Newborn Conspiracy

NEWBORN CONSPIRACY

DELORES FOSEEN

Fall Creek, Texas The muffled scream woke Logan McGrath. He snapped to a sitting position in the leather Dec, turned his ear toward the sound and listened. Even through the haze of his heavy pain meds and bone-weary fatigue, he didn’t have to listen long or hard to hear the raspy moans and gasps.

Someone was in a lot of pain, perhaps dying. And that someone was on the front porch.

Because he was a man who usually dealt with worst-case scenarios, Logan automatically considered that this might be a burglar or a killer. But since he was at his brother’s house in the tiny picturesque town of Fall Creek, which wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, he had to consider another possibility: that his brother, a doctor, had a visitor, a patient who was about to die on the porch. It made sense since there wasn’t a hospital in town.

Just to be safe, Logan grabbed his Sig-Sauer from the end table next to him and maneuvered himself out of the chair not easily. It took effort. Lots of it.

He cursed the intrusion, the throbbing pain and the unidentified SOB who’d put a. 38 jacketed slug in his right leg four days ago—on Christmas day, no less.

Some Christmas present.

Logan wore only his bathrobe and boxers, and he considered a detour to the guest bedroom for a shirt and shoes. But after two steps, he changed his mind. If someone was truly dying on the porch, they’d be long dead before he could get dressed and back to him.

Another moan. Another muffled scream.

Yep, he had to hurry. Logan jammed his cane onto the hardwood floor to get better traction, and with thirteen excruciating steps, he made it to the door. He aimed his gun, and braced himself for whatever he was about to have to deal with as he glanced out a side window.

The sun was just starting to set, but there was still plenty of light for him to see the blue car parked in front of his brother’s isolated country house, Logan had to look down, however, to see the driver.

She was lying on the porch. Her tan wool coat and long, loose dark-green dress were hiked up to her thighs, and she had her hands clutched on her swollen, pregnant belly.

She was writhing in pain.

Logan dropped his gun onto the pine entry table, threw open the door and maneuvered himself onto the porch. It wasn’t freezing but it was close and he felt the chill slide over his bare chest and feet.

She turned her head, snared his gaze, and he saw the horrible agony in her earthy brown eyes.

“Help me," she begged. Her warm breath mixed with the frigid December air and created a misty haze around her milky pale face."My water broke when I got out of the car and the pains are already nonstop."

So, not dying. In labor. Not the end of the world but still a huge concern.

She needed a doctor now.

Logan turned to go back inside to make the call to 911, but she latched on to his arm and didn’t let go. For such a weak-looking little thing, she had a powerful grip. She dug in her fingernails and dragged Logan down beside her.

He banged his leg on the door jamb and could have sworn he saw stars. Still, he pushed the godawful pain aside—after some grimacing and grunting of his own—and he tried to figure out what the heck he should do.

“Who are you?" he asked.

She clamped her teeth over her bottom lip, but he still heard the groan."It’s not the time for introductions" she grumbled. She fought to rip off her panties and then threw them aside."Help me!"

“I’ve never delivered a baby before," he crumbled back, but Logan knew he was in the wrong position if he stood any chance of helping her.

Another of her muffled screams got him moving. Plus, she drew blood with her fingernails.

Somehow, he managed to get to the other end of her.

What Logan saw when he looked between her legs had him wanting to run for the phone again.

Oh, mercy. The baby’s head was already partially out and that meant they didn’t have time for an ambulance to arrive.

“I think you’re supposed to push" Logan suggested. Heaven knows why he said that. Maybe he’d heard it on TV. Or maybe this was just some crazy dream brought on by prescription pain meds. Man, he hoped that’s all it was.

The woman obviously didn’t doubt his advice, because she pushed. Hard Logan positioned his hands under the baby’s head, and he watched. That long push strained the veins on the woman’s neck, and it also eased the baby out farther. He didn’t just see a head but a tiny face.

Realizing he had to do something, Logan pulled off his terry-cloth robe and laid it between her legs so that the baby wouldn’t land on the cold wood. It was barely in time. As the woman pushed again, the baby’s shoulders and back appeared.

“One more push should do it" Logan told her.

She made a throaty, raspy sound and bore down, shoving her feet against the porch. Seconds later, the tiny baby slid right into Logan’s hands.

Wow, was his first reaction.

Followed quickly by holly frickin’ hell.

Logan had experienced a lot of crazy and amazing things in his life, but he knew this was going to go to the top of his list.

“It’s a boy, " he let her know.

And that baby boy had some strength because he began to cry at the top of his newborn lungs. Obviously, he wasn’t having any trouble breathing on his own and Logan was thankful for that. He wouldn’t have had a clue what to do if there’d been complications.

Going purely on instinct, Logan bundled the bathrobe around the baby, especially around his head, and pulled him to his chest to keep him warm.

“A boy," she repeated. She sounded both relieved and exhausted.

The woman pushed again to expel the afterbirth and then tried to sit up. She didn’t make it on her first attempt, but she did it on her second. She reached for the baby, Logan eased him into her arms.

It was strange. He immediately felt a… loss. Probably because he was freezing and the tiny baby had been warm.

The mother looked down at her newborn and smiled. It was a moment he’d remember, all right. Her, sitting there with her fiery red hair haloing her face and shoulders, and the tiny baby snuggled and crying in Logan’s own bathrobe.

