Bodyguard Daddy (19 page)

In the cold.

It was where he’d put himself when he’d broken their engagement. Out in the cold...

Maybe that was why he’d used the date of their engagement. To remind himself of what he’d given up.

But why? Why had he stayed away from her? From Michael?

Because of that silly review—that bullshit that he might be a danger to anyone...?

She wasn’t in danger from him. But she was in danger.

She heard another creak, but it wasn’t overhead. She glanced toward the door and saw him standing there. A gasp slipped through her lips and hung on the cold air between them like a ghost. She pressed a hand to her racing heart.

“You scared me.”

He said nothing. Just stared at her.

Maybe he was angry she’d invaded what was obviously a very personal space to him—with very personal things. She couldn’t help it, though. She had had to pry—had to know everything about the man she’d once loved so desperately. “I didn’t know you painted anymore.”

He didn’t reply. Maybe he thought it was none of her business what he did. They weren’t together—not really. He was only protecting her and their son.

But there was something about his silence that unnerved her. It wasn’t as if he was angry with her. It was worse. “Milek?”

The look on his face scared her as much as his sudden appearance had. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head—not as if he was claiming nothing was wrong. But as if it was too awful to speak aloud.

“Milek, what is it?” She had to know—no matter how terrible. She glanced at that portrait of their infant son—at all those loving brushstrokes. And she realized the only thing that would have upset him so much. Her knees began to tremble, threatening to fold beneath her.

She might have collapsed right on that paint-spattered concrete floor if he hadn’t vaulted forward and caught her. His arms closed tightly around her—as if he could hold her together.

But if what she feared had happened, there would be no holding her together—ever again. “Tell me,” she implored him. “Just tell me...”

“Amber...”

“Tell me!” she shouted at him. “Tell me what happened to our son!”

“There was an accident...” But his eyes were dark—almost black with rage. There was the anger now—the anger she’d missed because she’d felt only his devastation. His loss...

And she knew it had been no accident. Whatever had happened to their son had been intentional. Someone hadn’t been trying to kill just her. They’d wanted her son dead, too.

Had they succeeded?

Chapter 17

P
enny Payne forced a happy smile. She was used to faking it. To pretending nothing was wrong when everything was. She’d done it when she found out years ago her husband had cheated on her. She’d pretended she’d forgiven him even before she’d found that forgiveness within her heart. And when he’d died, she had forced herself to be strong—for her devastated children.

She summoned that strength now and wound her arms around her daughter-in-law. Stacy’s slender shoulders bowed with guilt. “I shouldn’t have taken him out of the condo. I should have left him with his mom. She’ll never forgive me...”

Penny suspected Amber would forgive her best friend before Stacy forgave herself. “It’s not your fault.”

It was the fault of the sadistic bastard who’d rammed his truck into the SUV carrying a child and a pregnant woman and Candace.

White-faced, the female bodyguard stood against the wall of Stacy’s hospital room. She had no reason to feel guilty, either. But Penny wasn’t the one who could absolve either woman of guilt.

The door to the hall opened, and as it did, Candace drew her gun. But a big hand wrapped around it, bending it down to her side as strong arms closed around her.

“You’re all right!” Garek said as he hugged his wife. “Thank God you’re all right.”

Milek and a woman rushed into the room behind Garek. Their faces were as pale as Candace’s until the little boy sat up in the bed Stacy had tucked him into—the bed she was supposed to be in herself while she waited for the doctor to release her.

“Hey, Mommy,” he said.

The dark-haired woman ran to the bed and enveloped him in a big hug. Tears streamed down her face. “Are you really all right?”

He wriggled free and stared up at her, his little brow puckered with confusion. “I’m not sick,” he assured her. “Aunt Stacy is. This is her bed.”

But she had been too upset to sit, let alone lie down—no matter how badly she could have been hurt. How much she could have lost...

Stacy was pregnant. Penny was about to be a grandmother. Again.

“I heard you were in a car accident,” the little boy’s mother said, her voice cracking with emotion. “And that you’d been brought to the hospital.”

