Their Baby Girl...?: The Baby Mission / Her Baby Secret

She was here, C.J. thought, her baby was finally here. Her impatience, her fears, everything she’d lived with all these months were fading into the mists as if they hadn’t really existed.

Without a hand to wipe them away, C.J. blinked back her tears.

Her baby was finally here.

“Hi, baby,” she said softly to the infant warming her breast. “That was just Warrick. Don’t let him scare you.” And then she raised her eyes to her partner’s face. There really were no words that seemed adequate enough. “Thank you.”

He grinned, rocking back on his heels. “It’s not as if the two of you left me much choice.”

The two of them. It had a nice ring to it, C.J. thought.

Her heart swelling, she tightened her arms around the baby.

Chapter 4

The paramedics arrived ten minutes after he called them.

It occurred to Warrick, as he rode down in the elevator with C.J., the baby and the attendants, that had he gotten on the phone and dialed 911 to begin with, he would have been spared all the trauma he’d just gone through.

And missed out on what was probably the greatest experience of his life.

He smiled to himself as they all got out and he hurried behind the gurney. It made him glad that for once he had been slow to follow through on his original instincts.

Warrick stepped out of the way to allow the paramedics to slide C.J.’s gurney into the ambulance. At that moment, as he watched, she looked very vulnerable. It placed her in an entirely new light for him. She’d probably punch him out if she knew what he was thinking, he thought. But that didn’t change the fact that he had an overwhelming desire to be there for her, to somehow shield her, although from what he hadn’t the vaguest idea.

Had to be the high he was still running on because of the delivery, he decided.

With the gurney secured in place, Warrick started to climb into the ambulance.

The paramedic beside C.J. placed a hand out to block his entrance. “Only relatives ride in the back with the patient.” He cocked his head, scrutinizing him. “You her husband, buddy?”

“That’s Special Agent Buddy,” C.J. informed him. “And he’s my partner.”

Unconvinced as to the propriety of all this, the attendant raised his brow. “Like a life partner?”

Warrick glanced toward C.J. and saw that she was looking at him, amusement highlighting her exhausted features. That she could smile after what she’d just been through amazed him.

“Maybe as in life sentence,” he cracked. “We work together.”

That settled it for the attendant. He reached for the doors, ready to pull them shut. “Sorry, then you’ve got to follow behind in your car.”

Warrick was quick to get his hand up, blocking the doors before they closed. He looked at C.J. Hers was the only opinion that mattered in this. “You want me in the ambulance?”

Under normal circumstances, her answer would have been flippant. But these weren’t normal circumstances. She was feeling elated and teary and a hundred other things. She needed someone there with her to run interference until she could pull herself together. “Yes.”

Warrick looked meaningfully at the paramedic. “Then, it’s settled.”

The paramedic raised his hands, surrendering and backing off. “Sorry, just stating company policy, Special Agent.”

“I’ll take it up with your boss,” Warrick said, climbing on.

The trip to Blair Memorial Hospital took just long enough for Warrick to make the necessary call to her parents. He left it up to Diane to notify the others, knowing it would probably take a matter of seconds.

He was right. C.J.’s family converged on the hospital less than ten minutes after the front desk had found a room for her on the maternity floor.

The six-foot-two nurse with the kindly smile had no sooner helped C.J. slip into bed than Warrick was knocking on the door. He peered into the room just as she said, “Come in.”

Some of C.J.’s color was returning, he noted. She was beginning to look like her old self again. Feisty and contrary. He felt relieved. “Got some people out here who for reasons beyond me seem to be awfully anxious to see you. Can they come in?”

As independent of ties as she liked to pretend to be, C.J. had to admit that it felt good to know that she had family close by who cared about her. “I guess we can’t keep them out, can we?”

“You just try, sweetheart,” her father said, pushing past Warrick as he sailed into the room. Nodding at the nurse who was a shade taller than he was, James Jones elbowed his way next to the bed and took one of his daughter’s hands into both of his. His blue eyes crinkled, barely disguising the concern etched on his face. “How are you, darlin’?”

