by Julie Miller
Julia arched a dark blond eyebrow into a skeptical frown. “Is it supposed to be a secret?” Before Josie could answer, her supervisor pulled the curtain separating this trauma bay from the one beside it to give them a little more privacy. Then she propped her hands on her ample hips and faced her. “You’ve got the height and build to carry the baby without showing too much. But you’re what, five, six months along?” She pulled up another stool and sat beside her. “I don’t think even loose lab jackets and extra-large scrubs can hide the baby anymore. And believe me, around here, you don’t have to. I think it’s a sign of strength to do meaningful work while you’re pregnant. It certainly takes your mind off some of the aches and awkwardness you’re going through.”
In a way, Josie was glad that Julia had seen through her recent penchant for baggy clothing. The long breath that eased from her chest sounded a lot like a sigh of relief. “How long have you known?”
“Well, since I’ve helped with several deliveries here and I’ve given birth to two of my own, I was pretty certain when you started your E.R. rotation a couple of months ago. I assumed you’d share the news when you were ready to.”
“I didn’t want it to interfere with my work here. Trauma nursing is where I want to specialize, and I wanted to make sure I got a good report. I don’t want any special considerations.”
“Please.” Julia practically snorted. “Your grades are top notch, you’re great with the patients and you absorb everything you see or hear. Needing a few minutes here and there to take care of yourself won’t keep you from getting a good report from me.” Her tone changed to the calm efficiency she used with the sick and injured who came through the E.R. “Is everything going as it should with you and the baby?”
“Yes. We’re both perfectly healthy.” Josie named the nurse midwife she was seeing and listed the supplements she was taking.
“She’s good.” Julia rolled her stool a few inches closer. “So, do you know the sex? Have you picked out names?”
Josie shared a laugh and truly relaxed for the first time since breaking the news of her pregnancy to Rafe. It felt wonderfully decadent to trade some normal conversation about the baby with a friend who saw the life growing inside her as a good thing. “I want the gender to be a surprise when he or she is born. And I’m thinking of old family names. Aaron for my dad if it’s a boy, and Aileen for my grandmother if it’s a girl.”
Julia’s gaze dropped to the suspiciously unadorned fingers on Josie’s left hand. “And can I be shamefully inappropriate and ask about the daddy?”
Even though her smile faded, Josie found the older woman’s compassionate curiosity made it possible to talk about Rafe. “He’s a cop at KCPD. A good man. He used to be my dad’s partner before he died. We’ve been friends forever and we kind of forgot that once and…” Josie knit her fingers together over the butterfly tremors she felt moving inside her. “Now it’s hard to even be friends sometimes.”
“Anyone I know?” Julia asked. “With Taylor for a last name, it feels like I’m related to half the cops on KCPD anymore.”
“I’d rather not say.”
Julie nodded her understanding at Josie’s desire to keep at least that one piece of information private. “Does he know about the baby?”
“I told him last week. Or rather, it slipped out during an argument. Not my finest moment.” Her heart twisted with a familiar pain. Rafe had only been trying to help and she’d thrown the news of the baby at him like some kind of accusation. “I guess I was hoping that we could work things out between us before I told him. But I’m resigning myself to the fact that if us is never going to happen, then he’s not interested in being a father to my baby, either.”
“If he’s a good man like you say, he’ll come around. Give him a chance to do the right thing.” Reaching across the space between them, Julia gently squeezed Josie’s hand. “You’ve had six months to get used to the idea of starting a family—he’s only had a few days.”
“I suppose.” Although Josie wasn’t sure she had the strength to keep hoping that Rafe would ever give himself permission to see where a relationship between them would go, she appreciated Julia’s kind words. “I just have to be patient, hmm?”
“It’s a mother’s lot in life.” The other nurse pulled away and picked up the electronic computer pad. “While you’re waiting, I’ll try to keep you busy. You can finish taking inventory of the last two trauma bays.”
