Soldier's Pregnancy Protocol

by Beth Cornelison

  He hummed in acknowledgment. “Fingerprints, toenails and eyelashes already at fourteen weeks.”

  She felt a smile blossom on her face. “You were listening!”

  Another quirk at the corner of his mouth. “And you said I couldn’t multitask.”

  Erin propped her chin on her hand and leaned her elbows on the counter. “Alec, I doubt there’s much you can’t do.”

  Across the room, the computer beeped. Alec set down the can of soup he’d taken off the shelf and strode over to study the image frozen on the monitor.

  Erin leaned to the side trying to see around him. “What is it?”

  “William Manny. One of about twelve aliases for Hector Godfrey, gun for hire.”

  “Gun for hire?” Icy fingers gripped Erin’s heart.

  “Means he’s not the one behind everything that’s happened. Also tells me his main objective wasn’t to kill either of us, or we’d be dead.”

  “Then he really did just want the letter. But why?”

  “Not the letter, per se. He wants Daniel.” Alec faced her, his hands balled at his sides and his glacial eyes glittering with lethal intent. “But I intend to find Daniel first.”

  * * *

  “How does a person go about hiring an assassin? Whoever paid William Manny would have to have criminal connections to hire a professional assassin. It’s not like your average citizen can look up hired killers in the yellow pages and just start getting estimates as if you were having your roof repaired.” Erin paused from her monologue long enough to crunch a graham cracker, her third snack that evening.

  Alec rubbed his eyes, then blinked away the blur of fatigue. He’d stared at Daniel’s map so long and hard, he could barely see straight. And Erin’s incessant talking didn’t help.

  With the exception of her nap that afternoon, the chatterbox had filled his ear all day with her opinions on everything from the economy to Greek revival architecture. Erin was clearly intelligent and well-read, and despite his best intentions to shut out her chatter, he found himself drawn to her commentary, soaking up clues to her personality, her interests, her preferences. Beyond her intellect, Erin’s shapely figure and silky curls enticed him, while her dark, expressive eyes and lush mouth turned him inside out. He’d tried hard not to think about kissing her all day. Her distraction could prove deadly if he couldn’t get past his unprofessional fascination with her.

  “Do you know any assassins?” she asked, her eyes wide with the horror of such a possibility.

  If she only knew…

  Without answering, Alec ducked his head and worked again at deciphering Daniel’s map. His partner hadn’t used any of the codes they typically did, hadn’t embedded any coordinates that Alec could tell.

  “What do you think Manny has told the person who hired him? Do you think there’s any way they could have followed us up here?”

  Flattening his hands on the table with a sigh, Alec pushed his chair back. “I don’t know and not likely.”

  Alec walked over to the closet and pulled his coat off its hanger.

  “Where are you going?”

  He shoved his arms in the sleeves of the parka, noting the touch of panic in her voice. “Just outside for a minute. I need air.” I need time to think, to clear my head.

  Erin leaped to her feet.

  He held a hand up. “I’ll be just outside, and I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  He swung away from the hurt and worry that filled her eyes, steeling himself to the unsettling tug her expression caused in his chest. Blast it all, he owed Daniel better than to let a pair of vulnerable eyes sway him from his duty.

  Alec sped up the steel ladder rungs and shouldered open the trapdoor to the bunker entrance. The stinging blast of cold night air sobered him quickly, as he’d hoped. Maybe out here, away from Erin’s tantalizing vanilla scent teasing him and her angel’s voice filling his head, he could plan strategy, figure out what he was missing regarding the mysterious map.

  He stalked out into the crisp night and headed toward the rocky overhang directly in front of the cave, from which he had a nearly panoramic view of the surrounding mountains. An ideal lookout point, had he been interested in the view. Instead, he mulled over the fraction of information he’d gleaned today, largely due to Erin’s sketch of Manny.

  Many of the questions Erin had voiced that evening were the same ones that nagged him. Who had the means, the motive, the money to hire someone like Manny? Where did Daniel fit in this picture? Alec couldn’t shake the feeling Lafitte’s disappearance had something to do with the botched attempt to bring in General Ramirez. He hadn’t heard from his partner since that fateful day, and Alec had learned not to believe in coincidence.

