Читать книгу Another Woman's Baby - Joanna Wayne - Страница 14

“Megan. Hold on. I’ve got you. Just hold on.”

The brute was dragging her again. She managed one kick. Her feet scraped against the sand. They were going back to shore, but he was holding her head out of the water. She choked and spit out a stream of water.

“That’s the way. Clear your lungs. Here. Let me help.” He supported her forehead with his hands while she coughed and sputtered and spit up water. Air rushed into her lungs in a sweeping, caustic sensation, and she grew so dizzy that the man’s face blurred and became two.

“Why are you following me? Why are you doing this to me?” The words came out chopped and hoarse. She tried to pull away, but he held her against him.

“Listen, Megan. It wasn’t me who tried to kill you, and you better be glad I’ve been following you. If I hadn’t been, you’d be sleeping with the fishes tonight.”

“Get away from me. Now.” She tried to scream. He stifled her with a broad hand over her mouth.

“Would you just pipe down and listen. I’m an FBI agent and I’m not trying to kill you. I’m trying to keep someone else from doing it. I almost slipped up, big-time.”

He was crazy. No one wanted to kill her except this lunatic. She was weak and her head was pounding, but she had to get away from this man.

“I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth, but don’t scream.”

She begin to cough again, the taste of seawater making her sick. When she finally stopped coughing, she pushed at him again, only she was trembling and so weak the effort was useless. “Get away from me. Please. Leave me alone.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

She tried to scream, but again he cut off her cries with his hand over her mouth. “Megan, you have got to listen. I’m not lying. I’m with the FBI. You have to trust me.”

He pulled her against his chest and kept her wrapped in his arms. His mouth was at her ear. “You’re Megan Lancaster. You work at Lannier. Your supervisor is John Hardison. The baby you’re carrying belongs to Jackie Sellers Brewster.”

“How do you know these things.” She was stunned.

“Because I’m who I say I am.”

“Why would you be investigating me?”

“I’m not. I’m investigating the explosion that caused Ben and Jackie Brewster’s deaths.”

“Please, just let me go back to my house.”

“I’ll take you back.”

Her head was spinning. Nothing he said made sense. She couldn’t trust him. He’d tried to kill her. Yet everything he said was true, everything except the part about Jackie and Ben. The explosion had been an accident.

“Just try to relax. I’m going to carry you back to the house and put you to bed. If you need a doctor, we’ll call one. But you can’t tell anyone that I’m from the FBI or why I’m with you.”

“You can’t carry me. I’m huge.”

“I’ll worry about that.” He scooped her up in his arms without groaning once. “Now, just relax. You’ll be home before you know it.”

Relax? Fat chance. She was having a nightmare. She’d wake up in a minute and the dark, strong stranger who knew everything about her would evaporate like the steam from her teakettle.

But, for now, she was so tired and still dizzy and a little nauseous. She rested her head against his shoulder. He smelled of seawater and musk. Her hair was dripping wet. So was his. Drops of water rolled down his neck and chest. The wind whipped though her wet clothes, but she was too numb to feel the cold. Or maybe a person didn’t feel the effects of weather in a nightmare.

He stopped at the front door of Pelican’s Roost. “I’m going to put you on your feet. Hold on to me if you feel weak or dizzy, and give me your key so that I can unlock the door.”

She dug deep in her pockets. The key was missing. “I must have lost it in the water.”

“Do you have another one hidden somewhere?”

“No.”

“I can break a window.”

“Don’t you dare. Get my cell phone from my car. I’ll call the housekeeper and have her come over and unlock the door.”

“And then we’ll have to come up with a story to explain our being soaking wet.”

“You can get out of sight while she’s here. I’ll tell her I was wading in the surf and fell. As awkward as I am with this body, she’ll believe it.”

“Let’s see if you get her before we work out the details. Breaking the window is no problem, and I can fix it tomorrow.”

Only she didn’t want him around tomorrow. She leaned against the door as he bounded down the steps and retrieved the phone. A minute later she had Fenelda on the phone.

