Newborn Conspiracy

Chapter Two

“My son,” Logan mumbled, in case Mia Crandall hadn’t heard him.

But, of course, she had heard every word. She sat there, shaking her head and looking…terrified.

That wasn’t quite the reaction he’d expected. He’d thought she would at least look a little guilty.

“Why did you do it?” he asked. And this time, he would get an answer.

“Do what?” she argued.

He groaned. He was already tired of this game. “Why did you use my semen to have yourself inseminated?”

“I didn’t.” And there wasn’t a thread of doubt in her denial. “I asked for an anonymous donor.”

Figuring that it would intimidate her, he stared into her eyes, not plain brown as he thought when he first saw her on the porch. They were rich dark amber with flecks of honey gold that were nearly the same color as her loose sweater and coat. Mem orable eyes.

As was the woman herself.

Despite what he thought about her—and his thoughts about her were pretty bad—Logan had to admit that Mia Crandall was damn attractive. It was in part the hair, he decided. He’d always been a sucker for a redhead and she had that in spades. Her hair was long and thick; it framed her ivory-pale aristocratic face.

However, it was also her mouth that caught his attention. Full and lush. Nothing aristocratic about that part of her anatomy. That mouth stirred something primitive and male deep inside him.

But he wouldn’t let that get in the way of what he had to do.

Besides, he didn’t need another redhead in his life.

“I was shocked when I saw your file, because I’d requested someone with light-colored hair.” She combed her gaze over him. His hair was incredibly dark. In fact, for some missions Logan had posed as an Italian, a Greek and even someone of Lebanese descent. No one had ever questioned that foreign pretense.

She paused and stared at him. “Mercy, do you actually believe that I arranged to make you my baby’s biological father?”

“You bet I do.”

Well, he’d believed it until a few moments ago, anyway. Now, after seeing her shocked and disgusted reaction, Logan wasn’t so sure.

He hoped like the devil that her mouth and hair weren’t responsible for this wavering of his beliefs. Just in case it was, Logan forced himself to remember that all the evidence made her look guilty as sin.

“I would never choose a man like you to father my child. Never.”

That stung, but Logan tried not to be insulted. From her point of view, he was a mercenary. That wasn’t even close to what he did for a living, but to correct her would mean explaining things he couldn’t get into. Best for Mia to believe the mercenary part rather than know the truth.

Some secrets should stay secret.

Not hers, of course. Because her secret involved him in the most personal way.

“So, you didn’t arrange to use the semen I’d stored at Cryogen Labs?” he clarified.

“No. I didn’t arrange it, and if I’d known, I would have stopped it before the insemination.”

Logan continued to push because he still wasn’t convinced she was telling the truth. “When did you find out I was the anonymous donor?”

Her gaze lifted slowly and met his. “When I saw your file. By then, it was too late. As I said, I was already five months pregnant.”

He studied her, thought about it. She seemed sincere, but that didn’t mean she was. Someone had arranged this and Mia Crandall was the most likely candidate. Maybe if he discovered her motive all the other pieces would fall into place. Which would be a good thing. Because so far, he hadn’t been able to figure out much.

“Did you think if you had my baby, that you could blackmail me in some way?” he asked.

She looked at him as if he’d grown a third eye. “Excuse me?”

“Blackmail?” Logan repeated.

“And why exactly would I want to do that? I have money. As you probably know, I was the sole heir to my parents’ estate and it was worth several million. I can live quite well for the rest of my life.”

Yes, he did know that. “Maybe you wanted even more money. Or maybe you wanted to have some psychological hold over me because you feel I’ve wronged you. Or you feel that I owe you something. Maybe you’re connected to someone involved in a past case that I worked on.”

She huffed. “You’re sounding paranoid.”

He had a reason for that. “My ex-girlfriend made me paranoid about females in general. She used to like to follow me and make my life difficult.”

Her chin came up. “Well, I’m not your ex-girlfriend. And I had no idea who you were before I saw the file that’d been tucked inside mine.”

“You’re sure?” Logan pressed.

“Dead sure. Plus, the reason I chose insemination was so I wouldn’t have any moral or personal obligations—or for that matter, any contact whatsoever—with the sperm donor. That’s all you are to me, Logan McGrath. A sperm donor. It doesn’t matter if there was some kind of mix-up at Brighton. It doesn’t matter what you think I’ve done. You have no part in my life or Tanner’s life. Now, get out of my car.”

Tanner.

For some reason, hearing the baby’s name packed a huge wallop. Logan had experienced a similar feeling when he first held the little boy in his arms. Now, that little boy had a name. Tanner. And he was sleeping in the backseat just a few feet away.

