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Protecting Her Royal Baby
Beth Cornelison
A WOMAN IN LABOURA MAN ON A MISSIONAll Brianna Coleman remembers of her near-fatal accident is the hero who saved her. Not her name or the father of the baby she delivers hours later. Until news of a coup in a foreign nation triggers a memory: her baby’s father is the missing member of a royal family…and her son is the next target.After saving Brianna, Hunter Mansfield won’t abandon her. But can he defend them against international assassins? He’ll do anything – pay the ultimate price if necessary – for one chance to protect the woman he loves and her little prince.



As tired as she was, Brianna spent long minutes staring at the ceiling and picturing Hunter’s tall, muscular body squeezing into the small antique bed in the guest room.
She imagined his long legs hanging off the end of the mattress, his wide shoulders filling the width of the bed and his chiseled face nestled on the pillow. Did he snore? Did he sleep in the buff? What would it be like to curl against his strength and sleep wrapped in his arms? To kiss him goodnight, feel his skin against hers, have his hands
Brianna scrubbed both hands over her face and stopped the daydream in its erotic tracks. Her skin tingled from her scalp to her toes, and a pleasant heat had curled in her belly. Dream all you want, but don’t get any ideas about acting on the fantasy. Hunter wasn’t hers to claim.

Protecting Her Royal Baby
Beth Cornelison

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BETH CORNELISON started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.
Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending downtime with her family.
She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, USA, or visit her website, www.bethcornelison.com (http://www.bethcornelison.com).
To my prince—I love you, Paul!
Thank you to Mackenzie Walton for sharing her beautiful cat Sorsha for this story, and to Julie Sieger for sharing Cinderella and Sebastian. Look for all three of these kitties to appear again in Grant’s book! Julie and Mackenzie won the bid to have their kitties featured through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.
Thank you to Robyn Elyse Rosenberg for allowing me to use her name for Brianna’s aunt. Robyn, also, won the bid for this opportunity through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u7e89ce17-1c38-52b3-b243-78071ababb1b)
Chapter 2 (#u291d3841-58ec-59c5-a98b-d4e4d2d61c37)
Chapter 3 (#uab0c6df2-7fd4-5891-be61-4ad8ed0f5bf4)
Chapter 4 (#ud30331e6-b889-5210-abaa-a5a7a08c9047)
Chapter 5 (#u6e59b132-fabe-549d-b01b-f1af2a4bf843)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
She stared in stunned silence at the man standing in her living room, a man she’d once trusted. Working to shake herself from the numb shock that locked her throat, she blinked hard and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this last winter? Don’t you think I had a right to know what...who I was involved with?”
He had the decency to look guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you for this very reason. I knew this was how you’d react.”
She exhaled harshly. “Well, it is rather...startling news, wouldn’t you say?”
“I know. But we’d agreed what we had was a vacation fling. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t think I’d...develop feelings for you. And I never thought you’d—”
“Get pregnant?” She rubbed her hand over her nine-months-swollen belly and grunted. “Well, neither did I. But here’s the proof that condoms aren’t one hundred percent fail-safe.”
“Indeed.” He gave her a worried grimace. “The question now is, how do we hide the baby? How do we protect him?”
“Protect him?”
He took a step toward her, his hands spread. “If anyone finds out he’s my child, my bloodline, they’ll want to kill him like they’ve tried to kill me.”
A thread of fear tugged inside her. “But if I don’t tell anyone who his father is—”
A shattering of glass at her back door cut her off. He cursed in a foreign language she didn’t recognize.
“It’s too late,” he said, his voice tight, panicked. His eyes were round with alarm and apology. “They’re here. They know.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone had followed me.”
Adrenaline spiked inside her, and she sidled closer to him as crashing sounds filtered from the back of her house. “I don’t understand. Who—”
“There’s no time! You have to go! Run!”
“But you—”
“You can’t worry about me. You have to save our child!” He pushed her toward the front door. “Hurry! They’ll try to kill you, try to kill him.”
A dark-clad figure appeared from her kitchen and raised a long-muzzled gun. Fired.
The father of her baby pushed her to the floor as the bullets whizzed over them. The jolt as she hit the floor sent a sharp pain through her belly, and a warm gush of fluid trickled down her leg. She clutched her middle, worried for her baby.
In the next second, he was shoving her up and toward the front door. “Go! Hide! Don’t come back here!”
Bullets pelted the wall near her, and she screamed. How had her life become such a nightmare?
Snatching the keys to her old car from the peg by the door, she raced out to her front driveway as fast as a pregnant woman could run. The pain in her midsection grew, and she nearly doubled over. With a quick glance over her shoulder as she tumbled into the driver’s seat, she saw three men now in her living room with her baby’s father. They held him by the arms, restraining him, a gun at his temple.
Nausea swamped her. They would kill him, she was sure. But why? What was their motive?
One of the men burst through the front door, following her. He raised his weapon, and she gunned the engine. The thunk of bullets hitting the rear of her car spiked her fear. She gasped and scrunched as low as she could in the seat as she sped away. Tears blinded her as she raced down the street. She didn’t know where she was going. Away. To hide. To—
Another sharp pain gripped her stomach. More warm fluid puddled beneath her. Oh, dear God! Her water had broken. The fall in her living room must have started her labor!
She held her belly and cried out as the contraction tightened. Forget hiding. Her baby was coming. Doubling over in pain, she raced down the highway, praying she could reach the hospital in Lagniappe in time.
* * *
The car was coming right at him. Weaving. Speeding. With him at twelve o’clock.
Adrenaline shot through Hunter Mansfield. Irritation and alarm nipping the back of his neck, he slowed to a stop along the rural Louisiana road where he jogged every Sunday afternoon. He assumed a ready stance on the balls of his feet, prepared to jump out of the way of the erratically lurching vehicle as it neared. The glare of sunlight reflected off the windshield, preventing him from seeing the driver. A drunk? A distracted teenager?
The small blue Honda’s engine roared, and the car lurched forward, its wheels kicking up gravel as the passenger-side tires moved from the pavement onto the narrow shoulder. Hunter braced himself, rapidly weighing whether to dive for the four-foot ditch to his left or feint right into the road, assuming the car wouldn’t correct its path in time. Both posed risk.
The ditch.
Just as he shifted his weight to spring to his left, the sun slipped behind a cloud. He caught a glimpse of a face behind the steering wheel. A woman. A startled, frightened look. A last-second swerve, tires squealing.
He jumped aside but not fast enough. The sedan clipped his hip as he launched himself toward the ditch. He landed with a tooth-jarring thump. Rolled. Pain streaked from his shoulder down his arm.
He twisted to watch the Honda rocket past, grumbling an invective under his breath.
Still traveling at a high speed, the car overcorrected from the swerve to miss him and fishtailed. In seconds, the driver had lost control. The sedan careened off the road at high speed, flipped and rolled into the ditch.
Horror punched him in the gut. Scrambling to his feet, Hunter ran down the road to the inverted car and crouched at the broken driver’s window. “Hey, are you okay?”
A pained and panicked cry came from inside.
Unable to see the front seat even from a squat, he got on his stomach and peered inside. The sight that greeted him backed his breath into his throat.
The woman lay crumpled on the roof of the sedan, which was now below her. Her forehead was bleeding. Her face was wrenched in a mask of agony. And she clutched her...rounded belly.
Hunter’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch. She was pregnant. And judging from the pool of bloody fluid under her hips, her water had broken in the crash.
Another wail of pain from her confirmed it. She was in labor.
“Damn,” he muttered as a chill slid through him, despite the warm autumn sun. “Ma’am, are you hurt anywhere other than your head?” He reached in far enough to put the car in Park and turn off the engine.
She turned wild blue eyes toward him. Frightened eyes. “Don’t hurt me!”
He raised his palms. “I won’t. Calm down.”
“Please! Don’t hurt me. I’m not—” She stopped with a gasp and a moan, holding her stomach.
Hurt her? What the—
“I’m not going to hurt you, ma’am. Why would you think—”
“My baby!” she gasped between shallow pants. “It’s coming!”
“Yeah. I see that.” He jerked at the Velcro strap that held his cell phone strapped to an armband while he jogged, and dialed 911. “I’m calling an ambulance now. Try to slow your breathing. You’re hyperventilating.”
Another frightened groan answered him, and she cast a nervous glance around her. “Where am I? What happened?”
Hunter arched an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”
Her brow puckered, and her eyes reflected anxiety, confusion. “Something’s wrong. I can’t...”
He frowned. How hard had she hit her head? Was she a meth user? Mentally unstable? He studied her face, but her smooth, unblemished skin and her white teeth didn’t show any telltale signs of drug use. She was, in fact, strikingly beautiful, with a youthful oval face, thick golden-blond hair, clear blue eyes and lush red lips.
“Try to calm down. Take slow, deep breaths. No one is trying to hurt you.” When the emergency operator came on the line, Hunter quickly gave the man the bullet points of the situation. Location. One-car accident. Woman in labor. Bleeding forehead. Possible delusions.
When he’d been assured an ambulance and police were on the way, Hunter switched the call to speaker setting and put his phone on the ground by the car, leaving the line connected as instructed.
“Ma’am, I’m going to try to open the door so I can help you.” Crawling onto his knees, he pulled at the crushed door. Though it gave a little, the bent frame was jammed. Hunter rose to his feet for better leverage and tried again. The shoulder he’d landed on when he dived into the ditch throbbed, and he paused long enough to roll his arms and loosen the muscles.
“Ow!” The fear behind the woman’s cry spurred him to act faster, put everything behind getting the door open.
“Hang on, ma’am. I’m coming.” Propping a foot against the dented frame, Hunter pulled on the door with all his strength. Sweat streamed down his already damp back and brow, but with a creak of straining metal, the door finally gave way. Getting on his belly again, Hunter crawled inside the flipped car and sidled up to the injured woman. “Okay, ma’am. Help is on the way, and I’m going to do what I can until they get here.”
Instead of the relief or gratitude he expected, the woman’s expression reflected terror as he drew closer. “No! Don’t hurt me!”
That again? Hunter huffed. She was the one who’d almost killed him with her erratic driving! He took a deep breath and touched her arm lightly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help.”
“But someone was... I think, someone was coming after me. I feel... I can’t remember...” She seemed so distraught that Hunter paused.
“Who’s coming after you? Why were you in such a hurry?” An abusive husband maybe?
She swallowed hard, and her brow furrowed. “I...I don’t know.” She tipped her head and gave him a funny look. “Wh-who are you?”
“My name’s Hunter. I saw you crash, and I’m here to help you. Do you remember anything about the accident or why you were driving so fast?”
“I...” She closed her eyes, wincing, then gave him a frightened look. “I had a contraction...and then I was upside down, and my water had broken and...you looked in the window...and—” She cried out in pain, drawing her shoulders in and cradling her belly again.
Hunter took her hand in his and patted her wrist. “You’re okay. Take a deep breath and blow it out through your mouth.”
