Brianna’s eyes were wide with terror. She gave the room an encompassing glance. “Get Sorsha, too! Please. She—” cough “—was here a minute ago.”
“I’ll try.” He took Ben from her arms and glanced at her feet. “You need shoes. There’s glass out there now.” Spotting a pair of slip-on loafers near her dresser, he kicked them to her. “Hurry!”
She donned the shoes in seconds, and grabbing her purse from the dresser, she swung it through the opening in the window to the grassy lawn. Hunter steadied her as she clambered out the window. “Watch the sharp edges on the sides.”
He swaddled the baby more fully in his blanket to protect him from glass shards and smoke. Ben wiggled and whimpered, and the infant’s vulnerability punched Hunter like a fist to the gut.
Once she’d climbed outside, Brianna reached back through the opening for Ben. He handed her his phone, as well. “Call 911. I’ll get the cat.”
Lifting an arm to shield himself from the blast of heat seeping through the thin bedroom door, Hunter squinted into the corners of the shadowy room for Sorsha. “Here, kitty. Sorsha, where are you?” He coughed, knowing he had little time to grab the cat and get out before smoke inhalation got the better of him. How did he find a black cat in a dark, smoke-filled room? Anxiety tingled on his scalp. He loved animals as much as the next guy, and he hated the idea of Brianna losing her beloved pet. But his lungs were burning, his skin stinging from the building heat. “Sorsha!”
He dropped to the floor, where the smoke was thinner, and looked under the bed. Black. Complete darkness and shadow. He couldn’t see anything, but he remembered Sorsha hiding in the back corner after the intruders tossed the house. He shimmied as far under the bed as he could and stretched a hand out. Found fur. Grabbed a handful of scruff and dragged the cat out. Sorsha meowed her fright and hissed once. “I know. I know. Easy, girl.”
While holding Sorsha captive with one hand, Hunter yanked the rumpled sheet off Brianna’s bed with his other hand and made a hasty cat-burrito. Swaddled in the sheet, Sorsha was safe from the glass and easier to handle, and Hunter was protected from the claws of a frightened feline. Holding Sorsha under his arm like a football, Hunter rushed to the window and climbed out. As he squeezed through the opening, his shirt snagged on something. He twisted sideways and groped with one hand to free himself. As he got loose and found his footing on the grass below, his gaze landed on the metal protrusion that had caught his shirt. A nail head. In the window frame. One of several intentionally driven into the frame of the pane. The reason it wouldn’t slide open. A chill slid through him. Brianna’s window, her escape, had been sabotaged. He bit out an earthy curse.
Already he heard the distant wail of sirens as he gulped in the fresh autumn air. Coughing and dragging in deep, rasping breaths, he carried Sorsha to his truck and shut her inside for safekeeping. “Do me a favor,” he said hoarsely as he released the cat from the restraint of the sheet. “Don’t trash the leather seats.”
He staggered to the edge of Brianna’s yard where she knelt in the grass, staring at the blazing house. Ben had kicked his legs free of the blanket and waved his arms angrily as he whined.
Hunter nudged her shoulder. “We should move farther back. In fact, I’m going to move my truck out of the fire engine’s way. I’ve got Sorsha in the backseat. She’s safe.”
She didn’t move, her gaze transfixed on the fire, and he worried she was going into shock.
“Bri?” He chafed her arm. “Hey, are you all right?”
She raised haunted eyes and blinked slowly, dazed. “What did I do?” Her voice sounded raspy from the smoke. “How did this...?” She coughed. “Did I leave something turned on? I can’t think of...anything...”
Hunter took another lung-clearing breath of the night air and gritted his back teeth. “We don’t know how it started. Don’t assume it was something you did. Sometimes house fires start because of faulty wiring or lightning...” He glanced up at the cloudless sky and knew they could rule that cause out. He heaved a ragged sigh, and as he turned to stare at the raging fire that was devouring her house, he remembered his first impressions upon waking to Brianna’s shout.
