Laura.” A muscle jumped in his jaw, keeping time with the pounding in his skull. Don’t even think about feeling sorry for her, man, he reminded himself. You let your guard down once and it almost cost you your life. “Nothing you can say will change my mind,” he added, the recall of Laura’s betrayal making his tone harsh.
Her desperate grip tightened on the sleeve of his jacket. “You don’t understand. He’ll kill me, and maybe even my son.” She squeezed her eyes shut, her breath hitched as it slipped past her pink lips. “Oh, God, what am I going to do?”
Nick tamped down the surge of protectiveness that surfaced where Laura was concerned. His chest tightened with an emotion he refused to label. He focused his attention on the street and dredged up the memory of waking up alone and barely alive in the hospital. “Who will kill you, Laura? The guy you watched put a bullet in me before you ran away?” He turned back to her then, the look of pain in her eyes giving him perverse pleasure. “Just how far were you willing to go to cause your brother trouble? Was it all just some kind of game to you?”
Her eyes closed again, fresh tears trickled down those soft cheeks. She was good. She looked the picture of innocence and sweetness. He almost laughed at that. Obviously the hotshot she had been involved with two years ago, or someone since had left her with an unexpected gift. Maybe it had been the guy who had put the bullet in Nick. Laura Proctor would have a hell of a time promoting that innocent act with an illegitimate baby on her hip. Well, that wasn’t his problem, even if the thought did make some prehistoric territorial male gene rage inside him.
“Are we going in, or do we head straight for Jackson?” he demanded impatiently, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel for effect.
Laura brushed her cheek with the back of her hand. “I want to get my son first,” she murmured, defeat sagging her slim shoulders.
“Well, let’s do it then,” he shot back, trying his level best not to think about Laura having sex with another man, much less having the man’s child. Damn, he shouldn’t care.
But, somehow, he still did.
Nick called himself every kind of fool as he emerged from the car, years of training overriding his distraction as he surveyed their surroundings. Vine was a short, dead-end street dotted with half a dozen small frame houses. A dog barked at one of the houses on the far end of the quiet street. Two driveways had vehicles parked in them, indicating someone could be home. Either Mrs. Leeton didn’t own a car or she wasn’t home, he noted after another scan of the house before them. Nick reached beneath his jacket and adjusted the weapon at the small of his back. There was no way of knowing what to expect next out of Laura or the people with whom she associated.
Laura scrambled out of the car and into the vee created by his body and the open car door. It took Nick a full five seconds to check his body’s reaction at her nearness. Laura’s gaze collided with his, the startled expression in her eyes giving away her own physical reaction. Nick breathed a crude, four-letter word. Laura shrank from him as if he had slapped her. He didn’t want to feel any of this, he only wanted to do what had to be done. But his male equipment obviously had other ideas.
“I know you’ll never believe me, but it didn’t happen the way you think,” Laura said softly, defeatedly. She looked so vulnerable in that worn denim jacket that was at least two sizes too big, the overlong sleeves rolled up so that her small hands just barely peeked out. But the faded denim encasing her tiny waist and slender hips was breath-stealingly snug, as was the dirt-streaked T-shirt that snuggled against her breasts.
Nick swallowed hard and lifted his gaze to the face he had never wanted to see again, yet prayed with all his heart he would find just around the next corner. For months after her disappearance his heart rate had accelerated at the sight of any woman on the street with hair the color of spun gold and whose walk or build reminded him of Laura. Each time, hoping he had found her, his disappointment had proven devastating. And now she stood right before him, alive and every bit as beautiful as the day he had first laid eyes on her. Could he have found her long ago had he truly wanted to? Or was believing the possibility that she was dead or, at the very least, lost to him forever simply easier?
Victoria had ordered him to stop looking for Laura. Her own brother had believed her dead. But Nick had never fully believed it. Yet he had stopped looking all the same. If she was alive and she didn’t want to contact him, he wasn’t going after her. Then Ray had called and the need for revenge had blotted out all else.
A wisp of hair fluttered against her soft, creamy cheek and Nick resisted the urge to touch her there. To wrap those golden strands around his fingers and then allow his thumb to slide over her full, lush lips.
“Please don’t make me go back, Nick,” she said, shattering the trance he had slipped into.
Briefly he wondered if she still felt it too, then chastised himself for even allowing the thought to materialize. Laura Proctor had no warm, fuzzy feelings for him. Actions speak louder than words, Nick reminded the part of him that stupidly clung to hope, and her actions had been crystal clear two years ago. She had left him to die.
“If you want to pick up your kid, I would suggest that you do it before I lose patience,” he snapped, using his anger to fight the other crazy, mixed-up emotions roiling inside him.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I want to pick up my son.” She looked away, then reached up to sweep the tendrils of hair from her face.
The ugly slash on the inside of her wrist caught Nick’s eye. He captured that hand in his and forced her to allow him to inspect it. He clenched his jaw at the memory that she had allegedly tried to commit suicide only a few weeks before they had met. But the woman he had known for such a short time in that quiet cabin by the river would never have done anything like that. She had been too full of life and anticipation of what came next. She wouldn’t have walked away leaving him to die, either—but Laura had.
And that was the bottom line: she couldn’t be trusted.
His hold on her hand bordering brutal, Nick led Laura up the walk and across the porch of the silent house. The whole damned street looked and felt deserted. He glanced down at the woman at his side. If this turned out to be a ploy of some sort, she would definitely regret it. He nodded at her questioning look, and she rapped against the door.
Laura held her breath as she waited for Mrs. Leeton, a retired nurse, to answer the door. The woman was old and riddled with arthritis, so Laura waited as patiently as she could for the key to turn in the lock. Until three years ago, Mrs. Leeton had worked with Doc for what seemed like forever. When Laura showed up a week ago needing Doc’s help, he had asked Mrs. Leeton to take Laura and Robby in. The elderly woman had readily agreed. Laura hadn’t really liked the idea of leaving Robby alone with Mrs. Leeton this morning, but what else could she do? Mrs. Leeton had insisted that Doc needed Laura right away.
When the door’s lock finally turned, anxiety tightened Laura’s chest and that breath she had been holding seeped out of its own accord. Would Nick recognize his own child? Would he demand that she turn his son over to him? Nick wasn’t the same man she had known two years ago. He was harder now, colder.
Would he take Robby to get back at her? Or would he simply take him out of fear for his son’s well-being? Just another reason she could never have turned to Nick for help no matter how bad things got. James Ed had convinced Nick and everyone else that she was mentally unstable. Nick would never in a million years have allowed a woman considered mentally unstable to raise his son. He would have taken Robby, Laura knew it with all her heart.
Oh, God, was she doing the wrong thing by even coming back here? Why didn’t she just let
