The Firefighter’s Secret Baby

by Anna DeStefano

  “My baby!” A nurse had told Sam everything would be okay. And Sam had said…What? “I had my baby? But…Where is she? Why can’t I remember?”

  “You will,” Max assured her. “All that’s important now is that you’re okay, and so is the baby. I asked the doctor not to tell you anything—”

  “You what!”

  “Worrying you until you were ready wasn’t going to accomplish anything. You need to rest and recover, Sam, so we can get you moving. My people are taking care of your daughter’s cover story. The records will show that she died, too. There will be another report that an unnamed child was left outside the E.R. tonight. She’ll be admitted to the pediatric unit, once she’s released from ICU.”

  “ICU!” Sam’s thoughts wouldn’t stay focused. They kept tangling all over themselves and Max’s half truths and the huge hole still in her memory.

  How could she have forgotten she’d delivered her daughter? She couldn’t remember having her. Holding her. Making sure she was okay.

  “You said she’s fine,” Sam said. “Then why is she in ICU? What’s wrong?”

  “She’s a little premature, and they’re taking precautions because of the accident, nothing more. For all I know, they’ve already moved her. One of my deputies is keeping an eye on the situation, but there’s no reason to think anyone will be looking for your child. There’s nothing to trace her to you. She’ll be safe in foster care until—”

  “Until someone who saw me deliver her says the wrong thing to the wrong people and…”

  And what?

  There was more, but her mind wouldn’t grab hold of it.

  Sam closed her eyes. Tried to think. Warning bells clamored over everything. What wasn’t Max telling her? What hadn’t she told him?

  “We’ve explained to the trauma and O.R. staffs that they’re under a federal gag order. They’ll be arrested if the truth leaks. If Luca is behind your accident, and—”

  “It was Luca.” The man the federal government was supposed to be protecting her from was closer than ever.

  “Then when he investigates what happened tonight, he won’t find anything more than your and your baby’s death certificates. It’s actually a good development. Now he’ll call off his dogs.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  The memories were rushing back, at least the ones from before she’d run. Luca had found her in Macon the same day the travel channel had shown pictures of her. The same day! Only hours after she’d called Gabby.

  Which meant he’d already had men close.

  Too close.

  “He won’t stop until he sees my dead body for himself.”

  “The records show your body was cremated, due to a mix-up in paperwork. We’re covering all the bases, Sam. Stop fighting me. This latest stunt of yours means you’ll have around-the-clock protection from now on. The grand jury’s convening soon. Calm down enough to heal, so you can testify the way the federal prosecutor needs you. Then I’ll place you and your daughter in a permanent identity thousands of miles from here. We’ll get Gabby to you, too. You’ll all be free. But you have to stick to the plan. Stop panicking and screwing up and making it impossible for me to keep you safe.”

  “Free?” The word felt empty. It felt like fear, because something was still terribly wrong.

  “You’ve been self-destructing from day one.” Max sat in the only chair in her stark room. “Let’s just call this what it is, Sam. Rock bottom. Having pictures of yourself plastered all over basic cable. Calling Gabby before I could get to you. Running, thinking you could evade your brother’s men on your own? You’ve done just about everything you can to ruin your chances to stay alive long enough to get custody of your sister. But somehow, you’re still here. This is your last chance. Don’t throw it away like you have all the others.”

  “You didn’t hear Gabby’s voice….” But Sam could remember it now. The memory was a horrible, nauseating echo.

  Her sister had sounded so much older. Hopeless. Lost, in a way only Sam could understand.

  “Actually I did. I receive recordings of all federal taps on your brother’s lines.” Max’s expression bordered on understanding. “But calling like that—causing this mess—only weakens her chances of making it out.”

  “She’s dying there!” Gabriella’s faith and trust and hope were dying because Sam had abandoned her. “I was sure I’d never see her again. I had to tell her I love her and I’m fighting for her. That I left because I thought it would protect her.”

