“Uh-huh.” Wade nodded, pulling out a sandwich. “Women don’t like it much when you issue them military orders.”
Jose leaned in. “Not that we were eavesdropping. You were mighty vocal there at the end.”
Hugh scrubbed a hand over his head. “So I’m just supposed to let her hang out here in an earthquake zone when there’s a perfectly good seat waiting for her?”
Raising his hands, Jose backed up. “I’m not the one to ask, dude. I’m still single.”
Hugh’s gaze skated back to Amelia, meeting up with her family. She had her brave face on, smiling even as Aiden and Lisabeth Bailey hovered over their kid with that new-parent awe he remembered well.
And yeah, Amelia was right in saying he was scared of the thought of committing again. Putting his heart in another child’s tiny hands? Damn. But what scared him most? Never having the chance to stand in a trio like that with Amelia—her, him, and their kid.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, kicking himself over his own thickheadedness. He clapped both of his buddies on the back. “I’ll catch you later at the hooch. I’ve got something to take care of first.”
Jogging toward the cargo plane, he kept his eyes locked on Amelia even as he wove around human traffic, litters being loaded, other refugees making their way up the load ramp. He even saw the nurse from the hospital—her name finally came to him: Lieutenant Gable—reaching for a baby in a woman’s outstretched arms.
He frowned, something niggling at the back of his mind. He looked closer, his feet carrying him across the packed earth. The woman a few feet away behind Amelia looked like any number of other relief workers in khakis and a cotton shirt, waist cinched with a gun belt. Like a dozen others here, she wore a hat to shade her face from the sun.
The wind rolled in from the ocean and picked up the brim of her hat enough for him to see—
Horror iced the blood in his veins as he recognized Jocelyn Pearson-Stewart standing only two feet away from Amelia.
***
Standing with her family, waiting to board, Amelia kept a smile plastered on her face even though she ached to scream out in frustration. For heaven’s sake, she made her living with words and persuasive arguments. How could she have let the conversation with Hugh go off the rails so abysmally? She knew full well why.
Because when he’d told her he loved her, she’d panicked. She’d picked a fight with him to avoid facing what the two of them shared back in the supply tent. To delay dealing with the love growing inside her so very fast.
She’d known they were heading in that direction, but she’d expected to have time to settle into the notion. Not to dive headfirst into the scary world of relationships again with a guy she’d barely known for a few days.
But oh my, what memorable days they had been.
Her eyes drifted back to where he’d been standing. Except he wasn’t there any longer. His broad shoulders were parting the crowd as he ran toward her. Her heart sped up. Her smile became real and heartfelt as she waved at him.
He waved back, shouting something that got lost in the roar of jet engines warming up and planes overhead. And he wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked intensely serious. His arm shot out and he grabbed the arm of one of the security cops, hauling the man with him as Hugh continued to say something…
The wind rolling in off the ocean carried the hum of words. From the crowd? From Hugh. She could have sworn she heard the name…
“Jocelyn…”
Suddenly Hugh’s waving took on a whole different meaning and she looked behind her just as a gun jammed into her side. She stared straight into the fanatical eyes of Jocelyn Pearson-Stewart.
The woman shouted, “Everyone move back. Do not come near or I’ll shoot her. I swear it.”
Hugh and the security cop stopped in their tracks, the crowd fanning out in retreat. Amelia looked frantically around, making sure Joshua was nowhere near this monster. And thank God, Aiden had tucked his family behind him, already backing them away, his eyes apologizing to Amelia for not being able to help her.
She hoped he could see in her expression that she understood. He was doing what had to be done to guard his child. What should be done for any child, truly, which made her wonder why the military nurse holding that baby wasn’t moving away.
Hugh kept his hands high, in sight, unthreatening. “Jocelyn, you’re not going to get away. Let’s end this standoff now before someone gets hurt, like that baby over there. Can you really allow yourself to be responsible for even one more innocent life put at risk?”
The woman dug the gun deeper into Amelia’s side. “I am saving the children. Don’t you understand?”
And in the span of those few words, Amelia knew what she had to do. She’d heard that same tone in more criminal voices than she could count. Criminals with a zealous agenda. They all possessed a desperate compulsion to share their propaganda. If she could give Jocelyn that opportunity, she might just buy enough time for one of these guards to end this nightmare.
Amelia looked straight at Jocelyn without flinching and asked, “What do I need to understand? Tell me.”
Like a moth drawn to the flame, Jocelyn turned her attention to Amelia. “Without me, do you comprehend the lives they would have led?” Her skeletal fingers were surprisingly strong, banded around Amelia’s arm as she kept her close to her side. “Who knows how long they would have stayed in orphanages? I compacted that time for them. I was their guardian, their savior.”
As appalled as she was by the woman’s God complex, she had to keep her talking. “Do you realize how you’ve endangered them, circumventing the rules? You gave a platform to criminals like Oliver.”