Cinderella's Secret Agent

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? You’ve been eating there practically every day since we started this gig. What happened? Didn’t she like the tip you left her?”

“She had her baby tonight.”

Now Bill did lift his head, peering at Del over the telescope. “You’re kidding.”

“She went into labor right there at the coffee shop. She held my hand during the contractions. I doubt if she realized how hard she was gripping.”

“So you were there?”

“That’s right.”

“Geez, what a place to have that happen. The ambulance would have needed to use the sidewalk to get through the traffic.”

“The ambulance got there too late. I delivered the baby.”

“Holy—” Bill removed his pipe and pointed the stem toward Del. “You delivered a baby?”

“Yes. It was a girl.” He paused. “She has blond hair and blue eyes just like her mother.”

“Are they all right?”

“They’re both doing fine.”

“Good God, what do you know about delivering babies?”

“There wasn’t that much I needed to know. It was Maggie who did the work. All I really did was catch.” He thought about the look of sheer wonder that had lit up Maggie’s face when she’d gazed at her daughter for the first time. He cleared his throat, surprised at the sudden thickness he felt there. “Bill, it was incredible.”

“If you say so.”

“I was the first person to touch that child. She took her first breath while I held her in my hands.” He turned his palms upward. “I actually saw the exact moment when she filled her lungs with air.”

“And you said she’s all right? She’s healthy?”

“That’s what the paramedics said. She has all her fingers and toes. And she’s not too small, either. She felt like she weighs about the same as a nine-millimeter Colt submachine gun with a thirty-two round clip.” He smiled with satisfaction. “That would put her at over six pounds. Not bad for a few weeks early.”

Bill shook his head. “I just can’t believe this.”

“Did I mention her eyes were blue? She looked right at me, and her eyes hardly crossed at all.”

“Maggie?”

“The baby. That’s pretty smart for a newborn. She’s going to be a bright kid.”

“Listen to yourself,” Bill said, chuckling. “This really got to you, didn’t it?”

“It was an experience I’ll never forget. I felt…privileged to be there.”

“Privileged? I would have been scared spitless.”

That made Del laugh. Bill might look like a harmless middle-aged professor, but he was as stolidly fearless as a bulletproof vest. Del couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have covering his back in a tight situation. “Yeah, right.”

“You think I jest?” Bill asked. “I’d rather juggle six pounds of Semtex with a nitro fuse than take on an infant.”

“You’d like this infant,” Del said. “She’s a feisty little thing, just like her mother.”

“Spoken just like a proud papa.” Still chuckling, Bill put his pipe in his mouth and returned to the telescope.

The shaft of pain took Del off guard. Papa? No, not him. Holding Maggie’s child would be as close as he would ever get to that. His grin faded.

“And speaking of the papa, where is the bastard?” Bill asked.

“From what I heard around the coffee shop, Maggie hasn’t seen him since last Christmas.”

“She’s going after him for child support, isn’t she?”

“Not that I know of. She seems determined to manage on her own.”

“Poor kid. She’s going to have a rough time, raising that baby by herself.”

That was true. Maggie had been working double shifts in order to save up money for the baby. It was going to be a struggle for her to cope. Ideally, a child should have two parents, a mother and a father, a team.

Maggie was intelligent enough to be aware of the problems she faced. Her persistent good humor wasn’t from ignorance of what lay ahead, it was from determination to make the best of it. She was a remarkable woman.

Scowling, Del went over to pick up the metal case he’d left on the equipment shelf. There was no point dwelling on Maggie. He had already gotten more involved in her life than he should have. And he shouldn’t let himself get carried away by those feelings her baby had stirred. He’d left all that behind when he’d joined SPEAR.

He opened the case and gazed at the gleaming pieces of wood and metal that were nestled in the pockets of foam rubber. With an ease of motion that was as practiced as breathing, Del assembled the components into his custom-made sniper’s rifle. When it was done, he held the weapon in his hands, his fingers fitting themselves around the familiar shape.

Like all the other operatives in the top-secret government agency of SPEAR, he accepted whatever assignment he was given and went wherever he was posted. It made no difference whether it was deep infiltration or simple surveillance, he did his job. But his specialty, the real talent that had brought him to the attention of SPEAR in the first place, was his uncanny ability with a rifle. He was the agency’s best sharpshooter, the one they called in for the impossible shot.

This was who he was, Del thought. This was what he did. He was proud of his skill. With this rifle and the right setup, he could shoot the weapon out of a terrorist’s hand or disable any getaway vehicle. He knew all the vulnerable spots on everything from a Learjet to a so-called bulletproof limo, and for those special occasions when no other option was open to him, he knew, too, within a millimeter how closely a bullet had to graze a man’s skull in order to knock him out.

He had a perfect record—in his eight years with the agency, he hadn’t taken a single life.

Yet even as he felt the familiar weight of the rifle in his hands, he remembered how these same hands had cradled Maggie’s baby. Instead of smooth wood and cold metal, he felt the slippery, shaved-velvet softness of the newborn’s skin. And as he settled himself at his post to one side of the window, his mind kept returning to the back room of the diner and the sight of Maggie’s tears as he’d placed her daughter in her arms.

His presence at the birth had been nothing but a fluke. He shouldn’t want to see them again, or worry about how they were doing, or wonder how Maggie was going to manage on her own. He had no business thinking about either Maggie or her baby.

That’s what he told himself, anyway. Yet over the next few hours, he failed to get his thoughts of her out of his head.

After what he and Maggie had shared, how could he shrug the whole thing off and go on as if nothing had happened? That’s what the baby’s father had done, turning his back on Maggie at the time she needed him most. Granted, it wouldn’t be wise for Del to get further involved, but it was only natural for him to feel a certain amount of responsibility for Maggie and her baby’s welfare.

It wouldn’t do any harm to check on them. That would be the decent thing to do, wouldn’t it?

“‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace.’”

At Bill’s murmured comment, Del swallowed a sigh.