Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Page 2

  And there on the other side of the table, the father of her child. Unconscious.

  Madison licked dust-covered lips as she stretched one hand forward, then brought her knee up to follow. On hands and knees, she crawled around the prosecution’s table until she could slide her fingers into his palm. “Jonah, get up.”

  He jerked into consciousness, his hand clasping hard around hers. Black-singed ends of hair curled at the base of his neck and around his full beard of light brown thickness. Alarm flashed in iridescent blue eyes at the sight of the aftermath still unfolding around them. Thick ropes of muscle hardened as he pushed upright. “Madison.”

  “I’m here.” Relief coursed through her. He was alive. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t been too injured. She tugged her hand from his, falling back onto one hip, and held on to the solid curve of her baby bump. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Someone had triggered an explosion inside the very same courtroom where Rosalind Eyler was scheduled to answer for what she’d done, but Madison didn’t have time to investigate why, how or when. “I... The baby.”

  His gaze immediately dropped to her lower abdominals. He reached for her in the same moment and, without hesitation or consideration for any injuries he might’ve sustained from the explosion, scooped her into his arms. It didn’t matter what’d happened between them, how many times she’d declined his calls or how often she’d gone out of her way to avoid him in their professional interactions. Past experience and his case history said she could count on him to care about this baby. Debris crunched under his boots as he maneuvered around the unrecognizable bench he’d been sitting on before the blast. “I’m going to get you out of here. Hang on to me.”

  Reality sped into focus as the fire alarm shrieked in her ears. Heels clicked on polished tile behind them as Jonah pushed through the damaged courtroom doors and into the corridor. Courthouse security shouted from the bank of elevators and directed them toward the stairs. The elevators had gone into automatic lockdown. Rubble slid across the floor and slammed into the baseboards as victims of the explosion stumbled from the courtroom. The dark green color of her skirt-suit had turned an ash gray, tiny holes pockmarking the hem on one side. This was supposed to be her big case, the one that’d put her in line for the district attorney. This was the case that would’ve proved she’d risen above her past, but now her chance was gone. Disintegrated in the leftover ashes of that tinderbox.

  Emergency personnel raced toward them from the stairs.

  “Issue an evacuation of this building! I want all the top floors cleared as fast as possible. That bomb could’ve damaged the structural integrity of the entire courthouse.” Jonah gave orders without slowing. The command in his voice neutralized the panic clawing up her throat. This was what he did for a living. This was what the FBI had trained Jonah for domestically and in Afghanistan for two years. When the entire world threatened to collapse around her, he’d fallen directly into his element to be the voice of calm and reason, and she couldn’t help but latch onto that strength and try to take some it for herself. “I counted twenty-six injured, eight dead and no sign of the judge or the bailiff.”

  Eight dead? So many lives destroyed. How could this have happened? Why?

  The answer burned on the tip of her tongue as Jonah ran toward the stairs. The Rip City Bomber. Rosalind Eyler was connected somehow, and Madison would prove it. As soon as the EMTs cleared her and the baby’s health, she’d get in touch with the district attorney. She’d get the bomb squad to analyze the scene and bring new charges against the defendant to make sure Rosalind never saw the outside of a prison cell for the rest of her life. The same sentence Madison’s father should’ve met all those years ago.

  New determination chased back the terror that’d taken control.

  “Put me down.” Madison pressed her palm into Jonah’s chest, the fast-paced pounding of his heart in rhythm with hers. She had enough strength to get herself downstairs and checked by one of the arriving EMTs. He needed to be here. He needed to help as many people as he could, and she could take care of herself. “I can walk from here.”

  “That bomb detonated less than fifteen feet from where you were sitting, Maddi.” He easily kept pace down seven floors of courthouse stairs with her added weight. The scent of smoke and something she couldn’t identify clung to the deep brown corduroy of his jacket. Nothing like the rich cinnamon spice she’d missed these past few months. “There’s no way in hell I’m giving you the chance to run before I make sure you and my baby are okay for myself.”

  My baby. Those two words sunk like a rock in her stomach. Despite the fact he was indeed the father of the life growing inside her, she’d committed to raising this child on her own after the birth—physically, financially and emotionally. Just because they’d made a baby together didn’t mean she needed to rely on him for help or security. But because he’d defended his argument to carry her with the safety of her and the baby in mind, she couldn’t offer a rebuttal without throwing her priorities into question. She cared about this baby. There was no argument to be had, but his concern worked under her skin and scratched at her independence. She’d gotten this far on her own, and she sure as hell wasn’t one of his damsels in distress to be saved.

  Cold Portland air shocked every inch of her exposed skin as Jonah kicked open the lobby doors and maneuvered her through. Fire and police vehicles condensed onto the scene as panicked civilians crowded the perimeter the Portland Police Bureau had established and pointed up the side of the building. Madison followed their gazes. Dread pooled at the base of her spine where Jonah’s hand supported her. Black smoke and bright flames escaped what she could see of the massive hole the bomb had created, and air crushed from her lungs.

