Free Bodyguard's Baby Surprise by LISA CHILDS

tingled as if he was touching her yet. “My car being stolen before?”
    â€œIt wasn’t just your car,” he said.
    She shook her head. “No, my office was broken into,” she said. “My apartment, too.”
    That muscle twitched along his jaw. And he glanced around his place.
    â€œMaybe if I had bars on the windows and a fence, it wouldn’t have happened,” she mused.
    â€œThose don’t keep everyone out,” he murmured.
    â€œSomeone has broken in here, too?” she asked. And her pulse quickened even more than it already had from his touch. “Are we safe here?”
    He nodded. “Gage put up the bars.”
    â€œSo he didn’t feel safe here?”
    He sighed. “I don’t know if Gage will feel safe anywhere ever again.”
    She shuddered. What had her brother been through? “Has he talked to you about what happened over there? Where he was those months he was missing?”
    Nick sighed again. “He hasn’t talked much.”
    Nick had been over there, too. He had never talked about it, either. But he was Nick. He rarely talked at all—at least, not about himself.
    But Gage had once been so gregarious and charming. Even when he’d been missing, she hadn’t believed she’d lost her brother. Now that he was back, she was worried that she might have lost the man she had known and loved.
    â€œSeems like neither Huxton has been talking to me like they used to,” Nick mused aloud.
    â€œYou haven’t talked to me, either,” she reminded him. Not since the night they’d made love. And he actually hadn’t done much talking that night, either.
    Kissing...
    Touching...
    Stroking...
    She shivered again.
    â€œYou’re cold.” He picked up a plaid blanket from the duct-taped couch and wrapped it around her shoulders. But he didn’t step back. His hands stayed, holding the blanket on her. “Or you’re in shock.” He peered into her eyes again. “Maybe you should go back to the hospital.”
    â€œI’m fine,” she said irritably. “And I’m sick of everyone fussing.”
    â€œGood thing you didn’t meet Mrs. Payne yet.” A slight smile curved his lips, and affection warmed his blue eyes. “She fusses.” But judging from his tone, he didn’t seem to mind it.
    Of course, Nick had never had anyone fuss over him except Annalise...
    He’d hated it when she’d done it. He’d called her a nuisance and a pest. He’d told her to get a life. They had been kids at the time. But his words had still stung because she’d loved him so much—even then.
    â€œI won’t be here long enough to meet her,” Annalise said. “I need to go home tomorrow.” She had a closing on a home she’d sold and a property management business to run.
    His grasp on her shoulders tightened. “You need to stay here where you can be protected.”
    She didn’t feel safe. Staring up into his face, she felt scared. “Nick...”
    â€œYou should have called,” he said. “Or come to me.”
    â€œAbout the break-ins?”
    Finally his hands moved from her shoulders. But they only slipped lower—down her body—to her belly. He cupped it in his palms. “You should have called me about getting pregnant.”
    The baby shifted beneath his hands as if she felt her daddy’s touch. Tears stung Annalise’s eyes. This was what she wanted. Nick and their baby. But it wasn’t what he wanted, or he would have called her after the night they’d made love. He would have come back to see her.
    She was just a pest to him, just the nuisance she’d always been when they were kids. Even more so now that she carried his baby.
    But maybe he didn’t have to know it was his. “Why would I have called you about that?” she asked.
    â€œBecause it’s my baby.” He said it as if he had no