Despite her preoccupation with her physical state, she thought the man was educated, to judge by his turn of phrase and careful speech. She didn’t reply to his threat. Dean would come for her.
“I want you to call him and instruct him. I will tell you what to say.”
“Sir?” Burnett’s oily voice interrupted. “Sorry, but—”
“What is it?” New guy was obviously the boss, if his cold, nasty tone was anything to go by.
“There’s activity in the area and one of your men hasn’t checked in.”
Another cramp distracted her and she involuntarily leaned forward, a sharp gasp escaping her. A hard hand grasped her shoulder. “What is wrong?” Ring man, she thought, his hand strangely comforting.
“Cramps,” she managed.
A hand was placed on her other shoulder and she was urged backwards then turned and placed on her side. The blind movement disoriented her and she struggled not to vomit. Staggering rips of agony shot through her abdomen and red light sparked behind her eyes. She moaned. There was a brief dialogue of male voices but she couldn’t concentrate. Then footsteps sounded and the door shut hard.
The hood was eased off and ring man set it aside. She looked up at him, barely able to fill her lungs. He glanced at the door and then back at her. An object was placed in her hand and her fingers pressed closed around it. “If you can, lock the door behind me. Don’t open it to anyone. It won’t stand up to a determined assault—they might shoot the lock—but it’ll buy you some time.”
Against the escalating cramping, she gritted her teeth to ask, “Who are you?”
“Not your enemy. Burnett hasn’t figured out I wasn’t sent by his boss, and the boss thinks I’m with Burnett, but if they talk, they’ll figure it out quick. You hang on. Dean should be here soon.” A little smile flitted over his features, making him suddenly approachable, despite her focus on her painful state, although she wasn’t able to sort through his comments. “I, uh, pushed him a little. I expect the pictures and your jewellery hit a nerve. I can’t get you out of here, but—”
His head came up and she heard it too—distant cracks, hollow and flat—it had to be gunfire.
“Shit. Dean is here. Lock up behind me.” He squeezed her hand and hustled to the door, opening it cautiously before slipping through without a backward glance. It shut with a click. With one hand on her belly, clutching the key in the other, Amy got to her feet, only to double over again.
Falling to her knees, she raised her head and locked her eyes on that door—she had to get there, put a barrier between her and the bad guys. It took an eternity and by the time it came within reach she was weeping with the exertion, primarily because of the misery in her belly. It sucked her energy and the accompanying fear was so overwhelming she could barely force the key into the lock. It turned beneath her shaking fingers and she sank the rest of the way to the floor.
As if on cue something thudded against the door and the knob rattled. A foul curse permeated the wood and she rolled away instinctively to one side, a gush of heat christening her thighs as she did so. It was too much effort to do more than draw her knees up and curl over her belly. Her baby was coming—or dying. And it was Olsen outside that door. Amy sank into darkness.
****
Dean raced down the hallway, prepared for anything. Burnett lay in a heap behind him, having given up Amy’s location within an instant of being encouraged to do so. Dean’s fists still throbbed with satisfaction. Enrico stayed with the asshole in order to bind him. They’d met minimal resistance initially, only two men guarding the perimeter, but the three situated at the choke points were better trained and shots had been exchanged. Fortunately, none of his crew were injured aside from Lee, who caught a ricochet that tore a hunk out of his thigh. He’d been helped back to a vehicle and the rest of Dean’s men infiltrated the building and worked their way through it with military precision. Burnett had been found huddling in the garage, obviously trying to liberate a vehicle.
Rounding the corner he saw two men locked in a struggle—Olsen was one of them. Dean closed the distance and took an opening, tearing Olsen free. He punched the smaller man directly in the face with every ounce of his terror and rage, feeling his nose crunch satisfyingly as his eyes crossed. Hurling him next into the opposite wall, Olsen hit with a thud and slid down it. The man he’d been struggling with stared and fucking smiled. Dean had to blink to keep his eyes in his head. His handler? What the fuck?
