Missing Mother-To-Be

“You’re stunning,” he’d whispered into her neck. And then he’d looked at her with those sexy hazel eyes, as if he’d truly never known beauty until that night.

The entire encounter was still so surreal. The tangy flavor of the red wine they’d sipped. His warm breath, heating her skin. His lips, kissing their way along her collarbone, her jaw, finally pressing against her mouth.

Her skin broke out in shivers. God, those kisses. Soft and romantic, teasing, fleeting and then hot and passionate, as the heat between them exploded in a raging fire that had left her utterly sated.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he’d murmured between kisses, uncertainty flickering on his handsome face. “We’re strangers.”

Yes, they were. Two strangers who’d met in a museum, shared a few glasses of wine in a hotel room and wound up needy and naked in bed.

It had been the best night of her life.

Lana’s gaze dropped to her flat abdomen. Maybe the worst, too, yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret the result of their passion. A baby. God, a baby.

Those two words continued to echo through her mind, and she clung to them. The tiny life growing inside her was the only thing keeping her grounded at the moment. The only reason she hadn’t gone into a total panic and started roaming the streets of Paris in search of Deacon. She needed to be strong for this child. She needed to love it and protect it.

Protect it, she repeated in her mind, as her eyelids became heavy. She wasn’t sure why the slightly ominous notion rolled inside her head, but she clung to that, too, as sleep slowly crept in.

She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but when her eyes snapped open a while later, it was pitch black inside the cabin, and all she saw out the window was darkness. The train was still moving, the wheels making a metallic click-clack sound as they sped along the rails.

Lana glanced at her watch and saw it was almost five in the morning, a half-hour before her scheduled wake-up call. Rubbing her tired eyes, she stood up and went to the small sink in the corner of the cabin, where she brushed her teeth and washed her face. Then she sat down again, wide awake as she waited for the train to reach Milan.

The wake-up knock sounded from the door thirty minutes later, and when the train’s wheels finally screeched to a halt, Lana was more than ready to get off and board the connecting train to Florence. She should’ve just hopped a flight, it would’ve gotten her home a lot sooner, but she’d always thought traveling through Europe by train was charming.

Now she just found it time-consuming.

She was at the door of the cabin when the train came to a creaky stop, so when the second knock came, she already had her hand on the door handle.

“I’m all ready,” she said as she opened the door. “My suitcase is—”

Her words halted in her throat as she laid eyes on two very large, very menacing-looking men. The taller of the two had a shaved head and a lethal jagged scar along his left cheekbone. The second man was shorter, but not lacking in muscle. He had the shoulders of a linebacker, dark skin the color of rich chocolate and a pair of chilly brown eyes.

There was a third man behind them, but he had his back turned, as if he were scouting the narrow corridor of the train.

A lookout.

The thought flew into her head swiftly, making her hands grow cold. “Can I help you?” she asked cautiously.

Scar Cheek seemed to be smirking, though his lips were snapped together in a rigid line. It was Cold Eyes who responded to her question. “You’re going to need to come with us.”

He spoke in English, and the harsh look on his face brooked no argument.

Lana argued. “I’m sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else. I’m not—”

Her sentence died with a squeak. Cold Eyes had just shifted the bottom of his long black trench coat, revealing the sleek gun in his right hand.

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he said, his voice eerily soft. “You are going to follow us off this train like a good little girl. If you scream, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. If you try to run, I’ll put one in your leg. Understood?”

She nodded dazedly, terror circling her spine like icy fingers. What the hell was going on? Her first thought was that this might be a terrorist attack, that the train had been hijacked, but the corridor remained as silent as a church. No frightened screams, no terrified whimpers.

These men…

They were here for her.

“Now pick up your suitcase,” Cold Eyes ordered, his hand still resting on the butt of his weapon.

As her heart thudded like a bass drum, Lana numbly bent down to grab the handle of her suitcase. Her fingers shook so wildly she could barely get a grip on the bag. Finally, she did, heaving it off the ground.

“Good girl,” Cold Eyes said with mock encouragement. “Now follow us. And remember what I told you.”

