Ultimate Surrender: The Surrender Series, Book 2 (25 page)

“And the drooling?” He smiled as she gawked at him.

“You’d better be glad you’re holding a baby.”

“Go us, Starling.” He made a silly face at her and wiggled his finger that Natalie didn’t realize she was holding onto.

Lost in them. Yes she was. And she appreciated him more than she could say for not immediately wanting to rehash the fact they may have found the stalker. What a tragedy and one that she still really didn’t understand.

With no more real answers she headed to her desk to try to focus. “Okay, five minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Deal.”

* * * * *

Starling was completely asleep when they got home and Campbell set her carrier down on the floor in the living room.

The dogs raced over to sniff her and greet her since they acted as if she were their long-lost sibling. He got Starling out of her carrier and into a bouncy seat. She was sound asleep.

“Angel, you and Killer look after the baby for a second, while I argue with your mother.”

“I’m not arguing. I’m just discussing why I’m right.”

“But you’re not right.”

“Says you.”

“Exactly. I knew that face meant something when we were talking to Wyatt.”

On the way home he’d asked what her sad face was about when they were discussing things in the conference room. Without thinking she’d made the comment she was thinking about discussing Starling’s long-term placement with the adoption agency she worked with through the clinic. “She deserves a family. A house with a backyard, a mom and dad, siblings, dogs. The whole thing. I shouldn’t be selfish and keep her for myself when she could have so much more with someone else.”

“Bullshit,” Campbell growled and she narrowed her eyes at him.

She planted her hands on her fists. “Is not. I have valid points.”

“She has you and me. You’re already listed as next of kin, which makes the adoption process about a million times faster. And—”

“How do you know that?”

“I looked into it about a week ago. I was curious.” He went toward their bedroom and she followed him out of sheer shock value.

“You did?”

“Sure.” He just threw it out there like it was nothing.

So odd.

“She needs love. She needs a safe environment to grow up in with people surrounding her who care about her as a tiny human. Families come in all shapes and sizes. The status quo really isn’t the status quo any more. Love equals family. End of story.”

“You know you have no say in this, right?”

He hung his coat and eyed her as he closed the closet door.

Was she right?

Yes.

Was she saying it just to be bitchy because she was totally freaked out about the possibility of trying to be a mother on her own? And she honestly couldn’t imagine anyone being a better father than Campbell. He’d been nothing short of amazing in the weeks since Starling was placed with them?

Hell yes.

“Perhaps,” is the only word he uttered.

“Perhaps?” She rolled her eyes and turned toward the bathroom.

She needed to wash her face, needed to flee from the look in his eyes that told her he knew what she was doing and he was trying to be a gentleman and not call her on her absurdity.

“That brings up another thing we need to talk about.”

“Which is?” she asked and then turned the water on.

“Your eye rolling.”

Moistening her face, she tried to cool down and keep her composure. “What about it?”

“I didn’t like it.”

One more round of cooling off and she turned off the water and grabbed a hand towel to dry her face. “That’s nothing new. We’ve discussed it before. I’m not stopping. Especially when you say something asinine.”

“Pot. Kettle. And I’m not talking about you rolling your eyes at me. I’m talking about when you did it to Wyatt.”

Her hand froze with the towel on her face. She slowly finished drying off and then tossed the towel in the hamper in the corner. Walking out of the bathroom, she only made it a few feet because he was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at her. “What about when I did it to Wyatt?”

“I didn’t like it. At all.”

She thought back to the meeting. “Did you really growl at me?”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps? Perhaps what?”

“Only if you heard it.”

“I heard it. But then your face was totally straight and I thought my head was playing tricks on me since I was so tired.” “Was” being the operative term because she was anything but tired now.

He growled again, came at her, picking her up, and took her down on the bed.

She oofed and then went wet between her thighs as he trapped her with his weight on top of her.

“The eye roll is mine. I didn’t like you giving it away. I had to convince myself not to throw Wyatt out of the conference room.”

“But the eye roll annoys you. Always has. It’s why I do it all the time. I like getting under your skin.”

“Well, now apparently it’s a trigger and a very possessive one at that. Understand?”

“Yep.” She rolled her eyes with a smirk.

In less than a heartbeat he’d flipped her over, and yanked her pants down to her knees. Buttons may have been sacrificed for the greater good, it’s true. He pulled off her shoes and threw them…somewhere. He positioned her in such a way her feet were hanging off the bed and he leaned his knees against them, confining them beside the mattress.

He spit on her pussy and then slid two fingers inside. Pushing against her g-spot, he told her, “Put your hands on the bed between your legs and clasp them together. Good.” He latched on to them, effectively trapping her in the position she was in.

