“You could have been killed.”

Her voice was strained, barely a whisper, but he heard the emotions loud and clear.

That wasn’t ordinary concern for a fellow human being. That was concern for her baby’s daddy. Maybe even for him.

It only added another layer of complications to their already complicated situation.

Kendall was pregnant with his baby. They were a Texas version of Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers. And since that story hadn’t had a happy ending, this extra layer only made him worry more.

He’d clearly developed a fondness for complicated layers. Apparently, a fondness for having Kendall in his arms, too.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“Everything.”

Kendall stared at him, those eyes so green that they looked like spring itself. Spring with heat, of course. Even now the heat was there.

Surrendering to the Sheriff

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DELORES FOSSEN, a USA TODAY bestselling author, has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and was a finalist for a prestigious RITA® Award. You can contact the author through her webpage at www.dfossen.net.

Table of Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Sheriff Aiden Braddock shut the door behind him, tossed his truck keys on the kitchen counter.

And stopped cold.

He didn’t hear anything unusual. The whir of the A/C and fridge. The April breeze rattling the oaks outside the window over the sink. All the sounds he should be hearing, but he still got the gut feeling that something wasn’t right.

Since that gut feeling had saved his butt a time or two during his time as county sheriff, Aiden listened to it.

He drew his Glock from his holster.

Aiden didn’t move yet. He just stood there a few more moments. Listening. And then he heard the thing that didn’t belong. A whisper, maybe. Or somebody breathing. Because he lived alone, there darn sure shouldn’t be anyone else whispering or breathing in his house.

“Mom?” Aiden called out just to make sure. Though it’d been longer than a blue moon since she came out to his place. Too far in the sticks, she had always complained.

“Laine? Shelby?” Aiden added in case it was one of his sisters. Again, a serious long shot, since they rarely visited, either.

No answer. But he hadn’t expected one.

Whatever was going on, this likely wasn’t a social visit and could even involve some attempted bodily harm. After all, he was the county sheriff and had riled more than a person or two over the past decade. One of those riled people had perhaps come to settle an old score.

Aiden huffed. He was so not in the mood to bash some heads, but he might have to do just that.

“Let’s make this easy for you,” Aiden called out. “I’m a damn good shot. Plus, I’m hungry, tired and not feeling up to any idiot who’s stupid enough to break into a lawman’s house.”

“Aiden,” someone said in a hoarse whisper.

Even though the person hardly made any sound when she spoke, Aiden thought he recognized the voice.

Kendall.

But that didn’t make any sense. This was the last place on earth she’d come.

Especially after...well, just after.

Aiden didn’t lower his gun, but he inched his way toward the sound of her whisper—in his living room. It was just a few yards away past a half wall, but he kept watch all around him. Kept listening, too. Until he could move into the arched opening that divided the rooms, and he snapped his gun in the direction where he’d pinpointed Kendall’s voice.

His heart slammed against his chest.

Because it was Kendall O’Neal all right, but this definitely wasn’t a social visit. She was on her knees in the center of the floor, and there was a hulking man on each side of her. The men were wearing black ski masks, and both had automatics pointed right at her head.

“Drop the gun, Sheriff Braddock,” the bigger one on the right growled.

Aiden held on to his Glock, trying to figure out what the devil was going on here. He didn’t get many clues from Kendall. She only shook her head. Like an apology or something.

But that was pure fear in her wide eyes.

He didn’t see any signs of injury, but then most of her body that he could see was covered with a pale blue shirt, skirt and business jacket—her lawyering clothes. However, her hair was a mess, her blond locks tangled on her shoulders.

So maybe she’d been in a scuffle with these guys after all.

Kendall wasn’t the messy-hair type. Nope. All priss and polish for her and never a hair out of place. People didn’t call her the ice princess for nothing.

However, that wasn’t an ice-princess look she was giving him now.

“What do you want?” Aiden asked the men.

“Your gun on the floor.” Again, it was the one on the right who answered. No unusual accent. He was a Texan. And the nondescript dark pants and T-shirt didn’t give Aiden any clues, either.

“Do it now,” the man added, and he jammed his gun against Kendall’s head. “Or else she’ll pay the price.”

The last thing any lawman wanted to do was surrender his weapon, but Aiden was wearing his usual backup gun in a boot holster. Maybe he’d be able to get to it in time if things turned uglier than they already were.

Of course, things were already plenty ugly enough.

Aiden didn’t make any fast moves. He eased his gun onto the floor. “Now, what’s this about?” he demanded. Thankfully, he still sounded like a sheriff even though it was hard to sound badass and in charge with guns pointed at Kendall.

“You’re going to do us a favor,” the gunman said. Even though the ski mask covered most of the gunman’s face, Aiden could have sworn the guy was smirking. “And if you don’t, then we’ll hurt Kendall here. Won’t kill her at first. But we’ll use her to make sure you cooperate.”

The threat was real enough—the real guns were proof of that—but Aiden had to shake his head. “You do know that Kendall O’Neal and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms, right? Everybody in town knows it. So why use her to get me to do anything for you?”

But his question ground to a halt, and Aiden’s gaze snapped back to her.

“This is some kind of sick game, isn’t it?” Though he couldn’t imagine why Kendall would be playing it with these two armed thugs. “Is this connected to your sister?”

Aiden didn’t wait for an answer. His attention went back to her captors. If they were indeed linked to her sister and not paid help trying to trick him into doing something crazier than what they were already doing.

“Just in case you don’t know,” Aiden told the men, “Kendall’s half sister, Jewell, is about to stand trial for murdering my father twenty-three years ago. If this was a real hostage situation, you’d have taken someone that I actually care a rat’s you know what about.”

Kendall flinched at his stinging remark, but she quickly recovered. The fear, or fake fear, was still in her green cat eyes, and she hiked up her chin in that way that always riled him to the core. She looked darn haughty when she did that.

“There are things you don’t know.” Her voice cracked on the last word. A nice, theatrical touch.

“Clearly,” Aiden said with a boatload of sarcasm. “But let me guess. You’re a thousand steps past the desperate stage, and you’d do anything to save your precious, murdering sister. So you want me to try to fix the trial or something.”

Aiden rammed his thumb against his chest and had to finish through clenched teeth. “You picked the wrong mark, Kendall. I don’t break the law for anybody, especially the likes of you.”

And he got another lightbulb moment.

A very bad one. One brought on by the likes of you comment. It hadn’t been that long ago that he said those very words to her.

Not in the heat of the moment like now.

More like after the heat.

Yeah, Kendall and he had had the hots for each other since middle school. Forbidden fruit and all that crap. Aiden had always resisted her because he’d known it would tear his family apart.

Until three months ago.

He’d had to kill a man that day. A domestic disturbance gone wrong. Then he’d had a run-in with his mother. Then another run-in with one of Jewell’s smart-mouthed daughters. To make matters worse, he’d dropped by the Bluebonnet for a drink or two. Which had turned into four. All right, five.

And he’d run into Kendall.

Aiden hadn’t asked her what kind of bad day she’d been trying to erase with those shots of high-end whiskey she was downing like water. But the drinks had dumbed him down just enough that he’d gone over to talk to her. A mistake.

A big one.

Because the next thing Aiden knew, they were doing more than talking. They’d landed in bed for some drunken sex, and he’d committed one of the worst mistakes he could ever have made.

Did that night play a part in this, too?

Aiden hadn’t been very nice to her the next morning what with his hangover and regret. That was where the likes of you comment had come into play. Because he’d wanted to leave immediately, find a big rock and hit himself in the head with it. But maybe Kendall thought she was a woman scorned, and paired with her obsession to clear her sister’s name, perhaps the desperation had spilled over to this.

“Get out,” Aiden ordered them, and he reached down to pick up his gun.

Aiden didn’t get far before the shot blasted through the room and sent his ears ringing. The bullet hadn’t been aimed at him.

But rather at Kendall.

She screamed out in pain. Not a whimper, but a full-fledged, blood-chilling scream. For a good reason, too. The bullet had gone into her arm, tearing through her jacket sleeve and into her flesh.

