That's My Baby!

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Then Jess had come along. He hadn’t counted on a woman like Jess, who made him dream of things he thought he’d given up. But a man couldn’t change who he was, and this morning, when Elizabeth had looked at him with horror and begun to cry, anger had boiled up in him. Hot anger, probably the same kind his father had felt right before he went for the belt, or on some days, the rawhide whip he’d bought in Mexico.

  And yet…Nat had to remember that he hadn’t acted on his anger. He loved Jess more than life itself, and yes, he even loved that red-faced, crying little girl. What if Jess was right and he had overcome the legacy his father had left him? But if he was wrong, he’d be gambling with the lives of two people who meant more to him than anything in world. He didn’t really have a right to do that. He—

  Behind him a twig crunched. Jess. His heart swelled with love. She’d come out with the baby, ready to ask him to reconsider. And he would try again, because he loved them both so much. After all, they still had nearly a week to work this out. He started to turn at the moment a million stars exploded inside his skull. Then everything went black.

  JESSICA SAT in a chair and fed Elizabeth another spoonful of cereal. She wished she knew how to operate the alarm. The funny tingling at the back of her neck wouldn’t go away. She told herself it wasn’t anything to worry about, and that Nat was outside to stand guard.

  She glanced up at the top shelf where the locked metal box held the gun Sebastian had sent along. Nat probably had the key. Even if the box hadn’t been locked, she doubted that she’d have climbed on a chair to get it down. Handling a gun would only spook her worse. She didn’t even know if it was loaded.

  The tingling at the back of her neck was probably because she’d slept at a weird angle and a small nerve in her neck was going into spasm.

  Of course. After all the unaccustomed lovemaking followed by sleeping all tucked together as she and Nat had, it was a wonder that both of them weren’t full of aches and pains. Gradually she became aware that the sound of Nat splitting logs outside had stopped.

  She sighed with relief. Now he’d be coming back in, and they could set the alarm properly and sit down to discuss his relationship with Elizabeth. And maybe he should teach her how to work the alarm. The gun was another matter, though. She wasn’t sure she wanted to learn how to use that.

  He should be coming in by now, she thought as the seconds ticked by. Handing Elizabeth another cracker, she got up and walked over to the window to see what he was up to.

  The door banged open at the same moment that she realized Nat was lying facedown on the ground next to the woodpile. With a cry, she spun around. Before she could move, the man from her nightmares was inside holding a gun to Elizabeth’s head. For a moment her brain refused to register the sight.

  When it did, her blood turned to ice and she began to shake. She started toward him, ready to kill.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll blow this kid away,” the man said. “It wouldn’t be any big loss to me. I’d still have you.”

  Did you kill Nat? She couldn’t ask because the answer might paralyze her. Elizabeth needed her to stay alert.

  Looking curious instead of scared, Elizabeth glanced around at the man, so that the gun was pointed at her face. Then she tried to grab the barrel.

  Jessica opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  With a growl, the man knocked Elizabeth’s hand away, and she started to cry.

  Jessica saw the action through a red haze. Her ears rang as she started forward again.

  “Don’t!” the man shouted. “I’m warning you, I wouldn’t hesitate. I really don’t want to fool with the kid, but I figure her granddaddy will pay extra for her.”

  Jessica barely recognized her own voice. “If you do anything to her, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. So help me God, I will.”

  “The plan is to get money out of your daddy to pay for the two of you. If possible, I’ll do that without either of you getting hurt. How it all shakes out is up to you. Now walk over here and pick her up. We’re taking off.”

  “Where?”

  “Never mind where. We’re leaving.”

  Jessica forced her mind to move forward. It wanted to go back and replay the picture of Nat lying on the ground outside. But she had to concentrate on keeping her baby alive. “We can’t just leave. This is a baby. She needs diapers, and baby food, and clothes.”

