Colton Under Fire. Cindy Dees

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      He stopped just inside the door to a small lounge with linoleum-topped tables, plastic chairs and institutional fluorescent lights. Gently, he laid a fingertip on her lips. “I’m a police detective. We were shorthanded at the station tonight, so I volunteered to transport a prisoner who got sick in the drunk tank.”

      “You’re a cop?”

      He grinned and steered her over to the coffeepot.

      “How was law school?” he asked over his shoulder.

      How—Fox. Of course. “It was hard. But fascinating.”

      She scrutinized him as he studied the self-service line. She supposed some people might call him boyishly handsome, but she sensed a quiet strength in him. Mature. Reliable.

      Funny, but a few years ago, she would’ve called Liam boring. And then she went and married an exciting man who took her straight to hell. Boring was starting to look pretty darn good these days. It was amazing how time and life changed a person’s point of view.

      “How do you like your coffee?” he asked.

      “As black as my soul,” she replied dryly.

      “Do tell,” he replied mildly. One corner of his mouth turned up sinfully, though, for just a moment. “Tuna salad okay with you?”

      She picked up the cups of coffee and carried them to a table while he went to a vending machine and bought two sandwiches in triangular plastic packages, two bags of chips, a packet of baby carrots and a bag of apple slices.

      He dumped his haul on the table and slid into the seat opposite her. “I haven’t seen you around Roaring Springs since you left for college. What have you been up to since then, Sloane?”

      She ripped open a sandwich package and bit into the day-old bread and nearly dry tuna. Not that she cared what anything tasted like at the moment. “After I graduated from law school at Colorado State, I moved to Denver and got a job as a criminal defense attorney at Schueller, Mangowitz and Durant.”

      Liam whistled under his breath. “That’s a high-powered firm.”

      She rolled her eyes. “The women there call it Chauvinist, Misogynist and Douchebag.”

      “Ouch. That bad?”

      “Worse,” she growled.

      “I sense a story.”

      “Don’t be a detective tonight, okay?”

      He threw up his hands. “No interrogations out of me.” He took a cautious sip of his coffee. “Am I still allowed to ask what brings you to Roaring Springs—as a friend-slash-past-tormentor? ”

      She shrugged, sipping at her own coffee. “I’ve moved back home with Chloe—she’s my daughter—to give her a better life.”

      “Better than what?”

      Darn it. He was being all perceptive, again. “Better than a rotten father and a failed marriage.”

      Liam laid his hand on top of hers briefly. Just a quick touch of his warm, calloused palm on the back of her hand. But the comfort offered was almost more than she could bear right now. She was too worried about Chloe. Her emotions—usually carefully suppressed—were too close to the surface.

      She spent the next few minutes fixedly concentrating on her food and regaining her emotional equilibrium. Or trying to, at least.

      As if he sensed her teetering on the edge of a breakdown, he gathered up the empty food packaging and said briskly, “Take the chips with you. Let’s go see if there’s any news on your daughter.”

      As they walked back to the emergency ward, he said quietly, “The docs here are excellent. Chloe’s in good hands.”

      She nodded, her throat too tight for a response.

      Liam’s timing was perfect because, as they rounded the corner into the emergency area, the nurse who’d taken Chloe away for the CT scan came toward them.

      “Where’s my daughter?” Sloane demanded, her inner mama bear on full alert.

      “Come with me, Mrs. Durant.”

      “Colton. Ms. Colton. I’m not keeping my ex-husband’s name.”

      “Right. The doctor would like to admit your daughter overnight.”

      “Why?” Sloane croaked.

      “The doctor will fill you in.”

      She wanted to scream as the nurse walked at far too leisurely a pace to an elevator. Sloane was barely aware of Liam holding the elevator door for her as it opened on the third floor, or that he kept pace beside her as she charged for the doctor standing at the far end of the hall.

      Please God, let Chloe be all right. She was Sloane’s entire world.

      The doctor stood just outside a room with a glass window in the wall. Inside the dimly lit hospital room, Chloe was asleep in a stainless steel crib. She looked so tiny and lost among the wires and blankets.

      “What’s wrong?” Sloane demanded without preamble.

      “She doesn’t have appendicitis, or an intestinal blockage, or an enlarged spleen. But since her fever still hasn’t broken, I want to keep her here for observation until we can get her temperature down to a safe level. This is probably just the virus that’s been going around. But babies can get hit hard by things like this.” Fixing his gaze on hers, he asked calmly, “Has your daughter been sick recently? Under unusual stress that might have compromised her immune system?”

      “Oh, God.” Guilt crashed in on her. “We moved from Denver recently as part of my divorce. It’s been hard on Chloe, and she has been reverting to baby behaviors. I had no idea I compromised her immune system. I’m a terrible mother. I should have realized something like this would happen—” She broke off on a sobbing breath.

      Arms came around her, gentle and strong. She didn’t care whose they were. Her baby was seriously ill and she’d completely missed the signs until Little Bug was burning up with fever. Ivan was right. She wasn’t fit to be a mother. Chloe would be better off with him and the expensive professional nanny he would hire to raise his daughter for him.

      The doctor commented from somewhere beyond the circle of Liam’s arms, “This virus comes on fast. You didn’t miss any warning signs, Ms. Colton. The fever was likely the first symptom anyone would have noticed. And you got her here before the fever became dangerous.”

      Sloane lifted her head to glare at the doctor. “Don’t coddle me. I suck as a parent.”

      Liam’s voice rumbled with light humor in her ear. “You couldn’t suck at anything you put your mind to.”

      She would have argued with him, but the doctor commented, “If you’d like to spend the night with Chloe, there’s a daybed in her room by the window.”

      Duh. Of course she was staying with Chloe. Her baby would be scared to СКАЧАТЬ