Just Eight Months Old...

by Tori Carrington

  “You are still the most incredible woman I’ve ever known,” Chad said roughly, almost as if to himself.

  In one motion he tilted her hips closer to his and lifted her from the cool basin. Opening the door, he carried her to his bed and stripped back the covers, before laying her down. Slowly he dragged his fingers down the length of her bare torso, then scraped his fingertips against the aching tips of her breasts before traveling on until he reached the men’s briefs she wore. Leaning over her, he slowly tugged the cotton down, baring her dusky triangle of hair. He groaned. Tossing the briefs aside, he pressed his palm against her, finding her tender bud with his callused fingertips. Hannah strained upward, seeking closer contact. She shuddered when he moved a finger along her swollen, slick entrance.

  “Please,” she pleaded, trying to pull him up. She writhed insistently, her legs moving restlessly, her body pulsing with sensation.

  He slid over her, dragging a russet-colored nipple into his mouth, laving the aching tip with his tongue. Hannah whimpered, thrusting her fingers into his hair, thrusting her hips against where he rested between her thighs.

  Finally he drew back, holding her gaze as he fit himself into her a second time. He moved slowly, torturously, then languorously shifted his gaze to where their bodies were joined. She followed his lead, marveling at the sight of his strength melding into her softness, and retreating, then melding again. All at once, she came apart, a fireball exploding in her belly, consuming her with liquid fire. She mindlessly sought his mouth, tangling her tongue with his, lifting her legs to allow him deeper access. He rocked into her, obviously battling to hold on to the controlled, leisurely pace he had set, then giving himself over to the need to drive into her, to possess her, pinning her legs higher, molding her soft flesh to his. Hannah felt her climax gather, then erupt in a kaleidoscope of heat.

  Chad groaned and tumbled after her.

  For long moments he lay quietly on top of her. She reveled in the feel of him cradled between her thighs, the rasp of his stubble against her sensitive neck. She smiled, tasting the salty skin of his forehead, her heart thudding erratically against the wall of his chest.

  He didn’t move. In fact, he had yet to look at her at all since they blew apart in each other’s arms. She drew her head slightly away and tried to meet his gaze. Had he fallen asleep?

  “Chad?” she said quietly.

  From the bed next to them, Hannah heard movement. She glanced over to find Bonny awakening. The baby took three deep breaths then started crying.

  Chad got up so quickly Hannah felt as if a blanket had been stripped from her body in the dead of winter.

  Still, he refused to meet her gaze.

  “Chad?” she said again, this time more urgently. Certainly he didn’t feel guilty because they had made love with the baby in the room? With growing dread, she watched him snatch up his T-shirt and yank it on, along with his jeans. Dressed, he picked up his duffel then stalked toward the door.

  “Chad!” she called over Bonny’s cries.

  Finally he met her gaze. The regret in his gray eyes, the confusion, made her wish he hadn’t.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah,” he said, then left the room, closing the door after himself.

  Chapter Eight

  The hazy, midafternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, signaling the rain had ended, and making the wheezing air conditioner work twice as hard to keep the searing Texas summer heat from taking over the cool motel room. Hannah lay listlessly next to Bonny on the double bed. The bed that didn’t remind her of what she and Chad had just shared. She tried to entertain her daughter with a doll. Bonny slapped her arm and let loose a cry. It seemed she was incapable of even the simple task of entertaining her daughter. Her throat tightening, Hannah sat up. Bonny scooted to the edge of the mattress, and Hannah helped lower her to a blanket on the floor, making sure there was nothing in the room her curious daughter could break, eat, or otherwise damage or hurt herself with.

  “Come on, Chad, where are you?” she whispered. She looked at her watch, then stared at the closed door. After the way he had left her, she wasn’t sure which scared her more: his leaving for good…or his coming back.

  Bonny pulled at the bedspread and tensed her pudgy little body. “Dah…dah…dah.”

  Hannah blinked. “No, honey, there’s no doggy here.” She grabbed a hold of the bedspread before it slipped to the floor. Watching her daughter’s expressive face, she supposed now that she wouldn’t be going out on any more road trips seeking bail-jumpers, maybe she would get Bonny a dog.

