The Bodyguard's Baby (Billionaire Bodyguard Series) (12 page)

Lindsey recalled the bow of defeat in Slone’s shoulders, when he’d thrown down the trunk at her feet. It made her want to weep.

The heavy burden he’d carried all this time within would be unveiled in the contents of the trunk before her. She wasted no time diving in.

Two hours and ten minutes later, she felt like she’d read Slone’s biography. She understood it had required immense lack of ego for him to give her this insight. He’d done this for her, for their baby. She absorbed herself in every word. She wouldn’t let him down.

The words on the pages painted the picture of a man who’d never forgiven himself for his brother’s death. Slone had subjected himself to continuous self-torture, a penance of his own making. An eye for an eye tale, where he believed he deserved nothing good, because his brother hadn’t lived long enough to produce all the good Slone had expected from him.

Pushing aside Slone’s self-incrimination—maybe his own self-flagellation—she read James’s letters to him and came to a different conclusion. James had idolized Slone, no doubt, but James’s logic and reasons for joining the military had been well-considered. James had yearned for the prestige and the pride his family members had attained. Not just Slone, as James wrote, but Uncle Jimmy, and Uncle Jimmy’s brother, Charles, who was given a Purple Heart medal posthumously for his service in Vietnam—a few lines later, she read Charles had left behind a
son.

A child…
Slone.
Charles was Slone’s father! No wonder his Uncle Jimmy had taken a special shine to Slone in his youth. Uncle Jimmy might’ve wished he’d saved his own brother’s life, the way Slone wished he could’ve saved James, but Uncle Jimmy had done his penance, given Slone all the great lessons he’d needed to make a good life for himself.

It made perfect sense why Slone had contributed to his niece’s future. He could give her financially what Slone’s uncle had given to him physically and emotionally, and Slone had thrived under Uncle Jimmy’s tutelage.

But how was that fair? How was depriving his family of Slone’s presence any better than those who’d died protecting the heroic cause?

The letters their mother had sent Slone reaffirmed Lindsey’s viewpoint. Slone’s emotional prison was of his own creation. Although
the remorse he carried was reinforced by the two unfairly cruel, accusatory letters written to him by James’s widow, Adele. Lindsey read them and felt sick afterward. The distraught woman had preyed on Slone’s already insurmountable guilt.

Blotting her eyes and blowing her nose into a tissue one last time, she finished reading and ingesting the final letter in the trunk. The letters she unearthed supported her claims completely. All letters to Slone were about support and love. And their continued support and love. His family adored him, beyond a doubt. The only problem lay in Adele’s attitude.

Throwing the tissues into the trashcan in the kitchen, she spied the bottle of booze and brought it with her as she trekked upstairs to his bedroom.
She knocked on his door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” came his sarcastic snarl.

Whatever reaction Slone anticipated, she refused to give it to him. She had no desire to support his self-punishment. If there proved any way possible, she planned to negate the curse he’d cast upon himself.

Letting herself inside his room, she shut the bedroom door and handed him the quarter-emptied bottle of rum.

He nodded at her, so she topped off his drink. She set the bottle down on his nightstand. Then he gestured with the glass in his hand. “So…?”

“First off, I want to say I’m proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished.”

In the semi-darkness, he scoffed, “Spare me.”

“Actually, that’s what your brother and mother tried to do. You just couldn’t see it. But I saw it, read it, in the letters they sent to you.”

“Did they?” he snarled.

“Before James even left for basic training, he explained his reasons. While he admired you, he wanted a better life for his family. He wanted to go to college, did you even know that? Do you know what he wanted to become?”

“An idiot?”

“No, an engineer. Let me read you a passage from one of his letters—”

“Don’t bother.”

She took a deep breath. “Well, it might do some good to hear them from an unbiased source. He writes, ‘You’re the man, bro. You know I idolize you, always have. But my decision to join the Marines goes beyond you carrying on the family tradition of valor. I need this. I need to prove to Adele, to my family, I can be more than a factory man for the rest of my life. The military’s health benefits for my family, and a full ride at Kentucky U, makes this the right choice for me. My only choice. As my badass Navy SEAL brother, I think you get it. If I stayed in town and didn’t try to make myself a better man, I’d spin my wheels into a rut too deep to dig myself out. I need to man up. Do the right thing. Take a chance. Become somebody. Like you did. Love, James’,” she finished.

