Security Blanket. Delores Fossen
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. Her fingers found the diaper bag, and she used it to block the shards so they wouldn’t hit Noah.
The train’s brakes screamed. Metal scraped against metal. The crackle and scorched smell of sparks flying, shouts of terror, smoke and dust filled the air.
Amid all the chaos, she heard her baby cry.
Noah was terrified, and his shrill piercing wail was a plea for help.
Marin tried to move him so she could see his face, so she could make sure he was all right, but her peripheral vision blurred. It closed in, like thick fog, nearly blinding her.
“Help my son,” she begged. She couldn’t bear his cries. They echoed in her head. Like razorsharp daggers. Cutting right through her.
Sweet heaven, was he hurt?
There was some movement, and she felt Lucky maneuver his hand between them. “He’s okay, I think.”
His qualifier nearly caused Marin to scream right along with her son. “Please, help him.”
Because she had no choice, because the pain was unbearable, Marin dropped her head against the seat. The grayness got darker. Thicker. The pain just kept building. Throbbing. Consuming her.
And her son continued to cry.
That was the worst pain of all—her son crying.
Somehow she had to help him.
She tried to move again, to see his face, but her body no longer responded to what she was begging it to do. It was as if she were spiraling downward into a bottomless dark pit. Her breath was thin, her heartbeat barely a whisper in her ears. And her mouth was filled with the metallic taste of her own blood.
God, was she dying?
The thought broke her heart. She wasn’t scared to die. But her death would leave her son vulnerable. Unprotected.
That couldn’t happen.
“You can’t let them take Noah,” she heard herself whisper. She was desperate now, past desperate, and if necessary she would resort to begging.
“Who can’t take him?” Lucky asked. He sounded so far away, but the warmth of his weight was still on her. She could feel his frantic breath gusting against her face.
“My parents.” Marin wanted to explain that they were toxic people, that she didn’t want them anywhere near her precious son. But there seemed so little breath left in her body, and she needed to tell him something far more important. “If I don’t make it…”
“You will,” he insisted.
Marin wasn’t sure she believed that. “If I don’t make it, get Noah out of here.” She had to take a breath before she could continue. “Protect him.” She coughed as she pulled the smoke and ash into her lungs. “Call Lizette Raines in Fort Worth. She’ll know what to do.”
Marin