style="font-size:15px;"> “He’s what…seven, eight months old?”
“Eight,” she provided.
“He reminds me a little of my nephew,” the man continued. “It must be hard, traveling alone with a baby.”
That brought Marin’s attention racing across the car. What had provoked that remark? She searched his face and his eyes almost frantically, trying to figure out if it was some sort of veiled threat.
He held up his hands, and a nervous laugh sounded from deep within his chest. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s just I noticed you’re wearing a medical alert bracelet.”
Marin glanced down at her left wrist. The almond-shaped metal disc was peeking out from the cuff of her sleeve. With its classic caduceus symbol engraved in crimson, it was like his boots—impossible to miss.
“I’m epileptic,” she said.
“Oh.” Concern dripped from the word.
“Don’t worry,” she countered. “I keep my seizures under control with meds. I haven’t had one in over five years.”
She immediately wondered why in the name of heaven she’d volunteered that personal information. Her medical history wasn’t any of his business; it was a sore spot she didn’t want to discuss.
“Is your epilepsy the reason you took the train?” he asked. “I mean, instead of driving?”
Marin frowned at him. “I thought the train would make the trip easier for my son.”
He nodded, apparently satisfied with her answer to his intrusive question. When his attention strayed back in the general direction of her bracelet, Marin followed his gaze. Down to her hand. All the way to her bare ring finger.
Even though her former fiancé, Randall Davidson, had asked her to marry him, he’d never given her an engagement ring. It’d been an empty, bare gesture. A thought that riled her even now. Randall’s betrayal had cut her to the bone.
Shifting Noah into the crook of her arm, she reached down to collect her diaper bag. “I think I’ll go for a little walk and stretch my legs.”
And change seats, she silently added.
Judging from the passengers she’d seen get on and off, the train wasn’t crowded, so moving into coach seating shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, she should have done it sooner.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I made you uncomfortable with my questions.”
His words stopped her because they were sincere. Or at least he sounded that way. Of course, she’d been wrong before. It would take another lifetime or two for her to trust her instincts.
And that was the reason she reached for the bag again.
“Stay, please,” he insisted. “It’ll be easier for me to move.” He got up, headed for the exit and then stopped, turning back around to face her. “I was hitting on you.”
Marin blinked. “You…what?”
“Hitting on you,” he clarified.
Oh.
That took her a few moments to process.
“Really?” Marin asked, sounding far more surprised than she wanted.
He chuckled, something low, husky and male. Something that trickled through her like expensive warm whiskey. “Really.” But then, the lightheartedness faded from his eyes, and his jaw muscles started to stir. “I shouldn’t have done it. Sorry.”
Again, he seemed sincere. So maybe he wasn’t watching her after all. Well, not for surveillance any way. Maybe he was watching her because she was a woman. Odd, that she’d forgotten all about basic human attraction and lust.
“You don’t have to leave,” Marin let him know. Because she suddenly didn’t know what to do with her fidgety hands, she ran her fingers through Noah’s dark blond curls. “Besides, it won’t be long before we’re in San Antonio.”
He nodded, and it had an air of thankfulness to it. “I’m Quinn Bacelli. Most people though just call me Lucky.”
She almost gave him a fake name. Old habits. But it was the truth that came out of her mouth. “Marin Sheppard.”
He smiled. It was no doubt a lethal weapon in his arsenal of ways to get women to fall at his feet. Or into his bed. It bothered Marin to realize that she wasn’t immune to it.
Good grief. Hadn’t her time with Randall taught her anything?
“Well, Marin Sheppard,” he said, taking his seat again. “No more hitting on you. Promise.”
Good. She mentally repeated that several times, and then wondered why she felt mildly disappointed.
Noah stirred, sucked at a nonexistent bottle and then gave a pouty whimper when he realized it wasn’t there. His eyelids fluttered open, and he blinked, focused and looked up at Marin with accusing bluegreen eyes that were identical to her own. He made another whimper, probably to let her know that he wasn’t pleased about having his nap interrupted.
Her son shifted and wriggled until he was in a sitting position in her lap, and the new surroundings immediately caught his attention. What was left of his whimpering expression evaporated. He examined his puppy socks, the window, the floor, the ceiling and the rubyred exit sign. Even her garnet heart necklace. Then, his attention landed on the man seated across from him.
Noah grinned at him.
The man grinned back. “Did you have a good nap, buddy?”
Noah babbled a cordial response, something the two males must have understood, because they shared another smile.
Marin looked at Quinn “Lucky” Bacelli. Then, at her son. Their smiles seemed to freeze in place.
There was no warning.
A deafening blast ripped through the car.
One moment Marin was sitting on the seat with her son cradled in her arms, and the next she was flying across the narrow space right at Lucky.
Everything moved fast. So fast. And yet it happened in slow motion, too. It seemed part of some nightmarish dream where everything was tearing apart at the seams.
Debris spewed through the air. The diaper bag, the magazine she’d been reading, the very walls themselves. All of it, along with Noah and her.
Something slammed into her back and the left side of her head. It knocked the breath from her. The pain was instant—searing—and it sliced right through her, blurring her vision.
She and Noah landed in Lucky’s arms, propelled against him. But he softened the fall. He turned, immediately, pushing them down against the seat and crawling over them so he could shelter them with his body. Still, the debris pelted her legs and her head. She felt the sting of the cuts on her skin and reached out for something, anything, to use as protection.
