A Stranger's Baby

An ache started low in her belly as her gaze tracked down the curve of his back to the outline of his buttocks and those substantial thighs, firm as barrels and lightly dusted with dark hair—

She jerked her eyes up, heat filling her cheeks, even though his back was turned and there was no way he could see her. There wasn’t nearly enough of the window exposed for him to see her reflected in it. That didn’t prevent her embarrassment. What was she doing?

Hormones, she thought. She was pregnant and horny. There was certainly no denying it as she couldn’t quite prevent her gaze from slipping lower again, a rush of adrenaline surging through her.

“The car’s back.”

Her thoughts were so distracted that it took a moment for the words to sink in. “Hmm?”

“I can’t tell if it’s the same one, but I’d bet anything it is. It’s sitting in damn near the same spot it was last night.”

What he was saying finally managed to break through the heady rush of hormones, killing the delicious thrill.

The car. Last night.

All her tension, all the fear that she’d only managed to shake came rushing back. She frowned, her stomach clenching.

The reason he was only pulling back the curtain a little bit finally hit her. He didn’t want whoever was out there to know he was watching.

The same way that person was watching them.

Or was he? Did he know she was at Jake’s, or was he still watching her house?

Moving as quickly as she could, Sara crossed the room to his side. “Can you see the license plate?”

“No. It’s too bright. The sun’s hitting it just right and making it too hard to see.”

He looked down, then started, as if surprised to see her there. A flicker of…something slid along her nerve endings. She hadn’t realized just how close she’d come to him, focused solely on what he was looking at. She was standing right next to him, as close as they could possibly be without touching. Much closer than common courtesy dictated. She should step back.

Instead, she could only stare up into his eyes, feeling his closeness, unable to move.

Gray, she thought distantly. His eyes were gray. The color of storm clouds on a rainy day.

Abruptly the connection was broken. It was he who stepped back, away from her, letting the curtain fall. A flash of some unreadable emotion passed over those eyes she now knew were gray. He frowned, dropping his gaze. “Take a look.”

Strangely, inexplicably shaken, she slid over partly into the space he’d vacated and pushed the curtain ever so slightly to the side.

The bright morning sunlight blinded her for a moment. It took a few seconds for her vision to clear. Gradually the vehicle came into focus. It was as he’d said. There was a black sedan parked on the other side of the street, slightly down from her house, no doubt offering a good view of it without being right out front. The light bounced off the body and windows, making it impossible to see who was inside.

“I don’t suppose it would do any good to try and confront him,” she said.

“I’d bet anything he’d drive away as soon as he saw me coming.”

She shot him a glance. “You? I think I’d like to have a word with him to find out why the hell he’s watching my house.”

Jake stared down at her. So gradually she didn’t realize it was happening at first, a hint of wry humor entered his gaze, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his mouth twitching. “You really think you could move fast enough to catch him?”

“Maybe not,” she conceded. “But I wouldn’t mind trying.”

He continued looking at her, that unfamiliar glint in his eyes, that barely discernible smile on his lips.

A strange flutter in her belly, she turned back to the window. Almost as soon as she did, she heard the sound of an engine starting. Moments later the car pulled away from the curb.

“He’s leaving.”

Beside her, she felt Jake moving away. She tried to read the license plate, only to be distracted when the driver’s door came into view. He must have had the window down, because it was sliding upward as he moved past, the raised glass reflecting the sunlight, cutting him off from view. She’d seen only enough to confirm her suspicion that it was probably a man.

In the back of her mind she registered the sound of the front door opening. When the car was gone, she turned to see Jake stepping back inside the house. He quickly moved to the table, grabbed a pen and jotted something down.

“I got the make and license plate number. Did you see him?” Jake asked.

Sara shook her head, letting the curtain drop. “No. He rolled up his window.”

“I guess it’s time to try the police again. Let me get dressed and we can go.”

He moved away without waiting for her response, heading down the hall. Her eyes helplessly, hungrily tracked every motion, every shift of his shoulders, every flex of his buttocks and thighs, until he disappeared into the bedroom.

Once he was out of view she gave herself a shake. Hormones, she thought again on a sigh. She hadn’t been this aware of a man since…Well, since the night that landed her in her current condition.

And if she needed a reminder of exactly why she needed to get a grip, that certainly did it.

“AND THEN IT DROVE AWAY,” Sara said, even as she wondered why she was bothering. Detective Baxter wasn’t taking her seriously.

