Read Online What Mattered Most by Linda Winfree - Free Book Online

Beth’s desperate blue eyes. “Beth, leave me alone.”
    “No. You’ve got to stay with me. You could have a concussion. Talk to me. Baby names. Did you and John ever decide on a name?”
    What did she mean, you and John ? Didn’t Beth know there was no her and John? Lanie attempted to collect her scattered thoughts. Names…somewhere upstairs, in the journal in her nightstand drawer, was a scribbled list of first names she’d thought would pair up well with John as a middle name. She’d wanted their son to carry his father’s name.
    A sob trembled on her lips, and she fought weak tears again. If they didn’t get out of here, there might not be a baby. She pressed a hand to her motionless stomach. If it wasn’t already too late.
    “Lanie, please . What name?”
    She shook her head, a slow side-to-side roll against the tile wall. “We… I didn’t… He doesn’t have one yet.”
    Beth’s hands smoothed Lanie’s damp hair from her face. “Just don’t name him John, Jr. Everyone will want to call him J.J. or something.”
    “John is a Jr. He’d be John III if we did that.” Lanie stilled, staring at Beth as a horrible possibility occurred to her. “Do you love him, too?”
    Crystal tears washed Beth’s azure gaze, and her lashes swept down, blinking them away. “He’s my partner, my best friend. Of course, I love him. But not the way you mean, no. And he doesn’t love me. God, Lanie, haven’t you ever seen the way he looks at you?”
    No, but she’d never really seen the way he looked at Beth, either. She’d looked at them and seen close partners, the camaraderie she shared with Steve. Grief reared its head, and she fought it down, touching her stomach once more. No movement greeted the contact. She’d lost John and Steve, all in one night. Would she lose her baby, too?
    Gripped by an intense weariness, she leaned her head back, aware of the maddening sensation of her pulse thudding under her skin. “He looks at me like he’s thinking about—”
    “No.” Beth tilted Lanie’s chin up with a gentle finger. “Not like that. I’m talking about how he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching.”
    A desperate need to ask about that expression tickled her throat, but Lanie swallowed the question. How he looked at her really didn’t matter—what mattered was his expression when he’d awakened and whispered Beth’s name. He hadn’t looked like a worried partner. The agony in his navy blue eyes had belonged to a man facing the loss of the woman he loved.
    And that woman wasn’t Lanie.

Chapter Five
    Hunched in a shadow behind the stolen Ford, John stared at the front windows of the house. His eyes strained with the effort of detecting motion that just wasn’t there. Beside him, Caitlin Falconetti whispered into a handheld radio, communicating with the cavalry, waiting one street away.
    John pushed a hand through his hair, tension gripping his body, his torso aching with each agonized breath. Not all of the pain was physical. In that too quiet house were the most important people in his life, and God only knew what was happening to them. The only thing worse than not knowing was the awareness that the situation was his fault.
    Caitlin tapped his arm, and he glanced over his injured shoulder. Her eyes glittered at him in the dark. “Mitchell called dispatch. He’s asking to talk to you. They bought us some time by saying you were still unconscious.”
    His gaze slid back to those bright, empty windows. “Did he say anything about them?”
    “No. Listen, I’m not sure letting him talk to you is a good idea. I think we should set up a mobile command center, get an entry team in place.”
    He hated to admit she was right. Any conversation between him and Mitchell was hell-bent for disaster. “I guess you want to play hostage negotiator.”
    “Me? Hardly. No, I had someone else in mind.”
    The events of the next few minutes transpired with smooth, secretive ease. A nondescript van