Читать книгу Mommy Midwife - Cassie Miles, Cassie Miles - Страница 12

Chapter Three

Troy knew that he’d overstepped his boundaries with Olivia, but he wasn’t going to let the subject drop. Not when her safety had been compromised. She needed to understand that her parents’ profession might be the reason she was targeted for kidnapping. It wasn’t the first time she’d been abducted.

“Stop the car,” she said. “I want out.”

“That’s not going to happen. I won’t let you put yourself and our child in danger.”

“There’s nobody following us. You said so yourself.”

“You need a bodyguard, and I’m here. Deal with it.”

Months ago, when he’d first started researching her past, he’d felt bad about poking around where he hadn’t been invited, but he’d rationalized it by telling himself that it was his right to know everything he could about the mother of his child. Since she’d made it clear that she didn’t want to talk to him, what choice did he have? But he’d gone deeper than he’d originally intended when he’d discovered that she was the daughter of two international spies. He never would have guessed that she had such an exotic background.

His first impression of Olivia had been that she was a practical, down-to-earth woman—a healthy, easygoing mountain gal who didn’t wear makeup and liked being outdoors. When she’d showed up on his brother’s doorstep and demanded sex, he’d revised that opinion to include passionate. That night, she’d made love like there was no tomorrow. He’d never forget the way she rode him with her blond hair flying in wild tangles and her slender body arched above him. Her small, firm breasts had glistened in the light from a bedside lamp. She’d driven him to a height he’d never reached before. It was no wonder that he hadn’t noticed when the condom had slipped.

After that night, he’d wanted to spend more time with her, but she’d shut him down. He’d returned to his assignment in the Middle East and had tried to forget her. Olivia Laughton would be the one who got away—the woman he’d see only in his fantasies.

Her announcement that she was carrying his child changed his plans, and that was when he’d started digging. Her parents intrigued him. By all accounts, they were charming and sophisticated diplomats. To uncover their connection to the CIA, Troy called in favors from high-ranking sources in the intelligence community. He didn’t know specifics about their assignments, but he had learned of an incident in a South American country that changed the careers of Richard and Sharon Laughton. That incident involved their seven-year-old daughter.

He glanced over at her. “I can’t force you to talk to me, but it’s important for us to figure out who’s after you. Anything you can remember might be helpful.”

“You’re right,” she admitted in a small voice. “I hate that you’re right, but you are.”

“You can tell me anything. I won’t be shocked.”

She exhaled a heavy sigh. “Do you think there’s a connection between the kidnapping when I was a child and what’s happening now?”

“I don’t know.”

She turned away from him with her face in shadow. If he could have seen her expression, he’d have had a better idea of what was going on in her head. Either she would decide to trust him with her secrets or she’d keep that door closed. He hoped for the former.

“It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “When you think of being held captive, it seems like a horror story. But it wasn’t.”

He said nothing, not wanting to interrupt her fragile narrative. There were more vehicles on the road to Keystone, both coming and going. He kept careful watch in the rearview mirror to make sure they weren’t being tailed.

“Our family was stationed in a South American country,” she said. “I don’t even remember which one. I was only seven, and life was kind of a blur, living in one place after another. My sister was four and she was with the nanny all the time. I had more freedom. Our residence was a square with a patio and garden in the middle, which was where I spent most of my time. We had servants, and I played with their kids. Though I wasn’t aware of learning the language, I spoke Spanish as often as English.”

As she continued, her voice became more sure and steady. They were only a few minutes away from their destination, and he decided to prolong their trip so she’d keep talking. He cranked the steering wheel, and the rented SUV made a sharp left.

“Where are we going?” she asked. “This isn’t the way to Keystone.”

“I’m doubling back to make sure we aren’t being followed.”

Her slender hand rested atop her belly. “You know, I’ve never talked about this before. It doesn’t even seem like it happened to me. The memory is more like a movie I saw or something I read in a book.”

Hoping to get her back to the story, he prompted, “Did you have your own room at the residence?”

“I sure did. And a canopy bed with a pink duvet and lots of flounces. The room where my parents slept was huge with a giant walk-in closet. I loved to watch my mother getting all dressed up for special events. The night when the incident took place, she wore a dark blue

V-neck dress with long sleeves and shoulder pads. Remember shoulder pads? My mom always wore them. It was that power dressing thing.”

She was loosening up, and he encouraged her. “I’ve seen photos of your mother. She’s an attractive woman.”

