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“Where in the he—world did you come from? Harris? Who is this kid?”
Before she gave into the darkness, she met another man’s shocked dark gray eyes. Jarrod Foster. She never thought she’d be happy to see him. “Foster…give him to Melody. He belongs with her now. He’s Melody’s now.”
Jarrod Foster and Melody were extremely close. Jarrod would take care of Beck, too. “His name is Harrison Beck Barratt. He…belongs with the Barratts now. He gave him to Melody now…”
“What are you talking about? Where the hell have you been?”
The last thing she saw was Jarrod Foster’s eyes. Beautiful eyes, he had such beautiful eyes. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that before?
She was safe.
Beck was safe.
That was all that she’d really wanted.
8
Jarrod looked at the woman sleeping in the hospital bed and bit back a rush of anger so strong it almost had him growling right where he was. He hadn’t calmed down since the moment she’d basically collapsed in Dom’s arms.
There had been a look on her beautiful face he would never forget.
They’d been looking for this woman for almost seven hours. Only to have her walk straight back into the TSP with a kid no one knew a damned thing about in her arms. Battered and afraid—and carrying a kid. From out of nowhere.
She was beaten to hell and back. There was a bruise over one of her eyes. Her lip was split. Two tiny blue stitches held it together.
There were marks on her soft neck, starting right above her collarbone.
Fingerprint-shaped bruises. Where at least one man had grabbed her. Pawed at her. Nothing had pissed Jarrod off that much in a long, long time.
When he caught up with the guy who had hurt her, Jarrod was going to rip the asshole’s head off.
Starting right above the guy’s collarbone.
He’d break every rib the guy had, just for the two cracked ones she had now.
She slept deeply.
But they had her back. They were lucky to get her back. Everyone knew that.
They hadn’t had a single lead to go on while she’d been out there. She had just been gone. She had denied a SART—sexual assault and rape—exam. She’d stated it wasn’t necessary. She’d insisted none of those bastards had touched her like that.
He didn’t know if he believed her or not. There had been in look in those eyes. There were bruises. He’d seen bruises like those before. Bruises where a man had held a woman down and hurt her. Fury threatened again.
She just looked so helpless there right now.
“She still out?” Someone put a hand on his back. He turned. Heather again.
That woman was everywhere.
Like a rash. Just popping up everywhere and causing hives in the unsuspecting male population, that woman. Just like the first time he’d seen her.
She’d just shown up one day, with Elliot Marshall by her side. Elliot had looked at Jarrod and said surprise, here’s your new partner. Form a Cold Case division. Get to it. And that was that. They’d snarled at each other constantly for dominance the first three weeks. Still did, somewhat. It was a work in progress.
“I know you and Dr. Harris don’t get along. Hard to miss.”
“We don’t. No denying that. But this? This just pisses me off.” The goddess of the evidence should not look so defeated. So battered. “We have a history of despising each other, but we’ve reasonably mellowed since the choir shooting. We’ve been too busy hunting for common enemies to shoot arrows at each other since then, mostly. But she didn’t deserve this.”
“I’ve been told you have an almost personal vendetta against Handley Barratt. About that Beck family thing three years ago. That true?”
