Pregnant and Protected Read online

  “Your blood pressure and pulse are good, but we need to start antibiotics, and there’s a mild sedative going in as well, because you might be here for a while longer if we can’t get that leg out.”

  “Just do what you have to do.”

  And they did. It wasn’t pretty.

  I’m going to faint, Lauren thought again at one point, catching sight of her damaged leg. It was already sticky with blood and suddenly flooded with a fresh stream of it as a huge chunk of jagged wood was pulled from deep against the shattered bone. Yes, I’m definitely going to faint….

  She closed her eyes, felt dreamy and distant from her own body, and realized that the sedative had kicked in. Wasn’t sorry about it, either. The local anesthetic hadn’t completely numbed the pain. She had questions about the collapse, about the fate of the rest of the building crew and a few other things, but those could wait. Or maybe they actually weren’t important.

  Yes, these eyes are staying closed….

  She didn’t open them again until she was lying on a gurney, being carried toward the waiting ambulance.

  How late was it? Felt like midnight or later, but she wouldn’t have been surprised to find it was only nine or ten. She considered asking someone, took a brief sidetrack into feeling glad that she hadn’t worn her bracelet-style watch today to get twisted or scratched—it was a cherished gift from her late mother—and finally decided that opening her mouth and feeding language through it would be far too hard. Far…too…hard…

  The lights were still white and bright, beaming over something that looked like the ruins of a Berlin building after the bombing in World War II. Piles of mortar-dusted bricks were etched with shadow. There was one section where the collapsed façade had landed like a draped blanket, with curves and folds that looked deceptively soft. There was a big dog on a leash, and someone going over the rubble with what had to be heat-sensing equipment.

  At least one more person must still be in there.

  Again, she wanted to ask the paramedics about it, tried harder this time, but something had happened to her voice. She opened her mouth and nothing came out. There was a clatter like a slow-moving freight car, and the gurney slid inside the ambulance and locked onto its metal track.

  “All right, it’s warm in here and we’re going to get you on the road, Lauren,” one of the paramedics said. “You take a little rest now, okay?”

  “Mmm.”

  He took hold of the heavy rear door and began to swing it closed, and just before it curtained her vision of the scene, as if this was the end of a play’s final act, she caught a glimpse of Lock.

  It had to be Lock. That dust-drenched man with the stiffened, angular set to his big, handsome body, standing beside a late-model blue sedan with the door open and his keys in his hand, as if he’d forgotten what he had to do next. It had to be Lock.

  Why didn’t you go in the ambulance? It’s because of me, isn’t it? You’re doing everything you can to distance yourself from me.

  She hadn’t said it aloud, and he couldn’t have heard her from this distance even if she had. Still, at the exact moment her mind framed the silent question, he looked up, looked at the ambulance. The door banged shut, and she was left with a mental freeze-frame of his starkly lit face.

  Dark hair, stiffened and gray with brick dust. Dark eyes, blurred at the edges by darker lashes. The mouth that had kissed her pulled into a tight line. A nose which looked as if it had withstood a few schoolyard punches in its time, and would be able to withstand a few more.

  She would know that face when she saw it again, she knew. She would recognize him at once, when she defied what he wanted and tracked him down.

  Chapter 3

  “Lauren, there’s a printout for you in my office, but you can leave that until Monday. If you could just sign those letters on my desk though, before you leave?”

  “Thanks, Eileen. You’re heading off now?” Lauren didn’t move her eyes from the computer screen in front of her. Figures filled it, and they threatened to start dancing beneath her tired gaze if she didn’t will herself to concentrate. She’d arrived at five-thirty this morning, the day after Thanksgiving, and had barely left her office since.

  “It’s after six.”

  “Oh, my goodness! I’m sorry. You should have said something!” At last, she dragged her gaze away from the screen and frowned at Eileen.

  “It’s not a problem, Lauren.” Eileen Harrap had worked for Lauren’s father for over thirty years, and sometimes acted more like a loving aunt than Lauren’s personal assistant, which she officially was. “See you Monday.”

  “Have a good weekend.”

  “You, too.”

  Eileen closed the door quietly, and Lauren turned back to the computer. She couldn’t focus on the spreadsheet. Her injured leg was aching as it sometimes still did, even after six months of healing and extensive physical therapy. There were strange patches of light flashing behind her eyes. She buried her face in her palms, willing her vision to clear. Seconds later, the door opened again with a low-pitched click. She pulled her hands from her face, jerked around, straightened up and tried to look purposeful and businesslike.

  It was only Eileen, but her face was a study in mixed emotions—apology, disapproval, understanding. “Did you remember you’re eating at your dad’s tonight?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “He’s expecting you at seven.”

  “You got it.”

  “And the radio says traffic on I-95 is still pretty bad.”

  “I’ll call him from the car if I’m going to be late.”

  Eileen looked as if she dearly wanted to say more, and once upon a time—six months ago, say—she would have done so. Now, although Lauren knew that Eileen’s anxiety on her behalf ran much deeper, the older woman said a whole lot less about it out loud.

