Guard My Baby Page 4

  She stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. Then she placed her hands on what was left of her hips and narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I'm in danger. Actually, no, that's not true. I'm not in danger. My baby is, and... "

  "Our baby." Cade growled like grizzly bear threatened with the theft of a cub.

  Lainie swatted that away. "Whatever, Cade - if that's your real name. What right do you have to dig into my personal life and mess with my social security number?" If he wanted the truth, she should get some of her own. "As far as that goes, who the hell are you, that you have the resources to do that? You want to know my name? You want to know if I'm married? Why?"

  He had the grace - or audacity - to wince. She'd hit her mark. "I have contacts."

  Lainie snorted - yes, snorted - and in a very unladylike fashion at that. "I'll bet. So, you want to question me, do you?" She poked herself in her own chest for emphasis now. "Fine, but you first." She poked him on his hard plane of a chest.

  His eyes widened, and then snapped and crackled dangerously with something she didn't quite recognize. Then his expression changed drastically and instantaneously to one of - she'd have sworn - amused surprise, but she must have been mistaken. The annoying, arrogant clod surely wouldn't laugh at her now.

  She narrowed her eyes. "And don't lie to me either. I checked with the military. They'd never even heard of you, or at least they wouldn't admit that they knew you. They have no record of your existence. Of course, maybe that's because you have a clearance or something. Or because you were operating under an alias," she babbled, a very bad habit she sustained when she got all fired up, like now.

  She freaked out. And why not? In her condition, she deserved a little leeway and little nervous babbling time. So she kept going. "By the way, I wanted to tell you about your baby, and my name was Blanchet. It just isn't Blanchet anymore. So I didn't lie to you, but you most certainly did lie to me."

  She had lied to him now, though. At least, she withheld information from him. He didn't need to know why she'd moved here and changed her name from Blanchet to Blanford to get away from the hungry wolves nipping at her feet. He didn't need to know that she'd won the lottery, and had then been forced to escape every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanting donations and trying to bleed her dry. If he found that out, he might try to take Eli, and even have the gall to ask for child support. With some of the unfairness she'd seen during her short twenty-three years of life, and knowing how the justice system failed so many others, she didn't trust the courts to give her custody of Eli, or let her keep her money. She sure as hell wasn't about to trust Cade... or whatever his name was.

  He tensed and looked at her ring finger. Ignoring everything else she'd said, he asked, "Did you get married or not? You said... " He hesitated and swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing like crazy. "You said I was the only one you'd slept with, and Chuck said the woman to protect was a single, expectant mother, but your last name is different."

  She stiffened. What did it matter? She could give him that much information. "No. I'm not married. I have my reasons for changing my name, and you don't have the need to know why. I'm the one asking the questions here. Now what the hell is your real name? If you tell me, maybe I'll be gracious enough to include your name on the birth certificate. Or maybe you'd rather I didn't put your name on that important document and make you in any way responsible for my child."

  She poked at her belly, and then froze when his eyes narrowed and took on a dangerous glint. She didn't relax until his expression softened. "My first name is Cade, but my last name isn't Wainwright. It's Sheridan."

  He stepped closer to her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She didn't even want to. She absorbed his heat and feral scent. He loomed over her like an undomesticated animal, ready to pounce, impossible to tame. His smoking eyes shot darts at her dwindling armor. Her shield nearly severed and melted with the heat of his intensity. "And you damn well will put my name on the birth certificate. I fully intend to claim and be responsible for my child's care, protection, welfare and rearing. In every way possible."

  Uh, oh. That's what she'd been thinking and what she'd been afraid of all along. Maybe she shouldn't have pushed him to his limit. To hell with that. She had questions, and it was high time she got some answers. Might as well push her luck while she was on a roll. She swallowed hard and rustled up the nerve to plow ahead. She braced herself. "And your sister and niece? Was that the truth?"

  His face turned sunburn-red. Tightfisted, he ground the single word out between clenched teeth, "Yes."

