Page 16 of Deny Me
“We can do that,” Dain agreed, voice carefully neutral. “Our final team member, Elliott Smith, will be here shortly. She will be assigned close protection for Becky and Charlotte.”
Ben nodded jerkily. “Keep me informed.”
The three of them watched as their client walked from the room.
It was Saint who finally broke the silence. “Like I was saying, they’ve got a beef with you.”
“One that doesn’t seem to match their stated reasons,” Dain mused.
So he wasn’t the only one who thought so. “I wish I could explain it, but I can’t.” He wished too many memories of this family accepting him didn’t rise to haunt him every time he saw the resentment in their eyes. That kind of emotion threw him off his game, and he was never off when it came to an assignment. “I was telling the truth, Dain. No, a breakup like that is never as cut-and-dried as it sounds”—the image of Charlotte’s tear-ravaged face the last time he’d seen her, so long ago, filled his mind, clawed at the walls he’d built around himself—“but it’s been ten years. I don’t know what else this could be about.”
Dain grunted. King could see him running scenarios in his head, probably alongside the odds of how much it mattered to their situation. “For now, let’s just keep things low-key, see what surfaces.”
“Hopefully sooner than later,” Saint put in.
King agreed. Nothing could throw an op off faster than secrets. And from his experience, they usually surfaced at the worst possible times.
“I want you to establish contact with the local PD, make sure they’re aware of developments.” Dain’s cell phone rang, and when he pulled it from his pocket, the grim lines of his face softened the slightest bit. “Elliott’s here. Until her charges are awake, the two of you are on equipment duty, Saint.”
“As if I’d let you all get your hands on my babies,” Saint said, a gleam firing in his eyes. The man was a tech genius. No one was pickier about equipment, but then no other team was as well-equipped as they were. Only Elliott came anywhere close to Saint’s knowledge or his obsession with gadgets, gizmos, and software, but given her duties as their second in command…
King pulled out his own cell, a grimace twisting his mouth. Elliott would always be their second, although right now she and they were enduring a six-month demotion she’d earned for keeping her own secrets, secrets that had made the op with her fiancé, Deacon Walsh, take a sharply southern turn. Which meant it was King’s job, as temporarily acting second, to file the paperwork for their current op. He hated paperwork, and now there was a mountain of it waiting for him.
He found the number for the Blossomwood PD and dialed. Once Elliot got their computer set up, he’d tackle the dreaded mountain of forms. Maybe it would take his mind off secrets involving the woman who slept two floors above him, in a bedroom he’d been intimately familiar with when they’d been together.
Paperwork was far safer, for all of them, than thinking about that.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte barely stirred in the darkness of her bedroom, wondering what time it was. When her door opened, she rolled to see who was coming in—and groaned.
“Stiff?” her mom asked as she carried a tray across the room. “You’ve been asleep for about fifteen hours, so that’s not surprising.”
Given her restless night at the hospital, the tension since, and the battering her body had been through, maybe not. She pulled herself up in the bed to prop against the padded headboard. Her mom settled the tray across her lap, and the rich scent of coffee filled her nose, making her moan for a whole different reason. “Thanks, Mom.”
A warm hand settled on her head. “You deserve a little pampering.”
The quiver in her mother’s voice told Charlotte she was thinking of how close she’d come to losing the chance to pamper her. The same thought brought a hot wash of tears to the backs of Charlotte’s eyes. She caught her mom’s hand as it slid away. “I love you.”
Even in the dim light of the room, she caught the glistening in her mom’s gaze as she bent close for a kiss on her cheek. The scent of gardenias surrounded her, the same scent her mother had worn since she was a child. In a moment she was transported back to that little girl with a scraped knee, hurt feelings, a thousand childhood problems. Whatever she’d faced, her parents had been there for her. She hadn’t known parents weren’t all like that until she’d gotten to know King’s family.
She picked up the coffee as her mom opened the curtains around the room, letting in weak sunlight.
“How is Becky?” Charlotte felt guilty leaving the girl to her own devices, but there’d been no resisting her body’s need for sleep.
Her mom sat at the foot of the bed to lean against the padded footboard. “Ruth and I settled her into the guest suite. We did some shopping, stocking up so she’d have anything she needed there without having to come out and have company if she didn’t feel up to it. The poor girl is exhausted between all the stress and being so close to delivery.” A gentle smile curved her lips. “I remember what it was like to try to sleep at that stage with you. Everyone kept telling me to sleep as much as I could, and I kept trying to figure out how to do that with a gymnast flipping around in my stomach.”
A tight band squeezed around Charlotte’s chest at the thought—a rounded belly, a baby moving inside her. That connection, so intimate, so strong. At least that’s how she imagined it would be. She’d never experienced it personally.
And never would.
“I told her to sleep whenever she felt like it, not to worry about us,” Mom was saying. “I have to wonder if she’s had a decent night’s sleep her whole pregnancy.”
“I’ve worried the same thing.” It had killed her to see how Becky struggled. The baby’s father had broken things off the minute he learned she was pregnant, and Richard had demanded she abort the baby. Becky had stood firm for what she wanted, although Charlotte suspected that had cost her far more than any of them knew. With the girl being underage, though, there’d been little they could do without proof of abuse.
And now this. It still felt like a nightmare.
Charlotte clutched her warm coffee cup close. “Black-market baby selling, Mom.” In the adoption community, talk of horrific practices and warnings about everything from selling babies to re-homing were everywhere, but Charlotte had thought Creating Families was immune. They’d worked hard—she’dworked hard—to build an organization that provided everything women giving their babies up for adoption and families adopting those babies could possibly need.
