Special Forces Father - By Mallory Kane Page 0,60

crouched down below the level of the window. She heard a soft knocking again. The sound made her scalp tighten and tingle with panic.

Something tapped on the window. Kate stayed in her crouch, edging toward the blanket where Max still lay sound asleep, instinctively putting her body between the window and him.

Then a soft thud, followed by a faint screeching sound, like fingernails on the glass, and somehow, the noise of the night was inside the room. She squinted at the window. Could whatever was out there have opened it?

“Kate?”

She started and gasped, half strangling herself and setting off a spate of coughing. She covered her mouth with trembling hands as the spasms overtook her. She coughed as quietly as possible.

“Kate, it’s me, Travis.”

Her entire body seized in shock. Travis? Was she dreaming? With a quick glance down at her sleeping child, she eased toward the window, unsure if she could believe her ears. Had she imagined his voice? Was she inside a dream right now, making up a story of rescue, to compensate for the helpless, hopeless feelings that had engulfed her earlier?

Then she heard a noise that sent paralyzing fear through her. Footsteps on the hollow floor of the trailer. “He’s coming,” she whispered urgently, still not quite sure whether she was talking to a real person or a dream she’d conjured. The footsteps stopped in front of the door. The knob turned and the door slammed open. When Kate whirled, she was blinded by a bright light. “What the hell?” Bent growled, his voice thick with sleep.

Kate’s hands shot up to cover her eyes. Behind her, Max whimpered in his sleep. Thank goodness he slept soundly. She lowered her hands and squinted. She could barely make out Bent’s shape in the darkness, but she could see he was holding his gun, with the flashlight propped beneath it. Did she know enough about this man to fabricate an answer that would satisfy him?

“I asked you a question,” Bent snapped.

“I wanted some air,” she said, trying to sound apologetic and defiant at the same time. “Do you mind if I open the window?” She held her breath. If he decided, on a whim, to accommodate her, he’d see Travis.

He sneered at her. “You think you’re fooling me? That’s a long way to drop a kid. I wouldn’t try it,” he growled, brandishing the gun.

She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off with a curse. “You wake me up again, I’ll separate you and the kid. Got that?”

“Mommy?” Max whimpered. His little singsong voice told her he was 90 percent asleep. She sidled over to the pallet and bent down to pat his back. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

“I mean it, Doc. Any more noise, and you’ll be spending the night in the trunk of the car, and the kid’ll have to fend for himself. Got it?”

“Yes,” she said.

He shone the flashlight around the room, lighting every corner, every mound of clothing, every shadow. Then he shone the light in her face again, backed out of the room and slammed the door. She heard the lock click.

As his footsteps echoed on the trailer floor, Kate allowed herself a sigh of relief. She patted Max on the back again and bent down close to listen to his breathing. It was steady and even.

Then she crept toward the window. To her shock, she saw a hand—Travis’s hand—reach in through the glass and unlock the latch on the windowsill. Her pulse was still hammering, and her brain was still cautiously declaring that what she saw could not be true. She kept half her attention focused beyond the small room, to the other end of the trailer.

“Travis?” she asked, so softly that it was barely a whisper.

The hand disappeared and the window raised with a tiny high-pitched whine as the plastic sill strained against the casing. The noise stopped immediately. Then the window started up again, so slowly Kate wasn’t sure she actually saw it move. She waited, listening for any noise from inside the trailer.

Finally, moments later, the window was open. “Move away from the window,” the voice whispered.

She stepped backward, unable to take her eyes off the black rectangle. Then, as she watched, a pair of long legs in army-green fatigues and boots eased through the opening with almost no sound, followed by a lean upper body in a green fatigue shirt, then dropped to the floor without so much as a quiet thud.

He straightened and