by Rachel Grant
“Sit, Papa, and you will hold your daughter.”
He settled on the stool again, reaching for the small bundle, careful to support her head. “Hi, beautiful.” He brought her close, breathing her in, touching his cheek to her forehead. “You’re so warm and soft.” He eased her back for another good look, already in love. “I’m your dad.”
“Let me see, darling. Let me see.”
He angled the baby for Mina’s view.
“Oh, she’s perfect.” She struggled to move her hand secured beneath the restraint. “May I be undone?”
The nurse released her wrist from the tie.
“Thank you. I must touch you. I’ve longed to touch you, little one.” Mina stroked the baby’s forehead.
“Lyla, right? We’re sure her name is Lyla?”
“Yes.” Mina nuzzled the baby’s cheek with her own. “Our little Lyla Katarina.” Mina awkwardly tugged at the tightly wrapped blanket. “Her feet. I must know her fate, Jonathan. Who will she be?”
He helped Mina unwrap the white cotton, exposing tiny pink legs and feet.
Mina laughed. “She has my arch.” Mina kissed miniature soles. “Russia’s princess. You, my love, will be Russia’s next great prima ballerina.”
“Just like your mama.” Jonathan caressed his new daughter’s knuckles as Lyla’s hand wrapped around his finger, unable to get enough of the perfect little girl. “I think she’ll have your hair color. She definitely has your nose.”
“She has your chin.” Mina stroked Lyla’s head, stomach, and arms as the baby started to fuss again. “You are dear to my heart already, my girl. So dear.” Mina kissed Lyla’s palm and dropped her trembling hand back to the table as she rested her head against the small cushion.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m overwhelmed with happiness.” She smiled and closed her eyes. “Wrap our sweet Lyla back up, will you? We don’t want her getting cold. We want her healthy and lovely when she makes her debut to the world in the morning.”
Newspapers, reporters, and Mina’s millions of adoring fans were the last thing on his mind as he struggled to swaddle his daughter while the baby blinked up at him. “I think I’ve got it.” He grinned as he tucked the lip of the blanket in place. “I’ll need more practice but—”
“Mina, open your eyes.” The nurse gave a rough rub to Mina’s pale cheeks as alarms began to beep behind the curtain. “Mina.” The nurse gave her another aggressive scrub.
“You must go out now, Diplomat Avery.” One of the nurses took Lyla from Jonathan’s arms while another helped him from the stool, quickly ushering him toward the doors of the operating suite.
“Stop.” He pulled away, fighting to turn around. “Wait.”
“Out. Please, Sir.” She gave him a small shove.
“What’s going on?” he demanded in English and shook his head, remembering that few of the staff members here were fluent in his native tongue. “What’s happening?” he tried again in Russian.
“Mina’s losing too much blood.”
He swallowed a wave of terror. “She’s going to be okay? She’ll be all right?”
“We will work hard to restore her health.” The nurse turned away, and the door to the operating room closed, echoing behind her.
Jonathan glanced around in the silence of the long, dim corridor and sank into one of the plastic chairs in the corner. Clenching his jaw, he bobbed his legs up and down. Mina was so delicate. Her body was strong, but her labor had been so hard. He closed his eyes as he rested his head against the wall, consumed by a sickening dread. They should have gone to The States for the delivery like he’d wanted. The technology was top-notch—some of the best—but Mina had insisted their baby be born here in her country, where the times were still far behind the advances in the West. He should have put his foot down and demanded that they think of both hers and the baby’s health and safety, but it was a rare day when he could deny his beloved wife anything she asked.
His eyes flew open and he rushed to his feet when two more doctors ran down the hall and pushed through the doors to the operating room. He blew out a long, shaky breath with a renewed sense of trepidation and paced back and forth while his mind raced. What was taking so long? Why was there no news about Mina? Surely they’d given her blood to counteract the loss and had her ready for the recovery room.
“Diplomat Avery.”
He whirled and closed the distance between himself and Doctor Nabatov with several huge steps, as the obstetrician rolled Lyla out in a portable bassinet. “How is she?”
