“I know,” she said, laughing as he bolted down the hall and out of her apartment.
2
One year later…
Serena Carson jolted wide awake to an ear-splitting wail and the fading images of an avenging angel, stroking her like she belonged to him. Which was crazy. She didn’t belong to anyone now—well, except to her three-month-old daughter.
With a groan, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and rolled out of bed, padding barefoot over to the crib near the wall of the bedroom. “Hush now, baby girl. Momma’s here,” she crooned as she reached in to scoop up the hungry baby, then carried her to the rocking chair in the corner before hiking up her shirt so her daughter could latch on to her sore nipple.
Whenever she’d imagined having a family of her own someday, Serena had never thought it would happen like this. Not that she was complaining. She wasn’t. Whining wasn’t in her nature. Nope. She’d been raised by a strong, powerful woman to be a strong, powerful woman herself. It was the same way she intended to raise her daughter. And even though her adopted parents were dead now, Serena fully intended to carry out her duty, come hell or high water.
Or kidnapping.
Yeah, that last one still made her blood run cold. Seven months she’d been stuck in this place—first as a scared, pregnant hostage who’d feared for her life every day despite her luxurious surroundings, and now as a scared, single mother with an infant, still living in constant fear that today might be the day her life came to an end.
The baby sighed contentedly and sucked harder, making Serena bite back a wince. Gracie had Serena’s thick dark hair but had inherited her father’s eyes. She leaned back and sighed, adjusting Gracie on her chest. Figured her only one-night stand had ended with a lifetime of consequences, but there you go. Not that she regretted having her daughter. Not at all.
She just wished the circumstances were different.
In her mind, an image of her avenging angel rose once more, wearing the face of the man who’d changed her life forever. Serena started, earning a squeak from Gracie. Serena didn’t even know the guy’s last name. Only his first—Noah. The Navy SEAL. That was all she knew. Oh, and that he had the kindest blue eyes she’d ever seen. The same as the angel in her dreams. The same as their daughter.
God, her hormones must still be out of whack. She wasn’t usually so sappy.
And she knew exactly why she kept dreaming about an angel with Noah’s face. Because of his tattoo. They’d met because of their ink, at the art gallery. He’d been checking out her ass from across the room while she’d gotten the crusader artwork across her hip. In truth, maybe she’d been checking him out too, even before he’d worked up the resolve to walk over and start making conversation. She’d spotted him clear on the other side of the gallery and hadn’t been able to look away.
Hard to ignore six-feet plus of solid, sculpted muscle and pure alpha-male swagger.
Wind made the shuttered windows creak and Serena slowly turned to stare at the slatted early-morning sunshine glowing across the hardwood floors of the grand villa where she was being kept. The villa was beautiful, she had to admit.
But even if it was in the lap of luxury, being a kidnap victim sucked.
Gracie finally fell asleep, mid-suckle, and Serena carefully dislodged the baby from her breast before smoothing her nightshirt down and carrying her daughter back to the crib for a nap. While the baby slept, she showered and changed, then returned to the bedroom to start her usual morning ritual of scribbling in her journal, then staring out the window until a maid arrived with her food. Then it was another long day of knitting and playing with Gracie and hoping to hell she found a way out of this place before those two thugs who were guarding her decided to come up here and finish her off for good. She tried not to think about their death threats often because they only made her anxiety worse, but sometimes there wasn’t anything else to think about.
Those days were the worst.
Even months after the kidnapping, Serena still berated herself on a daily basis for not being more careful, for not being able to fight off her attackers, for making the idiotic decision to come to her family’s estate here in St. Dourdane on the South American coast in the first place, instead of staying at home like pretty much everyone had advised her to do once she’d found out about the pregnancy, including her OB/GYN. But no, Serena hadn’t listened to them. Had only wanted to get away, to try and get some space and time alone to regain her equilibrium after news of the impending baby had rocked her world. Little did she know that soon-to-be little Gracie’s surprise appearance in her womb would only be the start of her troubles.