“Deal with that fucker quick, Dean,” the man advised as he raised both hands, showing they were empty. “Amy’s in there.” He tipped his head at the door. “She’s hurting. I have a bigger asshole to fry.”
Randy appeared at his shoulder but Dean’s focus was on the door.
“I’ll follow whoever that was. You get Amy.”
“Okay, but he’s one of us. Help him, Randy.” His lieutenant took off running, weapon held slightly ahead and to the side.
The door was locked—a deadbolt by the look of it. He rattled the knob and pounded on the panels, calling out her name, but Amy didn’t reply. Not daring to fire at the lock he set his boot directly beneath it in a blistering kick. It took three solid hits but the frame splintered and he forced his way through. A quick scan of the room found Amy curled up on the floor to the right of the door in a pool of her own blood. He went to his knees and touched her face, breathing her name as his heart ruptured in his chest.
“Amy.”
Her eyes fluttered and her pale lips parted a fraction. “I knew you’d come.” And then she drifted away. He fucking saw her go.
Heart stopping dread froze him for only a moment. He had her scooped into his arms without another thought and strode out of the room to make his way to his truck, praying his men had cleared the place. Enrico gaped at him, still kneeling beside Burnett’s worse-for-wear body. His bronze skin paled as his mouth thinned and then he was up, setting a scorching pace in front of Dean, running point. They made it to the vehicle without incident and Dean climbed in the back with Amy. He managed to dig his keys from his pocket and toss them to Enrico.
’Rico maybe thought he was driving a sports car the way he threw the truck around corners, accelerating to insane speeds on the straightaway, but Dean willed him to go faster. Amy was as white as snow, her breasts barely rising with her shallow breaths, and he could see faint evidence of a pulse in her throat. He didn’t need to check her to know she was losing their baby and probably dying—he was soaked with her lifeblood already. He wanted to die in her stead and for the first time in forever, prayed, promising anything if only she would live. The litany and chant of his Catholic schooling came back without effort.
Vaguely aware of Enrico speaking into the phone, he pressed his lips to Amy’s forehead. She felt so cold. Please. I’ll do anything.
An eternity later they pulled into the emergency drive of the hospital and Sandra hauled the back door of the truck open, her face nearly as pale as Amy’s. “We have a gurney. They want to hang blood now.”
He was out of the vehicle with his precious burden in the next breath to lay her on the stretcher. True to her word, Sandra had Amy’s arm exposed and was searching for a vein before he stepped back. He winced as the large bore needle slipped in but Amy didn’t stir. At least she was spared her phobia.
He followed the stretcher, never taking his eyes off her beautiful face, imagining he could see some color creeping into her skin. He tried to touch her whenever the medical personnel weren’t in his way. They all crowded onto the elevator, Amy on her rolling cot, Sandra and two beefy attendants, another nurse who looked askance at him. He supposed he was a mess and was relieved to remember tucking his weapon under the seat. There was medical jargon bandied about but he couldn’t process.
Disembarking, their little huddle hurried to a door near the end of the corridor.
The strange nurse shook her head at him and peeled off, crooking a finger. He halted and looked at Sandra who also shook her head. “She’s going
into surgery right now, Dean. Dr. Wyatt assessed her on the fly.” She pointed at one of the beefy guys, who nodded to him.
“It was desperate, sir. But she’s stabilizing some with the transfusion. We couldn’t get a pressure but now we can—she’s a fighter. There’s lots of hope, but we must take the baby.”
The walls closed in and he stood numbly while Amy disappeared behind the absurdly normal-appearing green doors. The nurse swam into his vision. “You need to change and then you can go in with her.”
Having a purpose galvanized him, and he followed her petite, white-garbed figure into a room not far from where Amy had disappeared. The nurse handed him scrubs and told him to strip down and change into them. “Put your clothes in one of those bags. I doubt you’ll get all that blood out of them so you can put them in the bio trash it you like.”
Eyes rounding, apparently replaying her comment, she raised one hand, then retreated. “When you’re done wait outside the surgery door. Someone will come for you.”