  “Dah!”

  Hannah frowned and stuffed the doll back into the nearby diaper bag. “No, it’s more like duh,” she mimicked. That word about summed up what a fool she had made of herself.

  What had she been thinking when she gave in to the emotions she had for Chad? Emotions it had taken her over a lonely, long year to master, to suppress? Her heart mocked her by giving a painful squeeze. Obviously she hadn’t been thinking. If she had, she would never have taken this assignment. Would never have given herself the rope she had just used to hang herself.

  Chad would never change. Perhaps he was even incapable of changing given the pain that lay in his past. She had deluded herself by reading more into his expressions than had been there, by hoping he could somehow love her the same way he loved his wife. She had opened herself up again, allowed herself to start to fall in love with him again—only to have her new feelings unreturned.

  She absently traced the quilted material of the bedspread with her finger over and over again. Despite all that, she knew that Chad had changed. Then again, maybe it wasn’t Chad who had changed, but the addition of Bonny to the picture that made him more accessible somehow.

  Rising restlessly from the bed, Hannah stepped to the window and stared out at the parking area. The rental car wasn’t there and neither was Chad. She followed where the sun refracted through the windowpane and drowned Bonny in a yellow pool of light, then glanced down at her watch again. If Chad didn’t return, she’d have to decide where she went from here.

  And where could she go? Home? It seemed the only logical answer. Go home. Forget Chad. Forget this assignment that had turned more dangerous than she’d anticipated. Get Seekers off the ground. And create a happy environment for Bonny to grow up in. An environment that had seemed so stable, so satisfying, but after only two days of Chad Hogan, had been severely undermined.

  A cold blast from the air conditioner in front of her legs made her shiver. But what about the two men at the airport? The FBI agents in New York?

  Biting on her bottom lip, Hannah stepped between the beds and reached for the telephone on the bedside table. She called the motel office.

  “Hi, Mrs. Browning—”

  “Please, it’s Betty,” the nicely accented voice of the owner said.

  “Okay.” She moved the receiver to her other ear. “Um, could you tell me if there are any messages for Room 112, Betty?”

  “No, honey, I’m sorry, but your husband hasn’t called in yet.”

  Hannah winced. It was natural for Betty to assume she and Chad were married. But if it was one thing she and Chad would never be, it was married. He’d made sure of that.

  “Thank you.” Hannah blindly replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  A dull rattle sounded over the hiss of the air conditioner. Hannah stared at the door, then dropped her gaze to where the round brass handle jiggled. Her heart pounded hopefully in her chest. Plucking Bonny away from the front of the door, she opened it. Only it wasn’t Chad she stood face-to-face with.

  She backed away, staring at the last person she expected to see. “What are you doing here?”

  Chad hung up the phone, then tore a page from the phone book. He folded the tissue-thin piece of paper in half, then half again, until he distantly realized he’d nearly folded it into oblivion. Grimacing at the mess he’d made, he shoved it into his front jeans’ pocket, picked up his duffel and stepped away from the telephon
e booth. He hadn’t exactly intended to do any work when he left the motel room and Hannah two hours earlier, but when he saw the telephone book hanging from its steel cord in the mini mall, he’d found the perfect excuse to get his mind off what he had just done. More specifically, to stop the incessant sound of Hannah saying his name from echoing in his head, and his own curses at himself that followed.

  Why did I make love to her?

  Damn, stupid fool question. He knew exactly why he’d made love to her. Ever since seeing her again he had longed to hold her once more. To mold her body to his. To hear her soft cries when he touched her in the most intimate of places. He rubbed his fingers against his mouth, swearing he could still taste her on his tongue. Still feel her hot breath on his skin.

  But that wasn’t what he’d come back for. He’d returned to set things straight between them. To apologize for starting something he knew he would never finish. To ask for her forgiveness. Then he saw Bonny and understood that just because he’d stayed the same the past fifteen months didn’t mean she had. And that a lot had happened between then and now. All his previous arguments against marrying again, the pain of losing his wife and son…well, they didn’t seem to make much sense when he held his daughter.

