Angel glanced at her phone. Two texts and three missed calls from Kade. If she looked at the texts, she’d feel obligated to respond. If she did that, her shopping trip would be cut short. Kade’s birthday was next week, and she was currently browsing at Macy’s for his present.
What to get him, though? The man claimed he didn’t need or want anything but her. Which warmed her heart, but it didn’t help her at all right now. He never had been very good at accepting presents. Secretly, Angel thought he tried to ignore his birthday because it meant he got a little older. She laughed as she browsed the suits section of the store.
Clothes were boring presents, though. No one liked getting clothes on their birthday. Birthdays and Christmas were special holidays that required special gifts. Gifts that meant something. She’d been agonizing over this for almost a month now and still had no idea what to get him.
Sighing, she gave up and strolled outside. Spring in New York was a little chilly, but nothing like Boston, at least. She buttoned up her coat and tried to grab the attention of a cabbie. Angel refused to take her car out in this traffic. It was awful. She lived only about ten minutes away from downtown, anyway. Why would she subject her car to crazy drivers? Cabs were easier.
A black SUV pulled up to the hotel across the street, and a man and a little boy got out. The woman who staggered out caught her attention. She wasn’t dressed like either of the previous two. In fact, if Angel hazarded a guess, the woman might be a hooker. Who in their right mind exposed a little kid to that? Not that she had anything against hookers. People had to eat and put a roof over their heads, after all. Angel didn’t think they should be shamed for doing what needed to be done to survive, but children didn’t need to see it either.
Her phone buzzed again, and she glanced at it. The image of Lily Holmes, Nikoli’s fiancée, stared at her. This one she answered as she watched the people across the street. “Hey, Lily. What’s up?”
“Nikoli is being an ass, that’s what’s up.” The irritation in the girl’s voice pulled a chuckle out of Angel. She and Lily had become very good friends over the last few months. Enough so that Lily or Angel would call each other when the brothers upset them and devise their punishments.
“What did he do this time?” Angel almost yelled when she saw the little boy step closer to the curb. What the hell was wrong with people that they didn’t watch their kids on a busy street?
“Called out of the blue, all growly, and told me to keep my ass in the apartment and not to go anywhere. Normally, I don’t mind when he wants to stay in. We have lots of fun, but it was the way he said it this time. Like I was some kind of trained animal who would obey without question. He’s never spoken to me like that before.”
“Maybe something’s wrong?” Angel took several steps toward the little boy, some instinct bubbling up. He was too close to the edge of the sidewalk. Did his father not see him? “I’ve never heard him speak to a woman that way, even his one-night stands. He was never cold with them, just matter-of-fact.”
“He’s a stupid ass, is what he is.” Lily paused and answered a question.
“Where are you?”
“At work. When the ass called and demanded I stay home, I went to work, even though I don’t need to be here today.”
A car whizzed by so fast, she saw the wind of it ruffle the kid’s clothes. That was it. She sprinted across the street, prepared to give the little boy’s father a good tongue-lashing. She made it just as he stepped down off the curb and a car came barreling toward him. Angel grabbed him and dived toward the sidewalk, landing on her back to keep him from getting hurt.
Green eyes stared down at her solemnly, his dark hair falling down to hide one. She gasped as she studied him just as intently. Strong jaw, eyes the shape of Kade’s, and Peter’s nose. She shook her head. No. She was only seeing what she wanted to see because he looked so much like Kade. It was what she imagined Matthew would look like, the baby she’d miscarried the day the police burst in and arrested her brother, Peter. Kade had been the arresting officer.
This little boy was not Matthew. Her gut twisted at the words, and her body protested. The similarity to Kade was uncanny, and he had her eyes. The exact shade. But he wasn’t her baby. Her baby died before he was even born. Twenty weeks. Fetuses that small did not survive.
He was not her baby.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” she asked, her hand coming up to stroke his hair. “Did you get hurt?”
“Dios mío!” The little boy was lifted off her, and a hand thrust down to help her up. “Thank you, señora!”
She let the man pull her up, still unable to stop staring at the boy, who stood still and silent, his green eyes vacant. The bright curiosity of before had fled. What was wrong with him? “You should have been watching him. I saw him from across the street and barely made it over here in time.”
“You are right, of course. I was on the phone and not watching. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.”
