“Trust me, I’ve had a lot of practice resisting you.”

Rayanne blinked and stared up at him. “Excuse me?”

Blue was surprised that she was surprised.

“You think all that time we worked on those cases together that my mind was solely on the job? I’ve been attracted to you since day one.”

For just a heartbeat, she looked a little pleased about that. Then she shook her head. “You don’t remember all that, remember?”

“Oh, I remember some things.”

Things that caused him to stray into the stupid realm again, because he brushed a kiss on her cheek. Thank goodness it was only her cheek, because he could have sworn he saw little lightning bolts zing through her eyes.

She let go of him so fast that he had no choice but to sit back on the bed or he would have fallen. “Blue, this can’t happen again.”

He nodded. “I know.”

And he did.

Didn’t he?

Rustling Up

Trouble

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling author DELORES FOSSEN 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. In addition, she’s had nearly a hundred short stories and articles published in national magazines. You can contact the author through her webpage at www.dfossen.net.

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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

Deputy Rayanne McKinnon’s breath stalled in her throat, and she did a double take. No, her eyes hadn’t deceived her.

She was looking at a dead man.

At least, he was supposed to be dead.

But dead men didn’t move, and this one was definitely doing that.

He was crouched behind a big pile of rocks. And he had his attention trained on the back fence that coiled around the pasture of her family’s ranch. It was that particular fence and a tripped security sensor that’d caused Rayanne to ride out and have a look. She’d figured a cow had gotten out.

She darn sure hadn’t expected to find him.

Even though he was a good twenty yards away and had his face partially concealed with a low-slung white Stetson, Rayanne had no trouble recognizing him.

Blue McCurdy.

Just the sight of his ink-black hair, rangy body and chiseled face sent her stomach churning. An invisible meaty fist clamped around her heart, squeezing and choking until her chest was throbbing like a toothache.

The memories came. All bad.

Well, mostly bad, anyway.

Rayanne pushed aside the ones that were good, including the little tug of relief at seeing Blue alive.

She cursed both her reaction and the man himself. Blue was the last person on God’s green earth she expected or wanted to see, and yet here he was on McKinnon land.

The question was, why?

This couldn’t be about the baby.

Could it?

Rayanne opened her mouth to shout out that why as to the alive part and remind him that he was trespassing. But a sound stopped her cold. The soft rumble of some kind of engine, and it was moving along the fence line.

Blue reached beneath his leather vest and pulled a gun from the back waist of his jeans.

That got her heart thumping, and not in a “relieved you’re alive” sort of way. Rayanne drew her Colt, too, and stepped behind a live oak. As a deputy sheriff, she’d had more than her share of experience in dealing with bad guys.

Blue McCurdy included.

If he was up to something shady, and it was pretty clear that he was, then Blue had brought trouble practically to her doorstep. That was another why, and Rayanne hoped she got answers soon.

The engine sounds stopped, and Blue adjusted his gun. Whoever was out there had put him on edge. He certainly wasn’t jumping out from those rocks to greet anyone.

Mercy.

If this was trouble worse than Blue himself, then things were going to be bad.

She wanted to watch for a few more seconds to try to figure out what was going on here, but just in case things went from bad to worse, she’d have to fire off a text to someone who could respond from the ranch house. There wasn’t good enough phone reception in this part of the property for a call, but a text would usually go through. She’d learned that during the three months she’d been back here at Sweetwater Ranch while awaiting her mother’s murder trial.

That put the clamp on her heart again, and she cursed it, too.

Blasted feelings!

Why the heck did they have to keep messing with her head and every other part of her? It had to be the pregnancy hormones, because she’d never felt this moody and whiny before.

Rayanne thankfully didn’t have time to dwell on that, because she saw the movement in the trees behind the fence. Blue must have seen it, too, because he ducked lower.

Waiting.

Not hiding.

It was a subtle enough difference for Rayanne to ready her Colt. She didn’t want Blue dead before he could explain to her all those whys that kept racking up.