Almost immediately, a bright red patch of blood started to spread over the fabric. She struggled, trying to clamp her hand over it, but he realized then that her wrists had been bound behind her back with plastic cuffs.

Aiden’s instincts were to rush to her, to make sure she was okay. He would have done that for anyone. But when he started toward her, the guy on the left shifted his gun to Aiden.

“Move and she gets another bullet in the other arm,” the man warned him.

Okay. So maybe this wasn’t fake after all.

“You’ve got my attention,” Aiden said. “But let’s hurry along this little chat so I can get an ambulance out here for Kendall.”

The talking guy shook his head. “Her injury isn’t serious. Just a flesh wound. That doesn’t mean the next one will be, though. We need her alive but not necessarily in one piece.”

Aiden’s heartbeat hadn’t settled down since he first saw Kendall kneeling on the floor, and that didn’t do much to slow it to normal.

“What do you want?” Aiden repeated.

“For you to destroy evidence lot BR6847-23.” The guy didn’t hesitate.

Normally, Aiden wouldn’t have known what evidence that was. But he did in this case. It was recently found bone fragments.

His father’s bone fragments.

And it was key evidence in the murder case against Jewell.

“So this is about your sister,” he said to Kendall. Even though he no longer believed Kendall had orchestrated it. Not after taking that bullet.

She moaned, the sound of raw pain, and clamped her teeth over her bottom lip for a moment. “I don’t know who hired these men,” Kendall said, her voice shaking. “I was leaving work late, and they grabbed me in the parking lot. They brought me here.”

Even though there weren’t a lot of details in that, Aiden could almost see it, and it turned his stomach a little. Kendall wasn’t a large woman, and these two goons towered over her. She had to have been terrified.

Still was.

No one was that good an actor.

“Jewell’s daughters could be behind this,” Aiden said just to see what kind of reaction he’d get from them. No one argued. But then, he didn’t see anything in their body language that he’d hit a home run, either.

Of course, who else would it be?

Jewell had abandoned her husband and three sons all those years ago when she left town under the cloud of suspicion of murdering Aiden’s father. The suspicion had finally been confirmed when the case was reopened, and those bone fragments had been discovered. Jewell was finally where she belonged.

In jail.

And she hadn’t exactly mended fences with her own sons and ex-husband.

Still, she had two daughters, a stepson and a now-shot half sister on her side. Once Kendall was safe, Aiden would go to Jewell’s spawn and step-spawn and demand answers.

First, though, he had to get Kendall out of this.

“I guess you’ll hold her until I destroy the evidence?” Aiden asked.

The talker nodded. “The sooner you do it, the sooner you can have her back.”

Not likely.

Except that didn’t make sense, either. Jewell’s kids knew she loved her much younger half sister. In fact, word was that Jewell thought of Kendall more like a daughter than a half sister.

So why would Jewell’s kids have put Kendall at risk like this?

“Why?” Aiden repeated out loud and shook his head. “And that why covers a lot of territory. There’s plenty about this that doesn’t make sense.”

Kendall opened her mouth. Closed it. Then swallowed hard. “I thought Laine might have said something.”

Aiden shook his head. “My sister? What does she have to do with this?”

“Laine saw me coming out of the doctor’s office. I swear, Aiden, I was going to leave town next week. I wasn’t going to put any of this on you. I know how you and your family feel about me.”

There was a gun trained on him, but Aiden went some steps closer so he could look Kendall straight in the eye. “What the heck are you talking about?”

She made a sound. Sort of a helpless moan that came from deep within her chest. “They took me because I’m pregnant. Because they knew they could use that for leverage.”

Kendall’s breath shuddered. “Aiden, the baby I’m carrying is yours.”

Chapter Two

It was hard to think through the pain, but Kendall braced herself for Aiden’s reaction. She expected him to curse or yell. To ask what she’d already asked herself—how could this have happened? But other than a few moments of silence, that was it.

Those moments of silence were his only physical response to the baby.

Unlike her.

She was sweating now. Not because it was hot but because her arm was throbbing. Yes, it was just a flesh wound, but she was bleeding, and she needed the wound cleaned and tended. Later, if there was a later, she’d deal with Aiden’s reaction.

Heaven knew what that would be.

“How do you think this is going to work?” Aiden’s attention shifted from her to the gunman who’d been doing all the talking.

“You’ll leave now. Go to the evidence storage room. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting in there, since you’re the county sheriff. Tell them you need to look at something else that involves another case. And once you’re inside, destroy the evidence.”

Aiden shook his head. “It won’t be that simple. There are surveillance cameras.”

“Then figure out a way around them,” the gunman snapped. “After all, your kid’s life depends on it.”

Now Aiden cursed, but it was under his breath. “And what about Kendall? You shot her. It can’t be good for my kid to have his or her mother injured like that.”

“Don’t worry about her. We’ll get her to a doctor. The only thing you have to worry about is doing what you’ve been told.” The man took something from his shirt pocket and tossed it to Aiden.

A cell phone.

“It’ll take videos,” he explained. “Film yourself destroying the evidence and send it to the number already programmed into the phone.”

“And then you’ll let Kendall go?” Aiden asked with plenty of skepticism in his tone.

“Eventually. In a day or two. We got no reason to keep her, and truth is, she’s a pain in the butt. I, for one, will be glad to give her back to you. She bit me,” he growled, glancing down at his wrist.

She had indeed resorted to biting and clawing. She’d done everything to try to escape. But when he threatened to hurt the baby, Kendall knew she had no choice but to stop fighting and look for a better way out of this.

So far, she hadn’t come up with one.

This definitely didn’t qualify as better.

“Hate to burst your bubble,” Aiden said, “but if you hold Kendall for a day or two, someone will report her missing. And people will look for her. You really want to raise those kinds of red flags, since half of her kin are lawmen?”

Kendall groaned softly. “I’ve already told my friends, Jewell and the rest of my family that I’d be leaving town tomorrow morning. I said I needed some downtime and for them not to be surprised if they didn’t hear from me for a while.”

The gunman laughed. “She tied it up in a pretty little bow for us, didn’t she?”

Yes, she did, but Kendall intended to shove that proverbial bow down his throat the first chance she got. She wasn’t in any position to win a physical fight with him, but sooner or later, he’d let down his guard.

She hoped.

Aiden’s gaze came back to her. “I’m figuring you didn’t ask to be here, but I know you won’t shed any tears over this evidence being destroyed.”

“You’re wrong,” she let him know after she choked back another wave of pain. “I don’t want my sister convicted of murder, but I don’t want her free like this, either. And neither would Jewell.”

The corner of Aiden’s mouth lifted in an expression she knew all too well. The Braddock smirk. As an O’Neal and Jewell’s sister, she’d been on the receiving end of it a lot since their families were at odds for twenty-three years.

“Time for you to leave,” the gunman said to Aiden. “Oh, and don’t bother to pull some kind of stunt like pretending to leave so you can double back and rescue her. Kendall will be tucked away someplace safe, where you can’t find her.”

There was no telling what they’d consider someplace safe, but she seriously doubted these snakes had her safety in mind beyond using her to try to prod Aiden into committing a felony.

Aiden stood there, his glare shifting among them, and he cursed again. “Give me at least two hours, and you’ll have your video of me destroying the bone fragments.”

Oh, mercy. He was going to do it.

Kendall had thought he’d be able to negotiate his way out of this. Or else fight his way out of it. She figured the last thing on earth Aiden would do was destroy evidence to protect her.

Except it was not just her.

Even though they were enemies, she knew that Aiden was an honorable man. He wouldn’t risk an unborn child’s life.

Any unborn child.

Still, honor aside, he’d have a heck of a time dealing with the consequences. And worse. Kendall was terrified that destroying the evidence wouldn’t even help the baby and her. She hadn’t seen either of the men’s faces. Had no idea who they were. But they might not let her live anyway.

The thought of it broke her heart.

