Pregnant and Protected Read online

  The sirens were screaming now, and very close.

  “No, but I’ve got kids of my own,” he said. “Twin boys, not quite eighteen months. I know.”

  “Twins…” Her thought track ricocheted off his answer like a ball bouncing off a wall, changing direction abruptly. His answer explained the smell of applesauce on his shirt. “Your wife will be frantic.”

  “No, she died. A few months back.”

  “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. That must be terrible for you!”

  “It’s—yeah, it’s okay.” He sounded awkward, reluctant. Then he added on a rush, “It’s been…pretty ugly. Guilt more than grief.”

  Lauren could tell from the harsh sound he made a second later that he’d let those last words slip without intending to. “Guilt more than grief.” Just four words, but they betrayed a lot, and generated more questions than they answered. What did this man have to feel guilty about? Why couldn’t he grieve?

  She felt his struggle to move on, communicated by a tightening in his strong muscles, and knew the words were echoing in his head the way they echoed in hers.

  “Uh, but, yeah,” he said after a moment. “My mom—she has the boys today—she’ll be frantic when I don’t show up.”

  “Dear God, help us….”

  “This noise is for us now,” he answered as the sirens began to die. “They’re here. Listen.”

  “How will they know we’re alive?”

  “As soon as they turn off all those engines and sirens, I’m going to yell. I’m going to hold you tight and cover your ears with my arms, because it’s going to be loud.”

  “I can yell, too.”

  “Then we’ll just deafen each other. Let me do it. If I can stretch my neck back and get some more air in my lungs…”

  But he yelled at bone-jarring volume for five minutes or more and there was no evidence that anyone had heard.

  “There are some bends in this duct cavity, and concrete like this doesn’t carry sound real well,” he said finally, and then they heard the rattle of a broken brick falling a short distance away, and he took in a hiss of breath. “That’s not good. If the sound waves from my voice were enough to shake this stuff loose… We don’t know how stable it is.”

  “And neither does the rescue crew.”

  “No.”

  They listened, heard the sounds of machinery starting up. Being able to hear yet not to be heard suddenly plunged Lauren’s sense of isolation to a frightening new depth.

  “We could be here for a while,” Lock said, confirming what she felt. “All night. Longer.”

  While they got colder and hungrier and their energy dropped and the wound in her crushed leg—which she hadn’t yet told him about—got deeper. How much blood could a pregnant woman afford to lose? What happened if her temperature or her blood sugar dropped too low? She didn’t know, and ignorance wasn’t a feeling she liked.

  She started to shake. “All night? No, that’s too long! My baby…”

  “Hey…hey…”

  This time, however, the reassurance of that deep voice vibrating against her chest wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough to stop the tears, and nowhere near enough to stop the outpouring of words that followed, when at last she was calmer.

  He managed to hold the water bottle to her lips and she drank. Then, cradled against him, she told him everything. Didn’t care what words she used, or how they sounded. Didn’t care that most of this she hadn’t confessed before, even to her closest friends.

  Why hadn’t she? she briefly wondered. Why hadn’t she told Corinne Alexander, for example?

  Corinne had introduced her to Ben Deveson in the first place and regarded herself as his friend equally, so maybe that was why Lauren had said nothing to her. Nothing about the feeling she often had that this wasn’t really her, engaged to Ben and pregnant with his child. Nothing about the feeling that there were two Laurens, one of them going through all the preparations involved in a big wedding, organized, excited and absorbed, while another Lauren watched it all in silence, screaming inside.

  Which of those two Laurens was real?

  Now, she asked that stark question to a complete stranger and didn’t think twice about what she betrayed.

  Who knew if she’d survive long enough to ever speak to another human being? This big, hard man with the tender, rumbling voice was here, and that was all that mattered. Bitter truths, extravagant regrets, dark fears. All of it was piled higgledy-piggledy in her heart and mind, and all of it came pouring out at random.