He fumbled with the scrubs. His hands were bruised and swollen, but they weren’t the impediment. He needed to get in there with her and their soon-to-be-born child, yet he couldn’t make his body obey. The pain emblazoned on Amy’s face even in her unconscious state now unmanned him. How had he dared to put her in such a position? What the fuck had been going on in his head? What if the doctor was wrong and things didn’t turn out for either her or the baby—or both? The damn material flexed beneath his hands, but he couldn’t pull it on. He sat slumped in the chair, wearing only his shorts.
A slender form invaded his space and he automatically defended against it, belatedly realizing it was Sandra, clad in the very outfit he needed to don. He barely avoided decking her. She plucked the scrubs from his unresisting hands, clucking over the state of them and efficiently yanked the shirt over his head. Somehow his arms sought and found the armholes and slid down the sleeves, big wrists protruding at the cuff. Kneeling, Sandra inserted first his left, then his right foot into the pants and tugged them up to his knees before pulling some weird booties over his feet.
When she rose to her feet again, he felt her hands at his head and wished for a benediction, then realized she was pulling a cap over his hair.
“Get up, Dean. They’ve administered the epidural and will soon be taking the baby. She’s awake, sort of.” Her brisk, no nonsense tone gave him something to hang onto and he stood to pull the bottoms of the scrubs up the rest of the way.
Taking his wrist and shepherding him to the door, Sandra swiped at his hand with something wet and cold on a bundle of gauze. It stung like the fires of hell and he came back to himself, offering her the other bloody hand. By the time they reached the doors at the end of the hall designated as the operating room he was operating as himself, the Dean Chambray Amy needed.
Entering the room in Sandra’s wake, he vaguely registered the presence of several gowned and masked individuals, but his attention was taken by Amy, lying on a narrow table, a piece of fabric tented over a frame nearly covering her torso. A thumping sound filled the room, two thumping sounds, one at a quicker rate than the other. He could barely see her face and he hastened his gait. He took his place at her side, down on one knee by her shoulder. Her hand fluttered up and he clasped it in his own, using the other to trace a fingertip down her cheek. She looked absolutely beautiful, no longer hurting so badly, and as her eyes locked with his she appeared to become almost sleepy.
“Are you okay?” he asked, like it wasn’t the stupidest question of the century.
“I am now,” she whispered back, and his gut clenched, as his heart swelled.
She was festooned with wires, and pads peeked out from her hospital gown. He realized the band on her arm was a blood pressure cuff, and that they were also monitoring her heart. And so the quicker beat must be the baby’s. He made himself breathe and show nothing but calm.
The surgeon spoke as if from a great distance to tell them he was going to begin and at that moment the baby’s heart beat stopped. Sandra spoke directly from the other side of Amy’s head. “They removed the fetal monitor. It’s fine.”
Dean breathed again, but kept his hopefully calm gaze on Amy. She simply stared back, and he realized she’d put her trust in him, no matter that it wasn’t him in the medical role—her whispered words when he burst into that fucking room they’d held her in would haunt him forever, and he’d spend the rest of his life proving she was right and that he was worthy of her. I knew you’d come…
Ignoring the sounds of metal instruments clanking against metal and other disparate sounds that were familiar but something he didn’t want to identify, he crouched beside Amy and willed everything to turn out. Moments later there was a flurry of motion and a baby’s thin wail filled the room, nearly drowning out the sudden roaring in his head. Amy’s face turned and lit up from within, and her lips parted.
“May I—” Her eyes filled with yearning.
Sandra’s capable hands reached to take the squirming, bloody, little form and lower it to Amy’s chest. Amy’s free hand hovered before resting on the downy head, tiny and blond and she smiled, an expression so full of emotion that he stared to emblazon it in his brain.
“She’s beautiful, Amy.” Sandra’s voice was thready with tears. Dean blinked hard against his own. A girl. Two girls to fill his life. Forever.
