Bodyguard's Baby Surprise

by Lisa Childs

  Nick was no hero, though. He was just a man—a man who’d always made it clear he didn’t like anyone getting too close to him. And until that night six months ago, he had never let Annalise too close.

  Before she could answer him, the curtain rustled again, and another man joined them. His light green scrubs hung on his tall, thin frame. The young ER doctor glanced at her and then at Nick as if trying to gauge the relationship.

  “Is she all right?” Nick asked. And his gaze skimmed over more than her belly now. He looked at her face, and his breath audibly caught at the scrape on her cheek. He reached out, but his fingers fell just short of touching her.

  “Is the baby all right?” she asked. The baby was all she cared about. She didn’t care about her car. It wasn’t the first one she’d had stolen.

  She’d been so stupid to risk her pregnancy over a damn car...

  The doctor glanced at Nick again—as if wondering if he could speak freely in front of him. Damn HIPAA laws. She didn’t care about her privacy right now.

  “Please,” she implored him. “Tell me!”

  The baby shifted again. He or she had to be okay, or he wouldn’t move like he was. Right?

  “Your baby is fine, Ms. Huxton,” the doctor assured her. “It appears that when you fell out of the vehicle, you fell on your side.”

  Nick flinched as if he’d taken a blow.

  “Your shoulder took the brunt of the force,” he continued, “and it appears you’ve struck your head, as well. You have a slight concussion.”

  That explained why her head kept throbbing so painfully. She lifted her fingers to her temple. “But the baby... Is he or she...” They hadn’t been able to determine the sex on this ultrasound screen, either. The tiny legs had been crossed again. “ ...all right?” She needed that reassurance, needed to know that her recklessness hadn’t put her pregnancy at risk.

  The doctor reached out, and his fingers did touch her, squeezing her hand. “The baby is fine. Strong heartbeat. Active. All properly developed for twenty-four weeks.”

  She uttered a sigh of relief. “Then I can leave?”

  The doctor pulled his hand away. “I’m not concerned about the baby,” he said. “But I do have concerns about your concussion.”

  “There’s no reason for concern.” She shook her head but winced as pain reverberated inside her skull. Maybe she did have a concussion. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Nick said. “You’ve been hurt.”

  He would know. He had done it. But he wasn’t referring to his breaking her heart. He probably wasn’t even aware that he had.

  “The address you provided for your intake paperwork says that you live in Chicago,” the doctor said. “You definitely cannot drive that distance, or really at all, for at least twenty-four hours.”

  A giggle bubbled up inside her, but not wanting to sound or become hysterical, she suppressed it. “I have no car to drive,” she said. “It was stolen.”

  “Is that what happened?” Nick asked. “You were carjacked?” He uttered a slight sigh, almost as if he was relieved.

  Surprised by his reaction, she stared at him.

  “Logan made it sound like something else,” he explained. “Like it wasn’t random.”

  She doubted it was random. After everything else that had happened, it would have been too much of a coincidence. But she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to share with Nick. He had already proved to her that she shouldn’t have trusted him—with her heart, and maybe not with anything else.

  “You shouldn’t drive,” the doctor repeated as if they hadn’t spoken. “And you should not be alone tonight.”

  “She won’t be alone,” Nick said. “She’s going home with me.”

  She gasped. “No.” But before she could finish her protest—that there was no way in hell she would go home with him—the doctor and Nick both turned to her.

  “I’m sure you’d rather not stay in the hospital,” Nick surmised—correctly. And of course, he knew the only way the doctor would release her was if he believed she would not be alone.

  Damn him. He’d always had an uncanny ability to know what other people wanted or needed—except her. He had never known how much she’d wanted him—needed him—until that one night.

  But that night had been an aberration. He hadn’t realized how much she’d needed him after that—more than she ever had. Or maybe he’d known and hadn’t cared.

  What was different now?

  The baby? He must have realized the child Annalise was carrying was his.

  * * *

  “She doesn’t want to go home with you,” Nikki said.

  Special Agent Rus flinched as if she’d struck him. She had watched the man take a blow and even a bullet without ever betraying an ounce of fear. But this caused him pain. Annalise Huxton caused him pain.

  “She doesn’t,” he agreed with a glance to the door of the bathroom where Annalise was changing from the hospital gown back into her clothes. They were torn and stained from her tussle with the men and the asphalt. And thanks to Nikki letting them get away with her vehicle, those clothes were all she had in River City.

  Nikki flinched now. Maybe her brothers were right. Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a bodyguard. She hadn’t reacted fast enough.

  “I told her she could stay with me,” she said. But now she wondered if that was a good idea—if she could keep the pregnant woman safe.

  “I appreciate the offer,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to point out that she hadn’t made the offer to him when he continued, “And I appreciate you saving her from the carjackers.”

  Her face heated now as it flushed with embarrassment. “I didn’t,” she said.

  “But Logan said you exchanged gunfire with them.”

