The Soldier, The Nun and The Baby (Anne Stuart's Greatest Hits Book 2)

by Anne Stuart

  Copyright© 1995 by Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge.

  Electronic Edition Copyright 2016 by Anne Stuart

  http://anne-stuart.com

  E-book and Cover Formatted by Jessica Lewis

  http://authorslifesaver.com

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Blue Sage

  About Anne Stuart

  * * *

  Chapter One

  * * *

  She moved through the empty hallways, her sandaled feet silent beneath the heavy swish of her long skirts. It was a quiet afternoon—the jungle surrounding the decaying remains of the Convent of Our Lady of Repose was thick and heavy with heat and somnolence. Even the birds and the monkeys had lapsed into a drowsy trance.

  Every living creature with sense napped during the hottest part of the day in the tiny Central American country of San Pablo. Every living creature, that is, except for Carlie Forrest, better known as Sister Maria Carlos, novice of the order of the Sisters of Benevolence. She was the only member of the religious community still trapped in that revolution-torn place.

  The others had left, swiftly, safely. Most of them would be in Spain by now, Mother Superior had said, though a few would head down to Brazil, where there was a large and thriving sister house. Only Carlie had remained behind. Carlie and her patients.

  “I don’t like leaving you behind in this situation,” Reverend Mother Ignacia had said, her wrinkled face creased with worry. “I don’t like leaving anyone behind, but Sister Mary Agnes is too old and sick to travel, and Caterina’s baby is already a week overdue. I don’t dare risk taking either of them, and you’re the only one with midwifery skills as well as medical knowledge.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Carlie had answered with deceptive serenity. “I doubt you could make me leave.”

  “I haven’t forgotten what brought you here to us, my child,” Mother Ignacia had said gently. “I would give anything not to put you in the way of that kind of situation again.”

  “I survived when I was seventeen,” Carlie had replied, pleating the folds of her habit. “I’m stronger now.”

  “I know you are,” Mother Ignacia had said. “But I still would spare you if I could. I suppose I shouldn’t worry—this might be just what you need. It might give you time to think a few things through. You’ll be safe enough here—we’ve kept such a low profile that few outside the mother house even know we exist, and we’re far away from any of the regularly travelled routes. I’m afraid that Sister Mary Agnes hasn’t long, poor old lady, but Caterina is young and strong. Once she delivers her baby her family will see to her, and you can follow us to Brazil if things haven’t stabilized. And if it’s still what you want. Matteo will arrange safe transport.”

  “It’s what I want,” Carlie had said quietly. “There’s nothing I need to think through. I’ve been with the Sisters of Benevolence for nine years now, and all I’ve ever wanted was to take my final vows.”

  It was an old argument, one Mother Ignacia was skilled at countering. “When you join us in Brazil we will talk about it again.”

  “I’m ready, Mother,” Carlie had said, allowing the note of desperation to creep in.

  “I’m sure you feel that way, my child. I just can’t rid myself of the notion that you are running away from life, rather than running to us.”

  Even now, on that still and silent afternoon, Mother Ignacia’s words rang in her head. Carlie prided herself on her self-knowledge, and the fear that Reverend Mother might be right frightened her more than any human or wild beast that might roam the jungle outside the abandoned convent.

  It was blistering hot, even for one who was used to it. She didn’t dare go swimming—despite what Mother Ignacia had said there were newcomers in the area, soldiers, rebels, people who didn’t want to be seen. She hadn’t yet sent word to Matteo and for very good reason.

  The baby wasn’t ready to travel.

  Mother Ignacia had been right about one thing. Sister Mary Agnes hadn’t lasted long—within three days of the emptying of the convent the old nun had breathed her last. She’d received her last rites more than a week before, and she hadn’t regained consciousness. It had been a good life, a long one, serving God, and Carlie hadn’t even wept when she’d laid her out.

  But the Reverend Mother had been wrong about something else. Caterina Rosaria Morrissey de Mendino had delivered her baby easily enough, a small, healthy little boy she’d named William Timothy. And then she’d quietly, swiftly died.

  Matteo had come to bury them. Matteo had crossed himself, muttered something about seeing to her escape, then looked askance at the newborn. “The baby will never survive,” he’d said. “And just as well.”

  “What do you mean?” Carlie had demanded, exhaustion and shock tearing away at her fundamental calm.

  “This country has had enough of the Mendinos. They have ruled San Pablo, bled it dry for the past forty years. It is better that no trace of them remain. God has chosen to take the little one’s mother—if God doesn’t take the baby, then the soldiers will. They, or the rebels.”

  “Caterina had nothing to do with her father’s crimes.”

  “She was the daughter of el presidente. Her son would be of the same line.”

  “Son?” Carlie had said instantly. “What makes you think the child is a boy?”

  Matteo had looked confused for a moment. “I thought you said...”

  “Caterina gave birth to a baby girl,” Carlie had said firmly. “She named her after her mother.”