Including why he’d left her naked in bed nearly five months ago.

Rayanne cursed him again and cursed herself for allowing any man to get that close to her. It wouldn’t happen again, and as soon as she found out what Blue wanted, she’d send him on his way.

Or maybe arrest him.

Another flicker of movement, and this time she got a glimpse of a man dressed in dark clothes. Tall, marine-like build. Definitely not a friendly sort.

That got her tugging her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, and she sent a quick text to her stepbrother, FBI agent Seth Calder, to request some backup. Hopefully, he was still at the ranch and hadn’t left for work yet, so he could get there in a hurry.

“McCurdy?” someone shouted.

But Blue didn’t answer.

The shouter yelled Blue’s surname again, and this time Rayanne got more than a glimpse. She saw his face and picked through the features to see if she knew him.

She didn’t.

But apparently Blue knew the guy well enough to hide from him.

“We know you’re here,” the man added. “And we’re not leaving until someone dies.”

That felt like a punch to her chest. Yes, she was a cop, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed diving into gunfights, especially now that she had someone else to consider.

Her unborn baby.

Plus, she wasn’t exactly keen on taking a huge risk like this to save a man whom she hated.

“Damn you, Blue,” she mumbled, and debated if she should identify herself. It might get the gunman running.

Or not.

It was just as likely to get him to start shooting. Because it was clear this guy wasn’t a cop out to arrest Blue. Cops didn’t make threats like that.

Not good cops, anyway.

She glanced back at the paint gelding that she’d ridden in on. He was grazing on some pasture grass and would maybe stay put. Rayanne didn’t want him in the middle of, well, whatever the heck this was.

Keeping her gun ready, she crouched down and hurried behind another tree. Then another. Moving closer to a dry spring bed that was deep enough to give her some cover. It was also closer to Blue. When she slipped behind a third tree, Blue snapped his head in her direction.

Their eyes met.

Rayanne’s narrowed.

His eyes widened.

Blue didn’t seem any happier to see her than she was to see him, and using just his left hand, he made a sharp palm-down gesture that Rayanne had no trouble interpreting.

Stay put.

Something he darn sure didn’t do.

She could have sworn that her presence changed whatever plan Blue had had in mind, because he appeared to curse, and then he maneuvered toward the end of the line of boulders. Away from her. And closer to the big guy who’d warned him that someone was going to die.

At the rate he was going, that someone would be Blue.

She saw the man’s hand snake out. Gun clutched and aimed. He fired right into those boulders where he’d no doubt heard Blue moving around. The bullet smacked into the stone, making a sharp zinging sound, and it was quickly followed by another shot.

Another gunman, too.

No. Not this. If all Hades was going to break loose, why not wait until she had backup?

The shooter’s partner ducked out from cover just a few yards from Blue and pulled the trigger. That one clipped the boulder at just the right angle to send some rock chips flying right at Blue. Rayanne got just a glimpse of the blood from the nicks those rocks caused before more shots came.

Sweet heaven. She couldn’t just stand by and let this happen. Rayanne scrambled into the dry spring bed, keeping as low as she could, but she lifted her head just enough so she could take aim at the marine-sized guy.

She fired.

And missed, but it got his attention, all right.

Blue’s, too.

He cursed at her. “Get down!” Blue yelled.

Rayanne had no choice but to do just that when the gunman sent a shot her way. Too close. Ditto for the one he aimed at Blue.

She fired back but didn’t wait to see if she’d hit one of them. Then she scrambled down the spring bed, making her way to the boulders that Blue was using for cover.

“What part of get down didn’t you understand?” Blue snarled.

No greeting, no explanation as to why he was on her family’s ranch with gunmen after him.

Just that barked question.

Thankfully, his attention didn’t go in the direction of her stomach, because it wasn’t a good time to have to explain the small baby bump that she had hopefully hidden enough with her bulky jacket.

