Книга - Newborn Conspiracy

Newborn Conspiracy
Delores Fossen


Experience the thrill of life on the edge and set your adrenalin pumping! These gripping stories see heroic characters fight for survival and find love in the face of danger.How had he fathered a stranger’s child? Logan McGrath was shocked to find a terrified redhead on his doorstep. An alluring stranger who’d given birth to a beautiful baby…Logan’s son. Someone had arranged the illegal surrogacy, and now they wanted Mia Crandall out of the way. But Logan soon realised that the killer who hunted her wasn’t nearly as frightening as the tender feelings she stirred inside him.And if Logan wanted to get a chance at fatherhood, he’d have to protect the mother of his child – at all costs.For Their Baby’s Sake Safeguarding children is their first priority







“I’m not going to leave my son”.

“He’s not your son,” Mia snapped.

“Well I might have started off as the sperm donor, but we’re past that now.”

“I don’t want or need a man in my life. That includes you.”

“Then think of it this way. I won’t be the man in your life, Mia. I’ll be the man in Tanner’s life.” Logan paused, waiting for an objection. “You’re aware that you could be in danger.”

A burst of air left her mouth. “I’m aware of it. I’m also aware that I wouldn’t be in danger if it weren’t for you.”



CAST OF CHARACTERS

Mia Crandall – Shocked to learn that someone rigged her artificial insemination so that the father of her newborn son is dark and dangerous security specialist Logan McGrath, she has to turn to him for help when someone tries to kill her. But their immediate attraction also makes Logan a target.

Logan McGrath – When he learns he now has a son, Logan must work with Mia to protect their child and discover who’s responsible for creating their child.

Tanner – Logan and Mia’s six-week-old baby.

Genevieve Devereux – Logan’s scheming ex-girlfriend might have orchestrated the plot to get Mia pregnant with Logan’s baby.

George Devereux – Genevieve’s criminal father. He would do anything to give his daughter what she wants, and what the infertile Genevieve wants is Logan’s baby.

Royce Foreman – He’s Genevieve’s lawyer, but he also has a personal grudge against Logan. Just how far would he go to get revenge?

Donnie Bishop – The businessman might be trying to cover his illegal activity by eliminating Logan and Mia.

Collena Drake – The troubled former cop who now devotes her life to finding out what happened in the Brighton Birthing Centre where Mia was artificially inseminated.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain Delores Fossen feels as if she were genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.




Newborn Conspiracy


DELORES FOSSEN




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Anita G. Thanks so much for answering

all my research questions.




Prologue


Fall Creek, Texas

The muffled scream woke Logan McGrath.

He snapped to a sitting position in the leather recliner, turned his ear toward the sound and listened. Even through the haze of his heavy pain meds and bone-weary fatigue, he didn’t have to listen long or hard to hear the raspy moans and gasps.

Someone was in a lot of pain, perhaps dying.

And that someone was on the front porch.

Because he was a man who usually dealt with worst-case scenarios, Logan automatically considered that this might be a burglar or a killer. But since he was at his brother’s house in the tiny picturesque town of Fall Creek, which wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, he had to consider another possibility: that his brother, a doctor, had a visitor, a patient who was about to die on the porch. It made sense since there wasn’t a hospital in town.

Just to be safe, Logan grabbed his Sig-Sauer from the end table next to him and maneuvered himself out of the chair. Not easily. It took effort. Lots of it.

He cursed the intrusion, the throbbing pain and the unidentified SOB who’d put a .38 jacketed slug in his right leg four days ago—on Christmas day, no less.

Some Christmas present.

Logan wore only his bathrobe and boxers, and he considered a detour to the guest bedroom for a shirt and shoes. But after two steps, he changed his mind. If someone was truly dying on the porch, they’d be long dead before he could get dressed and back to him.

Another moan. Another muffled scream.

Yep, he had to hurry. Logan jammed his cane onto the hardwood floor to get better traction, and with thirteen excruciating steps, he made it to the door. He aimed his gun, and braced himself for whatever he was about to have to deal with as he glanced out a side window.

The sun was just starting to set, but there was still plenty of light for him to see the blue car parked in front of his brother’s isolated country house. Logan had to look down, however, to see the driver.

She was lying on the porch. Her tan wool coat and long, loose dark-green dress were hiked up to her thighs, and she had her hands clutched on her swollen, pregnant belly.

She was writhing in pain.

Logan dropped his gun onto the pine entry table, threw open the door and maneuvered himself onto the porch. It wasn’t freezing but it was close and he felt the chill slide over his bare chest and feet.

She turned her head, snared his gaze, and he saw the horrible agony in her earthy brown eyes.

“Help me,” she begged. Her warm breath mixed with the frigid December air and created a misty haze around her milky pale face. “My water broke when I got out of the car and the pains are already nonstop.”

So, not dying. In labor. Not the end of the world but still a huge concern.

She needed a doctor now.

Logan turned to go back inside to make the call to 911, but she latched on to his arm and didn’t let go. For such a weak-looking little thing, she had a powerful grip. She dug in her fingernails and dragged Logan down beside her.

He banged his leg on the doorjamb and could have sworn he saw stars. Still, he pushed the godawful pain aside—after some grimacing and grunting of his own—and he tried to figure out what the heck he should do.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She clamped her teeth over her bottom lip, but he still heard the groan. “It’s not the time for introductions,” she grumbled. She fought to rip off her panties and then threw them aside. “Help me!”

“I’ve never delivered a baby before,” he grumbled back, but Logan knew he was in the wrong position if he stood any chance of helping her.

Another of her muffled screams got him moving. Plus, she drew blood with her fingernails. Somehow, he managed to get to the other end of her.

What Logan saw when he looked between her legs had him wanting to run for the phone again. Oh, mercy. The baby’s head was already partially out and that meant they didn’t have time for an ambulance to arrive.

“I think you’re supposed to push,” Logan suggested. Heaven knows why he said that. Maybe he’d heard it on TV. Or maybe this was just some crazy dream brought on by prescription pain meds. Man, he hoped that’s all it was.

The woman obviously didn’t doubt his advice, because she pushed. Hard.

Logan positioned his hands under the baby’s head, and he watched. That long push strained the veins on the woman’s neck, and it also eased the baby out farther. He didn’t just see a head but a tiny face.

Realizing he had to do something, Logan pulled off his terry-cloth robe and laid it between her legs so that the baby wouldn’t land on the cold wood. It was barely in time. As the woman pushed again, the baby’s shoulders and back appeared.

“One more push should do it,” Logan told her.

She made a throaty, raspy sound and bore down, shoving her feet against the porch. Seconds later, the tiny baby slid right into Logan’s hands.

Wow, was his first reaction.

Followed quickly by holy frickin’ hell.

Logan had experienced a lot of crazy and amazing things in his life, but he knew this was going to go to the top of his list.

“It’s a boy,” he let her know.

And that baby boy had some strength because he began to cry at the top of his newborn lungs. Obviously, he wasn’t having any trouble breathing on his own and Logan was thankful for that. He wouldn’t have had a clue what to do if there’d been complications.

Going purely on instinct, Logan bundled the bathrobe around the baby, especially around his head, and pulled him to his chest to keep him warm.