“Your girl is perfectly fine—very healthy.”
“How’s Mina doing?”
“I’m afraid Mina lost a lot of blood.”
“So give her a transfusion.”
He took Jonathan by the arm, guiding him over to the row of chairs Jonathan had abandoned. “Sit, please.”
The grim apology in the physician’s eyes made him hesitate. “I don’t want to sit.”
“Sit, please.”
He did as he was told. “Doctor—”
“Mina has died, Diplomat Avery.”
His head went light and he closed his eyes, afraid he might pass out. This couldn’t be happening. Only moments ago Mina had been smiling at him and their baby. “How can—Mina died?”
“I’m sorry to share this news, Diplomat. This is a huge loss not only for you, but for Russia and me as well. Our—”
“No.” He shook his head, ready to stand, but sat where he was, certain his legs wouldn’t hold him. “How did this happen? How could this happen to Mina?”
“This birth had many complications.”
“Mina is healthy. She’s strong. She’s so strong.” His voice broke as he tried to comprehend that Mina was none of those things any longer.
“Words cannot express my regret.” He stood and picked up Lyla, handing her over to Jonathan. “Hold her. Take comfort in your child.”
Jonathan settled the baby in the crook of his elbow, cradling her close as tears raced down his cheeks while Doctor Nabatov spoke to him in medical jargon he barely grasped. He struggled to pay attention to the physician’s droning words while he stared in shock at his beautiful, motherless daughter.
• • •
Want to read more? You can find links to purchase Finding Lyla here.
International bestselling author Cate Beauman is known for her full-length, action-packed romantic suspense series, The Bodyguards of L.A. County. Her novels have been nominated for the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, National Indie Excellence Award, Golden Quill Award, Writers Touch Award, and have been named Readers Favorite Five Star books.
Cate makes her home in North Carolina with her husband, two boys, and their St. Bernards, Bear and Jack. Currently Cate is working on Deceiving Bella, the eleventh novel in her popular bodyguards series.
For information on Cate’s new releases, monthly giveaways, and upcoming events, sign up for her newsletter. Cate can be reached at www.catebeauman.com and www.facebook.com/catebeauman. You can follow Cate on Twitter @CateBeauman.
Read on for a sneak peek at Rachel Grant’s paranormal romance novella Midnight Sun
A woman on the edge…
Museum collections specialist Sienna Aubrey is desperate. A prehistoric Iñupiat mask in her client’s collection is haunted, and it wants her to return it to Alaska…now. Tormented to her breaking point, she steals it. But when she arrives in the remote Alaskan village, the tribal representative refuses to take the troublesome mask off her hands. Even worse, the manipulative artifact pulls the infuriating man into her dream, during which she indulges in her most secret fantasies with him.
A man in search of the truth…
Assistant US Attorney Rhys Vaughan came to the Arctic Circle to prove someone tried to murder his cousin. When Sienna shows up at his cousin’s office with the local tribe’s most sacred artifact, she becomes his prime suspect. Then the mask delivers him into Sienna’s hot, fantasy-laden dream, and his desire to investiga
te her takes an entirely different turn.
An artifact seeking justice…
But the mask has an agenda, and it’s not to play matchmaker. If Sienna doesn’t do what the artifact wants, she may pay the ultimate price, and only Rhys can save her.
Chapter One
“This is the most insane thing I’ve ever done,” Sienna Aubrey muttered as she stared at the cold metal door. She balanced the heavy cedar box containing the stolen artifact on her hip, held her breath, and reached for the knob, silently asking the universe to make this one task easy.
As if anything about this reckless errand could be easy. Her flight had been late and her checked bag lost before she’d reached her layover in Anchorage. The rental car got a flat two miles from the airport, and the lug nuts had been machine tightened, making it nearly impossible to change the tire herself.