  “I did,” she said. She had gotten off a couple of shots and might even have hit one of them. “But Annalise got free on her own. She’s tougher than she looks.” Just like Nikki had always tried to convince her brothers she was tougher than she looked. “Maybe that’s why she ran toward them when she saw them stealing her car.”

  “She ran toward the carjackers?” he asked, his face paling with fear as he probably imagined all the horrible things that could have happened—that Nikki had almost let happen.

  She nodded. “Just before she did, she mumbled something about not again. Her car has been stolen before. Once would be random. But twice?”

  When Nikki had joined her brothers in the waiting room, Logan had said he’d sensed she was in danger. Logan was rarely ever wrong—except about Nikki. Or at least she’d like to think so?

  “That’s why she’s going home with me,” Nick said, his square jaw clenched with grim determination.

  “You didn’t know, did you?” she asked.

  He arched a dark brow.

  “That she’s carrying your kid.”

  His face flushed now, and he shook his head.

  “Maybe it’s good that you were named after our father,” she said. “Apparently you’re the most like him.” Of course, she had been named for him, too—something she resented nearly as much as she resented Nicholas Rus’s existence.

  Rus flinched again, and a twinge of regret struck Nikki. Giving him a hard time had become more of a habit to her than anything else. It wasn’t like she hated him—like everyone else thought.

  Sure, she wasn’t happy with how he had come into their lives and turned them upside down—especially Mom’s. But apparently Mom had always known that her husband had cheated on her. Was any man worthy of a woman’s trust?

  Annalise stepped out of the bathroom, and she looked up at Rus with mistrust. Then she gazed at Nikki, imploring. Nikki wanted to offer her hospitality again. But after the incident in the street, she wasn’t certain she could keep the wo
man and her unborn baby safe.

  “I want a full report about what happened and descriptions of the men,” Agent Rus told her.

  She would have bristled at his bossiness. But she understood why he was. He’d been running the police department since coming to River City to clean up the corruption. Apparently he thought she worked for him. But his demand wasn’t unreasonable. She intended to do more than fill out a report. She intended to track down the men herself. They wouldn’t get away from her again.

  “I also want you to come down to the station and look through mug shots,” he said, “if you think you would recognize the men if you saw them again.”

  She nodded in agreement. “Sure. I would.”

  “I could look at the mug shots, too,” Annalise offered.

  Nick shook his head. “You have a concussion. You need to rest. Once the doctor brings your release papers, I’m taking you home.”

  Annalise glanced at her again—with that imploring gaze. And Nikki’s stomach knotted. She hated to disappoint Annalise, but she didn’t want to endanger her, either. “I’d better get going,” she said as she hurried out.

  In case her brothers were still in the waiting room, she bypassed it and took the elevator to the underground parking garage. She didn’t want to see her family again. She’d already spoken to them once—to assure them that Annalise was all right. They’d been so concerned about her that they hadn’t questioned Nikki. And she hadn’t looked at them. She didn’t want to look at them now. She didn’t want to see the I told you so on Logan’s face, didn’t want to see the doubt on Cooper’s. She didn’t want him second-guessing hiring her.

  Tears stung her eyes, blurring the elevator doors. But then they slid open, and she stepped into the parking structure. She had been in such a rush to follow the ambulance to the hospital that she couldn’t remember where she’d parked. Which floor had it been?

  She walked through the structure, looking for her black coupe. Logan hadn’t given her a black SUV like he had everyone else who worked for him—probably because he hadn’t wanted bad guys blowing her up when they meant to blow up one of her brothers instead.

  She uttered a regretful sigh as she remembered the men who’d lost their lives when one of their SUVs had exploded. Someone had been trying to kill Parker and had nearly succeeded. Tears stung her eyes again, and she blinked furiously. When her vision cleared, she realized what she’d found. Not her coupe but them.

  Nikki had known she would recognize the men if she saw them again. Unfortunately they glanced up, furtively—from the black SUV they were trying to jimmy open—and saw her.

  They clearly recognized her, as well. She reached for her weapon—realizing too late that she’d locked it in the glove box because she’d known she wouldn’t make it past hospital security with it.

  So she was unarmed and outnumbered.

  Chapter 3

  Nick cursed himself for not just leaving his SUV parked illegally outside the emergency room entrance. He should have exercised his authority, so that security wouldn’t have dared to have his vehicle towed away. But he hadn’t been thinking after Logan’s call. He’d been so anxious to get to her—so anxious to see Annalise for himself. He’d pulled into the first available spot in the garage and run up the stairs to the ER. Now he struggled to remember where he’d parked.

  He didn’t want to leave Annalise alone long—waiting in a wheelchair in the lobby. She’d looked so pale sitting there, so fragile. Even pregnant, she was still slight because of her small frame, narrow shoulders, thin arms and long, slender legs. Dark circles rimmed her green eyes, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well because she’d been afraid. Logan had noticed her fear. Nick saw it now, the fear and the vulnerability. Nikki had told him Annalise was tougher than she looked—that she’d saved herself. Of course, she was a Huxton. Gage wouldn’t have survived being missing in action for months if he wasn’t tough, too.

