net. She’d become a little prisoner, just like I did. Once they knew the whole story, they might even get a court order giving them the right to do that.”
Gradually he began to piece things together. Her disguise, her separation from the baby, her traveling around. He walked over to stand directly in front of her. “What’s the problem, Jess?”
“I need your word that you won’t call my parents.”
“You’re not getting it. That might be the thing to do.”
She looked frantic. “No, it’s not! I won’t have my daughter grow up that way.” Her eyes begged for his understanding. “Please, Nat. Promise you won’t bring them into this.”
He shook his head. “No promises. I understand what you’re afraid of. I’ve seen Franklin Hall and I’m sure you were very lonely there. But there are worse things than being lonely.” And he was the guy who could testify to that. “You’ll have to trust me. I wouldn’t contact them unless I thought it was absolutely necessary, but if they’re your best alternative, and you’re being too pigheaded to see that, then—”
“You never lived there.” She pushed out of the chair and brushed past him, headed for the bathroom. “Tell you what. My main objective was to tell you about Elizabeth, and I’ve done that. All I ask is that if anything should happen to me, you’ll see about our baby.” She went into the bathroom.
He was across the room with one hand bracing the door before she could close it. “Stop right there.” His heart hammered in his ears. “What the hell do you mean, if something should happen to you?”
She looked at him. “There are no guarantees in life, are there? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get dressed and out of your way.”
“The hell you will.” Seventeen months ago he wouldn’t have thrown his weight around. That was before he’d lived in the middle of a war zone, where life could be snuffed out in an instant. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the room. “You’re obviously in some kind of danger, and you are, by God, going to tell me about it.”
She resisted, trying to struggle out of his grip. Her color was high, and she was breathing hard. “This macho routine isn’t like you.”
“I’ve changed. Now tell me.”
“Why should I?”
Both fury and passion put the same bloom in her cheeks and the same hitch in her breathing, he noticed. He might not recognize the difference, except for the look in her eyes. “Well, for one thing—” he grabbed her other wrist “—you’re the mother of my child.” Saying it made him shudder, but the fact gave him some rights.
Her eyes spit fire. “I have always put Elizabeth first, and I always will. I’ll make sure she’s safe, no matter what happens to me.”
“She needs you.” He tightened his grip on her wrists. “And damn it, so do I.”
“No, you don’t!” Tears of frustration filled her eyes. “You just need me for sex!”
His throat ached with remorse. Of course she’d think that. He forced the words past the lump in his throat. “Oh, I need you for sex, all right. Like you wouldn’t believe. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart.”
Her response was low and choked with tears. “I don’t believe you. Now let me go.”
“No. Tell me what danger you’re in. I have a right to know.”
She gazed up at him and he could tell from the turmoil in her eyes how hard she was trying to be tough, how desperately she wanted to handle whatever she was dealing with by herself.
He couldn’t let her do it. “Tell me. For Elizabeth’s sake.” Saying the baby’s name, acknowledging her personhood, took another major effort on his part, but he figured it might turn the trick with Jess.
It did. Her shoulders slumped. “Someone’s trying to kidnap me,” she murmured.
“Oh, God.” He didn’t remember letting go of her wrists to wrap his arms around her, but all at once there she was in his arms, and he was holding on for dear life as he rocked her back and forth. He buried his face in her hair. “Oh, God, Jess.” He knew about kidnapping. In the political upheaval he’d just witnessed, people had been kidnapped all the time. They never came back.
“It’s just like my dad predicted!” she wailed, hugging him tightly. “In Aspen I thought someone might be following me. Then a car tried to force me off the road one night. Thank God Elizabeth wasn’t with me. I got away, but I saw the same car following me another time, and I knew for sure then. Somebody has found out who I am. They’ve decided to snatch the Franklin heir.”
With growing horror he listened as the story came tumbling out. She’d traded in her car for a different one, packed up the baby and taken her to the Rocking D for safekeeping. For the past six months she’d been on the run. But it had been a creative run.
Using different disguises and modes of transportation, she’d tried to elude the kidnapper. But just when she thought she had, a man would follow her along a crowded street, far enough away that she couldn’t positively identify him, but close enough for her to suspect he was the same man. By keeping her wits about her, she’d stayed out of his clutches.
When she was finished, Nat held her tight for a long moment. Then he sighed. “We’re calling the police.”
“No!” She backed away from him. “The minute you do that, my parents will be all over this situation, and then my life as we know it will be over.”
“Your life as you know it is totally screwed up!”
“No, it isn’t.” She tucked her wayward hair behind her ears, which made her look like a schoolgirl. A sexy schoolgirl.
He was determined not to be distracted. “The hell it isn’t. You have a kidnapper on your trail and you can’t even risk being close to your baby as a result.”
“I can risk it now that you’re home.”
“Now, wait a minute. Flattering as that sounds, I can’t have you thinking I’m an adequate bodyguard.”
“You just said you’d changed. And I can see it. You’re more aggressive than you were seventeen months ago.”
“I’m not a trained bodyguard, and your parents are exactly the people who could—”
“Oh, gee, look at the time.” She glanced at her bare wrist and started back toward the bathroom. “Gotta run.”
“Oh, hell.” He clamped a hand on her shoulder to keep her from disappearing behind the closed door. Holding her firmly by the shoulder, he heaved a gusty sigh. “Are you telling me that if I call your parents, you’ll take off and leave me to deal with them?” He didn’t relish the thought of facing Russell P. Franklin alone and announcing he’d gotten the Franklin heir with child.
She glanced over her shoulder. Jess was the sort of woman who could be provocative without even trying. “I guess that’s about the size of it, Nathaniel Andrew.”
“That’s blackmail, Jessica Louise.”
She smiled a vixen’s smile. “I know.”
He couldn’t decide which he’d rather do, strangle her or kiss that saucy mouth until she moaned. He did neither. “You’re blackmailing your parents, too, you know. Your dad wants to put a private detective on your trail so bad he can taste it, but your mother won’t let him because she thinks you’ll go away for good if he does.”
“She’s right.”
Turning her to face him, he grasped her other shoulder and barely stopped himself from giving her a shake. “Jess, what if this kidnapper gets ahold of you? What if he decides, after getting the ransom money, to just kill you? Have you thought of that?”
She