The Once and Future Father. Marie Ferrarella

was Alma, but she was busy with the shop. For just a moment, her eyes touched his face before a curtain fell over them. Thoughts of her best friend faded into the background, nudged aside by memories of other times. “Not right now.”

      “I’ll get it for you.” He bit the words off. He glanced toward the door. From where he stood, it was a long distance from the bed if measured in pain-encased inches. He still thought she should be resting. “Ready?”

      “Ready.” Her voice quavered just a little as very slowly, Lucy took her first step away from the bed and toward the door.

      Chapter 4

      He’d thought he could contain it. Contain the question and just move on from there. Pretend it didn’t even exist. But it did exist and he hadn’t counted on it ebbing and flowing within him like a living force of nature, rising up like a tidal wave and threatening to wash over him and sweep him away entirely.

      There was nothing he could do to stop it.

      “Who’s the father, Lucy?” he asked.

      Just crossing the threshold leading out of her room, Lucy faltered. Though she’d known she would have to face the question from him soon enough, she hadn’t expected it to be put to her so bluntly, without a preamble.

      She kept her face forward, concentrating on her goal—the farthest corner of the nurses’ station’s outer desk. “Just someone I knew.”

      Every word stung him, leaving behind a mark even though he told himself it shouldn’t. After what had happened between them, how could she have gone on to someone else so quickly? “That casual?”

      One step after another, she chanted mentally, watching her feet. “There was nothing casual about it, but it’s over.”

      “He’s not in your life anymore.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but an assumption. One he was very willing to make, though he knew it was selfish of him.

      She wished he’d stop asking questions. He hadn’t the right. “Not where it counts.”

      “Does he know about the baby?”

      She thought of lying, but there were enough lies to keep track of. “No.”

      He never could leave things alone, he thought. Even when they were the way he wanted them. “Don’t you think you should tell him?”

      She spared him one glance before looking away again. “No. There’re enough complications in both our lives without bringing that in, too. He’s better off not knowing about the baby.”

      He couldn’t believe that Lucy would keep something like this a secret. It seemed out of character for her. “Don’t you think you owe it to Elena to let her father know she exists?”

      There was anger in her eyes when she looked at him, reminding him of the passion he’d once seen there. Passion that had belonged to him at the time.

      If she could have, she would have pulled her arm away from his. But she felt too unsteady to manage the gesture. The words, though, she could manage.

      “So that he can knowingly reject her? I don’t think so. Better for that to remain a question than a fact.” It cost her dearly to pull her shoulders back, but she did. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, all right?”

      She had a right to her privacy. He’d always insisted on his. They’d been lovers for less than two-thirds of a year, but she’d never known anything about his family other than the few vague answers he’d given her. “All right.”

      She made the next few steps in silence, nodding at the nurse who walked by them and smiled. Lucy knew from experience that Dylan could keep his own council indefinitely. “But I do want to talk.”

      He heard the note in her voice and knew what it was about. “I figured.”

      “Tell me about Ritchie.” Though it hurt to think of her brother being dead, she forced herself to ask. “How did he die?”

      She was still weak. Otherwise, he knew she wouldn’t be hanging on to him so tightly. He didn’t want to add to what she was already going through. “Lucy, this isn’t the time—”

      She wasn’t going to let him put her off any longer. And she had a right to know what had happened to her brother. “It’s never the time to hear that someone you loved is dead.” Lucy turned her face toward Dylan. “How did he die?”

      “He was shot. At close range. They found him in an irrigation ditch near the farmland,” he said.

      The city stood on the site of what had once been a huge farming estate owned by the Bedford family for several generations. Now there were only small, sporadic patches left. Located in the western end of Bedford, they were still coaxing forth crops of corn, strawberries and, in a few places, oranges.

      Lucy looked at him, the halting progress she was making temporarily aborted. “Farmland? Ritchie would have never been there. He never liked anything remotely rural.”

      Dylan tended to agree with her. The Ritchie he knew was far more likely to be found in clubs and wherever there were bright lights.

      “He was killed somewhere else, then dum—left in the ditch.” Dylan caught himself at the last minute, steering clear of the detached language he usually used in referring to victims and suspects. It served to maintain his perspective. Attachments only got in the way of judgment.

      But in this case, he couldn’t let himself be clinically detached. To be that way was disrespectful to the friendship he and Ritchie had once had, however fleeting.

      Besides, he didn’t really need to be detached here, it wasn’t his case to solve. Only to relate. So far, in his opinion, he was doing a damn poor job of it.

      “According to the medical examiner, Ritchie died sometime around seven-thirty this morning. Do you know where he was supposed to be at seven-thirty?”

      Lucy’s expression froze. She knew exactly where he was at seven-thirty this morning. She knew because he was doing it for her. “He was going in to work early so that he could get the time off to take me to the doctor.”

      Dylan knew what she was thinking. Separation hadn’t dulled his ability to read her thoughts. “It’s not your fault.”

      “Isn’t it?” Her eyes filled with tears, which she kept from spilling out through sheer force of will. She didn’t deserve the comfort of tears. Ritchie had died because of her. “If he hadn’t gone in early for me, maybe he’d still be alive.”

      “And maybe he would have just been killed later.” He wanted to shield her, but at the same time, he wanted to strip away her guilt. He told her the rest of it. “Lucy, Ritchie was shot execution-style.” One bullet to the back of the head. It seemed surreal when he thought about it. Who could Ritchie have run afoul of for that to happen? He saw the horror in Lucy’s face and pressed on. “That means it was done on purpose. He didn’t just wander in on a burglary gone awry, or a car-jacking that went sour. Somebody meant to kill him.” Impatience clawed at him. There were too many people around. “Can we go back to your room? This isn’t the kind of thing to talk about strolling through the hospital halls.”

      “I wouldn’t exactly considered this strolling,” Lucy answered evenly.

      She was trying very hard not to let her emotions break through. Inside, it felt as if she had a pressure cooker on, full of steam, ready to explode. Digging her fingers into his arm, she turned around to face the long trip back to her room.

      The pace was getting to him. He’d never been one to hurry things along normally, but there was nothing normal about this. “Why don’t I just carry you back? It’d save time.”

      Lucy blocked his hand as he moved to pick her up. “No,” she snapped. “I can do this.”

      She didn’t want him holding her. Not if she could avoid it. If he held her now,