Chapter Two

Laia’s hands trembled, whether from rage or the thrill of seeing Kade again she couldn’t be sure, but her heart thumped wildly nonetheless.

The years had been good to him. If anything, he was more handsome than she remembered. All high cheekbones and chiseled…everything. He seemed taller and bigger than she remembered, too. Broader shouldered, leaner, more powerful, and with the same commanding presence, something she learned he’d acquired in West Point and later in the Army Rangers. The only signs of age were the fine lines at the corners of his striking hazel eyes. A burst of fiery amber surrounded the dark pupils with golden green irises—

Stop it, Laia.

She shook the thoughts free and lifted her chin. She should not be ogling her brother-in-law. The words she and Kade had exchanged on her wedding day had left a permanent scar on her heart. She’d nearly broken down right then and there and fessed up. But she couldn’t. The promise she’d made to Josh was one she couldn’t have broken. Even now it didn’t seem right to divulge their agreement. To anyone.

Since that day, she’d only seen Kade once. Three years after the wedding—at Josh’s funeral—the only words he’d spoken to her were his condolences, a quick I’m so sorry, then a peck on the cheek and he was gone, never to be seen or heard from again. Until now. The only things that had driven her to call him again were desperation…and fear. Fear that Josh’s past could put Rosa in danger.

“Officer Sampson?” Sergeant Braden boomed from behind her.

“Yes.” Kade held out his free hand to Sergeant Braden first, then to Officer Garcia, the tall woman who’d responded first to Laia’s 911 call.

How did they know who he was?

As Kade shook hands with the cops, the muscles in his forearms flexed below the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt—a tuxedo shirt. There could be many reasons why he’d be wearing a tuxedo. Surely, he wouldn’t have left his own wedding to come to her aid. Right?

She looked at his hands. No ring. Besides, her in-laws would have mentioned if he was about to be married. His marital status was none of her business, and it probably would have been better if he had been married. Yet the breath she let out next was filled with relief.

“Chief Hassan notified us you were on your way,” Sergeant Braden continued. “Anything you need, just let us know.”

So Kade did have friends in high places. Just last week, the house across the street had been broken into, some cash and gold jewelry stolen. The police hadn’t given the victims half the time they’d expended at her house.

“Thanks,” he said. “Can you fill me in?”

As Sergeant Braden began rattling off the procedural steps the police had taken since their arrival, Officer Garcia laughed softly. Rosa had begun plucking at Kade’s hair. Knowing her daughter and judging by the way her lips had twisted into an adorable pout, Rosa was clearly perplexed at how to braid a military-precision buzz cut.

Nothing about having his hair played with by a five-year-old while talking to the police diminished Kade’s concentration, not even when Rosa pulled hard.

“According to Ms. Velez,” Sergeant Braden continued, “nothing was taken, which is odd.”

Odd, yes, but thank goodness she’d had her laptop in the car with her at the time of the break-in. Without it, she’d never be able to finish her vet school application for the January semester.

“As expected, forensics found lots of prints,” Garcia said, “but we won’t know until early next week whether they all belong to Ms. Velez, her daughter, her neighbors, or the burglars.”

Rosa tugged harder on a strand of brown hair. “Ouch.” Kade’s hard, sensual lips lifted as he sent Rosa a mock scowl.

When his elusive dimples made a guest appearance, unwanted heat curled low in her belly. Despite her latent anger, watching him interact so naturally, so paternally with her daughter unleashed a yearning deep inside her, making her wish for things that could never be.

Long before Josh died, they’d ceased to be a family. But he’d taught her an important lesson that she’d never forgotten and never would.

That the only person she could truly rely on was herself.

And yet, despite all the resentment she’d built up over the years still shining brighter than the summer sun, when the shit had hit the fan, she’d thought of Kade. Dammit.