“Tired.” C.J. tried to rally, summoning what energy she could. Her brothers surrounded her bed, leaving a space for her mother directly opposite her father. “How did you all manage to get here so fast?”

“Dad broke a few speed limits,” Diane told her, attempting to look annoyed but not quite pulling it off. “What are you doing, having this baby without me? I thought I was supposed to be your coach.”

C.J. glanced at Warrick who was standing at the foot of her bed behind one of her brothers. “I had to settle for second best.”

Diane turned her attention to the man she had taken aside and charged with her daughter’s care the very first time she’d met him. “Thank God you were there to help her, Byron.”

C.J.’s eyes shifted toward her partner. As ever, the use of his given name didn’t seem to faze him when her mother called him by it. It still amazed her. She supposed he more or less considered her family to be his own. Her brothers were his friends, and her mother and father were like a second set of parents to him.

Or maybe even a first set from the little she’d managed to get out of him about his childhood. Warrick had been an only child. An accident of nature was the way he had put it once. His parents had kept him, much the way a customer keeps an item they’d accidentally broken in a shop and were forced to pay for. The relationship was that sterile.

There was no mention of love, of affection existing in his past, even remotely. He rarely spoke about them, even when she asked him direct questions. His father had died some years back and his mother had remarried and was living out of the country. Even that had not come firsthand to her. Warrick had told her mother one rainy Sunday afternoon after watching a football game on TV with the male contingent of her family.

It amazed C.J. how much information her mother could get out of her closemouthed partner. There were times when she honestly thought her mother had missed her calling, although, to hear Diane Jones tell it, being the wife of a prominent criminal lawyer and the mother of three more, plus another potential up-and-coming barrister as well as an FBI agent, was more than satisfying enough for her.

That her mother added her as an addendum was just a trademark of her sense of humor. C.J. knew that her mother doted so much on her that it was difficult for the woman not to show it.

Warrick shrugged carelessly at her mother’s comment. “C.J. did most of the work.”

“Most of it?” C.J. hooted. “Ha! I did all of it.”

“Knowing C.J., you’re lucky to have come out of the ordeal alive,” Brian, her oldest brother, said to Warrick.

Warrick poked his tongue into his cheek. “She did get a little testy.”

“Spoken like a typical man,” C.J. countered. “You try pushing out an elephant through a keyhole, see how cheerful you stay.”

Ever the referee even after her children were grown, Diane held up her hands, waving all involved parties into silence.

“Enough. The bottom line is that the baby’s here, Chris is all right, and we’re all together.” She laced her arm through her husband’s, glowing with contentment. “So, have you decided what my new granddaughter’s name is?”

C.J. shook her head. Ever mindful of the possibility that something might go wrong, she had refused to think of any names for either sex while she was pregnant. “No, not yet.”

Her father looked at her, his disappointment apparent. “Not even one name? Oh, Christmas, you even put that off?”

C.J. shut her eyes. Christmas Morgan were her official given names, laid on her by an act of whimsy on her father’s part because she’d been born on Christmas morning.

When she opened her eyes again, it was to look at the guilty party. “Well, when I do come up with a name, it’s going to be a hell of a lot better than ‘Christmas,’ I can promise you that.”

Warrick grinned. He knew this was a really sensitive topic for her. “What’s the matter with being called Christmas? Although I have to admit, it doesn’t exactly suit you.”

“And just exactly what is that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

Ethan nudged Jamie, the baby of the family. “Nice to see that the miracle of birth hasn’t changed you any, Chris.”

She was feeling better already. Having her family here was the best medicine of all. “Maybe growing up in a houseful of boys had something to do with that,” she pointed out. “I had to be twice as good as each of you just to hold my own.”

“Your own what?” Jamie cracked. As the youngest, he was forever struggling to find his own place in a family of overachievers. The fact that at six-five, he towered over all of them helped to help balance things out.

“Her own everything,” Wayne said. With two brothers born before him and a sister and brother born after, Wayne was the most even tempered of the family, given to thinking twice before speaking once. It was a trait his mother often wished out loud had been spread out amid her other children. Moving forward, Wayne brushed a kiss on his sister’s forehead. “Get some rest, kid. You look like hell.”

