Daddy With A Badge. Paula Riggs Detmer

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      After turning on the cold tap she grabbed a facecloth from the rod and bathed the hot skin until it started to tingle. She brushed her teeth until her gums felt raw, then ran her fingers through her lifeless hair and pinched color into her pale cheeks.

      Oh God, could she really have married a killer?

      Her lungs suddenly felt thick and sluggish, making it difficult to draw breath. How could she not have seen the violence in him? How could she not have felt it when he’d touched her? How could she know with any certainty that her judgment during therapy sessions was any sounder?

      Dear heavens, what if her patients found out? How could they trust her? A humorless laugh ran through her mind. If her patients found out, she wouldn’t have any patients.

      Another thought rose, even more terrifying. Starved for a father’s love, Lyssa had bonded with her new stepfather within only a few weeks. At the time she’d been touched by how sweet Jonathan had been with her. Now she knew it had all been part of his sick game.

      She drew a shaky breath and tried not to think about the images that Rafe’s words had painted. What was it Harry Truman had said? Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

      As soon as Rafe finished with his questions and left her in peace again, she would take a couple of Tylenol tablets and climb into bed. Lyssa wasn’t due home until some time tomorrow afternoon, which meant she could sleep in for once.

      After that…well, she would deal with the rest later. And deal she would, she vowed with more bluff than conviction. Daniela Mancini Fabrizio was no quitter. For good measure she patted the tiny cherub who was destined to come into the world without a father’s love.

      Don’t worry, little dumpling. Mama intends to smother you with so much love you won’t mind growing up without a daddy. One particular daddy, anyway.

      Her jaw tightened as she thought about the legal steps she would need to take to ensure Jonathan Sommerset or Jacob Folsom or whatever he called himself would never ever have access to her child. No matter what, she intended to make sure that he never had a chance to hurt her babies again.

      Determined to get past this without making it any worse than it already was, Rafe stationed himself at the end of the hall, far enough to give her privacy, but with a clear view of the door.

      As he anchored himself against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, he was so tense his muscles felt hot. As soon as he’d seen her, he’d been all stirred up inside. When he’d carried her up the walk it had brought it all back—the smell of her skin, the taste of her lips, the way she felt in his arms that night as he’d carried her from the pond to the soft grass beneath the long sheltering branches of a weeping willow.

      Her skin had been translucent in the moonlight, her body as smooth as marble, her nipples dark and puckered, ripe little buds he’d been desperate to taste. He hadn’t intended to do more than pet her into opening her mouth for him to explore, but when she turned wild in his arms, he’d forgotten everything but the hot pulsing need between his thighs.

      Oh, he tried to play it cool. What self-respecting seventeen-year-old male would willingly admit he’d never been with a woman before? Especially one who’d been spoon-fed machismo along with his rice and beans. But inside, he’d been terrified. What if he hurt her? What if he was too clumsy to make it good for her?

      As soon as he’d touched her, he’d been lost. Nothing had been more important than exploring every inch of that amazing body. His own had been so hard he’d been in real pain. When she’d touched him with those curious little hands, he’d nearly exploded.

      He’d wanted to be inside her desperately, so desperately he’d ached. In the end it had been his respect for his parents and her father that had him jerking back an instant before he’d breached her maidenhead. He’d often wondered if Fabrizio had appreciated his sacrifice.

      Danni sure as hell hadn’t.

      His heart raced as unwanted feelings crowded him hard. She’d been half-wild with hurt pride as she’d hastily pulled on her suit. No one had ever said no to Daniela Mancini on her father’s land. Especially the bastard son of a Mexican field hand.

      Nothing he said could soothe her. Still, in his halting way, he’d tried, pouring out his deepest feelings in a jumble of English and Spanish. All it had gotten him, however, was a slap in the face and a blast of that fine Italian temper.

      After she’d stormed back inside the big house on the hill, he’d prowled the vineyards like one of the mountain cougars who inhabited the hills above the vines, walking for miles until his muscles burned and his mind blurred. Maybe that was why he’d simply stood there when Eddie and the others had come at him a little before dawn.

      Mark had been leaving after visiting Danni’s brother Vito and had seen them by the pond. Rafe had tried to tell them that he loved her. That he wanted to marry her. He hadn’t gotten out more than a few words before Eddie had smashed his fist into his face, catching him by surprise and breaking his nose. He’d fought, but Ed’s brothers, Vito and Benito, had held his arms while the two older guys had taken turns hitting him.

      Stronger than most, even as a kid, he could take a lot of punishment without going down. Consequently, he’d been in bad shape by the time he’d finally passed out. When he’d come to a few minutes later, his face sticky with blood and every breath an agony, Eddie had laid it out for him, all neat and tidy. He was to leave town that very morning, on the first bus out of Ashland and never come back. He wasn’t to see or contact Danni ever again. If he didn’t agree to those conditions, Ed would see that his father was fired from his job as vineyard foreman and kicked off Mancini land without a recommendation.

      At twenty-four, Ed was already his father’s right-hand man. Both of them knew he could do exactly as he promised. Both of them knew, too, that good jobs for a semi-illiterate Mexican-American day laborer with five young kids were hard to come by.

      Spitting blood and with fury burning in his gut, Rafe had threatened to go to Ed’s father. El Jefe was a fair man, a decent man. He’d even offered to send Rafe to trade school to learn auto mechanics so that he could go to work maintaining the vineyard vehicles.

      He would never forget the satisfaction in Fabrizio’s eyes. Who do you think sent us out here? he’d said with a smirk. Even gave us money for your fare.

      Years later, Rafe had been able to see the logic in it. Eduardo Mancini wasn’t a cruel man, simply a practical one. Danni was his only daughter. In the way of his father and his father’s father, he had promised her to the eldest son of his best friend and rival vintner, Tonio Fabrizio. No mongrel with unknown parentage and few prospects would be allowed to threaten the dynasty he and Tonio Fabrizio had so carefully planned.

      Rafe had known then what it was to hate.

      Like everyone else in the valley El Jefe knew exactly how much Rafe owed to the Cardozas. His birth mother had been a fifteen-year-old druggie from California, who, with some guy she’d met in a truck stop, had stopped over to pick grapes for traveling money. One night during a spring storm the girl had given birth in one of the horse stalls, then split, leaving her hours’ old son wrapped in a flea-infested scrap of blanket.

      At the time Rosaria Cardoza had given birth to stillborn son only days earlier and still had milk. It was natural for her to take the baby. El Jefe had paid the attorney who’d arranged for Enrique and Rosaria to adopt him as their own.

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