Security Blanket

Lucky shoved his thumb to his chest. “Well, I’m here now.”

“Are you?” Howard challenged.

“What the hell does that mean?” Lucky challenged right back.

Howard didn’t answer right away, and the silence intensified with his glare. “It means I don’t think you love my daughter. I think this so-called relationship between you two is a sham to convince Lois and me that we don’t need to intervene in Marin’s life.”

Since that was the truth, Lucky knew it was time for some damage control. Later, he’d figure out if Howard really knew something or if this was a bluff.

Lucky pulled Marin closer to him. Body against body. Marin must have felt the same need for damage control because she came up on her toes and kissed him, a familiar peck of reassurance. Something a real couple would have shared.

That brief lip-lock speared through him, causing Lucky to remind himself that this really was a sham.

“What papers have they filed?” Marin asked him.

Lucky didn’t take his gaze from Howard. “Your parents convinced a judge to review your competency as a parent. A crooked judge is my guess, because we have to go to your parents’ ranch for an interview with a psychologist.”

Lucky expected Marin to lose it then and there. Maybe a tirade or some profanity. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. But her reaction was almost completely void of emotion.

“Mother, Dad, you’ re leaving now,” Marin said. And she stepped out of Lucky’s arms and sat back down on the bed. A moment passed before she looked at her mother again. “I’m tired. I need my rest. Nurse’s orders.”

Lois took a step closer, and even though she wasn’t smiling, there was a certain victory shout in her stance. “If you don’t return to the ranch and do this interview with the psychologist, the judge will intervene. Noah will be taken from you and placed in our custody.”

And with that threat, Lois and Howard finally did what Marin had asked. They turned and walked out the door.

All that cool and calmness that Marin had displayed went south in a hurry. She began to shake, and for a moment Lucky thought she might be going into shock or on the verge of having a seizure.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself. “What do I have to do to make this go away?”

Since there was no easy way to put it, Lucky just laid it out there for her. “We’ll have to go to the ranch because as your legal next of kin, your parents managed to get an emergency hearing in front of a judge who’s also their friend. They persuaded this judge that you need to be medically monitored—by them, under their roof. And the judge signed a temporary order. Once we’re at the ranch, we’ll have the interview where we’ll need to convince a psychologist that we’re a happy couple fit to raise Noah. If we do that, the psychologist will pass that on to the judge, and there won’t be another hearing. The temporary order will expire, and you’ll keep sole custody of Noah.”

Marin slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. She didn’t exactly voice a question, but there were plenty of nonverbal ones.

“The interview could be as early as tomorrow afternoon,” Lucky added. “If the doctor releases you from the hospital today. That means we wouldn’t have to keep up the charade for long. Then, after visiting with your grandmother, you can go home.”

Well, maybe.

That was one of those gray areas that Lucky hadn’t quite figured out. Marin might never be able go home. It might not be safe.

“And what happens if we come clean and tell everyone that you’re not Noah’s father?” she asked. But Marin immediately waved that off. “Then my parents will use that against me. They might even want a paternity test. They’ll brand us as liars. And if the judge knows we lied about that, he’ll assume we’re lying about my ability to be a good parent.”

The Sheppards might even try to file criminal charges against him for preventing them from taking Noah. The couple certainly had a lot of misplaced love, and they were aiming all of it at Marin and Noah.

“I’ll fight it,” Marin said, sounding not nearly as strong as her words. “I’ll hire a lawyer and fight it.”

“I’ve already talked to one,” he assured her. “I called a friend of a friend, and she says to cooperate for now. Your mother and Howard might have this judge firmly in their pockets, and he’s the one who arranged for the interview with the psychologist. I’ve requested a change of venue, and he denied it. The only way we could have gotten a delay is if you hadn’t come out of the coma.”

“Great. Just great.” She paused a moment. “So you’re saying we should go to the ranch and do as my parents say?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

Her chin came up. “Yes, I do. There’s no reason to drag you into this. And you shouldn’t have to be subjected to staying with my parents. You have no idea the emotional hell they’ll put you through, especially since they believe we’re a couple. A couple they want to see driven apart.”

Lucky didn’t doubt that. But there was another problem. “Marin, your parents aren’t going to just give up. It took some fast talking for me to stop an immediate transfer of custody. Your mother was here early yesterday morning. She came prepared to take Noah then and there.”

Marin groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God.”

Lucky groaned right along with her. There were a lot of things wrong with their plan. For one thing, it wasn’t legal. But what Marin’s parents were trying to do wasn’t right, either. So maybe two wrongs did make a right.

That still didn’t mean this would be easy.

For two days, he’d have to pretend to be Noah’s father and Marin’s loving fiancé. The first was a piece of cake. It was that second one that was giving him the most trouble.

Lucky blamed it on the blazing attraction between them.

Before he’d held Marin in his arms, before that brief kiss, he’d only lusted after her in his heart. Now, he was lusting after her in all kinds of ways. And he couldn’t do anything about it.

Because Marin might become a critical witness when he busted his investigation wide open. She might be the key to finally getting justice. He couldn’t compromise that—it was the most important thing in his life.

He couldn’t get involved with Marin. He could only live a temporary lie.

“Okay,” Marin mumbled. She cleared her throat. “So, you have to do the interview, whenever that’ll be, but you don’t have to stay at the ranch in Willow Ridge. You can drop Noah and me off and then say you have an urgent business appointment or something, that you’ll return in time for the interview.”

Lucky just stared at her, wondering how she was going to handle what he had to say.

“You’re already having second thoughts?” Marin concluded.

“No. That interview has to happen. You have to keep custody of Noah.”

Now it was Marin’s turn to stay silent for several moments. “And you’d do this for me?” Marin asked. Her gaze met his again, and there was no cowering look in her eyes. Just some steel and attitude. “Why?”

She wasn’t requesting information. She was demanding it.

This would have been a good time to tell another half truth. Especially since—much to his disgust—he was getting good at them.

But another lie would stick in his throat.

“I’m looking for your brother, Dexter,” he confessed.

Her eyes immediately darkened, and he saw the pulse pound on her throat. “You followed me on the train?”

Lucky nodded. “I followed you.”

“Why?” she repeated, though this one had even more steel than the original one.

“Because I thought you might lead me to him.”

She tipped her eyes to the ceiling and groaned. “I was right about you. You’re one of those men. The ones who’ve followed me and tried to scare me.”