Protecting Her Royal Baby

* * *

Hunter tried to bat away the hands that blocked him from following Brianna into the E.R. “I want to go with her. That’s my wife!” he said, sticking to the lie he’d already committed to. “Come on. She’s scared, and I promised I’d stay with her.”

“You can be with her in a minute,” a woman in scrubs told him, leading him by the arm to an office. “We just need a little information for billing purposes.”

He raked his hair with his fingers and exhaled a frustrated sigh. “Fine. What do you need?”

“Take a seat over there. I just have a form for you to fill out.”

The fear in Brianna’s voice as they took her away echoed in his mind. Poor thing. She had to be terrified. He thought of the EMT’s questions as they rode in from the accident scene. He had no idea what to tell them about Brianna’s medical history or family or billing information.

Crud. He glanced over the form, and his gut rolled. Well, he’d come this far. Might as well lean into it.

Name—Brianna Mansfield. Marital status—married. He gave them his address as hers, his phone number...his name as her spouse and emergency contact. He plowed on, filling out the form, giving the hospital the information they’d expect if he were in fact Brianna’s husband. For just an instant, he imagined that scenario. Coming home at the end of a long day to her warm embrace. Waking up to her pretty face. Having a child with her...

His heart thumped. The medical staff would assume he was the father of Brianna’s baby. He’d told the EMT as much. Though he’d savored his role as uncle to his brother’s kids, had been a father figure to his niece Savannah for the first four years of her life, the thought of being a father still gave him pause.

Of course, he wasn’t the baby’s father. He shook off the tangential thoughts and focused on the papers in front of him. This was all a ruse for Brianna’s sake...until her real family could be found and brought to the hospital. At the bottom of the sheet, he signed and dated the form, then handed the clipboard back to the admissions clerk. “Can I see Brianna now?”

“Sure. This way.”

Hunter wiped his palms on the seat of his running shorts, wishing he didn’t look and smell like a gym rat, and followed the woman to the nurses’ desk.

When a nurse finally breezed past them, Hunter grabbed her arm to catch her attention. “I’m looking for my wife, Brianna. She’s in labor.”

The nurse nodded to him without stopping. “She’s delivering the baby now. Susan, will you show him where to scrub up and find him a sterile gown?”

The admissions clerk opened her mouth to respond, but the nurse hurried off and disappeared into an exam room. By the time the admissions clerk had located the sterile head-to-toe garb and Hunter felt he’d sufficiently washed his arms, hands and face, Brianna was already cradling a red-faced baby and crying tears of joy over her new arrival.

“Better late than never, Dad,” the E.R. doctor said, waving him in. “We’re just finishing up here, but everyone’s doing fine.”

He stepped over to the side of the surgical table where Brianna lay and, behind the sterile mask covering his mouth and nose, he smiled. Realizing she couldn’t see the gesture meant to congratulate and comfort her, he winked, as well. “Sorry to be so long. Hospital business...then they made me put all this stuff on.” He tugged at the sleeve of the sterile gown.

“It’s all right.” She grinned at her baby, then angled her arms to show Hunter. “I have a son. Seven pounds, seven ounces. A healthy baby boy. Thanks to you.”

Hunter gazed at the puffy-faced bundle and felt a tug in his chest. Newborns generally weren’t what he’d call cute. Even his nieces had needed a few days to register on the cute scale for him. But somehow, knowing he’d helped ensure this baby arrived safely, he felt a little connection to Brianna’s son that put the swollen cheeks and pointy head in perspective.

“Hey, little guy. Welcome to the world.” He crooked a finger and ran it along the baby’s chin. “So what are you naming him?”

She shook her head tiredly. “I don’t know. Surely I had a name picked out, but...I don’t remember it. I can’t give him a name until I get my memory back.” She glanced up at him, and her blue eyes were dark with anxiety. “If I get it back.”

He put a hand on her arm and gave her a supportive squeeze. “What have the doctors said about your head injury? Your amnesia?”

“Not much yet. Delivering Little One here was their first priority. But they are setting up for me to get a CT scan now.” She gave her son’s head a kiss and closed her eyes. “This is crazy. I don’t even know if my son’s father is at home waiting for me, worrying. There must be someone. I didn’t get pregnant on my own.”

A funny gnawing filled Hunter’s gut—maybe because he’d been playing the role of her husband, and hearing her talk of someone else having the rightful place in her life felt off. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

She raised her left hand and stared at her naked fingers. “No. But someone meant enough to me nine months ago that I got pregnant. Where is that man? He should know his son has been born.” Her breathing grew shallow and rapid again. Her brow furrowed, and lines of distress crinkled around her eyes. “I’m scared, Hunter. Without any memory, I’m all alone. I have no home. I have no money. I have no identity or history or—”

“Hey.” He cut her off as the desperation in her voice rose. “You have me. I’m gonna help you figure out who you are and where your family is. Okay?”

