A Father For Her Baby. B.J. Daniels
driver hit a power switch, and a tinted window went up between them, leaving her in the silent darkness of the back seat with only her sleeping son and her cell phone.
Kit watched the houses along the wide streets of old Galveston blur by: gleaming white works of art, ornate with spacious verandas and gentle roof lines, lounging in the shade of live oaks and palms under the Texas sun.
But the sky was filling with ominous dark storm clouds.
She closed her eyes, trying not to worry. About the past. Or the future. Sanders had seen to it that she and Andy were safe for the time being, she thought, glancing toward the privacy window that hid the limo driver. She snuggled against the deep leather of the seat. Warm and safe in this quiet cocoon, she drifted off.
* * *
SANDERS GOT the page just as Derrick’s plane touched ground at the airport. He hurried to the nearest phone and picked up, half expecting to hear Kit’s voice, afraid she’d changed her mind or there’d been some sort of problem. He’d thought he’d covered everything. By now Kit should be safely in the limo and on her way with Derrick Jr. to Huntsville.
“Uh, this is Maury with Unlimited Chauffeur Service, and, you know that pickup you ordered? Well, I’m at the address, only she isn’t here.”
“What do you mean, she isn’t there?” Sanders demanded.
“I was supposed to pick up a redhead and a baby, right? Well, I got here and the guy in the house says she left in another car with another driver about twenty minutes ago.”
Sanders stared in stunned silence at the gate Derrick would be coming out of at any moment. “Someone else picked her up?”
“A chauffeur in a limo,” Maury said.
Sanders swore. “Unlimited sent two cars and drivers to the same address?”
“Afraid not,” Maury said. “The other limo wasn’t from Unlimited. The guy at the house saw an A-1 Rent-a-Ride sticker on the rear of the vehicle..”
“A-1-Rent-a-Ride?”
“It’s a place near the pickup address. So unless you called two limo companies, I don’t know what to tell you.”
Kit must have gotten cold feet, decided to take off and had called her own limo and driver. Only Kit would never do that even if she could afford it. She’d jump on a bus. Maybe even splurge and take a train or plane. But she’d never hire a limo and driver. Not Kit.
So what had happened? He’d been so sure he’d convinced her to go to Huntsville, or he would never have left her alone.
He spotted Derrick coming through the arrival gate and cursed his bad luck. Derrick stopped, caught sight of Sanders and no Kit or the baby, and scowled angrily, obviously unhappy that Sanders had had to go to Plan Two: Huntsville.
Wait until he heard that something had gone wrong with both plans and that Kit and baby were missing. Again.
The sound of a phone ringing pulled Kit from a less-than-peaceful sleep. She sat up, disoriented, instantly afraid. Then she remembered where she was and realized the phone she heard was the cellular Sanders had given her. She reached into her purse.
“Hello?” Her son stirred beside her, stretching, his small fists reaching out, his sleep-wrinkled face so adorable and sweet. She leaned over and kissed his warm cheek.
“Kit.” Sanders sounded far away. “Where are you?”
She glanced out at the passing landscape, at what appeared to be a tiny fishing village. She sat up a little straighter, surprised by what she was seeing. “I’m not sure.” The sun had sunk beyond the front of the limo into scrub and sand. Off to her left, she caught a glimpse of a large body of water beneath a bank of dark clouds. The Gulf of Mexico? But Huntsville was to the north.
“Kit, I don’t want to alarm you, but—”
She heard a thunk, then another voice.
“Is my son all right? What’s going on? Where are you?”
Kit recoiled. “Derrick.”
“Yes, your husband. I’ve been worried about you. You and the baby.”
She swallowed, unable to force down the fear that threatened to choke her. And the revulsion. He was acting as if nothing had happened. “I told Sanders I didn’t want to see you,” she said.
“I know. Kit, you’re confused. I don’t want to argue about it. I want to see my son.”
She closed her eyes. “No, Derrick.” Her voice came out hoarse. “I saw you kill that man.”
Silence. “You’re wrong. You just made a mistake. But we can fix it. As soon as I see you.”
“I want you to leave me alone,” she demanded, glancing at the driver’s outline through the privacy window. He had his back to her, his head facing forward, and seemed unaware of the drama being played out in the back seat. He must have the intercom turned off.
“Leave you alone?” Derrick repeated, sounding calm. Only someone who knew him the way Kit did could hear the rage behind his words. “For months you’ve denied me my son. You’ve made me look like a fool, marrying a woman who’d run off like you did.” He took a breath. “And yet, I’m willing to forget and forgive, for my son’s sake.”
“He’s not your son,” she snapped, tired of the charade.
“Like hell.” All pretense of calm was instantly gone from his voice. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but my father’s a judge. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince him that my wife’s unstable and an unfit mother—a woman who takes off nine months’ pregnant, then starts spreading some insane story about her husband being a murderer.”
She could barely hear her own voice above the thunder of her heart. Hadn’t this been her worst fear—that Derrick would somehow get Andy? “Running away from you wasn’t insane and you know it.”
He laughed; the sound had a bite to it. “It was insane for you not to take the limo Sanders hired for you. We could have worked this out.”
She closed her eyes. What game was he playing now? “You know I took the car he sent.”
“You stupid woman. You got into the wrong limo.” He sounded confident that she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life. “Now who knows where you are or where you’re going or what’s going to happen to you. But I promise you this, Kit. I’ll end up with my son.”
Her gaze flew up. She stared at the back of the driver. He tugged at the collar of his white shirt with his index finger. Alarm knifed through her as she remembered the way his uniform looked on his powerful-looking athletic build, the jacket too snug in the shoulders, the pants too short. But it wasn’t just the ill-fitting uniform, she thought, remembering the cowboy boots, the way he moved, the hidden power beneath his clothing and the wariness she’d sensed in him.
She noticed now that his dark blond hair needed trimming. It fell beneath the back of his cap to plaster damply against the tanned nape of his neck. And his hands—large, sun-browned, weathered and worn, like a pair of used leather gloves. Not the hands of a chauffeur.
She felt panic race through her veins. Hadn’t she thought he looked like a bodyguard—or a thug? Only she’d believed Sanders had hired the man to protect her and Andy. Her heart pounded in her ears. “Who hired this limo?” she asked, her voice breaking.
Derrick made a pitying sound. “You were so busy trying to save yourself from me, you’ve gotten yourself into even worse trouble.”
She turned her face to the side window and looked out at the miles of sand spit, feeling hot tears