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She suspected he was omitting something important. “Anything else that might have contributed?”
“We argued.” Just that. Tossed at her like a gauntlet. “Now, can we get to the baby part? If you have amnesia, how do you even know you had a child?”
Without loosening her grip on the gun, she caught her bulky shirt and lifted it so he could see the trio of pale, thready stretch marks on her stomach. “I think I remember going into labor three weeks and two days ago. That date is fixed in my head. I believe that’s because the whole time I was in labor, I kept thinking that it would be my baby’s birthday. But everything’s jumbled. So, I could be wrong.” A massive understatement, and it didn’t apply just to her thought process but to her entire life. “Mercy, I know how all of this must sound.”
“No. You don’t. I step out of my shower, go in search of a towel and instead get held at gunpoint by an amnesiac woman who thinks I might be the father of her child. But the problem is, other than a few stretch marks, she’s not even sure she had a baby.”
Oh, Lexie was sure of that. Hard to forget the god-awful pain that had made her feel as if she were being ripped in two. And then, after hours and hours, the pain had stopped. She’d heard that soft, kitten-like cry. Even now, with all the uncertainty, that cry still got to her. That was her baby’s cry, and no one could make her believe differently.
Grumbling something under his breath, Garrett walked closer, and closer, until he was practically looming over her. “Lexie, you need to put down that gun so I can take you to a doctor.”
She frowned. She hadn’t wanted the conversation to move in this direction. And she darn sure hadn’t wanted him that near to her, either. “You mean a shrink? You don’t believe the baby part.”
He made a sound that could have meant anything. Or nothing. “We only had sex once, and we used a condom.”
Yet more unexpected information. She was getting a lot of that tonight. “Then something went wrong.”
She tried to force her brain to remember exactly what. But it was useless. Forcing only seemed to make her memory cloudier.
Frustrated with herself she shook her head. His simultaneous movement registered just a second too late.
Garrett reached out.
Lightning fast.
And just like that, he snatched the gun from her hand.
He didn’t stop there. In a little maneuver that was practically a blur, he came at her. Lexie turned, to try to scramble away from him, but Garrett practically tackled her. The momentum sent them both crashing onto the overly soft bed. He twisted his body to take the majority of the impact. But then he turned. Trapping her. So that she couldn’t move.
Fighting through the initial panic, she took a moment to assess her situation. And it wasn’t a very good assessment. Garrett was on top of her, his body completely covering hers. She was no longer armed.
But he was.
With her gun.
Even if he hadn’t had a weapon in his right hand, his body would have certainly been classified as one. He was all sinew and muscle.
And he was all over her.
His right leg was wedged between hers. His chest squashed against her breasts. Their middles aligned perfectly, as if they were about to have sex.
That alignment didn’t bring back any memories.
However, it did remind her that he was a very virile man.
As if she needed anything to remind her of that.
What was wrong with her, anyway? Her brain was messed up. So was her body. Only three and a half weeks ago she’d given birth, and here she was reacting to a man who for all practical purposes was a stranger. Maybe this was a bad case of postdelivery hormones. If so, it was a sick trick to play on her.
Because Garrett was so close, Lexie caught his scent. His ocean-scented deodorant soap. His shampoo. His spearmint toothpaste. And beneath all the toiletry stuff, his own scent was there. All man.
Not that she’d had any doubts about that.
“Well?” he said. Definitely not a question, but more like a challenge. It had a tinge of a Texas drawl and a hefty amount of anger in it.
He didn’t believe her.
For the first time since she’d started this fiasco, Lexie was truly afraid. “What are you going to do to me?”
He blinked, surprised, as if genuinely insulted. “I’m not going to kill you, that’s for sure. If I’d wanted you dead,” he informed her, enunciating each word carefully, “you already would be.”
Because she couldn’t let him think she was weak, Lexie hiked up her chin and met him eye to eye. “I could say the same thing,” she retorted.
Okay, so that was a lie. But maybe Garrett didn’t know that, and right now, she’d do whatever it took, including an attempt at intimidation, to get his cooperation. She had to make him believe her because she needed his help.
He shifted slightly, so that his thigh wasn’t pressed against the V junction of her jeans. “If the condom failed, then I have just one question,” he said. “Where’s the baby?”
It was the only question that mattered.
The memories of the delivery came flooding back. The pain. God, the pain. That tiny cry. And just like that, Lexie found herself blinking back more tears.
So much for her attempt at appearing strong and sturdy.
She was failing at a lot of things tonight.
“I tried to stop it,” she heard herself say. Mercy, her voice was ripe with fatigue and weariness. “But the man was too strong.”
Garrett eased off her. “The man who tried to kill you?”
“No. This man was there when I delivered. With the doctor. The doctor had slightly graying hair. He was tall, with wide shoulders. And he shoved a needle in my arm. It was filled with some kind of drug. I think it was the drug that left me with all these gaps in my memory.”
Garrett stood, staring down at her. “Then how do you know the baby isn’t a drug-induced figment?”
“She isn’t a figment,” Lexie insisted. “She’s real.”
Garrett paused. “She?”
“I didn’t actually see the baby, but I’m positive it was a little girl.”
His expression softened. Briefly. And then the concern returned and settled into his eyes. “Lexie, what happened? What did this man do?”
She wasn’t even sure she could say the words aloud. Just thinking them nearly ripped her heart apart.
“He stole the baby. And we have to find her, Garrett. One way or another, we have to get our daughter back.”
