“She took my car, man,” Whit reminded him, as they rolled across the back porch and tumbled down the steps.
Aaron kept low to the ground as they edged around the corner of the cottage. How long before the shooter stormed inside and discovered them gone? Minutes? Seconds? “And your gun?”
“I have my gun on me.” It glinted in that sliver of moon. He had it drawn, clutching it tightly in his hand. “She had her own. She hit me with it,” Whit reminded him.
“That’s not her gun shooting at us.” Where was Charlotte? They hadn’t heard the car start; she may not have driven off before the gunman arrived. She could have been somewhere out there—in the line of fire? Or kidnapped again. “We have to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s okay,” a female voice whispered. “This way…”
Aaron turned to follow the shadow moving toward the trees, but Whit caught his arm.
“Don’t trust her,” he warned, lifting his gun so that the barrel pointed toward her.
Aaron knocked the gun down. “She’s not the one shooting at us.”
That person had moved to the back of the building. More shots rang out, hitting the ground near them.
They ran toward the woods. Aaron easily caught up to Charlotte. She wasn’t as strong as she wanted to be, and her gait was unsteady. He caught her around the waist, almost carrying her through the small thicket of brush.
“I parked the car over here,” she said.
It idled in the dark, its lights shut off. The engine was quiet. No wonder Aaron hadn’t heard it drive up or drive away.
“You stole my car,” Whit accused as he opened the driver’s door and slid in behind the wheel.
As she scooted across the backseat in front of Aaron, she nodded. “I took it. But when I saw the other car driving toward the cottage, I came back.” She turned to face Aaron, her gaze steady, as if she was trying to tell him something else. “I came back…”
Before she could explain herself, the back window exploded behind her. Aaron pushed her head down below the seat.
Whit slammed the car into Drive and pressed hard on the accelerator. Gravel sprayed from under the wheels as the car fishtailed, nearly careening into the trees surrounding it.
Aaron checked Charlotte. Shards of glass caught in her hair, cutting his fingers as he brushed them out. “Are you all right?”
“Do you care?” she asked, and she drew back, settling into the corner and probably for more than protection. Obviously she’d heard quite a bit of his discussion with Whit before she’d climbed out the window and stolen the only means of escape.
But she came back, he reminded himself. And somehow he suspected she meant more than physically.
“What the hell is this road?” Whit grumbled as the car bounced over deep ruts.
As well as the cabin, Aaron had scoped out the area surrounding it before he and Trigger had gained access to Serenity House. “It’s the public access road to a lake.”
“A lake?” Whit repeated. “So if I keep going we’re going to hit water?”
And the road was unlit, the surrounding woods dark, blocking out that faint sliver of moon. They might not even see the lake before it was too late and the car was going under.
“Turn around,” Charlotte advised.
But bright lights came up fast behind them—blinding in the rearview mirror.
“Get down,” Aaron said, as he pulled Charlotte onto the floorboards behind the front seats. He covered her with his body, protecting her from flying glass and gunfire.
But if they were forced off the road into the lake, he wasn’t sure he would be able to save her then. He wasn’t sure he would be able to save himself in dark, cold water.
But hell, he already felt as though he was drowning—going under from all the information Whit had given him—from all the secrets his old partner had revealed. Aaron was already drowning in emotion, so water couldn’t hurt him much more.
*
SHE HAD ALREADY hurt him enough—with all the secrets she’d kept from him. She couldn’t accept this, too—his using his own body to protect hers. But maybe he wasn’t really protecting her—maybe he was protecting the child he thought was his.
And there was one more secret she’d kept from him. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, turning her face into his neck as he crouched over her.
His heart thumped fast and hard in his chest; she felt each beat of it against her back—beating in rhythm with hers. They would have been perfect for each other—if he hadn’t already loved another woman.
But Charlotte was used to that—used to being rejected for someone sweeter and prettier—someone more uncomplicated and open. Her own father had rejected her in favor of her sister, choosing Gabriella as his heir even though Charlotte was his firstborn.
She covered the rounded swell of her belly. She didn’t care who the father of her child was; she wouldn’t reject her. Charlotte would never deem a baby unworthy of her love.
But Aaron probably would—were he to learn the truth. She needed to tell him—needed to tell him everything. Because she remembered…
But she couldn’t talk into his neck as they huddled in the backseat. She had to wait until they got to safety. If that was even possible…
“You have to do something,” Aaron ordered his former friend. “If we go in that water, we’ll be sitting ducks. He’ll just wait until we surface to shoot us dead.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Whit snapped, his voice gruff with frustration.
“We’re braced back here,” Aaron said. “Put on your seat belt and then slam on the damn brakes. Hard.”
“He’ll rear-end us,” Whit said.
“Yeah,” Aaron agreed. “And maybe he’ll knock himself right through the windshield or at least the hell out.”
Charlotte nodded her approval of the plan. They were safer on land than in the water—had more options for escape.