She’d planned on working while she was here too, of course. The charity foundation she’d taken over after her parents’ death in a plane crash was doing great work in the poorer villages of St. Dourdane, making sure children had the education and literacy skills they needed to escape a life of poverty. She’d planned to check out their efforts first-hand, maybe do a bit of social media promotion for the cause, drum up more donations. And sure, her trip here had been rushed, without the usual security precautions, but she’d figured she’d be safe enough. She’d intended to be in and out so quickly that no one would have the chance to plan an attack, since only a few key people within her family’s candy company knew about her travel plans. Besides, she’d always loved coming here. She still had fond memories of her parents and brother spending time on the estate when they’d been kids. Swimming, hiking, playing on the beach. Postcard perfect stuff.
Then she’d been kidnapped, taken in the dead of night by the thugs, who’d tied her up and blindfolded her, threatening to kill her if she made so much as a sound. She’d gotten a brief glimpse of their faces before they’d put the blindfold on, their hard features and lethal expressions seared into her mind forever. She’d seen the same men around the villa a few times, enough to make her put off any plans for escape until she knew she was strong enough, post-delivery, that she could make it. Or until things got so desperate that staying became more impossible than risking her life and the life of her baby for a chance at freedom.
A familiar panic tightened her throat before she swallowed it down. She was fine. Gracie was fine.
For now.
On paper, getting stuck in some luxury villa for months on end sounded great. Until you realized you were in complete lockdown. No phone. No internet. No TV. No access to the outside world at all. The only reason she knew precisely how long she’d been in here was because Serena had managed to swipe her midwife’s cell phone when the woman had been here to conduct her eight-week postpartum check. Before her theft had been discovered, Serena had noticed the date and managed to send off a hasty text message to both her brother, Nate, and her best friend, Bella, in hopes maybe one of them might still be looking for her and could track her location by GPS. But she’d barely hit Send before the thugs caught her and smashed the thing into a million pieces. She wasn’t sure if the message had actually gone through or not. Given she was still stuck in her paradise prison, most likely not.
So yeah. Serena was doing her best to stay positive until she could find a way back to civilization because what else was she going to do? She was all Gracie had in the world. She needed to be strong for her baby. And sure, looking on the bright side got harder and harder each day, but the alternative was unthinkable.
She finished brushing her long dark hair, then wandered back over to check on her daughter. They had each other. It was enough. Honestly, it was more than she’d had at that age. Whoever her biological mother had been, she’d left baby Serena in a box at a fire station and never returned. Margaret and Harold Carson, wealthy chocolatiers, had adopted her at four months and the rest was history. Never once had they made Serena feel like she wasn’t their flesh and blood, and she couldn’t imagine having any other parents.
They were a family. By love, if not by blood. Even the plane crash couldn’t take that away.
Gracie stirred in her crib and Serena s
miled down, reaching a hand in for her tiny daughter to grasp. “Hey, there baby girl. Momma loves you. Yes, she does. Momma loves you so much. Momma—”
A loud crash cut off her words. Pulse tripping, Serena’s gaze darted to the door. Oh God. Were the thugs back again? She’d heard some of the staff whispering the other day when they thought she didn’t notice. She didn’t speak much Spanish, but still picked out the words matar and la heredera—“kill” and “the heiress”—so yeah. Not reassuring at all.
Her pulse raced as muffled male voices echoed up the stairs to the second floor where Serena’s room was located. That was new. Men were always there, making sure she didn’t escape, but they’d largely left her alone. On a regular basis, she only interacted with the cleaning staff. She could only think of one reason for the men to break from the usual protocol.
Whoever had abducted her must be making good on their promise at last.
