Her Baby's Bodyguard

Tyler grunted, donned a pair of night-vision goggles and swung his weapon to his shoulder to sight through the back opening. Duncan muttered something about Murphy and put his headphones back on.

Their lack of reaction didn’t surprise Jack. They didn’t have the luxury for anything else. He leaned past Eva to rap at the window to the cab. “Okay, Kurt. We’re ready.”

The truck jerked into motion. Eva knocked into the side of the truck with her shoulder. Still holding the strap, she shifted her position so she could draw up her knees and put her back to the low wall for support.

“Are you all right?” Jack asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

“It won’t be long now. If you need anything, let me know.”

She opened her coat just enough to slip her hand inside. “We’ll be fine.”

He regarded her for a while to make sure she had steadied. Now that she was sitting, the sacks of baby clothes would be resting on the floor and her drawn up legs would take most of the baby’s weight. She still looked exhausted, but some of that could be due to the green glow from Duncan’s instruments. Jack went over to squat beside him. “What’s the latest intel on the rendezvous site, Duncan?”

“Not good. Weather’s coming in.”

“Lang will get us there.”

“We have to hope the bird can land. It could get messy.” He tipped his head toward Eva. “Are you sure she’s got a baby?”

“Saw her myself. She was asleep.”

“My sister’s boys used to sleep as long as they were moving. Especially on car rides. She told me they’d be out like a light as soon as she left the driveway. Sometimes she’d stuff them in their seats and take a drive around the block just to get some peace.” He pressed the transmitter on his headphones. “Say again, Gonzales?”

The truck hit a bump, jolting Jack into the air. He glanced back at Eva to make sure she was still hanging on, then shoved aside a stray piece of wood and braced his knuckles against the floor. “What’s going on, Duncan?”

“Gonzales spotted a patrol.”

“How far away?”

“Less than a mile ahead.”

Ahead? If there had been a pursuit, it should have come from behind. This was either bad luck or someone had guessed they were coming. The first possibility was just par for the course, but the latter could scuttle the mission before it got started. They could only hope that Eva had been as careful with her preparations as she’d claimed.

Duncan glanced at the map on the laptop and spoke into his transmitter. “Lang, we’ll try to go around them. There’s a track coming up on the left about a hundred yards.” He tensed and grabbed the equipment. “Sharp turn, everyone.”

Jack dove for Eva and landed beside her just as the truck lurched to the left. He put his hand over hers to grip the packing strap, cushioning her from the impact as they slammed against the side. The truck slowed only long enough to allow Gonzales to jump into the cab, then began accelerating uphill even before the passenger door slammed. Bark and bits of wood slid backward. Jack dug the edge of one boot into a row of rivets in the floor, braced his legs and twisted to lock his free arm around Eva. “Hang on!”

Her face was mere inches from his, so he could clearly see the fear in her eyes. She didn’t protest about his help this time. She would have heard Duncan as well as Jack had, and she was obviously bright enough to have understood the danger they were in.

A muffled wail rose from her coat. One tiny, mittened fist knocked against Jack’s sleeve where his arm stretched across Eva’s chest. Despite the rocking of the truck, she dipped her head toward the baby, caught the tiny fist in her hand and brought it to her lips. “Shh, kitten. Don’t cry. I won’t let anything hurt you. I promise.”

The change in Eva’s voice was startling. It was as tender as a kiss, completely unlike the brittle tones she’d been using with Jack. And in spite of her fear, the promise to her daughter hadn’t sounded like idle words that had been spoken in order to comfort. The vow had vibrated with courage any soldier would understand.

She would need all the courage she could scrape up, Jack thought. In the next instant, something whizzed past their heads. Moonlight winked through a scattering of new holes in the truck’s canvas side. Over the grumble of the engine and the crunching of tires on the rocky track came the staccato pops of automatic weapons.

So much for quick and clean. Murphy must be working overtime tonight. Jack pushed Eva to the floor and curled himself over both her and the baby.

Chapter 2

Pain seared through Eva’s side. She fought to control it, forcing herself to inhale in short bursts, but her ribs stung with each heartbeat. If only the ground would stop moving, yet it kept bouncing and shifting beneath her. It smelled like wool and soap.