Chapter Three
Garrett felt as if someone had slugged him. Twice.
“Oh, man,” he mumbled. And because he didn’t know what else to say or do, he just stood there and kept mumbling it.
A baby.
Specifically, a three-and-a-half-week-old daughter.
A child he’d conceived with Lexie during the “adrenaline sex” they’d had after she testified against her boss.
Well, maybe.
And maybe all of this was some bizarre encounter with a woman who was no longer sane.
Except Lexie seemed sane. Well, she did if he disregarded half of what she’d said. Oh, and if he didn’t count the fact that she’d broken into his house and held him at gunpoint.
Not exactly the actions of a sane woman.
But if what she’d told him was true, then what she had been through would have tested anyone’s sanity.
Lexie got up from the bed. Not slowly, either. And she immediately started toward him.
“Don’t you even think about trying to get this gun back,” Garrett warned through clenched teeth. “And forget any thoughts about trying to pound me into the floor by using your martial arts training. And definitely don’t do anything else that’ll rile me.”
She blinked. “I have martial arts training?”
He was certain he scowled—because under the circumstances it seemed a semi-trivial question and because he probably shouldn’t have informed her of that particular talent. “Yeah. You do.”
Lexie touched her fingertips to her right temple. “I wish I’d known that sooner.”
“Lucky for me you didn’t, because I obviously have enough to deal with.” And he needed to start dealing. “Honesty time,” he insisted, turning toward her. Unfortunately, because she was already so close, that move put their faces only a couple of inches apart. Breath met breath. “Is all of what you told me true?”
“Yes.” She paused. Nodded. Paused again. “There are some blank spots in my memory, but giving birth isn’t one of them. I swear I had a baby.”
And he was the father.
Okay. He didn’t doubt that last part. If Lexie had indeed had a child, then the timing was perfect for it to be his. Unfortunately, the pregnancy timing was the only thing that was perfect or that made sense.
She pressed her lips together for a moment and gave him a considering stare. “I don’t think I would have left your bed and gone to another man.”
“You wouldn’t have.” In fact, in those days leading up to Billy Avery’s trial, while Lexie had still been in his protective custody, they’d talked about a lot of things, including their sex lives.
Or lack thereof.
Lexie wasn’t a person who slept around. Neither was he, despite the player reputation he had among his fellow officers.
Even though he tried to tamp down all the wild scenarios that started to fly through his head, he wasn’t completely successful. But Garrett forced himself to focus.
First things first.
He ejected the ammunition from her weapon. The unfired bullets landed on the floor. Using his bare foot, he kicked them several feet away from her.
She watched the cartridges scatter, and her gaze flew to his again. “You still think I’m here to shoot you?”
“I don’t want you to have the opportunity to even consider it. Confiscating and disarming a weapon are standard police procedures.”
“If I were a suspect.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you are. Or what’s going on. You broke into the home of a cop, which only makes things worse for you. And for me. I just want to follow some kind of rules and regs so I know I’ll be doing something right.”
Which was a joke that would have earned him some serious ribbing from his brother, sister and parents—all four of whom were cops or former cops. He’d never really thought of himself as a rule follower. However, in this case, he hoped the rules would ground him, because he needed something to do that.
“Who stole the baby?” he asked.
Just like that, the fight in her expression and posture faded. No more hiked up chin. No more adamant if-I-were-a-suspect retorts. “I don’t know. As I said, I have gaps in my memory, and unfortunately that’s one of them.”
“All right.” Those gaps wouldn’t make this easier, but it wasn’t impossible. “Start with what you do know.”
She waited a moment, apparently considering his suggestion. “I know who I am. More or less. I remember my childhood, growing up on a ranch in east Texas with my father. I remember the day I left to go to college. It’s my adulthood that’s a little fuzzy. I can’t recall working as a bodyguard for William Avery, and I didn’t have any idea about his arrest or the trial.”
Those weren’t just gaps in her memory. They were huge craters that encompassed months of time. “And you didn’t remember me?”
She drew in her breath, released it slowly. “No.”
Garrett worked his way through the implications of what she was saying. For all practical purposes, he was a gap. “Then why did you come here to my house? How did you guess that we’d even had sex?”
“In one of the articles there was a photo of us leaving the courthouse. You had your arm curved around my waist and were obviously trying to get me out of the path of the photographers and the press.”
He remembered the picture. In fact, he’d stared at it for hours after Lexie had left. “From that, you decided I’d fathered your baby?”
“There was something about the way you were holding me.” She shrugged. “It was…intimate.”
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
And it was still intimate.
Even now.
Hell. He could feel the attraction. Evidently that was something even gaps in memory couldn’t cool down. Well, he sure as heck would put an end to it. He was not going to lose his badge by giving in to emotions that he should have never felt in the first place.
“Yeah. Intimate,” he repeated. His boss had thought the same thing—so much so that the single photo had spurred some hard questions from Internal Affairs. Questions about Garrett’s professionalism. About his dedication to the badge and his assignment.
Questions that had cut to the core simply because they’d been asked.
No.
He wasn’t going back there.
“After you testified that day, you were upset. Rightfully so,” Garrett explained, trying to make it sound clinical. “Billy Avery’s lawyers had asked some tough questions and tried to rattle you while you were on the stand. They also tried to discredit you and your testimony about the illegal activity that you’d witnessed. But you held your ground. You were able to give details that the defense couldn’t refute.”