He racked his brain for what he could remember about childbirth from when his nieces had been born. Darby Kent, the mother of one of his nieces, had been one of his closest friends since college, and he’d stood by her through her pregnancy, practicing breathing techniques with her and coaching her on the way to the hospital for her delivery. Though the specifics of the labor breathing weren’t coming back to him at the moment, he knew hyperventilating was not good. Which was what the woman was currently doing.
“Hey, look at me.” He moved a hand to her cheek and angled her face toward him. Her wide, fearful eyes latched on to his. Their piercing blue hue and vulnerability socked Hunter in the solar plexus, grabbed him and held on tight. “I’m not going to leave you. We’re going to get you through this. I know you’re scared, but you need to calm down. Take slower, deeper breaths or you’re going to pass out.”
She closed her eyes once, then refocused on him. Some of the panic in her gaze eased, and she slowed her breathing. She inhaled deeply, if shakily, and blew it out with a whimper.
“That’s my girl.” He gave her a warm smile and squeezed her fingers. “Now...what’s your name?”
She stared at him blankly for a moment, then frowned. “I...don’t know.”
Hunter drew his eyebrows together, an uneasy stir in his gut. “You don’t know your name?”
She blinked, clearly confused, and panic edged back into her eyes. “I don’t know! How could I not know?”
He shifted his gaze to the gash on her forehead. “That cut on your temple says you hit your head in the crash. Do you remember anything about who you are or where you live? Are you married?”
The pregnancy suggested she might have a husband somewhere who’d be worried about her, but her left hand had no rings. Although...his sister-in-law had stopped wearing her wedding ring during her last pregnancy because her hands had swelled.
Tears filled her eyes, and a visible tremor shook her. “No. It’s all a blank. I just...have this feeling...something bad happened. That someone wants to hurt me...”
He dabbed at the bleeding gash, where a goose egg was now swelling, with the hem of his shirt. “Okay, memory loss happens sometimes after you hit your head. Clearly that’s what’s happened, so...let’s see what clues we have in the car. Do you have a purse? A wallet with your driver’s license?”
“I don’t knooooow....” The word evolved into another wail of agony, and with a grimace of misery, she gripped her stomach. “It hurts so much. Oh, God, don’t let anything happen to my baby!”
“Breathe through the pain, honey.” Hunter stroked her hair with one hand and squeezed her fingers with his other. “Did you take a Lamaze class or anything?”
Her blank gaze flicked to him. “I don’t—”
“You don’t remember. Right.” He exhaled through pursed lips. Memory loss meant she wouldn’t remember who from her family or friends to call to be with her. He needed to find her wallet or her cell phone or something that would give them some helpful information. But at that moment, his first priority was keeping her calm. Delivering the baby, if it came to that. Damn! Where was that ambulance?
A cold sweat popped out on his lip, but he swallowed the nausea that rose in him at the thought of delivering her baby. He had to keep it together for her sake. “All right. We can do this. You’re gonna be fine.”
When she squeezed his hand back, he met her teary gaze.
“Thank you, Hunter.” She raised her free hand to wipe her face and flicked him an attempt at smiling. “For staying. I’m scared, and I don’t want to be alone.”
Hunter’s heart cracked, and he wiped the moisture from her cheeks with a crooked finger. “I won’t leave you alone. I promise.”
His assurance seemed to relieve her mind, and she drew a slow, deep breath. When her next contraction hit, he coached her through the pain, reminding her to breathe deeply and slowly. She squeezed his hand with amazing strength, and when her pain eased, he dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “That’s it. You’re doing great.”
Come on, ambulance! Anytime now!
Between her contractions, Hunter searched the tumbled sedan, an older Honda Civic that reminded him of the jalopies Grant used to tinker with in their driveway when they were younger. The car was made pre–air bags...a safety feature that would have served the woman well today, judging from the growing bump on her head and her memory loss. There was nothing in the glove box that told him who she was or where she lived. No registration papers or car title. Odd. She didn’t seem to have a purse or wallet with her, either. Also strange based on the habits of the women he knew. And no cell phone? What was up with that? What woman in this day and age went anywhere without her cell phone?
Hunter kept his frustration with her curious lack of identification to himself, not wanting to upset her further. Another contraction gripped her, and he shifted his attention to her again. She was bearing down, her teeth gritted, her forehead creased with effort.
“Oh, hey, no!” Hearing his panic in his tone, he paused a moment and forced a smile. “Try not to push...yet. The ambulance is bound to be here soon. Just...hold on a little longer.” He dabbed again at the bleeding cut on her head and the perspiration rolling into her eyes. “Why don’t we focus on something else?”
“Like wh-what?”
He glanced around for an object that might hold some interest or personal meaning to her. Darby had called it a “focal point” when she’d had her daughter four years ago. Hunter had been charged with making sure the picture of his brother Connor, the baby’s father, whom they’d believed at the time was dead, made it to the hospital.
He saw nothing but broken glass and crumpled metal—neither were images she needed to fix in her head. Then he spotted her keys, still dangling from the steering column. He slid the keys out of the ignition and found them hooked to a ring with two decorative additions—one was a metal crab that read I ♥ Cape Cod, and the other was a small wooden piece carved to spell out Brianna.
“Brianna?” He jerked his gaze to her and held up the key chain. “Does that ring a bell? Is your name Brianna?”
She stared at the key chain, a knit in her brow and a desperate look in her eyes that wrenched his heart. “I don’t know. Maybe? Why else would I have that on my keys?”
“If they’re your keys,” he said, and the despondent look that crossed her face made him immediately regret voicing his doubt. “Forget I said that. I’m sure they are.” He forced a grin to his mouth. “So...Brianna. That’s a pretty name. For a pretty lady.”
Her cheek twitched in a weak smile of acknowledgment. Clearly she wasn’t in the mood for compliments, no matter how well intended.
Another contraction seized her, and he held the keys in front of her. “Focus on the keys. Think about tranquil walks on Cape Cod. The soothing sound of the ocean.”
She gave him a dubious, uncertain look as she struggled to breathe deeply.
“Well, the key ring says you love Cape Cod. I figured it was worth a shot.” He rubbed her arm and crooned, “That’s it, Brianna. You’re doing great. Deep breath in, and blow it out through your mouth.”
She followed his coaching like a champion, and pride tugged in Hunter’s chest.
The distant wail of a siren filtered through the autumn air, and relief loosened anxiety’s grip on his gut. “Hey, hear that? The cavalry is coming.”
Rather than happiness, concern darkened her eyes, and she gripped his hand tighter. “Don’t go. You said you’d stay with me. Please?”
Her plea tangled in the deepest part of him, and warmth filled his veins. “I won’t leave. I just have to make way for the EMTs to help you. They’ll take you to the hospital, where the doctors and nurses can give you and your baby the care you need.”
A tear dripped onto her cheek, and her sweaty grip tightened on his hand again. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m scared, Hunter. I know it sounds crazy, but I have this feeling...someone wants to hurt me. Hurt my baby.”
“That’s probably just part of the disorientation because of your amnesia.”
She glanced away, hurt dimming her eyes. “Maybe. But...with you here, I...feel safe.”
Well, damn. What could he say to that? All he had on his schedule for the rest of the day was a postjog shower and watching the Saints game with his brother Grant.
“Be right back.” He flashed her a reassuring smile as he shimmied out of the car to flag down the EMTs and tell the 911 operator the ambulance had arrived. As the emergency techs approached the flipped car, Hunter gave them a quick rundown of Brianna’s condition.
After placing a neck brace on her, the EMTs eased her out of the jimmied door. Despite her protests that it was unnecessary, they strapped her on a backboard until they could confirm at the hospital whether she had any spinal injuries. Hunter clutched her hand and murmured soothing words while one EMT checked the progress of her labor.
“The baby’s head has crowned. We need to hurry. Lights and sirens,” he told the driver as they pushed Hunter aside and slid the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.
Hunter stepped back, giving the men room to work, and turned his attention back to the overturned sedan. All in all, Brianna was lucky not to have been hurt far worse. Why hadn’t she been wearing a seat belt? Why was she on this rural road outside the city limits? Why—
His gaze snagged on the trunk of the sedan. Were those...bullet holes? He moved closer for a better look, a tingle of apprehension scraping his nape. He rubbed his finger across the bullet-size holes and bit out a curse. Someone had shot at the back of Brianna’s car. But how recently? She’d said she had a feeling someone was trying to hurt her.
Maybe she’d been right.
Chapter 2
A chill totally incongruous with the warm autumn afternoon slithered through Hunter. The bullet holes could be old. But based on the way Brianna had been driving, the fear that gripped her even after losing her memory, his guess was someone had been shooting at her today. Minutes ago. And whatever danger had sent her speeding down this highway was still out there, still a threat.
“Hunter!”
Her cry pulled his attention back to the open patient bay of the ambulance. Her hand stretched toward him, and fear flashed in her eyes. “Don’t go!”
He set his jaw. He had promised to stay with her, and he was a man of his word. Not only was she frightened and alone, she was in labor. In pain. In danger. Her amnesia made her even more vulnerable to the person trying to hurt her.
He hurried back to the ambulance, but when he tried to climb in, one of the EMTs stopped him. “No passengers.”
Hunter scowled at the medic, in no mood for rules. “She needs me. Can’t you see how scared she is?”
“Sorry. You can meet us at the hospital.” The EMT tried again to push Hunter aside, and he pushed back.
“Meet you? With what? Look at her car!” He waved a hand at the overturned sedan. “Am I supposed to walk?”
The medic twisted his mouth, wavering. “Are you family?”
Hunter opened his mouth and caught the truth before it slipped out. He swallowed hard and silently begged his mother and God to forgive him for the lie that rose to his tongue. “I’m her husband. That’s my baby she’s having!”
The EMT eyed him suspiciously, clearly having picked up on his earlier hesitation.
Going with the story he’d presented, Hunter squared his shoulders. “You said the baby could come any minute. Don’t make me miss the birth of my first child!”
Brianna wailed in pain at that moment, as if to punctuate his plea. The medic relented and stepped out of Hunter’s way.
* * *
Brianna squeezed her eyes shut, gripped the edges of the stretcher and waited out the excruciating contraction. In addition to the wrenching pain in her belly, her head throbbed. She’d hit it on something when the car flipped, Hunter said. But everything prior to blinking Hunter’s face into focus as he peered through the broken window was a frightening blur. A blank canvas, really. How could she have forgotten everything, even her own name?
She tried again to recall where she’d been going, who she was, why she’d been on that road—and got nowhere. Panic fluttered in her chest, speeding her heart rate and her breathing.
The EMTs were at work, taking her vital signs, checking the baby’s heart rate, starting an IV in her arm.
Hunter moved into view, smiling down at her and wrapping her hand in his. “You’re okay, sweetie. Hang on. Deep breaths, remember?”
