Code Name: Daddy

by Marilyn Tracy

  Cait swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “She said ‘stranger man.’”

  Alec couldn’t withhold the flinch that erased the unfamiliar grin from his face. He was a strange man to Allie. Stranger Man. It might well be an epitaph for his entire life. Different cities, names, identities...a newly discovered daughter who called him “stranger.”

  When he’d been staring dumbfoundedly at the television screen in his cabin in New Mexico, going over the possible reasons for his friends’ not telling him about Cait, he’d been puzzled, somewhat angry, yes, but primarily confused, then worried.

  Now, seeing Cait’s tears, the innocent smile on his newfound daughter’s face, he felt a surge of rage like nothing he’d ever encountered.

  In New Mexico he’d focused only on the question Why? Now all he could wonder was how they dared rob him of this. Of Cait. Of Allie.

  Perhaps he and Cait wouldn’t have made it together, would have drifted apart. He would never know the answer to that one, for those two years could never be retrieved. But he knew to his very soul that no matter what might have happened between him and Cait he would never, never have turned his back on Allie, on this tiny living reality of a dream only scarcely begun before it was snatched away from him.

  Alec clamped his mind closed on the thought of what Cait had gone through these past two years: no financial support, no husband to turn to in the middle of the night. He didn’t dare contemplate these horrors, for a far more tangible and present horror existed at the moment.

  He’d been standing gawking at his daughter and her mother as if all of them had aeons of time reeling on endless ribbons in front of them. That wasn’t the case at all. And the odds were now tipped dangerously low on their behalf. This afternoon there’d been only himself, an experienced FBI agent, for him to worry about. Once he’d arrived here, he had Cait to take care of. And now, in the predawn hours, there was a family to get to safety. A family.

  “Cait.”

  She looked at him, her wariness stronger than ever, her ever-alert antenna raised and quivering at the tone of his voice.

  “We have got to get out of here. I’ll hold the—Allie— while you get dressed. It would be quicker if you pack for her, you know what she needs.”

  “Alec, we can’t just leave with you.” She said it almost casually, as if he were asking her to take a run to the park with him.

  “You don’t have a choice. I won’t take a chance with your lives. I’m sorry I got you into this. But sorry doesn’t change the fact that you could be in real trouble if you stay.”

  He didn’t blame her for resisting. In fact, in other circumstances, distrust would have been exactly the right attitude to take. But he had to make her understand her very life was in jeopardy.

  “I hate this,” she said almost petulantly. “Why can’t—?”

  “Hell, Cait, if I’m right, what difference does it make? We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  “But—”

  “If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize. I’ll...I’ll arrange a livein maid so you can sleep for a month. I don’t know anything for sure. But we can’t afford to risk it. We’ve got to get going. Now!”

  He turned his eyes meaningfully toward Allie before meeting Cait’s agonized gaze again. He hated watching the color ebb from her lovely face. He hated himself for ‘having brought this into her world.

  Alec strode across the room and held out his arms for his daughter. Desperate as he was to get a move on, he was nonetheless terrified of having Cait transfer Allie to him. What if he dropped her? What if she cried? What if she hated him?

  Cait stared at him wildly, holding Allie as if Alec had a gun trained on her and not merely his outstretched arms. Finally, a visible shudder worked through her and she gently deposited Allie into his arms.

  Alec looked down at the little girl and realized he was holding his daughter for the first time. Dazedly, he thought she weighed about the same as his gym bag. But any similarity between the animate and inanimate ended there; she squirmed and wriggled, shifted and turned to find a more comfortable position.

  Nervously he jostled her so that she straddled his left hip, unconsciously keeping his right arm free to reach for the gun tucked neatly against his flank. He looked up to see that Cait hadn’t moved. She was staring at him as if he’d done something miraculous. She would never know how accurate she was.

  He wanted to say something to her, let her know how profoundly holding his daughter for the first time moved him. But some things couldn’t be expressed, could only be felt.

  “Quickly, Cait. I’ve got a really bad feeling we’re on borrowed time.” Even as the words left his mouth, he had the strange sensation that for him, unable to tear his eyes from his daughter, time ceased to hold concrete meaning.

  “Alec—?”

  He looked up at her. “I’m serious, Cait. Deadly serious.” And he was, but part of that seriousness arose from a hitherto unknown consciousness of abject responsibility. This not-so-tiny infant owed her life to him and, as a result of this awareness, he owed her safety, protection.

  He ached to tell Cait some of this, but could see, when he looked up, she already knew. That acute sensation of responsibility, of commitment had come to her with her first holding of Allie, probably before that even, and had found a permanent place inside her.

  He watched her pause one last time, obviously torn between one duty and another, then she ran from the room, leaving him in the golden light, holding his little dark-haired, blue-eyed baby girl.

  The baby—his daughter—wrapped a tiny, perfect hand around his thumb and tugged hard. With her other hand she employed remarkably nimble fingers to cling to a handful of shirt with enough strength that Alec suspected she would pull it off before he could pry it free.

  She gazed up at him, her candid blue eyes fathomless, adultlike in their appraisal, utterly childlike in their lack of judgment.

