by Leslie North
Anxious didn’t begin to cover how Serena felt while she waited for Noah to return. Up until now, she’d felt pretty competent as a mother, but then things had gone pretty well. Now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere and her baby was sick. Oh God, she was an awful mother. Gracie depended on her for everything and she’d let her down.
“Hey, hey,” Noah said, when he walked back in with the owner. He took one look at Serena’s tearstained face and pulled her into his arms, holding her while the owner lady examined poor Gracie. She had a thermometer and took the baby’s temperature, then her pulse too before turning to Serena and Noah.
“Her fever isn’t bad. One hundred and one,” the woman said, “but all fevers are troubling in infants. Has she vomited?”
“No,” Serena said, swiping her hand over her damp cheeks. “And her bowel movements have been normal.”
“She’s eating okay?”
“Yes.”
The woman nodded. “I wouldn’t worry too much, then. Just keep an eye on her for the next day or so and monitor her temperature, checking it every few hours.”
Relief swept over her swift and sure. Serena hugged the woman before she turned to Noah. “What about our travel plans?”
Noah shook his head. “Forget them. We’ll stay put until Gracie feels better.”
“Are you sure?” She gave him a cautious look, choosing her words carefully. “We don’t want to mess up our itinerary.”
“It’s fine. Trust me.” He transferred his attention to the owner. “Can we extend our reservation for another night?”
“Of course.” The woman smiled. “I think that’s the best decision. Best to wait this out.”
“Agreed.” He excused himself to go with the owner to take care of the paperwork and payment, leaving Serena alone with Gracie.
She took extra time with the bath, taking extra care to cuddle and coo to her daughter at every opportunity, despite Gracie’s fussiness. Once they were both clean, she wrapped her up in a warm, soft towel before dressing her, then rocking her slowly in the room’s rocking chair while breastfeeding her. Gracie still seemed to be a bit lethargic, but a little better than earlier at least. By the time Noah returned, she was just finishing burping Gracie and was ready to put her down for another nap. She’d check her temperature again after she woke up.
Noah put the new paperwork on the dresser and rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Serena. She frowned over at him. “What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing.” He raised one shoulder, looking sheepish. “I’m just feeling a bit restless and useless at the moment, I guess. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go take a walk. Burn off some excess energy and stress. Walk the perimeter. Check out the security. I’ve taken care of everything for tonight.”
“Sounds fine. And thank you,” Serena said, bending down to kiss Gracie’s tiny head before straightening. She knew that useless, restless feeling herself, but one of them had to keep it together here. Besides, she knew that in his own way Noah was doing what he thought was best. He was keeping them safe. “I’ll stay here and see if I can find a book to read or something until you get back. Be careful.”
“You too,” he said, stopping halfway out the door, then turning back to her. “See you soon.”
11
Noah felt a bit calmer after his hour-long walk. He’d triple-checked the perimeters of the property, monitored all the entrances and exits to the place, and memorized the best escape routes, should they be needed. There were still dangers lurking, yes. After all, the guy they’d taken down the previous day was still out there, along with all the other mercenaries who’d decided to try for the outrageous bounty put out for Serena.
Then there was the fact they were now at least two days behind schedule. The guys at SSoF would be wondering where the hell he and Serena were when they didn’t show up at the rendezvous point on time in Frederickston. It couldn’t be helped, though, not with poor little Gracie sick.
The center of his torso felt hollowed out when he thought of his baby daughter ill upstairs. He didn’t like it. Nope. It was weird and scary to care so much about her so soon, right?
With a sigh, he slumped down on a bench in the butterfly garden and pulled out his phone to call the guys back home and fill them in on the latest developments.
Levon picked up on the second ring. “Southern Soldiers of Fortune Security. Got trouble? We can help.”
“Well, you can start by ditching that cheesy-ass tag line,” Noah said with a snort.