Josie stood when she did. “Yes, ma’am.”
“It’s Julia, please.” Her supervisor held on to the pad when Josie reached for it. “If you need a break, take it. As long as we’re not in the middle of dealing with a patient, of course. And if you have any questions related to your schooling, or to your little one there, we can talk. I’m a pretty good listener.”
“Thanks, Julia.”
Although her back didn’t ache any less, Josie’s spirits lifted a little as she continued her work. Her conversation with Julia Taylor had eased the funk she’d been in for the past few days, if not the worries about single parenthood, a surly papa-to-be or the premeditated murder of a man in prison. Her baby’s safety and well-being came first. If she could help Spencer Montgomery with his investigation, she would, just as long as he kept her name, and thus the baby’s existence, out of the spotlight.
As for everything else? Rafe? Graduation? Happiness? Success? Love? That’s what the future was for. Right now, she only had the strength to worry about today.
Two hours, one motorcycle accident with a broken arm and wounds the doctor had Josie debride or stitch up, and a completed inventory later, and she was hurrying across the employee parking lot.
She barely had time to go back to her apartment to change into some jeans and grab a sandwich before heading over to the Shamrock. Not that Uncle Robbie ever gave her grief if she was late for her shift, but he relied on her to keep things running smoothly at the bar, probably more than he realized.
As she saw the beginnings of rush-hour traffic lining up on the main road east of the hospital, she cradled her tummy and broke into a jog, weaving through row after row of parked cars until she reached her Fiesta. She unlocked the door and tossed her backpack onto the passenger seat as she slid in behind the wheel. She inserted her key and reached for her seat belt. But when she tried to start the engine, nothing. Just clicks and silence.
“Not now,” she groused. She ran her gaze over the dashboard. Gas, good. Temperature, normal. The oil thingee, where it was supposed to be. Josie took a deep breath, turned the key.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” She held her mouth just right and tried one more time. Click. Click. Click. “Damn it!” She pounded her fist on the steering wheel in frustration, then just as quickly caressed her stomach. “Don’t you say words like that, little one. Mommy’s mad and a little tired. You should try to remain calm and fix your problem, rather than just swearing at it.” With a glance at her watch and a shake of her head, she popped the hood and climbed out of the car, heeding her own advice.
Not that she knew what she was looking at once she’d propped the hood open. She could put air in her tires and add washer fluid, but even this miniature engine mocked her like a puzzle she couldn’t decipher. Still, she pulled back the loose ends of her lab jacket, and reached in to pull out the oil-level indicator and jiggle a hose. Even if she knew what she was looking for, she didn’t have the tools to fix it.
Squashing down the urge to curse again, she pulled her phone from her pocket. Who was she supposed to call for something like this? Six months ago, without hesitation, she’d have dialed Rafe Delgado. But with that relationship now in a shambles, she was left with either Uncle Robbie, who would be in the middle of setup for the evening crowd at the Shamrock—or the unplanned costs of a tow truck and repair bill.
Josie was silently bemoaning the delay and resigning herself to pulling Uncle Robbie from work when a man came around the car next to hers and spoke. “Having problems with your car?”
Josie r
eeled from the man who seemed to have materialized from thin air, instinctively clutching her heart and her belly.
He stopped in his tracks, held up both hands in an apologetic gesture and smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s me.” She calmed her nerves and summoned up a smile herself. “I’m running late and feeling a little stressed.”
He moved up beside her to peek beneath the hood. “Isn’t that the way? Mechanical things always wait until the worst possible moment to break down.”
“I guess.” Her heart rate returned to a normal rhythm as he adjusted the bill of the black baseball cap he wore and bent over the engine to inspect it. “It makes a clicking noise when I turn the key.”
