Forged in Steele

CHAPTER 26

STEELE’S mind went utterly and completely blank. He stared back at Maren, took in the anxiety written in clear lines all over her face. Her pale, drawn features. The fear in her eyes. The longer he remained silent, the more afraid she looked, and yet he couldn’t find his damn tongue to save his life.

Rage billowed through him like a storm. He was afraid to say anything for fear that she’d think his anger was directed at her.

“What did he do to you?” he finally demanded in a hoarse voice. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch, Maren. I swear it. Did he force you? Does he know you’re pregnant with his child?”

If Caldwell knew, his obsession with Maren wouldn’t likely end. He would pursue her relentlessly and Steele would never let the man touch her again. If he died trying, he’d protect her with his last breath.

Maren looked gray and very much like she would vomit all over again. She swayed precariously, her eyes shadowed as she looked anxiously at him.

“Steele, he didn’t . . . I mean he isn’t . . .”

She closed her eyes, looking more ill than ever. Steele gathered her gently into his arms and stood, carrying her with him.

“The bathroom isn’t the place for a conversation like this,” he muttered.

He walked out of the bedroom and back into the living room, where he tucked her onto the end of the couch, bunching pillows around her so she’d be as comfortable as possible. Then he reached for a blanket because she was shaking like a leaf.

After ensuring her comfort and that she was warm, he sat next to her, purposely remaining close to her, their bodies touching. He took her icy hands in his, rubbing them gently between his palms.

“Maren, look at me,” he said in a gentle voice. “No matter what happened, you can talk to me about it. Unless that’s not what you want. If you’d prefer to talk to someone else, I’ll get them for you. Maybe your mom? Maybe we should call her now.”

She shook her head and a tear squeezed from the corner of her eye, alarming him. Oh shit. He didn’t do crying females. And Maren crying? Panic paralyzed him as he scrambled to try to think of what the hell he should do.

“It’s not what you think,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me. Didn’t touch me. As prisons go, his was rather opulent. He provided everything I could possibly need, spoiled and pampered me. Lavished gifts. No, I wasn’t there of my own free will, but he didn’t mistreat me in any way other than keeping me under lock and key 24-7.”

Steele’s eyes narrowed in confusion. Surely she didn’t mean what he thought she did. “So what are you saying? That you were with him willingly?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m not pregnant with Tristan’s baby, Steele. He never touched me. He was growing bolder. I think if I had been there much longer, he would have . . . Well, I’d rather not think about where things were headed if I hadn’t gotten out when I did.”

Steele’s mouth dropped open in bewilderment. That wasn’t at all what he’d expected her to say. His mind was screaming what the fuck. This wasn’t making any damn sense at all.

“Then who the hell is the father?”

She pulled her hands from his grip and eyed him with huge, blue eyes, wide with anxiety, fear written clearly in her features. She looked like she was afraid of . . . him. The thought gutted him. He never wanted her to be afraid of him. Did she expect him to go off the rails because she’d gotten pregnant by some other guy?

“I’ve only been with one man in the last eighteen months,” she said quietly. “You. I’m pregnant with your baby, Steele.”

He stared at her in complete silence as he processed what she’d just dropped on him. There were so many conflicting emotions ranging from what-the-fuck to absolute relief and elation. And a whole lot in between.

And when he did finally manage to open his mouth, he shoved his foot right in.

“I used condoms,” he ground out. “I’d never take such a risk with you, Maren. I’d never not protect you.” And then it hit him. “That last time. We didn’t use a condom. It had to have been then. God, I’m so sorry. I knew better.”

Before he could continue, she shook her head, biting into her bottom lip. “I was already pregnant then.”

She sounded defensive, but there was also a quiver in her voice that knotted his stomach. Fuck it all, he didn’t want her afraid of him. He wasn’t going to freak out and start denying responsibility. But this was huge on the what-the-fuck scale. Life-alteringly huge.

He ran a hand raggedly through his hair and exhaled in a long whoosh, and then what she’d said finally registered. His eyes narrowed as he looked back at her.

“You were already pregnant? You knew that? And you didn’t tell me? What the hell, Maren?”

He was horrified. Not that she was pregnant. But that she’d been pregnant. If he’d known, he would never have left. Nothing would have been more important to him than her and his child. She would have never been kidnapped and held for weeks, terrified out of her mind and worried over the safety of herself and their unborn child.

He would have been there, even if it had meant relocating to fucking Costa Rica to be with her during her pregnancy. Or better yet, she would have been with him here, in his house, not in an isolated part of another country.

