Finally Reid wheeled into the church lot and parked on the side nearest the children’s wing.
When they hurried up to the nursery door, the volunteers at the Mother’s Day Out were concerned by the cuts on her face and gave Reid suspicious looks. She assured them with a stiff smile that she was fine, just shaken by the “minor accident” that broke the car window. After signing her son out and carrying him, with Reid escorting her, back to her Explorer, she buckled Nicholas into his safety seat. She climbed in the back with him as Reid slid into the driver’s seat. If the drive-by shooter found them again, she wanted to be closer to her son, be better able to protect him, shield him. And in the meantime, as needy as it sounded, she wanted to be able to see Nicholas, touch him, reassure herself that he was safe. Sometimes, especially since Andrew’s death, she just needed an extra degree of connection to her son. Today was one of those days. In spades.
“Give me your cell phone.” Reid extended his hand toward her, and she blinked at him.
“Why?”
He frowned his irritation with her reluctance. “I don’t want anyone tracking us.”
The seriousness of their situation smacked into her again, stealing her breath. Reid’s cloak-and-dagger tactics brought the reality home. She was on the run, hiding from a killer. Potentially sent by her father.
Reid wiggled his fingers impatiently. “Come on!”
Fear balled in her gut like a cold stone as she fished in her purse for her phone. She handed it over and watched in dismay as he pried off the back and removed the battery and SIM card. He tossed the pieces onto the passenger seat, then performed the same disassembly on his own mobile phone. With their phones’ GPS-tracking abilities disabled, Reid cranked the engine and sped out of the church parking lot.
Nicholas watched her with wide, curious eyes, blinking an unspoken question about what was happening. She tried to mask her fear, not wanting to upset him, but her son was perceptive for a two-year-old. Mommy didn’t usually sit in the backseat. A strange man was driving their car. He’d been too young the last time Reid had been at their house to remember the sandy-haired man behind the wheel of their SUV. Nicholas’s curious brown gaze was so like his father’s it hurt her heart sometimes to look at him.
“Mommy?” Her son tipped his little head in inquiry, his button nose wrinkling.
Her chest contracted as her love for him swelled at the precious sound of his baby voice addressing her. When would every tiny thing he did stop being such a fascination and point of pride to her? Never, she hoped.
“It’s okay, sweet pea. That’s Mommy’s friend.” Mommy’s friend. Or was he? She might not have thought so this morning when she woke up, but a lot had happened to change her view of Reid in the last few hours. He saved your life.
Reid glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Nicholas. “Hi, buddy. How ya doin’?” He turned back to watch the road, but Pen saw his gaze flick to the rearview mirror over and again watching her, studying Nicholas. “He’s looking more like his dad as he gets older, isn’t he?”
She drew a breath intended to relieve the tightness constricting her lungs, but the sound of gunfire still echoed in her memory, and she couldn’t relax. “Yeah. He does.”
“I can’t believe how big he’s getting.” He met her gaze in the mirror and huffed a wry laugh. “Why do people say that? Like they’re surprised a kid is growing up?” He shook his head and twisted his mouth. “And yet that’s really what I thought when I saw him—how much he’s grown and changed.” He chuckled dryly. “Some fine detective work there, huh?”
She hummed an acknowledgment but wasn’t in the mood for banal conversation. Maybe he was trying to distract her, calm her down, but too much had happened today for her to maintain the illusion of idle chatter. Keeping her composure in front of Nicholas was taking all her energy. She forced a stiff grin for her son’s sake and smoothed his silky hair with her fingers. “Did you have fun playing at the church, sweet pea? Did you play blocks?”
“Bwocks?” Nicholas parroted.
His vocabulary was expanding rapidly in recent days as he mimicked what she said. She could only guess whether he understood what he was saying, but her money was on her son’s ability to connect the dots. Nicholas had an intelligence in his watchful gaze that spoke of precocious levels of understanding. Or maybe that was her biased view as his mother.
She tweaked his chin and whispered, “You’re Mommy’s smart little boy, aren’t you?”
He reached for her face and poked one of the cuts. “Mommy booboo?”
Wrapping her fingers around his hand, she turned up his wrist to kiss it. “Just a little one. Mommy’s okay.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Kiss it?”
She had to fight a sudden onslaught of tears. “Will you?” She leaned closer to her boy, and he pressed a tender kiss to her cheek.
“Ahw bettah.”
She bit the inside of her cheek and blinked back tears as she smiled at Nicholas. “Yep. All better. Thank you, sweet pea.”
Nicholas gave her a sweet smile, then looked past her out the car window. “Fwench fwies?”
The little stinker had spotted the golden arches as they drove past the fast-food restaurant where she sometimes took him for a treat.
“Not today, honey. We’ll get a snack at home.” She ruffled his hair, then, realizing where they were, jerked her attention back to the window. “Reid, where are you going? This isn’t the way to my house.”
“We’re not going back to your house,” he said, his tone flat and uncompromising.
“What are you talking about? Of course we are!”
“No. Too risky.”
She gaped at his profile, too stunned by his pronouncement to respond for a moment. “Reid...”