Security Blanket (2 page)

Working frantically, Lucky slung off the debris that was covering Marin Sheppard and her son.

No easy feat.

There was a lot of it, including some shards of glass and splintered metal, and he had to dig them out while trying to keep a firm grip on Noah. Not only was the baby screaming his head off, he wriggled and squirmed, obviously trying to get away from the nightmare.

Unfortunately, they were trapped right in the middle of it.

“You’re okay, buddy,” Lucky said to the baby. He hoped that was true.

Lucky quickly checked, but didn’t see any obvious injuries. Heck, not even a scratch, which almost certainly qualified as a miracle.

As he’d seen Marin do, Lucky brushed a kiss on the boy’s cheek to reassure him. Though it wasn’t much help. Noah might have only been eight months old, but he no doubt knew something was horribly wrong.

This was no simple train derailment. An explosion. An accident, maybe. Perhaps some faulty electrical component caused it. Or an act of terrorism.

The thought sickened him.

Whatever the cause, the explosion had caused a lot of damage. And a fire. Lucky could feel the flames and the heat eating their way toward them. There wasn’t much time. A couple of minutes, maybe less.

And even then, getting out wasn’t guaranteed.

They couldn’t go through the window. There were jagged, thick chunks of glass still locked in place in the metal frame. It wouldn’t be easy to kick out the remaining glass, and it’d cut them to shreds if he tried to go through it with Noah and Marin, especially since she was unconscious. Still, he might have to risk it. Lucky had no idea what he was going to face once he left the car and went into the hall toward the exit.

Maybe there was no exit left.

Maybe there was no other way out.

“Open your eyes, Marin,” he said when he finally made it through the debris to her.

Oh, man.

There wasn’t a drop of color in her face. And the blood. There was way too much of it, and it all seemed to be coming from a wound on the left side of her head. The blood had already seeped into her dark blond hair, staining one side of it crimson red.

“Look at me, Marin!” Lucky demanded.

She didn’t respond.

Lucky shoved his fingers to her neck. It took him several snail-crawling moments to find her pulse. Weak but steady.

Thank God, she was alive.

For now.

But he didn’t like the look of that gash on her head. Since she was breathing, there was no reason for him to do CPR, but he tried to revive her by gently tapping her face. It didn’t work, and he knew he couldn’t waste any more time.

Soon, very soon, the train would be engulfed in flames, and their chances of escape would be slim to none. They could be burned alive. He wasn’t about to let that happen to her or the precious cargo in his arms. He’d made a promise to protect Noah, and that was a promise he intended to keep.

Moving Marin could make her injuries worse, but it was a risk he had to take. Placing Noah on her chest and stomach, he scooped them both up in his arms and hugged them tightly against him so that Noah wouldn’t fall. Noah obviously wasn’t pleased about that arrangement because he screamed even louder.

Lucky kicked aside a chunk of the displaced wall, and hurrying, he went through what was left of the doorway that divided the lounge car from the rest of the train. A blast of thick smoke shot right at him. He ducked his head down, held his breath and started running.

The hall through coach seating was an obstacle course. There was wreckage, smoke and at least a dozen other passengers also trying to escape. It was a stampede, and he was caught in the middle with Noah and Marin.

The crowd fought and shoved, all battering against each other. All fighting to get toward the end of the car. And they finally made it. Lucky broke through the emergency exit and launched himself into the fresh air.

Landing hard and probably twisting his ankle in the process, he didn’t stop. He knew all too well that there could be a secondary explosion, one even worse than the first, so he carried Noah and Marin to a clear patch about thirty yards from the train.

The November wind was bitter cold, but his lungs were burning from the exertion. So were the muscles in his arms and legs. He had to fight to hold on to his breath. The air held the sickening smell of things that were never meant to be burned.

He lay Marin and Noah down on the dried winter grass beside him, but Noah obviously intended to be with Lucky. He clamped his chubby little arms around Lucky’s neck and held on, gripping him in a vise.

“You’re okay,” Lucky murmured. And because he didn’t know what else to say, he repeated it.

To protect Noah from the wind and cold, Lucky tucked him inside his leather jacket and zipped it up as far as he could. Noah didn’t protest. But he did look up at him, questioning him with tear-filled eyes. That look, those tears broke Lucky’s heart. It was a look that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Your mom’s going to be all right,” Lucky whispered.