Epilogue
“She’s finally asleep.” Dean thought he’d wear a path right through the damn hardwood before Emma conceded defeat. His little girl had a cold and was fretful, not that it slowed the toddler down any significant amount. Then she’d become overtired and couldn’t settle. Walking with her and rocking her usually worked, and tonight had been no different, except it took a whole lot longer. The evening hours with Amy were precious, because he rarely saw her during the day. He had a real job and she was preoccupied with Emma, having become one of the best mothers in existence, and he had the worst one to compare to. His mother had passed and aside from seeing to it that she was buried with some semblance of dignity, he didn’t give her another thought. His life was within the four walls of the home he and Amy chose to raise Emma in—Emma and the little creature due to make its appearance in two months time.
Dragging him to parenting courses hadn’t really been an effort—he’d have done anything for his now wife and child. And he had to admit he learned a lot and thought he’d turned out to be, if not dad of the year, a not too far off runner-up. Emma might have him wrapped around her little finger, but he still did what was in her best interest, and sometimes that meant saying no and thwarting her. That turned his thoughts to Amy. He hadn’t thought another child was in her best interest, but her way of convincing him undermined his resistance.
Reaching out a slender hand to him, she raised a golden brow. “Heavy thoughts, babe?”
“No.” He settled beside her on the couch and she leaned into him, pulling her legs up. The swell of her belly elicited a wave of possessiveness and he laid his hand on it. “Just thinking how fucking lucky I am.”
“Dean!”
“What?” He gently rubbed her belly.
“You can’t swear.”
“Emma’s asleep and this little guy can’t talk yet.”
“Little girl.”
He groaned, he couldn’t help it. He was so whipped. Surely cleaning up his act meant they’d have a boy this time… Amy laughed and he stared into her beautiful face. “I don’t care about the gender, sweetheart. I just want you and him—or her—to be okay.”
“It’ll be fine, Dean.” She was serene Amy, earth mother, although last night the languor had lifted and she’d blown his mind in their bed. Pregnant or not, she was like no other woman in his experience and he couldn’t imagine life without her.
Walking away from his so-called life in Sacramento had been a no brainer. No one determined his undercover status to his knowledge, and his handler took his abdication with aplomb. After all, he wasn’t on the “books” anywhere.
The
man had done an end run on him out of necessity. Olsen had overheard talk of moving Amy to a safer location and panicked, fearing the plan would fizzle, and alerted Burnett. Learning from another source of the planned kidnap attempt too late, Dean’s handler managed to arrive before shadow-man and pose as one of his “staff”—then took down the elusive crime lord himself, albeit with Randy’s help. Dean supposed his handler had ears everywhere, and he’d actually felt no proprietal interest in bringing down his elusive prey. His priorities had shifted.
Regrettably, the evidence was sketchy and while they now had the identity of shadow man, the charges didn’t stick—Burnett and Olsen were slapped with kidnapping and holding Amy against her will, presumably well-remunerated for taking the fall. Dean’s handler had to settle for that lack of anonymity in return for covering up the impromptu gun battle, but Joshua Frye Corbett was now squarely in the eye of law enforcement. He could hardly run his empire without someone watching, so Dean supposed some good had come from Amy’s ordeal.
He’d arranged for their condo to be packed up immediately after Emma’s birth and stored until Amy could participate in a discussion about where she might want to live. Eugene, Oregon became their new home, and finding a suitable abode took one flying trip on his part—Amy fell in love with the older three bedroom, two bath house in the established neighborhood just from the pictures he sent. He’d paid careful attention to what she wanted, determined to meet her each and every need at all times.
Dean was just glad to move out of Sandra’s home. Amy’s friend was immensely helpful with the baby and Amy’s aftercare. Amy had a stay in hospital until the personnel were certain she was out of danger and her blood levels and such were okay, and then Sandra took them in. But he was selfish. He wanted his wife and child under his roof and his care. Amy refused a big wedding, so they were married as soon as she was mobile, by a justice of the peace. He got his way with a ring—she just wanted her bracelet—and the enormous diamond above the matching band worn on the appropriate finger of her left hand both comforted and aroused him each and every time he saw it. His woman, his wife, in his bed and his life, always.
Forever (Eternity #1) Page 28
