Daddy Devastating
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“I’m sorry—” Julia began.
But he cut her off, too. “Sorry won’t help. The only thing that will help is damage control, and that’s about to get started.”
Julia nodded and handed him back the picture.
“What can I do?”
“For now, you can go back to your hotel, take the baby and return to San Antonio. Did you fly or drive here?”
“I drove. Emily’s only two weeks old. She’s too young to fly.”
Well, in some ways that made it easier. No trip to and from the airport, but that meant she had to go about a hundred and fifty miles to get home safely.
“You have some kind of security system, I assume?” he asked.
Another nod, but her eyes widened with alarm. “You think Emily could be in danger? “
She shoved the car in gear and darted out of the parking lot. The tires squealed and kicked up bits of rock that spattered against the car. She didn’t stop there. She grabbed her cell and made another call.
“I need to speak to the nanny. Don’t worry. I won’t mention you,” she explained. “Zoey,” she said, when the nanny answered. “I need you to make sure the door is locked. Don’t let anyone in until I get there.”
Julia ended the call, but she continued to mumble to herself.
Russ actually welcomed this high level of concern. It might get her to cooperate. “The baby’s probably not in danger … probably,” he emphasized. “But I don’t want to take any chances.” He carefully placed the photo back in his wallet and put it in his pocket. “After all, she’s my niece.”
Russ mentally repeated that. He was an uncle.
Later, he’d come to terms with that and the fact that RJ had fathered a child he’d never seen, never even known about. But that had to wait.
“I have a security system,” Julia explained. “Supposedly, it’s the best money can buy. And I can hire bodyguards. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Emily safe.”
Russ nodded. “I’ll arrange to have an agent or a cop follow you home. And once I’ve wrapped up things down here, I’ll contact you.”
She had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. “Milo can’t hurt her.”
She was taking his warning very seriously, but there was no reason for Milo to go after Emily.
Because she looked ready to lose it, Russ reached over and skimmed his hand down her arm. Why, he didn’t know. After everything she’d just learned about him, his touch probably wasn’t very comforting.
“How badly did I mess up your investigation?” Julia asked. She stopped when the light turned red and drummed her fingers impatiently until it turned green. She gunned the engine.
“I can salvage it,” he assured her.
But Russ wasn’t certain of that at all. Still, he had no choice but to try.
Julia pulled to a quick stop in the parking lot of the Wainwright Hotel. Even though it had three floors, it was a fairly small building and only had about two dozen rooms. He’d already guessed that that was where she’d be staying, since it was the nicest hotel in a town that was seriously lacking nice things. The outskirts of the town were okay—more family oriented; and more likely than not, if you were in downtown San Saba, you were looking for trouble.
“Let me call my partner, Silas Duran,” he told her. “He can make the arrangements for a security escort, and I can wait with you until everything is in place, so you can leave.”
“You trust this Silas?” she asked.
Russ nearly gave her an automatic yes—but stopped. He settled for a nod.
Silas was a fellow agent and probably well trained. But Russ didn’t like that Silas had only been on this case for a couple of days. He also didn’t like that Silas might have pulled strings to get the assignment. That’s the way it seemed to Russ, anyway. But that was a problem for him to mull over when he had more time.
She opened her door and looked at him. She nibbled lightly on her bottom lip, caught it between her teeth for several seconds. “I suppose you want to see Emily?”
He did. But the timing was all wrong.
Or was it?
Russ didn’t know how long it would take to get this investigation back on track, and he couldn’t leave San Saba until Milo put him in touch with the head honcho—the slimeball only identified as Z. Russ wanted to find Z and lock him away for a long, long time for what he’d done. If it took him weeks or longer to do that, it would be weeks before he first got to see his niece.
“Yeah,” Russ heard himself say. “I’d like to see her. I won’t stay long.”
He had to pay an uncle’s tribute to his dead brother’s child and give Julia a promise that he would be back as soon as he could.
