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Laura rushed deep into the chattering throng. Once up the exterior steps, she allowed herself to be carried by the crowd into the huge marbled lobby. Weaving between the exuberant voters, she made her way to the stairwell. Almost stumbling in her haste, Laura flew down the stairs leading to the basement level.
If she could just make it to the west end, up the stairs, and onto the street on the opposite side of the square, she would be home free. She had to make it, she determined as she licked her dry lips. The alternative was unthinkable.
Don’t dwell on the negative. Think, Laura, think!
Okay, okay, she told herself as she glanced over her shoulder one last time before starting down the dimly lit, deserted corridor. If she cut through the alley next to Patterson’s Mercantile, then circled around behind the assortment of shops until she reached Vine Street, she would have a straight shot to the house.
Mrs. Leeton’s house.
And her son. God, she had to get to Robby.
Laura skidded to a halt at the foot of the west stairs. “No,” she muttered, shaking her head. The door to the stairwell was draped with yellow tape. A handwritten sign read, Closed—Wet Paint. Laura grasped the knob and twisted, denial jetting through her.
She was trapped.
Laura blinked and forced herself to think harder.
Slow, deliberate footsteps echoed in the otherwise complete silence. She swung around toward the sound. He was coming down the stairs. In mere seconds he would cross the landing and descend the final steps leading to the basement…
To her.
Oh God. She had to hide. Now! Laura ran to a door, but it was locked. As was the next, and the next. Why were all the offices locked?
Election day.
Only the office serving as the voting polls remained open today. Fear tightened its mighty grip, shattering all rational thought. Laura bolted for the next possibility. Blessedly, the ladies’ room door gave way, pushing inward with her weight. Moving silently past each unoccupied stall, Laura slipped inside the last one and closed the rickety old door behind her. She traced the flimsy lock with icy, trembling fingers only to find it broken. Climbing onto the toilet, she placed one foot on either side of the seat and hunkered into a crouch. Knowing her pursuer to be only seconds behind her, Laura uttered one more silent prayer.
Trembling with the effort to remain perfectly still, she swallowed the metallic taste of fear and concentrated on slowing and quieting her breathing. The heart that had stilled in her chest, now slammed mercilessly against her rib cage. Laura refused to consider how he could have found her. She had been so careful since returning to Bay Break. She fought back a wave of tears as she briefly wondered just how much her brother was willing to pay the men he sent after his only sister.
How could this keep happening?
Why didn’t he just leave her alone?
How did they keep finding her?
And, God, what would happen to Robby if she were killed in the next three minutes as she fully expected to be if discovered? Anguish tore at her throat as she thought of her sweet, sweet baby. She wanted to scream…to cry…to run!
Stupid! Stupid! How could she have been so careless? She should never have left the house without taking precautions to conceal her identity. But Mrs. Leeton had insisted that Doc needed her at the clinic—that it was urgent. After all Doc had done for her son, how could Laura have refused to go? She closed her eyes and banished the tears that would not help the situation.
The slow groan of the bathroom door opening temporarily halted Laura’s galloping heart. Everything inside her stilled as her too-short life flashed before her eyes.
She had failed.
Failed herself.
Failed to protect the only man she had ever loved.
And, most important, failed to make the proper arrangements for her son’s safety in the event of this very moment.
Now she would die.
What would become of Robby? Who would care for him? Love him, as she loved him?
No one.
The answer twisted inside her like a mass of tangled barbed wire, shredding all hope. She had no one to turn to…no one to count on. A single tear rolled past her lashes and slid slowly down her cheek only to halt in a salty puddle at the corner of her mouth.
Something deep and primal inside Laura snapped.
By God, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Laura’s heart pounded back to warp speed. She swallowed the bitter bile that had risen in her throat as she heard the whoosh of the door closing and the solid thunk of boot heels against the tile floor. Each harsh, seemingly deafening sound brought death one step closer.
The first stall door banged against its enclosure as the hunter shoved the door inward looking for his prey. Then the second door, and the next and the next. Hinges whined and metal whacked against metal as he came ever closer to Laura’s hiding place.
To her.