She still remembered that night she’d been taken, after they’d bundled her into the back of the vehicle. She’d heard the thugs call their boss, the person in charge, and tell him that she was pregnant. At that point, it seemed that her kidnapper had grown a conscience and balked at the idea of murdering an unborn baby, so they’d left her alive—for the time being. But now that Gracie had been born, and had grown enough to be a little less dependent on her mother at all hours of the night and day, apparently their morals had worn out.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Doing her best to stay calm and think rationally, even as her adrenaline spiked, Serena gathered up Gracie in her arms and rushed over to the closet, stopping to shove her feet into a pair of flimsy sandals, the only footwear her captors allowed her to have. Not great for running, but then that was probably the point.
Outside the bedroom door, the voices grew louder and more agitated as footsteps pounded closer.
As if sensing her mother’s growing panic, Gracie started to fuss inside the blanket she was tucked in, and Serena held her closer to her chest, praying to anyone who would listen to please keep her baby safe through whatever was about to happen next.
Holding her daughter with one arm, she yanked up a loose floorboard with the other hand, fishing around inside for the small makeshift knapsack she kept there. One of the housekeepers, Rosita, had become a friend to Serena over the months and had slipped her cash and other supplies whenever she could. Serena had stashed it all away for safe keeping, in hopes that one day she might be able to use it all when she finally made a run for it.
Looked like that day had arrived.
It wasn’t much. The equivalent of a couple hundred bucks in the local currency, a few protein bars, some bottled water, diapers, baby wipes, a couple extra onesies. Enough to hopefully last until she could hitch a ride to Frederickston, St. Dourdane’s capital city, and contact the American Embassy. She had no idea exactly where in the country the villa was located, but from the distance they’d traveled when she’d been kidnapped, Serena guessed it was on the other side of the small country from her family estate—which meant it would take about a day to get to the city.
Well, no matter how long it took, she would get there. For Gracie.
Originally, she’d planned to plot out a course and go over it in her head beforehand. But if the thugs were planning to take her out today, there was no time to wait.
The sound of a fight down the hall kicked her into high gear. Serena threw the strap of the knapsack over her shoulder and hurried to the window to open the wooden blinds. Something must be happening for them to attack during the day. She squinted into the sunlight, then climbed up onto the sill. It was about thirty feet down to the ground, but fortunately the architects of the villa had designed it with lots of lots of window boxes and décor that made climbing easier. Or it would have been without a baby in her arms.
Thinking fast, Serena rushed back to the bed and yanked off one of the sheets, fashioning a homemade baby sling out of it for Gracie. After making sure it was as secure as she could get it, she went back to the window and managed to get one leg outside when the door to her room smashed open.
“Stop!” the hulking figure of a man shouted.
She couldn’t make out his face in the shadows, but she sure as hell could see his gun.
Go, go, go!
Serena got her other leg out and gripped the windowsill, glancing down as the intruder cursed.
“Dammit! You’re going to get yourself killed, lady!” It was startling to realize she was hearing an American accent. The surprise made her pause—just long enough for the man to step forward into the sunlight and grab hold of her arm. Her world tilted on its axis. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. And yet, it was.
Her throat dried and she squeaked out his name, “Noah?”
3
Noah stared at the face of a woman he never thought he’d see again, and for a moment, it was as if time slowed. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d pulled out his cell since their one-night stand, pressed the call button, only to get an automated message saying the line was out of service. Normally, he severed all ties with the women he slept with, but she’d been different.
He didn’t really want to think about why, especially now—in the middle of a rescue mission.
“Serena?” he managed to croak, the words sticking like glue in his throat. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
She continued to blink at him for several seconds, her grip white-knuckled on the stone sill. “I… I could ask you the same thing.”
“When you disappeared seven months ago I…” The dots slowly connected in his whirling brain. Shit. After their night of incredible sex, they’d parted still virtual strangers. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I can’t believe they sent a SEAL in to get me.” She adjusted the bundle looped across her body with one hand and Noah scowled. Whatever was in there was squirming and squeaking. Some floofy, ridiculous dog maybe? He knew little about her, but from the TV shows he’d seen, rich people had those kind of pets, right? Weird they’d let her keep it under these conditions, though. “At least my message got through.”