  She believed him. She always had. She wanted more. She pressed him, "And the military?"

  He inhaled, deep and long, apparently trying to hold onto his patience and keep his temper in check. He quite visibly reeled in his anger and got himself under a fragile control that looked to Lainie as if it might snap at any second. He opened and closed his hands, as to loosen them and allow blood back into his whitened knuckles. "Yes, I served in the Air Force, as a military policeman, at first. Then I joined a Special Forces unit. I'm still in the reserves."

  That told her he could be leaving again soon. She wished she knew if she felt good about that, or bad.

  Damn it. She felt good about it. Good.

  Good. Good. Good. Good. Good.

  He'd be out of her way, out of her hair, and out of her and her baby's lives, which was exactly as it should be, exactly what she wanted. Wasn't it?

  He watched her intently, probably trying to read her perplexed mind. He looked as if he might be able to see right through her. He also looked as if he didn't trust her any more than she trusted him. He probably wondered how much he could tell her. "Last summer? Which one were you in?"

  "When I met you, I was on bereavement leave, to bury my sister and niece, which you already know. What you don't know is that I was also undercover with the DEA/USAF, working a joint assignment." He swallowed hard and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Cade admitted in a softer tone, his expression wary, "I never thought I'd see you again. I figured my phony I. D. wouldn't matter."

  "And you left because... " She had to know. She held her breath, wishing his next words didn't matter to her at all. Hating it that they did.

  "Because I had to. My leave was up, and I had a job to finish, sniping in Colombia." She figured that she didn't really have the need to know that. It must've cost him to give her so much information. He must want her to believe him. "Our investigative paths had crossed. I had no choice but to go."

  Dare she ask? "And if you'd had a choice?"

  He stepped up to her and laid his large, callused hand across her soft jaw line. He peered into her eyes, into her very soul, looking deep into her psyche, staring right into her fractured heart. How she wanted him to fill the gaping void he'd left like a black hole ripped into her heart. How she wished he'd never shown his face again. "Lainie. No one can say for sure if we would've made it, you and I, but it was hard as hell to leave you. I can tell you that. I did try to find you, last month, when I was honorably discharged from the service. Who were those people I met in St. Louis?"

  "My parents." The words slipped out before she could stop them.

  He frowned. "Why did they lie to me?"

  She stepped swiftly away from his devastating touch, and his hand dropped to his side like a brick. "I can't tell you that."

  She wished her mom and dad had had the good sense to at least inform her that someone had inquired about her. Couldn't they distinguish between the right people and the wrong ones? Then again, which one was Cade? Good or bad?

  "Can't? Or won't?" He looked dangerous again when she remained silent as the grave. He repeated, "Can't or won't?"

  "Won't," she stated matter-of-factly.

  His soft expression turned to frost, and he placed an invisible barricade between himself and her. He stepped further away, literally and figuratively distancing himself and gearing up for a battle. "I won't leave you again, and I sure as hell won't leave my child behind."

>   His child? Was this all about his child? So much for getting her ego massaged. She'd hoped for one brief moment that he still wanted her. She'd thought he meant he wanted to stay for her, at first. How stupid of her to even have an inkling of a thought of such nonsense. How stupid of her to be hurt by the knowledge he didn't want her.

  Now she was irked and worried. Why was he so intent on caring for his child? He seemed like such a loner... so macho. He'd seemed that way last summer, and he seemed that way now, except for the profound promise that he'd not abandon her and their child. Why did he look so determined to be a part of their baby's life?

  Cade visibly regrouped and squared his shoulders. He brought himself under control and crossed his arms across his wide chest. In a business-like tone and manner, he demanded, "Tell me about the threats."

  Chapter Six

  Cade's sharp command for details about the recent turbulence in her life made Lainie recoil. She forgot her curiosity-induced line of questions. His query brought her fear and stress back to the forefront, nearly swamping her with a flood of agonizing terror. Suddenly, she teetered on the edge of hysteria once again.