  The man glanced at Elizabeth, who had stopped crying but was looking at him with fear. He sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to take a few things. Otherwise the brat will cry all the time.” He looked over at Jessica. “I’ll give you two minutes to pack up.”

  “All right.” She tried to remember where she’d last seen the cell phone. There it was, over by the sink. “I have to get her diaper bag. It’s behind that screen.”

  “You’re not ducking behind a screen so you can pull something. Move the screen and then get the diaper bag. And make it snappy.”

  Jessica blanked everything from her mind except finding a way to put the cell phone in the diaper bag. After moving the screen, she packed the bag quickly with diapers and clothes, lotion and baby wipes. At the last minute she crammed the sock monkey inside.

  Then she turned. “I need to get some food for her.” When she was taking jars from the cupboard, she would slip the cell phone in at the same time, using her body to block his view.

  “Hurry up.”

  Focusing on the cell phone brought a stark sense of calm. She didn’t look at it as she went into the kitchen area. For a moment her glance flicked over the coffee can. Nat hadn’t put the lid back on after he’d scooped out the coffee.

  Nat. For a fraction of a second she thought she might lose her grip on sanity.

  “Ga!” Elizabeth said.

  She wouldn’t lose her grip. Elizabeth’s life depended on it. Opening the cupboard, she took down several jars of food and some canned milk. She moved fast, all the while creeping closer to the cell phone. In one quick motion she scooped it into the diaper bag.

  “What’d you just do there?” the man asked.

  “I’m getting food.” But there was a quiver in her voice. Damn it.

  “Bring that stuff over here.”

  “Just a couple more things.” She reached for something to cover the phone.

  “Now!”

  Elizabeth started to cry again.

  Jessica started back toward him, rearranging things as she went. “I don’t have everything I need yet,” she said. “We should have—”

  “Give me that.” He grabbed the bag. Holding the gun next to Elizabeth’s ear, he turned the diaper bag upside down. Baby-food jars broke as they hit the floor, spraying their multicolored contents over Elizabeth’s clothes. And there, in the midst of the mess, lay the cell phone.

  “Food, huh?” He glanced at Elizabeth. “I should pull the trigger just to teach you a lesson, Miss High-and-Mighty Jessica Franklin.”

  “It will be your last act,” she said. “You don’t have enough bullets to stop me from tearing you apart.”

  “Oh, I think I do. But then I wouldn’t have anything to bargain with. And I want your daddy to give me lots and lots of money.” He raised his foot and brought his heel down on the cell phone with a sickening crunch. Then he handed Jessica the diaper bag. “Start over.”

  Elizabeth’s crying became more urgent as she spied her sock monkey in the middle of the mess. She strained toward the monkey, which was soaked with mashed carrots.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the man asked.

  “She wants her monkey.”

  “Then give it to her, and no funny stuff!”

  Jessica leaned down and picked up the monkey. Poor Bruce. His face was covered with orange goo. “I need to clean—”

  “Nope. Give it to her like that. We’re wasting time.”

  Jessica handed the gooey monkey to Elizabeth.

  The baby grabbed her friend and hugged him to her, which transferred the mess to her. But a
t least her crying slowed and finally stopped.

  “Fill that bag!” the man ordered.

  Jessica did, and all the while she worked she tried to think of another plan that wouldn’t endanger Elizabeth. She couldn’t come up with one.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?” the man asked.

  “Of course I do.” She dumped more jars of baby food in on top of a new supply of diapers and clothes. “You’re the same jerk who’s been following me for six months.”

  “That, too. But we knew each other, before. At Columbia. I asked you out a few times.”

  Her fingers tightened around a jar of apricots and she turned to look at him again. A chill sped down her spine. No wonder he’d looked familiar the few times she’d caught sight of him this summer. She remembered now. He hadn’t appealed to her, in spite of his brilliant mind. But she’d felt sorry for him. She’d told her father about him, and had said she might go out with the poor guy, after all.

  And then, poof, he’d disappeared.

  “Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to me?” he asked.

