His Baby Surprise by Lisa Childs

Author:Lisa Childs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

HORRIFIED BY WHAT SHE SAW, Priscilla could only stare, eyes wide with shock, stomach knotted with dread. A cry burned in her throat, but she couldn’t utter it or she might awaken the sleeping baby nestled in her arms.

Although the quality of the video was gritty, Brooks’s image was clear. First his helmet flew off, skittering across the rink. Then he fell back, and his head slammed onto the ice.

Her breath caught, a gasp slipping through her lips. He lay there, not moving. The camera panned to his face, where blood trailed from his ear, across his cheek, and trickled onto the ice. “Oh my God,” she whispered. He’d cracked his skull.

“Sports Central obtained footage of this practice from five weeks ago, of a fight between Brooks Hoover and a teammate resulting in an injury that has sidelined Hoover for the season,” the commentator reported. “According to a source at River City Memorial Hospital, Hoover was in a coma for days and may have sustained permanent brain damage from his fractured skull.”

Her hand shaking, she grabbed up the remote and paused the digital recorder on the image of Brooks lying there lifelessly. Even when she’d caught him sleeping in his office, he hadn’t been completely still. There’d been a tension to his body, in the line of his square jaw, in the flash of the dimple in his cheek.

There was no tension, no spark, no trace of his energy and indomitable spirit in that body lying on the ice. The image blurred as tears welled in her eyes. The press might have been sensationalizing the story some, but she didn’t doubt he’d had a close call, closer than any other in his reckless life.

As if sensing her emotional state, the baby whimpered and stirred. “Shh, Faith,” she murmured softly, lulling the child back to sleep. “It’s okay. He’s okay.”

A knock drew her attention away from the TV, but before she could lift the baby from her lap, the door opened and Brooks stepped inside, shaking raindrops from his damp curls. He flashed that grin, the one that had the dimple piercing his cheek and mischief dancing in his eyes.

Her breath hitched, and she tried to curve her lips into a smile in response. But instead of seeing him now, vibrantly alive in front of her, she saw him lying on the ice, the blood pooling beneath his head.

“Everything all right?” he asked, dropping to his knees in front of the couch. He leaned over the baby on her lap and ran his fingertip along the delicate line of the infant’s jaw.

She nodded. “Great. She’s been sleeping since you dropped her off.”

“Sheesh, woman, I need to bring you home with me.”

Priscilla’s heart rate sped up. “Why—why would you say that?”

He grinned. “Because you’re about the only one who can get Faith here to sleep. The boys think she’s a werewolf, that as soon as the sun goes down she starts howling at the moon.”

“That’s probably why she’s sleeping now,” Priscilla pointed out.

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