also want you to come down to the station and look through mug shots,” he said, “if you think you would recognize the men if you saw them again.”
She nodded in agreement. “Sure. I would.”
“I could look at the mug shots, too,” Annalise offered.
Nick shook his head. “You have a concussion. You need to rest. Once the doctor brings your release papers, I’m taking you home.”
Annalise glanced at her again—with that imploring gaze. And Nikki’s stomach knotted. She hated to disappoint Annalise, but she didn’t want to endanger her, either. “I’d better get going,” she said as she hurried out.
In case her brothers were still in the waiting room, she bypassed it and took the elevator to the underground parking garage. She didn’t want to see her family again. She’d already spoken to them once—to assure them that Annalise was all right. They’d been so concerned about her that they hadn’t questioned Nikki. And she hadn’t looked at them. She didn’t want to look at them now. She didn’t want to see the I told you so on Logan’s face, didn’t want to see the doubt on Cooper’s. She didn’t want him second-guessing hiring her.
Tears stung her eyes, blurring the elevator doors. But then they slid open, and she stepped into the parking structure. She had been in such a rush to follow the ambulance to the hospital that she couldn’t remember where she’d parked. Which floor had it been?
She walked through the structure, looking for her black coupe. Logan hadn’t given her a black SUV like he had everyone else who worked for him—probably because he hadn’t wanted bad guys blowing her up when they meant to blow up one of her brothers instead.
She uttered a regretful sigh as she remembered the men who’d lost their lives when one of their SUVs had exploded. Someone had been trying to kill Parker and had nearly succeeded. Tears stung her eyes again, and she blinked furiously. When her vision cleared, she realized what she’d found. Not her coupe but them.
Nikki had known she would recognize the men if she saw them again. Unfortunately they glanced up, furtively—from the black SUV they were trying to jimmy open—and saw her.
They clearly recognized her, as well. She reached for her weapon—realizing too late that she’d locked it in the glove box because she’d known she wouldn’t make it past hospital security with it.
So she was unarmed and outnumbered.
Nick cursed himself for not just leaving his SUV parked illegally outside the emergency room entrance. He should have exercised his authority, so that security wouldn’t have dared to have his vehicle towed away. But he hadn’t been thinking after Logan’s call. He’d been so anxious to get to her—so anxious to see Annalise for himself. He’d pulled into the first available spot in the garage and run up the stairs to the ER. Now he struggled to remember where he’d parked.
He didn’t want to leave Annalise alone long—waiting in a wheelchair in the lobby. She’d looked so pale sitting there, so fragile. Even pregnant, she was still slight because of her small frame, narrow shoulders, thin arms and long, slender legs. Dark circles rimmed her green eyes, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well because she’d been afraid. Logan had noticed her fear. Nick saw it now, the fear and the vulnerability. Nikki had told him Annalise was tougher than she looked—that she’d saved herself. Of course, she was a Huxton. Gage wouldn’t have survived being missing in action for months if he wasn’t tough, too.
At least Annalise wasn’t alone in the lobby. Or just with hospital security, either. Logan and Cooper stood over her chair, offering more protection than Nick had thought she’d get from some nervous hospital security guard. She was safe.
He wasn’t as certain about Logan and Cooper. Annalise was furious. She didn’t want to go home with him. And she hadn’t wanted to ride in the wheelchair, let alone having to wait in it until he pulled his vehicle up to the lobby doors. His half brothers probably had a fight on their hands to keep her in the chair and make her wait for him.
She might see this as her opportunity to call a cab to take her home to Chicago. Her home was in Chicago; his wasn’t. He had never felt as if that house or anyplace else he’d lived was home. The only time he’d ever felt as if he was home was when he’d been with Annalise. When he’d given in to his desire to kiss her, he’d worried that it might have been awkward. They’d known each other so long.
But it hadn’t felt awkward. It had felt right and passionate and thrilling. And he hadn’t been able to stop. But he’d felt most at home buried deep inside her body.
Had they made a child that night? Twenty-four weeks ago. The doctor had said that was how far along her pregnancy was. However, Annalise had never confirmed her baby was his.
But he knew...
Annalise carried his child. And she hadn’t called him. She hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. Or that she was in danger.
She probably wouldn’t be waiting for him to come back with his vehicle. She had no intention of staying with him. So he quickened his step, running toward his SUV just as he’d run toward the ER earlier.
That was when he heard it—the scream. It wasn’t just a shrill cry. It was his name, full of terror and warning. “Nick!”
Someone was in trouble—someone he knew.
* * *
“You’re in trouble,” Logan Payne said.
Annalise laid her palms over her belly. “That sounds like something my grandmother would say.”
His face, so similar to Nick’s, reddened. “I wasn’t talking about your pregnancy.”
“Then how do you mean I’m in trouble?”
Did he know how deeply she loved Nick? And how unlikely it was that Nick would ever return her feelings? She had to get over him. If she was going to mend her broken heart, she could never trust him with it. He would only hurt her again.
“Those guys weren’t stealing your car,” he said.
“Really?” she asked. And his brother Cooper, who also stood beside her chair, furrowed his brow, mirroring her confusion. “Then why is my car gone?”
If she had it, she would have driven herself back to Chicago—doctor’s orders be damned. Or better yet, she would have driven herself to Alaska. She had thought she’d needed Gage. But maybe she needed her mom and dad more.
She would have gone to them before, but she didn’t want to put them in danger. Gage could handle it. He could protect her. He had survived being missing in action when everyone else had given him up for dead. She hadn’t. She knew her brother was tough. Trying to be like Nick had made him tough.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Logan said.
Unable to hold his gaze, she glanced down at the terrazzo floor of the sun-filled glass lobby. “Have you called Gage?” she asked.
“No,” Cooper answered for Logan.
“Why
