In Protective Custody. Beth Cornelison

news seemed to suck the spirit from Emily. The hope in her eyes dimmed, and pain sliced Max’s chest. If she gave up hope and quit fighting for her life…

      He had to do something. But what she asked of him was daunting. A baby! Memories of his failed marriage rose to haunt him. Emily’s need battled the demons of his past.

      Finally, Emily’s desperate, tormented expression swayed him. He leaned close and whispered fiercely in her ear. “Emily, listen to me. For once in your life, do what I’m telling you. I’ll make a deal with you, okay?”

      She met his gaze, hope lighting her eyes.

      “I’ll find a way to get your son out of here, to hide him from Joe’s family and keep him safe for you, if…” He wagged a finger in her face to punctuate his point. Already the hurdles of getting the baby past the Rialtos loomed in his mind. “Swear to me, promise me now, you will fight. You cannot give up hope. You have to get well, so that you can take care of your baby yourself. Like I tell my Pee Wee football kids—no quitters on my team. Understand?”

      A flicker of warmth lit her eyes, and Max knew he’d made the only choice he could. If his promise would give Emily the hope she needed to survive, he’d promise her the moon and figure out how to get it. Despite his track record.

      Maybe helping Emily would redeem him in some small way for his failures in the past. He refused to let her down.

      “I’ll keep your son safe for you.”

      The next afternoon, Max backed out of his sister’s hospital room and closed the door. Tucked to his chest, he carried the duffel bag he’d used to bring her clean pajamas and a pillow from home. The police detective, having gotten a few minutes alone with Emily earlier in the day, had finally left the hospital. Only one hurdle remained.

      Max cast a wry grin to the beefy-armed thug standing guard at her door. “She’s nursing the baby and doesn’t want her big brother watching,” he lied.

      The Rialtos’ lackey, obviously assigned as watchdog while the family attended Joe’s funeral, shifted his bulky weight and cut a nervous glance toward Emily’s door. Max’s ploy worked as he’d hoped. The guard seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a breast-feeding mother and didn’t enter the room to check on them.

      Max aimed a finger at the duffel bag. “I’m gonna drop her dirty clothes at the laundry and get a bite to eat. Want anything from the snack bar?”

      The Rialtos’ man glowered at Max and shook his head.

      “Whatever.” Max turned and headed for the elevator, praying that the baby hidden in the duffel continued to sleep until he got out of the hospital. He hoped no one looked too closely through the large gap in the duffel’s zipper he’d left open for air.

      After he’d promised to take care of her son, Emily’s mood and condition had improved enough that her doctor and the baby’s pediatrician had both agreed to let her see her son. And Max’s sketchy plan began to take shape. He spoke to the pediatrician privately and convinced the man to sign for the baby’s discharge while the Rialtos attended Joe’s funeral.

      During Emily’s visit with the discharged baby, they waited for his nephew to fall asleep. Now, careful not to jostle the boy in the vented bag, Max exited the medical center New Orleans natives fondly called Charity Hospital. He made his way across the divided street to the visitors’ parking garage.

      Phase one of his mission complete, Max buckled his nephew in the car seat he’d bought on the way to the hospital that afternoon. When he slid behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee and cranked the engine, the radio blared from the rear speakers. Mick Jagger woke the sleeping baby, who tuned up and added his vocals to the Stones.

      Max cringed and turned in the seat to try to comfort the infant. “Hey, easy, little guy.”

      As he jiggled the baby’s seat, he spotted the Rialtos’ thug at the front door of the hospital. The man scanned the street then zeroed in on Max’s SUV. Reaching under his coat, the henchman started toward the parking garage. No doubt Mr. Thug kept something besides his wallet tucked inside his jacket.

      “Hell!” Max had no time to do anything about the crying child. His first priority was getting out of Dodge. Fast. He might have the child with Emily’s permission, but the Rialtos made their own rules.

      Max pulled out of the garage and darted into the evening traffic. Emily’s son continued to wail like a fire engine siren. The thought of the Rialtos’ armed guard on his heels kicked Max’s pulse up a notch. He zipped through a yellow light, anxious to put distance between himself and the gorilla at the hospital.

      He thought of the wistful expression on Emily’s face as she’d kissed her son goodbye, and his throat clogged.

      “I’ve done my part, Em. Now you fight, damn it!” He hated not being at her side. What if she got worse or…?

      Don’t think that way. Visualize success. Make it happen. Wasn’t that what he told the kids he coached in the Pee Wee football league?

      Max drew a deep breath and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel.

      Focus. Focus.

      But the baby’s cries reached a fervid pitch, and he couldn’t think, much less concentrate on the problems at hand. As he headed away from the hospital, he encountered a roadblock where a construction crew was fixing the street. A backlog of cars inched toward the detour.

      Frustrated with his slow progress, Max zipped around a bus of tourists and turned down a side street. He crawled a few more blocks until he turned onto Canal Street headed toward the French Quarter. Snarled in traffic, Max flicked a glance to his rearview mirror. No sign of the armed henchman. But Max knew the thug hadn’t given up. He was still hunting him.

      When a group of women dashed in front of him to catch one of the city’s famous streetcars, he stood on the brakes to avoid hitting them. The near miss sent an extra jolt of adrenaline through his already edgy system. By the time he turned on Baronne, headed toward the Crescent City Connection and his home in Belle Chasse, his nephew’s screams had completely frayed his nerves. What if the kid was in pain?

      Remembering the pacifier he’d jammed in his pocket at the hospital, Max fished the little plastic device from his jeans and picked off the lint that clung to the nipple.

      “Easy, little guy,” he crooned to the baby. “Here.” He twisted toward the backseat and fumbled to find the baby’s mouth. Tiny fists hit his hand as Max searched for his target. By now, the child’s screams could curdle blood.

      He swerved to avoid a pedestrian who seemed more interested in the panhandling saxophone player on the corner than the traffic. Keeping an eye on the bumper in front of him, Max groped blindly across the baby’s face until he found his nephew’s mouth, opened wide in a deafening howl. The infant latched on to his finger and sucked hard.

      “Try this instead.” He swapped the pacifier for his finger, and a blessed silence filled the car.

      For about thirty seconds.

      He heard the soft clunk when the pacifier fell out of the baby’s mouth, and Max braced himself.

      His nephew let out an angry wail. Max groaned. Escaping the Rialtos’ thug no longer seemed his biggest problem. What if he never got the little banshee to stop crying?

      Max could enter a burning house with confidence in his firefighting skill and training, but knowing he was in charge of a tiny, needy, noisy life scared him spitless. What if he did the wrong thing and hurt the kid? What if he didn’t get the hang of it the way a new father was supposed to? If he failed this time, he’d let two people down, Emily and her son.

      Sighing, he turned toward the backseat and fumbled in the car seat for the lost pacifier. When his fingers closed around the cool plastic, relief zinged through his blood.

      He stuck the device in the baby’s mouth and glanced back to the traffic—just as his Cherokee plowed into the back of a white Camry