Security Blanket. Delores Fossen

      To the Magnolia State Romance Writers. Thanks for everything.

       Chapter One

      The man was watching her.

      Marin Sheppard was sure of it.

      He wasn’t staring, exactly. In fact, he hadn’t even looked at her, though he’d been seated directly across from her in the lounge car of the train for the past fifteen minutes. He seemed to focus his attention on the wintry Texas landscape that zipped past the window. But several times Marin had met his gaze in the reflection of the glass.

      Yes, he was watching her.

      That kicked up her heart rate a couple of notches. A too-familiar nauseating tightness started to knot Marin’s stomach.

      Was it starting all over again?

      Was he watching her, hoping that she’d lead him to her brother, Dexter? Or was this yet another attempt by her parents to insinuate themselves into her life?

      It’d been over eight months since the last time this happened. A former “business associate” of her brother who was riled that he’d paid for a “product” that Dexter hadn’t delivered. The man had followed her around Fort Worth for days. He hadn’t been subtle about it, either, and that had made him seem all the more menacing. And she hadn’t given birth to Noah yet then.

      The stakes were so much higher now.

      Marin hugged her sleeping son closer to her chest. He smelled like baby shampoo and the rice cereal he’d had for lunch. She brushed a kiss on his forehead and rocked gently. Not so much for him—Noah was sound asleep and might stay that way for the remaining hour of the trip to San Antonio. No, the rocking, the kiss and the snug embrace were more for her benefit, to help steady her nerves.

      And it worked.

      “Cute kid,” she heard someone say. The man across from her. Who else? There were no other travelers in this particular section of the lounge car.

      Marin lifted her gaze. Met his again. But this time it wasn’t through the buffer of the glass, and she clearly saw his eyes, a blend of silver and smoke, framed with indecently long, dark eyelashes.

      She studied him a moment, trying to decide if she knew him. He was on the lanky side. Midnight-colored hair. High cheekbones. A classically chiseled male jaw.

      The only thing that saved him from being a total pretty boy was the one-inch scar angled across his right eyebrow, thin but noticeable. Not a precise surgeon’s cut, a jagged, angry mark left from an old injury. It conjured images of barroom brawls, tattooed bikers and bashed beer bottles. Not that Marin had firsthand knowledge of such things.

      But she would bet that he did.

      He wore jeans that fit as if they’d been tailormade for him, a dark blue pullover shirt that hugged his chest and a black leather bomber jacket. And snakeskin boots—specifically diamondback rattlesnake. Pricey and conspicuous footwear.

      No, she didn’t know him. Marin was certain she would have remembered him—a realization that bothered her because he was hot, and she was sorry she’d noticed.

      He tipped his head toward Noah. “I meant your baby,” he clarified. “Cute kid.”

      “Thank you.” She looked away from the man, hoping it was the end of their brief conversation.

      It wasn’t.

      “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.