Bodyguard's Baby Surprise

by Lisa Childs

  “You know Annalise.”

  Yes, he knew his sister. She was as stubborn as she was sweet. And she was far stronger than he or Nick had ever given her credit for being. So, yeah, she would have put up a fight to leave. But if he’d been there, he would have made sure that she stayed—that she wasn’t put in any danger.

  “I want to see her!” Gage said. “I need to see her. Now!” He had to make certain his baby sister was all right. “Where is she?” He didn’t wait for any of them to reply, though. He headed toward the doors marked No Admittance.

  Before he could push open the doors, a strong hand caught his arm and yanked him back. “No, Gage.”

  He turned back to Nick, and his anger bubbled, threatening to boil over as his skin and even his blood heated from the intensity of it. He couldn’t remember feeling like this—actually feeling—in a long time. “No?”

  “You need to calm down,” Nick said. “You’re only going to upset her if you go in acting like this.”

  He wasn’t acting. He was pissed. More pissed than he could remember being in a good long while.

  “She’s in the hospital,” Gage said. “She must already be upset.”

  “Yes,” Nick agreed. “And she can’t get any more upset. It won’t be good for her or for...”

  There it was again in Nick’s voice—that caution, that evasiveness. Gage narrowed his eyes and studied his old friend’s face. “For what, Nick?”

  That telltale muscle twitched in Nick’s cheek. And it looked as if he made an effort to unclench his jaw before he finally replied, “For the baby.”

  Shock gripped Gage. He had seen and done things he’d never imagined he would see or do. But he had never been as shocked as he was now. “What baby?” he asked, his voice cracking with the emotions pummeling him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Your sister’s pregnant,” Nick said. “That’s why she’s here. She thought she was going into early labor.”

  “How early?” Gage asked. Then he added the better question. “How far along is she?”

  “Twenty-four weeks,” Nick replied with an almost ominous certainty. Maybe he knew because Annalise had told him or he’d overheard the doctor.

  Or maybe...

  He shook his head. No. Not Nick.

  He wouldn’t have crossed that line, not with Annalise.

  No, some other guy had to have gotten her pregnant. Gage wasn’t naive enough to think his sister was a total innocent. Once she’d hit her teens, she’d started dating. Yet she’d never gotten serious about anyone before—because of her stupid, stubborn crush on Nick.

  But Gage had been gone a long time. She must have met someone while he was missing. He glanced around the waiting room. He still saw only Paynes. So where the hell was the baby’s father? He had damn well better be next to her bed, holding her hand.

  His gaze returned to Nick. And that sick feeling churned his stomach again.

  The answer was on Nick’s face: the guilt, the regret.

  Gage shook his head. “No.”

  “It’s my fault,” Nick said. “It’s all my fault...”

  Since Gage heard she was in the hospital, he hadn’t had much of a hold on his temper, but whatever control he had totally snapped. And he swung. His fist slammed right into Nick’s clenched jaw. Pain coursed through Gage’s hand from his knuckles to his wrist. Nick—who had killer reflexes—hadn’t even ducked. He barely stumbled back.

  After shaking off the stinging in his hand, Gage clenched his fist again and wound up to swing once more. But before he could connect with Nick—who stood straight again and ready for another blow—someone stepped between them. Strong hands shoved Gage back.

  “You want to fight?” a deep voice asked.

  Gage blinked to clear his vision, but he was so angry he was literally seeing red. The man looked like Nick—enough like Nick that he swung. But his fist didn’t connect. It was blocked. And he took a blow—to his stomach. He doubled over as pain radiated throughout his body. The pain wasn’t from the blow itself but from the old injuries it aggravated: the broken ribs, the bruised organs.

  He coughed and choked but came up swinging—for Nick. A hand caught his fist and held it. Again it wasn’t Nick but Cooper, who’d stepped between them, who was trying to fight Nick’s battle.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Gage asked.

  “Nick took a bullet to his shoulder yesterday,” Cooper said. “He’s in no shape to fight. You want to fight? You fight with me.”

  “I don’t have a beef with you.”

  “Sometimes a soldier doesn’t need a beef,” Cooper said. “Sometimes he just needs to fight.”

  Was that Gage’s issue? Had he just been itching for a fight?

  No. His sister was in the hospital—pregnant and injured—and Nick had willingly taken the blame for her being in that situation.

  No. He didn’t want to fight just anyone; he wanted to fight Nick until his old friend was as hurt as Annalise was.

  * * *

  Annalise hurt, but it was only her pride. She had made such a fool of herself—with the screaming, with the hysteria—over Braxton Hicks contractions. Most pregnant women experienced them. They weren’t even real contractions, just a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

  “The baby is fine,” the doctor assured her. He pointed toward the monitor showing her baby was curled up, sleeping. Annalise should have been, too. But she’d awoken in such a panic. That had had more to do with Nick being gone than the contractions, though.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have panicked so badly if he’d been with her. But she couldn’t count on Nick being there for her. He would never stop running away from her.

  The doctor reached for the belt to remove the monitor for her belly. But she caught his hand. “Can you leave it on?” she asked hopefully. “For just a little while longer.”

