Читать книгу Protecting the Pregnant Princess - Lisa Childs, Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 10

Shots rang out, echoing inside Jane’s aching head. She reached for her gun, but it wasn’t on the holster. Hell, she wasn’t even wearing the holster. Instead her fingers encountered the soft mound of her burgeoning belly. Of her baby…

She jolted awake, as if fighting her way out of a nightmare. But she awakened to the nightmare, not from it. She still couldn’t remember who she was or how she had wound up trapped in this strange hospital jail. But she hadn’t forgotten that she needed to get the hell out of here.

And not to that private airport. She couldn’t let the surly Mr. Centerenian take her there. When? Tomorrow night? Tonight? She had no idea how long she’d been asleep. She wore no watch, and there was no clock for her to mark the seconds, minutes or hours.

Given the urgency of her situation, how had she fallen asleep? Was she the one to whom the nurse had really lied? Had Sandy actually slipped her a sedative? But Jane didn’t feel groggy from drugs. She was just tired—either because of the concussion or the pregnancy.

The baby shifted inside her, kicking against her ribs as if trying to prod her into action—reminding Jane that she had someone besides herself to protect now. No matter who the father was—she was the mother. Something primal reared up inside her, clutching at her heart and her womb. A mother’s instinct, a mother’s love. This was her child.

Her baby girl. She felt it with a deep certainty that the baby she carried was a girl. Had she had an ultrasound? Even though she didn’t remember the process, maybe she remembered the results.

“Okay, baby girl, I don’t know how we got here,” she murmured. “But that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that we’re getting out.”

She just had to figure out how. She tugged on her wrists, fighting to loosen the restraints. Maybe that man—Mr. Timmer—hadn’t tightened them as much as she’d feared. Or maybe the nurse had returned and loosened them while Jane had been sleeping. Either way, she had enough play to slip one hand free. Just as she reached out to undo the other strap, the lock beeped. And hinges creaked as the door opened.

Damn it! Maybe she had slept too long. Maybe she’d slept away a day and any chance she’d had of escaping this nightmare of captivity.

SHE W AS STILL HERE.

Aaron’s breath shuddered out with a sigh of relief. He had worried that they might have moved her already, that they probably had just minutes after he’d been discovered in her room. But then maybe they didn’t realize those last shots—fired at him in the parking lot—had also missed him.

As he studied her, his relief ebbed away, and his concern returned. She lay, her body stiff and unmoving beneath her blankets. Maybe when they hadn’t managed to get rid of him, they’d decided to get rid of her instead. Was she dead? Or just playing dead like she had the first time he had come into her room?

He moved toward the bed, hoping that she would reach out to strangle him as she had last time. She wasn’t strong enough to hurt him but it proved she was still strong enough to fight.

He opened his mouth to whisper her name but had no idea what to call her. Was she Charlotte or Princess Gabriella? He wished he knew. Since he wished she was the woman he had already begun to fall for, he called her, “Charlotte…”

Her eyes opened wide with shock, but probably at the sound of his voice rather than any recognition of her name because she said, “I thought you were dead.”

“So did I,” Aaron admitted.

If the Marshal hadn’t shown up in the parking lot when he had, those shots probably wouldn’t have stopped until Aaron had been hit. And killed. But Marshal Herrema’s car pulling into the lot had sent the shooter into hiding. Aaron suspected he would come out again—just hopefully not until Aaron got her to safety.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, reaching for her restraints.

But she already had one arm free and quickly freed her other arm. “I thought you were shot,” she said. “I was sure I heard gunshots.”

“You did,” he confirmed.

“The guard with the Glock?” She swung her legs over the bed but hesitated to stand.

“Yes.” She knew guns. She had to be Charlotte, or had Charlotte taught Princess Gabriella to identify firearms? “He caught me coming out of your room.”

She glanced toward the door, her caramel-colored eyes widening with fear. “After catching you, I’m surprised he would leave my side for a second—even for his nicotine fix.”

Her fear made him think she was the princess. Because he’d never seen fear on Charlotte’s face. Passion. Anger. But the fear had been Gabriella’s.