Diesel. He’d smelled diesel fumes.
He studied the size of the fire and thought about how quickly it had spread. From two ends of the house at once. When added to the nails in her window frame, Hunter could find only one explanation for the tragedy. The fire was no accident. It was arson. Whoever had tossed Brianna’s house had come back. And tried to kill her.
* * *
Brianna sat with a blanket around her shoulders and watched an EMT check Ben over. She was still shaking, knowing how close they’d all come to burning up in the fire, succumbing to smoke inhalation. Not just her and Ben, but Hunter, too. Hunter, who’d gotten far more than he ever bargained for when he helped her at her car accident. Hunter, whose quick response may have saved her life and her son’s. And her cat’s. Hunter was her hero in so many ways...as was Sorsha. If Sorsha hadn’t sensed the danger and woken her...
A shudder raced through her, and she moved the oxygen mask from her nose and mouth to ask the EMT, “Is he okay? He won’t stop crying.”
The female EMT glanced up and smiled. “I think he’s fine. His oxygen levels are good.” She lifted Ben to her shoulder and patted his back, obviously familiar with babies. “I’d wager his crying has more to do with the noise out here, having his sleep disturbed and maybe wanting a snack. I know my son ate every two hours when we brought him home from the hospital. And he hasn’t stopped since! Wait until this one is a teenager. Whew!”
“Thank you. I—” Brianna coughed and replaced the oxygen mask over her mouth for another deep inhalation.
“Just the same,” the EMT added, settling Ben in a borrowed baby seat, “I’d advise all of you to ride with us to the hospital and let a doctor check you.”
She glanced across the yard to Hunter, who was deep in conversation with a police officer. Something about the dark scowl on his face told her something more was wrong than just their narrow scrape getting out of her burning house. Hunter led the officer over to the window they’d climbed out of and pointed to something on the frame. She furrowed her brow, wondering what could have their attention, when one of the firemen stepped into her line of vision.
“Ma’am, are you the homeowner?”
She regarded the firefighter, decked in turnout gear and boots. He’d removed his helmet and held a warped piece of plastic in his gloved hand. His expression was grim.
Uneasy with the firefighter’s grave look, Brianna swallowed hard and winced as her raw throat burned. She gave the fireman a jerky nod.
“Are you aware that your smoke detector had no battery in it?”
“I—” She gaped at the twisted plastic. “That’s my smoke detector?” she asked, knowing it was a stupid question but shocked by the damage. “You’re sure there was no battery?”
The notion that she could be so careless, that her oversight could have killed them, horrified her.
He nodded. “See this?” He pointed to an empty hole in the melted device. “That’s where the battery should have been.” His glare was unsympathetic and scolding. “You’re very lucky to have gotten out. In homes without a working smoke detector, smoke inhalation typically claims lives before fire does.”
Hunter appeared behind the firefighter and split a worried glance between Brianna and the fireman. “What’s wrong?”
“He says there was no battery in the smoke detector. How could I have been so delinquent? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Hell.” Hunter’s expression hardened, fury flickering in his eyes and flaring his nostrils.
Brianna cringed inwardly, knowing she deserved his anger. She was so caught up in her guilt over her lapse that she almost missed Hunter’s reply.
“I doubt it was your fa
ult. I think the people who broke in earlier took it out. I found nails in the window frame, and based on the condition of the nails and wood, the lack of weathering, I’d say they were put there recently. To keep you from escaping this fire.”
Brianna gasped, and the firefighter pivoted to face Hunter.
“You suspect foul play?”
Hunter swiped a hand down his face. “Very foul.”
The fireman glanced at the smoldering house. “Do the cops agree?”
“They agree the nails are suspicious. They’re waiting for the fire marshal’s report about the cause of the fire. But I smelled diesel fuel when I woke up. The fire was burning at both ends of the house when I reached the hall. My money is on arson.” He gave Brianna a dark, concerned look. “I believe this was attempted murder.”