Worse, he was barely paying attention to her. Other than a cursory glance in her direction while she was speaking to signal he was supposedly listening, his gaze kept drifting back to Jake, seated beside her in front of the detective’s desk.

Having reached the end of her patience, she was about to say something about it when Baxter shot upright in his chair. He snapped his fingers and grinned broadly at Jake.

“Football. Linebacker, right?”

He might as well have started speaking gibberish. Bewildered, Sara glanced at Jake to see if he knew what the man was talking about.

From the tightness that gripped his features, he did. His lips thinned. “Right.”

“I knew you looked familiar. You got hurt last year.”

“Yeah.”

“I saw that game. Man, that injury looked brutal.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “It was.”

“You know, the local high school team’s going to start practice up again pretty soon. I’m sure they’d love it if you could talk to them.”

“Sorry. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be around, with the season starting up and all.”

The detective’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “You looking to get back in the game?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“I heard your career was over.”

“We’ll see.”

Based on his curt, mostly monosyllabic answers, Sara thought it was obvious Jake didn’t want to talk about it. The detective still leaned forward expectantly, as though he expected Jake to elaborate.

Jake stared back. He didn’t say a word.

When the silence went on too long, Sara cleared her throat.

Baxter glanced at her, annoyance flickering across his face before his expression regained its condescending coolness.

“Ms. Carson, I’ll take down your report, but I’m not sure what else I can do. There’s still no sign anybody was in your house. All you’ve given me is some footprints that could have been left there anytime and a car that could have been there for any reason.”

Sara tried to swallow her rising anger in the face of the man’s condescension. Evidently that particular trait was a common one in the local police department. “A car that took off as soon as its driver realized it was spotted.”

“No offense, but a lot of people might be intimidated seeing this guy coming at them in the dark, even if they’re not doing anything wrong.” He grinned at Jake.

Jake stared back, unimpressed.

Baxter’s grin quickly died. He straightened in his seat. “We also had a car drive by a couple of times as promised and they didn’t see anything suspicious.”

“Because whoever was out there had already been scared off. Maybe for a second time, if it was the same people who broke in to my house in the first place.”

The detective sighed. “Look, I’ll run the plate and see if anything suspicious comes up. If something else happens, let us know. Other than that, there’s not much I can do.”

Recognizing the finality in both his words and his tone, and figuring she’d wasted enough of her time with this man, Sara forced herself to offer a cordial “Thank you for your time.” She would have loved to say something more cutting, but there was still the chance she might need this man’s help, if she ever managed to convince him there was something he could help her with.

More than ready to get out of there, she started the arduous process of getting to her feet. She’d barely moved before Jake was standing before her, offering his hand. With a grateful smile, she accepted the hand and let him help her up, doing her best to ignore the jolt that shot up her arm when his large, warm fingers closed around hers and threatened to swallow them whole.

When they finally stepped outside the police station, she heaved a sigh, pleased to be out of there, if not about anything else. “Well, that was a waste of time. I’m sorry you came all the way down here for nothing.”

“We had to try, at any rate.”

“Too bad all we accomplished was giving Baxter a thrill for the day.” She glanced up at him, her eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know you were a celebrity.”

His expression hardened. “I’m not.”

Moving slowly, they started toward his truck, which was parked at the curb just down the block. “People know who you are. I’m pretty sure that makes you a celebrity.”

“Depends who the people are. You didn’t know who I was.”

She grimaced apologetically. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow sports.”

“A lot of people don’t. Even a lot of people who do wouldn’t be able to pick me out of a lineup. Not much of a celebrity. I’m fine with that.”

And he was, she thought, remembering how uncomfortable he’d been when the detective recognized him. That would teach her to stereotype. She would have assumed a professional athlete would be flashier, more of a glory hound. Or maybe he’d simply grown beyond that since it appeared his glory days were behind him.

“Is it true what he said?” she asked carefully. “You were injured?”

“Yeah.”

“How bad was it?”

“Blew out my knee. Had surgery to put it together again, but I’m still trying to get back to where I was.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is,” he said, clear dismissal in his tone. They’d reached the truck. Jake pulled the passenger door open for her.

After helping her get in, he closed the door and moved around to his side. “What do you want to do now?” he asked.

“Do you remember that license plate number?”

“Sure.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll run it myself. Give it to me.”

Jake was so surprised that he could only obey, watching as she quickly typed a text message and hit Send.