Remember deep breaths? Heck, she couldn’t remember what she had for breakfast, but she nodded at him just the same. Struggled to slow her breathing. Truth was, when Hunter stroked her hand and smiled at her like that, breathing at all was difficult. The man was gorgeous, even rumpled and sweaty as he was. He had piercing blue eyes, thick black hair that curled against his neck and the sort of strong, rugged face you saw in outdoor-adventure magazines. His sleeveless T-shirt showed off impressive muscles in his arms, but it was his smile that held her attention. His broad, gentle smile had the power to calm and excite her at the same time. Her pulse did a happy jig when he grinned, while a peace filled her, despite her scary circumstances. Hunter’s presence made her feel safe.
Impossible as it seemed, considering she didn’t know him, didn’t know anyone or anything at the moment, Hunter kept her from flying apart. He reassured her and soothed her. His eyes, his smile, spoke softly to her soul. As if—
Another blinding pain ripped through her torso, obliterating the crazy poetic thoughts. “Oooh!”
Again Hunter stroked her hair, patted her hand, coached her through the contraction. “That’s it, Brianna. You’re a champion. Keep breathing.”
She gobbled up the inane words as if they were manna from heaven. Hunter and his encouragement were all she had at that moment, and she clung to his hand, clung to the support he gave her like a lifeline.
“You don’t appear to have any bleeding that would indicate a placental abruption, and the baby’s heart rate is within range.” The EMT beside her started pelting her with questions as he worked. “We need to get some medical history and personal information. Are you allergic to any medications? Latex or iodine?”
“I...” She swallowed hard. The panic swelled again. “I don’t know.”
“She hit her head,” Hunter explained. “She can’t remember anything. Not even her name.”
“Okay,” the EMT said, turning his attention to Hunter. “Do you know if she has allergies?”
Brianna knitted her brow. Why would Hunter know that about her?
“I, uh...don’t...” he stammered. “I’m not sure.”
“Does she have a Do Not Resuscitate order or living will on file?”
Hunter’s gaze flicked to her as if she could answer. Brianna could only stare back at him in confusion.
“Don’t know.”
“Her blood type?”
Hunter shook his head.
“Name of her ob-gyn?”
“Uh...”
The EMT arched an eyebrow. “Kinda important stuff to know about your wife. Your pregnant wife.”
Brianna gasped. Wife? What—
Another pain tightened her belly, and both Hunter and the EMT turned to her. She gripped Hunter’s hand, squeezing hard as the wave of pain racked her. “Hunter!”
“I’m here, hon. You’re okay.” He turned to the EMT, his face stern. “Can’t you give her anything for the pain?”
“Not without knowing her history or allergies. And we have to be careful not to send the baby into distress.”
“I’m...okay,” she lied. “Don’t put the...baby at risk.”
Hunter gave her a worried look and stroked her hair gently.
After finishing his physical checks, the EMT pulled out a clipboard and shot a narrow-eyed glance at Hunter.
“I’m gonna guess here and say you don’t have any of her personal info, either. Address, phone number, insurance or Social Security number?” The EMT flipped up a palm, giving Hunter the opportunity to deny his assertion.
A guilty look crossed Hunter’s face. He licked his lips and blew out a sigh. “No.”
The EMT grunted, tossed the clipboard aside and busied himself taking her blood pressure, checking the progress of the delivery.
Clearly Hunter had lied about his relationship to her in order to stay with her. Knowing that stirred a mix of feelings in her. While she hated that she’d led him to fib, she was grateful for his willingness to stay with her and allay her fears. Brianna tugged on Hunter’s hand, and when he met her eyes, she flashed him a brief grin of appreciation for his efforts. In response, he trapped her hand between his two larger ones and rode in silence, until the ambulance bumped over the curb of the hospital driveway.
The EMT rallied, pushing Hunter aside as the ambulance jerked to a stop and the back doors flew open. Brianna was jostled as her stretcher was rolled out and the legs unfolded for the ride into the hospital. As she was whisked away, Hunter disappeared from her field of vision. A clawing sense of agitation raked through her. “Hunter!”
“Don’t be scared!” she heard him call as the orderlies rolled her into a back hall, taking her away from her anchor, her protector. But she was frightened. Without Hunter, the eerie sense of danger crowded her again. Someone had tried to hurt her. She was sure of it.
And now she was in labor. Her memory gone. A deep sense of loneliness and foreboding closed around her like a smothering cloak.
* * *
Hunter tried to bat away the hands that blocked him from following Brianna into the E.R. “I want to go with her. That’s my wife!” he said, sticking to the lie he’d already committed to. “Come on. She’s scared, and I promised I’d stay with her.”
“You can be with her in a minute,” a woman in scrubs told him, leading him by the arm to an office. “We just need a little information for billing purposes.”
He raked his hair with his fingers and exhaled a frustrated sigh. “Fine. What do you need?”
“Take a seat over there. I just have a form for you to fill out.”
The fear in Brianna’s voice as they took her away echoed in his mind. Poor thing. She had to be terrified. He thought of the EMT’s questions as they rode in from the accident scene. He had no idea what to tell them about Brianna’s medical history or family or billing information.
Crud. He glanced over the form, and his gut rolled. Well, he’d come this far. Might as well lean into it.
Name—Brianna Mansfield. Marital status—married. He gave them his address as hers, his phone number...his name as her spouse and emergency contact. He plowed on, filling out the form, giving the hospital the information they’d expect if he were in fact Brianna’s husband. For just an instant, he imagined that scenario. Coming home at the end of a long day to her warm embrace. Waking up to her pretty face. Having a child with her...
His heart thumped. The medical staff would assume he was the father of Brianna’s baby. He’d told the EMT as much. Though he’d savored his role as uncle to his brother’s kids, had been a father figure to his niece Savannah for the first four years of her life, the thought of being a father still gave him pause.
Of course, he wasn’t the baby’s father. He shook off the tangential thoughts and focused on the papers in front of him. This was all a ruse for Brianna’s sake...until her real family could be found and brought to the hospital. At the bottom of the sheet, he signed and dated the form, then handed the clipboard back to the admissions clerk. “Can I see Brianna now?”
“Sure. This way.”
Hunter wiped his palms on the seat of his running shorts, wishing he didn’t look and smell like a gym rat, and followed the woman to the nurses’ desk.
When a nurse finally breezed past them, Hunter grabbed her arm to catch her attention. “I’m looking for my wife, Brianna. She’s in labor.”
The nurse nodded to him without stopping. “She’s delivering the baby now. Susan, will you show him where to scrub up and find him a sterile gown?”
The admissions clerk opened her mouth to respond, but the nurse hurried off and disappeared into an exam room. By the time the admissions clerk had located the sterile head-to-toe garb and Hunter felt he’d sufficiently washed his arms, hands and face, Brianna was already cradling a red-faced baby and crying tears of joy over her new arrival.
“Better late than never, Dad,” the E.R. doctor said, waving him in. “We’re just finishing up here, but everyone’s doing fine.”
He stepped over to the side of the surgical table where Brianna lay and, behind the sterile mask covering his mouth and nose, he smiled. Realizing she couldn’t see the gesture meant to congratulate and comfort her, he winked, as well. “Sorry to be so long. Hospital business...then they made me put all this stuff on.” He tugged at the sleeve of the sterile gown.
“It’s all right.” She grinned at her baby, then angled her arms to show Hunter. “I have a son. Seven pounds, seven ounces. A healthy baby boy. Thanks to you.”
Hunter gazed at the puffy-faced bundle and felt a tug in his chest. Newborns generally weren’t what he’d call cute. Even his nieces had needed a few days to register on the cute scale for him. But somehow, knowing he’d helped ensure this baby arrived safely, he felt a little connection to Brianna’s son that put the swollen cheeks and pointy head in perspective.
“Hey, little guy. Welcome to the world.” He crooked a finger and ran it along the baby’s chin. “So what are you naming him?”
She shook her head tiredly. “I don’t know. Surely I had a name picked out, but...I don’t remember it. I can’t give him a name until I get my memory back.” She glanced up at him, and her blue eyes were dark with anxiety. “If I get it back.”
He put a hand on her arm and gave her a supportive squeeze. “What have the doctors said about your head injury? Your amnesia?”
“Not much yet. Delivering Little One here was their first priority. But they are setting up for me to get a CT scan now.” She gave her son’s head a kiss and closed her eyes. “This is crazy. I don’t even know if my son’s father is at home waiting for me, worrying. There must be someone. I didn’t get pregnant on my own.”
A funny gnawing filled Hunter’s gut—maybe because he’d been playing the role of her husband, and hearing her talk of someone else having the rightful place in her life felt off. “You’re not wearing a ring.”
She raised her left hand and stared at her naked fingers. “No. But someone meant enough to me nine months ago that I got pregnant. Where is that man? He should know his son has been born.” Her breathing grew shallow and rapid again. Her brow furrowed, and lines of distress crinkled around her eyes. “I’m scared, Hunter. Without any memory, I’m all alone. I have no home. I have no money. I have no identity or history or—”
“Hey.” He cut her off as the desperation in her voice rose. “You have me. I’m gonna help you figure out who you are and where your family is. Okay?”
A tremor shook her, and when she blinked at him, a fat tear broke free of her eyelashes. “Why? You don’t know me.”
“Yeah, well, the hospital thinks I’m your husband.”
“You told them that...for me? So you could stay with me?”
“Yeah.” He caught her tear with his thumb. “I guess I’m a sucker for blue eyes and a damsel in distress.”
The E.R. nurse came back into the room and raised the railing on the other side of her surgical table. “They’re ready for you in radiology. If you’ll give Dad the baby to hold for a moment, a nurse from the nursery will be down in a minute to take him upstairs for more health checks.”
Brianna’s eyes met Hunter’s. “Is that all right?”
His gut pitched. He’d held babies this small when his nieces had been born, but somehow this felt different. He was being entrusted with a child not even twenty minutes old, given the responsibility of a father’s care and protection. He swallowed hard, hesitating.
“It’s okay, Dad,” the nurse said, chuckling. “Baby won’t break.”
Hunter pushed out a cleansing breath and slipped his hands around the tightly wrapped bundle lying against Brianna’s chest. In the process of gathering the baby into his arms, he brushed intimately against her breasts. When her breath caught and her gaze darted to his, heat spread through him and raised a flushed prickling in his cheeks. “Sorry.”
In response, she twitched her lips in a brief, nervous grin as she released the baby to him. He could feel the heavy throb of her heartbeat against the back of his hand as he adjusted his grip on her son. His pulse drummed in his ears as he pulled the tiny life close to his chest and cradled the baby’s head in the crook of his arm.
“Hey, sport,” he crooned to the puffy-faced baby, who wrinkled his face and whimpered pitifully like a puppy. “No, no. Don’t cry. Mom will be right back.” As Brianna was wheeled out for her CT scan, her troubled gaze lingered on him. Hunter gave her a nod and a wink. “I got this. Don’t worry.”
But as soon as Brianna and the nurse disappeared, the baby loosed a plaintive wail. A bubble of panic swelled inside him. A crying baby was usually his cue to pass a baby back to mom or dad. But he was supposed to be playing the dad role for the next few hours. Yikes.