“I’m the one with a badge,” Rayanne snarled back. “So if anyone should be staying down, it’s you. Plus, you lost your right to give me any kind of advice when you disappeared without so much as a word.”

Yeah, the timing for those words sucked, but Rayanne couldn’t stop herself. Blue had crushed her, and it was hard to fight back all those emotions.

“You want to save your girl, McCurdy?” the man yelled. “Then both of you put down your guns and come with us so we can talk.”

Rayanne clamped her hand over Blue’s arm in case he intended to fall for that. Clearly these fools didn’t have talking in mind. But Blue didn’t move. He only glanced down at where she had hold of him. His long-sleeve black shirt was between her hand and his skin, but she could have sworn she felt every inch of him.

Every inch.

And she cursed her body’s reaction again, along with jerking back her hand. Definitely not the time for those memories to rear their ugly, hot little heads.

“Time’s up, McCurdy,” the man added. “Come out now or you die.”

The last word of that threat had barely left his mouth when the shots started again. This time it was Blue who did the clamping. He took her by the shoulder and pushed her to the ground. Her mouth landed right in the dirt and blades of grass that hadn’t already been stomped down.

Rayanne didn’t stay down, though. She wasn’t sure why Blue was suddenly playing cowboy-in-shining-armor, but she wasn’t having any part of it.

“Please tell me these bad guys are really bad,” she said, levering herself up just enough to get off a shot. “Bad as in worse than you and that this isn’t some botched attempt to arrest you.”

His gaze cut to her, and those gunmetal-blue eyes narrowed. “No one’s as bad as I am.”

He paused as if waiting for her to agree or disagree. She didn’t do either, but a comment like that definitely fell into the agreement category. Of course, she’d known Blue was a bad boy before she landed in bed with him, so it shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d continued his bad-boy ways.

“If you’re asking if they’re the law,” he added, “they aren’t.”

Rayanne almost pressed him for more about why they were after him, but it’d have to wait. The directions of the shots changed, and it wasn’t a good change, either. The two gunmen appeared to be moving away from each other and closing in on Blue and her.

Blue glanced at her again. “You take the one on the right. I’ll get the one on the left.”

Just on principle, she hated taking orders from Blue, but it was a decent plan considering their position. Rayanne waited, listened, and when she thought she had a good pinpoint on the shooter, she leaned out and fired. Beside her, Blue did the same.

Rayanne heard the two sounds almost simultaneously. The thud of the bullet and a groan of pain. But it wasn’t her shot that’d caused those sounds.

It was Blue’s.

He’d hit his target, but judging from the way the bullets kept coming, she’d missed hers.

The man who’d done all the shouting started to curse, and she tried to follow the sound of his ripe profanity. It was hard to tell where he was as he darted through the woods toward his partner, who was either injured or dead. Rayanne was hoping it was the latter because she didn’t want to battle a riled, injured would-be killer.

She leaned out from the rocks again, aiming her gun at the sound of the movement and the footsteps. But another shot came their way.

Mercy.

Not from one of the two gunmen but from another direction. To their far left.

Rayanne pivoted toward the newcomer and fired. This time she didn’t miss, but again she couldn’t tell if the man was just injured or dead, because the shots from the other gunmen drowned out any telltale sounds.

But there was no mistaking one sound.

Even over the blasts and her own heartbeat crashing in her ears, she heard—and felt—one of those bullets. It didn’t slam into her.

It hit Blue.

And it didn’t just hit him. It tore off a chunk of rock that smacked against his left temple. She knew the exact second of impact from both the bullet and the rock. Blue groaned in pain.

And Rayanne could only watch as he collapsed against her.

She didn’t look at him. Was too afraid of what she might see. Besides, she had to deal with the person who’d fired that shot.

The anger slammed into her, along with the fear she had for the baby. She tried to shut out all thoughts when she took aim. However, she didn’t get a chance to fire. That was because the moron stopped shooting and started running.