“He stopped using Love James once he joined the Marines,” Slone said, as if that’s all he heard of what she’d recited.

“Slone, your brother had plenty of perfectly valid reasons to go into the military. You may have given him something to aspire to, but that’s what big brothers do. Kylie has been my inspiration since she took over being a mom to me at age eleven, when ours left. Life isn’t fair, we all know that. Sometimes, circumstances offer a limited number of choices. We pick the best way we know how. Some of us get the luxury of hindsight, but that’s no reason to blame yourself for James’s decision. Or his death.”

Slone remained silent for a long time. “I don’t know how not to,” he admitted.

Her heart wrung for his pain. She knelt on the floor beside the chair where he sat and hugged his knee. The muscles in his leg tightened like a shield, but she didn’t let go.

“Tell me something,” he said. “If Kylie had died while taking on the role of mom—if she’d stepped in front of a bus for you, or whatever—how would you feel?”

“Awful,” she admitted. “Sad. Angry at God and world.”

He swirled his drink in his hand. “Now you get it.”

“The difference,” she said, “is I would honor her life and her memory by going on to live and do all the things she gave up her own safety to help me achieve. My life would become a dedication to her. Not a funeral pyre where I constantly sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of her memory.”

“You don’t know that,” he spat.

“Yes, I do. I have the good fortune to be able to ask her, the next time I see her, what she’d want for me. I guarantee what I just described is what she’d want. She
wouldn’t
want me to stay stuck in the past, in a living hell of my own creation. I guarantee your brother wouldn’t have wanted that either.”

“Yeah, well he ain’t here. So we can’t ask him.” Bitter sarcasm dripped from his tone.

“Here’s the thing,” she said gently, resting her chin on her folded hands that cupped his knee. “Since we’re talking hypothetical, if you and your brother were on the same battlefield, and you had the choice to save him or yourself, which would you choose?”

“Him,” Slone said without a blink of hesitation.

“I’ll bet he would’ve said the same thing about you.”

“Shit, I would’ve beaten it into his brain that he lives, not me, before I ate that bullet.”

“No matter how hard we try, we can’t be there all the time to protect the ones we love. Were the roles you described reversed, between you and me, I’d say the same to Kylie without a second thought. I’d put her life before mine in a heartbeat. That’s what siblings do. It’s a gut instinct to preserve the ones you love most. It’s the highest form of honor and love.”

“Maybe,” he muttered.

“James knew the risks, Slone. Very well, according to his letters. Yes, he looked up to you, but you aren’t responsible for his outcome.”

“I should’ve told him not to enlist.” He took a heavy swallow of his drink. “If only he’d gone into the Navy, maybe I could’ve prevented…” His voice trailed off.

“You know that’s not true. And if you’d told him not to, he probably would’ve been even more determined to prove you wrong.”

“Yeah, I know,” Slone said with defeat in his tone.

She paused in thought. “I’ve heard there are debriefings in the military. I’d assume especially for men who’ve served in your position. Did you ever talk to a psychologist about James?”

“Fuck, no,” he said. Then, to her surprise, he reached out and combed his fingers through her hair with a tender touch. “No shrink could ever give me the solace I find with you.”

Finally,
she thought.
The breakthrough.
The opening she’d hoped to find with him.

Reaching for the drink in his hand, she pried it from his grasp and set it aside. Then she slid onto his lap, straddling his hips. She glided her hands through his short spiky hair. “Again, if the roles were reversed—if you had died and James had lived—would you wish him endless guilt and agony? Or would you hope your life’s impact honored him, as if he’d pursued all the things he’d hoped for in life?”

Slone cleared his throat. “I think you know the answer.”

“Then live it,” she whispered. “For you. For him. You don’t need to deny yourself good things because he doesn’t have them. He’d want you to be happy.”

Slone continued running his fingers through her hair. Then he leaned forward, pressed his face against her breasts, and wrapped his arms around her so tight she could barely breathe. “You know I don’t deserve you,” came his muffled response.

“I disagree. I think we deserve each other, in the best way.”

He tugged down her vee-neck sweater, gliding his tongue along her cleavage. “I need to make love to you.
Now.
”

She hissed a hot exhalation against his forehead. “I’m good with that.”

