The Vicar's Daughter. Betty Neels

from the window and headed toward the hall.

      But Parker caught her arm, stopping her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

      “I need to find Ethan,” she said.

      She needed to hold him, to make certain that the baby boy was all right. Loud noises terrified him; so did too many people, especially strangers. It was a miracle that he’d gone so willingly into Mrs. Payne’s arms, but that had been before the explosion and the chaos.

      “I need to be with—”

      “Here he is,” Mrs. Payne said as she walked back into the room with her grandson.

      Just as Sharon had feared, he was crying. Tears streamed down his chubby cheeks. His screams must have escalated to hysteria because all he was doing now was gasping for shaky breaths.

      She reached for him, and he nearly leaped into her arms, snuggling into her neck. His hands clutched her hair, pulling it around him. And she didn’t even care. Her eyes stung with tears at the thought of losing him. She loved this little boy so much; she couldn’t love him any more if he was actually hers.

      * * *

      “IT WAS HERS.” Logan confirmed what Parker had already suspected when he’d realized that the explosion had been a car in the parking lot blowing up.

      At least it hadn’t been inside the hospital or close enough to the building to cause any structural damage. The windows had rattled and the floor had shaken, and the smoke from the parking lot had set off some of the alarms.

      Logan added, “And the kid is yours.”

      Stunned, Parker tensed and paused with his hand on his gun. That baby was his? But that made no sense. Unless...

      Like a hostage at a bank holdup, Logan lifted his arms. “Don’t shoot me. I’m just the messenger.”

      Parker slid his gun into the holster he had strapped under his arm. God, it felt good to be out of that hospital gown. And in a few minutes, he would be out of the hospital, too. After the explosion in the parking lot and all the media trying to get past security, he doubted that the doctor would protest his leaving early.

      “The tests came back already?” he asked as he tried to slow the rapid beat of his heart.

      It had been just as she’d said—just a simple cheek swab. From the baby. And him. And Logan and Cooper.

      “Mom sweet-talked someone in the lab into rushing the results,” Logan replied.

      Only a couple of hours had passed since the car exploded. The paternity test had been taken before the police arrived to talk to them. An officer had taken Sharon into a separate room, no doubt to question why and when someone would have put a bomb on her car. The police would have run the registration or vehicle number, if nothing had been left of the plate, to find out who owned it.

      Parker had wanted to hear Sharon’s answers, too. But those weren’t the only answers he wanted from Sharon Wells.

      “So who is she?” Logan asked.

      “I have no idea,” he replied honestly.

      Logan gestured around the hospital room. “It’s just you and me, Park. Tell me the truth.”

      “I have no idea,” he repeated.

      “So she was just a one-night stand?”

      His temper rising, Parker grabbed the front of his twin’s shirt. “She’s not a one-night stand.” Not his, and he doubted, from the innocent way she dressed, that she was anyone else’s. He just wished he knew what exactly she was. A con artist? A killer? A kidnapper?

      He hoped like hell she was none of those things. But he couldn’t let the sweetness of her kiss alleviate his suspicions about her.

      “But you don’t even know who she is,” Logan pointed out.

      “I’m going to change that,” he said. When the police were done with her, he was going to take his turn interrogating her. Hopefully he hadn’t lost his touch from his years with the River City Police Department. Of course, he had spent more time undercover than interrogating suspects. That had been more Logan’s job, which he was proving with his inquisition of him.

      “Since you’ve got a baby together, that would probably be a good thing,” Logan remarked. He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re a father....”

      Neither could Parker. But he had no reason to doubt the test. The only one he doubted was Sharon Wells.

      * * *

      THIS HAD BEEN a mistake. Sharon had realized that even before Parker Payne had kissed her. She should not have come here. But she had been warned to trust no one else. So she hadn’t told the police anything—not that she’d had much to tell them. She really had no idea who was trying to kill her or why. But she hadn’t told the officers about the other attempts on her life.

      And she had tried to pass this one off as her car being mistaken for someone else’s—maybe even Parker Payne’s. He was the one who someone was trying to kill—or so the news reports had claimed.

      The gray-haired police officer opened the door of the vacant doctor’s office he had used to question her and held it for her. She had her hands full with the diaper bag and the sleeping baby. Ethan had exhausted himself from crying, but even in slumber, he clung to her, strands of her hair clutched in his chubby little fists.

      How could she love this child so much? He had never been part of her plan. She had never wanted to marry or have children; she had intended to focus only on her career.

      “You’re very lucky, miss,” the officer told her.

      How? Along with her car, Sharon had lost her purse and her suitcases. She sighed. “I know it was just a vehicle...”

      She could replace the money and other lost items; she would not have been able to replace Ethan. But even though he hadn’t been hurt in the explosion, she was still going to lose him.

      To his father...

      “The car wasn’t the only thing lost,” the officer informed her. “The bomb didn’t go off until someone started the engine.”

      “But I had the keys,” she murmured. But when she patted the pocket on the front of the diaper bag, she realized they weren’t there. She must have left them dangling from the ignition.

      “Security cameras picked up someone checking out cars in the lot, obviously looking for one to steal,” the officer said.

      “Someone was trying to steal my car?” Because she had left the keys and the purse and the suitcases...

      How had she been so careless? She’d had her hands full with Ethan. But she’d also been scared to bring Parker Payne a baby he hadn’t even known he had.

      Shaking his head as if in pity of the dead carjacker, the officer said, “He picked the wrong car to steal.”

      And he’d died because of it—because of her. She gasped as guilt and regret overwhelmed her. But then a strong hand gripped her shoulder, squeezing gently as if offering reassurance.

      She glanced up at Parker Payne. He was dressed in a shirt nearly as blue as his brilliant eyes; it was tucked into a pair of faded jeans. She kind of missed the hospital gown.

      “Did the security cameras pick up who planted the bomb?” Parker asked the officer.

      The older man shook his head again with regret. “The bomber knew where the cameras were and avoided them. We’re going to have the techs go over the footage again to see if they can find anything usable.”

      Parker nodded in approval.

      She was surprised the officer had been so free with information about a police investigation. But then the older man clasped Parker’s shoulder.

      “Glad you’re alive, Payne,” he said.