Brushing his thumb across her clit. Once, twice, three times…

Pressure built inside her pelvis, and in the process of trying to get away from his invading fingers, she bore down against them. The penetration built until she squirted all over his hand, her legs, and the bed.

Fifteen seconds. That’s how long it took her to come.

She squeezed her hands together as he held on to her wrists and he rubbed her clit until she giggled.

“Fuck, I love it when you giggle after you come.” He licked wetness from her ass and thighs as he pulled his fingers free.

She melted onto the bed, sort of flopping on her side first before she settled on her stomach. Ass still deliciously exposed to the man who could get her off with little more than a few well-positioned words and a tiny bit of stimulation.

Climbing on the mattress beside her, he moved her hair off her face and bit her earlobe. “The eye roll is mine. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” she breathed.

“Good.” He kissed her again, then—

Whack! His huge hand landed on her naked ass and her mouth opened automatically to yell.

At the last second she barely kept the shout inside. Instead she settled for a disgruntled, “Ow!” She rubbed her rear and looked at his back as he sauntered into the bathroom. “What was that for?”

Sounded as if he washed his hands and he came back out with a towel. “No reason. Just wanted to see my handprint on your ass.” He dried her off and licked the hot mark on her ass where his handprint would remain for several hours.

She smiled.

Probably shouldn’t have.

Should have been offended and stuff, but instead a warm and wonderful feeling spread through her middle.

“You have to see this,” he called from somewhere out in the other rooms.

She didn’t even realize he’d walked away. Amazing what she could miss in her post-orgasmic state of bliss. “What?”

“The dogs are in the bouncy seat with Starling. Snuggled up against her. All three are sound asleep.”

“Take a picture and we can post it around on every social media site.”

“If cuteness was worth money, we could make her a millionaire.”

With both of you, I’d be set for life.

Natalie struggled to get up, the bed called to her. All she wanted to do was strip naked and climb between the sheets and sleep for a week.

What convinced her to get up and put on jeans and a sweatshirt instead was Campbell’s voice as he talked to the dogs and Starling while he undoubtedly took another hundred pictures of them.

“You know what we should do tonight?” he called to her as she stepped out of the hallway with pig slippers on.

“What?”

“We could invite Clay and family over and have a get-together.”

She snickered and yawned. “Love the idea but I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep at dinner and that would be bad form.”

“Hmm. Agreed. Then we should order in sushi, watch some horrible B-movie on TV, and get the kids to bed as soon as we can.”

“Sounds divine.” Looking up as she straightened up the dog toys, she froze when she caught Campbell’s eye.

That look.

She knew that look.

He stalked her, stepping closer on each sentence.

“After that I’m putting you in a bubble bath until you’re all soft and warm. Then I’m laying you down on the bed covered with towels. Grapeseed oil and I are going to turn you into a puddle of Natalie as I massage your entire body.”

“Do I get a happy ending?”

His smile said it all as he grabbed a handful of her hair and tipped her head back so he could stare down into her eyes. “Guaranteed. For both of us.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Natalie

“Today’s not really doing it for me. I’ve decided to say no thank you to the rest of the day and we’ll reconvene tomorrow. Sound good?”

Starling gurgled and then stared up at her.

Natalie sat on her couch with Starling laid out across her lap with a little leopard outfit on that said “Diva in Training.”

They’d been sitting on the couch or in her office chair or pacing her office for going on four hours.

“This is what happens when some creepo breaks the glass on the front door. The little ladies, that would be us, have to hunker down while the menfolk, that would be Campbell and Jay, try to figure out what happened, coordinate the cleanup, and get the repair company lined up on what has to be replaced.”

Starling’s response to all of that?

She attempted to eat her fist.

Natalie sighed. “If only it were that easy on the rest of us.”

Trying her best to assert her awesomeness had gotten her here. In the office, guarding her…filing cabinet?

She’d checked her emails long ago. Greta had been in for the first hour and helped her contact all of the patients and the rest of the staff to reschedule everyone. Then Natalie had sent her home as well.

Safety first and all that.

“Grrr,” she said to Starling. “Grrr,” she rumbled again and then tickled the teeny girl on the tummy.

She smiled.

Most beautiful baby ever.

“No joke,” Natalie murmured to no one and then tickled her again.

Another smile and a gurgle that sounded on the verge of a laugh. Or whatever the equivalent would be from a one-month-old.

Campbell had been in several times to fill her in on what was happening, AKA to check on them, and the guys out front were making progress.

Jay was still scouring the video footage but hadn’t come up with anything, which was totally weird.

No Braden on video throwing a brick through the window, no thieves smashing the glass to get inside, no general hooligan kids using a pawned Smith and Wesson to make themselves look good while making a whole pile of mess for her and the people with her to fix.

