The Firefighter’s Secret Baby

by Anna DeStefano

  “Look at what he did to Carlos,” she said. “If Lucas ever gets to you and your family—”

  “He won’t.” Randy kissed the tip of her nose. “Not after today.”

  She tried to believe him. She tried to focus on fighting for them and their daughter instead of fighting against Luca. Or not fighting at all and running again.

  This was her last chance to have the life she’d always wanted for her and Gabby. She wasn’t going to let her brother take her dreams away again.

  THE ELEVATOR PINGED on the fifth floor of the physicians’ center. The doors whooshed open. A wave of déjà vu rolled over Randy.

  A few days ago, he’d stumbled across a similar threshold next door at Atlanta Memorial, wondering who the hell Sam was and if he’d ever get the chance to ask her. This morning, the mother of his child was at his side, carrying a newborn-sized doll and ignoring the pain and exhaustion caused by simply being on her feet.

  They were fighting together now. Making something real out of the half lives they’d been living. So why did it feel as if he was about to lose Sam forever, just like it had a week ago?

  She’d been skittish all morning, after the promises they’d made each other last night. She’d grown more distant since hearing about her cousin’s murder. Randy hadn’t pushed her to talk about it. But he was going to hear her say she loved him. He was going to hear their daughter’s name on her lips. He wasn’t going to stop fighting until their future was something Sam could believe in.

  They walked onto the floor. The soothing whir of a vending machine snagged his attention.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  A replica of the battered beast at the hospital—what had Kate called it? Herbie?—occupied an alcove to the left of the elevator. Randy glared at the evil clone and kept walking. He was thirsty as hell. He hadn’t made time for breakfast. But Randy and Sam had been instructed not to draw undue attention to themselves. Which meant Randy couldn’t vent his growing frustration by pummeling a stingy pile of junk that would no doubt deny him one of the few luxuries he indulged in.

  Dean and two of his deputies led Randy and Sam to the office where they were to wait. A bubble of security had been not-so-discreetly positioned outside the windowless room. The interior placement of the office was supposed to guarantee Randy and Sam could be monitored from every access point, no matter how vulnerable they needed to appear for the sting to work.

  Randy turned into the office with Sam, and came face-to-face with the reality that she wasn’t the only person on scene that Dean’s people had better keep safe.

  “You look like you could use this, big boy,” Kate said in an awful Mae West impersonation.

  She held out a Yoo-hoo that was so cold, condensation dripped down the sides. Randy took the can, then pulled Kate into an uncharacteristic hug that startled her at first. Then she was hugging him back.

  “This is a really bad idea,” he said into her ear.

  He didn’t want his friends anywhere near the danger heading for him and Sam. He stepped back and held out his hand to shake with the man standing beside Kate.

  “Thank you for taking such a personal interest in our daughter’s case.” He squeezed just a littler harder than necessary.

  Seth Washington winced, but his expression remained all business.

  Kate took the swaddled doll from Sam.

  “You’re a local hero, Lieutenant Montgomery,” Seth said. “The hospital board is pleased to offer your daughter our very best care.” His smile was understanding and genuine as he turned to Sam. “If you and your security detail will just wait here, I’ll personally insure that you’re updated as soon as your baby’s condition can be determined.”

  “We’ll be able to see her then?” Sam asked on cue. She sounded suitably terrified. “I know it will take time for you to finish your work, and I understand why we have to stay here instead of going with her. But if there’s any way I could check in on her—”

  “We’ll take good care of her.” Kate tucked the blanket tighter around the doll. “And we’ll get word to you about her condition as soon as we can.”

  Max had said key staff would play along for the sake of whomever might be watching. Luca had to believe that this emergency trip back to Atlanta General was his last shot to get to Sam. Randy should have guessed that Kate and Seth would invite themselves along for the ride.

