Security Blanket

Marin heard someone say her name.

It was a stranger’s voice.

She wondered if it was real or all part of the relentless nightmare she’d been having. A nightmare of explosions and trains. At least, she thought it might be a train. The only clear image that kept going through her mind was of a pair of snakeskin boots. Everything else was a chaotic blur of sounds and smells and pain. Mostly pain. There were times when it was unbearable.

“Marin?” she heard the strange voice say again.

It was a woman. She sounded real, and Marin thought she might have felt someone gently touch her cheek.

She tried to open her eyes and failed the first time, but then tried again. She was instantly sorry that she’d succeeded. The bright overhead lights stabbed right into her eyes and made her wince.

Marin groaned.

Just like that, with a soft click, the lights went away. “Better?” the woman asked.

Marin managed a nod that hurt, as well.

The dimmed lighting helped, but her head was still throbbing, and it seemed as if she had way too many nerves in that particular part of her body. The pain was also affecting her vision. Everything was out of focus.

“Where am I?” Marin asked.

Since her words had no sound, she repeated them. It took her four tries to come up with a simple audible three-word question. Quite an accomplishment though, considering her throat was as dry as west Texas dust.

“St. Mary’s,” the woman provided.

Marin stared at her, her gaze moving from the woman’s pinned-up auburn hair to her perky cotton-candy-pink uniform. Her name tag said she was Betty Garcia, RN. That realization caused Marin to glance around the room.

“I’m in a hospital?” Marin licked her lips. They were dry and chapped.

“Yes. You don’t remember being brought here?”

Marin opened her mouth to answer, only to realize that she didn’t have an answer. Until a few seconds ago, she’d thought she was having a nightmare. She definitely didn’t remember being admitted to a hospital.

“Are you real?” Marin asked, just to make sure she wasn’t trapped in the dream.

The woman smiled. “I’m going to assume that’s not some sort of philosophical question. Yes, I’m real. And so are you.” She checked the machine next to the bed. “How do you feel?”

Marin made a quick assessment. “I feel like someone bashed me in the head.”

The woman made a sound of agreement. “Not someone. Something. But you’re better now. You don’t remember the train accident?”

“The accident,” Marin repeated, trying to sort through the images in her head.

“It’s still under investigation,” the nurse continued. She touched Marin’s arm. “But the authorities think there was some kind of electrical malfunction that caused the explosion.”

An explosion. She remembered that.

Didn’t she?

“Thankfully, no one was killed,” the woman went on. She picked up Marin’s wrist and took her pulse. “But over a dozen people were hurt, including you.”

It was the word hurt that made the memories all come flooding back. The call from her grandmother, telling Marin that she was sick and begging her to come home. The train trip from Fort Worth to San Antonio.

The explosion.

God, the explosion.

“Noah!” Marin shouted. “Where’s my son?”

Marin jackknifed to a sitting position, and she would have launched herself out of the bed if Nurse Garcia and the blinding pain hadn’t stopped her.

“Easy now,” the nurse murmured. She released her grip on Marin’s wrist and caught on to her shoulders instead, easing her down onto the mattress.

Marin cooperated, but only because she had no choice. “My son—”

“Is fine. He wasn’t hurt. He didn’t even get a scratch.”

The relief was as overwhelming as the pain. Noah was all right. The explosion that had catapulted them through the air had obviously hurt her enough that she needed to be hospitalized, but her son had escaped unharmed.

Marin considered that a moment.

How had he escaped?

A clear image of Lucky Bacelli came into her head.

The man she’d been certain was following her. He’d promised to get Noah out, and apparently he had.

“I want to see Noah,” Marin insisted. “Could you bring him to me now?”

Nurse Garcia stared at her, and the calm serenity that had been in her coffee-colored eyes quickly faded to concern. “Your son’s not here.”

Marin was sure there was some concern in her own eyes, as well. “But—”

“Do you have any idea how long you’ve been in the hospital?” the nurse interrupted.

Marin opened her mouth, closed it and considered the question. She finally shook her head. “How long?”

“Nearly two days.”