“Beautiful and classy. My sister looks a lot like her. Me? Not really. We all have blond hair, that’s about it.”

He thought Olivia was beautiful, and he’d told her a million times. But that wasn’t the point right now. “When you were a child, did you know what your parents did?”

“They worked at the embassy. That’s all I knew. That’s typical, isn’t it? Most kids don’t have a clue what their parents actually do for a living.”

“Most kids don’t have spies for parents.”

“And they don’t get abducted,” she said. “Okay, now I’ve started this story, I want to get through it.”

“I’m listening.”

“My mom was all dressed up. Since my dad was already at the party, I went to the front of the house with her to wait for the limo that would take her to the party. A big, shiny car pulled up. A strange man got out and talked to her in a low voice. He might have had a gun, probably did, but I didn’t see the weapon. All I knew was that when he grabbed her arm, he was taking my mother away from me. And I knew in my heart that I couldn’t let her go. If I did, I was afraid I’d never see her again. I jumped into the car with her and held on to her with all my strength.”

“You were a gutsy kid.”

“Not at all. I was scared out of my head. I heard the men talking in Spanish, trying to figure out how to get rid of me and I yelled at them that I wouldn’t leave my mother. They ended up with both of us. Two for the price of one.”

“Where did they take you?”

“I curled up on my mom’s lap. We put on blindfolds. She pretended it was a game but I knew better. We drove for a long time. When we got out, we were in a fabulous house—a palace, really. They took us up a marble staircase to the third floor. The doors were locked, but we had plenty of space with a bedroom, a sitting room and a bathroom.”

“And then?”

“Nothing,” she said. “We stayed there for a week. We were well fed and mostly left alone. Then they put on the blindfolds and took us home.”

Troy reminded himself that she was telling this story from the perspective of a seven-year-old. Her mother had been there to protect and reassure her child, and he suspected that Olivia’s mom had gone through hell during that week. “Tell me about a typical day when you were being held captive.”

“I don’t think I can remember much detail, but I’ll give it a try. First, we’d get up and do some exercises, touching our toes and reaching for the sky. And then, we’d wash up. I had to help my mom because she had a bruise. On her cheek. A huge, dark bruise. Oh, my God.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I had completely forgotten about the bruise. It was terrible. How could I forget?”

Memory was a funny thing. She hadn’t wanted to think of the abduction as a trauma, and she’d suppressed negative thoughts. “How did she get the bruise?”

“Late at night, one of the men came into our room,” she said. “He was loud and angry and he smelled bad. His face was red like a devil. And he slapped Mom so hard that she fell on the tile floor.”

She inhaled a sharp gasp before continuing. “I ran to the man. I kicked and I hit and I shoved. I did everything I could to keep him from hurting my mom. And he went away. Mom held me, told me she wasn’t really hurt, and we had to be quiet.”

His heart ached for the brave little girl who had tried to take care of her mother. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Mom told me to run and hide in the bathroom whenever anybody came into the room, and that’s what I did. I stood on the other side of the door and listened really hard. They never hit her again. If they had, I don’t know what I would have done.” She shook her head. “After a week, we went home.”

“Were you ever given an explanation? Did your parents ever talk to you about what happened?”

“Never. We accepted that a bad thing had happened, and we moved on. Literally, we moved. We went to Washington, D.C., for my parents’ next assignment.”

Because of the kidnapping, their cover story had been compromised. He knew that the Laughton family never returned to South America. Her father had gone on short assignments in Europe and the Middle East. But it wasn’t until both of their children graduated from high school and went to college that Richard and Sharon returned to regular work in foreign embassies.

Troy respected her parents for making the safety of their children a top priority. It was going to be difficult to tell them that their daughter was almost, once again, the victim of a kidnapping. Still, they needed to know. The intruder at Olivia’s cabin had taken a photo of the entire family.

* * *

T HE LODGE - STYLE hotel where he had reservations was four stories tall, and their suite on the top floor had deluxe amenities. After the bellman left her suitcase and his duffel, Troy inspected their space with an eye to security, prowling through the spacious sitting room with its cream-colored leather furniture, the bedroom, bathroom and the tiled area with the hot tub. He positioned a chair in front of the door so anybody breaking in would make a lot of noise, then he stepped onto the balcony that looked toward the moonlit slope. In a few months, the groomed mountainside would be filled with skiers and snowboarders.

