LITMIR.BIZ

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wouldn’t let that happen again. So he held his son even though she reached for him, her arms outstretched. And the boy wriggled, trying to escape Brendan’s grasp.

      “Come on,” he said to both of them. “We need to move quickly.”

      “I—I can run fast,” CJ assured him.

      Not fast enough to outrun bullets. Brendan couldn’t be certain that the guy from the sixth floor hadn’t regained consciousness and set up an ambush somewhere. He couldn’t risk going through the hospital, so he pressed the garage express button on the elevator panel. It wouldn’t stop on any other floors now. It would take them directly from the roof to the parking level in the basement.

      “I’m sure you can run fast,” Brendan said. “But we all have to stay together from now on to make sure we stay safe from the bad men.”

      But the little boy stopped struggling and stared up at him, his blue-green eyes narrowed as if he was trying to see inside Brendan—to see if he was a bad man, too. He hoped like hell the kid couldn’t really see inside his soul.

      It was a dark, dark place. It had been even darker when he’d thought Josie had been murdered. He had thought that she’d been killed because of him—because she’d gotten too close, because she’d discovered something that he should have.

      From the other stories she’d done, he knew she was a good reporter. Too good. So good that she could have made enemies of her own, though.

      At first he hadn’t thought this attack on her had anything to do with him. After all, he hadn’t even known she was alive. And he’d certainly had no idea he had a child.

      But maybe one of his enemies had discovered she was alive. She stared up at him with the same intensity of their son, her eyes just a lighter, smokier green. No matter how much her appearance had been altered and what she’d claimed before, she was definitely Josie Jessup. And whoever had discovered she was really alive knew what Brendan hadn’t realized until he heard of her death—that he’d fallen for her. Despite her lies. Despite her betrayal.

      He had fallen in love with her, with her energy and her quick wit and her passion. And he’d spent more than three years mourning her. Someone might have wanted to make certain that his mourning never ended.

      Josie shook her head, rejecting his protection. “I think we’ll be safer on our own.”

      She didn’t trust him. Given his reputation, or at least the reputation of his family, he didn’t necessarily blame her. But then she should have known him better. During those short months they’d spent together before her “death,” he had let her get close. He may not have told her the truth about himself, but he’d shown her that he wasn’t the man others thought he was. He wasn’t his father.

      He wasn’t cruel and indifferent. “If I’d left you alone on the roof …”

      SHE AND CJ would already be dead. She shuddered in revulsion at the horrible thought. She could not deny that Brendan O’Hannigan had saved their lives. But she was too scared to thank him and too smart to trust him.

      Despite her inner voice warning her to be careful, she had thought only of her father when she’d risked coming to the hospital. She hadn’t considered that after spending more than three years in hiding someone might still want to kill her. She hadn’t considered that someone could have learned that she was still alive. “I was caught off guard.”

      Brendan stared down at the boy he held in his arms. “I can relate.”

      He had seemed shocked, not only to find her alive but also to realize that he was a father. Given that they had exactly the same eyes and facial features, Brendan had instantly recognized the child as his. There had been no point for her to continue denying what it wouldn’t require a DNA test to prove.

      “Are you usually on guard?” he asked her.

      “Yes.” But when she’d learned of the assault on her father, she had dropped her guard. And it had nearly cost her everything. She couldn’t take any more risks. And trusting Brendan would be the greatest risk of all. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

      “No,” he said, as if he agreed with her. Or supported her. But then he added, “I won’t let you.”

      And she tensed. She lifted her arms again and clasped her hands on her son’s shoulders. After nearly losing him on the rooftop, she should have held him so tightly that he would never get away. But he’d started wriggling in the elevator, and she’d loosened her grip just enough that Brendan had been able to easily pluck him from her.

      A chill chased down her spine as she worried that he would take her son from her just that easily. And permanently.

      Josie’s stomach rose as the elevator descended to the basement. Panic filled her throat, choking her. Then the bell dinged, signaling that they had reached their destination. They had gone from one extreme to another, one danger to another.

      “We’ll take my car,” Brendan said as the doors slowly began to slide open.

      We. He didn’t intend to take her son and leave her alone, or as he’d left the men on the rooftop. Dead. But she and her son couldn’t leave with him, either. She shook her head.

      “We don’t have time to argue right now,” he said, his deep voice gruff with impatience. “We need to get out of here.”

      “Do you have a car seat?” she asked. She had posed the question to thwart him, thinking she already knew the answer. But she didn’t. As closely as she followed the news, she hadn’t heard or read anything about Brendan O’Hannigan’s personal life. Only about his business. Or his alleged business.

      He’d kept his personal life far more private than his professional one. But she had been gone for more than three years. He could have met someone else. Could even have had another child, one he’d known about, one with whom he lived.

      He clenched his jaw and shook his head.

      “CJ is too little to ride without a car seat.”

      “I’m not little!” her son heartily protested, as he twisted even more forcefully in Brendan’s grasp. Her hands slipped from his squirming shoulders. “I’m big!”

      If CJ had been struggling like that in her arms, she would have lost him, and just as the doors opened fully. And he might have run off to hide again.

      But Brendan held him firmly, but not so tightly that he hurt the boy. With his low pain threshold, her son would have been squealing if he’d felt the least bit of discomfort.

      “You are big,” Josie assured him. “But the law says you’re not big enough to ride without your car seat.”

      Arching a brow, she turned toward Brendan. “You don’t want to break the law, do you?”

      A muscle twitched along his clenched jaw. He shook his head but then clarified, “I don’t want to risk CJ’s safety.”

      But she had no illusions that if not for their son, he would have no qualms about breaking the law. She had no illusions about Brendan O’Hannigan anymore.

      But she once had. She’d begun to believe that his inheriting his father’s legacy had forced him into a life he wouldn’t have chosen, one he’d actually run from when he was a kid. She’d thought he was better than that life, that he was a good man.

      What a fool she’d been.

      “Where’s your car?” he asked as he carried their son from the elevator.

      She hurried after them, glancing at the cement pillars, looking at the signs.

      “What letter, Mommy?” CJ asked. He’d been sleeping when she’d parked their small SUV, so he didn’t know. She could lie and he wouldn’t contradict her as he had earlier.

      But lying about the parking level would only delay the inevitable. She wasn’t

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