Chapter One
Dallas, TX
9 months later
Stephanie stood on the threshold of the big Mediterranean house the O’Donnell family called home and wondered for the thousandth time if she was doing the right thing. She’d already upset Liam and she was going to cause problems with his friends.
Mostly because Liam had gotten a look at the baby in the car seat at her feet and reached the proper conclusions. There had been no questions, no casual wonder about how she’d come to be in Texas with a baby she hadn’t mentioned before. She’d hoped someone would ask the question. Who’s the dad? She would have mentioned she wasn’t sure and moved on.
Nope. Li was far smarter than that. He’d taken one look at her baby boy and vowed to kick his father’s arse, as he put it. And he’d known exactly who that was.
“It’s going to be okay,” Avery said, tugging on her hand as Liam hauled the car seat up.
“How old is this kid?” Li complained. “He feels like a toddler.”
“Two months.” It was hard to believe two months had already past. She’d dreaded having him and now she wanted time to slow down because he was growing far too fast. It was odd how her world had shifted in two months and three days, how the center had changed and she was better for it. “He weighs fifteen pounds already.”
“Bloody Aussie.” Liam smiled down at her son. “Hey, boy, I’m your Uncle Li and I’m going to kick yer daddy’s arse.”
Liam walked inside and Avery closed the door behind them.
She clearly hadn’t thought this plan of hers through long enough. But then she’d been far too terrified to be worried that someone might find out how foolish she’d been. “Please. Brody can’t know. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t…he doesn’t want me. I chose to have Nate. Nate’s mine and no one else’s.”
Avery laughed, the sound musical to Steph’s ears. “Oh, dear, I’m afraid that boy belongs to all of us now. Come on. Let’s figure this out. I’ll make sure Li doesn’t get on a plane tomorrow. Now, what kind of trouble are we in?”
So much trouble. “Like I said, someone’s trying to kill me and I’m not sure why. I didn’t know where else to go. I probably should have called, but I left my cell behind and didn’t want to spend the money on another one.”
Running a clinic in Africa didn’t pay well. She’d pretty much put everything she had into that place. Outside funding was rare and always spent on upgrading her tools. She was constantly begging for old equipment because a twenty-year-old CT scan was better than no CT scan.
“You shouldn’t have gone anywhere else,” Li replied. “You did the right thing. You came home. We told you after your mum died and you were alone that we were your family now. You always were family to us. Did you think we didn’t mean it?”
Tears pierced her eyes. Where was inner tough chick when she needed her? She seemed to have gone dormant in the months since Steph had felt that first kick to her stomach—from the inside. She’d gone all gooey and emotional, unable to hide those parts of herself that had been shoved down before. “I think I hate bringing trouble to your doorstep.”
Liam lifted Nate out of his carrier, hefting him up to his chest. “This boy here ain’t a bit of trouble, are you? What a handsome young man. And you’re strong, aren’t you? Look at that. Two months old and he’s holding his head up like a champ.”
She was grateful for the chance to smile about something. “Yes, he’s strong for his age. And big. I had to scramble to find clothes for him. I’d only bought newborn onesies. I didn’t realize how big he was going to be.”
“And you had him in the field?” Liam asked the question with a soft tone that didn’t fool Steph one bit. At some point, Liam O’Donnell had decided she was the little sister he’d never had, and he could bring the hammer down.
“I have my own clinic, Li. I have a surgery and everything. I’ve done C-sections in the clinic.” She backtracked as she saw Li’s eyes flare. “Not that I had a C-section. Somehow my vagina was able to spit him out. I didn’t even need an episiotomy. Turns out I’m super stretchy down there.”
Li frowned, looking over at his wife. “Do I want to know what she’s talking about?”
“Absolutely not.” Avery led her to a comfy chair in front of the fireplace. “Sit and rest for a bit. We’ve got a guest room and I’ll pull Aidan’s travel crib out of the closet.”
