Cowboy Behind the Badge

Laine didn’t recognize the guy in front of her, but he was huge. At least six foot four and with a hulking body and wide shoulders. Even if he hadn’t had the gun, he would have been formidable.

“The three of you are coming with me,” the man snarled, and he used the barrel of his gun to motion for her to get moving. “Now!” he added when she didn’t budge.

Laine couldn’t risk him firing, because even if he didn’t intend to hurt the babies, it could easily happen in such a confined space.

“Please don’t hurt them.” Not that she thought pleading would help, but it might be able to buy her some time.

Or not.

“I said move!” he shouted.

The man came right at her, caught onto her arm and flung her against the pantry shelves. Her shoulder hit the shelves hard, and the pain jolted through that entire side of her body. In the back of her mind, Laine realized she’d have bruises. Too bad worse things could happen in the next couple of minutes.

Boxes of pasta and canned soup tumbled off the shelves, pelting the floor. Despite the hard grip the man still had on her, Laine dropped back down so she could prevent the babies from being hit.

She didn’t stay there long. Once the pantry items had stopped falling, she did the only thing she could do. She came up fighting.

Laine grabbed the first thing she could reach—a large can of mixed nuts—and threw it at him. It hit him on the chin, the can flying open, flinging nuts at him, but the can and nuts bounced off him as if he hadn’t even felt it.

She didn’t stop. She hurled a can of soup at him next, and received the same reaction as before. Well, almost. She hadn’t thought it possible, but the fury in his expression actually went up a notch.

Making a feral growling sound, he came after her again.

But he froze. Then cursed. Without warning, he caught onto her hair and hauled her out of the pantry and into the kitchen.

She heard them then.

The footsteps.

With his gun gripped in his hand, Tucker came in from the living room and took cover by the partial wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the house. Maybe he’d tried to sneak up on the guy, but if so, it hadn’t worked. The man dragged her in front of him and put the gun to her head.

She was now a human shield.

“Put down your gun,” Tucker ordered him. Rainwater dripped from his hair and clothes. “Your friends are cuffed in the yard, and my sister’s guarding them. Or maybe she’s killing them,” he added. “More backup will be here in a few minutes.”

Despite having a gun to her head, relief flooded through Laine. Well, temporarily anyway. The other killers had been caught, and now this guy was the only one left standing. Hopefully not for long, though. Tucker needed to arrest them all so she could find out about the woman these monsters had murdered.

“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Tucker told the man. He stayed behind cover, using his left hand to bracket his shooting wrist.

“Oh, yeah? With those kids and her, I believe I will,” he growled.

Laine could no longer see her captor’s expression, but she could certainly see Tucker’s. Every muscle in his body was hard and tight. He was a lawman ready for the fight, but this was a fight they could all lose if she somehow didn’t manage to protect the babies.

“Escaping with newborns will be tricky at best,” Laine reminded the man. “You can take just me and move faster.” Not that she especially wanted to play the martyr here, but she didn’t have many options.

Obviously, her option didn’t please Tucker because he shot her a glare. Laine ignored it. If she could do anything to change her captor’s mind, she would.

“Taking me and me alone is your best option for staying alive and escaping,” she added. “The babies would just slow you down.”

She got exactly the reaction she’d expected. Another glare from Tucker when he glanced over at her.

“Laine, if you want to get out of this big hole, you need to stop digging,” Tucker warned her. “He doesn’t want to take an innocent woman.”

“Innocent?” the guy growled. “Yeah, right. You might wanta check your facts there, bud. She’s a lot of things, but innocent ain’t one of them.”

Tucker’s glare faded, and for a split second he got a confused look on his face. “What the heck does that mean?”

She couldn’t be sure, but Laine thought the guy might be smiling. “It means you need to ask her.”

“I’d rather stop you,” Tucker fired back. “The questions and answers can come later.”

If she made it out of this, and it was a big if, then she obviously had some explaining to do. But for now, Laine had to get the gunman away from the babies.

