Protecting Her Royal Baby

Her eyes widened as she listened. “Oh, my God. I almost hit you?”

He jerked a small nod, and seeing the guilt that crossed her face, he quickly added, “But you didn’t. That’s what counts.”

“So you didn’t see who might have fired at the car?” Sergeant Wallace asked.

“No.” Hunter rubbed his hands on his jeans. “If you find any more information that will help Brianna locate her family, will you call us? I’m planning to stay with her, help her out for a while. You can call my cell.” He gave the officer that phone number, and Sergeant Wallace jotted it in his notes.

“Will do.” As the police officer took his leave, he added, “Congratulations on the new baby, Ms. Coleman. Hope you’ll feel better soon.”

“Thanks.” Brianna flashed him a muted smile. Clearly she was anxious over the lingering questions about her family, Benjamin’s father and the lurking danger. As he was.

He eyed Brianna after the policeman left. “So...Brianna Coleman. That name ringing bells for you?”

She chewed her bottom lip and stared across the room, her nose wrinkled in thought. “Well, yes and no. It doesn’t feel wrong. It’s...comfortable. But I can’t say it’s bringing anything back or screaming, ‘That’s me!’” Her shoulders dropped, and she frowned. “If that’s my name, why don’t I just know it? It should be organic. Part of my cells. Instinctive.”

Connor shook his head and scooted toward her. “Not necessarily.” He unclipped his cell phone from the case at his hip. “Look, we have a home phone number now. I’ll call it and see if anyone is there. Okay?”

Her eyes rounded. “Yeah.” She sat taller in the bed, watching him anxiously as he dialed. The phone rang four times before an answering machine picked up. A mechanical voice repeated the number he’d dialed and told him to leave a message.

“I got a machine,” he told her, and her expression deflated. When the beep sounded, Hunter said, “Hi, my name is Hunter Mansfield, and I’m looking for the family of Brianna Coleman. Brianna is safe but needs to be in contact with her relatives. If anyone gets this message, please call me.” He left his number in case she didn’t have caller ID.

“No one answered,” she said and sighed. “Maybe I have no family.”

“We don’t know that. They could be in the shower. Or, more likely, out looking for you.” He returned his phone to the holder at his hip and rubbed the beard stubble on his chin. “Later on, I’ll drive by your house and knock on the front door. We will find your family, Brianna. Have faith.”

She flashed her a half smile and nodded. “Aye, Captain.”

An idea came to Hunter, and he flipped a page on the notepad he’d used to take down her information from Sergeant Wallace. He extended it and the pen toward her. “Let’s try something. Take these.”

She glanced down at Ben. “Okay, but you’ll have to hold him.”

He set the notepad down and held his arms out to receive the baby. Ben gave a disgruntled whine but soon settled in Hunter’s arms.

She lifted the pen and paper. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“Sign your name.”

She puckered her brow. “But...”

“You know your name now. So write it. Like you’re signing a document. Don’t think too hard about it. Just write.”

She bent her head over the pad and slowly wrote out her name. “There.” She held the pad out to him.

“Do it again. Faster.” Hunter gave Ben’s swaddled bottom a soft pat when he gurgled.

“Why?”

“An experiment. Just work with me.”

She sighed and wrote her name again. Then blinked. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“I...did that without really thinking about it. I was still thinking about how silly your experiment sounded.”

He flashed her a cocky grin. “Not so silly now, huh?”

Lifting one eyebrow, she wrote her name again, even faster. And again. “I’ll be darned.”

“Did it feel natural? Like muscle memory?”

She raised her head, and her face lit with wonder. “It did.” Taking a deep breath, she wrote her name again and again, filling the page with her loopy signature. She chuckled. “I know this. It feels right.”

“Some people learn better by hearing, others by sight, others by doing. It makes sense to me that maybe your memories will come back more with certain triggers than others. I learned that in high school. My grades were suffering, and my parents hired me a tutor. Turns out my teachers’ style of issuing reading assignments didn’t match my auditory learning style. I needed to hear it explained to me to make it stick.” Hunter walked around to the bassinet and set Ben down in the small bed. “I have something else we can try.”