“Dude!” Levon laughed. “Where the hell have you been? Clint’s been pacing a hole in the floor here waiting for you to check in.”
Noah winced. “Yeah, sorry about that. There’s been some issues to deal with.”
He relayed what had happened with the safe house and their move to the bed and breakfast in Torina, plus the bounty hunter the previous day and Gracie’s illness. “So yeah, we’re running late. I need you to contact our next stopping point and adjust the reservations, if you can.”
“No problem,” Levon said. “Hang on, here’s Clint.”
“What the fuck, Wild?” Clint said, his tone terse. “You were supposed to check in first thing this morning.”
“I know. Sorry. Things came up that I had to deal with and the whole day went down from there.” Noah scrubbed a hand over his face. Clint wasn’t the leader of SSoF, but both Levon and Noah kind of looked up to the guy. He was a few years older and seemed a hell of a lot wiser sometimes, and Noah appreciated his wisdom and experience. Or at least he usually did. Right now the situation was just kind of pissing him off, considering he was doing his best here when, honestly, he felt totally incompetent most of the time where Gracie was concerned. He went over the same information he’d just given Levon, then waited while Clint put him on speaker phone. “So yeah. If you guys could handle getting things fixed in Frederickston for me, that would be a huge help.”
The sound of Clint’s long-suffering breath echoed through the line, ratcheting Noah’s annoyance higher. Maybe he was being a pain in their ass at the moment. Not everyone could be Mr. Perfect like Clint. Finally, Clint said, “Yep. I’ll take care of it. Stay safe, Wild.”
“Always.” Gratitude mixed with a bit of guilt inside him. No matter what other crap they might be dealing with, he could depend on the guys at SSoF no matter what. Still, he couldn’t resist giving Clint a tiny bit of shit anyway. “And get a better tagline, man. That one Levon used is lame.”
“Bite me,” Clint yelled in the background followed by the sound of a closing door.
“Hey, stay safe, buddy,” Levon said before ending the call. “We’ll text you the new details once everything’s finalized. Take care of yourself and your new family. Can’t wait to meet them when all this is over.”
“Thanks, dude,” Noah said, swallowing hard against the sudden lump clogging his throat. But he couldn’t go there now, not with so much on the line. He needed to get Serena and the baby safe first before he dealt with any emotional fallout. “Talk to you soon.”
Noah ended the call, then headed back up to the room to check in on Gracie. When he walked in, he found Serena and the owner leaning over the baby who was asleep on the bed, their voices hushed and their expressions concerned. His pulse tripped with worry. From what he could see, the baby was sleeping and her little face had a slight greyish tinge to it. He was no expert on kids by any means, but that didn’t seem good. The knots in his gut tightened.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, hovering on the threshold for fearing of doing something to make things worse.
“The baby needs a humidifier,” the owner said, glancing back at Noah over her shoulder. “To ease her breathing.”
Well, shit. It was one thing to run down to the drug store when you were in a big city. It was another to conjure one from thin air in the middle of nowhere. “Where the hell do we get one of those?”
“My husband can take you into town,” the owner said. “I’ve already called the ph
armacy and they have one on hold for us.”
Relief swept over him in a rush. At least one problem seemed to be manageable today. Except, once he’d endured an hour-long ride over bumpy terrain in a pick-up that seemed to lack anything resembling shock absorbers, he was starting to think he might need to get more than just the humidifier at the pharmacy—he wanted to buy some antacids for himself.
The owner’s husband waited in the truck while Noah went inside the small pharmacy to pick up the humidifier. While he waited in line to pay, several other customers were close by chatting in quiet Spanish. Instincts on high alert, he discreetly tuned in to their conversation as he stood there, thinking maybe he could pick up intel on what was happening in the area and maybe news of any bounty hunters in the town.