* * *
After a thorough exam at the hospital for each of them, including Sorsha, whom Hunter’s parents took to the emergency veterinary clinic, Brianna and Ben accepted the senior Mansfields’ invitation to spend the rest of the night at their home. They’d all been treated for symptoms of smoke inhalation—mild for Ben and Sorsha to moderate for Brianna and Hunter. They’d all been given more oxygen at the hospital/vet’s office, and the humans were sent home by early morning. Sorsha was to be picked up the next day after a night of observation.
Brianna’s eyes were red and stung, and her throat was a tad scratchy, but she was alive and grateful that Ben had escaped the worst of the smoke thanks to the heavy swaddling over his face.
Julia and Stan Mansfield proved to be every bit as kind and helpful as their youngest son, and Brianna felt an instant affinity for them. She didn’t miss the sparkle of speculation and intrigue in their eyes as they sized her up, however, and could imagine the assumptions they were making about her relationship with Hunter. He had, after all, been sleeping at her house when the fire broke out. Without a sane-sounding explanation to counter their presumptions, she had little to counter the private smiles and knowing glances.
Telling them her baby was of royal lineage and the target of assassins trying to overthrow the monarchy in Meridan sounded...well, crazy, even to her. And Chris had implored her not to talk about Ben’s bloodline. Brianna, too, wanted to keep her son’s parentage secret—at least until she knew what to do about his future. Could she burden him with the responsibility of the Meridanian throne? Did she have a choice?
Her suspicions about Julia Mansfield’s assumptions were confirmed when Hunter’s mother showed Brianna back to the guest room and helped her settle Ben. Julia cast Brianna a side glance as she changed the sheets in the crib where, as infants, her granddaughters slept when visiting. “I guess a couple of nights in a bed with pink bumper pads won’t be too emasculating for little Ben. Perhaps we can get more masculine bedding for future visits.”
“Future visits?” Brianna repeated, so tired her head throbbed and felt as if it were made of lead.
“Well, sure.” Julia smoothed out the crib sheet she’d spread in the small bed, then shrugged. “I mean I’m assuming you’ll be back to visit if you and Hunter stay together.”
“Together?” She knew she sounded a bit like a parrot, and she rubbed her gritty eyes and rasped from her smoke-damaged throat, “We’re not together. Not really. He’s just helping me out. As a friend.”
Julia’s expression was a combination of crestfallen, skeptical and confused. “I see.” She twisted her mouth in a thoughtful moue, then cocked her head. “Well, perhaps it’s for the best that you see your relationship that way.”
Brianna frowned. “Why is that?”
“Well...I don’t want to see you get hurt. He wouldn’t mean to hurt you, of course. My Hunter is far too sweet to intentionally break a girl’s heart, but...”
When she hesitated, Brianna leaned forward, her heart thumping anxiously. “But what?”
Julia drew a measured breath, clearly choosing her words carefully. “Hunter’s never showed any interest in marriage. He’s never really had a serious relationship. I think he enjoys being a bachelor and playing the field. Not that he sleeps around, mind you,” she hastened to add. “He just enjoys his freedom too much to settle down.”
“Oh.” A stab of disappointment jabbed her, though she couldn’t say why. She had no designs on Hunter, had no right to presume anything beyond his friendship.
“I hate to be a Debbie Downer. I’d love nothing more than to see Hunter happily married. And you seem like a lovely girl.” Julia’s expression softened. “I just thought it fair to warn you. Hunter isn’t the marrying kind.”
Brianna forced a smile to her face. “Thank you for your concern, but really, we’re just friends.”
Julia nodded and cupped Brianna’s cheek in a motherly gesture that burrowed straight to her heart. “If you need anything else, just ask.”
Brianna had only a moment to digest what Julia had said about her youngest son before Hunter appeared at the bedroom door. “Everything okay in here?”
She looked up from where she was settling Ben in the crib, propping him on his side with a rolled blanket behind his back. “Yeah. He’s already asleep, poor lamb. The last few days haven’t been the most restful for him, either. Moved from one place to another, poked by doctors, noise and confusion.”
