Her Baby’s Bodyguard

by Ingrid Weaver

  All at once, she realized that she could no longer feel the tug of Katya at her breast. She glanced down. The baby’s eyes were closed, and her jaw was slack with sleep. A drop of milk drizzled over her chin as she let Eva’s nipple slide out of her mouth.

  A blush seared Eva’s skin from her cheeks to her chest. She’d wanted to use conversation to distract both Sergeant Norton and herself from this intimacy. It had worked too well. How could she have relaxed? How could she have forgotten, even for one second, that she was still sitting with her breast bared in front of a veritable stranger? She quickly shifted Katya’s limp form to her shoulder, using her bent arm to cover herself. Only then did she risk a glance at Sergeant Norton’s face.

  He swallowed, then withdrew his hand and curled it over the back of his chair. His casual pose didn’t change, yet she sensed a new tautness in the way he held his body.

  She knew he couldn’t have missed seeing her bare nipple. The fact hung in the silence between them. And the sexual awareness she should not—must not—feel strengthened until it was as tangible as the crackle of the flames on the hearth.

  Eva lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be uncomfortable over this. She hadn’t been deliberately exposing herself. She certainly hadn’t been trying to entice him. Under the circumstances, that would have been absurd.

  Therefore, it was also absurd for her pulse to be accelerating. And for her blush to be deepening. She was no innocent young girl, she was a thirty-year-old woman, a mother. She had nothing to blush about. Above all, she certainly shouldn’t be studying Jack’s large, long-fingered hands and thinking about how before tonight it had been almost a year since she’d felt a man’s touch.

  She shouldn’t be thinking of him as Jack either. He was Sergeant Norton.

  The door swung open behind her to the sound of men’s voices and the stamping of boots. Flames crackled and shot up the chimney as cold air swirled along the floor. In one swift motion, Sergeant Norton got to his feet and placed himself between her and the other men. “Hang on for a minute, Kurt,” he said. “We’re not done.”

  “Come on, Jack. You said you already slapped on a Band-Aid. What more do you need to do?”

  “Do I tell you how to drive?”

  “All the time.”

  While the men spoke, Eva laid Katya on her lap and hurried to fasten her bra and straighten her clothes, a task made more difficult because her hands were trembling. The sergeant was using his body to shield her and Katya again, only this time he wasn’t trying to protect them from bullets. He was blocking them from the view of the other soldiers.

  His gallantry only made her feel worse. He was doing his best to act respectfully. She really shouldn’t be thinking about his touch on her body.

  “Leave the firewood by the door, junior.”

  “We’ll need more before the night’s over,” Matheson said, moving toward the fireplace. “I haven’t seen weather like this since I left Wyoming.”

  Sergeant Norton shot out his arm to stop him from going farther. “I said wait.”

  “It’s all right,” Eva said, settling Katya against her shoulder once more. She rose to her feet. “I’m finished.”

  Matheson shouldered Sergeant Norton’s arm aside and deposited an armload of wood on the other side of the hearth from the bundles of Katya’s supplies. He nodded a greeting to Eva, discarded his coat and went back to retrieve a pack he’d left near the door. Lang was already leaning over the table to set up the equipment that Colbert had been using in the truck. He gave Eva a quick smile before he bent to his work.

  The hut had seemed small before, but with the arrival of two more of the men, the space shrank again. Like Sergeant Norton they were large and fit, and in a rough-edged way they could be considered handsome, as well. The men Eva was accustomed to exercised their minds far more than their bodies. Not that she thought for a moment these soldiers weren’t intelligent. It’s just that they were different from the intellectuals she worked with. More, well, virile. They were giving off male pheromones the way their coats were shedding snow.

  And a minute ago, the handsomest of these soldiers had been looking at her naked breast.

  No. She would not think about that. Or him. Holding Katya to her shoulder, Eva squeezed past Sergeant Norton and bent to retrieve one of her bundles.