He prayed that was true.

Lucky pulled Marin closer so his body heat would keep her warm, and used his hand and shirt sleeve as a compress. He applied some gentle pressure against her injured head, hoping it would slow the bleeding. She didn’t move when he touched her, not even a twitch.

He heard the first wail of ambulance sirens. Already close. Thankfully, they were just on the outskirts of Austin so the response time would be quick. The firefighters wouldn’t be far behind. Lucky knew the drill. They’d set up a triage system, and the passengers with the most severe, but treatable injuries would be seen first. That meant Marin. She’d get the medical attention she needed.

“You’re going to stay alive, Marin,” Lucky ordered. “You hear me? Stay alive. The medics are on the way. Listen to the sirens. Listen! They’re getting closer. They’ll be here in just a few minutes.”

Noah volleyed uncertain glances between Lucky and his mother. He stuck out his quivering bottom lip. For a moment Lucky thought the little boy might burst into tears again, but he didn’t. Maybe the shock and adrenaline caught up with him, because even though his eyes watered, he stuck his thumb in his mouth and snuggled against Lucky.

It wasn’t a sensation Lucky had counted on.

But it was a damn powerful one.

What was left of his breath vanished, and feelings went through him that he’d never experienced. Feelings he couldn’t even identify except for the fact that they brought out every protective instinct in his body.

“What are your injuries?” Lucky heard someone shout. He looked up and saw a pair of medics racing toward him. They weren’t alone. More were running toward some of the other passengers.

“We’re not hurt. But she is,” Lucky said pulling back his hand from Marin’s injured head.

The younger of the two, a dark-haired woman, didn’t take Lucky’s word about not being injured. She began to examine Noah and him. Noah whined and tried to bat her hands away when she checked his pupils. The other medic, a fortysomething Hispanic man, went to work on Marin.

“She’s Code Yellow,” the medic barked to his partner. “Head trauma.”

That started a flurry of activity, and the woman yelled for a stretcher.

Code Yellow. Marin’s condition was urgent, but she was likely to survive.

“I need your name,” the female medic insisted, forcing his attention back to her. “And the child’s.”

Lucky’s stomach clenched.

It was a simple request. And it was standard operating procedure for triage processing. But Lucky knew it was only the beginning of lots of questions. If he answered some of those questions, especially the part about Noah being a near stranger, they’d take the little boy right out of his arms, and the authorities would hold on to him until they could contact the next of kin.

The very thing that Marin didn’t want to happen.

Because her parents and her brother, Dexter, were Noah’s next of kin.

Some choice.

As if he understood what was going on, Noah looked up at him with those big blue-green eyes. There were no questions. No doubts. Not even a whimper.

But there was trust. Complete, unconditional trust.

Noah’s eyelids fluttered down, his thumb went back in his mouth, and he rested his cheek against Lucky’s heart.

Oh, man.

It seemed like some symbolic gesture, but it probably had more to do with the kid’s sheer exhaustion than anything else. Still, Lucky couldn’t push it aside. Nor could he push aside what Marin had asked of him when they’d been trying to stay alive.

If I don’t make it, get Noah out of here. Protect him.

And in that crazy life-or-death moment, Lucky had promised her that he would do just that.

It was a promise he’d keep.

“Sir,” the medic prompted. “I need you to tell me the child’s name.”

It took Lucky a moment to say anything. “I’m Randall Davidson. This is my son, Noah,” he lied. He tipped his head toward Marin. “And she’s my fiancé, Marin Sheppard.”

In order to protect the frightened little boy in his arms, Lucky figured he’d have to continue that particular lie for an hour or two until Marin regained consciousness or until he could call her friend in Fort Worth. Not long at all, considering his promise.

He owed Noah and Marin that much.

And he might owe them a hell of a lot more.

Marin heard someone say her name.

It was a stranger’s voice.

She wondered if it was real or all part of the relentless nightmare she’d been having. A nightmare of explosions and trains. At least, she thought it might be a train. The only clear image that kept going through her mind was of a pair of snakeskin boots. Everything else was a chaotic blur of sounds and smells and pain. Mostly pain. There were times when it was unbearable.

“Marin?” she heard the strange voice say again.

It was a woman. She sounded real, and Marin thought she might have felt someone gently touch her cheek.

