Peekaboo Baby

by Delores Fossen

  Yes, but in the past few days, work hadn’t sated him the way it used to. Of course, lately he’d felt very needy. That didn’t go with his iceman image. But then, that image was changing.

  Delaney and his son were responsible for that.

  “Now, as for Patrick,” Ryan said. He didn’t give her a chance to object to the abrupt change of subject. “We have some options. You have some options. The most logical one is for Patrick and you to stay at the estate indefinitely.”

  She angled toward him, and examined him. “I have a house, thank you. And the estate is your home, not ours.”

  “But it could be.”

  More body angling. More examination. She frowned. “Think this through, Ryan. What will your family and your business associates think if Patrick and I move in with you?”

  He shrugged. “Not a problem. I don’t care what my associates think. And other than a few distant cousins, I have no family.”

  Except for Patrick.

  And it was because of Patrick that Ryan had come up with the next option. A risky one. He hoped Delaney didn’t demand to get out of the car when she heard it. They were driving past the drainage ditch where the incident had occurred, and he didn’t want to be in the vicinity any longer than necessary.

  “We could look at this from a different angle,” Ryan offered. “One that could solve our dilemma about Patrick and your other concerns.”

  “What angle?” Delaney asked, her tone skeptical.

  Since Ryan didn’t think he stood a chance of making it sound agreeable, he just laid it there and hoped for the best. “You could marry me.”

  DELANEY WAITED for Ryan to break into laughter at his joke. But after several snail-crawling moments, there was no laughter, and it became clear that he hadn’t intended for it to be humorous.

  “Marry you?” she questioned.

  Ryan nodded. “It makes sense. No shared custody because we’d be in a committed relationship under the same roof. Both of us would be able to raise Patrick.”

  She glanced in the mirror and saw the driver, Clancy. The elderly man with the sugar-white hair and time-etched face was staring at them with almost parental concern. Ryan obviously noticed it, too, and tossed him a scowl.

  Clancy quickly looked away.

  Delaney debated several things she could say in response to Ryan’s suggestion, but instead she took his hand, lifted it, so that his wedding ring was right in front of his eyes. “You’re already married.”

  Ryan looked at the ring as if seeing it for the first time. He cursed and shook his head. “I should have taken it off months ago.”

  “You obviously weren’t ready to do that. Besides, I won’t say I do to resolve our custody issues. I don’t take marriage vows lightly.”

  He pulled back his shoulders, looking genuinely offended. “Neither do I. But this isn’t just about us. We’ve got to consider what’s best for Patrick. Plus, it’s not as if we hate each other—right?” He waited a moment. “Right?” he repeated when she didn’t answer.

  “I don’t hate you.” It was the truth. Well, partly.

  She didn’t hate him.

  And it was entirely possible she was falling in love with him.

  Still, that and that alone wasn’t the basis for a marriage. Especially when the love was one-sided.

  He reached for his ring, a motion that indicated he was about to yank it from his finger. Delaney clamped her hand over his and stopped him. “Don’t do this. Wait until you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready.” But the grief in his eyes, a grief she couldn’t reach, couldn’t touch, was still there. And she had to accept that it might always be there.

  “You’re not,” she insisted.

  Ryan moved her hand away. “Delaney, I wouldn’t have kissed you if I hadn’t thought there was a chance that it would lead to a permanent relationship between us.”

  She frowned and stared at him, not believing what he was saying.

  “Okay, I would have kissed you,” he amended, flexing his eyebrows. “I’m a man. Blame it on testosterone and the way I feel when I look at you.”

  She met his gaze head-on. “I’m not Sandra.”

  “And I don’t want you to be. I loved her. Truly loved her. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room in my heart for you.”

  It was a step. A huge one. However, it wasn’t enough. “You don’t love me, Ryan.”

  Silence.

  The kind of silence accompanied by a deer-caught-in-the-headlight look.

