A Baby Before Dawn

“I don’t know,” Lily said. “He was in the cafeteria. He had a gun and fired a shot at me. I think he may have followed me up here.”

“Honey, maybe you ought to sit down.”

The older clerk rose and moved around the counter. “I called nine-one-one.”

Lily didn’t think the cops could get there fast enough if the gunman decided to start shooting. She took one more look around the room, but didn’t see the man. “Where’s security?”

“They’re on the way,” said the older clerk. “They’ve been tied up all night with this blackout. People get crazy when it’s dark. Whole city’s gone mad.”

A gunshot shattered the relative peace of the lobby. On instinct, Lily crouched low, shocked the man would open fire with so many people around. In her peripheral vision she saw both clerks duck. To her right, a young security officer ran toward her, his pistol ready in his hand.

“Halt! Security! Drop the weapon now!”

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

The security officer clutched his shoulder and went down. Lily saw blood on his uniform. She looked around wildly but couldn’t spot the shooter. Screams filled the atrium as people scrambled for cover.

Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled toward a grouping of furniture and potted plants. She could feel her breaths coming hard and fast. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might hammer its way right out of her chest.

Setting her hand protectively over her abdomen, she peered over the back of the sofa. The lobby had gone nearly silent, as if holding its breath in anticipation of the next burst of violence. The shooter was nowhere in sight. Had he gone? After her encounter with him in the cafeteria, she was surprised he’d ventured into a crowded area. Unless she was the target.

The notion was ludicrous considering her humdrum lifestyle. These days all she did was work, in anticipation of the birth of her child. She was saving as much money as possible so she could give her baby the security she deserved.

Lily might have believed all of this was random. That she’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then she remembered he’d whispered her name, and she knew this was not indiscriminate. But why on earth would someone target her?

She thought about the security officer who’d been shot. From where she crouched she could see him on the floor. Clutching his shoulder, he spoke into his radio. The need to help him taunted her. If she hadn’t been pregnant, she might have attempted it or at least tried to find an EMT to help her move him out of the line of fire. But she had to think of her child now. That meant staying put until help arrived. Where the hell were the police?

Movement to her right snagged her attention. Adrenaline burst through her when she realized it was the gunman. He walked calmly, brazenly among the frightened, cowering people, pointing his weapon but not shooting. As if he were searching for someone in particular.

Looking for her?

Terror closed over her like a giant, smothering hand. Closing her eyes, Lily fought a rise of panic. From his bulk, she could tell this wasn’t the same man she’d encountered in the basement, which meant there was more than one shooter. What in the name of God was going on here?

Gun drawn, the man systematically searched the atrium. People whimpered as he passed them by. Lily prayed he didn’t shoot. A terrible sense of helplessness descended over her. Crouching lower, she raised her head and peered over the sofa back. The shooter was less than thirty feet away, his eyes narrowed and scanning, the gun ready at his side.

Knowing she had mere seconds before he discovered her hiding place, she looked around for another. The front revolving doors were too far away; she’d have to cover too much open ground to reach them. Behind her, a dark hallway led to the public restrooms and a bank of pay phones. She didn’t get down here often, but she was pretty sure there was an emergency exit at the end. If she could reach the hall, she could sneak out the door undetected. But she had to move. Now.

Never taking her eyes from the man with the gun, she crawled backward toward the darkened corridor. Twenty feet away, he ordered several people facedown on the floor. Lily prayed he spared them, but she didn’t stop moving.

She was midway to her destination when a subtle noise from behind her nearly stopped her heart. She looked over her shoulder to see the dark figure of another man rush her. All she could think was that there was a third shooter, and her pulse went wild. A yelp escaped her an instant before he pressed his hand to her mouth.

“If you want to live, don’t make a sound,” he said, and dragged her into the corridor.

Chapter Two

If not for his military training, Chase would have surely walked into a bullet. It wasn’t the first time his instincts had saved his life. Maybe this time, they’d saved Lily’s life, too.

He almost didn’t see her. Not because of the darkness or the throngs of frightened people. When he’d entered the hospital ten minutes ago, he hadn’t been looking for a pregnant woman.

But a man never forgot certain things about a woman he’d once loved. Chase had spotted Lily from thirty feet away in near total darkness. Despite her bulging midsection, he’d known immediately it was her. He would know her if he were blind and deaf. He would know her by touch alone. By smell. By the way she breathed.

He couldn’t believe she was pregnant. Couldn’t believe she’d moved on to another man so quickly. He had to bank a quick rise of jealousy.

But there was no time for petty emotions now. From the balcony above the atrium lobby, he’d counted two shooters, possibly three. He didn’t like the odds, but he’d faced worse. For now, he had to focus on moving her out of there without either of them getting shot.