Her feet felt cold and heavy, but she forced them to move. The two men immediately flanked her, keeping her sandwiched between them like bodyguards. The third man she’d noticed walked in front of them. He wore a long black coat like his fellow henchmen, and all she saw of him was a head of dark, close-cropped hair and broad shoulders. But something about his gait, those confident but wary strides… it was very familiar.

Alarm skittered through her as they walked. Cabin doors were beginning to open, bleary-eyed passengers stepping out into the corridor ready to disembark. Lana felt a sudden spike of adrenaline. There were people around. Cold Eyes might be hiding his gun underneath his big coat, but no way would he pull that thing out in front of all of these people.

Would he?

Her palms went damp, sweat coating the handle of her suitcase. Should she call their bluff? Scream like a banshee? They wouldn’t shoot her with so many eyewitnesses. They wouldn’t—

“Don’t even think about it,” Cold Eyes murmured, glancing at her with a pleasant smile.

“You won’t do it,” she murmured back, her voice shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “You won’t shoot me with all these people around.”

“Maybe not,” he replied casually. “But one phone call and your mother dies.”

Panic slammed into her. Mom? No, he was bluffing. Her mother was staying with an old girlfriend at Martha’s Vineyard, according to her brother Dylan. No way could these men know that.

“A friend of mine is staring through the scope of a rifle as we speak, and your mother’s pretty little face is in his sights. The Vineyard is lovely this time of year, don’t you think?”

Her pulse shrieked between her eyes. Oh, God. They did know where her mom was. She forced herself to stay calm. Okay, this didn’t mean anything. Just because they knew her mom’s location didn’t mean some sniper was actually situated there. Cold Eyes could still be bluffing, but… if he wasn’t… Lord, if he wasn’t, she wasn’t about to endanger her mother’s life by causing a scene.

Better to get off the train with these men. Maybe she could lose them in the terminal. Maybe—

The barrel of a gun jammed into her side. “Keep walking.” Scar Cheek, this time, and he had a deep rumble of a voice. He had a gun, too, and was now using it to make sure she kept to the rapid pace they’d set for her.

They neared the door. Lana’s gaze darted around like that of a scared rabbit, trying to find a way out of this, a person whose eye she could catch. But the other passengers were filing off the train, chatting obliviously to one another, as the purser helped them onto the platform.

The man ahead of them got off first. Again, she experienced a weird sense of familiarity. She knew him. The hard set of the shoulders, the almost militarily precise walk. It reminded her of her brother Jim, who was a trained Special Forces operative. He moved with that same predatory grace.

Lana was suddenly heaved down the steps, her suitcase thudding onto the floor of the train platform. Cold Eyes stood directly beside her, his brown eyes dark with irritation and impatience. “Faster,” he ordered. “And put a smile on your damn face.”

A smile? She was seconds away from bursting into tears. Hot moisture painfully pricked her eyelids and her throat was so tight she could barely draw in a breath. But then she remembered the gun tucked in his coat, and forced her lips to cooperate. She tugged up the corners of her mouth, trying to look happy, to pretend that she wasn’t being taken hostage by three fierce-looking thugs.

The smile didn’t hold, though. It lasted all of three seconds, until the third man whose face she still hadn’t seen finally turned around.

A shocked gasp flew out of her throat.

Oh, God.

It was Deacon! Deacon, standing right there on the platform, the hem of his trench coat blowing around from the brisk wind in the station.

Their eyes locked. For one brief second, hope shot up her chest, warming her heart. He was here. He was going to save her. He was—

“Keep walking,” Deacon snapped, and all the hope in her body fizzled like a wet candle.

She felt pressure against her hip. Realized Scar Cheek was pressing his gun into her back. Fear spiraled through her. Fear and amazement and pure and utter shock.

Deacon. Was here. He was here, with two other men. With guns.

Oh, God, she was being kidnapped by the father of her baby.

Chapter 2

Deacon Holt was not a religious man. Never had been, probably never would be. Yet at that moment, as he stared into Lana Kelley’s bottomless blue eyes, he found himself praying.

Praying that she’d keep her mouth shut.

If she said his name, or let on that they’d slept together, they’d both be screwed. Le Clair wouldn’t think twice about yanking Deacon’s ass off this assignment, and if that happened, Lana Kelley would be utterly alone. Defenseless.