“Days?” Not hours. Marin was sure it’d only been a few hours. Or maybe she was simply hoping it had been. “So where is he? Who’s had my baby all this time?” But the moment she asked, the fear shot through her. “Not my parents. Please don’t tell me he’s with them.”

A very unnerving silence followed, and Nurse Garcia’s forehead bunched up.

That did it.

Marin pushed aside the nurse’s attempts to restrain her and tried to get out of the bed. It wasn’t easy, nowhere close, but she fought through the pain and wooziness and forced herself to stand up.

She didn’t stay vertical long.

Marin’s legs turned boneless, and she had no choice but to slouch back down on the bed.

“There isn’t any reason for you to worry,” the nurse assured her. “Your son is okay.”

Marin gasped for breath so she could speak. “Yes, so you’ve said. But who has him?”

“Your fiancé, of course. His father.”

What breath she’d managed to regain, Marin instantly lost. “His…father?”

Nurse Garcia nodded, smiling. The bunched up forehead was history.

Marin experienced no such calmness. Adrenaline and fear hit her like a heavyweight’s punch.

Noah’s father was dead. He was killed in a boating accident nearly eight months before Noah was even born. There was no way he could be here.

“Your fiancé should be arriving any minute,” the nurse cheerfully added.

Nothing could have kept Marin in the bed. Ignoring the nurse’s protest and the weak muscles in her legs, Marin got up and went in search of her clothes. But even if she had to leave the hospital in her gown, she intended to get out of there and see what was going on.

Nurse Garcia caught on to her arm. Her expression changed, softened. “Everything’s okay. There’s no need for you to panic.”

Oh, yes, there was. Either Randall had returned from the grave or something was terribly wrong. Noah had no father, and she had no fiancé.

There was a knock at the door. One soft rap before it opened. The jeans, the black leather jacket. The boots.

Lucky Bacelli.

Not Randall.

“Where’s Noah?” she demanded.

Lucky ignored her question and strolled closer. “You gave me quite a scare, you know that? I’m glad you’re finally awake.” And with that totally irrelevant observation, he smiled. A secretive little smile that only he and Mona Lisa could have pulled off.

“I want to see Noah,” Marin snapped. “And I want to see him now.”

Another smile caused a dimple to wink in his left cheek. He reached out, touched her right arm and rubbed softly. A gesture no doubt meant to soothe her. It didn’t work. For one thing, it was too intimate. Boy, was it. For another, nothing would soothe her except for holding her son and making sure he was okay.

“The doctor wants to examine you before he allows any other visitors so Noah’s waiting at the nurses’ station,” Lucky explained, his voice a slow, easy drawl. The sound and ease of Texas practically danced off the words. “And I’m sure they’re spoiling him rotten.”

Marin disregarded the last half of his comment. Her son was at the nurses’ station. That’s all she needed to know. She ducked around Lucky and headed toward the door. Marin had no idea where the nurses’ station was, but she’d find it.

Lucky stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Where are you going, darling?”

That stopped her in her tracks.

Darling?

He said it as if he had a right to.

That was well past being intimate. Then he slid his arm around her waist and leaned in close. Too close. It violated her personal space and then some. Marin slapped her palm on his chest to stop him from violating it further.

“Is there a problem?” Nurse Garcia asked.

“You bet there is,” Marin informed her.

And she would have voiced exactly what that problem was if she’d had the chance.

She hadn’t.

Because in that same moment, Lucky Bacelli curved his hand around her waist and gently pulled her closer to him. He put his mouth right against her ear. “This was the only way,” he whispered.

Marin tried to move away, but he held on. “The only way for what?” she demanded.

“To keep you and Noah safe.” He kept his voice low, practically a murmur.

Even with the pain and fog in her head and his barely audible voice, she understood what he meant. Lucky had needed to protect Noah from her parents, just as she’d asked him to do. He’d pretended to be Randall Davidson, a dead man. Marin couldn’t remember how Lucky had known Randall’s name. Had she mentioned it? She must have. Thankfully, her parents had never met Randall and knew almost nothing about him. They certainly didn’t know he was dead. She’d kept that from them because if she’d explained his death, she would have also had to endure countless questions about their life together.