She blinked hard and concentrated on her surroundings instead of the pain. She was lying on her side on the floor of the truck. Sergeant Norton’s coat was beneath her cheek. She could feel the pressure of his thighs at her back and the weight of his chest on her shoulder. With his hands braced in front of her and his knees behind her, he was caging her beneath his body because…because…

Her brain clicked back into gear. Oh, God! She could hear gunfire. Katya!

Before panic could take hold, she felt movement against her breasts. Katya was squirming in the confines of the cloth sling. Over the gunfire and the roar of the truck’s engine Eva heard the baby’s restless wails. She sounded cranky, not hurt. Thank God. If anything happened to this child because of her decision…

The thought was too terrible to consider. She dragged her arm around the baby, then pressed her nose to Katya’s head, drawing strength from the familiar, powder-sweet scent of the baby’s scalp. “There’s my brave girl,” she murmured. “Mommy’s here. Everything’s fine.”

Either her one-armed embrace or the sound of her voice penetrated Katya’s temper. The wails tapered off to weary sobs. Eva drew up her knees, curling her body around her child the same way Sergeant Norton was using his own body to shelter the two of them.

He had probably saved their lives when he’d knocked her over. And he was continuing to risk his own by shielding them. Who did that for complete strangers? What kind of man was he? She had seen he wasn’t happy when he’d discovered Katya, yet he’d sounded almost amused when he’d relayed the information to his companions. His voice could be gentle, and he had laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, though she could feel nothing soft about the rest of him. With his size he would likely crush them if he wasn’t strong enough to hold his weight on his arms.

The truck hit a rock, tossing her into the air. She collided with the sergeant’s body before slamming back down on her side. She clenched her jaw to keep from crying out at another stinging jab of pain. She must have fallen on a piece of wood when the shooting had started. Or there could have been splinters in the bark that covered the truck bed. That must be why her side was still hurting. The bouncing was making it worse, but she didn’t dare try to sit up. She had to protect Katya.

Had she made a mistake? If she’d stayed at the complex, Katya would be sleeping peacefully in her crib. No one would be shooting at them. They would be safe.

No, she told herself. They wouldn’t have been safe. Unless she kept going, no one would be. Their own lives weren’t the only ones at stake. The information on the disk she carried could lead to the deaths of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. The moment she’d learned where her research was truly leading, she’d begun looking for ways to halt it. Making a deal with the American government had seemed like the best solution, but what if there had been another way?

Eva touched her lips to Katya’s forehead. The decision had been made, so she couldn’t allow herself any second thoughts. She could only pray this child wouldn’t be made to pay for her mother’s choice.

The truck lurched, then straightened and steadied, as if they had regained the road. As the noise lessened, Eva realized that she could no longer hear any shooting.

The pressure on her shoulder eased as Sergeant Norton straightened his arms, but he didn’t move away yet. His voice came from just above her head. “What do you see out there, junior?”

“Not much except lots of dark,” the man at the rear of the truck replied. “I’d say we lost them. There were three men, maybe four. Vehicle looked like a big sport utility, handled heavy so it’s probably armored.”

“Any damage?”

“It’s hard to tell with this rust bucket, but there’s nothing obvious. They had plenty of firepower but not much accuracy.”

“I’m picking up some chatter.” It was the bald man who spoke, Colbert, the one with the electronic equipment. “It sounds like we ran into a patrol from the research complex, not government troops. They’d be the only paramilitary in this sector. They thought we were smugglers.”

“Then they weren’t trying to hit us, only scare us off,” the man at the tailgate said. Matheson was his name, Eva remembered. As before, he spoke without turning around. “That’s why they broke off the chase. We wouldn’t be their problem once we got out of their area.”

“Hard to say what they would consider their area,” Colbert said. “Intel warned us Ryazan’s enforcing a no-drive zone that covers more territory every year.”

“Well, technically, we are smugglers, Duncan,” Sergeant Norton put in. “The only difference is our contraband came to us.” He brought his head close to Eva’s. His breath was warm on her ear. “Sorry about the excitement back there, Dr. Petrova. How are you doing?”

Unexpected tears sprang to her eyes at the kindness in his tone. She blinked them away, impatient with herself. This man may have saved their lives, yet regardless of his heroic actions, his motive for protecting them hadn’t been personal. He was just following orders. His government wanted her almost as much as they wanted the disk she carried.