  Not for long. But she decided that wouldn’t be the best answer. “Of course. What did happen to you?” What was his name? As crazy as he was, he probably would get crazier if she couldn’t remember his name.

  “Your daddy bought me off.”

  She gasped.

  “I didn’t think you knew. He paid for me to transfer to Northwestern for my last semester, and he promised me a job with one of his newspapers after graduation, so long as I’d stay far away from you.”

  Her brain reeled. She had to wonder how many other potential suitors her father had quietly eliminated in the same way. Men she’d dated had seemed to transfer from Columbia at an alarming rate. But she’d never dreamed…

  “So what’s my name?”

  She knew it was a test. Maybe something starting with an S. Sam? Scott? Damn it, what was his name?

  “You don’t remember.” His gray eyes grew hard. “Well, that will make this little caper all the sweeter. But for the record, the name is Steven Pruitt. I don’t think you or your family will ever forget my name after this. Now pick up that kid and let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE BACK OF NAT’S HEAD hurt like hell and he tasted dirt in his mouth. Pushing himself to all fours, he fought dizziness as he spit out the dirt. What had happened? Then he knew.

  His stomach pitched as he scrambled to his feet. No time to throw up now. No time. Jess. Elizabeth. He half ran, half stumbled toward the open door of the cabin.

  “Jess!” he called hoarsely. “Jess!” Grasping the door frame for support, he looked in. But he knew what he would find. Nothing.

  Spinning away from the door, he looked frantically around. “Jess!” He got no answer but the sighing of the wind through the aspens. He ran around the perimeter of the house, screaming her name. Startled birds flew out of his path, but otherwise there was no sign of life in the small clearing.

  Finally he forced himself to think. How had they left? He searched for tire tracks and could find none except those made by the Bronco. But there were hoofprints. Automatically Nat started to follow them, until he glanced up at the sun and realized how much time had gone by. He’d never catch them on foot.

  The ranch. He had to contact the ranch. Racing into the house, he searched for the cell phone and finally nearly tripped over it in the muck on the floor by the high chair. Smashed beyond repair. Oh, God.

  He had to drive there. Digging in his pocket for the keys, he tore out the door again.

  The tires had been slashed.

  Nat stared at the ruined tires that he’d missed in his first agitated pass around the cabin. Then he lifted his head and let out a howl of despair.

  Slowly the sound of his anguish faded into the forest. But as he stood there with his head exploding in pain, a certainty settled over him that he would find her. He would find her and his baby, and he would kill the man who had dared to take them away. It was as simple as that.

  He went back into the cabin, reached to the top shelf for the metal box and unlocked it with the key in his pocket. After checking to make sure the gun was loaded, he pocketed the extra ammunition Sebastian had left in the box. Then he left the cabin. He didn’t bother to close the door. There was no longer anything of value inside.

  Climbing into the Bronco, he laid the gun on the seat next to him…the seat where Jess had sat when he’d brought her out here. He swallowed another roar of self-loathing. He didn’t have time to punish himself now. That would come later. Now he had to drive back to the ranch. He’d ruin the rims on the Bronco, but he didn’t care. They could be replaced.

  When he arrived, he’d saddle up a horse. Sebastian could call the police if he wanted, but Nat wasn’t waiting around for them. However, before he rode out, he had one detail that couldn’t be left to someone else. It was his job to call Russell P. Franklin.

  JESSICA HAD REMEMBERED the baby carrier before they left, and Pruitt had finally agreed that she could transport Elizabeth in it. She hadn’t wanted that monster touching the baby, so she’d propped the carrier against the bed, put Elizabeth inside, and then crouched down and worked her arms through the straps.

  Not being used to the weight, she’d been a little unsteady at first, and getting on the horse Pruitt had brought for her was tough, but she knew this would be the best way for Elizabeth to travel in relative safety.