But then the car screeched to a stop, and the other car struck them with a sickening crunch of metal. Despite Aaron holding her tight, she shifted against the seats and her shoulder jammed into the console.
“Are you okay?” Aaron asked.
She managed only a nod.
Then Whit shoved the car into Reverse and stomped on the accelerator. Bumper ground against bumper, as the pursued became the pursuers.
Aaron rose up, and his gun glinted in the headlamps of the other car. But instead of becoming a target again, he took aim and fired. Again and again.
If he didn’t hit his target, he would become one. And the driver of the other car had a clear shot at him. Charlotte reached up, trying to pull him down—trying to protect him as he had protected her.
The metal crunched against metal again. Rubber burned, enveloping the cars and woods in a thick, acrid smoke. Charlotte blinked furiously against the sting, fighting off the threat of tears so that she could see—so that she could make sure Aaron was all right.
But there was another crash that flung Aaron’s body into the back of the front seat. He grunted and struggled for the grip on his gun. But it flew into the front, leaving him unarmed and vulnerable.
Charlotte pulled her weapon from the back of her jeans, but by the time she surged up—it was too late. There was nothing she could do…
*
“IS HE REALLY gone?” Whit asked, as he stood over Aaron’s body. Instead of gazing down at his friend, he stared off down the road in the direction the other vehicle had disappeared.
Aaron scrambled to his feet. He’d had to crawl out of the crumpled rear door of the backseat he’d shared with Charlotte. The trunk was totally crushed, and the quarter panels had buckled. “For now.”
“Do you think you hit him?” Whit asked.
Aaron shook his head. “If I did, it wasn’t fatal or even painful enough to stop him.”
“It got him to leave though,” Whit remarked.
“He’ll be back.” Every time the mysterious gunman had fired at Aaron, the man had co
me back for another round.
Whit moved back toward the open driver’s door. “Then we should get the hell out of here.”
Aaron wanted to make sure Charlotte was okay first. He reached back and helped her out of the twisted metal. “Are you all right?”
He found himself reaching out automatically to her belly, placing his hands on her to check her baby as if he had the right. As if the baby was his…
Was it?
They’d used protection that night—and they had only been together just that one night. Until tonight…
And letting her distract him had nearly taken all their lives. The baby moved beneath his palms, kicking against her belly.
“I’m fine,” she said. “But Whit’s right. We need to get out of here before he comes back.”
“We’re going to need time to find a safe place,” Aaron said. He couldn’t risk her and her unborn child getting into the line of fire again.
“Got it,” Whit said.
Doubt knotted Aaron’s stomach muscles. Over three years ago he had lost his trust of this man. And learning that Whit had lied to him hadn’t exactly worked to regain that trust. “You just got here.” Hadn’t he? “How do you already know of a safe place to stay?”
“Stanley Jessup.”
“He found you a place?” All he’d given Aaron was the name of the hospital where Princess Gabby might have been committed. Okay, he’d given him a hell of a lot.
“His place.”
“Stanley Jessup has a place here?”
Whit nodded. “He rented something. He’s here. Guess he wanted to see for himself if this story was as big as that freelance reporter claimed it would be.”
It was a hell of a lot bigger, and Aaron didn’t even know the half of it. The woman who did was, of course, keeping quiet. Keeping her secrets…
So many damn secrets…
And he had so many questions. He kept them to himself during the bumpy and rigorous ride in the damaged car to the cottage Stanley Jessup had rented. It was nothing like the cabin Aaron had found in the woods near Serenity House.
The contemporary tower of metal and glass sat on a dune overlooking Lake Michigan. Waves rushed to the dark shore below, breaking apart on the rocks. While Whit had gone inside the house, Charlotte stood on the overlook deck, her arms propped on the railing.
Aaron joined her on that deck that overlooked the beach far below. But he kept a careful distance from her. “Don’t you have anything to say?” he wondered out loud.
Like sorry?
Charlotte shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for the inquisition. It sounded like your friend has a lot of questions for me.”
“More like a lot of accusations.” He glanced toward the house, where a shadow moved behind one of the walls of glass. “Is that why you ran?”
Or was it because she’d gotten caught in a web of her own lies?
“Does it matter why I left?” she asked. “I came back…” Her tone was just as distant as it had been before.
“It matters to me,” he said. Why she’d left and why she’d returned…
Even knowing how much she’d lied to him, she mattered to him. Self-disgust over what a lovesick fool he was turned his stomach.
“I was overwhelmed,” she said. “It all came back. All my memories.”
“Had they ever really been gone?”
She sucked in a breath, as if offended that he wouldn’t trust her. Given what he’d learned, how the hell could he trust her? No matter what she told him now…
“I didn’t remember anything,” she insisted. “But you…”
His heart—his stupid, traitorous heart—clenched in his chest. “I can’t believe you,” he said. “I can’t believe anything you tell me now.”
“But you can believe him?” she asked. “Hasn’t he lied to you, too?”
He found himself defending his old friend. “Because you made him.”
