Shattered Lullaby

by Rebecca York

  “I’m scared,” she whispered. “For—for the baby.” Her breath caught, and her hand went to her middle again. “This is a great way for you to find out,” she said in a barely audible voice.

  He drew back, his eyes finding her. “Luis told me about the phone call Alvarez made to Senora Stone.”

  “He did?”

  “That was how I knew about Georgie. I came to your office. I came to you as soon as I knew.”

  A wealth of emotions flickered in her eyes—hope, relief, anger. They were banished by a kind of resignation that made his throat ache. He had driven her away, and she thought he had only come back for her because of the child.

  “You are wrong,” he declared.

  “Wrong about what?” she demanded with a bleakness that tore at him.

  “About my motives.”

  “I’d understand them better if you hadn’t said that making love with me was a mistake,” she answered in a voice edged with tears.

  The accusation was like a body blow. “It was a lie. I did it—for you.”

  She took in the clipped explanation with a doubting expression. Wearily she said, “We can talk about it later.”

  “Jessie, please—”

  “Miguel, I was just in a car crash! What I want from you right now is to tell me the baby is all right!”

  He made an effort to pull himself together. He might be eaten up with guilt, but he understood her fear—a mother’s instinctual fear for her child. He was less worried about the pregnancy than she was, because he knew that a woman’s body was designed to protect her unborn child under all but the most extreme circumstances. His fingers tightened reassuringly over hers. “Chances are that everything is all right”

  “Please, I have to be sure!”

  “Okay. But first I have to see how you are.”

  “I don’t care about that!”

  “Yes, you do. Any problems you have, put the child at risk.”

  She nodded tightly.

  He got up, retrieved the medical bag from one of the boxes on the other side of the room, feeling a bubble of anxiety grow inside his chest. He had told himself there was nothing to worry about. Now he needed to make sure. Methodically checking her helped him to stay calm. First he examined her eyes, then her reflexes as he asked her questions that would pinpoint the extent of her injuries. To his relief, she seemed in remarkably good shape.

  “The baby. What about the baby?” she demanded.

  “No cramping or bleeding?” he asked, his breath catching as he waited for her answer.

  “No cramps. And I checked for bleeding while you were gone.”

  He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his chest. “Good. Lie down so I can examine you.”

  “An internal exam?” she asked in a shaky voice as if the intimacy would be unbearable.

  “No. Just your abdomen. Lie down.”

  She let out a little breath as she eased back on the bed, then looked away, her bottom lip between her teeth, as he rolled up her dress and pushed down the waist of her panties, his fingers barely touching her as he moved the clothing out of the way. Yet he was vividly aware of every brush of his fingertips against her soft flesh-and of the rounded swell of her abdomen.

  His child was there-in her body. A wave of tenderness and longing swept over him. He wanted to mold his hands to her in a possessive caress. Instead, he tried to remember that he was a physician with a job to do.

  “Relax,” he murmured. Yet he felt the unaccustomed tremor in his own hand as his palm settled over her. He hadn’t been with her in months, and the lack of her had left a cruel gap in his life. Now he was touching her with an intimacy he knew she wouldn’t have permitted under any other circumstances. She was letting him do this because she wanted his reassurance that their baby was unharmed.

  Reverently, he moved his hands over her. Somewhere on his long journey from San Marcos he had started to doubt the existence of God. As he touched Jessie’s warm flesh, he felt a resurgence of faith. With a tremendous effort, he kept himself from lowering his face to her abdomen and kissing it. For long moments he was so choked with emotion that speech was impossible.

  “Is...is everything all right?” she asked in a quivering voice, reminding him that he was supposed to be examining her—not marveling over the miracle of the new life growing inside her. A life the two of them had created together in passion—and love.

  “I think everything is fine,” he answered thickly, his palm flattened against her.

  She gave a little nod. “Thank you.”

  The baby chose that instant to kick. They felt it simultaneously, their gazes colliding. For several heartbeats, neither of them spoke, yet there was no need for verbal communication. They shared this child, and he couldn’t let her carry the burden alone. Tenderness overwhelmed him—a tenderness so achingly sharp that his vision blurred.

  Her hand came up; her fingers slid along his. He took a steadying breath, then made the declaration that had been bursting inside him since he’d learned about the child: “We must be married.”

  He hadn’t known the words would shatter the spell.

  She sat up, pushing his hand away as she yanked down her skirt. “I’m not going to marry a man just because he has some macho idea that he has to do the honorable thing.”

  “That is not the reason!”

  “It looks that way from here.”

  “I want to give the baby my name. But it is much more than that. I want both of you.”

  “I don’t think so. I kept waiting for you to call me, and you didn’t.”

  The hurt in her voice flayed his flesh to the bone.

  “Then when I came to you—” She stopped, sucked in a strangled breath and started again. “When I came to tell you I was pregnant, you sent me away. You made it very clear that you didn’t want a relationship.”