A tremor shook her, and when she blinked at him, a fat tear broke free of her eyelashes. “Why? You don’t know me.”

“Yeah, well, the hospital thinks I’m your husband.”

“You told them that...for me? So you could stay with me?”

“Yeah.” He caught her tear with his thumb. “I guess I’m a sucker for blue eyes and a damsel in distress.”

The E.R. nurse came back into the room and raised the railing on the other side of her surgical table. “They’re ready for you in radiology. If you’ll give Dad the baby to hold for a moment, a nurse from the nursery will be down in a minute to take him upstairs for more health checks.”

Brianna’s eyes met Hunter’s. “Is that all right?”

His gut pitched. He’d held babies this small when his nieces had been born, but somehow this felt different. He was being entrusted with a child not even twenty minutes old, given the responsibility of a father’s care and protection. He swallowed hard, hesitating.

“It’s okay, Dad,” the nurse said, chuckling. “Baby won’t break.”

Hunter pushed out a cleansing breath and slipped his hands around the tightly wrapped bundle lying against Brianna’s chest. In the process of gathering the baby into his arms, he brushed intimately against her breasts. When her breath caught and her gaze darted to his, heat spread through him and raised a flushed prickling in his cheeks. “Sorry.”

In response, she twitched her lips in a brief, nervous grin as she released the baby to him. He could feel the heavy throb of her heartbeat against the back of his hand as he adjusted his grip on her son. His pulse drummed in his ears as he pulled the tiny life close to his chest and cradled the baby’s head in the crook of his arm.

“Hey, sport,” he crooned to the puffy-faced baby, who wrinkled his face and whimpered pitifully like a puppy. “No, no. Don’t cry. Mom will be right back.” As Brianna was wheeled out for her CT scan, her troubled gaze lingered on him. Hunter gave her a nod and a wink. “I got this. Don’t worry.”

But as soon as Brianna and the nurse disappeared, the baby loosed a plaintive wail. A bubble of panic swelled inside him. A crying baby was usually his cue to pass a baby back to mom or dad. But he was supposed to be playing the dad role for the next few hours. Yikes.

“Shh. Easy, fella.” He gave Brianna’s son a little bounce and patted the baby’s bottom the way he’d seen his brother Grant do with his daughters when they were infants. “You’re okay, dude. I’m gonna help your mom out, and everything’s going to be just fine.”

He paced the small room, trying to comfort the crying baby, wishing the nursery staff would hurry and take the baby upstairs. As he cradled the infant, rocking his arms from side to side, he flashed back on the accident that had brought him here. Brianna racing down the highway, losing control of her car. Bullet holes in the back of her flipped sedan.

A chill rippled through Hunter. Who had fired at Brianna, and why? Was she still in danger, or had she been victim to a random crime? He recalled her fear of someone hurting her when he’d first tried to help her, and uneasiness scraped through him.

No matter how he looked at it, the cards were stacked against Brianna. Amnesia, a new baby...and some unknown threat to her safety. He may have known her for only an hour, but she had no one else. She and her baby needed him, needed his support, his friendship...and his protection.

He gazed down at the new life in his arms. So tiny. So fragile. So...vulnerable.

“Don’t worry, sport. I’m going to take care of you and your mom,” he promised Brianna’s son. “I’ll help her remember who she is, where your dad is. And I will make sure both of you stay safe.”

* * *

“Where the hell are you, man? You’ve been gone for three hours!” Hunter’s older brother Grant said the minute he answered Hunter’s call.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Hunter cut his brother a lot of slack for his sharp tone, and a stab of guilt also poked him for worrying Grant. His brother had been through hell in recent months, having tragically lost his wife in May. Grant was now a single father, raising his two young daughters alone, and didn’t need any extra grief on his plate. Considering the tumult of the spring and the circumstances surrounding Tracy’s death, Hunter should have called sooner so Grant wouldn’t worry.

He’d left for his jog from Grant’s country home after Sunday lunch with the Mansfield clan. He’d been expected back inside an hour to shower and watch the Saints game with their dad. Since Tracy’s death, the family had been spending a lot more time with Grant, helping with the kids and hoping to lift his spirits.

“Sorry about the radio silence.” Hunter could imagine Grant—and their mother—pacing the hardwood floors of Grant’s farmhouse, fretting about him. “I’ve been...distracted. I’m at the hospital with—”

“The hospital!”