The Firefighter’s Secret Baby

by Anna DeStefano

  “Just spit it out,” he said, feeling stronger somehow now that he had his daughter back in his arms. “Dean obviously wants me in the know, or he wouldn’t have brought me here. And whatever I thought in Savannah, it’s clear I know nothing about who you really are. Except that you have a past you’re ashamed of. Believe it or not, that might be the one thing we have in common. So enough with the smoke and mirrors. Just how bad is it?”

  Sam scooted back against her pillows. Her IV line pulled tight. She flexed and relaxed her fingers, looking too exhausted to be sitting at all. He stayed away, worried for her and resenting it while the silence between them grew. His sister and brothers were what he should be worried about. His daughter, who Sam was clearly in no position to make her priority.

  “How bad is it?” she finally said. “You had a life in Atlanta. A career. Friends. Family. Now—”

  “Had?”

  Sam flinched.

  “Max the Wonder Marshal scared my family to death to get me here,” Randy said. “He was pretty damn convincing, saying that everyone I cared about would be in danger if the baby and I stayed with them. Are you going to tell me the rest, or do I get to beat it out of Dean? Come to think of it, that might be my favorite alternative.”

  Sam sat taller and squared her shoulders, then winced in pain.

  “My family kills for a living,” she said as calmly as if she was discussing the cold front that had moved in. “That’s why yours is in danger now. That’s why there is no end to this for any of you, not anytime soon.”

  “Your family…” Randy looked down at his daughter and for the first time believed that her life really might be in danger. “Is…”

  “One of the largest organized crime families still in New York. And I’m the only person who can stop them. Which makes anyone close to me, anyone I care about, a target until the bastard who killed my fiancé goes to prison for the rest of his life. And I’m not stopping until he does.”

  RANDY STARED at Sam. He’d stepped back, holding their baby farther away. Watching him accept that she was a threat should have been a simple matter of doing what had to be done. Fighting for the right ending to all this—the one Dean said would keep them safe.

  But how did she let go of the only dream she still had?

  Randy crossed the room and leaned against the desk Max and his deputies had covered with the equipment that was supposed to be jamming cell frequencies or checking for surveillance devices or God knew what else.

  “What is your family mixed up in, exactly?” he asked.

  “Does it matter?” She refused to let apology or any other emotion creep into her voice. “Not that I know, really. Except that everyone I’ve known since birth is up to their eyeballs in it. Everyone but my baby sister. We’re both a part of it, though. Everything that’s happened, Gabby and I have always been a part of it.”

  “Gabby?”

  “Gabriella. She’s why I agreed to do this. They promised to get her out.”

  “What exactly did you agree to do? What happened to warrant all this security? How long have you been living like this?”

  “Two years.” Sam closed her eyes, not wanting to answer the rest of his questions. But she owed Randy the truth, as much as Max would let her tell. And Randy deserved his say, if that’s what it took to get him to take the baby away. “Two years ago, I was sleeping next to my fiancé when Luca shot him.”

  Randy cuddled their daughter against his chest.

  “You’ve been doing this for two years?” he asked.

  “I agreed to do it for as long as it takes. The federal prosecutor said a grand jury appearance might be all they’d need from me, but I’m not buying it. I’ll have to face Luca in open court, then I’ll disappear for good. I’ll have Gabby with me then, and I’ll be free of all this. At least that was the plan.”

  “Luca who?”

  Sam looked away and sighed. She shook her head. “The more you know, the greater the risk you’ll get even more mixed up in this. You knowing could damage the case. You could be called in to testify.”

  She pushed herself to her feet. Her legs wobbled. Putting one foot in front of the other wasn’t an option yet, but neither was staying in the same room as Randy. Not now that he was staring at her as if she was the enemy.

  “This was my choice, Lieutenant. I approached the federal prosecutor and demanded protection for me and my sister. Since then, I’ve made one mistake after another. Now I’ve sucked you and our child into my mess. I don’t blame you for anything you’re thinking about me. So please, just—”

  “Mistake? Like sleeping with me?”

  “No.” Sam sank back to the bed. “That was…Being with you was the only peaceful night I’ve spent in a long time.”

  “And our child?” He stepped closer, towering over her. “Is our child another part of this that you regret?”

  Sam clutched her hand against her belly.

  “I would do anything for my daughter.”

  “Anything but admitting she exists to her father, until you had no choice. Anything but allowing me a choice in what to do about all this, until it was too late and you’d brought the mob down on my family. My family, Sam. Nothing is more important to me, and that now includes my daughter. Don’t for a second think I’m letting you take her away from me again!”

  It was everything Sam had expected, every horrible word of it. Randy, on the other hand, looked shocked, as if he couldn’t quite believe the commitment he’d just made.

  “N-no,” she said. “Of course you’ll want the baby with you.”

  If it wouldn’t have involved her falling on her face and needing Randy’s help getting up, she’d have run from them both. Her attachment to watching him hold their daughter was growing by the second. He was going to be such an amazing father.

  The useless tears were back, the ones that were there each time she woke up confused and had to remember all of this all over again. She wiped at them, but not before Randy saw. His face softened for a second. He took a step closer.