“Okay,” the gunman finally said, “it’s just you and me, darlin’. And if you try anything funny, your cowboy here is gonna be the one who pays. Got that?”

That was the only warning Laine got before the man hooked his arm around her neck. He kept the gun pressed to her head.

“Just so you know, cowboy,” the man drawled. “I got no problem putting a bullet in her, or you for that matter, so my advice is for you to back off.”

Tucker stayed put. But the man maneuvered her forward, each step taking him farther away from the babies. She couldn’t see them, but they definitely weren’t asleep. Laine could hear them making some whimpering sounds, and she prayed everything was okay.

“This way.” Her captor didn’t lead her toward the kitchen door, where Tucker’s sister was likely holding his comrades. Instead, he dragged her forward, which meant they’d have to go right past Tucker.

Tucker adjusted, moving just out of the guy’s reach, but his gun stayed trained on him.

“You’re not going to get far on foot,” Tucker said. “Especially not with the storm moving in.”

The man shook his head. “Won’t need to go far.”

Maybe because he had a vehicle stashed nearby. But more likely it was because he intended to kill her once he’d used her to escape.

No way would he want to keep her alive, since she’d witnessed the murder.

Even if he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger, he would still be charged as an accessory, which carried the same sentence. He was looking at the death penalty if she stayed alive and could testify against him.

Behind her, the babies began to cry. She desperately wanted to go to them and try to comfort them, but each step she took kept the killer away from them. That’s why Laine didn’t resist when the goon practically dragged her past Tucker and toward the front of the house.

Tucker followed, of course. Using the furniture for cover along the way, he kept his attention pinned to the man. They went through the small dining area and into the living room. Without taking the gun from her head, he reached behind him and opened the front door.

Laine immediately felt the dampness of the rain, and even over the sound of it on the tin roof and the babies’ cries, she heard something else. Sirens in the distance.

Backup was on the way.

The man’s arm stiffened, and he mumbled some profanity. Still, that didn’t stop him maneuvering her onto the porch with him.

There were six limestone steps leading down into the yard. A fence and gate, too, and some woods on the other side of the narrow road.

Those woods were no doubt where he intended to take her. And kill her. That meant she had to do something in the next few seconds.

But what?

She looked at Tucker to see if he could give her a suggestion, but he only shook his head. “Sooner or later, this clown will make a mistake, and I’ll take the kill shot,” Tucker said.

“You wish,” the guy growled.

His choke hold on her neck got even tighter, and he began to back down the steps with her. Escaping would take precious time, and with sirens moving closer with each passing moment, Laine could feel the gunman’s muscles getting tenser.

He was trapped.

“Maybe you could get a plea bargain,” she suggested.

“Maybe you could shut up!”

The moment he cleared the steps, the rain began to swipe at them. Either the rain was cold for September, or it was just her nerves, but Laine immediately started shivering. Unlike Tucker. He was using the doorjamb for cover, but there were no signs that this was anything but routine for him.

Again, the man reached behind them and opened the gate, pulling her through the opening and onto the road. Because of the way he was holding her, she couldn’t turn her head, but from the corner of her eye, she saw flashes of blue lights approaching.

It wouldn’t be long before backup was in place and ready to help, but Laine didn’t know if that would make the situation better or worse. She could feel her captor’s anxiety soaring even higher.

The man continued to move, dragging her across the road and directly toward the woods. He didn’t stop even when a Sweetwater Springs cruiser braked a few yards away. Colt got out, using the car door for cover, and took aim at her captor. Too bad Colt didn’t have any better chance than Tucker did.

Just up the road from the cruiser, there was another set of lights and a siren. An ambulance. However, unlike Colt, the driver stayed back, no doubt waiting until it was safe enough to approach.

“If you get a shot, take it,” Tucker told his brother.

“Yeah, do that,” the man snarled. “It’s a good way to get the shrink here killed. I’m thinking if you shoot me, my trigger finger will automatically tense up. And boom, there she goes.”

Laine’s shoes sank into the ground when he dragged her off the road and onto the soft shoulder. Just a few steps from the woods. It was now or never. If she didn’t try to do something, he’d escape with her.

