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The Baby's Bodyguard
Alice Sharpe
The Baby’s Bodyguard
Alice Sharpe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u64aeeb5f-4713-5516-8b16-cb639d7c3bcb)
Title Page (#u78b232db-91c2-551a-aeb2-fbf53175ebbc)
About the Author (#ulink_2fef6652-4d46-5c14-8ff5-b749957bb79c)
Dedication (#ub2862f06-eb37-5471-82fe-41966e081030)
Chapter One (#ulink_862ac29e-b34d-5bb0-809e-221bc8aaedef)
Chapter Two (#ulink_81e38d2f-8a07-52f5-948c-83b65c6df92a)
Chapter Three (#ulink_95fcccec-ea7b-5e22-9b9f-be1ae9a71611)
Chapter Four (#ulink_dc9a3088-4193-56fa-9282-f19f007ef050)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#ulink_1dbb602a-425e-5d07-939f-40c82dbc1bdb)
ALICE SHARPE met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.
Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at PO Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327, USA. SASE for reply is appreciated.
This book is dedicated to the memory
of my mother with eternal gratitude
for all the years of her love and support.
Chapter One (#ulink_10f9b792-0ea0-5c64-bd6f-b3400860ee92)
Someone was watching her.
Hannah turned quickly. The three women and one old man behind her in line at the small market either smiled or looked bored. No shifting feet, no averted glances.
“Miss Marks?” the young clerk said, jerking Hannah’s attention back to him. He nodded at the debit card in her hand. The groceries were neatly tucked into cloth sacks, ready to go.
“Oh, sorry, Dennis.” She ran the card quickly through the machine, determined to get herself under control. But the sensation persisted all across the parking lot and more than once, she stopped to look around, each time expecting to spot someone studying her. Why had she parked at the back of the lot? Finally she was close enough to push the button on her key chain and pop the trunk.
The flat tire taking up two-thirds of the space reminded her she needed to swing by the service station and get it fixed. She’d thought working part-time would be a piece of cake, but there were always errands to run, as well. She fit the bags around the tire and slammed the trunk. That left her looking across the top of the car toward one of Allota’s two accessible beaches, this one a narrow span of gray sand leading to the deep blue Pacific Ocean.
It was a cold sea this far north of San Francisco, barely fifty degrees even in summer. On a late May day, with the sun barely peeking from behind high clouds and the wind blowing, just a few hardy souls braved the elements.
A car door slammed nearby and Hannah jumped. She knew she wasn’t the only woman in the community to be nervous—there were two unsolved murders of lone women sitting in their cars, both of them parked in their own garages. But she wasn’t a lone woman and she didn’t park in a garage so there went that excuse.
“Nerves and lack of sleep,” her friend and coworker had pronounced when Hannah mentioned the sensation at work. No doubt Fran was right.
Still, it was with a sense of relief that Hannah slipped into the car. What had she done with the keys? Patting pockets proved fruitless. She finally found them stuck in a side pocket of her handbag.
As she bent forward to put the key in the ignition, the passenger door abruptly opened and a man got in beside her. She gasped as impressions struck like stray bullets. Tan skin, long black hair, angular face, straight eyebrows hovering over brilliant blue eyes.
Eyes filled with scathing anger.
She instantly reached for the door handle with one hand and slammed the other down on the horn. He grabbed her hand from the steering wheel and shouted, “Hannah. ¡Parada!“ in the ensuing silence.
With her name and the sound of his voice came recognition. Her hand went limp in his grasp and he released it. Barely able to keep from rubbing her eyes, she whispered, “Jack?”
His eyelids flickered.
“It can’t be you,” she mumbled.
His shoulders lifted in an elegant shrug and she realized why she hadn’t immediately recognized him. He was so much thinner than the last time she’d seen him, so much more weathered. There were a few scars that hadn’t been there before, too, one by his nose, another along his jaw. His hair, which had been military short, was now shoulder length, wavy and wild.
Her impulse was to reach for him. “Jack! I thought you were dead—”
He caught her arms in strong hands, stopping her momentum. She fell back in her own bucket seat and after swallowing her shock, murmured, “What’s going on?”
“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” he said.
“I don’t know what you mean.” But of course Aubrielle popped into her mind. Did he know about her? Was that why he was here?
“I want to know who put you up to it, Hannah. Simple as that. Give me a name and I’m out of here.”
He’d lost her.
There was a rap on Hannah’s window. She looked around to find a very old man with bushy eyebrows peering in at her. She flicked the key to the right and used the switch to power down the window a few inches.
“Everything okay, miss?” he asked, a white handlebar mustache obscuring his lips.
“Everything is fine,” she said. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Jack, but surely it didn’t require outside assistance. “I accidentally hit the horn.”
“You positive?” he persisted, his gaze sliding past Hannah to look more closely at Jack. She doubted he was reassured by what he saw.
With more conviction than she felt, she said, “Yes. Thanks.”
“If you say so,” the old guy said and, leaning his weight on an old wooden cane, shuffled off toward a green sedan, his long raincoat almost dragging on the pavement. Hannah turned back to Jack. “Should I have asked him to call the cops?”
“I’ll call the cops myself just as soon as I find out who helped you.”
“You’ll call the cops? Why would you call the cops?”
“I’ve had months to think,” he said with deadly calm. “Months to realize I was conned and you did the conning. Oh, I know you didn’t actually kill anyone yourself, but the blood of innocent men is on your hands and you know it.”
The relief of realizing his demeanor had nothing to do with Aubrielle quickly gave way to shock as she realized what he was insinuating. “You have to be talking about the ambush down in Tierra Montañosa,” she said, stunned he would think—“Are you saying I had something to do with it?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” he growled.
She took the keys out of the ignition and without consciously deciding to do so, looped a few fingers through the door handle. “I heard you were dead, killed with several other men, buried in a mass grave. How did you get here?”
“I escaped. They butchered the others. As for identifying me—they threw my watch in with the corpses and set the whole thing on fire.” He looked away as though catching his breath. Her own seemed to come in short gasps as her imagination provided images of what he’d just described.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
His nod was barely perceptible.
She didn’t know him well, had only spent one night of her life with him, but he’d helped her that night more than he’d ever, ever know, and now she sincerely wanted to return the kindness. He looked as though he needed it.
On the other hand, it was clear he didn’t want anything from her but confirmation of some terrible, ill-conceived suspicion.
“Let me tell you what the Tierra Montañosa government told the Staar Foundation,” she said. “The rebel group who carried out the attack call themselves the Guerrilleros de Tierra Montañosa although they deny they had anything to do with it. I guess they always do that. Their rhetoric is freedom from tyranny, but the truth is they’re a Marxist group. I’ve read about them since, well, since the ambush. They’re terrible people.
They—”
He waved away her dialogue. “You think I don’t know who they are? I was down there to protect people like you from groups like the GTM. It was my job as a bodyguard to know all the organizations and their goals, so don’t try to tell me about them. What I want to know is who gave them the inside information to carry out the ambush at Costa del Rio. They had to have inside help to pull that off. They knew where we were going to be and when we were going to be there. You’re the one who made the arrangements.”
“Yes, I am.”
“So who else knew what they were?”
“Until a few minutes before the convoy left, no one knew but you. There’d been threats, we’d been warned to keep it secret.”
“What about the founder’s son, what’s his name, Hugo Correa?”
“What about him?” “Did he know?”
“No, of course not. You’re not suggesting Hugo Correa had anything to do with the rebels, are you?”
“What’s wrong? Is it politically incorrect to point a finger at a dead man?”