  Still, he owed it to Hannah to figure everything out before he was intimate with her. But he’d underestimated what had begun happening between them these past two days. This time their lovemaking wasn’t just about satisfying a physical hunger. He thrust his fingers through his hair, realizing their lovemaking had never really been about that, though that was what he’d told himself. But this time that something he suspected had always lurked in his heart for Hannah had refused his arguments, ignored his attempts to block it, and seeped out, possessing him with an intensity he had never felt before. And it was that same intensity that made him feel confused, troubled…and like the biggest jerk on earth for the way he had treated her.

  She deserved so much more than him and his inability to escape from the cloud of confusion forever following him around.

  He readjusted his hold on his duffel bag, then remembered exactly why it was so heavy. Before leaving Florida, he had stashed his last bottle of vodka inside, a bitter reminder of exactly how he had spent the months away from Hannah. Shoving his hand into the bag, Chad yanked the half-full bottle out and stared at it, weighing it in his hand. His mouth watered, and he recognized the longing that urged him to take a sip even now. In the middle of a mall.

  Letting the bottle slip down so he clutched the neck, he walked to a trash bin and tossed it inside without slowing his stride.

  Florida was behind him now, pushed there the instant Blackstone had called him with the chance to make amends with at least one person he had hurt. Unfortunately he could never gain forgiveness from Linda and Joshua.

  He dragged in a deep breath and stopped in front of a flower shop. His gaze caught on a square, ceramic plant holder shaped like a toy block intended as a gift for a new baby. He knew it would play a lullaby when wound up. He stared at it, wishing he could have bought one of those for Bonny, after her birth. He shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out the cash there. It was only as an afterthought that he realized he’d gotten a flower pot just like this one for little Joshua when he and Linda brought him home from the hospital.

  He stood still for long moments, waiting for the anguish to seize him. For the guilt for having thought of someone else before Joshua to claim him. He stood up a little straighter. The paralyzing emotions he constantly lived in fear of never came. Instead, he experienced a manageable sorrow, a mix of joy that he had known his son if only for a few precious months, and grief that he had lost him.

  He shifted his gaze to two dozen yellow roses. On one of the long stems, a card read, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

  It was then he realized that in all the time he had known Hannah, after all the sizzling hours of love-making, of talking, of laughing with her, of pretending to like her cooking, and holding her when the world got to be a little too much to bear, he’d never once told Hannah he loved her.

  And now it was too late.

  “What are you doing here?” Hannah tried to look formidable, but the appearance of Jack Stokes on the other side of the motel room door threw her for a loop. She automatically reached for her stun gun, then remembered she’d left it in the bathroom after her shower. She backed into the motel room.

  The Australian took advantage of her surprise and followed, closing the door after himself.

  “I thought it was for the same reason you were here, luv,” he said, mimicking the words he had used when they met up at The Bar two days ago, both of them seeking the same bail-jumper, Eddie “The Snake” Fowler. What had he said after she snatched Eddie out from under his nose? I’m going to get you for this?

  Jack Stokes pushed his leather cowboy hat back on his dark head and shifted his gaze to the disheveled bed behind her. “At least I thought I was here for the same reason. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s the case.”

  Hannah crossed her arms over her chest. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Stokes.”

  “My, aren’t we the touchy one this afternoon.” She glanced to where Bonny played on the other side of the bed, out of sight. “How did you find us?”

  “It was quite easy, actually. You would be surprised how willing a few females are when asked by a man such as myself for a little information.”

  Hannah grimaced. “An investigation like that would take days. You had to find out from someone else.”

  She thought about what she was saying—and it hit her. No. It couldn’t be true.

  “I can’t believe it.” Hannah stalked to the phone and snatched the receiver from its cradle. She quickly punched out a number she knew by heart.

  “Hannah, luv, let’s not go and get hasty now,” Jack said, taking a step toward her.