  This was so ironic, this panic and terror of loss, because Ben didn’t want the baby. And that was the part which hurt most. It had been haunting her all week, since she’d told him on the weekend just hours after taking the test.

  With nothing to distract her inner vision, here in the darkness, Lauren could see her fiancé’s face so clearly in her mind’s eye that she felt almost as if she could reach out and touch it.

  “And I must have known,” she blurted to Lock. “At some level, subconsciously, I must have known Ben would react that way, because I didn’t tell him when I first suspected. I only told him once I’d done the test and was sure. And then—”

  She could remember his exact words.

  “Good grief! How in the hell did you let that happen?” he’d said. “You told me you were using something.”

  “I know it’s a little sooner than we planned—”

  “Darn right it is! We talked about waiting three or four years, enjoying life first.”

  “It’ll take some adjusting to, I guess, but… Oh, Ben, we’ve made a baby. Don’t you think it’s a miracle?”

  Belatedly, he’d put on the right smile, the right voice, said the words—woodenly—that she’d hoped to hear from the beginning. Yes, it was a miracle. Yes, of course he was happy. It would simply take some getting used to. Plans were important. She ought to know that. But, yes, of course he was happy.

  “And it was exactly the same tone,” she said to the stranger, her voice muffled against his shirt and her breath heating his skin, “that he always uses when he tells me what a great time we’ve had in bed.”

  Only they didn’t have a great time in bed, and she told Lock that, too. She told him how disappointing it always was for her, and that she hadn’t felt ready to sleep with Ben in the first place.

  “But, you know, we were getting pretty serious. It seemed like he had the right to expect it, especially once we were engaged. It was part of the package. I kept thinking it would get better. I mean, it will. It’s my fault. I have to keep working on it. I should have realized that I didn’t—” She broke off, then picked up jerkily, “No, of course I love him. He swept me off my feet. You know, he’s not perfect. I mean, this is the real world.”

  That was something the silent, screaming Lauren didn’t seem to understand.

  “He’s a good person, and— We’re getting married in five days. I want to get married! I want a family. I want that. But how could he look at me that way when I told him I was having our baby? Oh, the baby!”

  She moaned brokenly.

  Heaven above, how can I get her to stop this? Daniel thought. She’s in some kind of shock. She’s going to hate herself for saying it all.

  Every painful, heartrending word of it. He was sure of it because he already hated himself for those four little words he’d blurted to her earlier. “Guilt more than grief.”

  Dear Lord, how had they got to this point so fast, tapped into emotions like this so fast?

  Lauren Van Shuyler had arrived on the building site, what, half an hour ago? An hour? He was no longer confident of his perception of time. He had seen her from the window of the portable site office, where he was looking over the plans for the new building’s security system.

  He’d known this was Lauren Van Shuyler, daughter and heir to the owner of the huge Van Shuyler home furnishings and hardware corporation. She was expected here to look over the construction of the company’s newest store. Her visit had been planned
for since last week, apparently, like a presidential photo opportunity.

  Daniel had been curious about her and had manufactured a reason to go across to the site itself and get a closer look. His father had been her dad’s platoon sergeant in Korea, and though the two men hadn’t kept in close touch afterward, the connection was strong enough that John Van Shuyler had heard about Daniel’s growing company and had sought it out to handle the security system for this new building.

  Lauren had parked a low-slung, expensive car at the curb and picked her way nimbly and apparently quite cheerfully across the rough ground, which was rutted with the deep tread of a dozen heavy-duty tires. She’d looked cool and quietly beautiful in a dark red silk blouse and elegantly cut black trousers, setting off her rich, gleaming brown hair and fair skin. She’d worn a designer leather backpack, and someone had handed her a hard hat, although she’d never gotten around to putting it on.

