Filthy Secret

Sawyer Knox had been in as many war zones as he had time zones. In his six years as an active-duty Marine, he’d been chased, shot at, and-in the act that had ultimately benched him for good-had an

The IEDonated 300 yards from the spot where he’d been standing. But none of that had quite prepared him for the gut-dipping terror of his friend Isabella rushing out of the ladies’ room in the back of his bar and grill and handing him her baby.

“Oh, thank God!” she said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “There’s been a huge emergency downtown and my entire unit, plus probably half the cops in the district, just got called in.”

Adrenaline perked in Sawyer’s veins, his senses defaulting to full alert. “What’s going on?”

Isabella dropped her voice even though the alcove where they were standing was empty of anyone other than the two of them. Well, three, if you counted the squirming baby. “Between us? There’s been a credible bomb threat down by the Plaza. I have to go, like, now. Kellan’s on his way to come pick the baby up, but can you watch Elijah until he gets here? Please?”Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

“Uh,” Sawyer grunted, his heart jackhammering behind his black Crooked Angel T-shirt. “I’m not sure I’m the, ah, best person for that?”

“Don’t be silly,” Isabella said. “I know you. I trust you. All you have to do is put him in his stroller for ten, maybe fifteen minutes until Kellan gets here. I just changed him, and he’s already had dinner. Chances are, he’ll drift off to sleep any second now, anyway. Won’t you, my little sweet pea?” she asked the baby with a smile.

Elijah wiggled in Sawyer’s grasp, and oh, hell, why couldn’t she have asked him to do something easy, like bullseye a target with an M14 from a hundred yards away? In a sandstorm.

“Oh. Well…” Sawyer hedged. She couldn’t exactly take her baby anywhere near harm’s way. Plus, how hard could it be to keep the little guy safe for ten minutes? “Yeah, sure. You got it.”

“Ah, thank you! You’re the best.” She took the briefest of seconds to grab Sawyer’s cell phone number, then text him both hers and her husband, Kellan’s, before she kissed the baby one last time. “I owe you one.”

“Be safe,” Sawyer said as she hustled out of the alcove. Two-point-two seconds later, Elijah burst into tears.

“Oh, no. No, no.” Sawyer’s gut bottomed out somewhere in the vicinity of his kneecaps as the tears morphed into a wail. He shifted his hold on the little guy-which was already pretty awkward, since Sawyer had never held a baby in his entire twenty-six years-and wait, how was the baby crying even harder now?

“Okay, okay. It’s going to be okay,” Sawyer said, more to himself than Elijah. But Kellan was going to murder him if he came in to find his son screaming like he was being stuck with pins. Isabella had said the baby would fall asleep. Should he put him in the stroller? Or, no, maybe he should walk around with him-wasn’t that what people did on TV to get babies to stop crying?

Sawyer cradled Elijah in the crook of his arm, which only made the baby squirm harder. He pivoted on one work boot, trying to pace through the tiny alcove to soothe Elijah-

And nearly ran smack into the very beautiful brunette whose merlot was probably sitting on the bar, waiting for him to deliver it.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Sawyer said, not wanting her to think he’d somehow hurt Elijah.

“Oh, good,” Jo said. “Because no offense, but you’d make a terrible kidnapper.”

Sawyer’s pulse rattled. “What? Oh. God, no. I’m not-I wouldn’t-”

“Relax, Sawyer. I know you’re not kidnapping Isabella’s baby,” Jo said. He must have looked confused, because she added, “I was at the table when the whole unit got called away. I assume you’re on babysitting duty?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

One corner of her mouth went up. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“What gave it away?” he asked, and she laughed, not unkindly.

“The look of sheer, abject terror on your face was kind of a dead giveaway.”

Elijah continued to fuss, and Sawyer continued to make lame attempts to comfort him, to no avail. “Do you want some help?” Jo asked, and it took all Sawyer had not to let his relief commandeer his face.

“I didn’t want to assume that you have more experience with babies than I do just because you’re a woman, but if you do, then yes. Please. I’m out of my depth here.”

A look crossed her face, some combination of confusion and something else that Sawyer couldn’t quite peg. But then it was gone, replaced by a no-nonsense nod. “Lucky for you, I can help.”

Rather than take the baby from him, though, she gestured with her hands, guiding him through her directions.

“He looks about five months old, so I bet he’s got a little stranger anxiety. Try holding him up on your shoulder so he can look around. The lights might distract him.” She gestured to the white lights strung from the bar’s rafters overhead. “Just keep one hand under his bottom and the other on his upper back to make sure he doesn’t wiggle free.”

“Like this?” Sawyer asked, certain he was doing it laughably wrong.

But Jo just nodded, reaching out to readjust his grip on the baby a little. “I’ll see if I can find something in his stroller to snag his attention.”

She rummaged for less than ten seconds before coming up victorious, holding something small and blue between her fingers. Slipping around Sawyer, she popped it into Elijah’s mouth, and whoa…

He stopped crying.

“You are magic,” Sawyer said as Elijah’s hitching breaths began to even out beneath his palm.

“I’m just somebody’s mom,” Jo countered, but nope. No way.

“Magic,” he insisted. “I never would’ve thought to hold him differently or to look for…one of these thingies.”

She laughed. “Yeah, pacifiers usually do the trick. He just needed a little comfort, that’s all. Didn’t you, sweet boy?”

Jo reached out to smooth a hand over Elijah’s head, and the baby let out a little sigh in response.

“He likes you,” Sawyer said, and again, Jo dodged the compliment.

“I think he might be getting sleepy. You could try to put him in the stroller and see if he starts to drop off.”

Worry pinged between Sawyer’s ribs. “What if he cries?”

“Then you can just pick him back up again,” she said with a shrug. “It won’t hurt him.”

Testing her theory, Sawyer moved over to the stroller, carefully angling Elijah into the seat. Jo reached down to strap him in, then reclined the seat back-which Sawyer had no idea you could even do-and miraculously, Elijah settled in quietly. After a minute, his eyes grew glassy and heavy, and then after one more, they began to drift shut.

“Wow,” Sawyer half-whispered in awe. “Your merlot is completely on the house.”

“Oh.” Her brown eyes went wide, and Sawyer noticed that in this light, they were the color of warm caramel, glinted with little flecks of gold. “Now that everyone was called away, I was going to just head out.”

Why her words sent a pang of disappointment through Sawyer’s gut, he wasn’t quite sure, but they did. “You sure? I don’t mean to brag or anything, but we do make a killer Cuban sandwich. Might even be the best you’ll ever eat.”

“You’re sure of yourself,” Jo said, and Sawyer lifted one shoulder partway before letting it drop.

“Just stating the facts. If you want to prove me wrong, guess you’ll have to stick around for dinner.”