Stephanie shook her head, grateful to have diverted Liam from his cause. She could give him another one to worry about. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Like I said, I’m in trouble and I’m worried about staying in one place for too long. I heard that sometimes McKay-Taggart will stash a client in a safe house. I thought I could stay in a motel tonight if you could get me a meeting in the morning. I know the group has to decide whether or not to take a case. Uhm, they’ll also have to decide if they work on a payment plan because I’m going to need one.”
Liam held her baby in his big arms and the sight pierced her with longing. Nate had never been held by a man. Her nurses were all women and Alfi Dauterre, her recently hired security expert, had zero interest in babies. The Aussie soldier of fortune sometimes showed up at her clinic, offering her help in exchange for a room, a meal, and free medical care. He needed a lot of antibiotics. Liam picking up her baby was the first time he’d been held in manly arms, and Nathan seemed utterly fascinated with him.
“We’ll take the case and there won’t be any talk of payment,” Liam replied. “And you’ll stay right here.”
He didn’t understand. “I can’t thank you enough, but I know you have protocols.”
“Not for family, we don’t.” Li’s big hand patted Nathan’s back, easing him down until he settled his head against Li’s shoulder. “Trust me. We’ll meet tomorrow but the only question is going to be what we do to help you. There won’t be a question of whether we take the job or not. You do understand that Big Tag owes you? He’ll do anything you need. Do you need him to kill Brody Carter? Because he’ll do that, too. See, there’s a question we will have to decide. I say it should be me who murders the big bastard, but Tag might want to play, too.”
She couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You can’t kill Brody.”
“Are you trying to tell me this boy ain’t his?”
So old-fashioned. “I’m trying to tell you that boy is mine. I chose to have him.”
“You didn’t conceive him on your own and you know it.”
“I think what Stephanie is trying to say is that Brody didn’t want a child,” Avery explained quietly. “She made the decision to have him. What’s his name again?”
“Nathan.” She looked up at Avery. “Nathan Avery Gibson.”
Avery’s eyes were shining as she looked down at her. “That is a lovely name. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.” She frowned suddenly. “Of course if you thought enough of me to give your son my name, you probably should have called and mentioned that you were pregnant. Steph, I called you not two months ago to tell you that I was pregnant again. You didn’t think to mention you’d had one of your own?”
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you,” she offered lamely. The truth was she’d frozen when she’d gotten the call from Avery. It had been three days after Nate’s birth and all she’d been able to think about was the fact that Avery was having baby number two and Nate would be an only child of a single mother who could barely afford the necessities.
“I think what Stephanie’s saying is she was ashamed. Which is the bloody stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Liam’s voice raised and that had Nate’s head coming up. She worried he might start crying, but he simply looked at Liam and then turned his head her way as though he totally agreed with the lecture his uncle was delivering. “What exactly did you think would happen, Stephanie? Did you plan on never seeing us again?”
Damn, that was one judgmental Irishman. “No. Not at all. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“I was planning on checking in on you in a month or two. I’ve got corporate clients who take me into West Africa and I was going to show up on your doorstep. Would I have even been welcome?”
She’d stepped in it. “Of course. I would have been thrilled to see you. And I was going to call. I promise. It didn’t go through my head once that I wouldn’t see you again. I was going to call and tell you about Nate after I figured out how to make sure you didn’t kill his father.”
Nate leaned forward and placed a fat baby hand on Liam’s nose, touching and patting it like it was a new toy.
“I won’t kill him. I’ll only make him wish he was dead, and after I’m done with him he won’t ever be able to do this to another woman. He won’t have the proper parts because I’ll cut them off. Then I’ll ensure he does his damn duty to you and the boy.”
It was hard to take him seriously when he had a baby tugging on his nose, but Liam was a patient man. Probably because he’d had his own son and now had another kid on the way.
“I don’t want Nate growing up with a father who resents him, so I’ve left Brody out of my pregnancy.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me he doesn’t know?”
“Of course he knows.” She stood up, giving him a frown of her own. “I called him. I called him about ten times, Li. He wouldn’t answer the phone. I left him a detailed voice mail about how his seed was growing in my womb. I went into clinical detail. I was pissed at the time.”
“And he didn’t reply?”