“Does anyone make Whit Howell do something he doesn’t want to do?” she asked with a bitter chuckle.
No. But she didn’t need the confirmation. She already knew.
“So you do remember everything now?” he asked.
“No,” she replied with a shaky sigh of frustration. “There are still holes in my memory.”
“Paris?” They needed to know what had happened there, if they were ever to learn Princess Gabriella’s fate.
“I remember someone bursting into the suite, guns blazing. I remember fighting for my life. And then I woke up in that damn hospital.” She touched her stomach. “Pregnant…”
That was a hell of a hole. How many months had she lost?
He drew in a breath, bracing himself for the answer before he even asked the question. “Do you remember who the father of your baby is?”
Her reply was a flat, unemotional “No.” As if it didn’t matter to her.
And it mattered like hell to Aaron. “So it might not be mine?”
She shook her head. “She’s probably not.”
He had known about the child for less than twenty-four hours but losing her—losing the possibility that she was his—hurt like hell. The loss twisted something inside Aaron, tied his emotions up in a tight knot.
“When Mr. Centerenian, that guard, called whoever the hell his boss is, he referred to the person as the father,” she explained.
That breath he’d drawn in to brace himself stuck in his lungs, hurting his chest. “So you knew that I wasn’t the father before I broke you out of Serenity House? Before we…” He couldn’t call it making love—not now that he had confirmation that only his feelings had been involved.
“I was confused and scared. I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know who I was. You were the only one I recognized, making love with you was the only thing I remembered.”
She turned toward him and closed the distance between them. Wrapping her arms around him, she clung to him as if she cared—as if his feelings might not have been all one-sided. “I needed you…”
Aaron released the breath he’d held, but the pressure in his chest didn’t ease. And the rest of his body tensed with attraction to her. No matter how many secrets she’d kept from him, no matter how many lies she’d told him—he still wanted her.
But he resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. Because he couldn’t think with desire overwhelming him. He couldn’t be objective when his emotions got involved; Whit had been right about that. Damn him!
So Aaron caught her shoulders in his hands and eased her away from him. “But now you have your memory back,” he reminded her. “You don’t really need me anymore.”
He suspected Charlotte Green had never needed anyone. She was tough and independent. And those very traits that had drawn him to her were what would keep them apart.
“I still don’t know who committed me to that horrible hospital.”
That same person was the father of her child. “You have no idea who it could be?”
She had been in the princess’s world longer than he had. She would know all the king’s enemies. Not that he couldn’t think of a few after the king’s announcement at the ball the night before the princess and her bodyguard had left for Paris. But had the person who’d committed Charlotte to Serenity House realized she was Charlotte or had he mistaken her for Princess Gabriella?
She shook her head. “All I know for certain is that it wasn’t me. I don’t have some master plan to take my sister’s place as princess of St. Pierre. I don’t want that kind of life.”
“You don’t want a life of wealth and privilege?” he asked skeptically. “You just wanted her face?”
She skimmed her fingertips across her cheek that used to be marred with that horrific scar.
Aaron had only seen that one photograph of her face before the surgery, but the scar had haunted him, reminding him of the pain she must have endured when the injury had been inflicted. That snapshot had been of her and her aunt, their arms around each other—both looking, as
Whit had said, eerily similar to Princess Gabriella, even before the surgery.
She tapped her cheek. “I did this to protect her—to keep her safe. I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Gabby. Not like her father continuously hurt and betrayed her.”
“Her father? But the king is your father, too.”
She shook her head. “He’s my employer. Not my father. And if not for Gabby, he wouldn’t even be that. I wanted to protect her.”
Maybe Whit was right again. Maybe Charlotte had hidden Gabby from the king—to thwart his plans to marry off the young princess. He studied her face, looking for any sign that she might be lying when he asked, “Where is she?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know…”
Aaron shouldn’t believe her—given how easily and often she’d lied and kept information from him in their brief past. But he wanted to believe her. He needed proof to do that. “I’ll go back to Serenity House.”
He had almost gotten into the administrator’s records once. With more time, he could break into the system. Or maybe there was another way he could find out. He pulled his cell from his pocket and checked the call log. He hadn’t missed any, though—not even during the shoot-out. “Trigger was going to try to get a warrant for their records. I’ll see what he found out—”
Charlotte knocked the phone from his hand. The cell flew over the railing and dropped far to the beach below, breaking apart on the rocks.
Staring down at the pieces of metal and plastic glinting in the faint light of that crescent moon, he murmured, “What the hell—”
“Don’t you get it?” she asked with impatience. “He can’t be trusted.”
“You remember him?”
“I remember that Trigger is actually short for Trigger Happy. He’s a loose cannon. And there’s another reason I didn’t tell him where Josie is,” she said. “He can be bought and the people looking for her have deep pockets.”
He gasped. “She’s still in danger?”
She turned away, looking out at the waves rushing toward the shore. “Too many people now know she’s still alive.”
Protecting the Pregnant Princess Page 9