“Mr. Correa isn’t dead.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “Run that by me again.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, damn it. I’ve been back in the States two weeks. My first thought was to enlist the aid of my sister. I found she was in the middle of her own drama and needed my help. When that was over, I discovered she’s pregnant so I left her out of it. As far as Hugo Correa goes, the last I saw of him, he and a couple of the others were being driven away in a truck with about three dozen guerillas pointing assault rifles at their heads. Later we heard they were killed.”
“The foundation had kidnap insurance for its officers so they paid off a huge sum to the rebels to get their people back. We heard the rest of you were going to be used to negotiate the release of jailed GTM members.”
“It didn’t work out that way,” he said softly.
“Mr. Correa and the other man were in the hospital for weeks. Apparently Hugo Correa tried to escape by jumping out of the truck and took a bullet in his leg and it got infected. The other man, a guy by the name of Harrison Plumber, had a digestive disease of some kind. As soon as Hugo got out of the hospital, Santi Correa turned over the day-by-day operations of the foundation to his son and more or less resigned.”
Jack rubbed his eyes. “Ah mi dios,” he mumbled. Looking at her again, he added, “Just tell me who it was.”
“Who what was?”
“Who were you working with? And why? Did you do it for money? What other reason could there be, what else could you possibly want from these people?”
“Of course I didn’t do it for money!” she said, but the word money thundered in her head. Money. “I didn’t do it all,” she mumbled.
“People do terrible things when money is dangled in front of their noses,” he said.
She looked out the window at the ocean across the street. It couldn’t be …
“Hannah?”
She looked at him without really seeing him. She was remembering the day David showed up at her place with a bundle of money he wanted her to keep and had sworn her to secrecy. It had surprised her—their relationship had been a little rocky—and suddenly he was talking about marrying and moving far away….
How could that have anything to do with this? Yet now that she’d made the connection why couldn’t she get it out of her head? She sucked in a tiny breath.
“I know you seduced me the night before the ambush,” Jack said. “All I want from you now is the name of the man or woman who put you up to it.”
She barely heard him. She had to think. Operating on autopilot, she got out of the car and grabbed her handbag. Her instinct was to walk, to move, to get away.
He was at her side in a moment, taking her arm. One giant question raged like a wildfire through her brain. Had David been involved? And if he had, what did she do now? What could she do now?
They crossed the two-lane road to the far side, then threaded their way through rocks, driftwood and seaweed. Jack released her arm and she stumbled up against an old, dead tree lying on its side.
She turned immediately to face Jack. He looked amazing standing in the wind and sun, his white shirt stark against his skin, his cerulean eyes burning. Those eyes now seemed to watch the way she massaged her arm. Did she sense regret at the roughness of his grip? Probably not.
“You’ve been watching me for days, for weeks,” she said, relieved to have finally identified the cause of her uneasiness. Not that it helped much. His being on the scene might explain that creepy someone-is-watching-me feeling, but it was more than compensated for by his accusations and the potential for disaster his presence in Allota could mean. She added, “I’ve felt your eyes on me.”
“No,” he said. “I just got to California last night.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m not the one who lies,” he said.
She sank down on the log, trying to organize her thoughts. She had to get home—alone. To do that, she had to convince Jack she had nothing to do with the ambush so he would go look under another rock.
Squinting, she peered up at him through strands of windblown hair. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m no more or less than you thought I was the night we met.”
“A woman grieving over her boyfriend’s death.”
Over the guilt. She’d been about to tell David she didn’t love him, she wanted him to take his money and go away and then he’d died in a stupid accident. “Mr. Correa told me I could bow out of going with him to South America for the opening of the new school and I almost did. Everyone blamed my sadness on my grandfather’s illness and that was part of it, but the other part was all my inconsistent feelings about David’s death. In the end I went and that’s where I met you. You’d known David, you were sympathetic and kind. You talked to me, you helped me. It’s as simple as that.”
“Say it like it is,” he insisted, stepping in front of her. Leaning over, he pinned her in place with his arms, his brown hands stark against the bleached wood. He lowered his voice; his face was just inches from hers. “Don’t wrap it up in pretty words, cariño. Your boyfriend was dead less than a month. We had a couple of drinks, you cried, and then we had raw, messy sex. The next day, I slept in. I never sleep in. I was late leaving you. I felt groggy and slow. I was late getting to the Correa vehicle, too, and I played catch-up until the minute the lead car came across the overturned truck in the middle of the road and all hell broke loose. You weren’t there. Why not?”
His single-mindedness beat his words into her head like jungle drums. If this kept up she’d spill her guts, voice her concerns about David to get Jack’s focus off her. It was way too soon to do that; there were other people to consider. Struggling to stay calm, she said, “I was already at the school. I left right from the hotel. I wasn’t part of the caravan. I had to be there earlier to arrange things on that end.”
He shook his head. “So, you had nothing to do with anything.”
“No more than you did,” she said, and again thought of David and the last time she’d seen him. Oh, no, she had to be wrong. Softening her voice, she added, “If you had been in the car with Hugo Correa, it wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
“The two men who were in that car died,” he said. “They were my men, I should have been there.”
“I saw the pictures taken after the incident. I saw what they did. There’s no way you would have survived, Jack. It’s a miracle anyone did.”
“My job was to make sure everyone survived.”
“I don’t understand you,” she said, her voice raspy. “This is no one’s fault but the rebels who try to get their way by destroying innocent lives. You know their methods, you know better than anyone what they’re capable of. They recruit children. They support drug cartels to finance their so-called patriotism. They murder anyone who wants out. I work for a nonprofit organization started by a man who wanted to improve the education of children in South America, who wanted to help them build a future. How could you think I’d have anything to do with people like the GTM?”
He pushed himself away from her, hitching his hands on his waist as he continued to stare at her face, reaching who knew what conclusions. His gaze was still intense but dare she hope she detected a glimmer of doubt?
A year before, she’d noticed him the minute he walked into the hotel bar to meet with her to go over the plans for the next day. Tall, dark and handsome as the saying goes, and with those blue eyes that could peel the clothes right off a woman. Their attraction had been immediate and mutual, and he was right, the sex had been world-class.
Now, thinner but somehow stronger, less refined and honed by months of deprivation, he still exuded enough sex appeal to topple a dozen women in a single glance. The look in his eyes might not be soft and warm, but it had her sizzling inside and out and she wasn’t proud of it.
“I’m leaving,” she announced. “I was supposed to be home a half hour ago. Goodbye.” She got to her feet and walked a few feet, then turned back to him. “Jack? You believe me, don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I don’t know why that bothers me, but it does,” she admitted.
He ran a hand through his long hair, clearing his forehead for a moment. “Everything added up,” he said as though to himself. “I was so sure it was you.”
“I really would like to know how you escaped, Jack. I don’t understand why I didn’t hear about it on the news.”
“Hardly anyone knows I’m back.”
“Didn’t you go to the consulate? Didn’t you need to get a new passport?”
“Not the way I came back into the country.”
“Why would you come back illegally? You’re a hero—”
“I came back under my own terms to find the truth,” he said, looking out to the ocean. “I didn’t want to get lost in red tape and protocol. I’ll do that later. I have this feeling there’s a ticking bomb I can’t find.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry.”
He flashed her a quick glance. “I thought you would have the answers. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“I guess I’ll have to settle for that,” she said. She started to turn again.
“Meet me later tonight,” he said suddenly, reaching for her arm, catching her sleeve.
“I can’t,” she mumbled. “It’s impossible.”
His fingers slid down her arm, lingered on her hand. “Come to Fort Bragg for an hour,” he said, his voice softer now.