  At least Annalise wasn’t alone in the lobby. Or just with hospital security, either. Logan and Cooper stood over her chair, offering more protection than Nick had thought she’d get from some nervous hospital security guard. She was safe.

  He wasn’t as certain about Logan and Cooper. Annalise was furious. She didn’t want to go home with him. And she hadn’t wanted to ride in the wheelchair, let alone having to wait in it until he pulled his vehicle up to the lobby doors. His half brothers probably had a fight on their hands to keep her in the chair and make her wait for him.

  She might see this as her opportunity to call a cab to take her home to Chicago. Her home was in Chicago; his wasn’t. He had never felt as if that house or anyplace else he’d lived was home. The only time he’d ever felt as if he was home was when he’d been with Annalise. When he’d given in to his desire to kiss her, he’d worried that it might have been awkward. They’d known each other so long.

  But it hadn’t felt awkward. It had felt right and passionate and thrilling. And he hadn’t been able to stop. But he’d felt most at home buried deep inside her body.

  Had they made a child that night? Twenty-four weeks ago. The doctor had said that was how far along her pregnancy was. However, Annalise had never confirmed her baby was his.

  But he knew...

  Annalise carried his child. And she hadn’t called him. She hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. Or that she was in danger.

  She probably wouldn’t be waiting for him to come back with his vehicle. She had no intention of staying with him. So he quickened his step, running toward his SUV just as he’d run toward the ER earlier.

  That was when he heard it—the scream. It wasn’t just a shrill cry. It was his name, full of terror and warning. “Nick!”

  Someone was in trouble—someone he knew.

  * * *

  “You’re in trouble,” Logan Payne said.

  Annalise laid her palms over her belly. “That sounds like something my grandmother would say.”

  His face, so similar to Nick’s, reddened. “I wasn’t talking about your pregnancy.”

  “Then how do you mean I’m in trouble?”

  Did he know how deeply she loved Nick? And how unlikely it was that Nick would ever return her feelings? She had to get over him. If she was going to mend her broken heart, she could never trust him with it. He would only hurt her again.

  “Those guys weren’t stealing your car,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked. And his brother Cooper, who also stood beside her chair, furrowed his brow, mirroring her confusion. “Then why is my car gone?”

  If she had it, she would have driven herself back to Chicago—doctor’s orders be damned. Or better yet, she would have driven herself to Alaska. She had thought she’d needed Gage. But maybe she needed her mom and dad more.

  She would have gone to them before, but she didn’t want to put them in danger. Gage could handle it. He could protect her. He had survived being missing in action when everyone else had given him up for dead. She hadn’t. She knew her brother was tough. Trying to be like Nick had made him tough.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Logan said.

  Unable to hold his gaze, she glanced down at the terrazzo floor of the sun-filled glass lobby. “Have you called Gage?” she asked.

  “No,” Cooper answered for Logan.

  “Why not?” she asked. She needed her brother—more than she ever had.

  Cooper wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  And she realized why. Concern filled her. She had been so happy—so relieved—he had come back alive that she hadn’t considered what condition he might be in. “He’s not all right, is he?”

  “Physically he’s fine,” Cooper assured her.

  “And...?”

  “Mentally and emotionally, he has some recovering to do yet,” Cooper said. “He’ll get there. It just takes time—more
time for guys who’ve been through what he has.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Cooper shrugged off her gratitude. “I haven’t gotten him to talk about it. I don’t really know what he’s been through. The only one who might know is Nick.”

  Gage had always gone to Nick—had always told him everything. If Nick knew, why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t he called her? Had he been so determined to avoid her after they’d made love that he hadn’t even wanted to call to talk about Gage?

  “Thank you for not calling him,” she clarified. “I wouldn’t want to add to whatever he’s going through.” She couldn’t imagine the horrors her brother had endured while he’d been missing. Gage was tough, but everyone had a limit.

  “Then you’d better be honest with us about what’s been going on with you,” Logan said. “Your getting hurt might be more than your brother could handle.”

  He was right. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to share her troubles with someone. But she wasn’t certain whom she could trust.

  These were Nick’s brothers. She couldn’t trust Nick—not after the way he’d treated her. So how could she trust any of them?

  “My sister told me what you said when you saw those men jacking your car,” Logan said. “This isn’t the first time that’s happened.”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “And it’s not the only thing that’s happened to you.”

  Her head began to pound as other memories rushed in, and she squeezed her eyes shut to block them out.

  “Annalise?” Logan prodded her.

  They hadn’t been raised together, but he reminded her of Nick. Even before he’d become an FBI agent, Nick had always been good at asking questions and finding out information. Perhaps Logan should have been an FBI agent, too. He was a natural interrogator, as well.

  And she had never been good at keeping secrets. She parted her lips to speak, but someone shouted. She opened her eyes to see a security guard running up to Nick’s brothers.

  “You guys are with Payne Protection, right?” he asked.