Another Woman's Baby

“Please, just let me go back to my house.”

“I’ll take you back.”

Her head was spinning. Nothing he said made sense. She couldn’t trust him. He’d tried to kill her. Yet everything he said was true, everything except the part about Jackie and Ben. The explosion had been an accident.

“Just try to relax. I’m going to carry you back to the house and put you to bed. If you need a doctor, we’ll call one. But you can’t tell anyone that I’m from the FBI or why I’m with you.”

“You can’t carry me. I’m huge.”

“I’ll worry about that.” He scooped her up in his arms without groaning once. “Now, just relax. You’ll be home before you know it.”

Relax? Fat chance. She was having a nightmare. She’d wake up in a minute and the dark, strong stranger who knew everything about her would evaporate like the steam from her teakettle.

But, for now, she was so tired and still dizzy and a little nauseous. She rested her head against his shoulder. He smelled of seawater and musk. Her hair was dripping wet. So was his. Drops of water rolled down his neck and chest. The wind whipped though her wet clothes, but she was too numb to feel the cold. Or maybe a person didn’t feel the effects of weather in a nightmare.

He stopped at the front door of Pelican’s Roost. “I’m going to put you on your feet. Hold on to me if you feel weak or dizzy, and give me your key so that I can unlock the door.”

She dug deep in her pockets. The key was missing. “I must have lost it in the water.”

“Do you have another one hidden somewhere?”

“No.”

“I can break a window.”

“Don’t you dare. Get my cell phone from my car. I’ll call the housekeeper and have her come over and unlock the door.”

“And then we’ll have to come up with a story to explain our being soaking wet.”

“You can get out of sight while she’s here. I’ll tell her I was wading in the surf and fell. As awkward as I am with this body, she’ll believe it.”

“Let’s see if you get her before we work out the details. Breaking the window is no problem, and I can fix it tomorrow.”

Only she didn’t want him around tomorrow. She leaned against the door as he bounded down the steps and retrieved the phone. A minute later she had Fenelda on the phone.

She said hello but interrupted Fenelda’s usual string of small talk. “I lost my key while I was on the beach. I thought maybe you or Leroy would run one over to me.”

“No use to do that. There’s a key taped under the third step. Your grandmother put it there after she locked herself out a time or two. Check there, and if you don’t find one, I’ll get Leroy to bring you mine.”

She held her hand over the speaker end of the phone and repeated the instructions to Bart. She was shivering now, the cold finally seeping through the shock. Bart showed no signs of the recent ordeal. He bounded down the steps, bent and ran his hand beneath the third step. When he stood up, the key was in his hand, and he gave her the thumbs-up sign.

All her worry about who had a key and there had been one beneath the step all the time. If half the town had a key to this house, the other half probably knew where to find the spare. She’d have the locks changed first thing in the morning.

Bart turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. When he tried to help her inside, she pulled away from him. “I’m okay.”

“I think you should call your doctor, tell him you fell in the surf. See if he thinks you need to go to a hospital and get checked.”

“He’ll think I need to have my head checked for walking in the surf at eight months pregnant.”

“I agree with him, but I’ve seen you out there, wading almost knee deep.”

The man had been watching her every move, following her, just as she’d thought. She’d have to learn to trust her instincts more. At least it was nice to know she wasn’t losing it, falling into a state of stress-induced paranoia.

He held on to her as he walked her to a chair. “How do you feel? Are you having any kind of pains in your stomach?”

“I feel as if I was run over by a truck.” She touched her hand to her stomach. “But I’m not having any contractions or unusual stomach pains. And I felt a couple of good strong kicks when you were carrying me back to the house.”

“The water probably acted as a support for your body.”

“Lucky me.”

“You are lucky. You’re alive.”

Which is more than she could say for Jackie and Ben. The impact of Bart’s words finally sank in. She dropped to the wooden rocker in front of the fireplace, the horror and pain she’d felt at hearing of Jackie’s death overtaking her as if it had happened all over again. “Why do you think someone murdered my friends?”

“First you need to get out of those wet clothes.”

She looked at the stairs and moaned. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to climb them.

“Are your clothes upstairs?”

She nodded.

“Why don’t you stay in the chair and let me get you a robe?”

And then she’d be forced to entertain the dark stranger in just a robe. Only the wet clothes she had on now were no better. They clung to her, outlining the baby paunch and the tips of her nipples.

“It’s in the bathroom—the third door on the right,” she said, choosing the lesser of two evils. “It’s blue. You can’t miss it.”

He climbed the steps two at a time, probably afraid to be gone long, worried that she’d call the police. Part of her wanted to, but the man’s words were taking root in her mind and were starting to make sense. If it had been him who was trying to kill her on the beach a few minutes ago, he’d have had no reason to back off. And if he wasn’t with the FBI, how did he know that she was carrying Jackie’s baby?

Still, she had lots of questions. And she wanted answers.

“BART.”

He looked up from the fireplace and the logs he was lighting as Megan came back into the huge family room. She’d tied a towel around her hair, turban style, and exchanged her wet clothes for the fuzzy blue robe. It stretched over her stomach and fell into loose folds around her ankles.

“I thought I’d build a fire, if that’s all right,” he said.

“It’s perfect. You should change out of your wet clothes, too.”

“I’m six feet two inches. I doubt you’d have anything to fit me. Besides, these shorts will dry fast.” And he’d already shed his T-shirt to reveal a magnificent chest.

“At least you were dressed for the occasion.”

“I’m just glad I had my binoculars on you at the exact moment he attacked.”

“Where were you?” she asked.