It was a huge risk, but Laine drew back her elbow and rammed it into his stomach. He cursed at her, calling her a name, and she jabbed him again. All the while, she braced herself in case he chose to retaliate.

He did.

The man pulled the trigger, and the pain immediately crashed through her head.

Laine nearly went to her knees. It took a moment—one terrifying moment—to realize he hadn’t shot her. The pain was from the excruciating noise of the bullet being fired so close to her ear. But Laine felt no relief at being spared, because she had no idea where that bullet had landed.

Tucker jumped to the side, still ready to return fire. He didn’t appear to be hurt. Neither was Colt. But the shot could have gone into the house. That gave her a much-needed jolt of adrenaline, and she started fighting. At least if he shot her, Tucker would be able to kill the guy.

“This isn’t over,” he growled.

He shoved her, hard. So hard that Laine stumbled forward and fell at the edge of the road.

“Stay down, Laine!” Tucker warned her, a split second before he pulled the trigger.

Tucker scrambled to the ground near her, but he lifted his hand to fire again. Laine tried to see if he’d managed to shoot the guy, but Tucker pushed her right back down.

Then he cursed.

“He’s getting away,” Tucker mumbled.

Laine’s first reaction to that was, No! But at least if he was running, it meant he wouldn’t be firing shots into the house. Of course, the downside to that was that if he escaped, he could come after her and the babies again.

“Be careful,” Tucker said, and it took her a moment to realize why he’d issued that warning. It was meant for his brother.

With his gun ready, Colt bolted from the side of the cruiser and went after the man.

“The babies,” Laine reminded him. “They’re in the house alone.” And while Tucker had said that his sister had contained the other two men, they could always try to escape and go inside to take the newborns.

Tucker pulled her right back down when she tried to get up, and he kept his attention pinned to the woods where Colt had disappeared. The seconds crawled by. No sounds. No shots. The gunshot had dulled her hearing, but she could feel the steady throb of her heartbeat crashing in her ears.

“Move fast,” Tucker finally said, and he stood, pulling her to her feet.

Laine didn’t even have time to regain her balance before he started running with her toward the house. Tucker got her up the steps and inside, and then he shut the door.

The babies were still crying, and Laine tried to go to them. Again Tucker moved in front to stop her. He was still the vigilant lawman, his gaze still firing all around.

Mercy, was there another gunman in the house?

They moved slowly, with Tucker checking every corner until they worked their way to the kitchen.

“Stay here,” he insisted.

With his gun ready, he first looked out the kitchen window where his sister and the other two men still were. Everything must have been okay there because he started to check out the rest of the house.

Laine hurried to the babies to make sure they were okay. They appeared to be. Since she was soaked to the bone, she put the blanket between the babies and her wet clothes before she scooped them into her arms.

Even though they were too young to understand, they were perhaps sensing the horrible nightmare that’d just happened. She tried rocking them so they would stop crying and she could hear what was going on in the house.

It seemed to take an eternity for Tucker to return, and when she saw him, Laine released the breath she’d been holding. He no longer had his gun raised, and there was some relief in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Laine lied. Her scrapes and bruises would all be minor, but it might take a lifetime or two to feel fine.

His phone rang, and he yanked it from his pocket. “It’s Colt,” he relayed to her, and he answered it.

Laine couldn’t hear what his brother was saying, but she knew from his expression that it wasn’t good news. “The rain washed away the tracks,” Tucker explained, a muscle flickering in his jaw.

So they’d lost him.

Laine couldn’t stop the sound from making its way through her throat. This wasn’t over. The babies still weren’t safe.

“We’ll get a CSI team out to look for anything to indicate where he’s heading,” Tucker added, though he didn’t sound convinced that it would do any good.

The man probably had a vehicle stashed nearby and was already long gone.

Tucker didn’t stay in the pantry. Instead, he went to the back door, opened it and kept watch over the two gunmen they had managed to capture. He also motioned toward the ambulance, obviously giving them the go-ahead to come closer to the house. After he’d done that, he glanced back at her, and this time, there was no relief anywhere on his face.

