Free A Valentine from Harlequin by Christine Nancy u Bell Catherine u Warren Maggie u Spencer Michele u Shayne Hauf

hurt. The pain wrenched through her, from down low in her back, around to her middle, tightening like a steel band. She stopped her flight, grasping her belly with both hands, sucking in a harsh breath.
    Oh, God. It wasn’t…it couldn’t be…not now….
    “Excuse me, Ma’am?”
    Charlotte jerked her head up at the sound of a male voice and found herself staring into the eyes of a stranger, and into the barrel of a gun.
    “You need to come with me,” he said. He nodded toward a car that had pulled up to the curb beside her. It was long, sleek, and black, running almost soundlessly, and its rear door was standing open. “Get into the car, Ma’am.”
    “Look, take my wallet,” she said, fumbling in her coat pocket for the billfold she’d brought with her. “There’s cash, some credit cards. And here, my watch.”
    “Just get into the car.”
    Looking up at him again, she dropped the wallet back into her pocket and tried to weigh her options. She could get into the car and hope for a better chance, or she could make a run for it now and hope he was a lousy shot.
    The question was, just how fast could a nine-month-pregnant woman, who might have just felt her first contraction, run?

Chapter Two
    As it turned out, she didn’t need to decide. There were two dull thuds, and it seemed as if the man’s buttons exploded. Tiny little poofs of fabric. He dropped the gun he’d been pointing at her, a shocked expression on his face as he sank to the sidewalk. Then of course, she saw the blood.
    There were squealing tires and roaring motors, and a crash that scared her half to death as a small red car smashed into the back of the long black one, pushing it forward several yards. The red car’s passenger door opened, and Johnny yelled. “Get in. Fast!”
    She got in, and he was speeding away before she even got the door closed again.
    “Did they hurt you?” he asked.
    She closed her eyes, only wanting to blot out the sound of his voice and the insane way he was driving until her mind could wrap itself around all that was happening. Leaning her head back against the soft seat, she grabbed the seat belt with her other hand, pulled it around her. But as she fastened it, her hand brushed hot metal and her eyes flew open.
    The gun lay on the seat between them. The extension affixed to its end was one she recognized only from watching old Bond films. A silencer.
    “You just killed a man,” she whispered.
    “I didn’t have a choice.” He adjusted the mirror, looking into it almost as often as he looked at the road ahead of them.
    “Are they following?”
    “They were.” He kept driving, though he did slow down to a more reasonable speed. They came to large, open parking lot, and he pulled in, shut the car off, snatched up the handgun, and got out. “Come on, come with me.”
    She undid her seat belt and got out too, following a dead man to another car, a dark blue sedan, and she stood near the passenger side door. He pulled out another set of keys, pushed a button to unlock the doors. “Get in.”
    “No.”
    He stood on the driver’s side, looking over the top of the car at her. “What do you mean, no? They’re looking for us, Charlotte, they’ll catch up any time now. We need to move.”
    “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on, and why you’re pretending not to know me.” She blinked. “And why you were kissing that blonde at the party.”
    He licked his lips, glancing back down the road. “There will be time to talk about all of that later. Just get in the car and let me get us somewhere safe, before—”
    “Tell me your name. You’re real name, Johnny.”
    “My name is Michael Drummond,” he told her. “And unless you get into this car right now, very bad men with very large guns are going to show up and start shooting at you.”
    She turned her back to him. “I don’t care.”
    “Oh, you don’t care,” he repeated. “What about your baby, Charlotte? Do you care about