  “Your daughter may need to be sedated for some of the procedures,” Seth explained. “Once the diagnostics are run, we’ll monitor her until she’s awake. We’ll have to be confident her respiration has stabilized before she can be released.”

  “How long will that take?” Sam wilted into a nearby chair, her exhaustion real and testing Randy’s commitment to play along with this farce.

  She was grieving her cousin and terrified of her brother. And she was genuinely worried about their daughter. They both were. Max had relayed news on the ride in that their baby had been breathing well enough to be released from her regional hospital. She and Randy’s family would be on their way to a pediatric center in Charlotte soon, so further testing could be done.

  “Dr. Washington will check back with you.” Kate’s professional smile turned indulgent when Randy popped the Yoo-hoo’s top and chugged it. “I need to get her over to the hospital.”

  “We’ll be right here.” Randy thanked her with a nod. “Both of you be careful…” He caught Max Dean’s warning glance. “Be careful with our daughter.”

  Seth nodded, worry clouding his normally clear gaze. He and Kate left. Randy sat and took Sam’s hand.

  There was nothing left to do but wait.

  God, he hated waiting.

  “I should be with her,” Sam said.

  “She’s in good hands,” he reminded them both. “We’re doing the right thing.”

  His stare bored holes in the back of Dean’s head. The marshal had posted himself in the office’s wide doorway, legs braced apart and hands clasped behind his back. He never stopped scanning up and down the hall.

  “We’re doing the only thing we can do,” Sam argued. “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “It’ll be right when it works.”

  And it was going to work, as long as Sam stayed with him. Believed in him. If she was strong enough to face down her brother’s threats, she was strong enough to love Randy.

  “This is the way through,” he assured Sam. “The first thing you learn in fire school—there’s always a way through. You just have to pick a direction, adjust as needed and keep fighting until you’re out.”

  Sam leaned against his shoulder. The weight of her was almost nonexistent, as if she was already gone. To anyone walking by, they would look like exactly what they were supposed to be—a couple united and supporting each other while they waited for news about their sick baby.

  “You can’t bull your way through everything, Randy,” she said. “I get it. It’s how you’ve survived. It’s why you’re so good at saving people. You never let fear win. You never doubt yourself. And I admire you for still being able to believe like that, after what you and your family went through. I want you to teach our daughter how to do that. But maybe…”

  “No maybe.” He stroked her hair. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving your side. We’ll get through this together.”

  You never let the fear win…

  Randy frowned as the terror of losing the only woman he’d ever loved crept closer.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “MAYBE THIS ISN’T…” Luca’s driver started to say, then he stopped. Frowned. Hesitated.

  They’d just pulled into the alley on the west side of Atlanta Memorial’s new physicians’ center.

  “Maybe this isn’t what?” Luca asked.

  Danny was a good kid. Luca had been grooming him for years. He’d flown him in from New York as soon as he’d known there’d be blood in Atlanta. Danny was usually all smiles. Luca liked that about him. Carlos had been like that once.

  “Maybe this isn�
�t the best time to go after your sister,” the stocky twentysomething said.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Danny was one of Luca’s best guns. He’d earned that position through grit, intuition, attention to detail and loyalty. And, he’d never met Sam, so there were no questions about whether he’d hesitate to take her out if it came to that.

  “I’m thinking they know we’re coming, so we shouldn’t be coming.” Danny pulled his gun and checked the clip.

  “They don’t know how we’re coming.” Which gave Luca the element of surprise, while the target was overconfident.

  “They know you don’t have a choice.”

  “Everyone knows I don’t have a choice. My enemies, especially. Makes this a nondecision. I take Sam out. No more middlemen. No more waiting. I clean up my family’s mess today, while everyone’s watching.”

  “She didn’t come back for her little sister when you asked her to?” Danny holstered his automatic. “What kind of cold-hearted bitch does that?”

