"Any ideas?"
"I thought when he was born I'd think of something, but my mind is a blank. I did put a baby name book in the pantry along with all the what-to-expect books." She turned her head more closely into the pillows. She'd never been so exhausted in her life. She wanted to stay awake and watch him with the baby, but she couldn't seem to keep her eyes open. "I'm tired, Kane."
"I know, sweetheart. Let me put the baby down and check to make certain you're not bleeding too much, and then I'll let you go to sleep."
She loved the sound of his voice, especially when he called her sweetheart. She could almost believe they were a normal couple thrilled to have their first child together, instead of two strangers brought together by a madman. "I'm sorry you have to do all this."
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
He sounded so sincere. That was one of the things she loved most about Kane--his honesty. He meant the things he said to people, even when they weren't nice things. He often got the most endearing expression on his face when he looked at her, as if she confused him and he didn't quite know what to make of her.
"You really are an exceptional man, Kane." She couldn't stop the words from slipping out. He was exceptional.
He bent and brushed a kiss down her face to the side of her mouth. "You clearly don't know very many men, Rose." He kissed her again, this time on her temple. "Which is perfectly okay with me. You did a great job, honey. Our son is beautiful. Thank God he looks like you."
Her lashes fluttered while she tried to calm her wildly beating heart. She couldn't let herself fall for him. She'd committed to being with him, but she didn't want her heart involved. Hearts could break, and she was strong on her own. She had to be to survive. She knew nothing at all about relationships or family. She might be able to figure out parenting, but mostly she thought in terms of protecting her child, rather than raising him. Real feelings for Kane would be a complication. She was already infatuated with him. She told herself it was because he was the first good man she'd ever met, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was a lot more complicated than that--and maybe already too late.
"I think he looks like you," she said. "My hair, but the rest is all you."
"I look like a little old man?"
Her heart fluttered again at his gentle teasing. His fingers brushed at the strands of hair falling around her face, and she absorbed his touch as if starved for it--and maybe she was. She had never been cuddled or held in her life. Kane had changed all that when he'd made love to her. He hadn't forced sex. He'd been so gentle, every touch bringing pleasure--more than physical pleasure. The contact had touched more than her body, and now she craved those small touches. She could tell he was hesitant about too much contact with her, but she wished he'd just lie down beside her and hold her in his arms.
"He doesn't look like an old man."
Kane laughed softly at Rose's admonishment as he nuzzled the baby's head. A little reluctantly, he put him in the little cubicle he'd made to keep him warm. Rose hadn't once brought up the fact that Whitney had experimented on both of the boy's parents, and now he carried their DNA. Whitney had altered their DNA, and there was no telling what kinds of gifts or curses the child carried. Sometimes the psychic gifts were so strong that the person needed another person--an anchor--to be able to filter out the distressing disturbances around them.
He touched the child with gentle fingers, feeling almost overwhelmed with love. How could such a little stranger steal his heart in a matter of moments? Did all parents feel this way about their child? Was it because he'd helped to bring the boy into the world right in the midst of danger? He could barely believe that he and Rose had actually created this little human being together.
He slowly undid the blanket to look down at his son's tiny form. He was born early, yet he was fully formed and already showing signs of body strength in his physical form. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his son was one of the supersoldiers Whitney was trying to create. When the child opened his sleepy eyes and looked at him, there was intelligence there. Granted, Kane had no experience with children, let alone new babies, but his gut rarely lied to him, and he had a strong feeling about the boy.
He sighed as he wrapped the boy tightly. "We won't let him get his hands on you, son," he promised softly. He very gently laid his hand on the boy's head. "Your mother and I wanted you. Whatever else happens, know you were wanted by both of us."
He felt Rose's gaze fixed on him and turned to look into her dark eyes. Everything inside him stilled. She smiled at him, and his stomach did a slow somersault. "You're supposed to be asleep."
"I know."