  Matteo had crossed himself. “Poor little thing. I promised Mother Ignacia I would find a way out for you, Sister Maria Carlos. I can’t promise I can find a way for the baby.”

  “I won’t leave without…her.” The hesitation had been so brief Matteo hadn’t noticed.

  “I will see what I can manage.”

  It had been three weeks. The baby had grown stronger, the supply of powdered formula and clean water had been more than sufficient, and it seemed as if everyone, including Matteo and the baby’s father, had forgotten their existence.

  For that Carlie could only be grateful.

  It was bad enough that she was alone in the midst of a revolution-torn country, with an infant, no weapons and no disposition to use any if she were to possess them. But that baby was the only grandchild of the notorious Hector Mendino, deposed and executed dictator of San Pablo.

  Hector Mendino had fathered no children. His second wife already had a daughter from her previous marriage—Caterina—and Mendino had adopted her. Caterina had always disliked her brutal stepfather, but that wouldn’t stop the rebels, who saw any connection to Mendino as something to be wiped out.

  There was no way Carlie was going to let anyone wipe out the threat of one tiny little life. Timothy w
as a blond-haired angel, with nothing like Hector Mendino’s heavy, brutal good looks. He presumably looked like the American soldier who’d married Caterina. The American soldier who should arrive, sooner or later, to collect his son and wife, only to learn he was now a widower.

  The fighting had been growing steadily closer to the mountain area surrounding the convent. At night Carlie would lie in bed and listen to the sound of gunfire in the distance. Timothy lay in the crib near her narrow cot, and the sound of his light, even breathing would calm her. Nothing, nothing would be allowed to hurt him.

  She’d moved into Caterina’s room in the infirmary, rather than drag all the baby paraphernalia back to her tiny cell. Caterina’s clothes still hung in the closet, her jewelry sat in a small satin bag on a table. All except for her wedding ring. Billy Morrissey would want that, she knew, when she told him of Caterina’s death. She’d slid it on her own hand, keeping it safe for him.

  She was miserably hot and tired. Timothy hadn’t slept well the night before, and consequently neither had she. The generator was out of fuel, there was no way to cool the place, and the current thick heat was worse than she could ever remember. The baby was napping peacefully now, his diaper changed, his tiny belly full, his miniature thumb tucked in his mouth. Without hesitation Carlie stripped off the heavy layers of clothing that comprised her old-fashioned habit, ruffled her fingers through her short-cropped hair and headed for the gravity-fed shower.

  The water was blessedly cool and sweet as it sluiced over her body, and she stood beneath its fall, comfortable for the first time in days. In all these years she’d never grown accustomed to the heat. Sister Mary Agnes used to tease her, tell her she should go back to the States and join an order that advocated modern clothes and air-conditioning. And Carlie had managed to smile in return, secure in the knowledge that no one would ever make her go back.

  She stepped from the shower, reluctant to leave its coolness, and pulled one of the threadbare towels around her body. Timothy would sleep for hours now, and Carlie couldn’t afford to waste time daydreaming in the shower. There were diapers to fold and some sort of meal to forage. Beans and rice, her staple, would have to do, washed down with water. It had been all she’d had to eat for weeks now, and her bones were beginning to stick out. She glanced at herself in the mirror as she continued to towel her body dry.

  It was just as well she’d chosen a religious life, she thought wryly. She was hardly the epitome of any man’s dreams.

  She was too short, barely topping five feet. Too skinny, with small, immature breasts, narrow, bony hips and small, delicate hands and feet. Her dark hair was hacked off as short as it could go, since it was usually tucked under a simple white wimple. She looked into the mirror and saw her parents’ faces staring back. Her mother’s blue eyes, her father’s dark brown hair and high cheekbones. Her mother’s stubborn, generous mouth and short nose. Her father’s pale skin and freckles.

  Her face was all she had left of them. They were long dead, their blood soaking into the jungle floor of San Pablo, as was the blood of so many others. She would be damned before she let them hurt Timothy, as well.

  There was no noise beyond the closed door of the bathroom. Timothy still slept soundly. And yet Carlie paused, her hand on the doorknob, the oversize towel draped around her body, all her senses suddenly alert.

  She heard it then. A sound so faint it was almost indiscernible. A faint, scraping sound, as someone moved about the bedroom.

  She turned, looking around the bathroom, but she’d left her long black habit tossed across the bed. There was one window in the room, high up, but she could reach it if she stood on the toilet. She could climb through—she was small enough to fit—and she could be away from there before the intruder even realized she was gone. She could be gone, but she would have to leave Timothy behind.

  There was no question in her mind. The towel was threadbare but the size of a small blanket. She wrapped it around her more securely, reached for the door and opened it, as silently as she could.

  He was leaning over the crib. At first all she could see was his back, his long legs, dressed in camouflage and khaki, and she felt a sick knot of dread in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t touch him,” she said, wanting to sound dangerous, but the words came out in a breathless plea.