Not for her own life but for the baby’s. This child hadn’t been planned. Heck, it hadn’t even been on her personal radar. But she’d loved the baby from the moment that she’d known she was carrying it. However, she never expected Aiden would feel the same.

Ever.

“Get her to the doctor,” Aiden growled. “Now.” And he reached for his gun.

“Nope,” the man said while Aiden was in mid-reach. “I’m sure you’ll have no trouble coming up with another one. We’ll keep this one for now.”

Kendall’s imagination started to run wild. Once Aiden had destroyed the evidence, they wouldn’t have a reason to keep her alive. They could use Aiden’s gun to kill her and then somehow set him up to take the blame for the crime.

The baby would be motive.

Because an autopsy would reveal the pregnancy, and a DNA test would prove he was the child’s father. These men could make it look as if Aiden had completely lost it when he learned of the baby and killed her in cold blood.

“Oh, and, Braddock?” the man said to Aiden. “We’ll know if you call your buddies at the county sheriff’s office. Or any other law enforcement agency in the area for that matter. Because we’ve got ears in all those places.”

That was probably a bluff. Unless, of course, these guys had managed to plant some listening devices.

“Aiden,” she said before she could stop herself. Kendall hated to beg for his help, but she would. To save the baby, she’d do anything.

A flash of something went through his eyes, but Kendall had no idea what it meant. Aiden gave the men, and her, one last look before he strolled out.

Kendall tried to tamp down the panic. They wouldn’t kill her until they were sure Aiden had destroyed the evidence, and he’d said that would take about two hours. Not much time. But during those two hours, she had to find a way to escape.

One of the men stayed next to her, the gun still pointed at her head, and the other went to the window and peered out. Watching Aiden, no doubt.

Another sound only spiked the panic building inside her.

Aiden’s truck engine.

She heard it start, and then he pulled away from the house.

His place wasn’t that large by Texas standards, just a couple of acres of pasture for his horses, a barn and the house. From the man’s vantage point at the window, he would be able not only to see Aiden leave, but also to see him drive out onto the road.

“He’s out of sight,” the man said a moment later.

Still, they didn’t move. The time seemed to crawl by, and her throbbing arm and building panic didn’t help. Finally, the one who’d been silent latched on to her shoulder and hauled her to her feet.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” the other one snarled, “or you’ll get another bullet.”

Kendall was positive that wasn’t a bluff, but before this ordeal was over, she would almost certainly have to do something stupid. Or at least risky.

As soon as they started moving, she tried to work the plastic cuffs that bound her wrists behind her back. They were loose, but strong for mere plastic, and they seemed to tighten with each tug.

Those tugs also didn’t help the jolts of pain going through her arm. And the pain didn’t help the dizziness. She’d been light-headed since this whole ordeal started, but it was more than just a light head now.

The gunshot and the fear were no doubt to blame.

Kendall drew in several hard breaths and forced herself to look down at the wound. At the gaping hole in her jacket. It turned her stomach, but she tried to make sure she wasn’t bleeding out.

She wasn’t.

There was blood all right, but there didn’t seem to be much more than when he’d initially shot her. That was something at least. A serious blood loss could cause her to miscarry.

The men finally led her out the front door, the same way they’d brought her in after one of them had jimmied the lock. Aiden had a security system, but it hadn’t been on. He probably hadn’t felt the need because he was the sheriff.

Too bad.

If the system had been armed, Aiden might have been alerted and could have nipped this in the bud.

They went onto the porch, down the steps and through the yard toward a thick cluster of trees to the right where the men had left the SUV they’d used to kidnap her from the parking lot of her law office. After they’d grabbed her, they’d stopped several miles outside town to change the license plates and to make a call. Kendall hadn’t learned a thing from that call, because they’d said only one thing to the person on the other end of the line.

“We have her.”

No names used. No hint of the identity of the person they’d called.

So, who had put all this insanity into motion?

Despite Aiden’s accusations and suspicions, it wasn’t Jewell or her daughters. Not Jewell’s stepson, Seth, either. Yes, the three of them loved Jewell, but they wouldn’t resort to this. Unfortunately, other than those three children, Kendall and Jewell’s lawyer, Robert Joplin, there weren’t many people who wanted Jewell to beat this murder charge.

But clearly someone wanted just that.

When they were about ten yards from the SUV, Kendall stumbled just to see how fast the men would react, and she got her answer.

Fast.

Both of them grabbed her, and within a second, she had a gun jammed against her left temple again.

“Keep it up, and you’ll be sorry,” one of the men growled.

No matter what she did, she could be sorry, but Kendall cooperated.

For now.

She continued toward the SUV and didn’t resist when the men practically shoved her inside. As they’d done on the drive there, they buckled her into a seat belt in the middle, and the man who’d spoken only a few words dropped down behind her. The one who’d been doing all the talking walked around the front of the SUV toward the driver’s side.

But then he stopped.

That certainly got her attention, but it got his partner’s, too. “What’s wrong?” the man asked. Unlike the other one, he had some kind of thick accent.

The man still outside raised his finger in a wait-a-second gesture and lifted his head. Listening for something.

Or maybe someone.

Kendall hoped and prayed that it was someone who could get her away from these goons.

“Don’t move,” the guy with the accent said to her, and he stepped out of the SUV. Not far. Just a few inches outside the open door, and he, too, listened. His gaze also darted all around the heavily treed area.

Kendall looked, as well. She tried to pick through the trees and underbrush, but it was spring with everything in full bloom, so she couldn’t see anything.

However, she thought that she might have heard something, like a twig snap. The men didn’t miss it. With their guns raised, they pivoted in the direction of the sound.

Again, nothing.

For several seconds anyway.

Then the shot zinged through the air. It hadn’t been fired by one of her captors but had instead come from the area of that dense underbrush.

It had to be Aiden.

He would have known to cut through the woods and come back after them.

Her captors immediately lifted their guns to return fire, and Kendall sank down into the seat as far as she could. She also looked for something, anything, she could use to cut through the plastic cuffs.

Outside, both men fired, their bullets blasting through the air. She quickly added another prayer that Aiden hadn’t been shot.

Both men continued to fire. Kendall continued to struggle, and even though it made the pain in her arm much worse, she managed to move her hand so she could pop the button on the seat belt. It slid off her, and she got to the floor. Not just for protection but so she could look under the seat.

There was a first aid kit.

She fumbled through it as best she could and found a pair of scissors. They were small, the kind used for cutting bandages and not restraints. Still, they would have to do.

It was hard enough just to pick them up with her hands behind her back. Harder still to try to make any cut. But she had to try.

Kendall glanced out. Both men were now at the front of the SUV and they were tearing up the woods with their bullets. Even though Aiden’s nearest neighbor was a half mile away, maybe he would hear the noise and report it if Aiden hadn’t already called for backup.

The man with the accent looked into the SUV. His gaze connected with hers through the gap between the front seats, and he said something to his partner that she couldn’t hear. But the man must have realized she was trying to escape, because he hurried toward the driver’s door.

Coming for her.

Her heart was pumping now. The adrenaline, too. Kendall worked even harder at trying to cut through the plastic. She could feel them giving way. Little by little. But the man was practically right on her.

The plastic cuffs gave way, finally.

Just as the man crawled across the seat and grabbed for her.

But Kendall brought up the scissors and stabbed him in the face. Because of the ski mask, she wasn’t sure what part of him she hit, but he howled in pain and came at her.

Kendall hit him again with the scissors. This time in his neck.

He made some kind of strangled sound, and she saw the blood. Nothing like her gunshot wound. There was lots of it, and the agonizing sound that he made sent his partner running to him.

Kendall knew she had mere seconds at best. The side door was already open, and she barreled through it. She hadn’t realized just how dizzy and weak she was until her feet touched the ground.

Everything started to spin.

And she would no doubt have fallen if someone hadn’t caught her by the arm. She could just barely make out Aiden’s face.

“Come on,” Aiden said.

He turned, fired a shot at the men, and then he and Kendall started running.