Dead.

Deacon forced the troubling thought from his head and kept walking. A quick backward glance and he confirmed that the flood of familiarity was still swimming on Lana’s gorgeous face. She knew exactly who he was.

Well, no kidding. They’d gone to bed with each other, of course she wouldn’t forget that.

Frustration gathered in his gut, making his intestines burn. Damn it. Why, why had he slept with her? He’d always prided himself on possessing incredible control, yet one look at Lana Kelley’s flawless features and slender fragile body, and he’d been a goner. He was supposed to be tailing her, monitoring her movements until Le Clair got word from his bosses that the mission was a go. Instead, he’d fallen into bed with the woman, unable to steel himself against her soft, melodic voice and big blue eyes.

At least Le Clair didn’t suspect anything. After Lana left his hotel room that night, Deacon had reported in, informing his boss that inadvertent contact had been made. Le Clair promptly pulled him off tailing rotation, and Deacon had spent the past two weeks alternating between the urge to kick himself and the need to see Lana Kelley again.

Somehow, the woman had gotten under his skin. Bigtime.

And yet you’re kidnapping her, said the mocking voice in his head.

Deacon didn’t allow himself to dwell on the sliver of guilt that pricked his skin. This was business. He might have messed up and screwed the target, but he wasn’t about to screw himself. His work as a mercenary was all he had. He’d been forced to fend for himself since he was fifteen years old, making money by whatever means necessary. And he hadn’t gotten to this point by distracting himself with foolish human emotions like guilt. Emotions, frankly, were a waste of time, and he forced himself to remember that as he led the group toward the exit of the station.

Behind him, Charlie and Tango were practically dragging Lana, urging her in hard tones to keep walking. Deacon had never worked with the two men before. Didn’t even know their real names. Le Clair assigned each team member names from the military alphabet, corresponding to the letters of their first name. So Charlie and Tango could be Carl and Tom, or Chris and Tim, for all Deacon knew. But they were pros, that much was evident. They’d handled Lana Kelley with supreme efficiency back on that train.

Deacon might even have been impressed by their professionalism, if he hadn’t been battling the ridiculous urge to take Lana into his arms and carry her off the train to safety.

What the hell was the matter with him?

Focus. You’re on a job.

Deacon drew in a calming breath. Okay. He had to quit remembering the way Lana Kelley looked naked—as mind-blowing as the image was—and treat her as he did any other target. Faceless. Nameless. A means to an end. And in this case, the end was a staggering amount of money. Whoever had hired Le Clair was obviously rolling in dough.

“Please, don’t do this.”

Lana’s agonized whisper made his shoulders stiffen. He refused to turn around. Didn’t want to see the fear and horror and disappointment on her pretty face.

“Shut up,” Charlie muttered.

She ignored the order. “Please,” she said again. “I’ll give you anything you want, just let me go. I have money. Lots and lots of it. My father is—”

“We know exactly who your father is,” Tango cut in, sounding amused. “So shut your trap and walk.”

Lana made a startled noise, as if Tango had shoved her, and Deacon fought back a wave of rage. If Tango touched her one more time, Deacon would… do nothing.

Get a hold of yourself, for Chrissake.

He curled his hands into fists and looked straight ahead. This strange bout of protectiveness he felt toward Lana was unacceptable. If Le Clair got even the slightest whiff of it, Deacon would be sent packing. And he could kiss all that cash goodbye.

The foursome stepped outside. It was six in the morning, but the front of the station was bustling with people. A man walked by, talking loudly into his cell phone in a string of Italian phrases that Deacon understood perfectly. He’d been fluent in Italian for years. French, too, and Russian, Greek, Spanish, Latin… His parents had made certain he had the best education a boy could have.

That is, before his father had shot his mother in the head and proceeded to turn the gun on himself.

Deacon experienced a burst of shock as the memory crept into his consciousness. Shit. What was he doing, thinking about all that old garbage? It was over, done with. His parents were dead, but he was very much alive. And at the moment, he had a job to do.

“Echo should be waiting right over… There he is,” Deacon said brusquely as a black SUV with heavily tinted windows pulled up behind one of the taxis out front.

