His Child

Of course. What had she expected? “But what about the missing doctor and nurse? You can’t believe it’s a coincidence they would leave right after your vials were supposedly destroyed.”

“I don’t know what to believe yet—not until I’ve spoken with them.” He put his hand on the car door, but didn’t open it. “I’ll make some calls and find out where they are.”

“And then what?”

His mouth thinned. “Well, I won’t be buying cigars anytime soon. Even if by some miracle these people were involved in a plot to kidnap you, it doesn’t mean you’re carrying my baby.”

Jessie would have returned verbal fire, but she caught some movement out of the corner of her eye. A late-model, white, four-door sedan. And it was going much too slowly. She turned toward it, her own body seemingly moving in slow motion, as well. Before she could respond, before she could brace herself, there was a deafening blast. The back window of Jake’s car shattered and the pebbled sheet of safety glass crashed onto the seat with a walloping thud.

“Get down!” she yelled. Jake shouted something similar at the same time, but he punctuated it with some vicious profanity.

A rapid fire of bullets sizzled across the roof. Just like that, in the span of a heartbeat, Jessie’s anger evaporated. In its place, her instincts kicked in. And her fear. A sickening fear that clawed away at her. God, she didn’t want to die this way.

She hit the pavement, her knees catching the brunt of the fall. Jake shoved her the rest of the way down and followed on top of her, sheltering her body with his. She got only a glimpse of a man in the white car.

“Someone’s shooting at us.” But it wasn’t necessary for Jessie to relay that information. Jake apparently knew exactly what was happening.

It was an awful time to say that she told him so, but blast it, she had told him so. Nothing bad will happen while you’re with me. Yeah, right. She’d warned him that somebody wanted her dead and he hadn’t believed her. Well, maybe this would finally convince him.

If they lived long enough for it to convince him.

A bullet, then another, tore into the car. The sounds of lead ripping through metal were all around them. Her heart was in her throat. And her pulse pounded violently. Her every instinct screamed for her to fight back. To protect herself. But there was no way to do that in an open parking lot.

A thousand thoughts crossed her mind. None good. This was the culmination of her worst fears. She was unarmed, with a gunman after her. This time, he just might succeed in killing her. Maybe even killing Jake, as well. They could both die right here, right now, and she wouldn’t even know why she’d been murdered.

There was the squeal of tires, followed by another shot. She didn’t dare hope the gunman was leaving. From the sound of it, he was simply circling around to get a better angle. Jessie sucked in a hard breath, trying to keep the veneer over the panic that was so close to the surface she could taste it, fiery and bitter in her mouth.

Jake pressed himself against her, a reminder that he had placed himself right in the path of those bullets. Like hers, his breath came out in short, fast spurts. Jessie could feel the knots in his muscles. The hot scent of adrenaline and scorched metal was all around them.

When the white car momentarily darted out of her line of sight, Jake reached up and fumbled around until he located the handle. He popped open the door. “Stay down and get on the floor.”

He rolled to his side so she could slip into the car. Doing so, he put himself in even greater danger. Jessie wouldn’t let herself consider why he did that. No use thinking about him as a Boy Scout.

She crunched herself as far under the dash as she could and latched onto his shirt. “Get in!” she yelled.

He did. Somehow, he snaked through the narrow opening and across the seats, slamming the door behind him. Within seconds he had the car started and gunned the engine.

They sped away, just as another bullet demolished the window right above Jessie’s head.

Chapter Four

“Are you hit?” Jake yelled as he maneuvered his car through a hairpin turn.

Jessie did a quick inventory. “No. You?”

“No, but stay down.”

“I could say the same to you.” But he didn’t stay down. He continued to speed away from the person who had just tried to kill them. Or her. Jessie suspected those bullets had been meant for her.

God, would this nightmare ever end?

“Is he following us?” she asked, unable to see for herself. But she didn’t have to wait for Jake to answer. Another bullet skipped off the roof, gashing into the metal and even the leather interior just overhead. Someone meant business. “Did you get a look at the gunman?”

“Just a man in a white car. The first digit of the license plate was C.”

“The last was F,” Jessie provided, after she pulled in a generous breath. Not that it helped. Every inch of her was on a razor-sharp edge, her body braced for the fight. A fight she could easily lose. And losing this fight would mean dying. “There was mud or something covering the rest of the plate. I think it might be the same man who kidnapped me.”

Jake made another turn, his gaze darting between the rearview mirror and the street ahead. “I thought you said there were four people who kidnapped you.”