  Fifteen feet. She’d been only fifteen feet away from the blast and somehow survived an explosion that’d ripped an entire hole in the side of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse building. Gravity increased its hold on her body as the reality of that thought bled into focus. This didn’t make sense. If the bomb had been strong enough and positioned well enough to blow a hole through several feet of concrete and steel, how had she walked away and eight others hadn’t?

  Jonah’s grip strengthened around her back and alongside her thigh as he rushed her to the closest ambulance. “I have a survivor. Deputy District Attorney Madison Gray, age thirty-three, multiple head lacerations, possible internal bleeding and six months pregnant. You need to make sure she and the baby are okay.”

  Red and blue patrol lights blurred in her vision as he hauled her into the back of the ambulance. Within seconds, emergency staff had a blood pressure cuff strapped around her arm and an oxygen mask in place. Her breathing echoed back to her through the mask. Her heart rate spiked as the facts of the explosion lined up in her head, but the heaviness of Jonah’s gaze anchored her enough to drown the uncertainty clawing up her throat.

  “You’re going to be okay. I promise.” Jonah wrapped a calloused hand in hers at the side of the gurney. Instant warmth shot through her at that single touch, the same warmth that’d led to her getting pregnant by him in the first place, and the world tilted on its axis. From the added oxygen or from him, she didn’t know. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Static interrupted the sense of peace his confidence instilled deep in her bones. A female voice penetrated the small bubble he’d somehow created between them and the violent chaos outside the ambulance walls. “Deputy Watson, I need you to meet me on channel two.”

  Extracting his hand from hers, Jonah peeled the radio strapped to his Kevlar vest from his chest and turned the dial. Compelling blue eyes shifted out the back of the ambulance, and in an instant, the spell was broken. The one that had the ability to convince her to let him get past her guard again, that she could trust his intentions. “Glad to hear you survived, Chief. What do you have?”

  Remington Barton, Jonah’s deputy chief. Madison had met the woman only a co
uple of times during judicial security assignments and testimony proceedings, but each encounter had been ingrained in Madison’s memory. The former New Castle County sheriff held her own in a job dominated by the opposite sex and rarely backed down without a fight. For her deputies, for her witnesses and anyone else lucky enough to be brought under her protection. “An anonymous source has just taken credit for the bombing.”

  Jonah compressed the push-to-talk button. “And?”

  The deputy chief didn’t miss a beat. “The call confirmed Deputy District Attorney Madison Gray as the bomber’s target.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I do hope she makes it to the finish line in one piece.

  Rosalind Eyler’s words spoken mere minutes before the explosion ripped apart that courtroom echoed on repeat in his head as Jonah lunged out the back of the ambulance. The radio’s casing nearly buckled under his grip as he studied the perimeter of onlookers and civilians beyond the caution tape marking the scene.

  “Jonah.” His name pierced through the oxygen mask covering Madison’s nose and mouth, drawing his attention back to her stretched out on the gurney. Lines of dirt and debris sharpened the angles of her face. Her hair, usually smooth and without a single strand out of place, was frizzed and more textured than a mere twenty minutes ago.

  The mother of his child was the target of a bomber.

  The Rip City Bomber case was the biggest the state of Oregon had ever seen in domestic terrorism. Every detail, including the fact Madison had been assigned as the lead prosecutor, had been made public, but there were details the district attorney’s office hadn’t released to the media. The device he’d heard had been wired with a cell phone to trigger the detonation. Whoever’d set that bomb had to know the layout of the courtroom, where the prosecution’s table would be positioned and the minute the preliminary hearing had started in order to achieve full destruction. The only way the bomber would’ve known the exact moment to detonate was if they’d been close enough to ensure their target was in range.

  Only something had gone wrong.

  The blast had mainly diverted to the outer wall of the building. Jonah memorized every face in the crowd, every officer and EMT on the scene. The bomber had failed in getting to Madison, which meant there was a chance they’d try again.

  His blood pressure rocketed into dangerous territory. He had to get her out of here. For the sake of her life, their baby’s life. Jonah closed the distance between him and the back of the ambulance, his right shoulder blade screaming with the slightest jerk of his arm. The sight of one of the paramedics with his hand pressing into the exposed, flawless curve of Madison’s belly tugged at something under Jonah’s rib cage. He strapped his radio back onto his Kevlar vest. “How is she?”

  “She’s stable. No sign of internal bleeding or fetal distress,” the EMT said, “but we should still get her to the hospital to do an ultrasound and make sure mother and baby are in the clear.”

  “Can she be moved to a different location?” he asked.

  “Jonah, no.” Madison pushed upright, the set of that perfect mouth rigid as though she could read his mind. “I’m not going into protective custody. I need to be here. I need to finish what I started.”

  Every second she was out in the open was another chance the bomber had of taking away everything Jonah had fought to protect. Madison had made it clear she intended to raise this baby on her own when she’d walked away all those months ago, but that wouldn’t stop him from doing whatever he had to do in order to keep her and their child alive. The EMT hadn’t answered. “I said, can she be moved?”

  “Yes.” The emergency technician backed himself into the side door of his rig, eyes wide. “Her vitals are fine, but, Marshal Watson, you’re bleeding. We should take a look at that wound on the back of your shoulder.”