She couldn’t afford to trust him. She knew better than to trust any man. “I am fine, thank you.”

He was silent for a moment, then pushed himself off her and patted her shoulder. “Okay, then. And the baby?”

“She appears unhurt.”

“Great. Let me help you sit up.”

“I can manage. We need no special treatment.”

“Dr. Petrova…”

“How much longer—” she grimaced as the truck swayed around a bend “—to the helicopter?”

“Hang on, I’ll find out.” He got to his feet, stepped over her legs and went to crouch beside the electronic equipment. “How’s our timetable?”

“Tighter than I’d like,” Colbert replied. “The detour cost us.”

“Let me see that satellite shot.”

While the men spoke, Eva turned her attention to the task of sitting up. The extra weight from Katya and her bundles of supplies made it more difficult than she’d expected. She groped for the strap that was attached to the side of the truck and used it to haul herself upright. The change in position helped clear her head, but it brought fresh stinging from her waist to her armpit. Though she was no longer being tossed into the air as violently, the road was far from smooth. She felt every rut and pothole. Adding to her discomfort, the wind seemed to have increased since they’d started out, causing the truck to shake with each gust.

Eva took a cleansing breath, closed her eyes to gather her strength and concentrated on breathing shallowly through her mouth, using the same method for mastering pain that had gotten her through childbirth. If she could endure that, she could endure anything, especially a splinter.

Yet what kind of splinter would hurt this much? Or could have penetrated her winter coat? “What’s wrong?”

She opened her eyes to find that Sergeant Norton had returned and was kneeling in front of her. Although her vision had adjusted to the darkness, she still couldn’t see much more of him than his silhouette against the glow from the communication instruments. He looked large and hard, uncompromisingly male, and she had an insane impulse to lean into his chest and feel the shelter of his body once more.

Was she getting delirious? She reminded herself again not to take his concern personally. “How much longer before we reach the helicopter?” she demanded.

“A while yet,” he replied vaguely. He moved closer. “Dr. Petrova, I know you said you were fine, but you don’t look that well.”

“I believe I fell on some wood, that’s all.”

“Hey, Duncan,” he said over his shoulder. “Tell Kurt to ease up for a few minutes.”

“No can do, Jack. Weather’s getting uglier by the minute. We’ve got to hustle.”

“No!” Eva said at the same time. “There is no need to slow down on my account.”

He took a penlight from a pocket on the leg of his pants and clicked it on. “All right,” he said easily. “In the meantime, how about letting me check over the baby? I bet you wouldn’t argue with that.”

He was right. Eva should have thought of that herself. She looked at Katya. The mittens she’d knitted for her had fallen off, as had the cap. Her wispy hair gleamed almost white in the flashlight’s narrow beam, and her face was flushed from her fussing. The sudden light startled her to silence. She looked around restlessly until she spotted Eva’s face and gave a gurgle of recognition.

Eva managed a shaky smile. “There’s my brave girl,” she whispered.

“You did a good job with that carrier you rigged up.” Sergeant Norton pushed apart the edges of her coat as he spoke. “What did you use, anyway?”

“A sheet from my bed. I knew its absence wouldn’t be detected. I did not want to raise suspicions by taking Katya’s stroller.” She panted a few times. “If anyone notices we aren’t in our quarters they’ll assume we couldn’t have gone far.”

“That was good thinking. This carrier would have kept the kid as steady as a seat belt, anyway.” He directed the light at Katya while he ran his free hand over her head and back in a cursory examination. “Did you use the sheet for these extra sacks of stuff, too?”

“Yes. For the same reason.”

“They probably helped cushion her.” He wedged the flashlight between his knees and leaned forward to peel Eva’s coat off her shoulders. “Okay. Your turn.”

She attempted to pull away, but with her back against the side of the truck there was nowhere to go. “You said you were only checking Katya.”

“Hold still. I saw blood on one of those cloth sacks.”

Her heart froze. “Oh, God. No.”

“The blood must be yours, not the baby’s,” he said. “There’s none on that sling except where it goes around your side.” He pulled a folded knife from another pocket and flicked it open. Without any warning, he sliced through the strings that suspended the bundles of spare baby clothes.