Chapter Three

Aiden pulled Kendall behind the nearest tree, shoving her against it so that he could lean out and try to stop these guys from coming after them.

And they were coming all right.

Well, one of them anyway.

The other one had his hand clamped to his neck and was slumped against the SUV. Aiden hoped that whatever the heck his injury was, it would kill him. Harsh, yes, but maybe necessary for Kendall’s and his survival. One armed man was enough to deal with, considering that he had an injured, pregnant woman to rescue.

Pregnant.

That one little word came with a boatload of emotions attached and packed a wallop. Especially since Kendall was the one who was pregnant.

With his baby, no less.

That sounded about as unright as something could sound, but he had indeed slept with her. He’d also used protection. However, something had clearly gone wrong other than them just landing in bed together.

Fate had to be laughing its butt off about that. Whitt Braddock’s son and Jewell’s sister together, making a baby.

The town, and his family, would have a field day with it. That’d be minor, though, compared to the firestorm going on inside Aiden, but he pushed all those feelings aside for now. It was going to take every bit of his concentration to get them out of this alive.

Aiden had already called for backup. Not using normal channels in case these brainless wonders had indeed managed to plant bugs in his office and others. Instead he’d used his personal cell to phone his deputy Leland Hawks.

With any luck Leland would be here within twenty minutes.

That was way too long for Leland to help save Kendall and him, but Aiden had told the deputy to make a loud approach. Lots of sirens. Hopefully, the noise would send the guys on the run so that Aiden could track them down.

If this fight didn’t end with the men’s deaths, that is.

Aiden wanted one of them alive, though, if at all possible. Because when this was all said and done, he wanted answers as to who was really behind this.

Another shot smacked into the tree. Though it was hard to hold back, Aiden didn’t return fire yet. He didn’t have a lot of ammo and didn’t want to waste any bullets in case this went on too long. But he did glance out at the pair to check on their latest position. They were in front of the SUV again. Where they were well protected.

Aiden couldn’t say the same for Kendall and him.

The tree wasn’t that wide, and he figured these two had brought enough firepower with them to tear right through the young oak. Added to that, there weren’t any wider, thicker trees nearby for Kendall and him to move behind. Just plenty of underbrush and wildflowers, and none of that would stop bullets.

Kendall looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her breath gusting. Her body trembling. “Thank you for coming back for me.”

That riled him. Of course he’d come back for her. It was his job, and there was no way he’d let something personal get in the way of the badge. She probably hadn’t meant it as an insult, but it was.

“I found some scissors in the SUV, cut off the plastic cuffs, but then I got so dizzy,” she added.

She was still terrified, just as she had been kneeling on the floor of his house. Aiden didn’t want to know what kind of effect this was having on her unborn child.

It couldn’t be good.

But it was better than the alternative. If those men had gotten Kendall away from his place, they would have killed her. Even if he’d done what they asked, that wouldn’t have saved her life.

Then they would have come after him.

“You’ve lost some blood,” he reminded her. “That’s why you got dizzy.”

No need to mention that it could be shock, but he hoped that wasn’t the cause. He might need Kendall’s help before this was over, and something like shock could incapacitate her.

“When the smaller one came at me, I stabbed him with the scissors,” she said. “Twice.”

She looked a little sick about that. Understandable. Most people were never in a position where they were forced to do bodily harm, but Aiden was thankful for the scissors and the stabbing.

“You did what you had to do,” he let her know and then cursed himself for sounding so sympathetic.

He didn’t want her to suffer. Not over some injury she’d managed to inflict on this homicidal idiot, but each kind word from him, each thought about this pregnancy nipped at barriers that had to stay in place when it came to Kendall.

“Leland’s on the way,” Aiden whispered when her trembling got worse. “That means we’ll have backup soon, and we’ll be okay.”

Kendall nodded, and he figured she was trying to look a lot stronger than she felt right now.

Another bullet flew at them. Then another. And soon they were coming nonstop. Aiden had hoped it wouldn’t come down to this, but the men were no doubt getting desperate, since they knew he probably had help on the way. That meant they had only two choices.

Escape or try to recover their hostage.

They appeared to be going for the latter, though the two had to know they could kill Kendall in the process. Of course, they could be doing cleanup.

Trying to eliminate all witnesses.

If so, these next few minutes were going to be bad, because Aiden had no intention of making an elimination easy for them. Nope. He was fighting back along with being fighting mad. How dare these morons pull a stunt like this in his own yard and house!

Now the problem was trying to figure out how to stop them from getting lucky with their elimination attempts.

Aiden knew every inch of his property, and there was a dry narrow gully about ten yards behind Kendall and him. Not as close as he would have liked, but maybe if he could distract these guys long enough, Kendall would be able to crawl to the gully, where she’d be better protected from the bullets.

“I didn’t have any part in this,” she said. Another look up at him.

Damn. He had enough uncomfortable things running through his mind right now without adding her emotions.

“Yeah. I figured that out.” Too bad he had plenty of other things to figure out.

“And I meant what I said about leaving,” Kendall added. “I had no intention of ever telling you about the baby.”

The woman knew how to rile him. In the middle of a gunfight no less. Aiden didn’t have a clue how he felt about this pregnancy, yet, but he darn sure hadn’t wanted her to hide it from him. And Kendall had rattled that off as if he’d be pleased about her plan to sneak off.

Well, he wasn’t.

Of course, right now he wasn’t pleased about much of anything except that Kendall and he were still breathing.

Aiden glanced out at the two men again. They were still in place where he couldn’t blow off any of their body parts. Then he glanced at Kendall.

But not at her face.

Too much emotion there for him to deal with, but he needed to see how her arm was holding up. The bleeding had stopped. That was something at least. But that gash was deep, and it had to be throbbing like a bad toothache.

“How does your arm feel?” Aiden asked, and he fired a shot at the men just so they wouldn’t try to move closer.

“I’m okay.”

A lie, for sure, but Aiden would take it for now. He’d already asked Leland to bring out an ambulance, but the medics wouldn’t get close to the place with shots being fired. That was yet another reason for Aiden to put an end to this.

“I need you to get to the ground,” Aiden said. “Stay behind me and stay down. Crawl to the gully.” He tipped his head in that direction.

Kendall glanced over at the gully. Then at him. “But what about you?”

“I won’t be far behind.”

Possibly a lie as well, but Kendall had enough fear running through her without his spelling out that there’d be no one to cover him if he tried to move from the tree to the gully. No, it was best for him to make his stand for as long as he could behind the tree.

She finally gave a shaky nod and inched herself lower to the ground. It wasn’t easy. They were plastered against each other—her backside sliding against a part of him that needed no such touching. Especially from her. He got a split-second jolt of the blasted heat that’d always been there between them.

Thankfully, the fresh round of bullets slugged that heat aside.

He pushed Kendall all the way down until she was practically on her belly and then crouched by his side. “Move slowly if you have to.” Because of her injured arm and the pregnancy. But Aiden was really hoping that she could do this fast.

Aiden leaned out, took aim at the front of the SUV and fired a shot just as Kendall started crawling.

She stayed down just as he’d ordered, and she moved through the wildflowers and other underbrush. Thankfully, fast. Still, Aiden fired another shot at the gunmen just to keep their attention on him. He breathed a little easier once he saw Kendall slide down and into the gully.

She was safe.

Well, maybe.

He’d parked just on the other side of the gully. Off the road and behind some trees. Aiden hadn’t seen any other hired guns lurking around, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t have been some hiding.

The big talkative guy lifted his head, fired a couple of shots. Not the nonstop barrage like before. And in between the shots, Aiden heard the men talking. Or rather arguing.

Clearly, their plan had gone to Hades in a big ol’ handbasket by losing their hostage and what with one of them being on the business end of Kendall and her scissors. Now they were no doubt trying to figure out a way to salvage this, and it was possible the injured one needed some medical attention, too.

In the distance Aiden heard a welcome sound.

Sirens.

That got the men chattering even more, and Aiden braced himself for whatever they were going to try to throw at him next.

What they threw were bullets.