“A boy,” she repeated. She sounded both relieved and exhausted.

The woman pushed again to expel the afterbirth and then tried to sit up. She didn’t make it on her first attempt, but she did it on her second. She reached for the baby. Logan eased him into her arms.

It was strange. He immediately felt a…loss. Probably because he was freezing and the tiny baby had been warm.

The mother looked down at her newborn and smiled. It was a moment he’d remember, all right. Her, sitting there with her fiery red hair haloing her face and shoulders, and the tiny baby snuggled and crying in Logan’s own bathrobe.

“My son,” she whispered.

And then she said something that nearly knocked the breath out of Logan.

“He’s your nephew.”

Oh, man. Oh. Man. It was obviously time for him to talk to his brother.

“I’ll go inside and call an ambulance,” he told her. He began the maneuvering it’d take to get him up. “By the way, we should probably do those introductions now. But you obviously already know that I’m Logan McGrath.”

Because he was eye level with her when he introduced himself, he saw her reaction. It was some big reaction, too. She sucked in her breath, and her mouth began to tremble.

“You can’t be,” she said, her voice trembling, too. “This is Finn McGrath’s house.”

“My brother isn’t here,” he told her. “He’s on rounds at the hospital in a nearby town.” In addition to confusing him, she’d also captured his attention with that comment and her reaction. “Who are you? Are you a friend of my brother?”

She frantically shook her head and put her index finger in the baby’s mouth. He began to suck and stopped crying. “I need a doctor.”

He wanted answers, but they would have to wait. “Come inside,” he insisted. “It’s too cold out here.”

“I don’t think I can get up. Please, just call an ambulance.”

Well, he certainly couldn’t help her get to her feet. He could barely get up himself. So, Logan tried to hurry as much as he could. With lots of pain and effort, he made it back into the living room. All thirteen steps. He dialed 911, reported the incident and requested an ambulance. He also requested that they contact his brother and have him accompany that ambulance to his house.

“Get the baby and mother inside ASAP,” the emergency operator insisted. “It’s dangerous for a newborn to be in the cold.”

Logan agreed with her, hung up, then wondered how the heck he was going to accomplish that with his bum leg. He was more likely to fall than to be able to lift them. Still, he’d have to do it somehow.

With his cane clacking on the floor and his mind racing with possible solutions to his lack of mobility, Logan went back to the porch.

He got there just in time to see that it was empty. No mother. No newborn baby.

Just a lot of blood.

And the blue car was speeding away.


Chapter One

San Antonio, Texas Six weeks later

Mia Crandall peered out the double glass doors of the Wilson Pediatric clinic to make sure there wasn’t anyone suspicious lurking in the parking lot. There were a handful of cars, no one on the adjacent sidewalk and no one who seemed to be waiting for her to come out.

Everything was okay.

Well, everything but the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach, but Mia had been living with that particular feeling for months now. She was beginning to wonder if it would ever go away.

She looked down at her newborn son, Tanner, and smiled. He was still sleeping, tucked in the warm, soft covers of the baby carrier. For his six-week-old checkup, Mia had dressed him in a new blue one-piece baby outfit and a matching knit cap. Still, it was winter, so she draped another blanket over the top of the carrier so he wouldn’t get cold. She retrieved her pepper-spray keychain from her diaper bag and hurried out into the bitter weather.

It was already past five-thirty and the temperature had plunged since she’d first gone inside nearly an hour earlier. She’d had one of the last appointments of the day. Not accidental, but by design. The winter sun was already low in the sky and Mia hoped the duskiness would prevent her from being easily seen.

The wind slammed into her face, cutting her breath, but she kept up the fast pace until she made it to her car. During the past year, she’d learned to hurry, to stay out of plain sight, to go out as little as possible. It was second nature now.

She strapped Tanner’s carrier into the rear-facing brackets mounted in the backseat and then slipped in behind the steering wheel. She started to turn on the engine, but the sound stopped her.

There was a sharp rap on the passenger’s side window.

Mia’s gaze whipped toward the sound and she saw a man staring at her. But this wasn’t just any ordinary man.

Oh, God. He’d found her.

Choking back a gasp, Mia grabbed for the lock, but it was already too late. Logan McGrath pulled open the passenger’s door and calmly got inside her car as if he had every right to do just that.

He was dressed all in black. Black pants, black pullover shirt and black leather coat. His hair was midnight black, as well, and slightly shorter than it’d been when she had seen him six weeks earlier. Maybe it was all that black attire that made his eyes stand out. They were glacier blue. Cold, hard. Demanding.

She remembered that he’d been hurt the night she had given birth to Tanner. He’d used a cane and could barely walk. But he didn’t seem at a disadvantage now. She couldn’t say the same for herself. He outsized her and no doubt had years of martial arts training. Still, she had something he didn’t.

A maternal instinct to protect her son.

Mia forced herself not to panic. She thrust her hand in the diaper bag and located her cell phone. She was about to call 911 when Logan McGrath caught her wrist and took the phone from her. He also took her keys with the pepper spray and the diaper bag, shoving all the items on the floor next to him.

When he moved, his leather coat shifted, just a little. Enough for her to get a glimpse of the shoulder holster and gun tucked beneath it. But then, he probably didn’t go many places without that firearm.

Mia lifted her chin and put some steel in her expression. There was no way she was going to let this man take control of the situation.

“Get out!” she ordered.

“Soon. I came to pick up my bathrobe. You took it with you when you left Fall Creek.”

So, he obviously knew who she was. Not that he would likely forget delivering a baby on his brother’s front porch. He was also obviously good with the sarcasm. Calm and cool under pressure.

Unlike her.

Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might leap out of her chest. Mia couldn’t let him see that fear, though. For her baby’s sake, she had to get this man out of her car. Somehow. And then she had to get far away from him so he could never find her again.

“I’ll mail you the robe,” she informed him. “Write down your address and then get out of my car.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. It didn’t soften the rock-hard expression on his square jaw or high cheekbones. But that expression did soften when he glanced back at the infant seat.

Mia’s heart dropped to her knees. God, this couldn’t be happening. She’d been so stupid to go his brother’s house that day. Now, that stupidity might cost her everything.

She couldn’t physically fight him off, though she would try if it came down to it. However, maybe she could defuse this awful situation with some lies.

“I’m grateful to you for delivering my baby,” she said, hoping that it sounded sincere. Because she was sincere about that. The rest, however, was pure fabrication. “I went to your brother’s house because I was driving through Fall Creek and realized I was in labor. I saw the MD sign on his mailbox and stopped.”

He turned in the seat, slowly, so that he was facing her and aimed those ice-blue eyes at her. “How do you think I found you, Mia Crandall?”

She froze. Gave it some thought. And her mouth went bone dry. Because she couldn’t speak, she shook her head.

Logan McGrath calmly reached over, locked the doors, retrieved her keys and started the engine. He turned on the heater and waited until the warm air blew over them before he continued.

“I had DNA tests run on the blood you left on the porch,” he explained.

Of course he had.