Escaping.

Rayanne nearly bolted after him, but then she looked down at Blue. Unconscious. He was breathing, sucking in shallow breaths, and there wasn’t a drop of color in Blue’s face.

But there was color everywhere else. Lots of it.

From his blood spilling onto her.

Chapter Two

Blue heard the voices and opened his eyes.

Big mistake. The light stabbed through his head like razors, and a very unmanly sounding groan clawed its way through his parched throat.

That stopped the voices.

He heard movement. People shuffling around, and despite the pain, he reached for his gun.

Not there.

Even though it was hard to think, he figured this couldn’t be good. Unarmed and in god-awful pain. He hoped he didn’t have to fight his way out of there, because judging from the way he felt, he’d already had his butt kicked bad.

Blue had another go at opening his eyes. This time he took things slower and cracked just one eyelid so he could have a look. There was an elderly man with salt-and-pepper hair looming over him. No gun, either, but he was sporting a very concerned expression.

“I’m Dr. Wilbert Howland,” the man said. “I did your surgery.”

It took Blue a moment to process that. Surgery likely meant a hospital, so he glanced around.

Yep.

He was in bed, flat on his back, surrounded by sterile white walls and an antiseptic smell.

“Surgery?” Blue repeated. He tried to pick through the images and sounds that spun like an F5 tornado through his head.

“You were shot,” the doctor provided. “And you have a concussion.”

With the help of the ache in his left shoulder nudging him, Blue remembered getting shot and being smacked in the head with a piece of flying rock. Hard to forget the blistering pain from those two things. He also remembered the gunmen.

Three of them.

That gave him a jolt of concern. “Where are the guys who shot me?”

“Two are dead. The other one’s missing.”

Blue groaned again. “The missing one will come for me.” At least Blue thought he would.

“You’re safe here. And you’re going to be fine,” the doc assured him. “The bullet didn’t hit anything vital, but you did lose a lot of blood because it took a while to get an ambulance out there to you.”

No memory of an ambulance. Zero. No memory of how much time had passed, either. Definitely something he should be able to recall.

“Where are my clothes?” he asked, glancing down at the hospital gown.

“Bagged. I’ll have someone bring them to you if the sheriff doesn’t need them for processing.”

Right. Because the clothes might be needed for an investigation. “I want the Stetson and the vest. They’re my good-luck charms,” he added.

The doc gave him a funny look. No doubt because he was in the hospital. But he was also alive.

That meant the good-luck charms had worked again.

The doctor leaned closer and waved a little penlight in front of Blue’s eyes. More pain. Heck, breathing made it worse, too.

“If it hadn’t been for Rayanne,” the doctor said, “you might have bled out. She added pressure to your wound to slow down the blood flow.”

“Rayanne,” Blue managed to say, and he got a glimpse of her peering over the doctor’s shoulder.

The relief was instant, and Blue released the breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

Yeah, it was her, all right.

She had her ginger-brown hair pulled into her usual ponytail, though strands had slipped out and were dangling around her face and shoulders. When she stepped to the doctor’s side, he saw the blood on the front of her buckskin-colored jacket.

“You’re hurt.” Blue tried to sit up, but the doctor stopped that.

Rayanne shook her head. “That’s not my blood. It’s yours.”

More relief. It was bad enough that he’d been shot, but it would have been much worse if the bullet had gone into Rayanne instead.

But why did she look so, well, riled at him?

This wasn’t the first time they’d gotten shot at together. As an ATF agent, he had worked on a few cases with her when the investigations had landed in her jurisdiction. So why was she eyeing him now as if she wanted to rip off his aching head?

And the questions just kept coming.

Why had he been shot, and where the heck was he? He knew the hospital part, but he’d been in several hospitals in San Antonio, his hometown, and this wasn’t one of them.

“Why’d those men want you dead?” Rayanne asked. “Why aren’t you dead?” she tacked onto that.