“Shh. Easy, fella.” He gave Brianna’s son a little bounce and patted the baby’s bottom the way he’d seen his brother Grant do with his daughters when they were infants. “You’re okay, dude. I’m gonna help your mom out, and everything’s going to be just fine.”
He paced the small room, trying to comfort the crying baby, wishing the nursery staff would hurry and take the baby upstairs. As he cradled the infant, rocking his arms from side to side, he flashed back on the accident that had brought him here. Brianna racing down the highway, losing control of her car. Bullet holes in the back of her flipped sedan.
A chill rippled through Hunter. Who had fired at Brianna, and why? Was she still in danger, or had she been victim to a random crime? He recalled her fear of someone hurting her when he’d first tried to help her, and uneasiness scraped through him.
No matter how he looked at it, the cards were stacked against Brianna. Amnesia, a new baby...and some unknown threat to her safety. He may have known her for only an hour, but she had no one else. She and her baby needed him, needed his support, his friendship...and his protection.
He gazed down at the new life in his arms. So tiny. So fragile. So...vulnerable.
“Don’t worry, sport. I’m going to take care of you and your mom,” he promised Brianna’s son. “I’ll help her remember who she is, where your dad is. And I will make sure both of you stay safe.”
* * *
“Where the hell are you, man? You’ve been gone for three hours!” Hunter’s older brother Grant said the minute he answered Hunter’s call.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Hunter cut his brother a lot of slack for his sharp tone, and a stab of guilt also poked him for worrying Grant. His brother had been through hell in recent months, having tragically lost his wife in May. Grant was now a single father, raising his two young daughters alone, and didn’t need any extra grief on his plate. Considering the tumult of the spring and the circumstances surrounding Tracy’s death, Hunter should have called sooner so Grant wouldn’t worry.
He’d left for his jog from Grant’s country home after Sunday lunch with the Mansfield clan. He’d been expected back inside an hour to shower and watch the Saints game with their dad. Since Tracy’s death, the family had been spending a lot more time with Grant, helping with the kids and hoping to lift his spirits.
“Sorry about the radio silence.” Hunter could imagine Grant—and their mother—pacing the hardwood floors of Grant’s farmhouse, fretting about him. “I’ve been...distracted. I’m at the hospital with—”
“The hospital!”
Hunter winced. He should have led with a disclaimer. “I’m fine! Really. But I witnessed a car accident, and I rode in the ambulance to the E.R. with the woman whose car flipped.”
“Aw, skunk.” Grant mumbled the kid-safe curse he and his wife had invented when their oldest started repeating everything she heard. “Is the woman okay?”
“She hit her head pretty hard and has no memory of who she is at the moment. That’s why I’m here. She was pretty scared, but she and the baby are okay other than that, I think.”
“She had a baby with her?” Grant’s tone ratcheted up a degree on the worry scale.
Hunter raked his fingers through his sweaty hair. He really needed a shower, but wouldn’t leave the hospital until he knew Brianna was all right. “She was in labor. She just had the baby a few minutes ago.”
“Skunk,” Grant repeated. “No wonder you stayed with her. So...when do you think you’ll get back here?”
“No telling. Go on and eat dinner without me. I may swing by my apartment for a shower later, but I doubt I’ll make it back out to your place today.” He remembered then that his truck was sitting in Grant’s driveway. “Wait, my truck’s out there, and I need it.” He winced, hating to beg a favor from Grant, who had two small kids to deal with. Maybe his parents could bring him a vehicle. “Are Mom and Dad still there? Could one of them bring my truck to the hospital when they head back into town?”
“I think we can work something out between the three of us.” He heard Grant sigh. “So this woman has no idea who she is? There was nothing with her that identified her? A wallet or cell phone or piece of mail?”
“Not that I found with my preliminary search, but I plan to go back out to the car and look again.” Hunter glanced up to see Brianna being wheeled out of the radiology department. “Text me when you get here with my truck, okay? I gotta go.”
“Sure. Love ya, bro.”
“Back atcha.” Hunter tugged a sad grin, wanting to tease his brother about unmanly professions of feelings. But knowing why his brother had started telling him he loved him at the end of phone calls and visits made teasing impossible. The suddenness of Tracy’s death had shaken the whole family. Factor into that the third Mansfield brother, Connor, returning to WitSec with his wife and daughter, and the family had plenty of reasons to be particularly mindful of family bonds. They all hugged more, said frequent “I love yous” and didn’t take their time together for granted.
As the hospital aides rolled Brianna’s stretcher closer, he couldn’t help but wonder about her family. Did she have anyone looking for her? Was someone, even now, pacing the floor and waiting for her to call? A pang of sympathy prodded him and fired a sense of urgency inside him to find out who she was and where she lived.
Her eyes found his as she neared him, and he sent her an encouraging smile. “They took your son upstairs to be checked more thoroughly by the staff pediatrician. And they’re getting a room ready for you on the maternity floor.”
She nodded, then winced, her hand lifting to her temple, where her head had a new bandage.
“Any news from the CT scan?” he asked.
“Not yet.” Her sky-blue eyes clouded with worry. “The doctor is reading it now.”
* * *
“The CT scan and MRI both show what we suspected,” the staff neurologist said, his hands shoved in the pockets of his white lab coat. “You have a significant concussion, which has caused swelling in the brain. That swelling is what has caused the memory loss. I have every reason to believe that as the swelling goes down, you should get most, if not all, of your memory back.”
“Most?” Brianna gaped at the silver-haired doctor, stricken cold by the idea of losing any part of her history to permanent brain damage.
When she’d finished in radiology, Hunter had followed her up to the room where she’d been admitted to the maternity ward. He sat beside her bed now, leaning forward in the chair, eagerly taking in every word the doctor shared about her condition. As any good husband would. Except he wasn’t her husband. Before today, he hadn’t even been an acquaintance. Why was he so willing to help her, to pretend they had a relationship? Was it just so that she didn’t face her amnesia alone?
Hunter frowned. “Do you mean some of her memory loss could be permanent?”
“It is possible. The brain is a tricky and mysterious thing. But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. All indicators are you’ll be good as new in a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks? She swallowed the dismay that choked her. Even if two or more weeks without her memory seemed like an eternity, she needed to count her blessings. She had a healthy son, the hope of recovering her past, her identity...and Hunter. She had Hunter to help her through the scariness of amnesia. But how long would he stay? She couldn’t ask him to give up his life, his commitments, in order to babysit her. He’d already gone way above and beyond the call of duty, pretending to be her husband in order to stay beside her, allay her fears, give her moral support. All too soon she’d have to face the void of her unknown life alone. That thought brought back the chill, the prickling sense that someone wanted to hurt her. What had put her on that road where her car flipped today? Who was after her, and why?
Chapter 3
Hunter turned to her with that knock-’em-dead smile of his, pulling her out of her worrisome musings, and gave her wrist a squeeze. “That’s great news, huh? That you should recover all your memories, given time?”
Threading the sheet of her hospital bed through her fingers, she worked up a smile for him. “Yeah. Great news.”
“So how will it work?” Hunter asked. “Is there something I can do to help prod her memories?”
“Generally, no. The swelling needs to go down before the process of memory recall can happen. When it does happen, it won’t be a sudden info dump. Things will return slowly, a piece at a time. Prepare yourself to feel frustrated by the puzzlelike feel of the bits and pieces coming together, but try not to stress too much over the seemingly scattershot return of the memories.”
“So photos and bits of memorabilia won’t trigger recall?” she asked, disappointment weighting her chest. Her head chose that moment to give an almost symbolic throb. She’d refused the painkiller they’d offered her, knowing she’d be nursing her baby boy soon.
“They might serve as a prompt. But not before the swelling has decreased sufficiently. The key is going to be patience. Give your focus where it belongs. Building new, precious memories with that baby of yours.”
Thoughts of her son brought a genuine smile to Brianna’s lips. “Thank you, Doctor.”
The neurologist pulled a pen from his pocket and signed a chart that he stuck in the file holder on her door. “Now get some rest, and I’ll check in on you again at the end of my rounds.”
The doctor pulled her door almost closed to give her and Hunter privacy, and being alone with her rescuer suddenly became awkward. She glanced at him as he shifted to a more comfortable position in the bedside chair. He flicked a smile at her and drew a deep breath.
“So...” he said.
“Hunter...” she said at the same time.
His grin stretched, and he waved a hand toward her. “Go on.”
“What were you—” she said on top of him again. Now she chuckled stiffly. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “No. Ladies first.”
She took a slow breath and untangled her fingers from the knots she’d been winding in the sheets. “You don’t have to stay. I know I asked you not to leave before, but...I was scared and hurting and—”
His warm hand wrapped around her cool fingers, and her gaze darted up to his. His dark blue eyes were full of compassion and crinkled slightly as he grinned. “I’m not going anywhere. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
She squeezed his fingers, relishing the connection to him. Not only did his warm grip feel good around her chilly hands, but his loyalty and friendship touched a place deep inside her that she had an odd sense had been empty and cold for a long time. “I release you from that promise. I have no right to hold you here. You don’t know me. You have no responsibility for me. You’ve already done so much, and I’ll always be grateful. But I don’t want you to feel obligated to me.”
He gave her a dismissive raspberry. “I’m your husband, remember? Of course I’ll stay.”
Brianna sighed and shook her head. “We both know you’re not. That’s just the lie you told the EMT so you could ride with me when I was panicking.”
His brow furrowed, and when he stroked her knuckles with his thumb, a pleasant tingle spun through her. “Yeah, well...maybe I’m getting into the role. Maybe I want to hang around for a while to make sure you’re okay.” He cocked his head. “Would that be okay? I could help you start figuring out who you are and if you have family somewhere that should be called.”
Her heart pattered. She wanted desperately to accept his offer, but how could she impose on his kindness that way? “You heard the doctor. It could be weeks before I remember everything.” She frowned and dropped her gaze to her lap. “If I remember.”
He untangled his fingers from hers and nudged her chin up. “Hey, stay positive.” His palm cupped her cheek, and she couldn’t help but lean into his touch, his buoying comfort and encouragement. “I was thinking I might do a little investigative work. I can go back to your car and see what, if anything, I can find that would help us solve some of the mystery surrounding you.”
She raised her chin, hope lifting her spirits. “Good idea.”
“For starters, I’ll take down your license-plate number and see if the DMV will tell me who the number is registered to.”
She nodded, feeling a surge of energy in light of Hunter’s idea and optimism. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
He shot her a wickedly handsome lopsided grin. “You were a little preoccupied having the world’s cutest little boy.”
A knock on the door heralded the arrival of a nurse rolling a bassinet in from the nursery. “Mrs. Mansfield?”
She blinked, confused by the name until Hunter winked at her and said, “Speak of the devil. Here’s our boy now.”
