A Perfect Hero

Prologue

Ian MacDougall wasn’t quite drunk enough yet to pass out. In fact, he hadn’t yet downed enough booze to work up a pleasant buzz. Though his rent was due and his money was low, he’d given serious thought to buying another bottle. A man had his priorities, after all.

So he’d walked to the convenience store on the comer to buy scotch. The good stuff, not rotgut. As long as he bought the good stuff, he wasn’t a drunk, right? He still didn’t know why he’d bought dog food instead. Hell, the damn hound could find better eats scrounging through the trash barrels on the beach. Now as forty-four-year-old Ian walked the familiar strip of sand and rock, his belly was on fire, and his head was one pounding misery.

He should have bought the scotch and let the dog do without. Dogs didn’t have nightmares. Or memories that twisted and tore through a man’s mind until he wanted to run himself into oblivion.

With the exception of the regulars who slept beneath newspapers or tarps or in cardboard shelters wedged between the rocks above high tide, Ian was alone on this stretch of coastline. Overhead the stars glittered like cold, hard chips of ice. Above the phosphorescent surf, fog roiled on the horizon, sending long, angry tendrils toward the beach. Below the cliff, the surf was a wild thing, angrily ripping and tearing at the land.

Pausing in the lee of a jagged chunk of ancient California granite, he lit another cigarette and drew in smoke. Spindrift dampened his face and chilled his bones. Behind him the funky Southern California community of Ocean Beach in San Diego had finally settled down for the night, only a few dimly illuminated windows salting the darkness.

Ian’s eyes felt gritty as he looked out over the sand. The beach itself was empty.

No matter where he started or what direction he took initially, he invariably ended up at the cliffs. He knew why, of course. It was the place where he’d once decided to end his life. And the place where he’d met the woman who’d changed his mind.

After field stripping his cigarette butt, he dropped the remnants into the pocket of his windbreaker before settling his wired body onto a flat chunk of cold rock. As he fished another smoke from the pack in his shirt pocket, the mutt who’d appointed himself Ian’s bodyguard settled down on the hard red dirt at his feet.

Get a life, you miserable cur, he muttered, frowning. The ugly creature glanced up, growled a protest, then rested his scarred snout on his paws, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Lucky bastard, he thought as he wearily lit his cigarette. His throat was raw from the pack-a-day habit. The cough that had driven him to quit when his twin daughters were born had returned with a vengeance. He’d started smoking again a few days after watching the matching caskets of his babies and his ex-wife being lowered into the ground. That had been almost a year ago. He’d been drunk every night since then—with one exception. A full-moon night, when the dog had come into his life.

Ian had heard the shouts first and then the furious barking, carried to him by the on-shore breeze. He still didn’t know why he went to investigate. Habit, he suspected. The deeply ingrained response of a man sworn to uphold the law—like an old fire horse stirred to action by the sound of an alarm.

By the time Ian reached the spot where the shouting had erupted, the dog had been sprawled on the sand, battered and bloodied by a group of rampaging teenage hoodlums out for some fun. Only a tiny, prickly lady with black curls and snapping brown eyes had been keeping the gang from finishing off the poor beast. Before Ian could figure out what was going on, one of the little doper bastards had locked his brutal hands on her slender arms.

Though Ian had been at least two sheets to the wind, his twenty years in law enforcement had clicked in. Months of trying to drink himself to death had slowed him down a few steps, but he’d still had the moves—a right cross fueled by a simmering rage against bullies. Like all cowards, the mean little creeps had run away rather than fight a guy their own size.

The lady saved your life, you ugly no-name mutt, he now muttered, glaring at the long-haired, floppy-eared canine clown at his feet. With the uncanny perception that annoyed Ian no end, the dog opened the eye that could still see and thumped his stubby tail.

Scowling to show his irritation, Ian knuckled the thick fur between Mutt’s ears. Not because he liked the pathetic creature, he reminded himself. No way. Hell, what was to like? The dog was half-lame, ugly as sin, and had the appetite of a piranha. Worse, he had to be about as dumb as a post, because only the canine equivalent of an idiot would willingly hang out with the sorry likes of Ian MacDougall.

She’s not here, you sorry so-and-so. Hell, she probably forgot us both before her plane left the ground. Even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t exactly true. The woman who’d sobbed against his shoulder in the vet’s office wasn’t the kind of cold-hearted bitch who would forget.

Ian took a deep drag and let the smoke trail out. He never should have touched her. It had been a stupid thing to do. The kind of idiot impulse he thought he’d overcome years before, when he’d signed on with Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Two strangers on a beach, each driven by private demons, hoping to find comfort in one another. Thank God the woman had had the presence of mind to use protection, because he sure as hell hadn’t given a damn.