Fort Bragg was several miles south of Allota and was the home of the Staar Foundation. She’d just come from there an hour before. She said, “I’m sorry—”
“Please,” he added. “I need to know more about your plans in Costa del Rio. Anything you can remember might help. I have to figure out what’s going on down there, Hannah. It’s more important than I can tell you. It’s bigger than the ambush and a half-dozen deaths. This isn’t just about revenge.”
Glancing down at their linked fingers, she recalled how bereft she’d been when he disappeared the day after their night together. Coming on the heels of David’s death, she’d decided she was a jinx of the worst kind.
After their one wild night together had she anticipated their relationship might continue? The truth? Yes. There was something about Jack Starling—there had been then, there was now. But things had changed and now there was too much at stake to get involved. “I’m sorry,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “It’s impossible.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he murmured.
Together, they walked back up the dune. The parking lot had cleared out while she was gone and now Hannah’s car was the only one at the back. She’d been away from it less than thirty minutes. The perishables should be okay. Well, maybe not the ice cream …
The explosion wasn’t the kind that shook the earth, but was so unexpected, it sent Hannah toppling back against Jack. He immediately swiveled her around as if to shield her from danger, the bodyguard in him coming to the forefront, his strong, warm body pressed against hers.
She looked over his shoulder at the black cloud of smoke enveloping her car.
Chapter Two (#ulink_3e930616-034b-57ef-9a4d-aab9341cac48)
At police request, Jack presented his identity, holding his breath it would pass scrutiny. The last name on it was Carlin instead of Starling. It had stood up earlier in the month when he used it, and he assumed it would hold up again. The cops made notes and handed the false driver’s license back and then proceeded to ignore him.
Hannah had walked away from him to make a call, and now she tucked her cell phone into her handbag as she returned. She’d seemed desperate to make this call after the explosion. He didn’t know if it was because she thought she knew who was behind the bomb or because she was concerned a loved one would hear the news and start to worry.
There was so much he didn’t know about her.
Twenty feet farther along, firemen and police were finishing their investigation. The afternoon was giving way to evening, the breeze of earlier in the day getting serious enough to thrash Hannah’s straight, shoulder-length hair around her neck. She turned her face into the wind to clear a few glistening strands of red-gold from her mouth and eyes.
She struck him as more contained, less vulnerable and stronger than the last time they’d met. Just as attractive, yes. Just as interesting with a spark of naughty in her clear green eyes. He liked the way her nose tilted up a little at the end, he liked the few freckles scattered across her cheeks.
After seeing and talking to her again it was hard to believe she’d been in on something as nasty as what happened in Tierra Montañosa. He had the gut feeling she was telling the truth, but he had just as strong a feeling she was hiding something he needed to know.
“What did you mean when you accused me of watching you?” Jack asked.
“It’s not important,” she said, and then looked over his shoulder as something else caught her attention. He turned to find that one of the police officers had detached himself from the others and was walking toward them. With a hasty glance back at Jack, Hannah quickly moved to meet the officer and lowered her head as they spoke. Jack recognized her attempts to keep her conversations private. He’d operated the same way for most of his life.
He swallowed his impatience with her and closed his eyes, searching for the Zen-like spot inside himself he’d learned to access during his months of captivity. For an admitted control freak, there was nothing more humbling than being at the total mercy of merciless men. He’d found the only way to survive with his brain still working was to adapt.
He relaxed tense muscles in his neck and shoulders as the cool ocean breeze blew in his hair and whipped his shirt around his torso. He concentrated on the caw of gulls, the distant sound of waves. The crowd noise receded. He was standing alone, an invisible shaft of energy running through his skull and out the soles of his feet, connecting him to the center of the earth. He was free.
No wire cages. No chains around his neck. No starvation, no guns jabbed into his gut for no reason. No yelling, no threats, no terror.
Part of him yearned to accept that it had all happened the way Hannah said, to get on his bike and go find the rest of his life and never look back. But it wasn’t a big part and he knew in his heart it would never happen. He was who he was today because of what had happened to him yesterday. That’s the way it worked.
He opened his eyes to find Hannah staring at him. She wore a salmon-colored sweater that somehow matched her lips though he hadn’t noticed any lipstick. Until that second he hadn’t realized he’d even looked at her lips, but of course he had. If he wanted to torture himself, he could relive the taste of those lips; it wouldn’t be the first time. If he wanted to check himself into a mental ward, he could work his memory down each delicious curve and dip of her body.
He’d done that a time or two, as well.
Hannah nodded at something the officer said, and walked toward Jack again, her breasts bouncing gently under her sweater. He suddenly burned with an unexpected need for her.
“I’m getting a ride back to my house, Jack. Officer Latimer asked if you need a lift somewhere.”
He glanced toward the other end of the lot and his Harley. Thanks to Ella and Simon, he had it back. “No, thanks.”
“Okay. Well, I just want to say goodbye. I’m so glad you’re okay. Take care of yourself and try to let the past go. You deserve to be happy now.” She put her hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to plant a brief kiss on his left cheek. Her cloud of hair smelled like fresh air.
He caught her hands before she could fly away. “Why won’t you tell me what you meant about being watched?”
“Because it was just my imagination,” she said as he reluctantly released her.
“Did you tell the police about it?”
“Yes,” she said, but she looked down as she said it, her hand rising to brush at her cheek. He didn’t believe her. Why wouldn’t she tell the police something like that?
“Someone blew up your car, cariño,” he said softly. “Maybe you should take it seriously.”
“The police assure me the bomb wasn’t meant to hurt me. There’s been a rash of these things around town,” she added, meeting his gaze once again. “They think it was a small bomb on a timer attached to the muffler. Even if I’d been driving the car, I wouldn’t have been hurt. The car will need to go to the shop, but they can probably make it good as new. End of story.”
“Not the end.”
Her hand landed on his arm and she squeezed gently. “Yes. The end. I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but maybe it’s best this way. Good luck finding what you’re looking for. I have to go. Officer Latimer is waving. Goodbye, Jack.”
“Wait,” he said, but she cast him an apologetic smile before walking briskly to the police car. He watched the vehicle leave the parking lot.
He stood there a moment as the tow truck and the fire truck left, as the few remaining bystanders wandered back to their own lives. Three things occurred to him. One: Hannah was afraid. He knew what fear looked like, what it smelled like, how it sounded. He didn’t think she was afraid of him. So, what was she frightened of?
Two: She did not want him to know where she lived. Why?
Three: She seemed to think that by not inviting him, he would stay away.
THE HOUSE SHE NOW SHARED with her grandmother was less than a mile from the ocean, tucked into a small neighborhood on a wooded street. As always, coming home calmed something deep in Hannah’s soul. Especially tonight when she felt as though she’d dodged a bullet named Jack.
Hannah’s grandmother, Mimi Marks, was a comfortable woman of seventy-three who wore her long gray hair in braids, was partial to denim overalls and big plastic clog-like shoes in bright colors. Back in the day, she’d helped her husband build this little house. On Friday nights, it was a sure thing she and a small pack of other women could be found drinking beer and playing poker at one or another of their homes.
She met Hannah at the door and held her at arm’s length. She was wearing a knee-length Astroturf-green cardigan with orange and brown stripes near the hem. She was as earthy as Hannah’s recently remarried mother was snooty and a million times easier to get along with. In fact, Hannah’s grandparents had more or less raised Hannah.
“Tell me the truth,” Mimi insisted. “Are you really okay?”
“I really am. Like I told you on the phone, I wasn’t even in the car.”
“Who would pull a stunt like that?” Without waiting for an answer, she added, “I’ve had a dozen calls from people all over Allota. They say the police claim it’s a pack of rowdy Fort Bragg kids.”