It was her tone of voice--soft and dreamy, almost a caress--that got to him. She looked at him as if he were her entire world. He wanted to be, but he knew she just didn't have any experience. A man like him, without a clue of home and family, a man born to fight wars, had no right being with a woman like Rose. He wanted to be the man in her mind, that fantasy, but he wasn't. If she committed to him, if she married him, it was forever. He wouldn't be walking away, and neither would she. She'd had enough of being imprisoned. Was life with him going to be anything else but a prison?
He had no answers, and he turned away, shaking his head. He drew the chair to the end of the bed and slowly lifted the sheets to check her. Small blood clots worried him a bit, but he had no idea what to do. She rubbed her stomach as the book told her to do, massaging to help everything go back in place, but her efforts were weak. He changed the pad again and helped her shift enough to allow him to change the sterile pad beneath her as well. He tried to be impersonal in his touch, but his body refused to listen to his brain.
Right now, he was with her. He could help her, and he could allow himself to believe both Rose and the boy were his. He was a cynical man, a man who felt at home with a gun in his hands, yet looking at her made him dream of other things. He wanted to be the man in her life, her hero, the man who stood for her. The man she always gazed at with that look in her eyes.
He covered her and stood up, stretching. "Rose. I don't want to go behind your back in this, but I have to leave a sign for Mack and my unit to find us. We can't fight everyone. I can take out the two watching us, but that will tip off Whitney immediately, and we don't know how he's tracking you. Are you certain you removed the tracking chip in your hip?"
She nodded without opening her eyes. Kane sighed and started to turn away, but suddenly the image on her ankle registered. "Rose, you have a tattoo on your ankle. You didn't have that when we were together. When did you get it?" He lifted the covers once more to inspect the artwork on her ankle.
The tattoo was small, a single red rose with the stem winding around her ankle. Small thorns adorned the stem with three leaves. It was a pretty tattoo, but not something he expected of her.
"Before we escaped"--her voice was drowsy--"Whitney sent in a tattoo artist for each of us, and he put a flower on our ankles. Mari was the only one who didn't get one; she hadn't come back yet. Everyone else has one."
Kane closed his eyes briefly, cursing under his breath. All the women who escaped were in danger. Whitney had an alternative method of tracking them. He had, at some point, determined anyone escaping might remove the chip from their hip, so he'd devised a backup. Something about that very detailed rose caught Kane's attention, but it hadn't really registered until now. The rose petals were layers, and in two places the petals were actually raised slightly. He had stroked caresses over those soft petals half the night and knew the feel of them intimately.
Whitney had found a way to weave a signal into the tattoo. It probably used satellite, which explained the hit-or-miss tracking at times, depending on where she was. Eventually, Whitney would always be able to find her. He examined the petals carefully. The two closest to the center, slightly raised, were the most suspect. When he passed his thumb over the petals, he felt tiny protrusions, almost like Braille dots. What exactly had Whitney done?
Rose sti
rred, suddenly alarmed. "What did he do? I like my rose tattoo. It was the only thing Whitney ever did that didn't turn my stomach. Is something wrong with the tattoo?"
"I think it transmits to a satellite. I just have to figure out how. I wish Jaimie or Javier were here. They're both very good with electronics."
"I should have known." Rose sounded disgusted. "Why did I ever think Whitney would do something special for us?"
"Because you and the others needed to believe you mattered to him as a human being. Whitney was the only parent figure you had. He shaped your lives. You all lived for his approval. He raised you. Every child seeks the approval and love of a parent. Whitney was all you had."
Rose carefully turned over, wincing a little as she did so. "What about you? Did your parents approve of you?"
"Hardly." He didn't go into detail. What was the point? His youth had been spent on the streets, in alleys and creeping into Mack's basement to sleep, his body covered in bruises when his father had managed to catch him, which was rare. He'd grown into a big kid, and a mean one. Eventually his father feared him. His mother simply didn't care. Her only worry had been where her next fix was coming from. Mack was his family, Mack and the others.
