When the door swung shut behind her and the sound of their footsteps receded in the distance, Nic slumped to the floor, curling to lie on her side with tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the baby growing inside her. “I’m so sorry.”
ETHAN TURNED Robert’s SUV into the parking lot of Donner High School on two wheels, cursing when he found the parking lot empty. He hit the gas and sent the vehicle flying around the school at nearly sixty mph, then stood on the brakes, heart locking in his throat when he saw the dark blue sedan Blake had described, sitting at the far end of the lot.
Beyond it sat a neat greenhouse and a prefab steel shed. Nicole’s lab.
He sent the SUV hurtling past the sedan. The tires slid on the wet grass, chewing up the turf when he hit the brakes and slapped the vehicle into Park, but he didn’t care. He only cared about capturing Olivia and rescuing Nicole.
This would end now.
He hit the ground running. He was nearly to the greenhouse when he saw movement in the forest beyond—Olivia was slipping out the back with two of her men. A quick scan of the parking lot showed that the others were just arriving, with Robert and Evangeline leading the way in a borrowed truck.
They weren’t nearly close enough. Olivia was going to escape if he didn’t go after her.
The inner battle was brief and fierce, and Ethan’s feet were moving even before he was conscious of having made the decision, but it was the logical one. None of them would be safe if Olivia got away.
As he pounded in pursuit, he yanked the 9 mm from his waistband. Another man might have fired a warning shot. Ethan aimed for flesh.
The taller man screamed and went down, writhing and clutching his left leg. Rather than stopping or turning to fight, Olivia and the other guy put their heads down and ran faster, headed deeper into the forest.
Ethan’s second shot missed, the bullet embedding itself in a tree trunk. Cursing, he ran into the forest. A blur erupted from his left and the second man hit him in a flying tackle. The men went down in a tangle of arms and legs, fighting and cursing, punching and tearing at each other.
Rage hazed Ethan’s vision, but he was aware that Olivia paused for a moment nearby, then slipped into the woods. She was getting away!
Refusing to let that happen, he drove his fist into the other guy’s jaw in a powerful knockout blow. Leaving the unconscious thug lying in the pine litter, he struggled to his feet and ran after Olivia.
He hadn’t gone twenty feet when a gunshot ripped through the air and a burning impact slammed into his upper arm. Ethan shouted and spun toward the sound of the shot, then ducked as Olivia fired the small .22 again.
The round jammed and the blowback singed her hand, making her screech in pain. Taking advantage of that split-second opportunity, Ethan ducked and lunged at her, grabbing her around the waist and sending them crashing to the ground.
His ingrained reluctance to hurt a woman had him struggling to subdue her while keeping the .22 pointed safely away. He earned an elbow in the teeth for his effort. Tasting blood, he cursed, rolled over and leaned his full weight on her, trapping her beneath him. With one hand holding her gun wrist, he got his other arm across her throat and bore down until she gurgled for breath.
Their positions put them face-to-face and left him staring into her emerald-green eyes, which gleamed with fury and madness. “Let me go!” she hissed with what little breath he’d allowed her, and her eyes went calculating. “Let me go and I’ll tell you how to save her.”
The words punched through the bloodred haze of fighting madness that had overtaken him. Nicole!
He leaned on her throat until her eyes bulged. “Tell me or you’re dead.”
And damned if he didn’t mean it. To hell with not hurting women. She wasn’t a woman to him anymore. She was a murderer, and she held Nicole’s future in her hands.
Olivia squirmed beneath him, her slight body seeming too insubstantial to have done the things she’d done. When he didn’t ease up, she whispered, “In my pocket.”
Ethan heard the others approaching through the woods and knew Robert would be there any moment, looking to take over. He’d try to do the right thing, but he had his own priorities, whereas Ethan had only one: to save Nicole.
He twisted Olivia’s wrist sharply until the .22 fell free, then shifted his weight to free her other hand. “No garbage, I’m warning you.”
She shook her head slightly, fear and resignation dominating in her eyes as she reached inside her coat and withdrew a remote control of some sort.
A lightning bolt of panic split Ethan as he realized he’d horribly, brutally miscalculated. He bore down on Olivia’s neck and twisted, grabbing for the remote.
By the time he’d wrestled it away from her, the red indicator light at the top of the unit was blinking to indicate that a countdown had begun.
“Better hurry,” Olivia whispered, eyes beginning to dull. “You’ve got three minutes.”
NIC’S WORLD had gone gray, but she roused part-way when she heard the click that signaled the bomb’s arming.
She was vaguely aware of being curled on the floor of her lab, but the cement floor didn’t feel cold anymore. It was warm and fuzzy. Everything was warm and fuzzy, even the pain in her upper arm and opposite shoulder.