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him so she could end the uncomfortable silence. “I don’t expect you to lie and say you feel something for me that you don’t. I just want you to see that marriage isn’t an option.”

  Even if part of her wanted it to be.

  Imagine—marriage to Ryan McCall? A week ago, Delaney would have considered it unthinkable, and now it seemed to take hold of her.

  Ryan’s wife.

  His lover.

  The two of them raising Patrick together.

  Her, waking up to him each morning. And, yes, maybe even him falling in love with her. But that was a slippery fantasy that could easily go another direction, and she could end up with a broken heart. Ryan might never learn to love her, might never be able to let go of the past.

  Disgusted with herself and her reaction to Ryan’s proposal, Delaney borrowed a trick from him and stared out the window. Not that she actually saw the scenery. No. Her mind and every other part of her were on his proposal.

  She’d rejected it. Adamantly. But perhaps she shouldn’t have. Marriage with love was the ideal, but for the sake of her son perhaps she could bring her ideal goals down to a more realistic level.

  She glanced at Ryan.

  She’d come to know him quite well in a short period of time. Delaney could thank the danger and Patrick’s circumstances for that. But it didn’t change what she felt in the deepest part of her heart. She couldn’t marry a man who didn’t love her. That would set her up to relive her parents’ mistake of trying to be together for the sake of a child.

  “What the hell?” she heard Ryan mumble.

  Delaney followed his gaze out his own window and spotted a glint of…something. Something in the thick cluster of trees about twenty yards from the road. She didn’t even have time to speculate about what it was or why it had alarmed Ryan.

  “Get down!” he yelled.

  But he didn’t wait for her to do that. Ryan dove at her, tackling her, and knocked her flat onto the seat.

  She soon realized why he’d done that.

  There was a shrill scream of sound. A horrible noise. Of metal ripping through the metal of the car. And the glass. Ryan’s window shattered, the sheet of safety glass didn’t spew toward them but instead crashed with a walloping thud onto them and the seat.

  Ryan cursed, and she felt him fumbling in his jacket. For his gun, she realized. Worse, the driver slammed on his brakes. Stopping.

  Delaney’s breath froze. “Someone’s shooting at us?” she asked. Not a calm request for information, either. She practically shouted it. And a split-second later, she got her own confirmation.

  Another blast.

  Then another.

  The bullets tore through the car, one gashing the roof, and the other slamming into the leather seat just an inch or so above Ryan’s head.

  It took ten years off her life to see how close the bullet had come. Delaney grabbed him and pulled hard, dragging him onto the floor with her.

  “Clancy, get us out of here!” Ryan yelled to the driver.

  The man groaned in pain. “I’ve been hit.”

  “Bad?” Ryan asked.

  “Bad,” the man confirmed.

  Oh, God.

  It was obvious the shooting wasn’t just a scare tactic. No. This was real, and with each bullet, one of them could be killed.

  Or maybe the damage had already been done.

  Anger and adrenaline surged through her. It didn’t matter if the shooter was her father
, one of the doctors from New Hope or even someone else. The person was a would-be killer, and if she made it out of this alive, she would make sure he was stopped.

  With his weapon in his hand, Ryan popped up long enough to look over the seat at the driver. He cursed and dropped back down. They made eye contact, and Delaney immediately saw all the emotion, all the anger, all the concern that was no doubt in her own eyes.

  “It doesn’t look good,” Ryan informed her in a hoarse whisper.

  Ryan moved, ready to come up so he could fire. Only then did Delaney realize what a huge risk that would be.

  “No!” she shouted over the shots.

  But Ryan ignored her. Bracing his right wrist with his left hand, he made use of the gaping hole where the window had once been, double-tapped the trigger of his gun, and shot toward the trees where she’d seen the glint of metal.

  “I won’t just sit here and let him kill us,” Ryan informed her.

  And with that, he came up again and fired another shot.

