My Baby, My Love

Her gaze fell on the deep blue African violet. She thought of the plant stand in her bedroom where a dozen more violets sat beneath the window. She’d planned to move them all to Laura’s place this week.

She ran her finger gently over a soft round leaf. Noah couldn’t possibly know how much she loved the delicate plants. Unless he’d already been inside the apartment. Or Jerome had told him. The brothers had been doing a lot of talking in recent months. Jerome was excited by that fact.

In fact, Noah had called during her final battle with Jerome. While the two were on the phone, she’d packed her bags and left the apartment. The decision hadn’t been easy. She wasn’t a quitter by nature, but she also wasn’t going to become a victim in a relationship that was becoming more and more turbulent.

She and Jerome had married because they seemed to like each other and wanted to raise a family. It had been that simple and that complicated. She’d accepted that they would never have a normal physical relationship. She’d thought having a child was all that mattered. She thought of her reaction to Noah and shook her head. It was hard to believe her sheer stupidity.

Sydney stared at the rings on her finger. How had it come to this? She hated knowing Jerome had died while bitter words lay between them. And her guilt was compounded by her bizarre attraction to Noah.

Her gaze slid to the bathroom door. Noah had left it slightly ajar, probably so he’d hear her if she called out. She was touched by his unexpected kindness, yet disturbed by the way her body responded to him. She wasn’t sure how to act around this stranger who was suddenly her self-proclaimed protector.

The scent she’d come to associate with Noah wafted out on wisps of steam. It amazed her to realize that, despite her mix of feelings, she felt safe with Noah.

When he finally stepped into the room, her gaze was instantly drawn to his broad chest, still damp from his shower. She drew in a breath as he pulled on a crisp white shirt, completely at ease with himself, and thankfully unaware of the jittery effect the sight of his bare chest had on her pulses.

Sydney jumped as someone rapped sharply on the door.

“It’s okay,” Noah said soothingly. “That will be the food. Stay there. I’ll get it.”

He returned with a wheeled cart and she sniffed appreciatively as he set out the meal. She would have preferred to do her own ordering, but she was too hungry to argue.

She did, however, eye the pot of tea in surprise.

“Not coffee?”

“My mother believed tea was a cure-all,” he explained. “When I was a kid, tea appeared every time I had a sniffle. I made out okay so I figured it couldn’t hurt in case your throat was still sore.”

She pulled the tea bag from the water. “I thought chicken soup was supposed to be the cure-all.”

When he turned that full smile on her, she forgot all the reasons she should be wary of Noah. The planes of his face softened into a devastatingly potent charm that was far more captivating than blatant good looks.

“I’ve heard that myth, too,” he agreed.

When Noah smiled like that a woman better be heavily grounded in reality, Sydney decided, or she’d find herself in a helpless puddle at his feet.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about the attacker,” she told Noah after a time, breaking their comfortable silence and shoving the remains of her lunch to one side. “I don’t think the attacker meant to choke me like that. I think he was trying to keep me from screaming and applied too much pressure. But I wish I knew what it was he wanted from me.”

Noah reached out and stroked her arm. He had rough, coarse hands with strangely long, graceful fingers. There was strength in those hands.

“You showed amazing presence of mind pressing that call button, Syd. That action probably saved your life.”

“You know, I hate being called Syd.”

He smiled, another slow smile she felt clear to her toes.

“I’ll try to remember that. What do you say we go over to your apartment and get you something to wear?”

“I’d rather not,” she said quickly.

“What’s wrong?”

How could she explain? “I’m not ready to go back to the apartment. Not just yet.”

“You’re going to have to face the place sooner or later, Syd.”

“I vote for later,” she told him firmly. She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t her apartment. That it had never been her apartment. All she’d brought to her marriage were her clothes and her plants—and her dreams. The only thing left was the plants.

Noah studied her with eyes that saw far more than she wanted to reveal. “I have clothes at my…at the apartment I used to share with Laura and Hannah. It’s closer.”

“All right.”

She closed her eyes against the questions she could almost hear. Without warning, memories sprang from ambush, catching her unaware. She tried to push them aside and couldn’t.

If the nurse hadn’t come in response to her call…if she hadn’t started screaming right away…

Sydney shuddered. She felt Noah touch her arm, but her mind had suddenly shifted, drawing her back inside the bank where bright red blood had stained the white tile floor.

So much blood.

The shots echoed over and over again. She could feel the weight of Jerome’s body pressing against hers as they fell, felt her head snap back….

“Sydney! Hey, easy. Take it easy.”

“Sorry.” She couldn’t see his face. Her eyes filled with pools of tears despite her best efforts to hold them at bay. “There was so much blood.”

Noah swore softly. “How did we get from clothes to blood? Never mind. It’s okay. It’s just reaction. Everything’s all over.”

She tried to tell him that she knew it was okay. That she didn’t want to cry. But her throat was clogged with unshed tears, pushing for release.

“I should have done something.”

Noah shook his head. “There was nothing you could have done.”

He didn’t understand. He didn’t know how it had been. Jerome telling her how to dress, how to act. Her words bouncing off his anger without impact. Attempts to communicate that failed repeatedly.

She shook her head from side to side. The kaleidoscope of images was becoming all twisted and confused. Noah’s hand rested kindly on her shoulder, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t bear to see his pity.

Jerome was dead, but she was pregnant and someone wanted to hurt her. What was she going to do?

She didn’t remember moving, but she found herself sitting on the bed, her face pressed against Noah’s hard chest while tears matted his clean white shirt. Fear and horror mingled with hopeless regret. They spilled into racking sobs she couldn’t contain.