Since Julia was obviously too anxious to stay put any longer, Russ took out his phone and called Silas while they made their way into the hotel. He also kept watch around them, and breathed a little easier, once they made it into the lobby.
“Russ,” Silas answered, “I was just about to call you.”
Oh, no. Even though he’d only been working with Silas a short time, he knew that tone, and this wasn’t good news.
“Where are you now?” Silas asked.
“With Julia Howell.” Ahead of him, Julia made it to the elevator and jabbed the up button. “She’s about to leave for her estate, but I need to request a security detail for her.”
“We have a problem. She can’t leave,” Silas said.
Russ hoped he’d misunderstood. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she can’t leave. If she does, this investigation is over, and you get to start it from scratch.”
Because he might lose signal in the elevator, Russ clamped onto Julia’s arm to stop her from stepping into it.
“I need to check on Emily,” she insisted.
Russ pulled her to the side so he could continue this conversation, a discussion that he was positive he wasn’t going to like.
“Explain,” Russ told Silas.
“Milo just called his contact to set up another meeting for tomorrow afternoon. We can choose the exact time and the location.”
Russ relaxed a little. Maybe the investigation hadn’t been ruined. Maybe he could rescue that baby after all. “Well, that’s good. The meeting’s critical.” And it was critical they control the location so they could set up security.
“No, it’s not good.” Silas said, cursing. A first. He had never heard Silas use even mild profanity before.
Russ listened to Silas’s news. Yep, it was bad all right. And a few moments later, he was doing his own cursing. “Can we change Milo’s mind?” Russ asked.
“No. Believe me, I tried, but he was adamant. We can take extra precautions. We can even bring in a few more agents. So the question is, do you think you can talk Julia Howell into cooperating?”
Russ looked over her at and saw the nerves right there at the surface. He could possibly convince her to do what Milo wanted. Possibly. But even if they controlled the security and the meeting place, it didn’t mean something wouldn’t go wrong. Julia could ultimately be in more danger than she already was. If that was possible.
Milo would dig to find out who she was, and then he’d wonder why an heiress worth fifty million would get involved with a lowlife like Jimmy Marquez. By doctoring her records, they could make it work.
Well, maybe … if they could convince Milo that Julia had a thing for slumming or bad boys.
“The stakes are too high to fail,” Silas reminded him.
Yeah. And that was the real bottom line.
One way or another, even if he had to resort to begging, even if he had to put her in more danger, Russ had to bring Julia deeper into this.
Because a baby’s life depended on it.
Chapter Four
The moment Russ ended his call, Julia got them into the elevator. Everything inside her was starting to spin. Her breathing was too fast. Her thoughts were going a mile a minute.
She tried to make herself slow down, so she could think this through, but the only thing that kept going through her mind was the importance of keeping Emily safe. Later, she’d berate herself for coming here to San Saba before she had thoroughly assessed the dangers. Julia had been in such a hurry to carry out Lissa’s dying wish that she hadn’t considered that some dying wishes just couldn’t be fulfilled.
This was obviously one of them.
She had to grab Emily and leave the minute Russ had a security escort in place.
When the elevator door finally opened, Julia rushed out. She fished her keycard from her purse and slid it into the lock as soon as she reached the door. Then she hesitated—looked back at Russ, who was right on her heels.
“What?” he asked. After a moment of studying her face, he cocked his eyebrow. “Trust me, I’m having second thoughts about being here with you, too. But unless you got a time machine in that purse, we can’t go back to the bar and undo what happened.”
True, but Julia still didn’t open the door. “Just how much are things messed up?”
“They’re messed up,” he answered. Now it was his turn to hesitate. “But I swear I’ll do everything humanly possible to keep Emily safe.”
Julia nodded. That was something at least. “You should know, I don’t handle danger well. Old wounds.” She added “Literally.” Out of breath, she knew she had to get control of herself.
