Shotgun Baby Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  Books by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Preview

  Copyright

  “I’m his father.”

  The social worker brushed Con’s words aside. “If indeed you are his father, you’d be a single father at best. I’m sorry, Mr. Randolph, but you can’t expect to convince the court that the child would be better off with you than with a normal loving family.”

  “You’re talking about love, ma’am,” Robyn said, jumping in. “How can you possibly measure the love a father has for his son?”

  “Just what, exactly, is your relationship with Mr. Randolph?” the woman asked.

  “Like Con told you, we’re childhood friends.”

  “Too bad. He’d at least have a chance of convincing the courts to take him seriously if he got married.”

  Robyn’s gaze flew to Con’s face, and he couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling him…Surely even Robbie wouldn’t go so far as to tie herself to a loveless marriage to help him out. As for him… marriage? To Robbie? There was no way. She was his best friend. His only friend.

  Marry Robbie? No way in hell.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tara Taylor Quinn worked as a journalist and an English teacher before she finally realized her dream of becoming a Harlequin writer—a dream she’d nursed ever since buying her first Harlequin Romance novel at the age of fourteen. Tara makes her home in Arizona with her husband and daughter.

  Tara loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at P.O. Box 15065, Scottsdale, Arizona 85267-5065 or on-line at http://www.inficad.com/-ttquinn.

  Books by Tara Taylor Quinn

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  567—YESTERDAY’S SECRETS

  584—McGILLUS V. WRIGHT

  600—DARE TO LOVE

  624—NO CURE FOR LOVE

  661—JACOB’S GIRLS

  696—THE BIRTH MOTHER

  729—ANOTHER MAN’S CHILD

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Shotgun Baby

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  For Joni Knox Pepperell whose friendship stood the test of time in spite of the odds

  PROLOGUE

  SOMEBODY’S WITH HIM. Con took another swallow of whiskey, trying to drown the memory of the sergeant’s words.

  They’d had to go in. They’d been out of time. As soon as Nick Ramirez heard about the bust he’d have vanished. And they’d have been back to square one. Again. The drugs would be on the streets and kids would be dying.

  Somebody’s with him.

  He lit a cigarette and motioned for another drink. “Make it a double.”

  The bartender grunted.

  Con paid for the drink, downed it quickly and slid his empty glass back across the scarred wood of the bar. “Again,” he said.

  Hell, he wasn’t the one who’d screwed up. He wasn’t the one who’d panicked, who’d arrested members of Ramirez’s organization before Ramirez himself had been brought in. One thing Special Agent Connor Randolph did not do was panic. Ever.

  Somebody’s with him.

  Con shook his head. The words wouldn’t leave him alone. “Another one,” he said, concentrating on his enunciation. “Better start a tab.”

  How could he have known? Hell, anyone in the same room as Ramirez had to smell as rank as he did. The slimy lawyer had been stinking up Phoenix for years. But they hadn’t nailed him on drugs; check fraud was the charge they’d finally been able to hang on him. And they’d been damn lucky to do that. Ramirez filled his organization with his own kind, and they stuck together.

  Somebody’s with him.

  Con tipped the whiskey glass to his mouth again. So somebody was with Ramirez. Two for the price of one, he’d thought. A deal.

  A deal. The somebody with him was a woman. A young blond beauty. Wearing a blue dress. Con squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn’t obliterate the images that tormented him. How much more alcohol was it going to take?

  “May I sit down?”

  Opening his eyes, he slowly turned toward the voice. Could it be her?

  “May I?” she asked a second time.

  He nodded and the woman took the stool beside his. It sure looked like her. The alcohol was finally working.

  “How come you’re all alone?” she asked.

  He shrugged and glanced at her. At least she wasn’t wearing blue. His cigarette had burned itself out in the ashtray and he lit a new one.

  “I’m all alone, too,” she said. “I don’t like being alone. Do you?”

  He shook his head. “Buy you a drink?”

  Of course, he could understand why she’d changed her dress. Red splotches had messed up the blue one.

  “Sure, if you want to. A glass of wine, please,” she told the bartender. “Red.”

  That could have been what was spilled all over her pretty blue dress. Red wine. There was something drastically wrong with this theory, but he didn’t have the energy to figure out what. Con sipped his drink, welcoming oblivion.

  “You don’t mind if I sit here, do you? I’m not bothering you or anything?”

  Hell no, she wasn’t bothering him. She’d just saved him from his demons. He shook his head again.

  “It’s just…I didn’t want to be alone, but when I came in here, most of the men looked at me like I was good for only one thing, you know what I mean? But you didn’t. You don’t see me like that, do you?”

  To tell the truth, Con couldn’t see her clearly at all. The lighting in the bar wasn’t that great to begin with, and things were getting blurrier by the minute. He gave her his standard answer, a shake of the head. It was just about all he could manage. It seemed to satisfy her.