Just nothing.

Natalie held onto Starling’s wrists and lifted one of them over her head. “Get off my lawn,” she said in her best old man voice.

Starling smiled again and Natalie rewarded her with a good nibble on her fist.

The baby milestone book she was reading said most babies didn’t really start smiling and laughing until they were closer to six weeks.

“Just means you’re advanced for your age,” she whispered to Starling as she offered her the tasty fist back for another chomp.

The door opened. “How are my girls doing in here?” Campbell walked in with a handful of mail. He sat down next to Natalie and leaned over to kiss her and then down to kiss Starling.

Natalie’s heart squeezed in her chest at how much she loved hearing that. With a tiny shake of her head she took the mail from him as he handed it to her. “How’s it going out there? Glass people get here to fix the door?”

“Yep. Just a few minutes ago. Cleanup is pretty much all done, but they’ll make another big sweep after the new glass is installed.”

“Good. Last thing we need is one of the kiddos to get sliced up on broken glass. I’m shocked the news crews aren’t here on this one.”

Campbell rubbed Starling’s little wispy hairs. “You have to deal with that often?”

“Not in a while thankfully. Media attention is awful. Does nothing but hurt the clinic.”

“I can just imagine. Especially for the women who are trying to fly below the radar with abusive relationships and family issues. Last thing they need is to show up on the nightly news.”

“Exactly.”

“Let me take the munchkin so you can look through the mail.”

“You just want to hold the baby.”

“Yep.” He scooped her up and nuzzled her belly before putting her on his shoulder so she could look around.

“Wyatt call you back yet?”

“Not yet. Still waiting for it. He texted me some clipped message earlier. Said he was in the middle of something and would contact me back as soon as he could.”

“And Jay? He find anything yet?”

“Nothing. And he’s pretty pissed. As if it’s his fault. Which it isn’t. I mean we have the footage of the door being fine and the door being shattered but that’s it. The system won’t let you erase tiny tidbits of time like that, someone would have to wipe the whole disk if they wanted to do that, but they’d have to gain entry, then get into the closet, wipe it, and we’d have password access in the log as well.”

“Could someone do it remotely?” She glanced through the mail, sorta paying attention.

“Nope. Anything to do with time, date, time zone, and hard drives you have to be here to access. Nothing tripped any of the motion sensors last night when it happened.”

“It was also raining last night.” Natalie flipped an envelope over that was inside another post office-issued envelope. One of those oops-sorry-we-almost-ate-your-mail envelopes. Good times.

“I know. Makes the motion sensors freak out. So what happened? The video is there. Didn’t even look like someone drove by with a gun or anything.”

“Oh God.”

“I know, not cool, but it didn’t happen.”

“No, Campbell.” She had to swallow to get her heart out of her throat. “Look.” Her hand shook so bad he had to take it from her to steady it. “It’s a letter from Wren.”

“What?”

“Looks like she mailed it weeks ago.” She studied the envelope again. “It’s postmarked from the day before she had Starling. ‘The birdy is watching and he almost has you. Run. Eagle6748. Wren.’ That’s all it says.” She flipped the paper over. “What does that mean?”

He shook his head. “Could be crazy or just scared about something else. Maybe she was on to something. Who knows? I can tell you that’s definitely not much to go on though.”

A knock at the door made Natalie jump.

“Ugh. Sorry. Just me.” Jay popped his head in the door. “Bad time?”

Campbell waved him in. “It’s fine. Find anything?”

“I figured out what I did wrong. It’s my fault.”

“What’s your fault?” Natalie asked.

Campbell’s phone went off so he handed her back the letter and juggled the baby so he could answer it. “Campbell,” was all he said. Looked like it might have been Wyatt.

Natalie glanced back at Jay and nodded for him to continue.

“Why the video didn’t record correctly. When I was futzing with the settings the first few nights the cars driving past kept tripping the motion. Cab after cab of nothing was filling up the hard drive each night so I blanked out that portion of the screen. I slowed down the video last night and watched it frame by frame. Right as the door was broken I can make out the rear quarter panel of some kind of SUV. Could be nothing, could be something. I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing good.”

“You’re doing fine, Jay. It really doesn’t seem like this has anything to do with the rest of the stuff going on.”

“But it could.” He stared at her, and she hated him taking it so personally.

“Let’s just think positively. No one was hurt. All it did was cost us some time and juggling our schedules a bit. We’ll make it work.” She glanced at Campbell, who was still listening intently on the phone. “Why don’t you give us a minute and then I’ll send Campbell your way and you guys can figure out what to do on the settings going forward?”

He nodded and backed out, shutting the door behind him.

