Pamela Clare - Striking Distance

Javier nodded, unable to keep from smiling. “She’s a beautiful little girl, Laura. She has your face and the sweetest blue eyes—”

Erik interrupted. “Mr. Corbray took Klara by force and entered Sweden illegally. I should report him to police, but instead I’ve confined him to my home and am doing my best to keep this secret. On the one hand, I don’t want it to become an international incident. On the other, I don’t want to break the law. But if I follow official procedure, I would have to hand Klara over to the Pakistani delegation. That is the dilemma Mr. Corbray brought to my door.”

Laura’s eyes were still wide, and it was clear to Javier that she wasn’t picking up anything Erik was saying. “M-my daughter . . . is here ?”

“Yes, she is.” Erik went on. “I have been working round the clock with a few individuals in the Swedish government to ensure that Klara can remain in the country. We’ll give her Swedish citizenship, give her a Swedish passport, but this is all very irregular. If the parties in Pakistan come forward—”

“I’ve already told you. Al-Nassar’s brother is not going to talk.” But Laura didn’t need to hear any of this. Javier cupped her face in his palms. “Klara has already been seen by a doctor, and she’s okay. They took DNA, and it checks out. She’s your little girl. There’s no doubt.”

“But how—”

Erik glowered at Javier. “Let’s hear that story again, because I don’t think you’ve told me the truth yet.”

Javier hadn’t told the truth, but he wasn’t going to incriminate any of the guys who’d helped him out, not even Tower. He told Laura the basics, not mentioning that he’d been part of a team of five. If anyone was going to hang over this, it would be him. “I went in after dark armed to the teeth and demanded they turn her over to me.”

Laura looked up at him. “I can’t believe the navy sent you by yourself.”

Javier cleared his throat. “They didn’t send me, bella . When I went to Coronado, it was to resign from NSW. I was given an honorable discharge from the Teams and set this up on my own.”

“Oh, my God, Javi.” Laura gaped at him. “You gave up the Teams?”

In the end, it hadn’t been a hard decision.

“I couldn’t let them keep her from you any longer.” Javier knew Laura’s mind must be reeling from all of this.

Her blond brows came together in a look of worry. “Did Klara cry when you took her away? She must have been terrified.”

“I sedated her.”

Laura blinked. “You . . . You drugged her?”

“I got a dose of sedatives from a pediatrician before I left the U.S. She slept in my arms the entire trip.” He’d watched her sleep, tiny eyelashes on her cheeks, one little hand tucked beneath her chin, and had fallen hard for the sweet little thing.

Like mother, like daughter. They both steal your heart, cabrón .

“Can I see her? I want to see her.”

Javier was surprised she’d held out this long.

Erik seemed to relax, anger fading from his face. He smiled. “Yes, of course. She’s upstairs having breakfast with my wife and the girls. I’m sorry to go on like this. I wanted you to understand the gravity of the situation.”

She took Erik’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Erik, for all you’ve done.”

Erik led the way up the stairs toward a kitchen, the sound of little girls’ voices and a woman’s echoing down the hall.

Javier held Laura’s hand, an unreadable expression on her pretty face. He couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. The whole thing was more than a little overwhelming for him, and Klara wasn’t his daughter.

Though he hoped maybe one day she would be.

He watched Laura’s face as they entered the kitchen. Her gaze fell on Klara and went soft, tears shimmering in her eyes, a tremulous smile curving her lips.

Klara sat on a booster chair, her dark brown hair in neat pigtails, a look of distress on her tiny face, little tears on her cheeks.

Heidi, Erik’s wife, hurried over to Laura and hugged her, speaking in English for Javier’s benefit. “It’s so good to meet you at last, Laura. Klara is such a darling, such a sweet little girl, but she won’t eat. She won’t touch anything but her bottle.”

Then Klara looked over at Laura, mother and child making eye contact for the first time. And Javier’s vision went strangely blurry.

LAURA LOOKED AT the daughter she’d never seen, taking in the sight of her from her long brown hair to her bright blue eyes to her sweet face, her features so like Laura’s that they reminded Laura of baby pictures she’d seen of herself. She felt a visceral need to hold Klara, her throat suddenly so tight she couldn’t speak. And although Laura didn’t know much about babies or children, she knew that Klara was desperately unhappy.

She looked up at Laura, tears on her cheeks, her lower lip sticking out, a bottle sitting on the table before her.

Laura went to her at once, kneeling down beside her and speaking in Arabic. “Are you hungry, sweet one?”

Klara clearly understood her, her gaze now fixed on Laura.

Laura looked at the food on the table. Hard-boiled eggs. Cod roe. Cucumber. Knäckebröd. Corn flakes. “Heidi, do you have any French bread, maybe some yogurt or jam or a banana? I don’t think she recognizes any of this as food.”

“Of course.” Heidi bustled around the kitchen, then set a half-eaten loaf of French bread on the table with a jar of strawberry jam and a ripe banana, her four-year-old twins Stella and Anette watching with wide eyes, their red hair in little braids.

“She hasn’t eaten food like this before,” Laura explained to the girls in Swedish.

She sat in a chair beside Klara, tore a small piece of bread off the loaf, and put a dab of strawberry jam on it, then held it out for Klara.

Klara took it, stuck it in her tiny mouth, and reached for another.

“More,” she said in Arabic, her tiny voice like bells.

It was the first word Laura had heard her speak.

“You want more?” Laura tore another piece off, dabbed it with jam, and held it out for her, unable to keep herself from smiling. “You’re such a sweet girl.”

“Mama?” Klara glanced around, fear in her eyes, her little lip quavering again.

Laura knew she was looking for Safiya.

She couldn’t imagine what Klara was feeling—being taken from the only world she knew, falling asleep, and waking up in a scary new place surrounded by strangers, everyone speaking a language that made no sense. Though it was good for Klara that she was no longer living in a hive of terrorists, Laura would have done anything to make this easier on her, to minimize the disruption in her life.

She stroked her little girl’s cheek. “You’re going to have a new mama, and a new name, a new home. I know it won’t be easy at first, but you’re safe now, Klara.”

Laura tore several more small pieces of bread off the loaf and set them on the plate in front of her daughter, then did the same with the banana, watching in absolute fascination as Klara picked them up with her chubby little hand and put them in her mouth one by one. It stunned Laura to think this little person had come from inside her. Klara was so sweet, so perfect, so completely innocent.

Laura looked over at Javier, tears of happiness spilling down her cheeks. “Isn’t she beautiful, Javi? Isn’t she beautiful?”

He smiled, his voice strained when he answered. “Just like her mother.”

LAURA CALLED HER mother and grandmother to share the news. Erik sent a car to pick them up, and Laura felt like she was lost in a dream as she watched her mother and grandmother meet and hold Klara for the first time.