Survivor In Death (In Death #20)(91)

“You don't deal the cards,” she said carefully. “You just play them. Don't do this to yourself.”

“I cheated and stole and connived my way to what I have, or to the base of it in any case. It wasn't an innocent lying in that alley.”

“Bullshit. That's just bullshit.”

“I'd have killed him.” His eyes weren't devastated now, but winter cold. “If someone hadn't done it before me, when I was older and stronger I'd have gone for him. I'd have finished him. Can't change that either. Well.” He sighed, heavily. “This is useless.”

“It's not. You don't think it's useless when I flood it on you. I like your dick, Roarke, like it fine. But it's irritating when you think with it.”

He opened his mouth, hissed out a breath just before a choked laugh. “It's irritating when you point it out. All right then, let's finish this out with me telling you I went to Philadelphia today.”

“What the hell for?” She snapped it out. “I told you I needed to know where you were.”

“I wasn't going to mention it, and not to spare myself your wrath, Lieutenant. I wasn't going to mention it because it was a waste of time. I'd thought I could fix it--I'm good at fixing, or buying off if fixing won't work. I went to see Grant Swisher's stepsister. To talk to her about stepping in for Nixie, now that the legal guardianship's been voided. She couldn't be less interested.”

He sat now, on the arm of a chair. “I decided to make all this my concern. Magnanimous of me.”

“Shut up. Nobody rips on you but me.” She stepped to him, caught his face in her hands, kissed him. “And I'm not because--even being pissed off about you taking an unscheduled trip--I'm proud that you'd try to help. I wouldn't have thought of doing it.”

“I'd have bought her off, if that had been an option. Money fixes all sorts of problems, and why have so bloody much if you can't buy what you like? Such as a nice family for a little girl. I'd already eliminated the grandparents--found the grandfather, by the way--on my high moral grounds. But the one left, the one I hand-selected, wouldn't fall in.”

“If she doesn't want the kid, the kid's better off somewhere else.”

“I know it. I might've been disgusted with this woman's callousness, but I was furious with myself for assuming I could just snap fingers and make it all tidy. And furious that I couldn't. If it was tidy, I wouldn't feel guilty, would I?”

“About what?”

“About not considering, not being able to consider keeping her with us.”

“Us? Here? Us?”

He laughed again, but the sound was weary. “Well, we're on the same page there anyway. We can't do it. We're not the right people for it--for her. The big house, all the money, it doesn't mean a damn when we're not the right people.”

“Still on the same page.”

He smiled at her. “I've wondered if I'd be a good father. I think I would be. I think we'd be good at it, either despite or because of where we came from. Maybe both. But it's not now. It's not this child. It'll be when we know we'll be good at it.”

“That's nothing to feel guilty about.”

“How does it make me any different from Leesa Corday? Swisher's stepsister?”

“Because you tried to make it right. You'll help to make it right.”

“You steady me,” he murmured. “I didn't even know how far off balance I'd been, and here you steady me.” He took her hands, kissed them. “I want children with you, Eve.”

The sound she made brought on a quick and easy grin. “No need for the panic face, darling. I don't mean today, or tomorrow, or nine months down the road. Having Nixie around's been considerable education. Children are a lot of bloody work, aren't they?”

“Big duh.”

“Emotional, physical, time-consuming work. With undoubtedly amazing rewards. That bond you spoke of, we deserve to have it. To make it, when we're ready. But we're not, either of us, ready. And we're not equipped to parent a girl nearly ten. It would be like--for us, anyway--starting a twisty, laborious, fascinating task somewhere in the middle, without any time for that learning curve.”

He stepped to her again, laid his lips on her brow. “But I want children with you, my lovely Eve. One day.”

“One day being far, far in the future. Like, I don't know, say a decade when .. . Hold on. Children is plural.”

He eased back, grinned. “Why so it is--nothing slips by my canny cop.”

“You really think if I ever actually let you plant something in me-- they're like aliens in there, growing little hands and feet.” She shuddered. “Creepy. If I ever did that, popped a kid out--which I think is probably as pleasant a process as having your eyeballs pierced by burning, poisonous sticks, I'd say, 'Whoopee, let's do this again?' Have you recently suffered head trauma?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Could be coming. Any second.”

He laughed, kissed her. “I do love you, and the rest is all in the vague and misty future. In any case, we're talking about this child. I think Richard and Beth are a fine thought.”