Her heart climbed higher in her throat. Her breath vaporized in her lungs. Tears burned in her eyes. She focused inward to her last image of Robby, all big toothy smiles, toddling across the floor, arms outstretched.
Blood roared in Laura’s ears as her killer took the final step then paused before the gray, graffiti-covered metal door that stood between them. Did he know that she was there? Could he smell her fear? Could he hear her heart pounding?
Bracing her hands against the cold metal walls, Laura gritted her teeth and kicked the door outward as hard as she could. The answering grunt told her she had connected with her target—his face hopefully. Laura quickly scrambled to the floor, beneath the enclosure and into the next stall. Hot oaths and the scraping of boot heels echoed around her. Her body shaking, her breath coming in ragged spurts, Laura crawled from one stall to the next to retain cover. She had to get out of here. Had to run!
To get to Robby!
The door of the stall she had just wriggled into suddenly swung open. “Don’t move,” an angry male voice ordered.
Laura frowned. There was something vaguely familiar about that low, masculine drawl. As if in slow motion, her gaze traveled from the polished black boots, up the long jean-clad legs to the business end of the handgun trained on her. She blinked, feeling strangely disconnected from her body. Then her gaze shifted upward to look into the face of death.
Nick.
It was Nick.
“DON’T MAKE ME SORRY I put my weapon away,” Nick growled close to her ear. Awareness punched him square in the gut when he inhaled the gentle fragrance that was Laura’s alone. No store-bought perfume could ever match that natural sweetness. He clenched his jaw and simultaneously tightened his grip on her arm as they moved toward his rental car.
Hell, the Beretta had been overkill, he knew. Laura hadn’t even been carrying a purse, much less a weapon of any sort. But Nick wasn’t taking any chances this time. She hadn’t had a weapon the last time either.
His right leg throbbed insistently, but he gritted his teeth and ignored the pulsing burn. He had found Laura, alive and well, and that’s all he cared about right now.
Lucky for him Bay Break streets were deserted as far as he could see. He supposed that most of the residents out and about this morning were huddled in and around voting booths inside the courthouse, or sitting around a table in the local diner discussing how the election would turn out. Nick didn’t keep up with Mississippi politics, but James Ed Proctor III’s sensational reputation was hard to miss in the media. And, from what Nick had heard, whomever the man supported for Congress or the Senate was a sure winner.
The cold wind slapped at Nick’s unshaven face. After a late night flight, a long drive, and an even longer surveillance of the little town’s streets before Laura made her midmorning appearance, Nick welcomed the unseasonably cold temperature to help keep him alert.
He had fully expected Bay Break to be a good deal warmer than Chicago, but he’d gotten fooled. According to the old-timers hanging around the general store, all the signs warned of an early snow. Nick didn’t plan to hang around long enough to see if their predictions panned out. Between twelve hours of mainlining caffeine and the unanticipated cold, Nick felt more alert than one would expect after virtually no sleep in the last thirty hours. But by the time he drove to Jackson and did what he had to do, he would be in desperate need of some serious shut-eye. And, of course, there was that R-and-R Victoria had ordered. Yeah, right, Nick thought sarcastically.
Laura struggled in his grasp, yanking his attention back to the here and now. Nick frowned when he considered the woman he was all but dragging down the sidewalk. There was something different about her, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She seemed softer somehow. He scowled at the path his thoughts wanted to take. He knew just how soft and delicate Laura Proctor was in all the places that made a man want a woman—except one. It took a woman with a cold, hard heart to walk away from a man who lay bleeding to death.
“You can’t do this,” Laura muttered heatedly. She scanned the sidewalks and streets. Looking for someone to call out to for help, Nick surmised.
“Who the hell do you think you are? You’re not a cop,” she added vehemently. “And I have rights!”
Anger kicked aside his foolish awareness of her as a woman and resurrected more bitter memories. Nick paused, then jerked her closer, his brutal hold eliciting a muffled yelp of pain, or maybe fear, at the moment he didn’t really care which. “When somebody put a bullet into my chest and you left me to die, you lost your rights as far as I’m concerned.”