Lily struggled against him as he pulled her into the darkened hall. Terror and panic came off her in waves. She thought he was one of the gunmen, that he meant her harm, but there’d been no time to identify himself let alone talk her into letting him help her.

“It’s Chase,” he whispered. “Calm down. You know I won’t hurt you.”

She went still, but he could feel her trembling violently. Her breaths came in fast, short bursts from her nose. He’d approached her from behind and wrapped his right arm around her abdomen, placing his left hand over her mouth. Her body pressed flush against his. It was more lush than he remembered and so soft and warm that for a moment all he could think of was sinking into her and never letting her go. That the old attraction was still sharp after so many months shocked him almost as much as her pregnancy.

“I’m going to take my hand from your mouth,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t scream or those goons with guns are going to come calling. You got that?”

She nodded.

Slowly, he removed his hand.

She turned to face him. In the semidarkness her big green eyes looked black against her pale complexion. As always, she’d pulled her long curly red hair into a no-nonsense ponytail at her nape. She looked the same as last time he’d seen her. The same as in every dream he’d had about her in the months they’d been apart. Except for the soft roundness of her belly.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

Because he wasn’t quite sure how to answer, he eased her to arm’s length and looked her over. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m okay.” Her eyes flicked to the lobby. “There are two men out there with guns who want to kill me and I have no idea why.”

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he said.

She noticed the blood on his sleeve, and her eyes softened. But realization dawned and the softness quickly transformed into anger. “My God, you’re part of this.”

“That’s not how it is.”

She looked as if she wanted to hit him. “Things never change with you, do they, Chase?”

“This is no mission,” he said, hating that his tone was defensive. His work with Eclipse and his penchant for risk taking had been points of contention between them from the beginning of their relationship.

“Save it,” she said.

“We don’t have time for this now, Lily.” Taking her hand, he tugged her more deeply into the hall. She resisted, but her efforts were token and he easily muscled her to the alcove outside the rest¬ rooms. “We have to get out of here right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You don’t have a choice, damn it.” He glanced toward the lobby. “Those bastards mean business.”

“Who are they? Why are they doing this? Why do they want to hurt me?” Her questions came in a flurry.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll figure it out later. For now, I need to get you out of here.”

“Chase, damn it—”

He cut her off, ushering her to the farthest wall of the alcove. “For once in your life listen to me.” He glanced toward the lobby. “Stay put. I need to see where they are.”

Pressing his back flat against the wall, he sidled to the hall entrance and peered into the lobby. The two gunmen stood in the center of the atrium, looking around. Chase slipped back to the alcove.

Lily had ventured only a few feet, her hand placed protectively over her abdomen. She’d always been strong willed and capable, not the kind of woman who needed or wanted protecting. But standing there with fear in her eyes and a baby growing inside her, she looked incredibly vulnerable. The need to protect her rose inside him in a dangerous tide.

“Let’s go.”

She didn’t resist as he pulled her toward the emergency exit at the end of the hall. A sign above the push bar on the door told him an alarm would sound if the door was opened. Since it was the only exit they could reach without being seen, he didn’t have a choice but to take it and hope the alarm had been rendered inoperative because of the blackout.

“If that alarm is intact, all hell is going to break loose when we go through this door,” he said.

“In case you haven’t noticed, hell already has broken loose,” she shot back.

“Can you run?”

She glanced down at her belly. “What do you think?”

“I think you don’t have a choice.”

Chase hit the security bar and shoved open the door. A shrill alarm split the air. “Run!” he whispered.

The door opened to the sidewalk on Harrison Avenue. Abandoned cars that had run out of gas during the massive traffic jam that had followed the blackout littered the street. Flames flickered from a drum where someone burned garbage, but there was no one in sight. The street was pitch- black and eerily quiet.

“This way.”

Chase pulled her into a run, and they headed north on Harrison at a fast clip. She didn’t complain, but he could feel her struggling to keep up. She’d once been quite athletic, so he knew it was her pregnancy slowing her down.

“Come on,” he said. “You can do it.”

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” she said between pants.

Behind them, a shout echoed, telling him at least one of the gunmen had spotted them. “Faster!” Chase shouted. “Run!”

A volley of gunfire shattered the night. A yelp escaped Lily when a bullet ricocheted off the brick facade of a building inches from her head. Terror whipped through Chase. He glanced at her, saw blood on her cheek and his heart stopped dead in his chest.

Lily must have noticed his expression. “Piece of brick knicked me,” she said. “Keep moving, Vickers.”

“That a girl,” he said, and urged her faster.

Midway down the block, the yawning black mouth of an alley beckoned. Praying they didn’t encounter a dead end, Chase cut right and they traversed it at a reckless speed, their footfalls echoing off the brick walls on either side. Considering the advanced stage of her pregnancy, Lily was amazingly fast on her feet. But not fast enough. Twenty yards in, another gunshot rang out.

