Unexpected Protector Read online

  What if it had been someone out to shoot her?

  But why? Why would anyone want to shoot her? She just didn’t understand. No one had come out and threatened her and she certainly wasn’t a threat to anyone. It all had to be some kind of a gross misunderstanding, and the sooner it was cleared up, the sooner she would be able to get back to her old life.

  Her relatively uneventful, humdrum life, she thought as she sat pulling a hairbrush through her hair, something she had done religiously ever since she’d been old enough to hold her own hairbrush.

  Feeling exceptionally tired all of a sudden, Serena gave up brushing her hair and laid the brush aside.

  She slipped into the nursery, checking on her daughter. The crib had just been moved there from her own room yesterday. Lingering, she watched Lora sleep for a minute or two, then crossed back to her bedroom. Mechanically turning off the lamp, Serena crawled into bed, bone weary beyond words.

  She was asleep within less than five minutes.

  * * *

  It was the dream that woke her. A dream that a tall slender person had slipped into her room and was now running off with her daughter.

  A scream rose in her throat, but try as she might, Serena just couldn’t make herself release it, couldn’t scream to alert Carson so that he could come and rescue her daughter.

  Oh, why hadn’t she allowed him to spend the night on the floor right outside her suite the way he’d wanted to? The kidnapper would have never got in to steal her baby if Carson had been standing guard right by her door.

  Frightened, she tried to scream again, but nothing came out. It was as if her throat had been sealed shut.

  Just like her eyes. They were shut, too, she realized. Shut and practically glued together.

  Was that it? Were they glued shut?

  Why couldn’t she open her eyes? She needed to be able to see the person who had broken into her suite. The person who had just made off with her baby.

  How could she give Carson a description of the fiend when she couldn’t see him?

  A hot wave of desperation washed over Serena as she tried to scream again. To make some kind of a noise, any kind of a noise, in order to scare away the intruder.

  No sounds came.

  She felt absolutely powerless.

  * * *

  Carson wasn’t in the habit of falling asleep while on duty. It had never happened to him before. He prided himself on being able to get by with next to no sleep for several days on end.

  But he’d been going nonstop for more than a few days now and though he really hated to admit it, hated what it ultimately said about his stamina, it had finally caught up to him.

  Carson didn’t remember his eyes shutting. But they must have because the next thing he knew, they were flying open, pried open by a sound.

  A sound that had seeped into his consciousness.

  The sound of Justice’s nails along the marble floor as he suddenly scrambled up, completely alert.

  Carson was still groggy and half-asleep, but he knew that his K-9 partner had been awakened by something.

  Or someone.

  Suddenly as alert as his dog, Carson immediately scanned the darkened room, searching for movement, for some minute indication that something was out of place.

  Everything was just the way it had been when he’d settled back on the bed.

  But he knew he’d heard something.

  And from the way Justice had gained his feet, so had the German shepherd.

  Opening the door ever so carefully, Carson slipped out into the hall. Nothing was moving, nothing was out of place.

  Maybe he’d been dreaming after all.

  But glancing at Justice told him that it wasn’t a dream. Something was definitely up.

  Exercising the same stealth movements, Carson opened the door leading into Serena’s suite. He knew he ran the risk of having her think he was taking advantage of the situation, but that really didn’t matter in this case. His gut was telling him to push on.

  Something was up.

  Moving in almost painfully slow motion, Carson opened Serena’s door. With his fingertips against the highly polished door, he eased it back until he was able to look into the room.

  It was cold, unusually cold.

  The door between the bedroom and the nursery was open.

  A movement in the nursery caught his eye.

  As his vision acclimated to the darkness, Carson saw a tall slender figure dressed completely in black leaning over the baby’s crib.

  Reaching in.

  Carson had his gun in his hand, but he couldn’t risk taking a shot. The dark figure was too close to Lora.

  “Freeze!” he ordered in a loud, menacing voice.

  Startled, the figure bolted toward the open balcony doors on the other side of Serena’s bedroom.

  Serena had jackknifed upright in bed and screamed when she realized that someone was in her room. Instinctively, she knew that her daughter’s life was in danger.

  She hadn’t been dreaming; this was very real!

  Justice and then Carson whizzed by her bed, running toward the balcony. There was a new moon out so there was nothing to illuminate her room and help her see what was happening.

  She sensed rather than saw that someone was in her suite. It was possibly more than just one person.

  Serena quickly turned on the lamp next to her bed. Light flooded the room at the same time that she reached into the nightstand drawer. She pulled out the handgun she always kept there.

  Carson and Justice had reached the balcony, but they were too late to stop the fleeing potential kidnapper. All Carson saw was a dark figure who had managed to get down to the ground unhurt and was now sprinting away from the mansion.

  The darkness quickly swallowed the would-be kidnapper up.

  “Damn it,” Carson cursed under his breath. His weapon was still drawn, but he wasn’t about to shoot at what he couldn’t really see.