  “Well, to protect her now, you have to stay dead.” Max pushed to his feet. “If you want to save her and your baby, you have to lay low, Sam. No more sneaking away from protection like running to Savannah, I don’t care how bad the pressure gets or how tired you are of doing nothing for Gabby. No more phone calls. No more leaving me or my men behind. No contact with anyone, including your child. No one can know you’re alive except my investigators. You’re on lockdown until you testify, or more people are going to die—starting with you.”

  “But I…” Sam breathed against a rush of tears, hating the pleading in her voice. She clutched her empty belly. “Can’t I just hold her? Just once?”

  She could finally remember saying the same thing to the delivery nurse. She could remember the loneliness consuming her. Sam’s arms felt even emptier now.

  Max shook his head. He took her hand. A gentle gesture for such a closed-off man.

  “What do you think will happen if there’s any hint that your child isn’t an unnamed orphan?” he asked. “You can’t visit her. You can’t see her, Sam. You can’t check on her, except through my people. No one can know her at all, until Luca is indicted and behind bars.”

  No one can know her.

  The importance of his warning, the panic that followed, released the rest of Sam’s memories.

  “Oh my God, Randy…”

  Randy’s face was there now, his voice, filling in the gaps she couldn’t remember about the accident. Moments that still felt like hazy dreams, except they were real.

  He’d really been there. She’d really told him, and—

  “The nurse,” she whispered. “I told the delivery nurse, too, because she seemed to know him…Oh my God, Max. What have I done?”

  “Randy who?” Max was already dialing on his cell. The familiar calm of his voice was gone. An emotionless mask consumed his expression. “Do you mean that firefighter? Lieutenant Randall Montgomery? He wouldn’t talk to me. What did you tell him and your nurse, Sam? Think!”

  “When I was still in the car…He was there, and I thought I was dying. And in the O.R…. I asked her to get a message to him, in case you didn’t protect the baby…. I thought I was dreaming, or that I was going to die and it was the only way, or…I don’t know what I thought! Except that I had to protect our daughter. I had to—”

  “Our daughter?” Max’s eyes closed, then reopened. “The rescue team lead who insisted on riding in the ambulance with you. He’s your hookup in Savannah? Your baby’s father?”

  What do you think will happen if there’s any hint that your child isn’t an unnamed orphan…

  “I told him, Max.” No matter how hard she tried to protect everyone, to make up for the mistakes she’d made, no matter how hard she fought, she kept making things worse. “I…I told him at the accident.”

  “Which means while my men are trying to cover your tracks,” Max said, “your firefighter will be looking to take his daughter home with him. And there won’t be anything I can do to stop him without calling even more attention to the situation.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  RANDY REACHED into the backseat of Emma’s car and lifted the baby seat from its detachable base. The sleeping little girl strapped inside gave a threatening wiggle. When she didn’t wake, Randy sent a thankful look skyward.

  “Do they always scream like that?” he asked the only woman in his life who’d cared for an infant.

  “Car rides usually settle babies down.” Emma had the
nerve to chuckle. “Jessie was a motion junkie. Some nights when she wouldn’t settle in, I’d put her in the car and drive until she conked out. Your little one seems to be more of the cries-herself-out type. Lucky for you—” Emma glanced back before unlocking the door of his ground floor condo “—I think she’s exhausted herself.”

  “So she’ll sleep through the night now?”

  Randy, who dodged fires and charged into catastrophe for a living, felt himself shaking at the thought of dealing with a screaming, inconsolable baby again before morning. Facing his memories of Sam wouldn’t be any easier.

  He hadn’t been able to save her, but thanks to an expedited paternity test he had a chance at making things right with their daughter. Except, what did he know about cuddling and diaper changing and rocking babies to sleep? His custody was only temporary for now, but the legality of things didn’t matter. He had a responsibility to Sam’s child. His child. He was going to fulfill it. Just as soon as he figured out what the hell he was doing.