He touched his fingers to his chest. “Does this mean you’re about to have a panic attack or something?”
“No,” she snapped.
That wasn’t exactly the truth. She might have one. It wouldn’t be the first.
“I’m not sure what it means. I just thought you should know that alley meetings and having guns pointed at me aren’t things I can handle.”
“You already have,” he reminded her.
“Things I can’t handle again,” she said. “Or after the fact. I usually don’t break during the heat of the moment, but afterward, all bets are off.”
Russ stared at her, and that stare reminded her of how close they were. Not as close as in the alley of course, but still close enough. He was a disturbingly attractive man, and the sooner she got him out of her life the better.
He huffed, cursed under his breath and reached out to touch her arm, as he had earlier. A sort of gentle rub, with just the tips of his fingers. It had worked then. A small miracle. But she was too close to the edge for it to work now. Still, she didn’t move away from him.
“When I was seventeen I was attacked.” Her words rushed out with her breath, and she felt her heart pounding. Her chest began to hurt. And she had no idea why she was telling him any of this. “A date went wrong. My parents had warned me that the guy was bad news. I didn’t listen. I thought I knew more than they did. And when the guy tried to rape me, and he couldn’t, uh, perform, he stabbed me three times and left me to die in the trunk of my car.”
The tears came, and she cursed, used the profanity to quell the building anger. She wasn’t that naïve girl anymore. It wasn’t worth crying or panicking over now. She’d been rescued twelve years ago, and was still alive.
“Shhh,” Russ said, his voice so calm. He put his arm around her and eased her closer. Not quite a hug, but almost. “Want to show me your scars, and I’ll show you mine? “
She went stiff and eased back a little so she could make eye contact. But he was busy lifting his chest-hugging black T-shirt. She got a good look at his toned and tanned chest, his tight abs and the scar just to the left of his heart.
“I know a little bit about being left for dead … and staying alive.” He lowered his T-shirt. “So do you. That’s good, Julia. Because I need you to be a survivor.”
She smeared the tears off her face and narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
He opened his mouth as if he were about to answer, but then he shook his head. “Let me meet my niece first, and then we’ll talk.”
She just continued to stare at him so, he reached around her and opened the door. Or rather, he tried to do that. The nanny had obviously put on the safety latch and chain.
“It’s me,” Julia called to Zoey.
“Julia, thank God you’re here. You scared me with that phone call.” Zoey opened the door, but she stopped when she spotted Russ. Probably because Russ looked … well, dangerous.
And was.
“Everything’s okay,” Julia said, trying to assure the woman. “I might have overreacted.” She hoped she had, anyway. Julia motioned toward Russ and shut the door. “This is Russ Gentry, Emily’s uncle.”
Zoey’s dark brown eyes widened, and she looked him over from head to toe. “What happened to the birth father?”
“My brother was killed,” Russ replied, as he double-locked the door.
“Oh.” The young woman probably didn’t realize that her mouth had dropped open. She stayed that way for several moments. “Well, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for Emily. She’s barely two weeks old and already an orphan.”
Yes. She was. The poor thing. Julia would soon have to figure out what to do about that orphan status. She’d need to contact her attorney and see what the process was to become Emily’s permanent legal guardian.
Julia thought of her old baggage. The old wounds. They were the reason she’d given up the idea of having children of her own. She hadn’t wanted to bring a child into her world of panic attacks, nightmares and fear. A “recluse,” the press called her. Well, while that might be good enough for her, she couldn’t raise a child in a vacuum.
The idea caused her to take a deep breath.
“Emily’s still asleep,” Zoey explained, stepping to the side. “She hasn’t woken up since you gave her the bottle before you went out to talk with Mr. Gentry.”
That wasn’t a surprise. Emily slept a lot, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was eating, fussing and requiring a diaper change. Still, with all that work involved, Julia hadn’t expected to find the baby to be so enthralling. She had tried not to let herself get attached, but there was nothing to hold her back now.