  “I guess you broke your nose sometime, huh? It’s okay, though. I like the rugged look. How about you? What do you like?”

  Con shrugged. He couldn’t think of anything at the moment. He lit another cigarette.

  “You sure are big, even for a man. I mean I can see you’re in fantastic shape, but I don’t know if I’ve ever sat beside such a big man. You’re sitting down and all, but there’s hardly room for your legs under the bar.”

  Con nodded.

  “I know I chatter a lot. Does it bother you? I can leave you alone if you want.”

  “No!” Anything but that. As long as he didn’t question things too deeply, she was keeping the demons at bay. He needed her to stay right there beside him. “Don’t go.” And then, just to make certain, he added, “Please.”

  “Sure. Don’t worry. I’ll stay. For as long as you like. I got no place to be. You got someplace to be?”

  He didn’t want to think about life outside the bar or even off the stool. “Nope.”

  “So, whatcha wanna talk about?”

  He shrugged, took a drag on his cigarette. Talking meant thinking, didn’t it? He didn’t want to talk.

 
“That’s okay. I can do most of the talking if you want. It won’t hurt my feelings if you just wanna sit there. I know what. You want me to tell you the story about how my dog—Estelle, that was her name—you want me to tell you how Estelle got into the movies?”

  A dog in the movies. “Sure,” he said. She wanted to tell him about a dog in the movies. Nobody had ever talked to him about dogs in movies.

  Slouched silently beside her, he half listened to her ramblings, smoking his cigarettes and drinking his whiskey. As long as she kept talking he was going to be all right.

  “I have a cat now. They’re so much more independent, know what I mean? How about you? You got a cat?”

  “Nope.” No cat would want to live with him.

  “You should get one. They’re lots better than living alone.”

  Con wasn’t so sure. He liked living alone. Most of the time. It was a helluva lot better than just making do with someone or knowing that someone was just making do with you. Alone meant there was no one around to disappoint.

  “You do live by yourself, don’t you? I mean you aren’t wearing a ring or nothing, not that all men do even these days, but if you were married or, like, had someone, you wouldn’t be sitting here all alone on a Friday night, right?”

  What? Con was having difficulty concentrating. He nodded, because that seemed to be the response she wanted, and raised his glass to his lips once more.

  “Me, too, I been living alone for a whole week, ever since that rat Joe threw me out,” she said. “And all because I like to watch the soaps. Lotsa wives watch the soaps, and even though we weren’t married yet, I was sure we would be, so keeping house and watching the soaps was a real job even if Joe said it wasn’t.”

  Something pricked at Con’s conscience. “What about your son?” he asked. His tongue felt like it had doubled in size.

  “My son? I don’t have a son.”

  He looked at her, but couldn’t quite focus. “You sure?” They’d said she had a fifteen-year-old kid.

  “I’m sure. I don’t have any children, even though I’m almost twenty-seven. I haven’t even been married.”

  So they’d been wrong about her kid. He felt like crying with relief. And she hadn’t been married, either. He drained his glass to celebrate.

  “You mind if I have another drink?” the woman asked.

  “Have whatever you want.” He owed it to her.

  “Really? Like, I can get a burger, too? You want something to eat?”

  Con’s stomach churned. There’d been a half-eaten burger on the desk that afternoon. “No.” He just needed another drink.

  She ordered her food and a carafe of wine. He was glad she planned to stay around a bit longer. Maybe after a while he’d get himself some food.

  “I bet you have a job. An important one, too, just like Joe. He owns ice-cream shops and he wears a suit to work every day. You just get off work? That why you’re still in your suit?”

  He’d changed suits. The one he’d put on that morning had been soaked with blood.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great you’re still wearing your suit. I like men in suits.”

  With painfully clear vision, Con saw a man in a suit. A dark-haired man wearing a light gray suit. A man who put a gun to an innocent woman’s head and held it there, fully intending to blow her brains out if Con didn’t get out of his way and let him go free—

  “You okay, mister?”

  “Huh?” Turning to look at the woman beside him, Con found his focus blessedly blurry again. “Fine.”

  “I didn’t mean to turn you off by saying I liked you in your suit. I’m not after you or anything. At least, not unless you want me to be. But it can only be for tonight, anyway, because I’ve already got a date for tomorrow night. And he’s a really nice guy. I met him standing in line at the bank. It was kind of funny, really. I’ve only ever been with Joe, and there I was cashing the check that Joe gave me when he kicked me out, and I meet someone else. Life’s weird, huh? Anyway, I’ll just move down a seat if you want.”

  “No! No. Stay.” He gulped the last of his drink. Please, God. Make her stay. Let her be okay for a while longer. Let him pretend…

  The woman in the blue dress had been in Nick Ramirez’s office to do some redecorating. She’d had no connection to the lawyer’s organization at all. She’d been clean, innocent. And her perfume had lingered in the air even after the gun had gone off when she’d tried to pull away from Ramirez.