  He was a father. This incredible wonder in his arms was his daughter. His.

  “Hello, Allie,” he said unsteadily.

  “Yo-yo,” his daughter answered, staring up at him with heart-stopping innocent solemnity.

  As a greeting between father and daughter, it might have seemed imperfect, clumsy even, but for Alec a tentative bridge had been flung across a tremendous chasm.

  “Yo-yo, little one,” he said huskily and stroked a dark curl from her baby-soft brow.

  She gurgled something indistinguishable, though her broad wave indicated it could mean anything from the bright mobile above her bed to the butterflies painted on the wall beside her crib. Whatever it was, it seemed to make her happy, and she leaned back in his arms with the flexible back arch that only the totally trusting could manage.

  Alec’s heart performed a slow and thoroughly painful flip. But the grin that had rested so uncomfortably on his lips earlier felt much more at home now.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked, and this time the hoarseness of his whisper didn’t surprise him.

  His daughter turned her evening-sky blue eyes on him and stared at him, as if waiting for an answer.

  “I’m your—” He stopped, unable to choose between father and daddy, not feeling he had the right to either title somehow, and not quite understanding why. “I’m here for you.”

  Cait fumbled with the buttons of her oxford cloth blouse. She’d already had to redo them twice because her fingers were shaking so bard. Her mind was chaos. She could hear Alec’s deep voice murmuring something to Allie and heard her daughter’s cooing response.

  Cait tried telling herself she was only humoring Alec, that whatever danger lurked outside her home existed only in his mind, but she couldn’t pretend any longer. She suspected it had been more a feeling of inevitability, the inexorable marching into doom that had wakened her earlier, not any vague noise.

  She’d taken only seconds to dress and stuff a handful of assorted clothing
into an overnight bag. Out of habit she paused before the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. She stared at her own image. Fearinducted wide eyes, pale face, tousled hair. She looked like a winter shut-in heading out for a weekend in the country.

  A two-story house in the country.

  She grabbed her overnight bag and rushed out of her bedroom. She stopped midflight, immobilized by the sight of Alec MacLaine holding her daughter in his arms. It was too much like the dreams that had plagued her for two interminable years.

  But in the dreams, Alec would be tickling his baby, bouncing her, making her laugh. In reality, he held Allie somewhat ineptly in the crook of his left arm and the baby’s diapered fanny rested on his hip while he separated two slats of the hallway blinds, peering down at the front walkway.

  He held Allie unnaturally, as if afraid of her, fearful, perhaps, of dropping her. His grip underscored his absence, his unfamiliarity with his daughter. But not all of the tension in Alec’s semisilhouetted form could be attributed to his lack of acquaintance with Allie. When she made some noise and he turned, she could easily read the myriad emotions churning inside him. His lips appeared lined with white, as if he were in pain. A smear of his blood shone wetly on Allie’s fuzzy pajamas.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Almost. I just need some things for Allie.”

  “I—hurry, Cait. And get your coats. It’s cold.”

  She brushed past him, wanting to ask him what he’d been about to say, not daring to think about the incongruity of his presence, but shockingly conscious of his solid reality, his aura filling her hallway, his body radiating magnetic heat.

  Her hands trembled again as she thrust disposable diapers, extra clothes, towelettes and a few of Allie’s favorite small toys into a second carryall. But this time her hands didn’t shake out of fear, but from memory, memory of those three days with Alec seemingly a lifetime ago, and in remembrance of the kiss they’d shared at the base of her stairs only minutes before.

  “Oh, damn,” he swore from his position at the window.

  “What?” She grabbed the second bag and ran from Allie’s bedroom.

  Alec’s face was a study of despair. He was staring through the parted blind slats, looking for all the world as if his best friend had just been killed in front of him.

  “It’s Jack,” he said. His voice sounded hollow and far away. Whoever Jack was, his arrival signified much more than danger: it was a serrated knife thrust in Alec’s heart.

  Cait waited as Alec drew his fingers from the slats, carefully replacing them to avoid discernible movement. He turned to face her and she felt his pain to her depths. She didn’t understand what was happening in this bizarre predawn, hadn’t had the opportunity to sort out her feelings about Alec alive, his being there in her home, holding her daughter, but his expression of utter betrayal flayed her raw. She knew what betrayal felt like.

  “What do we do now?”

  Without hesitation he asked, “Where’s your car?”

  “The garage.”

  “Attached to the house?”

  “Yes. Through the kitchen.”

  “Do you have an automatic garage door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” He hitched Allie more firmly on his hip, his broad hand splayed across her little back, and turned to lead the way down the stairs while Cait raced back for Allie’s blanket.

  Cait flew down the stairs, pausing only to grab the overnight bag he’d tossed on her floor earlier. She caught up with him in the dining room just as the floodlights on the porch blinked on, shining brightly through the windows flanking the front door.

  She froze and instinctively shrank against him. He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. She forged ahead of him, her watery legs moving by sheer force of will.

  They whisked through the kitchen in absolute silence. Even Allie, as if sensing something extraordinary, tucked her forefinger in her mouth and sucked on it while watching everything with placid curiosity.