Mansfield. Hunter Mansfield. She let the name roll through her mind, testing it, savoring it. Funny to think she knew more about Hunter than she did about herself. A last name, for instance.
The nurse parked the bassinet beside her bed and scooped up the baby, swaddled tightly in a blue blanket. “Here you go, Mama. He’s been asking for you. I think he’s ready to nurse.”
Brianna’s breath caught, and her gaze darted to Hunter. Nurse? “Um...I—”
Hunter’s cheeks flushed a bit, and he met her uneasy glance with his own.
“It helps if you massage the breast first to increase the milk flow,” the nurse said as she settled the baby in Brianna’s arms.
Hunter shot out of his chair and hustled toward the door. “Honey, I just remembered a phone call I need to make. I’ll just be out here in the hall, okay?”
She released the breath she’d been holding and nodded. “Sure.”
As Hunter slipped out of the room, the nurse helped Brianna get situated, propping pillows under the baby and her arm so that she could hold her son more comfortably. The baby latched on after a few tries and suckled greedily. Brianna stared down at the tiny face, marveling at the miracle she held and swamped by a love so strong and pure it brought tears to her eyes. Of course, some of the tears could be the product of the crazy cocktail of hormones, her frustration with her amnesia and the throbbing pain in her skull.
“That’s the way. You’ve got it,” her nurse said. “I’m going to go, but if you need me, just push the button on that cord there.” She pointed to the nurse call. “Or get that nervous daddy in the hall to help.” She sent a wry look to the door. “He’s got to get over those new-father nerves before you go home. You’re gonna need a lot of help with the baby while you recover from that concussion.”
Brianna swallowed hard. “Right. Thanks.”
She might need a lot of help, but she couldn’t ask Hunter. Surely she had family or a friend, a neighbor...someone who could help her with the baby. The baby gazed up at her with his blue eyes as he nursed, and she was washed anew with overwhelming awe and love. Maybe it wasn’t hormones. Maybe this was the deep maternal bond that women had known for centuries. “Oh, sweetie, you are so precious to me. We’re going to be okay. I promise.”
Her son’s eyes closed, then fluttered open again.
“It’s okay. You can sleep. I’ll be right here.” Her reassurance to her baby boy reminded her of Hunter’s pledge to stay with her, to work with her to piece together her identity and lost memories. As she watched her baby suckle, an overwhelming need to name her son roared through her. She might have no identity, no past to draw from, but she could give her son a name. A name with meaning and significance.
“Hunter?” she called. “Hunter, are you there?”
He burst through the door, his expression worried. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“What’s your full name?”
He blinked. “Huh?”
“Your full name? Do you have a middle name?”
His attention shifted to where her baby still nuzzled her breast, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Um...”
Oops. Heat prickling her cheeks, she tugged the receiving blanket up to cover the baby’s head.
He scratched the stubble on his chin, his brow puckering in thought as if trying to remember what she’d asked. “Oh, uh...Benjamin. Why?”
“Hunter Benjamin Mansfield,” she said, liking the sound of it. “A strong, noble-sounding name.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
She smiled. “I do. Would you mind if I named my son Benjamin...after you?”
Shock froze his features for a moment before his mouth twitched in a lopsided grin and his eyes lit with wonder. “Seriously?”
“He needs a name. I may not be able to fill out all the blanks on his birth certificate yet, but I can give him a first name. Seems fitting, you being the man who came to our rescue.” She paused. “If that’s all right with you.”
He chuckled and swiped a hand over his face. “I’m...honored! Yeah.”
She smiled and peeked under the blanket at her son. “Then Benjamin it is.”
Naming her baby was a small thing in the big picture, but at least one thing in her blank-slate life had been settled. A disproportionately large swell of relief filled her.
“Was that it? You need anything?” Hunter asked.
Fatigue pulled at her, weighting her limbs. “A nap. But first this guy—” she tipped her head toward the baby “—needs to fall asleep.”
He sent her a commiserative nod. “Yeah, you’ve had a busy day.” Sliding his hands down his backside, as if searching for back pockets that the running shorts he wore didn’t have, Hunter edged back toward the door. “Well, then...I’ll let you finish feeding him. In fact, I’m thinking I’ll go scare up a sandwich or something. You sure you don’t want a snack or a soda?”
“No thanks. Just sleep.” As if hearing her request, her son’s eyes—Benjamin’s eyes—closed groggily, and she stroked a finger along his silky-soft cheek. “That’s a good boy. Sweet dreams, Ben.” She raised her head. “Could you help me move him to the bassinet?”
Tugging the bedsheet up, she kept herself covered as she held Ben out from her body enough for Hunter to slide his hands under the blue bundle. When he splayed his fingers, Hunter’s hands were large enough to ably cradle her son’s head and bottom securely. The sight of those masculine hands against the soft blanket that swaddled her child sent a ripple of awareness through her. Those same strong hands had held hers with gentle warmth, had comforted her with tender care...and had pulled open the crumpled door of her wrecked car with brute power. How would those amazing hands feel caressing her skin? Exploring her body? Her pulse kicked, and her mouth dried.
What was she doing letting her thoughts stray down that path just hours after childbirth? Sure, Hunter was drop-dead handsome and kind to a fault, but talk about bad timing! She didn’t even know if she had someone at home waiting for her, worrying about where she was. And because Hunter had told the hospital she was his wife, if someone did call looking for her, they wouldn’t know she was here, even as a Jane Doe.
“Hunter? What if my family is looking for me? The hospital thinks my last name is Mansfield.”
He cut a side glance to her from the bassinet, where he watched Ben settling in to sleep. “Huh, I hadn’t thought about that.” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “But before we backpedal on that story, we need to consider all the angles of this.”
Under the sheet, she adjusted her clothes, post-nursing, and snuggled down on the bed, completely wiped-out by the delivery. “What angles?”
“Well, like your safety.”
She lowered her eyebrows, a niggling sense biting the back of her neck. “My safety?”
“You don’t remember? When I first got to your car, you were sure someone was trying to hurt you.” He moved to the chair by her bed and sat on the edge, leaning toward her with an anxious look on his face. He knew something he wasn’t telling her. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything from right before the accident? Why were you racing down that road so fast?”
“I was in labor. I—” She stopped, knowing somehow there was more to it. She sank back against her pillow, shut her eyes. Behind closed eyes images and sounds of the day’s trauma replayed in her head. Lying in the overturned car. The blinding pain in her head. The blood. The ambulance sirens. She took a deep breath and tried to push the swirl of confusion over the accident and tangled feelings toward Hunter out of her mind. The nagging sense of disquiet sorted itself out from the other memories. A fear that stole through her like a wraith, chilling her to the bone. Someone had wanted to hurt her. She was sure of it.
Brianna’s eyes flew open, and she gasped. Her gaze darted around the hospital room as if expecting to find someone standing over her, ready to snuff the life from her.
Hunter scooted the chair closer, took her hand. “What? What do you remember?”
“Nothing...specific. Just this ominous, oppressive feeling of danger. I can’t explain it, but...”
“I think I can.” Hunter’s expression darkened, and his gaze dropped to the floor, his forehead lined with deep furrows of concern.
Brianna’s gut flinched, rebelled. A sour taste filled her mouth. “What?”
“When we were leaving the accident scene, I got a good look at the back of your car.” He met her eyes, and the intensity in his blue gaze rocked her to her core. “Someone had shot at the back of your car. Maybe not today, but at some point. That’s one of the reasons I want to go back out and look at the car before the police impound it. I’m sure the officer who responded to the accident would have seen the bullet holes and will be investigating, but I want to know all I can. So I can protect you.”
She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry. “Are...are you sure they were bullet holes? Maybe a rock—”
“I’m sure.” He sandwiched her hand between hers and stroked her wrist with his thumb. “I served a few years in the Army Reserves and have hunted with my brothers for years. I know guns, and I know bullet holes. The ones in your car looked to be in the .38-to .44-caliber range. The kind of weapon that has stopping power.”
Her breath shuddered from her, and she stared at Hunter, stunned by what she was hearing.
His hand caressed her cheek, cupped her face. “Brianna, I’m sorry to dump this on you. I don’t mean to scare you with this, but I thought you needed to know. So you could take precautions. Be alert to possible threats.”
“But...why...? I don’t...” She wet her lips and tried to slow her racing thoughts. “They weren’t just trying to hurt me, then. Whoever shot at the car was trying to...” She gulped. “To kill me?”
Apprehension dented his brow. “That’s how it looks to me.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and she caught it with her teeth. Nausea roiled in her belly, and her aching head pounded with fresh ferocity.
His grip on her cheek tightened, and he tipped her face toward him. “But listen to me, Brianna. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to help you get to the bottom of this. We’ll figure out who was trying to hurt you and why. We’ll find something to tell us who you are and where your family is. I promise. I won’t let anyone harm you or Ben.”
Tears prickled her eyes. She had too much to process. An attempt on her life, the car accident, her lost memory. In the midst of so much turmoil, Hunter was a beacon to her. A safe harbor. She might not know him, but her instincts told her to trust him. Gratitude was an understatement of how she welcomed and cherished his offer of help and protection. Without her memory, with her body weakened from injury and a painful delivery, with a new baby to consider, she was vulnerable with a capital V.
She covered his hand with hers, and when she blinked, a tear tracked down her cheek. “Thank you, Hunter. So much.”
Hunter’s phone buzzed, and he checked the screen. “That’s my dad. My ride is here, so I need to go.” He leaned close and kissed her forehead. The chaste kiss sent ribbons of honeyed warmth through her. “I hate to leave you, but I feel like there are answers we need at your car. I need to get out there before the police haul it away.”
A shiver raced over her skin at the thought of being left alone. But Hunter was right. They needed answers, and her car was the place to start. The only clue they had. “Okay.”
He winked at her and rose from the chair.
“If you need anything, anything at all, I’ve got my cell phone with me. Call me.” He wrote his number on the whiteboard the nurses and hospital staff used to leave the patient notes and reminders. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Try to rest. I’ll ask the nurses’ desk to keep an eye on your room. No visitors until I get back. Okay?”
She nodded, but knew she wouldn’t get to sleep, no matter how much she needed a nap. She had too much swirling through her thoughts, too much weighting her heart. She had a new baby to protect. Benjamin.
The door clicked closed as Hunter left, and she glanced at her sleeping son. So tiny. So innocent. So dependent on her.
The dark suspicion that had hovered over her since the accident pressed down and crowded her until she couldn’t breathe. Hunter had found bullet holes in her car. Somewhere beyond the hospital walls, someone was waiting to kill her.
Chapter 4
Three hours later, Hunter returned to the hospital and knocked quietly on Brianna’s door before entering, just in case she was the with the doctor...or nursing. He was no lech, but the idea of her baring her breast, even to feed her son, was fodder for vivid images in his mind’s eye. He could too easily imagine her curves bared for his exploration, their bodies tangling in the sheets. Considering Brianna was a new mother, those tantalizing fantasies left him feeling uneasy and guilty. Was he wrong to feel this attraction to her? She was a beautiful woman, and every time their eyes met, he experienced a sense of connection, a crackling energy and deep stirring in both his body and his soul.