She was dying, she knew. She and the baby both, and for what? Because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and because she’d fallen in love with the wrong man. It was all so bloody unfair that she wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the energy, so she let her eyelids drift shut and counted her heartbeats.
Her last thoughts were of a hummed lullaby and a whispered apology to a child who would never be born.
THE MOMENT Ethan stepped into the small prefab room beyond the ruined greenhouse, he was thrust back into his worst nightmare.
Nicole lay horribly still, eyes closed. Her hands were bound behind her back and her front was painted red with the blood that pooled beneath her. Ethan whispered her name, dropped to his knees and reached out to touch her.
In an instant, he was back on the streets of Vegas, reaching for the woman he’d loved. Pulling her toward him. Killing her.
He froze without touching her. Wait, he thought. Think it through. Don’t move her until you’re sure. It looked like a bullet wound, probably from Olivia’s .22. If the bullet was still inside and he moved her the wrong way, he could cause more damage. He needed time to properly assess her wounds, or better yet, wait for the real paramedics.
Then he looked up and saw a deadly device strapped to the side of the big machine, saw a red light atop it blinking down the seconds.
They didn’t have time.
Cursing, he reached to undo the cargo strap binding her ankle. He didn’t know enough about bombs to guess whether he could unstrap it safely. Knowing Olivia’s love for collateral damage, he doubted it, which made escape his only option.
“Nic, honey.” He touched her neck and found that her pulse was dangerously slow, her breathing dangerously shallow. She couldn’t stand to lose any more blood, but she couldn’t stay where she was. They were probably down to a minute on Olivia’s three-minute countdown, he thought as he pulled off his shirt and used it to form a crude pressure bandage, held in place with his belt.
She was dead either way, he told himself, reaching down to touch her cool lips with his.
“Ethan.”
He jolted at her whisper, at the feel of her lips moving against his. He didn’t dare touch her, didn’t dare gather her close when she shifted toward him. Instead he pressed a hand to her shoulder where the blood had started anew at her motion. “Lie still. I’m—”
He broke off. He was what? Going to sit there until they died together, along with their unborn child? That would be letting Olivia win. That would be letting the fear win.
He took a deep breath and looked down to find Nic staring at him with absolute faith and trust in her violet eyes. Her lips shaped two words. Do it. Then six mor
e. I trust you. I love you.
Instead of added panic, the words found an answering chord within him, a spiraling sense of power, of faith.
He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. “I love you, too. I’ll show you just how much as soon as I get you out of here.”
He slid his arms behind her shoulders and knees, cupping her body against his chest. Then, knowing he was taking the biggest, most important risk of his life, he stood, lifting her.
She gave a small, pained cry and her lips went white. Blood seeped beneath the pressure bandage to stain his chest, and he could feel his own heart drumming nearly through his skin, as though its strong beat could keep hers going.
He pressed his cheek against the top of her head, held her tight and turned for the door. “Hang on, Nic. I’ve got you, but we need to move fast.”
Even as he said that, the bomb gave off a loud click, and a high, subsonic whine began to build.
Praying as he’d never prayed before, Ethan ran, his arms full of the most important thing in his life.
His family.
He bolted through the greenhouse, wincing at every jolt. He was pretty sure Nic had passed out, and shifted his grip to press down on her shoulder, trying to keep the blood inside, where she needed it to keep her brain oxygenated.
The whine grew louder behind him and he heard shouting up ahead. He burst from the greenhouse and met a handful of PPS operatives headed in.
“Out!” he shouted. “It’s wired to blow!”
Robert tried to take Nicole, but Ethan held him away. “I’ve got her. She needs an ambulance.” The words were ragged in his throat, his breath labored in his lungs as he and the rest of the team ran across the field, headed away from the greenhouse as fast as—
The blast knocked him forward, roaring over him like a thousand jet engines firing at once. He braced himself and rolled with the fall, protecting Nic as best he could. Moments later, a heavy weight landed atop him, then another. It took him a second to realize his teammates had offered up their own bodies as shields as shrapnel rained down on them.
When the noise, flame and fury had subsided, the others moved away. Fearing what he would find, Ethan eased away and looked down at Nic.
Her skin was bloodlessly pale, but her eyes were open and clear, and as he watched, her lips moved, shaping the words, I love you.
Heart suddenly so full it was nearly bursting, Ethan leaned down to whisper, as the sirens of approaching ambulances rose in the near distance, “Then I guess that means you’ll have to marry me.”
MARRY ME. As Nic floated back up through the warm layers of consciousness, she imagined she heard those words echoing in Ethan’s voice. It seemed like an impossible dream, but part of her was sure he’d really done it, really asked her to marry him.
That should’ve been impossible. Then again, it should’ve been impossible for her to survive Olivia’s mad plan, and she’d done that, hadn’t she?