“Hold on, Wyatt, I’m gonna put you on speaker phone.” Campbell pushed a button and added, “Okay, can you repeat that last part for Natalie to hear?”

“Hey, Natalie.”

“Hey, Wyatt. Tell me you have some good news for me.”

“I think I might actually.”

She looked at Campbell and then back at the phone. “Really?”

“I met with Braden yesterday.”

Natalie’s stomach dropped into her shoes. “And?”

“And I don’t think he’s our guy. I’d really like to explain in person, plus I need to get out of the precinct for a bit. It’s been a madhouse around here the past few days. Full moon or something. Can you guys meet me at a coffee shop downtown?”

“When?” Campbell asked as he looked at his watch. “The door guys are gonna take at least another hour and a half to get finished. We’ve got a bit more cleanup to go and then we could be out of here. Four or so would be the earliest we could get there.”

“Works for me. Meet you there.”

“Hey,” Natalie called out. “Have you done what you need to with Wren’s apartment yet? I keep forgetting to ask you with everything else going on.”

“Uh, not exactly.”

“What does that mean?” Campbell asked.

“We found evidence someone had been staying there. Recently.”

“Uhh. What do you mean, recently?” Natalie added on.

“As in, there was someone in the apartment and I think they ran out when my guys got there to sweep the place a couple days ago.”

Natalie shook her head and stared at her phone as if it were going to start popping out answers like Pez candy from a cartoon dispenser. “But there is no more family. The hospital did a search and so did I just to make sure there wasn’t someone else who should have taken Starling.”

Campbell rubbed Starling’s back as he stared at the phone on his knee. “Could it have been someone from the apartment complex that realized no one was staying there?”

“Checking on it. Doesn’t look likely though. Really strange. And we found some pretty hardcore computer equipment there but the main unit was taken when whoever it was left.”

“How odd,” Natalie added completely unhelpfully.

“We’re watching the place. See if they come back. We have another week on the rent ’til you have to do something with it so I hope to have answers before then. Okay, gotta get off if I have any hope of meeting you guys at four. I’ll text you the address. Gonna try to be there early. Might bring someone else with me to discuss things, but I’ll let you know if that works out.”

“All right. See you there.” Campbell pushed the off button on his phone and they both sat there for a minute.

Natalie glanced at her hand. “I forgot to tell him about the letter. I almost feel like we’re in some episode of Scooby-Doo. I’m damn ready to get to the last thirty seconds of the episode so the kids can pull off the masks and reveal the bad guy.”

“Me too,” Campbell agreed. “Or bad guys,” he mumbled as an afterthought. “And just bring the letter. We can take a picture of it and give him the original.”

“Okay.” She folded the piece of paper and slipped it back into the envelope.

“Hey.”

Natalie looked over at Campbell and he moved Starling to his lap. He then wrapped an arm around Natalie’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Let’s look on the bright side.”

“Which is?”

“At least no one’s tried to run you over in a few weeks.”

Natalie chuckled, which she figured was the goal.

“Good girl.” He kissed the top of her head and then handed Starling back over to her.

“I love it when you call me that,” Natalie whispered.

“I know.” He gave her another kiss on the mouth, then stood and went toward the door. “Okay, let me go get these things taken care of so we can get to the coffee place on time. Oh, yeah, and talk to Jay about the settings.”

“Right. Sorry. Would have forgotten to tell you that.” She shook her head in frustration.
What next?
she wanted to know.
What next?

* * * * *

At three forty-five they walked into the coffee shop, Campbell in front to look it over as he did in every place they entered.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Natalie looked around. They were definitely in the money district, which was odd. “Doesn’t seem like Wyatt’s kind of place, does it?”

“Not even a little bit, but the address matches and the GPS took us right here.”

“Yeah but the phone message he left earlier was super odd,” Natalie commented.

“He probably just butt dialed me. I wouldn’t worry about it. The place looks fine and you’re easily defendable here. I’m gonna get coffee. What would you like?”

“A muffin, I think. No coffee for me.”

“Why, so you can drink half of mine instead?”

She smiled. “Works for me.”

He rolled his eyes and kissed her lips then Starling’s head, which was peeking over the top of the baby carrier Natalie had wrapped around her.

Campbell brought back coffee and muffins and they ate and chitchatted.

“It’s about time for Wyatt to show up.” Natalie stood and rubbed Starling’s back as she slept in the carrier. “I’m done with my muffin. Want me to take your trash?”

“Sure.” He handed over his muffin paper and she walked it over to the trash.

She turned around and almost walked into someone, who steadied her by holding her elbow. “I’m so sorry…” Her words faded away as she looked up into the eyes of the man before her.

Braden
.

She panicked and opened her mouth to scream.