She said hello but interrupted Fenelda’s usual string of small talk. “I lost my key while I was on the beach. I thought maybe you or Leroy would run one over to me.”

“No use to do that. There’s a key taped under the third step. Your grandmother put it there after she locked herself out a time or two. Check there, and if you don’t find one, I’ll get Leroy to bring you mine.”

She held her hand over the speaker end of the phone and repeated the instructions to Bart. She was shivering now, the cold finally seeping through the shock. Bart showed no signs of the recent ordeal. He bounded down the steps, bent and ran his hand beneath the third step. When he stood up, the key was in his hand, and he gave her the thumbs-up sign.

All her worry about who had a key and there had been one beneath the step all the time. If half the town had a key to this house, the other half probably knew where to find the spare. She’d have the locks changed first thing in the morning.

Bart turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. When he tried to help her inside, she pulled away from him. “I’m okay.”

“I think you should call your doctor, tell him you fell in the surf. See if he thinks you need to go to a hospital and get checked.”

“He’ll think I need to have my head checked for walking in the surf at eight months pregnant.”

“I agree with him, but I’ve seen you out there, wading almost knee deep.”

The man had been watching her every move, following her, just as she’d thought. She’d have to learn to trust her instincts more. At least it was nice to know she wasn’t losing it, falling into a state of stress-induced paranoia.

He held on to her as he walked her to a chair. “How do you feel? Are you having any kind of pains in your stomach?”

“I feel as if I was run over by a truck.” She touched her hand to her stomach. “But I’m not having any contractions or unusual stomach pains. And I felt a couple of good strong kicks when you were carrying me back to the house.”

“The water probably acted as a support for your body.”

“Lucky me.”

“You are lucky. You’re alive.”

Which is more than she could say for Jackie and Ben. The impact of Bart’s words finally sank in. She dropped to the wooden rocker in front of the fireplace, the horror and pain she’d felt at hearing of Jackie’s death overtaking her as if it had happened all over again. “Why do you think someone murdered my friends?”

“First you need to get out of those wet clothes.”

She looked at the stairs and moaned. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to climb them.

“Are your clothes upstairs?”

She nodded.

“Why don’t you stay in the chair and let me get you a robe?”

And then she’d be forced to entertain the dark stranger in just a robe. Only the wet clothes she had on now were no better. They clung to her, outlining the baby paunch and the tips of her nipples.

“It’s in the bathroom—the third door on the right,” she said, choosing the lesser of two evils. “It’s blue. You can’t miss it.”

He climbed the steps two at a time, probably afraid to be gone long, worried that she’d call the police. Part of her wanted to, but the man’s words were taking root in her mind and were starting to make sense. If it had been him who was trying to kill her on the beach a few minutes ago, he’d have had no reason to back off. And if he wasn’t with the FBI, how did he know that she was carrying Jackie’s baby?

Still, she had lots of questions. And she wanted answers.

“BART.”

He looked up from the fireplace and the logs he was lighting as Megan came back into the huge family room. She’d tied a towel around her hair, turban style, and exchanged her wet clothes for the fuzzy blue robe. It stretched over her stomach and fell into loose folds around her ankles.

“I thought I’d build a fire, if that’s all right,” he said.

“It’s perfect. You should change out of your wet clothes, too.”

“I’m six feet two inches. I doubt you’d have anything to fit me. Besides, these shorts will dry fast.” And he’d already shed his T-shirt to reveal a magnificent chest.

“At least you were dressed for the occasion.”

“I’m just glad I had my binoculars on you at the exact moment he attacked.”

“Where were you?” she asked.

“Standing in a cluster of sea oats just past your gazebo.”

“Do you watch me every time I leave the house?”

“I try,” he admitted.

“That’s all you do—just watch me?”

“I’ve had worse jobs, and in a lot worse places. Besides, you’ve made it fairly easy lately, going to lunch at the same time every day, walking at the same times.”

“I’m a creature of habit.”

“Most folks are,” he added. “The decent ones and the criminals. That’s how we trap a lot of them.”

“So you followed me here to Orange Beach because you expected someone would try to kill me?”

“We thought it was possible.”

“We meaning the FBI?”