Clearly she had some questions of her own.

Blue opened his mouth to get busy answering them and realized he didn’t have a clue. “Start from the beginning,” he insisted. “I want to know what’s going on. Why can’t I remember how I got here?”

Rayanne huffed. More eye narrowing, and those gray eyes that at times could take on a warm, sensual glow certainly weren’t warm or sensual at the moment. They were like little slabs of ice jabbing at him.

“A sensor alarm went off at the ranch,” she finally said, “and when I rode out to check, I found you trying not to draw the attention of three gunmen who drove up on the back side of the fence.”

On one level that gave him a serious shot of adrenaline, but on another it was just plain confusing.

Think, Blue.

Not easy to do, but he sorted through some of the fog and remembered going to the ranch that Rayanne’s family owned.

Estranged family, he mentally corrected.

Rayanne had told him that she might have to go back to Sweetwater Springs because her mother was possibly going to be arrested for the decades-old murder of an alleged lover, Whitt Braddock.

And that was where Blue’s memories came to a grinding halt.

“Why were the gunmen there?” he asked. “And why are you so mad?”

Her next huff was considerably louder. “Could you give us a minute?” Rayanne asked the doc.

Dr. Howland didn’t seem exactly comfortable with that, but he eventually nodded. “Only for a minute or two. And go easy on him.”

“You want to know why I’m mad?” Rayanne repeated once the doctor had stepped out. “Well, for starters you slept with me almost five months ago and then disappeared without so much as a Post-it note.”

Oh, man.

He’d slept with her?

Blue remembered the attraction between them. Felt it blood-deep even now. But he’d always fought falling into bed with her because he had a strict rule about not having sex with coworkers.

Blue shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

And that was saying something. Rayanne wasn’t exactly forgettable, and sex with her should have stuck in his mind like permanent glue.

“I have amnesia?” he asked. That was sadly the best-case scenario here. The worst would be some kind of permanent brain damage.

She lifted her shoulder. “You’d have to ask the doctor about that.”

And he would, the second the man came back. For now, though, he needed as much info as possible. “What happened after I disappeared?”

Rayanne studied him, the way a cop would study a suspect she thought was lying through his teeth. “I got word that you were dead. I can’t think of any good reason you’d let me believe that other than you really did want me out of your life.”

Oh, mercy.

It felt as if twin heavyweights had slugged each side of his jaw at the same time. Blue couldn’t speak. Heck, he couldn’t even catch his breath. Yeah, he was pretty much the love-’em-and-leave-’em sort, but there was no way he’d do something like that to Rayanne.

Would he?

“I looked for you when you left,” she continued, “but I got a message from your foster brother saying you were dead. That you’d been killed in Mexico.”

There was a massive amount of fog in his head, but he could sort through enough to remember some things.

“I don’t have a brother, either a real one or a foster,” he insisted. “And I sure as hell didn’t die in Mexico. I’m right here.” Blue reached for her, but she stepped back as if he’d tried to tase her.

Before Blue could get out of bed and do something to convince her that he wasn’t the bad guy here, the door flew open. Blue reached for his gun again. Cursed when it wasn’t where it belonged.

However, Rayanne pulled her Colt from her shoulder holster.

False alarm. It was Dr. Howland, but he wasn’t alone.

The sandy-haired, linebacker-sized guy who came through the door spared her and then her gun a glance as he flashed his badge and made a beeline for Blue. Thankfully, this man wasn’t a blurry memory.

It was Blue’s boss, Agent Caleb Wiggs, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—ATF.

At least, Caleb had been his boss five months ago. With everything else going on, Blue figured he could be wrong about that, too.

Rayanne seemed to know him, as well, and judging from her scowl, Caleb wasn’t on her list of friends, either. She reholstered the Colt as if she’d declared war on it, but she watched him with those cop’s eyes.

“You all right, Blue?” Caleb asked. He set a bag on the foot of the bed.

