Linda Conrad - Safe With A Stranger

“Don’t you think you should contact your friend before you and Jimmy just turn up on her doorstep?” he asked as she changed her son’s diaper. “What if she’s out of town for business or on vacation or something?”

Clare looked up at him from under those spiky, blond lashes. “Maybe I should. It never occurred to me that she might not be there. Have you got a phone?”

He shook his head. “Sorry. Traveling light.”

“Me, too. Ramzi took all my electronics away while I was under his roof,” she admitted bluntly. “I’ll have to start all over again once I’m back home. But for now, I can call from a pay phone inside the rental agency.”

In a few minutes the rental agents arrived and opened up for the day. “Here,” she said as she turned to Josh with Jimmy in her arms. “You hold the baby while I go in and call Brenna. If everything’s okay, I’ll rent the car and be right back.”

Josh found himself in the spot where he’d never imagined he would be. Holding a toddler in his arms. Jimmy was still a little groggy from sleep and the baby leaned his head against Josh’s shoulder.

The yearning for a child of his own stole over Josh like the shadow of a cloud on a sunny day. He fidgeted slightly, not sure how to hold a kid, and not wanting to face the old pain of his family’s loss. For years he’d successfully avoided thinking about the curse. Just as he had successfully avoided being around kids.

Now he was stuck with both. Damn it.

He took off his hat and propped himself against the pickup as Jimmy blinked open his eyes and looked up at the man who was holding him in his arms. “Da De?” the baby murmured sleepily as he patted the overnight stubble on Josh’s cheek.

“No, boy,” Josh whispered. “I’m not your daddy. I’m not anybody’s daddy.” Saying it aloud brought back the old stinging regret. Josh ignored the ache as he’d always done before and did what he had to do to get by.

“But I’ll take care of you, son. Don’t you fret.” He would make sure this kid and his mother were safe—even if he had to use some of his grandmother’s magic to make it so.

“Josh!” Clare came running out of the agency office. “Oh. My. God. They’re there. In Missouri.”

She was out of breath and her face was pale and drawn. “A couple of Ramzi’s men have somehow already found Brenna. They’re waiting outside her house for Jimmy and me to show up. We can’t go to her for help. She was my best hope. What’ll we do?”

No problem there. “Climb back into Lucille. They can’t have her plate numbers and won’t be able to find us. You two will be safe with me. I won’t let anything happen.”

It was a promise he meant to keep. No matter what.

“But where can we go? Where can we hide that they can’t find us?” Clare knew her voice sounded high-pitched and panicked. She felt herself falling over the edge into hysteria.

Josh started the pickup, and the good ol’ girl rumbled as he turned to speak. “This ex of yours apparently has a lot of pull—and a lot of money. Am I right?”

Clare nodded her head, but the words wouldn’t come. All her plans were going up in a blaze. Every idea she’d had for saving herself and her son looked like a dead end.

“So I’m guessing he can probably get a line on anybody you’ve ever known in your past. That means you and Jimmy can’t go to your old addresses or to any of your old friends or family.” Josh said the words easily, like a statement of fact, but he sure looked as unhappy about their meaning as she felt.

Calm. She had to remain calm. For Jimmy’s sake.

“I—I—Exactly right,” she stuttered breathlessly.

“Then I can’t figure any other way out. You and Jimmy have no choice but to stick with me.

“Your ex doesn’t know who I am,” Josh added after a moment. “You and I didn’t know each other in the past. And…” He shook his head and set his mouth. “None of us seems to have any choice.”

“But stick with you to go where?” Clare knew the time had come to make a decision about Josh, but she just wished she’d been allowed more of an opportunity to get to know him. “You said you didn’t live anywhere at the moment. Where were you headed when you ran into us?”

Josh grimaced, put the truck into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. “I was raised in south Texas, near the town of Zavala Springs. I was headed back there…to my grandfather’s funeral.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” So that was what the sadness in his voice had been all about. She’d known it must be something bad. “But Jimmy and I don’t want to intrude on your family’s time of sorrow. And, anyway, just going off with you doesn’t solve the real problem. Eventually I’ll have to face Ramzi again. Jimmy is his son, and the two of us will never be safe until the U.S. government gives us their protection under the law.”

Josh gave her a look that said, Too late. The decision has been made. Then he turned the truck at the next corner and headed up the on-ramp to Interstate 610 West.

“You got any better ideas, speak up.” He was focused on the highway ahead, chin set. “My brother and sister will be at the funeral, and they’ve both got good contacts. My brother even works for the feds. Maybe one of the two of them will have an idea of how you can set yourself free of the mess you’ve managed to make.”

Clare opened her mouth to utter a smart retort to his zinger, but fortunately remembered in time that she and Jimmy really were in a huge mess. She slammed her lips shut before saying something that would put her into even deeper trouble. At least she wasn’t so panicked anymore. Folding her arms across her chest, Clare decided to sit back and fume instead.

He was right. There was no choice.

Josh wasn’t quite sure why he’d been so rude. Clare had enough trouble in her life right now; she didn’t need him snapping at her, too. But she’d been looking at him with an expression on her face that said she thought he was some kind of hero. He was no hero—far from it. So he’d decided to show her exactly how unheroic he could be.

Smart as hell, Ryan. Nice work. As usual.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t like her or didn’t have a high opinion of what she’d done so far. He did. Finding a way to get her and Jimmy out of a tradition-bound and male-dominated foreign country, and then managing to protect her child through all kinds of dangers, was admirable. Obviously she had a mother tiger’s instincts. This was no fainting flower of a woman. Tough and determined, she was a fighter, and how he would dearly love to have her go a few rounds with him.

All of a sudden his thoughts began stirring emotions inside him that made him cower. Things that felt so strong, he’d never experienced anything like them before. Prickling and gut-wrenching, they nearly brought tears to his eyes. The simple truth was, he wanted his own family. Badly, damn it. Life was unfair. At least, his life.

But before he could stem the unwanted emotions and shove them back down where they wouldn’t get in his way, he found himself angry all over again. And since it had been his admiration of Clare that had started stirring the whirlwind of emotion in his gut, she was bound to be the object of his anger.

Crap. He hadn’t wanted things to go down this way. Josh had never imagined, when he saved them, that he would get stuck with the two runaways. At first he’d had no intention of taking Clare and Jimmy with him anywhere, and the idea of bringing them along to Zavala Springs had been the furthest thing from his mind. After all, he barely wanted to go back there to face the past himself. He sure as hell didn’t want to drag her and the baby along to mingle with his old ghosts, too. No way would he take a chance of her finding out about his family’s bizarre history.