She tried to open her eyes and failed the first time, but then tried again. She was instantly sorry that she’d succeeded. The bright overhead lights stabbed right into her eyes and made her wince.

Marin groaned.

Just like that, with a soft click, the lights went away. “Better?” the woman asked.

Marin managed a nod that hurt, as well.

The dimmed lighting helped, but her head was still throbbing, and it seemed as if she had way too many nerves in that particular part of her body. The pain was also affecting her vision. Everything was out of focus.

“Where am I?” Marin asked.

Since her words had no sound, she repeated them. It took her four tries to come up with a simple audible three-word question. Quite an accomplishment though, considering her throat was as dry as west Texas dust.

“St. Mary’s,” the woman provided.

Marin stared at her, her gaze moving from the woman’s pinned-up auburn hair to her perky cotton-candy-pink uniform. Her name tag said she was Betty Garcia, RN. That realization caused Marin to glance around the room.

“I’m in a hospital?” Marin licked her lips. They were dry and chapped.

“Yes. You don’t remember being brought here?”

Marin opened her mouth to answer, only to realize that she didn’t have an answer. Until a few seconds ago, she’d thought she was having a nightmare. She definitely didn’t remember being admitted to a hospital.

“Are you real?” Marin asked, just to make sure she wasn’t trapped in the dream.

The woman smiled. “I’m going to assume that’s not some sort of philosophical question. Yes, I’m real. And so are you.” She checked the machine next to the bed. “How do you feel?”

Marin made a quick assessment. “I feel like someone bashed me in the head.”

The woman made a sound of agreement. “Not someone.
Something.
But you’re better now. You don’t remember the train accident?”

“The accident,” Marin repeated, trying to sort through the images in her head.

“It’s still under investigation,” the nurse continued. She touched Marin’s arm. “But the authorities think there was some kind of electrical malfunction that caused the explosion.”

An explosion. She remembered that.

Didn’t she?

“Thankfully, no one was killed,” the woman went on. She picked up Marin’s wrist and took her pulse. “But over a dozen people were hurt, including you.”

It was the word
hurt
that made the memories all come flooding back. The call from her grandmother, telling Marin that she was sick and begging her to come home. The train trip from Fort Worth to San Antonio.

The explosion.

God, the explosion.

“Noah!” Marin shouted. “Where’s my son?”

Marin jackknifed to a sitting position, and she would have launched herself out of the bed if Nurse Garcia and the blinding pain hadn’t stopped her.

“Easy now,” the nurse murmured. She released her grip on Marin’s wrist and caught on to her shoulders instead, easing her down onto the mattress.

Marin cooperated, but only because she had no choice. “My son—”

“Is fine. He wasn’t hurt. He didn’t even get a scratch.”

The relief was as overwhelming as the pain. Noah was all right. The explosion that had catapulted them through the air had obviously hurt her enough that she needed to be hospitalized, but her son had escaped unharmed.

Marin considered that a moment.

How had he escaped?

A clear image of Lucky Bacelli came into her head.

The man she’d been certain was following her. He’d promised to get Noah out, and apparently he had.

“I want to see Noah,” Marin insisted. “Could you bring him to me now?”

Nurse Garcia stared at her, and the calm serenity that had been in her coffee-colored eyes quickly faded to concern. “Your son’s not here.”

Marin was sure there was some concern in her own eyes, as well. “But—”

“Do you have any idea how long you’ve been in the hospital?” the nurse interrupted.

Marin opened her mouth, closed it and considered the question. She finally shook her head. “How long?”

“Nearly two days.”

“Days?” Not hours. Marin was sure it’d only been a few hours. Or maybe she was simply hoping it had been. “So where is he? Who’s had my baby all this time?” But the moment she asked, the fear shot through her. “Not my parents. Please don’t tell me he’s with them.”

A very unnerving silence followed, and Nurse Garcia’s forehead bunched up.

That did it.

Marin pushed aside the nurse’s attempts to restrain her and tried to get out of the bed. It wasn’t easy, nowhere close, but she fought through the pain and wooziness and forced herself to stand up.

She didn’t stay vertical long.

Marin’s legs turned boneless, and she had no choice but to slouch back down on the bed.

“There isn’t any reason for you to worry,” the nurse assured her. “Your son is okay.”

Marin gasped for breath so she could speak. “Yes, so you’ve said. But who has him?”