“I came up with a distraction to get him away.” Trigger, in a short dark-haired wig that made him, from a distance, look like Aaron. “But we don’t have much time.” Before the guard either gave up trying to catch Trigger or caught him and figured out he wasn’t Aaron.

She gestured at her hospital gown. “I won’t be able to just walk out of here dressed like this, and I don’t think I have anything else to wear. There’s no bureau or closet in here.”

He’d noticed that the first time he had broken into the room. There had been no sign of her belongings—nothing to provide a clue to her identity or a wardrobe for her departure. So he had come prepared. He handed her the wad of clothes he’d had clenched under his arm. She unfolded the drab green shirt and pants. He’d stolen the scrubs from the employee locker room. He reached for her arm to guide her from the bed, so that she could change.

She stood but swayed on her bare feet.

Aaron grabbed her. “Are you all right?”

The blow to her head had obviously stolen more than her memory. Would he be able to get her out without assistance? Maybe he should have brought along a wheelchair.

She drew in a deep breath and, using his arm, steadied herself. “I’m fine.”

“Do you need help getting out of the gown?” he asked. And images flashed through his mind of another time he’d undressed her…

“No. I can manage myself.” She hadn’t lost her stubborn independence. She had to be Charlotte.

“Turn around,” she ordered him, her modesty misplaced. If she was Charlotte, he had already seen every inch of her naked. He had already caressed and kissed every inch of her naked skin.

But he obliged her and turned back toward the door and kept watch through the small window to the hall. For a big building—three stories of brick and mortar—the place was surprisingly quiet and nearly deserted. Where were all the other patients and visitors? Locked up and locked out?

“Actually I can’t manage,” she corrected herself. “These damn ties are knotted in the back. Can you undo them?”

He drew in a deep breath to steady his suddenly racing pulse, and then he turned to face her again. She stood with her back toward him, her long hair pulled over her shoulder so it would be out of the way. She had already pulled on the pants and stepped into the slipon shoes. Her arm over her shoulder, she contorted as she tugged on the straps binding her inside the hospital gown.

“You’re making it worse,” he observed and gently pulled away her fingers. Forcing his fingers to remain steady, he unknotted the ties and parted the rough cotton fabric.

Baring her back reminded him of lowering the zipper on another kind of gown—one of whisper-soft silk that had slid down her body like a caress—leaving her bare but for a tiny scrap of lace riding low on her hips. She wore no bra now, either. Maybe she thought turning away from him protected her modesty. But he could see the side of her full breast and the nipple puckered with cold. But the rounded mound of her belly drew his attention from the beauty of her breast.

This was another kind of beauty.

One that stole away his breath. Was the baby she carried his? That was only possible if she was Charlotte. While he suspected that she was, he wasn’t certain if that was merely wishful thinking on his part rather than fact. Hell, not even she knew for certain who the hell she was—if he could believe her claim of amnesia.

She tugged the scrubs shirt down over her breasts and burgeoning belly. The cotton stretched taut. He should have found her a bigger size, but he’d grabbed what he could from the first accessible locker. He’d acted quickly then because they didn’t have much time.

“Are you ready?” he asked, the urgency rushing back over him. Trigger might have already been caught. Time was running out. “Do you have everything?”

“There’s nothing here,” she said. “We shouldn’t be here, either.” As she turned toward him, she swayed again and clutched at his arm.

“You’re not fine,” he said, disproving her earlier claim. “You’re weak and dizzy.”

“I will be fine,” she amended herself. “Once we get out of here. Let’s go.” And then instead of holding on to his arm for support, she was tugging on it to pull him toward the door. “You still have your badge?”

He shook his head even as he pulled the ID from the lanyard around his neck. “Not mine.”

This was probably better. Since it belonged to one of the Serenity House security guards, it had access to more areas than Mr. Ottenwess’s badge had.

“I was fired.”

“Then how did you get back in?” she asked, her golden-brown eyes narrowing with suspicion.

