A woman in labor. A man on a mission. The Mansfield Brothers series continues…
All Brianna Coleman remembers of the near-fatal accident is the hero who saved her. Not her name or the father of the baby she delivers hours later. Until news of a coup in a foreign nation triggers a memory. Her baby’s father is the missing member of a royal family…and her son the next target.
After saving them, Hunter Mansfield won’t abandon them. But can he defend them against international assassins who pursue the newborn? He’ll do anything—pay the ultimate price if necessary—for one chance to protect the woman he loves and her little prince.
As tired as she was, Brianna spent long minutes staring at the ceiling and picturing Hunter’s tall, muscular body squeezing into the small antique bed in the guest room.
She imagined his long legs hanging off the end of the mattress, his wide shoulders filling the width of the bed and his chiseled face nestled on the pillow. Did he snore? Did he sleep in the buff? What would it be like to curl against his strength and sleep wrapped in his arms? To kiss him good-night, feel his skin against hers, have his hands—
Brianna scrubbed both hands over her face and stopped the daydream in its erotic tracks. Her skin tingled from her scalp to her toes, and a pleasant heat had curled in her belly. Dream all you want, but don’t get any ideas about acting on the fantasy. Hunter wasn’t hers to claim.
Dear Reader,
It’s Hunter’s turn! In January, you met the Mansfield brothers of Lagniappe, Louisiana, when middle brother Connor “returned from the dead” to save his daughter’s life. Now youngest brother Hunter will put everything on the line to save a child…a newborn royal heir!
Can you imagine how frightening it would be to lose all memory of who you are, your past, your home? Worse yet, what if bullet holes in the back of your car suggested someone was trying to kill you? That’s the dilemma facing Brianna Coleman after she sustains a head injury in a car accident.
Lucky for her, Hunter is on the job, ready to help her regain her lost memories and protect her and her newborn son from the unknown threat to their lives. As they search for answers and piece together Brianna’s past, they also find a love that points to a bright tomorrow…if they survive that long!
I hope you enjoy Brianna and Hunter’s story and keep watching for Grant’s book in the near future!
Happy reading,
Beth
PROTECTING HER
ROYAL BABY
Beth Cornelison
Books by Beth Cornelison
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Special Ops Bodyguard #1668
Operation Baby Rescue #1677
§Soldier’s Pregnancy Protocol #1709
§The Reunion Mission #1717
Colton’s Ranch Refuge #1724
§Cowboy’s Texas Rescue #1746
Colton Christmas Rescue #1780
‡The Return of Connor Mansfield #1784
‡Protecting Her Royal Baby #1805
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
To Love, Honor and Defend #1362
In Protective Custody #1422
Danger at Her Door #1478
Duty to Protect #1522
Rancher’s Redemption #1532
Tall Dark Defender #1566
*The Christmas Stranger #1581
Blackout at Christmas #1583
“Stranded with the Bridesmaid”
The Bride’s Bodyguard #1630
P.I. Daddy’s Personal Mission #1632
*The Prodigal Bride #1646
*The Bancroft Brides
§Black Ops Rescues
‡The Mansfield Brothers
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
BETH CORNELISON
started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.
Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending downtime with her family.
She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, or visit her website, www.bethcornelison.com.
To my prince—I love you, Paul!
Thank you to Mackenzie Walton for sharing her beautiful cat Sorsha for this story, and to Julie Sieger for sharing Cinderella and Sebastian. Look for all three of these kitties to appear again in Grant’s book! Julie and Mackenzie won the bid to have their kitties featured through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.
Thank you to Robyn Elyse Rosenberg for allowing me to use her name for Brianna’s aunt. Robyn, also, won the bid for this opportunity through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Excerpt
Chapter 1
She stared in stunned silence at the man standing in her living room, a man she’d once trusted. Working to shake herself from the numb shock that locked her throat, she blinked hard and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this last winter? Don’t you think I had a right to know what...who I was involved with?”
He had the decency to look guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you for this very reason. I knew this was how you’d react.”
She exhaled harshly. “Well, it is rather...startling news, wouldn’t you say?”
“I know. But we’d agreed what we had was a vacation fling. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t think I’d...develop feelings for you. And I never thought you’d—”
“Get pregnant?” She rubbed her hand over her nine-months-swollen belly and grunted. “Well, neither did I. But here’s the proof that condoms aren’t one hundred percent fail-safe.”
