Page 81 of Close Pursuit

He wished he could send her away?What the hell was last night, then?

Oh, wait. He didn’t get emotionally involved with anyone, did he? Not even if he had mind-blowing sex with them. He might as well have sunk a dagger in her heart in that moment. She did her best to hide her devastation, but probably failed miserably.

“Will this convent be any safer for Dawn than your place? It’s not like they have armed guards.”

“It’s also an orphanage. Where better to hide a baby than among a bunch of other babies? And the convent actually does have pretty decent security. When I was a boarding student here, my father arranged from prison to have a state-of the art security system installed. Another wealthy parent updated it a few years ago. She should be fine, here.”

Katie hesitated. The idea of being separated from Dawn felt like having her right arm cut off and her heart torn out of her chest.

“I’ll miss her, too,” Alex said quietly. “But it’s for her safety. And I swear it’ll only be for a little while.”

His phone beeped an incoming text just then and he fished it out of his pocket, mumbling, “I’m expecting some important news. This may be it.” He glanced at his phone and a look of relief crossed his face.

“I had my lawyer file an emergency custody request for Dawn this morning. The judged agreed to make you and me Dawn’s temporary legal guardians.”

Katie’s jaw dropped in both relief and shock. “You made us her guardians without asking me?”

“Why?” he asked sharply. “Don’t you want to be her guardian?”

“I’d adopt her today if I knew how to do it!”

“Well, there you go. Dawn doesn’t have to go into the foster care system, and we’ll continue to care for her.”

“Until we have to hide her in a convent so she doesn’t get kidnapped or killed.”

Alex argued, “She’d be at much more risk of being kidnapped or killed in a foster home. She has already been linked to me, remember? As her guardians, you and I can take direct action to keep her safe, up to and including hiding her somewhere safe.”

“You don’t have to talk me into the benefits of being her legal guardian,” Katie snapped. “I’m delighted and relieved that you took this step. I’m just unhappy you didn’t talk to me about it and that our first act as her guardians is to leave her in a convent all by herself.”

“She’ll hardly be by herself. Sister Mary Harris will look after her day and night if I ask her to.”

“By all means,” Katie replied. “If Dawn has to stay in this place, I want her to be with someone she knows and who cares about her.”

“The nuns care about all the babies they look after.”

“You know what I mean,” Katie snapped.

“I do.” Alex strode down the hall to the nun while Katie followed in his wake, supremely unhappy. She kissed sleeping baby Dawn goodbye on the forehead and took one last, long breath of her sweet baby smell before passing her off to the nun. Despondently, she followed Alex back out to the car.

Shehatedthis. But what choice did they have? Responsible parents didn’t endanger their children. Period.

Not that it had stopped Alex’s father. She blurted, “Do you blame your father for engaging in something as dangerous as spying at the same time he was your only caregiver?”

He was silent for a while before replying, “I never thought of it in those terms before. But I supposed I did.”

Past tense?“You don’t blame him anymore? Have you forgiven him, then?”

“Not at all,” Alex answered coldly. “I simply choose not to think about him anymore.”

“Never?” she asked, surprised.

“Not as a parent. He’s simply the irritating bastard who harasses me from time to time.”

Wow. The thought of cutting all ties with her family, physically and emotionally, was almost as painful as leaving Dawn behind. The mere idea of how lonely a child Alex must have been made her heart weep. Surprised at how upset the idea made her, she wiped a stray tear off her cheek.

“Don’t cry for me,” Alex said sharply. “Don’teverdo that.”

“Why not?”

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