He’d been a little crazy that night, full of rage and guilt and anguish. The trial had been over less than forty-eight hours. Hutch Renfrew had winked at Ian as he’d walked out a free man—and then laughed. The man who killed two innocent little girls and their mama—free to kill again. Renfrew was alive only because Ian had gone to the courthouse unarmed that morning.

Since then, the swastika-waving son of a bitch had gone to ground. Not even the vast resources of the various and sundry law enforcement agencies of the good old U.S. of A. had been able to find the leader of the New Aryan Freedom Brigade.

God knows Ian had tried.

Tomorrow his year-long leave of absence from ATF was officially over. His boss, Big Ed Stebbins, had warned him in his thick Alabama drawl that it was time to fish or cut bait. Agent Ian MacDougall was out of wiggle room. He was either in or out. Eddie wanted him in.

Ian didn’t much care one way or another. But he was out of money, and ATF was the only home and family he had left.

He had another assignment waiting, Eddie had told him, when he’d called a few days back. A weapons-smuggling case in Florida. No more skinheads, the boss had also said. Ian was too personally involved.

Yeah, he was involved, he admitted, taking the last, bitter drag on the butt before stubbing it out on the stone. Involved enough to daydream, a little too often for his peace of mind, about gutting that white supremacist bastard with his own hunting knife. Staying with ATF would give him a pipeline to information that would someday lead him straight to Renfrew.

Florida, he muttered, drawing another lazy look from the ugly beast at his feet. I hear they have alligators down there. Probably eat poor dumb fools like us for breakfast.

Tail thumping, Mutt gave an eager bark. An answering woof came from further along the beach, stirring Mutt to his feet. Head cocked, the mangy mongrel peered into the darkness, giving out with a pathetic whine every so often, as though he were pining for the lady with the angel smile and a big heart.

He had a wishing star up there in the skyful of twinkling lights, she’d told him. There was one for each soul that came to earth. He’d damn near laughed at her, but he’d kissed her instead.

Ian grinned a little as he rolled his shoulders. Forget it, old son. The lady lives in Oregon, remember? Works in some college up there in the trees. Frowning a little, he reached into the pocket of his windbreaker and pulled out the business card that had been there since she’d given it to him eight and a half months ago. He’d meant to throw it away, but somehow had never gotten around to it.

Her name and title were embossed on expensive card stock. Classy and upscale, like the lady herself. Though she’d been dressed in button-fly jeans and an ordinary T-shirt, she’d worn diamond studs in her ears and her perfume had evoked images of priceless crystal and antique silver.

Marcella Kenworthy, Director of Public Relations at Bradenton College. Bradenton Falls, Oregon. Marca, she’d called herself. Had come down to San Diego for a conference of other academic types.

Try as he might to kick free, he kept wanting more of her. Another night in her arms. And another, until he no longer woke up with the sheets twisted like a shroud around his sweat-slick body and a scream trapped in his throat.

Stebbins was a decent guy. No problem to extend his leave a few weeks. For the first time in months, he’d felt something beyond the heavy pall of grief. Hope, maybe. A reason beyond the need for vengeance to get up in the morning.

And then what, ace? he demanded with the ruthless honesty that was damn near all he had left. Send her a bunch of daisies and walk away? Or stay and watch the light in her eyes dim when she realized he wasn’t the hero she’d thought he was?

Hell, what he’d done was easy. She’d been the one putting herself on the line. One lone, unarmed woman against a pack of crazies. He had no doubt she would have fought until she was unconscious—or dead—simply to protect a stray dog.

He’d been trained to fight. Once, maybe, he’d done it because he’d had some grandiose idea of making the world a better place. Some half-assed notion that he could right a few wrongs, protect the innocent against the bullies of the world. Now it was just a job he did because he was too uneducated and too tired to start over at something else. No, he wasn’t anybody’s hero. In fact, he was a pretty pathetic example of a man. A drunk wallowing in grief and guilt. A loser with nothing inside but emptiness.

Forget it, Mutt, he said as he climbed to his feet. The lady’s way out of our class.

The dog with no name gave a mournful yip before falling in at Ian’s side.

Pausing at a brightly painted and badly dented trash basket on the edge of the sand, Ian took a breath, then tore the card into pieces and let them sift through his long fingers into the basket.

Goodbye, angel gypsy, he murmured, glancing up at the stars. She’d made a wish on one of them that night. He hoped it had come true.

It was almost dawn and the stars were fading. Marca was determined to get these babies born before her special star disappeared completely. According to the ultrasound, she was about to deliver three little boys.

Ian should be here, Marca muttered as she felt the ominous tightening of her back muscles.

It’s not your fault, Marce, her Lamaze coach and friend, Carly Scanlon, assured her before calmly talking her through the rhythm of panting breaths that was supposed to ease the pain.

He...doesn’t...know, she gasped out as the agony took her.

You did everything humanly possible to find him. Carly’s voice dimmed as the pain surged through her.

