Just Eight Months Old...

by Tori Carrington

  The man motioned and another car door opened. Two figures emerged into the night.

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “Let the girl come forward, Morgan,” Chad ordered.

  It was Lisa. She tried to move away from the man holding her, and was quickly wrenched back.

  “Give me the rest of the chips,” the shadowed man demanded.

  Chad stood still for a long moment, then motioned toward his car. “They’re in the trunk. Come and get them.”

  You have to lure Morgan to take them, Hannah silently urged. You must get the exchange on record. She nearly whispered the words as if Chad stood next to her rather than fifty yards away. She felt much like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car.

  For long, torturous moments, no one moved. Even the wind seemed to cease its quiet restlessness.

  Then the man stepped forward. Was it Robert Morgan? The one in the picture? The one she saw outside Rita Minelli’s apartment?

  Long, confident strides brought him closer to Chad, until he stood in front of the headlights from his car. The beam illuminated his face with its unkind light. Robert Morgan.

  Hannah stared at the man responsible for so much. It seemed she and Chad had run into Morgan or his cronies at every turn. She shuddered.

  “Bring the boxes here,” Morgan said.

  Chad dropped his hand to his side. Take him the boxes! Hannah screamed silently. Hogan, don’t play games now! Take him the cursed chips!

  “How can I be sure you’ll hold up your end of the bargain and let Furgeson go?” Chad asked.

  Morgan shrugged his shoulders. “Putting it in writing will not allay your fears, Mr. Hogan. You will have to take me at my word. As I must take you at yours.”

  For long moments Chad and Morgan battled a silent duel. One that excluded surrounding warriors, yet depended on their presence.

  “Let her go,” Morgan ordered.

  Lisa stumbled into the beams of the headlights, her hands still bound behind her, no doubt with the handcuffs Hannah had put on her hours earlier. Morgan grabbed her before she could rush forward.

  “We will make the exchange at the same time,” he said.

  Hannah’s gaze trailed Chad as he rounded to the back of the car and hauled out two suitcase-size boxes. Morgan maintained his hold on Lisa as Chad approached.

  “I hope you’re getting this all on tape, McKay,” Chad said under his breath, “because you’re only getting one crack.”

  Hannah swallowed hard, caught between the urge to run forward and the need to stay behind and protect her daughter. As Morgan’s hand touched the top box, the Lincoln’s headlights went out.

  “What the hell?” Chad shouted.

  “Chad!” Hannah’s eyes adjusted quickly, fear pressing in on her from all sides.

  “McKay.” Chad’s voice started breaking up, more static than words. “Subject has the chips.” There was the rustling of clothes as he moved. “Did you hear me? Morgan has the chips!”

  “Get the woman!”

  Hannah heard the shouted order without benefit of the radio and recognized the voice immediately as Morgan’s. She strained to make out Chad’s and Lisa’s figures where they dove in the opposite direction.

  Hannah grabbed the agent’s arm. “Damn it, McKay, do something!”

  McKay shouted into his radio, “Go, go, go!”

  Spotlights were flicked on from every corner, it seemed, making it look like the sun had risen on Baker’s Oil Field alone. Hannah frantically searched for a sign of Chad among the men storming the area. There! There he was, ripping off his wire and apparently looking for her.

  Agents grabbed one of Morgan’s henchmen, then ran after the other, when movement caught the corner of Hannah’s eye. She quickly looked toward the Lincoln then back at Chad. He was taking the earpiece off.

  She grabbed McKay’s hand and took the radio.

  “Chad! Can you hear me? Morgan’s getting away.”

  Chad’s hand halted near his ear and he tilted his head to the side, Hannah suspected so he could hear her better.

  “Repeat, Morgan’s getting away!”

  Robert Morgan was disappearing into the Lincoln, escaping the attention of dozens of agents crowding the lighted scene.

  Chad bit off a curse. “The subject!” Hannah watched half the men turn toward him, but it was too late. The Lincoln roared to life, racing away from them in reverse.

  Hannah started to bolt in the direction of the car next to her, but McKay’s deathlike grip on her arm stopped her. “You stay out of the way and keep safe.”

