ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5) Read Online Free

many things I didn’t have.
    I’d heard the cop whispering to someone outside my hospital room.
    No record. No ID. We have no idea who this girl is. She could be a drug dealer, or she could simply be some kid down on her luck.
    I wasn’t a kid, but I was certainly down on my luck.
    They were going to take my kid. I didn’t know how I felt about that.
    There was a tap on the door, and Ash stuck his head in.
    “Do you mind if I come in?”
    I shook my head. “Of course not.”
    “How is he?” he asked, pausing by the clear plastic basinet where the baby slept.
    “He sleeps well. They said that’s a sign that he’s content.”
    “Have you picked a name yet?”
    I blushed. “Would you mind if I named him after you? If not for you, he probably wouldn’t be here.”
    “I don’t know about that. He was pretty determined to come into the world.”
    “They told me that the cord was around his neck and you were able to get it off.”
    “Yeah. That’s what they tell me, too. But it was all such a blur, I hardly remember most of it.”
    “That might not be a bad thing.”
    He smiled, coming over to sit on the edge of the windowsill. “How are you?”
    I didn’t know what to say. I ran my fingers through my hair, my eyes falling on the world below us, a world full of people who seemed to be perfectly normal, perfectly untouched by reality.
    “My friend, Emily Warren? She said they can’t seem to find any identification on you.”
    “They wouldn’t. I lost my driver’s license and I’ve never been arrested.”
    “Do you have somewhere to go?”
    An image of my mother burst to the front of my mind and the suddenness brought tears to my eyes. But she’d been gone five months now. And my father…he wouldn’t want me to show up on his doorstep, especially with a kid in tow.
    There was nowhere else.
    I think he could see that because he glanced over at the baby again, then he studied me for a long moment.
    “I have a place. It’s not really cozy, but it’s home. I could put you up for a couple weeks, until you figure out your next step.”
    “You don’t have to do that.”
    “I feel a little responsible for the two of you now.”
    I looked at him and knew my instincts about him had been right. He wasn’t the monster Dimitri said he was. He was a good man, a man with morals. He was the exact opposite of Dimitri.
    But I knew what was coming for him. Did I really want to get myself mixed up in all that? But, again, Dimitri would come after me when he figured out I’d left. Where else would I be safe? Where else could I heal and allow the baby to grow strong before I went on the run?
    “Like I said, it’s not a cozy place. But it’s clean.”
    I sat up a little straighter. “Okay.”
    He smiled, the expression changing the lines of his face until he became something beyond handsome. I mean, he was good looking, even a blind woman could see that. But when he smiled, his face just took on this whole new dimension. I wanted to stare at him for the rest of the day and just revel in that glow. Then again, it was that kind of thinking that got me into this predicament in the first place.
    Maybe my daddy was right. I needed to stop acting on impulse.
    “I’m Ash Grayson, by the way,” he said, holding out his hand. “I don’t think we were ever properly introduced.”
    “Wilhelmina Kaufman.”
    “Well, Wilhelmina, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
    ***
    The hospital forced Ash to go buy a car seat before they’d let him drive us home. He was cute about it, cursing under his breath when he tried to get it into the car and couldn’t quite get the bar on the bottom of the seat into the connectors on the base. But he finally got it, shooting me a triumphant glance as the nurses clapped behind him.
    The drive wasn’t long. He took us to the outskirts of Santa Monica and along a private road that ran parallel to a benign-looking wrought iron fence. He turned into a narrow drive guarded by a wide gate that