  Jamming his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the biting breeze, Alec stared into the deep darkness of the night. He replayed the sights and sounds of the Colombian jungle, the spray of gunfire.

  There’d been shouting. In Spanish. What had been said?

  Behind him, a branch cracked, snapping Alec from his thoughts. He groped at his back for his SIG-Sauer. Flicked off the safety. Another twig cracked. Alec sidled close to a tree and crouched in the shadow. With the gibbous moon as his only light, he aimed his weapon toward the source of the sound. Saw something move.

  Something human.

  Chapter 5

  Alec waited, watched.

  He doubted they’d been followed to the mountain bunker. But the area was too inaccessible for the intruder to be a hunter, a camper. Alec fell back on training, keeping his body under cool control, his mind clear. He sharpened his senses, concentrating on his surroundings. Listening to the rustle of leaves. Narrowing his gaze to separate form from shadow. Sniffing the air to smell…vanilla.

  “Alec? Where are you?”

  Suppressing a groan and taming the adrenaline teeming in his blood, Alec stood and moved from behind the tree.

  “What are you doing out here, Erin?”

  She turned toward him when he spoke and stumbled over loose rocks to join him. “Same as you. Getting some air. I was going stir-crazy in there.”

  “I almost shot you. I thought you were—” He huffed his frustration. “Do you ever do as you’re told?”

  “I’m sorry.” Erin watched, mesmerized, as Alec’s breath frosted in a white cloud as he spoke. He turned his gaze out toward the empty blackness, beyond which she knew jagged mountains surrounded them. But in the pocket of moonlight and chill air, only she and Alec existed.

  “Warm enough?” he asked.

  “Mmm-hmm. I borrowed some extra shirts from your closet. Hope that’s okay.”

  “Want to see something amazing?” he asked, and she found herself studying the way his lips moved when he talked.

  She slid him a lopsided grin. “Sure, Superman. Amaze me.”

  He reached for her, framing her face with his hands, and tilted her head up.

  Erin was still reeling from the heady warmth of his calloused palms on her cheeks when the view registered. Her breath caught. Directly over her head, a wall of clouds rolled in, the promised storm front, but ahead of the clouds the sky was still clear. A million stars, more stars than she’d ever seen, twinkled and blinked down at her. Wispy clouds drifted past a bright, three-quarters moon. “Oh, Alec. How beautiful!”

  “Yeah. I was trained to navigate using nothing but the stars. Still, you don’t get the full effect unless you get far from civilization, where there are no lights.”

  Erin glanced at him. “Spend a lot of time away from civilization, do you?”

  He jerked his gaze to hers and hesitated as if he’d realized he’d given away some secret. A muscle in his jaw flexed, and he returned his attention to the stars. “Time enough.”

  Studying the bristles of his unshaven chin and the hard edge of his countenance, she could easily picture Alec roughing it in the outback, cruising the Nile or hiking the slopes of the Andes.

  She raised her eyes heavenward again and remembered tran
quil nights spent around a campfire with Bradley, waking on cool mornings in the wilderness with dew clinging to their tent and frizzing her hair.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “For what?”

  “For reminding me how much I used to love this. It’s been a long time since—”

  She didn’t finish the thought. Alec had made it clear he hated her chatter, and somehow she didn’t feel she was ready to share that part of her life with him. It still hurt too much.

  She caught her lip in her teeth and swallowed the burn of tears in her throat. If Bradley were here, he’d tell her to let his death go, to move on with her life and seize every moment. Not hide in a house in Cherry Creek. Not run from a job she loved because of a tragic mistake.

  “Since…?” Alec prompted.

  “Since I—” She shook her head.

  How could Alec understand the choices she’d made?

  His black eyebrows drew into a frown, and he gave her a long searching look. “Who hurt you, Erin?”

