LITMIR.BIZ

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fifteen minutes late.

      The meeting with his handler had run long and then the near-noon traffic seemed to conspire against him, moving slower than an aged inch worm.

      On top of that, he’d had to park outside the hospital grounds because, apparently, everyone and his brother had decided that today was a good day to pay someone a visit. Twenty minutes of circling around the lots hadn’t yielded a single empty space. He parked down the street, then ran back to the hospital.

      Because waiting for an elevator would eat up more time—and who knew if there would be space for him when the elevator car arrived—he elected to take the stairs instead and ran up the five flights to the maternity floor. When he came hurrying in, doing his best not to breathe heavy, he found Eve sitting on her bed, dressed, with her hands folded in her lap like a school girl attending an old-fashioned parochial school.

      Glancing at the clock on the wall, he apologized. “Sorry.” It wasn’t easy not sounding breathless, but he pulled it off. “Traffic,” he tacked on by way of an explanation.

      “You really don’t have to do this,” she told him. “I could have easily asked Vera or Josiah to take us home. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but there was no need for you to break up your day like this.”

      Was she annoyed, or trying to distance herself from him? Either way, he wasn’t here to get into a discussion. He was here to make sure she was safe. That was the main reason he was here, he told himself.

      Adam quickly scanned the room. Nothing seemed out of place. The flowers he’d brought her yesterday had been transferred into a simple glass vase. The teddy bear was seated not too far from it.

      “You have everything?” he asked her.

      “I will once the nurse brings Brooklyn.”

      Adam laughed. “I meant other than that.” He looked around again and came to the same conclusion.

      “I didn’t exactly have time to bring anything, remember?” There hadn’t even been the traditional suitcase to grab because, confident that she still had several weeks to go, she hadn’t bothered to pack one. So much for living up to the Boy Scout motto.

      “Traveling light has its advantages,” Adam commented. Moving the teddy bear right next to the flowers on the table, he asked, “What’s the protocol? Are we supposed to buzz for the nurse to tell her you’re ready to go, or should I go out and see if I can find her instead?”

      We. The single, deceptively small word echoed in her head. He made it sound as if they were a unit. A family. But they were nothing of the kind, Eve reminded herself. Adam’s sense of responsibility was warmly comforting, but she wasn’t fooling herself. Her gut told her that this wasn’t going to last. Not unless he’d actually told her the truth. That he meant what he’d said when he claimed to be through with his old way of life. It could happen. It could be true. He could have given his old life up, opting for a clean slate. Maybe this was him, trying to live his life as best he could.

      Don’t get caught up in a fantasy. You know better.

      “I’ll try buzzing for her.” Eve reached over for the call button.

      Very gently, he took the device from her. “I might have more luck,” he told her when she looked at him in surprise. Putting the call button aside, Adam stepped out into the hall.

      “You probably will,” she murmured. She doubted many women could ignore Adam or say no to him.

      He was back in less than a minute. She was about to ask if he’d changed his mind, then stopped when she saw that he was not alone. Shadowing Adam was the slender young nurse, Kathy, who had attended to her earlier.

      “All set?” Kathy asked cheerfully.

      “That I am,” Eve assured her. Preparing to get up, she slid to the edge of the bed.

      “I’ll go get your little princess.” The promise, Eve noted, was made not to her, but to Adam.

      “She thinks Brooklyn is yours,” Eve commented.

      Adam’s eyes met hers for a long moment. “She is,” he reminded her.

      After being on her own and thinking of the next eighteen years in terms of just the baby and her, sharing Brooklyn was going to take her a great deal of getting used to—and she wasn’t really convinced that it was worth the effort. She’d had enough pain in her life without consciously leaving herself open for more.

      But he was the father.

      She’d think about it all later, Eve promised herself. For now, she just needed to get home.

      “Here she is,” Kathy announced, walking in with the swaddled infant.

      Hesitating before Adam, the young woman seemed undecided as to whom to give the baby to. A moment later, the nurse opted for the traditional choice. She passed the sleeping infant to Eve.

      “Wait right here, I’ll bring in the wheelchair,” Kathy told her.

      “I can walk,” Eve protested, calling after the nurse’s back.

      The young woman returned in a heartbeat, pushing the wheelchair in front of her. She pulled down the brakes on either side of the chair, then took the baby back for a moment, waiting for Eve to get into the wheelchair.

      “Hospital policy. I could lose my job if I let you walk out the front door,” Kathy told her.

      Taking her arm, Adam helped Eve into the wheelchair. “Wouldn’t want that.”

      It wasn’t clear to Eve if he was addressing his words to her or to the nurse. Making the best of it, she put her arms out for the baby.

      The second the transfer was completed, Brooklyn woke up and began to fuss.

      It was happening, Eve thought, banking down the panicky feeling as she gazed down into her daughter’s face. Brooklyn and she were on the cusp of starting their new life together.

      Nerves undulated throughout her system. All the things she could do wrong with this baby suddenly paraded through her mind.

      Her panic intensified. She wasn’t ready.

      “Don’t worry,” Adam whispered, lowering his lips to her ear so that only she could hear. “You’re going to be great.”

      How could he possibly have known what she was thinking? Eve twisted around to look at him, a quizzical expression of disbelief on her face. “How did you …?”

      The smile he gave her magically restored at least some of her confidence.

      “Not so hard to guess what’s going through your mind right now,” he assured her.

      Eve blew out a breath. It was going to be all right, she told herself. It was going to be all right.

      If she repeated the sentence a few hundred times, she thought philosophically, she might just wind up convincing herself.

      Maybe.

      Adam glanced up into the rearview mirror. Again. He’d been doing it with a fair amount of consistency since they’d left the hospital.

      He wasn’t watching for tailgaters.

      The last ten miles to her house, he wasn’t certain if his imagination played tricks on him or if his instincts were dead-on. Either way, he could have sworn that a car was tailing him. A late-model domestic beige sedan followed two cars behind his. So far, he’d only managed to get two of the numbers on the license plate.

      When he pulled up into Eve’s two-car driveway, the beige car passed her house and continued down the street. Was he paranoid or were his survival instincts so finely tuned that he could spot a tail a mile away? Right now, he couldn’t answer that with any kind of authority.

      After parking his car, Adam quickly got out and rounded the back of the vehicle. He opened the passenger door and extended his hand to Eve.

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