Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series) (19 page)

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just dropped something,” but he heard the quaver in her voice.

“Open the door,” he commanded.

“I told you, it’s okay. I just knocked some makeup off the counter.”

“Open the door
now
, Grace, or I’ll force it.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I think you know I would, though it’s not my first choice. It’d give them a reason to remember us.”

Silence for a few seconds, then the knob turned under his hand. He released it, letting Grace draw the door inward.

He expected to see her looking pinched and pale as she had this afternoon, but her face was flushed.

He dropped his gaze to the floor. Well, she wasn’t lying about the makeup. Her purse lay on the floor, much of its contents strewn on the ceramic tiles. Then he saw the box from the pharmacy.

He bent to retrieve it. Rotating it, he read the label. Willing his face blank, he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

“Grace, is there something you been meaning to tell me?”

G
RACE
’
S FACE BURNED AS
she brought her right hand from behind her back. In it, she held the small test stick. Two pink lines glowed up at her.

Ray’s face remained impassive, but a muscle leapt in his jaw. “What’s that mean? Positive?”

Tears clogged her throat, so she just nodded.

“I see.”

The complete lack of inflection in his tone betrayed the depth of his shock, as did his blank-faced expression. Something vital inside her felt as though it were tearing away.

“Ray....”

“I’ll go get us some supper.”

She reached for him, motivated by the crazy idea that she could somehow draw his pain away. Like an electrical shock, maybe it would pass through him harmlessly and terminate in her chest, leaving ashes and dust where her aching heart now beat. But he pulled away, backing out of the bathroom.

“Pizza all right?”

Oh, God, he was doing it again, shutting her out, shutting down. Dropping the test stick, she followed him to the bedroom.

“Ray, we need to talk.”

“Pizza it is, then.”

He picked his wallet up off the nightstand where he’d dropped it and shoved it back into the pocket of his jeans.

“Please.” She touched his arm, only to have him wrench away again. “Ray, we really need to talk about this.”

Finally, his unnatural composure slipped.

“Not now, Grace. Now would be a very bad time to talk.”

Her gaze flew to his face. For an instant, his brown eyes looked bleaker than she’d ever seen them. Then the mask was back again.

Nabbing the keys from the top of the TV, he strode to the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he paused. Hope rose in her chest that he might stay and hear her out, but his next words quashed it.

“Remember, let no one in.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he lifted his t-shirt and drew his pistol out of its holster. Crossing to the nightstand, he deposited it beside the clock radio. “Don’t touch it unless you need to,” he warned. “It’s loaded, there’s a round in the chamber, and there’s no safety.”

She blanched. “I don’t want it. You know I hate guns.”

“You’ve got sixteen rounds,” he said, as though he hadn’t heard her. “One in the chamber, fifteen more in the clip.”

He really was going to leave it. “I don’t know how to use it.”

“Just point it and squeeze the trigger,” he said. “It’s loaded with hollow-point ammunition. Aim for the center of mass and it’ll do damage. Just don’t shoot me when I come back.”

With that he left, the door closing behind him with a quiet
snick
. Why couldn’t he have slammed the damn thing? She’d rather his anger than this icy control.

Stifling a sob, she sat down on the bed. Outside, she heard the Toyota’s engine leap to life, but he didn’t peel out angrily. Rather, he reversed out of the parking space with careful control, then drove off. Misery a leaden lump in her belly, she curled up into a ball on the bed.

But there was something else in her belly.

A new life.

She put a hand on her flat stomach.

“It’s okay, baby,” she said, trying hard to believe her own words. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”

The crowd of teens hanging out in the pizzeria’s parking lot fell silent at Ray’s approach. He was used to that happening. Kids could smell a cop a mile away, even one in plain clothes. It took him a few seconds to register that he wasn’t getting the hostility he usually got. He must be doing better at what Grace called ‘the walk’.

“Dude, nice ink,” said one of them, a male of seventeen or eighteen, with several tattoos of his own. Undoubtedly real ones, unlike Ray’s, which had to be covered up in the shower and frequently retouched. Ray walked on.

The kid detached himself from the group and fell into step. “Hey, bro, you look like a man needs to take some edge off.”

Ray raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Got just the thing. Some quality bale.”

Cripes. Seventeen years old and selling weed on the street corner. He forced his fisted hands to relax. “No, thanks.”

“Sure? Thai stick, maybe?”

Ray gritted his teeth against the urge to put the kid facedown on the pavement. “No sale.”

“Pharmaceuticals, then? Uppers, downers....”

Losing patience, Ray aimed a hard look at the kid, who backed off immediately, raising his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Hey, you already hooked up? That’s cool, man.”

The boys melted away. Sighing, Ray went inside and placed his order. Twenty minutes, they told him, so he ordered a beer and sat in a booth to wait.