She cried forever, unable to stop. Only when a teardrop brushed her forehead did she manage to rein in the tide of emotions. Noah was crying, too? The idea that this strong man could shed a tear for his brother finally stemmed her own grief.

How Jerome would have loved this scene.

Sydney brushed at her wet face, unable to look at Noah. He stroked her hair then stood and strode into the bathroom. She’d embarrassed him as well as herself.

Water ran in the basin. When he returned, he handed her a damp washcloth. Gratefully, she wiped her face, aware that her damp hair was plastered around it.

“Excuse me.” She fled into the bathroom without looking at him.

Noah didn’t move as she disappeared. He was as shaken by his own grief as he was by hers.

The hair dryer started and he wondered how she was going to dry her hair with only one hand. Then he decided he didn’t care as long as she didn’t ask him for help.

He’d thought he had complete control of his emotions—until Sydney came apart in his arms. Her helpless anguish had finally released the grief he had buried right along with his parents, and now his only brother. It was as if Sydney had given him a conduit to his own emotions.

Noah had deliberately fostered the distance between himself and his brother when he was younger. He’d been unable and unwilling to accept Jerome, because it meant accepting his father’s infidelity. Noah would live with that regret for the rest of his life.

He couldn’t go back, but he could move forward. And forward meant Sydney and the child she carried. She didn’t seem to realize that the baby was an unbreakable connection between them. A biological link that meant he would never be able to walk away from his brother’s wife.

Part of him was selfishly glad.

Noah expelled a sigh and repacked his bag. He checked the room for loose articles and called the front desk to check out. All he needed was his shaving gear and he’d be ready to go.

The telephone rang.

Noah eyed the instrument with suspicion. “Hello?”

“Major Inglewood? Agent Wickowski. I’m sorry to bother you, but we need to come up and talk with Sydney right away.”

“This isn’t a go—”

“They fished a man out of the Potomac River a little while ago.”

“So?”

“Long hair? Beard? Mustache? Ring a few bells, Major?”

Noah sucked in his breath.

“He was wearing hospital scrubs and carrying Sydney’s wallet. Someone shot him in the head at point-blank range.”

CHAPTER THREE

Noah gripped the receiver. “Sydney’s in the bathroom drying her hair. Why don’t we come downstairs? Give us about five—better make it ten minutes.”

“Let’s make it five, Major.”

Noah disconnected and found Sydney watching him warily from the doorway.

“I gather Agent Wickowski wants to ask more questions.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Her chin lifted. “How much more complicated?”

Noah explained.

Her mouth opened, then closed silently.

“Are you okay?”

“Wonderful.” She walked back into the bathroom and the hair dryer started up again. He shouldn’t have told her so bluntly. She’d had one shock after another for the past several days. But then, so had he, and she seemed to be handling things just fine.

She came out a few minutes later reinserting her arm into its sling. Her soft brown hair was still damp, but swinging neatly around her shoulders.

Noah stepped past her and added his shaving gear to his duffel bag.

“Better bring the plant,” he told her.

“We’re leaving?”

“Changing hotels. With the FBI and the police downstairs, I don’t think we’re going to be anonymous anymore.” He didn’t add that he’d planned to make the switch even before they arrived. He was operating on instinct here. And his instincts were on full alert. Someone was coming after Sydney.

SITTING INSIDE an empty conference room the hotel had lent them, Agent Wickowski showed them a picture of a man whom Sydney immediately identified as the orderly.

“Could he have been one of the men inside that bank, Mrs. Inglewood?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“He had this in his pocket.” Wickowski smoothed out a crumpled, torn copy of her wedding picture. Jerome’s half had been ripped away, leaving only the smiling bride.

Noah made a noise that sounded like a growl.

“Your fake orderly has a long police record, but unless he recently moved into the big time, bank robbery and murder are out of his league. He’s always stuck with petty larceny until now.”

“Then he was only in my room to steal?” Sydney asked.

“We’re operating on the assumption he was hired to identify your location,” Wickowski said. “Several of the local hospitals, including yours, have had a rash of small thefts in the past few days. We recovered most of the stolen items from his apartment, but this picture makes us think you were a specific target. Unless you were carrying this in your purse and he took it for some reason?”

Sydney shook her head, trying to control the fear welling inside her.

“That’s what we thought. Since the medical examiner puts his time of death around one this morning, he wasn’t your attacker. But he could have been killed right after he met with your attacker, who then went to the hospital.”

“Pleasant thought,” she said, trying to sound cool and in control. She felt pathetically grateful when Noah touched her arm in silent support.

“You said he was shot?” she asked.

Wickowski inclined his head apologetically. “At close range. Ballistics will tell us if it was one of the guns used in the bank robbery, but I’d say the odds are pretty good. We’d like to take you to a safe house, Mrs. Inglewood.”

Sydney had seen a television program about people who had been in police protection and she quickly shook her head. “No. I don’t want to be locked up somewhere surrounded by strangers.” They would keep her a virtual prisoner.

“We’ll assign a female operative—”

“Police protection didn’t do me any good at the hospital.”

“This time we’ll use FBI personnel.”

“No.” Sydney shook her head, thinking hard. “You said you think my attacker paid this man to find out where I was and then shot him. But my attacker didn’t have a gun.”

Wickowski frowned at her abrupt change in direction. “How do you know that?”

“Because he didn’t shoot me. If he wanted me dead, why didn’t he shoot me?”

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