Nine-Month Protector

“Braggart.”

With a laugh, Seth strutted off toward the elevators. The hallway outside the briefing room was awkwardly quiet, now that Coop was alone with Sarah.

“Wow.” Sarah hugged her jacket to her waist and watched her brother all the way until his parting salute from behind the closing elevator doors. “I haven’t seen Seth this happy in months. He’s like the young guy he used to be before…” Her voice trailed away as though she was surprised to discover just how distasteful the end of that sentence was going to be. She leveled her shoulders and turned back to Coop. “Who’d have thought his arch-nemesis Rebecca Page would turn out to be so good for him?”

“Yeah. Who’d’ve thunk?” Coop agreed. Sarah’s gaze danced to the left. He studied the corduroy collar on her jacket. Yeah, this was awkward. “Don’t you have school today?” he asked, needing to hear something besides strained silence.

Green eyes met his. “I took the morning off. I had a doctor’s appointment.”

A flare of genuine concern made him lean in half a step. He understood bad news from the doctor better than most. “Are you sick? Hurt?”

She inhaled and slowly released a deep breath that did nothing to ease his worry. “Is there someplace private we can talk?” she asked.

“This is KCPD headquarters. Someone’s always watchin’ around here.”

His lame attempt at humor earned nothing more than a blink. “I’m serious, Coop.”

Yeah, that was reassuring.

So, had she finally gotten around to analyzing what had happened between them? Maybe this was the clean break he’d been hoping for, yet dreading at the same time. And if there was truly some bad news…

Cooper looked beyond her to the noise and bustle of administrative support staff working at their desks in the floor’s main room. With pairs and groups of blue suits and detectives still standing around and discussing the task force meeting and other business, he and Sarah weren’t going to find any privacy out there. He looked back toward the row of reinforced glass windows that formed the near wall of the briefing room. Even if they went inside and closed the door, anyone could look through the windows and see them together. And too much time spent alone with Sarah—in deep conversation or a possible argument—would surely get back to Seth. And Coop didn’t want to answer to that one.

The sun was shining outside. The air was crisp but not cold. Coop angled his head toward the exit. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Turning, Sarah led the way to the elevator. Coop pulled his hat over his bare head and, hanging back far enough so that he couldn’t reach out and touch her, followed behind.

SARAH WAS AFRAID THE QUEASY sensation in her stomach had nothing to do with the elevator ride or the secret she carried inside her.

Instead, she worried it had a lot to do with the tall, lanky detective leaning against the railing on the far side of the elevator. There was a guarded awareness to his deceptively relaxed stance. A curious introspection to the hooded blue eyes that watched the buttons light up with each floor they passed. Cooper Bellamy’s unnatural silence on the ride down to the main floor was all the proof she needed that she had done him a terrible wrong.

She’d traded a friend for a lover that morning when she’d been so afraid, so confused, so desperate to cling to his sheltering strength. And now she had neither. She’d felt more wanted, more necessary to someone in that first long kiss she’d shared with Cooper Bellamy than she’d felt in the weeks or months she’d spent dating anyone else. But the discovery couldn’t have come at a worse time.

She’d been fooled once by Teddy Wolfe. Fooled more times than she could count by her own father. How could she believe anything a man told her? How could she believe in anything she felt?

Humiliation was a hard thing to admit to, and losing that last shred of trust in her father had been a painful lesson to learn. Sarah’s shameful silence these past weeks had been about curling up in a hole and licking her wounds. It was easier to be alone—to work and sleep and nothing more—than it was to doubt other trusts she had given, to fear the consequences of other choices she had made. At least alone, she could inflict no more damage on her own fragile sense of self, or on anyone else she dared to care about.

But then the naps had become more frequent, had lasted longer. She had caught a feverless flu bug that hit about the same time every morning if she didn’t snack between breakfast and lunch. A blue dot on a little plastic stick had confirmed what she’d already suspected. The report from her Ob/Gyn this morning had made the dreaded news official.

Sarah couldn’t hide anymore.

A woman was dead. Her murderer had skipped the country. Sarah’s deposition was on record, but without a killer to put on trial, her testimony was useless. Teddy Wolfe was dead, by her brother’s hand, so there was no way to confront him for what he had done, no satisfaction to be gained by exposing him for the player he was. And even if she hadn’t severed every connection with her pimp of a father, there was no helping him with his addiction.

Sarah was helpless. Useless. She could do nothing to make things right.

But she could be honest.

As she stole a glance at the man reflected in the elevator’s polished steel doors, she knew she owed Cooper Bellamy that much.