“Thanks.” Her eyes met her brother’s. “You always did know what to say to perk a girl right up.”

“Why don’t we all leave and let Chris get some well-deserved rest?” Diane suggested.

“Which way’s the nursery?” Brian wanted to know.

“Can we see the baby?” Ethan chimed in.

“Do they have her in an incubator?” Jamie wanted to know.

“No.” C.J. finally managed to get in a word. “She weighed in just over five pounds. The doctor said she’s strong and healthy.

“Of course she is,” her father said. “She’s my granddaughter.”

“Yes, dear,” Diane patted his face. “You deserve all the credit here.” Turning her head, she winked at her daughter.

One by one her family filed by, kissing her and taking their leave. Diane waited for them at the door, making sure her brood made it into the hallway. But when Warrick moved to follow, she shook her head.

“Why don’t you stick around a little while longer, Byron? She might like the company. Maybe even get around to apologizing for being so testy with you earlier as you put it.”

Warrick glanced over his shoulder toward C.J. She nodded. “Okay, just for a few more minutes.”

Diane paused at the door, the men in her life waiting for her to join them in the hall. Placing a hand on Warrick’s shoulder, she raised herself up on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you for being there for her.”

His smile was almost shy. “Just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.”

“I’m glad it was you.” She turned toward her daughter, beaming. Her baby had had a baby. “You did good, honey. I’ll see you in the morning. And don’t forget, think of some names.”

C.J. nodded. Warrick let the door close and then crossed to her. “You really don’t have any names?”

She shrugged her shoulders. The hospital gown slipped off one, and she tugged it back into place. “Not a one.”

He shook his head. She had been damned determined not to allow her pregnancy to interfere with her work. No one knew until it was absolutely necessary. The only reason he’d found out before the others was because he’d stumbled onto her condition completely by accident. While on a stakeout, she would periodically bolt out of the car and dash for the closest bathroom. It didn’t take him long to figure out she wasn’t battling food poisoning but morning sickness.

Warrick leaned against the wall, studying her. “Never knew you to be this unprepared before, Jones.”

She offered him a wan smile, her mind half a world away. This was supposed to have been a happy time. Instead she’d just joined the ranks of single motherhood with all its scary ramifications. Served her right for veering from her course and thinking that maybe she’d been one of the lucky ones to find someone special. What had led her down this primrose path was that her parents seemed so happy together. It had made her believe that marriages, if not made in heaven, certainly created one of their own. Well, Thorndyke had certainly set her straight about that.

“Some things,” she murmured, “you’re never prepared for.”

Something inside of his gut tightened. He knew she was thinking about Thorndyke. Warrick could feel his blood pressure going up several notches at the very thought of the man and his emotional abandonment of C.J. This time he kept his comment to himself. She’d been through hell, and he didn’t want to agitate her right now with any negative comments about the poster boy for slime. Thorndyke had obviously made her happy once and whatever did that was okay with him.

At least, he tried to tell himself that, although how she could be happy, even for a moment, with that shallow pretty boy was beyond him. If he didn’t know better, he would have said he was experiencing a bout of jealousy. But he did know better.

Rather than use the chair beside her, Warrick sat down on the bed and looked at C.J. for a long moment. That strange, funny feeling he’d gotten the moment he’d held her daughter in his hands hadn’t completely dissipated. On the contrary, alone with C.J. like this, it seemed to take on more depth and breadth. He still couldn’t put a name to it. Maybe it was better that way.

He looked at her pointedly. “He should know.”

She’d expected another put-down of her ex-lover. She certainly didn’t think Warrick was going to push for any sort of contact. C.J. raised her chin defensively. “He knows.”

“You called him?” There hadn’t been any time, unless she’d done it while he was filling out her insurance papers at the registration desk.

C.J. looked away, in no mood for a lecture. “I told him I was pregnant, A baby is usually the end result of that condition.”