  “Hold on, Dr. Petrova,” he said.

  “I thought you already looked at my bandage.”

  “This isn’t about your wound. It’s about what you were saying before the guys came in.”

  She straightened. “I need to change Katya’s diaper before I put her down for the night.” She used the bundle she held to gesture toward the wooden platforms that stood beside the wall. “I’d like to use one of those bed frames. There aren’t any mattresses, but my coat should be thick enough to provide padding for her.”

  He snagged her elbow before she could go by him. “I had asked you who Katya’s father was.”

  “Yes, I remember you did.”

  “So, who is he?”

  She could see that Sergeant Norton wasn’t going to let the point go. From what he’d said earlier, he likely had guessed the answer. So why was she stalling? Perhaps part of the reason she hesitated was because she didn’t want to acknowledge how big a mistake she had made. She’d been such a fool. And there was a very real possibility that her poor judgment could come back to bite them—just as the sergeant had said. “I had hoped we’d be on our way out of the country by now and there would be no need to mention this.”

  “Eva? We need to know what we’re up against.”

  “I know.” She pressed her cheek to Katya’s head. “Her father is Burian Ryazan, the director of the complex.”

  Chapter 4

  “Will you look at that? I don’t know how the old girl got this far,” Kurt Lang muttered, leaning under the hood of the truck. “Next time try stealing me a decent ride.”

  Jack directed the flashlight where Kurt was working. The shed was open on the south side, so they were spared the worst of the wind. Still, it was cold enough to numb his fingers. “Nah. I know how much you like a challenge.”

  “What’s wrong, Kurt?” Tyler moved into the shed, using his hat to slap the snow off his coat. He stopped beside Jack to peer over the fender.

  “For starters, the sparkplugs are covered in crud, and this air filter looks as if it took a mud bath.”

  “Maybe it did. The roads around here probably turn to soup when the ground thaws.”

  “And look at this slime.” Kurt drew out the dipstick and wiped it on a rag. “No one’s changed the oil in this crate since the last ice age.”

  Jack knew that nothing irked Kurt more than a poorly maintained engine, just as nothing pleased him more than the chance to tinker with one. He turned to Tyler. “Has Duncan picked up any chatter on the radio, junior?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Tyler replied. “Base has been monitoring the cell traffic around the complex, too. They’d let us know if it sounded as if anyone noticed our lady is missing.”

  Jack wasn’t reassured. In fact, he was getting increasingly restless. He looked past the truck to the strip of darkness that was visible at the front of the shed. There were only a few hours to go before sunrise. The snow was no longer falling, but the wind was whipping what was on the ground into stinging, horizontal sheets that limited the visibility to nil—not the best conditions for anyone wanting to travel a mountain road.

  Chances were good that the patrol they’d run into the day before had holed up someplace because of the weather, too, yet for how long? Eva had claimed that no one would notice her absence for at least a day, but Jack found that hard to believe. Too many things could go wrong. He didn’t know how the scientists at that place worked, but someone might decide they needed to ask Eva a question, or schedule a meeting or even hold a surprise fire drill. Maybe one of her neighbors would come over to borrow a cup of sugar. Any one of those scenarios could unravel her plan.
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  Still, he didn’t think the alarm would have been raised yet, since she spent her nights alone. She hadn’t told him that specifically, but that’s what he figured since she did say no one would notice her bed sheets were gone, and she’d said she’d broken up with her baby’s father.

  If the man had been anyone else, the fact they were no longer an item would have been a good thing. But Burian Ryazan was no ordinary man. Intelligence had provided information on him, too. Ryazan was a brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning scientist who’d parlayed his distinguished looks and razor wit into pop-icon status in Russia. He’d been the guiding force behind establishing the fortified bioresearch complex in this next-to-inaccessible region of the Caucasus. He also had the political savvy to cultivate powerful allies, enough so that the complex got away with having its own little private army.