"They weren't very smart parents then. How am I going to get the tattoo off?"
She didn't sound sorry for herself, and he could tell she really loved the tattoo and hated giving it up. The symbol represented who she was.
"I doubt we're going to have to actually remove the rose. We have to figure out how to stop it from transmitting." He stroked over the tiny little bumps. "I think the transmitter is here, in these two petals. I don't know if it's planted under your skin or in the actual ink somehow. I just am not savvy enough about this kind of thing."
"Will you have to cut it out?" There was both apprehension and determination in her voice. Rose was no shrinking violet.
"No way. We'll get it out of there."
"If we can't, you'll have to take the baby and go, Kane."
Once again his eyes met hers. She was serious. He could read the absolute resolve in her expression. If it took separation from her to keep the baby out of Whitney's hands, she was prepared to sacrifice that as well.
He shook his head. "We'll stay together and see this through. My understanding of the way Whitney pairs his women with a man is, they have to be able to complement each other in a combat situation. Your skills and mine should fit together and make us nearly invincible."
"But he didn't choose you for me." Rose avoided his eyes, a blush stealing up her neck to her cheeks. "I chose you."
"Did you think your choice would have really mattered to him, Rose?" he said gently. "He asked for me to be assigned temporarily to him. I went to the compound believing there was an outside threat to the facility. He dangled me in front of you like a carrot because we fit together. You took the bait. If my gifts weren't compatible with your gifts, he would never have allowed us to be paired. In the end with him, it's all about being a soldier. A pair should be able to be dropped into enemy territory alone, get the mission done, and get out. Our child should make the perfect soldier. If he didn't think that would happen, he would never have paired me with you." He looked at her for a long time. "You have a choice though, sweetheart. You don't have to stay with me."
She swallowed hard. "And you have no choice. That's my fault."
He shook his head. "You don't get me at all, honey. I don't ever do anything I don't want to do. It was my choice. Once the program was explained to me and Whitney told me you had asked for me, I could have turned the program down." How could he explain he'd seen her dozens of times and couldn't stand the thought of any man forcing her to have sex? "I thought about it a long time before I agreed.
He explained I would always want you physically. I didn't go into the program blind."
She frowned at him. "You knew what it would mean for you? The rest of your life you would always want me? And you still did it?"
"Yes. So stop feeling guilty. I had a choice; you didn't. But you do now, Rose." It had to be said, no matter how painful he found it to remind her.
She rubbed her fingers back and forth nervously along the hem of the blanket. "Actually, no, I don't. Not anymore. I asked Whitney to pair me with you after you left me that night."
Anger flashed through him. "You did what?" He glanced at the baby and lowered his voice. "Damn it, Rose, you didn't."
She lifted her chin at him. "I wasn't going to condemn you to hell and not go with you."
He studied her defiant expression; all the while he was melting inside. Rose had chosen him to father her child, but she refused to leave him out in the cold. She had insisted she share his fate. She had courage, raw courage, to condemn herself to share a life with a man she barely knew. "You're insane, sweetheart, but I can't help admiring you for it."
He turned away from her briefly, hiding his expression before abruptly turning back, taking her face between his hands and thoroughly kissing her. Just as abruptly he let her go and stood straight. "I've got some things to do. You sleep while you can."
He closed the door to the bedroom behind him, feeling as though for the first time in his life, he was complete.
CHAPTER 7
Rose thought she'd condemned him to hell and then deliberately put herself right there with him. Kane contemplated the thought and what it might mean as they developed a routine over the next week together. If he was living in hell, well, maybe that was just the place for him. He liked holding his son and watching Rose feed the boy. He enjoyed their quiet conversations about nothing in particular. He liked brushing her hair for her, and tucking the blankets around her. He didn't even mind cooking, although they didn't have much in the way of real food.
He knew they were living on borrowed time, but every passing day gave the baby a chance to grow stronger, to age one more day. Kane believed the time gave him more of a chance to continue to gain Rose's trust. He knew he would need it in the days to come. They had a reprieve, but it was a very short one.