  Emma laughed at his lame question and whatever expression had crossed his face.

  “I don’t know how to break it to you,” she said. “But neither of you will be sleeping much for a while. Most newborns eat every two hours or so. Especially ones who need to put on a few pounds before their ten-day checkup.”

  “What’s a ten-day checkup?”

  Randy had signed every piece of paper the hospital gave him. He’d listened carefully to the nurse’s post-natal list of dos and don’ts. But the nonstop screaming until they were halfway home had obliterated everything he’d learned. It felt like his brain was bleeding out of his ears.

  “Don’t worry.” Emma led the way inside, passing the foyer’s lights without flipping them on. “When she wakes, give her one of the single-serving bottles the hospital sent home. I’ll go over the rest with you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!”

  Emma was leaving?

  Of course she was. She had a teenager and a husband to get back to.

  “I guess…” He guessed, what? That he had no right to whine about his responsibilities to a woman who’d never balked at her own? “I’m sure I’ll be fine on my own until tomorrow?”

  Stumbling forward with the baby carrier, he fumbled for the light switch. The glare blinded him. It took several seconds to focus on the crowd overflowing his living room—fronted by a beaming Emma, who was now cuddled into her brawny husband’s arms.

  “Surprise!” everyone faux-screamed in whispered voices.

  “What the fu—”

  “Language, little brother,” Emma chastised. “Did you really think we’d let this moment pass without some acknowledgment? It’s been a rough twenty-four hours, I know, but you’re a father. Oh, my gosh, Randy.” Her eyes filled. She rubbed a finger under her nose as she sniffed. “My baby brother’s a father.”

  Her mini-breakdown was evidently the cue everyone had been waiting for. Within seconds, Randy was surrounded by quiet congratulations and hugs of support and encouragement, all delivered without waking the tiny noise box he still carried. It was disconcerting, unsettling, surreal—having his family and several of the guys from the firehouse looking at him as though he might freak out if they didn’t keep their positive faces on.

  Even more disconcerting was how his heart stalled when Emma took the carrier from him so she could change the baby’s diaper. Just that brief loss of contact with his daughter, and Randy had to stop himself from following his sister.

  His panic made no sense. Except there was still so much up in the air. Way too much that didn’t make sense.

  “You doing okay, man?” A hand closed on his shoulder.

  Randy jumped before he realized it was Charlie.

  “Sure.” His gaze followed Emma’s escape into the quiet of his bedroom. “It’s going to take some getting used to, but it’s all good, right?”

  That had been their lifelong mantra, him and his brothers. But since the accident, Randy startled at the slightest sound. He couldn’t get over the sense that something was still terribly wrong, or the shock of knowing he’d never see Sam again.

  All was definitely not good.

  “Hang in there.” Charlie’s hand squeezed. “We’re all here for you, man. Every step of the way.”

  “Yeah.”

  His brothers and sister would have his back. And since they were kids, that had always been enough. But now…It was like there was an emptiness inside Randy he didn’t have a clue how to fill. Not when he could still see the fear that had been in Sam’s eyes when she’d begged him to protect their daughter from danger that had never materialized.

  Except that Sam was dead, and Randy couldn’t stand to have their child out of his sight for even a few minutes.

  “Say, Charlie,” he said. “Do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “If something happens…Do whatever you have to to protect the baby.”

  “What’s going to happen?” Charlie’s voice lowered. He stepped closer. “Whatever this Sam was mixed up in, there’s no way the authorities would have let you take the baby home if there was still a risk.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Except Randy didn’t know. Not everything. And it was bugging the hell out of him. “I guess I just need a good night’s sleep. Then—”

  The doorbell interrupted.

  More people?

  “So much for being a lonely bachelor, huh?” Charlie slapped Randy’s shoulder with a bit more enthusiasm than was necessary, then headed toward a group of their friends by the fireplace.

  If Randy’s family didn’t stop trying to comfort him, he was going to be black and blue.