  He turned slowly, and there was a gun in his hand. A very large, nasty-looking gun, pointed straight at her.

  For a moment all she could see was the weapon. If he shot her, who would take care of Timothy? Panic clouded in around her, but she fought it, lifting her head to stare at his face.

  That’s where she got her second shock. This immense, dangerous-looking man pointing a gun at her was no member of Mendino’s black-shirted brigade, and no ragtag revolutionary ready to kill for his beliefs. The man staring at her through eyes the color of amber was undoubtedly an American.

  “Billy?” she managed to choke out, stepping toward him, out of the shadows, ignoring the threat of the gun.

  It was no longer a threat. He tucked it in his belt, staring at her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “Don’t you know your own husband, Caterina?” he responded.

  She blinked. “You’re not Billy,” she said. She’d seen an old photograph among Caterina’s belongings, and this man looked nothing like Billy Morrissey. The man in front of her was much taller, whipcord lean, with long dark hair that would be tolerated by no military. It was tied behind his head with a leather thong, and his face was cool, distant and severe. He was no kin to the tiny cherub still sleeping soundly. Therefore he was a danger.

  “I’m Reilly,” he said, as if that should explain everything.

  It explained nothing. “Where’s Billy?” she asked, fighting to keep her concentration. She glanced over at the bed. Her habit lay there, in an anonymous pile of black-and-white cotton, but there was no way she could casually stroll over and grab it.

  “He asked me to come for you and the kid. What is it, a boy or a girl?” He turned back to stare down at Timothy.

  “A girl,” she said automatically. A girl stood a marginally better chance at surviving the male-dominated warfare of San Pablo.

  He kept his back to her. “A girl?” he said softly. “Billy would’ve liked that.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He turned back, looking at her out of wintry eyes. “Billy’s dead,” he said flatly. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but the sooner you deal with it the sooner we can get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m not Caterina,” she said numbly.

  He had a narrow, dark face. Not particularly handsome, but arresting. It twisted now, in a kind of gentle contempt. “Lady, I’m not in the mood for playing games. Billy told me where I’d find you. You’re here, the baby’s here and everyone else is long gone. Your clothes are in the closet, your jewelry’s on the dresser and that looks like Billy’s ring on your finger or I miss my guess. So don’t try to tell me you aren’t Caterina Morrissey because I’m not going to believe it.”

  A million thoughts, possibilities buzzed through her head and she took a deep breath. “All right,” she said in a surprisingly steady voice. “I won’t.”

  “I’ll get you and the kid out of here and back to the States,” he said. “I promised Billy and his parents I’d see to it.”

  “And how do you plan to do that, Mr.…Reilly, did you say?”

  “Just Reilly. I was in the service with Billy. I just had the sense to get out in time. But I’ve been trained, Mrs. Morrissey, by some of the best. I won’t let anyone get to you.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why? You rather be called Miss Mendino? That could bring trouble down on you real fast. Most people didn’t like your father much, and they tend to hold grudges.”

  She stared at him for a moment. He must have realized she had just come from the shower and was wearing nothing but a towel, but he ignored it as unimportant. A good sign. He was a big man, with a sense of coiled streng
th about him. Not bulky, but very strong. He stared at her impassively, and that, too, was reassuring. He didn’t care about her. He didn’t care about the baby. He was simply doing his duty. A last favor for an old friend. And he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would fail in anything he set out to do.

  “Call me Carlie,” she said faintly.

  “That’s a hell of a nickname for Caterina,” he said

  “It’s what I’m used to.”

  He nodded. “How long will it take you to get ready?” His eyes drifted down over her body, impassive, incurious. Thank God, Carlie thought.

  “A couple of days at the most. I have to pack enough for the baby, and I need to be in touch with Matteo—”

  “Matteo’s dead,” Reilly said flatly. “He was killed a week ago by renegade soldiers. They were looking for you.”

  A wave of sickness and guilt washed over Carlie. “How do you know? How long have you been here?”

  “Two days. I had to wait until it was safe enough to get in here. They’re looking for you, you know. You and Mendino’s grandchild. They’re all around here.”

  “Who are? The rebels, or the soldiers?”

  Reilly smiled then, a slow, cynical smile that still had an astonishing effect on his austere face. “Soldiers on the north side of the convent. Rebels on the south. Cliffs to the west. Jungles and swamp to the east. Choose your poison.”

  “It’s up to me?”

  “Hell, no. I just thought you might like being brought up to date. We’re taking the jungle.”

  “There are pit vipers in the jungle.”

  “I’d rather face a pit viper than a political fanatic any day,” Reilly said. “We’ll leave at sunrise.”

  “I can’t be ready—”

  “We’ll leave at sunrise, Caterina,” he said. “Or I’ll take the baby and go without you.”

  She stared at him. She had no doubt whatsoever he would do just that. No matter if he didn’t know how to take care of a newborn, no matter if he had to strap him to his back amid grenades and rifles and machetes. He would do it, without a backward glance.