  Delaney caught him when he came back down, and she was on the verge of telling him that she couldn’t let him sacrifice his life. But then, she thought of Clancy, and she knew both she and Ryan would have to take some serious risks for all three of them to get out of this alive.

  From the front seat, Clancy groaned again, and she heard a thump as if he’d collapsed onto the seat. Immediately, the car started to inch forward. The man had probably lost consciousness, causing his foot to come off the brake.

  “You return fire,” she told Ryan. “I’ll see to Clancy.”

  Ryan grabbed her, probably to stop her, but Delaney had no intention of just letting the driver bleed or allowing the car to go off the road. Especially since the gunman could keep them pinned there indefinitely.

  “I need to do this,” she said to Ryan.

  He looked ready to argue, but Delaney shook her head, indicating that this wasn’t the time for a debate. Each second was vital if they hoped to keep Clancy alive.

  Ryan nodded, finally. “Be careful,” he warned, and he pressed a kiss on her cheek.

  She mentally counted to three and levered herself over the seat. The first thing she saw was blood and lots of it. The man had been wounded in his left shoulder.

  Delaney maneuvered her body around Clancy, dropped to the floor so she’d be out of the line of fire and jammed her hand on the brake. Reaching up, she managed to put the car into Park. That was one problem solved—they wouldn’t end up in the ditch—but she was left with what to do about Clancy. Because of the day-care center, she had basic first-aid training. Hardly adequate for such a serious injury. And there was no doubt in her mind that this was serious.

  She used her left hand to apply pressure to the wound, and while staying down, she used the car’s mobile phone to call 911. She figured they could get out of there and meet the ambulance along the way. It would save them precious time. The emergency operator assured her that she would send the police and an ambulance immediately.

  Unfortunately, immediately might not be soon enough.

  “Everything will be all right, Clancy,” she promised. But Delaney had no idea if that were true.

  If it would ever be true.

  If they made it out of this alive, and that was a big if, this might not be the last attempt. The gunman would likely continue until they stopped him or until he managed to kill them.

  She ached at the thought. At the thought of losing Ryan. Sweet heaven. How had he become such an important part of her life, and her heart, in such a short period of time?

  “Ryan, please tell me you’re okay,” Delaney called out.

  He fired another round before he answered her. “Stay down!”

  Since that lack of reassurance only made her stomach clench tighter, she nearly risked looking over the seat to check on him.

  Then the shots stopped.

  Delaney lay there, part of her body on the floor and the other on the seat. Listening. Waiting. Praying. For what seemed an eternity.

  The silence settled in around them.

  “He quit firing,” she mumbled.

  “Maybe,” was Ryan’s whispered response.

  But the maybe began to look better and better when the moments slipped by.

  “How’s Clancy?” Ryan asked.

  Delaney glanced down at the man. He was pasty-white and clearly in pain, but the pressure she was applying to the wound had slowed down the blood flow. Still, he needed medical attention. “The ambulance should be here soon.”

  She hoped.

  Delaney eased Clancy away from the steering wheel so she could get behind it. Thankfully, he wasn’t a heavy man, but during those precious seconds, she couldn’t apply pressure to his wound, and he started to bleed again. She hurried. She threw the car into gear and stomped on the accelerator. The instant she had the car moving, she clamped her right hand back over his wound.

  No gunshots.

  No sign of the shooter at all.

  Keeping as low in the seat as she could, Delaney glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted Ryan. All his attention was pinpointed to that window. His gun, aimed. Ready to fire. In fact, his entire body was tense and ready. He stayed that way until she reached the intersection that would take them to the main highway.

  Still keeping his gun in position, he took out his phone and stabbed in some numbers.

  “Quentin,” she heard him say, “someone just shot at us. Clancy’s hurt, and we’re headed to the hospital. Make sure the guards are in place at the gate and the estate is secure. No one gets in, understand? No one.”

  Delaney hadn’t thought the knot in her stomach could get any tighter, or that her heart could pound any harder.

