Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology Read online

  “Boss, I can make a spot available,” Karen smirked. It seemed like they were all on the far side of confident. Ben could only hope they could back it up.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Parker of number eight San Sebastian Street just got a notification their Lamaze class got postponed for next week. Hope they got time before their bundle of joy pops out. And would you look at that, there’s an open spot, boss,” Karen sassed, pretending to be surprised.

  “Book a Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” Delaney ordered next.

  “Not it!” Gregory jumped randomly.

  “Oh, come on, Gregory. It’s going to be fun. All that deep breathing and things,” she persuaded him.

  “Nu-uh.” He shook his head empathically. “I still break out in hives every time I pass in front of the aquarium from the last time. You’re gonna have to find another beautiful assistant for this, boss.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were allergic to catfish?” she defended herself.

  “So you don’t know everything. That’s nice to know,” Ben declared.

  The redhead snorted in amusement.

  “To be fair, nobody knew about Greg’s allergy until he did his globefish impersonation,” Karen argued, puffing her cheeks and pretending to have trouble breathing, exactly like a fish out of water.

  “I’m never going to live that down,” Greg muttered.

  “Boss, if you can pull out a certain sunny blonde we all know and love from her current assignment, I’m sure cousin will have no problem getting over his reluctance,” Karen suggested, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Tú mejor te callas, engendro endemoniado,” Greg shot back. Ben could swear a faint blush colored his cheeks.

  “A mí no me haces callar, pendejo. Quieres que le diga a la tía Mariana porque no vas a Misa todos los domingos?” Karen retorted with a glare.

  “Haces eso y prepárate para responder porque la tía Estela todavía no tiene nietos.” Greg glared back.

  “They do that sometimes,” Delaney explained to Ben, sipping from her cup and ignoring the pair still bickering in rapid Spanish. “I need Felicity where she is; Tamara is on another continent; Paula goes tomato red when she lies,” she listed. The redhead nodded saying, “curse of the ginger,” without looking up.

  “Karen will probably divulge state secrets over faux contractions,” she continued, ignoring the brunette’s, “Hey,” of protest. “That leaves me,” she concluded.

  “I’m not doing it,” Greg repeated.

  Delaney threw her hand up in exasperation. “And what do you propose I do, then?” she demanded at her assistant.

  “Find another beautiful undercover assistant. Hell, go solo. This is the twenty-first century; you don’t need a man,” Greg sassed.

  “Damn right, you don’t,” Karen interjected.

  “The reservation is under a couple’s name,” Delaney shot him down.

  “Karen can fix that in two point zero seconds,” Greg pointed out.

  “No, I can’t,” Karen said immediately, just to be contrary.

  Greg glared at her.

  “The Professor could assist as your undercover assistant. He’s certainly pretty enough,” Paula uttered distractedly. “I’m sure it’ll appeal to this hero complex he’s got going on.”

  Ben was suddenly thankful his dark skin didn’t blush easily. “I could do that,” he answered slowly, ignoring the second part of her statement.

  Delaney looked him over skeptically. She finally nodded decisively. “I’m going to need that fake belly we used for the Richter case,” she addressed Greg.

  The man bent to rummage in a drawer behind one of the empty desks before she finished speaking.

  “You’re gonna make a beautiful pregnant lady, boss,” Karen gushed, texting on her phone without looking.

  “You already told Tamara, didn’t you?” Delaney asked her grimly.

  “She says to take pictures for her Christmas card this year,” the tech expert confirmed, looking down at her vibrating phone with a brilliant smile.

  “Of course she does,” Delaney exhaled. She looked at Ben and in a dry tone said, “Congratulations, Mr. Smith. We’re having a boy.”

  “Aw, it’s gonna be a beautiful chocolatito,” Karen cooed.

  Greg narrowed his eyes at her. “You know it’s not a real baby, right? You’re starting to sound like your mother.”

  “I have an active imagination, Gregorio,” she snapped at him.

  “Do not open that software that meshes people’s features and tells you how their baby is going to look,” Greg said menacingly, pointing his finger at her.