He shook his head. “Aunt Candy is a better driver than you are. She didn’t run off the road when the bad man hit us.”

Instead of being offended, his mother laughed and hugged him again. Her breath shuddered out in a sigh of relief.

Garek laughed, too—a laugh cut short when Candace jabbed his side. “Thanks a lot.”

Somehow Penny didn’t think the tough female bodyguard really minded her nephew calling her Candy. She’d done her best to protect him. She’d wrestled her SUV under control instead of rolling it, and she’d outrun the truck that had tried to overtake them.

“Thank you,” Milek told his sister-in-law. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”

Her throat moving as she swallowed her emotion, Candace nodded.

Another man came through the door. And, as always, Penny’s heart constricted at how much Logan looked like his father. But then, all her sons did—even the one she hadn’t borne but who was every bit as much a Payne as Logan and his brothers. Nick wasn’t here yet, though. He would be—he always came when his family was in trouble even though he struggled to accept he was family.

His hands shaking, Logan reached for his wife. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”

She nodded.

“And the baby?”

“Both of them are fine,” Stacy said.

Logan’s brows lowered with confusion. “Penny wasn’t in the car. We didn’t bring her with us to Milek’s condo. Mom was watching her...”

Her namesake had been with her. Now the baby was with her aunt Tanya—Cooper’s wife.

“She wasn’t,” Stacy assured him.

“Then...” And realization finally dawned. “We’re having twins?”

Stacy nodded.

“That’s wonderful,” Amber told her friend—her joy sincere.

Stacy tugged free of her husband to face the other woman. “Are you okay? You’re not angry at me?”

“Of course not,” Amber assured her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was the bad man,” Michael said. While he was young, he was wiser than the others. He knew where the blame really lay—with the person who’d tried to harm them. He turned toward Milek. “We need to find the bad man.”

“We will,” Milek assured his son. “We will.”

Penny hoped it was soon—before someone tried to harm the boy again. She didn’t like when someone tried to hurt her family. And although she hadn’t officially met Amber and her son, they were family now—because Milek was.

* * *

Milek had never felt so sick. He was still as tense and fearful as he’d been when he hadn’t been able to find Michael and Amber—because even though they were with him now, he knew how easily he could have lost them.

How easily he once had...

And just like that last time, he would have no one but himself to blame.

Keeping his voice low, he spoke into the cell phone pressed to his ear. “It’s because of me.”

He didn’t want to wake his son or Amber. They’d already been through too much. So he sat alone in the living room—watching the door to make sure no one tried to get in.

“What’s because of you?” Agent Rus asked. He sounded tired—as if Milek had awakened him.

Maybe he had. He didn’t know what time it was. He hadn’t even tried to sleep because he knew it wasn’t possible—not with the realization he’d had.

“Someone’s trying to kill Amber and Michael because of me.”

“Why would you think that?”

Because if someone wanted to hurt him—really hurt him—he would take away the two people who mattered most to him: the woman he loved and his son. “The same reason we thought Chekov was trying to take out Candace...”

Because she was Garek’s weakness—just like Amber was his. Rus apparently had no weaknesses, because he said nothing for a long moment. Then, finally, he spoke again. “It can’t be Chekov. That first attempt on Amber’s life was made a year ago—before you and Garek helped me take him down.”

“It’s not Chekov,” Milek agreed. “So there’s someone else.”

Someone who hated him so much he wanted to completely destroy him. When had he made such an enemy? He could only remember two people whom he’d really hurt in his lifetime. One of them was dead. The other was Amber.

He glanced toward the master bedroom and found her standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. Bathed in the moonlight streaming in through the skylights, she was beautiful. So beautiful his body ached to possess her...

Rus said something but Milek didn’t hear it—not with blood rushing through his ears—rushing low in his body.

Then she asked, “Who are you talking to?”

“Agent Rus...”

“Why so damn formal?” the FBI agent asked, as if annoyed.

Milek was never sure what to call the other man. He wasn’t even sure what they were to each other. Were they friends? Family?

