Carla Cassidy - Snowbound with the Bodyguard

Then yesterday morning he’d heard the rumor that she had a little baby boy, a rumor that had been confirmed when he’d spoken with her at lunch.

Since that moment, he couldn’t get her—or more precisely the boy—out of his mind. His son. He knew in his gut that the kid was his.

“Brandon, honey, your breakfast is waiting,” Brandon’s wife, Sherrilyn, spoke from someplace behind him.

He grunted but didn’t turn around. Sherrilyn was a good woman. She’d come into the marriage not only crazy about him, but with the kind of respectability and a trust fund that Brandon had desired. She kept the large house neat and tidy, tried to anticipate his needs before he knew them and was an adequate if boring bedmate.

She loved being the sheriff’s wife, and while Brandon was feared and respected by the community, Sherrilyn was loved for her charity work and big heart.

But, when it came to giving Brandon what he’d wanted most in life, she’d failed miserably, pumping out three girl babies instead of the boy he desperately wanted.

“Mommy, Susan won’t share,” Elena, his youngest, whined from the living room. She was always whining about something. Girls whined. Girls cried, and he had three of the whiniest, weepiest girls in the county.

He narrowed his gaze as he turned away from the window and headed for the kitchen. As soon as the snow stopped, he’d get that boy. He didn’t much care what he had to do, but eventually that little boy would be living with him, being raised by him. Boys needed their daddies, and if the only way to get that kid was over Janette Black’s dead body, well then that could be arranged, too.

Janette stayed in the bedroom with Sammy for most of the morning. She played peekaboo with him, laughing as he grinned and squealed at her antics. When he started to get sleepy, she picked him up in her arms and sat in the chair near the window, rocking and singing softly to him until he fell asleep.

She placed her lips against Sammy’s downy hair, drawing in the sweet baby scent of him. He was her heart, this little boy. Before his birth she had loved him, but nothing had prepared her for the depth of her love for him now.

Her heart squeezed as she thought of the threat that felt ominously close, a threat to this baby and their future together. She would do whatever it took to keep him safe and away from the man who was his biological father. She shoved aside thoughts of Sinclair, unwilling to allow the chill that thoughts of him always produced to consume her.

She was conscious of the sounds of Dalton in the next room. It was a good thing he’d told her about his family before she’d confessed what was really going on.

She should have known it wouldn’t be safe to tell him the truth. Bodyguards probably had to work closely with law enforcement officials. For all she knew, Brandon Sinclair could be a drinking buddy of the entire West clan.

When Sammy was sleeping soundly, she gently laid him in the middle of the big bed and tucked the pillows around him to stop him from rolling anywhere. She stood for a long moment staring down at the baby who owned all of her heart.

She would do whatever it took to keep Brandon Sinclair away from Sammy. She would run to the ends of the earth, hide for the rest of her life if that’s what it took.

You’re nothing but trailer trash, Janette. Nobody is going to believe you if you ever tell. Those were the last words she’d heard from Sinclair that night on the highway. He hadn’t spoken to her again or even looked at her until yesterday in the café when he’d told her he knew she had a son.

She’d tried to be so careful during her pregnancy. Thankfully she’d gained little weight and had been able to hide her condition until her eighth month. It was only then that she’d told the people who’d noticed that she was pregnant that she’d had a fling with a man passing through town. Because she believed Sinclair—nobody would ever believe her if she told the truth.

Tired of being cooped up, she finally left the bedroom and entered the living room, where Dalton sat in a chair reading a book as a saxophone wailed the blues from the stereo. She wasn’t concerned about the noise waking Sammy. From the time he’d been born he had slept like the dead, undisturbed by loud noises.

Dalton looked up and nodded at her. “Are you ready for lunch?” he asked and closed his book.

“No, thanks. I’m fine.” She gestured to the book on his lap. “Please, don’t let me interrupt you.”

“You aren’t. It isn’t a very good book, anyway.”

She glanced to the overflowing bookcase against one wall. “You must read a lot.”

“I enjoy reading,” he agreed. His piercing green eyes seemed to peer directly inside her. “What about you? Are you a reader?”

She sat on the edge of the sofa. “I’d like to be, but there never seems to be enough time. Between taking care of Sammy and my job there aren’t many hours left in the day.”

“What kind of job do you have?”

“Right now I’m a waitress, but that’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.” She hesitated a moment, then continued, “I had to drop out of high school my junior year because my nana…my grandma got sick, so the first thing I need to do is get my GED.”

She wasn’t sure why she told him this. It was more information than he’d asked for and she was certain he didn’t care what her future plans might be.

Those direct green eyes of his held her gaze. “Your grandmother is important in your life?”

“Definitely. She raised me. It was just me and her, and of course my sister,” she hurriedly added. She’d never been a liar, and the lies she now found herself spouting bothered her more than a little bit.

“What about your parents? Where are they?”

“Who knows? I never knew my father and when I was three my mother dropped me off at Nana’s house and we never heard from her again. Nana told me she was a troubled woman with drug problems. I think she’s probably dead by now.”

Janette had long ago made peace with the fact that her mother had been unable to parent her. At least she’d been unselfish enough to put her in Nana’s care, where she’d been loved and looked after.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, and she was surprised by the touch of empathy she heard in his deep voice. “My mother was murdered when I was just a boy.”

“That’s horrible,” she exclaimed.

He shrugged. “You deal with the bumps life throws you.” He stood suddenly, as if to end the conversation of that particular topic. “Are you sure you aren’t ready for some lunch? I’m going to make a sandwich.”

“I guess I could eat a sandwich,” she agreed and got up to follow him into the kitchen. Once again she found herself sitting at the table while he fixed the meal. “I need to give you more money,” she said. “You’re feeding me and everything. I feel terrible about all this.”

He smiled then, and the power of his smile shot a wave of heat through her. It was the heat of a woman intensely aware of an attractive man. It shocked her, but she embraced it, for it was something she hadn’t felt for a very long time, something she’d thought Brandon Sinclair had killed.

“I think I can manage to feed one slender woman for a couple of days without declaring bankruptcy,” he said.

She returned his smile. “I just want you to know that I appreciate it.” She glanced toward the window where the snow appeared to be slowing down. Surely by tomorrow she could leave.

She gazed back at Dalton. “So, I guess your dad raised you, then? It must have been quite a challenge, considering how many of you there were.”