  “You sad about something, mister? You keep getting a funny look on your face.”

  Her concern pulled Con back from the abyss. She was sitting beside him. Healthy and alive. He’d never been more grateful for the presence of another human being in his life. “I’m fine,” he said, because there was nothing else he could say.

  She ran her fingers along the back of his hand. He was almost too numb to feel the light contact, but he saw the whiteness of her skin against his. There was a gentle quality to her touch, something Con had known little of in his life. The only person who’d ever shown him any gentleness at all, and only when she thought he wasn’t looking, was Robbie, and he couldn’t think about her right now. She was going to be pissed off that he hadn’t called her. She always got first dibs on the story when he closed a case.

  The woman patted his hand.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” he felt compelled to tell her. “Might get dirty.” But he didn’t pull away.

  “I’ll wash my hands.” She giggled.

  Yeah. If you got dirty, you could wash. Maybe he just needed to wash.

  Her burger arrived and she ate as if she hadn’t had a meal in days. He was glad she was enjoying herself. He didn’t have to feel so guilty for needing her to stay beside him.

  “You want dessert?” he asked. Anything to prolong her visit, to keep the truth at bay.

  “Sure, if you don’t mind.”

  “Have whatever you want.” It took all his concentration to form a coherent sentence. His head was swimming, his brain muddled. Another drink or two and he’d stumble next door where the pink neon motel sign was blinking, to the room he’d rented. Just as soon as he was sure the voice in his head wouldn’t follow him there.

  An hour passed. Then two.

  “It’s time to close up.” Con didn’t like the bartender’s tone of voice. It reminded him of another warning.

  Somebody’s with him.

  The images assaulted him again. He shook his head and looked at the woman beside him. Her eyes were awash with fear. The look was too familiar, and he knew he had to make her fear go away. He had to get it right this time.

  “Wha’s wrong?” he asked her.

  “I don’t wanna go home. I’ve only been living alone for a week and I get scared at night.”

  He reached out an unsteady hand, intending to stroke her hair. His hand landed around her shoulder, instead. “You don’ have to be scared.”

  “It’s just that I never knew how thin the walls of a trailer are. I can hear every sound, every car that drives by, and I lie there all stiff until I’m sure it’s passed. Joe won’t let me in at home. But I don’t wanna go back to the trailer he bought me, not when it’s dark out.”

  Con took another look at the woman beside him. A second chance. He had to help her before it was too late.

  “You can come with me if you want,” he heard himself offer, although he had no idea what he’d do with her if she did. He could hardly entertain a woman when he was passed out on a motel bed.

  “Can I? You really don’t mind?”

  The fear was fading from her eyes. He’d saved the day, after all: “Sure,” he said, leaning on her just a little as he slid off his stool and threw several bills down from the wad in his money clip. He pulled the motel key from his pocket and stumbled out of the bar, then across the parking lot beside his guardian angel. The night air cooled his skin, lessening his stupor, allowing the dark images to fill his mind once again. It didn’t hit him until they were inside the m
otel room and she flipped on the light. Something was very wrong. A reason this woman couldn’t make anything better.

  She wasn’t the same blonde who was haunting him. She couldn’t possibly be.

  Somebody’s with him.

  “She died.” His words cracked like a gunshot in the tiny room.

  Coming out of the bathroom, a bar of soap in her hand, she said, “Who died?”

  Pain exploded through Con’s head. He sank down on the side of the bed, burying his head in his hands to try to still the pounding.

  “Who died?” Her soft voice wafted across him, as feather light as her hand on the back of his neck.

  “I tried to get to her, to stop him, but there was no time. She stumbled when she pulled away, and the gun went off.”

  She snatched her hand back. “You killed someone?”

  “No!” He couldn’t stand the accusation in her voice. It was too much like the echo in his head. “I’m the good guy.” At least that was what he’d been in the beginning. He wasn’t sure when all that changed, when getting his man became the most important thing.

  “You’re a cop?” Even through his alcohol-fuzzed mind he heard the hope in her voice.

  “Yeah,” he said. Sort of. He had a license to carry a gun.

  “Well, it’s okay, then.” The soothing touch returned to his neck. “You were only doing your job.”

  And what exactly was that? To make the bust? To close the case? Or to protect the innocent? The hammers were pounding so fiercely in his head he couldn’t be sure of anything.

  Except that as the woman sat down beside him, as her fingers continued to caress him, the vision of blood soiling a pretty blue dress faded just a little.

  “Here, let’s get you out of this jacket, OK? And loosen your tie. There, that’s better, isn’t it? Now just lie down here and I’ll rub your back. Joe used to love it when I rubbed his back.”

  Before he realized it, Con found himself stretched out on the bed, his angel of mercy sitting beside him working magic on his tortured muscles. When he was sober enough to think, he was going to make this up to her. Somehow he would find a way to thank her for saving him.