No way could Blue answer yes to that question. It might garner him a lightning bolt for such a big lie. “What’s going on?”

Caleb didn’t answer, but he looked at Rayanne and the doctor. “I need to talk to Agent McCurdy in private.”

“Agent McCurdy?” Rayanne questioned. She huffed. “Don’t you mean former agent?”

That got Blue’s complete attention. Great day in the morning. Along with his mind and gun, had he managed to lose his badge, too?

“I mean agent.” And Caleb didn’t sound any friendlier than Rayanne. “Blue still works for me.”

“Wait a minute,” Blue said, trying to figure this out. It didn’t help that his shoulder started clamoring for more pain meds. “What’s the date?”

“October 6,” the doctor provided. “And I hope everyone remembers that I just dug a bullet out of my patient here. He needs some peace and quiet so he can recover.”

“And he’ll get it,” Caleb insisted. “I’ve already made arrangements to have him moved.” He tipped his head to the bag. “Figured you could use a change of clothes for the drive to another hospital. One where I can make sure you have some security.”

“He’s not going anywhere, not until I get some answers first,” Rayanne insisted right back.

That started a staring match between his boss and the deputy he’d apparently crossed lines with. Big ones.

All four of them volleyed glances at each other. “I’ll give you a few more minutes,” the doctor finally said. “After that my patient will get some rest.”

Dr. Howland shot Caleb and Rayanne a warning glance that only an experienced doctor in charge could have managed, and he walked out.

Even with the doc’s latest exit, Caleb didn’t answer right away, and when he finally did open his mouth, he looked at Rayanne, not Blue.

“I can’t wrap all of this up in a neat little package for you,” Caleb started. “I honestly don’t know why Blue disappeared.”

“You said it was because he had ties to criminals,” Rayanne reminded him.

Oh, man. And Blue just kept mentally repeating that.

“He did have criminal ties.” Caleb’s gaze finally came to Blue’s. “If you’ve got an explanation about that, I’d like to hear it, because you didn’t just disappear five months ago. You walked away from your job at the Justice Department, and the only reason you’re still on payroll is because I’ve covered your butt and put you on a leave of absence.”

Hell. This just kept getting worse. Not the leave-of-absence part but the reason Caleb had been forced to do something like that for him.

Criminal ties?

No way. He didn’t need his memory to know that.

“The doc must have given me some meds that messed with my head.” A head that Blue now shook. “Because the last thing I remember was finishing up a case with Rayanne. After that, it’s just bits and pieces that don’t make sense. Why did I leave? And why did I come to the McKinnon ranch today with gunmen after me?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Rayanne mumbled, but then she waved off any answer he might give. “My brother Seth got IDs on the two dead guys. The bodies are being examined now, and there’s a CSI team searching the woods for evidence.”

Seth, an FBI agent. Blue had never met him, but he’d heard Rayanne mention him.

“The dead men’s names are Leland Chadwell and Brian Kipp,” Rayanne continued, and she watched his face. Maybe to see if there was any sign of recognition.

There wasn’t.

Blue had to shake his head again. “Who are they?”

“They’re hired thugs,” Caleb provided, “and, among other criminal sorts, they often work for Rex Gandy.”

Now, that was a name that rang bells the size of Texas.

Could this mess possibly get any crazier?

Gandy wasn’t just a thug—he was a rich one and had all kinds of nasty ties to gunrunners, money launderers and drug traffickers. As an ATF agent, Blue had dealt with Gandy on several occasions but always when he’d been undercover, and Blue had never been able to find evidence to arrest the piece of dirt.

“Gandy hired these men to come after me,” Blue said like gospel. “Why?”

Caleb gave him an odd look, as if the question had come out of left field. “You don’t know?”

Since it seemed the answer was clear to both Caleb and Rayanne, Blue went with the obvious answer. “Because Gandy’s riled that I keep investigating him.” But he investigated a lot of people, and that didn’t spur an attack to kill. “Why come after me now?”