“Right.” He raked the windblown hair away from his face.

Megan took the towel from her head and began to rub it over the ends of her hair. It looked darker when it was wet, black and shiny. It struck him again how pretty she was and how vulnerable she looked. He’d never guarded a pregnant woman before, never realized that it would affect him the way it had.

A few minutes ago, when he’d seen her fighting for her life, the usual surge of adrenaline had been fueled by a fury he seldom felt anymore. What kind of monster would attack a pregnant woman? A foolish question. He knew this monster and nothing was beyond him.

But pregnant or not, Megan Lancaster was no pushover. She’d fought like a wild woman in that water, and he had the feeling he was going to have a hard time getting her to let him call the shots from here on out. But nobody loved a challenge more than he did.

The sputtering logs caught in a burst of flame, sending fingers of fire up the chimney. He closed the screen and backed away. “That should chase away the chill.”

She was standing behind him with a beach blanket. “This might help, too, especially until your clothes dry.”

“Great idea.” He wrapped it around his shoulders.

“Did you get a good look at the man who tried to kill me?”

“I couldn’t be sure. It was dark, and it happened so fast. Once I pulled him off you, he took off before I had a chance to yank that stupid mask from his face.”

“Why didn’t you go after him?”

“If I had, you would have drowned.” He glanced toward the kitchen. “Now we need to think about food. Have you eaten?”

“Not since lunch.”

“Good. Neither have I.”

The phone rang. She jumped up to get it, but he caught her arm. “Let it ring.”

“It’s probably my boss. He’ll keep calling until I answer.”

“John Hardison?”

“Yes.”

“Then answer, but don’t say anything about what’s happened.” He read the questions in her eyes, mixed with a tinge of suspicion. That was the one thing he hated about this job—innocent people got caught up in the actions of hardened criminals. “Trust me, Megan. I’ll protect you and the baby. You won’t get hurt again, but you have to do what I say. Just answer the phone and act as if nothing’s wrong.”

He listened to her end of the conversation while he rummaged in her cabinets for food. She was eating for two, and he was hungry himself, but his culinary talents were extremely limited. After they ate they’d work out a plan. No more trying to guard a woman in a secluded old beach house. She wouldn’t like it, but he was going to stick to her every second of the day and night until the man he was after was behind bars.

Even if it took him right into the delivery room.

MEGAN SAT at the kitchen table, using her spoon to make swirls in the remains of her tomato soup. Bart was on his second bowl and he’d eaten every bite of the BLT sandwich he’d made. She’d only managed to get down half of hers and a few sips of the soup.

It seemed strange to be sitting across the table from the man she’d seen as sinister and frightening up until an hour ago. Now she was buying into his story even though she’d still seen no real proof of who he was.

“I’d like to see your badge,” she said, not that she’d know the difference if it was a fake.

“I’ll do you one better, I’ll give you a number at the bureau. But in the meantime, I’ll need to pick up some clothes over at my condo. As big as this place is, I’m sure you have lots of extra bedrooms.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“It’s the best solution.”

“Not for me.”

“You have a short memory, Megan.” He glanced at the kitchen clock. “A little over an hour ago, you were fighting for your life. The man ran off, but he’s still out there somewhere waiting for his chance to attack again. I’m not planning to leave you alone—not for a second.”

“I’ll decide that after I have proof you are who you say you are.”

He wiped his mouth with the flowered cotton napkin. “Are you always this suspicious?”

“I work in the world of big business. I learned long ago not to trust anything but verifiable facts.”

“Good. I’m not a particularly trusting man myself. Now, why don’t you call your doctor and then we’ll make a little trip to my condo to pack my suitcase.”

“You won’t need much for one night.”

He shook his head. “You still don’t get it, do you? I will be with you every second of the day and night from now until the man who tried to kill you is apprehended.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ve had enough of the good life. I’m driving back to New Orleans first thing in the morning.” She wasn’t sure when she’d made that decision, but right now she couldn’t wait to leave Pelican’s Roost.

“No. You’re staying here.”