She sighed, her anger fleeing in a moment, replaced with the sadness that invaded any time she thought about that Aussie. “He told me before we slept together that he didn’t intend to see me again. He left me a note asking me not to call or try to contact him. I was supposed to contact Damon Knight if I needed anything, but I think he was talking about security concerns. Li, please drop this. He knows. He doesn’t care and I’m finally okay with it.”
Li’s jaw tightened but Avery stepped in.
“Don’t make this harder on her. Let me hold that baby and you go and pull out the crib.” Avery took Nate, cuddling him close. “And then call Ian and let him know we need a family meeting in the morning.”
Liam kissed his wife and stepped back with a shake of his head. “Do you know the name of the person who’s coming after you?”
Weariness set in. It had been a hideous few days. She’d had to make her way to Guinea and then to Frankfurt and Dallas, all the while worried there was an army behind her. “He was a mercenary. I’ll be honest, Li. I didn’t get his name. They all called him boss and that was all. The boss.”
“You say he’s a merc? Not a warlord?” Li asked.
Liam had spent plenty of time in that part of the world. She rather thought one of his reasons for taking assignments in West Africa had been so he could check up on her, but it also put him in a position to understand the geopolitical forces at work in the region. “He’s European. German, or maybe Dutch. I’m crappy with languages. I know they weren’t speaking English or Krio. It was a European language he spoke with his men.”
“What exactly happened?”
Avery held out a hand. “Li, it’s almost midnight and she’s been traveling for days. She needs sleep. She can go over all of this in the morning meeting.”
“You’re sure he’s coming after you?” Liam pressed.
“He promised to kill me, but I’m hoping it takes him some time to find me. My friend Alfi found a private plane that took us to Conakry in Guinea. I managed to get a flight to Frankfurt, and from there I made my way to Dallas. I hope he’s still looking for me to have flown out of Freetown or to have gone on by car.”
Li nodded. “Smart girl. We’ve got a bit of time. All right, then. I’ll make sure everything is set up and I’ll call out for a few additional eyes for the night, just in case.”
“He means we’ll have a couple of beefy bodyguards here in about an hour or so.” Avery sat down in the chair across from her and started to rock back and forth, as though having a few armed guards come to her house wasn’t a big deal. “Ian recently hired a bunch of new bodyguards and they are heavenly looking men. My Li is the handsomest of all, of course, but Serena and I are trying to convince a couple of them to be cover models for Serena’s new project.”
“I’m done with hot bodyguards.” She’d totally learned her lesson. Alfi was incredibly handsome and had made it plain he hadn’t cared that she was pregnant. He would be happy to sleep with her when he came by. She’d turned him down with a laugh.
Avery studied her for a moment. “I don’t know. They are pretty nice to look at and a couple aren’t even manwhores. You never know. Unless you’re still stuck on Brody.”
She wasn’t. She’d written him off when he hadn’t bothered to call her back to even ask about his son. It had been a kick to the gut as the days had gone by with no return call. She’d tried again when she was four months along and she’d been seized with the morning sickness that should have come in her first tri. She’d called and told him exactly what she thought of him. Explicitly, and with lots of words her child shouldn’t have heard even in utero.
He hadn’t answered her then, either.
Still, as she’d gone into labor, she’d called one last time, begging him to come to her. She’d left a message pleading with him to come hold her hand.
Never again.
“I’m not even thinking about hooking up, Avery. I’m barely cleared for sex. It will probably be another six months before I even think about it, and then I’m pretty sure I’m going to find myself a nice Hitachi wand and settle down. I’m going to name it and everything.”
Avery sighed. “Oh, dear. He did some damage.”
Steph shook her head. “He told me what he wanted and I pushed him. I don’t blame him. I simply want to move on without him. I’m good. Well, except for the psychopath chasing after me. And the fact that I need to make up a batch of formula for Nate. One more thing I couldn’t manage. I got mastitis a few days after he was born and I had a high fever for days before the antibiotics worked. I don’t know if it was all the surgeries after…well, anyway, I can’t produce enough milk for him.”
There it was, that moment in her life that all roads seemed to lead back to. That one moment when she’d been weak and it had cost the woman in front of her more than most people could imagine.