Rus wasn’t entirely convinced Milek hadn’t murdered the hit man. But that didn’t mean anything. His own brother had suspected the same thing.

“I was telling Amber who’s on the phone,” Milek explained. He hoped his talking hadn’t awakened her. He hoped she hadn’t overheard his fear. She would probably hate him even more if she knew everything she’d been through, every bad thing in her life, was likely because of him.

* * *

Amber felt the tension in Milek even from across the room. He clicked off his cell phone and slid it into his pocket. “It’s late,” she said. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

He gestured toward the door. “I need to keep watch...”

She shook her head. She’d heard Logan at the hospital. He’d pulled every Payne Protection bodyguard from other details in order to guard them. “We’re safe.”

For the moment...

He stepped away from the door—finally—as if he believed her. But then he said, “You won’t be safe until we figure out who hired Campanelli.”

“Whoever it was must have hired someone else,” she remarked. Apparently even assassins were replaceable. Maybe she shouldn’t have been concerned that another assistant had taken over as the district attorney. Maybe the job never would have been hers—even if she had stayed in River City.

And with the reports on the news making her sound complicit in faking her death, and her rumored affair with her boss, she would probably never have a career again. Too bad she had just realized how much she missed it.

“We’ll find out who it is,” Milek said with grim determination. He stepped closer to her, but he didn’t look at her—as if he wasn’t quite able to meet her eyes.

“You won’t,” she said.

And he flinched.

“Not if you’re going to waste your time thinking it’s someone trying to hurt you.”

He looked at her then, his eyes narrowed. “You heard what I told Agent Rus?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice gruff with guilt. “I’m sorry I’ve put you and Michael in danger.”

She hated seeing him like this—beating himself up over something that wasn’t his fault. She stepped closer and slid her fingertips along his clenched jaw. “It’s not your fault. This has nothing to do with you.”

“I hoped not,” he said. “But to want to kill Michael, too...”

“And Schievink,” she reminded him. “You didn’t particularly care for him.”

His lips curved into a slight smile. “No, I didn’t...”

“And who would think you particularly cared for me?” she asked.

He released a sharp breath—as if she’d sucker punched him. Maybe now he knew how she’d felt when he broke up with her.

“You dumped me,” she reminded him. “You had nothing to do with our son. How would hurting either of us hurt you?”

He shrugged, and his broad shoulders slumped as if he carried a heavy burden.

She hadn’t lessened his guilt. Maybe she’d even made it worse. But she couldn’t absolve him of the pain he’d caused her—especially when she’d never understood it.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you break up with me?”

“I had my reasons,” he said.

“Schievink?” she asked. “But you said he hadn’t claimed Michael as his until after you’d broken our engagement.” And her heart.

“We need to focus on who’s trying to hurt you and Michael,” he said. “We both already know that I have.” The guilt was in his voice. “I’m sorry...”

She believed him, but she doubted it would have changed what he’d done. “I loved you...”

Unfortunately she suspected she still did.

“Amber...”

“Did you ever feel the same?”

“You know...”

“What?” she asked. She knew nothing. He’d shut her out five years ago and he’d never let her back in.

But then he reached for her, dragging her up against his hard body. His head lowered, and he covered her mouth with his, kissing her deeply—passionately. Maybe this was his way of showing her what he couldn’t tell her.

At least, that was what she wanted to believe—that he still cared. So she clutched his shoulders. And she kissed him back.

He lifted her and carried her back to the bedroom—to the bed. She wore only a robe, which he quickly untied and pushed from her shoulders. His breath caught as he stared at her breasts. “You’re so beautiful...”

He wasn’t the only man who’d ever told her so. Old boyfriends had. Dates. Gregory...

But it mattered most when Milek said it—as he had before. As an artist he created beauty—beauty beyond anything she’d imagined. That portrait of their son...

It had brought her to tears.

And the way he touched her, almost reverently, nearly brought her to tears, too. She blinked and focused on his face. He was the beautiful one, his features too perfectly chiseled to be handsome. She traced her fingers along every line of his face.