The Vicar's Daughter. Betty Neels

for your brother yet?” he asked. “We’d love to have you back on the force.”

      Parker arched a brow as if in skepticism of the older man’s claim.

      “Well, maybe not now,” the officer amended, “but once you find out who’s trying to kill you...”

      “That’ll be soon,” Parker promised.

      “We’ll help,” the officer said. He turned to Sharon. “But until that person is caught, you might want to stay away from Mr. Payne, miss. For your own safety...”

      She had already discovered she wasn’t safe anywhere, either.

      “We’ll protect her, too,” Parker said. “It’s what Payne Protection does.”

      His family ran a security firm; he acted as a bodyguard. But what happened when he was the one needing protection? Who protected him?

      He stepped back to allow the officer to pass him, and she saw the others standing just down the hall. The brothers who looked so much like him and the other two men who looked like each other with their blond hair and light-colored eyes. All of the men watched him and her carefully, as if they didn’t even trust her not to try to kill him.

      But then, they were smart to trust no one—especially not her. She needed to tell him the truth. But when she turned back to him and found him staring in wonder at the sleeping baby she held, she realized that he already knew.

      “He is your son,” she said.

      “I know.” But he shook his head as if he was still in denial of being a dad. Or maybe that wasn’t what he was denying....

      He was denying her.

      Pain clutched her heart, and even though it killed her to admit it, she added, “I am not his mother.”

      “I know.”

      Of course he knew. Despite the concussion, he would have remembered her had they ever been involved. But they would have never been involved. Even when they’d previously met, they hadn’t been formally introduced; they had only glanced at each other in passing. Apparently he hadn’t noticed her, but she had noticed him. It was impossible to not notice a man as devastatingly handsome and charming as Parker Payne.

      But he wasn’t her type any more than she was his. She would never have gone for a man with his reputation or with his good looks. The only men she had ever dated, and there had been only a few, had been as serious about their education and their careers as she had been.

      Before her little man had come along. Before Ethan...

      So what was she supposed to do now? Hand Parker Payne his son and walk away? That was what she had been instructed to do, but her car was gone now. Her purse and money, too. She had no means with which to walk away...even if she could bring herself to turn her little man over to strangers.

      “You’re coming with me,” he told her, as if he had read her mind or, more likely, seen her indecision. “And you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on....”

      If only she knew...

      But just as she hadn’t immediately admitted that she wasn’t Ethan’s mother, she stalled on admitting her ignorance, too. She needed more time with the little boy—enough time to make sure he would be safe...without her.

      Parker’s hand moved to her elbow now, as he guided her toward his family and friends. “We need a diversion,” he told them, “a way to get out of here and make sure that no one follows us.”

      One of his brothers nodded. “We’ll distract whoever might be watching. Do you have a safe place to take them?”

      Parker nodded.

      But Sharon felt no relief. Parker might be able to keep them safe from whoever was after them. But who would keep her safe from him?

      One of the light-haired men spoke. “I found out more information from my contacts.”

      Parker lifted a brow in question. “You know who ordered the hit on me?”

      He shook his head. “No, but I know that you’re not the only one. A hit was put out on someone else the same day as it was put out on you.”

      His eyes darkening with concern, Parker glanced toward his brother.

      And the man shook his head again. “It’s on a woman.” His gray-eyed gaze focused on her. “A woman named Sharon Wells.”

      So she hadn’t just been in the wrong places at the wrong times. It had not been coincidence or mistaken identity. Someone was definitely trying to kill her. Someone wanted both her and Parker Payne dead.

       Chapter Four

      Parker closed and locked the door behind Sharon Wells and the baby she carried—his baby. Then he slid his gun back into the holster beneath his shoulder. Before he’d brought her up from the garage in the basement, he had cleared the penthouse condo on Lake Michigan that his brother Logan used as a safe house. Parker had also made certain they weren’t followed from the hospital.

      “We’ll be safe here,” he assured her.

      She trembled—maybe with cold or maybe with exhaustion from carrying the sleeping child. When he’d cleared the penthouse, he had also brought up the portable crib his mother had somehow conjured up at the hospital. He had set it up in a corner of the master bedroom. He reached out for the baby and carefully lifted him from her arms. But the child—even in his sleep—clutched her hair in his hands, binding the baby to her as if those tresses were caramel-colored ropes.

      She was not his mother; she had finally admitted that. But there was definitely a bond between her and the baby. She gently pried open the little fingers so that her hair slipped free. And Parker held only the baby.

      Ethan—she called him. His son’s name was Ethan. He stared down in wonder at the little boy. His pudgy cheeks were flushed and drool trailed from the corner of his open mouth. His fuzzy black hair was damp, too. He had been held so tightly in Sharon’s arms that the child had gotten too warm. She had held him as if she would never let him go. And now she visibly held her breath as she watched him handle the baby, as if afraid that Parker might drop him.

      That he might hurt him...

      A test had proved that somehow this child was his. Parker had vowed to never become a father, but now that he was, he would do anything for his son. He would die for him before he would ever let any harm come to him.

      If Ethan had been in that car when it exploded...

      Parker shuddered in horror over the thought. He could have lost his child before he had ever realized that the little boy was his. He never wanted to let him go now, but the little boy was already overly warm. And Parker was hot himself—with anger over Sharon Wells’s deception. But she watched him as if he was the one who couldn’t be trusted.

      Very gently, so that he didn’t awaken the boy, he laid him down in the crib. The child sighed softly as he relaxed against the thin mattress, his slumber deepening.

      “We’re safe here,” he repeated. But he was reassuring himself now that nothing would happen to his little boy.

      “You probably want to kill me yourself,” she said, “for misleading you.”

      He snorted. “Misleading me?” He wrapped his fingers around her arm and tugged her farther from the crib so that he wouldn’t wake the baby as the anger he had barely been able to contain boiled over in his voice. “That’s all you think you’ve done?”

      “I didn’t lie to you,” she insisted, those huge light brown eyes wide with innocence and sincerity. “I never told you that I was Ethan’s mother—just that you are his father.”

      He dropped his hand from her arm as he realized she hadn’t lied. She had never claimed to be the baby’s mother; he had only assumed that