Again, he got that look. Obviously, he was missing something here.

“I’ve arranged to have Gandy brought in for an interview,” Caleb added.

That was a good start, but Blue wanted a whole lot more. “You plan to answer my question about why Gandy would want me dead now?”

Caleb shrugged. “I figure it’s connected to whatever the heck you’ve been doing for the past five months, and I don’t have any details about that.” He mumbled something that Blue didn’t catch and scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I need to talk to Dr. Howland and see how long this memory problem of yours is going to last.”

Caleb added some really bad profanity and made a swift exit. Only then did Blue see the cop outside his door. Local, no uniform, but he had a badge clipped to his belt and was wearing a sidearm.

That didn’t do much to ease the already twisted knot in Blue’s gut.

Of course, a cop-bodyguard was only partially responsible for that. The main reason for the knot was the woman standing beside his bed and glaring at him.

“All of this is true?” he came out and asked.

She nodded. Her jaw muscles stirred. And she studied him. “Is this memory thing an act?”

“No.” He couldn’t say it fast enough. “I have no reason to fake memory loss.”

He hoped.

Though he knew it would hurt, Blue lifted his head off the pillow and levered himself up. It wasn’t pretty, and he did a lot of wobbling to get to a sitting position.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Rayanne snarled, and she reached out to take him by the arms.

Probably to force him back down. But being flat on his back wasn’t much of a bargaining position, and if he hoped to get answers from her and not smart-mouthed comebacks, he needed to try to soothe some things with Rayanne.

If that was possible.

She continued to protest, even called him a bad name, but Blue got his feet off the bed. He also reached for the metal pole that held his IV so he could use it for support.

That, however, ended a lot faster than he’d planned.

Everything started to spin, and the dark spots winking in and out prevented him from seeing much. Or keeping his balance. He would have pitched forward if Rayanne hadn’t caught him.

“Don’t make this worse than it already is,” Rayanne snapped.

She put her hand on his back to steady him. Bare skin on bare skin.

The hospital gown hardly qualified as a garment with one side completely off his bandaged shoulder. Judging from the drafts he felt on various parts of his body, Rayanne probably got an eyeful.

Of course, it apparently wasn’t something she hadn’t already seen, since according to her they’d slept together five months ago.

“Will saying I’m sorry help?” he mumbled, and because he had no choice, he ditched the bargaining-position idea and lay back down.

“Nothing will help. As soon as you’re back on your feet, I want you out of Sweetwater Springs and miles and miles away from McKinnon land. Got that?”

Oh, yeah. It was crystal clear.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t know why he’d done the things he had, but he’d screwed up. Maybe soon Blue would remember everything that he might be trying to forget.

Her phone rang, the sound shooting through the room. And his head. Rayanne fished the phone from her pocket, looked at the screen and then moved to the other side of the room to take the call. It occurred to him then that she might be involved with someone.

Five months was a long time.

And this someone might be calling to make sure she was okay.

Blue felt the twinge of jealousy that throbbed right along with the pain in various parts of his body, and he wished he could just wake up from this crazy nightmare that he was having.

“No, he doesn’t remember,” she said to whoever had called. She turned to look back at him, but her coat shifted to the side.

Just enough for Blue to see the stomach bulge beneath her clothes.

Oh, man.

It felt as if someone had sucked the air right out of his lungs. He didn’t need his memory to understand what that meant.

Rayanne was pregnant.

Chapter Three

Rayanne heard the low groan that Blue made, and she whirled around, expecting to see some evidence that the pain had gotten significantly worse.

It wasn’t pain, though, that made him groan.

His mouth was partly open, his attention fastened to her stomach, and she knew the reason for his reaction. He’d clearly noticed that she was pregnant.

Now it was her turn to groan. She hadn’t intended for him to see the bump and had thought it was hidden well enough. Apparently not. It was getting harder and harder to hide it these days.