Tears rose in her eyes. Her hands shook and she looked so damn scared that he couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly as she shook against him.

Her words were choked out, muffled by his chest, but he didn’t loosen his hold on her.

“I didn’t know for sure then, Steele. You have to understand. I suspected, but I couldn’t imagine that it could be true. As you said, we used condoms. The day you came back was the same day I drew my own blood and sent it off for testing. Before you arrived, I was going to wait for the results and then contact you through Sam. But then you got there and you planned to stay a while, so I figured when I got the results I could tell you face-to-face and we could go from there. But then you left, and I didn’t want to lay that on you when you were leaving on a mission. I didn’t think it was fair. What if I wasn’t pregnant? You would have gone on your mission and been thinking about whether I was pregnant or not. You would have been distracted and in your line of work, distractions can be deadly.”

He breathed into her hair and then stroked one hand down the length and then back up again, tangling his fingers in the strands.

“You should have told me,” he said quietly. “Whether you were or weren’t isn’t the issue. The possibility that you were is. I would have never left you if I’d known there was even the possibility. If you’d told me, I would have stayed, Maren, and you would have never been kidnapped.”

“I did what I thought was best,” she said, a sob catching her voice and cracking it midsentence.

She reared back, pulling from his embrace, and then she reached up to touch his face, her fingers fanned out over his skin. Her gaze was earnest and beseeching.

“I was freaking out myself, but you have to believe me, Steele. Never once did I intend not to tell you. I got the results three days after you left and I was going to tell you the minute you came back. But then when I was leaving the clinic, Carlos, Tristan’s hired man, was waiting for me.”

She stared up at him, silver trails sliding down her cheeks.

“Please believe me, Steele. I’d never keep something like that from you.”

“I believe you,” he said quietly.

Her eyes lit up and she looked so damn hopeful that he regretted the way he’d all but attacked her. He had no excuse other than the blame he felt for leaving her. If he’d been there, she would have never been taken. Never suffered what she’d suffered for the last months.

And close on the heels of his words came self – recrimination.

“Christ, I’m sorry, Maren. This can’t be what you wanted. It’s my fucking fault. The goddamn condom must have broken or leaked. That’s on me. You have to know I would have never placed you in this position on purpose.”

She stroked over his face, soothing him with her touch.

“I know that, Steele. It’s both our blame and neither at the same time. We’re adults. We both know that birth control isn’t foolproof. We both played with fire and we both got burned. But now that I’ve had time to take in the news, I’m not sorry about the baby. I hope when you’ve had enough time to digest it all, you won’t be sorry either. Our child may not have been purposely conceived, but he or she is there now. Inside me. A part of me. I love our baby already. The last several weeks have been so horribly stressful. I was afraid to eat or drink anything because I feared that Tristan would try to harm our child or make me miscarry.”

Anger surged through him all over again. He reached out to cup her jaw, rubbing his thumb along her cheekbone, trying to wipe away the lines of fatigue and stress. He chased away the tears that dampened her cheeks and then he leaned in, softly kissing away the moisture.

“I failed you, Maren, and I’m sorry for that. It seems I have a lot of experience in failing people who matter to me in the last year. First P.J. Now you. I should have been there sooner. If I had, you wouldn’t have spent the last months in hell, worrying that the son of a bitch would force himself on you or cause you to lose your child. My child,” he said forcefully.

His child. God, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around the fact that he was going to be a father. He was so ill prepared for parenthood, it was ludicrous. Children had never been in his game plan. Ever. With the job he held and never knowing where he’d be from one day to the next, and worse, not ever knowing if he’d make it back from a mission? It was no way for a child to live. It was no way to be an effective parent.

He wanted to be the kind of father his own dad was to him. Even though he’d never planned to have children, now that it was inevitable, he wanted to give his child two loving, stable parents just like his own had been.

How could he or Maren provide that when their jobs took them to all parts of the world? Into dangerous situations?

“You didn’t fail me, Steele,” she said softly, breaking into his thoughts. “How were you to have known? I could have said something when Tristan started sniffing around me. I blew it off. It was stupid. I could have called Sam at any time. But I’m a big girl. I can handle myself. I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve worked alone in places many men wouldn’t venture. But you know what? I blew it off because I had no reason to ever believe he would take things as far as he did.”

She exhaled sharply and continued.

“I’ve never been singled out like that. You have to understand, I blend. I never draw attention to myself. I’m not the kind of woman who stops traffic or gets noticed in a crowd. What happened in Africa was just an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t personal. I was taken hostage along with all the other people who just happened to be in that same wrong place at the same wrong time.