Logan McGrath was a man who thought like a criminal. Too bad she hadn’t wiped up after herself, but then she hadn’t exactly had the time or energy for that chore. Mia had barely been able to get Tanner and herself to the car so she could get to the hospital in San Antonio. During that entire drive she’d been terrified that McGrath would follow her. His injury had probably prevented that from that happening, it was highly likely that he hadn’t been able to drive.

“I’m sure you know that your DNA is on file because of your former job as a counselor in a state women’s shelter,” he continued. “Once I had your name, I found an address for you here in San Antonio. You’d moved, of course. So, I took a different approach to locate you.”

And Mia thought she might know what that approach was. “You hacked or bribed your way into the appointments of pediatric clinics all over the city because you knew that I’d be taking my baby in for a six weeks’ checkup.”

He nodded. “Hacked is not quite the right word. I had police assistance to help me put all the pieces together.” He lifted his hands, palms up in an exaggerated gesture. “And here we are.”

“Not for long.” Because she needed something to do, Mia clutched the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “Look, if you want money because you delivered my baby—”

“You know what I want, and it’s not money. It’s not my robe, either. I want answers.”

Mia glared at him. “No. No answers. Get out of my car and out of my life.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

He leaned closer, violating her personal space. He smelled dangerous. And very virile, which she was sorry she’d noticed.

“Let me help you with those answers,” Logan continued, his Texas drawl easy but somehow dark. “I already know a lot about you, Mia Frances Crandall. Born and raised in Dallas, you’ve had a tough life. When you were fifteen, two drug-crazed teen burglars broke into your home, murdered your parents and left you for dead.”

Mia automatically touched her fingers to her throat, to the scar that was still there. It was faint and barely visible now. Unlike the invisible wounds beneath.

Those scars would never fade.

“I don’t have time for a trip down memory lane,” she grumbled. She forced back the brutal images of that night in Dallas. “I need to get home. My baby will be waking up soon and will want to nurse.” Now, she leaned closer, hopefully violating his space. “Nurse, as in breast-feed. You might make your living doing shocking, violent things, but I’m guessing you’d be very uncomfortable watching me nurse Tanner.”

Something went through his eyes. “Violent things?” He looked genuinely insulted.

Mia wanted to curse. Now, he obviously knew that she was aware of who he was. She just kept getting deeper and deeper into this hole she was digging.

“I own a private security company,” he corrected.

Since there was no going back, Mia just charged forward. “You lend your services and your guns in war zones,” she challenged.

“Occasionally.” He lifted his shoulder. “When it’s necessary to rescue people and protect American interests abroad.”

Mia huffed. “That’s semantics. You’re an international hired gun.”

“I’m the good guy.” He hitched his thumb to his chest.

“That’s debatable.”

“Says who?” he fired right back at her.

Now, she put her thumb to her chest. “Me.”

There was slight change in his breathing pattern. It became heavier, as if he were annoyed.

“We obviously have strong opinions about each other,” he concluded. “Care to hear my opinion about you?”

“No.” And Mia didn’t even have to think about that.

“Tough. You’re going to hear it. A little less than a year ago, right around your twenty-eighth birthday, you decided that you wanted to have a baby. There was no man in your life, no immediate prospects of marriage, so you went to Brighton Birthing Center just outside San Antonio. They have a fertility clinic there, and you made arrangements to be artificially inseminated. It was successful. You got pregnant on your first try.”

He knew.

Mercy, he knew.

“How did you learn that?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“Careful investigative work over the past six weeks.”

“It’s not illegal to use artificial insemination to become pregnant. It’s a private matter. And it’s none of your business.”

Even though she knew it was his business.

Hopefully, he didn’t know that.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and waited a moment. During that moment, he looked even more annoyed. “I don’t know why you did what you did, but obviously something started to go wrong. You got suspicious of the Brighton Birthing Center. So, days before the center was closed because of illegal activity, you made an appointment with your fertility counselor, and when the counselor left the room to get you a glass of water that you requested, you took some files from the counselor’s desk drawer.”

Mia hadn’t thought it possible, but her heart beat even faster. “If I did or didn’t do that, it’s still none of your concern.”

“But it’s true. I managed to get my hands on some surveillance tapes. You took two files.”

That was correct. Unfortunately, it’d also been a mistake. Mia had intended to take only her own file that day. She’d taken the other one accidentally because it had been tucked inside hers.

She wished to God that she’d never seen that file.

“The police have already questioned me about this,” she admitted. “They agreed that I was right to have had doubts about Brighton. I gave them the files I’d taken and they let me go. End of story.”

“Not even close. What made you suspicious of Brighton?”

She almost refused to answer, but maybe he knew something about this, as well. Maybe the tables would be reversed and he could provide her with some answers.

“Someone was following me,” she explained. “Then once, someone actually tried to kidnap me. After that incident, I went to the police and they found a miniature tracking device taped on the undercarriage of my car. By then, there were rumors that Brighton was being investigated for illegal adoptions and lots of other criminal activity.”

He shrugged. “So why take the files?”

“I thought I was just taking my file. I wanted to make sure there were no…irregularities. Because by then, I’d gone through the insemination and was nearly five months pregnant. I wanted to verify that they hadn’t done anything that would ultimately harm my baby.”

That earned her a flat look.

“And you know the other file that you took was mine,” he tossed out there to her.

Because Mia didn’t think it would do any good to deny it, she nodded. “I don’t know how it got mixed in with mine.”

“Don’t you?”

Surprised with his increasingly icy accusations, she shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

“Did you read the file?” he demanded.

“I glanced at it, because I didn’t know what it was at first. I thought it was part of my records.”

He made a sound to indicate he didn’t believe her. “I’ll bet you did more than glance. But then, you already knew what was in it, didn’t you? You’re the reason that file was at Brighton.”

Stunned, Mia stared at him. She hadn’t expected him to say that. Nor did she know why he’d said it. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course, you do. Five years ago, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I’m cured now, but because my treatment could have left me sterile, I decided to stockpile some semen. It was stored in Cryogen Labs, here in San Antonio. That file you took, the one tucked inside yours, was my file from Cryogen.” He paused. “What I want to know is why you did it?”

Tired of the ambiguous questions, Mia threw out her hands. “Did what?”

He huffed as if he thought she were stonewalling him. But she wasn’t. Mia had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“He’s your nephew,” he said, enunciating each syllable. “That’s what you said right after I told you that you’d had a son. You said that because—”

“I was delirious.” Her voice was so filled with breath that it hardly had sound.

“No. You said it because you thought it was true. You thought I was my brother. Therefore, you thought my brother had a nephew. And since he’s my only sibling, there’s only one conclusion I can draw from that.”

Logan McGrath stared at the carrier seat. “Judging from what I’ve uncovered, the little boy that I delivered is my own son.”


Chapter Two

“My son,” Logan mumbled, in case Mia Crandall hadn’t heard him.

But, of course, she had heard every word. She sat there, shaking her head and looking…terrified.

That wasn’t quite the reaction he’d expected. He’d thought she would at least look a little guilty.

“Why did you do it?” he asked. And this time, he would get an answer.

“Do what?” she argued.

He groaned. He was already tired of this game. “Why did you use my semen to have yourself inseminated?”

