Special Forces Father - By Mallory Kane Page 0,33
as long as she needed holding. But she kept her gaze on his for a second, then, to his surprise, she looked at his lips. He swallowed.
“Travis,” she said softly, her eyes glittering with dampness.
“I know,” he said. “I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you need me.”
She brought a hand up and touched his neck, then pressed her lips to the place she’d touched, the place where his pulse hammered.
He closed his eyes. He’d never in his life felt anything softer and sweeter than her lips on him. Even now, just that soft brush of skin against skin. Nothing more than Kate’s attempt to make a connection with another person when she was missing her child so desperately.
But her lips stayed there, at his pulse point, then they slid up to his jaw and farther, until she could reach no higher. He bent his head, still passive, still not presuming that she actually wanted to kiss him.
A small moan of distress—or longing—escaped her lips and her hand, pressed against his chest, clenched around the material of his shirt.
The phone rang.
Kate jumped at the harsh jangle. For an instant, she didn’t realize she had grabbed a fistful of his shirt. His arm tightened briefly around her shoulders. He bent his head and touched his forehead to hers.
“That’s him,” he whispered. “Go ahead, you’ll do great.”
She turned her head toward the phone, sitting on the coffee table. As she reached for it, the ringer jangled again, and she had the impression that it moved. She stared at the display that read Private Number.
Travis touched her shoulder and nodded at her. “Get specifics,” he whispered. “And try to take control of the conversation.”
Kate leaned forward and picked up the phone with a shaking hand. She had no idea what she was going to say. No idea whether she could talk. Her throat was quivering. She pressed her hand against it. She had to stay calm. All she wanted to do was talk to Max. But she had to talk to the kidnapper first, and she was not going to let him hear her crying.
“Max needs you to be calm,” Travis muttered in her ear as she pressed the answer button with her finger. For some reason, his words helped.
“Hello,” she said.
“Dr. Chalmet, it’s good to finally hear your voice,” the man drawled. “A man answered your phone earlier. Didn’t I tell you not to tell anybody?”
His voice was low and threatening. Kate had an overwhelming urge to beg him to forgive her and please not hurt her baby, but Travis had warned her to take control of the conversation, so she did her best to picture the man as one of her patients, a delusional schizophrenic.
“I want to speak to my son,” she said as firmly as she could. Beside her, Travis leaned in to listen, his hand still on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
“You don’t get to say what you want, Doctor. I’m in charge, and I’ll let you know when you can talk to him.”
A lump rose in Kate’s throat. She didn’t think she could live another second without hearing her baby’s voice. She swallowed against the lump and took a fortifying breath.
“I want to talk to him now!” she said in her doctor-in-charge voice. It didn’t sound quite as commanding as she’d hoped it would. She wondered how much of her desperate fear the man could detect.
“Shut the hell up and listen to me,” the man yelled. “Do you think I care about what you want? Well, I don’t. We need to talk business. Then, if you’re good, maybe I’ll be generous. But only if you keep your mouth shut and listen to me.”
Next to her, Travis put his finger to his lips.
She nodded. “Okay,” she said into the phone. She took a deep breath and pressed her knuckles against her teeth for a brief instant. “Okay.”
“Good. It always helps to have a sensible parent.”
Always helps? “You’ve kidnapped children before,” she whispered.
A brief pause told her that he hadn’t meant to reveal that. “That’s right, Doctor. Very good. I’m a professional. So be very clear—I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you think that makes me feel better?” Kate said. “Do you think I’m happy that you’ve got lots of experience with abducting children and torturing their parents?”
“To tell you the truth, Doc, I don’t think anything about you. I don’t care about you. All I care about is getting the job done that I was hired to do. Now I