Saviour in the Saddle

She held on to the gun, and Brandon hoped like the devil that he didn’t have to wrestle it away from her.

Brandon walked in first, and Bo was right behind him. Bo closed the door, and Brandon immediately felt the warmth from the central heating. But not from their guest.

Willa was glaring at them.

He glanced around. Old habits. He’d been a peace officer for eight years. That was eight years too long to let down his guard. Willa had given no indication that someone was inside holding her hostage, but he needed to make sure that wasn’t the case.

The place was small so he didn’t have to look too far to take it all in. They were in a living-dining combination area, and there was a modest kitchen through the double doorway near the dining table. In the center of the table was a potted plant that had been decorated with tiny foil Christmas ornaments. No wrapped gifts, and judging from Willa’s situation, there probably wouldn’t be any.

On the other side of the house, he could see directly into the two bedrooms and the bathroom, with all the doors wide open. Apparently, Willa was trying to minimize the chance that anyone could sneak in through one of the windows without her hearing them.

The place was neat as a pin except for the yellow sticky notes all over the walls and surfaces of the furniture. He spotted one on the hardwood floor and reached down to pick it up.

“Don’t trust the cops,” he read and passed it to Bo.

Bo glanced at it as well and then looked at her. “I thought you weren’t having any more short-term memory loss.”

“I’m not. The notes are leftovers from a time when I was having problems. I just haven’t gotten around to removing them.” Her chin came up, causing her long blondish-brown ponytail to swish. It brushed against her shoulder and settled on the top of her left breast.

Brandon quickly got his attention off that.

Should he go to her, he wondered? Should he try to hug or kiss her? That was something Bo and he hadn’t discussed on the ride over, but Brandon wished they had. He knew what he had to say to Willa, what he had to do about her safety situation, but he hadn’t given much thought to the personal aspect of this.

Willa held out her hand. “Let me see that DNA report,” she insisted.

Brandon walked closer, halving the distance between them and gave it to her.

He watched her read through the report, and with each line her gaze skirted across, her forehead bunched up even more.

“It could be a lie,” she concluded, handing it back to him.

“Why would we lie about that?” Bo questioned.

Willa opened her mouth. Then, closed it. She shook her head. “I don’t know, but you just admitted you lied four months ago when you had a nurse tell me I was artificially inseminated.”

“We did that only because we didn’t want you to lose the baby. It worked,” Bo insisted. “You settled down, quit asking for Brandon, and you started to heal.”

“I asked for him?” She immediately wanted to know.

Brandon let Bo answer. “You did. You wanted to see him because he’s your baby’s father.”

Her accusing gaze came back to Brandon. “Then why weren’t you there at the hospital that day, when I was scheduled for my first ultrasound along with some other lab tests?”

“I didn’t know about it,” Brandon answered.

“SAPD thinks the ultrasound and lab tests were a ploy to get to you the hospital that afternoon because the appointment wasn’t on the schedule,” Bo explained. “We believe the gunmen called you with the bogus appointments because they’d researched the records of several of the pregnant women, and they knew you were a whiz with computers. They thought you could help them access some files.”

“I know all of that,” she snapped. “It’s in my notes.” She pointed to Brandon. “That doesn’t explain why you weren’t there.”

Brandon lifted his shoulder, trying to shrug. “We’d had an argument about a month earlier, and you told me to get out, that it was over between us. I was out of the state at the time, and I didn’t know you’d been taken hostage until two days after it ended. By then, you were in protective custody at a secret location.”

“He asked for your location,” Bo continued. “But there had already been an attempt on your life, and we thought it best if no one knew where you were.”

And then there had been another breach of security. Another intruder. That had caused Willa to go on the run, leaving the safe house and not telling anyone where she was. It’d taken SAPD all this time to find her.

Without moving her gaze from Brandon’s, she walked closer, her steps slow and deliberate. Until she was very close. So close he could take in her scent. There was some kind of floral fragrance in her hair. Roses, maybe.

She reached out and caught onto his arm. Brandon wasn’t sure what she had in mind, but he didn’t think she was about to launch herself against him for a welcome-home kiss.

No. Her suspicions were getting stronger.

She took his hand and placed it on her stomach. On the baby.

Brandon pulled in his breath before he could stop himself, but he did manage to hold his ground and not move away. He also kept eye contact with her, which was probably stupid.

Willa didn’t say a word. She just stared at him.

The moments crawled by and because Brandon didn’t know what the hell else to do he just stood there.

“Let me guess,” Willa said, her words as slow and deliberate as her steps had been. “We argued about the baby. That’s why we broke up. Because you weren’t ready to be a father.”

Brandon settled for a nod.

“What was I to you—your one-night stand?” she asked. No more of that slow and deliberate tone. She was riled now.

“No,” he answered truthfully. “Willa, you weren’t a one-night stand.”

She studied his eyes. Then she studied him. Her gaze eased down the length of his body. Back up. And then she groaned, turned and sank down on the sofa. She put the gun on the coffee table, something that probably pleased Bo as much as it did him.

They’d made it past step one.

But they had a hell of a long way to go.

“I’ll give you two some time alone,” Bo said, hitching his thumb to the door. “I’ll be in the car. But just don’t take too long.”

And Brandon knew why. This was not going to be a lengthy romantic welcome-home chat. They were in a hurry.

Bo opened the door, and the wind cut through the room again. The notes on the walls stirred, and two of them went flying through the air. One of them landed near Brandon’s boots.

“Take prenatal vitamins,” he read aloud and handed her the note. He eased down into the chair across from her. “Just how bad is your memory?”

“Just how much didn’t you want this baby?” Willa countered.

So, her memory wasn’t up for discussion. He wished she’d taken the baby talk off the table as well.

Brandon knew they had to discuss it, eventually. That was all part of the plan, but he hadn’t counted on having the emotional reaction of touching Willa. And he sure as hell hadn’t counted on this gut need to protect her. He’d planned on doing what SAPD wanted and then walking away.

Especially walking away.