He turned, getting another dose of the sheer betrayal sizzling in Lana’s eyes. “Why are you doing this?” she pleaded softly. “How could you, after—”

A sharp shake of his head shut her up, and he had to give her credit. The gorgeous blonde stopped abruptly without finishing the sentence that would have undoubtedly revealed their carnal connection.

“Get in the car,” he cut in coldly, opening the door for her.

Lana stared into the dark interior of the SUV, her reluctance creasing her delicate forehead. Deacon couldn’t help but notice how beautiful and put-together she looked, despite her obvious turmoil. Her red T-shirt was wrinkle-free, her pale blond hair smoothed back in a neat ponytail. Only the trepidation in her ocean-blue eyes betrayed her composed appearance.

“Please,” she whispered again.

She yelped as Charlie jammed his gun into her tail-bone, practically pushing her into the vehicle. “Inside, now,” Charlie snapped.

As Tango slid into the front seat next to Echo, Deacon and Charlie sandwiched Lana in the back. As soon as the doors closed, Charlie removed a long scrap of black cotton and proceeded to blindfold Lana, who protested wildly.

“No,” she burst out. “Please, just let me go! I promise I won’t tell anyone about this! I’ll—”

“Shut up,” Tango grumbled from the front seat.

Pure agony boiled in Deacon’s stomach as Echo drove away from the Milan station. Lana was trembling uncontrollably beside him. Her firm thigh was pressed against his, and each tremor that rocked her body shook his, as well. His fingers tingled with the need to touch her face, offer a reassuring caress. But he’d be a dead man if he did it. The others would immediately report the transgression to Le Clair.

“Is the plane ready?” Tango was asking Echo.

Echo, a bulky man with shoulder-length black hair tied back in a low ponytail, nodded briskly. “The others are already at the airstrip. All the arrangements have been made.”

Next to him, Lana let out a tiny sob. He glanced over, wincing when he noticed the tears streaming down from beneath her blindfold.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, and he knew the question was directed at him.

He also knew she must have a dozen more questions, also for him. Fortunately, she didn’t voice any of them. When Charlie ordered her to shut up again, she finally obeyed, growing silent. The trembling continued, though. And he noticed her small hands were clasped together over her abdomen, in an almost protective gesture.

The sun was just beginning to rise when the SUV arrived at the private airstrip on the outskirts of the city. A shiny white Learjet sat majestically on the narrow, paved runway, making Deacon raise a dark brow. Le Clair’s bosses really were loaded, weren’t they? Most of Deacon’s gigs involved rusty old Cessnas that barely got him from point A to B, not expensive private jets that probably cost millions.

Le Clair was already marching over to the vehicle before it even came to a complete stop, his thick black eyebrows creased together in distaste. The man’s angular features displayed an expression of perpetual annoyance. Le Clair always seemed to be irritated by something, and patience wasn’t really his strong suit. He also had a vicious temper, often triggered by the most innocuous things. But Deacon wasn’t foolish enough to challenge Le Clair or point out his weaknesses. Not unless he wanted a bullet between his eyes, which Paul Le Clair was quite capable of delivering.

This was the first time Deacon had worked with the other man, but he’d been well aware of Le Clair’s reputation. Vicious, greedy, dangerous as hell. A former member of the French Foreign Legion, Le Clair had been discharged thanks to his reckless violence and a cruel streak that ran far too deep. He was known to shoot his own men if they did something to displease him.

Definitely not the kind of man Deacon normally wanted to work for, but the payment for the job held great enough appeal that he’d finally accepted. But he’d been trying to stay under the man’s radar since this gig started. When he’d told Le Clair that the target had made contact with him in the Louvre, he’d feared the man’s reaction, prepared for anything, including violence, but Le Clair had simply shrugged and sent Charlie to take over the recon.

Which made Deacon think that this assignment was exceptionally important to the boss. None of the men had been provided with any details, but they all knew who Lana Kelley was. Her daddy was a U.S. senator, her mother was an heiress. The Kelleys even hobnobbed with the president, for Chrissake. Lots of money to be had in kidnapping a Kelley.