Marin stopped struggling to get away from him and wearily dropped her head on his shoulder. He’d lied, but he’d done it all for Noah’s sake. “My parents tried to take him?”

Lucky nodded. “They tried and failed. But I’m pretty sure they’ll be back soon for round two.”

That wasn’t a surprise. With her in a hospital bed, her parents had probably thought they could take over her life before she even regained consciousness. It’d been a miracle that Lucky had been able to stop them, and if he’d had to do that with lies, then it was a small price to pay for her to be able to keep her son from them.

“Thank you,” Marin mouthed.

“Don’t thank me.” Lucky moved back enough to allow their gazes to connect. The gray in his eyes turned stormy. “I don’t think that train accident was really an accident,” he whispered.

Stunned, Marin shookher head. “What do you mean?”

It seemed as if he changed his mind a dozen times about what to say. “Marin, Noah and you were nearly killed because of me.”

Chapter Four

Lucky braced himself for the worst. A slap to the face. A shouted accusation. But Marin just stepped back and stared at him.

“What did you say?” she asked. Lucky wasn’t sure how she managed to speak. The air swooshed out of her body, and the muscles in her jaw turned to steel.

Lucky didn’t repeat his bombshell. Nor did he explain. He glanced over at the nurse. “Could you please give me a few minutes alone with my fiancée?”

Nurse Garcia nodded. “But only if Ms. Sheppard gets back in bed.”

“Of course.” Lucky caught on to Marin to lead her in that direction, but he encountered some resistance. Their eyes met, and in the depth of all that blue and green, he saw the debate going on. He also saw the moment she surrendered.

He knew she expected her cooperation to get her some fast answers. Unfortunately, Lucky didn’t have any answers that she was going to like.

“You have five minutes. I don’t want Ms. Sheppard getting too tired,” the nurse informed them. “I’ll see if I can figure out a way to get Noah in here so you can have a quick kiss and cuddle.”

“Thank you,” Marin told the woman without taking her gaze from Lucky. She didn’t say another word until the nurse was out of the room.

“Start talking,” Marin insisted, her voice low and laced with a warning. “What do you mean you’re responsible for nearly getting us killed? The nurse said it was an accident. Caused by an electrical malfunction.”

That warning was the only thing lethal looking about her. She was pale and trembling. Lucky got her moving toward the bed. He also gave her gown an adjustment so that it actually covered her bare backside. Then, he got on with his explanation.

“The police first believed the explosion was caused by something electrical,” Lucky explained. “But there are significant rumblings that when the Texas Rangers came in, they found an incendiary device.”

But that was more than just rumblings. The sheriff had confirmed it.

Which brought him back to Marin’s question.

“I’m a PI. And a former cop,” he told her. With just those few crumbs of info, he had to pause and figure out how to say the rest. Best not to give Marin too much too soon. She was still weak. But he owed her at least part of the truth. “I’ve been working on a case that involves some criminals in hiding.”

Well, one criminal in particular. That was a detail he’d keep to himself for now.

“I think someone associated with the case I’m investigating might have set that explosive,” Lucky explained. “I believe there are people who don’t want me to learn the truth about a woman who was murdered.”

He waited for her reaction.

Marin paused, taking a deep breath. “I see.”

Those two little words said a lot. They weren’t an accusation. More like reluctant acceptance. He supposed that was good. It meant she might not slap him for enangering her son. Too bad. Lucky might have felt better if she had slapped him.

“The authorities know the explosion might be connected to you?” she asked.

“They know. The train was going through LaMesa Springs when the explosives went off. The sheriff there, Beck Tanner, is spearheading the initial investigation. He’s already questioned me, and I told him about the case I was working on.”

Sheriff Tanner would likely question Marin, too. Before that, Lucky would have to tell her the whole truth about why he was really on that train.

And the whole truth was guaranteed to make her slap him.

Or worse.

Marin looked down at her hands and brushed her fingers over her scraped knuckles. “The explosion wasn’t your fault,” she concluded. “You werejust doing your job. And I put you in awkward position by asking you to protect Noah.” She lifted her head. “I don’t regret that. I can’t.”