  Less than a minute later, that idiot up on the crane hadn’t been looking where he was going, and Daniel had arrived just in time to roll her into this cavity and cement his father’s old connection with her dad in a way no one would ever have wished for. His chest was pressed hard against two generous breasts, swollen and no doubt newly tender with her pregnancy. His thighs sandwiched hers. There was an uncomfortable feeling of fullness building just below his belt, which he devoutly hoped she hadn’t noticed.

  Lower down, he could feel a sticky moisture seeping through the fabric of his well-worn jeans and onto his calf. He suspected it was blood—her blood—but didn’t want to say anything. She hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe she didn’t even know that she was injured.

  She felt so good, smelled so good. There was silk and linen beneath his hands, and a scent like jasmine and orange blossom in his nostrils. Softness and warmth and femininity surrounded him, all close enough to breathe. How long was it since he’d been as close to a woman as this? Felt like a long time. That accounted for the fullness in his jeans. Becky had died just over four months ago, but they hadn’t touched each other for months before that.

  A man needed it. Missed it. The rough and tumble hugs he exchanged with his little boys just weren’t the same. Kids, though…kids were pretty good. Yeah, he loved his boys, ached, suddenly, to have them know he was at least alive, although he didn’t think Mom would even have heard about the building collapse yet.

  Kids…

  He kept thinking he’d like to get the fiancé, Ben, that this sweet-smelling woman was talking about hard up against a wall so he could yell a few home truths at the man.

  Jeez, buddy, you’re engaged to her! You’re getting married to her in less than a week. That’s not how you react when she tells you she’s pregnant. No matter how bad the timing is, what your doubts are, the first thing you do is take her in your arms and make her feel good, tell her you’re happy, so she doesn’t feel like she’s the only one it’s happening to.

  Even if, later on, your stomach starts caving in, and your scalp is tight with anger and you’re cursing yourself for leaving the protection up to her…

  He could feel Lauren shaking. He would have wrapped his arms around her more tightly to try to still the convulsive movement of it, only it wasn’t possible. Their contact was already about as tight as it could possibly get.

  He didn’t think she knew who he was, and wondered, suddenly, if there’d been some self-protective instinct at work when he’d told her his name was Lock. All his friends called him that, and his closest professional associates. Even his mother used the nickname occasionally. Formally, however, he was Daniel Lachlan, and that was a name Lauren would have recognized. She would have known, then, that the son of her father’s old war comrade didn’t grieve for his lost wife. Daniel wished he didn’t know half of what she was telling him now about her own dark places. He ached for the things she was saying. He would never have expected a woman like this to possess such inner vulnerability. Wouldn’t have thought she’d know how to talk about it this way, either. The stark honesty of her assessment was devastating.

  And she thought it was her own fault that she and her fiancé weren’t great in bed? That she was “too cerebral in some areas”? From his current viewpoint, aware of every soft, scented part of her, that seemed highly unlikely. “Honey, stop…stop,” he begged her, his voice scratchy with tenderness.

  “…and, you know, out of all of it, the only thing that really matters is not losing this baby. Dad doesn’t even know yet. And he’s wanted a grandbaby for so long…”

  “Stop, please…let’s not talk about any of this anymore.”

  “Please help me. I can’t stop shaking.”

  “I know. I know, honey.”

  “Because I keep thinking, you know, that maybe Ben would…actually…be pleased if I lost—”

  And suddenly there was only one thing Daniel could do to silence her. It didn’t take much, either. He moved his mouth one inch down and half an inch forward and drowned the nakedness of her words in his kiss.

  Chapter 2

  Lock’s mouth was hard and warm on hers, and it tasted of brick dust and chocolate. Lauren gave a whimper of protest. She was engaged to Ben. She hadn’t asked for this. She didn’t want it. This man was a stranger.

  But before she could pull her mouth away, or turn her head—and there wasn’t much room in which to do either of those things—something changed.

  Her convulsive shaking slowly ebbed away like water going off the boil. A sweetness flooded through her, an exultation that was primal and physical and somehow necessary. There was something vital about the touch of his mouth, about the imperious intensity of its pressure, and about her own instinct to respond.