Logan couldn’t see the baby because the infant carrier seat was facing away from him. And he was reasonably sure that it wasn’t a good idea for him to see his son. Not just yet, anyway. Not until he’d straightened out a few things with the boy’s mother.

Who might be actually telling the truth.

And this time, Logan knew it didn’t have anything to do with her hair and mouth. Nope. She was making sense. Well, sort of. She was making as much sense as there could be in their situation.

“If you didn’t set all of this up, then who did?” Logan asked.

“I honestly don’t know, but it could have been anyone at Brighton. It’s been all over the news about the illegal things they were doing there. Maybe that illegal activity included using DNA contributions without first getting permission from the donor.”

Yeah. Logan had thought of that. And he’d dismissed it. “Someone forged my name on a release form at Cryogen Labs. That person also paid a hefty testing and processing fee to make sure the semen was still viable. It would have been a lot cheaper just to pay a new donor.”

Her silence let him know that she was probably thinking about that. The silence didn’t last long. From the backseat, there was a tiny sound. Like a little grunt. That grunt was followed by some movement.

And then a kittenlike cry.

Mia put her forearm over her chest. Specifically, her breasts, and pressed hard. “Tanner’s crying makes my milk let down.”

He didn’t have a clue what that meant, and his blank stare must have conveyed that.

“I have to feed him,” she snapped.

“Oh.”

Well, that left him with a dilemma. He couldn’t leave, not until they had this mess figured out. But the baby was obviously hungry. The kittenlike sounds increased in both volume and intensity.

And that wasn’t all.

With everything else going on, Logan noticed the slow-moving dark-gray car that turned into the parking lot. Any car would have garnered his attention since the attack on him six and a half weeks earlier. But with the baby, Logan’s concerns were heightened.

Really heightened.

Man. This wasn’t good. He needed to view what was going on here objectively, and he couldn’t do that if he was worried about the baby. Still, he couldn’t totally dismiss the emotions and feelings that came with unexpected fatherhood.

Mia must have noticed his mental battle because she followed his gaze to the gray car that was now one row over from them. “Do you know the person in that car?”

“I don’t think so.”

Her breathing was suddenly a little choppy. “Maybe it’s your ex-girlfriend?”

“No.” But he almost wished it was Genevieve Devereux. The alternative scenarios were much, much worse than running into a lying, scheming, psycho ex with a penchant for stalking.

Logan had been on the job for nearly seven years. And never once had the job come home with him.

Not until six and a half weeks ago.

Then, he’d been shot in the leg while doing target practice on Christmas morning in the woods near his former training facility.

But was the job responsible for that and had the job followed him here? Had someone associated with the mission sent an assassin to try to put another bullet in him? He didn’t want to believe it was possible, but he was having a hard time coming up with theories that didn’t involve his last mission.

Or Mia Crandall.

“See what you can do to soothe the baby,” Logan insisted when the cries became louder. He eased his gun from his leather shoulder holster and fastened his attention to the gray car. The windows of the vehicle were heavily tinted so he couldn’t see the driver. The license plate had been obscured with mud.

“Oh, God,” he heard Mia say.

His attention snapped to her. She was looking at the gun and, judging from her expression, she didn’t care much for it. Tough. He wasn’t putting it away.

Mia drew in a series of sharp breaths and it seemed as if she were on the verge of hyperventilating. “Phobia,” she managed to say through those sharp breaths.

Logan shook his head. “What?”

“Phobia. A huge one. About the gun.”

She wasn’t kidding, either. He could see the sweat pop out above her upper lip. She was shaking. Actually shaking. Logan had read the police report of the incident involving the death of her parents fourteen years ago. Guns had been used.

And a switchblade.

Logan rethought that part about keeping his gun drawn. He didn’t want her to craze out on him. He eased his gun back inside his coat so that it would still be ready to use but would be out of sight.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Logan pushed that emotional response aside and tried to come up with a solution to this possible problem. His first instinct was to put Mia in the backseat with the baby so he could drive away. But it was broad daylight and they were outside a pediatric clinic. An assassin wasn’t likely to make his or her move here.

He hoped.

“Something is wrong,” she insisted.

She reached for her diaper bag. Without taking his eyes off the car, Logan snagged her wrist. He didn’t know if she had another can of pepper spray stashed inside and he didn’t want to take the chance that she might use it on him.

“I’m getting a pacifier,” she informed him through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to sit here in this parking lot any longer. Not with that car inching toward us like a killer shark.”