  She couldn’t move her gaze from the monitor. She couldn’t stop watching her baby—to make sure she or he was really all right. The baby wasn’t doing anything now but sleeping. But the screen pulsed with every steady heartbeat. Annalise needed that reassurance—visually and audibly—that her baby was fine.

  The doctor nodded. “Sure, I’ll give you a few more minutes.” He pulled the ER curtain aside and closed it behind him. But just seconds later, the curtain swept open again.

  “No...” she murmured, her eyes filling with tears. She needed more time—more reassurance.

  “It’s all right, honey,” a soft voice said.

  She glanced up, expecting a nurse. But this woman wasn’t dressed in scrubs. She wore jeans and a short-sleeve sweater. Her curls tumbled around her face, and her brown eyes radiated warmth.

  “Nikki?”

  The woman smiled, and lines crinkled her eyes and creased the skin around her mouth. She was older than Nikki.

  “I’m Penny Payne,” the woman introduced herself.

  “You’re Nikki’s mom?”

  She smiled. “The boys’, too.”

  “Of course.” But that didn’t explain why she was here—why she’d come to see Annalise.

  The woman’s gaze moved to the screen. She reached out and touched the baby on the monitor, her finger tracing over the image. As if the child could feel that touch, he moved inside Annalise—stretching and sprawling.

  Annalise gasped as she realized what she’d just seen.

  Penny chuckled. “Another boy—of course.”

  “Another?”

  “Boys are prevalent in the Payne family.”

  Maybe Annalise really did have a concussion, because confusion muddled her mind. Nick didn’t consider himself a Payne. But that wasn’t even the issue. “How do you know my baby is Nick’s?” she asked.

  Penny’s lips curved into a smile—an all-knowin
g smile. “I know.”

  Nick hadn’t even been certain the first time he’d seen her in the ER.

  “I don’t think there has ever been anyone else for you,” Penny added.

  Annalise chuckled now. She hadn’t been a virgin when she’d made love with Nick. “I think you have the wrong impression—”

  “You don’t love him?” Penny arched a reddish-brown brow.

  “I love him,” Annalise admitted. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back to clear her vision. She couldn’t stop staring at that screen—at her son. “Growing up next door to him, I can’t remember a time that I didn’t love Nick.”

  “I’m glad he had you,” Penny said. Her hand touched Annalise’s now with a comforting squeeze. “I have worried that Nick had no one who cared about him growing up.”

  Why would she care? What kind of person was Penny Payne that she had so much concern for her husband’s child with another woman?

  Loving. Amazing.

  “Nick had me, too,” a deep voice said. And the curtain was pushed aside again.

  She hadn’t seen him in so long that it took Annalise long seconds to recognize her brother. His hair was a darker blond than she remembered and cut so short she could see scars on his skull. Or were those just shadows? He was thinner, too, his jeans and shirt hanging on his long frame.

  He was staring at her as if he didn’t recognize her, either. And maybe he didn’t. His gaze skimmed over her body—over her belly. Then he finally stepped forward and his arms closed around her, pulling her away from the pillow and against his chest.

  She couldn’t blink away the tears that stung her eyes now. They were too persistent—too numerous. They spilled over and trailed down her face. She had never lost hope—totally—that he was alive. But it had slipped sometimes.

  She had wondered...

  And she’d worried.

  But he was alive. He was really alive.

  The baby kicked, as if rejoicing in their reunion, too.

  The only person who wasn’t rejoicing was Penny. Annalise could see her face over Gage’s shoulder. Her brow puckered with confusion and faint disapproval, she asked, “Who are you?”

  She didn’t just care about Nick’s past. She cared about his present, too. She obviously worried that Annalise had another man.

  Gage released Annalise and stepped back. His gaze went from one woman to the other. He had no idea who Penny was, either. He must not have met his boss’s mother yet.

  “This is Penny Payne,” Annalise introduced them.

  He held out his hand to the other woman. His knuckles were cracked and swollen, blood oozing from fresh wounds on them.

  “I’m Annalise’s brother—Gage.”

  “You’re Gage Huxton?” Penny Payne asked. And she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. But then, Gage had been presumed dead for months—by everyone but Annalise. Despite the couple of doubts she’d let herself have in dark moments, she had known her brother was too tough to give up without one hell of a fight. He looked as if he’d just been in another one.

  And she realized why. He hadn’t been surprised to see her pregnant. He’d known. Nick must have told him. And knowing Nick, he had admitted to being the father.

  How badly had Gage hurt him?

  Chapter 12

  Pain radiated throughout Nick’s jaw. He cupped his chin and turned it from side to side. It wasn’t broken. He was surprised, though not that Gage had hit him. He’d had that coming. He was surprised that Gage hadn’t broken his jaw.

  Gage wasn’t as strong as he’d been before he’d gone missing. He hadn’t yet recovered completely from all those months he’d been gone. At least, not physically.

  Personality-wise, he was Gage again. He was the act-first, think-second hothead he had always been. A smile tugged at Nick’s mouth, but he flinched as pain radiated through his jaw at the movement.

