His Secret Baby. Marie Ferrarella

last ten miles to her house, he wasn’t certain if his imagination played tricks on him or if his instincts were dead-on. Either way, he could have sworn that a car was tailing him. A late-model domestic beige sedan followed two cars behind his. So far, he’d only managed to get two of the numbers on the license plate.

      When he pulled up into Eve’s two-car driveway, the beige car passed her house and continued down the street. Was he paranoid or were his survival instincts so finely tuned that he could spot a tail a mile away? Right now, he couldn’t answer that with any kind of authority.

      After parking his car, Adam quickly got out and rounded the back of the vehicle. He opened the passenger door and extended his hand to Eve.

      Rather than resort to bravado, she reluctantly wrapped her fingers around his hand. Trying to get up on her own, she realized that he actually pulled her to her feet. She was still wobbly. So much so that she had to steady herself by grabbing on to his arm.

      Surprised, concerned, Adam held her for a moment. “Are you all right?”

      “Just a little light-headed,” she admitted. “But I’m fine now. You can let go.”

      He did so, but only slowly, watching her carefully as he withdrew his arms.

      She hated feeling like this. How had women managed to give birth and then continue working in the fields decades ago?

      Turning carefully, she looked into the backseat. Brooklyn was strapped securely in an infant seat. An infant seat Adam had bought because she hadn’t gotten around to it. Again, because she’d felt she still had a few weeks left in which to prepare.

      “By the way, how much do I owe you?”

      About to open the rear passenger door, he stopped and looked at her. “For what?” he asked incredulously. “For the ride home?”

      “No, for the infant seat.” She felt remiss in being caught so unprepared. But then, this whole pregnancy had caught her unprepared. “I was going to pick one up this weekend.”

      “And now you have one,” he told her. “You don’t owe me anything, Eve. The baby’s half-mine, remember?”

      Her mouth curved in amusement. “Which half are you claiming?”

      “It’s too early to tell,” he quipped. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

      After removing the belts from around his daughter, he picked her up and then gently tucked the baby into the crook of his arm as if he’d been doing this all his life. There was no need for Eve to know that he had bought a life-size baby doll at the toy store and had been practicing this since yesterday.

      Adam slipped his free hand around her waist, ready to help guide her up the front walk. “Okay, let’s get you both into the house.”

      The short distance seemed to stretch out before her like a twenty-mile run. Pressing her lips together, Eve walked up the path on shaky legs. She surrendered her key to Adam and waited for him to unlock the door. Once inside, she headed toward the sofa, relieved to be able to rest.

      As she sank down on the sofa, she could feel Adam watching her. She hated letting him see her like this. It wasn’t part of her self-image.

      “This is just temporary,” she assured him.

      He shifted Brooklyn to his other side. “No reason to believe it’s not,” he agreed.

      Under the pretext of closing the door, he looked out and saw the car he’d thought was tailing them pass by in the opposite direction. It was quite possible that the driver was lost, looking for an address in an unfamiliar neighborhood. But he hadn’t lived this long in a dangerous field by being lax. He remained on his guard. The stakes were higher now than they had ever been.

      Crossing to the sofa, he laid the baby down in the bassinette that stood beside the sofa. He’d purchased the item yesterday when he’d gone to get the infant seat.

      “Look, I have to get back to the shop for a little while.” Sederholm was going to call him this afternoon and he didn’t want to have to take the phone call around her. “But I’ll be back later.”

      He had already done more than enough. She needed to process things, to find a way to get used to dealing with all this—without becoming used to having him around.

      “You don’t—”

      “—have to,” he completed the sentence for her, banking down a wave of impatience. “Yes, I know. But you’re obviously not yourself yet, and taking care of a newborn isn’t a walk in the park.” He remembered how exhausted his mother had been when his baby sister was first born. “It’s demanding. So, unless you have some kind of support system in place, I’ll be hanging around for a week or so until you can get on your feet again.”

      “A week?” she echoed.

      “Or so,” he added again.

      “Or so,” she whispered in disbelief.

      She knew her hormones were in flux and she could always blame this roller-coaster ride on them. But right at this moment, sitting in the shade of Adam’s unexpected offer, Eve wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh—or cry.

       Chapter 8

      “What’s this?”

      The question Eve asked pertained to the eight-by-eleven manila envelope Adam had handed her on his way to the kitchen.

      Having taken care of business both at New Again, the rare first-edition bookstore in Newport Beach he supposedly owned, and with Sederholm, the latter involving humoring the college student, Adam had made a quick stop to pick up dinner for Eve and himself. He’d gone to an actual Mexican restaurant that had takeout on the side, rather than going to one of the numerous fast-food places that touted familiar Mexican meals. Time might be at a premium, but taste didn’t necessarily have to suffer because of it.

      “Dinner,” he answered, assuming that she was asking about the two large white bags he carried into the kitchen. Adam turned to look at her over his shoulder as he deposited the bags on the counter. “Don’t worry, I made sure your portion wasn’t too spicy, in case you’re—you know.” His voice trailed off as he avoided her eyes.

      Considering the incredibly intimate contact they’d already shared, not just when they’d made love months ago, but during the far more recent process of bringing their daughter into the world, Eve found it strangely amusing and perhaps more than a little touching and sweet that Adam had turned suddenly shy.

      “Well, just for the record, I am ‘you knowing,’” she told him, making no attempt to hide her smile at his polite reference to her breastfeeding, “so that was very thoughtful of you, but I was actually referring to this.” She held up the manila envelope. “What is it?” she asked again.

      His back to her, Adam began to take their dinners out of the bags and placed the various wrapped selections on the granite counter. “Insurance.”

      She glanced back at the envelope, not sure if she even wanted to open the clasp and peer inside. “Against what?” she asked slowly.

      “No, insurance,” he repeated, turning around. She was still holding the envelope in her hands. Most women would have already ripped it open. That made her incredibly devoid of curiosity, he thought. “Life insurance,” he emphasized, adding, “on me,” when her expression remained bewildered.

      Eve turned the envelope over in her hands, regarding it the way someone might a brand-new alien life-form—and finding it displeasing.

      “Okay. Again, why?” This was completely out of the blue and it made her feel uncomfortable without really understanding why. “Is there something wrong with you?” Even as she asked, the dark suspicion behind the words hit her. “You’re not going to …?”