Hearing no response to his knock, he cracked the door open and peeked inside. “Brianna?”
Brianna sat propped up in the bed, the baby in her arms, her gaze latched firmly on her son. His pulse tripped at the sight of her, and he took a moment to simply drink in the poignant image.
She’d gotten cleaned up, as he had, and someone had found her a brush for her hair. It shone in glossy gold waves that framed her face and spilled over her shoulders. Her cheeks had more color now, and her skin had a fresh-scrubbed glow. The love in her expression as she gazed at her son was so pure and peaceful, his breath stilled in his lungs. He’d seen that same expression before...on his sisters-in-law’s faces when they’d rocked his nieces. A mother’s love. Maternal awe and wonder. Raw, unfiltered affection.
Watching her hold her baby, Hunter, too, felt a stir deep inside, but of a harder-edged emotion—a fierce determination to protect Brianna and her child. The clawing need to defend her was tangled with a sense of possessiveness and responsibility. She was his to care for, his to guard and provide for. His.
Except she wasn’t. He shook his head briskly. Somewhere out there, the father of Brianna’s baby was likely waiting for her. A man she’d cared enough for that she’d made love to him, carried his child. A man who had prior claim to her.
Hunter shoved down the stab of jealousy that thought fired inside him and stepped farther into the room.
Brianna raised her head, clearly startled, when he moved to the foot of her bed. “Oh, hi.”
He aimed a thumb at the door. “I knocked, but...”
“Sorry. My head was somewhere else. I didn’t hear you.” She wiggled her fingers in invitation. “Come in. Sit down.”
He didn’t like the idea that she’d been so unaware of her surroundings that he’d made it to her bed before she noticed him. With someone gunning for her, literally, she needed to be more alert, more careful. He made a mental note to talk with her about that.
“What did you find out?” she asked as he took a seat beside her.
“Not much yet. I didn’t find anything in the car that was helpful, but I took down your tag number and brought my laptop with me from my apartment.” He patted the computer bag slung over his shoulder. “We can do an online search for your tag number and see what comes up.”
She nodded. “A police officer stopped by after you left, wanting my statement about the accident. I couldn’t tell him much, obviously.”
A prickle of unease chased down his back. “Did he show you his badge? Was he in uniform?”
She frowned at his question. “Yes to both. And he left a card—” she motioned to her tray table “—and said they’d need a statement from you.”
“Okay. Am I supposed to call him?” Hunter picked up the card and read it. Sergeant Mark Wallace, Lagniappe Police Department.
“I told him you’d be back in a little while. I think he was going to come back up here after he got dinner.”
He nodded, and setting his computer bag aside, he leaned forward for a better look at her son. Benjamin. A curl of warmth rolled through his midsection. To say he was flattered she’d named her son after him would be an understatement. He’d helped her because it was what any decent person in his situation would have done. Maybe committing himself to helping her discover who she was and protecting her from the person responsible for shooting at her car was more than others would do. But something inside him compelled him to look after Brianna.
“Did he nap?” he asked now, gazing down at Benjamin’s bright blue eyes. The baby’s eyes shifted slightly toward him. He remembered his sister-in-law telling him a baby’s distance vision was unfocused early on, but Benjamin looked straight at him, perhaps drawn by the sound of his voice. Holding the baby’s gaze, Hunter felt a stir of emotion deep inside, a softening at his core.
“He did. He’s eaten a little more, too.”
Hunter smiled at Benjamin, even though he knew the baby was still too nearsighted to see it. “Hey, sport. How ya doin’?”
“Would you like to hold him?” Brianna asked.
Hunter shifted his attention to her. “Um, maybe later. Right now, I think we should do some research.” He opened his laptop and logged on to the internet. “The sooner we figure out who you are, the better. My family was going nuts looking for me after just a couple of hours this afternoon. I can imagine yours is especially worried, given your pregnancy and all.”
“You have family in town? A wife?”
He jerked his gaze up from his keyboard, and she blinked at him with wide, startled eyes. “No. I’m not married. I meant my brother and parents. I’d gone out for a jog when you wrecked your car.”
She released a deep breath, visibly relieved that he wasn’t married. And wasn’t that interesting?
Hunter glanced at the results of his browser search for Brianna’s car tag number. After scrolling a few pages, he found nothing helpful. A visit to the state’s DMV web page gave him little, as well. A few sites promised to conduct a search of private records for a fee, but he ignored those. Buzzing his lips in frustration, Hunter sat back in the chair. “Well, I’m not getting far here. Have you remembered anything else, no matter how small, that might help us with this puzzle?”
“No. Just this weird sense of danger. Of panic.” She bit her bottom lip and furrowed her brow. “I wouldn’t even know my first name if not for that key ring.”
“What about the other key chain that was on your car keys? The one that said ‘I Heart Cape Cod.’ Cape Cod ring any bells now?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. “Nothing.”
“Well, it’s early. The doctor said to give your swelling a chance to recede.”
A knock sounded at the door, and a uniformed officer poked his head in the room. “Excuse me.”
Hunter stood and greeted the policeman. “Are you Sergeant Wallace?”
“I am. Would you be Hunter Mansfield?”
“Yours truly. I understand you need a statement about her accident.” Hunter waved the officer toward the only chair in the room, but Sergeant Wallace declined with a shake of his head.
“This shouldn’t take long. I just need your account of what happened to confirm what Ms. Coleman told us.”
“Ms. Coleman?” Hunter tipped his head. “Is that her name? Brianna Coleman?”
The policeman looked confused for a moment, then arched an eyebrow. “That’s right. You have no memory from before the accident?”
Brianna shook her head. “Nothing. Can you tell us anything? Did you run my license plate? Who is the car registered to? Where do I live?”
Sergeant Wallace flipped open a small notepad and read, “Your tag was registered to Brianna Coleman, home address 443 Cypress Creek Lane, Lagniappe.”
Wallace rattled off a phone number and Social Security number as well, and Hunter pulled a scrap of paper from his computer bag and jotted the information down.
“What did the tag registration say about my marital status? Was there anyone else listed as co-owner or my spouse?” Brianna asked, her expression full of hope.
The sergeant consulted his notes. “Not that I see.” Wallace raised his gaze to Hunter. “Want to tell me what you saw this afternoon? Did you see the car crash happen?”
Hunter flexed the fingers of one hand with the other and gave the officer a recap of what happened from the time Brianna drove toward him to the moment they left in the ambulance.
Her eyes widened as she listened. “Oh, my God. I almost hit you?”
He jerked a small nod, and seeing the guilt that crossed her face, he quickly added, “But you didn’t. That’s what counts.”
“So you didn’t see who might have fired at the car?” Sergeant Wallace asked.
“No.” Hunter rubbed his hands on his jeans. “If you find any more information that will help Brianna locate her family, will you call us? I’m planning to stay with her, help her out for a while. You can call my cell.” He gave the officer that phone number, and Sergeant Wallace jotted it in his notes.
“Will do.” As the police officer took his leave, he added, “Congratulations on the new baby, Ms. Coleman. Hope you’ll feel better soon.”
“Thanks.” Brianna flashed him a muted smile. Clearly she was anxious over the lingering questions about her family, Benjamin’s father and the lurking danger. As he was.
He eyed Brianna after the policeman left. “So...Brianna Coleman. That name ringing bells for you?”
She chewed her bottom lip and stared across the room, her nose wrinkled in thought. “Well, yes and no. It doesn’t feel wrong. It’s...comfortable. But I can’t say it’s bringing anything back or screaming, ‘That’s me!’” Her shoulders dropped, and she frowned. “If that’s my name, why don’t I just know it? It should be organic. Part of my cells. Instinctive.”
Connor shook his head and scooted toward her. “Not necessarily.” He unclipped his cell phone from the case at his hip. “Look, we have a home phone number now. I’ll call it and see if anyone is there. Okay?”
Her eyes rounded. “Yeah.” She sat taller in the bed, watching him anxiously as he dialed. The phone rang four times before an answering machine picked up. A mechanical voice repeated the number he’d dialed and told him to leave a message.
“I got a machine,” he told her, and her expression deflated. When the beep sounded, Hunter said, “Hi, my name is Hunter Mansfield, and I’m looking for the family of Brianna Coleman. Brianna is safe but needs to be in contact with her relatives. If anyone gets this message, please call me.” He left his number in case she didn’t have caller ID.
“No one answered,” she said and sighed. “Maybe I have no family.”
“We don’t know that. They could be in the shower. Or, more likely, out looking for you.” He returned his phone to the holder at his hip and rubbed the beard stubble on his chin. “Later on, I’ll drive by your house and knock on the front door. We will find your family, Brianna. Have faith.”
She flashed her a half smile and nodded. “Aye, Captain.”
An idea came to Hunter, and he flipped a page on the notepad he’d used to take down her information from Sergeant Wallace. He extended it and the pen toward her. “Let’s try something. Take these.”
She glanced down at Ben. “Okay, but you’ll have to hold him.”
He set the notepad down and held his arms out to receive the baby. Ben gave a disgruntled whine but soon settled in Hunter’s arms.
She lifted the pen and paper. “What do you want me to do with these?”
“Sign your name.”
She puckered her brow. “But...”
“You know your name now. So write it. Like you’re signing a document. Don’t think too hard about it. Just write.”
She bent her head over the pad and slowly wrote out her name. “There.” She held the pad out to him.
“Do it again. Faster.” Hunter gave Ben’s swaddled bottom a soft pat when he gurgled.
“Why?”
“An experiment. Just work with me.”
She sighed and wrote her name again. Then blinked. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“I...did that without really thinking about it. I was still thinking about how silly your experiment sounded.”
He flashed her a cocky grin. “Not so silly now, huh?”
Lifting one eyebrow, she wrote her name again, even faster. And again. “I’ll be darned.”
“Did it feel natural? Like muscle memory?”
She raised her head, and her face lit with wonder. “It did.” Taking a deep breath, she wrote her name again and again, filling the page with her loopy signature. She chuckled. “I know this. It feels right.”
“Some people learn better by hearing, others by sight, others by doing. It makes sense to me that maybe your memories will come back more with certain triggers than others. I learned that in high school. My grades were suffering, and my parents hired me a tutor. Turns out my teachers’ style of issuing reading assignments didn’t match my auditory learning style. I needed to hear it explained to me to make it stick.” Hunter walked around to the bassinet and set Ben down in the small bed. “I have something else we can try.”
Returning to the bedside chair, Hunter tapped on his laptop keys. He pulled up a satellite ground-level-view website and typed in the address Sergeant Wallace had given them. The picture of a small gray-siding-and-redbrick house with a neat yard came up. He moved the laptop so that Brianna could see the image.
“According to the address Wallace gave us, this is your house. Do you recognize it? Does it feel right?”