Yeah, right, she thought sourly. He’d be back on his phone in five minutes, ignoring his son again. That was how men like him operated. She’d seen enough of his kind in the bar where she’d worked back in Boston.
Angel looked up to give him the tongue-lashing he deserved, but she couldn’t get the words out. This man was looking at her like he knew her. He glanced from her to the boy and back again. Recognition sparked in his eyes, but it made no sense. She’d never met him.
“Mateo, di gracias a la señora.”
“Gracias, señora.” His voice was soft, but strong. It even held a hint of defiance. Her heart clenched. He looked so much like what she imagined her son would. Her eyes burned as the grief of losing her baby washed through her.
“De nada,” she whispered. When the man put his hand on top of the child’s head, everything within her wanted to rip the boy away from him and scream, “Mine.” Stop it. He’s not yours.
“Again, Señora…?”
“Kincaid. Angel Kincaid.”
“Señora Kincaid. Thank you for saving my son.” He gave her a smile and took the child’s hand, leading him into the hotel.
It took everything she had not to follow them into the hotel and…and what? Was she seriously standing here considering kidnapping another man’s son just because he looked like Kade? Shaking her head, she looked around for her phone that had fallen when she dived for the little boy. It was over by one of the planters along the hotel sidewalk.
Lily had not hung up. In fact, her tiny voice was squawking loudly.
“Hey, I’m fine.”
“What happened? One second you were there, and the next it looked like the phone was flying through the air.”
“An idiot wasn’t watching his son, and I dived to get the little boy before the car hit him.” She rubbed her hip, which started to sting about the same time her back did.
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah, but his father is an ass who’s just going to go back to talking on the phone and not paying attention to his kid.”
“That’s terrible. Some people don’t deserve kids.”
“No, they don’t.” She glanced at the hotel entrance once more, before going back to hailing a cab. The instinct to find the little boy was so powerful, she dug her nails into her palms.
“Are you okay, Angel?” Lily’s question snapped her attention back to the phone. They were using FaceTime, so she wasn’t surprised at Lily’s concern. She couldn’t even imagine what her expression must look like.
“Yeah, it’s just the little boy…” She shook her head and climbed into the taxi that came to a stop in front of her. She gave him the address.
“The little boy?” Lily prompted when she didn’t say anything.
Angel sighed, her heart breaking as they sped away from the hotel. Her stomach clenched, and her muscles tensed. This was not good. It had been a while since she’d let herself feel the grief of losing her son. She hadn’t even gotten to hold him. The hospital disposed of him as medical waste. Standard procedure, they told her.
“It’s just that he looked so much like Kade.” A small smile tilted her lips as she remembered staring up into his green eyes. “His eyes were green, like mine, and I kid you not, Lily, he had my brother’s nose. He’s exactly what I pictured my own son would have looked like.”
“Oh, honey.”
“I’ll be fine.” She brushed away a stray tear. “Sometimes the grief hits me when I’m not expecting it. I need to go home, take a hot bath, and ride it out.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Lily asked, her expression soft and gentle.
“No, but thank you. Now, back to Nik. If you want to come to my place instead of waiting there like the obedient little woman, you are more than welcome to. I could use the company, honestly.” This time a bath and a box of chocolate wasn’t going to get rid of the awful feeling rolling around in the pit of her stomach or the pain in her heart. She needed a distraction.
“Ohh, I can do that. Meet you there in twenty?”
“Perfect.” Angel said her goodbyes and closed FaceTime, trying to think about anything but the empty expression on the little boy’s face. It bothered her so much she started to twist her fingers, a nervous habit she’d picked up from Lily.
By the time she reached her apartment, it felt like she couldn’t breathe. She paid the cabby and tried not to run on the way into her building. The elevator ride felt torturous. What was wrong with her?
She managed to unlock the door without too much trouble, but her stomach decided to put its two cents in. Angel barely made it to the bathroom before she threw up. Her entire body shook. This was bad. How had seeing that child brought about this kind of a reaction? It made no sense.
Panic attack. This had to be a panic attack. She’d never experienced them before, but what else could this be? Falling to the floor, she curled up and tried to calm down. It was going to be okay. Everything was going to be fine.
The more she told herself that, the tenser and sicker she became. Dragging herself up, she swiped her phone off the sink and called Kade. Maybe hearing his voice would help.