“This way,” Julia told Russ, and she led him through the small living area, in the direction of one of the bedrooms in their three-room suite. Julia had had the crib moved into her own room so she could stay up nights with Emily. Zoey was using the other.
The door was already open, and the lamp was on, so she had no trouble gazing fondly at Emily in the crib. Julia automatically smiled—and she was glad for that reason to smile. With the incident in the alley, she needed something to bring her back to normal, and Emily had a unique way of doing that.
With Russ right next to her, she tiptoed closer and stared down at the baby. She was so precious, with her light brown curls and pink cheeks.
“Her eyes are brown,” Julia whispered to him. Like Russ’s eyes, and no doubt, his twin brother’s. Now that they were side-by-side, Julia could see the resemblance even more. Emily definitely had the Gentry DNA.
“Despite the circumstances of her birth, she’s very healthy.” Julia gave the pink blanket an adjustment that it didn’t really need. She just needed to touch the baby. “She weighed seven pounds, three ounces when she was born, but she’s already gained nearly a pound.”
When Russ didn’t say anything, she looked at him. But he didn’t seem to notice that she was even in the room. His attention was focused on Emily.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered. He touched Emily’s hand lightly, and she closed her fingers over his thumb. He sucked in his breath. “She’s like a tiny angel.”
There was so much emotion in his voice, Julia had to do a double take to make sure Russ Gentry had spoken those words.
He had.
This was the man who had stared down gunmen in the alley?
He was turning into a marshmallow right before her eyes.
“Oh, man,” he mumbled. The smile started in the corner of his mouth and spread until it was a full grin. “I didn’t expect this.”
Julia didn’t need clarification. She’d had the same reaction when she first saw the child.
“The love,” he said. “It’s instant. I mean, it’s like my blood knows that she’s my niece.”
She understood that, too, but she suddenly became very uncomfortable.
She thought Russ would do a quick peek and head back to the sitting room so they could have that talk he’d mentioned. But this was no quick peek.
He drew back his hand so he could scrub it over his face. He groaned softly. “Okay. I can deal with this. I can make it work.”
“Make what work?” Julia asked.
He tipped his head to Emily. “I was due to move to a supervisor’s job in the next year anyway, but this will just speed things up. I’ll get out of undercover work when I’m done with this case.”
“What do you mean?” Julia said that a little louder than expected.
He shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “A desk job in the San Antonio office will give me regular work hours. And it’ll be safer. I can have a more normal life. And I can finally get a haircut,” he added, shoving the strands of hair away from his face.
Julia put all those things together. Oh, no! He couldn’t mean that. “Are you saying you want to raise Emily?”
He gave another shrug. “Of course. She’s RJ’s daughter. My niece. I’m her next of kin. Who else would be raising her?”
“Me,” Julia blurted out.
That erased any trace of Russ’s goofy smile. “You’re her cousin. I’m her uncle, and her father was my identical twin brother. That’s a closer bloodline than you have with her. Besides, if Lissa had wanted you to raise her, she would have said so.”
It felt as if someone were squeezing a fist around Julia’s heart.
“Lissa said that because she thought Emily’s father was alive. And because she probably thought I didn’t want children. She was wrong. Besides, need I remind you that you’re in the middle of a dangerous investigation?”
“An investigation that’ll end soon.” He stared at her. “You want to raise her yourself?”
Julia managed an indignant nod. “Well, I am the natural choice.”
That was far from the truth, but Julia wasn’t speaking with her head. This was a heart thing.
“Why? Because you’re a woman? Because you’re rich?” he asked, challenging her. “I can feed her a bottle and buy her clothes just as well as you can.”
Since this was obviously about to turn into a nasty argument, Julia gave Emily’s blanket another adjustment and caught onto Russ’s arm so she could lead him out of the room.
Zoey was there, apparently waiting for an update, but it would have to wait. “Could you excuse us?” Julia asked her, then waited until Zoey was in her room before she continued.