She shoved the phone back into her purse. “She’ll get back to me ASAP.”

“You have somebody who can run license plates for you?”

She grinned. “Yep. Who needs the cops, anyway?”

For a moment he was struck dumb and could only stare into that big, beautiful smile, so different from anything he’d ever seen or expected to see on her face. He’d thought she was pretty before. The smile only confirmed it. Her whole face seemed to light up with it.

And then the smile was fading, her eyes flickering uncertainly, her self-consciousness clear. “What?”

He cleared his throat, which had suddenly gone dry, and pushed his key into the ignition. “Nothing. Why didn’t you contact her earlier?”

“It didn’t seem worth the trouble if we were coming to see the police, anyway. I guess I was hoping they would do their jobs and I wouldn’t have to bother.”

Starting the engine, he smoothly pulled away from the curb. “So who is this person? Somebody with the state?”

“No, someone who does research for me with resources she says I’m probably better off not knowing about. I have a feeling she’s right about that. All that matters is she can find out just about anything I need.”

“Research?” he echoed. “Maybe I should be asking what you do.”

She hesitated and lowered her eyes, her sudden tension clear. “I’m a writer.”

“What do you write?”

Another hesitation. “Books.”

“Anything I’d have heard of?”

“It’s kind of private.”

“More private than what you told me last night?”

She sighed and said nothing. For a moment he wasn’t sure she was going to respond. “You heard of Brock Marshall?”

It took him a few seconds to make the connection. Brock Marshall was the main character in a series of action thrillers, a globe-trotting mercenary whose sex-filled, überviolent escapades had slowly developed a loyal audience. The fourth one had come out a couple months ago and quickly become the biggest one yet, making a bunch of bestseller lists. There was even talk of a movie being developed, except none of the current stock of Hollywood pretty boys could live up to the embodiment of raw masculinity that Marshall represented. Jake had read a couple of the books himself and knew plenty of guys who loved them, even among men who didn’t do much reading beyond the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. The books were written by—

His train of thought came to a screeching halt. He whipped his head toward her in disbelief. “You’re S.J. Carson?”

Her eyes were downcast and there was a tightness in her expression, as if she was bracing herself for his reaction. “I see you have heard of him.”

He quickly returned his attention to the road. “Sure.” S.J. Carson was the credited author of the Brock Marshall books. The book jacket didn’t say much about the author, just that he was a world traveler working on his next book or something.

Except now that Jake thought about it, the short one-line bio didn’t exactly say Carson was a he. That just seemed to be the natural assumption. Given the sense of authenticity surrounding the militaristic and espionage elements, the author seemed likely to be someone with military experience, obviously well-traveled, perhaps presenting a highly exaggerated, idealized version of himself.

Certainly not a young woman with a shy smile and retreating gaze.

A burst of surprised laughter rose in his throat.

Until he glanced over and saw the expression on her face.

She grimaced at him, her gaze almost apologetic. “Not what you were expecting, am I?”

“No,” he said honestly. “I can’t say that you are.”

“I figured. Somehow I doubt when people imagine S.J. Carson, I’m what they would picture.”

“That’s what you were going for, right? By using your initials instead of your real name?”

“My publisher thought it would sell better if we were a little circumspect about my identity. It didn’t seem likely anyone would want to read an action novel about a soldier of fortune if they knew it was written by a chubby twenty-three-year-old girl who’d never been out of the country.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I expected it. I mean, J.K. Rowling was asked to use her initials so boys wouldn’t be turned off reading the Harry Potter books.”

“But eventually it came out that she was a woman, and it wasn’t a problem.”

“So it turned out little boys are more accepting than big ones. Research shows a lot of men won’t read books written by women, especially with male protagonists, as though they’ll be too girly and full of people talking about their feelings.”

“That sure doesn’t sound like any of your books.”

A faint hint of her earlier grin returned. “I’ve found sudden explosions and unexpected shootings are good ways to break up an overly emotional moment.”

“So prove them wrong. Everybody knows your books now.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s worth the risk. If a bunch of readers decide they don’t want to read the books because I’m the one writing them, what then? You can’t unring a bell. Besides, I’m about as interested in being a celebrity as you are. I’d rather my readers like my stories without worrying about whether they like me.” A sad, almost defeated note climbed into her voice as she said the final words, as though she’d already decided that they wouldn’t.

He glanced at her and frowned.

“Twenty-three, huh?”