  Cait whipped her overcoat from the peg just inside the kitchen and, because of her burden with the overnight bags, didn’t bother to take the time to put it on.

  Just before opening the door that led to the garage, Alec leaned down to whisper in Cait’s ear, “Does the garage light come on automatically?”

  “No, you have to use a switch.”

  “Good. Don’t touch it. He could see the light come on from where he’s standing. Better to let him think you’re upstairs.”

  He lifted a hand to her face and cupped it gently. To her horror, his hand trembled. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ll make it.”

  “Alec...” She wanted to say something important, something that might bridge the gap between yesteryear and this too frightening morning, suddenly terrified she might lose him again before the shock of finding him had even had a chance to wear off. And she wanted, needed, deeper reassurance that all would be well. It wasn’t like before; she had Allie to think about, and the concept of something happening to her daughter struck cold, icy terror in every cell of her body.

  As if reading her mind, he repeated, “It’ll be all right. We’ll have to make our way in the dark until the kitchen door is closed and we’re to the car. You take the baby. I’ll drive. Try to be as quiet as possible until we’re actually in the car.”

  “The keys. My purse. I left them on the counter.”

  Alec didn’t swear at the momentary delay, but he might as well have; Cait could feel his impatience echoed in her own ragged breathing, could feel the seconds pounding in her throat. She snatched the bag from the countertop as the doorbell pealed through the town house. She flew back to Alec, scarcely touching the floor. She skidded into him, grabbed Allie from his arms and hesitated only a split second while he hauled the three pieces of luggage from her shoulders before running into the garage.

  This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. Like a litany against reality, Cait found herself chanting the words, mouthing them in the darkness.

  But it was real. It was happening. To her. To them. Her heart felt like a faulty engine piston, chugging too hard, too fast. Each beat punctuated the need for escape. Hurry...hurry...hurry. Fear carried her on winged feet. She heard a disembodied voice whispering, No, no, no, and was halfway around the car when she realized it was her own desperate denial.

  Alec pulled the kitchen door closed and plunged them into abject darkness. She bit back a cry as she stumbled and felt for the hood of her Skylark. She jerked open the back door of the car as Alec did the driver’s door. Instantly the interior car lights seemed to flood the garage.

  “Oh, God,” she muttered, sending puffs of warm air to hang in the cold garage. She thrust Allie into her car seat, forcing her baby arms through the safety harness, silently begging her daughter to be quiet, to be good, to be safe.

  “I closed the kitchen door. Jack’s alone,” Alec said softly. “He’s still ringing the doorbell. He can’t see the light in here now.”

  Cait didn’t know if Alec was merely informing her of the latest development or had intended to calm her with the reassurance, but it did the trick; her hands stopped shaking long enough to finish securing the harness, cover her daughter with her own coat, lock and shut the rear door and swing into the passenger seat. She closed her door as quietly as she’d just seen Alec shut his.

  “Where’s your remote for the garage door?” Alec asked softly, if no less urgently. She grabbed the remote from where it was secured to the driver’s visor and handed it to him. “Okay. Now put the blanket over Allie. All the way over, understand?”

  His cool command served as a catalyst for a wave of pure terror to wash over Cait. She did as he asked without question, horrified at the implication; he was trying to let her know that glass might fly. When she turned back around, Alec had already inserted the key in the ignition and was leaning over to see how many pedals he had to work with on the floor.

  “It’s an automatic,
” she said.

  He nodded, but still didn’t turn the key. Cait envisioned the door from the kitchen bursting open and Jackwhoever to come barreling out at them, guns blazing.

  “Are you buckled in?” he asked.

  It was such a mundane question it stripped the vision of the insane FBI agent drawing a bead on Alec. The awareness of the reason for his asking steadied her instead of making her even more afraid. Like Allie beneath the blanket, burbling her delight in this new, strange game, Cait was to fasten her belt and lie low to avoid being shot.

  Alec knew what he was doing. He was—or had been— a federal agent. Wherever he’d been for two years, he was still a trained professional and she could rely on him to get her and Allie to some port of safety.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to start the car and then press the remote. As soon as it starts to move, you’re going to scrunch down and I’m going to slam the car into Reverse and gun the motor. It’ll scream and we’ll probably take off part of your garage door and your insurance company’ll have a heyday over the ruined paint job to your car. But we’ll be out of here,” he said. “Now. Are you ready?”

  “No,” she muttered. No one would be ready for this. No one should be.

  “Okay. Here we go.”

  “Me...me,” Allie called out from the back seat, apparently tiring of the blanket game.

  “Hush, sweetie,” Cait said. “I’m right here.”

  “Sit tight, Allie,” Alec said as he angled around until his right arm rested on the back of the driver’s seat and his eyes were on the garage door. “Stanger Man is going .to try to save the day.”

  He turned the key and the car seemed to roar to life. To Cait, the noise was thunderous, deafening, and a dead giveaway of their whereabouts.

  Alec reached up without taking his eyes from the double-wide door and depressed the remote. He threw the car into Reverse the very second the big door began rolling up. His right leg jackknifed to grind the accelerator to the floor.