  In short, Ryazan was smart, powerful and behaved like royalty. As ex-boyfriends went, they didn’t get much worse. Eva was right to be worried.

  The rest of the team hadn’t been any happier than Jack when he’d broken the news to them. They’d known Ryazan would order a pursuit when he learned one of his scientists was missing. Things would go to a whole different level when he learned his child was gone, too.

  This was going to get real personal, real fast.

  Then again, it was already getting personal. As far as Jack was concerned, his own objectivity had gone up in smoke the instant he’d seen Eva nursing her baby.

  Sure, he’d told himself not to look, but that wouldn’t have helped. Even if they’d been in pitch darkness he would have heard the quiet swish of that baby drawing in milk, and he would have smelled the sweet, uniquely feminine scent that rose from Eva’s bare skin. He’d have to have been dead to ignore all that.

  What he couldn’t understand was why it had affected him so powerfully. He’d seen plenty of breasts up close and personal, starting with Lise Thibault’s in the backseat of her daddy’s car when he’d been fifteen. Even though that particular encounter had ended embarrassingly quickly, he’d learned quickly, too. Getting there was half the fun, and there were countless creative ways to both give and take pleasure from a woman’s breasts. Having a baby attached to one wasn’t exactly provocative.

  It should have been a major turnoff to see Eva’s swollen, milky nipple. Yet it hadn’t been. She was a woman, doing what a woman was made for. And he’d never been more conscious of being a man. Hell, his pulse was speeding up now just thinking about it.

  Which was crazy. He’d spent his adult life avoiding entanglements that would lead to cozy little domestic scenes like the one he’d witnessed tonight. He steered away from women who were nesters. The women he dated knew full well he wasn’t in it for the long run. They enjoyed what he gave them, which usually meant a good time and great sex.

  Yet sharing those moments of intimacy with Eva had triggered an instinct that went deeper than the urge for sex. He’d felt a primitive, entirely male urge to protect, to possess, maybe even to belong….

  Damn, this situation was messing with his mind. Sure he wanted to protect Eva and her baby. That was his job. And he already knew where he belonged. Right here, with his brothers in Eagle Squadron. He was physically attracted to Eva; it wasn’t any more complicated than that. She was a good-looking woman, he was a healthy male and there were some sparks. So what? The fact remained that she was part of a mission, and that meant hands-off.

  He’d meant what he’d told her when they’d met. He took his honor seriously.

  Jack belatedly noticed that a man’s shape had materialized from the darkness outside the barn. Where the hell had he come from? Jack automatically brought his rifle to his shoulder as he swung the flashlight toward the entrance.

  “Stand down, doc,” Gonzales said, holding up his palm as he walked into the flashlight’s beam.

  Jack lowered his gun fast. He had to keep his mind on business. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with Eva, he would have sensed Gonzo approaching earlier—or at least recognized who it was. He glanced at Tyler.

  To his credit, junior didn’t comment on the fact that Jack had almost put a hole in one of their teammates. Kurt didn’t say anything, either. He simply took the flashlight from him, propped it between the hood and the windshield so it shone on the engine and continued with his work.

  Jack focused on the truck. The faster they completed this mission, the better it would be for all of them. He got antsy when he had to stay in one place for long, whether he was on a mission or on leave.

  As if echoing his thoughts, Gonzales spoke. “Hate to break up this party you’ve got going out here, but Duncan’s packing up his gizmos. Weather’s due to lift in the next hour, so we’ve got to roll. Junior, it’s your turn to scout ahead a few klicks.”

  The change in the air was immediate. Tyler pushed away from the fender and crammed his hat over his hair. Jack zipped up his coat, his pulse accelerating with the prospect of action this time, not because of thoughts of Eva.

  Kurt pulled out the air filter and knocked it against the bumper. “Give me another half hour. I need to clean up the old girl some more or we won’t get another mile.”

  “I’ll tell Duncan we move out in thirty,” Jack said, heading out of the shed with Tyler.

