Ingrid Weaver - Cinderella's Secret Agent

“The baby. That’s pretty smart for a newborn. She’s going to be a bright kid.”

“Listen to yourself,” Bill said, chuckling. “This really got to you, didn’t it?”

“It was an experience I’ll never forget. I felt…privileged to be there.”

“Privileged? I would have been scared spitless.”

That made Del laugh. Bill might look like a harmless middle-aged professor, but he was as stolidly fearless as a bulletproof vest. Del couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have covering his back in a tight situation. “Yeah, right.”

“You think I jest?” Bill asked. “I’d rather juggle six pounds of Semtex with a nitro fuse than take on an infant.”

“You’d like this infant,” Del said. “She’s a feisty little thing, just like her mother.”

“Spoken just like a proud papa.” Still chuckling, Bill put his pipe in his mouth and returned to the telescope.

The shaft of pain took Del off guard. Papa? No, not him. Holding Maggie’s child would be as close as he would ever get to that. His grin faded.

“And speaking of the papa, where is the bastard?” Bill asked.

“From what I heard around the coffee shop, Maggie hasn’t seen him since last Christmas.”

“She’s going after him for child support, isn’t she?”

“Not that I know of. She seems determined to manage on her own.”

“Poor kid. She’s going to have a rough time, raising that baby by herself.”

That was true. Maggie had been working double shifts in order to save up money for the baby. It was going to be a struggle for her to cope. Ideally, a child should have two parents, a mother and a father, a team.

Maggie was intelligent enough to be aware of the problems she faced. Her persistent good humor wasn’t from ignorance of what lay ahead, it was from determination to make the best of it. She was a remarkable woman.

Scowling, Del went over to pick up the metal case he’d left on the equipment shelf. There was no point dwelling on Maggie. He had already gotten more involved in her life than he should have. And he shouldn’t let himself get carried away by those feelings her baby had stirred. He’d left all that behind when he’d joined SPEAR.

He opened the case and gazed at the gleaming pieces of wood and metal that were nestled in the pockets of foam rubber. With an ease of motion that was as practiced as breathing, Del assembled the components into his custom-made sniper’s rifle. When it was done, he held the weapon in his hands, his fingers fitting themselves around the familiar shape.

Like all the other operatives in the top-secret government agency of SPEAR, he accepted whatever assignment he was given and went wherever he was posted. It made no difference whether it was deep infiltration or simple surveillance, he did his job. But his specialty, the real talent that had brought him to the attention of SPEAR in the first place, was his uncanny ability with a rifle. He was the agency’s best sharpshooter, the one they called in for the impossible shot.

This was who he was, Del thought. This was what he did. He was proud of his skill. With this rifle and the right setup, he could shoot the weapon out of a terrorist’s hand or disable any getaway vehicle. He knew all the vulnerable spots on everything from a Learjet to a so-called bulletproof limo, and for those special occasions when no other option was open to him, he knew, too, within a millimeter how closely a bullet had to graze a man’s skull in order to knock him out.

He had a perfect record—in his eight years with the agency, he hadn’t taken a single life.

Yet even as he felt the familiar weight of the rifle in his hands, he remembered how these same hands had cradled Maggie’s baby. Instead of smooth wood and cold metal, he felt the slippery, shaved-velvet softness of the newborn’s skin. And as he settled himself at his post to one side of the window, his mind kept returning to the back room of the diner and the sight of Maggie’s tears as he’d placed her daughter in her arms.

His presence at the birth had been nothing but a fluke. He shouldn’t want to see them again, or worry about how they were doing, or wonder how Maggie was going to manage on her own. He had no business thinking about either Maggie or her baby.

That’s what he told himself, anyway. Yet over the next few hours, he failed to get his thoughts of her out of his head.

After what he and Maggie had shared, how could he shrug the whole thing off and go on as if nothing had happened? That’s what the baby’s father had done, turning his back on Maggie at the time she needed him most. Granted, it wouldn’t be wise for Del to get further involved, but it was only natural for him to feel a certain amount of responsibility for Maggie and her baby’s welfare.

It wouldn’t do any harm to check on them. That would be the decent thing to do, wouldn’t it?

“‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace.’”

At Bill’s murmured comment, Del swallowed a sigh.

From Milton to Shakespeare’s Macbeth? It was going to be a long night.

Maggie ran her index finger over the back of her baby’s hand, marveling yet again at the tiny perfection of her daughter. Perfect little nails, perfect pink dimpled knuckles, absolutely perfect. Not even one day old, yet already her presence filled the room. Heck, more than the room, it filled Maggie’s entire life.

“I love you, sweetheart,” she whispered, moving her hand to the baby’s head. She ran her fingertips over the wispy blond curls, inhaling deeply as she absorbed the warm, fresh baby scent that rose from her scalp. “I love you so much. Every day, for the rest of my life, I want you to know that.”

The baby’s mouth pursed in her sleep. Maggie didn’t even consider putting her down in the plastic-sided bassinet that rested beside the hospital bed. After those long months of anticipation, she didn’t want to squander one minute of the chance to hold her baby in her arms.

For what had to be the hundredth time that day, Maggie felt her eyes brim with tears. Had she thought the mood swings of pregnancy were bad? Now her body was bubbling with postpartum hormones. All she had to do was look at her child and the happiness simply overflowed.

“My child,” she said, marveling at the way the word tasted on her tongue. She’d had months to prepare for this, but she was still trying to wrap her mind around the concept. Nothing she had read or heard could possibly have prepared her for this feeling that was growing in her heart.

Maternal love was no myth. Her child was no longer connected physically to her, but another, far stronger bond had already formed. It was an emotional tie that no doctor’s shears could cut.

Loving Alan had been a mistake. She had been seduced by his smooth talk and clever hands and her own dreams of a husband and family. When she had discovered she was pregnant, she’d been overjoyed. He hadn’t. That’s when she discovered he already had children…and a wife.

Yes, Alan had been a mistake, but Maggie could never regard her baby as one. This child was a gift.

Sniffing hard, Maggie turned her head to wipe her eyes against the pillowcase, stirring up the boiled cotton smell of the bedding. Normally, she hated hospitals. She did her best to avoid them after spending so much time in them as a young girl. Strangely enough, though, she didn’t feel a breath of uneasiness now. The bad memories had been swept away by a tidal wave of good ones.

The other bed in the double room was empty. The woman who had occupied it had gone home this morning, along with her new son. Her husband and their other two children had come to fetch them—it had been a giddy, noisy celebration as they’d needed to take two trips to carry all the flowers and gifts to their car. They had all waved to Maggie and wished her well, then disappeared into the corridor, a cloud of bright foil balloons bobbing behind them.