The second she’d opened the door and seen the mess, she’d been thrown back in time, two years ago to when federal agents had served a search warrant at their house in Rumson. All the shock and fear she’d experienced then had come back today with a mighty roar.

She’d been petrified for Rosa’s safety, so they’d run back to the car and driven around the corner to call the police. Then she’d reached out to the last man on earth she swore she ever would again.

Five minutes after making the call, she’d begun to regret her decision, doubting it had been the right thing to do. But Kade was a government agent in the drug world, and if this had anything to do with Josh, then she needed his help. Rosa’s safety was the only thing that mattered.

Josh had warned her about his no-show brother, relating derogatory tidbits she never would have suspected. That Kade was self-centered and egotistical, only thinking about himself. Over the years, she’d come to believe it, since it was screamingly apparent that he couldn’t be bothered with her. Yet today, he’d come when she’d called. When she’d finally heard Kade’s voice inside her house, she’d been torn between rushing into his arms and slapping his face.

“The upstairs is in pretty bad shape, too,” Officer Garcia added.

“Walk me through the house,” Kade said, rather than asked, and the cops obeyed as if he were their commanding officer.

Coming from a long line of military officers, both Kade and Josh had that way about them. Kade more so than Josh, really. Kade had that special something. Charisma.

Sergeant Braden led the way, followed by Officer Garcia. Laia had expected Kade to set Rosa on the floor, but she’d plastered herself to his chest with her little arms around his neck. Laia and Smoke took up the rear.

“So you’re the famous Smoke,” she said, running her hand gently over the dog’s thick black coat as he walked beside her. Rosa had always come back from her in-law’s house beaming and talking nonstop about Kade’s new dog and all the fun tricks she’d been teaching him. This was the first time Laia had actually seen Smoke. “Aren’t you a handsome boy?”

Smoke paused to twist his neck and sniff her hand before pinning her with intelligent, chocolate-brown eyes. He licked her fingers. Whether it was a sign of affection or merely sensory exploration she couldn’t be sure.

When he resumed walking, she couldn’t stop analyzing his gait. Was he limping? It could have been all the canine physiology books she’d been reading on the side in her spare time, but at a minimum, he seemed to be slightly favoring his right front paw.

“They broke in through the back door.” Sergeant Braden went into the kitchen, pointing to the damaged door. “Looks like they tried jimmying the lock, and when that didn’t work, they probably used a crowbar.”

Kade shifted Rosa to his other side but showed no signs that he was about to put her down. With Rosa growing faster than a weed, Laia couldn’t hold her for more than a few minutes at a time. The family resemblance between Kade and Rosa was obvious. Her daughter had Josh and Kade’s straight patrician nose and broad forehead, but her green eyes were all Josh’s.

“Did any of the neighbors see or hear anything?” Kade eyed the dishware that had been removed from the cupboards and stacked neatly on the counter. “Looks like they were trying to be quiet.”

Laia thanked God for that. Alvita was the only other person who had a key. If her friend had heard anything crashing to the floor, she might have come over to check and run straight into the burglars.

“I’d agree with that.” Sergeant Braden nodded. “Nothing in the house that would have made much of a noise was broken.”

Yet somehow, they’d managed to damage nearly every piece of furniture in the house. Bastards.

Officer Garcia glanced at her small spiral notebook. “Alvita Thomas, the next-door neighbor who lives in the adjacent side of the duplex, said she saw a cable company van driving away just as she was pulling up.”

Kade turned to Laia. “Did you have a service appointment with the cable company?”

She shook her head. “No.” And certainly not to trash my house.

“Anyone else see anything?” He looked through the kitchen window at the house visible across the tiny backyard on the other side of the picket fence.

Officer Garcia shook her head. “The Millers. Nobody there was home, and the neighbors across the street didn’t see or hear anything, either.”

Kade frowned. “Any neighbors have video cams or door cams?”