  “The kind that doesn’t respect family.” Luca had forbidden Sam to marry. She’d been too young. Too impressionable. Her pursuing that relationship after he’d called her off would have damaged him, and he’d had to end it. Her fault, not his. But she’d always blamed him for everything, even when they were kids. “My sister’s never understood what our family’s about—we protect one another, no matter what, or our enemies will pick us off one by one.”

  “She’s always wanted out?” Danny clearly couldn’t comprehend it.

  “Nobody but my father could ever reason with her. Once he was gone, she became more and more rebellious.”

  “And now?”

  “Now my sister’s baby’s in jeopardy, and she finally understands what it’s like to have no choice. She has her responsibility to the family she’d chosen to create, just as I do to mine. It’s taken two years, but I’ve finally got her.”

  CHARLIE WAS JUST ABOUT DONE hiding and waiting.

  Something was off. He could feel it. Same way he could tell when a routine call was about to blow up in his ladder company’s face.

  Something was in the air—danger, waiting for its chance to unleash. Rick’s contacts had confirmed that the hospital’s half-constructed physicians’ center would be ground zero. Which had told Charlie exactly where he needed to be if he was going to get into the mix and help his brother. There was one man even the feds would have to go through, if they wanted to turn anything related to Atlanta Memorial into a carefully contained battleground.

  But where the hell was—

  The door opened to the shadowy office Charlie was waiting in. A tall figure wearing a lab coat walked in, absently flipping the light.

  “It’s about damn time,” Charlie said before the man had time to look up from the PDA he was typing into.

  Seth Washington skidded to a halt, then did a double take.

  “Holy Hell!” He shut the door behind him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Does it look like I’m kidding?” Charlie threw himself into the love seat across from Seth’s desk.

  He braced his forearms on his knees and stared down the older man. Not all that much older. But looking at the dark circles and frown lines marring Seth’s pretty-boy face, no one would have known he and Charlie could have gone to high school together. Not that they really had. Seth Washington swam in Atlanta’s private school circles. The Montgomerys had always lived on the other side of the social tracks.

  “You look—” Seth slapped his PDA to his desk and shucked out of his lab coat “—like you’re raring for a fight.”

  “Only if Randy needs me.”

  “He needs you to be with the rest of your family and his sick child, making sure there are no problems there.”

  “Rick and Chris have Emma and Jessie and the baby covered. That asshole Gianfranco is targeting my kid brother here—so here’s where I am.”

  “Do I want to know how—” Seth started to ask.

  “How I know what I know? How I got here? Who cares? How are the feds and the APD and whoever else is involved going to keep my brother safe? That’s all that matters. Randy could have been killed yesterday. Emma and I and the baby could have been caught in that blast. The woman my kid brother loves is a moving target, and he won’t leave her side until this is settled.”

  “And?” Seth demanded, his expression giving nothing away.

  He and Rick Downing had gone a few rounds together not too long ago, and Seth had held his own. The good doctor, pressed pants and pedigreed education and all, wasn’t someone Charlie would have chosen to tangle with. But nothing about this situation was giving him a choice.

  “And you’re going to tell me where they are and what the plan is,” he challenged. “I swear, I’ll stay out of the way unless there’s a problem. But if there is—”

  “You’ll what? Their location is secured. Guarded at every entrance. No civilians will be endangered. No one the feds don’t want on that floor is going to get anywhere near Randy and Sam.”

  “I can go anywhere I want to in this place, as long as you’re leading the way.”

  “And why the hell would I do that?”

  “Because you never play by the rules when it comes to protecting people you care about, any more than my family does.” The doctor had a rebellious streak Charlie had admired for years. “Dean has a leak in his team. Maybe more than one person feeding Luca information. You mean to tell me you don’t think it’s possible that Gianfranco can penetrate their protection. Again. I—”

  The building shook, followed immediately by the sound of a not-so-distant explosion. The lights flickered on and off, then held.

  Shit!

  Seth was pulling his lab coat back on.

