His Miracle Baby
Page 18
Fear shivered down her spine as the driver climbed from the car. He was slight in stature, maybe early thirties, completely nonthreatening. But as he walked up alongside her car, Shani’s heart pounded in her chest.
She crossed her arms over her belly, instinctively wanting to protect the baby. Then just before he reached her car door, she pressed the lock button.
He tapped on the closed window and shouted through the glass. “Are you lost, Mrs. Rafferty?”
The same light tenor as the voice on the phone—she recognized it even through the window. “You’re in my way!” she yelled. “You need to move your car.”
He pulled something from his pocket; she saw the gleam of metal. Bending away from her, he thrust out. Shani felt the car shift as the air seeped from her front-left tire.
He straightened to face her through the glass again. “Open the window, Mrs. Rafferty.”
“Leave me alone!” she screamed.
He stared at her, the pocketknife glittering in his hand. She closed her arms even more tightly around her belly. Up ahead, Shani could see a cattle gate across the road; she wouldn’t get far going that way. Barbed wire fencing on either side would prevent her from driving up across the fields flanking the road.
She just had to pray that someone would come by, see the two cars stopped. But a passerby would just as likely think they were two neighbors chatting out here in the country. Would Logan come looking for her? He might go to the hospital, check on Julie.
Except there probably never was an accident. Shani had been the one to mention Julie’s name first. This man didn’t know her friend at all.
Logan would come for her, she had to believe that. She’d just have to keep this man busy until then.
Swallowing back her terror, her fears for the child she carried, she called out, “What’s your name?”
He leaned close to the window. “You know, Mrs. Rafferty. I told you before. It’s John.”
“When did you tell me? On the phone?” She didn’t recall him telling her his name.
“In my e-mails. I told you then.”
E-mails…what e-mails? A dim memory surfaced. That single line written on the last page of Arianna’s diary. Three more e-mails today—should I tell him?
The significance of that enigmatic line hit home. On a hunch, she said, “You don’t have to call me Mrs. Rafferty, John. Why not call me by my first name?”
He smiled, blushing. “Thank you, Arianna. I’d like that.”
He was the man Arianna had hinted at in the diary. That he and Arianna had never been on a first-name basis implied not an affair between them, but something darker. This man must have been stalking Arianna just as he was stalking Shani.
She watched with relief as he snapped shut the knife and shoved it back in his pocket. He rapped on the window again. “Open the door, Arianna.”
She shook her head, and frustration flickered across John’s face. He walked away, ambling up the road. Shani wondered if she could get through the cattle gate up ahead if she rammed it with her car. But her flat tire and the heavy chain wrapped around the gate with its sizable padlock made that gambit unlikely.
John crouched, his back to her, then stood again and turned toward her. He supported a rock the size of a soccer ball in his hands. As he came abreast of the side of Shani’s car, he hoisted the rock shoulder height. Shani had only enough time to duck, turning her belly away, covering her head to protect it from flying glass as John crashed the chunk of granite through the back window.
As he fumbled for the door lock, Shani put the car in gear, desperate to find an escape. But before she so much as stepped on the gas, John fell backward from the car. Turning, Shani saw Logan throw John to the gravel road. Just beyond him, she saw Patrick Cade and one of his men on the run. Patrick snapped handcuffs on John while Logan hurried over to Shani’s car.
It took her two tries to get the door unlocked, she was shaking so hard. Logan all but dragged her out, pulling her into his arms. “Are you okay?” he whispered in her ear.
Now safe in his embrace, she burst into tears. “Thank God you’re here.”
He lifted her in his arms, carrying her back to the Mercedes. He sat sideways in the passenger seat, holding her on his lap.
“You scared the hell out of me, sweetheart.”
She clutched his shoulders, face buried against his chest. “How did you know where to look for me?”
“Your call from that nutcase was still on the answering machine.”
She sighed, so grateful to be in Logan’s embrace. “Do you know if Julie’s okay?”
“I talked to her. She’s fine.” He stroked her arm. “But you’re going straight to the nearest hospital. I’m not taking any chances with our child.”
Our child. Joy burst inside Shani at his fervent words.
He drew back, smiled down at her. “But first, I’ve got to tell you something, sweetheart. I should have told you over the phone, but…I’m an idiot.”
He kissed her, then pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you, Shani. With all my heart. I love you.”
Epilogue
Spencer Alan Rafferty rushed into the world on June 9, nearly making his debut appearance in the hospital parking lot. A healthy eight pounds, six ounces, Spencer boasted powerful lungs, his biological mother’s blond hair and the same lock on his father’s heart as his birth mother.
With Logan home for the first two weeks and Mrs. Singh hovering over the baby with complete adoration, Shani barely had to lift a finger. Even now, her feet up comfortably on the living room sofa as she nursed Spencer, Logan kept one eye on her, waiting for his son to finish eating while Mrs. Singh lurked nearby.
She’d scarcely raised him to her shoulder to burp him before both of them closed in. “I can do that,” Logan said, reaching out.
Shani smiled up at her husband. “Sit with me. I’ll pass him over in a minute.”
Logan settled beside her, his arm draped around her shoulders. Her heart welled with love for him, for the precious boy in her arms.
As frightening as her experience with John had been, even more shocking revelations soon followed when the police spoke to him. A former employee of the alarm company that had originally installed the security at Logan’s estate, John had become obsessed with the teenage girl whose family had lived there before Logan bought the place. When the girl moved away and Logan and Arianna moved in, John transferred his obsession to Arianna.
And then to Shani. He’d likely been following her far more often than she’d realized. He’d been the one who’d broken in to the cottage, using his knowledge of where the weak points in the security system were and how to deactivate the cottage alarm.
Even worse, he had been responsible for Arianna’s death. The night she’d driven off, angry with Logan, John had followed. She’d apparently spotted him and had tried to speed off to shake him. That decision had had deadly consequences on the sharp curves near Desolation Wilderness.
Shani felt all the more lucky that she and Spencer were alive after such a close call. She passed her now-slumbering son over to Logan. “It’s too bad your father wasn’t able to meet him.” They’d laid Colin Rafferty to rest at the end of April.
Cradling Spencer in the crook of his arm, Logan sighed. “He changed near the end. I got a glimpse of the father he could have been.”
“My mother is fit to be tied that she hasn’t been able to see Spencer yet,” Shani said, laughing. “When she gets here on Sunday, we might not see our son for the entire week she’s here. If she didn’t love Iowa so much, I think she’d pull up stakes and move into the cottage.”
“That reminds me.” Logan handed Spencer back to Shani, then rose. He went into his study, then emerged with a manila envelope.
He sat beside Shani again, the envelope in his lap. “I did some research. I know you asked me not to.” He stroked a finger across Spencer’s cheek. “But after he was born…”
The return address on the envelope cau
ght her eye. An unfamiliar address in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Her heart fluttered in anticipation. “Who’s it from?”
“Your son’s parents. Your first son. I had a private investigator call them, to see if they’d be willing to resume contact with you. They said yes. If and when you’re ready.”
Her throat constricted and tears spilled down her face. “Thank you. I’m not ready now, but when I am…thank you.”
He kissed her then, his love for her clear in his vibrant blue eyes. She thanked God for the miracle they’d been given, the love between them, the child they’d created.
And the son she would know once again.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1387-0
HIS MIRACLE BABY
Copyright © 2008 by Karen Sandler
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