“It’s all right,” Avery promised. “He’ll be fine on formula. He’s a big, healthy boy and you’re doing a great job with him.”
Maybe it was how tired she was or simply the fact that being around Avery stripped her bare, but the tears started up and she asked the question she’d been thinking about since the moment she’d held her baby. It was a question she’d asked Avery before, but now it meant more. Now she knew what Avery had lost. Now she’d held her own child.
“How can you even look at me?”
Sometimes the accident felt like it had happened to another person, another Stephanie.
Sometimes she could still feel that moment of impact, hear the crash, louder than thunder, like it was happening to her all over again.
She’d been a teen coming home from a party. Her whole world had been laid out in front of her. She would be class valedictorian, get accepted to medical school, make her parents proud.
One single mistake. One moment where she’d taken her eyes off the road and she’d killed Avery Charles’s infant daughter and young husband. Avery had been in a coma for months and Stephanie’s future died.
Until that day when she’d stood in front of Avery. She’d expected anything from a lecture on how her carelessness had cost Avery everything to Avery telling her to do what her darkest self wanted to do—to die like she should have on that country road.
She’d expected anything but what Avery had given her. Forgiveness.
You owe me a life, Stephanie. You owe me two lives. You don’t get to be a coward and take the easy way out. You pay me back by being good. By doing good.
Avery Charles O’Donnell was the single most extraordinary human being Stephanie had ever met. Avery was the reason she was alive and working.
Avery cuddled Nate close and reached for Steph’s hand. “I look at you with ease and joy in my heart because you’re my friend. Stephanie, there are events that happen in our lives that can devastate us, and we can’t control them. The only thing we can control is how we react to them. Something terrible happened and I could have lain in that bed and allowed that one moment to make me bitter and hateful. I could have looked at you and damned you to hell, but that wouldn’t have solved anything at all. Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves. Who knows what could have happened if we hadn’t both been on that road that night. I could be married to Brandon and Maddie might be in high school. Or we could have divorced. Or they could have died some other way because I was always meant to go down this path. I can’t question why they were taken when they were, but I believe one day I’ll have to answer for how I handled it. I chose to live and that meant finding meaning. Hell, maybe it meant making meaning where there was none, but I don’t regret forgiving you. Not for a second.”
Tears poured from her eyes because she should have done this long ago. Avery was a blessing in her life. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“I understand and you’re here now. So I get to ask you to do something else for me.”
“What’s that?”
Avery reached out, placing a hand over hers. “Forgive yourself. Come home and raise this baby. Forgive yourself. Forgive Brody. Move on with your life with an open heart. You can’t be this child’s mother and hate yourself. It’s time to come home.”
“I thought about putting him up for adoption.” She admitted the plan that had come to her in her dark moments.
“Because you don’t think you’re worthy of him,” Avery said. “But you are. While you’re here, I want you to see a friend of mine.”
She could guess. “Kai Ferguson?”
Avery sat back, Nate settling down against her. “Yes. I know your mom sent you to a therapist, but that was a long time ago and you’ve done a good job of hiding away from the world. I thought it was good for you at first, but now I wonder. You can do charity work here and raise your baby around family. You can find someone who makes you happy, and I worry you won’t even try if you stay out there.”
She would do anything for Avery. “I’ll see Kai. I’ll try.”
Avery stood up. “Is his formula in the diaper bag?”
Steph followed her, every bone weary. “Yes. I’ll get it if you don’t mind me using your kitchen.”
Avery pointed her way. “You see, you’re acting like you’re a burden. That’s what we’re going to work on.”
Liam stepped back out of the hall and picked up her sad suitcase. “Avery knows how to make a bottle. You are going to take a long, hot shower and get to bed. We’ll handle the wee one. Well, we’ll handle the massive linebacker you’ve got there. Go to sleep and rest. You’re good now. You got him out and now it’s time to let me take over.”
They presented a united front. All three of them. Nate looked perfectly happy in Avery’s arms.
“Okay.” She could use a shower, use some sleep she hadn’t been able to get while sitting up in economy with a baby in her arms.
She was safe. It was enough for now.
* * * *
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