  She was wrong.

  “Patrick,” she said on a rise of breath. With the distraction of the shooting, she hadn’t thought about Patrick possibly being in danger.

  “Alerting Quentin and the guards is just a precaution,” Ryan assured her, meeting her eyes again in the mirror.

  But it felt like more than a precaution.

  A lot more.

  Her baby was in danger.

  “Pull every P.I. you have from their stations and get them to the estate ASAP,” Ryan continued. “Call SAPD and Sheriff Knight. Let them know what’s happened.” And with that, he paused, apparently waiting for Quentin to comply. “They’re on the way,” he relayed to Delaney.

  Ryan paused again. “Hell,” he snarled a moment later. “When?”

  That, coupled with the alarmed look on Ryan’s face shot her adrenaline through the roof. Whatever Quentin had said to Ryan, it had upset him.

  “Is it Patrick?” Delaney asked. She was already praying. Her son had to be all right.

  “Patrick’s fine,” Ryan assured her. He ended the call, and she heard him pull in a hard breath. “Someone leaked the cloning allegations to the press. And they named names. Our names.”

  Delaney shook her head. “Who would have leaked something like that?”

  “The watchdog group, maybe. Or maybe it was Keyes or Montgomery. Maybe even the missing lab tech, Noel Kendall. He’s in hiding, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make a phone call to a reporter.”

  Because she’d feared much worse news, the leak didn’t seem like such a dreadful thing.

  Until it sank in.

  “How and when did the leak happen?” Delaney wanted to know.

  “This morning. It was in the San Antonio Express-News.”

  In other words, hours ago. Plenty of time for her father to read it.

  And react.

  Her father could have been the gunman hiding behind those trees. A cowardly act that could have left all three of them dead.

  But Ryan was right. This didn’t rule out the two doctors. After all, one could have leaked the info; the other could have decided to do something about it.

  Stunned and angry, and getting angrier with each passing moment, Delaney focused on the road ahead. On the drive. Once Clancy was in the ambulance, she was g
oing to the police and insist they bring her father in for questioning.

  And, by God, the man better have answers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ryan had just finished his phone conversation with Quentin when he heard the sound. Not the rain, even though outside there were the rumblings of a storm moving in.

  What he heard was a welcome sound, one he desperately needed to soothe some of the anger and fear that was building inside him right along with the storm.

  He made his way from his office to the open doorway of the nursery and stood quietly while he watched Delaney and Patrick. Both were on a quilt on the floor. Patrick, on his back. Delaney, on her side. She was playing Little Piggy with his toes, and Patrick was giggling. Even though thick clouds hid the moon and the room was dimly lit, the sounds of their laughter filled the air with warmth and light. And the warmth and light made it all the way to Ryan’s heart.

  It was a feeling he wouldn’t take for granted.

  Earlier, he’d glanced at the security monitor while he made his calls, and he’d seen Delaney dressing Patrick after his bath. Now, his son was wearing one-piece pj’s, decorated with frogs and ducks, and he smelled like baby powder.

  Delaney’s scent was there, too. Her shampoo from the shower she’d taken after they returned from the police station. He could smell her soap. Something tropical that she’d used to wash the blood off her.

  Clancy’s blood.

  It could have just as easily been hers.

  He’d nearly lost her today. Again. In this case three times was definitely not a charm. The ditch. The fire. The shooting. Ryan was willing to bet his right arm that the same person was responsible for all three attempts. Sloppy execution of equally sloppy and risky plans.

  Yet, each one had come damn close to succeeding.

  Sometimes a person didn’t have to be good to succeed. Just lucky.

  Smiling, still gently wiggling Patrick’s toes, Delaney leaned over and kissed the baby’s cheek. Patrick yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  Ryan savored the scene in front of him for several moments before he stepped inside, knowing it would put a halt to the play. And it did. Delaney’s head whipped in his direction, the questions were all over her face.