LITMIR.BIZ

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could use some help here.”

      Vincent went to her aid. Janice stood frozen to the spot, paralyzed as Kelly came face-to-face with her father for the first time. Kelly stared at him critically; Janice held her breath, waiting for the worst, half expecting that Kelly would feel some kind of weird bond and figure it all out. But she handed him the food and went right back to talking.

      “Mrs. Givens made an extra chicken potpie so you wouldn’t have to cook tonight. It’s still hot.”

      “That was thoughtful.” Her voice was too shaky. If she didn’t get some control, she’d never be able to pull this off.

      Kelly tossed the mail to the kitchen table, then looked from Janice to Vincent. “So, who are you, anyway?”

      “He’s a family friend,” Janice said, this time managing to keep her voice more steady.

      “We have family friends? News to me.”

      “Actually I’m a friend of your father’s.”

      “Shut up! For real?”

      “For real. I’m Vincent Jones, and you must be Kelly.”

      “That’s me. Well, my name is Elizabeth Kelly, but everyone calls me Kelly.”

      “It fits.”

      “Did you really know my dad?”

      “Very well. We grew up together.”

      “How come I never heard of you before?”

      “Good question.”

      “Was my dad as handsome as Mom says he was?”

      “Your mother said he was handsome?”

      “Yeah. A hunkster.”

      “Kelly, why don’t you bring in the rest of the luggage,” Janice said.

      “I’ll help you,” Vincent said.

      “Fantastic! And you have to stay for dinner. Mrs. Givens makes a to-die-for chicken potpie, not like that frozen junk you buy at the market.”

      “Sounds delicious.”

      Janice just stood there watching the two of them connect like old friends. She’d spent the past fourteen years praying Kelly would never know the monster whose blood ran through her veins.

      Now the monster had escaped from prison and was moving in. Heaven help them all.

      KELLY’S CELL PHONE RANG. She answered it, then left Vincent and Candy alone in the kitchen. Only she wasn’t Candy anymore. She was Janice Stevens, a legal secretary and widowed mom living in Chicago, Illinois. But it wasn’t only her name that had changed. She acted different, talked different, even looked different.

      His chest tightened as the familiar image of her the night they’d met filled his mind. He’d walked out the back door of his father’s house on St. Charles Avenue, and there she was, dancing in the moonlight.

      There was no music, and she’d had no partner. She was just pirouetting in a white halter dress that swirled about her shapely legs and slender hips. Her curly, blond hair had flown about, wild and tousled and… His body hardened, and he struggled to push the memories away.

      “I liked your hair blond—and curly,” he said, letting the comment slip out before he thought about it.

      “Janice Stevens never had blond hair. Her hair is mousy brown and posterboard straight.”

      The kind of woman who’d fade into the back ground. That must be what she was going for. That explained the long skirt that hid her great legs and the loose blouse that camouflaged her full breasts. “Does Janice Stevens have a significant other?” Not that he gave a damn, except that it would com plicate what he had to do.

      “No, she’s devoted to the memory of her late husband, a firefighter who died in the line of duty.”

      “The hunkster?”

      She knotted her hands into fists. “This may sound like some big joke to you, but I’m making it work, Vincent, for me and for Kelly.”

      “Making it work. That’s not quite the same as being happy.”

      “I’m happy enough. And so is your daughter. And if you have a shred of decency, you won’t do anything to spoil the image she has of her dead father.”

      “It would surprise you if I had a shred of decency in me, wouldn’t it?”

      “I don’t know what you have inside you. I never really knew you.”

      “You’re right. You never knew me, and apparently I never knew you.”

      “How did you and Tyrone find out the deaths were faked?”

      “Bribes. Favors. Blackmail. The Magilinti way.”

      “And if all else fails, there’s violence.”

      “That, too.”

      “And yet you expect me to believe you.”

      “Unless you’re willing to risk Kelly’s life on the bet that she’s safer without me around. But if you do, I’ll take Kelly and run with her. I’ll keep her safe, one way or another, with you or without you.”

      She shuddered, and he clenched his hands into fists, fighting a totally insane need to comfort her. Being with her was already messing up his mind and his emotions. He’d have to keep his guard up every second. He would not let her back into his heart.

      The tension was as thick and as bitter as stale coffee by the time Kelly bounded back into the kitchen.

      “So are we eating are what?” Kelly asked. “I’m starved.”

      “Me, too,” Vincent said. “I’ll make a salad to go with the potpie.”

      Janice started to say there were no ingredients for a salad, but Vincent was already at the refrigerator pulling out fresh leafy salad greens and a large ripe tomato. He’d apparently stocked their refrigerator and made himself at home.

      Now he was moving about her kitchen almost as proficiently as she did, pulling out a salad bowl and a knife for slicing the tomato. And Kelly, who never helped without being asked, was setting the table for three.

      Vincent Magilinti had moved back into her life as effortlessly as he had the first time. Only this time she wouldn’t thrill to his touch. She wouldn’t burn with desire from his kisses. She wouldn’t make love to him so passionately that she cried.

      She wouldn’t let him destroy her life or Kelly’s. He’d done that one too many times already.

      KELLY KICKED OFF her shoes and dropped to the chair in front of her computer. She was glad her father’s friend was going to hang out with them for a day or two, but thankful she didn’t have to give him her room. She could do without her bed but not her computer.

      Vincent was sleeping on the daybed in the room her mother used for an office. It was between her bedroom and her mother’s. Her mother had wanted Kelly to take that room as her bedroom, but she’d talked her into this one. She liked being at the back of the house and away from her mother, who was always complaining that she played her music too loud.

      She had mail, but it could wait. She hit a couple of keys and when the right screen came up, she logged into a chat room. She’d caught the tail end of a chat about a new video earlier tonight. She wanted to see if anyone knew the name of the guy in the black leather pants. He was cute.

      A second later, an instant message popped up from Byron. She moved her cursor to the reply field and started typing.

      We got back tonight. And we have company, a friend of my father’s. He’s pretty cool. Handsome, too, but I don’t think my mom likes him. She hardly talks to him at all.

      Mothers can be weird.

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