Mask Of A Hunter. Sylvie Kurtz

D.C. and the Maplewood Library where someone would be glad to see her. He reached for Hannah.

      Rory swung away, rounding over the baby. Where had this protective instinct come from? “No.”

      “You’re too tense.” A vein of irritation ran through his voice.

      Too tense? She was perfectly relaxed. Okay, maybe not. But with good reason. She’d gone over every inch of the checklist on the web site and found no grounds for Hannah’s obvious distress. Dry diaper. Full tummy. No signs of teething. No fever. No rash. Just buckets of tears that were ripping her heart and soul to shreds. How did mothers survive a child’s infancy?

      “Just hand her over for a minute.”

      Despite his presentable black Dockers and black silk shirt, Ace looked like the quintessential bad boy and wore an attitude to match. Ripped, that’s what the teenage girls back home would have called him. He had an athlete’s body that must have taken years of pumping iron to sculpt into this rugged beauty. Unlike Felicia, Rory had never entertained bad-boy fantasies, and she certainly wasn’t about to start now—no matter how tired she was.

      “I’m trying to help.” When he shook his head, the lamplight caught the tired lines webbing his eyes. She’d seen him talk to Mike and walk into the apartment below Felicia’s. Were the baby’s cries keeping him up? However much danger a man like him could pose a grown woman, she didn’t think Sebastian would hire a man who would abuse a child. And wasn’t Ace his sister’s guardian?

      With a sigh of resignation, she handed the bawling, squirming Hannah to Ace. In his big hands, her cries immediately abated by half.

      That wasn’t fair. She’d done all the work. He grinned at her—a much too rakish smile. “I told you you were too tense.”

      “I’ve tried everything.”

      His gaze took in her laptop with its parenting page in full view. “Some things you can’t learn from books, sweetheart.”

      Before she could spit out a snappy comeback, he strode toward the bedroom at the back of the apartment. “Where are you going?”

      “I’ll be right back.”

      As promised, he was. He cradled the baby in the crook of his arm as if he’d done this before, and he carried one of Felicia’s sweaters in his free hand. He launched it at her. She caught it and slanted him a puzzled look.

      “Put it on.” He rocked Hannah whose cries now seemed to take a major effort.

      Rory held the blue sweater out in front of her and frowned at the suspicious stain on the shoulder. “I’m not cold.”

      “Do you have to argue about everything? Just put it on.”

      She was too tired to protest, so she slipped on the V-neck pullover. Ace handed her Hannah who snuggled against the wool and soon fell asleep.

      “What just happened?”

      “You confused her.” Ace’s voice was both rough and warm. He looked much too satisfied, and she wanted to smack his smirk off his face as much as she wanted to hug him for making Hannah stop crying. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could have held on before she’d joined Hannah’s chorus of tears with her own.

      Hannah looked like an angel once more, becoming heavy in Rory’s arms as she relaxed more deeply into sleep. How could someone so small have made such a big fuss? “I’m not following you.”

      “You look like Felicia, but you don’t sound like Felicia. And you don’t smell like Felicia.”

      The proverbial light bulb finally clicked on. “And Felicia’s scent is on the sweater.”

      “Right.”

      “Where did you learn that trick?”

      “The school of hard knocks, sweetheart.”

      She cringed at “sweetheart,” but said nothing, afraid to tense up too much and set Hannah off on another crying jag.

      She glanced at the crib. Would Hannah stay asleep if she put her down?

      As if he’d read her mind, Ace said, “Go ahead, put her down. She’s exhausted. She’ll probably sleep through till morning.”

      Rory carefully laid Hannah in her crib. Clutching the quilt, she wasn’t sure if she should wrap her in it or not. What if Hannah pushed her face in the folds and smothered herself?

      Ace grabbed the blanket and tucked it expertly around Hannah’s pajama-clad body, leaving her splayed arms free.

      “I’d get some shut-eye while you can, if I were you,” he said, hands on hips, looking every bit the rogue pirate.

      The advice made perfect sense. Why couldn’t she just shut up and take it? “You’re not me.”

      He kicked up both hands in surrender. “Doesn’t matter to me either way.”

      She ran a hand through her hair. Her fingers got stuck on dried carrot mush. She needed a long, hot—no make that scalding—shower. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”

      “They’re all long days when there’s a baby around.”

      She didn’t like the mocking shine in his dark-chocolate eyes, but she was way past witty and nearly all the way into zombie. She sank into the lime armchair and let her tense muscles relax. “How does she do it?”

      “Felicia doesn’t try to go it alone. She asks for help.”

      Implied fault stressed the silence. Trust. She didn’t have any.

      Why should she? What did she know about him? That he was one of Sebastian’s Seekers. A plus. That he was playacting the role of a biker. A minus. That he was good with Hannah. Another plus. That his skin was olive, his cheekbones sharp, his nose straight, his mouth generous, kissable. She quashed a groan. Definitely a minus.

      She was being too sensitive. She was letting his very presence become a burr because his expertise with Hannah made her feel incompetent.

      But trust grew with time and intimacy. Neither of these existed between them. How could they when Sebastian had handed them opposite ends of the same rope?

      She cocked her head, feeling the steam of temper crushing her chest, pounding at her temples. “Trusting a biker is what got Felicia into all this trouble.”

      He bent toward her, resting a hand on the back of the armchair, trapping a strand of runaway hair beneath his palm. His body heat shimmied into her. His scent of sweat and musk had her turning her nose toward it as if it were an aroma worth sniffing. His gaze was so sharp she angled her head to avoid its honed edge and felt it graze her anyway. “No, what got her into this mess was not trusting her gut.”

      Chapter Three

      Rory counted two diners, one pizzeria, two antique stores, one gift shop, one florist’s shop, one barber, one beauty salon, one ice-cream parlor, one service station, two churches and four bars squashed together around the picture-postcard town common. A cool breeze snapped at the flags flying from shop poles. The sun played hide and seek with puffy white clouds against a picture-perfect blue sky.

      Pushing Hannah’s stroller along the sidewalk, she noted the charm of the hunter-green-and-white bandstand circled by a bed of purple crocuses and yellow daffodils. A granite statue honoring war veterans was framed by budding azaleas. Granite benches, dotting the red-bricked walkway, invited walkers to stop and smell the grass. She could imagine how this two-block-long rectangle would look dressed up for a Fourth of July celebration or a strawberry festival, crowded with people and music and food. She could see the appeal of the image. A kinder mode of life—less hurried, less troubled, less complicated.

      But here in Summersfield the portrait was a lie. Why would anyone want to pollute their own hometown with the poison of drugs? Was that the reason Felicia had finally agreed to leave Summersfield? To save Hannah