The man wore light blue scrubs, indicating he was surgical staff. And even though she didn’t recognize the buzz cut of hair or remember a San Francisco Giants fan from her rotation in the surgery wing, Josie knew the medical center had hundreds of people on staff, and even more consultants and medical students like herself who came and went throughout the year. Maybe he was military, she thought, noting the plain black glasses he adjusted at his temple, someone who’d been deployed and had recently returned. She couldn’t be expected to know everyone on staff, could she?
“Are you new here?” she asked, hoping he’d either introduce himself or make some kind of connection that wouldn’t make him seem like such a mysterious stranger. “Maybe you know Rae Sams? She’s in my class at UMKC. She’s working in the SICU now.”
“I’m new.” But no name. No acknowledgment of her friend.
Awkward.
“I’m Josie,” she offered, stepping around the fender out of his way as he scooted over to reach something behind the battery. “Do you know a lot about cars?”
His hand, scrubbed clean as if prepped for surgery, despite tinkering with her engine, slid toward the spot where hers rested on the frame of the car, stopping just shy of touching her. “A woman alone should be more careful about taking care of her things, Josie.”
A woman alone? Josie snatched her hand away. Was he hitting on her? Or was she reading a threat into his words that wasn’t there? She hugged her arms around the baby and retreated a step, her hips butting up against the car behind her. The feeling of being suddenly trapped made her pulse leap. “Look, I appreciate the help, but maybe I better just call—”
“When are you due?” He straightened from beneath the hood, glancing her way beneath the brim of his cap without directly facing her. “Babies are such precious things, aren’t they?”
“In August. I, um…” Take better care of her things? Precious things? The May afternoon was still sunny, yet she found herself rubbing at an unexpected prickle of goose bumps along her arms. “Who are you?”
She tried to get a better angle to read the name tag hanging from his chest pocket. Shifting in her white clogs, she was torn between the need to look him straight in the eye to get some answers and the urge to run.
Heavy tires braking on the pavement and the slam of a truck door diverted her attention for a split second. “Josie?” a deep voice called.
Her breath rushed out at the crunch of booted feet. “Rafe?”
He circled the hood of his truck, striding toward her. “What’s wrong with that rattletrap now?”
He froze at the touch of her fingers brushing over the center buttons of his black uniform shirt. She savored the familiar sensations of starched cotton and stiff Kevlar, and the warmth emanating from the skin beneath. Instead of asking why he’d shown up at the hospital when he was probably still on the clock, she curled her fingers into her palm and gave him the space his wary posture seemed to ask for. Having him here with that weirdo checking her car was good enough. She tipped her chin to meet the question in his dark eyes. “I’m glad you’re here. My car worked fine this morning, but now it won’t start. And he…”
She turned around, but the creepy good Samaritan was gone.
Josie dashed to the front of the car. “Where did he go?”
“Who?”
“There was a man.” She jerked her head to the right, then the left. Building. Cars. Pedestrians. Trees. But no man in a black ball cap and surgical blue scrubs. A nervous breath caught in her chest. She looked again.
She heard Rafe walk up behind her. “What’s going on? You’re freaking me out a little bit.”
Join the club.
Josie turned. She curled her fingertips beneath the placket of his shirt and pulled herself into the broad shelter of his chest. “Don’t argue with me for two seconds, okay?” she begged, shivering in the late-day sunshine. “Just hold me.”
Chapter Five
“Jose?” Even with her arms wedged between them, Rafe could feel her shaking as though winter had set in. “Hey.”
For a few seconds he did fold his arms around her. She was a perfect fit beneath his chin. Her hair smelled like sweet lemonade and hospital disinfectant. And though the armor he wore beneath his shirt kept him from feeling the curve of her breasts or softness of her cheek resting against his chest, he was completely and instantly aware that the flare of her hip was less pronounced than it had been the last time he’d held her—and her belly was rounder, firmer, fuller, nudging him at his waist.
Holding a woman shouldn’t feel this good. The tension in him shouldn’t be easing with a sense of rightness and relief at all this body-to-body contact. Not with this woman. Not with…that baby.
