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home, not yet. He needed to give his parents time alone. Maybe then his mom would finally tell his old man why she'd been puking her guts up every morning for the past couple of months.
    Her stomach was already poking out a little and still she didn't say a thing to anybody about being pregnant.
    She must think he was a clueless bonehead like his dad.
    Chris turned off his cell phone so his parents couldn't razz him about coming home and snagged his CD
    case. He would hang with Shelby and Murdoch for a while, and pretend everything was okay. Pretend that his parents weren't splitting. That he didn't love a girl who belonged to his best friend.
    And most of all, pretend he wasn't hiding from a threat in his life that even tall John Murdoch couldn't warn away.

    * * *
"Don't move, please, ma'am," the paramedic warned.
    Pain jabbed from her ankle up her thigh. Rena gripped the edges of the gurney, taking mental inventory of her body as much as her muddled brain would let her while she stared up at the entrancing sway of oak branches overhead.
    An air splint immobilized her foot. Her teeth cut deeper into her lip to bite back the need to cry out. She couldn't have pain meds anyway because of the baby. Besides, she welcomed the ache that kept her conscious and reminded her she didn't hurt anywhere else, like her stomach.
    Her baby.
    Rena gripped the gurney tighter. Love and protectiveness for this new little life surged through her until the pain faded. She'd barely allowed herself to think about this baby she and J.T. had made the night he'd returned from Rubistan.
    She had to tell the paramedics about her pregnancy soon, but her mind was so woozy. She would explain once J.T. was safely off to the side, rather than risk springing it on him without warning.
    Why hadn't she told him sooner? It wasn't as if she was waiting for a miraculous reunion first. She would have to tell him, today, but later in her hospital room, away from the others, when he wasn't about to crack a crown from clenching his teeth.
    If only he would step away, but J.T. always did his duty, and being by his wife's side right now would rank right up there as a responsibility.
    A car door slammed. She couldn't turn her head to see.
    "Tag!"
    A voice. Who? Her muddled mind sorted through… Bo Rokowsky, a member of her husband's squadron.
    Bo would make the perfect distraction to keep J.T. occupied at the moment.
    She patted his arm. "Go talk to Bo. I'm fine."
    J.T.'s scowling eyes flicked from the uniformed workers back to her before he finally nodded. "Okay.
    But I'll only be a few yards away if you need anything."
    "I know. Thanks." She tracked his towering body retreating as best she could without moving her head until he disappeared.
    She opened her mouth to tell the paramedic about the baby—
    "Ow!" Her foot jerked in the paramedic's grasp.
    J.T. landed right back in her line of sight. "What's going on? Is it broken?"
    "We won't know for sure until we get X rays, sir," the paramedic answered.
    X rays? Not while she was pregnant. And especially not during her first trimester. Pain flashed through her foot again. A whimper slipped free.
    The paramedic called to his partner, "Seventy-five milligrams, Demerol."
    "What?" Rena struggled to understand through her pounding head.
    "Just something to help you with the pain, ma'am." The uniformed man swung toward her with a syringe.
    "No!" she shouted involuntarily.
    J.T. stepped closer. "Yes. Do whatever she needs. Rena, you don't have to grit through this."
    Oh, hell. She needed to spit this out fast and quiet to the paramedic. "I can't take any medications."
    "Ma'am, really, this will help settle you." The syringe hovered closer to her arm.
    Damn. Damn. Damn. No more time for quiet, reasonable explanations.
    Rena inhaled a deep breath that stretched achy ribs. "I'm not agitated. Just pregnant."

    * * *
He'd already taken one missile strike this year. Didn't seem fair a man should get blindsided twice in a few short