  Turning back toward the suite, he went in and was about to close the door—by now the suite was absolutely freezing—when he saw Serena. She was pointing a handgun at him.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he cautioned, raising one hand while the other still held his weapon. “Put that thing down. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”

  But Serena kept her weapon trained on him. She wasn’t about to lower it until he answered some questions to her satisfaction. She was breathing hard and her heart was racing like crazy.

  It took her a second to catch her breath. “What just happened?” she wanted to know.

  Turning his back on her, Carson secured the balcony doors and then turned around to face her. “As near as I can figure it, Justice and I just stopped someone from kidnapping your baby.”

  Serena’s arms sagged. The handgun she was holding suddenly felt as if it weighed a ton.

  With concentrated effort, she put it back in the open drawer. All she could do was stare at the detective, dumbfounded.

  Her throat almost closed up as she cried, “Kidnapping?”

  Chapter 14

  “That’s what I said,” Carson confirmed quietly with just the slightest nod of his head as he looked at her. “Kidnapping.”

  If anything, the idea of someone shooting at her ultimately made Serena angry. She could deal with that, find a way to fight back and defend herself. It was in her nature to fight back.

  But the thought of someone kidnapping her child, that was an entirely different matter. That was scary.

  She could feel a cold chill not only running up and down her spine, but gripping her heart and squeezing it so hard that she could barely breathe.

  She moved over to the crib in the nursery. Somehow, Lora had slept through all the commotion. Serena felt a very real desire to stand here forever and just watch her daughter sleep. The scene was such a con
trast to what could have happened.

  “Who would want to kidnap Lora?” Serena wanted to know, her voice quavering as she tried to come to terms with the frightening thought.

  Carson shrugged. He moved a little closer to Serena but still managed to maintain a safe distance. He didn’t want her to feel that he was crowding her. He just wanted her to realize that he was there for her. For her daughter and her.

  “Maybe Demi was looking for some leverage to use to get the police off her back.”

  “Demi again,” Serena cried, stunned. She moved away from the crib, taking their conversation to the threshold between her bedroom and the nursery. “You think that Demi Colton is behind this, too,” she said incredulously, then demanded, “Are you kidding me?”

  Carson’s expression was deadly serious. “That shadowy figure could have easily matched a description of Demi’s body type.”

  At another time, she might have been rendered speechless, but this was about her daughter as well and she needed Carson to find whoever was behind this threat—and it wasn’t Demi.

  “Good Lord, by the time you’re done, Demi Colton is going to be behind every crime committed in the county, maybe even in this part of the state.” Did he see how ludicrous what he’d just said sounded? “Demi’s smart, I’ll give you that. But she isn’t some kind of criminal mastermind,” Serena cried.

  “What is this obsession you have with her?” she wanted to know. And then, as if hearing the exasperation in her own voice, Serena took a breath and backed off. “Look, I’m sorry. You saved my baby, and I am very grateful to you. I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.” She dragged her hand through her hair. “I guess I’m just on edge. But I think I got a better look at whoever was in my room than you did—”

  Carson was immediately alert. “You saw the kidnapper’s face?”

  She only wished she had. “No, the kidnapper had on a ski mask. But whoever it was that ran by was too tall to be Demi.”

  Carson wasn’t so sure. “Demi’s about five foot nine, five foot ten and slim. The kidnapper was under six feet and on the thin side.”

  But Serena just shook her head. “No, it’s not her,” she said with conviction. “She doesn’t need to steal my baby.”

  There was something in Serena’s voice that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe she was just being overly protective of the other woman.

  Carson pressed on. “Maybe she wants to hold your daughter for ransom. She knows you’ll pay whatever she asks and a big payoff will go a long way in setting her up in a new life somewhere else.” And then he stopped, thinking. If the kidnapper had tried once, maybe Demi, or whoever it was, would try again. “Maybe you should reconsider staying at the hotel with your family until this blows over.”

  But that was definitely the wrong thing to say to her. “No. I’m not going to let whoever’s doing this run me off my own land,” Serena said fiercely.

  There was bravery—and then there was such a thing as being too brave without considering the consequences. “Even if it means putting your daughter in danger?” Carson wanted to know.

  “I have you to protect her, don’t I?” Serena responded. She could feel anger bubbling up inside of her. “And just what kind of a mother would I be, teaching my daughter that it’s all right to run at the first sign of trouble?”

  Serena had leaped out of her bed when he and Justice had raced into the room. Confronted with the possibility of her daughter being stolen, she hadn’t thought to put on a robe.

  She still hadn’t, and now he found himself wishing that she would. It wasn’t his place to say anything. The nightgown she was wearing wasn’t exactly transparent, but it did cause his imagination to wreak havoc.

  Carson forced himself to focus on what had almost just happened and not on the tantalizing way her breasts rose and fell.

  “Your daughter is three months old. I don’t think she’ll know the difference if you dig in or leave,” he told her sternly.

