Decaf worked for her. She was already planning revised menus. She would have to eat better. Eat more often. No more caffeine and she didn’t even give a damn.
She was carrying Noah’s baby.
She dressed quickly, floating, feeling as though a surge of euphoria had taken hold of her mind and refused to release it. She stopped as she buttoned and zipped her jeans, and touched her stomach again. Just felt it. Needing to feel the life growing inside her.
She and Nathan had talked about starting a family after he returned from that last mission. They had wanted children, but they had wanted a stable environment to bring one into. They were going to pay off some of the bills. They were going to talk about it when he got home. But he hadn’t come home, until now.
Her lips curled softly, though sadly. She could keep him, she thought. She could tell him about the baby, he would never leave her . . . She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t hold him. If he left, he would leave without knowing. And then she would have to leave as well, because Rory and Jordan would make certain he knew. They would never keep that information from him. And she would be back where she started, with a man who had returned, not for her, but because of their child.
Besides, if he knew about the baby, and he left anyway? It would destroy the love she felt for him, and that she couldn’t bear. Noah was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Loving him had been the greatest fulfillment of her life. Until now.
She finished dressing, then left the exam room, and went back to the lobby.
“Everything okay?” Rory came to his feet as she stepped back into the lobby and moved to the counter to pay her bill.
“Everything’s fine.” She smiled back at him, forcing herself to keep the curve of her lips restrained. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”
The nurse took her check. She was busy inputting information into the computer and, thank God, didn’t ask about the shot Sabella hadn’t received.
“I thought you would be in there forever,” Sienna teased as they left the doctor’s office and emerged in the parking lot. “She never takes that long.”
“She w
anted to make certain I was over that flu bug.” Sabella shrugged.
She was dying to tell someone. Why wasn’t she telling Sienna? Rory? Why wasn’t she shouting it from the rooftops? She was pregnant. Finally pregnant and it was her husband’s baby.
She inhaled slowly as they turned the corner of the building and headed across the back lot to Rory’s truck. She was lost in the happiness, trying to hide it from Rory and Sienna. She kept her head down, and she didn’t see the van.
“Sabella!” Rory’s yell had her head jerking up as he tried to grab her, to pull her back from the black van that suddenly stopped beside them.
Sienna was jostled into her, throwing her closer to the wide door that was flung open. Black masks. Black clothes. A gun aimed at Rory, a muffled report sounding as Sabella tried to scream over the hand that covered her mouth, tried to fight the ruthless force that tossed her into van.
Her last sight of Rory was the horror in his face and the blood pouring from his shoulder as he went down. Then the doors slammed closed, locking her and Sienna into the back of the van as it squealed out of the parking lot and accelerated as it headed out of town.
Horrified, terrified, she fought against the hands holding her. Her arms were jerked behind her back. Oh God. Her stomach was undefended. She couldn’t cushion it, couldn’t protect her baby like this.
Cuffs were snapped on her wrists and tape slapped over her mouth as she stared at her friend, her best friend, in shock.
Sienna wasn’t being cuffed or gagged. She was settling herself into the lap of one of the masked abductors, a smile curving her lips as she tilted her head and regarded Sabella like a distasteful chore.
Sienna stared at her for long moments then she got up, braced her hand on the ceiling of the van, and before Sabella could process it, Sienna backhanded her with enough force to send her head bouncing against the side of the van, stars exploding in front of her eyes as she crumpled to the floor.
Sabella didn’t bother lifting herself from the floor. She blinked, felt the blood trickling from her nose, and stared back at the woman who smiled with cool, calm arrogance.
“You stupid fucking bitch,” Sienna drawled. “That’s for all the years I’ve had to put up with babying your whining ass because Rick insisted I should worry about you. And for marrying Nathan. Whore. You should have left the hometown boys to the hometown girls.” She settled back on the lap of the man who had held her moments before.
Brown eyes glared at her from behind the mask. Mike Conrad’s brown eyes. His gaze was malicious, satisfaction filling them, hatred glittering in them.
Sabella curled herself in a ball, her knees lifting to protect Noah’s child. And she stared at Mike and Sienna in disbelief.
Mike she could believe. But Sienna? Sienna who had been there when Nathan’s casket was buried. Who rocked her when she cried, who had forced her out of the house over the years and had played the part of the loving friend so convincingly.
“Look at her.” Sienna laughed. “Didn’t I tell you, lover? I’m the best. No one ever suspected.”
Sabella hadn’t suspected, but she knew in that moment, that a part of her had known, unconsciously, that this woman wasn’t her friend. Just as she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Sienna intended to see her dead.
But she knew no matter how hard they tried to hide, no matter how deep they might bury her body, Noah would find them. And when he did, he wouldn’t let the fact that Sienna was a woman save her. Mike Conrad’s past friendship with Nathan wouldn’t even be a memory.