Returning to the bedside chair, Hunter tapped on his laptop keys. He pulled up a satellite ground-level-view website and typed in the address Sergeant Wallace had given them. The picture of a small gray-siding-and-redbrick house with a neat yard came up. He moved the laptop so that Brianna could see the image.

“According to the address Wallace gave us, this is your house. Do you recognize it? Does it feel right?”

Brianna squinted at the screen, studying it. The eagerness and expectation in her eyes was heartbreaking, especially when that hope faded and moisture filled her eyes. “No. I don’t feel any tugs of recognition. Damn it!”

Hunter closed the top of the laptop, set it aside and moved to sit on the edge of her bed. “It was just an idea. Maybe seeing it for real will be different. Maybe seeing the inside, your furnishings and pictures, will be the trigger you need. And time.”

She nodded slowly, touching the bandage on her forehead. “Time for the swelling to recede.”

“Exactly.” He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. “To me, the fact that your signature felt natural is a good sign. I bet you get all of your memories back real soon.”

She nibbled her bottom lip again. “Maybe. I... Hunter, what if the reason I can’t remember is because I’m blocking a bad event? I can’t get past the fact that there are bullet holes in the back of the car I was driving. The one thing I did sense or know after the accident was that I was in danger. What does that say?”

His grip on her hand tightened. “I haven’t forgotten that. I don’t know what it means, but I do know this—whoever shot at you isn’t going to get a second chance. I’ll make sure of that.”

* * ** * *

Hunter spent a long, restless night in the chair next to Brianna. Though the chair folded out into a bed of sorts, the contraption was the epitome of discomfort, and every noise from the hall woke him. His brain was wired to be on guard, to listen for intruders, to be alert to changes in his environment, even while resting. He’d served one tour in Afghanistan during his five years with the Army Reserves and learned the meaning of the term combat nap. That past spring, he’d helped guard his niece’s hospital room when men connected to organized crime had threatened his brother Connor and his family. Because of that experience, he considered himself qualified to guard Brianna and Ben.

Morning came early, as it did in a hospital, the maternity nurse waking Brianna to feed Ben at four forty-five. She gave him a groggy glance as Ben was settled in her arms, and Hunter took his cue.

“I’m going to rustle up some coffee. Is the cafeteria open?” he asked the nurse.

“It will be at five.”

Brianna sent him an appreciative smile. Her hair was mussed from sleep, and as she raked the gold wisps back with her fingers, Hunter’s pulse kicked. Brianna Coleman was the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long time, and she managed to be sexy without trying. Her natural, early-morning rumpled state charmed him. The glow that shone from her eyes and her smile as she greeted her son and settled him in her arms was more striking than any makeup she could ever put on.

Hunter swallowed hard. It was dangerous to have such strong feelings for her when they didn’t know yet whether Ben’s father was still in the picture. She could be married, damn it!

He gave his head a little shake as he shuffled out of the room. For probably the hundredth time in the past few weeks, he wished he could call Darby Kent, whose friendship and advice had always been spot-on. As much as he admired his older brothers and valued their input on business matters, Darby, with her female point of view and common sense, had always been the one he turned to for advice concerning matters of the heart. She would be able to put his fascination and obligation to Brianna in perspective. But Darby and her daughter, Hunter’s niece, had recently joined his brother Connor in Witness Security. He’d likely never talk to Darby or Connor ever again, and he felt the loss to his marrow.

With the morning staff making rounds, Hunter figured Brianna was safe enough until he came back with his breakfast. Just in case, though, he’d stopped at the nurses’ station and asked them to keep a watch out for strangers entering Brianna’s room.

That done, Hunter walked down the stairs and exited the hospital to get a breath of fresh air. The dark autumn morning still held a chilly nip, though he knew the Louisiana sun would quickly warm things up after daybreak. He started around the perimeter of the parking lot at a slow jog to work the kinks out of his muscles and get his blood pumping. Immediately his brain began to click through the same questions that had plagued him since the car accident.

How was he supposed to help Brianna figure out the source of the danger to her? Now that he had her name, home phone number and address, he could be more thorough with his quest for information. He could call the courthouse and see if there was a marriage certificate on file for her. He could stop by her house and see if anyone was home, if her purse was there. He heaved a deep sigh, feeling better for having an action plan for the day. He finished the circuit of the parking lot and reentered the hospital, heading straight for the cafeteria, which was just opening.