She tried to bat his hand away. As she’d learned earlier, though, there was no budging him. “Stop. What are you doing? Katya needs those things.”

“I have to get rid of your cargo so I can see where the blood’s coming from.”

“No, it’s nothing. Just a splinter.”

As if she hadn’t spoken, he tossed the bundles aside. “Duncan,” he said, raising his voice. “Come over here and hold the kid for me.”

“Sorry, Jack,” he said, his fingers flying over the keyboard of a laptop computer. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Junior?”

The man at the tailgate shook his head without turning around. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about babies.”

“What’s to know? Pretend she’s a bomb.”

“Nope. Bombs are more predictable.”

Eva crooked one arm around Katya. “She’ll be frightened without me. This isn’t necessary.”

Sergeant Norton frowned and looked at Eva. “I’m a medic. While I’m not a doctor, I have been trained in basic first aid.” He closed the knife with a flick of his wrist that made him look more like a hoodlum than a doctor. “And I intend to assess your wound.”

“No, I—”

“Ma’am, I understand you’re scared and for some reason you don’t want to admit that you’re hurt, but you’re going to have to trust me on this. You won’t be any good to your baby if you pass out from blood loss.”

She couldn’t argue with that reasoning. Not that she was going to trust him, but for Katya’s sake, she had to allow him to help her. That was the logical thing to do. And this was hardly the time to think of pride or modesty. Not with their survival at stake. Eva glanced past him at the other two men, but their attention appeared totally focused on their tasks. The window to the cab of the truck seemed too grimy to see through, even if the men in the front chose to look back. She pressed her lips together and gave a curt nod.

Sergeant Norton undid the knots that held the sling behind her neck and waist, then lifted Katya out. He supported the baby stiffly across both his palms for a moment, as if unsure what to do with her. Taking advantage of her sudden freedom, Katya began wriggling and kicking her feet. The nylon snowsuit she wore was slippery, causing him to juggle her awkwardly.

“Cup your hand under her head and lay her along your arm,” Eva said, motioning toward him. “Like an American football player.”

It took a few attempts for the sergeant to comprehend what she described. Finally, he managed to do as she instructed, tucking Katya’s legs under the crook of his elbow so he could hold her with only one hand. The baby looked tiny against his body, yet she was apparently happy with her new position. She brought her thumb to her mouth and stopped squirming.

As soon as Eva reassured herself that Katya was being held securely, the strength she’d managed to summon began to ebb. Without the warmth of her daughter against her chest, there was nothing to distract her from the pain that radiated across her ribs. She inhaled hard, then started the pattern of shallow panting once more.

Keeping the baby cradled against his side with one arm, Sergeant Norton clamped the flashlight between his teeth. With his free hand he pinched the lower edge of Eva’s sweater and pulled it upward.

Her blouse clung wetly to her skin. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as the fabric was peeled away. The stinging deepened. Something hot trickled down her side to the waistband of her pants.

He let the flashlight drop from his mouth. “This is getting to be a bad habit of yours, Dr. Petrova.”

Eva exhaled on a hiss. “What?”

“You’re trying to hide things under your coat again.”

“Sergeant, I’m not—”

“Save your breath, ma’am,” he said. His fingertips were featherlight as he touched her side. “It wasn’t any splinter that caused this wound. It was a bullet.”

The storm blew in faster than any of Duncan’s meteorological program models had predicted, and as luck would have it, they were driving straight into the thick of it. The packed dirt that served as the road had already disappeared beneath a layer of snow. It was falling so fast that Jack could barely see the tracks they’d left behind them. Kurt had reduced his speed to maintain control as the wind buffeted the truck, but they were no longer concerned about making the rendezvous. Until the storm let up, the chopper wouldn’t be coming. The objective now was to find somewhere to wait it out.

Jack let the tarp fall back into place and glanced over his shoulder. Eva had her eyes closed and was leaning against the side of the truck, but he knew she wasn’t sleeping because her hands were curled in a white-knuckled grip over the baby. At his insistence, she’d laid the kid on her lap instead of returning her to the bed-sheet carrier and strapping her back on. It was her only concession to the compress that Jack had taped over her ribs.