Unfortunately, all he heard were their concerns about the gang problem affecting the small village and how the level of violence locally had spilled over from the bigger conflicts in Frederickston. Gangs weren’t unusual in South America, especially with the cartels, so he wasn’t that alarmed and had no reason to the think the activity was in any way connected to him or Serena. But then the two women went on to mention that one of the local gangs was looking for an escaped American woman with a baby and his blood froze in an instant.
“Buenos días,” an older pharmacist with grey hair and leathery skin said to Noah from behind the counter. His white lab jacket contrasted sharply with his deeply tanned face as he asked Noah how he could help him.
Noah blinked at the guy a moment, his mind racing. Behind him, the two women continued going on about how the village didn’t want to get involved in any of that, but their clear disinterest didn’t do much to decrease his sense of foreboding. Staying in the village made Serena and Gracie’s safety tenuous at best. He hadn’t failed to notice that he was pretty much the only white guy in town at the moment, which meant he stood out. In fact, one of the two women behind him caught Noah’s eye now and then turned away fast to whisper to her friend something Noah didn’t catch.
Shit. Just shit.
He hurried up and got the humidifier, then hustled out of the pharmacy and back to the truck. He didn’t want to endanger these villagers any more than he wanted to risk Serena and Gracie’s lives. As they bumped their way back to the bed and breakfast, all Noah knew for certain was that they needed to move again, as soon as the baby was well enough. That was the only way any of them were going to stay safe.
12
Two and a half hours after he’d left, Noah walked back into their room to find Serena in the rocking chair, holding Gracie and humming to her as the baby slept. Serena looked as on edge and stressed out as he felt, her hair tangled and shadows beneath her lovely eyes.
He walked over and set up the humidifier on the dresser, then filled it with water and pulled it in close to the chair, the quiet stream of vapor oddly comforting in the silent room. Then he moved to stand next to the rocking chair to peer down at Gracie. A bit of color had returned to her tiny cheeks, though she was still paler than he liked.
“How’s she doing?” he whispered to Serena.
“About the same,” she said, turning worried eyes up to him. “I’ve been holding her since you left since she cries whenever I put her down. But my arms are aching and I’ve got a crick in my neck. Can you take her for a little bit?”
“Oh. Uh…” Noah’s eyes widened.
“Please?” Serena said, standing up carefully so as not to jostling the sleeping infant. “I just need a minute to myself. Here.”
Before Noah could protest, she thrust Gracie at him. It was either grab her or drop her and he sure as hell never wanted to do the latter. In fact, he’d started having nightmares about accidentally dropping the kid on the floor or somehow otherwise injuring her. He’d told himself that was probably normal father stuff, right? Now he wasn’t so sure.
Still, he had little choice but to cradle his baby daughter in his arm while Serena headed for the bathroom. “I need a long soak in the tub to ease my muscle aches. If she starts crying again, try singing to her. She likes that. I’ll be out in a bit, if you need me.” She stopped and looked back at him. “And thanks for picking up the humidifier.”
Noah stood there blinking at the closed door for a moment before gazing down at Gracie. She was scowling in her sleep, her little face wrinkled and red, like she was mad at the world. Or at him, for dragging them through the stupid jungle. Man, this was all his fault.
Shoulders slumped, he sank down into the rocking chair just as the baby stirred, fussing and squirming, though not a full-blown cry yet, thank goodness. He rocked more vigorously, hoping to head off a complete meltdown. He’d gotten her to stop crying before, he could do it again, couldn’t he?
Singing. Serena had said Gracie liked people singing to her. Except the only songs he knew were from heavy metal bands and not really appropriate for infants. Great.
Think, dude.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember a tune from Sesame Street, anything that might make his daughter feel better since her fussing was edging closer to a rip-roaring cry now and there was no indication that Serena would emerge from the bathroom anytime soon. So yep. This was on him.
In the end, he went with one he knew by heart. Not a kid’s song, per se, but it had child in the name anyway. “Hey, baby girl,” he said, bouncing Gracie slightly to get her attention. “You want daddy to sing you a song? I’m not very good, but I’ll give it a go. Yeah? Would you like that, huh?”