  She recounted the frightening details of the disturbing events for him. "It started about three months ago. I began getting phone calls with some idiot breathing heavily into the phone but not speaking. Sometimes he'd bark loud bouts of evil laughter - like Vincent Price on steroids." She grimaced, and then she rolled her eyes. "Or sometimes he'd just hang up when I answered."

  "Don't you have caller-ID?" he asked, as if she hadn't thought of something so easy.

  "I do have caller-ID," she told him quietly. "But the creep always uses a different phone or a device. Instead of a number, the LCD reads Blocked Call."

  "Why don't you just ignore the phone, or let the answering machine take a message?" Cade shoved his hands in his pockets.

  Lainie shrugged. "Sometimes I can't resist. I pick up the phone. There are peals of crazy laughter, or deafening silence, or an eerie voice telling me to give up my baby as soon as it's born. He says he'll be waiting and watching, and he'll know. He'll let me know where and when to make the drop." She shivered and wrapped her arms around her abdomen. She sat on the edge of the bed and rocked. "Sometimes, I answer so I can tell him to leave me alone and stop calling." She drew her eyebrows together. "Obviously, he isn't very obedient. He hasn't stopped calling just because I told him to bug off, in not so many words."

  "Does he ever threaten you personally? Or is it just the baby he's after?" Cade sat next to her on the bed.

  Too close. He's too close.

  "Just the baby. He says he'll let me live if I give up the child." Lainie trembled. She wanted to rid herself of the cold sliding through her weary bones, chilling her skin and her blood. She ached all over, but she frowned and went on, needing to get this interrogation over with and the fear off her chest, out of her system, and out in the open. Maybe Cade could help in that way, at least. She'd needed someone to talk to for so long. "I started getting letters... computer generated."

  Cade narrowed his fierce expression to a dangerous one. "What kind of letters?"

  "Ugly. Spiteful. Vicious. Vulgar." She looked into Cade's fury-filled eyes. She desperately pleaded silently for help and understanding. She needed them both. She didn't want to have to lean on Cade, but he was Eli's father. Eli deserved the best. Lainie had to admit that she couldn't think of anyone stronger or more likely to win this battle against a madman than Cade. He had military experience. He exhibited power, and his own version of don't-mess-with-me danger. Surely, the creep after would back off with Cade in the picture. Was she actually considering it, then? Allowing Cade to move in with her? Lord help her. His darker eyes questioned, but he waited patiently. She shivered. "Then the package arrived, with the doll's severed head in it, along with a typed note that read, 'I want my baby. Or else.'"

  Cade's expression softened. He moved closer and reached out. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and then dropped his hand to her shoulder. She trembled. "I have to know, Lainie. You said there's been no one else. We used a condom, always, and I know you were a virgin when we met." He halted, and then asked, "Has there truly never been anyone else?"

  Bolstered by anger because of his apparent continued suspicion, Lainie pulled away from his soothing touch. She pushed herself up and off the bed as quickly as she could, in her plump condition. She moved out of his reach, even though she secretly liked him touching her face, her hair...

  Lainie shoved the wistfulness to the back of her mind and faced Cade. She squared off and prepared for war, if for no other reason than to maintain control of the situation and her scattered, swirling emotions. She placed her hands on her nearly nonexistent hips once more. "How dare you ask me that? How many times will I have to repeat myself?"

  He put his hands up, stood and backed off. "I need to know, especially if there's a chance this could be his baby. He obviously thinks the baby's his. Otherwise, he wouldn't be badgering you so with such persistence. He's stalking you, Lainie - trying to get his hands on what he believes is his. Why is he so devoted to the idea of this being his child and adamant about retrieving it, if there's no chance it is?"

  She stomped back and forth in what little space this spare bedroom afforded her. Cade's massive bulk and her expanded figure squeezed the air out of the room and her lungs, suffocating her. His small suitcase and the sparse furniture in the dimly lit room gave her little space to rant and rave, but that didn't stop her from making a damned good attempt.

