“When I was seventeen I was attacked.” Her words rushed out with her breath, and she felt her heart pounding. Her chest began to hurt. And she had no idea why she was telling him any of this. “A date went wrong. My parents had warned me that the guy was bad news. I didn’t listen. I thought I knew more than they did. And when the guy tried to rape me, and he couldn’t, uh, perform, he stabbed me three times and left me to die in the trunk of my car.”
The tears came, and she cursed, used the profanity to quell the building anger. She wasn’t that naïve girl anymore. It wasn’t worth crying or panicking over now. She’d been rescued twelve years ago, and was still alive.
“Shhh,” Russ said, his voice so calm. He put his arm around her and eased her closer. Not quite a hug, but almost. “Want to show me your scars, and I’ll show you mine? “
She went stiff and eased back a little so she could make eye contact. But he was busy lifting his chest-hugging black T-shirt. She got a good look at his toned and tanned chest, his tight abs and the scar just to the left of his heart.
“I know a little bit about being left for dead … and staying alive.” He lowered his T-shirt. “So do you. That’s good, Julia. Because I need you to be a survivor.”
She smeared the tears off her face and narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
He opened his mouth as if he were about to answer, but then he shook his head. “Let me meet my niece first, and then we’ll talk.”
She just continued to stare at him so, he reached around her and opened the door. Or rather, he tried to do that. The nanny had obviously put on the safety latch and chain.
“It’s me,” Julia called to Zoey.
“Julia, thank God you’re here. You scared me with that phone call.” Zoey opened the door, but she stopped when she spotted Russ. Probably because Russ looked … well, dangerous.
And was.
“Everything’s okay,” Julia said, trying to assure the woman. “I might have overreacted.” She hoped she had, anyway. Julia motioned toward Russ and shut the door. “This is Russ Gentry, Emily’s uncle.”
Zoey’s dark brown eyes widened, and she looked him over from head to toe. “What happened to the birth father?”
“My brother was killed,” Russ replied, as he double-locked the door.
“Oh.” The young woman probably didn’t realize that her mouth had dropped open. She stayed that way for several moments. “Well, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for Emily. She’s barely two weeks old and already an orphan.”
Yes. She was. The poor thing. Julia would soon have to figure out what to do about that orphan status. She’d need to contact her attorney and see what the process was to become Emily’s permanent legal guardian.
Julia thought of her old baggage. The old wounds. They were the reason she’d given up the idea of having children of her own. She hadn’t wanted to bring a child into her world of panic attacks, nightmares and fear. A “recluse,” the press called her. Well, while that might be good enough for her, she couldn’t raise a child in a vacuum.
The idea caused her to take a deep breath.
“Emily’s still asleep,” Zoey explained, stepping to the side. “She hasn’t woken up since you gave her the bottle before you went out to talk with Mr. Gentry.”
That wasn’t a surprise. Emily slept a lot, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was eating, fussing and requiring a diaper change. Still, with all that work involved, Julia hadn’t expected to find the baby to be so enthralling. She had tried not to let herself get attached, but there was nothing to hold her back now.
“This way,” Julia told Russ, and she led him through the small living area, in the direction of one of the bedrooms in their three-room suite. Julia had had the crib moved into her own room so she could stay up nights with Emily. Zoey was using the other.
The door was already open, and the lamp was on, so she had no trouble gazing fondly at Emily in the crib. Julia automatically smiled—and she was glad for that reason to smile. With the incident in the alley, she needed something to bring her back to normal, and Emily had a unique way of doing that.
With Russ right next to her, she tiptoed closer and stared down at the baby. She was so precious, with her light brown curls and pink cheeks.
“Her eyes are brown,” Julia whispered to him. Like Russ’s eyes, and no doubt, his twin brother’s. Now that they were side-by-side, Julia could see the resemblance even more. Emily definitely had the Gentry DNA.
“Despite the circumstances of her birth, she’s very healthy.” Julia gave the pink blanket an adjustment that it didn’t really need. She just needed to touch the baby. “She weighed seven pounds, three ounces when she was born, but she’s already gained nearly a pound.”
When Russ didn’t say anything, she looked at him. But he didn’t seem to notice that she was even in the room. His attention was focused on Emily.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered. He touched Emily’s hand lightly, and she closed her fingers over his thumb. He sucked in his breath. “She’s like a tiny angel.”
There was so much emotion in his voice, Julia had to do a double take to make sure Russ Gentry had spoken those words.
He had.
This was the man who had stared down gunmen in the alley?
He was turning into a marshmallow right before her eyes.
“Oh, man,” he mumbled. The smile started in the corner of his mouth and spread until it was a full grin. “I didn’t expect this.”
Julia didn’t need clarification. She’d had the same reaction when she first saw the child.
“The love,” he said. “It’s instant. I mean, it’s like my blood knows that she’s my niece.”
She understood that, too, but she suddenly became very uncomfortable.
She thought Russ would do a quick peek and head back to the sitting room so they could have that talk he’d mentioned. But this was no quick peek.
He drew back his hand so he could scrub it over his face. He groaned softly. “Okay. I can deal with this. I can make it work.”
“Make what work?” Julia asked.
He tipped his head to Emily. “I was due to move to a supervisor’s job in the next year anyway, but this will just speed things up. I’ll get out of undercover work when I’m done with this case.”
“What do you mean?” Julia said that a little louder than expected.
He shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “A desk job in the San Antonio office will give me regular work hours. And it’ll be safer. I can have a more normal life. And I can finally get a haircut,” he added, shoving the strands of hair away from his face.
Julia put all those things together. Oh, no! He couldn’t mean that. “Are you saying you want to raise Emily?”
He gave another shrug. “Of course. She’s RJ’s daughter. My niece. I’m her next of kin. Who else would be raising her?”
“Me,” Julia blurted out.
That erased any trace of Russ’s goofy smile. “You’re her cousin. I’m her uncle, and her father was my identical twin brother. That’s a closer bloodline than you have with her. Besides, if Lissa had wanted you to raise her, she would have said so.”
It felt as if someone were squeezing a fist around Julia’s heart.
“Lissa