Ruthless Game (GhostWalkers, #9)(21)
He stood in the middle of the pantry, head hanging down, dragging in deep breaths. He had little fear when it came to confronting an enemy. But assisting at a birth—he shook his head. No way. Not when it was Rose. He had to get her to a hospital. If he could get to Mack, his team would come rescue them and bring a doctor.
Lights flickered on in the bedroom, and he heard her moving around. He turned them on in the pantry to inventory their supplies. She’d stocked the place mainly with canned foods, but she’d included protein such as ham and tuna and chicken. She had several shelves of vegetables and a variety of soups. He wasn’t going to starve. He brought out a can of chicken and rice soup and heated it, hoping to tempt her to eat something.
The shower abruptly went off as he poured two bowls and put them on a tray. The tray was intricate, hand-painted, and expensive. He gave her a few minutes to towel off and slide into bed. “Can I come in, Rose?” He didn’t want her to feel threatened in any way, although, if he was being honest with himself, he believed she belonged to him and he had the right to walk into her bedroom. He wanted her to feel the same way.
“I’ m decent.”
He paused in the doorway. She looked small, a porcelain doll with eyes too big for her face. The shape of almonds, they were dark and mysterious, eyes a man could fall into and never find his way out of. She looked exotic, her hair disheveled and still damp, midnight black, cascading around her face, giving her that little pixie look. He could have sworn tears stained her face, but her eyes were clear.
“I brought soup just in case you changed your mind. Are the pains easing up at all?” He manfully kept the hopeful note out of his tone.
“All the activity must have set them off. They seem to be getting farther apart, and they’re shorter in duration. From all the research I’ve done, that means false labor.”
He felt like a man given a reprieve right before a death sentence, but he kept his features expressionless. He wanted her to count on him, and she couldn’t do that if she knew he was petrified of delivering a baby.
“Will you try to eat something?” He walked farther into the room and set the tray on the end table. “It might help.”
She flashed him a smile that told him he didn’t know what he was talking about, but she picked up the bowl of soup and spoon, sank down in the middle of the bed, tailor fashion, her back against the headboard, and regarded him steadily. “So? You found an escape tunnel. I’ve been looking around. Everything of value is gone. I didn’t pay attention to that when he sent me here the first time. I was just so happy to find a safe place to give birth.”
He nodded his head. “That makes sense.” The son of a bitch would have known she was desperate to find a sanctuary for her child. Jimenez had dangled the house like a carrot in front of her.
“What do you think it all means?” She patted the bed beside her in invitation and moved to the far side of the mattress to give him room.
Sitting with her on a bed might not be the best of ideas. He wouldn’t be making any moves on her, not while she was so pregnant she looked like she might explode, but his body didn’t have the same sense his brain did. The moment he saw her or smelled her, every cell in his body went on alert.
“I’m not going to bite,” she said.
He realized he’d hesitated too long. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Which was partially true.
“It isn’t like we haven’t shared a bed before,” she reminded.
Immediately the image of her writhing beneath him rose up to haunt him. His cock reacted, hard and full and aching, desperate for the feel of her tight, hot sheath surrounding him. Cursing under his breath, he eased his body gingerly onto the bed, trying not to inhale and draw her scent into his lungs.
“Are you going to tell me what you think about Diego Jimenez?” she prompted.
“Tell me how you met him,” Kane said. “I need all the information to make any kind of judgment.” The soup tasted good. He hadn’t eaten for hours and realized he was very hungry. He nudged her with his shoulder. “Just try it, sweetheart.”
She surprised him by eating a few spoonfuls before she spoke. “I’d been moving, staying in the back country or in the mountains mostly. There were women willing to help me when they found out I was pregnant, but I knew I had to find a place Whitney wouldn’t be able to track me so easily to have the baby. I couldn’t take the chance of a doctor or midwife writing anything on paper. Whitney is searching for me; I know because he sent a couple of his goons on two occasions that I know of. I barely escaped both times.”
“How the hell did he find you?”
“I don’t know. I tried looking for a second tracking device. There was one in my hip, but I removed it myself. I got rid of all my clothes, everything I had previously owned, but he always seems to be breathing down my neck.” She looked at him. “I promised you I would take care of the baby and keep her out of Whitney’s hands, and I mean to keep that promise.”
“Why the hell did you pull a gun on me, Rose? You knew I helped you escape. You knew I turned him in. I risked my career and my life to try to get his ugly program dragged into the light of day.”
She took a couple more spoonfuls of soup, her gaze downcast, but he felt her stiffen, as if steadying herself to tell him the truth. “I was afraid. I knew you trusted your team; I could tell by the way you worked with them, that easy camaraderie that only comes when people have relied on one another through dangerous situations. You told me to get on the helicopter, but you weren’t getting on with me. You would have sent me away.”