Her Baby's Bodyguard

Wincing, Eva reached for Katya’s hand just as the door swung open behind her.

“What did you do? The kid’s finally quiet.”

Eva recognized the voice. “All babies cry, Sergeant Norton.” She guided Katya’s hand away from the bandage. “That’s one way they communicate.”

He closed the door, stamped his feet and walked past her to the fireplace. “Reminds me of a drill sergeant I once knew,” he said. His arms were filled with the bundles that he’d taken from her on the truck. He dropped them on the floor near the hearth. “He had a good set of lungs, too.”

Eva tried to tug the edge of her coat forward, but it was wedged tight beneath Katya’s back. She pulled her sweater down to cover as much of her breast as she could.

“I’m glad the kid’s sleeping,” he went on, yanking off his gloves as he turned toward her. “That’ll give me a chance to…” His words trailed off. “Whoa,” he muttered.

“She isn’t sleeping,” Eva said, although she was stating the obvious. Sergeant Norton was standing directly in front of her, so he could clearly see what Katya was doing.

He cleared his throat, then focused on her side as he stuffed his gloves into his coat pockets. “I wanted to check your bandage,” he said, drawing off his hat. “But I can see from here there’s no fresh blood.”

She told herself not to be embarrassed. He was only doing his job. He’d seen more skin when he’d tended to her injury on the truck, and between her sweater and Katya’s head, her breast was mostly concealed. This was a perfectly natural function, and she wasn’t about to cut short her child’s feeding because of some misplaced modesty. “I will let you know when we’re done, Sergeant Norton.”

He lifted his gaze to hers. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Yes, I realize that. It was unavoidable.”

“How’s your wound feeling? Any pain?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if there was?”

“I don’t want to be a burden.”

“It’s not you that’s holding us up. It’s the storm.”

“It’s early in the season for this much snow, even at this elevation,” she said. “It should stop soon.”

“That would be good.”

“Then we will be able to reach the helicopter.”

“That’s the plan.”

She nodded, determined to maintain eye contact with him, although it wasn’t easy. The fire and the oil lamp were providing more illumination than the moonlight in the churchyard had, and she hadn’t been able to see much more than his silhouette in the truck, so this was the first time she was getting a good look at his face.

She hadn’t realized how handsome he was. His hair was the color of sable, touched with gold from the firelight. Though it was cut short, it was too unruly to lay flat. It curled in soft waves that made her fingers tingle with the urge to test their texture. His eyes were the indefinable, changeable color between green and brown and were framed by lashes as dark as his hair. The combination of his harsh features and his laugh lines gave him the air of a rebellious boy trapped behind the mask of a man.

Why had she thought that? There was nothing boyish about him. His shoulders were broad and square. His hips were narrow and his legs long. He stood with the same athletic grace she’d noticed when she’d first seen him, like a predator watching his prey.

It wasn’t fear that tickled through her this time. It was the instinctive, sexual awareness of a woman who was in the proximity of a very virile man.

God, no! She couldn’t possibly think about Sergeant Norton in that way. This awareness was merely a product of the circumstances, a side effect of being in danger and the adrenaline that it produced. Added to that was the intimacy of breast-feeding her child. She’d never done this in front of anyone before, let alone a man. A man whose touch she’d already felt on her body.

No. It meant nothing. She had to ignore it.

The fire crackled. The wind howled. Aside from that, the only sound in the hut was Katya’s steady suckling. Which only heightened Eva’s consciousness of their situation. She searched for something to say that would break the silence, even if it was another inane comment about the weather. “What is this place?” she asked.

“Place?”

“We couldn’t have gone far enough to reach another village.”

“From the looks of it, this was a farm. There’s another building out back that was probably used to keep animals. That’s junior’s take on it, anyway. He says it looks like they had sheep.” He wiped his forehead as if he was too hot, then shrugged off his coat. “He and Lang are storing the truck in there. They’ll be coming in soon. Duncan and Gonzo drew first watch, so they’ll let us know if we get company.”

Eva watched him as he hung his coat over the back of one of the chairs that were ranged along the table. He appeared as uncomfortable with their situation as she was. At least the other men were still outside. She guessed by the way they had scattered upon their arrival here that the task of keeping track of her had fallen to Sergeant Norton. “Do you and the others usually work as a team?” she asked.

He dragged another chair closer to the fire, turned it around and straddled the seat. He focused on the door. “That’s right. We’re from Eagle Squadron.”

“Eagle Squadron,” she repeated. “That explains the code words I was given for our rendezvous.”

“Yeah, we like to keep things simple.”

“Am I correct to assume you must be part of the Special Operations unit they call Delta Force?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Your government would want the mission kept secret. We have the same kind of elite soldiers in Russia.”

“Russian commandos aren’t in the same league as us, Dr. Petrova. Eagle Squadron’s the best there is.”

He delivered the boast as if it were fact. She felt her lips quirk before she realized that for all their sakes, she’d better hope the boast was accurate. “You appear to have worked together for some time.”

“Lang and Gonzales have been with the team more than ten years, like me. Sergeant Colbert came on board around five years ago, after our intel specialist decided to have kids.”

“Aren’t you allowed to have families?”

“Sure, she just didn’t want to go out in the field anymore.”

“She? I didn’t know women are permitted to join the Special Forces.”

“Captain Fox wasn’t officially on the team. We kind of borrowed her from Intelligence.”

“I see,” she said, although she didn’t. “What about the big blond man you call junior?”

“That’s Sergeant Matheson, our ordnance guy. The man he’s replacing decided to go freelance and start up his own security contracting company. Junior’s been with us for less than a year, but he’s already proving himself to be one of the best soldiers I’ve worked with.” He darted a glance at her. “But don’t tell him I said that. Rookies need to be kept humble.”

The trace of humor in his voice tempted her to relax, but she reminded herself not to let down her guard. “I hope this mission won’t require him to prove his expertise.”

“Don’t worry, Dr. Petrova. You and your daughter are under our protection now. We won’t let anything happen to either of you.”

He sounded sincere, yet she still suspected his real orders were to protect the disk that she’d brought. She looked at the bundles he’d dropped near the hearth and wondered if he or one of his colleagues had searched them before he’d brought them inside. They seemed intact, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t felt them from the outside.

He followed her gaze. “You said you were careful not to raise anyone’s suspicions before you left.”