  “I wasn’t—” Karen stopped abruptly and retracted her hands slowly from her computer.

  “Don’t you need a picture of him for that?” Paula asked, finally looking up from her reading.

  “You do.” Karen smiled and a bright flash of a camera blinded Ben for a couple of seconds.

  These people were insane.

  Chapter Four

  Bright and early the next morning, Ben found himself at the Stark Group building once again. Before dismissing him the day before, Delaney ordered him to show up no later than eight o’clock so they could go over the details of their assignment. Greg ushered him in, and then left to take Maddie to school. That left Delaney and him alone in yet another room. It seemed like the building kept springing them out as needed, even though most of them appeared to be empty.

  This room resembled a dance studio, minus the mirrors. It was spacious, the hardwood floors impeccably shiny. Inside there were two comfortable looking armchairs facing each other. Ben found Delaney sitting at one, doing absolutely nothing. The woman didn’t blink when he sat opposite her. The periphery of his thoughts registered that she was wearing the fake belly already.

  Minutes ticked by until he could no longer stand it. “What are we doing?”

  “I’m studying you. Couples mirror each other subconsciously, so the key to making them believe we’re happily married like them are in these little cues. Did you know your left eyebrow twitches infinitesimally when you’re annoyed? And I haven’t seen you smile yet. Tell me about Lara,” she requested.

  “I already told you all I know. The last person who saw her before her disappearance was her roommate Ally—”

  “That’s not what I meant. Tell me about her childhood. What was she like?”

  Ben allowed himself a moment to reflect on the question. “She was a spitfire, just like my grandmother.” He relaxed as the image of his little sister as a precocious child came to his mind’s eye. “She had this obsession with Barbie dolls. She was also terrified of spiders. I remember one time I was coming home from baseball practice and all of a sudden I heard her scream bloody murder from upstairs. My mother used to work until late, so I knew it was just her in the house. She must have been eleven or twelve at the time. I felt my heart stop in fear. I had so many scenarios run through my head… a burglary, an accident… I nearly broke her door to get to her. I found her standing on top of her desk, screaming at the top of her lungs because there was a tiny spider in her shoe drawer. I couldn’t even be upset with her for scaring me; she was that terrified.”

  The memory did bring a smile to his face. Delaney smiled, pleased. It seemed to be a cheap way of building up a fake identity, but talking about those nice moments brought a peace to his soul that he didn’t even notice was missing. All Ben seemed to live in lately were the memories of an adult Lara, finding her own way without him. The melancholy that thought brought was almost unbearable.

  “What were you thinking about just now, Benjamin? What do you regret?” Delaney correctly read his expression.

  “Before she moved away for college, my relationship with my sister was… strained. Our mother passed away when she was a junior in high school, and she was left in my care. I was too busy and too broke finishing my doctorate, and I resented the time and resources I had to use on her. It wasn’t her fault, I know that. It was all me. Suddenly this little girl who looked
at me with stars in her eyes growing up felt like a burden to me. And I think she knew.” Ben blew out a breath, his face in his palms to try to hide his tears.

  “She probably did,” Delaney acknowledged. The woman had no gentle words, that was for damn sure. “All a young girl needs, barring physical comforts and education, is to feel loved. It’s a delicate balance, and if you were alone raising her, it’s understandable that you made mistakes. I know, from my observations so far, that you indeed love your sister very much. If we find her well, she’s going to need you more than ever. Those feelings of regret have no room in your life now, Benjamin. Let go of them and concentrate on loving her and being what she needs you to be.”

  A lump formed in his throat. If we find her well… Her choice of words did not escape his notice. Somehow, Delaney’s tough yet soft words forced his mind to consider the likelihood of such an outcome. Concentrating on the numerical aspect of the probability didn’t hurt a fraction of what he felt now, which is why he liked his numbers better. They didn’t lie, and they certainly didn’t hurt either.

  Delaney stood up and motioned for him to do the same. It was kind of mind-blowing that she looked so heavily pregnant when just the day before she looked as lithe as a cat. Even her cheeks looked fuller somehow. She grabbed his hand, and rested it on top of her fake belly.