  Amid the barrenness of this concrete tomb and the starkness of her pain and fear, a kiss was like the first seed germinating on a bare slope of volcanic ash. It wasn’t about sex or betrayal. It was purely about life.

  The sound in her throat changed. It wasn’t a protest anymore. It was a recognition. Yes. Do this. Make me feel! Not pain and discomfort, but something good.

  Gradually, his lips softened and slowed. He let her breathe. She could have spoken if she’d wanted to. Stop. Please don’t. Something like that. But she didn’t say it. Instead, she waited for the moment, just a second later, when his mouth brushed hers again, and when the tip of his tongue parted the seam of her lips to gain entry.

  They explored each other like travelers in an uncharted land. Without sight, Lauren’s remaining senses were beginning to heighten their perception, and with such limited possibility of movement, all her focus was narrowed to their joined mouths. She felt his nose bump gently against her cheek and the soft nip of his teeth on her full lower lip.

  His growing arousal was impossible to hide under these conditions, and she knew that her breasts, already heavy with their preparation for motherhood, had hardened into twin pebbles at their peaks. Inside her, low down, heat pooled.

  It might have gone on for hours. Their imprisonment had begun to distort her perceptions now, and she didn’t know how fast time was passing. Then the sound of machinery started to get louder and suddenly they heard the groan and grind of twisting metal quite close by.

  Lock jerked his head back. Lauren heard it crack against the concrete two inches behind him, and she gasped as if she could feel the pain herself. She opened her eyes, couldn’t remember when she’d closed them, but having them open made no difference. It was inky, velvety dark in here now. Night must have fallen outside.

  “Your head,” she said.

  “I’m okay,” Lock answered quickly. There was a slur and a creak in his voice, the legacy of that endless, motionless kiss. Were his lips as swollen and numbed as hers? “Listen, though…”

  “I know. I can hear.”

  They heard a siren starting up.

  “They must have found someone else.”

  They listened, frozen and silent, for several minutes. Lauren felt her body chilling down again. They were both damp from the heat of their awareness, an
d the fresh moisture had begun to cool. Her thin blouse clung to her like a fine layer of frost, and she started to shake once more.

  She tilted her head down and pressed her forehead into his chest, needing the distance, although it was only a token. She felt the muscles of his arms tighten against her, sensed that he was searching for words, and simply waited until he found them.

  “Look, I—” He stopped and tried again. “That was…unexpected. It wasn’t planned.”

  “I know.”

  “It seems like we both needed it. To feel alive, or something.”

  “Yes, I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

  “Then you’re not angry?”

  “Was my mouth saying that, at any point?”

  “No. Your mouth was…” he laughed suddenly “…the best thing I’ve tasted in a long time. It was…speaking poetry, I think. Singing it.”

  “A duet, then.”

  “Mmm.” The sound rumbled in his big chest. “But now your forehead is plowing into my collarbone. That’s not poetry. I thought you might be wishing it hadn’t happened, or something.”

  “No,” she answered. “Not that. But maybe I’m glad it stopped. I am glad,” she added more firmly. “I’m having my fiancé’s baby. I shouldn’t be—” as Lock had done, she groped for the right words, for words of adequate power “—banqueting on another man’s mouth, even if we don’t—if we never make it—”

  “We’re going to make it, Lauren. We’re going to get out of here. Listen to them!”

  “What if they make a mistake?”

  “They won’t.”

  “The crane operator did.”

  “He was an idiot. In the site office I heard the foreman muttering about firing him.”

  “Pity the foreman didn’t fire him last week!”

  They both laughed edgily.

  She said, “Tell me your name. Your whole name, Lock. I want to know who you are.”

  “No, honey, I’m not going to do that. I don’t want you finding out anything more about me.”

  It was like getting a failing grade on a paper you thought deserved an A. And she was accustomed to scoring As in most areas of her life. All she could say, her voice tight, was, “Why?”