Pregnant.

What a goddamn disaster. He shoved a hand through his hair, then tipped the bottle up for a long haul. The beer, hardly colder than room temperature, tasted sharper than it should, yeasty. Still, it tasted like about eight more.

But getting drunk would be the height of stupidity, and he was done being stupid.

He laughed. Who was he kidding? He’d barely scratched the surface of stupid. Stupid was torturing himself with the idea of another man planting his seed in his wife’s belly.

Ray tipped the bottle and took a fierce pull. God, he hated those images. Hated himself for having them.

Think, Morgan.

Okay, where did this leave him?

Somewhere along the way, he’d decided that once Grace got her memory back and they’d escaped this shit-storm they’d blundered into, he’d walk away, leaving her to her new man. But now, if she were pregnant, there’d be no quick break.

Hell, if the baby was his, there’d be no break at all. He’d be damned if he’d step back and let another man raise his child.

He put the near-empty beer down and pushed it away.

He’d been getting through the days and nights by telling himself Grace would get her memory back any time now. When that happened, they’d be able to go in. They’d be safe, free to go their separate ways. He’d be relieved of the daily torture of being so close to her. But this pregnancy pretty much killed his chances of being delivered from this hell any time soon.

So why, underneath all this anger, did he feel like a man who’d been granted a reprieve?

Cursing silently, he drained his beer, then got up to check on his order.

Grace woke to the sound of the lock turning.

“Just me.”

Groggily, she pulled herself up to a sitting position on the rumpled bed and blinked as Ray came through the door. Lord, she’d actually fallen asleep. How’d that happen? Half an hour ago, she’d felt like she’d never sleep again.

The smell of pizza hit her as Ray closed the door, making her empty stomach churn.

“You should throw the security bolt when you’re in here alone.” He looked pointedly at the gun, which lay right where he’d left it, untouched.

“Sorry. I guess I dozed off.”

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed as Ray deposited the pizza and a take-out bag on the room’s tiny table. From the bag, he produced a Styrofoam container of Caesar salad, two small containers of homogenized milk and a two-litre bottle of Coke.

He handed her one of the cartons of milk and a straw. “The salad’s for you,” he said gruffly. “Figured you better have something green.”

“Thank you,” she managed around the sudden lump that had lodged itself in her throat. Damn these hormones. One considerate gesture on his part and she was on the verge of tears again.

He popped his soda can and flipped the box open. Helping himself to a piece of pizza, he flopped into a chair. She took a slice, too, but perched on the edge of one of the beds.

Silence reigned as they ate. She thought her stomach might be a little iffy about the very aromatic pizza, but, after the first bite, it settled down. Still, it might be just as well to get the business of eating out of the way before they talked.

“I shouldn’t have run out on you like that.”

She jumped at his words, causing a piece of pepperoni to slide off the slice she was poised to bite into. She plucked the greasy topping off her bosom and put it back on her slice. So much for her stomach.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, putting the slice down on a paper napkin while she dabbed ineffectually at the grease spot on her shirt with another napkin. Then, because she couldn’t hold it back any longer, she blurted out her fear. “I don’t want to be a burden. Don’t feel you have to.... I mean, I don’t want you to think....”

He crumpled the now empty aluminum can in his hand. “If you’re carrying my baby, I’m not just gonna bow out and let you carry on.”

She heart squeezed in her chest. “I don’t want you to.”

A muscle leapt in his neck, but his tone when he spoke was carefully bland. “Better reserve judgment on that until you recover your memories.” He leaned forward to toss the flattened can into the plastic-lined wastebasket. “Whatever happens, if that baby’s mine, I intend to be part of its life.”

He came over to stand by the bed, his nearness and sheer size intimidating. “Are we absolutely clear on that point?”

At his softly-voiced question, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “I’d never deprive you of your child.”

“You made a damn good try.”

“But I didn’t know I was pregnant!”

She saw doubt in his eyes, but he didn’t voice it.

“Now you do,” was all he said.

She refused to flinch. After all, she’d earned his distrust, hadn’t she? She deserved it.

“Now I do.” Balling her napkin up in her fist, she stood.

Ray took an immediate step back. Grace told herself it was nothing personal, just his natural cop instincts to preserve his personal safety zone. Believing it was a little harder.

“Try not to worry about anything, okay?” he said. “I intend to take care of you.”

For now, she mentally finished his sentence. Until we know whose baby we’re talking about.

Blinking rapidly, she picked up the uneaten remnants of her meal and dropped them in the waste paper basket.“I think I’m going to have a soak in the tub.”

Grace decided to use the bath as an opportunity to regroup. Reclining in the hot water, she closed her eyes and willed the heat to leach the deep, muscle-knotting tension from her limbs.