The Allota grapevine was alive and well. “I gather it’s happened before. Is Aubrielle all right?”
“Of course she is. I fed her the milk you expressed.” Mimi smiled and patted Hannah’s arm. “Go on, look at her, I know it’s killing you. Dinner will be potluck seeing as we don’t have anything from the store.”
“We’ll take your car shopping tomorrow,” Hannah said as she quickly walked down the short hall, past Mimi’s room but not as far as her own bedroom and office, pausing at the door to the nursery.
Painted pink the day the results of the ultrasound revealed the baby was a girl, the small room was frilly and fluttery and probably silly, but it never ceased to make Hannah smile. Her grandmother, who had wanted to paint it lime-green and canary-yellow, just shook her head.
But it was the three-month-old baby in the crib that drew Hannah. She crossed the floor without bothering to make her steps quiet, hoping the baby would wake up, needing to see her, touch her, and heaven knows, nurse her.
Aubrielle’s eyes were open. Hannah lifted the baby to her shoulder, where the infant made some very sweet sounds and Hannah’s heart felt as though it was going to burst.
She glanced at the nursery door to make sure it was closed, and then she took a deep breath. Whispering into the warm little ear by her lips, she said, “I saw your daddy today.”
There, she’d said it out loud for the first time. Jack Starling was Aubrielle’s father. One night of sex had created the most wonderful gift in the world.
“I want you to know I will not allow him to mess things up for you, sweetheart, I promise that,” Hannah continued. “It’s you and me, we’re a family. I’m not going to risk a near stranger demanding half your destiny so don’t worry, it’s okay. It’s our secret.”
They moved to the rocking chair where Hannah nursed her baby, tears burning behind her nose. She hated lying, she knew she was bad at it, she even knew Jack deserved the truth, but she could not, would not, risk Aubrielle’s safety. Jack was a bodyguard, a man’s man, and what little Hannah knew of his life had nothing to do with being a father. Take his current obsession. With little to go on but a hunch, he was running around accusing innocent people of terrible crimes. He’d entered the country without a passport. Maybe being stuck in the jungle for almost a year had fried his brain.
She was avoiding thinking about David and Tierra Montañosa and the ambush at Costa del Rio, she knew that. For a second it occurred to her that David couldn’t have been involved—he’d died weeks before the trip—and a mountain of worry lifted from her shoulders. He hadn’t even been to Costa del Rio; he was the foundation pilot in the States. How could he be involved?
Where had the money come from weeks before the ambush? Why had he told her to keep it a secret?
And just like that she thought of the original gym bag David had left with her. Where was it? In her home office? No. She’d taken it to work, she remembered that. Then she’d transferred the cash into her briefcase. Was there another paper in the bag? She seemed to remember there was though she also recalled dismissing it. What had she done with the gym bag? Where was it? Had it gone with her to the locker or was it still in the bottom of the file cabinet in the locked drawer?
It was no use, she couldn’t remember, but that was easily fixed; she could look.
Closing her eyes, she found Jack’s image front and center, not David’s. Jack’s eyes. His mouth. When he called her cariño, her insides melted. She remembered their one night in vivid detail, images burned on her brain and enhanced by all that came afterward.
As she rested her head against the wooden spindles of the chair, Hannah’s gaze drifted out the window to the slice of dark sky visible between the even darker branches. She’d positioned the chair just this way so that would be her view, but suddenly it seemed more oppressive than comforting. She couldn’t fight the feeling someone was looking in at them. The lights in the room seemed garish; she felt as though she was on a stage.
This was melodramatic, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Who could possibly be out there? Maybe Jack was right, maybe she should have told the police about her feelings, but the thought of going through an investigation while Jack was around frightened her. She wanted him to leave California. If she was still spooked after he was gone, she’d talk to Officer Latimer. He’d seemed approachable.
Aubrielle soon fell back asleep. Superaware of the window, Hannah adjusted her own clothing before carefully lifting the drowsy baby. She nuzzled Aubrielle’s soft, sweet skin before putting her back in her crib, then made sure the window was locked, the curtains closed tight. She turned off the light as she left the room and looked back. The little pink mushroom-shaped night-light illuminated very little but gave the cozy space a rosy hue. Aubrielle was safe. That’s all that mattered.
While walking down the hall, Hannah heard a man’s deep voice and thought it was the television until her grandmother’s bright chirp responded. Still spooked from the events of the afternoon, she hurried into the living room. What now?
Her grandmother sat on the red plaid sofa. Jack Starling sat in the bright blue chair set at a right angle, a wineglass cradled in his hands. They both looked up as Hannah made an abrupt halt.
Jack put down his glass and stood. With his unruly black hair and stormy expression he looked like a slightly disreputable action hero plopped down in the middle of Snow White’s cottage.
Mimi popped off the couch. “Your friend has been telling me stories about your trip to Tierra Montañosa last year. Well, you know, honey, you never talk about it. Anyway, I’ve convinced him to stay for dinner, though heaven knows what we’re going to give him to eat. Hannah, you look bushed. Sit down, dear, I’ll get you a glass of wine.” She scurried toward the kitchen on her mission.
“How did you find out where I live?” Hannah demanded in a low voice.
“I told the clerk inside the store that you forgot something. He told me. Apparently his wife’s mother plays cards with your grandmother. That’s the nice thing about a small town.”
“But why did you come? What do you want now?”
He sat back down in his chair. “I’m just making sure you’re okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not,” he agreed. “I’m here because you’re hiding something.” He pulled on her hand and she perched on the corner of the sofa, her knees almost touching his. “Why are you so nervous?” he asked.
“Why are you staying for dinner?”
“Your grandmother invited me.”
Mimi reappeared with wine for Hannah. Smiling broadly, the older woman hitched her hands on her waist. “Now, you two catch up on old times while I figure out what we’re going to eat.” She took a few steps, then turned back. “Oh, Jack, did you know a Frenchman down in Costa del Rio?”
“French?”
“Yes. I’m sure he was very dashing. An expatriate.”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t recall anyone from France.”
“I thought maybe you knew him. I mean, you lived down there for a couple of years, right? Hannah was only down there a few days and you said you spent one evening with her and then—”
“Grandma, what about dinner?” Hannah said softly, doing her best to avert a disaster.
In a scolding voice, Mimi said, “I just thought it would be nice to hear about the baby’s father from someone else. You won’t tell me much about him.”
Hannah must have made a strangled sound in her throat because both her grandmother and Jack glanced at her. “I know we’re not supposed to talk about him,” Mimi said with a defiant tilt to her chin. “I know you said he was a giant mistake, but I just thought—”
“Jack didn’t know him,” Hannah said, praying for some kind of diversion. It was the West Coast, for heaven’s sake. Where was a 6.0 earthquake when you needed one?
“I didn’t know you had a baby,” Jack said.
Mimi, looking perplexed, muttered, “I told you Hannah was in with Aubrielle when you got here.”
“I assumed Aubrielle was another adult.”
Mimi’s defiance was melting into contrition. “I’ll go see to dinner,” she said.
As soon as she was out of the room Jack cleared his throat. “You have a baby.”
Hannah took a gulp of wine and sighed. “Yes.”
“How old?”
“Three months.”
“Three months. Funny, I don’t recall a French expatriate.” His eyebrows raised up his forehead, his eyes narrowed. “Three months. Oh, God, Hannah—is this my … my baby?”
He looked horrified at the thought. Good. She said, “Aubrielle is not your baby.”
“But the timing—”
“No.”
“Is she David’s?”
After a moment, Hannah nodded.