  She returned his forceful gaze. “Like hell I—” Her words caught in her throat as she watched Chad sprint full speed in the direction of the dark vehicle holding Morgan. It was impossible he could catch the car. Inconceivable he could stop the man about to outwit them all. The negative certainties piled up, but Chad lunged for the back of the Lincoln anyway as the car swerved around to move forward. He flung himself onto the trunk, digging his fingers into the tiny space between the trunk and the rear window.

  Hannah held her breath as the Lincoln shot off into the night. She expected Chad to be thrown from the back as his long, rugged body moved back and forth. He appeared to be holding on by sheer will alone. She had to do something to help….

  Behind her, Randy McKay jumped into the car. She climbed into the back seat and gathered a still sleeping Bonny into her arms even as McKay started the engine.

  “What were you waiting for?” she demanded as he pulled forward. “Chad could have been killed.”

  McKay’s face was set into deep, angry lines. “I had to be sure Morgan made a move on the chips.”

  “The chips? How many people have to die for those pieces of techno-plastic, McKay? What’s on those things that’s so damn important?”

  “That’s not the point, McGee. It never was.”

  “Well, then, tell me exactly what is, because I can’t figure it out.”

  McKay jerked to stare at her. “The chips are the latest in computer processing technology. Technology developed by one of our government contractors. The smartest computer brain technology to date.”

  “You mean all this is about how fast a computer can process data? Technology that will be outdated in six months?”

  “No, you’re still missing the point, McGee. This case is about whoever is trying—illegally—to get ahold of this technology with the intent to copy and mass-produce it in another country, then sell the resulting product back here. I want to get the person or persons who paid Morgan.”

  He glanced back at her. Spotting Bonny, he slowed his speed, but made it to the paved highway only moments after the Lincoln some fifty feet up the road.

  Hannah anxiously watched Chad pull himself up on top of the textured roof of the Lincoln. Only Morgan was now aware of his presence and purposely swerved the auto back and forth along the dark, two-lane highway, trying to shake him off.

  McKay pressed the button to the radio he’d taken back from Hannah. “Hogan? Chad, can you hear me? I need to make sure Morgan’s taken alive. I need him alive.”

  The Lincoln swerved off the road onto the gravel shoulder, forcing Chad’s jean-clad legs over the side of the car. Hannah was terrified he’d be thrown. Somehow he managed not only to hold on, but to seize the handle of the back door. The shrill shriek of a car horn jerked her gaze to the road in front of them. The Lincoln had overcorrected and was racing head-on toward a car coming in the opposite direction.

  The Lincoln just barely missed the other car, but the speed at which it was traveling now put a good hundred feet between the two cars. Hannah noted with a measure of relief that Chad was climbing into the back.

  The Lincoln swerved violently off the road, then pulled back onto it. There was a struggle going on inside. The knowledge both relieved and scared Hannah. But at least the movement meant Chad was still alive.

  The bright beams of an oncoming vehicle blinded Hannah, the tremendous sound of a horn dea
fening her. But this time it wasn’t just a car. It was an eighteen-wheeler.

  Hannah clutched a crying Bonny close to her chest as McKay pressed on the brakes, slowing the car to a stop on the right shoulder. Even as Hannah scrambled for the door handle, her gaze was glued to the scene playing out in front of her. The Lincoln swerved left…then right…then collided head-on with the eighteen-wheeler.

  The loud explosion snatched Hannah’s heart right from her chest.

  “Chad!”

  Hannah leapt out, staring at the truck and the Lincoln that appeared to be one large ball of blue and yellow flame.

  “No!”

  Hannah’s legs sprang to watery life and she ran up onto the road, holding Bonny. Pain and loss hit her like sharp shards of glass. She would have entered the fire itself if it had not been for her daughter, whose sharp cries deafened her even over the sound of the fire.

  “Chad…” All the life seemed to drain straight from her.