“Finally.” The growl that reached her ears brought tears to her eyes. “Why the fuck didn’t you answer your damn phone?”
“Kade…” The words were barely a whisper, chock-full of tears.
“Angel, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Where are you?”
“Home.” She tried to pull in air, but she strangled on it. “Come home, Kade. I need you.” Then she hung up, unable to deal with any more questions.
The doorbell rang ten minutes later. Lily. Angel found she couldn’t move from her position on the bathroom floor. All she could see were those tiny green eyes boring into her own. Expressionless and as empty as a barren wasteland. Why did they look like that?
“Angel?”
Kade’s roar caused her tears to flow harder. If only he’d been able to see the little boy. He’d know what Matthew should have looked like. It wasn’t fair.
Kade found his wife lying curled up in a fetal position on the floor, and terror gripped him. Was she sick, hurt? He rushed in and picked her up, carrying her to the bedroom. Lily stood in the doorway, eyes wide and concerned. He paid her no mind when she went into the bathroom.
“What is it, moye serdste? Tell me.” He didn’t mean to sound so angry or demanding, but he was scared. He’d never seen her like this.
She only cried harder.
“Maybe it’s the little boy she saved.” Lily came out of the bathroom with a wet cloth. He took it and wiped Angel’s face as best he could.
“Little boy?” he muttered as he wiped away the tears.
“She said he looked like you with her eyes and her brother’s nose.”
Kade’s head snapped up, and he stared at his future sister-in-law. “What?”
“We were on the phone, and the little boy stepped out into traffic. His father wasn’t watching him, and Angel ran to save him. She said looking at him brought back her own grief at losing her son. Maybe this is a manifestation of that grief.”
She saved a child who looked like him. That would do it. They’d been talking about their son recently, wondering if they might want to try to get pregnant again. Seeing a child who might look a little like him would definitely set her off.
“I’m going to make a pot of coffee. Getting something hot into her might help.”
“Thank you, Lily.”
“No worries.” She smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her. He was grateful for the privacy.
“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” He rocked Angel like a child as she sobbed. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”
Kade wasn’t sure how long he sat there, holding her while she cried, but he was grateful when she finally spoke. Angel was scaring him.
“He looked like Matthew.”
Kade closed his eyes and pulled his own grief in tight. He couldn’t let it show, not right now. She needed him to be strong.
“I know, baby.”
“No, Kade, you don’t understand.” Her words were barely above a whisper, but he heard them. “He was a mirror image of you. My eyes. It’s what our son would have looked like.”
“Honey, it’s because we’ve been talking about having another baby…”
“No.” Angel pushed his arms away and stood. “He looked like Matthew. He was even around the same age as our child would have been. If you could have seen him…” She cleared her throat and dashed the tears away. “Everything in me said he was mine, Kade. Walking away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This isn’t grief, it’s my body telling me that child is mine, even though I know he isn’t. My son died.”
Kade’s heart broke seeing the anguish on his wife’s face. “Angel, he’s not Matthew.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she railed. “My brain tells me it’s not him, but my heart says he is. Illogical, but my body is telling me it’s not illogical, that I need to go back and snatch him and never let him go. It makes no sense, but that’s how I feel. I had a panic attack when I left him with that bastard.”
Kade took a deep breath and let it out. How was he going to argue with a mother’s instincts, wrong as they might be?
“I know how insane I sound.” Her shoulders slumped. “If you had seen him, you’d understand. Everything in me says he’s mine, Kade. How do I ignore that?”
“Baby.” He stood and wrapped her in his arms. “I am so sorry you’re hurting, but he’s not ours.”
“I know.” She shook with more sobs, and all he could do was hold her, helpless to do anything to take her pain away.
“Why don’t you lie down and rest for a bit?” He led her over to her side of the bed and helped her with her shoes. Then he tucked a throw around her and sat with her until she cried herself to sleep. This was too much. He had to find a way to help her.
He found Lily sitting at the bar in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee, pale and concerned. “How is she?”
“I’ve never seen her this bad.” Granted, he hadn’t been there to see her in the days after Matthew and Peter died, but somehow he thought this was worse than that dark time. “Do you know where she was when she saw the kid?”
“Macy’s, I think. Birthday shopping for you.”