Cupping her face, he made her look at him. “You weren’t that sure,” he reminded her.

She pulled her head back. So he was Tom’s champion now? “I don’t count.”

A very soft smile curved Warrick’s mouth as he said quietly, “Yes, you do.” And then he straightened. “Thorndyke doesn’t know he has a daughter.”

Their last conversation together, the one that was littered with words like, “no strings” and “hey, how I do I know it’s even mine?” played itself over in her head. She’d hated Thorndyke for that, hated him for making what they’d shared seem tawdry and cheap. The one time she’d let her guard down and it had to be with the wrong man.

And now her partner was just making things worse. “He doesn’t want to know.” She raised her voice. “Will you leave it alone, Warrick? He’s like you. No strings.”

Warrick’s brows narrowed over stormy eyes. There was no way he’d allow himself to be compared to the other man. “He’s not like me. I’d want to know. I wouldn’t have left you to begin with.”

The tightly reined-in emotion in his voice surprised her. “You didn’t,” she told him.

He’d almost lost it just then. Maybe this whole baby thing had him more wound up than he thought. Warrick cleared his throat. “Yeah, I know. Do you want me to find him?”

Did he really think she didn’t know where her baby’s father was? “No need.”

Warrick looked into her eyes. He was the detail person and she was the one who went in like gangbusters, but it was stupid of him to think for a second that she wouldn’t keep tabs on Thorndyke, if only to make sure there was space between them.

“You know where he is, don’t you?”

“He’s in D.C.,” she told him crisply, and then added, “And if you get in contact with him in any way, I’ll rip your heart out.”

He laughed softly, letting the matter go. After all, it was her life. And maybe he was even a little relieved that she didn’t want to see Thorndyke, though there was no way he would ever have admitted to that.

“Always the delicate lady.”

A little of the luster returned to her eyes. “And don’t you forget it.” There had been only one detail about her pregnancy that she’d planned. “Now, are you going to be the baby’s godfather?”

The request, coming out of the blue, almost rendered him speechless. It took him a second to recover. “I’d be honored.”

She shrugged, trying not to let him see how much it meant to her to have him agree to be her baby’s godfather. “Just be there. Otherwise I’d have to substitute one of my brothers and that’s like putting a double whammy on the baby. Grossly unfair.”

“Wouldn’t want that.” He rose. It was time to go. There were only five hours until morning. “So, you want me to draw up a list for you?”

The question caught her off guard. She thought of the case she’d been poring over when this had all started. “Of suspects?”

“Of possible names.” She was unbelievable. “Damn it, C.J., you just gave birth. How can you be thinking about serial killers at a time like this?”

He didn’t understand, did he? Now it was personal. “Because I just gave birth to a little girl not unlike thirteen other little girls, that’s why I can be thinking about bringing this scum in. Each one of these thirteen victims had a first day, Warrick, just like my baby. Each one of them was someone’s little girl.”

He understood where she was coming from, but he was shooting for something far less complex. Leaning over her bed, he tucked the blanket up around her waist. “Stop being an FBI agent for a few minutes, C.J. Just for tonight, be little what’sits-name’s mom.”

He had no idea what she was experiencing, C.J. thought. How hard it was to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. Maybe it was just her hormones, running amok, but she was filled with so much love, so much everything that it was a miracle she was even able to draw a breath in. It felt so crowded inside of her.

But there was no way anyone, not even Warrick, was ever going to see just how vulnerable she actually could be. Weakness was always exploited, intentionally or otherwise.

“Okay,” she finally allowed somewhat cavalierly. “But promise me you’ll keep me posted about the case.”

“Right.” There was no way one word about the case was going to reach her ears from his lips until she was back to active duty, he thought, smiling at her. “I’ll call if there’s any breakthrough.”

That was too easy. She knew him better than that. “I’m not kidding.”

“I know.” Warrick took her hands into his and looked into her eyes, his expression softening just a little. Until a few hours ago he would have said that he was as close to C.J. as he was ever going to get. He’d been wrong.