“But with Mendoza, or Tristan, or whoever the hell he really is, it was personal. And I didn’t get that. I couldn’t believe that I was being singled out when I’ve made it a practice to do my job quietly and without a fuss. I guess that’s what I find so disturbing and why it upsets me so much. I’ve never had anything like this happen, and I still don’t understand why he did it. Why me? A man who has his kind of power and money could have hired the best darn physician money could buy. Guys like that don’t want a backwoods doctor who dispenses free medical care to the poverty stricken. And as I said, I’m not a woman who stops traffic, so I don’t understand why he fixated on me. Was it convenience? Proximity? I just happened to be in the area and he said, What the hell, she’s a doctor, I’ll take her?”

Steele put a finger over her lips and then rubbed soothingly. “Maybe we’ll never know. You can’t make yourself crazy trying to understand how crazy people think. But as for you not stopping traffic? Got news for you. I’d definitely notice you in a crowd.”

She flushed a delicate pink, color blooming in her cheeks. She bit into her bottom lip until he thumbed it to free it, and he softly pushed back so she wasn’t damaging the tender skin.

“So what do we do, Steele?” she asked quietly. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. I know neither of us planned on it. It may not have happened the way we wanted, but I don’t regret it now. I wouldn’t go back and undo my pregnancy. This baby is a part of me. I’ll do anything in the world to protect this child.”

He weighed her words, still processing the shock of discovering his impending fatherhood. “What we do”—he began slowly—“the very first thing we do is ensure your health and well-being and that of our child. You’ve had a very stressful few months, and even if Caldwell didn’t harm you physically, the strain wore you down. We need to make sure you’re healthy, the baby is healthy and that you both get the care you need.

“After that? You’ll stay here with me where I know you’re safe. This changes everything, Maren. I don’t know what your plans are or if you’ve even thought about it yet. Did you want to go back in the field so soon?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “If it were just me and I didn’t have a child to consider, I’d take another assignment. I wouldn’t allow some crazy bastard to dictate my life or make me so afraid that I couldn’t do my job. It’s more than a job, Steele. It’s a calling. I don’t know if you understand that, or maybe you think I’m nuts.”

“Not at all. We all have callings. Mine is KGI and our missions. I don’t think you’re nuts any more than I think I am for what I do. We both help people. We just do it in different ways.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Thanks for that, at least. And to answer your question, I don’t know. You’re right in that my pregnancy changes everything. Changes my priorities. I’ve lived out of the country for so long and I don’t have an actual place I call home here. I could stay with my parents until I figure it all out and until after the baby’s born.”

His frown was instant. There were a lot of problems with that scenario. Apart from the safety issues, he didn’t want her away from him. He wanted to be a part of this pregnancy. He wanted to be there when his child came into the world. And he couldn’t very well do that if she lived states away.

“What are you thinking?” she asked softly.

Her gaze was focused on him, her blue eyes inquiring.

“I don’t want you miles away from me,” he said bluntly. “I may not have planned this any more than you did, but I want to be a part of my child’s life, Maren. I want to see you get bigger. I want to feel him or her kick inside you. I want to see the sonogram pictures. And I damn sure want to be there for the birth. There’s no reason for you to do it alone. You won’t be alone. Because I’ll be there. Every step of the way.”

Her eyes widened, but he saw relief there. Had she wanted him with her? Had she been afraid he wouldn’t want to be a part of his child’s life?

“I’ve said what I want,” he continued. “But we haven’t talked about what you want.”

“I want you with me,” she whispered. “I’d like that a lot. I wasn’t sure. I mean, I know this was a huge bomb to drop on you. I know it’ll take you time to digest it all. I guess I was worried that you wouldn’t want much to do with me or the baby.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to happen. But you need to know that I’ll be overbearing. It’s who I am. And you have to prepare yourself for that. When it comes to your safety and the safety of our baby, I know myself well enough to know what kind of man I’ll be. And that will probably drive you crazy. It would drive most women crazy. I’ll try to be reasonable. I’ll try to take it down a notch. But I’m warning you from the start that the only way I know is head-on, and I’m used to having things done my way.”

Her lips twitched and amusement gleamed in her eyes. “I’m not one of your team members, Steele. Just remember that. I don’t take orders very well.”

He smiled ruefully. “I’ll try my best, but you’re going to have to be patient with me.”

“Make you a deal. I’ll be patient with you as long as you promise to be patient with me and to try to control your urge to boss me around.”

“Deal.”

