The Baby's Bodyguard

“He was riding his bike. The truck driver said David hit a patch of loose gravel and fell right into the road.”

Jack stared at her for a few dozen jumpy heartbeats and then nodded. “You know, I’ve decided to believe your claim that you had nothing to do with what happened down in Costa del Rio.”

She blinked at the change of subject before saying, “Good. Why?”

“I’m not sure. You’re smart enough and clever enough and maybe even sneaky enough, but you’re not ruthless.”

“That’s true. I’m relieved to hear you say it.”

“But you do know or suspect something. Who are you protecting?”

She drained the wine from the stemmed glass and set it down. It was time to put this matter to rest. Her voice a little on the stern side, she leaned toward him. “Let’s get this straight. You’re a stranger I spent one amazing night with a year ago. Like you so graphically pointed out this afternoon, it was sex and nothing more. I’m not going to offer excuses, but seeing you again is embarrassing—it wasn’t exactly my most shining hour. Is that blunt enough for you?”

“It’s excellent. If I was capable of being shamed, that would have done it.” He paused a second and added, “An ‘amazing’ night, huh?” the skin crinkling around his eyes as he smiled.

She glared at him.

Mimi yelled from the kitchen, “We’re having stir-fried tofu and veggies.”

“My grandmother thinks she can cook,” Hannah said softly. “She can’t.”

Jack shrugged. “I never turn down a meal.”

When she didn’t smile, he added, “I’d like to see David’s kid and I really am hungry.”

She stood up. He was a danger to her, to her baby, to the future. He needed to go away so she could figure out what if anything to do with her ever-growing suspicions. Maybe in the end he’d be the one to share them with, but not now. What would happen if she convinced him to leave for a week or so with the promise she would poke around a little when she went into the office? Maybe Fran knew something. As the head of HR, she seemed to know something about everyone.

“You’re suddenly a light-year away,” Jack said, coming to stand in front of her.

She pushed her hair back from her forehead. “It’s been a terrible day, Jack. I feel like I’m being stalked by the invisible man and now you’re accusing me of helping a killer. Give me a number where I can call you should something come to mind. For now, I’m going to go wash up for dinner and when I get back, I would really like to find you made your apologies to my grandmother and left. Is that too much to ask?”

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “I already lost a few days with my family. Time is passing.”

“The ambush happened almost a year ago. Another week or two won’t matter.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “I told you this isn’t just about revenge.”

She stared at him and he stared at her. They were at an impasse. This was crazy, this was her house, well, her grandmother’s house. What made Jack Starling think he could just refuse to leave?

When his gaze strayed past her face to the plate-glass window behind her back, she wondered if he was looking at their reflections. In the next instant, he lunged at her. She gasped at the unexpectedness of it. He wrapped his arms around her and spun her around to the floor where she landed on her back with a crash. He flung his body on top of hers, using his arms to surround her head. She pushed on his solid chest but he held tighter.

A loud popping sound was followed by a distant scream and other unidentifiable sounds that rumbled in Hannah’s brain. Ragged cubes of glass rained down on them like pebbles, bouncing on the furniture, skittering across the hardwood floors.

Jack held her even tighter. She swallowed a scream as her thoughts went to Aubrielle.

Chapter Three (#ulink_81114e62-66dd-5f41-a0c4-181e94b3b93f)

“What in the hell is going on?” Jack demanded. He’d pulled Hannah to her feet, safety glass tumbling from both their clothes.

“I don’t know,” Hannah said, eyes wide with fear.

“Like hell you don’t.”

Mimi entered from the kitchen. “Look at the window!” she cried and Jack and Hannah both turned to look at the gaping hole where the window had been.

“Did someone shoot it out?”

“I think it was a brick,” Jack said.

Hannah was trying to shake the glass off her clothes as she moved toward the hallway. He heard the cries of a very small baby coming from farther back in the house.

Mimi intercepted her granddaughter. “You’ll get glass all over her. I’ll go.” She hurried off down the hall and Hannah turned to face him.

“Hannah?” he said. “What’s going on?”

It looked as though she wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but this time the flippancy with which she’d treated the car bomb was gone. In fact, the fear in her eyes yanked at him.

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“But it’s something that’s been going on for a while, isn’t it?”

“No,” she said, and looked surprised by the idea. And then a knowing look crept into her eyes. “Maybe,” she admitted. “I’m not sure. Nothing like this, though. Well, the break-in, but nothing of consequence was taken. Did you see someone outside before this happened?”

“I saw a car slow down outside and then speed up. What break-in?”

“You have remarkable reflexes,” she said, still dusting glass off her clothes.

“What break-in?”

“It happened before I moved in with Grandma. Someone broke into my old apartment. The police investigated, nothing was taken, that was all there was to it.”

He frowned, trying to make sense of the break-in, the bomb and the broken window and coming up empty. Was it possible the events were related to Tierra Montañosa? Without knowing more about Hannah’s life, how could he make that kind of determination?

He looked around the floor until he found a brick-sized rock under a small table. Crunching glass under his feet, he retrieved the rock, using one of the little doilies that were draped over the arms of the sofa. There was a piece of lined paper tied to the rock with an ordinary-looking length of white string.

“Do you have plastic gloves?” he asked.

She had her head upside down and was shaking out the glass. As she swung her head up and back, her sweater rode up her trim midriff, exposing a creamy strip of skin. With her hair tousled and her clothes askew, she looked as though she’d just gotten out of bed, and once again, his body started a slow burn.

“In the kitchen under the sink,” she said, pulling down on her sweater. “I have to check on Aubrielle.”

With that she disappeared down the hall, the sway of her hips mesmerizing.

“Get a grip,” he mumbled as he shook off most of the glass. Leaving the cloth and rock on top of the television, he moved into the kitchen, where the smell of burned vegetables greeted him. The pan had been taken off the heat but the glob inside it looked pretty horrendous. He’d eaten worse, though.

He found the plastic gloves where Hannah said they were.

Hannah and her grandmother were both back in the living room when he returned. “She went right back to sleep,” Hannah said, pausing to look up from her task. She’d found a broom and a dustpan and was working on sweeping up the glass. A vacuum cleaner sat off to the side, awaiting its turn.