In Protective Custody

As he hurtled them around another corner, she spotted her cell phone in the console under the radio. But how could she get it without alerting her abductor?

She felt the man’s eyes on her and glanced up just as his gaze shifted to the phone. She held her breath. Prayed.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he growled. Snatching the phone from the console, he jammed it in the map pocket of the driver’s door. Out of her reach.

Her stomach sank to her toes. So much for secretly dialing 911. Swallowing her disappointment and fear, she searched for another option.

She glanced down at the infant, the helpless little baby who still screeched for all he was worth. His tiny fingers had clamped around one of her long blond curls, so she gently worked to free her hair from the baby’s fist. When she cuddled him closer to her breast, an eerie prickle crept up her spine.

“This baby’s not really sick. Is he?” Her voice trembled, as did her hands, her stomach.

He met her gaze, and the hard determination setting his jaw softened. His coffee brown eyes held a measure of guilt and remorse, but he turned back to watch the road without answering.

Her thudding heartbeat counted the tense seconds. While the baby’s cries filled the dearth of conversation, she studied the man’s profile. Warring emotions played across his rugged features. A muscle jumped under his square, stubble-covered jaw. His narrow nose looked as though it had been broken once, leaving a slight bump near the bridge. Sweat trickled from a high forehead, dampening wisps of his thick black hair and leaving wet stains at the armpits of the blue golf shirt he wore with his jeans.

He caught her gaze again, and the intensity of his dark eyes unnerved her, accelerated her already rapid breathing.

“No. He’s not sick.” His tone was flat, grave.

His admission caught her off guard. She blinked her surprise, uncertain how to respond.

Turning away again, he squeezed the steering wheel.

While his confession spun her thoughts in a hundred directions, a maternal instinct surged inside her.

Protect the baby.

She drew the infant even closer to her body and eyed her kidnapper warily.

He gave her another quick look and muttered a curse. “Don’t look at me like that. I won’t hurt you.”

Laura raised one eyebrow skeptically to let him know what she thought of his promise. “Why should I believe you?”

He had the audacity to look offended.

“I wouldn’t—” He snapped his mouth shut without finishing.

“Did you kidnap this baby?”

He shot her an exasperated look. “No! Of course not!”

His defensiveness intrigued her. What was he hiding?

She studied the baby’s features, looking for similarities. Same dark hair, same narrow nose. But with newborns it was hard to tell.

The infant’s screams had tapered to mewling whines. She stroked his small pink face, and her heart melted like ice cream in the sun. She’d trained herself not to grow emotionally attached to the children at the day care, a self-defense mechanism she’d mastered growing up, shuffled from one foster family to another. Yet somehow this tiny life chipped at the walls she kept around her heart.

On the job, she could indulge her love for children without forming deep bonds. Emotional bonds served only to wound her when they were inevitably broken. She’d already suffered a lifetime of shattered relationships, broken promises, lost loved ones. Her aching soul could take no more. Yet that same painful childhood fueled a fierce protectiveness in her, a desire to see no other child suffer the same fear and isolation.

“Look, he belongs with me.” The man’s statement called her attention back to the problem at hand. His tone said he knew she needed convincing.

“Where’s your wife?”

The muscle in his cheek jumped again. “The baby’s mother is still in the hospital. She…she’s not doing well and—” His voice grew quiet, and his dark expression reflected too much emotion to be faked.

His obvious grief grabbed her and rattled the cage where she’d locked her own grim memories of loss. “I’m sorry.”

He acknowledged her sympathy with another lingering gaze and quick nod before turning his attention back to the road.

Laura swallowed hard, shoving down the painful specter of grief that had shadowed her throughout her childhood, followed her from one foster home to the next.

The car bounced over a large pothole, and she turned her gaze to the scenery out her window. She didn’t recognize anything about the cypress-dotted flatlands and the isolated road they traveled.

Apprehension prickled her neck again. “Where are we?”

“Near my house.”

“Could you be more specific?”

He started to answer but then seemed to reconsider. “Once you drop me off, you’ll just get back on this road and follow it out the way we came, until you reach the highway into town. It’s simple.”

Laura gaped at him. “You mean you’re letting me go?”

“Of course I am.” He scowled at her. “I hadn’t wanted to involve you at all, hadn’t wanted to come back to my house. But with my Jeep trapped at the accident, I didn’t have a choice.” He exhaled sharply. “I have an old truck at home I can use. Once you drop me off, you’ll be free to go. With my gratitude.”

The news should have elated her. Instead, she puzzled over his strange behavior. If the baby wasn’t really sick, then why the hurry? “You know that leaving the scene of an accident is against the law, don’t you?”

He winced. “Yeah, I know. But I couldn’t hang out until—” Again he snapped his mouth closed and frowned.

“Until?”

“Never mind.”

“You’ve already admitted the baby’s not sick. So what had you spooked? You said, ‘He’s here.’ Who is he?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I think considering that you dragged me into—”

“Hey! Do you hear that?”

Laura paused and listened. For what, she wasn’t sure. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. He quit crying.” The man craned his neck to see the baby better.

Glancing down, she found the infant in her arms sleeping with his thumb in his mouth. Her heart squeezed then expanded. Tears puddled in her eyes. Maternal yearnings clambered over dark memories and defensive walls.

“He’s so sweet,” she whispered. Her fierce protective instinct reared its head again with a vengeance, plucking at her conscience and warming her soul. The little babe in her arms couldn’t do a thing for himself, couldn’t be more precious if he were her own child. Painful longing twisted inside her.