The beep of a monitor and the antiseptic smell of hospital told her she’d survived, all right. Even better, a second, faster beep beneath the first confirmed what she already knew in her heart, that the baby was doing fine despite everything.
Our baby’s a survivor, she thought with an inner smile, just like her parents.
She wasn’t sure how she knew it was a girl, but she did. A little girl with her mother’s hair and sense of adventure, with her father’s gorgeous eyes and ability to use logic when it suited, much to her parents’ endless amusement and dismay.
The thought of it, the certainty of it, widened Nic’s smile.
“What’s going on in that head of yours? You telling yourself a joke?”
Nic opened her eyes and turned toward the sound of Ethan’s voice. Squinting into the light, she was able to make out his stern features, was able to see the strain at the corners of his eyes, and the warmth of love within.
“No joke,” she whispered, wincing from the pull of soreness in her throat at the tug of stitches from where the doctors had gone in to repair a torn lung on one side, a shattered scapula on the other. “Just thinking about the future.”
When he just stood there for a half second, she caught her breath, suddenly fearing it’d been a dream, after all. Then he smiled, and in his eyes she saw all the love and reassurance she’d been looking for, all the futures she could ever want.
“I hope you saw me in it.” He leaned over her and touched his lips to hers. “I hope you saw the three of us together, and maybe one or two more little rug rats so our kids will never be lonely at night, and they’ll always have someone to turn to when things get tough.”
“That—” Nic broke off when a big ball of happy tears lodged in her throat. “That sounds perfect.”
There was movement behind Ethan, and she turned to watch as first one, then six, then at least twenty people crowded into her hospital room. She recognized Robert and Evangeline, wrapped together as though they planned to stay that way for a very long time. Angel was there, black clothing and makeup still firmly in place, but with a new softness to her expression. Blake stood near the back, sporting a black eye and stitches high on one cheek but when her eyes lit on him, he flashed her a thumbs-up.
Nic didn’t recognize the others, but Ethan introduced them one by one. The smooth-looking charmer with light brown hair and a tan was ex-Ranger PPS operative Jack Sanders and the pretty, friendly-looking blonde beside him was his former protectee, Kelly Warner, whose husband had been killed in the first step of Olivia’s plan. The dark, handsome hunk beside them was ex-cop PPS operative Mike Lawson, who was paired with lovely, auburn-haired Cassie Allen, a computer whiz Nic thought she’d met before, possibly in the Vault. The taller, younger man with piercing green eyes was Cameron Morgan, another former Ranger-turned-operative, who held hands with Jennie Ward, a tall, golden woman who reminded Nic of open spaces and the outdoors. Kyle Prescott was a younger version of his father, Robert, with darker hair but the same eyes and air of authority, though he looked a bit shell-shocked, suggesting that he was still dealing with learning of his mother’s crimes. Beside him stood ex-FBI PPS operative Sara Montgomery, a striking dark-haired woman who only had eyes for Kyle. Rounding out the group was Navajo sharpshooter John Pinto and rookie agent Lily Clark.
Each and every one of them sported a puff of gauze taped at the crook of his or her arm.
Ethan shifted to sit on the edge of Nic’s bed and took her hand in his. As he did so, she saw that he, too, had a bandage at his elbow. He followed her gaze, smiled and tightened his fingers on hers. “Everyone donated blood. Some of it went to you and the rest went into the blood bank.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It all went to me, to us.” She smiled at the tough guys of PPS, and at the women who loved them. “Guess that makes us family, huh?”
Evangeline nodded and pressed closer to her husband, looking up at him with a flirtatious gleam in her eyes. “One big, happy, semi-functional family. That’s us. At least it will be once we rebuild the offices and relocate the Vault, now that Clive, Olivia and the others are safely behind bars.” She cut her eyes to Ethan. “You’re staying, right? No more of this freelancing garbage. We can build you an actual office with your name on the door, right?”
“I need to talk to my fiancée about it,” Ethan said, lifting Nic’s hand and kissing her knuckles. “But if I get the okay, then yeah, you can build me an office. I might even take a repeat customer now and then, as long as I can make it home every night.”
A ghost of a smile touched Robert’s lips. “I think that can be arranged. I think it can all be arranged.”
And deep down inside, Nic knew it would be. There would be some bumps along the way, but that was life, and the sum total of it all would be so much more than she’d had before, so much more than she’d ever imagined having. She had Ethan now, and in six more months or so, they’d have their daughter to complete the circle: a little girl they’d name Caroline. She’d grow up with the kids of all the couples crowding the h
ospital room, and they’d all get together for big, noisy dinners in their big, noisy houses, and it would be just like the family Nic had always dreamed of, only so much better, because PPS wasn’t just a group of coworkers.
They were a team.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0445-8
CLASSIFIED BABY
Copyright © 2007 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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Classified Baby Page 17