  She stared at him and listened to the line ring once before it was picked up. “Blackstone, you better have a good explanation for sending Jack Stokes out on this trace—”

  “Hannah! Where are you?” Elliott cut her off. “I’ve been going out of my mind here. I thought I told you—”

  “Just answer my question, El.”

  Jack stepped a little closer to her.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you, Stokes.” Her voice was deep and forbidding.

  The Aussie held up his hands. “Stokes is there?” Blackstone’s voice wavered across the line. “What is he doing with you?”

  Hannah frowned. “You mean you didn’t send him here?”

  “Of course, I didn’t send him! How could I send him there if I don’t even know where ‘there’ is?”

  The response didn’t make any sense. If Elliott hadn’t sent Stokes after Persky and Furgeson, what was the Aussie doing there?

  “Hannah, where are you?” Elliott asked. Satisfied that Elliott hadn’t sent Stokes, she depressed the hang-up button, cutting off Blackstone’s rapid-fire questions. Then she rushed toward her baby, whom Stokes had just picked up.

  “Don’t worry, luv,” he said quietly. “I won’t hurt her.” He bounced Bonny up and down and smiled. The softening of his rugged features, the gentle way he held Bonny, surprised Hannah. “You know, I wondered why you disappeared there for a while.” He glanced at her. “Guess this explains it, huh?” He tickled Bonny’s terry-covered belly and she gave a delighted squeal. “Our mate Hogan knows about her, I take it?”

  Hannah moved toward the window. “Yeah.” Several yards away she noticed an older model Monte Carlo sitting in a parking spot. The car jiggled something loose in her memory.

  She faced Jack and crossed her arms over her chest. “You were the one in the Monte Carlo, weren’t you? Outside Blackstone’s, then again in Atlantic City at Minelli’s and outside our motel room.” Perhaps Blackstone had been telling the truth. Jack wasn’t working for him. He was out on his own and had followed them the entire way.

  She could tell by Stokes’s agitated expression th
at the Monte Carlo was indeed his.

  “I need the cash, Hannah. I gotta get out of here. The States, I mean. A man such as myself can only spend so much time up over before he needs to go back down under, you know?”

  Bonny reached out to grab the rim of Jack’s hat and he leaned back. He used the vantage point to take a more thorough look at the eight-month-old. “Well, I know where she gets her beauty, and it sure as hell ain’t from Hogan.”

  Hannah cracked a nervous smile, unsure how to react to this kinder, gentler Jack Stokes.

  Bonny tugged on his dark blond hair and he winced. “Here, you better let me take her,” Hannah said.

  She slipped her hands under Bonny’s arms and started lifting her when she heard the knob of the door being turned. A split second later, Chad filled the open doorway. Hannah’s heart leapt into her throat.

  Chad had undergone a series of physical changes in the time he’d been gone. His rich light brown hair, though still somewhat long in the back, had been trimmed. The forever-present stubble that had made her tender skin raw was gone.

  “I’d better be going.” Stokes plopped his hat back onto his head and waited for Chad to move from the door. For a moment, Hannah was afraid he wouldn’t. Then he stepped aside and the Aussie quickly moved through the opening. “Congratulations on the new addition to the fam, mate.”

  Chad glared after him then closed the door.

  Hannah cuddled an overactive Bonny closer to her chest as every minute of the past two hours Chad had been gone, every pang of punishing pain she’d felt, flooded back with vivid clarity. She started to head for the bathroom when Chad’s voice stopped her.

  “Hannah, I…”

  She waited with her back turned to him. But he didn’t continue. So she spoke instead. “Don’t worry, Chad, I didn’t say anything to Jack to make him think anything has changed between us. And I don’t expect anything to change just because you now know you happened to have fathered a child or because…we had sex.” She patted Bonny’s back, disappointed to find her hand shaking. But the outer display was nothing compared to the ache ripping through her insides. Her throat pinched so tightly closed she couldn’t swallow. She walked to the bed and searched through Bonny’s diaper bag. “Let me just change Bonny and we can go. The sooner this case is over, the better for all of us.”