“Why wouldn’t you tell your grandmother that your baby is your boyfriend’s child?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“There were rules at the foundation about dating and David and I broke them. David is gone now, there’s nothing to be gained by bringing all this up. I might even lose my job and I need it.”
“It sounds like a lot of justifying,” Jack said.
“Of course it is. That’s what happens when you mess things up. You do your best to make them better.” She took a deep breath, smoothed her jeans over her thighs and added, “My grandmother didn’t know David well and certainly never knew anything about us being a couple. As you can see, she’s not much for secrets. And then there was David’s family to consider. His parents have about twelve other grandchildren and live thousands of miles away. They know nothing about me. I just decided to tell a select few people Aubrielle’s father was a man I met when I was in South America who is totally out of our lives.”
“Then you were pregnant when we met?”
She looked him in the eye and nodded.
“If she’s three months old, it must have happened—”
“The last night David was alive, yes.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t part of the reason you were grieving so much that you felt bad you’d been about to break up with him?”
“You never had sex with someone you weren’t sure about?” she countered.
“Point taken. He died the next morning on his way to work, right?”
“He was riding his bike. The truck driver said David hit a patch of loose gravel and fell right into the road.”
Jack stared at her for a few dozen jumpy heartbeats and then nodded. “You know, I’ve decided to believe your claim that you had nothing to do with what happened down in Costa del Rio.”
She blinked at the change of subject before saying, “Good. Why?”
“I’m not sure. You’re smart enough and clever enough and maybe even sneaky enough, but you’re not ruthless.”
“That’s true. I’m relieved to hear you say it.”
“But you do know or suspect something. Who are you protecting?”
She drained the wine from the stemmed glass and set it down. It was time to put this matter to rest. Her voice a little on the stern side, she leaned toward him. “Let’s get this straight. You’re a stranger I spent one amazing night with a year ago. Like you so graphically pointed out this afternoon, it was sex and nothing more. I’m not going to offer excuses, but seeing you again is embarrassing—it wasn’t exactly my most shining hour. Is that blunt enough for you?”
“It’s excellent. If I was capable of being shamed, that would have done it.” He paused a second and added, “An �amazing’ night, huh?” the skin crinkling around his eyes as he smiled.
She glared at him.
Mimi yelled from the kitchen, “We’re having stir-fried tofu and veggies.”
“My grandmother thinks she can cook,” Hannah said softly. “She can’t.”
Jack shrugged. “I never turn down a meal.”
When she didn’t smile, he added, “I’d like to see David’s kid and I really am hungry.”
She stood up. He was a danger to her, to her baby, to the future. He needed to go away so she could figure out what if anything to do with her ever-growing suspicions. Maybe in the end he’d be the one to share them with, but not now. What would happen if she convinced him to leave for a week or so with the promise she would poke around a little when she went into the office? Maybe Fran knew something. As the head of HR, she seemed to know something about everyone.
“You’re suddenly a light-year away,” Jack said, coming to stand in front of her.
She pushed her hair back from her forehead. “It’s been a terrible day, Jack. I feel like I’m being stalked by the invisible man and now you’re accusing me of helping a killer. Give me a number where I can call you should something come to mind. For now, I’m going to go wash up for dinner and when I get back, I would really like to find you made your apologies to my grandmother and left. Is that too much to ask?”
“Yeah, it is,” he said. “I already lost a few days with my family. Time is passing.”
“The ambush happened almost a year ago. Another week or two won’t matter.”
“It’s not that simple,” he said. “I told you this isn’t just about revenge.”
She stared at him and he stared at her. They were at an impasse. This was crazy, this was her house, well, her grandmother’s house. What made Jack Starling think he could just refuse to leave?
When his gaze strayed past her face to the plate-glass window behind her back, she wondered if he was looking at their reflections. In the next instant, he lunged at her. She gasped at the unexpectedness of it. He wrapped his arms around her and spun her around to the floor where she landed on her back with a crash. He flung his body on top of hers, using his arms to surround her head. She pushed on his solid chest but he held tighter.
A loud popping sound was followed by a distant scream and other unidentifiable sounds that rumbled in Hannah’s brain. Ragged cubes of glass rained down on them like pebbles, bouncing on the furniture, skittering across the hardwood floors.
Jack held her even tighter. She swallowed a scream as her thoughts went to Aubrielle.
Chapter Three (#ulink_81114e62-66dd-5f41-a0c4-181e94b3b93f)
“What in the hell is going on?” Jack demanded. He’d pulled Hannah to her feet, safety glass tumbling from both their clothes.
“I don’t know,” Hannah said, eyes wide with fear.
“Like hell you don’t.”
Mimi entered from the kitchen. “Look at the window!” she cried and Jack and Hannah both turned to look at the gaping hole where the window had been.
“Did someone shoot it out?”
“I think it was a brick,” Jack said.
Hannah was trying to shake the glass off her clothes as she moved toward the hallway. He heard the cries of a very small baby coming from farther back in the house.
Mimi intercepted her granddaughter. “You’ll get glass all over her. I’ll go.” She hurried off down the hall and Hannah turned to face him.
“Hannah?” he said. “What’s going on?”
It looked as though she wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but this time the flippancy with which she’d treated the car bomb was gone. In fact, the fear in her eyes yanked at him.
“I don’t have the slightest idea.”
“But it’s something that’s been going on for a while, isn’t it?”
“No,” she said, and looked surprised by the idea. And then a knowing look crept into her eyes. “Maybe,” she admitted. “I’m not sure. Nothing like this, though. Well, the break-in, but nothing of consequence was taken. Did you see someone outside before this happened?”
“I saw a car slow down outside and then speed up. What break-in?”
“You have remarkable reflexes,” she said, still dusting glass off her clothes.
“What break-in?”
“It happened before I moved in with Grandma. Someone broke into my old apartment. The police investigated, nothing was taken, that was all there was to it.”
He frowned, trying to make sense of the break-in, the bomb and the broken window and coming up empty. Was it possible the events were related to Tierra Montañosa? Without knowing more about Hannah’s life, how could he make that kind of determination?
He looked around the floor until he found a brick-sized rock under a small table. Crunching glass under his feet, he retrieved the rock, using one of the little doilies that were draped over the arms of the sofa. There was a piece of lined paper tied to the rock with an ordinary-looking length of white string.
“Do you have plastic gloves?” he asked.
She had her head upside down and was shaking out the glass. As she swung her head up and back, her sweater rode up her trim midriff, exposing a creamy strip of skin. With her hair tousled and her clothes askew, she looked as though she’d just gotten out of bed, and once again, his body started a slow burn.
“In the kitchen under the sink,” she said, pulling down on her sweater. “I have to check on Aubrielle.”
With that she disappeared down the hall, the sway of her hips mesmerizing.
“Get a grip,” he mumbled as he shook off most of the glass. Leaving the cloth and rock on top of the television, he moved into the kitchen, where the smell of burned vegetables greeted him. The pan had been taken off the heat but the glob inside it looked pretty horrendous. He’d eaten worse, though.
He found the plastic gloves where Hannah said they were.
Hannah and her grandmother were both back in the living room when he returned. “She went right back to sleep,” Hannah said, pausing to look up from her task. She’d found a broom and a dustpan and was working on sweeping up the glass. A vacuum cleaner sat off to the side, awaiting its turn.
It took him a second to realize she was talking about her baby. He said, “Oh. Good.”
As the cold night blew right into the room through the gaping hole, Jack took time to go outside to Hannah’s grandfather’s shop where Mimi assured him he’d find a roll of plastic and a staple gun. It was killing him not to investigate the note first, but he guessed with a baby in the house, certain protocols had to be observed.