  Charlie stood and waited for the already moving doctor to lead the way out of his office.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SAM CLUNG to Randy as the world rocked around them. The fire alarms were blaring. People were screaming. The familiar nightmare of it was closing in. They’d dropped to the office floor. Darkness had descended on their windowless room almost immediately after the explosion.

  From the hallway, a disembodied voice had yelled for them to stay put. That they’d be safe there until an armed escort was ready to evacuate them. Beyond that, no one was telling them anything. It had probably only been a few minutes. But lying beneath Randy with her entire body aching and the lingering smell of smoke wafting in from the hallway, it felt that hours had passed.

  “Was it a bomb?” She tried to sit up.

  “Stay down.” Randy pressed his body more firmly against her. “Let’s wait until—”

  An electronic buzzing heralded a splash of green emergency lighting, flickering from the exit sign just outside the office door. Artificial light stuttered, then it held. Sam could see shadows moving in the hallway now. A haze of smoke shifting from waist-level up. She should have been reassured that Max’s team was out there, protecting her. Except they’d wanted her brother to find them. The leak in Sam’s protections had done what it was supposed to do. The threat was closing in.

  “That might just be dust from an explosion, right?” Sam asked, as if it would somehow be better for parts of the building to be floating around their fifth floor hallway, rather than smoke.

  “It’s not dust.” Randy finally allowed her to sit.

  Her always-under-control fireman was tense. Looking around. Listening.

  “Luca won’t get this far,” he assured her.

  “You don’t know him. They don’t know him. He’s—”

  “He’s doing exactly what the guys in the suits want him to.”

  “In a burning building?”

  “There’s a fire.” Randy ran his hands down her arm. “Doesn’t mean the building’s burning. We’re only a hundred feet from the stairwell. That’s our fireproof way out if we need one.”

  “Exactly the sort of reasoning Luca would be banking on.”

  “Which is probably why Max h
asn’t moved us yet.”

  “So, we’re trapped?”

  “No, we’re waiting. Together.” Randy kissed her, his confidence and his touch drawing her to him even now.

  Especially now.

  “But—” Shots rang out from the direction of the elevators. “Luca!”

  “Okay.” Randy winced in apology as he pulled her IV free. He kissed away her cry of pain. He helped her up. “Now, we’re moving.”

  “YOU TWO HEAD BACK down those stairs,” an APD officer barked on the stairwell landing outside the physicians’ center’s fifth floor. “This is a restricted area, and you’re not authorized—”

  Charlie and Seth stopped, but they weren’t leaving.

  “I’m the chief of staff of this hospital,” Seth said. “I’m authorized to go anywhere I damn well please in this place, and you know it.” He nodded his head Charlie’s way. “This is one of Atlanta’s top firemen. We’re inspecting every floor of my hospital’s new physicians’ center after the explosion. As quietly as possible, of course, but we’re doing it.”

  The cop shook his head.

  “This area is off-limits to unauthorized personnel, sir. We’ve already killed two men trying to rush the floor since the explosion.”

  Seth crossed his arms. “In return for permitting this operation to take place, I was promised access to any part of the center at any time. That was the hospital board’s stipulation.”

  “Besides—” Charlie stepped onto the landing and checked out the officer’s nameplate “—Officer Lewis. You just said you’d secured things.”

  Lewis’s hand went to a communications device curled around his ear. “We’ve contained the stairwell, yes. The visitors’ elevators have been cleared, too.”

  “You mean the elevators some maniac trashed fifteen minutes ago?” Seth joined Charlie. “The board wants a report—from me. Now. My ass is on the line for agreeing to this fiasco. You either let us on the floor, or I signal an evacuation of the entire place. Your people will have no choice but to pack it in.”

  “I…” Lewis hesitated, then reached for the hands-free walkie-talkie attached to the shoulder of his uniform. “I need backup to cover the stairwell.” To Charlie and Seth, he added, “I can’t let you two advance unescorted, Dr. Washington.”