  Many things had changed in Lauren’s life in the past six months. She was more than seven months pregnant, and the baby had become a very real—and longed for—new being, close beneath her heart. There was no longer a large solitaire diamond engagement ring on her finger and no wedding ring, either. It hadn’t taken long, after her rescue from the collapsed building, for her to realize that what Lock had urged her to do that night was right.

  She’d told Ben from her hospital bed that their wedding was off. He hadn’t taken it well. She was shocked at the insinuations and insults he’d resorted to. She’d never seen that side of Ben before. He had seemed unusually stressed and preoccupied that day also, and she soon knew why.

  Just a few weeks later, he had left the country following the dramatic and very public collapse of his internet start-up company. He’d moved to Switzerland, preferring a luxurious exile to giving up the millions of dollars rightfully owed to the company’s thousands of shareholders.

  Lauren hadn’t seen him since June, but his influence remained in her life. She was carrying his baby, although he hadn’t yet committed himself as to what degree of involvement he wanted to have with their child.

  She had also recently received some threatening letters. The wording wasn’t very specific, but the meaning seemed pretty clear to her, and the police agreed. The letters came from one of Ben’s disgruntled shareholders, looking for reparation.

  “It’s your responsibility, too. You must have been in on it,” the first had read.

  “Pay what’s owed,” said the second. “You can afford it.”

  “Pay willingly before you have to pay by force,” threatened the third.

  That was when her father had started talking about hiring extra protection for her, assessing her routine for danger points and retooling the security systems at corporate headquarters. Lauren agreed that it was a sensible idea, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. Her pregnancy was making her tired, and she needed more privacy in her life right now, not less. The idea of having some corporate security consultant prowling around her home and asking questions did not remotely appeal to her.

  She still had a lot
of thinking to do before the baby arrived. Without the emotional trigger of getting caught beneath the collapsed building that day six months ago, she would have married Ben. The knowledge scared her. She’d come too darn close to making the biggest mistake of her life, and she wanted to guard against ever making such a mistake again.

  If she only knew how to do that.

  With a sigh, she closed the software program, shut down her computer and picked up her briefcase. She started thinking about what to take to her father’s country house near Princeton, and whether she would accept his inevitable invitation to stay for the weekend.

  She understood her father’s concern, and wondered what he’d think if he knew that what preoccupied her more than her own safety was her memory of Lock. That night still seemed so vivid in her mind, and it nagged at her, lacking the closure she craved.

  She couldn’t forget the way Lock had felt, or the sound of his voice. She couldn’t forget the things he’d said. And how he had read her situation with such accuracy. She remembered, too, what he had said about his wife.

  Most of all, she couldn’t forget the way they’d kissed. As if kissing was their only language. As if the touch of mouth on mouth was why their hearts kept beating. As if the world was coming to an end.

  They had been buried alive together beneath those bricks for just under six hours, six months ago, and she hadn’t seen him since. He’d been “a visitor” to the building site, she remembered. She’d sent a card there two weeks after the collapse, hoping it would reach him since it was addressed only to “Lock.” Just nine simple words written inside. “I have no regrets. Please get in touch. Lauren.” She’d wanted to tell him about Ben. She’d wanted to thank him, ask him why he’d been so sure. Yes, it was definitely about closure.

  If he’d received the card, however, he hadn’t replied.

  She had hired a private investigator to track him down, but cancelled the man’s contract before he could get to work on the case. That wasn’t the impression she’d given to the few friends she’d told. They thought the detective hadn’t managed to locate Lock, and that had stopped any awkward questions.

  Even now, though, she could change her mind. She could pick up the phone, tell Gary Gregg of Gregg Investigations, “I do want to hire you, after all.”

  But she hadn’t done it yet, and she knew that she wouldn’t. Instead, she’d chosen to respect what Lock wanted and stayed out of his life. If he’d been so right about Ben, maybe he was right about this, too. But she was still thinking about him, far more than she wanted to.

  Okay, the computer was off, she had her briefcase in hand. Surveying her spacious top-floor corner office, Lauren was nagged by the suspicion that there was something else, but her desk was clear and her desk calendar blank for the rest of the day.

  “Get a grip,” Lauren scolded herself as she left. “Or you’ll have Dad offering headache pills and hot water bottles every five minutes.”

  She headed toward the elevator.

  “That’s Ms. Van Shuyler leaving her office.”

  “Man, she has a great pair of legs, don’t she?”

  Reaching the doorway of the security office in back of the main desk, Daniel gritted his teeth at the voyeuristic comments of the two guards on duty. He glanced at the bank of black-and-white security monitors built into the wall of the office, then looked quickly away again.

  Yes, it was Lauren on the monitor, all right. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her over the past six months. Her father had employed Lachlan Security Systems extensively this year, and Daniel was currently overhauling the security for the entire building. That was fine. He’d only needed a couple of meetings with Lauren’s father to talk about what was required, and on those occasions he’d managed to avoid encountering Lauren in person. He’d only seen her on these monitors.

  Not for much longer. John Van Shuyler had a new proposition for him, in the wake of the threatening letters his daughter had received in recent weeks. The three of them were scheduled to talk about it on Monday afternoon.