  Was this what it was all about? Hannah stared into the lapping hot flames. Did she and Chad make it this far for it to end like this? She bit roughly on her bottom lip, drawing blood, and pressed Bonny’s damp cheek against hers. It wasn’t fair. She and Chad still had so much to work out. So much to say to each other. So many more nights to spend locked in each other’s arms. So many more years delighting in their daughter’s growth.

  Now he was gone.

  Tears spilled down her cheeks and sobs racked her body. All she could think about was Chad—and how she’d lost him.

  “Damn.” McKay cursed, running his hand through his hair. He stood staring at her, then rushed past her toward the burning vehicles. But the intense heat and flames forced him back. Hannah could read his mind—there was no way anyone could have survived the brutal crash.

  “Hannah, I want you to know I intend to honor my agreement with Hogan.”

  Through her tears she stared at McKay’s blurry outline. “What?”

  “Furgeson. I’ll sign off on her recovery so you can collect the bounty.”

  A hand grasped Hannah’s shoulder. She instantly stiffened. She didn’t want any favors from McKay. She couldn’t bear to think that any amount of money was capable of compensating her for the loss of Chad…or Bonny for the loss of her father. Unable to see past the tears obscuring her vision, she batted his arm away. Her fingers met with a rock hard chest…a chest too high to be McKay’s. Her heart lurched.

  “Take the offer, Hannah,” a familiar voice murmured. “It’s the least he can do.”

  She blinked rapidly even as Bonny’s frantic crying suddenly ceased. “Chad?”

  Sweet God in Heaven!

  Hannah melded into his arms, their slippery, tear-soaked daughter cradled between them. She didn’t know how he had escaped the crash, or even if he was uninjured. All she cared about was that he was alive. Alive! She alternated between clutching him as if she’d never let him go, and probing his face to verify that he was indeed there and she wasn’t seeing an apparition. His face was soot-covered, the front of his hair singed, his T-shirt and jeans torn and dirty, but there was no denying that the man holding her was one-hundred lovable percent Chad Hogan.

  “If I’d known I’d get that kind of reaction from a stupid stunt like that, I would have done it a long time ago,” he murmured, chuckling when she kissed him once…then again…and again.

  “I thought—I mean, you couldn’t—Oh, Chad…” She battled back the emotions threatening to swallow her whole and pressed her mouth against his again as if by sheer will alone she could somehow inhale him so he’d always be with her.

  He grasped the sides of her head and held her mere inches away from his face. “Marry me, Hannah.”

  Her heart dipped low in her stomach, then rebounded until she feared it would leap straight from her chest. If he said again that he wanted to marry her solely because of Bonny, she was afraid she’d die right then and there.

  “Chad, I—” He kissed her response into oblivion, then pulled back. In his eyes she saw the love she had always seen there tenfold. The love he refused to acknowledge, to share. “Marry me. Not for Bonny’s sake. Marry me for my sake.” His throat worked around a swallow and it was all she could do not to stop him right there, tell him that she’d marry him in a second if that was what he truly wanted.

  He chuckled, the sound nervous and uncertain. “There was a moment back there when I was in that car when I thought I wouldn’t make it. A split second when I was sure that was all she wrote. And I seemed to have been given a choice. Either get out of that damn car and return to you, or stay and pay for the sins of my past.”

  “Chad—”

  “Shh. I’m not done yet.” He looked from one of her eyes to the other. “I didn’t even hesitate. I got out of that car as fast as I could. I had to get back to you.

  “I love you, Hannah McGee. I can’t believe how difficult—I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you that before. That it took all this to make me realize that the ghosts that haunted me weren’t real, but ones of my own making. I regret that my stupid pride and inability to escape the past wouldn’t let me.” His lips met hers and he groaned. “Oh, Hannah, you had to know I’ve always loved you.”

  She stared at him, her breath frozen in her lungs. “I have,” she whispered. And she had. She’d felt it when he held her. She’d seen it in his eyes. Witnessed it in the small things he did for her, like rubbing her feet, like buying her that blasted Alfa Romeo. She’d sensed it in his caress and the way he said her name when they made love. And she’d known it beyond a shadow of a doubt in her heart.