At last things were secure. Hannah insisted on unwrapping the note herself, announcing she was certain she was the intended recipient. As the plastic gloves were two sizes too small for his hands, he didn’t object. He and Mimi crowded around the table where Hannah had settled with the rock.
The paper turned out to be ordinary notebook paper, words cut from a magazine and glued on. It was the message that was startling.
“The bomb wasn’t the work of kids. Stop what you’re doing—or else.”
Swiveling to look at Hannah, Jack and Mimi both said, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Hannah said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice reflecting the strain of the past hour.
“First the car, then this,” Mimi said.
“This could have hurt someone,” Hannah said. “It could have hurt Aubrielle. Why? I haven’t done anything to anyone.”
“Someone thinks you have,” Jack said.
“Who?”
There was no answer to that and the three of them stared at the note a while longer until Jack added, “How did this person know you think the car bomb was the work of kids?”
“Because that’s what the police told Hannah in the middle of a public parking lot,” Mimi said with a dismissive note in her voice. “Everyone in Allota knows what everyone else knows, more or less.” Pushing herself to her feet, she added, “Listen, you two, I’m starving and my lovely stir-fry is now beyond redemption. We’ll all think better if we eat something. I’m going into town to pick up some Chinese at Shanghai Lo.” She grabbed her keys and handbag off a hook. “Everybody like beef and broccoli? Maybe some wonton soup?”
Jack said, “Fine.” Hannah didn’t seem to hear her grandmother.
Once the older woman was gone, Hannah rubbed her forehead and began pacing the living room. She finally faced Jack. “I have to take a shower and get the rest of the glass out of my hair before the baby wakes up again. Would you mind listening for her? Then you can be on your way.”
He’d rather get into the shower with Hannah. “Sure, I can listen for her.”
Forehead creasing, she said, “Don’t pick her up, though, just bang on the bathroom door.”
“I won’t touch her,” he said with a dry edge to his voice.
When he heard the water running, he did his best not to let his imagination run away with him. He’d taken one shower with Hannah, one very long, languid shower in the middle of a tropical night. He’d lifted her against the aqua tile and she’d wrapped her legs around him. Water had drummed on their heads; he could still see beads of it rolling down her throat and across her breasts. The heat burning between them had rivaled the one hundred percent humidity outside. That particular memory had been his constant companion the first few weeks of captivity.
He heard little mewling sounds and took a deep breath, letting useless memories float away. Time to go see if David’s kid was awake or if he was hearing things.
The only room with a light on turned out to be the pinkest place he’d ever seen. He was almost afraid to enter, but he heard the sound again. Switching on a lamp, he all but tiptoed across the carpet and looked down into the crib.
The baby was so tiny! He stared at her for several moments, transfixed at her absolute vulnerability. He could even see the blue veins under her skin. Her head was covered with a brown fuzz.
She didn’t seem to be actually awake; she was just jerking and making little sounds, screwing her face up and then smiling at nothing, bubbles on her lips. It was the closest he’d ever been to a baby.
David’s baby. Damn.
He’d known David in the Marines. David had been a helicopter pilot, he’d been a sniper, and for a while they’d flown a few missions together. Eventually they lost touch but by then, Jack had seen tendencies in David he hadn’t much liked. A certain disdain for the truth, a predilection for shortcuts that sometimes ended up costing other men dearly, an every-man-for-himself kind of mentality that included money under the table when the opportunity arose.
In a way, maybe it was better David had died. Jack could no more imagine the David he knew being a decent father than he could imagine it of himself. Then again, as he’d recently learned, if a man lived long enough, he had a chance to redeem himself.
Had David done that? With Hannah, he’d earned the trust of a pretty remarkable woman, so maybe he had.
“Is she awake?” Hannah asked from the doorway.
Startled, he turned with a guilty smile. He’d been about to run a finger along Aubrielle’s cheek, curious to know if she was as soft as she looked.
“I think she’s waking up,” he said, and backed away from the crib as though the baby was a ticking bomb about to detonate. Hannah glided past him on the way to her child, the scent of flowers lingering in her wake. She’d changed into black slacks and a black sweater that offset her porcelain skin. Her reddish hair was wet and unexpectedly wavy. She looked fresh and sexy. He had to remind himself to take a breath.
“I know you must have a lot to do,” she said as she reached into the crib and picked up her daughter. She turned to face him and said, “Thanks for the help tonight.”
“Cut it out,” he said.
“Jack—”
“We’re going to talk. I’m not going anywhere until we do.”
She sighed heavily. “I have to nurse the baby. You could wait in the living room—”
“No, you do what you have to do. I’ll turn my back if you want, but we’re going to talk now.” He turned his back and crossed his arms.
After a few seconds of rustling sounds and the creak of rockers, she said, “I’m not going to talk to your back, Jack. Go ahead and turn around.”
He did, leaning against the doorjamb. Hannah was modestly draped in a pink blanket. All Jack could see of Aubrielle was one tiny foot and an equally tiny hand. Determined to set things straight, he said, “You need help, Hannah.”
“No.”
“Whatever is going on is over your head.”
“If you mean I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt me, yes, you’re right.”
“You know what I find kind of puzzling?”
She looked at him as though worried what he’d say next. “What?”
“You didn’t call the cops about the window.”
“What could they do?”
“Investigate. Take the note and try to trace—”
“White paper and cut-out words? A rock?”
“Ever heard of fingerprints? Tire tracks out on the drive? Neighbors who saw something?”
“Jack, what do you suppose is the first thing the police would do?” When he shrugged in response, she continued. “They would investigate you. You’re new in town. Why are you here, how do you know me, etc. Maybe your false identity would hold up under closer scrutiny, maybe it wouldn’t.”
“That concerns me, not you,” he said.
“Because you’re at my house, it concerns me, too, and what concerns me concerns my baby.”
“Your grandmother can’t file a claim with her home owner’s insurance if she doesn’t report the attack,” he said reasonably.
“She’s afraid to make a claim on her insurance because she’s afraid they’ll cancel her policy. I have an emergency fund. I’ll buy her a new window.”
He let it drop.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she added. “If you leave now, I’ll call the cops and tell them about the window and how I’ve felt as though I’m being watched. I’ll give them the rock and the paper. We won’t have to inform the insurance company if Grandma doesn’t want to, but the authorities will be advised. You’ll get your way.”
He shook his head. “Not until you’re honest with me. I want to know who you’re protecting. I figure it must be someone at the Staar Foundation.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Not that again—”
“I haven’t told you what I saw out in the jungle,” he said.
The baby started crying. Hannah deftly manipulated baby and blanket against her chest and stood. “Turn around so I can fix my bra,” she said.
With an internal smile, he did as she asked. Funny how shy people could be around someone they’d once been so blatantly intimate with.
“Okay,” she said, and patting the baby’s tiny back, demanded, “What did you see?”
He pushed himself away from the jamb. He wished she’d come closer to him so he could speak in a whisper instead of across a room. The things he had to say weren’t the kind of things a man wanted to shout.
As she resettled in the rocker, he looked around the room until he spied a small wooden toy chest. Pulling that close to her chair, he parked himself on top of it, forearms resting on his thighs.
“First of all, the guerillas knew about me. About my training and the fact that I’d been a mercenary for a short time a while ago. They treated me differently than the others, singling me out. At first I thought it was because I spoke the language, but then I realized they were kind of grooming me, seeing if I might turn tail and help them.”
Her eyes grew wide. “What did you do?”