“I didn’t.” And there wasn’t a thread of doubt in her denial. “I asked for an anonymous donor.”

Figuring that it would intimidate her, he stared into her eyes, not plain brown as he thought when he first saw her on the porch. They were rich dark amber with flecks of honey gold that were nearly the same color as her loose sweater and coat. Mem orable eyes.

As was the woman herself.

Despite what he thought about her—and his thoughts about her were pretty bad—Logan had to admit that Mia Crandall was damn attractive. It was in part the hair, he decided. He’d always been a sucker for a redhead and she had that in spades. Her hair was long and thick; it framed her ivory-pale aristocratic face.

However, it was also her mouth that caught his attention. Full and lush. Nothing aristocratic about that part of her anatomy. That mouth stirred something primitive and male deep inside him.

But he wouldn’t let that get in the way of what he had to do.

Besides, he didn’t need another redhead in his life.

“I was shocked when I saw your file, because I’d requested someone with light-colored hair.” She combed her gaze over him. His hair was incredibly dark. In fact, for some missions Logan had posed as an Italian, a Greek and even someone of Lebanese descent. No one had ever questioned that foreign pretense.

She paused and stared at him. “Mercy, do you actually believe that I arranged to make you my baby’s biological father?”

“You bet I do.”

Well, he’d believed it until a few moments ago, anyway. Now, after seeing her shocked and disgusted reaction, Logan wasn’t so sure.

He hoped like the devil that her mouth and hair weren’t responsible for this wavering of his beliefs. Just in case it was, Logan forced himself to remember that all the evidence made her look guilty as sin.

“I would never choose a man like you to father my child. Never.”

That stung, but Logan tried not to be insulted. From her point of view, he was a mercenary. That wasn’t even close to what he did for a living, but to correct her would mean explaining things he couldn’t get into. Best for Mia to believe the mercenary part rather than know the truth.

Some secrets should stay secret.

Not hers, of course. Because her secret involved him in the most personal way.

“So, you didn’t arrange to use the semen I’d stored at Cryogen Labs?” he clarified.

“No. I didn’t arrange it, and if I’d known, I would have stopped it before the insemination.”

Logan continued to push because he still wasn’t convinced she was telling the truth. “When did you find out I was the anonymous donor?”

Her gaze lifted slowly and met his. “When I saw your file. By then, it was too late. As I said, I was already five months pregnant.”

He studied her, thought about it. She seemed sincere, but that didn’t mean she was. Someone had arranged this and Mia Crandall was the most likely candidate. Maybe if he discovered her motive all the other pieces would fall into place. Which would be a good thing. Because so far, he hadn’t been able to figure out much.

“Did you think if you had my baby, that you could blackmail me in some way?” he asked.

She looked at him as if he’d grown a third eye. “Excuse me?”

“Blackmail?” Logan repeated.

“And why exactly would I want to do that? I have money. As you probably know, I was the sole heir to my parents’ estate and it was worth several million. I can live quite well for the rest of my life.”

Yes, he did know that. “Maybe you wanted even more money. Or maybe you wanted to have some psychological hold over me because you feel I’ve wronged you. Or you feel that I owe you something. Maybe you’re connected to someone involved in a past case that I worked on.”

She huffed. “You’re sounding paranoid.”

He had a reason for that. “My ex-girlfriend made me paranoid about females in general. She used to like to follow me and make my life difficult.”

Her chin came up. “Well, I’m not your ex-girlfriend. And I had no idea who you were before I saw the file that’d been tucked inside mine.”

“You’re sure?” Logan pressed.

“Dead sure. Plus, the reason I chose insemination was so I wouldn’t have any moral or personal obligations—or for that matter, any contact whatsoever—with the sperm donor. That’s all you are to me, Logan McGrath. A sperm donor. It doesn’t matter if there was some kind of mix-up at Brighton. It doesn’t matter what you think I’ve done. You have no part in my life or Tanner’s life. Now, get out of my car.”

Tanner.

For some reason, hearing the baby’s name packed a huge wallop. Logan had experienced a similar feeling when he first held the little boy in his arms. Now, that little boy had a name. Tanner. And he was sleeping in the backseat just a few feet away.

Logan couldn’t see the baby because the infant carrier seat was facing away from him. And he was reasonably sure that it wasn’t a good idea for him to see his son. Not just yet, anyway. Not until he’d straightened out a few things with the boy’s mother.

Who might be actually telling the truth.

And this time, Logan knew it didn’t have anything to do with her hair and mouth. Nope. She was making sense. Well, sort of. She was making as much sense as there could be in their situation.

“If you didn’t set all of this up, then who did?” Logan asked.

“I honestly don’t know, but it could have been anyone at Brighton. It’s been all over the news about the illegal things they were doing there. Maybe that illegal activity included using DNA contributions without first getting permission from the donor.”

Yeah. Logan had thought of that. And he’d dismissed it. “Someone forged my name on a release form at Cryogen Labs. That person also paid a hefty testing and processing fee to make sure the semen was still viable. It would have been a lot cheaper just to pay a new donor.”

Her silence let him know that she was probably thinking about that. The silence didn’t last long. From the backseat, there was a tiny sound. Like a little grunt. That grunt was followed by some movement.

And then a kittenlike cry.

Mia put her forearm over her chest. Specifically, her breasts, and pressed hard. “Tanner’s crying makes my milk let down.”

He didn’t have a clue what that meant, and his blank stare must have conveyed that.

“I have to feed him,” she snapped.

“Oh.”

Well, that left him with a dilemma. He couldn’t leave, not until they had this mess figured out. But the baby was obviously hungry. The kittenlike sounds increased in both volume and intensity.

And that wasn’t all.

With everything else going on, Logan noticed the slow-moving dark-gray car that turned into the parking lot. Any car would have garnered his attention since the attack on him six and a half weeks earlier. But with the baby, Logan’s concerns were heightened.

Really heightened.

Man. This wasn’t good. He needed to view what was going on here objectively, and he couldn’t do that if he was worried about the baby. Still, he couldn’t totally dismiss the emotions and feelings that came with unexpected fatherhood.

Mia must have noticed his mental battle because she followed his gaze to the gray car that was now one row over from them. “Do you know the person in that car?”

“I don’t think so.”

Her breathing was suddenly a little choppy. “Maybe it’s your ex-girlfriend?”

“No.” But he almost wished it was Genevieve Devereux. The alternative scenarios were much, much worse than running into a lying, scheming, psycho ex with a penchant for stalking.

Logan had been on the job for nearly seven years. And never once had the job come home with him.

Not until six and a half weeks ago.

Then, he’d been shot in the leg while doing target practice on Christmas morning in the woods near his former training facility.

But was the job responsible for that and had the job followed him here? Had someone associated with the mission sent an assassin to try to put another bullet in him? He didn’t want to believe it was possible, but he was having a hard time coming up with theories that didn’t involve his last mission.

Or Mia Crandall.

“See what you can do to soothe the baby,” Logan insisted when the cries became louder. He eased his gun from his leather shoulder holster and fastened his attention to the gray car. The windows of the vehicle were heavily tinted so he couldn’t see the driver. The license plate had been obscured with mud.

