Читать книгу His Secret Baby: The Agent's Secret Baby - Carla Cassidy, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 10

He didn’t like the way she’d suddenly stiffened against him or the fact that her breathing began to sound labored. Why wasn’t she answering him?

As he held Eve at arm’s length to get a look at her face, he found nothing to reassure him. She was in physical pain.

“Talk to me, Eve. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she managed to get out, fervently hoping that if she said it with enough conviction, it would be true. But it wasn’t. The pain just got more intense. Why wouldn’t it stop? “The baby kicked. He’s been doing a lot of that today.”

“He?” Adam echoed. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said that something akin to pride stirred within him. “It’s a boy?”

Trying to get behind the pain, or beyond it, Eve hardly heard him. “Yes.” Belatedly, she realized what he’d asked her. “Unless it’s a girl.”

The only reason he felt a tinge of disappointment was because he liked knowing about things ahead of time. It always helped to be prepared. As for the possibility that he might have a daughter instead of a son, he found himself rather liking the idea. If she took after her mother, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.

“Then you don’t know?” he concluded.

“No.” He was still holding on to her shoulders and she shrugged his hands away. She’d decided to have her baby the old-fashioned way—that included not knowing its sex. “But then, I don’t know a lot of things.” She eyed him pointedly. “And contrary to the popular belief, ignorance is not bliss. It’s setting yourself up for a fall.”

She hit her intended target with that one. “I never meant to hurt you, Eve,” he told her sincerely. “I swear I didn’t.”

She could almost believe him. But then, Eve thought ruefully, struggling to hold the hot pain burning in her belly at bay, she’d believed him before and look how that had turned out for her.

“You know what they say about the path to hell,” she said in a pseudocheerful voice. “It’s paved with good intentions.”

Adam knew he could just walk away, that it might be better all around if he did, but the look in her eyes—a look he was fairly sure she wasn’t even aware of—just wouldn’t let him do it. She needed him. “Look, I know you probably hate me—” She shook her head, stopping him before he went on. “I don’t hate you, Adam. Hate’s a very powerful emotion. I don’t feel anything at all for you.”

Her eyes were steely as she tried to convince him nothing remained between them but this child waiting to be born. She sincerely doubted if she’d succeeded because she hadn’t even been able to convince herself.

She was lying. He knew she was lying. One look into her eyes told him that.

Or was he seeing things he wanted to see?

He wasn’t the kind of man she deserved, the kind of man she had a right to expect. A nine-to-five kind of guy who left his work behind once he walked out of the office. His “job” was with him 24/7, even when he wasn’t undercover and so much more so when he was. Eve deserved infinitely more than just half a man.

But that didn’t change the fact that right now, when she was at her most vulnerable, he needed to look out for her. Needed to be her hidden guardian angel.

Damn, he should have never gotten involved with her, never given in to that overwhelming yearning that had stirred so urgently inside of him every time she walked into his store, into his carefully crafted make-believe life.

Up until that time, it had been easy. He’d been so focused on his job, on the target that Hugh, his handler, had turned him on to that he’d been able to successfully resist the women who crossed his path. Even the ones who had been very determined to extend their acquaintance beyond customer and seller.

But then she had walked into his store and everything changed.

It’d been raining that morning, an unexpected, quick shower that had ushered her into the store along with a sheet of rain. Even soaking wet, her hair plastered to her head, Eve had been possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He’d found himself talking to her for the better part of an hour, showing her rare edition after rare edition. Giving her a little capsulated history behind each book. He made it a point never to enter a situation without studying it seven ways from sundown and, in this case, he was supposed to be the scholarly owner of a small shop that dealt only with rare books. Consequently, he had a lot of miscellaneous information crammed into his head.

She’d appeared to hang on every word.

It had been the best time of his life and he wished he could recapture it. But he couldn’t.

“All right,” Adam said evenly, “you don’t feel anything at all for me. I’m not asking you to, but I want you to know that I’m going to be here for you if you need me.”

“Won’t that be a killer commute for you?” she asked cynically. “Driving from here to Santa Barbara and back every day?”