Brianna squinted at the screen, studying it. The eagerness and expectation in her eyes was heartbreaking, especially when that hope faded and moisture filled her eyes. “No. I don’t feel any tugs of recognition. Damn it!”
Hunter closed the top of the laptop, set it aside and moved to sit on the edge of her bed. “It was just an idea. Maybe seeing it for real will be different. Maybe seeing the inside, your furnishings and pictures, will be the trigger you need. And time.”
She nodded slowly, touching the bandage on her forehead. “Time for the swelling to recede.”
“Exactly.” He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. “To me, the fact that your signature felt natural is a good sign. I bet you get all of your memories back real soon.”
She nibbled her bottom lip again. “Maybe. I... Hunter, what if the reason I can’t remember is because I’m blocking a bad event? I can’t get past the fact that there are bullet holes in the back of the car I was driving. The one thing I did sense or know after the accident was that I was in danger. What does that say?”
His grip on her hand tightened. “I haven’t forgotten that. I don’t know what it means, but I do know this—whoever shot at you isn’t going to get a second chance. I’ll make sure of that.”
* * ** * *
Hunter spent a long, restless night in the chair next to Brianna. Though the chair folded out into a bed of sorts, the contraption was the epitome of discomfort, and every noise from the hall woke him. His brain was wired to be on guard, to listen for intruders, to be alert to changes in his environment, even while resting. He’d served one tour in Afghanistan during his five years with the Army Reserves and learned the meaning of the term combat nap. That past spring, he’d helped guard his niece’s hospital room when men connected to organized crime had threatened his brother Connor and his family. Because of that experience, he considered himself qualified to guard Brianna and Ben.
Morning came early, as it did in a hospital, the maternity nurse waking Brianna to feed Ben at four forty-five. She gave him a groggy glance as Ben was settled in her arms, and Hunter took his cue.
“I’m going to rustle up some coffee. Is the cafeteria open?” he asked the nurse.
“It will be at five.”
Brianna sent him an appreciative smile. Her hair was mussed from sleep, and as she raked the gold wisps back with her fingers, Hunter’s pulse kicked. Brianna Coleman was the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long time, and she managed to be sexy without trying. Her natural, early-morning rumpled state charmed him. The glow that shone from her eyes and her smile as she greeted her son and settled him in her arms was more striking than any makeup she could ever put on.
Hunter swallowed hard. It was dangerous to have such strong feelings for her when they didn’t know yet whether Ben’s father was still in the picture. She could be married, damn it!
He gave his head a little shake as he shuffled out of the room. For probably the hundredth time in the past few weeks, he wished he could call Darby Kent, whose friendship and advice had always been spot-on. As much as he admired his older brothers and valued their input on business matters, Darby, with her female point of view and common sense, had always been the one he turned to for advice concerning matters of the heart. She would be able to put his fascination and obligation to Brianna in perspective. But Darby and her daughter, Hunter’s niece, had recently joined his brother Connor in Witness Security. He’d likely never talk to Darby or Connor ever again, and he felt the loss to his marrow.
With the morning staff making rounds, Hunter figured Brianna was safe enough until he came back with his breakfast. Just in case, though, he’d stopped at the nurses’ station and asked them to keep a watch out for strangers entering Brianna’s room.
That done, Hunter walked down the stairs and exited the hospital to get a breath of fresh air. The dark autumn morning still held a chilly nip, though he knew the Louisiana sun would quickly warm things up after daybreak. He started around the perimeter of the parking lot at a slow jog to work the kinks out of his muscles and get his blood pumping. Immediately his brain began to click through the same questions that had plagued him since the car accident.
How was he supposed to help Brianna figure out the source of the danger to her? Now that he had her name, home phone number and address, he could be more thorough with his quest for information. He could call the courthouse and see if there was a marriage certificate on file for her. He could stop by her house and see if anyone was home, if her purse was there. He heaved a deep sigh, feeling better for having an action plan for the day. He finished the circuit of the parking lot and reentered the hospital, heading straight for the cafeteria, which was just opening.
He bought himself a large coffee and an egg-and-bacon breakfast sandwich to take upstairs. It was still too early to call Grant or his parents and check in with them. He needed to let someone know he’d be taking the day off from work, though he’d make an effort to stop by the construction sites he was managing later in the day. Working for the family business had its perks, and a flexible schedule was one of the better benefits. He couldn’t ignore his responsibilities as site manager for Mansfield Construction, but his father and Grant would always cover for him when he needed personal time off. In fact, Grant, the accountant and business manager for the office, enjoyed having an excuse to get out of the office and be at the work sites every now and then.
When he got back to Brianna’s room with his breakfast, Brianna was still nursing Ben, with a baby blanket draped over her shoulder and the baby. The television played quietly from the mount on the wall, and her food sat uneaten on her tray table. She glanced up at him as he walked in, and her expression was an odd combination of concern and joy.
“I have a cat,” she said without preamble.
“Excuse me?”
“I was sitting here with Ben, thinking about what mornings would be like from here on, taking care of Ben and getting ready for work, whatever that job may be, and I had this overwhelming feeling that I was neglecting something important. Then it just came to me. I have a cat that I always feed in the morning. Sorsha. She’s black with long hair and a white spot on her tummy. She’s always right there in my face when I wake up every morning, demanding pats and ear scratches along with her breakfast. She’s like my furry child, my first baby. I can’t believe I would forget her!”
Hunter grinned as he took his seat. “Any more unbelievable than that you’d forget your own name?”
She pulled her mouth into a slant. “Touché.”
“Still, you remembered something about yourself, your life, your home. That’s progress.”
She gave him a small smile. “Yeah. I guess. The thing is, she needs to be fed. What if there is no one else there to feed her? Hunter, will you—”
“Yes.”
She flashed him a lopsided grin.
“I’m already planning to stop by your house later today, with your permission, and check it out, see if anyone besides the cat is home. I’ll feed Sorsha while I’m there.”
“Thank you.” Her smile brightened, and his body temperature rose a couple of degrees. Damn, but she was beautiful.
“Now—” Hunter frowned at the untouched breakfast “—you need to eat.”
Brianna grinned at him. “I will. Soon. But my hands are a little full here, and Ben’s breakfast comes first.”
He opened the sack with his breakfast sandwich. “But your food’s getting cold.”
“I imagine in the coming years, I’ll eat a lot of cold meals.” She bent her head to peek under the blanket. “Isn’t that right, Ben?”
Hunter unwrapped his food, feeling a bit guilty eating while his food was hot, then nodded toward the television, where a car dealer was raving about his crazy prices. “So what are we watching?”
“Local news. I was thinking if my family reported me missing, there might be a story about it.”
“Good thinking.”
“Yeah, but so far all they’ve shown are national news stories.” Brianna picked up a piece of her toast and took a bite.
On the TV, the commercials ended, and a serious-faced newscaster reported on a dip in the stock market.
“Has the doctor been by this morning? Has anyone told you yet when you can get out of here and go home?”
“No on the doctor, but my nurse thinks they’ll let me go home tomorrow morning if I don’t show any complications.” She twisted her mouth in consternation. “I hate to say it, but...I’m a little nervous about going home, taking care of Ben by myself. Especially when we don’t know who shot at me or why.”
“You won’t be going home alone. I told you, I’m going to help you. I’ll protect you until we know the danger to you is past. Until we find your family. I’m not going to abandon you, Bri.”
She scowled at him. “I can’t ask you to do that. I’m not your responsibility.”
“Maybe not. But I’m volunteering. I can’t in good conscience leave you with a new baby, a concussion and some unknown threat out there.”
“Hunter,” she said on a groan and peeked under the blanket at Ben again, “I don’t feel right imposing on you.”
“And I don’t feel right turning my back on you when you’re alone.” He paused. “If you don’t want my help, I guess I can’t force my way into your life, but...”
She slanted a look at him. “I do want your help. I appreciate it. So much. I just feel guilty taking over your life this way.”
“Well, stop feeling guilty. I’m happy to help.” Hunter sat back in the chair and took another bite of his sandwich. “When I go by your house today, I can find your purse or phone or pictures that might—”
Brianna’s gasp cut him off.
“Turn it up!” Gaping at the TV, she waved a hand at the remote control beside him.
“What?” He set his breakfast in his lap and grabbed the remote.
“Turn the volume up!”
He did and together they watched a news report about a coup attempt against the ruling monarch of Meridan, a small European island nation Hunter had never heard of.
Hunter frowned, puzzled why the story was so important to Brianna. “What’s wrong? Why—”
She waved a hand, shushing him, and her face grew paler as the news report continued.
“Mourning citizens took to the streets, shocked by reports that King Mikhail had been assassinated,” the reporter said. “Prince Cristoff, heir to the throne, has not been seen in public for several days, and rumors have circulated that the prince has also been assassinated.”
Hunter turned to watch Brianna’s odd reaction to the news story rather than the television. “Brianna?”
She gave him another hushing wave of her hand as the screen filled with file footage of a well-dressed man with dark hair waving to a crowd before climbing into the back of a limousine.
The reporter’s face filled the screen again. “Palace officials deny the rumor of the crown prince’s death but won’t comment on Cristoff Hamill’s whereabouts.”
Brianna’s expression leeched of color as she turned to Hunter. “I know him.”
“What?” He wrinkled his brow and glanced back at the television. “Who? The reporter?”
She blinked, her expression stunned. “No. Cristoff.”
A startled chuckle escaped Hunter before he could stop it. “The prince guy?” He aimed a finger at the TV. “That’s in Europe somewhere. What makes you think you know the prince?”
“It’s just a feeling...a flicker of something. An image. A memory. I...”
For the first time, Hunter began to doubt Brianna. How could she remember some obscure prince from a tiny European country? It wasn’t as if this Cristoff guy was often in the news the way Prince William of Great Britain was. But the recognition that filled Brianna’s face seemed so real.
A tickle of unease started at the base of Hunter’s neck. “Brianna, I don’t know. Maybe you know someone who looks like him.”
She drew a slow, deep breath and gawked at the television. “No, it’s him. I’m sure of it. But I don’t just know him, Hunter.” She faced him, her eyes wide. “Prince Cristoff is Ben’s father.”
Chapter 5
Her head pounding, Brianna stared at the TV screen long after the news story about the unrest in the tiny country of Meridan ended and the announcer moved on to a report about the local city council. The pain from her concussion made it that much harder to concentrate and focus on the fuzzy memory that elbowed its way to her attention and wouldn’t be ignored. As crazy as it sounded, even to her, she was certain she’d not only met the man identified as Prince Cristoff Hamill of Meridan, but she’d seen him recently. In her mind, a voice echoed, saying, If the baby’s mine, then he’s my heir and next in line for the throne.
Next in line for the throne? Brianna rewound the news story in her head. A coup attempt. An assassination of the king. A missing prince. She shivered as a cold certainty settled over her.
“It’s not me they want to kill—it’s Ben. He’s the heir to the Meridanian throne.” She glanced toward Hunter and met a skeptical frown.