“One neighbor does.” Sgt. Braden pointed in the direction of the front door. “Across the street and three houses down, but there’s no one home. We’ll check in with them later in the day or tomorrow, see if their camera records footage.”

Smoke padded to Kade’s side, and again Laia noted him favoring his right leg, stepping just a bit more gingerly with it than his left one. Could be he’d injured the soft tissue in his elbow joint—between the humerus and the radius and ulna. Or his knee, which equated to the human wrist. But Laia guessed it was an injury to the pastern, a dog’s main shock absorber when running.

With his free hand, Kade absently stroked Smoke’s head. The touch was gentle and affectionate, and Smoke leaned into it. Someday she and Rosa would get a dog. Sadly, that day was far off in the future.

She might have completed her prerequisite courses, but if things went as planned, there’d be four years of veterinary school, followed by another year of specialty training as an intern. That was, of course, if she even got accepted to UPenn in the first place, and if she miraculously found the money to move to Philly, pay for her schooling and for Rosa’s care while she attended classes. So many ifs stood between her and her dream. And now this.

The damage was bad, but material objects could be replaced. Someone had broken in and touched nearly everything that belonged to her and Rosa. Not for the first time since coming home to find her house ransacked, she fisted her hands, her emotions vacillating between anger and the undeniable sense of having been violated.

Kade tipped his head. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Again, Sergeant Braden led the way, leaving Officer Padkin guarding the door. Laia followed directly behind Kade, getting a view of his rock-hard ass as he climbed the stairs. Smoke’s claws clipped on the bare wood steps as he took up the rear, his limp becoming even more pronounced.

The doctor-to-be in her wanted to help the dog and wondered if Kade had taken him to see a vet yet.

The tiny duplex was only a two-bedroom, with hers being at the top of the stairs. When they went in, her face heated more than it had earlier at the beach.

Like every room in the house, her bedroom had been thoroughly searched, including her bureau drawers. Satin and lace lingerie sat on the top of the pile, the only remaining pieces of her wardrobe that she actually wore anymore. Everything else she’d given to Goodwill. Since gaining her independence for essentially what was the first time in her life, she much preferred bright, colorful clothes and long, dangly earrings to conservative skirt suits and traditional pearls.

Having Officer Garcia and Sergeant Braden see her undergarments hadn’t bothered her, nor did it when the department’s forensic unit had clinically tagged and photographed every inch of her room. Knowing Kade could see her undies was an entirely different matter.

He glanced at the pile of silk and satin, his gaze lingering a moment longer than necessary. The heat in her face blasted higher than the temperature inside the brick oven at Pizza Man, Rosa’s favorite place to order pineapple pizza. Again, she questioned her decision to call Kade in the first place. But she’d had no choice.

“She might want to stay at a hotel tonight,” Officer Garcia said, and it irked her that the comment seemed to have been directed to Kade, not her, as if he were making all the decisions here.

“Maybe,” Kade muttered, his frown deepening as he took in the rest of the room, including the raspberry-red walls and colorful, modernistic prints she’d hung up right after painting the place.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Rosa said, parking that adorable pout on her lips again.

When Rosa reached for her, Laia plucked her from Kade’s arms. As she did, her hands grazed the sides of his broad chest, and she tried to ignore the warm, steely strength beneath his shirt and how the fabric stuck to his torso, outlining a defined set of abs.

She kissed the top of her daughter’s head, then set her on her feet. “As soon as we’re done here, we’ll get something to eat.” Given that the kitchen was a disaster zone, they’d have to grab something out.

Wordlessly, Kade went back into the hallway. Smoke followed him as he turned left in the direction of Rosa’s bedroom. With his hands on his hips, he surveyed the damage, looking repeatedly from the floor to the ceiling, then to the pile of books and toys that had been emptied from a shelf onto the circular Peppa Pig rug.

He began stroking his chin, calling attention to the beginnings of a sexy five o’clock shadow gracing his square, chiseled jaw. His brows lowered so much they seemed on the verge of touching the fringes of his thick lashes.