“What makes you think you’d be a good father?” Julia demanded.
“Maybe the same thing that makes you think you’d be a good mother,” he countered. “I love Emily. It doesn’t matter that I just saw her for the first time, I love her.”
“And I don’t suppose it matters that the dangerous elements of your job could follow you from undercover work to a desk?”
“The FBI makes it a priority to protect the families of their agents.”
She was about to launch into the next wave of the argument, but he lifted his hand in a stop-right-there gesture. “Look, this isn’t a good time to go at each other about custody. We can work that out later.”
“Can we?” she snapped.
“We can,” he calmly assured her. Russ glanced around the room, and his attention landed on the minibar. Next to it was the small microwave she’d had brought in so she could heat up Emily’s formula.
“Do you have any hard liquor?” Russ asked.
Julia was still in a fit of temper, and that trivial-sounding question didn’t help. “Help yourself.”
“It’s not for me. It’s for you.” He went to the bar, selected a bottle of bourbon and poured some into a glass. He brought it back to her and motioned for her to sit on the sofa.
Because Julia’s legs were still wobbly, she did. She also took the drink and had a sip, despite the fact that she hated bourbon. As expected, it watered her eyes.
Russ eased down on the sofa next to her. Not on the other side. But practically hip-to-hip with her. So close that she could see the trouble brewing in his eyes.
“This drink is to help pave the way for what you need to tell me,” she said.
He nodded and combed his gaze over her. “I’m physically attracted to you. That’ll be a problem—”
“What?” The remark was such a surprise that it took her a moment to continue. “This is what you needed to tell me?”
“No. It’s just FYI. I keep thinking about your lace panties. I keep thinking about kissing you. That’ll be a problem because I’m a guy, and in my mind, that attraction will get all screwed up, and I’ll have this overwhelming need to protect you. I can’t have that now, because there’s someone else I have to think about.”
Julia had another sip of the bourbon and was disgusted that she needed it. “Am I supposed to understand that?”
“Yeah. Because I’m pretty sure you’re attracted to me, too.”
She tried to deny it. Tried hard. But the lie wouldn’t make it past her throat. “I won’t get involved with you.” No lie there. It was the truth. Julia didn’t get involved with anyone—ever.
“Good.” He didn’t seem insulted. More like relieved. “Because I need to ask you to do something, and I don’t want sex, lace panties or attraction to have any part in your answer.”
She stared at him. “You’re not making sense.”
“I will, soon.” He took the drink from her and finished it. “Milo, the gunman from the alley, contacted my partner to set up another meeting.”
“Good.” She nodded. “You said the meeting was important.”
“It’s more than important. And Milo won’t go through with it unless I bring you with me.”
Julia felt her heart skip a very big beat. “W-what?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t have even considered it, but the stakes are astronomical. Besides, if I don’t bring you, Milo will be even more suspicious. He might panic and do something stupid. Something that could set things back worse than they already are.”
Oh, God. Julia wished she’d finished that drink after all. Her heart started racing. She could feel the adrenaline flash through her. The anxiety hit her like a ton of bricks. She was racing toward a full-blown panic attack.
“Just take a deep breath,” Russ said, as if knew exactly what she was experiencing. He caught onto her chin. “Don’t make me put my hand up your dress again.”
“What?” She pushed him away from her.
“That’s right. Get mad. Slap me if it’ll help. Hell, kiss me. Do whatever you need to do to stop that response. It’s old garbage, and you’re stronger than you think, Julia. I watched you in that alley, and if I thought for one minute that you couldn’t handle this, I wouldn’t be asking.”
She blinked. No one had ever accused her of being strong. And much to her surprise, it worked. She felt her heart rate ease back to normal.
“That’s good,” Russ mumbled. “And for the record, I’ve never threatened to put my hand up a woman’s dress before. Well, not unless it involved mutual foreplay.”
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