  Serena’s eyes flashed. Did he think that she was going to hide behind the fact that her daughter was an infant? “Maybe she won’t,” she agreed. “But I’ll know.”

  There were several choice words he wanted to say to her about taking risks and being foolhardy, words that were hovering on the tip of his tongue. With steely resolve, Carson managed to refrain from uttering any of them.

  Instead, he merely grunted in response to the sentiment she’d expressed. He was learning that arguing with the woman was just an exercise in futility.

  “Justice and I are going to have another look around the place, make sure your night caller didn’t get it into his head to double back and try again.” He crossed to the balcony, checking to make sure that the doors leading out were still locked. “When I leave, I want you to lock your doors. Don’t open them to anyone.”

  “Except for you,” she amended, certain he had omitted that part of the instruction.

  “You don’t have to concern yourself with me,” he told her. He nodded toward her bed. “Just try to get some sleep before morning.”

  Right. Sleep. Easy for you to say, Serena thought as she closed her bedroom doors behind Carson and then locked them.

  She went to the balcony doors and checked them even though she had seen Carson lock them earlier and just check them before he left.

  She crossed back into the nursery. It amazed her again that Lora had not only slept through the kidnapping threat but had slept through the raised voices, as well. As for her, she knew that there was no way she was going to get back to sleep, not in her present frame of mind. Every sound that she would hear—or thought she heard—was going to be magnified to twice its volume, if not more.

  Resigned, Serena didn’t even bother lying down. Instead, she decided just to sit and keep vigil in the oversize rocker-recliner that Anders had got her as a gift when Lora was born.

  Wanting to be fully prepared for whatever might happen, Serena took her handgun out of the nightstand drawer and put it on the small table next to the rocker-recliner.

  Sitting down, she proceeded to wait for the intruder to return or for dawn to break, whatever would happen first.

  * * *

  Serena was still in the recliner when daybreak finally came. It seemed like an eternity later to her and she felt somewhat stiff after spending what was left of the night in an upright sitting position.

  But she’d had no intention of being caught off guard again if the intruder returned. An aching body was more than a fair trade-off to knowing her daughter was safe.

  As it was, the only “intruder” she had to deal with was Lora, who woke up twice in the last few hours, once because she was wet, once because she was hungry. Taking care of both needs as they arose, Serena returned her daughter to her crib and each time Lora obligingly went back to sleep.

  Feeling achy and stiff, Serena really wanted to take a shower, but she wanted to make sure that nothing else had gone down during the past night. She’d half expected Carson to check in on her. When he hadn’t, she just assumed that he and his German shepherd had gone back to the guest room.

  However the more time that passed, the more uneasy she became. So finally, pausing only to throw on some clothes, Serena opened her bedroom door, ready to go and knock on the guest room door in order to wake Carson up.

  She didn’t have to.

  Carson was right there, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her door. The second she opened the door, the detective was up on his feet—and Justice was right there beside him.

  Startled, she was quick to silence the gasp that rose to her lips. She did her best to look unfazed about finding him even though the exact opposite was true. Bending down to pet Justice—the canine appeared to have taken a liking to her—she was able to effectively mask her surprise.

  “I thought you were going to spend the night in the guest room,” she said, st
raightening up.

  “Never said that,” Carson reminded her. He was relieved that she’d got dressed before coming out, although there was a part of him that had to admit he’d liked the previous view.

  “You spent the whole night on the floor outside my bedroom?” Serena questioned. Who did that when there was a comfortable bed only yards away?

  “There wasn’t a whole night left after the kidnapper ran off,” he corrected.

  Serena sighed. Her surprised observation wasn’t meant to be the opening line for a debate.

  “Isn’t anything a simple yes or no with you?” she asked, frustrated that there wasn’t such a thing as a simple conversation when it came to this man.

  “No,” he answered honestly.

  The maddening impossibility of the whole situation suddenly hit her and Serena started to laugh.

  Her laughter was infectious and after a minute, Carson’s laughter blended with hers. The laughter continued for more than a couple of minutes and managed to purge some of the ongoing tension that was shimmering between them.

  It also managed to draw the housekeeper, who was already up and dressed, to Serena’s suite.

  The woman made a quick assessment of her own about the state of affairs. Alma looked from Serena to the detective, then smiled. “Apparently, from the sound of it, the night went well.”

  Serena decided to wait to tell the woman about the aborted kidnapping after she had a chance to get some coffee into her system.

  So all she said in response now was, “Well, we’re still here.”

  Alma nodded, looking pleased. “Yes, so I see. There’s a pot of fresh coffee downstairs,” she told Serena.

  “Music to my ears, Alma,” Serena responded.

  Obviously thinking that the two were about to go downstairs to the kitchen, the housekeeper offered, “If you give me a moment, I’ll get Sally up to make you breakfast.”

  But Serena waved away the suggestion. “No, don’t bother. Let Sally sleep in for once. I can handle breakfast for the detective and myself,” Serena told the housekeeper.