And lots of them.

The men fired into the tree. A volley of gunfire. All of it aimed at Aiden.

He ducked down, trying to shelter his body as best he could, but he was getting pelted with flying pieces of wood from the tree and other debris that the bullets were kicking up from the ground. There was no way he could lean out and try to get off a shot of his own. It’d be suicide, so he stayed put and prayed that he got a break soon.

He got it.

But it wasn’t the break he had in mind. The shots slowed to a trickle, but even over the sound of the blasts, he heard another one.

The SUV.

One of them had started up the engine.

No. It was too soon for this to happen. Judging from the sirens, Leland was still a quarter of a mile out. Maybe more. These guys could get away before Leland even arrived.

Aiden moved to the other side of the tree, leaned out just a fraction and saw the two men already in the SUV. Only one, the injured one on the passenger’s side, was firing through the open door, and even though his aim seemed wobbly, he still hit the dang tree.

Aiden had to dive back behind it for cover.

“Stay down!” Kendall yelled.

He wanted to curse when he saw her lift her head. “You stay down,” Aiden snarled right back at her.

Aiden leaned out again. Took aim at the guy who was firing. And he pulled the trigger.

His bullet smacked right into the man’s chest, and just like that, the guy tumbled out of the SUV and onto the ground. If he wasn’t dead, he soon would be. But that wasn’t Aiden’s concern now.

It was the driver.

The chatterbox gunman hit the accelerator and flew out onto the gravel road that fronted Aiden’s property. He fishtailed, the tires bobbling over the uneven surface, but that didn’t slow him down nearly enough.

Aiden raced out from cover, bracketing his shooting wrist with his left hand, and he kicked the injured gunman’s weapon aside. In the same motion, Aiden took aim at the SUV.

The bullet Aiden fired slammed into the back window, shattering the glass into a million little pieces.

But the driver kept going.

Aiden ran after him, took another shot. He missed. Then another. That one hit the SUV. At the right angle to have injured the driver, but Aiden couldn’t be certain of that.

Because the SUV sped away.

Chapter Four

Kendall watched while the medic dabbed the wound on her arm with antiseptic and gave her a shot. The throbbing pain quickly turned to fire, but she clamped her teeth over her bottom lip so that Aiden wouldn’t hear the groan bubbling up in her throat. He already had enough to handle without adding more concerns about her injury.

Not that Kendall expected him to be overly concerned about her, but at this point, anything and everything would feel like more weight on his shoulders.

The gunman who’d gotten away.

The dead one Aiden had been forced to kill in a shoot-out.

And then, of course, the bombshell about the pregnancy.

Aiden wasn’t dealing with that—yet. He was still on the phone with his deputy who had a team out searching for the man who’d shot her. It was his fifth call since they’d arrived at the Clay Ridge Hospital. She suspected there’d be plenty more before the night was over.

“I’ll just do a couple of stitches,” the medic said to her while he numbed the area around the wound with another shot. “Then I’ll get you to the tech for an ultrasound.”

A few stiches didn’t sound serious at all, but the second thing he said captured both Aiden’s and her attention. Until his gaze snapped to hers, Kendall hadn’t even been sure Aiden was listening to what the medic was saying, but he issued a quick “I’ll call you right back” to his deputy and stared at the medic.

“An ultrasound?” Aiden questioned. “Is something wrong?”

The medic shook his head and got busy doing the stitches. “It’s just a precaution, something Dr. Kreppner ordered because of the trauma Miss O’Neal’s been through.”

Kendall’s breath rushed out. The emotions, too, and she was no longer able to choke back that groan. Sweet heaven, there had indeed been trauma—both physically and mentally—and the baby could have been hurt.

Aiden shifted his attention from the medic to her, and even though she couldn’t fight back the tears, Kendall had no trouble seeing the conflict going on inside him. There was concern in his eyes, and the muscles in his jaw had turned to iron. Maybe because of the possible danger to the baby. Maybe because of her tears.

Or perhaps both.

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Aiden said to her, his voice a low growl. “You heard what he told you, that it’s just a precaution.”

Kendall nodded, but she wouldn’t breathe easier until she knew that all was well. She was only twelve weeks pregnant, and she wasn’t even sure what an ultrasound could tell them exactly. Hopefully, it would be plenty enough to rid her of this overwhelming fear.

Her tears continued, clearly something that didn’t please Aiden, because he huffed and handed her some tissues that he grabbed from the examining table.

“Thanks.” She blotted her eyes and cheeks, looked up at him. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

That apology covered a multitude of things, including his learning about the baby and this attack that could have gotten them all killed.

Her I’m sorry didn’t cause his jaw to relax, though. “We’ll talk about the baby later. For now, I want to know anything you haven’t told me about what those men said to you. And no, I’m not accusing you of being a part of it. I just need to know anything that’ll help us find that dirtbag who drove away in the SUV.”

Kendall didn’t especially want to relive the images of the attack or her kidnapping, but she also didn’t want to focus on the pain that the stitches were causing in her arm.

“I don’t know either of them,” she started. “At least I don’t think I do.”

Aiden latched right on to that. “You don’t think you do? Does that mean maybe there’s something you recognized?”

“Maybe,” she had to concede. “There was possibly something familiar about the one who did most of the talking, but I just don’t know what. The other, however...the dead one...he had an accent. Jamaican, perhaps, and he was black, because I saw his hands.” She paused. “I’m guessing he didn’t have an ID on him?”

“Nothing, but we’re running his prints now. Once we know who he is, we might be able to figure out who hired him.” Aiden stared at her, apparently waiting for her to suggest who that might have been.

“I don’t have a clue who hired them, but it wasn’t me or any of Jewell’s kids.”

“You’re sure?” he pressed.

She nodded. Prayed she was right about that. “Rosalie, Rayanne and Seth all love Jewell and want her cleared of the murder charges, but they wouldn’t put me at risk to do that.”

“They know about the baby?” he snapped.

Kendall shook her head. “Only your sister Laine knows. Like I said, she saw me coming out of the OB clinic. Since she’d also somehow heard rumors about us being together that night at the bar, she put one and one together.”

“And she didn’t tell me,” Aiden grumbled under his breath.

“Don’t blame Laine. I begged her not to tell you or anyone else.” Much to her surprise, it appeared that Laine had kept her secret.

That comment earned her a glare from Aiden. “She’s my sister, and she should have told me.”

Kendall was about to ask if he had actually even wanted to know, but the medic eased a bandage on her arm and stood.

“What you heard in this room stays in this room,” Aiden warned the medic. “Got that?”

Since Aiden could win an intimidation contest hands down, the guy was smart to nod. “Follow me to the ultrasound room.”

As she probably didn’t look too steady, Aiden took hold of her arm and helped her stand. Good thing, too, because the dizziness returned with a vengeance, and she had no choice but to lean against him. Judging from the way the muscles in his body stiffened, he wasn’t pleased about that. Still, he hooked his arm around her and led her up the hall.

“You were just going to leave town,” Aiden said, clearly not pleased about that, either. Of course, she hadn’t said anything yet that’d pleased him.

Kendall nodded. “I thought it was for the best.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” He probably said that a lot louder than he’d intended, because the medic glanced back at them. “I had a right to know that I made a baby with you that night,” Aiden added in a much lower voice.

He said that night as if it were profanity. Which to him it probably had been. Kendall had felt the same way, too, immediately afterward. Yes, Aiden and she had skirted around this attraction for years, but with their families at serious odds, a one-night stand had been a stupid thing to do.

“I won’t think of this baby as a mistake,” she clarified.

She figured he would disagree with that, but he didn’t. Kendall also figured he wouldn’t go into the ultrasound room, but once they reached it, Aiden waltzed right in.

“I’m staying,” he insisted before she could give him an out.

Again, the medic looked at them, his volleyed glances finally landing on Kendall. “The tech won’t be long, but I can wait here if you want.” There was concern in both his tone and expression. However, Kendall shook her head to assure him that it was all right for him to go.