“Oh, God,” he heard Mia say.

His attention snapped to her. She was looking at the gun and, judging from her expression, she didn’t care much for it. Tough. He wasn’t putting it away.

Mia drew in a series of sharp breaths and it seemed as if she were on the verge of hyperventilating. “Phobia,” she managed to say through those sharp breaths.

Logan shook his head. “What?”

“Phobia. A huge one. About the gun.”

She wasn’t kidding, either. He could see the sweat pop out above her upper lip. She was shaking. Actually shaking. Logan had read the police report of the incident involving the death of her parents fourteen years ago. Guns had been used.

And a switchblade.

Logan rethought that part about keeping his gun drawn. He didn’t want her to craze out on him. He eased his gun back inside his coat so that it would still be ready to use but would be out of sight.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Logan pushed that emotional response aside and tried to come up with a solution to this possible problem. His first instinct was to put Mia in the backseat with the baby so he could drive away. But it was broad daylight and they were outside a pediatric clinic. An assassin wasn’t likely to make his or her move here.

He hoped.

“Something is wrong,” she insisted.

She reached for her diaper bag. Without taking his eyes off the car, Logan snagged her wrist. He didn’t know if she had another can of pepper spray stashed inside and he didn’t want to take the chance that she might use it on him.

“I’m getting a pacifier,” she informed him through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to sit here in this parking lot any longer. Not with that car inching toward us like a killer shark.”

Logan heard something in her voice. Not fear. But familiarity with fear. Then, he remembered her saying that she’d been followed and that someone had planted a tracking device on her car.

“How about an ex-boyfriend?” Logan asked. “Is there one in the picture?”

“No.” She located the pacifier, reached over the seat and apparently put it in Tanner’s mouth. It must have worked because the baby’s crying stopped. “I’m leaving now. Get out.”

“We’re leaving. I’m not getting out. This isn’t a good time for Tanner and you to be alone.”

Mia didn’t argue. She strapped on her seat belt, threw the car into gear and backed out of the parking space. She didn’t waste any time. Nor did she panic. Mia drove away from the clinic, took the first turn to the right and then made an immediate turn left on the next street. She continued the process for four more blocks, all the while checking the rear-view mirror.

“You’ve done this before,” Logan commented, staring into his side mirror. He didn’t see the gray car but that didn’t mean it wasn’t trying to follow them.

“I told you about the problems I had with exactly this sort of thing.”

Yes, she had. And it was also a matter of police record. Still, there were things that the police records didn’t tell him. “What happened when someone tried to kidnap you?”

“It was…terrifying.” And that’s all she said for several long moments. “Early one morning when I stepped outside to get my newspaper, a van pulled up in my driveway. A person wearing a ski mask and bulky clothes came rushing out of the van and tried to use a stun gun on me. I threw the paper at him. I must have hit him or her in the eye because the person stopped. That’s when I ran back inside. My neighbor saw the whole thing and yelled out for help. The person got back in the van and sped away.”

Logan didn’t want to know how scary that must have been. Pregnant and with someone out to get her. It was even more unsettling when he factored in that Mia had been carrying his child at the time. That meant the moron in the van had put his son at risk.

Logan intended to find that person soon.

“When did all of this start?” he asked. “When did you first notice someone following you?”

“About the time I was inseminated.”

Well, that was interesting. Logan didn’t think the timing was a coincidence.

But what did it mean?

“I have no ex-boyfriends. No enemies. The men who killed my parents died in a shoot-out with the cops.” She made another turn and headed for the main highway. “I thought, after I learned that you were the sperm donor, that it might be connected to you.”

He’d considered that, too, but he wanted to hear how she’d reached that conclusion. “How?”

“Maybe you riled the wrong person. Maybe he or she thinks they can use my baby to get back at you. Blackmail, of sorts.”

“Now who’s sounding paranoid?” he muttered. But he couldn’t dismiss it.

“That’s why I went to your brother’s house in Fall Creek. I read that he was doctor, that he had a normal life. Unlike you. He had an interview on a medical site and he said that you and he were estranged.”

Because that’s what Logan had told his brother, Finn, to say. It was his attempt to keep Finn out of harm’s way in case one of Logan’s missions went wrong and someone wanted to use his brother as leverage to exact revenge against Logan.

“I thought it would be safe to go to your brother and try to figure all of this out,” she concluded. “I was obviously wrong.”

“You were wrong in one way.” His brother probably couldn’t have helped. But if she hadn’t gone to Fall Creek, Logan might have never known that he had a son.

A son who needed protecting.

Of course, there was a flip side to this. His son might need protecting because Logan had helped bring the danger right to him.

Hell.

Was this all his fault?

“I had a job a little more than seven weeks ago,” he explained to her. He chose his words carefully. “A businesswoman was kidnapped in South America. Her family hired me to get her out. I did. The day after I returned to Texas, someone shot me. That’s why I was using a cane in Fall Creek. I’d gone to my brother’s house to recuperate.”

Her breath stilled, but he could see the pulse hammer on her throat.

“I don’t think my shooting is connected to you,” he continued when she didn’t say anything. And he hoped to hell that he was right. “After all, someone has been following you for months. So the questions are—who’s been doing that and why?”

Mia shook her head, plowed one hand into the side of her thick hair to push it away from her face. “I thought maybe someone from the Brighton Birthing Center was following me because they believed I had some evidence of their crimes.”

“Okay. That’s possible.”

“Then why follow me now?” she wanted to know. “The people who did illegal things at Brighton have all been arrested.”

“Maybe not. Maybe there’s a straggler.”

Her eyes widened. “What does that mean?”

“Someone who was doing illegal stuff but wasn’t caught with the rest. Someone who doesn’t want their illegal activity to come to light because it’ll land his or her butt in jail.”

She nodded. “And maybe that’s the person who forged your name on the release documents and moved your file from Cryogen Labs to Brighton.” She took the ramp that merged into Highway 281, a major thoroughfare of the city.

“Exactly.” Logan turned his ear toward the baby to make sure he wasn’t in need of a feeding. But Tanner was apparently resting comfortably.

Unlike Mia.

Logan couldn’t help but notice the dampness on the front of her sweater. Right in the vicinity of her left nipple. She apparently had sprung a leak. He hoped that wasn’t painful.

And then he questioned why he had his mind on that and not their situation.

Remedying that, Logan went to the next question on his mental list. “Did you ever see the person following you?”

“Once. I got just a glimpse. It happened right after I went to the police station to turn in the files I’d taken. The person was in the parking lot.”

Logan hadn’t read that in the police reports. “By any chance was it a dark-gray car?”

She shook her head. “Black. But the tint on the windows was heavy. When I spotted the car and realized that it was someone following me, I stopped. I figured I was safe in the parking lot of the police station so I sat there for five minutes, and then this motorcycle bumped into the black car. The driver let down the window. Just for second. And that’s when I got a glimpse of her right before she sped off.”

Logan latched right on to that. “She?”

“Oh, it was definitely a woman. Auburn hair, fair skin. Heart-shaped face.”

With just that brief description, a really bad thought went through his head. “Describe her hair.”