  “Don’t.” Forbidden memories of feeling safe in his arms crept closer. “Don’t lose your nerve now, Montgomery, just because some woman you hate leaks out a few tears.”

  “I…” He stopped. “I don’t hate you, Sam.”

  But he did. He was a good man, but even good men had their limits.

  The baby started struggling in his arms. Nuzzling and fussing and making desperate sounds so obvious that even two clueless grownups could figure it out.

  “She’s hungry,” Sam said.

  She glared at Randy through the moisture shimmering in her eyes, suddenly despising him for still being there. This would be one more memory that would torture her, but she wouldn’t deny herself just one more priceless moment to remember.

  She couldn’t.

  “Give her to me,” Sam begged as he struggled to open the diaper bag he’d slung over his shoulder. “Let me feed my baby.”

  Startled, Randy handed over their child. Then his expression hardened.

  “Feed her,” he said. “Then I’m taking my daughter as far away from this insanity as I can.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “A BABY!” Luca shouted into his cell phone.

  He pounded his fist against the table. The people nearest him in the restaurant jumped but made a point of not looking his way.

  Respect.

  That’s what he received from total strangers. Why couldn’t he have even that little bit of control over Sam!

  “Everything…um, everything okay?” a waiter asked, water pitcher in hand.

  Luca motioned his head for the waiter to beat it.

  A baby. Sam had had a baby while she refused his protection. The family’s protection. And now she was dead. Or was she? She’d concealed a pregnancy. What else were she and her handlers up to?

  His cell lay where he’d slammed it to the table. He picked it up. He was done trusting others to do what needed to be done.

  “If there’s a bab
y, there has to be a father. Find him. Find a way to get to him and anyone who’s with him. And send someone to Hartsfield Jackson. I’ll be landing in Atlanta in eight hours.”

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN we can’t see Randy, and we can’t go back to our lives for the foreseeable future!” Emma demanded.

  Charlie pulled his sister to his side, his glance shifting to her husband’s. Downing had warned them where letting Randy get more involved in Sam’s life could lead. Rick had a protective arm around Emma’s daughter, Jessie.

  “Ma’am—” began the female marshal who would be in charge of protecting them, including Emma’s fifteen-year-old daughter who’d been picked up from school. “I have no information about your brother’s circumstances that—”

  “—you can give us,” Emma parroted back. “But you can drag me to this safe house and leave me with a scared teenager to comfort, and absolutely no idea what we’re all running from. Plus the sketchy assurances of that man who came to my brother’s house to tell us that we’re all doomed unless we do exactly what you folks say. I suppose I should be thanking you for your candor.”

  “The less you know, the better for your safety,” Glinda assured her. No last name had been given, so Emma had dubbed the deputy Glinda, the Good Witch. “Your brother is safe and with our people.”

  “Like this Sam was safe with you?” Charlie asked. “Wherever she was living before landing in my brother’s lap again?”

  “This entire situation is the result of a protectee exceeding the boundaries of her relocation plan.” Glinda was all-things professional, except for the muscle ticking along her jawline. “And you can see how many lives have been affected by that mistake. Do the smart thing, and don’t use her situation as an example of how to proceed.”

  “Boundaries? Relocation plan? Her situation…” Emma’s defiance dissolved into horror. “Is this really the nonsense you’re spouting to Randy somewhere right now? Because the backlash you’re in store for is going to make this group—” she looked from her husband to Charlie, then Chris and Jessie “—seem like a welcoming committee.”

  “Your brother will see reason,” the good witch started to say, “as soon as—”

  “The hell he will.” Charlie couldn’t imagine anyone less reasonable than the normally controlled man who’d paced a trench in the floor at Atlanta Memorial a little over a day ago.

  That man had asked Charlie to have his back and do what was best for his child. Because at the moment, Randy might be too shaken to know what the best thing was on his own.

  “If my brother thinks this woman and his baby are in danger…” Emma started to say. She swallowed and grappled for her husband’s hand.

  “Protecting our niece will trump every precaution you try to drill into Randy,” Charlie finished for her. “If you want to control our brother and whatever gut instinct drives his next move, I’d advise getting my sister and me to wherever you have him stashed. Now.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “HOW IS SHE DOING?” Randy paced across the tiny bedroom, trying not to get hung up on the sight of Sam feeding their daughter one of the bottles of formula.

  But he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

  It was a crazy thing, feeling an instant connection to a woman who’d cringed away when she’d first seen her child. What kind of mother did that? Except she was clinging to their baby now.

  This was my choice, Lieutenant…

  “How can something so delicate be so strong,” Sam said to herself, “after everything she’s been through? She’s a miracle.”

  “Yes, she is,” Randy bit out, more confused and more fed up by the second. This was the same woman who’d only acknowledged him as her baby’s father when she thought she was dying. “And she deserves better than being a pawn in whatever game you’re running with your federal agents.”

  Sam nodded without meeting his gaze. Seeing her accept his assessment of the situation should have reassured him that taking the baby and getting the hell out of Dodge was the right thing to do. Instead, it made him want to protect Sam from herself.