Logan heard something in her voice. Not fear. But familiarity with fear. Then, he remembered her saying that she’d been followed and that someone had planted a tracking device on her car.

“How about an ex-boyfriend?” Logan asked. “Is there one in the picture?”

“No.” She located the pacifier, reached over the seat and apparently put it in Tanner’s mouth. It must have worked because the baby’s crying stopped. “I’m leaving now. Get out.”

“We’re leaving. I’m not getting out. This isn’t a good time for Tanner and you to be alone.”

Mia didn’t argue. She strapped on her seat belt, threw the car into gear and backed out of the parking space. She didn’t waste any time. Nor did she panic. Mia drove away from the clinic, took the first turn to the right and then made an immediate turn left on the next street. She continued the process for four more blocks, all the while checking the rear-view mirror.

“You’ve done this before,” Logan commented, staring into his side mirror. He didn’t see the gray car but that didn’t mean it wasn’t trying to follow them.

“I told you about the problems I had with exactly this sort of thing.”

Yes, she had. And it was also a matter of police record. Still, there were things that the police records didn’t tell him. “What happened when someone tried to kidnap you?”

“It was…terrifying.” And that’s all she said for several long moments. “Early one morning when I stepped outside to get my newspaper, a van pulled up in my driveway. A person wearing a ski mask and bulky clothes came rushing out of the van and tried to use a stun gun on me. I threw the paper at him. I must have hit him or her in the eye because the person stopped. That’s when I ran back inside. My neighbor saw the whole thing and yelled out for help. The person got back in the van and sped away.”

Logan didn’t want to know how scary that must have been. Pregnant and with someone out to get her. It was even more unsettling when he factored in that Mia had been carrying his child at the time. That meant the moron in the van had put his son at risk.

Logan intended to find that person soon.

“When did all of this start?” he asked. “When did you first notice someone following you?”

“About the time I was inseminated.”

Well, that was interesting. Logan didn’t think the timing was a coincidence.

But what did it mean?

“I have no ex-boyfriends. No enemies. The men who killed my parents died in a shoot-out with the cops.” She made another turn and headed for the main highway. “I thought, after I learned that you were the sperm donor, that it might be connected to you.”

He’d considered that, too, but he wanted to hear how she’d reached that conclusion. “How?”

“Maybe you riled the wrong person. Maybe he or she thinks they can use my baby to get back at you. Blackmail, of sorts.”

“Now who’s sounding paranoid?” he muttered. But he couldn’t dismiss it.

“That’s why I went to your brother’s house in Fall Creek. I read that he was doctor, that he had a normal life. Unlike you. He had an interview on a medical site and he said that you and he were estranged.”

Because that’s what Logan had told his brother, Finn, to say. It was his attempt to keep Finn out of harm’s way in case one of Logan’s missions went wrong and someone wanted to use his brother as leverage to exact revenge against Logan.

“I thought it would be safe to go to your brother and try to figure all of this out,” she concluded. “I was obviously wrong.”

“You were wrong in one way.” His brother probably couldn’t have helped. But if she hadn’t gone to Fall Creek, Logan might have never known that he had a son.

A son who needed protecting.

Of course, there was a flip side to this. His son might need protecting because Logan had helped bring the danger right to him.

Hell.

Was this all his fault?

“I had a job a little more than seven weeks ago,” he explained to her. He chose his words carefully. “A businesswoman was kidnapped in South America. Her family hired me to get her out. I did. The day after I returned to Texas, someone shot me. That’s why I was using a cane in Fall Creek. I’d gone to my brother’s house to recuperate.”

Her breath stilled, but he could see the pulse hammer on her throat.

“I don’t think my shooting is connected to you,” he continued when she didn’t say anything. And he hoped to hell that he was right. “After all, someone has been following you for months. So the questions are—who’s been doing that and why?”

Mia shook her head, plowed one hand into the side of her thick hair to push it away from her face. “I thought maybe someone from the Brighton Birthing Center was following me because they believed I had some evidence of their crimes.”

“Okay. That’s possible.”

“Then why follow me now?” she wanted to know. “The people who did illegal things at Brighton have all been arrested.”

“Maybe not. Maybe there’s a straggler.”

Her eyes widened. “What does that mean?”

“Someone who was doing illegal stuff but wasn’t caught with the rest. Someone who doesn’t want their illegal activity to come to light because it’ll land his or her butt in jail.”

She nodded. “And maybe that’s the person who forged your name on the release documents and moved your file from Cryogen Labs to Brighton.” She took the ramp that merged into Highway 281, a major thoroughfare of the city.

