Read Online Her Baby's Bodyguard by Ingrid Weaver - Free Book Online

to the rendezvous.” He held out his hand. “Let me help you up so you don’t strain your wound.”
    She clasped his fingers and levered herself up, trying not to disturb Katya. “Is the storm over?”
    “More or less.”
    “Where are Katya’s things?”
    “I stuffed them in my pack while you were sleeping,” he said, nodding toward the door. The canvas knapsack that he’d taken his medical supplies out of leaned beside the door frame. It was stretched so full it looked round. “They’ll be easier to carry that way.”
    She was about to thank him when she realized there could have been another reason he’d taken care of the bundles. Had he wanted to search her belongings for the disk more thoroughly? Eva swung her legs over the side of the bed frame, shoved her hair out of her eyes and looked around for Katya’s carrier. She spotted it on the floor beside the fireplace. “Would you pass me the carrier, Sergeant Norton? I’d like to disturb Katya as little as possible.”
    Instead of releasing her hand, he tugged her to her feet. “Sorry, I can’t let you use it. Your wound—”
    “My wound is fine. The bleeding stopped hours ago.” She looked back at Katya, then inhaled sharply as she was struck by a wave of dizziness. She tightened her grip on his hand. “How far do we need to go?”
    “Around another twenty klicks,” he replied.
    “Will the people in the helicopter be there? I thought we’d missed the time.”
    “They’ll be there tonight. The timetable just got pushed back twenty-four hours. We arranged a backup extraction scenario when we planned the mission. We try to cover every contingency.” He glanced at Katya. “Well, almost every contingency.”
    Eva tugged her hand free from his grip and went to pick up the carrier. She faltered when she saw the rusty-brown patch of dried blood on the cotton. She couldn’t see the blood on her sweater because of the dark wool, and she avoided looking at the stained area on her blouse. But the sight of the carrier reminded her once again of how close the bullet had come to Katya.
    “Dr. Petrova…”
    “I won’t risk keeping my baby unrestrained again.” She grabbed the carrier, straightening one set of ties as she returned to the bed frame. “Traveling with her on my lap yesterday was foolhardy.”
    “So would putting this contraption back on,” he said, snatching the carrier from her. “Those straps would rub directly on your wound.”
    “I’m not going to hold her in my arms for twenty kilometers, especially over roads like these. All it would take would be one bad bump or sudden stop and Katya would be hurled….” She paused until she regained control over her voice. “I’ve already exposed her to far too much danger,” she said, holding out her hand. “This is the best way to protect her.”
    “We leave in six, Jack,” Colbert said. He picked up his own rucksack and went outside. Ice-laden wind swirled in from the darkness, along with the rumble of an engine before the door slammed shut.
    Sergeant Norton tossed Katya’s carrier on the bed frame and unzipped his coat. “Those straps look long enough to go around me. Show me how to fit the kid inside.”
    “What?”
    “I’ll carry her.”
    “No, she’s not familiar with you. When she wakes up—”
    “You’ll be right beside her.” He dropped his coat on the floor. “I agree that having her restrained is the best way to keep her safe. Since you can’t do it, I will.”
    “But—”
    “The longer you argue about it, the more danger we’re all in.”
    What he said was true. Her objections were because of her own needs, not Katya’s. She hadn’t been more than a few steps away from her daughter since the baby’s birth. It had always been just the two of them.
    “Sooner or later, you’re going to need to trust me, Dr. Petrova.”
    Did she? No, she knew better than that. Eva slid her hands beneath Katya to ease her into her snowsuit. Then she put on her hat and