  “That’s the least of my problems right now.” Stepping up into the back of the ambulance, he pressed his hand beneath Madison’s elbow and urged her to get to her feet. “Deputy District Attorney Gray, you are officially under US Marshal protection for the duration of the investigation into today’s attack, and I’m getting you out of here.”

  “Like hell you are.” She wrenched her arm out of his hold, that caramel-brown gaze molten. Every ounce of the independent, self-confident and controlled woman he’d been battling with the past few months rose to the surface as though he were one of the defendants she prosecuted in the courtroom. She stood on her own. “Rosalind Eyler killed thirty-two people in the past year. Thirty-two people who won’t ever get to see their families again, and I’m the only one who can make sure she pays for that. If I’m going anywhere, it’s back to get the bomb squad here to prove to the DA we should add this attack to the charges I’m bringing against her.” She maneuvered past him to step down from the ambulance. “I’ve got a job to do, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Moving fast, Jonah pulled his handcuffs from the pocket at the back of his vest and wrapped one cuff around her hand clutched to the ambulance door. He secured the other end around his own wrist as she turned on him, then pulled her deeper into the back of the rig. Tugging her wrist up between them, he stepped into her. “You’ve made it perfectly clear you want nothing to do with me these past five months, Maddi, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about that. But whoever targeted you knows who you are. They know where you work, where you live, what car you drive, who your friends are, that you’re six months pregnant and your daily routine. They’ve watched every public interview you’ve given and figured out how desperate you are to prove yourself on this case. They’ll know your next move and the one after that, and they’re going to find out they failed in killing you today. Unless you come with me right now, they’re going to try again.” He lowered his voice low enough to keep his next words between them. “So I’ll make it clear to you now, Counselor. You might think your job is so important to you that you would risk our baby’s life, but I’m not willing to take that chance.”

  He’d already lost too much.

  The small muscles on either side of her throat flexed as she swallowed. Hardness in her expression shallowed. Seconds passed, maybe a minute. “How do you know? How do you know whoever’s behind this has gone to that much trouble to dig into my life?”

  “Because that’s exactly what I would’ve done.” He’d investigated enough improvised explosive devices to determine the state of mind of the bombers behind them over the years. Ranging from Middle East combat zones where the devices were meant to cause as much damage as possible for a cause, to homegrown terrorists sending a message as he’d assisted state and local bomb techs, Jonah knew without a doubt whoever’d targeted Madison had made this personal. This attack hadn’t been about a cause or killing as many people as possible. It’d been about one person: Madison. As much as he wanted to suit up and be part of the bomb technician team that would be assigned to assess the threat in the rest of the building, he needed to be here. For her. He wasn’t FBI anymore. He was a US marshal, and his judicial security had just become a witness protection assignment. “I need you to trust me. If you want to get out of this alive, if you want our baby to make it out of this alive, you’re going to have to do exactly as I say.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell with exaggerated breath. She nodded.

  “Good. Take your heels off and hand over your phone. We’re headed for my SUV parked around the corner. The bomber most likely knows what kind of car you drive. Move fast but don’t run, stay low and keep hold of my hand at all times.” He dug the handcuff keys from his pocket and twisted the cuff off his wrist, then hers. A sudden high-pitch protest of Velcro ripping free filled the back of the ambulance as he hefted his Kevlar body armor over his head and maneuvered the thick vest onto her shoulders. He pulled the fasteners tighter at her sides. “Use me as a shield if you have to.”

  Madison removed her shoes, long fingers wrapped around the heels in one hand, then
unpocketed her phone from her deep green blazer and handed it over. “You think whoever set off that bomb is here? You think he’s watching me?”

  “I’d rather take every precaution and be wrong, than take none and have the bastard surprise us. IEDs come in a lot of shapes, sizes and forms, and there’s no way to know if the bomber has set any other devices until the bomb squad is on scene and can clear this entire block.” Powering down her phone, he intertwined his hand in hers. “We have no idea who we’re dealing with, Maddi, and until we do, I need to get you off the grid and into hiding. That means no phone calls, no email, no messages or contact with your friends, family and coworkers. As of this moment, you’re under the protection of the United States Marshals Service. It’s the only way I know to keep you safe.”

  Madison’s gaze shot to his as she clasped his hand. “Okay, but there better be dill pickle chips when we get wherever you’re taking me.”

  “I think I can manage that.” Jonah tightened his hand around hers and fell into the mindset he reserved for high-risk operations. Any time he’d approached a suspicious package, backpack, a pressure cooker on the side of the street or been assigned to gather evidence after an explosion outside American bases across the ocean, nothing mattered but the objective. In Afghanistan, it’d been to collect as many pieces of evidence as he could and re-create the device in a controlled environment to figure out how it functioned. Right now, it was getting Madison to safety. Nothing else could get in the way. “Three. Two. One.”

  They stepped from the back of the ambulance and headed straight for the perimeter of tape the Portland Police Bureau had secured around the scene. She struggled to keep up with his long strides as he wound her through the crowd of spectators and police. “Not too fast. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”