“They’re still shooting at us!” she cried.

“Keep running!”

“I’m spent, Chase. I can’t go much farther.”

Cursing, he pulled his pistol from the waistband of his slacks and returned fire blindly, hoping it would be enough to slow their pursuers. All the while the thought of her falling to a bullet tortured him with horrific images.

The alley opened to another side street. Chase headed right toward Chinatown, a bustling section of the city where foot traffic, greengrocers, fish markets and ethnic shops crowded the narrow streets. Left without a vehicle, he figured their best hope of eluding their pursuers was to get lost in the crowd.

“Chase, tell me what’s going on.” The words puffed out on each breath as they cut down Kneeland Street.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Digging in her heels, she stopped and jerked her hand from his. “Don’t lie to me, damn it. We’re not talking about just me. We’re talking about this baby.”

He didn’t need to be reminded of that. The fact hadn’t left his mind since the moment he’d spotted her. Setting his hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes and recapped everything that had happened back at Hancock Tower. “I checked the passenger’s ID and everything was cool.” Remembering, he gritted his teeth, incensed with himself for having let the man get the jump on him. “Until he pulled a gun.”

“And you have no idea why?”

“No.”

“Why did you come to the hospital?” she demanded. “Why involve me?”

Looking left and right, he guided her to an alley that would take them into the heart of Chinatown. “When the guy was in the limo, he said some things that made me think he was going to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” She laughed, but it was a tense, humorless sound. “Why? What made you jump to that conclusion?”

“He told me I was about to lose everything that I—” Realizing what he’d almost said, Chase cut the words short. “He mentioned you by name.”

Even in the semidarkness he saw the color drain from her face. “I don’t understand. Why me? I don’t even know these people.”

“Evidently, they know me.”

“But we haven’t been together for…”

Something pinged in his brain. “Seven-and-a-half months,” he finished.

But Chase’s mind was already jumping ahead to something he’d been wondering about since the moment he’d spotted her in the hospital atrium. Until now he hadn’t had a chance to work out the timing of her pregnancy. Looking at her, on some primal level, he suddenly knew.

He knew.

His heart raced. Not because of the men with guns, but because he was remembering the last time he’d been with Lily. Seven-and-a-half months ago…

When he looked at her, he saw the answer in her eyes. He saw the truth and it shattered him as surely as any bullet. “Is the baby mine?” he asked hollowly.

His own words stunned him. He stared at her, feeling his world shift on its axis.

Lily stared back, her green eyes startled and slightly defiant. A lock of curly red hair had come loose from her ponytail. She’d always hated her hair, but he still dreamed of it. His fingers itched to tuck the errant strand behind her ear, but he didn’t dare touch her. Once he did, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

“No,” she said quickly. “I—I had an affair shortly after we parted ways. I was…careless.”

The denial rang false in every way. Chase knew better than anyone that Lily wasn’t the kind of woman to jump from one man’s bed to another. That could only mean one thing: The baby was his.

His.

Holy Moses. The supposition slammed into him like a Mack truck traveling at a high rate of speed. The scar above his eye, courtesy of shrapnel in Afghanistan, throbbed again.

“You’re lying,” he heard himself say.

That she didn’t deny it drove home the cold hard truth of it. He felt as if he’d just been punched between the eyes with a set of brass knuckles. “I deserved to know the truth.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “You did.”

“Then why—”

She gestured angrily toward the dangers behind them. “Look at what you’ve brought into my life. Men with guns. That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. This baby, my baby, deserves to be safe. I put her well-being above the truth. Above you. For that, I’m sorry. But your knowing changes nothing.”

“The hell it doesn’t.”

“You have no say in the matter.”

Chase wanted to talk about this. A thousand emotions churned inside him in a kaleidoscope of shock and regret and newfound optimism. But there was no time to voice any of them. They had to get out of this alley and to a safe place. “We can’t discuss this here.”

He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she repeated.

For the first time, Chase’s temper kicked in. He was tired of being blamed for all that was bad and wrong in the world. Even more tired of being kept in the dark and denied the things that mattered most. So what if he had a dangerous job? Someone had to keep the bad guys away. “If you care so much about that baby, you’ll be reasonable.”

“Don’t you dare try to manipulate me using this baby,” she hissed. “There’s nothing reasonable about any of what’s happened.”

“Maybe not. But you know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“How can you say that? It’s because of you that we’re in danger to begin with.”

The words stung, but he didn’t let himself react. There was no time for emotion or blame or the rehashing of ancient history. “I’m the only reason you’re alive right now. Like it or not, I’m your best hope of making it through the night.”

LILY COULD BARELY HEAR him over the hard thrum of her heart. She hadn’t wanted Chase to know about the baby, but she’d never been a good liar, especially when it came to him. There was no denying the timing of it. She and Chase had been together seven-and- a-half months ago. She knew lying was wrong. But for the first time in her life, she hadn’t cared. Since the instant she’d found out she was pregnant, the baby had come first. She’d done what she had to do and accepted the consequences of her actions.