“It was short, no more than two inches long, and it was sort of spiky. She didn’t look like a criminal. From what I could see of her, she was well dressed. And the car was top of the line and very expensive.”

Logan silently cursed.

“What’s wrong?” Mia asked. “Do you know this woman?”

He didn’t answer. Because in this case a picture was worth a thousand words, he grabbed his BlackBerry from his pocket, entered a security code and began to search through the old files and photos. He finally found what he was looking for. Logan brought up the image on the screen and leaned it toward Mia so that she could see it.

“Is that the woman you saw in the parking lot that day?” he asked.

Her eyes widened and she pulled off the side of the road into the emergency lane. She took the PDA from his hand and studied the image. “Yes, I think it is. Do you know her?”

“Oh, yeah.” Logan knew her all too well. “That’s Genevieve Devereux, my scheming, psycho ex-girlfriend.”


Chapter Three

Mia tried to come to terms with what Logan had just told her, but it was a lot to absorb.

The woman who’d followed her and made her life a living hell was Logan’s ex-girlfriend?

Part of her was pleased that she finally had a name to associate with the frightening things that’d happened to her during the past year. But another part of her was confused and not at all certain that this woman was actually responsible.

There were things that just didn’t add up.

“Why would Genevieve Devereux follow me and try to kidnap me?” Mia asked.

Logan didn’t know the answer to that. “She’s capable of doing something like this,” he said. But then, he shook his head. “Well, maybe she is. I never pegged her for a kidnapper. But the subterfuge. Following you. The planting of a tracking device. That’s Genevieve.”

“It still doesn’t explain a motive. I don’t even know this woman. Besides, it could have been a coincidence that she was in the black car at the police parking lot on that particular day.”

“When Genevieve is around,” he mumbled, “bad things aren’t usually a coincidence.”

Tanner began to fuss again and Mia knew she had to feed him soon. But where? She didn’t like the idea of taking Logan back to her house. Besides, she was a good fifteen minutes from home and she doubted that her son would want to wait that long for dinner.

“Take this exit,” Logan instructed.

Mia gave him a questioning glance.

“Tanner’s hungry,” was Logan’s response.

Since Mia couldn’t argue with that, she did as he said and took the exit.

“Pull into the parking lot of that fast food place,” he continued. “You can feed the baby while I watch out for that gray car and make some calls. I’ll find out if Genevieve is behind this.”

Because Tanner’s cries were getting louder and more intense, Mia followed that order, too. She parked her car, unfastened her seat belt and reached for her son.

She froze.

Because she realized that Logan would see Tanner. It was stupid and it didn’t make sense, but she was afraid if Logan saw the baby, then there might be some kind of instant bonding. But then, maybe that had already taken place on the afternoon he’d delivered Tanner.

After all, Logan had been the first person to hold her son.

Mia refused to think of Tanner as their son. No. Logan McGrath was simply the sperm donor.

Keeping the blanket over Tanner, she unstrapped him from the infant carrier, scooped him up and brought him into the front seat with her. One glance at Logan and she realized he was watching her every move. Mia had a remedy for that. She shoved her modesty aside, lifted her sweater and opened the cup clasp of her nursing bra.

Her left breast spilled out.

Logan looked away and took out his phone.

Finally she’d won one of the little mental matches going on between them.

As Mia had known he would do, her son latched right on to her nipple and began to nurse. That not only meant he was being fed, but with Tanner’s face pressed to her own body, Logan couldn’t see him.

Mercy, she felt petty.

But she wasn’t going to blindly trust this man who’d charged into her life. Mia had made that mistake when she was fifteen. She’d trusted a stranger. And that trust had gotten her family killed and had left her a dysfunctional mess. She was not only claustrophobic, she had an almost paralyzing fear of guns and knives. It was entirely possible she would never fully trust again. And there was only one person she could blame for that.

Herself.

“I’d like to take you to my house,” Logan said as he pressed some numbers on his tiny phone.

“No.” And Mia left no room for argument. “If your ex-girlfriend is behind this, then your house is off-limits. For that matter, so are you.”

“I own several places.” He ignored her jab. “Genevieve doesn’t know where this house is.”

“I’m still not going there with you. After I’m done nursing Tanner, I’ll make sure no one has followed us and then I’ll drop you off somewhere so that Tanner and I can go home.”

And once there, she would lock the door, turn on the elaborate security system she’d had installed and not go out again unless it was absolutely necessary.

Logan didn’t respond to that, either. That’s because his call connected. Mia heard him request “backup and a clean vehicle,” and he gave the person the address of the fast food place where they were parked. He also ordered someone to go through the surveillance videos of the parking lot of the Wilson Pediatric Clinic, the place where Tanner had just had his checkup.

And the place where the gray car had first followed them.

Of course there’d be surveillance videos of the clinic. She wished she’d thought of that. It might give her some proof as to who this person was.

“Why did you request a car?” Mia wanted to know the moment he ended the call.

“There might be a tracking device on yours,” he calmly answered.

Mia’s reaction certainly wasn’t calm. She hadn’t even considered that. Yet, she should have, especially since it’d already happened once before.

“The clean car should be here in about ten minutes. We’ll trade out vehicles and I’ll have this one searched to see if we can find anything.”

“If there’s a tracking device—”

“I’m keeping watch,” he insisted.

And he was. Logan had one hand on the butt of his gun, and used the other hand to make a second call.

“Logan McGrath,” he greeted the person he phoned. “I need to speak to Collena Drake. No. It’s important. I’ll hold for her.”

Mia recognized the name from the newspaper articles she’d read. Collena Drake was the former San Antonio police sergeant who was now head of the task force to uncover the illegal activity that’d happened at the Brighton Birthing Center. What Mia didn’t know was why Logan was calling her at a time like this.

“Do you think Collena Drake will know something about who’s been following me?” Mia asked.

“Maybe. But even if she doesn’t, I still have to consider that Genevieve is in this neck-deep. Trust me, we don’t want Genevieve involved even in a minor way. She’s got the money and the resources to do all sorts of nasty things. But then, so do I.”

The last part sounded a little like a threat. If the woman was truly guilty, Mia felt like issuing threats—and worse—herself.

“Collena,” Logan greeted a moment later. “I have a problem. I’ve found a possible connected between the Brighton Birthing Center and Genevieve Devereux. I need to go over some things with you. Could you possibly meet me at one-twenty-seven Rosewood Drive on the north side of town? It’s only about ten miles from your office.”

That was Mia’s address. Not that she was surprised that Logan already knew it.

Did he also know that just his mere presence was crushing her heart? She wouldn’t share Tanner with him. Tanner was her life. Her world. And she didn’t want anyone else in that world with them.

Mia continued to listen to his phone conversation, trying to sift through Logan’s responses to see if Collena Drake could provide them with any info. But she was soon distracted from doing that. Tanner stopped sucking, and she knew he was done with his dinner. She quickly fixed her bra.

Still trying to keep the blanket over him, she maneuvered him to her shoulder so she could burp him. The movement caught Logan’s attention, and he watched the process for a moment before turning his attention back to their surroundings.

Thankfully, Tanner gave a quick burp and Mia strapped him back into his carrier seat.

