can’t hide your birth from the rest of the world.”
To her relief, Juliana rounded a dark curve and the headlights flashed on an accommodations sign for the next exit. “It won’t be much longer now.” She gave Cort’s head one last caress and put both hands on the steering wheel.
Within fifteen minutes, she’d managed to secure a motel room and juggle the baby, his diaper bag, her purse and her carry-on bag up to the second-floor room. She gave Cort another dose of pain reliever, changed his diaper and snapped him into a miniature baseball sleeper while a portable crib was brought up to the room. Then she put a bottle in the warmer. Cuddling Cort against her, she pulled the cell phone from the diaper bag to call her father.
“Juliana? It’s practically midnight.” Her father’s voice was stiff with disapproval. “Where are you?”
“Sorry, Papa. I thought I could surprise the Collingwoods tonight, but Cort is fussing. His ears are bothering him still. The doctor said it would be a good twenty-four hours before the antibiotics took effect.” Juliana rocked from side to side as Cort started to whimper, his fingers clinging to her cotton sweater. “We’ve just checked into a motel about two hours from Severance. We’ll leave first thing in the morning and arrive for breakfast. Cort usually wakes around six.”
“Well, then, I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Juliana closed her eyes, hearing the unspoken accusation that she’d failed him yet again echo in her ears. Typically, her father viewed the baby’s ear infection and her failure to arrive by the designated hour as a poor reflection on him. Would she ever stop failing him? Probably not. Why did she even try?
“I need to go, Papa. Cort needs his bot—” Her words were drowned out by an explosive roaring transmitted over the phone line. What on earth? “Papa! Are you there? Answer me! What’s happening?”
Juliana strained to hear as she pressed the receiver close to her ear, her heart thundering in her chest, while her other arm clutched the baby. Oh, dear God. The phone line was not dead. She could hear distinct crackling and popping sounds. Flames?
“Papa!” she shouted into the receiver. “Can you hear me?”
To her relief she heard her father’s voice, fading in and out, as if coming from the end of a tunnel. “There’s been an explosion—a bomb. Take the baby, Juliana. Protect him with your life. Operation Guardian. Promise me as a Goodhew that you’ll…” His voice faded, snatching away the rest of his words.
Horror gripped her. “I promise—”
With a loud pop, the line went dead. Juliana stared at the phone and started to shake. Operation Guardian could only mean one thing. Ross and Lexi Collingwood were dead.
SICK WITH FEAR over the safety of her father and the Collingwoods, Juliana called the police and reported the explosion, then punched in the number she’d been asked to memorize in the event of an emergency such as this.
“Yes.” The voice that answered was curt and concise. One word, but totally male and in charge. She knew instinctively that he was the enigmatic security consultant Ross Collingwood had hired to head up the search for Riana. The man known only as The Guardian.
Juliana had never met him. But then, few people ever met The Guardian in the flesh or knew his real name. His existence and the services he supplied were a closely guarded secret of the world’s upper class.
“Operation Guardian,” she replied numbly, the code word falling from her shocked lips like a blunt instrument onto a table. She gripped the phone tightly as tears seared her eyes.
Please God, this wasn’t happening. Not to her father. Or Ross and Lexi. They couldn’t be dead.
Tremors wracked her body in undulating waves of disbelief and grief. If not for Cort’s ear infection, she and the baby would have been caught in the explosion, too!
A softly muttered curse whispered over the line, the hint of raw emotion it conveyed so genuine it snagged her heart like a hook, connecting her to him. “Tell me your name,” he commanded.
The clear authority in his tone evoked a comforting image of an indomitable muscle-hewn Marine sergeant. Juliana caught the tiny precious foot of the child who lay on the bed beside her. Cort’s golden gossamer eyebrows arched over his sooty blue eyes in surprise as he gnawed on a teething ring of plastic keys. She swallowed hard and glanced nervously over her shoulder toward the door, half expecting someone to kick it open. Whatever fate had been dealt her charge’s parents, Cort was not alone. Not while breath still remained in her body.
“My name is Juliana Goodhew,” she said as calmly as she could.
“Juliana, I’m The Guardian. Tell me what’s happened.”
Wanting to tear her hair out with the fear that was expanding in her until she thought her skin would burst, she told him about the secret rendezvous with the Collingwoods at a rented home in the Adirondacks and the horrible explosion she’d heard a few minutes ago when she’d called her father to inform him she and the baby would be delayed until morning.
“My father believed it was a bomb. He told me to call you. I called the police first to get them some help….” Her voice broke.
After all her problems with her father…was this how it was going to end? I’m sorry, Papa.
A sharp stab of guilt lanced her side, torturing her with memories of a rainy autumn afternoon and a gleaming banister—a forbidden and irresistible temptation to two young children. The day that had changed their lives forever.
She fanned her fingers over Cort’s plump belly, her heart melting at the snugly warmth of his compact body and his gummy irresistible smile. Tears slipped down her cheeks, splashing onto his sleeper. I won’t let the baby out of my sight, Papa. I promise.
The Guardian’s voice penetrated her thoughts. “You did the right thing, Juliana. Your father is wise to be cautious. Until we have more information confirming the cause of the explosion, I’m going to implement measures to keep you and the baby safe. Where are you now?”
“A motel in Utica.” She gave him the name and room number.
“Stay inside, away from the windows. Don’t go out to your car. I’ll catch a chopper and be with you in an hour and a half, two hours tops. Did you call your father or the police from the phone in the motel room?”
“No, I used my cell phone.”
“Good. So only the police know of your location.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell them who the child is with you?”
Did he think she had the IQ of an idiot? “Of course not,” she said shortly. “I told them I was the butler’s daughter, and I’d been talking to my father when the explosion occurred.”
“Are you armed?”
The implication of his question slid over her like the blade of a razor. He thought the danger was real.
“Yes. Mr. Collingwood insisted I be trained properly in how to use a gun.”
“Excellent. I’m on my way. Stay alert