“I won’t be commuting that far.”

She didn’t understand, but was in too much pain to get the whole story. She blinked hard, clenching her fists at her sides as if that could somehow chase it away. “What about your bookstore?”

“I relocated it,” he told her simply, then added an expedient lie. “I lost my lease and Laguna Beach seemed like a nice setting for the shop.”

Before she’d discovered his dual life, she would have been thrilled with the idea that Adam had relocated to be close to her, that he had gone searching for her when she’d disappeared and once he’d found where she had gone, he’d rearranged his life just to be nearby.

But those kind of thoughts belonged to a naive, innocent young woman. She was no longer that, no longer naive. Or innocent. And the fault for that partially lay with him.

She needed to discourage him, to make him leave her alone—before she became too weak to follow through. “I don’t need you to be ‘here’ for me, Adam. I’ve moved on. I’m seeing someone,” she informed him tersely.

A sharp pain flared in his gut. He’d lost her. Before he’d ever really had her.

Schooled in not showing emotion, his expression remained unchanged. “Is it serious?”

The lies didn’t get easier, but she had no choice. She needed to protect her baby at all costs, and that meant protecting the child from its father.

“Yes. Very. Josiah wants to adopt the baby.” Silently, she apologized to Josiah Turner, but the seventy-year-old man’s name was the first one to pop into her head. The man was like an uncle to her. She’d known him all her life, from the time she would frequent her father’s animal clinic. Whenever he wasn’t away on business, Josiah would bring his dogs to her father for routine care. And when he was away, he would board them at the clinic.

When her father died shortly after her return, the retired widower had arbitrarily appointed himself her guardian angel, determined to protect her, especially when it became apparent that she was pregnant.

“Good for you,” Adam said, doing his best to infuse an upbeat note into his voice. He still intended to watch over her, but at least she wasn’t going to be alone. This meant that he could maintain vigil from a distance. And if knowing that someone else would be holding her, making love with her, stuck a hot knife into his gut, well, that was his problem, not hers. “Then I’ll be going.”

But even as he told her, his feet didn’t seem to want to move. Stalling for time until he could get himself to go, Adam took out one of the business cards he’d had printed just last week and held it out to her.

“In case you ever want to find another first edition,” he explained.

When she made no effort to take it from him, he took her hand in his and placed the card with the new bookstore’s address and phone number into her palm, closing her fingers over it.

The next moment, as he began to withdraw his hand, she suddenly grabbed his wrist and squeezed it. Hard.

She looked as startled as he was. Adam searched her face. “Eve?”

This time, she made no answer. Instead, Adam watched the color completely drain out of her face and heard her catch her breath the way someone did when they didn’t want to scream.

It didn’t take much for him to put two and two together. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

Her eyes were wide as she slanted them toward his. “No, no, it’s not. It’s not time,” she insisted heatedly. “I’m not supposed to be due for another three weeks. Maybe four.” Even as she said it, another wave of pain engulfed her. “Oh, God.”

Still clutching his wrist, she almost buckled right in front of him. Adam quickly put his arm around her shoulders. Drawing her to him, he held her up.

“Looks like the baby doesn’t have a calendar in there,” he told her.

“I’ll be all right,” she said fiercely, more to reassure herself than him. She glanced toward the living room. “I just need to sit down.”

But when she tried to cross to the sofa, he continued to hold her against him. “You might need to sit down, but you’re not going to be all right,” he told her. She was about to protest again when Adam nodded at the floor directly beneath her feet. She followed his line of vision. The small pool made his argument for him. “Your water just broke.”

“No,” she cried in vain denial.

There was no time to go back and forth about this. She was in labor. “I’ll drive you to the hospital,” he told her firmly.

She didn’t want him with her. This was far too intimate an experience to share with a man who still might be living in the criminal world. A man who had looked her in the face and lied to her. She didn’t want him near her baby.

“I can call a cab.”

“I’m sure you can,” he told her, keeping his voice even as he continued holding on to her, “but I’m still driving you. If you’re worried about this Josiah guy, I’m sure he won’t mind my getting you to the hospital. I’ll call him for you once we get there if you like,” he promised.