“Collena will meet us at your house,” Logan relayed when she got back behind the wheel. He glanced back at Tanner’s seat again and slipped his phone into his jacket pocket.

“You really think Collena Drake has any information about Genevieve?” Mia asked.

“We’ll see. She’s been studying the records taken from Brighton. There was a legal set of files, but the illegal activity was encrypted in various codes in a separate set of files. Collena’s managed to break some of those codes—that’s why she’s head of the task force—but in some cases she has information but no names to connect to it. It’s like taking dozens of puzzles, mixing up the pieces and then trying to put them back together.”

Mia understood the frustration. “Do any of those pieces actually point to Genevieve?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Her father, George Devereux, was one of Brighton’s main investors. He’s in jail already for an unrelated crime. He claims he didn’t know the clinic was shady when he put up the money.”

“You believe him?”

“No. But there’s no hard evidence to prove otherwise. Once I have you and Tanner settled and safe, I’ll see if I can arrange a visit with my ex’s father.”

Mia could definitely see the benefit of that, but it sounded like yet another involvement that she didn’t want to have.

Logan turned and looked out the back window. “The police are still searching for one investor,” Logan continued. “A man named Donnie Bishop. Unfortunately, Bishop has eluded them by staying at his residence in Mexico. There isn’t enough evidence to extradite him, so the cops are just waiting for him to make a return visit to the States.”

With every new bit of information that Mia learned, she became sorrier and sorrier that she’d ever stepped foot in Brighton. She wished she’d gone anywhere but there for the insemination.

“Donnie Bishop,” she repeated.

But the man’s name rang no bells. It was the first she’d heard of him and she hoped it would be the last. She didn’t want anyone associated with Brighton involved in what was going on with her now. Of course, the alternative wasn’t much easier to accept.

Because the alternative included a criminal, George Devereux, and his unstable stalker daughter, Genevieve.

Logan pointed to the sleek hunter green car that cruised into the parking lot and stopped next to them. “That’s our clean vehicle.”

Mia considered the risks of doing such a transfer, but if Logan was right, if there was indeed a tracking device on her car, then the transfer needed to happen immediately before something else could go wrong. She didn’t want another encounter with that slow-moving gray car that’d been in the parking lot of the pediatric clinic. She didn’t want anyone else to find out where she lived.

A man with long dark hair stepped out from the other vehicle. Logan reached over and unlocked Mia’s door. Unfortunately, his arm brushed against her right breast. Mia reacted. She sucked in her breath.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Her reaction definitely hadn’t been from pain. Odd that even though she was a nursing mother, her breasts were apparently still capable of reacting in a pleasurable way to a man’s touch.

Mia pushed that realization aside.

The other man worked fast. He opened Mia’s door and Logan got out, then walked to her side of the car. She noticed the limp then. It was slight. But it was also an indication that he might not be a hundred percent healed as she’d originally thought.

The man with the long hair made the same smooth transfer with Tanner still in his carrier seat. In less than a minute Logan was behind the wheel and they were back on the road.

“That was one of your employees?” she asked.

He nodded.

She considered asking more about his job but decided it was a subject best left undiscussed. Besides, she didn’t intend for Logan to be in her life for long, so there was no need for her to learn anything else about him.

“So, what do we do next?” she asked.

“We go to your house. We get Tanner inside. And we’ll wait for Collena. She was going to make some calls. By the time she arrives, she might already have answers.”

Well, that would help to speed things along. “Is it possible that your ex-girlfriend was also an investor at the Brighton Center?”

“It’s possible. Collena has someone pouring through all the surveillance tapes that were confiscated from the center. We’re talking months and months of tapes.”

That was not what she wanted to hear. “So much for speeding things along,” Mia mumbled.

He glanced at her. “You know you’re not going to just get rid of me, right?”

She didn’t want to hear that, either. “I know no such thing.”

“I’m not going to leave my son—”

“He’s not your son,” she snapped.

Logan made a hmmmp sound. “Well, I might have started off as the sperm donor, but we’re past that now.”

No. They weren’t. “I don’t want or need a man in my life. That includes you.”

“Then think of it this way. I won’t be the man in your life, Mia. I’ll be the man in Tanner’s life.” He paused, waiting for an objection. “You’re aware that you could be in danger.”

A burst of air left her mouth. Almost a laugh. But she was definitely not happy. “I’m aware of it. I’m also aware that I wouldn’t be in danger if it weren’t for you and your ex.”

He looked as if she’d slapped him.

Mia felt as if she had, too. “Sorry. You didn’t deserve that last part. I mean, we haven’t even connected your ex to this.”

Silence.

The moment crawled by.

Before he finally spoke. “I have a theory.”

That chilled her to the bone. “What?”

More silence. “Last year, when Genevieve and I were still together, I found out that she’d been taking fertility drugs. She also tampered with my condoms.”

Mia was starting to put together a mental image of this woman, and there was little about that image that she liked. “She wanted a baby.”

He nodded. “It was an obsession with her. She believed a baby would bring us closer together. She wanted marriage.”

“You didn’t want those things.” It wasn’t exactly a question.

“Not with her. Genevieve knew that right from the start.”

Mia believed him. Despite what he did for a living, he didn’t seem the sort of man who’d have to lie to get a woman into bed. “Did she get pregnant?”

“I don’t think so. After I found the fertility drugs, we argued and she stormed out. A few days later, I got an e-mail from her saying that she would always love me but that she needed time apart so she could think. That was a little less than eleven months ago.”

Around the time Mia had undergone the insemination.

“Maybe Genevieve did get pregnant,” Mia concluded. “Maybe that’s her connection to Brighton. She could have had your baby there.”

Logan immediately shook his head. “If she’d found some way to overcome her infertility and have my baby, she would have told me. In fact, she would have been delighted to tell me because she would have thought that would get us back together. It wouldn’t have. I would have taken care of my child, but that care wouldn’t have extended to the mother.”

Mia didn’t believe that last part. After all, he was trying to protect her, a stranger. However, she didn’t have the bad blood with him that Genevieve apparently did. They only had a severe case of dislike of each other.

She hoped it continued.

Mia needed all the emotional barriers she could get to make herself immune to this man that her body seemed interested in. Because she could still feel the tingle of his touch on her breast.

Damn him.

He glanced at her and took the final turn into her secluded neighborhood. “But you’re right about one thing,” he continued. “Maybe that’s how Genevieve is connected to Brighton.”

Now, it was Mia’s turn to shake her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Genevieve could have been the one who arranged to have the semen transported from Cryogen to Brighton. That’s how she intended to get pregnant.”

“And then somehow I got the semen by mistake?” Mia shook her head. “That seems like a huge blunder for a medical center to make.”

“We’re talking about Brighton,” he reminded her. “They made a lot of mistakes. Some intentional and some because they were trying to cover up their crimes.”

He took the turn into her driveway. Her house wasn’t a typical burbs kind of place. Mia had bought the three-bedroom ranch-style house because of the privacy. The house was positioned amid several sprawling oaks, shrubs and hedges. Tonight, amid those oaks and in front of her house, she could see a woman.

Mia’s heart started to race.

“It’s all right,” Logan assured her. “That’s Collena Drake.”