  Gonzales looked at Jack. “You think you can get our cargo loaded by then?”

  “No problem,” he said. “I bet she’ll be ready in twenty-eight.”

  “You’d lose that bet, Jack. Never knew a woman who didn’t like to keep men waiting.”

  “Not Eva. If Lang’s not ready, she’d probably start off without us.”

  “Twenty bucks says you’re wrong,” Gonzales said.

  Jack snorted. “You already owe me thirty.”

  “Then make it fifty, and you’ll owe me.”

  Tyler paused to turn up his collar. “You know the first thing the major told me when I joined the team, Gonzo?”

  “Probably something about not spending all your time looking at yourself in a mirror like Duncan.”

  “Besides that,” Tyler said.

  “Not standing between Gonzo and a grilled steak?” Jack asked.

  Tyler looked from one to the other. “I never heard about that. What happened?”

  “I’m a man of strong appetites,” Gonzales explained. “So what did Redinger tell you?”

  “Never bet against Jack.”

  Jack punched Tyler in the arm as they moved outside. “Well, junior, there’s hope for you yet.”

  Eva tried to run faster but couldn’t seem to make her legs work. Grandma’s farm was at the end of the road, past the hill with the red barn and the big silo. It was already dawn. The sun rose low and golden on the horizon, sending her shadow stretching like a giant ahead of her. What was she doing outside so early? She should be home in her own bed with the nursery-rhyme quilt and the stuffed horse with the floppy ear she liked to rub between her fingers. She must have gotten lost. If only she could get over the hill she would be able to see the orchard. She could find her way home then.

  Yet her feet were too clumsy. The hilltop was getting farther, not nearer….

  “Dr. Petrova?” Someone shook her shoulder. “Ma’am, you need to wake up.”

  Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift. She tried, because she wanted so badly to see over the hill….

  “Ma’am, we’re moving out.”

  The man’s voice slid into her dream. She strained toward him. He would help her. She knew he would.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. His voice grew closer. She could feel his breath on her cheek. “I know you’re tired, Eva, but you can go back to sleep when you get on the truck.”

  The sun, the shadow and the hill dissolved into the smell of wood smoke and the shuffling of booted feet.

  For a few cowardly moments, Eva didn’t want to move as she hung on to the last fragments of the dream. She hadn’t had it in years, yet there had been a time—after she’d gone to live with her father—when it had come almost
nightly. It had been her last connection to her home in a world that had turned suddenly alien. How many times had she screwed her eyes more tightly shut and tried to return to the dream because it had hurt too much to wake up?

  But Grandma’s orchard was gone. Everyone was gone. Eva had learned years ago that she wouldn’t find them again no matter how fast she ran.

  “Ma’am?”

  Eva finally blinked her eyes open.

  Sergeant Norton was leaning over her. Snow crystals shimmered from his hat and his coat. Beyond him, Colbert was using a stout stick to break up the embers that remained on the hearth. The only light came from the lamp that was on the table. The electronic equipment that had been there earlier was gone. So were the bundles of Katya’s supplies.

  “We only have a few minutes,” the sergeant said.

  Eva’s pulse kicked as she came completely awake. Katya was still sleeping beside her, nestled on Eva’s coat and tucked into the curve of her body. She put her hand over the baby, fear chasing away the last traces of sleep. “Are Burian’s men coming? Did they find us?”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Relax. We’re fine. We’re leaving so we can get to the rendezvous.” He held out his hand. “Let me help you up so you don’t strain your wound.”

  She clasped his fingers and levered herself up, trying not to disturb Katya. “Is the storm over?”

  “More or less.”

  “Where are Katya’s things?”

  “I stuffed them in my pack while you were sleeping,” he said, nodding toward the door. The canvas knapsack that he’d taken his medical supplies out of leaned beside the door frame. It was stretched so full it looked round. “They’ll be easier to carry that way.”