“What is it?” she asked, automatically reaching for Rosa’s hand.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“Uncle Kade?” Rosa picked up her favorite book—Cinderella—one that Josh had given her and from which he’d occasionally read to her. “Can you read me this tonight before I go to bed?”

For a moment, he stared at the book in Rosa’s hand, as if still in deep thought. Then the corners of his mouth lifted, revealing those devastating, deep-set dimples. “Sure thing, Cream Puff.”

Rosa giggled, hugging the gently worn book to her chest.

Cream Puff?

Kade’s expression sobered. “Has anything else unusual happened lately?”

The burglars had taken apart all the window air conditioners in the house, and the upstairs was quickly turning into a sauna. A bead of sweat trickled down Kade’s temple. The clear-as-sin image of her licking it off his hot, wet skin flashed before her eyes.

Oh. My god. Stop it. Just…stop it.

“Laia?” Kade repeated. “Has anything else unusual happened lately? Strangers hanging around outside? Weird phone calls, anything like that?”

Huh? “Uh, maybe.” Neither Braden nor Garcia had asked her those questions, so she hadn’t thought about it until now. “Yesterday, after I left work to pick up Rosa at daycare, I could swear I was being followed.”

“Is that the first time that’s happened since…?” He let the unspoken end of the sentence linger, but they both knew what he was referring to.

Since Josh was murdered in prison.

“No.” She shook her head, which had begun to pound from mounting stress and anxiety over what might really be happening here. “Well, I don’t know. I’m just not sure.”

Kade’s tone went hard. “What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I thought the same car—a gold Hyundai—was behind me in the morning on the way to daycare and the bank.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did you get the license plate?”

“No.” She should have. Her fear for Rosa’s safety had pretty much obliterated everything else.

“That’s okay,” Kade reassured her. From the deepening creases on his forehead, she could tell it wasn’t. “Did you get a look at the driver?”

“No, not really.” God, she was terrible at the whole cop thing. “But one day when I came out of the daycare, a man was standing there, right outside the door.”

Again, Kade’s dark brows lowered. “Do you think he was waiting for you?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered. At first, she hadn’t noticed him, then as she’d walked away, a feeling she couldn’t explain made her look over her shoulder to find him watching her, just a little bit too intently to be normal.

Kade rested his hands on her shoulders, then, as if realizing the gesture was too intimate, quickly dropped them. “Anything you remember could be helpful.”

Yeah, right. With the imprint of his big, strong hands splayed over the shoulder straps of her tank top singed into her bare skin, remembering anything beyond her name was exceedingly difficult. “When I caught him looking at me, he looked away, as if he didn’t want me to know he’d been watching.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

Kade towered over her. The fiery amber sunburst surrounding his pupils seemed to glow as his eyes bored into her. “Um…” Yes, still exceedingly difficult to remember anything. “He was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt.”

“Did you get a good look at his face?”

Come to think of it, she had. “He had brown hair and brown eyes. And really full lips. Oh, and a scar.” Only now did she remember the scar arcing downward from his lower lip to his chin. “He was only standing about ten feet away when I came outside.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Kade said. “We’ll look at some mugshots tomorrow.”

“Mugshots?” Officer Garcia looked skeptical. “How are you going to narrow down thousands of mugshots based on that description?”

“Are you thinking this has something to do with Ms. Velez’s husband?” Sergeant Braden asked.

Instead of answering the sergeant, Kade looked at Laia, saying nothing for a moment, then, “Maybe.”

Please, no. That was precisely why she’d called Kade for help, but even then, she hadn’t actually believed it was true. Hoped it wasn’t. Now she was starting to believe it was.

“The DHS has a collection of mugshots associated with that investigation,” Kade said. “If this guy works for the same cartel, we might get lucky.” He took a black wallet from his back pocket.