  Frustrated, he tunneled a hand through his hair. “I was lying! I had to lie.” When she wouldn’t meet his gaze, he put his hand on her chin and tipped her face toward his. “I wanted you with me. Every day, I have thought about being with you, holding you, making love with you. But I was afraid that something bad would happen to you if you stayed close to me.”

  She stared at him. “I don’t want to argue. All I want is for you to be honest with me, for once. Are you going to tell me why you’re in trouble? Are you going to tell me what’s between you and Carlos Jurado?”

  He felt as if he were standing on shifting sand. “I can’t.”

  JESSIE LOWERED HER EYES, unable to cope with the intensity of his dark gaze. He wanted to keep her safe, keep the baby safe. She believed that much. But that was only part of the equation. He had sent her away—and come running to find her only when he’d learned she was pregnant. Apparently his code of ethics demanded that he take responsibility for his child. But he still didn’t really want to be a husband.

  She wasn’t in good enough shape to cope with the wounded look on his face, so she stood on shaky legs and crossed to the only door in the room. Luckily, it led to a bathroom.

  The space was tiny, with cracked tile on the floor and a permanent stain in the bottom of the sink. But it was clean and very neat—like the apartment where she’d gone to help him. She used the toilet, then she washed her hands and splashed water on her face before inspecting her pale image in the cracked mirror. Her eyes were red, and she looked like she’d been through the Battle of Baltimore, she thought, as she pushed her hair out of her face. It needed a good combing.

  Her comb was in her purse. And the purse—

  With a moan of panic, she burst out of the bathroom. Miguel stopped in the act of pacing the room, his expression going taut.

  “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “Did something happen?”

  “My purse. It must be in the car. Georgie—”

  “You dropped it in the garage,” he said. “I—I couldn’t stop to get it. But we can call your friend, Senora Stone.”

  “Yes!”

  He no
dded in agreement. “I can call her from the corner store—let her know you’re okay.”

  “Yes, thanks.” She wrote down the number on a piece of paper he handed her.

  “There is running water here, but no electricity,” he told her, sounding as if he hated to leave her in such a place.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Do not open the door,” he warned as he folded the paper and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. “Pretend you are not here.”

  “Okay.”

  She watched him shift his weight from one foot to the other. Then he reached under the pillow and pulled out Luis’s gun. “Do you know how to use this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  She felt goose bumps sweep over her skin as she looked from him to the gun. “You think I need this?”

  “I hope not. But I think it will make us both feel better.”

  Not her, and not now, she thought as she laid the weapon beside her on the bed and pressed back against the wall.

  As she waited for Miguel to return, scenes from the past months crowded in upon her. She wanted to make sense of them, to put them all into a nice neat pattern. But it was like a box of puzzle pieces from several different sources. And they didn’t all fit together.

  She felt again the raw pain she’d known when Miguel had sent her away. Still, as soon as he’d learned about the baby, he’d come to find her. And he’d risked his life to snatch her away from Georgie, she reminded herself.

  Did he have feelings for her? Or was he simply trying to protect the mother of his child?

  She sat there, in a kind of numb haze, until the sound of a voice reached her through the door. Blinking, she realized that it was almost dark in the room—and she hadn’t even noticed. When Miguel called her name, she set down the gun with a little sigh of relief.

  He came through the door, accompanied by two men she’d seen around the recreation center. One was Bernardo Contrares who coached the ten-year-old boys’ basketball team.

  Picking up a large camp light from the floor beside the bed, Miguel turned it on and set it on the table. Then he put the gun away.

  Jessie sat up straighter, tugging at the hem of her dress, which had ridden above her knees. She could picture how she must look—with her swollen belly and her hair a mess. And sitting on Miguel’s bed.

  The men inclined their heads politely, and she pretended she wasn’t upset at being seen like this.

  “Bernardo and Ernesto are going to help us,” Miguel told her.

  “Thank you,” she managed.

  “Senora Diego,” Bernardo said, nodding at her deferentially.

  She blanched. Had Miguel told her they were married? Or was Bernardo simply being polite?

  Her eyes locked with Miguel’s for a moment, but he didn’t correct the false impression.

  Instead, he pivoted back to his companions, and the three of them began a conversation in Spanish—most of which was too low and too quick for her to follow. But she gathered several things. These men thought a lot of Miguel, they wanted to help him, and they were going to organize an extensive search for Georgie.

  Turning to her, Miguel outlined the plan. “They will find out where Georgie is hiding. Bernardo will tell us when he is safely in custody again.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She wanted to make some things very clear to Miguel, but she wasn’t reckless—or unfeeling—enough to challenge him in front of these men. So she waited, her stomach churning, while they completed their discussion.

  The moment they left, she stood, hands on her hips. “I’m not your wife!”

  “You will be. Very soon,” he informed her.

  “That’s a pretty arrogant assumption on your part. Did you tell Bernardo we were married?”

  “No. But he knows me well. He made the assumption that I would take care of my woman and my child. Which I am going to do, whether you like the idea or not,” he added with a gritty rasp.

  “Is that a promise or a threat?”

  “I have a duty to you and the baby.”

