In Protective Custody. Beth Cornelison

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СКАЧАТЬ His first priority was getting out of Dodge. Fast. He might have the child with Emily’s permission, but the Rialtos made their own rules.

      Max pulled out of the garage and darted into the evening traffic. Emily’s son continued to wail like a fire engine siren. The thought of the Rialtos’ armed guard on his heels kicked Max’s pulse up a notch. He zipped through a yellow light, anxious to put distance between himself and the gorilla at the hospital.

      He thought of the wistful expression on Emily’s face as she’d kissed her son goodbye, and his throat clogged.

      “I’ve done my part, Em. Now you fight, damn it!” He hated not being at her side. What if she got worse or…?

      Don’t think that way. Visualize success. Make it happen. Wasn’t that what he told the kids he coached in the Pee Wee football league?

      Max drew a deep breath and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel.

      Focus. Focus.

      But the baby’s cries reached a fervid pitch, and he couldn’t think, much less concentrate on the problems at hand. As he headed away from the hospital, he encountered a roadblock where a construction crew was fixing the street. A backlog of cars inched toward the detour.

      Frustrated with his slow progress, Max zipped around a bus of tourists and turned down a side street. He crawled a few more blocks until he turned onto Canal Street headed toward the French Quarter. Snarled in traffic, Max flicked a glance to his rearview mirror. No sign of the armed henchman. But Max knew the thug hadn’t given up. He was still hunting him.

      When a group of women dashed in front of him to catch one of the city’s famous streetcars, he stood on the brakes to avoid hitting them. The near miss sent an extra jolt of adrenaline through his already edgy system. By the time he turned on Baronne, headed toward the Crescent City Connection and his home in Belle Chasse, his nephew’s screams had completely frayed his nerves. What if the kid was in pain?

      Remembering the pacifier he’d jammed in his pocket at the hospital, Max fished the little plastic device from his jeans and picked off the lint that clung to the nipple.

      “Easy, little guy,” he crooned to the baby. “Here.” He twisted toward the backseat and fumbled to find the baby’s mouth. Tiny fists hit his hand as Max searched for his target. By now, the child’s screams could curdle blood.

      He swerved to avoid a pedestrian who seemed more interested in the panhandling saxophone player on the corner than the traffic. Keeping an eye on the bumper in front of him, Max groped blindly across the baby’s face until he found his nephew’s mouth, opened wide in a deafening howl. The infant latched on to his finger and sucked hard.

      “Try this instead.” He swapped the pacifier for his finger, and a blessed silence filled the car.

      For about thirty seconds.

      He heard the soft clunk when the pacifier fell out of the baby’s mouth, and Max braced himself.

      His nephew let out an angry wail. Max groaned. Escaping the Rialtos’ thug no longer seemed his biggest problem. What if he never got the little banshee to stop crying?

      Max could enter a burning house with confidence in his firefighting skill and training, but knowing he was in charge of a tiny, needy, noisy life scared him spitless. What if he did the wrong thing and hurt the kid? What if he didn’t get the hang of it the way a new father was supposed to? If he failed this time, he’d let two people down, Emily and her son.

      Sighing, he turned toward the backseat and fumbled in the car seat for the lost pacifier. When his fingers closed around the cool plastic, relief zinged through his blood.

      He stuck the device in the baby’s mouth and glanced back to the traffic—just as his Cherokee plowed into the back of a white Camry with a nauseating crunch.

      More screeching tires. Then the jarring crunch of another car hitting him from behind.

      Max muttered a scorching curse.

      The driver of the Camry climbed out and glared at him.

      And his nephew lost his pacifier again.

      Laura Dalton winced as she watched the black Cherokee ram into the Camry. Right after that, a pickup truck smashed into the back of the Cherokee. The crunch of the collisions skittered through her system, shooting adrenaline through her veins. Heart thudding, she pulled onto a side street and climbed from her Honda on shaky legs to see if she could help.

      Please don’t let anyone be hurt. She could handle all the baby barf and dirty diapers that her job at the day care center doled out, but the sight of blood sent her into a panic.

      She scowled, realizing none of the other drivers who’d witnessed the accident had stopped to assist or give their statements to the cops.

      But Laura knew too well what it was like to need someone yet have no one to turn to. She couldn’t easily turn her back when she saw a chance to help.

      The driver of the Camry climbed out and scowled at his crumpled fender, but he seemed unharmed. One down. As she approached the scene, the driver of the Cherokee, a tall, good-looking man with jet black hair, got out and stepped to his back door. While he leaned in the backseat of his car, Laura made her way to the pickup where the driver had yet to emerge.

      She knocked on the truck’s window, and the blond teenage girl at the wheel rolled down the window.

      “Are you all right?” Laura asked, searching the teen’s pale face.

      “I…yeah. Oh, God…my dad’s gonna kill me!” The girl buried her face in her hands and groaned.

      “But you’re okay physically? You’re not hurt?”

      “No. I’m fine…thanks.” The girl flashed her a weak smile.

      Laura returned a relieved grin. “Just remind your dad what’s important. You’re safe. That’s what matters. I have a cell phone in my car if you need to call your parents.”

      “Okay. Thanks.” The girl gave her another timid grin, flashing a set of braces.

      The familiar howl of a baby in distress called Laura’s attention away from the teenager in the truck.

      The Cherokee’s driver pulled an infant, still strapped in a baby carrier, out of his backseat and set the carrier on the ground beside the car. Images of an injured child flashed through Laura’s mind, chilling her blood. “Oh, no.”

      She hurried over to the raven-haired man who hunkered over the car seat, fumbling to unfasten the baby from the straps.

      “Is she hurt?” Laura asked.

      “It’s a boy. And he’s okay. I think.” The man added an obscenity as he struggled with trembling hands to free the infant from the straps.

      “Here. Let me.” She nudged the man aside and mashed the release button that freed the baby of the seat straps. The infant’s cries wrenched her heart. He was tiny, like a newborn, and his face had turned beet red from bawling.

      The man raked a hand through his black hair, leaving the thick waves rumpled. Taking his son from her, he awkwardly СКАЧАТЬ