Christmas Guardian

Jordan kept his attention on the yard, just in case the someone or something that had caused Shelly to run was still out there. He stooped down and lifted the corner of the blanket.

A baby stared back at him.

Jordan had never remembered being speechless before, but he sure was now. He looked beneath the blanket again, certain he was mistaken.

No mistake.

The tiny baby was still there. Still staring at him with eyes that seemed to ask who are you and why am I here?

Jordan wanted to know the same thing.

He grabbed the basket, brought it inside so he could set it on the floor and shut the door. He also reached for his phone and jabbed in Shelly’s number. Each ring felt like a week-long wait.

“Jordan,” she finally answered. He didn’t know who sounded more frantic—him or her.

“Talk to me,” he snarled.

“Someone’s trying to kill me.”

Despite the baby-in-the-basket bombshell, he wasn’t immune to the fear he heard in her voice. “Where are you? I’ll send help, and then you can come back for the little delivery you left on my porch.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do things this way, but I had no choice. They’re after me, because of the baby. He’s in danger, Jordan. The worst kind. And I need you to protect him.”

Him. A boy.

Then it hit Jordan. He threw back the blanket and had a better look at that little face. Dark brown hair. Dark brown eyes. About two months old at the most. He quickly did the math. He’d last slept with Shelly nine or ten months ago. Break-up sex. And he hadn’t seen her since.

Jordan groaned, and because he had no choice, he sank down on the floor next to the basket.

“I’ve sanitized my office,” Shelly continued, her words rushing together. “Actually, I burned it to the ground. They won’t find anything there, but I don’t want them tracing the baby to you. Don’t let anyone know you have him. Please. There can be no chain of custody when it comes to him, understand?”

No. He didn’t. But he focused on Shelly and her safety. “Tell me where you are so I can help you.”

“You can help me by taking care of the baby. There are no records and no paperwork to connect me to that child. It has to stay that way. I’ve created a phony trail for us, too. If anyone digs into our connection, they’ll find proof you fired me because I was embezzling from your company. The documentation will imply that we’re enemies and that you’re the last person on earth that I’d ask for help.”

This conversation was getting more and more confusing. “Is this baby mine?” Jordan demanded.

Silence. He knew she was still on the line because he could hear her breathing. “Just protect him, please,” she said moments later. “A person might come looking for him. If she uses the code words, red ruby, then you can trust her.”

“Red ruby? You gotta be kidding me. A code word? For what? Why?”

“I have to disappear for a while,” Shelly said, obviously ignoring him. “But when I can, I’ll explain everything.”

With that, she hung up.

Jordan didn’t waste a second, not even to curse. He redialed Shelly’s number. But she didn’t answer. The call went straight to voice mail.

Time for plan B. He phoned one of his agents, Cody Guillory, his right-hand man at Sentron, the private security agency that Jordan owned. Since Cody was pulling duty at headquarters, he answered on the first ring.

“I’m guessing whatever’s wrong got you out of bed?” Cody greeted.

“Yeah, it did. I have a situation,” Jordan replied. “Shelly could be in danger. She still has the same cell number and possibly the same phone she used when she worked for Sentron so try to track that. Discreetly. Let me know where she is.”

“Will do. Give me a couple of minutes. Anything else?”

Jordan looked at the baby and debated what he should say. Don’t let anyone know you have him, Shelly had warned. She’d even used another rare please. For now, he’d take the plea and warning to heart. “Just find her and send someone in case she needs help,” Jordan said, and he ended the call.

The only illumination came from the moonlight seeping in through the windows, but it was enough for him to see the basket. Jordan stared at the baby, whose eyes were drifting down to sleep, and because he didn’t know what else to do, he groaned and considered the most obvious scenario. Had Shelly given birth to his child without telling him? And if so, why wouldn’t he have heard rumors that he was a daddy? There’d been no signs, no hints, nothing to indicate that this child was his.

Except for the dark brown hair, dark brown eyes.

Like Jordan’s own.

Still, that didn’t mean he’d fathered this baby.

He needed to talk with Shelly, and even though it was clear she was in the middle of a personal crisis, he tried her number again. Again, it went straight to voice mail. This time he decided to leave a message.

“Shelly, we need to talk.” He wanted to say more, much more, but a cell conversation wasn’t secure. His number wouldn’t show up on her caller ID or phone records because all calls from his house and business were routed through a scrambler, but someone could get her phone and listen to any message he might leave.

Someone’s trying to kill me, she’d said. Even with the shock of finding the baby, Jordan hadn’t forgotten that. Like him, Shelly now owned a security agency. Even though she’d been in business less than a year, her startup agency provided services as bodyguards, personal protection, P.I.s.

And probably more.

That more had nearly gotten him killed a few times. Was that what was happening to Shelly now? Had a case gone wrong, and was someone trying to use the baby to get to her? Maybe she’d had no choice but to bring the child to him, but it damn well had been her choice not to tell him before now.

If the child was his, that is.

The phone rang, slicing through the silence and waking the baby. He started to fuss. Jordan had no idea how to deal with that, so he lightly rocked the basket. Thankfully, the little guy hushed, and Jordan took the call.

“It’s Cody. I tracked Shelly’s phone, no problem, but while I was doing that, I heard her name on the police scanner, and I zoomed in on the conversation with our equipment.” He paused. “About five minutes ago, a traffic cop responded to a failed carjacking just about a half mile from your place. It’s Shelly’s car.”

Oh, God. “How bad?”

“Bad.” And that was all Cody said for several long moments. “Shelly’s dead.”

That hit Jordan like a punch to the gut. He squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re sure it’s her?”

“Yes, I’ve tapped into the camera at the traffic light, and I can see her face. It’s Shelly, all right. Looks like a gunshot to the head.”

Jordan forced away the grief and pain and grabbed the basket so he could take the baby with him to his home office. He turned on his secure laptop. “Send me the feed from that traffic camera. Audio, too. And get one of our agents over there.”

“I’ve already dispatched Desmond—” Cody paused, and in the background Jordan could hear the chatter from the laser listening device that Cody was using to zoom in on the scene. “An eyewitness is talking to the traffic cop right now.”

The images popped onto his computer screen. Jordan saw Shelly’s car. The driver’s door was wide open. Her body was sprawled out in the middle of the street, limp and lifeless. Hell. If he’d just gotten to the door sooner, if he could have stopped her from leaving his place, then maybe she’d still be alive.

Another patrol car arrived, but Jordan zoomed in on the conversation between the traffic cop and a twenty-something woman dressed in a fast-food restaurant uniform. An eyewitness. Her body language and nearly hysterical tone told Jordan she probably hadn’t been involved in this as anything more than a spectator to a horrific crime.

“The man didn’t want her car,” Jordan heard the woman say, and he cranked up the volume.