Alice Sharpe - The Baby's Bodyguard

Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Title Page The Baby’s Bodyguard Alice Sharpe www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author About the Author ALICE SHARPE met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing. Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at PO Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327, USA. SASE for reply is appreciated.

Dedication This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother with eternal gratitude for all the years of her love and support.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Copyright

ALICE SHARPEmet her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at PO Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327, USA. SASE for reply is appreciated.

This book is dedicated to the memory

of my mother with eternal gratitude

for all the years of her love and support.

Someone was watching her.

Hannah turned quickly. The three women and one old man behind her in line at the small market either smiled or looked bored. No shifting feet, no averted glances.

“Miss Marks?” the young clerk said, jerking Hannah’s attention back to him. He nodded at the debit card in her hand. The groceries were neatly tucked into cloth sacks, ready to go.

“Oh, sorry, Dennis.” She ran the card quickly through the machine, determined to get herself under control. But the sensation persisted all across the parking lot and more than once, she stopped to look around, each time expecting to spot someone studying her. Why had she parked at the back of the lot? Finally she was close enough to push the button on her key chain and pop the trunk.

The flat tire taking up two-thirds of the space reminded her she needed to swing by the service station and get it fixed. She’d thought working part-time would be a piece of cake, but there were always errands to run, as well. She fit the bags around the tire and slammed the trunk. That left her looking across the top of the car toward one of Allota’s two accessible beaches, this one a narrow span of gray sand leading to the deep blue Pacific Ocean.

It was a cold sea this far north of San Francisco, barely fifty degrees even in summer. On a late May day, with the sun barely peeking from behind high clouds and the wind blowing, just a few hardy souls braved the elements.

A car door slammed nearby and Hannah jumped. She knew she wasn’t the only woman in the community to be nervous—there were two unsolved murders of lone women sitting in their cars, both of them parked in their own garages. But she wasn’t a lone woman and she didn’t park in a garage so there went that excuse.

“Nerves and lack of sleep,” her friend and coworker had pronounced when Hannah mentioned the sensation at work. No doubt Fran was right.

Still, it was with a sense of relief that Hannah slipped into the car. What had she done with the keys? Patting pockets proved fruitless. She finally found them stuck in a side pocket of her handbag.

As she bent forward to put the key in the ignition, the passenger door abruptly opened and a man got in beside her. She gasped as impressions struck like stray bullets. Tan skin, long black hair, angular face, straight eyebrows hovering over brilliant blue eyes.

Eyes filled with scathing anger.

She instantly reached for the door handle with one hand and slammed the other down on the horn. He grabbed her hand from the steering wheel and shouted, “Hannah. ¡Parada! “ in the ensuing silence.

With her name and the sound of his voice came recognition. Her hand went limp in his grasp and he released it. Barely able to keep from rubbing her eyes, she whispered, “Jack?”

His eyelids flickered.

“It can’t be you,” she mumbled.

His shoulders lifted in an elegant shrug and she realized why she hadn’t immediately recognized him. He was so much thinner than the last time she’d seen him, so much more weathered. There were a few scars that hadn’t been there before, too, one by his nose, another along his jaw. His hair, which had been military short, was now shoulder length, wavy and wild.

Her impulse was to reach for him. “Jack! I thought you were dead—”

He caught her arms in strong hands, stopping her momentum. She fell back in her own bucket seat and after swallowing her shock, murmured, “What’s going on?”

“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” he said.

“I don’t know what you mean.” But of course Aubrielle popped into her mind. Did he know about her? Was that why he was here?

“I want to know who put you up to it, Hannah. Simple as that. Give me a name and I’m out of here.”

He’d lost her.

There was a rap on Hannah’s window. She looked around to find a very old man with bushy eyebrows peering in at her. She flicked the key to the right and used the switch to power down the window a few inches.

“Everything okay, miss?” he asked, a white handlebar mustache obscuring his lips.

“Everything is fine,” she said. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Jack, but surely it didn’t require outside assistance. “I accidentally hit the horn.”

“You positive?” he persisted, his gaze sliding past Hannah to look more closely at Jack. She doubted he was reassured by what he saw.

With more conviction than she felt, she said, “Yes. Thanks.”

“If you say so,” the old guy said and, leaning his weight on an old wooden cane, shuffled off toward a green sedan, his long raincoat almost dragging on the pavement. Hannah turned back to Jack. “Should I have asked him to call the cops?”

“I’ll call the cops myself just as soon as I find out who helped you.”

“You’ll call the cops? Why would you call the cops?”

“I’ve had months to think,” he said with deadly calm. “Months to realize I was conned and you did the conning. Oh, I know you didn’t actually kill anyone yourself, but the blood of innocent men is on your hands and you know it.”

The relief of realizing his demeanor had nothing to do with Aubrielle quickly gave way to shock as she realized what he was insinuating. “You have to be talking about the ambush down in Tierra Montañosa,” she said, stunned he would think—“Are you saying I had something to do with it?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” he growled.

She took the keys out of the ignition and without consciously deciding to do so, looped a few fingers through the door handle. “I heard you were dead, killed with several other men, buried in a mass grave. How did you get here?”