“So where does that leave us, Steele? What do we do now? And do we try to figure out anything beyond the birth of our baby, or do we just take it as it comes and decide that when the time comes?”

He took a deep breath, wondering just how much he needed to lay on her right now. If he had his way, he’d move her into his home lock, stock and barrel and call it good. But he didn’t want to overwhelm her from the very start. Especially when he had no idea what his feelings were, what her feelings were or if they were even compatible as housemates.

He knew for damn certain that she wouldn’t live in his home without her eventually sleeping in his bed. That was a given. One time hadn’t been enough, even before he’d known she was carrying his child. She’d haunted his every thought ever since the nights they’d spent together, and that was before she’d gone missing. She’d only become more of an obsession once he’d been determined to find her and bring her home safely.

But he had no idea if that attraction was reciprocated. They’d had great sex, or at least it was to him. But just because they’d torn up the sheets a few times didn’t mean she’d be lining up to get into his bed again. And there was the fact that the first time he’d very bluntly told her that he wanted her out of his system, and then he’d left the next morning without another word, further contact or anything. He was still kicking himself over that. If he hadn’t been such an asshole determined to exorcise her from his every thought, maybe she wouldn’t have ended up an unwilling guest of Javier Mendoza aka Tristan Caldwell. It was very possible he’d screwed up beyond redemption and she wouldn’t want anything to do with him other than letting him help her through her pregnancy.

And he’d be a complete bastard to come on strong so soon after her rescue anyway. She needed time to get her bearings, refocus her life and come to terms with everything that had happened in a short period of time before she could be expected to make any decisions regarding her pregnancy, her life and a relationship with him.

Relationship. The word stuck out like a neon sign in his mind. Was he contemplating an actual relationship? If someone had asked him six months before, he would have been quick to say a relationship was the very last thing he was looking for or wanted. His job was his life. His team was his life. And a permanent partner or lover would have had no part of the path he’d chosen. It wouldn’t be fair to a woman to have to share him with his team and his responsibilities to KGI.

Hell, it wouldn’t be fair to Maren or their child. Which meant he had some pretty big decisions in his future. Ones he didn’t want to contemplate yet. But then how could he possibly walk away from a woman who had become for all practical purposes an obsession, living in his thoughts on a constant basis? The mother of his child. A tiny little life that was of his blood. Someone who would depend on him for love and protection. No way could he back away from that responsibility. It wasn’t something he’d even consider.

Which meant that he and Maren were going to be inexorably tied for the rest of their lives, no matter what happened between them.

She was still waiting for a response, and he sucked in a breath before leveling his gaze in her direction, locking with hers.

“What I suggest is that for now, you stay with me. There’s a whole host of reasons, but we’ll go with the two most important. I won’t take chances with your safety or the baby’s. That means you need to be where I can protect you. Where I know you’re safe and taken care of. And you said yourself you didn’t have a residence stateside, which means that you’ll need a place to be comfortable as your pregnancy progresses. I’ve already vetoed you going to your folks because, and this ties in with reason number one, it isn’t safe. I don’t want you in that kind of danger and I don’t think you want your parents or brother at risk either.”

She shook her head adamantly. “No, I don’t.”

“Do you have a problem living here with me?” he asked softly.

She hesitated before slowly shaking her head again. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“I wouldn’t have offered unless it was something I was sure of.”

“But where does it leave . . . us?” she whispered. “Or is there even an us? I feel like an idiot here, Steele, but I don’t know what we are. Are we kind of friends who happen to be having a baby together? Are we former lovers who’ll have a civil relationship because it’s best for the baby? Or am I making a complete moron of myself for even thinking that the time we spent together was something more than you getting me out of your system?”

He snorted but was relieved that his earlier concern might well have been misplaced. He’d worried he’d ruined any chance of ever having her in his bed again. But if he was nothing else, he was determined, and he’d never given up on anything he wanted. And he definitely wanted her.

“I was a dumbass for thinking I would ever get you out of my system. If anything that night just dug you further under my skin than ever. You aren’t a moron, Maren. That night meant something to me too. More than I intended. I won’t lie to you. It was damn inconvenient, and no, I’m not talking about the baby. I have no regrets there. But that’s why I came back to you that time and why I had every intention of coming back to you again when my mission was completed. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you after that first night.”

Her eyes flared and her nostrils quivered as she stared back at him. There was clear relief in her eyes, and her shoulders drooped downward as if she’d been tense until his reply.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” he murmured, leaning in until their mouths were tantalizingly close. “I plan to have you back in my bed. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow or even next week. But it’s going to happen, and we both know it.”