Her Baby's Bodyguard Read Online Free PDF Page A

pulled it upward.
    Her blouse clung wetly to her skin. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as the fabric was peeled away. The stinging deepened. Something hot trickled down her side to the waistband of her pants.
    He let the flashlight drop from his mouth. “This is getting to be a bad habit of yours, Dr. Petrova.”
    Eva exhaled on a hiss. “What?”
    “You’re trying to hide things under your coat again.”
    “Sergeant, I’m not—”
    “Save your breath, ma’am,” he said. His fingertips were featherlight as he touched her side. “It wasn’t any splinter that caused this wound. It was a bullet.”

    The storm blew in faster than any of Duncan’s meteorological program models had predicted, and as luck would have it, they were driving straight into the thick of it. The packed dirt that served as the road had already disappeared beneath a layer of snow. It was falling so fast that Jack could barely see the tracks they’d left behind them. Kurt had reduced his speed to maintain control as the wind buffeted the truck, but they were no longer concerned about making the rendezvous. Until the storm let up, the chopper wouldn’t be coming. The objective now was to find somewhere to wait it out.
    Jack let the tarp fall back into place and glanced over his shoulder. Eva had her eyes closed and was leaning against the side of the truck, but he knew she wasn’t sleeping because her hands were curled in a white-knuckled grip over the baby. At his insistence, she’d laid the kid on her lap instead of returning her to the bed-sheet carrier and strapping her back on. It was her only concession to the compress that Jack had taped over her ribs.
    That woman was giving him one surprise after another. Jack couldn’t think of a single female of his acquaintance who would have even dreamt of concealing a bullet wound—or would have been capable of trying. Most men wouldn’t have endured it as stoically as Eva had. And to top it off, her main concern, once she’d learned she’d been shot, was to ensure that the bullet had missed her baby.
    Damn, she was something.
    Beside him, Tyler adjusted the canvas to minimize the amount of snow that curled in and resumed his watch through the gap that remained. In spite of the weather, he hadn’t relaxed his vigilance. “How bad is it?” he asked.
    Jack knew Tyler wasn’t referring to the storm. Though the other men had concentrated on their own responsibilities while they’d left Jack to tend to Eva, they would be as concerned about her condition as he was. “The bullet only grazed her,” he replied, keeping his voice low so she wouldn’t overhear. “It lost most of its velocity when it passed through the side panel of the truck.”
    “So it’s not serious?”
    “No, it’s minor. She was lucky. There was no penetration. Just a shallow gouge where it skimmed along her rib cage.” Just? Sure, if he’d been talking about one of the guys, he’d laugh this one off. They referred to anything that didn’t involve broken bones or major organs as a flesh wound, and Eva’s was just a flesh wound. “It’s ugly, but the bleeding was already slowing down. She’ll need some plastic work once we get back if she doesn’t want a scar.”
    “It must have stung like hell when she got hit.”
    “Yeah.”
    “She never said a word. Why do you figure that?”
    It was a question Jack had already asked himself. He’d noticed that Eva had been in rough shape as soon as she’d sat up. Her sweater was black so he hadn’t been able to see the blood on it right away, but she probably wouldn’t have allowed him to touch her at all if he hadn’t used the ruse about examining her kid first. Her defensiveness had begun long before she’d been injured. She’d been prickly from the moment he’d confirmed her identity. “She doesn’t fully trust us,” he replied. “My guess is she’s worried that we’ll take the disk and leave her behind.”
    “Smart woman,” Tyler said. “She