Lucky pulled the chair next to her bed closer and sat down so they were at eye level. But they were still a safe distance from each other. Touching her was out. Her weakness and vulnerability clouded his mind.

And touching her would cloud his body.

He didn’t need either.

“Yeah. After I met your parents, I totally understood why you asked me to take care of your little guy,” Lucky continued. “Though at the time I thought I’d only have to keep that promise for an hour or two.”

She nodded. “And then I didn’t regain consciousness right away.”

That was just the first of several complications.

“Like you asked, I tried getting in touch with your friend, Lizette Raines, in Fort Worth. She didn’t answer her home phone, so I finally called someone I knew in the area and asked him to check on her. According to the neighbors, she’s on a short trip to Mexico with her boyfriend.”

Marin groaned softly. “Yes. She met him about two months ago, and I knew things were getting more serious, but she didn’t mention anything about a trip.”

She ran her fingers through the side of her shoulderlength hair and winced when she encountered the injury that had caused her concussion and the coma. In addition to the bandage that covered several stitches, her left temple was bruised—and the purplish stain bled all the way down to her cheekbone. It sickened him to see that on her face, to know what she’d been through.

And to know that it wasn’t over.

This—whatever this was—was just beginning, and Lucky didn’t care much for the bad turn it’d taken on that train.

“I wonder why Lizette didn’t call me,” Marin said. “She has my cell number.”

“Your phone was lost in the explosion so even if she’d tried that number, she wouldn’t have gotten you. Don’t worry. Your friend’s trip sounded legit, and none of your neighbors are concerned.”

Before Lucky could continue, the door flew open, and a couple walked in. Not the nurse with Noah, but two people that Lucky had already met. And they were two people he had quickly learned to detest.

Marin’s parents, Lois and Howard Sheppard.

The unexpected visit brought both him and Marin to their feet. It wasn’t a fluid movement for Marin. She wobbled a bit when she got out of bed, and he slid his arm around her waist so she could keep her balance.

Lucky so wished he’d had time to prepare Marin for this. Of course, there was no preparation for the kind of backstabbing she was about to encounter.

“Mother,” Marin said. Because she was pressed right against him, Lucky felt her muscles tense. She pulled in a long, tight breath.

No frills. That was the short physical description for the petite woman who strolled toward them. A simple maroon dress. Matching heels. Matching purse. Heck, even her lipstick matched. There wasn’t a strand of her graying blond hair out of place. Lois Sheppard looked like the perfect TV mom.

She hurried toward Marin and practically elbowed Lucky out of the way so she could hug her daughter. When Lois pulled back, her eyes were shiny with tears.

“It’s so good to see you, sweetheart,” Lois said, her voice weepy and soft.

Marin stepped back out of her mother’s embrace.

The simple gesture improved Lois’s posture. “Marin, that’s no way to act. Honestly, you’d think you have no manners. Aren’t you even going to say hello to your father?”

“Hello,” Marin echoed.

And judging from Marin’s near growling tone, she didn’t like her dad any better than Lucky did. Unlike Lois, Howard had a slick oily veneer that reminded Lucky of con artists and dishonest used car salesmen. Of course, his opinion probably had something to do with this whole backstabbing mission.

“Mother, why are you and Dad here?”

Lois shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “Because we love you. Because we’re concerned about you. You’re coming back to the ranch with us so you can have time to recuperate from your injuries. You know you’re not well enough or strong enough to be on your own. You never have been. Clearly, leaving home was a mistake.”

Lucky pulled Marin tighter into the crook of his arm.

“I’m not going with you,” she informed her mother.

Lucky wanted to cheer her backbone, but he already knew the outcome of this little encounter.

There’d be no cheering today.

“Yes, you are,” Lois disagreed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a choice about that. You and Noah are too important to us. And because we love you both so much, we’ve filed papers.”

Lucky felt Marin’s muscles stiffen even more. “What kind of papers?” Marin enunciated each syllable.

