Lone Rider Bodyguard. Harper Allen
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“I didn’t shame myself with Frank Barrett,” she said softly. “We were married. But even if he’d lived, I know now he wasn’t the type to raise a child—maybe because inside he’d never really grown up himself. I want my son to be proud of the name he bears.”
She raised her eyes to his. “My daddy was a man,” she said simply. “He stood up for what he believed in, he would have given his life for the ones he loved and whenever he had to make a choice between taking the easy way out or doing what he thought was right, he went with his conscience. I think you’re the same kind. I’d take it as a honor if you let me name this little one Daniel Tyler Bird.”
Less than an hour ago that steady gaze holding his had made him feel off balance, Tye thought. But it had been everything else in his life that had been spinning out of control.
Most people would say the baby in her arms had come into this world with the cards stacked against him. He didn’t have a father. His mother couldn’t be much older than twenty—far too young to take on the responsibility of raising a child alone. He’d been born in the back seat of a broken-down car at the side of a dusty road.
But Daniel Tyler Bird already had everything he would ever need. His young mother had a wisdom far beyond her years, rooted in the values and morals of the family she’d spoken of.
And Daniel Tyler was loved by Susannah Bird.
“The honor’s mine, Suze,” Tye said huskily. “I’d be proud to have your son carry my name.”
“FROM WHAT you described, sounds like both mama and baby came through the whole thing just fine.” The gray-haired man wedged between Tyler and the driver on the front seat of the ambulance shot a glance in the direction of Tye’s clenched jaw. “Me and Wesley here saw the California plates on that fancy chopper you parked outside my clinic. You in these parts scouting movie locations?”
Tye shook his head. “I’m just here to look up an old friend,” he said, not taking his eyes from the highway ahead.
He didn’t elaborate. As if sensing his preoccupation, Dr. Jennings let the subject drop, and as he and the driver fell into conversation Tye’s thoughts returned to the woman he’d left nearly an hour ago.
Susannah had nodded when he’d told her he saw no choice but to leave her and Danny while he went into Last Chance to get medical help. “That May sun’s going to turn this car into an oven, Tye,” she’d said, concern darkening her gaze. “You’re right, we can’t just hope someone’s going to come along. Except for you, there hasn’t been a vehicle go by the whole time I’ve been here.”
He hadn’t corrected her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he’d promised. “There’s nothing else left to tie off or take care of or—”
Her laughter had been low. “No, that’s it. Granny Lacey couldn’t have done a better job of cutting the cord.” She’d hesitated. “I—I’m glad it was you who stopped, Tye. And not just because of how you helped Daniel and me.”
He hadn’t told Doc Jennings anything close to the truth, Tyler thought now. He hadn’t come back to Last Chance to look up Hawkins, he’d come because Del had called him with an urgent and unprecedented request for his help. But even before Del had called he’d been trying to find some excuse to make the trip back here to New Mexico, because for the past few years everything he’d worked for, everything he’d thought he wanted out of life, had begun to seem meaningless. And when one day last month he’d looked into his shaving mirror and for a split second had seen the face of his father, he’d felt real fear.
He’d needed answers. He hadn’t really been sure what his questions were. But when he’d put Susannah Bird’s newborn son into her arms and she’d given him that glance of purest joy, all his unasked questions and unknown answers had been swept away.
“What fool would throw a jacket onto the side of the road?” Mild as it was, Jennings’s quizzical question broke into Tyler’s thoughts.
“Tourists.” At the wheel, Wesley snorted. “More money than—”
“Turn around.” At his terse command, Tye saw the driver and Jennings exchange glances. He spoke again, his tone still sharp. “I think that’s my jacket. I left it on the roof of her car.”
“I thought you said her vehicle had broken down.” As Wesley maneuvered the ambulance onto the hard-baked shoulder and began executing a cautious three-point turn, Jennings frowned. “Besides, a woman who’d just given birth couldn’t hop into the front seat and drive off, Adams.”
“I know that.” Tye felt the knot in his stomach tighten. “But this is where I left her, I’m sure of it.”
Unwilling to wait, he opened the ambulance door and jumped out. Sprinting the hundred yards or so back to the discarded leather jacket Jennings had seen, he picked it up.
It was his. High up on the right sleeve was the gaping slash where her bullet had sliced through. At his feet was a darker patch in the parched dust, and on either side of the patch were the shallow impressions where her heels had dug in.
“I can’t explain now, but it appears like someone’s looking to bring harm to me and my baby….”
Despite the heat, suddenly he felt encased in ice.
He’d left her and Daniel Tyler unprotected. And now they were gone.
Chapter Two
“Do you know what today is, little one?”
Susannah adjusted the flame of the oil lamp on the dresser until the warm glow reflected off the adobe walls just enough to illuminate the two objects hanging on their otherwise unadorned smoothness. One was a large canvas, its jewel-like colors shimmering richly. On the opposite wall hung a plain olive-wood cross. Walking to the handmade cradle by the bed, Susannah bent over her sleeping son.
“You’re a whole week old today, starshine,” she said softly. “Happy birthday, Daniel Tyler.”
She’d made the right decision, she told herself, stroking a fine curl of hair from his delicately veined temple. She and her baby had disappeared without a trace. She’d bought them time, and for now Danny was safe.
That safety had come at a cost.
“I know there’s people who don’t believe in miracles, Danny, but that’s like not believing in rain or puppies or fresh-baked bread,” she murmured. “God gives us presents every day. He gave me you. And the day you were born, two more miracles dropped into my life.”
She bit her lip, her gaze darkening. “One of them was Tyler Adams, the man who made sure you came into this world safely,” she whispered.
When he grew old enough to ask questions, what would she tell her little boy about the man whose name he bore? she wondered. That even when she’d first laid eyes on him, convinced he was working for the killers who’d been hunting her for the last nine months, she’d thought he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen? That his hair had been the color of burnished gold, his eyes bluer than the sky? That he’d been so tall and broad-shouldered he’d blocked out the sun?
He’d stood there gazing down at her, his perfectly chiselled features remote and unreadable, his skin slightly windburned. Under his unzipped leather jacket she’d seen the white of a T-shirt. There’d been an oil smear high up on one hard cheekbone, and his jeans and boots had been grimy with road dust.
He’d looked dangerous and beautiful at the same time. He’d looked like a picture she’d seen long ago in a children’s book of Bible stories, of an angel who’d fallen from grace.
She’d come close to blowing her miracle away with a .38 caliber bullet.
“I could have killed him.” In the quiet room her voice was hoarse with remembered horror. “He must have thought I was crazy—but still he stayed.”
He’d not only stayed with