Aidan returned his attention to the newspapers as she promised to keep in touch and closed and locked the door behind her departing visitor. That she now knew O’Riley’s name was a serious breach of security. Even he couldn’t ignore that, despite how badly he wanted to. What he couldn’t understand was why O’Riley would have used his real name. It didn’t make sense. The infraction actually started with him. Aidan certainly wouldn’t need to point out that error in judgment. O’Riley would know and that knowledge might very well cost both Darby and her old friend Mr. Thomas their lives.
Darby considered the information Howard Thomas had relayed as she locked the door behind him. Richard O’Riley. Oddly the name sounded familiar. She didn’t see how it could, but maybe she’d heard her father say it at some point in her life. Though she doubted that. He and her mother never, ever spoke of her life before or of the adoption. She had assumed it pained them to be reminded that she was not biologically their child. But it shouldn’t have because she couldn’t have loved them more.
As far as she was concerned, her biological parents were nothing more than the sperm and egg donors. Her only reason for looking into her past was the fear of the “men in white coats” that loomed over her life.
She wanted to put that anxiety to rest.
A smile stretched across her mouth and those troubling thoughts vanished when her gaze settled on Aidan. She did so love to look at him. A rush of heat surged through her as her mind replayed their lovemaking. Nothing she had ever experienced had even come close to making her feel so alive. He completed her in a way that still boggled her mind. She knew almost nothing about him and yet she trusted him with every fiber of her being.
He was her soul mate.
She hadn’t really believed in soul mates before. At least, not one for her. It wasn’t that she’d been unpopular in high school or college or even in the past four years as an independent, wage-earning single woman. She just hadn’t made herself available, she supposed. Reserved and selective defined her attitude toward the opposite sex for the most part. Though, in reality, the whole reserved-selective thing was more about being shy. Her old schoolmates would laugh if they heard that. Darby Shepard was not afraid of anything, they would insist. She represented the only one of their group who would walk through a cemetery at night all alone and not suffer the slightest twinge of discomfort, much less fright.
Fearless, determined—those were the words her friends had used to describe her as they’d autographed one another’s school yearbooks.
Fear hadn’t really had anything to do with her shyness with boys and men, she now knew. It was more about patience and the subconscious sense of certainty that the right man would come along.
And now he had.
She felt, without reservation, that Aidan was the only man for her. She shivered as memories of his kisses, of his plunging deep inside her, invaded her mental discussion with herself. No way would sex ever be that right with anyone else. She almost shook her head, but resisted the impulse since he might notice. Not just sex. Lovemaking. They’d made love.
“There is no mention of you in any of the articles related to…what happened,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. The mere sound of his voice washed over her like a soothing balm, made her yearn to feel his arms around her again.
“Detective Willis assured me he would keep my name out of the case from now on.” She was glad he’d lived up to his promise.
“According to the Times-Picayune, it will be a while before the identities of the remains are confirmed.”
Darby thought of the parents and how they would have to wait longer still to know…but she knew already. Those were the lost children. She prayed that they would soon be returned home. A whole different kind of shiver raced over her when she thought of Lester. She also prayed that he was dead as she sensed he was. He didn’t deserve to live. Not for another day…not even another hour. And then she thought of the missing officer.
“Did they find the other officer?” she asked, hoping against hope he was still alive.
“Not yet.” Aidan moved away from the table and toward her. “I see no reason why they would keep his recovery a secret. He’s likely still out there somewhere.”
Close to death.
The words echoed in Darby’s skull. She closed her eyes against it, didn’t want to know it.
“It may be too late by the time they find him,” Aidan said, confirming the awful premonition she’d just experienced.
She turned away from him, hugged her arms around herself. “I don’t want to think about it.” She closed her eyes and repressed the memories that tried to surface. “I don’t want to think about any of it.” Running for their lives in the swamp…hiding underwater…finding the children. She just couldn’t bear to think about it anymore.
His arms came around her and he pulled her close, somehow knowing just what she needed at that moment. To feel his strength…his love for her.
Love.
She stilled. Her eyes opened and she clung to him, keeping her face pressed to his chest, afraid to let him see what was in her eyes. Afraid he would read her mind as he always seemed to do. But he did care deeply for her. She felt it in her heart. Yet, she wondered if she could trust her heart. It was the same one that had allowed her to fall in love with a stranger.
A stranger who’d saved her life, she added.
He held her close for a long while, not speaking, not allowing the moment to become sexual. It was about comfort and safety…nothing more.
Eventually, he broke the silence. “Was your Mr. Thomas’s visit helpful?”
She pulled back and looked