But Lana was a high-profile target, which meant they needed to handle this situation with the utmost delicacy. No doubt Le Clair wanted a smooth exchange, and internal grievances with his team wouldn’t help his cause. So Deacon had been spared, but he’d been walking on eggshells around the boss ever since.

“You’re late,” Le Clair barked as they got out of the car.

Charlie was visibly apologetic, a deep blush rising on his dark skin. “The train came in ten minutes later than scheduled.”

Le Clair ignored the excuse. His shrewd silver eyes narrowed as Deacon yanked Lana out of the SUV. “She’s shorter than I imagined,” the boss remarked. He swept his gaze up and down Lana’s slender body, frowning when he got to the open-toed sandals covering her delicate feet. “Did you bring her suitcase?”

Deacon nodded, then pulled Lana’s black suitcase from the car and dropped it on the ground.

“Good.” Le Clair’s frown deepened. “She needs better shoes. Warmer clothing. If she didn’t pack any, we’ll need to stop somewhere and buy some gear for her.”

Deacon’s interest piqued. This was the first time Le Clair had dropped any hints about their destination. Warm clothing, better shoes. Obviously somewhere cooler. The mountains perhaps? Northern Canada?

He shoved aside the thoughts and followed the group toward the jet. Le Clair had a hand on Lana’s arm, pulling her along beside him, and Deacon saw her lush pink lips tighten.

“Who are you people?” Lana demanded, her blindfolded head moving from side to side.

Le Clair chuckled. “You don’t need to worry yourself with that, Miss Kelley. But if you’d like, think of us as your new caretakers.”

“Not likely,” she muttered.

Le Clair yanked on her arm. Hard enough that she yelped with pain.

Deacon kept his arms glued to his sides so he couldn’t act on the sudden impulse to charge his boss and beat him to a bloody pulp for manhandling Lana.

“So we’ve got a sassy one on our hands,” Le Clair muttered, sounding both amused and infuriated. “Maybe we should lay down some ground rules, Miss Kelley. Just so you know where you stand. And what might get you killed.”

She released a shaky breath.

“You do exactly as we say,” Le Clair continued pleasantly. “You eat when we tell you, sleep when we tell you. You don’t talk back, you don’t argue. You follow orders like the good girl you are, and in return, we don’t shoot you. Sound reasonable?”

Lana didn’t answer.

Le Clair curled his fingers over her arm and squeezed hard. “I asked you a question.”

“It sounds reasonable,” she wheezed out, trying to shrug out of his grasp.

Every muscle in Deacon’s body coiled tight. Lana looked so small, so helpless, being dragged by Le Clair’s six-foot frame. Her shoulders were hunched over, shaking ferociously, and it took all of his willpower not to pull her into his arms. Which only brought back the image of the last time he’d held her in his arms. The way he’d run his hands over the gentle curves of her body. The weight of her small, firm breasts in his palms. The relentless way she’d moved her hips beneath him.…

He smothered a groan. This was bad. Really, really bad. He couldn’t seem to look at the woman without remembering her in his bed. She was supposed to be a target. A job.

The money. He had to focus on the money. He made a good deal of cash working as a merc, but this job could be his retirement. He’d spent the past twenty years fighting to survive, barely scraping by in the beginning, but he’d made a name for himself as a soldier, a man capable of handling any mission that came his way, no matter how challenging. Eventually, once he started making cash hand over fist, the challenge was what kept him going. Taking on an impossible job and executing it brought him satisfaction. Pleasure, even.

But he couldn’t go on this way forever. He was thirty-eight years old. Eventually he’d have to quit risking his neck, and the money this assignment would bring in was enough to live on for the rest of his life, if he chose to get out. What would he do anyway, if he gave this all up? He’d lived fast and dangerous for so many years now, taken on jobs that most men wouldn’t dream of taking, usually legal, though sometimes the lines were blurred. He’d walked the dark side for so long, he wasn’t sure light belonged in his life. Maybe the darkness was all he’d ever have.

As they reached the jet, Kilo descended the metal ladder and stepped onto the tarmac. Of all the men on the team, Kilo was by the far the biggest. At six-five and two hundred and fifty pounds, the man was enormous. He also doubled as a pilot, though how he managed to wedge that huge body into the cockpit was anyone’s guess.