Before he lost himself in the mix of new and familiar sensations, before he forgot that he was here for a reason that had nothing to do with touching and wanting, Rafe pulled back. Josie crossed her arms in front of her, still trembling over something that had upset her, and he found he couldn’t release her entirely.
He framed her face between his hands, brushing back the loose strands of silky hair that had come free from her ponytail. He hunched down a little to get a good look into her troubled blue eyes. “What’s going on? I was waiting until I finished some paperwork after a disturbance we worked this morning to come talk to you, but if you had car trouble, you should have called me sooner.”
“I was about to. But this man came over to help me.”
“I didn’t see any man.”
“I know.” She was searching again, her distress raising his alertness to the next level. Rafe pulled away and straightened, scanning 360 degrees around the employee entrance and parking lot, looking for anyone showing an interest in Josie. “It’s like he vanished. He ducked inside his car or changed his clothes or… He offered to help, but there was just something odd—something off—about him.”
“How? What did he say?” Rafe hadn’t spotted anyone who seemed out of place. But after that briefing this morning, he wasn’t about to dismiss Josie’s suspicions.
“He pointed out that I was alone and told me I needed to take better care of my things. Then he called the baby a precious thing.” She splayed her fingers and slid her palm down over the curve of her belly. “Maybe all these crazy hormones are just making me paranoid.”
Rafe pulled his gaze up from the faintly unsettling image of Josie protecting that child. She looked like some kind of proud maternal warrior—fierce, yet vulnerable, beautiful and…his feelings about her being pregnant weren’t really part of the equation right now. Running his fingers over the top of his hair, he took a calming breath.
“One, you’re not alone. Two, if you feel there’s a threat, act on it. Don’t second-guess your instincts or dismiss it as paranoia. And three…” Take a breath, Delgado. He needed to set this up just right or Josie would bolt before he had a chance to strike a deal with her. Keeping her safe would be hard enough with Kemp on the loose. Doing it without her cooperation would be damn near impossible. So make nice, then lay down the law. “Have you eaten?”
Confusion crinkled beside her eyes. “No. And I need to get to work.”
“In a car that doesn’t start?” Rafe turned and stooped beneath the hood to check her engine. Stranger? Bad vibe? Serial kil
ler who was a master of disguise? He reached for her hand and tugged her up beside him. “Robbie can wait a few minutes. We need to take care of you right now.”
“Oh, don’t go all big brother on me.” She pulled her hand from his. “I don’t have the energy to deal with that right now.”
Once he was certain she’d stay close, despite her protests, Rafe turned his attention to the car. It didn’t take him five seconds to spot the disconnected cable. He pulled it up and rolled it between his fingers before reattaching it to the battery. The curse he clamped down on hissed between his teeth. “Trust me, brotherly isn’t what I’m feeling right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
Rafe clipped the support rod back into place, closed the hood and tucked Josie against his side away from his gun. “Get your bag and get in the truck. We’ll drive through someplace for dinner and I’ll take you home to change and then to the Shamrock.”
“You’re not my chauffeur. What about my car? You can’t fix it?”
“We’ll talk about that, too.” Rafe wasn’t looking for any man who seemed out of place in the parking lot now—he was looking at every male, trying to match one to the computerized drawing in his head. If the vanishing man was the Rich Girl Killer, then he was every bit as good as Spencer Montgomery had said—and every bit as dangerous and resourceful as his friends Trip Jones and Alex Taylor claimed. Both had worked as bodyguards for two of the women the RGK had stalked. Both women, and his friends, had barely escaped with their lives. “Now move it.”
Josie Nichols was neither a lawyer nor an heiress, so there wouldn’t be district attorneys or wealthy fathers calling in favors from KCPD and SWAT Team One. But she was getting Rafe’s protection. And she was getting it now.
“Rafael Delgado, stop!” Josie planted her feet and twisted from his grasp. “Now you’re the one scaring me.”