“My son," she whispered.

And then she said something that nearly knocked the breath out of Logan.

“He’s your nephew."

Oh, man. Oh. Man. It was obviously time for him to talk to his brother.

“I’ll go inside and call an ambulance." he told her. He began the maneuvering it’d take to get him up."By the way, we should probably do those introductions now. But you obviously already know’ that I’m Logan McGrath."

Because he was eye level with her when he introduced himself, he saw her reaction. It was some big reaction, too. She sucked in her breath, and her mouth began to tremble.

“You can’t be," she said, her voice trembling, too."This is Finn McGrath’s house."

“My brother isn’t here," he told her."He’s on rounds at the hospital in a nearby town." In addition to confusing him, she’d also captured his attention with that comment and her reaction."Who are you? Are you a friend of my brother?"

She frantically shook her head and put her index finger in the baby’s mouth. He began to suck and stopped crying."I need a doctor."

He wanted answers, but they would have to wait."Come inside," he insisted, “It’s too cold out here."

“I don’t think I can get up. Please, just call an ambulance."

Well, he certainly couldn’t help her get to her feet. He could barely get up himself. So, Logan tried to hurry as much as he could. With lots of pain and effort, he made it back into the living room. All thirteen steps. He dialed 911, reported the incident and requested an ambulance. He also requested that they contact his brother and have him accompany that ambulance to his house.

“Get the baby and mother inside ASAP." the emergency operator insisted."It’s dangerous for a newborn to be in the cold."

Logan agreed with her, hung up, then wondered how the heck he was going to accomplish that with his bum leg. He was more likely to fall than to be able to lift them. Still, he’d have to do it somehow.

With his cane clacking on the floor and his mind racing with possible solutions to his lack of mobility. Logan went back to the porch.

He got there just in time to see that it was empty. No mother. No newborn baby. Just a lot of blood. And the blue car was speeding away.

San Antonio, Texas Six weeks later

Mia Crandall peered out the double glass doors of the Wilson Pediatric clinic to make sure there wasn’t anyone suspicious lurking in the parking lot. There were a handful of cars, no one on the adjacent sidewalk and no one who seemed to be waiting for her to come out.

Everything was okay.

Well, everything but the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach, but Mia had been living with that particular feeling for months now. She was beginning to wonder if it would ever go away.

She looked down at her newborn son. Tanner, and smiled. He was still sleeping, tucked in the warm, soft covers of the baby carrier. For his six-week-old checkup, Mia had dressed him in a new blue one-piece baby outfit and a matching knit cap. Still, it was winter, so she draped another blanket over the top of the carrier so he wouldn’t get cold. She retrieved her pepper-spray key chain from her diaper bag and hurried out into the bitter weather.

It was already past five-thirty and the temperature had plunged since she’d first gone inside nearly an hour earlier. She’d had one of the last appointments of the day. Not accidental, but by design. The winter sun was already low in the sky and Mia hoped the duskiness would prevent her from being easily seen.

The wind slammed into her face, cutting her breath, but she kept up the fast pace until she made it to her car. During the past year, she’d learned to hurry, to stay out of plain sight, to go out as little as possible. It was second nature now.

She strapped Tanner’s carrier into the rear-facing brackets mounted in the backseat and then slipped in behind the steering wheel. She started to turn on the engine, but the sound stopped her.

There was a sharp rap on the passenger’s side window.

Mia’s gaze whipped toward the sound and she saw a man staring at her. But this wasn’t just any ordinary man.

Oh, God. He’d found her.

Choking back a gasp. Mia grabbed for the lock, but it was already too late. Logan McGrath pulled open the passenger’s door and calmly got inside her car as if he had every right to do just that.

He was dressed all in black. Black pants, black pullover shirt and black leather coat. His hair was midnight black, as well, and slightly shorter than it’d been when she had seen him six weeks earlier. Maybe it was all that black attire that made his eyes stand out. They were glacier blue. Cold, hard. Demanding.

She remembered that he’d been hurt the night she had given birth to Tanner. He’d used a cane and could barely walk. But he didn’t seem at a disadvantage now. She couldn’t say the same for herself. He out-sized her and no doubt had years of martial arts training. Still, she had something he didn’t.

A maternal instinct to protect her son.

Mia forced herself not to panic. She thrust her hand in the diaper bag and located her cell phone. She was about to call 911 when Logan McGrath caught her wrist and took the phone from her, he also took her keys with the pepper spray and the diaper bag, shoving all the items on the floor next to him.

When he moved, his leather coat shifted, just a little. Enough for her to get a glimpse of the shoulder holster and gun tucked beneath it. But then, he probably didn’t go many places without that firearm.

Mia lifted her chin and put some steel in her expression. There was no way she was going to let this man take control of the situation.

“Get out!" she ordered.

“Soon, I came to pick up my bathrobe. You took it with you when you left Fall Creek."

So, he obviously knew who she was. Not that he would likely forget delivering a baby on his brother’s front porch. He was also obviously good with the sarcasm. Calm and cool under pressure.

Unlike her.

Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might leap out of her chest. Mia couldn’t let him see that fear, though. For her baby’s sake, she had to get this man out of her car. Somehow.