  Something cold pressed against the side of his face. What the hell had happened to his reflexes? Usually he would have seen that coming—like Gage’s fist. He had seen that, and he’d purposely resisted the urge to duck. He’d deserved that punch and whatever other ones Gage might have landed.

  Cooper shouldn’t have stepped in. Nick glanced up, expecting that was who’d brought him the ice. But his gaze met Penny Payne’s warm one.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” he remarked. He hadn’t called her. He wasn’t sure if anyone had. She had probably just known she was needed.

  Not that Nick needed her.

  Nick had never needed anyone. But an image flickered through his mind, of Annalise lying naked beneath him.

  And need gripped him, overwhelming him with its intensity. He’d needed her last night. And six months ago.

  He needed to see her now. The doctor had already spoken to him, had assured him that she and the baby were fine. But he needed to see her for himself, needed to know that she wasn’t screaming in pain like she’d been earlier at the condo. Panic clutched his heart as he remembered how terrified she’d sounded.

  He needed to make sure that she wasn’t afraid any longer.

  But Gage had gone back with her. Brother and sister deserved some time alone—after all the months they had been apart.

  “I met Annalise,” Penny said.

  Nick groaned, and it wasn’t because of the pain in his jaw. It was because of the humiliation that washed over him. He didn’t deserve to be included in the Payne family portrait. On the other hand, he probably fit in more now than he ever had. He was a chip off the old block.

  “You must think I’m like my father now,” Nick said, “getting a woman pregnant and walking away.”

  “You’re not walking,” Penny said as she settled onto the waiting room chair next to him. She patted his hand. Like Annalise, Penny couldn’t not touch people. She overflowed with warmth and affection. “You just didn’t know.”

  Would she have told him? She had gone six months without telling him. Of course, she might not have realized right away that she was pregnant. But it didn’t matter when she’d found out. She should have told him the minute she had. He had a right to know.

  Now he didn’t know if he would ever be able to trust her. She was like Penny Payne in some ways. But not all ways.

  “Your father didn’t know about you, either,” Penny reminded Nick. “He wouldn’t have let your mother leave if he’d known she was pregnant.”

  The police officer who’d gone undercover to take down a drug kingpin wouldn’t have had a choice in whether or not his mother had left. After she’d agreed to testify against that kingpin, she’d been put in witness protection. But even if Nicholas Payne had known...

  Nick snorted. “He wouldn’t have chosen her over you.” No man in his right mind would have. He’d often wondered if his mother had drugged the undercover cop. How else could she have gotten him to cheat on his amazing wife?

  But before the drugs had ravaged her, his mother had been attractive. She’d kept an album of old photos—even though she should have left them behind after testifying. Maybe she’d kept the pictures to remind her that she’d once been young and beautiful.

  And happy...

  He had never seen her happy except in those old photos.

  “Your father would have chosen you,” Penny said, and she squeezed the hand she held. “He would have chosen to be a part of your life—or he would have tried to talk her into giving up custody to us.”

  “Us?” He turned fully toward her—shocked at what she was insinuating. “You would have wanted to raise another woman’s baby?”

  Could anyone be as selfless as she seemed?

  Because he was watching closely, he noticed the flicker of pain and resentment. She was careful to hide her true emotions from her family. She was used to being strong for them—ever since
she’d become a single parent after Nicholas Payne had been killed in the line of duty.

  Nick was glad he’d caught that glimpse of the real Penny. She was human. She hadn’t entirely forgiven the man who’d cheated on her.

  Her family thought she’d never remarried or even seriously dated because she had loved her husband so much and mourned his loss yet. Nick realized now that it was because her husband had betrayed her. He’d destroyed her trust. And she struggled to trust again—even all these years later.

  He squeezed her hand back and murmured, “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

  “That wasn’t,” he agreed—even though he still felt guilty over the pain Penny had suffered because of him. “But Annalise—that is my fault.”

  She lifted her free hand to his swollen jaw. “Is that why you let Gage hit you?”

  “I deserved more.” Cooper should have let Gage pound the hell out of him.

  “You deserve happiness, Nick,” she said. “You deserve Annalise.”

  Annalise was happiness—or she had been before he’d put her in danger. Now she was scared. And she must have been angry with him for making love with her six months ago and walking away. That had to be why she hadn’t told him she was pregnant—because he’d hurt her. She hadn’t even called him or texted him like she used to before he’d slept with her.

  If only he hadn’t been such a fool.

  Penny lowered her hand from his face and glanced toward those no-admittance doors to the ER. “I thought Gage Huxton was dead.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew anything about him and Annalise.” It shouldn’t have surprised him that she did, though. Penny always knew more than anyone else—even him. And he was the guy who knew more than anyone else, or so he’d thought. For the past six months, he’d been completely unaware that Annalise was pregnant and in danger because of him.

  She turned back to Nick and released a weary-sounding sigh. “I’m planning the wedding for FBI Chief Lynch’s daughter,” she explained.

  Nick knew Woodrow Lynch well. After his wife had died, he’d spoiled his daughters to make up for the pain of their loss. “Is she a bridezilla?”