That woman was giving him one surprise after another. Jack couldn’t think of a single female of his acquaintance who would have even dreamt of concealing a bullet wound—or would have been capable of trying. Most men wouldn’t have endured it as stoically as Eva had. And to top it off, her main concern, once she’d learned she’d been shot, was to ensure that the bullet had missed her baby.

Damn, she was something.

Beside him, Tyler adjusted the canvas to minimize the amount of snow that curled in and resumed his watch through the gap that remained. In spite of the weather, he hadn’t relaxed his vigilance. “How bad is it?” he asked.

Jack knew Tyler wasn’t referring to the storm. Though the other men had concentrated on their own responsibilities while they’d left Jack to tend to Eva, they would be as concerned about her condition as he was. “The bullet only grazed her,” he replied, keeping his voice low so she wouldn’t overhear. “It lost most of its velocity when it passed through the side panel of the truck.”

“So it’s not serious?”

“No, it’s minor. She was lucky. There was no penetration. Just a shallow gouge where it skimmed along her rib cage.” Just? Sure, if he’d been talking about one of the guys, he’d laugh this one off. They referred to anything that didn’t involve broken bones or major organs as a flesh wound, and Eva’s was just a flesh wound. “It’s ugly, but the bleeding was already slowing down. She’ll need some plastic work once we get back if she doesn’t want a scar.”

“It must have stung like hell when she got hit.”

“Yeah.”

“She never said a word. Why do you figure that?”

It was a question Jack had already asked himself. He’d noticed that Eva had been in rough shape as soon as she’d sat up. Her sweater was black so he hadn’t been able to see the blood on it right away, but she probably wouldn’t have allowed him to touch her at all if he hadn’t used the ruse about examining her kid first. Her defensiveness had begun long before she’d been injured. She’d been prickly from the moment he’d confirmed her identity. “She doesn’t fully trust us,” he replied. “My guess is she’s worried that we’ll take the disk and leave her behind.”

“Smart woman,” Tyler said. “She must have realized what the brass are really after. There’s some heavy-duty stuff on that disk.”

“Yeah, well, then it’s a good thing we take our orders from Major Redinger. He doesn’t have much use for politics.”

“Wonder what he’ll say when he finds out about the kid.”

“Knowing the major, he’ll probably add babies to the list of possible scenarios we have to cover when we train for the next mission.”

Tyler grunted a laugh. “You could use the practice. You looked like you were getting ready to rush the kid through the Giants’ front four.”

“The football grip was Eva’s idea. It worked, too. Want me to show it to you?”

“No, thanks. Give me a nice, safe bomb any day.” He tipped his rifle to blow the snow off the scope. “So, what’s your take on our lady? Is she going to slow us down?”

“Not if she can help it. From what I’ve seen, she’s got enough willpower to walk from here to the Black Sea.”

“She didn’t seem to like you much, Jack. Guess that legendary bedside manner of yours must be slipping.”

“You’re still too young to understand women, son. If you were old enough to shave, you’d realize she was scared.”

Tyler lifted his night-vision goggles so he could slide Jack a look. “She’s got reason to be scared of you, doc. I’ve seen your handiwork, and I wouldn’t want you anywhere near me with a med kit.”

Jack let the comment pass, mostly because he agreed. He glanced back at Eva and saw that she was still sitting quietly. He’d cleaned and dressed the wound as well as he’d been able to in a moving vehicle. There wasn’t anything more he could do to make her comfortable, and he doubted whether she’d let him anyway.

During his years in the service he’d seen far worse injuries than hers. He hadn’t balked at doing whatever was needed to save his patient. The other men knew that nothing fazed him, yet the sight of Eva’s wound had turned his stomach. It had seemed so…wrong.

The kind of violence he was accustomed to didn’t belong in her world. She was too delicate, too feminine to be treated like the hardened soldiers he usually dealt with. She should be on a bed, not on a battlefield. Her skin had gleamed like satin in the glare from the flashlight. It had felt like satin, too. He’d smelled the blood immediately, but he’d also gotten a whiff of some kind of flowery perfume and the sweet musk of a female. Even while he’d done his best to focus on the gash the bullet had left, he couldn’t help being aware of how close his hand had been to the curve of her breast.