“I had nothing to do with them until after they killed the other hostages. Then I considered the possibility that if I ever wanted to escape, I had better seem to be more cooperative. So I turned into a model prisoner and kept my eyes open.”
“I don’t—”
“I’m going to cut this short. I think the Staar Foundation is the front for the GTM, that they are supporting terrorist schools and camps. I have to find out who is involved and how deeply.”
“That’s absurd. Santi Correa and his son, Hugo, would never—”
“How do you know? How do you really know that?”
She was silent for several seconds. “Couldn’t you just tell our government or the Tierra Montañosa government about your suspicions and let them investigate?”
“The minute the GTM realized I escaped, you can bet the camps I was shown disappeared, but they’re still there, further underground or in a different spot. They were working up to something big. Right before I left, they were practicing some sort of mock invasion or takeover of some kind.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they practiced entering blocked-off areas that represented buildings and killing and subduing mock representations of people. As for telling our government—governments don’t move fast, they launch studies. Just verifying my true identity and being viewed as a credible witness given the way I entered the country would take forever.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I can see you’re truly concerned about this, but it has nothing to do with what’s happening to me—”
“Doesn’t it? Are you sure?”
He could see by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t sure at all.
He took her free hand in his. “Hannah, even if this is unrelated to you, the fact remains you and your family are in danger. You have to take the threat seriously. You’ve mentioned small things going wrong, but these things today aren’t small, they’re meant to terrify you. The bomb could have easily been big enough to destroy your car and everyone near it. The rock through the window could have been a bullet. Since you aren’t aware of what you’re doing that has someone reacting this way, you can’t even stop doing it.”
“If I go to the police I’ll have to tell them all this,” she countered. “They’ll check into everyone’s lives and if you’re wrong, we could irreparably damage the reputation of a wonderful nonprofit organization. I’m not doubting these schools exist, I’m just doubting your conclusion that the Staar Foundation is connected to them. I’m sure the GTM has camps everywhere.”
“You haven’t been listening to me.”
“Yes, I have, Jack,” she said, and firmly reclaimed her hand. “I’m just not convinced.”
“Then why are you protecting someone?”
“Oh, no, not that again.”
He shook his head. “Listen, no matter what you think, I’m here and I’m not going to go away until I get to the bottom of this.”
“I guess that’s your decision. It doesn’t include me. We had one night a long time ago …”
“Then let me be your bodyguard. That way we can pool what we know, we can work together and I can protect you. I need a place to hang out while I snoop around—”
“No way. I don’t need protection.”
“Really? Do you actually believe that?”
“Of course I believe it. It won’t work. You have to leave.”
“You’re wrong,” came a voice from behind Jack’s back. He swiveled around to find Mimi standing just inside the room.
“Grandma—” Hannah began.
“You’re wrong, Hannah Marie. Ever since your grandpa died and you got pregnant, you’ve been trying to do everything alone. You need help. We need help.”
“Maybe we do,” Hannah said reluctantly, and then with a swift glance at Jack, added, “But not this man.”
Mimi made a big deal of looking around the room and behind her. “Then, which man, Hannah?”
“Grandma—”
“I’ll hire you,” Mimi said, looking directly at Jack.
“You don’t even know Jack Starling,” Hannah muttered.
The older woman nodded abruptly. “You’re right, I don’t. But I like him, and so do you.”
Jack smiled.
“I do not like him,” Hannah grumbled.
“Whatever. Okay, if you won’t allow me to hire him as a bodyguard for you, then I’ll hire him as one for my great-granddaughter. It’ll be good having a man here protecting her. You accept, Mr. Starling?”
“I accept,” Jack said quickly before Hannah could get in another word.
Chapter Four (#ulink_f1112e46-29b1-5a87-8257-ccaca898ae2a)
“You can sleep here,” Hannah said a few hours later when everything had quieted down again. Aubrielle slept in her crib, which Hannah had pushed into her own bedroom. No way was she leaving her baby alone in a room with a big window. Mimi had long since excused herself to go to bed and Jack, who refused to leave even to drive back to Fort Bragg and check out of his motel, had finally stopped bombarding her with questions.
Standing next to her, he perused the room that had been her grandfather’s den until his death. The walls were still lined with shelves of books, but the desk was gone, shoved into Hannah’s room where she used it to work from home. In its place was the futon they’d installed for the occasional overnight guest. The closet was stuffed with boxes that were too heavy to cart up to the attic.
The fact was, Hannah realized, it was like there were three of them crowded into the small room: herself, Jack and the memory of their first and only night together. That memory had somehow assumed an identity of its own, a mass larger than the sum of the two of them combined. It vibrated with suspended breath as it hovered and waited.
“Cariño,” Jack said, his eyes dark in the deep shadows, the undercurrents of desire she could taste in the air between them sharp and poignant … and impossible.
“We need to get something out in the open,” she said softly.
He moved past her, gently brushing her breasts with his arm. As he had nothing to unpack, he turned upon reaching the futon, sat down, patted the mattress beside him and said, “I’m all ears.”
She crossed to the closet, yanked open the door and caught a sleeping bag as it fell from its perch atop a stack of cardboard boxes. She tossed it at him and grabbed a pillow. “A lot has happened since we met,” she said, still way too aware of him. When he opened his mouth to respond, she held up a finger. “To both of us, I mean. Nothing is the same. We’re not the same. You may have railroaded yourself into my grandmother’s house, but you can’t—”
“Railroad myself into your bed?” he finished for her.
Holding the pillow against her chest, she nodded.
He tossed the bag down on the futon, stood up and walked back to stand in front of her. “I don’t force myself into a woman’s bed. I wait to be invited.”
The last time they’d met, she’d done the inviting and he knew it. This time she met his gaze and said, “Then we’ll be fine because I won’t be asking.”
He leaned forward and whispered, “That’s too bad.” Then, his voice serious, he added, “Your grandmother mentioned you go to work twice a week and do the rest of your work from your home office. You don’t go in again until the day after tomorrow, right?”
Remembering the promise of the paper she’d found with David’s money that might or might not help matters, she said, “Actually, I need to go in tomorrow for a few minutes. Uh, I need to make a copy of a report brought home from work that got destroyed in the car bomb today. Plus we’re all working more hours because of a big Founder’s Day open house planned for next weekend.”
The look he directed her way was suspicious. “I don’t think—”
“Let’s remember exactly who you’ve been hired to guard,” she warned him. “Don’t try to tell me what to do.”
He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Because your number one priority is keeping my baby safe or didn’t you mean what you said about being her bodyguard?”
“Of course I meant it. But the big picture—”
“Yes, I know. But if you’re going to stay in my grandmother’s house, then you pay your way by thinking of Aubrielle first.”
“Sure,” he said. “Of course. But that means tomorrow you tell me what you’re so determined not to say tonight. We have to work together, Hannah, and we have to start immediately.”
It was well after midnight and the day’s events had finally battered their way through Hannah’s defenses, so she didn’t push further.
“Do you have a gun?” she asked.
“No.”
“My grandfather had a rifle and a shotgun,” she said.
“I know. Your grandmother told me where they are.” He dug in his pocket and produced the small gold key that locked the gun cabinet in the living room. “I’m kind of hoping I won’t need to use a weapon,” he said, flipping the key in the air and catching it. It disappeared back in his pocket.
Hannah refused to think about the fact that Mimi was so spooked she’d handed this man a key to the guns within hours of meeting him. “And if you do need to use one?”
“Then I will.” He put his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her. Despite her best intentions, her pulse throbbed in her throat. His mouth mesmerized her as a sensuous smile lifted one corner of his upper lip. She prepared herself for—well, for anything. Why deny the fact she was attracted to him as she’d never been attracted to anyone before? It didn’t mean she had to act on it, but pretending it didn’t exist wasn’t working, either.