  “Bet you were hoping for a quiet night at home?” Chris called as Randy headed for the foyer.

  Randy laughed at his brother’s familiar ribbing. It felt good. Solid. Maybe things were going to be fine after all.

  The impromptu party ramped up behind him as he opened the door.

  The bastard on his doorstep was wearing the same suit and tie as when Randy had last seen him on a rainy interstate.

  “Dean,” Randy said to the federal marshal.

  He didn’t have to turn around to know Chris and Charlie had joined them. The marshal flashed his badge for Randy’s brothers’ benefit.

  “What’s this about?” Charlie wanted to know.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.” Dean looked around the three of them to the crowd of spectators quieting down to watch. “I’m going to have to insist that Lieutenant Montgomery and his daughter come with me immediately.”

  “You can insist all you want,” Charlie said while Randy measured the steel in the federal marshal’s even gaze. “Doesn’t mean my brother or his child are moving an inch from this apartment.”

  The baby cried from the direction of the bedroom. Randy turned to see his sister walk back into the den with a blanket-swaddled bundle on her shoulder. He caught how the federal marshal’s frown deepened as he stared at the child.

  “What’s wrong?” Randy asked.

  “That baby was never supposed to leave the hospital.” Nothing moved in the man’s expression. “But we couldn’t stop you, once you set the paternity issue in motion. Not until you and the child were settled in a less public arena. Now, the longer it’s here, the more danger you’re putting everyone in.”

  It?

  “Well, there’s no way you’re removing her from my care.” A surge of protectiveness shot through Randy. Every muscle in his body was vibrating.

  “Obviously.” Dean didn’t blink. “Shall we go?”

  The skin on the back of Randy’s neck tingled. The man was serious about the danger he thought Randy and his daughter were still in.

  Promise me…Protect her, Randy. Don’t let him destroy our child, too….

  “What’s wrong?” Randy asked again.

  “Robyn Nobles’s baby isn’t safe here, which means neither are any of you.”

  “You mean Sam’s baby?”

  Dean eyed Randy
and his brawny brothers without answering.

  “She’s perfectly healthy,” Emma insisted. She joined the group at the door and handed Randy his daughter when he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her. “Otherwise, the hospital wouldn’t have released her so soon.”

  “The baby was released quickly, because my office requested it,” Max countered. “And because we assured the hospital staff that the child would have round-the-clock care once we placed her in protective custody.”

  “Why wouldn’t my brother’s baby be safe at home with her family?” Emma asked.

  “Because you aren’t her only family,” the federal marshal explained, while once again not explaining anything. “And her existence puts you and your relatives at severe risk, Mrs. Downing. My assistant will explain everything—” a woman in a severely stylish pantsuit, wearing the same emotionally shutdown expression as Dean, stepped to his side “—once Lieutenant Montgomery and the child are in my care. I’m afraid this is not a request. Your actions have jeopardized a federal case, which means I don’t need your cooperation to take you into custody.”

  “Custody?” Rick Downing joined his wife. “On what grounds?”

  “Perhaps protection is a better term,” Dean’s assistant offered.

  “Whatever you call it—” Randy reminded himself that his daughter was what was important now, not his growing impatience with how completely his well-ordered life had gone to shit “—I’m not agreeing to a damn thing until you tell us what you think you’re protecting us from.”

  “Either come voluntarily—” irritation chipped away at Dean’s control “—or I arrest your ass and drag you and your daughter away while your family and friends watch. Gather whatever you need to care for the child for the next hour or so. We’ll pick up the rest on the road. You have five minutes.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” Randy’s raised voice unsettled the sleeping baby.

  She began to whimper, then cry. He patted clumsily at her back, tempted to scream along with her.

  “Yes, you are, Lieutenant.” A hint of apology warmed Dean’s eyes as he watched Randy’s feeble attempt at fatherhood. “If you care about your family at all, you’ll walk away right now, before your resistance gets them all killed.”