  “It would really help if you could pretend to be excited about becoming a father,” she said quietly. Even though everything about the moment was an elaborate fabrication, the look of wonder in her eyes felt real.

  When he first came to California, years ago to drop Lara off at college, he complained about how oppressive the heat was. The air had seemed more solid than normal, and the humidity had made breathing a challenge. After weeks of living—albeit temporarily—in this weather, he barely felt it anymore. Yet, in this moment, the air in the room was just as heavy as it was back then. It felt thick enough to cut with a knife.

  Ben removed his hand from the fake belly, ending the moment. He did not need this right now. Lara needed him, and their best chance was Delaney Stark. Their only chance.

  * * *

  Later that day, Ben and the fake mother-to-be arrived early at the hospital for their scheduled class. The change in Delaney’s demeanor was scary. Anyone who hadn’t met her before would never believe the assessing eyes with which she looked at the world were now smiling as she rubbed her giant bump. Ben watched fascinated as she made small talk with a real pregnant lady, talking about curtains for the nursery, of all things. Gerardo Perez and his baby mama were not in yet.

  “You have to book an appointment with Nancy at this shop I’m telling you about, Natalie,” the real pregnant lady was telling Delaney as if sharing vital information. “These hypoallergenic fabrics they use to make them are a must have for your nursery.” The woman was a bit on the dramatic side.

  Ben took a second to ponder how weird his life turned in just a few short days. Not forty-eight hours ago, he was waking up in his dingy motel room, hungover like hell and with very little clue as to what his next step was going to be. And now look at him; getting ready to guide his fake pregnant wife through deep breathing exercises.

  “Hear that, hon? Google the place, I want those hypothermic curtains for Gerardito,” he heard from behind as a new couple entered the classroom.

  “Sure, babe,” the husband/boyfriend replied, holding the woman’s purse and following her like a puppy. It was incredibly weird to see a giant tattooed guy acting so terribly deferential toward his woman. Even more so when said woman was a wisp of a thing; she couldn’t have been taller than five feet.

  Even before Delaney surreptitiously gestured to the odd looking couple, Ben had known they were his target. They stood out like a sore thumb in the fancy hospital classroom. He hated stereotypes with a passion, especially those based on image—every once in a while, like when he entered an elevator with a woman alone, he saw her in his peripheral vision clutching her purse a little tighter—but in Perez’s case, the stereotype seemed to be accurate.

  Ben was supposed to act all macho, trying to commiserate with the narc, while Delaney replaced the narc’s phone with another broken one of the same model. Clearly, that wasn’t going to work. The guy was whipped. By a Chihuahua, no less.

  He tried to convey his doubt to Delaney, but he shouldn’t have bothered. Before he fully turned toward her, she was coming his way, and adopting the same generic American accent she started using upon entering the room, she said, “Dear God, I’m tired. Hey, I love your necklace!” She smiled and pointed to the girlfriend’s neck.

  He saw Perez’s girlfriend beam at the narc. Ah. Delaney found her angle. The woman had an uncanny ability to read people. In less than thirty seconds, she probably figured out the woman’s whole existence.

  “Hi, there. I’m Natalie, and this is Leroy. Nice to meet you,” Delaney cheerily said to the girlfriend.

  “I’m Maria, and this is Gerardo.” She gestured to the narco, who grunted in acknowledgement. “It’s quite lovely, isn’t it? Gerardo made it himself. He’s quite crafty, my man.”

  “He totally is. Leroy doesn’t even know what Play-Doh is; he’d never be able to create something like that.”

  “I went to kindergarten you know. I know what Play-Doh is,” he defended himself. Even while playing pretend, they couldn’t help but antagonize each other.

  Delaney ignored him. “When is your little one arriving?” she asked with an encouraging smile.

  “Should be any day now,” Maria replied. “Lemme tell ya, sister, I cannot wait to see my ankles again.”

  “Pfft, tell me about it,” his partner agreed. “And the peeing! I never thought I’d pee so much in my entire life. But I cannot wait to meet our little boy,” she volunteered, much like a real proud future mother.