He bought himself a large coffee and an egg-and-bacon breakfast sandwich to take upstairs. It was still too early to call Grant or his parents and check in with them. He needed to let someone know he’d be taking the day off from work, though he’d make an effort to stop by the construction sites he was managing later in the day. Working for the family business had its perks, and a flexible schedule was one of the better benefits. He couldn’t ignore his responsibilities as site manager for Mansfield Construction, but his father and Grant would always cover for him when he needed personal time off. In fact, Grant, the accountant and business manager for the office, enjoyed having an excuse to get out of the office and be at the work sites every now and then.

When he got back to Brianna’s room with his breakfast, Brianna was still nursing Ben, with a baby blanket draped over her shoulder and the baby. The television played quietly from the mount on the wall, and her food sat uneaten on her tray table. She glanced up at him as he walked in, and her expression was an odd combination of concern and joy.

“I have a cat,” she said without preamble.

“Excuse me?”

“I was sitting here with Ben, thinking about what mornings would be like from here on, taking care of Ben and getting ready for work, whatever that job may be, and I had this overwhelming feeling that I was neglecting something important. Then it just came to me. I have a cat that I always feed in the morning. Sorsha. She’s black with long hair and a white spot on her tummy. She’s always right there in my face when I wake up every morning, demanding pats and ear scratches along with her breakfast. She’s like my furry child, my first baby. I can’t believe I would forget her!”

Hunter grinned as he took his seat. “Any more unbelievable than that you’d forget your own name?”

She pulled her mouth into a slant. “Touché.”

“Still, you remembered something about yourself, your life, your home. That’s progress.”

She gave him a small smile. “Yeah. I guess. The thing is, she needs to be fed. What if there is no one else there to feed her? Hunter, will you—”

“Yes.”

She flashed him a lopsided grin.

“I’m already planning to stop by your house later today, with your permission, and check it out, see if anyone besides the cat is home. I’ll feed Sorsha while I’m there.”

“Thank you.” Her smile brightened, and his body temperature rose a couple of degrees. Damn, but she was beautiful.

“Now—” Hunter frowned at the untouched breakfast “—you need to eat.”

Brianna grinned at him. “I will. Soon. But my hands are a little full here, and Ben’s breakfast comes first.”

He opened the sack with his breakfast sandwich. “But your food’s getting cold.”

“I imagine in the coming years, I’ll eat a lot of cold meals.” She bent her head to peek under the blanket. “Isn’t that right, Ben?”

Hunter unwrapped his food, feeling a bit guilty eating while his food was hot, then nodded toward the television, where a car dealer was raving about his crazy prices. “So what are we watching?”

“Local news. I was thinking if my family reported me missing, there might be a story about it.”

“Good thinking.”

“Yeah, but so far all they’ve shown are national news stories.” Brianna picked up a piece of her toast and took a bite.

On the TV, the commercials ended, and a serious-faced newscaster reported on a dip in the stock market.

“Has the doctor been by this morning? Has anyone told you yet when you can get out of here and go home?”

“No on the doctor, but my nurse thinks they’ll let me go home tomorrow morning if I don’t show any complications.” She twisted her mouth in consternation. “I hate to say it, but...I’m a little nervous about going home, taking care of Ben by myself. Especially when we don’t know who shot at me or why.”

“You won’t be going home alone. I told you, I’m going to help you. I’ll protect you until we know the danger to you is past. Until we find your family. I’m not going to abandon you, Bri.”

She scowled at him. “I can’t ask you to do that. I’m not your responsibility.”

“Maybe not. But I’m volunteering. I can’t in good conscience leave you with a new baby, a concussion and some unknown threat out there.”

“Hunter,” she said on a groan and peeked under the blanket at Ben again, “I don’t feel right imposing on you.”

“And I don’t feel right turning my back on you when you’re alone.” He paused. “If you don’t want my help, I guess I can’t force my way into your life, but...”

She slanted a look at him. “I do want your help. I appreciate it. So much. I just feel guilty taking over your life this way.”