“Go to bed,” he whispered.
She escaped with her pride barely intact but she slept like a rock, so lost in unidentifiable dreams that the next morning, it was clear Aubrielle had been crying for a while. After taking care of her tiny daughter’s needs, she carried her into the living room.
The plastic on the window served as a vivid reminder of the rock and the attached warning that had sailed through the night before. Juggling Aubrielle and the phone book, she found the number of the one and only place in town that handled things like broken windows and arranged for an estimate.
What did the person who threw the rock think she was doing? That was the big question and though she’d racked her brain a million times in the past twelve hours for an explanation, she simply couldn’t think of one.
She mothered her baby, she did her work, she shopped—her life was a little on the predictable side for bombs and rocks and threatening notes.
She found Jack in the kitchen with her grandmother, the two of them reading the paper and eating burned toast like long-lost friends. Jack was wearing the same clothes as the day before—a little more crumbled now as though he’d slept in them. It didn’t matter. Clean as a whistle, slightly rumpled—he looked good no matter what his condition. In fact, the beard darkening his jaw-line seemed to make his eyes all the more blue.
Hannah had dressed for work in a black jacket and trim skirt. As soon as Mimi saw her, she got to her feet and laid claim to her great-granddaughter, transferring the baby and blanket in an effortless manner, but Hannah noticed the sideways glance at Jack and the nod of her head.
“What’s going on?” Hannah asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Nothing,” Mimi said quickly.
Jack cleared his throat. “Well, actually—”
“My poker ladies are all due in half an hour,” Mimi said while rocking Aubrielle in her arms. “It’s way too early for pretzels and beer. I’ll make tea. Are there cookies in the freezer?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “Since when does your poker group meet on a Tuesday morning?” Looking from Mimi to Jack, she added, “Okay, you two, what’s up?”
“Nothing. Barb and the others are coming over to keep me and Aubrielle company while you and Jack go do your reconnoitering. Did you call the glass people yet, dear?”
Hannah took a sip of coffee brewed twice as strong, no, three times as strong, as her grandmother made it. Didn’t take a genius to figure out who started the coffee maker that morning. “They’ll be here at ten o’clock. What do you mean, �reconnoiter'?”
“I want to see foundation headquarters,” Jack said.
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea,” she said.
“Plus, I figure you probably need to take care of some kind of insurance thing with the garage concerning your car and I have to check out of the hotel by 10:00 a.m. We could take my Harley but it’s a little on the conspicuous side. Mimi has generously offered us the use of her car.”
“And the poker crew?”
“I don’t want anyone to be alone in this house until we figure out what’s going on. Alone anywhere, for that matter.”
“So five ladies over seventy are going to keep my baby safe? I thought you were Aubrielle’s bodyguard.”
“I think the best way to keep Aubrielle safe is to figure out why someone wants to scare her mother half to death. For this particular morning, this is the plan. It’ll give us a chance to talk and begin cementing our new pact. We’re a team, remember?”
There was no need to ask what he wanted to talk about. Again she thought of the front window and the rock and what it could portend. What was the point of trying to protect David? Besides, if Jack got to the bottom of this, he’d leave and that was a good thing. “Okay,” she said, then, looking at each of them in turn, added, “No more making sneaky plans behind my back.”
“Of course, dear,” Mimi said. “Don’t forget to stop by the store and get something for dinner. I made another list. It’s there by the door.”
“And you’ll call my cell if there’s any sign of trouble?”
“Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Jack pushed himself to his feet. “Mimi, I know you’re familiar with the rifle, so we’ll take the shotgun. That okay with you?”
“Damn tootin',” she said. “No one will get close to Aubrielle with me and the poker ladies here.”
Hannah did her best not to shudder.
CHECKING IN AT THE GARAGE TOOK no time at all and soon they were on their way to Fort Bragg. The road traveled up the hills out of Allota, following the coastline south. Jack drove Mimi’s small white car expertly, manipulating it around the hair-raising curves with ease.
“The road reminds me of some of those in Tierra Montañosa,” he said.
“Curvy and steep,” she said, agreeing.
They stopped at Jack’s motel first and she waited in the car while he collected his things and settled the bill. When he walked back across the parking lot, he carried just a leather backpack slung over one broad shoulder and a leather jacket looped through his arm. The wind was blowing again—it just about always blew in the late spring—whipping his long, dark hair around his face. He’d changed into a clean dark shirt and black jeans and as his gaze swept the parking lot for who knew what, she thought he looked dangerous.
He was dangerous.
As he got back into the car, she whispered, “How did you escape the GTM?”
“It’s not a pretty story,” he said, glancing at her and away. “Nothing you want to hear.”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “Of course I do.”
He kind of grunted a response.
“Jack, please. I want to know.”
He took a deep breath and stared out the windshield. Just when she’d about given up expecting a response, he started talking, his voice intense. “I realized one night they’d made camp relatively close to civilization.” A knot appeared and disappeared in his jaw. “I’d buddied up to one of the guards. He’d grown kind of careless around me, so that night when he came to take away the food bowl, I took advantage of that situation and turned his weapon on him.” Again he fell into silence.
Hannah took a deep breath. It was obvious that using the guard’s trust to overthrow him had been hard for Jack, that it had struck him as a dishonorable thing to do and that surprised her.
Before she could respond, he slid her a piercing look, daring her to comment. She held her tongue. What did she know of these kinds of decisions?
He finally said, “I killed anyone who tried to stop me. I don’t know how many men died, it all happened in a blur.” Again he glanced at her as he added, “It was either me or them.” His eyes didn’t look as though he believed his own words.
“Jack, you don’t have to continue—”
“I spent days hiding so close to them they almost tripped over me. Eventually they gave up and moved on. I was lucky enough to find an old man who had lost a son to the GTM. Through him, I managed to contact a friend who helped me get out of Tierra Montañosa into Ecuador without alerting the government. I didn’t want anyone to know I was coming. I wanted everyone to think I was dead.
“Anyway, it’s over now, I can’t change the way things happened, I just have to live with it.”
She heard pain in his voice. Regrets. Her fingers flexed in her lap. She wanted to touch him but she didn’t.
“So, that’s the story. It’s over and done with. We’d better get going.”
She stared at him a second. It was clear nothing he’d experienced in the last year was really over and done with, but if he wanted to change the subject, she understood.
“What are you going to do while I go into work?” she asked him.
“I’m pretty self-sufficient, Hannah. Is it located here in town?”
“No, it’s about five miles inland. Turn at the second light you come to and go straight. I’ll tell you when to turn again.”
Traffic was minimal. Jack turned at the light and then followed the twists and turns of the shortcut Hannah used each day to get through town the fastest way.
“Tell me about the foundation,” he said as they rumbled over the train tracks.
She brushed her hair away from her eyes. “Santi Correa was born in Peru but spent his youth in several South American countries, including Tierra Montañosa. After college in the States, he taught at a university for a while, got tired of being poor and took a job in the private sector where he was amazingly successful. When he got tired of making money, he started a nonprofit organization to develop schools all through South America.”
“You’re giving me the stuff in the foundation brochure,” Jack said as he pulled the car over on a wide spot. From that vantage point, the vista of the small valley included the complex that comprised the foundation’s headquarters.
“Santi didn’t believe in investing money in appearances when it could be put to good use building schools elsewhere,” she added. “Under his direction, things got a little run-down, but since Hugo took over, maintenance has improved.” It was true—the buildings now sparkled with a new coat of white paint.
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