Gracie stopped squirming and stared up at him with what Noah could only describe as adoring wonder. His heart swelled to near bursting and he suddenly didn’t care if he sounded off-key and foolish. For more of that look from his daughter, he’d turn cartwheels on his head while whistling Dixie.
“She’s got a smile that it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories…” He serenaded his daughter with one of his all-time favorite Guns and Roses songs, grinning when Gracie actually did smile up at him. By the time he got through the second verse and a repeat of the chorus, they were both smiling from ear to ear and he felt like he could move mountains. He was so into it, that he didn’t even notice when Serena came out of the bathroom and stood there listening to him.
When he was done, Serena came over and took the baby from him to check her temperature again. Finally, it was back to normal. He’d never felt so grateful for anything in his life. Once she’d fed Gracie and burped her and put her down for another nap, Noah got into the shower himself. He was shaving in the bathroom when Serena came in.
“Seems you really do have a knack with kids,” she said, softly closing the door behind her, shutting them into their own private world. “I’m so glad she’s doing better now.”
“Me too,” Noah said, wiping off his face, then brushing his teeth, aware that he was only wearing a damp towel around his hips while Serena stood behind him in a robe the B&B had provided. He spit into the sink and set his toothbrush aside, feeling a bit more relaxed now that he was clean again. “I called the guys and told them what happened. They’re going to take care of adjusting our reservations since we’ve been delayed.”
“That’s good,” Serena said, leaning her hips back against the edge of the vanity beside him, the heat of her and the sweet scent of shampoo from her hair making him dizzy with want. He wondered if she had any idea how she affected him. As if reading his mind, she slowly traced her finger up his bare arm, making him shiver. Her words emerged as little more than a seductive purr…and based on the heat in her eyes, yeah, she knew. Thankfully, she seemed to be just as affected by him. “You have a knack with me too.”
Picking up on her flirty vibe, he shifted slightly to face her, placing one hand behind her on the vanity and the other on the wall behind her, effectively trapping her with his body. “I do, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” She reached down and flicked open the belt of her robe, giving him a full view of her gorgeous naked body. “You do.”
That was all the encouragement Noah
needed. He pulled Serena into his arms and kissed her deeply, loving the feel of her hard nipples rubbing against his bare chest. She moaned low in her throat and wrapped her arms around his waist, hooking her fingers into the back of his towel and whipping it off him, then grinding the heat between her legs against his rapidly rising cock. This time, it was him groaning with need.
He managed to tear his mouth from hers long enough to ask, “What about the baby?”
“She’s sleeping,” Serena said, stepping back slightly to let the robe fall to the floor, leaving them both skin to skin with nothing in the way. Then she returned to Noah, all but climbing him like a tree as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, opening herself up to him completely. “As long as we’re quiet, we’ll be fine.”
Noah buried his face against the side of her neck and nuzzled her soft, warm skin in a way that made her breath hitch, and grinned. “I’ll do my best, but no promises here.”
13
Serena was downstairs in the B&B’s dining room, eating some oatmeal the next morning when the news hit.
“Breaking news just in,” the announcer said on TV in Spanish. “We’ve just been informed that an arrest has been made in Buenos Aires in connection with the kidnapping of candy heiress Serena Carson.”
At first, she was so shocked to hear her name that Serena just blinked at the screen. Then she reached for the remote with one hand, to turn up the volume, while bouncing baby Gracie in the other to keep her occupied and happy.
“Wanted criminals Miguel Sanchez and Arturo Casavelle were apprehended early this morning at Ezeiza International Airport as they attempted to board a plane bound for the United States. While they were taken into custody for unrelated charges connected to a Colombian drug cartel, they agreed to make a plea bargain when they were questioned and supplied information in regards to the abduction of Ms. Carson last year.”
