Dirty Secrets by Karen Rose Page A

to echo off the walls. She could clearly hear the calm voice of the operator asking her to state the nature of her emergency. Her grunts were muffled, but the operator understood. Help was on the way.
    Downstairs, his movements went quiet, then she heard a click as he picked up the extension in the kitchen. She winced at the crack when he threw the phone to the marble countertop in her kitchen. Held her breath as the back door creaked open.
    And closed. She let the breath out, let the tears come. He was gone.
    * * *
    St. Pete, Sunday, February 28, 7:00 p.m.
    “Daddy! I’m home!” Megan’s voice jerked Christopher’s attention from the book in which he’d spent the better part of the afternoon, totally engrossed. Megan had spent the night at a friend’s pajama party. She’d been concerned about going to a party so soon after Darrell’s funeral, but he’d urged her to go. To have fun. Life went on after all. She poked her head through the door of his study. “What are you reading?”
    Christopher flashed the book her direction. “It’s a book the campus counselor suggested we read. It’s about how to deal with the death of someone close to you.”
    He’d picked it up in his office after Harris left. Brought it home, needing the connection to Emma after coming to grips with the stark truth that Darrell had been murdered after all. He’d thought he’d skim it. But one page had turned into fifty, then a hundred. She wrote like she talked, wry and funny and so damn sincere. It was almost like she was talking, just to him. He could see why her book had been such a success.
    Megan flopped into the chair next to his desk. “It must be good. You never even heard me come in.”
    He turned the book, looked at Emma’s face smiling up at him from the back cover. If he’d looked at the book the day the counselor had given it to him he could have found her himself. But she’d found him just two days later. It was fate, plain and simple.
    “It’s very good,” he said quietly. “Better than I thought it could ever be.” He considered telling his daughter about Emma then, but she started bubbling about the time she’d had with her friends at the party, the movie they’d seen, the pizza they’d made from scratch. She’d been so sweet since Darrell’s death, trying to cheer him up.
    “From scratch?” he said, smiling. “You never make anything from scratch for us.”
    “At a party it’s fun. Every night . . .” She grimaced. “Too much trouble.” Then she bit her lip. “But I could if you wanted me to.”
    “Delivery from the place on the corner is fine with me, Punkin,” he said, lapsing into the pet name he’d had for her when she was small. “In fact, let’s do that tonight.”
    She grinned her relief. “How about I order us a pizza with everything?” Without waiting for his reply, she bounced to her feet and bounded from the room.
    “Bye,” he said to the place where she’d been standing moments before.
Oh, to be a teenager again,
he thought. But he couldn’t think about being a teenager without thinking of Emma. About how perfect she’d felt in his arms. Her wild cries of pleasure when he’d fondled and suckled her breasts, and that had been with her dress in the way. He could only imagine what she’d be like when he finally got her naked. In his bed. Panting and begging. Her legs wrapped around his hips. His name on her lips.
    He’d imagined it all night long. He was imagining it right now. Damn, he was hard as a rock from all the imagining. It was all he’d been able to do not to buy himself a plane ticket to Cincinnati. To give her the time and space she’d asked for.
    She hadn’t called him yet. He wondered if she’d read his letters. Especially the one he’d written last night. There would be no doubt in her mind what he wanted from her once she’d read that last letter. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He missed her already. Missed the way she smiled, the way her