Just questions.

Well, one question anyway.

“What the heck was that clown talking about back there?” Tucker asked.

Laine knew exactly what Tucker was referring to, and she remembered every word of what the man had said.

You might wanta check your facts there, bud. She’s a lot of things, but innocent ain’t one of them.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Shook her head. Obviously that reaction didn’t please Tucker, because he mumbled some profanity and snapped back around to face her.

“What did he mean?” Tucker demanded. “And what the heck are you really doing here?”

Chapter Five

Tucker had a dozen other things that he should be doing. For one thing, he should be helping Rayanne guard the two dirtbags she had facedown and cuffed on the ground in the drenching rain. For another, he needed to watch for Colt to make his way back to the house so they could transport the prisoners—one to the jail and the other to the hospital.

Instead, here he was questioning Laine.

And it was obvious from her reaction that she had something to tell him that he didn’t want to hear.

“Did you lie to me when you said a woman had been killed?” he demanded.

“No!” She struggled to get to her feet. It wasn’t easy with two crying, squirming babies in her arms. “I saw her, and they murdered her.”

She sounded convincing enough, but Tucker would wait for some evidence. Still, it wasn’t much of a stretch to believe it now that the attack had happened here. Those goons had been trying to cover up something, that was for sure.

“Then, what did the man mean about you not being innocent?” Tucker pressed.

She swallowed hard. “Remember when you had me fired from the undercover investigation?”

He nearly reminded her again that he’d merely asked that she be reassigned because of their old baggage. His supervisor had agreed with him. End of story.

Except it obviously wasn’t.

“What’d you do?” Tucker asked, once he got his teeth unclenched.

“The case was important to me,” she said, her chin coming up in a defiant pose. Just as quickly, it came down, and she dodged his gaze. “I didn’t want to just drop it because you and I couldn’t get along. I wanted to help find those women and babies.”

Yeah, so had he.

By all accounts, there were dozens of missing women and babies lost in the maze of a massive black-market baby ring. Not just illegal adoptions, but illegal surrogacies, as well. Even pregnant women who were kidnapped until their babies were born, at which point the new mothers were murdered.

Cooper had helped to uncover and shut down a baby farm. That was a start. But there was evidence of many other farms.

And just as many cold-blooded killers operating them.

“Please tell me you didn’t do anything dangerous or stupid,” Tucker said.

Laine sure didn’t jump to tell him that she hadn’t. Which meant she had.

Tucker groaned. “What’d you do?” he repeated.

“I used some of the criminal informant contacts from the investigation to try to find another baby farm.” She paused, her gaze coming back to his. “And I found one.”

“Where?” But unfortunately Tucker had to wave off her answer when he heard a soft whistle.

It was Colt.

And the whistle was a signal they’d used since they were kids playing cops and robbers. It was just to let Tucker know he was approaching so he wouldn’t mistake him for a bad guy. Or in this case, shoot him.

Tucker glanced back and spotted Colt making his way across the road. His brother wasn’t headed inside the house with them, but rather toward Rayanne and the prisoners.

“What’s wrong?” Laine asked, and despite having both arms filled with babies, she hurried to the door beside Tucker and looked out. The medics were lifting the wounded prisoner into the ambulance.

“Rayanne, can you ride in the ambulance and keep an eye on this guy?” Tucker asked. “Colt and I will get someone else there shortly, but first I need to settle some things with Laine.”

“Laine?” she repeated in an unfriendly tone. “As in Laine Braddock?”

Tucker nodded, knowing the confirmation wasn’t going to help the venom in Rayanne’s eyes. Unlike Rayanne, he didn’t care much about their mother’s upcoming trial, but he didn’t want his dad and brothers dragged into it. The Braddocks, especially Laine’s mother, had threatened to do just that. She’d tossed around plenty of accusations about obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence.

All unfounded and untrue.

So basically Tucker was caught in the middle. Not a comfortable place to be, especially with Laine right by his side and an estranged sister snarling at both of them.

