This Side of Heaven

the pris­tine white sheets. But even surrounded by monitors and life-saving machinery, the big, dark-skinned Cuban dominated the room.

As he neared his father's bedside, Nate experienced a battle of emotions raging within him, creating uncertainty and dread. What could he say to this man? What would Ramon Carranza want from his only son?

The minute Nate and Cyn stopped by his bedside, Ra­mon opened his eyes. 'Nathan.' His deep voice was a whisper.

'I'm here.' Dammit all, I don't want to be here, Nate thought. I don't want to have to confront this man, to have to face all the ghosts from my childhood.

Ramon tried to lift his hand, but was unable to do more than wiggle his fingers. Nate reached down and clasped the old man's hand in his.

'I promised her that... you would never be... a part of my sordid life.' Each word seemed torn from Ramon, as if the utterance was painful. 'I loved her so.'

'It's all right,' Nate said, squeezing his father's hand. 'Don't try to talk.'

'The day she died...' Ramon gasped for air, his lungs struggling for each breath.

'Hush, now,' Cyn pleaded, her eyes filled with tears. This shouldn't be happening, she thought. Not now, when these two had just found each other.

'She called... she was so sick. I went to her.' Ramon's limp hand tightened slightly around his son's tenacious grip. 'I promised to leave you...with her brother...to never tell you...'

'It doesn't matter.' Nate tried to reassure the dying man. 'It was so long ago. Another lifetime.'

'I wanted you...my son, but she did not want you growing up... in my world.' Ramon's soft grip loosened, his hand falling limp within Nate's grasp.

'Father.' Nate's voice trembled, his throat tortured with unshed tears.

'I love you. Always, I have loved you...my son.' And with those tender words that said far more than the senti­mental confessions of a dying man, Ramon Rafael Car-ranza accepted death.

'Father? Father!' Not yet. Not yet, his mind screamed. We haven't had enough time.

Emilio Rivera stepped forward from his watchful posi­tion by the door. With her arms around Nate, Cyn turned in time to see the tears streaming down Emilio's battered old face.

Nate pulled out of her arms, staring at her with moist eyes, the look of a lost child on his face. 'I need to be alone. Just for a while. Try to understand.'

Cyn watched him walk away, stunned that he didn't want her with him, hurt that at the most traumatic time in his life, he didn't need her.

'So like his padre,' Emilio said, placing his enormous arm protectively around Cyn's shoulder. 'So much a man that he does not want his woman to see him cry.'

'See him... Oh, Emilio, I didn't understand.'

Emilio hugged Cyn to him, as together, Ramon Carran-za's gargantuan bodyguard and Nate Hodges's woman cried for a father who had loved a son he could never claim, a mother with the courage to bear her married lover's child and a boy who had grown into a man without the love and protection his parents were powerless to give him. * * *

Cyn slipped on her aqua robe, belting it tightly. Before leaving the bedroom, she gave Nate's sleeping body a lov­ing glance. Quietly, she made her way to the kitchen, seek­ing out the coffeemaker. As she went about preparing morning coffee, she thought about the past two weeks since Ramon's funeral. It had not been an easy time—for Nate or for her.

Although Nate had spoken to her very little, preferring to keep his emotions bottled up inside him, Cyn had not left his side. Determined to carve out a future with the man she loved, Cynthia Ellen Wellington Porter was willing to wait it out, to give Nate all the time and space he needed to come to terms with his past.

She knew that Nate had already come to terms with Ry­ker's death, but not with her kidnapping. He still blamed himself for not being able to protect her. She realized that he probably always would. Even the fact that Art Bedford had been apprehended in flight to South America had not lessened Nate's self-imposed guilt.

Dealing with the knowledge that Ramon Carranza had been his father was difficult for a man like Nate, a man who'd spent twenty years dedicated to fighting for his country, to putting his life on the line for the principles of freedom and justice. His own father had been a part of the deadly cancer that had been eating away at the moral val­ues of the United States for decades. And he was a part of that man, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh. He could not deny the bitter legacy Ramon Carranza had left him any more than he could deny the vast fortune he had inherited.

Cyn's own attitudes had changed gradually since she'd fallen in love with Nate and had been thrust into the middle of his savage fight with Ian Ryker. Finally, she had come to terms with not only her own past, her husband's death and the murder of Darren Kilbrew, but she had come to terms with Nate's past. She did not condone violence, and yet she accepted the fact that violence had its place in mankind's never-ending struggle to survive. She realized that when vi­olence is brought into your life, you inevitably have only two choices. The strong choose to fight back, to live, and hope­fully restore peace. Nate was one of the strong ones, and now, she too, shared his strength.

More than anything, she wanted Nate to accept her com­fort, to be receptive to the loving sanctuary she could give him. But all he had taken from her was the comfort of her body, the solace of hot, wild, frequent matings, as if mak­ing love to her could purge his soul of its torment.

Just as she poured herself a cup of freshly brewed coffee, Cyn heard the knock at the front door. Setting her mug on the table, she walked down the hall. Opening the door, she half expected to see Mimi, who had become a frequent vis­itor during the last two weeks. Instead of Mimi's smiling face, Cyn encountered Emilio's scowling expression.

'Good morning. May I come in, please?' Always polite and formal. That was Emilio.

Cyn stepped back and, with a gracious sweep of her hand, invited him inside. She noticed that he carried a small gray box under his arm. 'Want some coffee?' she asked. 'There's a fresh pot out in the kitchen.'

'No, thank you. I am here to see Nathan.' Emilio stood rigidly, though his expression softened when he looked at Cyn. 'I have something for him. Something I found when we were packing away Senor Carranza's personal belong­ings.'

'I see.' Cyn glanced down at the small box, wondering about its contents. 'I'm afraid Nate is still asleep, and I hate to wake him. He hasn't had a good night's sleep since Ra­mon died.'

'I'm not asleep.' Nate stood at the end of the hallway, his body bare except for unsnapped cutoff jeans, his long black hair disheveled, and two weeks' worth of beard covering his face. 'Too much damned racket. What the hell are you do­ing here?' he asked, glaring at their guest.

Emilio lifted the box and held it out toward Nate. 'These were your father's. They are something I know he would want you to have.'

'I told you and I told his lawyers that I don't want a damned thing from him. Not one dime of his dirty, bloody money!' Nate said, his eyes burning with the conviction of his words.

Emilio handed the box to Cyn, who took it just in time to keep it from dropping to the floor. 'These are letters Grace Hodges sent Senor Carranza. The dates indicate she wrote him regularly from the time of Nate's birth until shortly be­fore she died.'

Not waiting for a reply or a response of any kind, Emilio nodded to Cyn, then turned and let himself out. Cyn held the small box against her bosom, almost feeling the warmth and love contained within the wooden box.

Letters. Love letters. Cyn looked up at Nate who had grabbed her by the shoulders. He whipped her around to face him.

'Come back to bed,' he said, running his hand along the side of her leg, raising her gown and robe up to her hip.

She stepped away and thrust the box out toward him. 'I think you should read these.'

Nate glared at her. 'I don't want to read any damn let­ters my mother wrote to her lover.'

'To your father,' Cyn reminded him. 'To the man she loved.'

Clenching his jaw and narrowing his eyes, Nate reached out and took the wooden box. Dammit, he didn't want to know any more about his mother's love affair with Ramon Carranza. Wasn't it enough that he had to live with the knowledge that the man who had fathered him had been a criminal, and not just any criminal, but an underworld leader? * * *

Two hours later, Nate found Cyn walking on the beach. He knew she'd been waiting for him to come to her,