“Well, stop feeling guilty. I’m happy to help.” Hunter sat back in the chair and took another bite of his sandwich. “When I go by your house today, I can find your purse or phone or pictures that might—”

Brianna’s gasp cut him off.

“Turn it up!” Gaping at the TV, she waved a hand at the remote control beside him.

“What?” He set his breakfast in his lap and grabbed the remote.

“Turn the volume up!”

He did and together they watched a news report about a coup attempt against the ruling monarch of Meridan, a small European island nation Hunter had never heard of.

Hunter frowned, puzzled why the story was so important to Brianna. “What’s wrong? Why—”

She waved a hand, shushing him, and her face grew paler as the news report continued.

“Mourning citizens took to the streets, shocked by reports that King Mikhail had been assassinated,” the reporter said. “Prince Cristoff, heir to the throne, has not been seen in public for several days, and rumors have circulated that the prince has also been assassinated.”

Hunter turned to watch Brianna’s odd reaction to the news story rather than the television. “Brianna?”

She gave him another hushing wave of her hand as the screen filled with file footage of a well-dressed man with dark hair waving to a crowd before climbing into the back of a limousine.

The reporter’s face filled the screen again. “Palace officials deny the rumor of the crown prince’s death but won’t comment on Cristoff Hamill’s whereabouts.”

Brianna’s expression leeched of color as she turned to Hunter. “I know him.”

“What?” He wrinkled his brow and glanced back at the television. “Who? The reporter?”

She blinked, her expression stunned. “No. Cristoff.”

A startled chuckle escaped Hunter before he could stop it. “The prince guy?” He aimed a finger at the TV. “That’s in Europe somewhere. What makes you think you know the prince?”

“It’s just a feeling...a flicker of something. An image. A memory. I...”

For the first time, Hunter began to doubt Brianna. How could she remember some obscure prince from a tiny European country? It wasn’t as if this Cristoff guy was often in the news the way Prince William of Great Britain was. But the recognition that filled Brianna’s face seemed so real.

A tickle of unease started at the base of Hunter’s neck. “Brianna, I don’t know. Maybe you know someone who looks like him.”

She drew a slow, deep breath and gawked at the television. “No, it’s him. I’m sure of it. But I don’t just know him, Hunter.” She faced him, her eyes wide. “Prince Cristoff is Ben’s father.”

Chapter 5

Her head pounding, Brianna stared at the TV screen long after the news story about the unrest in the tiny country of Meridan ended and the announcer moved on to a report about the local city council. The pain from her concussion made it that much harder to concentrate and focus on the fuzzy memory that elbowed its way to her attention and wouldn’t be ignored. As crazy as it sounded, even to her, she was certain she’d not only met the man identified as Prince Cristoff Hamill of Meridan, but she’d seen him recently. In her mind, a voice echoed, saying, If the baby’s mine, then he’s my heir and next in line for the throne.

Next in line for the throne? Brianna rewound the news story in her head. A coup attempt. An assassination of the king. A missing prince. She shivered as a cold certainty settled over her.

“It’s not me they want to kill—it’s Ben. He’s the heir to the Meridanian throne.” She glanced toward Hunter and met a skeptical frown.

“Brianna, do you hear yourself? Why would a rebel faction in Meridan, wherever that is, want to kill your son? How would you know the prince?”

She sank back against her pillows and closed her eyes, wishing the throb under her skull would give her even a moment’s peace. “I don’t know, Hunter. I know it sounds crazy, but...the same way I just knew about Sorsha, I know Ben is Chris’s baby.”

“You mean Cristoff?”

She cracked open her eyes and cut a side glance to Hunter. “What did I say?”

“You called him Chris.”

She pulled her brow down, letting the name replay in her mind. “It just rolled off my tongue. Like my signature was muscle memory last night. I know him as Chris. I’m sure of it.”

Hunter swiped a hand over his mouth, his expression saying he was unconvinced. “Well, I can’t disprove that theory, so we’ll keep it as a possibility.”

Her shoulders sagged. Did she really expect anyone to believe she’d had an affair with a prince and that her child was of royal lineage? It sounded improbable even to her own mind, but the certainty, the echo of a voice, the fear for Ben’s life wouldn’t let go. They gripped her heart and shook her, demanding that she pay attention.