“It’ll be okay.” Well, she’d be safe with Aiden at least, but Kendall could feel a mighty storm coming her way.

About the baby.

About her decision to leave him out of this.

“Okay, then.” The medic tipped his head to her arm. “If you need something for the pain, just let the ultrasound tech know, and I’ll have the doc write a script.”

Kendall thanked him, knowing that she wouldn’t be taking any painkillers even if she needed them. They’d be too risky for the baby.

The medic stepped out, finally, and Aiden didn’t wait long to get that storm started. “How long have you known you were pregnant?” he asked.

“For about two months.” She probably would have figured it out sooner if she hadn’t been in complete denial. Denial about a possible pregnancy anyway. The memories of that night had stayed with her.

Big-time.

She’d lusted after Aiden for so many years. Too many. They were both thirty-six now, and the heated looks had started about twenty-three years earlier. The heat clearly had some staying power, because even drunken sex had fulfilled more than a fantasy or two. Sadly, Aiden had lived up to those fantasies in spades. If any part of it had been lacking, she maybe could have finally pushed Aiden out of her head.

So much for that happening now.

Especially since he was right in front of her. And his scowl and bunched-up forehead weren’t the lust killers that they should have been. Probably because even with a scowl, Aiden managed to make most men look just plain ordinary.

“Jewell doesn’t know?” he asked.

Kendall shook her head. “I figured I’d tell her after the trial.”

That deepened his scowl. “A trial that might not happen if the goon in the ski mask gets his way.”

She hadn’t even thought of that. If whoever was behind this couldn’t get Aiden to destroy the evidence, then he or she might just hire someone else to do the job.

“I’ve had the evidence moved,” Aiden said. “It’s being couriered to the Ranger Lab in Austin. So Jewell’s out of luck when it comes to that.”

Maybe out of luck, period. The bone fragments had been identified as belonging to Aiden’s father, and that meant Jewell had means, motive and opportunity to have killed the man who was supposedly her lover. It certainly didn’t help that Jewell wasn’t denying the deed.

And now this.

If this was linked back to Jewell, the DA could tack on some obstruction of justice charges along with other assorted felonies like kidnapping and attempted murder of a county sheriff.

“Even you have to admit that it would be stupid for anyone connected to Jewell to try to destroy evidence,” she said.

Aiden made a sound of agreement. “Stupid, yes, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’ll be looking at Jewell’s daughters and stepson. Joplin, too.”

Jewell’s lawyer, Robert Joplin. Of all the suspects that Aiden had just listed, he was the one at the top of Kendall’s list. Because Joplin was hopelessly in love with Jewell. Had been for years and would do anything to save her. However, that didn’t mean Joplin was the only one with motive for this attempted fiasco.

“I hope you’ll look at your own family, too,” Kendall tossed out there. “Your mother and sister Shelby aren’t exactly fans of Jewell, and they might have done something like this to make her look even more guilty.”

And while that wasn’t as strong of a motive as her family’s, Jewell knew that Aiden’s family had secrets.

Secrets that even Aiden might not know.

She braced herself for him to jump to their defense. Didn’t happen. “I’ll be talking to them and anyone else who hated Jewell and my father.”

Good. But then, she’d figured all along that Aiden would be thorough. He was loyal to his family. Well, mostly. He didn’t exactly have a friendly relationship with his mother, but Aiden would never forget that he was a Braddock.

Never.

Ditto for remembering that she was an O’Neal.

The door eased open, and Aiden automatically reached for his gun. After what’d happened with the gunmen, Kendall didn’t blame him, but she was thankful it was a false alarm.

“I’m Becky Lovelle,” the young blonde said. “I’ll be doing your ultrasound.”

Kendall certainly hadn’t forgotten about the ultrasound, but her strained discussion with Aiden had pushed the reminder of a possible problem to the fringes of her thoughts. No fringes now, though. Her heart went into overdrive.

“This won’t hurt,” the woman said.

But Kendall was already tuning her out, her attention nailed to the screen. It was blank now, but soon she’d see her precious baby. Hopefully, unharmed.

Aiden didn’t move closer. In fact, he leaned against the wall and watched from there. Even when the tech pushed up Kendall’s top and shoved down her skirt to expose her belly and coat it with some goopy gel, he kept watching.

Kendall suddenly felt way too bare with Aiden in the room, but there was no way she’d convince him to leave. There was no way to convince Aiden of a lot of things, and once she had the all-clear with the ultrasound, she’d need to figure out a way to handle him and this situation.

Aiden wasn’t going to like it when she insisted she leave.

But she would insist on it.

And maybe Aiden would soon see that it was the right thing for all of them.

The tech put the wand on Kendall’s stomach, and when she moved it around, Kendall could see the baby’s beating heart. Her breath rushed out.

“The baby’s okay?” Kendall immediately asked.

“Appears to be. That’s a strong, steady heartbeat.” The woman continued to move the wand, and even though it was hard to make out some of the images, Kendall definitely spotted two arms and two legs. All moving.

“Amazing,” Kendall said. “So much movement, and I haven’t even felt it yet.”

“Is that normal?” Aiden snapped.

The tech nodded. “Some women don’t experience quickening or movement until week twenty.”

That meshed with the maternity books that Kendall had been reading, but obviously this was all new to Aiden. He moved closer to the screen, his focus on the tiny baby.

Their baby.

Kendall saw and heard the moment that it finally sank in for him. Aiden made a hoarse sound that came from deep within his throat, and he mumbled something while his eyes tipped toward the ceiling. Maybe asking for divine help. She’d done that a few times early on, as well.

He dragged in a long breath. “Yeah, you should have told me.”

That didn’t sound like a man on the verge of rejecting fatherhood. Or even putting this in perspective. The bottom line was his family wasn’t going to embrace this child, and hers likely wouldn’t, either.

“Is that what I think it is?” Aiden asked.

Because he was looking gobsmacked again, Kendall’s gaze rifled back to the monitor, and she tried to brace herself for whatever had put that bleached-out expression on Aiden’s face.

“I’m sorry,” the tech said, sending Kendall’s heart into a tailspin again. “It’s usually not that clear this early on, and I should have asked first if you wanted to know the sex of the baby. This is a new machine, and it gives much clearer images than we used to get with the old one.”

Oh. Kendall got it then. Nothing was wrong with the baby, but the ultrasound had obviously shown her something she hadn’t known before now.

The baby was a boy.

“A son,” Aiden said, staggering back a bit.

Kendall had never seen him like this. Aiden was always in control. Always in charge. But this news had shaken him to the core.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Kendall insisted.

But she had the feeling he would have had the same reaction if it’d been a girl. It was just that seeing the baby on the screen made everything, well, real.

“The doctor will look over these images,” the tech said, finishing up. She wiped the goop off Kendall’s stomach. “But everything looks fine, right on target for the end of the first trimester.”

The moment the woman stepped out of the room, Kendall fixed her clothes. Best not to feel exposed when she had this discussion with Aiden. A discussion he wasn’t going to like. It was also a discussion she didn’t even get to start because Aiden’s phone buzzed, indicating that he had a text message.

“Leland got a hit on the dead guy’s prints,” Aiden said, reading the info on his phone. “His name was Montel Higgins.”

She repeated it, hoping that it would jog some kind of memory. It didn’t. “He has a record?”

Aiden nodded. “Both here and in his home country of Jamaica. He’s worked as muscle for loan sharks but never anything this serious. Leland’s checking to see if he can find a money trail so we can figure out who hired him.”

Good. That was a start. “What about the other one? Any sign of him?”

“Not so far, but they’ll keep looking.”

Kendall didn’t want them to stop looking, but she had to be realistic. It’d been several hours since the men kidnapped her, and the one who got away was probably long gone by now.

She stood, straightened her clothes. “You ready to talk?”

His gaze drifted to the ultrasound screen that was now blank. “Not about that. Not yet. But if you’re up to it, I need to take your statement about the attack. You might be able to recall some detail that’ll help us figure this out.”