“Indeed.” He gave her a worried grimace. “The question now is, how do we hide the baby? How do we protect him?”
“Protect him?”
He took a step toward her, his hands spread. “If anyone finds out he’s my child, my bloodline, they’ll want to kill him like they’ve tried to kill me.”
A thread of fear tugged inside her. “But if I don’t tell anyone who his father is—”
A shattering of glass at her back door cut her off. He cursed in a foreign language she didn
’t recognize.
“It’s too late,” he said, his voice tight, panicked. His eyes were round with alarm and apology. “They’re here. They know.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone had followed me.”
Adrenaline spiked inside her, and she sidled closer to him as crashing sounds filtered from the back of her house. “I don’t understand. Who—”
“There’s no time! You have to go! Run!”
“But you—”
“You can’t worry about me. You have to save our child!” He pushed her toward the front door. “Hurry! They’ll try to kill you, try to kill him.”
A dark-clad figure appeared from her kitchen and raised a long-muzzled gun. Fired.
The father of her baby pushed her to the floor as the bullets whizzed over them. The jolt as she hit the floor sent a sharp pain through her belly, and a warm gush of fluid trickled down her leg. She clutched her middle, worried for her baby.
In the next second, he was shoving her up and toward the front door. “Go! Hide! Don’t come back here!”
Bullets pelted the wall near her, and she screamed. How had her life become such a nightmare?
Snatching the keys to her old car from the peg by the door, she raced out to her front driveway as fast as a pregnant woman could run. The pain in her midsection grew, and she nearly doubled over. With a quick glance over her shoulder as she tumbled into the driver’s seat, she saw three men now in her living room with her baby’s father. They held him by the arms, restraining him, a gun at his temple.
Nausea swamped her. They would kill him, she was sure. But why? What was their motive?
One of the men burst through the front door, following her. He raised his weapon, and she gunned the engine. The thunk of bullets hitting the rear of her car spiked her fear. She gasped and scrunched as low as she could in the seat as she sped away. Tears blinded her as she raced down the street. She didn’t know where she was going. Away. To hide. To—
Another sharp pain gripped her stomach. More warm fluid puddled beneath her. Oh, dear God! Her water had broken. The fall in her living room must have started her labor!
She held her belly and cried out as the contraction tightened. Forget hiding. Her baby was coming. Doubling over in pain, she raced down the highway, praying she could reach the hospital in Lagniappe in time.
* * *
The car was coming right at him. Weaving. Speeding. With him at twelve o’clock.
Adrenaline shot through Hunter Mansfield. Irritation and alarm nipping the back of his neck, he slowed to a stop along the rural Louisiana road where he jogged every Sunday afternoon. He assumed a ready stance on the balls of his feet, prepared to jump out of the way of the erratically lurching vehicle as it neared. The glare of sunlight reflected off the windshield, preventing him from seeing the driver. A drunk? A distracted teenager?
The small blue Honda’s engine roared, and the car lurched forward, its wheels kicking up gravel as the passenger-side tires moved from the pavement onto the narrow shoulder. Hunter braced himself, rapidly weighing whether to dive for the four-foot ditch to his left or feint right into the road, assuming the car wouldn’t correct its path in time. Both posed risk.
The ditch.
Just as he shifted his weight to spring to his left, the sun slipped behind a cloud. He caught a glimpse of a face behind the steering wheel. A woman. A startled, frightened look. A last-second swerve, tires squealing.
He jumped aside but not fast enough. The sedan clipped his hip as he launched himself toward the ditch. He landed with a tooth-jarring thump. Rolled. Pain streaked from his shoulder down his arm.
He twisted to watch the Honda rocket past, grumbling an invective under his breath.
Still traveling at a high speed, the car overcorrected from the swerve to miss him and fishtailed. In seconds, the driver had lost control. The sedan careened off the road at high speed, flipped and rolled into the ditch.
Horror punched him in the gut. Scrambling to his feet, Hunter ran down the road to the inverted car and crouched at the broken driver’s window. “Hey, are you okay?”
A pained and panicked cry came from inside.
Unable to see the front seat even from a squat, he got on his stomach and peered inside. The sight that greeted him backed his breath into his throat.
The woman lay crumpled on the roof of the sedan, which was now below her. Her forehead was bleeding. Her face was wrenched in a mask of agony. And she clutched her...rounded belly.
Hunter’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch. She was pregnant. And judging from the pool of bloody fluid under her hips, her water had broken in the crash.
