Page 30 of Close Pursuit

Katie had been a labor and delivery nurse. They handled infants for a few minutes after they were born, but then they handed the babies off to pediatric nurses. While she had some experience with babies, their day-to-day care was not her area of expertise.

She had no idea if newborns only cried because they were hungry. She scooped up the baby and the IV bag he held out to her and moved over by the fire with her back to him to coax the baby to drink a little more.

It took giving Dawn her breast again to get the infant to swallow, and Katie had to pinch her own nipple before Dawn could find it and latch on. The sensation of the tiny mouth sucking vigorously at her breast was overwhelming and confusing. It felt good, but not in a sexual way.

It also felt very wrong. Like she was co-opting a moment that belonged to someone else. That poor, dead girl should be doing this. Although, given how much she’d hated Dawn, Katie doubted the mother would have fed this child. More likely, she’d have drowned the baby or suffocated it. Katie held Dawn a little more closely and fell in love a little.

“I need my coat back,” Alex said apologetically. “I have to check it.”

She passed him the garment and he stepped close to drape her coat over her shoulders. As he did so, he paused to watch the baby suckling at her breast and swallowing the IV fluid Katie was sneaking into the baby’s mouth.

“That’s a beautiful sight,” he said in a hushed voice.

She looked up at him in surprise. That was the last thing she’d expected to hear from the dark, sexy bachelor.

He reached down to cup the baby’s tiny head in his hand for a moment. “Such a rotten start in life, baby Dawn. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save your mother,” he breathed.

“You did your best. And if that girl had lived, I expect she would have killed Dawn as soon as they left us. Maybe this is how it was supposed to work out—that the baby lived and the mother didn’t.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” Alex said low, his voice harsh.

Katie sighed. “Even if she successfully got rid of Dawn, she would’ve had some tall explaining to do if and when she married. Not only would she not have been a virgin, but her body would have shown the signs of having borne a child. She would have been beaten to death if she was lucky. Perhaps a quick end on that mountain was the merciful way for her to go.”

“But the barbarism of it,” Alex muttered. “Nobody deserves that.”

“You had no choice. We had no choice. She also would’ve died horribly if you hadn’t done the C-section.”

Alex sank down onto the cave floor beside her and held his hands out to the fire. Katie didn’t interrupt his silent thoughts.

At length, she murmured, “If we take Dawn back to the States, she’ll grow up in a very different world from this one. I have no right to think one is better than the other, but I do know she’ll be safer in America.”

Alex answered, sounding resigned, “We have no choice. Not with that blonde hair of hers. She’d be a pariah at best in this society and horribly abused at worst—assuming she would be allowed to live at all.”

Katie shuddered and cuddled the infant a little closer. She was starting to feel downright maternal toward the small bundle of squirming warmth.

Alex laid out all of the gear in his emergency pack and inspected each piece of it. She was surprised to recognize an array of survival gear along with the medical supplies—energy bars, matches, cyalume sticks, matches, batteries, water purification tablets.

“How is it that you had a whole backpack of survival stuff ready and waiting to go last night?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Call it a hunch. Those rebel forces kept showing up almost exactly at our location and attacking, and it made me suspicious.”

“Suspicious of what?”

“Do you always ask so many questions? he demanded.

“When people are being cryptic with me, absolutely,” she declared.

He sighed. “Of somebody not being happy we’re out here.”

“Are we in direct danger? And don’t dodge the question or lie to me. I grew up with soldiers. I know exactly what kind of danger we’re in if someone wants us dead.”

“I won’t ever lie to you, Katie. That I promise. I may refuse to answer a question, but I won’t lie. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He said grimly, “I think Doctors Unlimited may not be as innocent an organization as it claims to be. That’s why I volunteered to work for it.”

“To expose it?” she exclaimed.

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