  “You left your kid sister behind.” He clung to his anger like a shield against how vulnerable she suddenly seemed. “How much harder could it be to give up your child, right?”

  “Sometimes life is about the choices you don’t get to make.”

  Her voice quivered, but he focused on the cold resignation in her words.

  “You could have sent one of your G-men to let me know you were pregnant, so I could make my own choices. You could have helped me keep all this away from my family, who I’d die for before I abandoned. Why did you even keep the baby if you didn’t want me involved and she meant so little to you?”

  It was a low blow. But Randy couldn’t get over how she’d shrunk away from him and their child. He’d been standing in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her and feeling as if he were finally home for the first time since he was a child, and she’d been gathering her strength to shove him away.

  “If you’re in so much trouble the feds think it’s dangerous for this Luca character to know there’s another life he can use to get to you,” Randy demanded, “why did you carry our baby inside you for almost nine months.”

  “Because I couldn’t lose…” Sam swallowed the rest.

  Randy crossed his arms. He’d wait as long as it took. He needed to hear the truth, so it would burn through the last of the misguided attachment he felt to her.

  “I couldn’t lose one more person I cared about,” she said. “I fought to keep her. I promised to be careful and stay under the radar from then on. But when that video hit—”

  “Video?”

  “Of crowds on St. Patrick’s Day. The camera zoomed in on me. It was replayed over and over on cable TV. I just happened to catch it flipping channels. It was only a matter of time then…Max said they had to get me to another location, and that things would be even more dicey from now on, and…I had to talk to Gabby, one more time. I couldn’t just disappear from her life completely.”

  Randy felt his outrage slip as more of her story spilled out. He knew firsthand what it was like to have your family ripped away from you. Thinking it was forever. Sam must have been terrified, but she’d still been fighting. Even during the accident her worry had been for the baby she’d put in so much danger. That was the woman Randy had thought he’d found again—and lost for good.

  “No one would tell me anything except that Gabby was all right.” She was rocking the sleeping baby, talking to herself. “I had to know for sure that Gabby was safe.”

  Which she wasn’t.

  Clearly, none of them were.

  “Sam…What have you gotten me into?”

  He crouched in front of her. Instead of demanding to know who Luca was and how long hiding from the man was going to rule their lives, he was leaning closer.

  The kiss he wanted, needed, was wrong. She was hurt and confused, and at the moment he didn’t exactly have her best interests at heart. But he might never see this woman again. Touch her again.

  Damn it! Why did she have to be there making him need the feel of her body against his, while everything she’d said should be making him want to run? Why did she have to be strength and vulnerability? Fear and courage. Illusive, but feeling more solid and real than any other woman he’d ever been with.

  The reality of her lips clinging to his instead of shying away destroyed the last of Randy’s restraint. Careful of the baby, he slid his palms up her arms while he relearned her touch. Her taste. Her sighs. Her tears…

  Tears?

  “Stupid…” Sam shook her head and turned her face away. “This is stupid. You have to go. You and the baby, you have to—”

  “Shut up.” He kissed her again, and then again, until she was kissing back, as desperate as he was. “I’m going, but not before we settle something.”

  Namely, how she could have slipped so completely beneath the control that had always protected him from this? From feeling so lost at the though
t of walking away.

  Sam’s dark, silky hair was as soft as he remembered. Softer. Her tongue, fluttering against his was every wicked fantasy he’d had since he’d last held her. There was the rightness of kissing fire down her neck. There was the feel of the delicate strength of her back arching into him. All of it, just as he’d remembered it.

  His groan swallowed the gasp she couldn’t hold back.

  “Sam—”

  The door from the other room swung open.

  “Knock it off.” Marshal Dean’s deadpan delivery said he wasn’t entirely surprised by what he’d barged in on. He waited for Randy to stand and step away. “I assume everyone’s on the same page now. Agent North will take the baby while we talk through the relocation plans I’ve secured approval for.”

  A female deputy Randy hadn’t met yet followed Dean’s lead and reached for the baby. Randy planted himself in her path. The woman backed up without comment, her stance relaxed but ready.

  “The child’s asleep,” Dean offered. “She’ll be fine in the next room with my people.”

  “In the next room?” Randy demanded. “Or wherever your people decide to take her once you get her away from me?”

  Dean’s eyes narrowed. “The baby won’t be taken anywhere until the three of us come to an understanding about what happens next. I barely have the manpower to coordinate two security teams. One for Sam. The other for you and your family, Lieutenant Montgomery. A third to take care of a lone child who can no longer remain anonymous is out of the question.”

  The agent reached around Randy and took his daughter from Sam. Sam’s expression was disturbingly blank after the passion Randy had coaxed from her. Almost as if…as if she couldn’t feel anything and still be able to let the baby go.

  When the deputy disappeared into the other room, Randy rounded on Dean. The marshal was frowning, watching Sam wilt into her pillows.

  “What kind of understanding did you have in mind?” Randy asked.

  “This was just a visit,” Dean reminded him. “I made that clear to you before we got here. You and the baby will be secured with your family just like we discussed.”