He lifted the badge toward the lock. “I grabbed this off the guy throwing me off the premises.” His stomach clenched in protest of the blows it had taken to provide the distraction. He could have fended those off and would have had he not needed that damn badge.

Her brow furrowed now—with suspicion. “Who are you?”

He sucked in a breath of disappointment. “You still don’t remember me?”

“I don’t remember anything before I woke up in this place.” But she looked away from him as she said it, as if unable to meet his eyes.

Why? Because she lied? But why lie about having amnesia? Was she playing him for a fool?

What the hell was going on? Was this whole disappearance just a way to get the princess out of the obligation the king had announced at the ball? That was what Rafael St. Pierre and Whit had suspected until they’d seen the hotel suite.

But Aaron had believed Charlotte too honest for subterfuge. Had he been wrong about her?

It wouldn’t be the first time he had let his attraction to a woman cloud his judgment. The last time his lapse had cost that woman her life.

He had to be more careful—had to make certain that nobody died this time. Because, given all the bullets that had already been fired at him, it just might be him who wound up dead this time.

JANE HELD HER breath as she waited for him to swipe the badge he’d stolen through the lock. But he hesitated, his gaze fixated on her. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, she knew those pale blue eyes were staring at her. He wasn’t touching her, but yet she felt him. Her skin heated and tingled as it had from just the brush of his fingertips as he’d untied her gown.

She closed her eyes and drew in a steadying breath. But that was a mistake because that fleeting image she’d had earlier of him returned—even more vividly. She not only felt him. She saw him. Naked.

Her face heated with embarrassment over that being the only thing she remembered about her life before she had woken up in this place. That was why she’d lied to him. How could she admit to knowing what he looked like naked—magnificent—but not what his name was?

She’d only heard that voice from the hall refer to him as Timmer. But she didn’t even know if that was really his name or a cover he’d used to gain access to this creepy place.

Hell, she didn’t even know what her name was.

But none of that mattered right now.

“We have to get out of here,” she urged him. “Mr. Centerenian, that armed guard, called someone—I don’t know who—earlier, and they made plans to take me to some airfield—to get me out of the country.” She had no idea what country they were in, but that didn’t matter, either. What mattered was not getting on that private plane to a new prison.

He nodded, either in understanding of the guard’s plan or in agreement with the need to get out of here because he swiped the badge through the card reader.

She held her breath until the lock buzzed and a green light flashed on the card reader. She reached for the door, but his hand was already on the handle. Her fingers connected with the back of his hand, with his hard knuckles and warm skin. And she tingled again from his touch, just as she had when he’d undressed her. Attraction had chased chills up and down her spine then. Now apprehension did as he opened the door to the hall.

Would the guard catch them as he’d caught this man last time?

Now that Timmer had unlocked the door, he was done hesitating. His hand wrapped tight around her arm. Maybe just to steady her. Or maybe to make sure that she didn’t get away from him.

He pulled her down the hall behind him, as if keeping himself between her and whatever threat they might encounter. As she followed him, she noticed the bulge beneath the scrubs at the small of his back. He wasn’t unarmed this time. Since she’d seen him last, Timmer had acquired a gun. Was it his or had he taken it off the burly guard?

Was that where Mr. Centerenian had gone? Disarmed? Or dead?

Maybe this man, whom she’d once known intimately, was just resourceful. Or maybe he was dangerous.

The threat actually came from behind them as someone yelled, “Stop!”

The man increased his speed, nearly dragging her as Jane obeyed the command and tried to stop. It wasn’t a male voice yelling but a familiar female voice. Nurse Sandy caught up to them and clutched at Jane’s free arm.

“Stop!” But the older woman spoke to the man. “You can’t take her.”

“I can’t stay,” Jane told her. “That guard—the one who hurt me—he’s going to take me out of here. Out of the country. I can’t leave with him.”

“You can’t leave with this man, either,” the nurse said. “Unless…” Sandy stared intently into Jane’s eyes. “Do you know him?”

“I—I—”

“Of course you don’t,” the woman answered her own question. “You don’t even know who you are.”