She just hadn’t expected it to be so damn hard.

“These people want you, Chase, not me,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be safer if you walked away from us and left us alone?”

His jaw tightened. “They know they can get to me through you. If I cut you loose now, they’ll be on you like wolves on a lamb.” Stepping close, he set his hand against her cheek. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to let that happen.”

“Chase—”

“If I walk away, I may as well put the gun to your head and pull the trigger myself,” he cut in. “You’re a target now. I’m sorry it went down like this. I wish I could change things, but I can’t. Until I figure out who these bastards are, you need me to stay alive.”

Anger burst through the gnarly layers of fear. “That’s exactly why I didn’t—” She cut the words off abruptly, shocked that she’d nearly said them aloud.

But he finished for her. “Tell me about the baby?”

Lily couldn’t answer. Staring into his striking topaz eyes, she felt the old feelings begin to churn. A cauldron of anger and attraction and something deeper she would not acknowledge. But those feelings were tempered with the certainty that wherever Chase went, danger followed. With a child to think of, Lily could not let herself be drawn into the maelstrom of his life.

Shouting from a newspaper kiosk across the street saved her from having to answer. Chase glanced over his shoulder, his head cocked, his body going stone still.

“My God,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Vice President Davis has been kidnapped.”

“Is that what this blackout is all about?” she asked, shocked by the news. “Someone was after the vice president?”

“He was at the black-tie ball where I picked up the guy who ambushed me.”

“Do you think those gunmen back there are somehow involved in the kidnapping?”

“I’m going to find out.” He reached for his cell phone, hit a button with his thumb and cursed.

“What is it?” Lily asked.

“Battery’s dead.”

She might have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so dire. “What about Irma? Can you recharge the battery using the cigarette lighter?”

His eyes softened at her mention of the limo. “Too far away. I wrecked her not far from the Hancock Tower.”

She looked around the narrow, crowded streets of Chinatown, feeling uncomfortably exposed. “What do we do now?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “We need to get off the street and stay out of sight until I can figure out what’s going on.”

“You think they followed us?”

“Even if they didn’t, it’s only a matter of time until they start looking in this area.”

A chill swept over her at the thought of some unseen gunman hunting them down like animals. Already she loved her child more than her own life. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Chase was right. She needed him to stay alive.

Lily started when he took her hand. Her initial reaction was to pull away: she couldn’t risk getting too close to him. Chase Vickers was her one and only weakness, the one man in the world who could make her lose her head and forget about doing the right thing. With the baby to worry about, she couldn’t risk letting down her guard.

But she allowed him to lead her through a narrow courtyard, past a smattering of quaint shops, most of which were closed. A few of the die-hard shopkeepers who’d kept their stores open stood outside on the sidewalk, chatting in Chinese.

Lily and Chase reached a main thoroughfare. Cars jammed the intersection, engines rumbling, horns blaring. The smell of exhaust filled the still night air. Abruptly, Chase stopped. The next thing Lily knew he had grasped both her arms and ushered her quickly toward a narrow courtyard.

“What is it?” she whispered.

He pushed her against the brick of an old building and placed himself between her and the street. “We’ve got company.”

A deep chill passed through her body. She could almost feel the pistol sights leveled on her heart. Unnerved, Lily leaned against the brick and tried to catch her breath.

“Where?” she asked, resisting the urge to duck.

“Southwest corner. By the newsstand.”

She followed his gaze. Sure enough, the gunmen she’d encountered in the cafeteria stood at the corner, talking into a cell phone and gesturing angrily. She wished she could hear what he was saying because she was almost certain it had to do with Chase and her.

“What do we do now?” she whispered.

“I need to get my hands on a phone.”

Spinning, he urged her into a run. They sprinted through the courtyard, past a rusty fire escape and the darkened windows of a seafood shop where selections and prices were written in Chinese.

They ran for what seemed like forever. But Lily didn’t think about the discomfort or fatigue. All she could think about were the armed gunmen who obviously meant her harm. She’d always known something like this would happen. How could Chase do this to her and the baby? How could he place them in danger like this?

At the end of the block, she pulled her hand from his. Bending, she gulped deep breaths until the aching in her back subsided.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She wasn’t all right. Not by a long shot. She was frightened and angry and worried. Her physical stamina had long since run its course. “I can’t keep up this pace,” she said between pants.

“Are you in pain?”

“No, I’m just…exhausted.”

Setting his hand protectively on the small of her back, he looked around, his topaz eyes scanning the surrounding shops and fire escapes that laced the old buildings like steel spiderwebs. When his gaze met hers, Lily saw concern and a tenderness she didn’t want to acknowledge.