Kendall definitely wasn’t feeling up to reliving the nightmare or giving a statement. She was exhausted and dizzy, and her arm was throbbing. Still, if she didn’t do it now, she’d only have to go to Aiden’s office tomorrow. Besides, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to returning to her house right now. Not with that escaped gunman still at large.

Aiden got her moving out of the ultrasound room and into the hall, but he stopped when they reached the glass doors that led from the ER to the parking lot. He slid his hand over his gun and looked out, his gaze slashing from one side of the lot to the other. Since it was close to 9:00 p.m., there weren’t many cars, only those of the workers and the handful of people in the ER itself. But Aiden still took his time, no doubt making sure they weren’t about to be attacked.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get my truck and bring it right to the door.”

However, he didn’t even make it a step before Kendall spotted movement in the parking lot. Aiden saw it, too, because he pushed her behind him and drew his gun.

But it wasn’t the masked attacker coming back for another round.

It was a woman Kendall instantly recognized, and she groaned. It was almost as loud as the one Aiden made.

His mother, Carla, was making a beeline toward them.

Since Carla and she didn’t live in the same town and definitely didn’t travel in the same circles, it’d been a decade or longer since Kendall had seen the woman. She hadn’t changed a bit. Tall and lean and dressed to perfection in a spring-yellow dress. Her dark blond hair was swept up and her makeup flawless. She looked ready for a church social.

Except for that troubled expression.

Aiden grumbled something Kendall didn’t catch and maneuvered her back, away from the door.

“Your deputy said you were here,” Carla greeted.

“I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt.”

“Good to hear.” She spared him a glance as if it was the last thing she’d intended to ask about. And it probably was, since her attention stayed on her son for only several brief moments before it went to Kendall.

That definitely wasn’t a loving look she gave Kendall.

“I figured I’d find you here with my son,” Carla complained.

Aiden tapped the badge clipped to his belt. “She’s with me because I’m doing my job. Two men kidnapped Kendall, and she was shot.”

Again, that didn’t appear to be what Carla had come to discuss. “Kendall O’Neal’s not only a job to you.” Carla’s breath shuddered, and tears watered her eyes. “How could you crush me like this, Aiden? How could you let Jewell McKinnon’s sister seduce you?”

Oh, no. Not this. Not now.

“It wasn’t like that,” Aiden insisted, but he might as well have been talking to the air, because his mother didn’t even look at him. She was glaring at Kendall.

“I know what happened between Aiden and you,” Carla said to Kendall. “And now we need to figure out what we’re going to do about this baby you’re carrying.”

Chapter Five

Aiden really didn’t need his mother in his face right now. His fun meter was at zero, and judging from the start to this particular conversation, everything about it was going to fall into the nonfun category.

He could go two ways with this. Placate Carla with some kind of “we’ll discuss this later” and go ahead and take Kendall to his office to get started on the paperwork. Or he could confront his mother as to how she’d learned about a one-night stand that Aiden hadn’t mentioned to a soul.

Since he figured the first option had little chance of ending this conversation in a hurry, he went with the second route and maneuvered them to the corner of the room so they could have a semiprivate talk.

“Did Laine tell you?” Kendall asked.

Aiden got his answer to that when Carla’s eyes widened. Those eyes then slashed toward Aiden. “You told Laine but not me?” But his mother waved off any answer that he might have given her. “It doesn’t matter. Laine and I aren’t on speaking terms since she married a McKinnon.”

Yeah, and it was something his mom brought up often. Laine had indeed married Tucker McKinnon, Jewell’s own son, and they were the parents of adopted twins. Something that had put a permanent rift between Carla and Laine.

Now Aiden was about to give her the same reason for a rift.

“If Laine didn’t tell you, how did you find out?” Aiden asked. Not that it was critical for him to know how the proverbial cat had gotten out of the bag, but he wanted to know just who was feeding information about him to his mother.

“I’d rather not say,” Carla insisted. “I’d rather focus on how to deal with this baby.”

Kendall sighed. “My baby isn’t something you need to deal with.” Her voice was strained, and while her words were crisp, Aiden figured it was better than her telling Carla to mind her own business.

But his mother would see this baby as her business.

“You’re wrong,” Carla answered. “You’re carrying a Braddock. My son’s blood. And I can’t let my grandbaby be raised by someone whose kin murdered my husband.” She pointed to Kendall’s stomach. “Your sister murdered that baby’s own grandfather.”

Oh, yeah. This was definitely not going in a fun direction.

“Someone shot Kendall,” Aiden said in case his mother had already forgotten. “The doctor wants her to get some rest.” The doc hadn’t specifically said that, but Aiden figured rest was much preferred over another dose of stress that his mother was doling out. “You wouldn’t want to do anything to cause her to miscarry, would you?”

Aiden hoped the answer to that was no, but his mother didn’t budge.

“This won’t take long,” Carla insisted. Now her gaze came back to his. “Then you and I can have a private discussion tomorrow.” The tears threatened again, followed by a whimper. “Why couldn’t you just leave Kendall alone?”

Aiden had asked himself that a thousand times and still didn’t have an answer. He’d developed an itch for Kendall about the same time he’d started to grow chest hair, and that itch had resulted in a kiss when they were thirteen. Kendall’s first. There probably would have been more kisses in their immediate future if just days later they hadn’t learned that his father had been murdered, and Kendall had left town with Jewell.

Of course, Kendall had come back to the area a time or two. Just enough to remind him that scratching the itch would feel pretty darn good even if it would also carry a huge price tag. Like now.

Except he didn’t want to think of his baby as a price tag.

At the moment, he didn’t want to think of his baby at all, because it wasn’t a good idea for him to be focusing on something that could bring him to his knees when he had a would-be killer gunning for his head.

“You’re just like your father,” Carla added, giving Aiden another dig. “Unable to resist an O’Neal woman. At least he didn’t get Jewell pregnant, though. Now we’ll have a baby to raise.”

Uh-oh. Definitely not the right thing to say, and Kendall stepped in front of him. “You’re not raising my baby.” She slid her hand protectively over her stomach. “In fact, you have no say in this whatsoever.”

The little glance that Kendall shot him was probably to let him know that he didn’t have a say, either. She was wrong about that.

Here came the tears, spilling down his mother’s cheeks. Since this was about to get uglier than it already was, Aiden took hold of Kendall and eased her back away from Carla. “Mom, I need to get Kendall’s statement so I can figure out who tried to kill her and the baby.”

That got Carla’s attention. She’d obviously known about the attack, but it probably hadn’t occurred to her yet that anything bad that happened to Kendall also happened to the baby she was carrying. Of course, maybe Carla didn’t care about that at all, despite her insistence about raising the child.

“Any idea who kidnapped me and tried to force Aiden to destroy evidence?” Kendall demanded. And it was indeed a demand. There was plenty of anger in her voice and narrowed eyes when they landed on his mother.

“What evidence?” Carla questioned.

“The bone fragments,” Aiden supplied.

Carla pressed her hand on her chest as if to steady her head. “Those fragments will convict Jewell of murder. There are only a handful of people who’d want that evidence destroyed. Joplin, Jewell’s children and Kendall.”

“And you,” Kendall added.

Obviously, his mom hadn’t seen that coming.

Neither had Aiden.

“You’re under psychiatric care,” Kendall added a heartbeat later. “Any other secrets you’d like to tell us about?”

Aiden was about to assure Kendall that it wasn’t true, but his mother certainly didn’t jump to deny it. “How did you know that?” Carla demanded.

Ah, heck.

Apparently, another can of worms had just been opened.

“I’d rather not say,” Kendall answered, repeating the words his mother had said earlier.

That put some fire in Carla’s eyes. “So what if it’s true that I’m seeing a psychiatrist? That doesn’t mean I would try to have evidence destroyed.”

“You might if you thought it’d make my sister look bad.” Kendall paused. “Or if you thought it’d get rid of me and the Braddock baby I’m carrying.”

Aiden mentally repeated his ah, heck because he didn’t like the sudden look in his mother’s eyes. The fire was still there, but he also saw something else.

