It was dark red.

Blood.

“Charity!” Nick, on his knees beside her, sliding a little in the blood on the floor. “Oh my God, you’re wounded! Where were you shot, love? Where does it hurt?” He looked up at all the men in black milling around. “Medic!” he screamed. “Medic, over here!”

Frantic hands felt her all over, starting from her head, down her torso, down her legs.

“Not—” Charity wheezed, trying to pull air into her lungs. Vassily and the man over him, still screaming, were so heavy. “Not wounded,” she managed to get out finally, lungs heaving for air. “Not…me.”

It had to be Vassily, had to. Charity found it almost impossible to think, but she could feel. Her entire back was wet with blood. With the amount of blood on the floor, the wound must be grave. Though she hurt everywhere, she knew she didn’t have a mortal wound.

Another pair of hands. Not Nick’s. One of the men in black.

“Step away, sir, so I can examine her.”

Nick was holding her hand, slippery with blood.

“Sir? I can’t examine her if you don’t move.”

Charity could feel Nick’s reluctance as he let go of her hand and stood up. He looked around and beckoned to one of the men in uniform.

“Get rid of that,” he said coldly, indicating the howling man. The man had pulled Vassily off her—she could finally breathe—and had scooted up against the wall with Vassily’s limp form cradled in his arms, rocking back and forth. He bent over Vassily, his cries painful to hear, a long lament in Russian.

The medic gave her a quick, thorough check and pronounced her essentially unharmed.

Thanks to Vassily.

Some of the shock of the explosion was dissipating, the memories of the moments before the explosion returning. The high whine, the terrorist brandishing a gun, aiming it at her. Vassily’s cry, launching himself at her.

The bullet had caught him, not her.

Vassily had saved her life. Charity looked down at his dead body, held tightly by the Russian who was now covered with Vassily’s blood.

Vassily was a criminal, a renegade.

He’d saved her life.

The huge room was lit up now, people milling about purposefully. The big suitcase full of cash had been closed up, and a number of men were examining a big metal container.

She swayed.

“Fuck this,” Nick growled, and swung her up in his arms. He marched over to where Di Stefano was conferring with a knot of men. “You guys can clean up, I’m taking her home.”

Di Stefano opened his mouth, looked at Nick, then closed it again. “Yeah, okay, get outta here.”

Nick stopped on the porch and Charity breathed in deeply. It felt like days had gone by since she’d walked up these stairs.

Nick looked down at her, grim, jaw muscles moving as he clenched his teeth. “This is the way it’s going to be,” he announced. “I’m taking you home and to bed and we’re not coming up for air until a week has gone by or my hands stop shaking, whichever comes first. Then we’re going to city hall and we’re getting married all over again, only this time legally. I’ll be damned if my son grows up a bastard.”

He said all this belligerently, as if expecting her to argue.

But as always with Nick, only one answer was possible.

“Yes, Nick.”

Epilogue

Parker’s Ridge

Nine months later

Jacob Franklin Ireland was in a big hurry.

Charity Ireland moaned and Sheriff Nick Ireland stepped on the gas. He had to clutch the steering wheel hard because his palms were wet with anxious sweat.

They were in the middle of a raging summer storm, the rain coming down so hard the windshield wipers were almost useless. It didn’t make any difference. Nick knew the way to the hospital, though this was more like piloting a boat than driving a car.

Charity gave another little moan, biting her lips.

He was driving as fast as he could without risking an accident, to the very edges of his driving ability.

“Hang on, honey,” he said, keeping his voice soft and reassuring when he was sick with anxiety and fear. He glanced quickly over to where Charity was slumped in the passenger seat, panting between contractions.

Suddenly, he saw her belly ripple. God!

She gave another little cry and he pressed on the accelerator. Any faster in this wet weather and the car would be a hovercraft. Charity’s forehead was beaded with sweat, though not as much as his.

“Nick,” she moaned.

“It’s okay, honey,” he said, trying not to let his panic show in his voice. It’s okay? What the fuck did he know? All the prenatal lessons had left him so queasy hardly anything penetrated. Any time he opened one of those birth and baby books Charity consumed by the ton, he never got beyond chapter one before breaking out in a cold sweat.

He turned the corner and knew that now it was just a straight run, directly into the hospital’s emergency area, and risked upping the speed a little, hoping no other cars were crazy enough to come out in a storm that was dumping a year’s worth of rain in one afternoon.

A few minutes later, he was carrying Charity in through the hospital doors, shouting for nurses, doctors, anyone. Charity’s face was drawn in agony and he tried to remember why anyone ever had kids.

Nurses came, brisk and efficient and calm, rolling Charity onto a gurney. A nurse palpated her distended belly, lifted her skirt, cut away Charity’s panties and jolted.

“The baby’s crowning!” she said. Even if Nick didn’t know what that meant, he could see it. Between Charity’s legs he could see a rounded thatch of black hair.

His son.

Nick held Charity’s hand, shouting, “Breathe! Breathe!” like an idiot.

While he stayed by Charity’s head, a gaggle of medical personnel gathered around the foot of the gurney, calmly doing things Nick didn’t want to see. Charity was squeezing his hand so hard it almost hurt. He hated to see her suffering, hated it.

Then, suddenly, it was all over. Charity let out a huge cry, astonishingly loud for so small a woman, a bundle of something red slid into the attending doctor’s hands, and the nurses and doctors started snipping and suturing.

A loud wail started, and Nick looked over, heart pounding.

His son. That funny creature that looked like a skinned rabbit was his son.

Charity laughed and he looked at her in astonishment.

“That was funny?” he asked.

She smiled that slight witchy smile that drove him nuts. “Not funny,” she said softly. “Wonderful.”

Someone touched his elbow. “Sheriff,” one of the nurses said. “Here’s your son.” She placed Jake in his arms.

Nick looked down at his son’s face, features a tiny replica of his own. The fury of coming into this world was already gone. His small face was calm, a little pucker between two tiny eyebrows showing that he was puzzled at this new world.

Nick brushed Jake’s cheek with his forefinger, amazed that anything human could be so soft.

Suddenly, Jake’s eyes opened wide—they were a bright, brilliant blue—and to his dying day, Nick would swear that his son smiled at him. A tiny hand clutched his finger. His son, holding onto his hand.

His son. Jesus. His son.

For the second time in his life, Iceman burst into tears.