Standing with her in his arms, he strode to the bed and laid her down amidst the cool sheets. She shivered, but his mouth quickly warmed her, trailing a steamy path from her breasts to her belly. He unzipped her jeans and yanked them to her ankles. She kicked them off her feet.

Then his face disappeared between her thighs. He dragged her panties to the side and stroked her with his tongue, drenching her in sizzling sensation. Her legs tightened, her pulse leaped uncontrollably, and he brought her to swift orgasm, leaving her quaking in his hands.

Without effort he repositioned her at the center of their bed. He quickly shucked his clothes and met her skin on skin.

Although she’d thought nothing could be more intimate than making a baby, tonight their intimacy shifted to an even deeper realm. Tonight, in the ambient light of the moon filtering through the blinds, she saw his heart
and
his soul in his eyes. His light bathed her in the softest, most adoring glow, as he pushed inside and made love to her completely.

They’d never been so close. When she exhaled, he inhaled, absorbing each other’s essence. “You’re the light I never thought I’d find,” he whispered between kisses, their lips meeting, separating, meeting again with each firm thrust.

She wrapped her legs, her arms and her heart around him. “Just don’t leave me and go to that dark place like you did tonight. Ever again. I’m here for you. Always.”

“I understand.” He buried his face against her neck and they strove together, his length embedded in her slick heat, until they came at the same time, shuddering in each other’s arms.

As his damp forehead rested between her breasts, she cradled him, hoping their breakthrough wouldn’t be short-lived. Because she didn’t want to be without him, but only he had the power to rise above his past…or become swallowed by mourning, where she feared she’d never reach him again.

The next test of their strengthening bond as a couple came when Lindsey retrieved the mail the first week of January.

In recent days, Kylie had revealed to Lindsey the FBI’s decision to no longer pursue Ramos’s gang as enemy number one. They’d dismantled the group and prosecuted the thugs, large and small. Slone was free of his duties as bodyguard. For all intents and purposes, the news allowed Lindsey to pursue her life as she wished. She couldn’t be happier that Slone remained in the house with her, as far more than a roommate.

The relief took a week to set in, but she liked that Slone no longer woke in the middle of the night to do his 2:00 am recon rounds. Instead, he stayed in bed with her, and they enjoyed every spare moment together between his sheets.

Now Slone worked full-time at Adam Soren’s side, often ten-hour days or longer. She had zero skill or desire to cook meat, so he usually came home with a steak or prepared chicken breasts that only required a two-minute microwave before they shared dinner together.

Lindsey used the time between coming home from school and Slone’s arrival after work to grade papers and attend to next week’s lesson plan. She
loved
her new job. The school was more than a place she showed up at that gave her a paycheck. She adored teaching second grade, and enjoyed her developing friendships with the other teachers.

Especially Marissa.

The woman offered a constant source of support and helpful recommendations. Marissa always asked about the progress of Lindsey’s pregnancy, though she remained discreet about the inquiries. Lindsey intended to wait until she showed her baby bump before she revealed her condition to her superiors or superintendent. The knowledge of her pregnancy could impact her
full-time position and impending time off, which she needed to maintain to keep her position open and her absence paid, with benefits.

True, Slone had promised—and continued to promise—his benefits and income for her and the baby’s welfare, but unless they were married his benefits didn’t apply to her. They weren’t at an emotional place to consider that eventuality yet, so for the foreseeable future she needed her new career and excellent health insurance to fund her pregnancy.

Not a problem,
she thought, smoothing her hand over her abdomen as she sorted mail in the kitchen.

That’s when she came across a strange envelope, their home address typed instead of written by hand, with no return address.

Curious, since the envelope came addressed with
only
her first name,
Lindsey,
spelled correctly, she scratched it open with her thumbnail. She pulled out a tri-folded piece of paper, also typed, bearing an ominous message.

The baby growing inside you is devil spawn.  Get rid of it. Or else.

Reflexively her hand opened and the page dropped to the counter. “What on earth…?”

Okay, first, who would send something this dark to an expectant mother? Whom no one knew about except her closest family and friends? And second, why her?

The one thing the sender couldn’t hide was the post office mark revealing its origin. Kentucky.

