LITMIR.BIZ

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fell back two steps, instinctively retreating from the harsh truth in his eyes. “M-my father?”

      He entered the motel room, closing and locking the door with fluid efficiency, then put his hands on her shoulders. His firm fingers held her captive, upright, though her knees threatened to sink right to the carpet. “Juliana, I’m afraid your father has been seriously injured.”

      Her fingers twisted into the cold supple leather of his jacket, felt the impenetrable hardness of his chest beneath. “He’s alive, then?”

      “They found him unconscious. He was apparently outside when the explosion occurred.”

      “Oh, thank God! He was probably waiting for me and Cort to arrive.” Juliana stopped suddenly. A cold horrible truth was still suspended between them on a taut thread. “How serious are his injuries?”

      “I don’t know. He’s been rushed to the hospital, and I haven’t received an update on his condition. But someone will call.” He paused and Juliana felt the slow pound of his heartbeat against her fingers. She couldn’t explain it. She was terrified, yet she’d never felt so safe or so grateful for this man’s presence. It was as if every beat of his heart shielded her in a secure airtight bubble from the grim truth of what had happened tonight.

      “And the others?”

      His face might have been carved of stone, but for an instant his eyes gleamed with moisture. Confusing her. Scaring her.

      A well of grief savagely ripped open within her. “Oh, no!”

      His fingers dug into her shoulders, preventing her from collapsing. “I spoke with the police at the scene. They don’t expect to find any survivors in the house.”

      “Oh, my God.” Juliana pressed a fist to her mouth, hot tears stinging her eyes. This was not happening. It was too much. She’d grown up on the Collingwood estate. Had spied on Ross Collingwood and his friends living their golden lives in a world she could never be part of. Ross ran a billion-dollar corporation and amassed companies in takeover bids as if capturing checkers on a checkerboard. And he remembered to take her and her father out to lunch on their birthdays and wrote them silly poems for birthday cards.

      A sob exploded in her chest like a fireball. He could not be dead. Nor could Lexi. They were madly, totally in love with each other. This was too horrible, too ugly to contemplate.

      The Guardian pulled her against his chest, his hands stroking her back. Heat seeped into her cold body in slow widening circles.

      “I’m sorry.”

      Juliana bit back a sob and lifted her head to look up into his rock-hard features, her heart registering the compassion she saw in his eyes. She’d heard stories of The Guardian. Whispered tales that made him sound mysterious and invincible, like a cross between a comic-book superhero and James Bond. But in that fraction of a second before he hid the emotion banked in his eyes she saw a man who truly cared about the people he tried to protect. “Was it a bomb or an accident?”

      “It’s too soon to tell. The fire department will investigate, but they say the explosion is suspicious. It appears to have originated in an upstairs bedroom. Were Ross and Lexi the only ones in the house? The police would like to know.”

      Juliana nodded, her mind still trying to grapple with the horror of what he’d just told her and the frantic desire to rush to her father’s side, ensure he was okay even though he’d told her to keep Cort safely away. “There were only the three of them, my father and the Collingwoods,” she said shakily. “The Collingwoods were being extra careful, following the precautions you gave them. They left the members of their traveling staff at home—even the chef and the chauffeur. No one knew they’d rented the house in the Adirondacks. My father secured the booking under his own name.” Juliana paused, suddenly aware that she was still standing there with The Guardian’s arms around her.

      Self-consciously, she pulled out of his embrace and wiped her face with her palms. She needed to be strong. Ross and Lexi and her father were counting on her. She had promises to keep. “What about the baby?” she asked, her legs trembling as she walked around the corner of the bed to check on Cort. He was still sleeping peacefully, his little arms suspended in midair as if ready to receive a hug. “What happens to Cort?”

      The Guardian followed her movements, his gaze narrowing on the sleeping infant. He didn’t ask why the baby was lying on the floor rather than in the crib. “He’ll be raised by his godfather.”

      Juliana stepped defensively between him and the infant, alarm snapping her to attention. His godfather? That was news to her. Had Lexi and Ross had the baby christened shortly after his birth? Perhaps that was information they’d only shared with her father. “Who would that be?” she demanded, feeling as if more of her world was about to change.

      “Me. I’m Hunter Sinclair.”

      The strange, reclusive multimillionaire who’d sent Ross and Lexi a canoe as a wedding present? Juliana instantly recognized his name and remembered the rumors associated with it. Rumours of dementia. Wasn’t there a history of mental illness in the family? She didn’t give a damn if he was James Bond or the President of the United States. She was not surrendering Cort to him. Ross and Lexi had trusted The Guardian to find their daughter and protect them from harm. He’d failed on both counts.

      “Over my dead body,” she said sharply, breaking twenty years of protocol by raising her voice to her better. “You are not taking that baby away from me.”

      Hunter stiffened at the unexpected threat. Juliana Goodhew glared at him out of almond-shaped eyes that reminded him of richly polished mahogany. Her lips, bearing a faint trace of pink lipstick, thinned into a determined line.

      Ross had trained the nanny well. Slim and youthful in blue jeans and a thick creamy cotton sweater, her silver-blond hair escaping a French braid, Juliana looked ready to carry out her threat. Her hand moved, reaching behind her for the Glock he could see in the mirror on the far wall.

      Hunter cocked a brow, his hand snaking out to grab her wrist. He could snap the fragile bones in her arm with one movement. “Please, don’t for even one foolish moment, consider reaching for the gun at your back. I would hate to hurt you.”

      “Release me instantly,” she snapped, her face glowing white with anger.

      Hunter released her, eyeing her warily. The nanny he’d hired to care for his sister’s children would never dare speak to him like this. Nor was she this pretty, he noted, his inner radar for trouble sounding a silent alarm.

      “Thank you.” Frost clung to Juliana’s tone. “I repeat, you are not taking that baby from me. I don’t care who you are. Where were you when Riana was abducted? Or for Ross and Lexi? The Goodhews have served the Collingwoods for sixty-three years. The Collingwoods personally entrusted him to my care. He’s staying with me.” She folded her arms across her chest and drew herself up to her full height; the top of her head barely reached his chin.

      Grief lashed Hunter’s heart along with her accusations. He frowned down at her, hesitating between a grudging admiration for her show of loyalty to her charge and his innate suspicious nature. He knew painfully well that trusted servants betrayed their employers. Money could be a powerful motivator.

      He’d been nine years old when he’d seen pictures in the newspapers of his mother’s indiscretions with two of his father’s friends. The Sinclairs’ butler had secretly orchestrated a blackmail scheme, certain that Hunter’s father would pay up to prevent the photos from being released to the media. Convinced his wife would never betray him, Hunter’s father hadn’t met the blackmailer’s demands. Their marriage was destroyed when the pictures appeared and his mother committed suicide. His father had told Hunter and his sister that their mother had suffered from a mental illness.

      Hunter took in the sharp thrust of Juliana’s chin and the defensive stance of her body.

      He could count on one hand the other individuals who’d known the Collingwoods had another child. There was the doctor

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