Baby's Watch

Author:Justine Davis [Davis, Justine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Suspense, Contemporary, Ex-Convicts, Colton Family (Fictitious Characters), Kidnapping, Mexicans, Infants
ISBN: 9780373276141
Google: 4DhRtGUjdYMC
Amazon: 0373276141
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Ana set her jaw.

“No.”

She said it firmly. She had somehow found the backbone to face down her father, and her fiancé. She had had the courage to sneak out when they’d tried to confine her. She’d had the nerve to make her way on the perilous path out of her country to a different, strange, wonderful yet frightening place where she was determined to make a new life for herself and her baby.

She certainly was not going to back down now just because this man had told her to stay here and let him handle this. She was through blindly trusting the men in her life to do the right thing.

She had put her trust in this man, that was true.

But not blindly.

“Ana, you can’t. You need to stay here, wait for me to—”

“I will not.”

“It’s only been two weeks since Maria was born. You can’t go chasing off—”

“I am fine. And that is for me to decide.”

“These are dangerous men.”

She glanced at the bloody washcloth she had used to clean his face, his ribs, then met his gaze.

“Do you truly think I do not know this?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“They have my baby,” Ana said simply, as if there was nothing else to be said.

And for her, that was true.

Ryder studied her for a long, silent moment. She returned his gaze levelly, masking her instinctive sympathetic response to his battered face. And hiding the unwanted appreciation she was feeling for the beautiful way this man was put together. Hard and lean, not soft like Alberto. Just looking at his bare chest made her feel odd longings, made her wonder what it would feel like pressed against her.

She wished he would put his shirt back on.

She was not unaware that, if he was telling her the truth, he had already sacrificed a great deal for Maria. But her past experience had taught her the value of that simple word if.

“I appreciate what you have done,” she began, then stopped when a sardonic expression flitted across his face.

“If I’d done what I should have,” he said as he did as she’d silently wished and pulled his bloodied shirt back on, “I’d have been bringing Maria home to you, not just dragging my own sorry ass here.”

The bitterness in his voice startled her, and despite her doubts, she found she believed that it was genuine. He truly blamed himself for not rescuing her baby right then, outnumbered or not.

She still had reservations, and deep inside she feared she might regret going against her better judgment, but her judgment had told her for too long to ignore the obvious about her father, and then about Alberto.

“You say you can find her.”

“I’ve never been so close to cracking the ring. Never known when they had…a baby in the pipeline, only found out afterward. This is the time, when the pathway they’ve built is in use.”

Ana listened. It made sense. But when it came down to it, much as she might hate the idea of what these men were doing, only one thing mattered to her.

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