  “Forget it. I’d bet you’ve never run from a problem or hidden away to lick your wounds.” Erin tipped her head back to stare up at the stars again, and for several minutes, the stirring breeze and the click of branches as they swayed were the only sounds around them. She inhaled the cold air, savoring the moment.

  “You’re wrong.” Alec’s low tone drifted to her like a part of the night. Quiet. Dark. Mysteriously soothing.

  She shifted her gaze toward him and found him staring at her. Moonlight reflected from his azure eyes and started a hum in her blood.

  “I ran from something just tonight. A complication I have no idea how to handle.”

  Erin laid a hand on his arm and squeezed. “What, Alec? I want to help.”

  He grunted. “I’ve said too much.”

  “Maybe the real problem is you haven’t said enough. Talk to me, Alec. If I’ve done something—”

  “No.” He faced her and gripped her shoulders. Scowled. Sighed. “I want to kiss you.”

  Oh.

  Erin opened her mouth to answer him, but her breath backed up in her lungs.

  “Don’t worry,” Alec said, his expression rigid, tightly reined. “I won’t.”

  “Why not?” The question popped out before she could stop it.

  His eyebrow arched. “What?”

  Squaring her shoulders, she followed impulse, tossed down the gauntlet, prepared to face the consequences later. “Why can’t you kiss me?”

  His hands tightened on her shoulders, and his expression shifted, clearly regrouping mentally.

  “Because I…I…”

  This stammering, somewhat uncertain Alec made her smile. She’d shocked her can-do-anything rescuer, found a crack in superknight’s armor.

  Tilting her chin higher, she stepped closer, near enough for the white cloud of her breath to mingle with his. “What if I were to kiss you?”

  She knew the exact moment he made his decision. His gaze dipped to her mouth, and the determined blaze returned to his eyes. Resolve firming his rugged features, he slid a hand up her neck to cradle the base of her skull and drew her closer.

  Anticipation crackled in her every synapse, and she rose on her toes to bring her lips to his.

  Alec breathed her name as he captured her mouth and reclaimed command of the situation. His lips were warm against her night-chilled skin, and she tasted cinnamon and need in his kiss. She clung to the front of his parka as he angled his head and increased the pressure of his mouth. He drew greedily on her lips, and his tongue swept inside and tangled with hers.

  A dizzying blend of lethargy and pleasure thrummed through her limbs, her mind. Like the man, Alec’s kiss combined power and finesse, strength and tenderness in perfect balance.

  Heat seeped to her core, and for precious moments, she felt safe. Cherished. Complete.

  All too soon for her liking, Alec groaned and tore his mouth from hers. Stepped back.

  For several seconds, she struggled to catch her breath and returned his penetrating stare. Alec looked as shell-shocked as she felt.

  The sting of something icy and wet on her cheeks finally snapped her from the spellbinding lure of his gaze. Erin tipped her face toward the stars and blinked at the flutter of white flakes filling the sky.

  A smile tugged at her lips. “It’s snowing.”

  Alec cast a glance around them and held out his hand. “Yeah.” His all-business persona returned, body taut and face stern. “We should go in.”

  “But it’s so lovely.” She extended her arms and turned slowly as she watched the dainty crystals dance in the air.

  Alec cleared his throat. “Erin.”

  The dark tone of his voice stopped her. She met his troubled frown. “What?”

  “That can’t happen again. I—” His dark eyebrows knit in consternation. “We can’t kiss.”

  His grave mood took the edge off the warm glow that lingered from his kiss. “Alec?”

  “I have a duty to protect you, and I will. But I can’t forget that my partner’s life may be in danger. I have to find Daniel without distractions. That’s my priority above everything else.”

  Pain flickered in the eyes that moments ago had been smoky with desire for her. Like flipping a switch, Alec closed himself off, wiping all emotion and ambivalence from his expression and tightening his jaw.

  A prick of disappointment stabbed her chest before a voice of reason whispered to her. Despite his rugged appeal, his moments of tenderness, his earthshaking kiss, Alec led a life fraught with unknowns, peril and questionable ethics. She couldn’t imagine a man more wrong for her.