Hot and cold shivers chased over her.
Oh, my God.
Had Slone been correct in his assessment that his family would hate him—them—for bringing a child into the world together?

Totally creeped out, she also came across a professionally crafted, thick envelope with a Denver postmark. She breathed a sigh of relief and opened the card. To her surprise, it was an invitation to the wedding of Soren Security’s superstar couple, Isaac and Mindy. Then she saw the date, February 14
th
, Valentine’s Day. Sadly, she corresponded back that she and Slone regrettably couldn’t make it.

They’d already agreed to attend Slone’s parents’ wedding anniversary. Lindsey wasn’t about to let
anything
come between her and meeting his family, though she felt supremely honored to have been invited to such a lovely event celebrating the love of two beautiful people. She wished them all the best, from her and Slone. She’d ask her significant other later tonight what gift they should send to the happy couple. She’d assumed Slone’s mother had remarried, and given birth to Slone’s brother James and sister Maggie. Yet no one in the letters had indicated a stepfather. Maybe it was implied.

Lindsey hoped she’d hear more from Slone’s sister directly.

If only the bizarre letter she’d received from that day forward had been the one and only.

But no, Lindsey continued to receive dark, almost demonic, letters describing the evil she’d bring into the world if she had Slone’s baby. The first one or two, she’d discarded without a second thought. The third, fourth, and fifth letters became downright creepy.

Someone didn’t want her to have Slone’s baby—
specifically
Slone’s baby. But who would target them or her…without provocation?

The only person she could think of harboring that kind of hostility was Slone’s sister-in-law, Adele. In the fourth correspondence, the person had mentioned compensation. Had Slone been paying her guilt-money all this time?

Another thought occurred to her. What if, once she’d become pregnant with Slone’s child, he’d decided to change the financial guilt-money arrangement he’d set with Adele for the past nine years?

With that assumption, she’d waded into territory she had no experience confronting. So Lindsey decided she wouldn’t. Not even for a selfish motive to draw out the woman.

Over the next eight weeks, leading up to their trip to Kentucky for his parents’ anniversary, Lindsey received letter after letter. Some of the threats, at first, were benign. By the time she brought her mail in close to Valentine’s Day, the notes had become worthy of Hannibal Lecter’s writing.

Clearly, this woman felt backed into a corner and threatened. What Lindsey hadn’t been able to glean, even from her late-night conversations with Slone, was why Adele was so angry with her, with them. Had Slone pulled the plug on such a vast amount of money she resorted to threats?

In the end, Lindsey didn’t care. She wanted to see this bitch face-to-face, and confront her in front of Slone. See how far that got her, once he finally knew the truth—instead of preying on innocent pregnant women.

No doubt, if Lindsey had shown the two months of letters to Slone, he would’ve gone maniacal. That wasn’t her goal. If her instincts continued to be accurate, Slone would’ve used the letters as an excuse not to let go of the past.

Lindsey wasn’t about to deprive her child of an entire family because one woman needed her financial fix.

Oh, they were going to Kentucky.

What would greet them there was anyone’s guess.

*

During the twenty-four-hour drive to Kentucky, Lindsey had eventually talked Slone into revealing—and admitting—his father’s death in Vietnam. Damn her vixen ways. He mentally agreed his father’s death was probably why he and Uncle Jimmy had such a close bond.

“He wanted to be there for you, as the father you didn’t have,” Lindsey said.

Slone had firmed his grip on the steering wheel. “Maybe.”

Once again, his little hormonal female hadn’t let him get away with half-assurances. “He loved you like a father, Slone. He took you under his wing during the summers and made you chop logs until you wanted to die. How is that not love?”

Slone snorted. “Did you not just hear yourself describe my summer torture?”

She swatted his arm. “You said yourself you learned more about the world, and your place in it, during those summers than you learned from anyone else. Even the military.”

An intermittent highway street lamp revealed her steely expression. So, okay, she could be right. “Maybe.”

“Well, maybe your
maybes
don’t cut it for me anymore. I want all your truths, Slone. Not your maybes.”

“If I promise to tell you all of my truths, can I pull over and make love to you?” he asked while driving the middle of Kansas cornfields.

“Right now?”
She lifted a shoulder. “If you insist.”