His gleaming gold Department of Homeland Security badge was a horrific reminder of the past, and she shuddered with silent fear and resentment. This was supposed to be over. Josh was gone. She’d buried him two years ago. Why would the cartel be following her and breaking into her home after all this time?

Kade tugged two business cards from his wallet, handing one to Braden and the other to Garcia. “I’d like a copy of your report and anything forensics turns up. Let me know if this gets assigned to a detective.”

“You got it.” Braden likewise gave Kade his business card. To Laia, he said, “We’ll do our best to find out who did this, but it happens more often than you think around here.”

“Thank you.” Having lived in Asbury Park for most of her adult life, she knew it was true. In fact, she suspected Kade had something to do with the fact that the police were treating her so kindly and had been there for hours.

“I’ll walk you out.” Kade accompanied the officers downstairs.

Laia sighed as she crouched on the floor where Rosa kept holding up her hand for Smoke to high five, which he did perfectly.

Smoke snorted, then lowered his paw, still holding it in the air at an unnatural angle, bending it right behind the metacarpal, the largest pad of a dog’s paw. At first, Laia thought this was perhaps related to why he was limping. Then Rosa met the dog’s paw with her closed fist.

“See what I taught him?” Rosa smiled, revealing a space where one of her lower teeth used to be. “It’s a fist bump. Uncle Kade and I fist bump, so I taught Smoke to do it.” Rosa giggled, fist bumped Smoke’s paw again, then pulled her hand away, waggling her fingers in the air. “Boo-yah!”

Smoke cracked his jaws, uttering a half bark, half howl that sounded eerily like boo-yah.

“That’s very impressive. You could be a dog trainer one day.” Laia was only half kidding. Rosa possessed the same love of animals, dogs in particular, that Laia did.

The dog’s dark-brown eyes watched Laia closely while she petted the top of his head. His thick hair was long and soft, his ears tall and pointed. There was no doubting his intelligence. It was in his eyes, in the proudly erect bearing with which he held his head. It was almost as if Smoke, too, had been influenced by generations of Sampson military men.

“Mommy, are you still mad at Uncle Kade?”

Yes. “No, of course, not.” In a calm move that belied the frustration ready to burst from her head with more force than a shaken soda can, she brushed a silky-soft strand of hair from her daughter’s cheek.

“I hope not.” Kade had returned, crossing his arms as he leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “Because until we figure out what’s really going on here, you’re staying with me. At my house. For your safety and Rosa’s.”

“What?” Laia jumped to her feet. What he was suggesting was ludicrous. Impossible. “No. No way. There’s not a chance in hell—”

“Heck,” he said, his lips quirking as he raised his brows, tipping his head to Rosa and reminding her that she shouldn’t be cursing.

She stepped closer, getting in his face and waggling a stiff finger at him. “Heck, Hades, purgatory, underworld… The only reason I called you was for my daughter’s sake, to keep her safe from whatever’s happening here. I appreciate you coming, but there’s no way we’re staying in the same house with you.”

Kade pushed from the door to tower over her. A challenging gleam lit his eyes, making the amber halos in them burn like a ring of fire. “Wanna bet?”

He was so close, his heat washing over her, his nearness and clean, fresh scent so overwhelming she was forced to take a step back.

Renewed anger and fear stoked hotly up her spine. The anger she understood. The fear…she couldn’t put into words as to why that was. One thing was for certain, though, and that was the neon sign blinking in her head, warning: No, no, and just…no!

Where Kade was concerned, her emotions were all mixed up, and she had to maintain a rational distance from him and keep reminding herself that for years, he couldn’t be bothered with her. Now he wanted them to move in with him?

But he’d played on the one thing that could make her say and do things completely against her better judgment. Rosa.

Years ago, she’d married Josh, who’d turned her world upside down. Now, she was about to repeat history and live under the same roof with a man who would, she didn’t doubt for one second, completely and utterly turn her world upside down, then inside out.