Ian MacDougall. They’d made babies together, and she scarcely knew him. The private investigator she’d hired when she’d discovered her pregnancy had cost her a hefty slice of her savings, yet he’d come up with nothing. There’d been seven Ian MacDougalls in the San Diego phone book, but none had been her Ian. Ian with the haunted gray eyes and deep, blood-shivering voice. Ian with the coal black hair and lonely heart. A man with the look of a street fighter and the soul of a poet. A man who’d taken a filthy, flea-infested mongrel into his strong arms so gently the animal scarcely whimpered. Later, when he’d made love to her, she’d felt the gentleness in him. And a hunger to love and be loved that matched her own.

The pain eased off and Marca opened her eyes. Carly’s green eyes were rimmed with weariness. She, too, was hugely pregnant, her due-date scarcely a month away.

I shouldn’t have asked you to be my coach, Marca told her wearily. Mitch will shoot me if anything happens to you.

I’m fine, Carly assured her, smoothing back a lock of Marca’s sweat-drenched hair. And Mitch loves you as much as I do, so stop worrying. As he told Tracy when she called last night to ask about you, bringing these babies into the world is a family project.

Marca closed her eyes, hoarding her strength the way the Lamaze instructor had drummed into her.

Carly was more than a friend. She was the sister Marca had never had. They had met as freshmen roommates. Carly, as the only child of Bradenton College’s president and a blue-blooded Virginia debutante, had been the closest thing to royalty the campus had.

Marca’s background had been boringly ordinary. Also an only child, she’d grown up in a singularly unimpressive town in central Washington where her mother had been a bookkeeper for a mortuary and her father had worked in a mill, endlessly sharpening the huge saws that planed logs into boards. Neither had known how to relate to their changeling child who’d come into the world with a startlingly high IQ and boundless ambition. It had been those two God-given traits that had won Marca a scholarship to Bradenton.

After graduation, both she and Carly had gone east—Carly to Rhode Island where she had taught social anthropology at Brown, Marca to Madison Avenue and a career on the fast track. Ten years later, when Carly had succeeded her father as Bradenton’s president, she’d enlisted Marca’s aid in changing their alma mater’s stodgy image. With her marriage to a fellow advertising executive gone bust and her will to compete burned to ashes, Marca had come home to Bradenton for good.

Whoa, here comes another one, she muttered, feeling the pincer-sharp cramp slicing her belly. But instead of easing off after sixty seconds or so, this one escalated, nearly bringing her off the mattress before it finally eased.

I think you’d better page Dr. Mason, she heard Carly telling someone.

Minutes passed like seconds, yet paradoxically, telescoped into hours. Through it all, Carly’s voice was her lodestar, leading her, encouraging her. But it was the image of Ian’s tenderness when he’d held her in his arms that sustained her.

She’d fallen in love with a man she didn’t know. A stranger with a stalwart heart and haunted eyes.

Push, Marca. Now. It was the doctor’s voice, and mindlessly she obeyed.

Look at the shoulders on this little fellow, Dr. Mason marveled as he eased the infant into the world.

Marca opened her eyes and made a feeble gesture. Obligingly the doctor held the baby aloft, giving her a look at her firstborn. A tenderness unlike anything she’d ever felt before ran through her. It was a new kind of love, and so powerful she nearly wept from the joy of it.

Oh, Marce, he’s gorgeous! Carly, exclaimed softly, her eyes glistening with tears above the mask. Look at all that black hair.

Ryan James, Marca whispered, then frowned as another viselike spasm squeezed her abdomen. Regretfully she allowed the nurse to whisk her son away, but only for a little while, she reminded herself, before the pain took over her mind.

Quick, light breaths, Carly coached, wiping Marca’s dripping forehead. You’re doing fine, sweetie. Wonderfully well. Be strong for just a few more minutes. Just a few more.

Exhausted and nearly numb, Marca turned her head and watched the nurse weigh her son while the doctor worked to deliver his brother. Simon and Garfunkel played on the boom box she’d brought with her, the same songs she’d listened to on the night of her fortieth birthday when Ian had fathered these babies.

Ian. Ian. Ian. His name was a mantra. A plea.

Bear down now, the doctor said urgently, lifting his head to give her a quick, encouraging look over his mask.

Push, Marce, push, Carly ordered, her voice calm and soothing, yet compelling. Nearly done in, Marca concentrated on her friend’s voice, obediently pushing when she was told, relaxing on command.

There’s the head, the doctor exclaimed before ordering, Push, Marca. Give me one more big push...that’s it...aah, another bruiser.

Carly laughed and squeezed Marca’s hand. Son number two, she said, leaning forward to watch as the baby squirmed under the efficient ministrations of the nurses. A tough little so-and-so, she said, grinning.

Sean Mitchell, Marca murmured through numb lips.