  Daniel was torn. Should he seek her out before the meeting with her father, put to rest the ghosts from that night, just the two of them in private? Or was it crazy of him to think that there were any ghosts to put to rest? Had she simply shrugged off those intimate hours together and forgotten all about them? She’d had a lot to deal with since their encounter. Maybe it was pure arrogance on his part to think that she ever thought about him at all. It was arrogance. It had to be. And he didn’t want her to remember their ordeal as vividly as he did. He wished he could forget it himself. Her strength and her vulnerability. Her laugh. The way she’d cried. What did they have to offer each other? Nothing.

  Leave it until Monday, he decided. Definitely. Leave it.

  Monitor 1 flashed silently to Camera 8, located in Elevator B, and there she was again. The gray of the picture and the odd angle reminded him of the way she’d looked as they lay in each other’s arms. Neither of them had been able to see properly. Would she even recognize him when she saw him again? He didn’t know.

  The security guards continued their commentary to each other. They hadn’t heard Daniel’s arrival, and he still stood in the doorway with one hand resting against the jamb, lost in thought.

  “Here she comes.”

  “Yeah, see what I mean with Camera 2? I’m definitely a leg man.”

  “Can it, guys,” he growled, striding into the room at last, to collect his jacket and briefcase. He’d been working here for most of the day, but had had to put in an appearance for an hour at a product convention downtown.

  “Wha—?”

  Both men whipped around in their swivel chairs. “I said can it,” he repeated. “Checking out the boss’s daughter is a good way to get yourselves fired, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, okay, Mr. Lachlan.”

  “It was just a comment.”

  “I’ve heard she’s a nice lady.”

  “Yeah, she is,” Daniel agreed, distracted by the monitors again.

  Lauren was crossing the lobby now. By the time he gathered his jacket and put a couple of files in his briefcase, she would be through the revolving door and out of the building, and they’d see each other Monday, and it would be fine.

  He was crazy to think anything else, after so long.

  He picked up his things, said a quick good-night to the two guards and left. It was late, and he wanted to get home to his boys.

  The letters. That’s right. Eileen had wanted her to sign the letters.

  Torn between a curse word and a sigh, Lauren chose a growl of fatigue and frustration between her teeth instead. She had to go back. Turning on her heel, she crossed the small plaza between the Van Shuyler building and the adjoining multilevel parking garage and pushed her way impatiently through the revolving door.

  She saw a male figure in a dark, well-cut suit heading toward her, smack in the middle of her route to the bank of elevators and only about ten yards away. Even then, she was so unfocused she probably wouldn’t have spared him a second look, only he stopped in his tracks when he saw her, and froze like a wild animal caught in a searchlight.

  It caught her attention. It brought back memories.

  Searchlights. Flood lights. A man’s stark face and her own dazed stare. She knew that face and that body.

  “Lock!” she said. “Good grief, Lock, what on earth are you doing here?”

  She hurried toward him without taking a moment to rethink her reaction, stopped right in front of him, close enough to lay her fingers eagerly on his sleeve and look up, smiling, into his face. The draped front of her maternity dress almost brushed against his suit.

  “Hi, Lauren,” he growled.

  “It’s so good to see you! Were you looking for me?”

  And then it hit her. Then, too late, she did what she knew how to do so well in business—she checked the situation out.

  His body, in the masculine cut of the charcoal-gray suit, was as big and strong as she’d s
ensed it to be, and his eyes and hair were just as dark. His nose wasn’t quite straight. He was incredibly good-looking, in a roughhewn way, as she’d somehow known he would be. But his body language didn’t echo her own unthinking eagerness.

  Instead, he was as close as a man could be to active recoil without actually taking a backward step. He looked horrified, guilty. And the conference nametag he wore on his lapel read, “Daniel Lachlan, Lachlan Security Systems.”

  Lauren had seen men in uniforms with the Lachlan Security Systems name and logo printed on it working around the building lately. She knew that her father had employed the company because of his old wartime connection with the company director’s father. She also knew that she was scheduled to meet with Dad and Daniel Lachlan on Monday afternoon to discuss the issue of her own safety. What she hadn’t known, all this time, was that Daniel Lachlan and the man who’d lain with her beneath the rubble were one and the same.

  He’d known, though. Lock—Daniel—had known all along. All this time, he had been so close to her life that he could have reached out and touched her.

  “I sent you a card,” she said, only just managing to control her voice.

  “I never got it.”

  “You said you were just visiting the site. I imagined you off in some routine that didn’t connect with my life at all, and instead you’ve been spying on me via those brand-new, upgraded security monitors of yours.”

  “I haven’t,” he answered. “Really.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and one shoulder rose uncomfortably. “I’ve caught glimpses of you, that’s all.”

  “All? It’s more than enough, isn’t it?”

  “Enough for what?”

  “You knew I’d cancelled my wedding to Ben. You’d know that he’s skipped the country, too. Dear Lord, you know everything! And yet it didn’t occur to you—or more likely, I guess, you just didn’t care—that I might need some resolution to that night. You were the one I spilled my guts to. You were the one—the only one—who told me, ‘Don’t marry him.’ I respected what you wanted after that night, but I had no idea that your life was so close to mine. Instead I’ve been—”