“I wrote the first book in college. While all the other English majors were working on their depressing tomes about how terrible life is, I wanted to write something where the good guys win and everything ends well.”

“You’re an optimist,” he said, unable to keep it from sounding like an insult.

A dry laugh burst from her throat. “Hardly. I think the reason we need happy endings in fiction is because they’re so hard to find in real life.”

“Why Brock Marshall? Why not write about a woman?”

“Why? Because women are only supposed to write about women?”

From the sudden sharpness in her tone, he’d hit a nerve. “No. Just wondering.”

As if realizing her overreaction, she sent him an apologetic glance. “Because the books are as much an escape for me as they are for the reader. That wouldn’t be the case if I was writing about someone like me. I wanted to write about someone as far from me as possible.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. You didn’t have any trouble with that gun last night. Seems like something Brock Marshall would do.”

“Chalk it up to research,” she said with a soft smile, the sight of it sending another twinge through his chest. “I needed to know how to shoot a gun to write about it, so I took a few lessons at the firing range. Then it seemed like a good thing to have on hand for protection.”

“Guess you proved that one true.”

“Trust me, I would have rather not had the opportunity.”

Her cell phone must have given some indication she had a new message, because she suddenly reached into her bag and pulled it out. “That was fast.” She hit a few buttons and read the screen. “The car is registered to a Roger Halloran of Boston.”

“Someone you know?”

“I’ve never heard of him,” she murmured, typing a return message. “I’ll ask Raven to see what she can dig up for me, and I’ll do a search online when I get home.”

She was just putting the phone away again when he pulled onto their street. As their houses—or maybe just hers—came into view, he felt her tense beside him. He understood the instinct. She might have a lead on whoever had attacked her, but hadn’t accomplished much in terms of preventing it from happening again. The prospect of going home couldn’t hold much appeal for her.

“You should change your locks,” he told her. “Do you know a locksmith around here?”

“No, but I’m sure I can look one up.”

“I can change them for you. Let’s go back into town and stop by the hardware store.” Frankly, he should have thought of it before.

“You don’t have to do that. Besides, I’m not entirely sure I want to stay at the house right now.” She shook her head, rubbing a hand over her belly anxiously. “I keep thinking that maybe I should get a room somewhere, but for how long? I can’t hide forever, and without knowing why someone broke in or why they’re watching me, I have no idea how long I’d have to stay away before they give up. If they do.”

He had to agree with her assessment. Somebody who’d gone to all this trouble wasn’t going to give up until they had what they wanted. A hotel room in the city might be safer, but they could track her down there.

He stopped the truck in front of his house, but didn’t pull into the driveway. “And there’s nobody you can stay with? A friend?”

“No.”

“Family?”

Her lips thinned. “I don’t have any.”

“What about somebody who helps you with the baby? Aren’t you supposed to have a person to help you breathe or something when the time comes?”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Ideally, but I don’t. I bought an instructional video and watched a few others online to learn what I’m supposed to do. I figure it won’t be too hard to do by myself. I’ve been breathing on my own for twenty-nine years now.” She tried for a weak smile that fell short.

“How long have you lived around here anyway?”

The redness in her face deepened. “Five years,” she practically whispered.

“And you don’t know anybody?”

“I tend to keep to myself,” she mumbled.

It wasn’t as if he could argue with that. He knew that much from personal experience.

“Look,” she said quickly, as though figuring the statement demanded an explanation. “The thing is, I’ve never been very good at meeting people and making friends. I get nervous and I don’t know what to say, and it’s embarrassing for everyone involved. I’m just not good at talking to people and making conversation.”

“You can’t be that bad. Brock Marshall always has a clever line.”

“I’m not Brock Marshall,” she pointed out, a trace of embarrassment or maybe apology in her tone. “Besides, there’s a difference between making conversation and making up conversation. Dialogue’s a lot easier when you get to do both sides of the discussion.”

“You’re doing okay now.”

She frowned and appeared to consider the comment. “I guess so,” she said, sounding surprised to realize he was right.

He frowned, too, as it occurred to him that he could say the same for himself. She wasn’t the only one who considered herself not much of a talker. He’d said more to this woman in less than twenty-four hours than he had in months to anyone who wasn’t a medical professional. Then again, they’d had a lot to talk about. Coming up with conversation the past few hours hadn’t exactly been tough.

He stared at her house through the windshield. Leaving her there by herself seemed even more wrong that it had last night. At the same time, the idea of her alone, far from home, made his stomach clench.

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