Number three is a little reluctant, the doctor said wearily, glancing up at the clock as a member of the birthing team swabbed his damp forehead.

Marca closed her eyes and listened to her two boys squalling their heads off. Lusty, angry cries that made her smile even as another murderous pain gathered in the small of her back.

Daddy must be a big man, the older of the two nurses said as she swaddled baby boy number two. These two are busters.

Marca concentrated on breathing into the pain, but the image of haunted silver eyes rose in her mind. Eyes framed with thick black lashes and swooping black brows. The rest of his face had been hidden behind a black beard, but she would never forget the slash of white teeth as he’d smiled at her.

C’mon, little one, the doctor muttered as Carly urged her to reach for that last reserve of strength. "Yes, all right, here he comes."

Her third son let out a yell as soon as the nurse suctioned his lungs clear—a loud, indignant protest that had the doctor’s eyes crinkling. The smallest of the three. Looks like this one’s making up for his lack of size with sheer volume, he said, laughing.

Trevor Allen had just arrived.

Marca met Carly’s gaze and realized her friend was crying even as her eyes were soft with emotion. Three adorable little boys, she murmured, leaning down to give Marca a hug. You are so blessed.

Marca fought off the seductive lethargy of sleep and breathed a silent little prayer of thanks before rousing herself to open her eyes.

Can I see them? she murmured, looking toward the nurses.

You bet, one of them said, grinning.

While the doctor finished, Marca opened her arms to receive three babies, now swaddled in blue with nubby blue stocking caps covering their perfect little heads. They were warm and heavy and sweet. Her breasts ached as she cuddled them close. Tears spilled over her lashes and slipped down her cheeks.

I’m terrified I’ll let them down, she whispered, glancing with brimming eyes at Carly, who’d raised her own firstborn for sixteen years before Mitch had come back into their lives.

Looking radiant in spite of her weariness, Carly brushed a finger over a silken cheek of one of the newborns. You’ll be a marvelous mom. She laughed a little before adding, And a busy one for the first few years at least.

Marca smiled at that, but her attention was fixed on the three identical faces of her children. Sean and Ryan were already sleeping, their stubby lashes resting on cherubic little cheeks. Trevor was awake, his deep blue eyes fixed like dark pools of curiosity on her face while his soft mouth made greedy sucking motions.

Ian’s sons, all with his face, she suspected, but not his mouth.

His hard, bitter, angry mouth. He’d been intense and driven and hurting, a big man with a terrible pain burning deep in his eyes. A gentle man who kept himself apart and solitary. And yet, when they’d made love, he’d been tender and sweet and loving. From that love had come three perfect miracles. His birthday gift to her.

Dear, Ian, I’ll teach them to love you, she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. I promise.

There was a window in the birthing room. Beyond the window was her star, the one she’d watched that night as she’d laid sated and blissfully happy beneath Ian’s powerful body. She’d been lonely and sad that night. A woman who had thought the best years of her life were behind her. Ian had changed that.

A part of him would always be with her. Let him be as happy as I am at this moment, she wished, closing her eyes. And wherever he is, let him find peace.

Chapter 1

Twenty-two months later.

The air-conditioning was busted again.

By the time Ian had climbed the stairs from the lobby of the federal building in Miami to ATFs second-floor offices, his T-shirt was plastered to his chest, and he felt as though he were breathing through a wet cloth. Even the usual sounds of clattering keyboards and ringing phones that greeted him as he walked through the door seemed muffled by the heavy air.

Don’t you dare say a word about the temperature, you hear me talking? the middle-aged African-American receptionist warned, as he opened his mouth to ask her about the progress of the repairs on the air-conditioning.

No, ma’am. Not a word.

Sherry Sue Jackson scowled up at him as she handed over his messages. Cut the meek act, MacDougall, she drawled in the honeyed Alabama accent that fascinated him. A man as meanlooking as you, it gives me the willies when you come across all soft spoken and sweet-like. Like one of those gators laying in the saw grass, just waitin’ to get him dinner.

Ian did his best to look hurt, which won him another snort, followed by an impatient wave of Ms. Jackson’s hand.

Get on out of here. You’ve bothered me enough for one day.

Yes, ma’am. He glanced around, saw that no one was watching, and leaned down to plant a kiss full on Sherry Sue’s cheek.

Boy, you do that again and you’re in for a real jaw bruising from Charles Lee.

Ian grinned. He played poker with Sherry’s fireman husband every Thursday night, and he’d been invited to dinner on Thanksgiving and Christmas this past year. He suspected they felt sorry for him, a man without family and no steady girlfriend. Hell, no girlfriend of any kind. A damned charity case. It rankled, but not enough to keep him from turning down a chance to gorge himself on Sherry’s cooking.

The truth was, he was restless and itchy inside. He figured that was because he hated Florida. He’d been miserable every day