  “So it comes back to the pregnancy changing things in your mind,” she said, hearing her voice crack. “But not enough.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked, his voice barely under control.

  She raised her chin, feeling infinitely weary. “Okay, I’ll spell it out very clearly, if that will make a difference. If you want to marry me, you have to tell me why you’re in trouble. And you have to let me help you get your life back to normal. Otherwise, we don’t have much of a future, and I might as well leave right now.”

  His face twisted into a complex mixture of pain and determination. There was torment in his eyes—torment that almost undid her. Yet his words offered no comfort, no compromise. “I can’t! I know what Carlos Jurado will do to you if he finds you with me.”

  She had to look away from him. “So what kind of a marriage did you have in mind? Long-distance?” As she crossed to the door, she wondered where she would find the strength to leave him—and wondered how she was going to get home with no money and no credit cards. Yet she knew she couldn’t remain here under his conditions. With a heavy heart, she opened the door and stepped into the twilight. She hadn’t been lying—or bluffing. If he couldn’t share his problems with her, then they had nothing to talk about.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jessie was halfway out the door when she felt his hand on her shoulder.

  “Wait!”

  Turning back, she lifted questioning eyes to him—hoping against hope.

  His clipped words dashed her hopes. “I won’t let you leave until I know that it is safe!”

  She lifted her chin. “You can’t keep me here.”

  “I can if I have to, but I am hoping that you are smart enough to wait. If you want to risk your own life, that’s one thing. The baby is quite another.”

  Anger almost choked her. “Where do you get off telling me what to do for the baby?”

  “It’s my child as much as yours.”

  “Technically, maybe. But I’ve been dealing with the pregnancy on my own for months!”

  His face contorted. “I came to you as soon as I knew,” he said sharply, then added gently, “Come in. At least until we know what is happening out there.”

  He was right. She was so upset that she wasn’t thinking straight, but she couldn’t knowingly put their child in danger. Reluctantly she stepped back into the small room. It was a very small room indeed, she thought as she and Miguel eyed each other.

  “You should sit down,” he muttered.

  There was a table with one chair, and the bed. Before she could make a choice, he pulled out the chair and sat down at the table.

  Shrugging, she went back to the bed, sitting with her back against the wall again. Figuring she might as well be comfortable, she kicked off her shoes.

  After several long minutes of silence, he said, “Jessie, I am trying to do the right thing.”

  “I know,” she answered softly.

  “Then you’ll let me do what is best for you?”

  “Only if I get to participate in the decision.”

  He swore, adding a couple of choice phrases to her Spanish vocabulary. “Did anyone ever tell you you were stubborn?”

  “Yes. You did. The night I brought you home. Did anyone ever tell you you were a male chauvinist?”

  “No.”

  “Somebody should have.”

  The silence stretched again, and she found herself twisting the edge of the sheet in her fingers. There was more she could say. She could tell him she hadn’t been able to stop herself from falling in love with him. She could tell him how much she’d missed him or that she wanted their child to know and love his father. But the words were too dangerous to speak. They would only give him power over her, so she kept her lips pressed together.

  When she saw him slump in his seat, she wanted so much to go to him. She stayed where she was, feeling tired and defeated. The nervous
energy that had propelled her toward the door had evaporated. Now she was wrung out. From under lowered lashes she looked at Miguel. It was difficult to sit so close to him and still be apart. He was a good man, and she knew she was hurting him.

  More than anything she wanted to feel the security of his arms around her. And she wanted to hold him tight. But she couldn’t give in to that weakness—not on his terms. Marriage was a partnership, not a caretaker relationship. Unless he was willing to share everything with her, she knew she wouldn’t be happy. So that she didn’t have to watch him suffer, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  A low knock on the door made her jump, and she realized she must have fallen asleep. When Miguel opened the door, Bernardo stepped back inside. To Jessie’s surprise, Erin Stone was right behind him.

  “Erin? What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t just sit around the office doing nothing. I got Laura to wait there. Then I came out to look for you. Bernardo came to the recreation center to check in with the people there. I, uh, persuaded him to bring me here. Blindfolded, of course.”

  “‘Blindfolded’?”

  Erin laughed. “Well, not quite as cloak-and-dagger as that. But almost.” She looked from Bernardo to Miguel, who stepped forward stiffly.

  “Senora Stone,” he said.

  “I was worried about Jessie.”

  “She is fine.”

  “And safe from Los Tigres,” Bernardo added. “We found Georgie and gave him a ride to the police station. The cops were very glad to see him again.”

  Miguel breathed out a deep sigh. “Gracias.

  Bernardo nodded in acknowledgment. “We have put out the word that anyone who harms the senora will be dealt with by us,” he added.

  As he said “senora, ” Erin’s eyes questioned Jessie.

  She shook her head. “You’d better tell them I’m still using the name Senorita Douglas,” she said to Bernardo before turning quickly away to find her shoes.

  “I need a ride home,” she said to Erin, glad that the little room was so crowded. She was pretty sure that Miguel wasn’t going to make a fuss in front of their visitors.