Another wail of pain from her confirmed it. She was in labor.
“Damn,” he muttered as a chill slid through him, despite the warm autumn sun. “Ma’am, are you hurt anywhere other than your head?” He reached in far enough to put the car in Park and turn off the engine.
She turned wild blue eyes toward him. Frightened eyes. “Don’t hurt me!”
He raised his palms. “I won’t. Calm down.”
“Please! Don’t hurt me. I’m not—” She stopped with a gasp and a moan, holding her stomach.
Hurt her? What the—
“I’m not going to hurt you, ma’am. Why would you think—”
“My baby!” she gasped between shallow pants. “It’s coming!”
“Yeah. I see that.” He jerked at the Velcro strap that held his cell phone strapped to an armband while he jogged, and dialed 911. “I’m calling an ambulance now. Try to slow your breathing. You’re hyperventilating.”
Another frightened groan answered him, and she cast a nervous glance around her. “Where am I? What happened?”
Hunter arched an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”
Her brow puckered, and her eyes reflected anxiety, confusion. “Something’s wrong. I can’t...”
He frowned. How hard had she hit her head? Was she a meth user? Mentally unstable? He studied her face, but her smooth, unblemished skin and her white teeth didn’t show any telltale signs of drug use. She was, in fact, strikingly beautiful, with a youthful oval face, thick golden-blond hair, clear blue eyes and lush red lips.
“Try to calm down. Take slow, deep breaths. No one is trying to hurt you.” When the emergency operator came on the line, Hunter quickly gave the man the bullet points of the situation. Location. One-car accident. Woman in labor. Bleeding forehead. Possible delusions.
When he’d been assured an ambulance and police were on the way, Hunter switched the call to speaker setting and put his phone on the ground by the car, leaving the line connected as instructed.
“Ma’am, I’m going to try to open the door so I can help you.” Crawling onto his knees, he pulled at the crushed door. Though it gave a little, the bent frame was jammed. Hunter rose to his feet for better leverage and tried again. The shoulder he’d landed on when he dived into the ditch throbbed, and he paused long enough to roll his arms and loosen the muscles.
“Ow!” The fear behind the woman’s cry spurred him to act faster, put everything behind getting the door open.
“Hang on, ma’am. I’m coming.” Propping a foot against the dented frame, Hunter pulled on the door with all his strength. Sweat streamed down his already damp back and brow, but with a creak of straining metal, the door finally gave way. Getting on his belly again, Hunter crawled inside the flipped car and
sidled up to the injured woman. “Okay, ma’am. Help is on the way, and I’m going to do what I can until they get here.”
Instead of the relief or gratitude he expected, the woman’s expression reflected terror as he drew closer. “No! Don’t hurt me!”
That again? Hunter huffed. She was the one who’d almost killed him with her erratic driving! He took a deep breath and touched her arm lightly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help.”
“But someone was... I think, someone was coming after me. I feel... I can’t remember...” She seemed so distraught that Hunter paused.
“Who’s coming after you? Why were you in such a hurry?” An abusive husband maybe?
She swallowed hard, and her brow furrowed. “I...I don’t know.” She tipped her head and gave him a funny look. “Wh-who are you?”
“My name’s Hunter. I saw you crash, and I’m here to help you. Do you remember anything about the accident or why you were driving so fast?”
“I...” She closed her eyes, wincing, then gave him a frightened look. “I had a contraction...and then I was upside down, and my water had broken and...you looked in the window...and—” She cried out in pain, drawing her shoulders in and cradling her belly again.
Hunter took her hand in his and patted her wrist. “You’re okay. Take a deep breath and blow it out through your mouth.”
He racked his brain for what he could remember about childbirth from when his nieces had been born. Darby Kent, the mother of one of his nieces, had been one of his closest friends since college, and he’d stood by her through her pregnancy, practicing breathing techniques with her and coaching her on the way to the hospital for her delivery. Though the specifics of the labor breathing weren’t coming back to him at the moment, he knew hyperventilating was not good. Which was what the woman was currently doing.
“Hey, look at me.” He moved a hand to her cheek and angled her face toward him. Her wide, fearful eyes latched on to his. Their piercing blue hue and vulnerability socked Hunter in the solar plexus, grabbed him and held on tight. “I’m not going to leave you. We’re going to get you through this. I know you’re scared, but you need to calm down. Take slower, deeper breaths or you’re going to pass out.”
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