Mia got a better look at the woman when they came to a stop directly in front her. The tall, too-thin blonde seemed oblivious to the winter wind. She wore a black coat, unbuttoned, and her bare hands were exposed. The wind whipped at her shoulder-length hair and her clothes. She seemed pale and frail. As if she wasn’t all there.

“Collena,” Logan greeted as he stepped from the car. “I’m glad you came.”

After checking that Tanner was still asleep in his carrier in the backseat, Mia also got out, and Logan made introductions that Collena dismissed by dropping a little bombshell.

“Ms. Crandall, I’ve been going through the Brighton files, and I don’t think the things that happened with your insemination were accidental.”

Okay. Even though Mia and Logan had just played around with that theory, it was a different thing hearing it confirmed. “So, what went wrong?” Mia asked.

Collena Drake opened her mouth to answer, but that was as far as she got. Mia saw the woman’s eyes widen, and she tried to figure out why Collena had that reaction.

Mia caught just a glimpse of the car out of the corner of her eye. A slow-moving gray car. The same vehicle from the parking lot of the pediatric clinic. This time, the passenger’s side window was lowered about halfway. Not enough, though, to see inside the darkened interior.

Everything happened fast.

Almost a blur.

Logan yelled for them to get down. But he didn’t wait for her to comply. He dived at Mia and knocked her to ground. He didn’t stay there. He came up, with his gun drawn and ready to fire.

But it was already too late.

There was a thick, heavy blast from the open window of the gray car. The brutal sound tore through the otherwise quiet community and slammed right past where Mia had just been standing.

But Mia was no longer there and the bullet hit Collena Drake instead.

And the gunman continued to fire.


Chapter Four

Logan cursed, took aim and returned fire.

He didn’t stop with one shot. He sent a barrage of bullets at the gray car, all the while kicking himself for not having done more to protect everyone.

Now, Mia and Tanner were right in the path of danger and Collena Drake was down, perhaps dying.

He could blame himself for that. And later, he would. But right now, he had a more immediate problem that required his complete concentration. The gunman, or perhaps gunmen, inside that gray car could still be trying to kill them.

Logan sent two more shots into the car. One slammed into the passenger-side door, right where a gunman would be sitting if there was indeed more than one of them. The next bullet shattered the partially lowered window. The safety glass webbed into a sheet of broken pebbles and collapsed into the interior of the car.

The gunman was wearing a black ski mask.

That was the only glimpse that Logan got of the lone person shooting at them before the driver stomped on the accelerator and the car sped away.

Logan’s instincts screamed for him to go in pursuit. Adrenaline and anger made him want to strike out, to retaliate, to get the SOB who’d put Collena, Mia and Tanner in danger.

But he couldn’t leave them.

“The baby,” Mia cried out, trying to get out from beneath him.

Logan literally had her flattened on the frozen winter ground so that she couldn’t move and she obviously wanted to get up. He understood that. The baby was in the car and they had to make sure he was okay.

“The car’s bullet resistant,” Logan assured her.

But that didn’t assure her at all. Actually, it didn’t assure him, either. Nothing would at this point except seeing for himself that his son hadn’t been harmed.

Keeping her eyes off his gun, Mia continued to struggle to get up and, once he made sure that the gunman’s vehicle was no longer in sight, Logan moved off her. She rushed to check on Tanner.

Logan kept watch for the gray car, in case the gunman decided to return for another round, and he scrambled across the ground toward Collena.

She was alive, but bleeding from the bullet she’d taken in the shoulder. Blood had already spread across her clothes and it was hard to tell the exact point of impact, but the injury looked close to her heart.

“Tanner’s okay,” Mia shouted to him.

And despite everything else going on, Logan felt immediate relief. “Stay in the car,” he ordered.

The bullet-resistant car would be safer than trying to get them into her house. Especially since he hadn’t had a chance to check her place to make sure that no one was lurking inside. The last thing they needed was to run into another murder attempt.

He took out his phone, called 911 and requested police and an ambulance. He also called for backup from two of his own men. They’d likely get there faster than the police.

“I’ll be okay,” Collena mumbled.

Logan hoped that was true. Still, he didn’t like what he saw when he pulled down the collar of her sweater and spotted the wound. The bullet had missed her heart, thank God, but her collarbone appeared to be shattered and she was bleeding out fast.

He took her neck scarf from her coat pocket and pressed it to the wound. “The ambulance will be here soon.”

“Can I do something to help?” he heard Mia ask.

The car door was open just a fraction, enough for him to see Mia cradling Tanner to her chest. The baby was fussing, probably because his nap had been disturbed, but he looked unharmed.

Logan said a quick prayer of thanks.

“I need to get Collena to the front seat,” he told Mia. He purposely kept his gun at his side so that she wouldn’t see it and have a panic attack.

Mia nodded, reached over the seat and fully opened the front passenger-side door. Logan lifted Collena as gently as he could. She moaned and grimaced from the pain.

Logan lay her inside on the leather seat while he continued to apply pressure to her wound. It wasn’t an ideal way to treat a gunshot victim, but at least the vehicle would protect them from the cold and perhaps even a subsequent attack. In the meantime, he would do what he could to keep Collena from bleeding to death.

“Are you okay?” he asked Mia.

Their eyes met. For a second. He saw the fear and concern. “I wasn’t hurt.”

Maybe not physically. But this attack was the stuff of present and future nightmares. It would stay with her.

And him.

The only good thing he could see in all of this was that Tanner was too young to remember what they’d just experienced.

Logan heard the sirens in the distance. It wouldn’t be long now before the police arrived and before Collena could get the medical treatment she needed.

“Someone doesn’t want us to learn the truth,” Collena whispered.

Logan had to agree with her about that. “We need to know who.” So he could go after this idiot with every ounce of the rage he was feeling for the person who’d endangered his child.

“I’m close to getting that name,” Collena added. “I’ll have it soon.”

“I don’t doubt that we’ll find the truth. But for now, just stay quiet. Conserve your energy.”

Collena shook her head and ran her tongue over her chapped bottom lip. Her breath was ragged and thin. “The police found two sets of files at Brighton—the legal set the Brighton owners and investors created for the world to see. The real files were encrypted with different codes for different files. This afternoon, I finally broke the code on Mia Crandall’s file.”

That got his attention. Mia’s, too. She peered over the seat at the woman.

“There’s one notation that really stood out,” Collena continued. She waited until she took a deep breath. “In Mia’s file there was a notation about a surrogate request. A client paid a huge sum of money for the use of a surrogate with red hair and brown eyes. I don’t know who this person is yet—they were identified by yet another code.”

Logan got a really bad feeling about this.

“What was that doing in my records?” Mia asked.

Collena wearily shook her head. “I’m not sure, exactly. And it’s more complicated.”

The sounds of sirens drew closer and Logan spotted the ambulance when it turned into Mia’s drive.

“Complicated,” Collena repeated. “Because Brighton took money from both you and this other person who made the request. In fact, this person paid nearly ten times what you did, and I think the reason for that was the surrogate wasn’t supposed to know she was a surrogate. The client wanted to keep the arrangement a secret.”





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