  “Ours is also a boy!” Maria exclaimed as if amazed by the fact despite the fifty-fifty odds.

  “Welcome, class.” The instructor interrupted the inane chatter. “And thank you for choosing us to share the final stretch of this magnificent journey that is pregnancy.” The matronly instructor smiled beatifically at the couples.

  Delaney scoffed under her breath in the general direction of the instructor, and Maria snickered conspiratorially. Looking at them, nobody would know the pair just met. It was also difficult to believe this wisp of a woman held the answer to his sister’s disappearance.

  “Gerardo’s phone is not on him. It must be in Maria’s bag near the entrance,” Delaney murmured in his ear.

  “How do you know that?” he murmured back.

  She gave him a look.

  “Right, so what do we do?”

  “Just follow my lead,” she replied without moving her lips before crying out in pain. Every pair of eyes in the room went to her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, startled. An actor, he was not.

  “Yes, of course,” she said sarcastically. “Your child is just trying to break his way out of my body, Leroy.” She started breathing heavily.

  “Everybody calm down, and let’s help Natalie through her final journey.” The instructor tried to appease the hormonal bunch.

  Really, it had to be a health hazard having a group of pregnant ladies stressed like this by a deranged PI.

  “My final journey?!” Delaney’s eyes flared. “So does this pain mean I’m actually dying?”

  Ben stifled a laugh.

  “Oh, my. Of course not, sweetheart. Just remember, inhale.” The instructor took a deep breath and released it in demonstration. “Exhale. You can do this,” she cheered.

  “Stop staring and get me my bag, Leroy.” Delaney pointed to the shelf next to the exit.

  He took it to mean “get Gerardo’s phone while they’re not looking, you idiot.”

  So, as his fake pregnant wife screamed in very convincing agony, Benjamin rummaged through the bag of the girlfriend of the guy who kidnapped his sister. Christ, what had his life come to?

  Chapter Five

  After a
hasty departure from the Lamaze classroom, Delaney screaming bloody murder all the way to Greg’s car, Benjamin felt approximately fifteen years older than his twenty-nine years. Who the hell would’ve thought that a Lamaze class could be so intense and anti-climactic at the same time? Every second his hand was in Maria’s bag, he expected to hear Gerardo’s voice preceding his gory death at the hands of the narc. The setting did not make the guy any less dangerous.

  He drove in silence back to the Stark building. In his peripheral vision, he saw her remove the fake belly. It just added more surrealism to the moment. Was this what Delaney’s life was like on a daily basis?

  When they finally made their way upstairs, they gave the phone to Karen and sat down silently to wait for results.

  As he was trying to figure out what to say to the woman currently staring at her messy desk, Ben heard Karen’s unmistakable, “Holy shit!” all the way from her station. His heart jumped to his throat.

  “Look at this! Why would they do something like this, Del?” Karen cried out when the pair reached her computer.

  Ben’s heart broke and mended simultaneously. Picture after picture of Lara took over the multiple screens around. They dated back to around the time she disappeared, and they looked like ransom pictures. Each and every one of them had a newspaper of the day it was taken, the latest one from this very morning. That meant that his little sister was still alive. He would’ve been ecstatic, had it not being for the multiple bruises in different colors marring every inch of her face and what could be seen of her body.

  “You haven’t received any of these, right, Benjamin?” he heard Delaney ask, her voice registering in his brain as if from a distance.

  He mutely shook his head in confirmation. Words were beyond him. Delaney stomped back to her office. With a sigh, he stood up and followed her. He stopped at the threshold to do what the woman inside did as second nature. To observe. To observe her.

  When he first met her, he was shocked speechless about her looks. He was honest enough to admit she was indeed very beautiful, but her eyes… It wasn’t naiveté that made her eyes wide. Now he knew her eyes were wide because she saw too much. The light in them was intelligence, but not the kind he was familiar with. There was a slight line on her forehead, the only sign of her frustration. She was staring blankly at nothing when he finally went inside the room to sit in front of her.