The Sharpshooter's Secret Son

Mindy slowly bent down, reaching a hand out to steady herself against the wall.

Deke grimaced. This was going to be harder than he could have imagined. She was so handicapped by her pregnancy that she couldn’t even bend down. He cupped her elbow.

“Okay, never mind.” He led her over to sit on the wooden crate and fetched the ropes.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

He took her hands and carefully looped the rope around them. Then, bending in front of her, he wrapped the second rope around her feet.

He straightened. “Good. In the dark, it’ll look like you’re really tied up.”

“I feel like I’m really tied up. Are you sure about this?” Her voice was edged with panic.

“Trust me, sugar.” His mouth flattened in a grimace, just like it did every time he said those words to her. She couldn’t trust him. He knew it, and she knew it. He’d let her down too many times.

“But how—”

He placed into her palm one end of the rope that was wrapped around her hands. “Hang on to that end of the rope. When you pull it the ropes will fall off. The ropes around your feet aren’t secured at all. Just kick them.”

“Deke, I don’t like this.”

He glanced at the lone window, high above their heads. Then, closing his eyes, he formed a mental blueprint of the main floor of the hotel in his brain. “If the desk is there, and the stairs are there—” he muttered, tracing the most likely route out of the building.

“Listen to me, Min. That window faces east. My car is out there. Whatever you do, keep yourself oriented. The front of the building faces south.” He pointed in that direction. “Which means these stairs are on the north side. That door probably opens into the kitchen.”

He laid his palms against her shoulders. “Relax,” he said, massaging the muscles there. “You can let your hands rest against the ropes. They won’t give unless you jerk the end you have in your fingers.”

“The dining room is through an arched doorway to the right—east—of the desk. I want you to wait down here until I call you. If you don’t hear anything within a half hour, undo the ropes and run up the stairs. If you see a clear shot to a back door, take it. Otherwise run through the dining room into the lobby and hightail it out the front door.”

“Hightailing is not so easy these days.”

Deke grabbed her arm. “Listen to me, Min. Your life and the life of—” He couldn’t say the words. “Whatever happens, you have to save yourself. Got it?”

She bit her lip and looked up at him. “Deke, I—”

“Got—it?” he bit out.

“G-got it.”

“When you get to my car, you’ll find a spare key and a cell phone under the driver’s seat.”

“Who’s supposed to be there to help—?”

“Drive like hell due east. Call Irina. Her number is first on the call list.”

Mindy stared at him, wide-eyed. On her face was a mixture of trust, fear, doubt and a shadow that didn’t come from the dim light in the room. It came from inside her. Slowly, she nodded.

He turned toward the stairs and stopped.

He was leaving Mindy undefended. Mindy and his unborn child. A strange mixture of pride and abject terror weakened his knees.

He’d saved a lot of innocent lives, and while he understood that underestimating his enemy could be fatal, he’d never once doubted his own ability.

Okay—once. Right now, he felt like a rookie who’d been handed two equally deadly choices.

For the first time in his life, he hesitated over which course to take. For the second time ever, the awful consequences of failure slammed him in the face.

There was a reason Deke Cunningham never thought about losing. Because to consider the results was unbearable.

If he went out there armed with a four-inch switchblade, he had a very good chance of succeeding—against one or two, maybe even three opponents. But if he failed—

If he failed, he left Mindy and his child vulnerable. That was unthinkable.

He turned around. “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he said, stepping over to her and bending down until his lips were next to her ear. “Keep the knife.”

She looked shocked. “But—”

“Shh.”

“But Deke,” she whispered. “That’s your—No. I mean, no, you can’t go out there with nothing.”

He held out his hands in front of her face. “I’ve got these. Now, where do you want me to put the knife? In the pocket of your coat?”

She shook her head. “Everything I put in those slanted pockets falls out. Put it in my bra.”

“Your—?”

“Shh.” She smiled wryly. “It’s not like you don’t know where it is. Do you want me to do it? And then you can retie the ropes around my hands?”

He shook his head, rubbing his face against her silky, tangerine-scented skin. “I’ll do it.” He opened her coat and unbuttoned the three buttons at the neckline of her sweater, then he pulled the knife out of his pocket.

“Okay,” he whispered, feeling like a kid about to cop his first feel. He felt that awkward, that shy, that excited.

Quickly he slid his hand down through the neckline of her sweater. When his fingers slid over the rising mounds of her breasts, he almost gasped. They were so full and round and firm.

Her body was preparing for her child. Awed and speechless, and working as fast as he could, he slid the knife between her breast and the cup of the bra.

“Does that feel okay?”

Her head inclined slightly. “It’s good,” she murmured, sounding a little breathless.

He extracted his hand and rebuttoned her sweater. Then he pulled the lapels of her coat together. When he lifted his gaze, she was looking up at him.

He wanted to kiss her so badly he ached. Not a lover’s kiss. Just a gesture of caring, a promise that he’d do anything to protect her and the child that she sheltered inside her.

But he’d made her so many promises, and he’d broken them all.

So instead, he made a vow to himself. A simple vow. Yet one more difficult to keep than any promise he’d made to her, kept or not.