He winced. He’d told her not to bother, that he didn’t want any big fuss over his birthday, but she’d never listened to a word he said.
Lily’s phone buzzed, and she made a face before muting it. “Dodging work?”
“No, dodging your asinine brother. He ordered me to stay put, but he was mean about it.”
“So, you came over here?” When she nodded, he pulled his phone out and called Nik.
He picked up on the first ring, panicked. “I can’t find her, and she’s not answering…”
“Calm down. She’s here.”
“The fuck? Why the hell isn’t she answering her phone?”
“I told you there’d be consequences for how you spoke to her.” He listened then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep her here until you can come get her.” He ignored Lily’s outraged gasp. “See you soon, brat.”
“Why…”
He held up a hand before she could light into him. “There’s a lot going on, Lily. He’s trying to protect you, even if he went about it wrong. When the Kincaid men worry, we can sound angry and gruff, even hostile. It’s because we’re scared. You need to cut him some slack.”
“Protect me from what?” Her blue eyes deepened with worry. Lily reminded him of Snow White with her blue eyes, alabaster skin, and black hair. Even her voice had this musical quality to it. He remembered how Nik had made fun of Snow White for being stupid enough to eat a poison apple from someone who obviously wasn’t trustworthy when he was a kid. Now he was engaged to a Snow White lookalike. Kade chuckled at the comparison.
“What’s so funny?” Lily’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Sorry, I was just thinking of something.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “You and Angel will both be getting a protective detail until the threat is handled.”
“Threat?”
“A drug cartel I investigated when I worked in Miami.” He turned and leaned against the sink, sipping the coffee. “They could use you to get to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kade explained his past with the cartel and the present danger they were all in. He watched it sink in and grew alarmed when her already pale face went completely white.
“Don’t worry, Lily, we will keep you safe.”
Before she could respond, they heard the key in the lock, and then the door slammed against the wall. Nikoli stormed in and stopped inches from Lily. He looked mad enough to wring her neck, but he didn’t touch her. Lily had a phobia about being touched. No matter how upset Nik might get, he always put her first, which meant giving her time to realize what he was about to do. According to his brother, her fear wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, though.
She took a steady breath and gave him a half smile. Nikoli wasted no time grabbing her, hugging her so tight it looked like he might choke the air out of her lungs.
“Lily Bells, I swear to God, if you ever do that to me again, I will…shit, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. Just, please, for fuck’s sake, don’t do that to me again.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured when he let her move enough to breathe. “I didn’t know what was going on. You should have told me before you summarily decided to go all caveman.”
Nikoli let out a breath so hard, her hair fluttered. Kade watched him swallow his irritation. His little brother had a thing about authority. He might get away with that in Lily’s bed, but she sure as hell wasn’t letting him act like a domineering asshole outside the bedroom.
“I mean it, Nikoli.” She pushed away from him far enough to look him in the eyes. “I will not be spoken to like that. Ever. For any reason.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, dushka.” He kissed her forehead, almost reverently. “I was scared…and…”
“And Kade explained it to me,” she interrupted. “You get a pass this time, but never again.”
Kade broke in before the heat pouring off them scorched the walls. “Now that that’s settled, Nik, have you put in the call for more security?”
“Yes, Blackhawk Security will provide us with six men. Three more will be heading to Becca on the next flight to Chicago. They should arrive at your offices in about an hour.” His arms tightened around Lily, his face fierce. “No one is going to get near our women.”
“You head home, and I’ll go to the office as soon as Watkins gets here.” Kade rubbed his forehead, the migraine blooming enough to make him wince.
“Where’s Angel?” Nik frowned, looking around. Took him long enough to realize his sister-in-law wasn’t in the room.
“She got upset earlier and had a bit of an episode. She’s sleeping now.”
“Episode? What…”
“Lily can tell you about it on the way home. I have some calls to make, so I’m throwing you out.” He didn’t want to get into how Angel reacted to the child until he could wrap his head around it himself. He’d call Dr. Horn. The therapist might know how to help her. He’d gotten her through the worst of her fears from being kidnapped and tortured, or at least shown her how to emotionally handle them.
Once Nik left and he checked his voicemail, he went back to their bedroom. She was still sound asleep, her vibrant red hair splayed out behind her on the pillow. His Angel looked pale and haunted, even in sleep.
How the fuck was he supposed to help her?