“Exactly.” Logan turned his ear toward the baby to make sure he wasn’t in need of a feeding. But Tanner was apparently resting comfortably.

Unlike Mia.

Logan couldn’t help but notice the dampness on the front of her sweater. Right in the vicinity of her left nipple. She apparently had sprung a leak. He hoped that wasn’t painful.

And then he questioned why he had his mind on that and not their situation.

Remedying that, Logan went to the next question on his mental list. “Did you ever see the person following you?”

“Once. I got just a glimpse. It happened right after I went to the police station to turn in the files I’d taken. The person was in the parking lot.”

Logan hadn’t read that in the police reports. “By any chance was it a dark-gray car?”

She shook her head. “Black. But the tint on the windows was heavy. When I spotted the car and realized that it was someone following me, I stopped. I figured I was safe in the parking lot of the police station so I sat there for five minutes, and then this motorcycle bumped into the black car. The driver let down the window. Just for second. And that’s when I got a glimpse of her right before she sped off.”

Logan latched right on to that. “She?”

“Oh, it was definitely a woman. Auburn hair, fair skin. Heart-shaped face.”

With just that brief description, a really bad thought went through his head. “Describe her hair.”

“It was short, no more than two inches long, and it was sort of spiky. She didn’t look like a criminal. From what I could see of her, she was well dressed. And the car was top of the line and very expensive.”

Logan silently cursed.

“What’s wrong?” Mia asked. “Do you know this woman?”

He didn’t answer. Because in this case a picture was worth a thousand words, he grabbed his BlackBerry from his pocket, entered a security code and began to search through the old files and photos. He finally found what he was looking for. Logan brought up the image on the screen and leaned it toward Mia so that she could see it.

“Is that the woman you saw in the parking lot that day?” he asked.

Her eyes widened and she pulled off the side of the road into the emergency lane. She took the PDA from his hand and studied the image. “Yes, I think it is. Do you know her?”

“Oh, yeah.” Logan knew her all too well. “That’s Genevieve Devereux, my scheming, psycho ex-girlfriend.”

Chapter Three

Mia tried to come to terms with what Logan had just told her, but it was a lot to absorb.

The woman who’d followed her and made her life a living hell was Logan’s ex-girlfriend?

Part of her was pleased that she finally had a name to associate with the frightening things that’d happened to her during the past year. But another part of her was confused and not at all certain that this woman was actually responsible.

There were things that just didn’t add up.

“Why would Genevieve Devereux follow me and try to kidnap me?” Mia asked.

Logan didn’t know the answer to that. “She’s capable of doing something like this,” he said. But then, he shook his head. “Well, maybe she is. I never pegged her for a kidnapper. But the subterfuge. Following you. The planting of a tracking device. That’s Genevieve.”

“It still doesn’t explain a motive. I don’t even know this woman. Besides, it could have been a coincidence that she was in the black car at the police parking lot on that particular day.”

“When Genevieve is around,” he mumbled, “bad things aren’t usually a coincidence.”

Tanner began to fuss again and Mia knew she had to feed him soon. But where? She didn’t like the idea of taking Logan back to her house. Besides, she was a good fifteen minutes from home and she doubted that her son would want to wait that long for dinner.

“Take this exit,” Logan instructed.

Mia gave him a questioning glance.

“Tanner’s hungry,” was Logan’s response.

Since Mia couldn’t argue with that, she did as he said and took the exit.

“Pull into the parking lot of that fast food place,” he continued. “You can feed the baby while I watch out for that gray car and make some calls. I’ll find out if Genevieve is behind this.”

Because Tanner’s cries were getting louder and more intense, Mia followed that order, too. She parked her car, unfastened her seat belt and reached for her son.

She froze.

Because she realized that Logan would see Tanner. It was stupid and it didn’t make sense, but she was afraid if Logan saw the baby, then there might be some kind of instant bonding. But then, maybe that had already taken place on the afternoon he’d delivered Tanner.

After all, Logan had been the first person to hold her son.

Mia refused to think of Tanner as their son. No. Logan McGrath was simply the sperm donor.

Keeping the blanket over Tanner, she unstrapped him from the infant carrier, scooped him up and brought him into the front seat with her. One glance at Logan and she realized he was watching her every move. Mia had a remedy for that. She shoved her modesty aside, lifted her sweater and opened the cup clasp of her nursing bra.

Her left breast spilled out.

Logan looked away and took out his phone.

Finally she’d won one of the little mental matches going on between them.

As Mia had known he would do, her son latched right on to her nipple and began to nurse. That not only meant he was being fed, but with Tanner’s face pressed to her own body, Logan couldn’t see him.