“And you? Did you survive the grilling from my mother?” He flashed her a lopsided grin.
“She didn’t grill me.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Because I saw the speculative look in her eyes when she brought you back here. I know she had questions for you.”
“Oh, she was curious. But I assured her we were just friends.”
“Sorry if she put you on the spot. Mom’s a romantic, and I think she’s worried I’ll never give her grandchildren.” He raised one eyebrow and gave her a curious glance. “Did she say anything else?”
Brianna hedged. She didn’t want to put Hunter’s feelings or intentions on trial. Especially when she was in no position to pursue a relationship, either. For all she knew, Meridanian law might require her to marry Chris or compel her to allow Ben to be raised in his father’s homeland. But when she considered what it might be like to actually have a relationship with someone as thoughtful, handsome and protective as Hunter, her heart squeezed with longing.
She hesitated a moment too long, and Hunter clearly took her reticence as reluctance to betray his mother. “Never mind. I’ll set her straight.”
“Oh. No, Hunter, I—”
“Hey, we’re not a couple, so there’s no reason not to clear that up with my mom.” He stepped to the door of the nursery and sent her a forced smile. He seemed...disappointed? “Sleep well.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she rubbed her chest where a raw ache gnawed under her ribs—a feeling that had nothing to do with smoke inhalation and everything to do with letting Hunter down. The sooner she regained her memory, the sooner she could put together the pieces of mystery surrounding her relationship with Chris. The sooner she could determine where her future, Ben’s future, lay in respect to Chris’s royal family line, the sooner she would know if a relationship with Hunter was even possible. Or was his mother right? If Hunter wasn’t the “marrying kind,” she was better off knowing that now. She had no use for another broken heart.
Another broken heart? Now, where had that notion come from?
Chapter 9
As much as Hunter appreciated his parents’ hospitality the night of the fire, he knew it wasn’t a long-term solution. Brianna’s situation called for discretion. The threat to her from unknown members of the militant rebel faction meant an inherent danger he accepted for himself, but wouldn’t impose on his parents. So the next day, after they’d all slept late and had been treated to one of his mother’s mouthwatering, artery-clogging, happy-belly Southern breakfasts, he moved Brianna into his own apartment. His place was small, only o
ne bedroom, but he’d splurged on comfy living-room furniture and wasn’t opposed to sleeping on the couch.
They made a stop for baby supplies and inexpensive clothing on the way to his apartment and stocked up on some essentials Brianna had lost in the fire. A bassinet, diapers, baby clothes, slacks and shirts for her, undergarments...
Hunter’s pulse accelerated when she tossed lacy bras, camisoles and panties in the cart, too easily imagining her in the sexy lingerie. She caught his look and hesitated, glanced back in the cart.
“You’re right. Pretty bras can wait until I’m not nursing.”
“I didn’t say—”
“And cotton will be more comfortable until my body recovers from the pregnancy.”
She replaced the lacy silk items, but even the cotton panties she tossed in the basket had sexy trim and feminine colors. He was still turned-on, damn it. Because it wasn’t the underclothes that got him hot and bothered. It was the woman. Her curves. Her smile. The way her eyes lingered on him a few seconds longer than necessary. The spark that lit her eyes when she held his gaze. Hunter exhaled deeply and shook his head to clear it as he pushed the shopping cart down the store aisle, following her.
“I’ve been thinking about that video Chris sent me,” she said over her shoulder, the mention of his competition effectively dousing him with cold water.
His competition? Since when was this a contest with Brianna as the prize?
“What about His Hideness?” he asked, hearing the surliness in his tone.
Her step faltering, she glanced at him with a curious look, and he realized he’d never told her his name for her ex. Assuming they were ex. It chafed to think there could still be feelings between them, a serious relationship. In the video message, the prince had talked about their plans for the future as a family.
Protecting Her Royal Baby Page 10