“If?”
“Yeah, if. Have you considered any girl names?”
“Girl names?” Grace sneered. “Are you suggesting that the parasitical fetus tap-dancing my uterus into mincemeat at present is devoid a phallus?”
Christian shrugged and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, neither of us do, but it remains a possibility we might want to think about, don’t you agree?”
Grace pondered his remarks. She didn’t say anything.
“Looks like both of us weren’t prepared to have this conversation,” said Christian.
Grace stared contemplatively away. “I don’t know about this girl shit. I think having a girl would be bad. She could inherit all my rubbish and turn out a lot like me, and that prospect isn’t one of which I’m the least bit fond.”
“Grace…”
“Hush a second. Imagine two mes in this world—two Graces, not one. The pitiful thing couldn’t handle it. It’d probably twirl right the fuck off its axis and tumble erratically into outer space on an interstellar collision course, ruining every orbit in its path.”
“Be that as it may, there happens to be only one of you,” Christian said, nearing her again. “And somehow, I was lucky enough to find her. Our child, boy or girl, is going to adore you.”
“How do you know that?”
Christian tugged at her hand. “Because I do. You stole my heart after only a week of knowing you, and that baby is going to open his or her eyes into a brand-new world after already having a connection with you for nine months.”
“Our baby,” Grace said, gleaming again. “And that’s sweet…but it’s forty weeks, making it more like ten months.”
Christian pursed his lips. “I stand corrected…again.” He gestured to his aft. “I should probably get going if you’re still okay with it.”
“Of course I am.” She stared longingly at him. “You’re already my hero. Go be someone else’s today. Just be safe.”
Chapter 19
DHS Shenandoah Outpost
Tuesday, March 8th
The second Beatrice Carter stepped foot into his office, Bronson hoisted himself from his chair, pointed his finger at her, and angrily ordered, “There! Take her into custody! Now!”
Four uniformed, armed guards went on alert and advanced in hostile fashion without protest.
Beatrice halted at the open doorway, looking askance. “Um, what is all this about?”
“Don’t play coy,” Bronson growled. “You know damn well what it’s about.”
“I suppose I do.” She yawned, then slammed the door shut and fell into a low, aggressive fighting stance, casting the guards a look of pure ferocity. “Gentlemen, you are hereby advised not to engage. Withdraw now, or sure as God made little green apples, I will deliver each one of you the beating of your lives.”
The guards hesitated at the warning. The pair in the lead rotated to seek further go-ahead.
“What are you waiting for?” Bronson snapped. “There are four of you and one of her! Move! Subdue her!”
At his order, the guards turned to face Beatrice and were levied devastating punches to their faces and kicks to their throats consequent to the delay. Stunned, they fell to their knees. Beatrice moved between them with impressive speed and dropped heavy elbow strikes to the base of each man’s neck. They plunged limply, face-first to the floor, their heads thumping the historic hardwood.
She rose quickly from there with clenched teeth, blocking and dodging attacks and grabs from the duo still upright. Clamping onto the guard’s hair to her right, she bashed his chin with a flying knee, crushing his jaw and sending him backward into one of Bronson’s bookcases. Dusty books and encyclopedias fell in pairs and trios onto his limp body as he lay there, incapacitated, his eyes rolling into his forehead.
The final guard squared off with Beatrice, assuming a stance and a matching two-fisted guard resembling that of a professional boxer. He bounced back and forth on his toes, shifting his weight between feet. “Think you’re tough? Think you can throw hands like a man? Come on, then! Let’s throw hands, bitch!”
Beatrice tossed her hair over a shoulder insouciantly and set her jaw, gauging both the distance separating them and the guard’s reach. “You first.”
The guard laughed. “Don’t tempt me. I have no issues with bashing women.”
“Sugar, the only issue right now of which you should be mindful is why on earth you are choosing to take part in a doctrinaire game of fisticuffs with me—over simply drawing your pistol and holding me at gunpoint.”
The guard sneered and sent a fleeting nod. With one hand still balled into a fist and guarding his face, the other felt for his sidearm. He drew it, raised it methodically, and leveled it at Beatrice. “Kind of takes all the fun out of it…but have it your way,” he said, then ordered, “Turn around and assume the position. On your knees, hands behind your head.”
Beatrice obeyed the command. As the guard approached, she pivoted on her knees and snatched his wrists, pulled inward, and brought his chin down onto the top of her head, causing him to bite into his tongue. He squealed like a stuck pig, blood oozing over his lips.
Beatrice rose and acquired the pistol from the guard’s slackened grip, upended it in her palm, and brought the magazine end down in a whipping motion just above his ear. She struck him repeatedly in brutal fashion until the man dropped lifelessly in a bloody, blubbering heap. His screams of agony were brief, interrupted permanently by a bootheel stomp to his throat.
Four aggressors down for the count, most of them permanently, Beatrice Carter cleared the guard’s pistol, let it fall to the floor, and marched deliberately toward aggressor number five, Doug Bronson.
Wide-eyed, as pale as he’d ever been and as sober as he’d ever felt in recent days, Bronson extracted a shiny, small-caliber Walther automatic from the top drawer of his desk and pointed it at Beatrice with a shaky hand.
In return, Beatrice drew the Sig P320 from the small of her back and aimed it at him, now standing inches away from
