband on the loose.”

Kate lifted her chin. “The man I’ve been seeing is a Texas Ranger. He’ll be happy to protect me.”

“Who’s that?”

Kate debated whether to tell him, then decided it was better not to bring Jack into this. “None of your business.”

Kate didn’t like the look in Shaw’s eyes. He had no right to be jealous. Or possessive. But she didn’t want to exacerbate the situation, so she said, “Nevertheless, this man is willing, and able, to keep an eye on me and my sons. His divorce will be final any day now and—”

“He’s planning to move in?”

Kate heard the challenge in Shaw’s gravelly voice, watched as his eyes narrowed and his hands formed into powerful fists. It seemed safest to say, “We haven’t planned that far ahead.”

She was still looking forward to making love to Jack for the first time. They’d been on the verge of consummating their relationship last fall—kissing in the hall, on the way to her bedroom—when Jack had been called away to confront a killer. Shortly thereafter, Kate had been shot. She’d only recently come home.

So, despite the fact she’d first attempted to seduce Jack ten years ago, when she was nineteen, she still had no idea what kind of lover he was. Which was surprising, when Kate thought about it, because she’d gone to bed with Wyatt Shaw within thirty minutes of meeting him.

Kate felt her breasts peak at the memory of his mouth on her naked flesh. She quickly lowered her gaze, mortified at where her thoughts had led her. Again.

She made herself picture Jack’s beloved face instead. She imagined his dark brown eyes looking down at her, imagined her fingers threading through his sun-streaked chestnut hair. Jack was tall, like Shaw, but his skin was burnished by wind and sun. She ached to have Jack kiss her, touch her, in places where… Where Wyatt Shaw already had.

“You can’t marry anyone so long as J.D. is still alive,” Shaw said, interrupting her disconcerting thoughts. “The way I see it, right now—and for the foreseeable future—my sons don’t have adequate protection.”

“My sons,” Kate automatically corrected, her chin lifting pugnaciously, “are my responsibility.” When Shaw continued to stare at her, she grudgingly corrected, “All right. Our sons are my responsibility. I don’t want or need your help.”

“The danger is real.”

He sounded concerned. But the fact was, they were strangers who, a long time ago, had found solace—and physical pleasure—in each other’s arms. An image of herself trembling as she watched Shaw’s callused fingertips stroke downward across her flat belly flashed in Kate’s mind. She made a growling sound in her throat, angry that memories of herself in bed with Shaw were so unforgettable.

“You’d all be safer if you came to live with me in Houston until J.D. is found,” Shaw said.

“That’s out of the question.”

“My compound is surrounded by high stone walls. I have twenty-four-hour security cameras and guards with dogs that patrol the perimeter.”

“That sounds more like a prison than a home,” Kate snapped.

“Lucky and Chance…”

When he paused, Kate saw his throat working. It was the first time he’d said his sons’ names since he’d shoved his way into her home. Apparently, it had affected him deeply.

But Kate couldn’t afford to sympathize, couldn’t afford to glamorize or glorify his appearance on her doorstep. She didn’t dare feel anything for Wyatt Shaw. She was fighting for her children’s lives. If Shaw had his way, she and her sons would be imprisoned behind high stone walls. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Legally, J.D. Pendleton is my sons’ father. You provided the seed. That was all. You have no legal rights where Lucky and Chance are concerned. None. I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help. My sons—yes, my sons,” she repeated in a fierce voice, “have managed fine without you in their lives for eight years. And they’re far more likely to grow into fine young men if you never come anywhere near them.”

Shaw’s face blanched.

Kate felt a pang of remorse for hurting him. And ruthlessly quelled it. What did he expect? His reputation had preceded him. No mother would willingly expose her children to a man like Wyatt Shaw. He was the antithesis of Jack McKinley. One man was an outlaw, the other a lawman. There was no question in her mind who would make the better father.

She took a deep breath and said, “I’d like you to leave.”

Kate expected Shaw to argue. Expected him to threaten. Expected him to point out all the reasons why his suggestion was the best way, the only way, to keep her children safe. But he did none of those things.

He simply said, “Goodbye, Kate.” Then he turned and walked to the door. He opened it, glanced back over his shoulder, and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

Kate hurried across the living room to close and lock the door behind him. But she didn’t feel the least bit safe.

I’ll be in touch.

What did that mean? Kate’s stomach cramped as she realized how vulnerable her sons were. All Shaw had to do was intercept them at school. Or after they got off the bus.

Kate’s heart was lodged in her throat. She had to call the boys’ school. She had to warn them that her sons weren’t safe. She had to retrieve Lucky and Chance before Wyatt Shaw made his move. Because she was certain that once Shaw had her sons behind high stone walls, he would never give them back.

3

Jack McKinley had a knot in his belly. He wasn’t looking forward to the next half hour. He had a confession to make that was going to break Kate Pendleton’s heart.

He sat in his SUV, parked on the curb in front of her house, trying to put a smile on his face before he headed for her door. His mouth wouldn’t cooperate. She was going to see the truth in his eyes, so why pretend everything was all right? Nothing was going to be right for a very long time.