Assumed Identity(54)
Entranced by the scent of baby powder and innocence, Jake splayed his hand across Emma’s tummy and got a little choked up in the wonder of how warm she was beneath the soft lavender sleeper she wore. Even his big, callused hand could feel her tiny lungs expanding and contracting, and her heart beating at a strong, even pace beneath his fingertips.
Oh, man. His boss, Robbie, was right. Jake was smitten with little Emma Carter.
He was distracted enough by the unfamiliar tumble of emotions that he didn’t hear Robin move up beside him until she spoke. “You’re good with her. You’re especially gentle.”
Jake pulled his hand away to wrap it around the top of the crib rail. “I figure I have to be. I don’t always know my own strength.”
She slid her hand over Jake’s and the emotions bombarding him almost made it hard to breathe. Her soft question echoed his own thoughts. “Do you think you ever had any children, Jake? Any nieces or nephews to dote on?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. But if he felt this pull, this protective vibe about a child he’d only known for a week, wouldn’t he have some sense of those same feelings about a child of his own—even if he couldn’t recall a name or face? “I doubt it. The kid here seems as foreign to me as she is beautiful.”
“She is, isn’t she?” Robin reached over to smooth that thick, dark hair off Emma’s forehead. “Beautiful, I mean.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt her, Robin.” He laced their fingers together and looked down over the jut of his shoulder at her. Good guy or bad guy, he felt that promise deep in his bones. “I won’t let anyone take her from you.”
With a slight nod, she tugged on his hand and led the way out of the room. Once in the hallway, she turned to the right while Jake pulled the door to behind them. “I’ll put you in the room next door where my parents stay when they visit.”
Jake released her hand and headed in the opposite direction, back to the room with the flat-screen television and stone fireplace. “I saw an easy chair in here that’ll do for tonight.”
Even with those silent bare feet, he sensed her changing course and hurrying after him. “You can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day. None of the threats or calls have come to the house. I think it’s okay to drop your guard for a little bit here.”
“Are you in the phone book?” He picked up his go-bag off the red-and-white-checked couch and looked for a better spot to stash it.
“Yes.”
“Then it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to track you down.” He saw the slightly hidden yet easy-access spot under the big square coffee table and stuffed it underneath. “It’s probably only a matter of time before your perp escalates his game and brings the threat here.”
“You’re doing it again—talking all doom and gloom like there’s no hope in the world.”
Robin stood at the edge of the couch, hugging herself in that nervous way that made him want to wrap her up in his arms and promise everything would be all right. But his concentration was already compromised by the difficult admission of his amnesia—a self-reliant secret he hadn’t shared with anyone in K.C. Then there was that fairy-tale interlude he’d just had in the nursery with Emma.
No connections. No commitments. No caring.
The Carter girls had blown the philosophy that had served him so well these past two years right out of the water. If he wanted to recapture the fighting edge that made him such a ruthless survivor, he needed to nip all this touchy-feely normalcy in the bud. “You want comfort, talk to your girlfriends. You want protection, I’m your man.”
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst? Is that how a man like you thinks?”
She deserved an honest answer. “There isn’t always hope. But I can always be prepared.”
Her skin paled at the bleak response. But she’d made him promise to keep talking, even if she didn’t like what he had to say. “What made you such a hard, unsociable man, Jake? Who hurt you?”
The pity in that question took him by surprise. He’d always thought of himself as the monster dealing out the pain. That was the story his nightmares told. He’d gotten so used to believing he was the bad guy that it was a challenge to consider he might not always have been this way. “You think I know? Say good-night to Sunshine in there and get to bed. If I get too tired, I’ll sack out on the couch.”