She gave Hunter a level look, wanting desperately for him to believe her. “When I get home, I’ll find proof.”

Ben finished his breakfast and started wiggling and arching his back in discomfort. The night nurse had showed her how to burp him after a meal, and she shifted him up on her shoulder now and patted his tiny back with gentle thumps.

Hunter wadded up the paper wrapper from his breakfast sandwich and shot it at the trash can across the room. The crumpled paper bounced off the rim and landed on the floor. When he stood to retrieve the trash, he stretched his back and gave her a considering glance. “Tell ya what. I’ll go to your house now, feed your cat and have a look around for anything else that might jog your memory or indicate where your family is. Assuming there’s not an anxious roommate or husband at the address the cop gave us, waiting for news of what happened to you.”

She rested her cheek against Ben’s tiny, warm head. The milky, clean scent of him filled her senses and even soothed the ache at her temple. Love for her baby swelled bigger in her chest every time she looked at him, until she thought she’d burst. Yet, impossibly, her heart grew to hold even more awe and affection for the tiny life she’d created.

But the limbo of her amnesia loomed over her. Not having a full picture of who she was and what had happened in her past was a liability she couldn’t afford if someone was trying to hurt Ben. An urgency to fill in the blanks raked through her, and she gave Hunter a decisive nod.

“Yes. Break into the house if you have to. I have to piece together my past, my relationships, and figure out why Chris—Prince Cristoff—resonates so strongly for me. I need information if I’m going to protect Ben.”

“All right.” From his pocket, Hunter pulled out the keys he’d taken from her car’s ignition the day before. The I ♥ Cape Cod key ring dangled from his finger, taunted her. Why couldn’t she remember Cape Cod?

“I’m guessing one of these keys is for your front door. I shouldn’t have to break in.” He gave her a wink as he left. “Back in about an hour.”

An odd jittery sensation shuddered through her as he disappeared out her door. Hunter’s presence gave her a reassurance she’d come to depend on in the short time she’d known him. From the scary moments after coming to in the wrecked car, through her delivery and confusing memory loss, Hunter had been a port in the storminess and uncertainty in her life.

But she knew she couldn’t continue monopolizing Hunter’s time and counting on his help indefinitely. Even if she didn’t have any family and whether or not she regained her memory, soon she’d have to figure out how to take care of herself and Ben alone. Scary though that thought was, she had to face the truth.

She nestled her son under her cheek, and a fierce maternal instinct raked through her. If someone was trying to hurt Ben, they’d have to kill her to get to him, because she’d fight to her last breath to defend him.

* * *

Hunter used his phone’s GPS program to find Brianna’s house in a small subdivision on the outskirts of town. The quiet street of modest houses and grassy lawns looked like an idyllic place to raise a little boy. In his youth, he and his two older brothers had raced bikes and played hours of baseball in a neighborhood similar to this one. When he reached the address Sergeant Wallace had given them, Hunter eyed the house but saw no signs of life, no vehicle in the driveway, no glowing porch light waiting to welcome her home. Just the same, he knocked loudly on the front door and listened for footsteps inside. No one came to the door, but when he cupped his hands around his eyes to peer in the glass panel beside the door, a fuzzy black cat stood in the foyer swishing her tail impatiently.

Hunter keyed open the front door and gave Brianna’s living room a cursory glance. “Hello? Anyone home?”

Sorsha answered with a loud meow and trotted over to rub against Hunter’s legs. He squatted and held his fingers out for the cat to sniff. “Well, some watchcat you are. Are you this friendly with all strangers or just the ones you hope will feed you?”

The cat answered with another loud meow, then turned and headed to the next room, glancing back as if to see whether Hunter was following.

He chuckled. “Your food bowl is this way, I take it?”

Sorsha led him to the pantry door, where she pawed and meowed plaintively. When he opened the pantry, the feline showed him which container to open by head-butting the large storage bin and purring excitedly. He dutifully scooped a large cupful and followed Sorsha, who clearly had the routine down, across the kitchen to an empty bowl. The cat gave a merp of thanks as she started chowing greedily.