  She slid a hand to her stomach and swallowed the emotion that choked her. Her priority had to be providing safety and stability for her baby. How could she do that with Alec in her life? What kind of example would Alec, with his dangerous job, be to her child? The worst kind.

  She knew painfully well what could happen if a child emulated the wrong role model. A shiver unrelated to the winter chill shimmied through her.

  “You’re cold,” Alec said and took her by the arm. “You should head in and thaw out.”

  In truth, the multiple layers of Alec’s clothes kept her amply warm. She didn’t bother to correct him, though, since an empty chill had settled in her chest that no quantity of clothing could ever banish. An instinctive sense told her that by protecting her child from Alec’s high-risk lifestyle, she was losing a chance at something special.

  * * *

  Kissing Erin had been a colossal mistake, Alec groused mentally the next morning. Even now, hours later, his body vibrated with sexual hunger, and his head pounded with self-recrimination. Whatever it took, he would block Erin from his thoughts today and get some work done. Even if it meant sitting outside in the snow all day. The frigid air would do him good, might even cool the fire that licked his veins.

  As if conjured by his thoughts, Erin padded into the kitchen area and raked errant waves of caramel hair from her face. “What time is it?”

  His too-big-for-her T-shirt hung lopsided off one of her shoulders, and Alec prepared to battle the weakness in him that had lowered his guard last night. He had to root out the source of his failing and destroy it, before it destroyed him. He dragged his gaze from the rumpled yet oddly enticing vision she was and doggedly focused his attention on the brewing coffee.

  “You know, I was thinking,” she said, then paused to yawn. “What if the treasure map Daniel sent you is a hoax? Something intended to throw you off a trail you were on.”

  “I don’t think so. Daniel wouldn’t do that.” Alec crossed his arms over his chest.

  Don’t look at her. Don’t think about how good she smells. Don’t remember the wounded look in her eyes when you pushed her away last night.

  A fist of regret grabbed his chest and squeezed. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Erin, but his training, his job made relationships with women difficult. Almost impossible.

  “It’s not impossible.” Her comme
nt so closely mirrored his thoughts that he cast a startled gaze toward her.

  Daniel’s letter. A hoax.

  “What’s that look for?” Her pert, freckled nose wrinkled, and she tipped her head.

  The urge to pull her close and nibble that crinkled nose slammed him in the chest. He swung away from her, biting back an oath.

  She harrumphed. “Fine. Whatever. I’m just trying to help. It can’t hurt to consider the possibility the letter’s a fake.”

  His back to her, he poured himself a cup of coffee and knocked back half the mug’s contents. The hot liquid scalded his throat on the way down. “If the map were from anyone but Daniel, I might consider that option. But Daniel wouldn’t waste time on a joke. Wouldn’t send false information.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Setting his cup on the counter, he glanced at her. “Positive. Daniel and I shoot straight with each other, no matter what. We work well together because we’ve built a solid trust. If he sent the map, then he—”

  “If Daniel sent it? You mean you have some question now if it’s even from him?”

  He shook his head and carried his mug to the table where the map was spread out. “No. I’m sure it’s from Lafitte. But the fact that he sent it, that he contacted me at all, tells me he’s run into some kind of problem. That he needs…” Guilt pinched hard. “He needs my help.”

  What if Daniel had needed him nine months ago in that Colombian jungle? Alec sucked in a deep breath and swiped a hand down his face. No second guessing. He’d done as they agreed. Every man for himself.

  Still, the idea that Daniel could have been captured, tortured, made Alec crazy. It made him feel vulnerable in a way he didn’t like, couldn’t explain.

  Erin sat in the chair next to him and reached for his hand. She wrapped her fingers around his, yanking him out of his reverie and jolting his senses with her comforting touch. “You miss him, don’t you?”

  The warm-liquid sound of her voice bathed him, seeped inside him to soothe his taut nerves. Scooting closer, she slid her other hand down his arm. She trapped his hand between hers, lacing her fingers with his and squeezing gently. A zinging heat stirred to life where her hand held his and sang through his blood, spreading through his body.