  She used her fingers to count off and emphasize the points she wanted to make. "First, condoms are not a hundred percent protective. Someone who's been around as much as I'm sure you have should know that," she railed at him. "Second, if you'll recall, there was that one last time, when we were together, you were inside, without protection." Cade's eyes went wide, and he jerked as if slapped. She jabbed at her more-than-pudgy stomach. "Third, she's not his. She's yours. And mine. Ours. And I was not artificially inseminated."

  Cade stared at her blankly, then quizzically. "Who said you were?"

  "That's the whole reason the scumbag thinks the baby's his. In one of his letters, he said he'd donated sperm. He knew my baby's conception was the unhappy result, so he thinks he should have the baby back so he can... " She gulped. "... destroy it."

  She shook now, her fury making her body ache, especially her back, badly. She put her hand on the back of her waist, or what remained of it, trying to relieve the stress and tension there. She shifted the extra baby weight to her opposite foot in an attempt to alleviate the increasing, nearly overwhelming pain.

  Cade's eyes followed her movements, but he didn't ask her if she felt fine. He only narrowed his eyes and inquired, "Why destroy it?"

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes. With a distinct tremor in her wavering voice and a quiver in her lower lip, she explained weakly, "He believes the baby is Satan's spawn."

  Cade jerked back. "Shit. The rotten son of a bitch." He glanced at her. "Sorry."

  Lainie gave a bit of a lift to her lips. It was the first thing that resembled a smile she'd attempted in a while. "It's okay. I know how you feel. You're obviously as stunned now as I was when all this began."

  Cade roamed eyes over her overgrown body. "Chuck said you have to go to the hospital tonight. He thinks your labor's being induced."

  Lainie stiffened, crossed her arms over the round bump in front of her, and portrayed as much dignity as she could in her bulky shape. "Yes."

  His eyes locked on hers. "You were going to drive yourself?"

  "Yes," she answered sharply, wanting to go now. The sooner she got away from him, the better. "We can talk about security when I get back and... "

  She started to leave, but Cade stepped in front of her in one smooth stride of his long, muscled legs, halting her words and her escape. "We'll talk about it now."

  He blocked her path and brought her up short, like a solid brick wall of masculinity and strength -
strength she wished very much she could rely on. She didn't dare wish too hard for such an unreachable, fleeting thing. He'd come here to do a job. That's all. The rest, they'd have to talk about later, like visitation rights, and who could replace him as her baby's bodyguard. It didn't matter that he'd said he wasn't going anywhere. She couldn't handle Cade Wainwright - scratch that - Sheridanliving under the same roof with her. She'd go insane with... lust.

  Even now, her very pregnant body ached for him more than she could have possibly imagined. He'd affected her this way from the very first time she'd ever laid eyes on him, but he'd left her once. He'd do it again, even if he'd said he'd stick around, for the baby. She didn't believe it - not for a minute. Men like him didn't stick. They wandered the world looking for adventure - adventure like the military mission for which he'd had to leave her.

  So be it. The sooner he left, the better. It wasn't as if she had dreams of grandeur that included the prospect of marriage and happily ever after. She didn't want him - or anyone else - marrying her because she had a baby. She wanted to marry for love. She always had. It was the reason she'd held out so long, keeping her virginity intact, until that fateful night when her idiot friends had convinced her to...

  Well, that was all water under the proverbial bridge. She couldn't blame her fair-weather friends for her own loose, frivolous actions. Her free will had failed her. Her willpower had snapped right in two, like a dry twig under a heavy foot. Her so-called friends hadn't forced her to sleep with Cade, for Pete's sake. Hell, she couldn't blame Cade either. She could only blame herself for her irresponsibility and lack of restraint.

  That was just it. There was no blame to be placed. It simply didn't matter. She wasn't sorry she'd slept with him. Nor did she regret her pregnancy. Not in the least. There was no use pretending, even to herself, to be angry about her loss or her frustration. She had lost Cade, but she'd gained a baby and its unconditional love. What more could she ask for?