my driver’s license to prove it, but it burned up when my car exploded.”
But more than material possessions had blown up. Somebody had lost his life because of her, because someone else wanted her dead. And that man might not have been the only one who’d been hurt in the cross fire....
Parker crossed the enormous master suite to a desk near the window that overlooked Lake Michigan. The sun was setting now, streaking across the surface of the water. He lifted a piece of paper from a fax machine. “Here’s a copy of your license.”
Her face—looking pale and tense—stared back at her from the paper he held up. Then he replaced that with another photo—one of a burned-out and boarded-up apartment building. “And here’s a picture of the address on your driver’s license....”
Sharon stepped closer to him. “Did anyone die in the fire?” She reached for the picture, which was actually part of a newspaper article.
He caught her wrist. “You knew about this?” A muscle twitched in his cheek and his blue eyes were so intense, so filled with concern. “Were you and Ethan there when the building caught fire?”
His concern was for his son. But she was concerned for the baby, too. She had been entrusted with his safety, with his welfare. It wasn’t a job for which she had asked, but it was one she had taken more seriously than her real job. And she had nearly failed. She glanced at that picture of destruction and shuddered.
“No,” she replied. “We weren’t there. But I saw it on the news.”
Panic clutched her heart as she remembered that horrific moment when she had realized that it was her home on the news, her apartment complex burning, flames reflecting off the shattered glass on the blackened lawn.
“I know there were injuries,” she said, “but I haven’t seen any follow-up reports to see if everyone recovered.”
That muscle twitched in his cheek again and he replied slowly, with reluctance, “Someone was killed....”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s two people,” she murmured. “Two people killed because of me....”
“Today two people were killed because of me.” He slid his hand from her wrist up her arm and squeezed her shoulder, offering comfort and sharing her guilt. “Two friends—two family men—lost their lives because someone wanted me dead.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. Long ago she had learned that crying was a waste of time. And she had never had anyone offer her a shoulder to cry on or arms to hold her. She had been left alone with swollen eyes and a red face.
“Why does someone want you dead?” he asked and then repeated his question again. “Who are you?”
“You have a copy of my license. You know who I am.”
He shook his head. “I know your name and your old address. But that doesn’t tell me why someone would want you dead. Are you involved with the wrong people?”
She hadn’t thought so...until now.
“Do you have a crazy boyfriend?” he asked, firing questions at her like bullets. “A dangerous career? Do you lead a life of crime?”
She laughed at the wild image he painted of her. It could not have been further from the truth. He had to have been kidding again like he had when he’d acted as if he would consider killing her for the money.
From the little time she had spent around his family, she had noticed that they teased each other as a way of communicating. But what did she know about family? She had never really had one.
“You think this is funny?” he asked, his voice gruff with disapproval.
“Of course I don’t,” she said. With all the guilt and fear she felt, she was barely holding it together. If she let herself think about those people...
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. If she gave in to them, she wouldn’t be able to stop. “I think this is surreal. None of this is my life. None of this has anything to do with me. I am only the messenger delivering your son.”
He laughed bitterly. “You make yourself sound like FedEx, like you’re just delivering a package.”
That was what she had been told—how the baby had been referred to—as a package. She cringed now as she remembered Ethan’s mother’s careless words.
“And that’s bull,” he said, “because you have an undeniable bond with...” His throat moved as if emotion choked him. He visibly swallowed and continued. “...my son.”
He had already claimed his child. Where did that leave Sharon? If she admitted everything to him, it would leave her alone again as she already had been for so much of her life. But she shrugged off the self-pity and focused on what was important: Ethan would have a parent who would love and protect him.
And if Parker were to protect his son, he had to find out who was trying to kill him and stop that person. So she had to tell him everything she knew—the little that it was.
“I have been taking care of him,” she said, “pretty much since he’s been born.”
“You’re a foster mother?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“A nanny?”
She sighed. That wasn’t the job she had started out with, but it was the one she had wound up doing. “I’m a law student.”
“So you work as a nanny on the side?”
“I work as a law clerk for a judge.” And she watched realization dawn on his handsome face. He knew who the mother of his son was.
He cursed. But then he tensed and glanced toward his son, as if regretful of swearing in front of the child. Ethan slept on, though. “Judge Foster?”
He had slept with the woman but didn’t address her by her first name?
She nodded.
And he shook his head. “She told me that she couldn’t have kids....”
“She was actually having fertility treatments so that she could,” Sharon said, flinching as she remembered the judge’s mercurial mood changes. She had been so thrilled to get the position clerking for the infamous Judge Brenda Foster...until she’d actually had the job. But the job as clerk had turned into the nanny job when Brenda had been unable to keep any other nannies working for her.
He cursed again but under his breath. “I need to talk to her.”
“Good luck,” she murmured. “I haven’t been able to reach her for the past two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” he echoed in shock. “She hasn’t seen her child in two weeks?”
With all the hours the judge worked and socialized, two weeks wasn’t the longest she had gone without seeing her son. “She sent me and Ethan away with enough cash to stay in hotels for two weeks. She didn’t want me using credit cards to buy anything.”
“Because