Seconds ticked by as Laura tried her best to stare him down, her sky blue gaze watery behind thick lashes. She could cry a river of tears and he would still feel no sympathy for her. Nick mercilessly ignored the vulnerability peeking past that drop-dead stare, and turned the intimidation up a couple of notches. Laura’s defiant expression wilted.
His point made, Nick escorted her the last few steps to the car. After unlocking the driver’s side door, he pulled it open and ushered Laura inside. Her long blond hair trailed over his hand, momentarily distracting him and making his groin tighten. He squeezed his hand into a fist and forced away the unwanted desire. He had come here to take her back, not take up where they had left off. Laura Proctor would never make a fool of him again. And this time, he would be the one walking away.
As he had anticipated, once in the car she bolted for the passenger side. With a smug smile, Nick slid behind the wheel and started the engine, almost drowning out her surprised gasp when she couldn’t open the door.
“You bastard,” she snarled, her eyes unnaturally dark with anger. Her breasts rose and fell with her every frustrated breath. “This is kidnapping!”
Nick’s smile widened into a grin of pure satisfaction. “Consider it a citizen’s arrest,” he offered. Before he could back out of the parking slot Laura flew at him, a clawing, kicking tangle of arms and legs.
Nick shoved the gearshift back into park. After several seconds of heated battle he subdued her, but not without a slash across his throat from her nails. He shook her, none too gently. “Look,” he ground out. “I’m trying not to hurt you.”
“Sure,” she hissed. “You don’t want to hurt me, you just want to get me killed.”
For one fleeting instant Nick allowed himself to feel her fear. There had supposedly been a couple of attempts on her life two years ago. Could she still be in danger? Even now, after all she had put him through, Nick’s gut clenched at the thought. Hell, he couldn’t say for sure that there had ever been any real danger in the first place. According to the reports he had been privy to, Laura had possessed a wild streak, not to mention an overactive imagination. Her older brother, Mississippi’s esteemed Governor, was always getting her out of one scrape or another. Who was to say that the whole thing was anything more than her vivid imagination? And the guy she had been romantically linked to back then was over the edge in Nick’s opinion. He doubted her poor taste in associates had changed since.
Nick swallowed hard at the thought of Laura with another man.
Did he care?
No, he told himself. The lie, unspoken, soured in his throat.
“You don’t have to worry, Laura. I’m taking you back home, to your brother. I’m—”
“My brother?” She quickly retreated to the passenger side of the car, as far away from Nick as possible. “I can’t go back home! Don’t you understand? It’s not safe.”
Nick leveled a ruthless gaze on her panicked one. Her lower lip quivered beneath his visual assault, he suppressed the emotion that instantly clutched at his chest. How could she look so innocent? So truly frightened for her life? And, damn him, how could he still care? “You don’t have an option. In fact, if you’ll remember correctly, the last time you were supposedly in danger I’m the one who almost bought the farm.”
Something in her eyes changed, softened with what looked like regret. But it was too late for that now. Way too late.
Their gazes still locked, Nick shifted to reverse. “Buckle up, baby, we’re out of here,” he ground out, then glanced over his shoulder before backing into the street.
Laura Proctor was going back to face her brother and the law. Nick had every intention of uncovering the real story about what happened their last day together at her brother’s cabin as well. Protecting Laura and seeing her safely returned to the new Governor after the election two years ago had been Nick’s assignment. But things had gone wrong fast, and Laura was hiding at least part of the answers.
Including the part where she recognized the man who almost killed Nick. The one she had obviously disappeared with that same day. Ironic, Nick thought wryly, that he had found her and would be delivering her to her brother right after an election—just two years later than planned.
LAURA HAD TO DO something. Nick, the arrogant bastard, was going to get her killed. She glared at his perfect profile and winced inwardly. God, the man was breathtaking. It hurt to look at him and know what she knew. He had haunted her dreams every night for the past two years. He’d ruined her for anyone else. A dozen snippets of memory flashed before her eyes. The way it felt to be held by Nick. The way he made love to her. Her heart squeezed with remembered pain. He had been fully prepared to give his life to protect hers. Yet she could never trust him with her secret, and she sure couldn’t go back to Jackson with him.