Now here she was, arriving at the tribal headquarters office long after close of business, and wonder of wonders, the knob turned. The door was unlocked. At last. Something had gone her way. It was crazy to hope the tribal cultural resources manager would still be in the office, but since she’d gone off the deep end and stolen the artifact from her client and flown to Alaska to return it to the tribe, hope was just one more slice of crazy on her overloaded plate.
The freight-elevator-size lobby was fitting for a small tribal headquarters in a tiny town in a massive state. She again wished this tribe were part of a larger corporation with offices in Anchorage or Juneau, but no such luck. This offshoot of the Iñupiat was hardly convenient. The Itqaklut Tribal Corporation, located on the remote north end of the Bering Straits, was as far off the beaten path as Sienna had ever traveled.
The lobby might be small, but it still had a directory, posted right next to a photo of the chief executive of the tribal corporation. Fourth on the list was the man she wanted to see: Tribal Cultural Resources Manager Chuck Vaughan, Suite 204. She climbed the narrow switchback staircase, her steps echoing in the silent building.
It was hard to imagine anyone was here. Why was the door unlocked? Maybe in Nowhere, Alaska, locks were unnecessary?
Halfway up the stairs, the cedar box seemed to… lighten. As if it could float from her hands. No. Not float away from her. It was pulling her, as it had been doing for the last two months, but this time the feeling didn’t have a malicious bent. The mask was happy.
I will make an appointment with a therapist as soon as I get back home to Washington. No excuses.
It would be easier if she truly thought she’d lost her grip on reality, but she didn’t. If she didn’t believe the mask had been communicating with her, she wouldn’t be here.
There were really only two options: either she was crazy, or the mask was possessed. Maybe haunted was the right word. All she knew was that if she stopped having nightmares, premonitions, and strange sensations after she handed off the artifact to Chuck Vaughan, then she, Sienna Aubrey, wasn’t crazy. Of course, proving her sanity meant she was a criminal who’d just tanked her career, but it was a small price to pay for a clean bill of mental health. Right?
A light shone behind the opaque glass door of suite 204. Thank God. She balanced the box on her hip again and turned the knob. The door slid open on silent hinges. No one sat at the front desk—not surprising given the lateness of the hour, but still disappointing.
“Hello?” she called out as she entered the vestibule.
No answer, but the suite lights were on, so she ventured down the short hall with doors on either side. Name plates marked each office, and she spotted Chuck Vaughan’s on the door at the end of the corridor—the corner office, as befitted the head of the department. The door was ajar, and a sliver of light spilled out.
“Mr. Vaughan?”
A thump sounded in the office, then the door opened wider, and a man peered out. “Yes?”
“Thank goodness you’re still here. I’m Sienna Aubrey. I emailed you last week?”
Confusion flashed on the man’s face, but he opened the door wider and waved his arm toward the opening, inviting her to enter. She stepped inside, ignoring the urge to shove the box into his hands as she passed him in the doorway.
She dropped into the visitor’s chair, holding the large box—which had barely fit in the overhead compartment on the plane—on her knees. He took the seat on the opposite side of the desk, saying nothing.
It was disconcerting, this silence, this utter lack of warmth as the man studied her with Paul Newman–blue eyes. Vaughan was a tribal member, but his light hair, vivid eyes, and the arch of his cheekbones reflected his Euro-American rather than Iñupiat ancestors.
He raised a brow in silent question. A man of few words.
She cleared her dry throat. “As I mentioned in my email, this mask,”—she tapped the box on her lap—“belongs to the Itqaklut tribe—bal corporation.” She stumbled, reminding herself that in Alaska, the legal entity was a corporation, not a tribe. “As a NAGPRA specialist, it’s my job to return it.” Forget the fact that she was skipping every protocol required by her profession, that Alaska Native Corporations no longer had standing under NAGPRA, and that she could never explain how she’d determined the mask belonged to this specific Bering Coast corporation. It was enough that the artwork was specific to the region. That, and the shaman who wore the mask hundreds of years ago had invaded her dreams and demanded she return it to the Itqaklut village. Repeatedly.