“Brianna, do you hear yourself? Why would a rebel faction in Meridan, wherever that is, want to kill your son? How would you know the prince?”
She sank back against her pillows and closed her eyes, wishing the throb under her skull would give her even a moment’s peace. “I don’t know, Hunter. I know it sounds crazy, but...the same way I just knew about Sorsha, I know Ben is Chris’s baby.”
“You mean Cristoff?”
She cracked open her eyes and cut a side glance to Hunter. “What did I say?”
“You called him Chris.”
She pulled her brow down, letting the name replay in her mind. “It just rolled off my tongue. Like my signature was muscle memory last night. I know him as Chris. I’m sure of it.”
Hunter swiped a hand over his mouth, his expression saying he was unconvinced. “Well, I can’t disprove that theory, so we’ll keep it as a possibility.”
Her shoulders sagged. Did she really expect anyone to believe she’d had an affair with a prince and that her child was of royal lineage? It sounded improbable even to her own mind, but the certainty, the echo of a voice, the fear for Ben’s life wouldn’t let go. They gripped her heart and shook her, demanding that she pay attention.
She gave Hunter a level look, wanting desperately for him to believe her. “When I get home, I’ll find proof.”
Ben finished his breakfast and started wiggling and arching his back in discomfort. The night nurse had showed her how to burp him after a meal, and she shifted him up on her shoulder now and patted his tiny back with gentle thumps.
Hunter wadded up the paper wrapper from his breakfast sandwich and shot it at the trash can across the room. The crumpled paper bounced off the rim and landed on the floor. When he stood to retrieve the trash, he stretched his back and gave her a considering glance. “Tell ya what. I’ll go to your house now, feed your cat and have a look around for anything else that might jog your memory or indicate where your family is. Assuming there’s not an anxious roommate or husband at the address the cop gave us, waiting for news of what happened to you.”
She rested her cheek against Ben’s tiny, warm head. The milky, clean scent of him filled her senses and even soothed the ache at her temple. Love for her baby swelled bigger in her chest every time she looked at him, until she thought she’d burst. Yet, impossibly, her heart grew to hold even more awe and affection for the tiny life she’d created.
But the limbo of her amnesia loomed over her. Not having a full picture of who she was and what had happened in her past was a liability she couldn’t afford if someone was trying to hurt Ben. An urgency to fill in the blanks raked through her, and she gave Hunter a decisive nod.
“Yes. Break into the house if you have to. I have to piece together my past, my relationships, and figure out why Chris—Prince Cristoff—resonates so strongly for me. I need information if I’m going to protect Ben.”
“All right.” From his pocket, Hunter pulled out the keys he’d taken from her car’s ignition the day before. The I ♥ Cape Cod key ring dangled from his finger, taunted her. Why couldn’t she remember Cape Cod?
“I’m guessing one of these keys is for your front door. I shouldn’t have to break in.” He gave her a wink as he left. “Back in about an hour.”
An odd jittery sensation shuddered through her as he disappeared out her door. Hunter’s presence gave her a reassurance she’d come to depend on in the short time she’d known him. From the scary moments after coming to in the wrecked car, through her delivery and confusing memory loss, Hunter had been a port in the storminess and uncertainty in her life.
But she knew she couldn’t continue monopolizing Hunter’s time and counting on his help indefinitely. Even if she didn’t have any family and whether or not she regained her memory, soon she’d have to figure out how to take care of herself and Ben alone. Scary though that thought was, she had to face the truth.
She nestled her son under her cheek, and a fierce maternal instinct raked through her. If someone was trying to hurt Ben, they’d have to kill her to get to him, because she’d fight to her last breath to defend him.
* * *
Hunter used his phone’s GPS program to find Brianna’s house in a small subdivision on the outskirts of town. The quiet street of modest houses and grassy lawns looked like an idyllic place to raise a little boy. In his youth, he and his two older brothers had raced bikes and played hours of baseball in a neighborhood similar to this one. When he reached the address Sergeant Wallace had given them, Hunter eyed the house but saw no signs of life, no vehicle in the driveway, no glowing porch light waiting to welcome her home. Just the same, he knocked loudly on the front door and listened for footsteps inside. No one came to the door, but when he cupped his hands around his eyes to peer in the glass panel beside the door, a fuzzy black cat stood in the foyer swishing her tail impatiently.
Hunter keyed open the front door and gave Brianna’s living room a cursory glance. “Hello? Anyone home?”
Sorsha answered with a loud meow and trotted over to rub against Hunter’s legs. He squatted and held his fingers out for the cat to sniff. “Well, some watchcat you are. Are you this friendly with all strangers or just the ones you hope will feed you?”
The cat answered with another loud meow, then turned and headed to the next room, glancing back as if to see whether Hunter was following.
He chuckled. “Your food bowl is this way, I take it?”
Sorsha led him to the pantry door, where she pawed and meowed plaintively. When he opened the pantry, the feline showed him which container to open by head-butting the large storage bin and purring excitedly. He dutifully scooped a large cupful and followed Sorsha, who clearly had the routine down, across the kitchen to an empty bowl. The cat gave a merp of thanks as she started chowing greedily.
After giving the cat a few strokes and marveling at the silky softness of her fur, Hunter left to investigate the rest of the house. The first thing he spotted was a set of papers on the kitchen table. He bent to read the page on top with the heading Sales Agreement. The document spelled out the terms of the sale of Brianna’s 1988 Honda Civic to someone named Phil Holtz. Phil had yet to sign the sales agreement, and beneath the sales agreement was the title, also waiting to be signed over to Phil Holtz, and a file of maintenance records. On the other end of the table was a brochure for a new Honda minivan. Clearly Brianna was in the process of upgrading her vehicle in preparation for motherhood. Which explained why he hadn’t found any identifying papers in the car at the accident scene.
As he walked through her living room, he scanned her bookshelf, trying to get a sense of who Brianna was, where her interests lay, what her tastes were. In a word, her shelf was eclectic. She had everything from old cookbooks to nature journals, romance novels and bestselling mysteries to scientific textbooks. Nonfiction works about the human genome, epidemiology and chemistry sat next to a tattered family Bible and biblical-study books.
Moving on to her bedroom, he found her purse with her cell phone and wallet inside. The fact that she’d left the house without her purse or phone told him she’d left in a hurry. The bullet holes in the back of her Civic flashed in his mind’s eye.
Next, he checked her bathroom, including her medicine cabinet to determine if she was currently taking any prescriptions her doctor might need to know about. Other than a bottle of prenatal vitamins, some antacids and a bottle of acetaminophen, he saw nothing of note.
Beside her bed, her answering machine was blinking, indicating new messages. He punched the button to listen, then added the romance novel on the bedside stand to the items he would take back to the hospital.
“Ms. Coleman, this is Henry’s Dry Cleaning,” the female voice on the answering machine said. “Your clothes are ready for pickup at your earliest convenience. Thank you.” A beep.
Hunter scanned the room and spotted an old family portrait on her dresser. He walked closer to get a better look. Based on her parents’ hairstyles and his estimate that Brianna was about twelve in the picture, he judged the photo to be approximately fifteen years old.
“Brianna, it’s Aunt Robyn. Just checking to see how you are doing. Any more Braxton Hicks? Call me if I can do anything for you, honey. Bye.”
Hunter jerked his attention to the answering machine. Aunt Robyn? So Brianna did have some family checking in on her. After getting a fresh set of clothes from her closet for her to wear home from the hospital, he took the family portrait from the dresser and stuck it in the top of her purse. An old picture and an aunt Robyn. Not much to go on, but maybe they’d be enough to trigger something in Brianna’s memory.
* * *
Brianna studied the photograph Hunter handed her, and something warm and familiar tugged at her heart. “Obviously they’re my parents. I mean, look at my dad. I’m a female version of him.” She grinned, seeing the similarity in smiles beaming at her from the picture, but she still had so many blanks about her past. “It feels right. The picture seems familiar, but I still can’t remember their names or specific events. Whether they’re still alive or if they live across the country. Were they planning to come into town for the birth of their grandson? I need to call them and tell them I’m okay, but...” She shook her head.
“Oh, speaking of calls...” Hunter rubbed his hands on his jeans and gave her a guilty glance. “I listened to your phone messages. I hoped there’d be something useful there.”
She turned her head and blinked at him. “Was there?”
“Well, sort of. Someone calling herself Aunt Robyn called to check on you. She didn’t sound worried or upset to have missed you, though, and she didn’t leave a call-back number.”
“Aunt Robyn?” Brianna wrinkled her nose and bit her bottom lip as she thought about the name. Though it did resonate with her, it didn’t have the sure, warm feeling that her parents’ picture did. “Maybe. Something’s there, but...”
“Oh, and your dry cleaning is ready at Henry’s.”
She quirked a half grin. “Thanks. Now if only I could remember where Henry’s is.”
He set her purse on the edge of her bed and scooped her phone out. “Maybe it’s in your contacts list on your phone?”
She set the portrait aside and took her phone, grinning when she saw the screen saver photo of Sorsha. “And how was the warrior princess?”
“Who?”
“Sorsha. I named her after the warrior princess in the movie Willow.”
Hunter gave her an odd look. “That you remember, but not your aunt Robyn?”
She paused, considering his question. “That does seem like an odd detail to recall when so much else is blank, but the doctor did say my memory would return in random pieces. No rhyme or reason.”
He lifted a shoulder. “True. And Sorsha is fine. Grateful for her breakfast.”
Brianna gave the screen saver another happy glance before swiping the screen to search her phone for contact names, photographs, messages, anything that would help her. As she scrolled her contacts, she found a listing for Robyn Elyse Rosenberg. Could that be the woman who identified herself as Aunt Robyn? Worth a shot.
She tapped the screen to call the woman, but the call went straight to voice mail. “Um, hi. It’s Brianna Coleman,” she said, feeling awkward. What if Robyn Elyse Rosenberg was a business contact, her ob-gyn or her real-estate agent? “I’ll call again later. Bye.” She disconnected the call and frowned at Hunter. “So do I just go through my contacts list and ask anyone who answers, ‘Do you know me? Who am I?’ That seems...weird.”
He rolled up a palm and sent her a commiserative moue. “You have a better idea?”
She sighed. “No.” Glancing back down at her phone, she noticed she had an alert indicating four messages were waiting for her. The first three were voice messages, one a repeat from the dry cleaner, another confirming her appointment for today with a Dr. Greene’s office. Her ob-gyn? That’d be worth looking into later. The third message was from someone named Phil Holtz asking her to call him.
Frowning, she shook her head. “Phil Holtz. That name means nothing to me.”
“Oh, that’s the guy you were planning to sell your car to. Guess you should let him know it got totaled.”
“I was selling my car?”
Hunter nodded. “Seems so. The paperwork was all on your kitchen table.”
“Oh.” She grunted and glanced at the phone again. The last message was a video sent via text message.
Curious, she opened the video, then gasped as a man filled the screen. Chris. Or rather, Prince Cristoff. “Oh, my God, it’s him!”

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