Rose always curled up in chairs, feet tucked under her, reminding him of a little cat. With their son cradled in her arms and her silky cap of hair disheveled, as though they'd just made love, Kane couldn't help asking her. "I've been thinking a lot about what you said to me the night you delivered the baby, sweetheart."
She glanced up at him, her gaze a little wary, her lips pursed in a little moue that sent his body into overdrive. He couldn't help it, he wanted to kiss her thoroughly until that guarded look disappeared for all time.
"What did I say?"
"Just that you had condemned me to hell and then you decided to go with me."
A blush stole up her neck and flushed her cheeks a soft pink. She shrugged, looking artfully casual. He wasn't buying her act, even as pretty as it was.
"You really had Whitney pair you with me?"
"It's no big deal." She shrugged and nuzzled the baby.
"You decided to make certain you'd never be physically happy with another man? Why in the world would you do that?"
Her blush deepened. "We don't really need to talk about this, do we?"
Now he was really curious. She actually bit her lower lip, one of the few signs of nervousness he'd ever detected in her. He leaned toward her and took the sleeping baby right out of her arms, leaving her without armor. "Yes, I really think we need to talk about it. That was a huge decision, Rose, that affects the entire rest of your life. You knew we might not get you out of Whitney's facility, and I was never going to be stationed there permanently. I'd like to know why you chose to tie yourself to me like that."
She rolled her eyes and heaved a long-suffering sigh. He snuggled the boy closer to him. He was so small it was terrifying to hold him, but Kane was determined to get comfortable with the process. The child--and Rose--certainly brought out his protective instincts. He waited while she wrestled with herself. Rose wouldn't lie. He knew she wouldn't. She would tell him the strict truth, even if it embarrassed her--
as it so obviously did.
"We were already tied together if I was pregnant," she pointed out, "so really, it wasn't like a huge risk."
His eyebrow shot up as she ducked her head, turning slightly away from him. Her body language said more than her words did. "Rose, I do believe you are evading the question."
"Give me back the baby, and I'll tell you."
He cuddled his son closer, pressing one fingertip into the little soft palm. Tiny fingers closed around his. He drew in his breath sharply. "Giving him up for even a few minutes is difficult. Your answer had better be good." He carefully placed the baby in her arms.
Rose looked down at the baby and then back up at him and smiled. She wore her smile like beautiful music; it didn't come often, but when it did, his heart sang. He often just sat watching her, the way she moved, so graceful, like a ballerina. She was incredibly beautiful to him. Everything about her appealed to him. He liked to watch her expression when she bent over their son. So loving. So perfect. Soft and intimate when she looked up and shared that same smile with him. He felt complete in a way he never had and never had expected to.
Rose cleared her throat and looked him steadily in the eyes. He could feel his heart accelerate. The bantering was gone, and she was going to impart something of great importance to him. He felt as if everything inside him stilled--waited. He needed something from her and he wasn't even certain what it was, but he knew this moment might be the one moment that meant everything to him, and he didn't want to miss even the smallest nuance.
Rose swallowed again and, not taking her eyes from his, brushed a kiss over the baby's head. "I didn't want to ever accept anyone else in my life," she announced softly. "You're my choice for a life partner, and that isn't going to change because we're not together."
For a moment the roaring in his ears nearly drowned out her declaration. His heart beat so hard he pressed his hand to his chest. What was she saying? She wanted to be with him? Even now when she could walk away from him and the entire GhostWalker program?
"I made the choice before you ever came to my room, Kane," she admitted. "I watched you for weeks and maybe became a little obsessed with you. I'd never seen anyone like you before. Maybe our time together wasn't memorable to you, but I remember every single detail. I remember the way you touched me, how your skin felt against mine, how careful you were with me. I hear the sound of your voice at night, and it comforts me. Nothing has ever made me feel the way you did. If I only had that one night with you, it was enough for me."