Alice Sharpe - The Baby's Bodyguard

He shook his head. “Not until you’re honest with me. I want to know who you’re protecting. I figure it must be someone at the Staar Foundation.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Not that again—”

“I haven’t told you what I saw out in the jungle,” he said.

The baby started crying. Hannah deftly manipulated baby and blanket against her chest and stood. “Turn around so I can fix my bra,” she said.

With an internal smile, he did as she asked. Funny how shy people could be around someone they’d once been so blatantly intimate with.

“Okay,” she said, and patting the baby’s tiny back, demanded, “What did you see?”

He pushed himself away from the jamb. He wished she’d come closer to him so he could speak in a whisper instead of across a room. The things he had to say weren’t the kind of things a man wanted to shout.

As she resettled in the rocker, he looked around the room until he spied a small wooden toy chest. Pulling that close to her chair, he parked himself on top of it, forearms resting on his thighs.

“First of all, the guerillas knew about me. About my training and the fact that I’d been a mercenary for a short time a while ago. They treated me differently than the others, singling me out. At first I thought it was because I spoke the language, but then I realized they were kind of grooming me, seeing if I might turn tail and help them.”

Her eyes grew wide. “What did you do?”

“I had nothing to do with them until after they killed the other hostages. Then I considered the possibility that if I ever wanted to escape, I had better seem to be more cooperative. So I turned into a model prisoner and kept my eyes open.”

“I don’t—”

“I’m going to cut this short. I think the Staar Foundation is the front for the GTM, that they are supporting terrorist schools and camps. I have to find out who is involved and how deeply.”

“That’s absurd. Santi Correa and his son, Hugo, would never—”

“How do you know? How do you really know that?”

She was silent for several seconds. “Couldn’t you just tell our government or the Tierra Montañosa government about your suspicions and let them investigate?”

“The minute the GTM realized I escaped, you can bet the camps I was shown disappeared, but they’re still there, further underground or in a different spot. They were working up to something big. Right before I left, they were practicing some sort of mock invasion or takeover of some kind.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they practiced entering blocked-off areas that represented buildings and killing and subduing mock representations of people. As for telling our government—governments don’t move fast, they launch studies. Just verifying my true identity and being viewed as a credible witness given the way I entered the country would take forever.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I can see you’re truly concerned about this, but it has nothing to do with what’s happening to me—”

“Doesn’t it? Are you sure?”

He could see by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t sure at all.

He took her free hand in his. “Hannah, even if this is unrelated to you, the fact remains you and your family are in danger. You have to take the threat seriously. You’ve mentioned small things going wrong, but these things today aren’t small, they’re meant to terrify you. The bomb could have easily been big enough to destroy your car and everyone near it. The rock through the window could have been a bullet. Since you aren’t aware of what you’re doing that has someone reacting this way, you can’t even stop doing it.”

“If I go to the police I’ll have to tell them all this,” she countered. “They’ll check into everyone’s lives and if you’re wrong, we could irreparably damage the reputation of a wonderful nonprofit organization. I’m not doubting these schools exist, I’m just doubting your conclusion that the Staar Foundation is connected to them. I’m sure the GTM has camps everywhere.”

“You haven’t been listening to me.”

“Yes, I have, Jack,” she said, and firmly reclaimed her hand. “I’m just not convinced.”

“Then why are you protecting someone?”

“Oh, no, not that again.”

He shook his head. “Listen, no matter what you think, I’m here and I’m not going to go away until I get to the bottom of this.”

“I guess that’s your decision. It doesn’t include me. We had one night a long time ago …”

“Then let me be your bodyguard. That way we can pool what we know, we can work together and I can protect you. I need a place to hang out while I snoop around—”

“No way. I don’t need protection.”

“Really? Do you actually believe that?”

“Of course I believe it. It won’t work. You have to leave.”

“You’re wrong,” came a voice from behind Jack’s back. He swiveled around to find Mimi standing just inside the room.

“Grandma—” Hannah began.

“You’re wrong, Hannah Marie. Ever since your grandpa died and you got pregnant, you’ve been trying to do everything alone. You need help. We need help.”

“Maybe we do,” Hannah said reluctantly, and then with a swift glance at Jack, added, “But not this man.”

Mimi made a big deal of looking around the room and behind her. “Then, which man, Hannah?”

“Grandma—”

“I’ll hire you,” Mimi said, looking directly at Jack.

“You don’t even know Jack Starling,” Hannah muttered.

The older woman nodded abruptly. “You’re right, I don’t. But I like him, and so do you.”

Jack smiled.

“I do not like him,” Hannah grumbled.

“Whatever. Okay, if you won’t allow me to hire him as a bodyguard for you, then I’ll hire him as one for my great-granddaughter. It’ll be good having a man here protecting her. You accept, Mr. Starling?”

“I accept,” Jack said quickly before Hannah could get in another word.

“You can sleep here,” Hannah said a few hours later when everything had quieted down again. Aubrielle slept in her crib, which Hannah had pushed into her own bedroom. No way was she leaving her baby alone in a room with a big window. Mimi had long since excused herself to go to bed and Jack, who refused to leave even to drive back to Fort Bragg and check out of his motel, had finally stopped bombarding her with questions.

Standing next to her, he perused the room that had been her grandfather’s den until his death. The walls were still lined with shelves of books, but the desk was gone, shoved into Hannah’s room where she used it to work from home. In its place was the futon they’d installed for the occasional overnight guest. The closet was stuffed with boxes that were too heavy to cart up to the attic.

The fact was, Hannah realized, it was like there were three of them crowded into the small room: herself, Jack and the memory of their first and only night together. That memory had somehow assumed an identity of its own, a mass larger than the sum of the two of them combined. It vibrated with suspended breath as it hovered and waited.

“Cariño,” Jack said, his eyes dark in the deep shadows, the undercurrents of desire she could taste in the air between them sharp and poignant … and impossible.

“We need to get something out in the open,” she said softly.

He moved past her, gently brushing her breasts with his arm. As he had nothing to unpack, he turned upon reaching the futon, sat down, patted the mattress beside him and said, “I’m all ears.”

She crossed to the closet, yanked open the door and caught a sleeping bag as it fell from its perch atop a stack of cardboard boxes. She tossed it at him and grabbed a pillow. “A lot has happened since we met,” she said, still way too aware of him. When he opened his mouth to respond, she held up a finger. “To both of us, I mean. Nothing is the same. We’re not the same. You may have railroaded yourself into my grandmother’s house, but you can’t—”