Her words jarred him out of his thoughts and back to the task at hand. Noah strode over to the window and held out his hand to help her back inside. “Yes, your message got through. But no, this isn’t a military mission. I left the SEALs a few months back after completing my last tour. I’m in private security now. The Southern Soldiers of Fortune were hired to track you down and bring you home.”
“Oh.” She hesitated a moment before allowing him to help her back inside. That thing strapped to her kept moving and fussing. Based on the oblong shape of it, it didn’t seem to be a dog. Before he could ask more about it, she clambered through the window and stood before him. “Well, I’m just grateful you’re here. When I heard the commotion outside, my first thought was they’d come to kill me at last. I’d overhead the staff whispering recently about their plans and I’ve been so worried about Gracie. I didn’t know how we were going to make it out of here on our own and…”
Serena continued talking, but Noah’s brain had checked out somewhere around the name Gracie. He stared at the sheet-wrapped bundle strapped to her chest and saw a tiny hand pop out. No. That couldn’t be a baby. But then the thing wailed and—yep. It was a kid. He watched her cradle the infant and move the sheets aside to reveal a shock of dark hair, same as Serena’s, then bright blue eyes, same as…
Wait. What the—
He blinked at Serena again, his brain flatlining as she yanked her shirt up to expose her boob and began feeding the kid. Then his logic and instincts went haywire. He was no expert on gauging the ages of babies, but this one looked small—no more than a few months old. Based on when they’d slept together, that meant…
Noah looked up at Serena’s face to find her watching him expectantly.
Shit, she’d asked him something and he had no idea what. He shook his head. “I’m sorry?”
“I asked who hired you. Was it my brother or
my best friend?”
“Oh, uh. Bella Sterns. The best friend, I guess,” he said automatically. Truthfully, he was still trying to process everything. Neither of them had been exactly sober when they’d had their one-night stand, and they hadn’t been particularly careful that night, so yeah. It was possible. He hiked his chin toward the baby. “How old is it?”
“Almost three months,” Serena said, smiling tenderly down at the baby. “And her name is Gracie.”
“A girl.” His chest squeezed unexpectedly.
He took a step back, struggling with all these weird emotions roiling inside him—fear, fascination, frustration, tenderness. As a rule, Noah didn’t do tenderness. And whatever the hell he was feeling, they needed to get a move on. It would be hard enough to get the two of them to the SSoF safe house on the other side of St. Dourdane by sunset even under the best of conditions, let alone with a baby in tow. He calculated the distance in his mind and the rough terrain ahead and knew they were pushing it big time. Fuckin’ A. “Come on. We need to go before those goons wake up.” He glanced down at her feet. “Do you have any sturdy boots?”
She gave him a flat look. “Hang on, let me check with my personal shopper and find out.”
Noah snorted despite the dangerous situation. He’d liked her confident snark from the moment they’d met. It was one of the many things he remembered fondly about their night together. “Dumb question. Sorry. We’ll make do with what we’ve got.”
He took her arm and guided her down the wide teak staircase to the first floor, past the two thugs unconscious in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Normally, he’d have taken the time to restrain them properly, but this being a one-man mission, Noah didn’t have time to deal with clean-up. His first priority was getting Serena and the baby somewhere safe and secure. Since getting the job a few months back and tracing the text message to St. Dourdane, SSoF had sent several recon teams down here to set up a safe house for Noah prior to this mission. At least that part of the puzzle was solved. Good thing too, since rampant poverty and political intrigue meant that people in this area were generally easily corruptible if enough money was on the table. Seeking shelter from the locals—even the local authorities—would just lead to trouble. Noah didn’t trust anyone but himself. “Ready?”
Protecting His Kidnapped Family: Southern Soldiers of Fortune Book Two Page 2