She stood and glared at him across the table. “FBI or not, Bart Cromwell, you will not tell me what to do and where to live. I’m a citizen, not a criminal.”

“Okay.” He spread his hands on the table. “I’m not telling you. I’m suggesting that you stay in Orange Beach.”

“Why? To make it easier for some lunatic to drown me?”

“You’re out here in an isolated setting. It’s much easier for me to protect you. Besides, this is a small town. We have a much better chance of finding your would-be killer before he has a chance to strike again.”

“Why would this man have killed Ben and Jackie, and why would he want to kill me?”

“We don’t know. We only suspect that the explosion was rigged and thought the man might follow up by killing their unborn child.”

“You don’t know more or you’re not saying more?”

“I’ve told you what I can.”

This couldn’t have anything to do with Jackie. It had to involve Ben. He’d seemed such a nice guy, not that she knew him all that well. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure Jackie knew him all that well either. She’d fallen in love with him on a vacation to some island in the Caribbean. They eloped a few months later. She’d never heard her mention Ben’s family.

“So you think the man is not after me but after the baby?”

“We think it’s possible. That’s why I’m here.”

Her heart plunged to her stomach. This madman, whoever he was, planned to kill the baby. The ultimate pay-back to Ben for whatever sin he’d committed in this man’s eyes. He’d kill not only Ben, but his wife and his unborn child.

She was exhausted, so tired she could barely stand, and yet something pushed and hardened inside her, a protective surge that was so strong it nullified the fear. Her fingers clutched the back of the chair and she faced Bart. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“Does that mean you’re willing to stay in Orange Beach?”

“It means I’ll sleep on the sand in a hurricane if that’s what it takes to stop this lunatic and protect the baby.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“We need to go to your condo and pick up your things. I want to see your badge and I want to talk to your supervisor. But if this checks out, you just got yourself a partner.”

December 9

MEGAN WOKE to the smells of frying bacon, freshly brewed coffee and salty air. She stretched, then groaned as the ache in her arms and legs clamored for attention. She moved slower this time and ran her hand along her stomach.

“Good morning, little one. I smell food. I’m assuming that means our guest is cooking. He’s the same dark stranger I told you about, but I checked all his credentials last night. Apparently he’s a real FBI agent and he’s here to protect us. The cooking is a bonus. So even though someone roughed us up a little last evening, you don’t need to worry about a thing, not until you get ready to come kicking into the world. I hear that’s a bumpy ride.”

She, on the other hand, had a few things to worry about. She’d talked to the doctor last night, told him partial truths, and he’d said she was probably fine as long as she didn’t have any bleeding or contractions. Still, she was glad she had an appointment scheduled for this afternoon.

And somehow she’d have to deal with living with a man in the house. She was about to slide her feet over the side of the bed when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. So she pulled the sheet up to her neck and waited for Bart to appear. When he stopped at her door, he had a wicker breakfast tray in hand.

“Don’t tell me that’s for me,” she said.

“I figured you deserved it after last night.”

“Are you going to join me?”

“Do you want company?”

“Why not? I think we need to talk about how I’m going to explain your living here for a few days.”

“I have that all worked out.”

He narrowed his eyes and his mouth stretched to the left side. She had the feeling he was about to hit her with something she wasn’t going to like, and she didn’t want bad news to spoil her appetite again. The baby needed nourishment. “Have your breakfast before it gets cold. The plans can wait until after we eat.”

She picked up a piece of bacon and nibbled on the end of it as he went downstairs to fix a tray for himself. The bacon was crunchy, just the way she liked it. She washed it down with coffee. For the first three months of the pregnancy, she hadn’t been able to drink coffee without getting nauseous, but now it tasted better than ever. Still, she limited herself to one cup a day. Too much caffeine was not good for the baby.

Neither was having a killer chase her. And she had an idea that Bart’s plan wouldn’t make her feel any better. She’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, she took another sip of coffee and tried to find a way to get close enough to the tray not to spill food all over herself. “No offense, baby, but you do take up a lot of space.”

After a few minutes, Bart appeared at the door, and she tried to ready her mind for the next round of surprises from the stranger with a badge.