The small sense of relief Laura had felt when she had realized the man holding the gun on her was Nick instead of some hired killer died a sure and swift death when he announced why he had tracked her down.
He still wanted to finish the job he had been assigned two years ago, to return her safely to her brother. And that was exactly the reason Laura had not been able to go to Nick for help. He was too honorable a man to ignore his responsibility to James Ed. No way would Nick have done things Laura’s way. He took his job way too seriously.
She had always known that Nick could have found her eventually if he had really wanted to—but he hadn’t. He had apparently stopped trying. Unlike James Ed’s men, whom she gave the slip without much difficulty, Nick wouldn’t be so easy. He was too damned good, the best. If anyone could have caught Laura during the past two years, he could have. Why now, she wondered, after all this time? But the answer to that question didn’t really matter at the moment. Right now Laura desperately needed to think of something fast. Something that would give her an opportunity to escape. She glared at the space where the unlock button used to be, and then at the useless door handle he had somehow disabled. Nick Foster was just a little too smart for his own good.
And hers.
Well, Laura decided, she hadn’t eluded her brother this long without being pretty smart herself. She would find a way. Going back to James Ed was suicide. And she could never allow anyone—especially Nick—to discover her secret. She had to protect Robby at all costs. Even if after getting Robby settled some place safe it meant going back to her brother, Laura would do it to lead any threat away from her child.
She would never let anyone harm her son.
Never.
But how would Doc know what had happened to her? Would Mrs. Leeton be able to take care of Robby if Laura never returned? Unsettled by the thought, Laura snapped from her disturbing contemplation, and realized that they were already headed out of town.
To Jackson.
Desperation crowded her throat.
She needed to go back to Mrs. Leeton’s house first.
To her son. She couldn’t leave without making some sort of arrangements.
There was no other option at the moment.
“We have to go back,” she said quickly.
“Forget it.” Nick’s focus remained steady on the road. A muscle flexed in his square jaw, the only visible indication of his own tension.
Laura frantically groped for some reasonable explanation he would find acceptable for turning around. Nothing came. A new kind of fear mushroomed inside her. She had to think of something.
Now!
“My baby!” she blurted when the Please Come Again sign loomed closer. “I have to get my baby.”
Nick threw a suspicious glance in her direction. “What baby?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from his tone.
“My…I have…a son,” she admitted, defeat sucking the heart from her chest. How would she ever protect her baby?
Nick’s expression shifted from suspicious to incredulous. “I’m not falling for any of your tricks, Laura.”
Trembling with the crazy mixture of emotions flooding her body, Laura swiped at the tears she had only just noticed were slipping down her cheeks. Dammit, why did she have to cry? She was supposed to be tough—had to be tough. “Please take me back, Nick. I have to get my son,” she pleaded, any hope of appearing even remotely tough dashed.
Something, some emotion, flitted across his handsome face so fast Laura couldn’t quite read it. She fought to ignore what looked entirely too much like hurt that remained. She knew just how much Nick had suffered because of her. He had almost died. She winced inwardly at the memory. But she couldn’t permit herself to feel any sympathy for him. He certainly harbored none for her. She had to stay focused on keeping her son safe. Robby was all that really mattered. And she could never allow Nick to suspect the truth about her child.
Laura didn’t even want to imagine what Nick would do if he found out he had a son.
A child she had kept from him for almost two years.
NICK PARKED the rented sedan on the street in front of the small white frame house Laura identified as belonging to a Mrs. Leeton. Emotions churned in his gut. What was it to him if Laura Proctor had gotten herself pregnant since he had last seen her? Or, hell, maybe even shortly before he had met her.
Nothing.
Less than nothing, he reiterated for good measure.
She had simply been an assignment back then, and Nick’s sole motivation for taking her back to her brother now was to clear up his record. Laura Proctor represented a black mark on his otherwise perfect record, and he was about to wipe it clean. If he had kept his head on straight back then he wouldn’t have screwed up the assignment in the first place. And he sure as hell wouldn’t have allowed himself to believe the woman almost virginal. What a joke.
