Bodyguard's Baby Surprise. Lisa Childs
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most handsome man she had ever seen. His eyes were bluer than his brothers’, his features sharper, his jaw squarer. Finally, the other men had all seen her and knew she was pregnant. It was clear that Nick had had no idea. Those bluer blue eyes were wide with shock as he stared down at her belly.
“You’re pregnant?”
She splayed her hands across her belly, but she couldn’t hide it from him. So she nodded.
“Is it mine?”
A gasp slipped through her lips—that he would ask, that he wouldn’t just know. She didn’t sleep around. She wouldn’t have slept with him six months ago if she had been involved with anyone else at the time.
Or would she have?
She had wanted Nick for so long—even before she’d known what desire was. When he had finally returned that desire, she hadn’t been able to resist and probably wouldn’t have even if she’d been in a relationship at the time. But thanks to Nick—and always wanting him—she’d had few relationships. No ordinary man or high school boyfriend or college crush had been able to measure up to the hero she had made Nicholas Rus out to be in her girlish fantasies.
Nick was no hero, though. He was just a man—a man who’d always made it clear he didn’t like anyone getting too close to him. And until that night six months ago, he had never let Annalise too close.
Before she could answer him, the curtain rustled again, and another man joined them. His light green scrubs hung on his tall, thin frame. The young ER doctor glanced at her and then at Nick as if trying to gauge the relationship.
“Is she all right?” Nick asked. And his gaze skimmed over more than her belly now. He looked at her face, and his breath audibly caught at the scrape on her cheek. He reached out, but his fingers fell just short of touching her.
“Is the baby all right?” she asked. The baby was all she cared about. She didn’t care about her car. It wasn’t the first one she’d had stolen.
She’d been so stupid to risk her pregnancy over a damn car...
The doctor glanced at Nick again—as if wondering if he could speak freely in front of him. Damn HIPAA laws. She didn’t care about her privacy right now.
“Please,” she implored him. “Tell me!”
The baby shifted again. He or she had to be okay, or he wouldn’t move like he was. Right?
“Your baby is fine, Ms. Huxton,” the doctor assured her. “It appears that when you fell out of the vehicle, you fell on your side.”
Nick flinched as if he’d taken a blow.
“Your shoulder took the brunt of the force,” he continued, “and it appears you’ve struck your head, as well. You have a slight concussion.”
That explained why her head kept throbbing so painfully. She lifted her fingers to her temple. “But the baby... Is he or she...” They hadn’t been able to determine the sex on this ultrasound screen, either. The tiny legs had been crossed again. “ ...all right?” She needed that reassurance, needed to know that her recklessness hadn’t put her pregnancy at risk.
The doctor reached out, and his fingers did touch her, squeezing her hand. “The baby is fine. Strong heartbeat. Active. All properly developed for twenty-four weeks.”
She uttered a sigh of relief. “Then I can leave?”
The doctor pulled his hand away. “I’m not concerned about the baby,” he said. “But I do have concerns about your concussion.”
“There’s no reason for concern.” She shook her head but winced as pain reverberated inside her skull. Maybe she did have a concussion. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Nick said. “You’ve been hurt.”
He would know. He had done it. But he wasn’t referring to his breaking her heart. He probably wasn’t even aware that he had.
“The address you provided for your intake paperwork says that you live in Chicago,” the doctor said. “You definitely cannot drive that distance, or really at all, for at least twenty-four hours.”
A giggle bubbled up inside her, but not wanting to sound or become hysterical, she suppressed it. “I have no car to drive,” she said. “It was stolen.”
“Is that what happened?” Nick asked. “You were carjacked?” He uttered a slight sigh, almost as if he was relieved.
Surprised by his reaction, she stared at him.
“Logan made it sound like something else,” he explained. “Like it wasn’t random.”
She doubted it was random. After everything else that had happened, it would have been too much of a coincidence. But she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to share with Nick. He had already proved to her that she shouldn’t have trusted him—with her heart, and maybe not with anything else.
“You shouldn’t drive,” the doctor repeated as if they hadn’t spoken. “And you should not be alone tonight.”
“She won’t be alone,” Nick said. “She’s going home with me.”
She gasped. “No.” But before she could finish her protest—that there was no way in hell she would go home with him—the doctor and Nick both turned to her.
“I’m sure you’d rather not stay in the hospital,” Nick surmised—correctly. And of course, he knew the only way the doctor would release her was if he believed she would not be alone.
Damn him. He’d always had an uncanny ability to know what other people wanted or needed—except her. He had never known how much she’d wanted him—needed him—until that one night.
But that night had been an aberration. He hadn’t realized how much she’d needed him after that—more than she ever had. Or maybe he’d known and hadn’t cared.
What was different now?
The baby? He must have realized the child Annalise was carrying was his.
* * *
“She doesn’t want to go home with you,” Nikki said.
Special Agent Rus flinched as if she’d struck him. She had watched the man take a blow and even a bullet without ever betraying an ounce of fear. But this caused him pain. Annalise Huxton caused him pain.
“She doesn’t,” he agreed with a glance to the door of the bathroom where Annalise was changing from the hospital gown back into her clothes. They were torn and stained from her tussle with the men and the asphalt. And thanks to Nikki letting them get away with her vehicle, those clothes were all she had in River City.
Nikki flinched now. Maybe her brothers were right. Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a bodyguard. She hadn’t reacted fast enough.
“I told her she could stay with me,” she said. But now she wondered if that was a good idea—if she could keep the pregnant woman safe.
“I appreciate the offer,” he said.
She opened her mouth to point out that she hadn’t made the offer to him when he continued, “And I appreciate you saving her from the carjackers.”
Her face heated now as it flushed with embarrassment. “I didn’t,” she said.
“But Logan said you exchanged gunfire with them.”
“I did,” she said. She had gotten off a couple of shots and might even have hit one of them. “But Annalise got free on her own. She’s tougher than she looks.” Just like Nikki had always tried to convince her brothers she was tougher than she looked. “Maybe that’s why she ran toward them when she saw them stealing her car.”
“She ran toward the carjackers?” he asked, his face paling with fear as he probably imagined all the horrible things that could