“I—” The rest of the words she’d intended to say faded as she sucked in her breath again, all but gagging with the effort. Practically panting, Eve shook her head in silent, adamant protest.

“I never realized you had this stubborn streak,” he commented. “But you’re going to the hospital and I’m taking you. End of story,” he declared firmly. Or maybe, just the beginning.

“No, I’m not.” She wasn’t going anywhere, and not because she didn’t want to. There was horror in her eyes as she said between her teeth, “The … baby’s … coming.”

They’d already established that. “I know that, that’s why I’m—”

Adam stopped talking. He assessed her expression and the way Eve was squeezing his wrist, as if she was about to break it off at any second. He realized she was trying to unconsciously transfer the pain. Which meant her pain level had increased.

“You’re having the baby right now, aren’t you?” he concluded. Concern gripped him in its giant, callused hand.

It took Eve a couple of seconds to regain her voice.

“You think?”

The moment she confirmed his suspicions, Adam picked Eve up into his arms. Beside them, Tessa began to leap about excitedly, jumping up and trying to become part of the game.

“Not now, dog,” Adam ordered gruffly. Tessa stopped leaping. Instantly subdued, she glanced from him to her mistress. “Which way to your bedroom?”

Why was he asking her that? She couldn’t focus her eyes or her brain. “It’s upstairs. But I don’t think …”

“It would help if you didn’t talk, too,” Adam told her, annoyed that he wouldn’t be able to get her to the hospital in time. “I’ve got to get you onto a bed.”

She couldn’t seem to get in enough air. As he began to climb the stairs, she laced her arms around his neck, afraid that he might drop her. “That’s the way this whole thing started.”

“Still got a sense of humor,” he observed, a thread of optimism weaving through him. Even pregnant, she hardly felt as if she weighed anything, he thought. “That’s a good sign.”

She didn’t want a sign, she wanted this to be over with.

The room temperature felt like it had gone up by at least ten degrees, if not more, and she felt as if she was caught between a pending implosion and an explosion. The pain now raced through her entire body, generating from her epicenter and radiating out like the unnerving aftershocks following an earthquake.

Was this what birthing was all about? Suddenly, she felt infinite empathy for the pets she treated. How could animals willingly mate after the first time, knowing that this kind of pain was what was in store for them?

“I’m … too … heavy,” she protested.

“Actually, you’re not,” he told her just as he made it to the landing. There were several doors on either side.

“Which way?”

Her breath was temporarily gone. Instead of telling him, she pointed to the first door on the left.

The door was already open. Moving as swiftly as he could, with the dog shadowing his every step, Adam crossed the threshold and placed Eve down on her bed.

The moment she felt the mattress beneath her, Eve grabbed the comforter on either side of her, bunching it up beneath her frantically clutching fingers.

Adam saw her bite down on her lower lip.

“You can scream, you know,” he told her, watching her struggle. “That doesn’t make you any less of a mother—or a woman.”

“I’m not screaming,” she retorted with passion.

She absolutely refused to have her baby coming into the world with her screams ringing in his or her ears. But bottling up the pain wasn’t easy.

It took her a second to realize that Adam was asking her something. Even her eyes felt as if they were sweating.

“What?” she demanded breathlessly. “What’s your doctor’s name?” Adam repeated. “Mudd,” she gasped.

He almost laughed out loud. He sympathized with her feelings. He’d once had a doctor’s assistant in one of the little border towns in Mexico digging a bullet out of his shoulder. He’d felt the same way about the man.

“No need for name calling,” he told her, banking down his amusement. “What—?”

“Her name is Mudd,” she repeated. Gritting her teeth, she gave him specifics. “Geraldine … Mudd.”

He nodded, owning up to his mistake. “Okay. Sorry about that.”

Adam took out his phone and pressed the key for Information. Instead of ringing, he heard the irritating sound that told him his call couldn’t go through. One glance at the screen told him his signal was all but nonexistent. He swallowed a curse. The next second, Eve was grabbing the edge of his shirt. Before she could speak, another huge contraction had her arching her entire body up off the bed like a human tunnel.