  Safety. As if either of them were safe in the company of a wacko like Steven Pruitt. More details about him were coming back to her now. At Columbia she’d thought of him as a typical nerd, the kind of guy whose intelligence had hampered his social skills. She’d been torn between wanting to avoid him and wanting to help him fit in. But apparently there was a little more wrong with Pruitt than a lack of social confidence.

  He rode ahead of her, taking her through the forest with a lead rope tied to her horse’s bridle. Wearing an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap and pleated pants, he didn’t look very natural on the horse. She didn’t think he’d ridden much in his life, but then neither had she, and it had all been English, anyway. With Elizabeth on her back she couldn’t very well try some fancy maneuver and expect to ride away from him.

  He’d tied her hands to the saddle horn, and the diaper bag handles were looped over it, too, so the bag bumped her knees as they moved over uneven, rocky terrain. Elizabeth was quiet in the carrier, probably asleep. Jessica gave thanks for that, but the dead weight made her shoulders ache horribly.

  A rest was out of the question. In the first place, Steven probably wouldn’t allow her one, and in the second place, Elizabeth might wake up if they stopped. Jessica knew she should be planning their escape, but staying on the horse and enduring the pain in her shoulders took everything she had. She did try to keep track of the route they were taking, but other than the stream they seemed to splash through for miles, the forest took on a sameness that was discouraging.

  “So your daddy never mentioned that I was working for one of his papers out in L.A.?” Pruitt asked.

  “No.”

  “Remember that California senator who got kidnapped last year?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess? You must not be keeping up. That was the biggest damn story in the country for weeks. I was on top of it the whole way. Had my share of bylines on Associated Press as a result, too.”

  Jessica didn’t respond. Obviously he wanted to brag about himself, but she didn’t have to encourage him.

  “Then I got a real break,” he continued, apparently not needing her participation for his monologue. “When they caught the kidnappers, I got ’em to agree to talk to me, tell me their whole story. I had a series outlined—‘Inside the Mind of a Sociopath.’ I had all the details of their plan. It was a brilliant piece of journalism. I figured once it ran, somebody would pay me to expand it into a book, or maybe somebody in Hollywood would want the movie rights.”

  Jessica remembered that Pruitt had always
had grandiose ideas. She’d wondered when they’d been acquainted at Columbia if he’d only been attracted to her wealth and connections, but he’d denied that vehemently. She’d naively believed him, but now she could see that’s exactly where his interest had been.

  “The thing is, my editor checked with your daddy before he ran the series, and Russell P. ordered the piece killed. Not only that, he said since I used the newspaper’s time and resources to get that story and write it, he was confiscating everything—my notes, my contacts—everything. He said it would give other sick people a blueprint for doing something like that, and he didn’t want to be responsible. What a damn wuss! He coulda raked in a Pulitzer for me and his stinkin’ paper.”

  “My father always has had principles.” She realized how proud she felt, saying that. She’d never given her father credit for integrity before. She’d been so busy rebelling against his control that she hadn’t stopped to think of his good points. And there were many.

  The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that her father had probably offered more than one man money to stay away from her. If he had, it wasn’t a bad test of a guy’s character. If the man took the bribe, then he wasn’t the one for her. But in Pruitt’s case, her father must have been more than a little concerned, to pay for a semester’s tuition plus offer the guy a job. Maybe he’d had Pruitt investigated and had uncovered a psychiatric evaluation somewhere.

  She had to admit, the conversation was taking her mind off the searing pain in her shoulders. That, more than curiosity, prompted her to ask a question. “So you quit?”

  “Hell, no, I didn’t quit. I figured right was on my side, so I took my case to anyone with any clout who would listen. I think your daddy was afraid I might get somewhere, because he had me fired. Then he called in all his favors and had me blackballed in the industry. Even though he’d confiscated my notes, I remembered most of the story, and I was prepared to write it for someone else, but I couldn’t get a job delivering papers, let alone writing for them. Even book publishers didn’t want to talk to me. Now, I ask you, does that sound fair?”