  But there was a world of difference between knowing and actually being told. Hearing the words come from his lips, seeing the earnest almost fearful expression on his face, made her feel as if her heart had sprung wings and was even now soaring above the mess in the middle of the road, moving beyond the chaos of her life up until that moment, freeing her in a way she couldn’t have imagined.

  “I’m done,” Chad said.

  “Done?” Hannah repeated.

  “Yes. You, um, have yet to answer my question. And I have to tell you, after earlier tonight…you know, the other time, I’m not much liking this hesitation, Hannah.”

  The laughter that bubbled up from her throat startled even her. Bonny looked puzzled and attempted to cover Hannah’s mouth with her chubby little hand. Hannah grasped her daughter’s fingers and kissed them again and again. Then she moved past them and kissed Bonny’s father again and again.

  “Are you crazy? Of course I’ll marry you, Chad.”

  Relief swept over his features sure and complete, making her laugh again as he hauled her into his arms.

  Then abruptly he pulled away, appearing to have forgotten something. One hand still gripping her as if afraid to let her go, he searched his pockets with the other. Hannah’s smile felt like it would never leave.

  He looked so utterly, thoroughly confused and wholly adorable. “Where? I had it….”

  Hannah realized what he was looking for and found it nearly impossible to swallow past the emotion that clogged her throat. “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for this?” She moved a squealing Bonny from her left arm to her right, then held up her hand. There the two-carat diamond solitaire twinkled on her ring finger.

  She’d picked up the velvet pouch along with the tube of chips back at Furgeson’s place. And in the midst of the madness that swept them all up into its whirling funnel, she’d found a measure of comfort in slipping it on.

  Chad took her hand then tugged her until she was partially pinned to his chest. This time when he slanted his mouth against hers there was no humor in the move, no relief. Only one-hundred-percent love. And a huge dose of lust.

  Bonny let loose a tremendous squeal. Hannah reluctantly pulled away from Chad, then watched as Bonny lunged in her father’s direction. He took her, then tucked Hannah into the cradle of his other arm.

  Chad’s gray eyes smiled down at her. “Do you really think we should be carrying on th
is way in front of, you know, our daughter? After all, she’s just eight months old.”

  Hannah slipped her hand down toward the seat of his jeans. “Yeah, well, she’s just going to have to get used to it because I don’t plan to stop any time soon.”

  Some yards away McKay cursed, then stepped away from the inferno that had been the Lincoln and headed toward them. Chad nudged Hannah in the other direction, down the middle of the road.

  “The chips. Hogan, get your behind back here. I’ve got to get those chips!”

  “The chips are gone, McKay. And so is Morgan. You’re going to have to wait for another day to get the guy behind this.”

  Chad grinned down at Hannah even as he rubbed his chin against Bonny’s soft hair. “I’ve experienced about as much danger as I can take in one lifetime. I’m not doing anything but going home with my family.”

  Epilogue

  Chad jimmied his index finger between the tight collar of his shirt and his neck. What was it about bow ties that they never allowed enough room for a good, thick swallow? The kind of swallow that went along with slick palms and a hammering heartbeat?

  “It’s only natural, mate. You know, the nervousness. Hell, it ain’t every day a man signs away his life.”

  Squinting against the noon sunlight, Chad grimaced at Jack Stokes, the only one who had followed him out of the church and onto the front steps where he’d chosen to wait until everything was ready. His uncle Nash was inside, as was—surprise of surprises—his father, decked out in full military regalia. He hadn’t known quite what to say when his old man virtually marched down the aisle, his cap tucked neatly under his arm, and offered him a hearty handshake.

  Still, Chad couldn’t focus on any of these facts for more than a fleeting moment. Not when he was due to marry Hannah in ten minutes.

  “What would you know about getting married, Jack?” he asked the Australian.

  Stokes pulled at his own tie, that and a crisp white shirt his only concessions to the formal event. He seemed genuinely puzzled when Chad had gestured to his old creased brown leather jacket, jeans and trademark dusty hat. “Yeah, well, I might just know more than you think I do on that particular topic, Hogan.” He flashed a grin. “But I don’t think it’s a story you want to hear on your wedding day.”