Although Lindsey had heard plenty of country songs alluding to the sexiness of doing it in the middle of a cornfield in a pickup truck, the reality wasn’t quite as simple. But whenever Slone put his mind to something, he found a way. His creativity left a big grin on her face for hours afterward.

*

Occasionally over the past twelve hours of driving, Slone reached over and touched Lindsey’s little baby bump. When he did, she was always asleep. It was probably too soon to feel the baby kick, but one time he’d placed his hand on her abdomen he swore he felt a flutter.

Hey, little one. You have no idea how much you are loved. How much your mommy and I are glad you’re here.

They hadn’t hit the three-month mark quite yet, when Lindsey felt comfortable sharing the news beyond family, but he couldn’t flippin’ wait. The warrior Celt in him wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But he’d settle for knowing his sperm were awesome and he’d gotten her pregnant on the first try.

There was something slightly impressive, slightly hedonistic, about knowing he’d bring his baby into this world. With her.

Lindsey had become his everything.

The first night they’d spent together in his bed, after finding out she was pregnant, he’d had a dream. And he rarely dreamed. After all those years in combat, his subconscious had given up on dreams. Or so he’d thought.

That long-ago night, he’d dreamed about his child. So intense. He hadn’t even shared the vision he’d had with Lindsey. He’d had a dream where he envisioned someone, a living, breathing soul, whom he couldn’t see but
felt
was there. Somehow the baby made Slone feel words he couldn’t hear, but could only accept as truth. Emotion beyond explanation. He’d never felt so close to God as in that moment. He doubted he’d ever feel that close again, until his child was born.

Well, he might feel it again when he proposed to Lindsey. He hoped for that. So far, though, the timing just hadn’t been right. But he’d know the moment it came. He’d already picked out the ring he planned to give her.

Slone’s boss Adam could gripe all he wanted about the stupidity of men becoming ensnared by a woman, dragged by the hose to the altar. The altar was exactly where Slone wanted to end up with Lindsey. If she declined his impending proposal, he was half-tempted to toss her over his shoulder and carry her there. He wanted their bond official, their life together written in stone. Old-fashioned, maybe. That’s the kind of man he was.

He would make her his girl. No second thoughts. No matter what.

Slone pulled into the snow-crusted, uphill drive of his parents’ house. Suddenly an anxiety he hadn’t experienced since boot camp slammed into his chest.

On the drive here, Lindsey had successfully distracted his mind from dwelling on what he was about to face. Now, as she slept in the seat beside him, he had no more distractions to fall back on. Reality stared him in the face, and he wanted to look away, but he wasn’t a coward. She’d set this whole thing in motion, for him and their baby, to heal the past.

His pained gaze fell on the love of his life. “Thanks, baby,” he whispered against her hair, kissing the top of her head. “I need you more than you know.”

Lindsey blinked awake, yawned and stretched. “Are we here?”

“Yeah. We’re here.”

She sighed. “You don’t have to make it sound like we’re at a funeral. Your family is excited to see you, I promise.”

“I wish they had indoor plumbing,” he grumbled.

She gave a sleepy laugh. “I would hope so.”

He shrugged. “They still use an outhouse ‘round these parts.”

“You’re just trying to scare me.” She snorted. “And you’re a lousy liar.”

“Excuse me?” He sent her a mock glare. “If I’m a bad liar, I was in the wrong business for twelve years.”

“You’re bad at it when you’re lying to me.” She grinned cheerfully. “I’m okay with that.”

“Seriously, there is an outhouse on the property.”

Her eyes twinkled with humor. “Now that I have to see.”

He made a face and wrinkled his nose. “You’ll probably smell it before you see it.”

“Whatever. Stop stalling. I’m freezing out here.”

Unhappily he accepted her nudging and joined her on the walkway. He kept an eye out for icy patches, ready to catch her if she slipped or fell. He always wanted to be there to catch her when she fell.

They tromped through the snow and made their way onto his parents’ three season porch, cold and still as Uncle Jimmy’s old icebox. The porch was scattered with Valentine’s Day paraphernalia, as well as Christmas lights. His mom hated taking down the lights when the nights still grew dark so early. They offered soft lighting, and looking at Lindsey’s profile in the glow took his breath away.

A second later she knocked on the door, but she didn’t wait for anyone to answer. Maybe she worried he’d hold her back and hightail it out of Dodge. He’d definitely considered it.