“You mean you called me out here to save her sorry butt?” Rayanne spat out.

“Not just her,” Tucker explained. “She had two newborns with her. Even you wouldn’t refuse to help little babies.”

Despite the rain and storm winds lashing at her, Rayanne stood there, glaring at him. Glaring at Laine, too, since she was now peering over Tucker’s shoulder.

“Let me guess,” Rayanne snapped, shifting her glare back to Tucker. “They’re your kids?”

Now it was time for Tucker to give her an eye roll. “I’m not exactly the daddy type, now, am I? No, these are babies that Laine rescued.”

He hoped.

If he was to believe anything their attacker said, then it was a strong possibility that Laine hadn’t told him the truth about the babies. Or about anything else.

Still grumbling something under her breath, Rayanne followed the medics into the ambulance.

“Thank you for helping,” Laine called out to her. Not a good thing to say. Anything at this point would have been unwise, especially anything coming from Laine, because it earned her another nasty glare from Rayanne.

“I’ll call for more backup,” Colt said, getting the second man into his cruiser. “I’m guessing Laine and the babies need a doctor, too?”

“Yeah.” At least for a checkup. “I’ll drive them to the hospital.”

“But what about the missing gunman?” Laine asked the moment Tucker shut the door. “He could follow us into town and attack us again.”

“He could, but it’s my guess he’s in regroup mode. And that means you need to tell me everything you did to cause these goons to come after you. Start with that criminal informant who helped you find the baby farm.”

Tucker motioned for her to start talking while he went to the doors and locked them. He didn’t intend to be in the house for long, but he also wanted to take a few precautions in case he was wrong about his regroup theory.

Laine didn’t jump to answer, something that put a knot the size of Texas in his gut. Tucker motioned for her to get on with it.

“The criminal informant was Gerry Farrow, and he took me to the baby farm,” Laine finally said. “He made me wear a blindfold so I couldn’t see where we were going, and he drove around for a long time. In circles, I’m sure, so I wouldn’t be able to find the place later.”

His groan didn’t help hush the babies any. “And you thought it was a good idea for a civilian to go walking into something like that with a person you didn’t even know if you could trust?”

She glanced away again. “I wanted to find those pregnant captives and save them. I didn’t want their babies sold like cattle. And I thought I had a better chance of getting in there than the cops, Rangers or FBI.” Laine paused. “I saw two women, including the one who was killed in the parking lot.”

Oh, man. “Funny you didn’t mention that connection right off the bat. You’ve told the FBI all of this?”

“I told them about the baby farm, but by the time we were able to work out where it was, it was too late. When they got there, the guards and the pregnant women were all gone.”

No surprise there. “You were lucky those guards didn’t kill you at the farm.”

She made a soft sound of agreement. “I pretended to be a potential buyer for one of the babies.”

“And they believed you?” Tucker asked, not bothering to hold back on the skeptical tone in his voice. He motioned for her to follow him to the bedroom so he could do something about their wet clothes.

Laine nodded. Then she lifted her shoulder. “They didn’t try to kill me, anyway. They made some calls, did a quick background check and learned that I had indeed been trying to adopt.”

Tucker hadn’t thought there could be any more surprises today, but he’d been wrong. “You did a fake adoption request for the sake of the investigation?”

“No,” she snapped. That put some fire in her ice-blue eyes, but it quickly cooled down. “I can’t have children, so I’ve been trying to adopt for months now.”

In a town the size of Sweetwater Springs, it was hard to keep secrets, but Laine had obviously managed to keep that one.

And it caused him to curse again.

“You gave those guards your real name?” The babies didn’t like his near shout, and they fussed even louder.

“I figured that was the fastest way to get them to believe I was really there looking for a baby.”

There were so many things wrong with that comment that Tucker didn’t know where to start. “So, you let them believe you were a customer willing to break the law. Obviously that didn’t work out so well, did it?”

“Obviously,” she mumbled. “One of the guards told me they’d be in touch, and we left. But they did follow us.”