They’d left the elevator and crossed through the security checkpoint on the first floor before Coop said his next word.

“Here.” After shrugging into his own Army-issue camo-print jacket, he pulled her canvas barn coat from her twisting arms and held it so she could switch her purse from hand to hand and slide her arms into the sleeves.

“Thanks.”

He pushed open the door that led to the building’s granite steps down to the sidewalk and street. When a trio of uniformed police officers met them coming up the steps, Coop touched his hand to the small of her back and guided her to the side, out of their path.

His gentlemanly considerations surprised her. The speed with which he did the job and broke contact with her did not. Feeling the chill of his aversion to her as much as the bite of the autumn breeze on her cheeks, Sarah buttoned her jacket and thrust her hands into its deep pockets.

The touch of his fingers at her elbow burned through canvas and cotton, but only long enough to dodge traffic as they crossed the street and headed north toward a clearing dotted with trees and benches and modern sculptures. “The park looks pretty empty. We can walk through it up to the courthouse and back.”

“That’d be fine.” The city block that had been cleared of condemned buildings and reclaimed to offer a spot of beauty in the midst of downtown renovations should have been a balm to her frazzled nerves and traitorous stomach. The oaks and maples were studded with red and orange leaves, while the shrubs surrounding each seating area had turned a rich yellow. But even though a couple shared a bench and a picnic lunch and a pair of women power-walked over its concrete paths, Sarah couldn’t share an appreciation for the safety and beauty of the place. She fisted her hands around the strap of her purse and debated how she was going to start this conversation. None of the words she’d been rehearsing seemed adequate enough.

They were halfway to the courthouse when Coop broke the silence for her. “So, are we just gonna walk and pretend we’ve got nothing to say to each other, or is there a point to this exercise?”

Sarah counted the steps off in her head. One. Two. Three. “I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

Oh, God. She’d skipped every preamble. Every explanation. Every apology. Was the blood draining from her head? Or was the sidewalk suddenly spinning for some other, more logical reason? “I’m going to have a baby.”

“I know what the word means. Do you want me to say congratulations?” He stopped her with a hand on her arm and the world quickly righted itself. But his grip was as tight as the clip of his words. “Or are you lookin’ for backup before you tell your old-fashioned brother that you’re having a baby without benefit of a husband first?”

“Don’t joke, Coop.” He pulled away and she took that as a cue to keep walking. “I’m three months along. That makes you the father.”

She took four more steps before she realized he’d stopped. When she turned to face him, she saw cold-eyed suspicion filling the laugh lines on his face. “Impossible.”

Sarah curled her arms around herself, around the innocent beginnings of life growing inside her. She’d never seen that kind of hardness in Coop’s expression before. “You and I didn’t use protection that morning. And I wasn’t on the pill because I’m not…I wasn’t…sexually active.”

“It isn’t mine.”

“Why are you…?” Sarah checked her temper. He had every right to be angry, though she hadn’t expected this flat-out denial. “Look, I’m not telling you this because I expect something from you. I’m not looking for a wedding ring or child support or anything.”

“Hell. Those things I can give you.” He turned and headed back toward headquarters, his long legs quickly putting distance between them.

Sarah hurried to catch up. “You’ve always been a good friend and I wanted to be up-front about it. Before my belly starts to show and people start asking questions. I didn’t want you to think I was hiding it from you.”

He whirled around and Sarah backpedaled to keep from running into him. “You slept with someone else.” His statement of fact sounded like an accusation. “Or was I the fling? Old Coop wasn’t good enough? Being together didn’t mean a damn thing to you, did it?”

Old? Try virile. Wonderful. Loving. Sarah tilted her head back to absorb every bit of hurt and accusation he hurled from those dark blue eyes. She tried to bring back the familiar kindness with the truth. “It meant everything. I needed you. I needed…But it was too soon. I wasn’t ready for emotions to kick in. I couldn’t handle anything serious. I may never be able to give you…to give anyone…”

Oh, God. Sarah’s strength faltered. Coop’s face swam out of focus and her stomach churned. She’d missed her morning snack, lunch was late, the growing baby made such demands on her body. Guilt made such demands on her soul.

She had slept with one other man. But they’d used a condom.

Squeezing her lips shut against the roiling protest in her stomach, Sarah opened her purse and fished for the bag of snacks she carried inside. She found the bag but couldn’t see the opening, couldn’t find the zipper, couldn’t get it open. “Damn it.”

She swayed. She was falling. She was going to be lying on the grass, losing her breakfast—and Cooper still wouldn’t understand the obvious truth. The hopeful truth.