Olivia stepped outside and stood beside him at the metal railing. “Are we safe?”

“A determined kidnapper could climb from one balcony to another and get up here. But I think we’re okay.” He lifted his face to the cool night breeze. “Nice place.”

“Very nice.”

“When I’m deployed, the conditions are usually awful. I like to treat myself to good hotels.”

“With room service,” she reminded him.

“Hungry?”

“You can order for me, as long as it’s fish, rice, a veggie and maybe a little something sweet.”

“A healthy meal for mom and baby.” He looked down at her bulging midsection, glad that she was taking good care of their unborn son. “Before you get comfortable, you should call your parents.”

“I don’t know what to say to them.”

She strolled inside, gingerly lowered herself onto the leather sofa and stretched her legs out. Her feet were already bare. She must have kicked off her sneakers as soon as she’d entered the room. In her purple scrubs, her shape reminded him of a ripe eggplant—a comparison he knew he shouldn’t mention. They were just beginning to connect, and he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize his chance to get close to her.

There was one thing all women loved. “Foot rub?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

He sat on the sofa and lifted her feet onto his lap. Her toes were a little puffy. When he took her heel in his hand and gently kneaded her instep, she responded by wriggling herself into a comfy position against the sofa pillows and closing her eyes. Her fingers laced on top of her belly.

As he stroked and rubbed, he studied her face. Seldom had he had the chance to observe her at rest. She was lovely. Though she had dark circles below her eyes, her lightly tanned complexion was flawless—not exactly glowing, but close. Tendrils of blond hair curled alongside her high cheekbones.

“That feels so good.” Her lips parted as she made a low, sensual hum. “I don’t want you to stop, but I do want you to call room service.”

“You have a call of your own to make,” he reminded her.

“Mom and Dad.” She sighed. “My father is going to love you. The way you poked around the suite when we came in was exactly what he would do.”

Checking the security was a natural instinct for anyone in the intelligence community. “Your dad and I have a few things in common.”

“More than a few,” she said. “You’re a lot like him.”

“I doubt that.” Troy had seen photos and had read dossiers on the career of Richard Laughton. He was the kind of spy who looked good in a tux and worked in a high-class political arena. “From what I can tell, your father is slick and sophisticated. That’s not me.”

“And what’s your style?”

“Down and dirty,” he said.

“But you’re both spies. I know that military intelligence is different from the CIA, but you’re still gathering information. You’re still tracking down the bad guys.” As he continued to rub her feet, she kept humming. “What are you working on right now?”

He was making a transition in his work, preparing for the next phase of his career. “Let’s just say that it involves a terrorist cell.”

“In the United States?”

“That’s right.”

She wiggled her toes. “Unfortunately, I have to use the bathroom. Can we do more foot rubbing later?”

“As much as you want.”

She pulled her feet away from him, sat upright on the sofa and confronted him directly. “I knew from the first time we met you that you were involved in dangerous work.”

“Like any soldier,” he said with a shrug.

“Like my father.”

He met her gaze. Though she was obviously tired, her blue eyes glowed with an inner strength that reminded him of the seven-year-old girl who had fought to protect her mother. Her childhood trauma formed a basis of fear for the adult woman. “You blamed your father when you and your mom were kidnapped.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” she said, quickly defending him.

If she was thinking rationally, she had to know that her father hadn’t done anything that he thought would bring danger to his family. After the incident in South America, he’d gone to great lengths to protect them, bringing his wife and daughters to Washington, D.C., to live. Those were the facts.

But reality was always colored by emotion. He imagined that when Olivia thought of kidnapping, she remembered the feelings she’d had as a little girl. At some level, she would hold her father responsible.

“I promise you,” he said, “that my work will never endanger you or our child.”

She jabbed her forefinger at the center of his chest. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Her sudden hostility ticked him off. He hadn’t yet told her about the changes that were coming up in his career, and he couldn’t expect her to know what he was giving up. Nevertheless, she ought to know him well enough to understand that he was, above all, responsible. “What are you getting at?”

“Has it occurred to you that the intruders at my cabin might not be enemies of my parents? They might be someone connected to your terrorist cell.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had acknowledged and dismissed that possibility. “They wouldn’t know about you. You’re not my wife.”

“Over the past couple of months, you’ve sent me a lot of baby presents, emails and flowers. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out our relationship.”

She was right. The attempted kidnapping could be because of his work. It might be his fault that she was in danger.