Sometimes the mask was even nice to her when it pummeled her with demands.
“NAGPRA?” the tribal cultural resources manager asked.
She furrowed her brow. What CRM officer didn’t know NAGPRA? He was the equivalent of a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer in the lower forty-eight. “The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act—one of the primary US laws that drives your work and funds your office and my contracts?”
“Oh. NAGPRA. I thought you said NPR.”
Her jaw dropped. She didn’t believe him for a moment. Was he messing with her? She glanced at the dark streaks on her hands—from changing the tire—and wondered if she had similar streaks on her cheeks. She probably should have checked her appearance in the mirror before entering the building. Maybe she looked like a lunatic. Which, of course, she might be. But she really didn’t think so.
Good lord, she hoped she wasn’t crazy.
“No. Not National Public Radio.” She frowned. It was time to start over. “Did you receive my email?”
“Last week was rough. Refresh my memory?”
“My client is a small museum in Washington State, near Tacoma. I’m auditing their collection to identify artifacts subject to repatriation through NAGPRA and came across this mask.” She set the cedar box on the floor and unhooked the latch, then lifted out the heavy carved wooden Iñupiat mask. An orca motif, it represented both human and orca spirit, and had been painted with earth pigments including ochre and burnt sienna. She’d wondered more than once if her name had something to do with her strange connection to the artifact.
“There was some confusion as to its provenance,” she continued, “but my research indicates it belongs to your tribe. I mean, corporation. Er, village.” She shook her head to brush off the verbal stumble, thankful, at least, that her voice wasn’t shaking. No way could she let Chuck Vaughan see her nervousness. “As such, it’s my duty to return it.”
She set the mask on the man’s clear desktop, more than eager to let it go. Her fingers tingled every time she touched it. Not an unpleasant sensation, but still, unsettling. The cedar box was the only vessel she’d found that blocked the feeling.
From inside the box, she plucked the handwritten delivery receipt she’d drawn up during the flight and set it on the desk before the cultural resources manager. “If you’ll just sign here that you’ve received the mask, I’ll be on my way.”
He leaned back in his chair, a slow smile spreading across his face. For the first time, his eyes showed a hint of life, no longer an icy blue. It occurred to her that he was rather ho
t, something she hadn’t noticed in her flustered, eager-to-unload-the-artifact state.
“No,” he said.
The force of her heartbeat increased as her body flushed with adrenaline. He had to take the artifact. She’d risked her career for this, not to mention her sanity. If he didn’t take it, how would she get the nightmares to stop? She couldn’t go on like this. She doubted she’d last another day. “No?”
“No.”
The man conserved words like they were a finite resource. She found the trait irritating. “Why not?” Admittedly, the receipt was a cheap ploy to defend herself from prosecution should the museum claim she stole the artifact—which she had—and tried to sell it—which she would never, ever do. The cultural resource manager’s signature would at least show she’d returned the artifact to its rightful owner, and that no money had changed hands.
“You can’t just walk in here, drop off a priceless artifact, ask me to sign a release for it, and leave.”
Priceless? Since when did tribal cultural resource managers think in terms of worth when it came to artifacts? Usually they assiduously avoided all references to monetary value when it came to artifacts of cultural heritage—especially artifacts subject to NAGPRA. And this mask almost certainly had been grave goods. Odds were, it had been buried with a powerful tribal leader—a shaman, who, Sienna believed, still inhabited the annoying relic. “Are you…” She wanted to say kidding me? but stopped herself and instead said, “Mr. Vaughan?” managing to erase all snark from her tone.
“Yes.”
The single word sat alone in the air as she waited for him to offer some sort of explanation for his refusal. What Tribal Historic Preservation Officer—or rather, THPO equivalent—didn’t want to receive an obviously old and dear piece of his tribe’s cultural history?
But, true to form, the man said nothing. He merely stared at her, waiting for her to hang herself. She had a feeling he visualized handing her the rope. Which made her wonder if he knew exactly what she’d risked in bringing the mask home, and why he refused to help her.