She all but collapsed when the pain receded. “No time.”

She knew her own body better than he did, Adam reasoned, flipping his phone closed again. He shoved it back into his pocket.

“Whatever you say. Don’t worry.” He did his best to sound reassuring despite the fact that he was worried himself. “I’ve had training.”

“In what?” Her eyes were wide again as she looked at him.

His answer was carefully guarded, but he did want to assuage her fears. “In first aid and what to do if a woman goes into labor.”

Was he telling the truth? But how could he be? “Drug dealing has gotten more complicated.”

“I went to the Y. I like being prepared for all contingencies.” It was a lie. He couldn’t very well tell her that he’d taken the mandatory classes as part of his DEA training.

The next moment, any other questions she might have asked flew out of her head, chased out by the massive waves of pain sweeping over her. Sweat poured out of her even though the room was relatively cool.

She could feel her child pushing, trying to fight his or her way out.

With all her heart, she wished she could be bringing her baby into a better world than what waited for it. Wished that at least the baby would have not just a mother, but a father there, as well.

But the time for philosophical debates had long since passed.

In a vague, hot haze, she could feel Adam’s hands on her, stripping off her underwear and pushing up the loose dress she was wearing.

Words, there were words. He was saying something to her. An apology? What was he apologizing for?

Oh, for having to undress her.

She laughed shortly. The time for that, too, was long gone. If she hadn’t let him undress her in the first place, there would have been no need for him to undress her now.

“You’re crowning,” he declared, trying to mask his surprise.

He could feel excitement coursing through his veins. Despite the way she was behaving, he hadn’t thought it possible for this process to be happening this quickly. If she’d been a race car, Eve would have literally gone from zero to sixty in a quarter of a heartbeat.

Oh, God, he hoped he could remember everything he’d been taught. Those lessons all seemed like he’d sat through them an eternity ago. He’d never had an occasion to put any of it into practice before.

Until now.

Taking a breath, he braced himself. “Okay, Eve, push.”

Eve squeezed her eyes shut. She clutched the comforter, feeling the lace rip beneath her fingers as she held on to the material tightly and pushed for all she was worth. Through it all, she was vaguely aware of Tessa running back and forth near the foot of the bed.

Poor Tessa, the tension in the room had gotten to her, Eve thought.

“Okay, stop!” Adam ordered. “Stop!”

Eve fell back against the bed, her hair plastered to the back of her neck, her head spinning almost wildly. “Is it here yet?”

Couldn’t she tell the difference? he wondered, amazed. “No.” It was all coming back to him, thank God. “I need you to relax and take a few deep breaths, then push again.”

She did as he told her, knowing he was right even though she resented his presence, resented that he knew what to do. Resented him for bringing her to this state. Her body felt a kinship to a Thanksgiving wishbone being pulled in two separate directions. In agony, she was angry at the world.

“Now push, Eve,” he was shouting at her. “C’mon, push!”

Exhaustion wore away her second wave of energy. She felt as if she had nothing left. Even so, she managed to muster together more from somewhere. Grunting as she followed orders, she pushed for all she was worth.

Again with nothing to show for it except possibly the vein she was certain had burst in her head.

Panting like a twenty-six-mile marathon runner at the end of the race, she fell against the bed again.

All too soon, she heard Adam asking, “Ready?”

If she had any strength, she would have hit him. “No,” she cried hoarsely.

He was positioned to catch the baby when it emerged. Raising his eyes, he looked up at Eve. “I know this is hard—”

“How?” she demanded in an angry whisper. “How do you know?” He wasn’t a woman, he had no right to say that he knew. He didn’t know.

“Okay, I’m making an educated guess here,” Adam conceded. “But you can do this. I know you can do this. Women have been doing this since the beginning of time.”

More proof that God wasn’t a woman, Eve thought. But there really was no other choice. She had to do this or die. Propping herself up on her elbows, screwing her eyes shut, Eve bore down and pushed until she thought her head would pop off. And then she pushed some more.

Dying was beginning to sound like a very tempting option.