“Your fiancé, of course. His father.”

What breath she’d managed to regain, Marin instantly lost. “His…father?”

Nurse Garcia nodded, smiling. The bunched up forehead was history.

Marin experienced no such calmness. Adrenaline and fear hit her like a heavyweight’s punch.

Noah’s father was dead. He was killed in a boating accident nearly eight months before Noah was even born. There was no way he could be here.

“Your fiancé should be arriving any minute,” the nurse cheerfully added.

Nothing
could have kept Marin in the bed. Ignoring the nurse’s protest and the weak muscles in her legs, Marin got up and went in search of her clothes. But even if she had to leave the hospital in her gown, she intended to get out of there and see what was going on.

Nurse Garcia caught on to her arm. Her expression changed, softened. “Everything’s okay. There’s no need for you to panic.”

Oh, yes, there was. Either Randall had returned from the grave or something was terribly wrong. Noah had no father, and she had no fiancé.

There was a knock at the door. One soft rap before it opened. The jeans, the black leather jacket. The boots.

Lucky Bacelli.

Not Randall.

“Where’s Noah?” she demanded.

Lucky ignored her question and strolled closer. “You gave me quite a scare, you know that? I’m glad you’re finally awake.” And with that totally irrelevant observation, he smiled. A secretive little smile that only he and Mona Lisa could have pulled off.

“I want to see Noah,” Marin snapped. “And I want to see him now.”

Another smile caused a dimple to wink in his left cheek. He reached out, touched her right arm and rubbed softly. A gesture no doubt meant to soothe her. It didn’t work. For one thing, it was too intimate. Boy, was it. For another, nothing would soothe her except for holding her son and making sure he was okay.

“The doctor wants to examine you before he allows any other visitors so Noah’s waiting at the nurses’ station,” Lucky explained, his voice a slow, easy drawl. The sound and ease of Texas practically danced off the words. “And I’m sure they’re spoiling him rotten.”

Marin disregarded the last half of his comment. Her son was at the nurses’ station. That’s all she needed to know. She ducked around Lucky and headed toward the door. Marin had no idea where the nurses’ station was, but she’d find it.

Lucky stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Where are you going, darling?”

That stopped her in her tracks.

Darling?

He said it as if he had a right to.

That was well past being intimate. Then he slid his arm around her waist and leaned in close. Too close. It violated her personal space and then some. Marin slapped her palm on his chest to stop him from violating it further.

“Is there a problem?” Nurse Garcia asked.

“You bet there is,” Marin informed her.

And she would have voiced exactly what that problem was if she’d had the chance.

She hadn’t.

Because in that same moment, Lucky Bacelli curved his hand around her waist and gently pulled her closer to him. He put his mouth right against her ear. “This was the only way,” he whispered.

Marin tried to move away, but he held on. “The only way for what?” she demanded.

“To keep you and Noah safe.” He kept his voice low, practically a murmur.

Even with the pain and fog in her head and his barely audible voice, she understood what he meant. Lucky had needed to protect Noah from her parents, just as she’d asked him to do. He’d pretended to be Randall Davidson, a dead man. Marin couldn’t remember how Lucky had known Randall’s name. Had she mentioned it? She must have. Thankfully, her parents had never met Randall and knew almost nothing about him. They certainly didn’t know he was dead. She’d kept that from them because if she’d explained his death, she would have also had to endure countless questions about their life together.

Marin stopped struggling to get away from him and wearily dropped her head on his shoulder. He’d lied, but he’d done it all for Noah’s sake. “My parents tried to take him?”

Lucky nodded. “They tried and failed. But I’m pretty sure they’ll be back soon for round two.”

That wasn’t a surprise. With her in a hospital bed, her parents had probably thought they could take over her life before she even regained consciousness. It’d been a miracle that Lucky had been able to stop them, and if he’d had to do that with lies, then it was a small price to pay for her to be able to keep her son from them.

“Thank you,” Marin mouthed.

“Don’t thank me.” Lucky moved back enough to allow their gazes to connect. The gray in his eyes turned stormy. “I don’t think that train accident was really an accident,” he whispered.

Stunned, Marin shook her head. “What do you mean?”

It seemed as if he changed his mind a dozen times about what to say. “Marin, Noah and you were nearly killed because of me.”