Maybe it was just the excess of emotions he was feeling, he thought, searching for a reason for what was going on inside of him. “Don’t you ever relax?”

C.J. pressed her lips together. “The last time I relaxed, I wound up pregnant.” She instantly regretted the confession, but as she watched his eyes, she realized with relief that Warrick was being sympathetic.

He shook his head. “I know this is a new concept for you, Jones, but try for middle ground.” He bent over the bed, intending to brush a kiss on her cheek. Caught off guard, she turned her head. Her lips made contact with his. It was hard to say who was more surprised.

Something that had all the markings of an electric current snaked its way through her at lightning speed, making every hair on her body stand on end. She knew it was only a matter of extreme exhaustion mingled with being emotionally overwrought, but the end effect was still the same.

Her heart was pounding almost as hard as it had when she was struggling to give birth.

Very slowly Warrick lifted his head. His eyes held hers for a beat before he took a step back. He was as unsure of what had just transpired here as he had been about the feeling that had taken hold of him in the field office.

“You missed your target entirely,” she said quietly, struggling for a fragment of composure. She felt as if she was going to shatter into a million pieces if he so much as blew in her direction. “I think you’d better get back on the firing range.”

Warrick laughed then and ran his thumb along her bottom lip, wiping off the imprint of his lips. “Don’t worry about my ability to shoot straight. I can handle my own. See you tomorrow, Mommy.”

That term was reserved for her daughter when she learned to talk. C.J. loathed couples who referred to one another that way. “Don’t call me that.”

He paused. “‘Daddy’ doesn’t seem to fit, even if you do wear the pants most of the time.”

She didn’t want him thinking of her any differently. Not because of the baby. And not because of what had just accidentally happened here. “I’m still C.J.,” she insisted.

“Yeah,” he agreed. His eyes swept over her. “You’re still C.J. But as of two hours ago, you’re now a hell of a lot more.”

He winked at her and left.

Chapter 5

That old familiar feeling came over her. The one where she felt as if she was in the right place, where she was meant to be.

After completing three weeks of her maternity leave, C.J. absorbed her surroundings as she made her way from the elevator and down the hall. The last time she’d been here, she’d been done in by exhaustion, flat on her back and strapped to a gurney on the way to the hospital with a minutes-old baby in her arms.

God it felt good to be back.

She took a moment to gather herself together outside the office she shared with Rodriguez, Culpepper and Warrick, then pushed open the door.

Culpepper was the first to see her. Portly, with a layer of muscle beneath the fat, he rose to his feet and came forward.

“Hey, looks who’s here, Rodriguez. How’s it going, Mommy?”

Tossing her purse on her desk, she glanced toward her partner. “Warrick, did you warn these people about calling me that?”

“Hey, I can’t help it if they all have the attention spans of baby gnats.” Their desks butted up against each other. He rounded his and came to stand by hers. “Speaking of baby, why aren’t you with yours?”

She took a deep breath. Slightly stale air, lemon floor polish and Rodriguez’s ever-present jar of peanut butter. It even smelled good to be back here.

“The doctor gave me a clean bill of health, said I was fit to report back for duty.” C.J. had left the appropriate papers down at personnel on her way up here. “She actually thought I would be a nicer person if I went off to work every day.”

That was because even despite the work a new baby required, C.J. found herself going stir-crazy. The ability to multitask with speed was not always a good thing. It left her with too much time on her hands. She needed to fill that time with her job. Besides, ever since she’d become a mother herself, she had this overwhelming need to make the world around her a safer place to be for her daughter. She was doing it the only way she knew how.

“Besides,” C.J. continued, “My daughter’s actually got the semblance of a sleeping schedule down, and I’ve been kept in the dark long enough.”She looked at Warrick pointedly, then turned her attention to the other two men who were part of the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s task force. “Can either one of you two fill me in?” She nodded toward Warrick. “My partner here refused to say a word about the case to me. Every time I asked, he kept changing the subject so much, I began thinking that maybe Warrick was the Artful Dodger come to life.”

“Artful anything doesn’t sound like Warrick,” Ralph Culpepper hooted.