The hatred.

It’d always been there, of course. But Aiden saw it now in a whole new light. Carla loathed Jewell, and that loathing extended to Kendall, since Jewell had practically raised Kendall after their father died.

Maybe his mother’s hatred extended to the baby, too.

Yeah, Carla had demanded to raise the child, but he hoped like the devil that there wasn’t something else going on here. Something that had caused her to put Kendall and the baby in danger.

But then he mentally shook his head.

There were plenty of other suspects with a more obvious motive without his reaching, and motive was something he’d take a hard look at soon. Right now he needed to fix this. Kendall was wobbling again, leaning against him, no doubt because she was dizzy. Probably in pain, too. No way did she need to be standing in the ER having words with his mother.

“We’re leaving now. Come on,” Aiden said to Kendall. “Mom, I’ll call you.”

And this time he didn’t leave any room for argument. He got Kendall out of that corner and left his mother standing there, glaring at them.

Even though he was hurrying, Aiden didn’t let his hasty departure make him stupid. He checked out the parking lot again to make sure no one was lurking around ready to attack.

There didn’t appear to be.

Rather than leave Kendall there with his mother nearby, he drew his gun and hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

“Hurry,” he reminded her, though he figured Kendall wouldn’t dawdle out in the open where her attacker could have another go at her.

Just in case that was the guy’s plan, Aiden kept her close. Right against him to be exact. And even though he didn’t break into a run, he got them to his truck as fast as possible. The moment they were inside and had on their seat belts, he drove away and got on the road that led out of town.

“I thought we were going to the sheriff’s office,” she said, glancing back at Main Street.

“It can wait. You have a security system at your house?”

She nodded but didn’t look too certain about this decision. Heck, Aiden wasn’t a hundred percent with it, either, but it might get Kendall the rest that she clearly needed.

He took out his phone, and while he kept watch around them, he called Leland. All his other deputies and Leland had their hands full with finding the missing attacker and processing the crime scene at Aiden’s place, but Aiden needed some security measures for Kendall. That meant turning to someone he didn’t especially want to turn to.

The McKinnons.

All three of Jewell’s sons were lawmen. That was the good news. The bad news was they were estranged from their mother, since they blamed Jewell for leaving them after the affair with Aiden’s father. An affair that’d led to his father’s murder.

And that meant the McKinnon sons were also estranged from Kendall.

Still, he hoped the lawmen would do their jobs, since Kendall’s house was in their jurisdiction.

“Call the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office,” Aiden told Leland when the deputy answered. “I’ll need a protection detail out at Kendall’s place.”

She was already shaking her head before Aiden finished the request, and if Aiden could have thought of another way to keep her safe, he would have taken it. Leland assured him that he’d get right on that and then gave Aiden a quick update. When he was done, Aiden clicked the end call button so he could argue with Kendall. Not just about this but also the other surprise she’d dropped about his mother.

“Think about the baby,” Aiden said. “Yeah, you and the McKinnon boys don’t get along, but Cooper, Tucker and Colt will do their jobs. They don’t have to like you to protect you.”

He let that hang in the air.

“Obviously, that’s true. You don’t like me, and you’re protecting me,” she said.

Aiden thought about that a moment, and he decided there was no way to answer that so it wouldn’t put him in butt-deep hot water. If he agreed that he didn’t like her, it would only make this protective custody arrangement even more uncomfortable than it already was.

Besides, it was a lie.

He did like her. Well, her mouth anyway.

Okay, the rest of her, too.

He was just opposed to putting his mother and his sister Shelby through any more hell because of the choices that brainless part of him made in sleeping partners.

Of course, Kendall was more than just a former sleeping partner. She was the mother of his unborn son.

A reminder that required him to take a deep breath.

The fact they’d slept together didn’t automatically mean he had to like her, but again reminding her that they were bad news for each other wouldn’t fix anything right now.

“You’d rather I stayed with you than the McKinnons?” he asked, knowing the answer to that.

Now she was on the spot. Similar to him not liking her comment.

“It wouldn’t be smart for you to stay with me,” she answered.

Finally, they could agree on something, and once he had the McKinnon boys in place, he could get back to figuring out what the heck was going on and stopping any other attacks.

Not that he was positive there’d be another one.

The kidnappers had clearly lost, and with the evidence already moved, the danger might be long gone. Aiden hoped so anyway, but it still wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

He took the turn to Sweetwater Springs and moved onto the next subject. “How’d you know my mother was seeing a shrink? And spare me the answer of you’d rather not say, because that won’t work with me.”

“It worked when your mother used it so she wouldn’t have to tell me how she found out I was pregnant.”

“That ship hasn’t sailed yet. I’ll find out who told her. Now it’s your turn to come clean.”

She raked her fingers over her eyebrow and shifted in the seat a little. “I’ve been doing some checking, to try to find anything that might free Jewell.”

Of course she had. “And you decided to check out my mother?”

Kendall nodded. “I had a PI follow her, and he reported back to me that she’s been visiting a psychiatrist in San Antonio.”

“My mother has a history of depression.” Though he hadn’t known about these visits to a shrink. Did that mean her depression had gotten worse? “It’s a stretch, though, to think depression would have caused her to come after you to make Jewell look bad. Especially since I could have gotten hurt.”

“But she knew about the baby,” Kendall quickly pointed out. “Maybe she was willing to risk hurting you to make sure I’m out of your life for good.”

It turned his stomach to think of that, and he wished he could totally dismiss it.

But he couldn’t.

The truth was, his mother had been flirting with mental instability for years. All the way back to the time of his father’s murder. He’d seen that vacant look in her eyes one time too many. Ditto for the sheer hatred that she just couldn’t let go of. So yeah, news of a baby could have tipped her over the edge, and that was why Aiden needed to learn when she’d found out about the pregnancy and who’d been the one to tell her.

“While you were doing this checking and having people followed, did you hear anything else I should know?” he asked.

“Lee Palmer,” she said without hesitation. “He also hired a PI to follow your mother.”

Yet another hit of news that he hadn’t been aware of.

Palmer.

The man’s name kept turning up like a bad penny. A nearby rancher and his father’s old nemesis. Palmer would love to see Jewell walk on this murder. Heck, Palmer would have loved to do the kill himself. Too bad he had a decent alibi for the time of Whitt’s death. The man had been in the hospital recovering from a mild heart attack.

Still, Aiden had to shake his head on this one. “So, why would Palmer have my mother followed?”

“Maybe for the same reason I did.” She paused. “He had your younger sister, Shelby, followed, too.”

Aiden cursed. “And you didn’t think you should come to me with this?”

Kendall lifted her shoulder. “You and I aren’t exactly on the same side in this investigation, and technically I’m one of Jewell’s attorneys. If anything had come up that was legally pertinent to the investigation, I would have disclosed it as I’m required to do. But a private citizen hiring a PI isn’t something I have to disclose.”

Hell’s bells. She sounded like a lawyer and it set his teeth on edge again. “I’ll have a talk with Palmer, and these little following adventures will stop.” Aiden gave that some more thought. “Did he have me followed, too?”

“No, not that I know of anyway, but Palmer’s digging into your old investigations. Into the McKinnon investigations, too. I think he’s looking for anything that’ll weaken the case against Jewell.”

Yes, and he could try to smear Aiden’s name in the process. He followed the law, but there was always a gray area or two when it came to investigations. Palmer better not be looking to throw him to the dogs to save the likes of Jewell.

Palmer also had better not be behind tonight’s fiasco.

Apparently, Aiden had yet someone else to question, along with Jewell’s attorney, Joplin. Maybe if he poked around enough, he’d find the snake responsible for that bullet Kendall had taken.

“I need some good news,” she said, staring out the window into the darkness. “Any good news.”

Aiden could possibly help with that. “Leland managed to get the surveillance footage from a camera just up the street from your office. One of the deputies is looking at it now to see if they can find any clues about the attack.”

She shivered, rubbing her hands along the sides of her arms. Then she winced when her fingers brushed against the stitches.

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