Lucky didn’t wait for Lois Sheppard to provide the explanation. “Your folks are trying to use your hospital stay and your epilepsy to get custody of Noah.” He turned his attention to Lois and made sure he smirked. “Guess what—not gonna happen.”

The woman’s maroon-red mouth tightened into a temporary bud. “I don’t think you’ll have much of a say in that, Randall.”

“Lucky,” he corrected. Because by damn he might have to play the part of Marin’s slimeball ex, but Lucky refused to use the man’s name. It’d been a godsend that neither of Marin’s parents had ever met said slimeball. If they had, the charade of Lucky pretending to be him would have been over before it even started.

“I don’t care what you call yourself,” Howard interceded. “You’re an unfit father. You weren’t even there for the birth of your own son. You left Marin alone to fend for herself.”

Lucky shoved his thumb to his chest. “Well, I’m here now.”

“Are you?” Howard challenged.

“What the hell does that mean?” Lucky challenged right back.

Howard didn’t answer right away, and the silence intensified with his glare. “It means I don’t think you love my daughter. I think this so-called relationship between you two is a sham to convince Lois and me that we don’t need to intervene in Marin’s life.”

Since that was the truth, Lucky knew it was time for some damage control. Later, he’d figure out if Howard really knew something or if this was a bluff.

Lucky pulled Marin closer to him. Body against body. Marin must have felt the same need for damage control because she came up on her toes and kissed him, a familiar peck of reassurance. Something a real couple would have shared.

That brief lip-lock speared through him, causing Lucky to remind himself that this really was a sham.

“What papers have they filed?” Marin asked him.

Lucky didn’t take his gaze from Howard. “Your parents convinced a judge to review your competency as a parent. A crooked judge is my guess, because we have to go to your parents’ ranch for an interview with a psychologist.”

Lucky expected Marin to lose it then and there. Maybe a tirade or some profanity. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. But her reaction was almost completely void of emotion.

“Mother, Dad, you’ re leaving now,” Marin said. And she stepped out of Lucky’s arms and sat back down on the bed. A moment passed before she looked at her mother again. “I’m tired. I need my rest. Nurse’s orders.”

Lois took a step closer, and even though she wasn’t smiling, there was a certain victory shout in her stance. “If you don’t return to the ranch and do this interview with the psychologist, the judge will intervene. Noah will be taken from you and placed in our custody.”

And with that threat, Lois and Howard finally did what Marin had asked. They turned and walked out the door.

All that cool and calmness that Marin had displayed went south in a hurry. She began to shake, and for a moment Lucky thought she might be going into shock or on the verge of having a seizure.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself. “What do I have to do to make this go away?”

Since there was no easy way to put it, Lucky just laid it out there for her. “We’ll have to go to the ranch because as your legal next of kin, your parents managed to get an emergency hearing in front of a judge who’s also their friend. They persuaded this judge that you need to be medically monitored—by them, under their roof. And the judge signed a temporary order. Once we’re at the ranch, we’ll have the interview where we’ll need to convince a psychologist that we’re a happy couple fit to raise Noah. If we do that, the psychologist will pass that on to the judge, and there won’t be another hearing. The temporary order will expire, and you’ll keep sole custody of Noah.”

Marin slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. She didn’t exactly voice a question, but there were plenty of nonverbal ones.

“The interview could be as early as tomorrow afternoon,” Lucky added. “If the doctor releases you from the hospital today. That means we wouldn’t have to keep up the charade for long. Then, after visiting with your grandmother, you can go home.”

Well, maybe.

That was one of those gray areas that Lucky hadn’t quite figured out. Marin might never be able go home. It might not be safe.

“And what happens if we come clean and tell everyone that you’re not Noah’s father?” she asked. But Marin immediately waved that off. “Then my parents will use that against me. They might even want a paternity test. They’ll brand us as liars. And if the judge knows we lied about that, he’ll assume we’re lying about my ability to be a good parent.”

The Sheppards might even try to file criminal charges against him for preventing them from taking Noah. The couple certainly had a lot of misplaced love, and they were aiming all of it at Marin and Noah.