“Hold on a sec,” she said to her brother Seth, who was waiting on the other end of the line with what no doubt was important info.

Probably not as important as this, though.

“Is that my baby?” Blue came right out and asked.

He’d put one and one together pretty darn fast for a man with supposed memory issues and a concussion.

Rayanne considered lying, only because she didn’t want to deal with the truth right now, but if there was any trace of the real Blue left in his banged-up head, he wouldn’t let go of this.

Plus, she was fed up with this whole lying mess from Blue. It’d be like the pot calling the kettle black if she started telling whoppers, too.

“Yes, the baby’s yours,” she said, holding her hand over the phone so Seth couldn’t hear.

Her brother already knew, of course, but she hadn’t shared the news with a lot of people, only her doctor, mother and siblings. Not the estranged ones, either: Cooper, Colt and Tucker. Nor her father, Roy. Though she was certain that they, too, had noticed her growing belly.

Blue didn’t exactly take the news well. He sucked in a quick breath, nearly choking on it. Rayanne wanted to blast him for his reaction, but the truth was, she’d been stunned, as well, when she’d seen that little plus sign on the home pregnancy test. She’d done her own share of quick breaths and head shakes.

“For the record, this is my baby, and you just happened to be the one who fathered it.” She might have added more of a warning, something along the lines that Blue had zero claim to this child or any other part of her life, but she heard Seth calling out to her from over the phone.

“Can this wait a second?” Rayanne snarled to her brother.

“No,” Seth snarled right back. “I’m sending you a photo of something you need to see. And this isn’t a suggestion—it’s an order. Stay away from McCurdy. His boss is on the way there.”

With that, he hung up before she could tell him that Blue’s boss had already arrived. The quick hang-up also left her to wonder what the heck else had gone wrong now.

“When are you due?” Blue asked.

Rayanne hated to give him any details whatsoever, but it seemed a little petty to withhold something he would figure out, anyway. “In four months.”

Exactly nine months to the day since Blue and she had lost their minds and landed in bed. A big mistake, obviously one he hadn’t been able to handle, because he’d walked out on her—literally. She’d woken up to find him gone. No note on her pillow. No phone calls. No contact of any kind.

Until now, that is.

“Four months,” he repeated, sounding like a man on the verge of losing it.

She ignored him for the time being when there was a little dinging sound from her phone to indicate she had a text. Rayanne looked at it.

And looked again.

Her shoulders tightened even more, and she stared at the liar in the bed.

“What kind of sick game are you playing, huh?” she demanded from Blue.

“No game,” he assured her. “What’s going on? What’s got you so upset now?”

“This has got me upset.” She shoved the phone right in his face, but judging from the way he squinted, his eyes were still too blurry to see the small print.

“Why, Blue?” she practically yelled.

It was loud enough to get the doctor and Caleb running back into the room, but Rayanne didn’t budge even when Caleb tried to push her out of the way.

“He owes me an answer,” Rayanne said through clenched teeth, and she showed the text to Caleb.

“Where’d you find that?” Caleb asked.

She kept her glare on Blue. “It was in his shirt pocket. The one that the medics cut off him when they put him in the ambulance. They gave it to Seth so he could process it for possible evidence.”

“What is it?” Blue demanded.

“It’s a hit order,” Caleb finally said. Rayanne was glad he’d answered the question, because she might have choked on the words.

Blue shook his head. “Who was supposed to die?”

Rayanne’s glare got worse. “Me.”

She let that hang in the air for several long moments. “And the reason you were at the ranch today was because someone hired you to kill me.”

“Not a chance. I wouldn’t have agreed to do a hit on you,” Blue insisted. His intense gaze swung to Caleb. “What do you know about this?”

Caleb lifted his hands, huffed. “Nothing. But then, you’ve been off the radar for five months, remember? I have no idea what you’ve been working on or who you’ve been working with.”

And that said it all.

Maybe this was some kind of unauthorized undercover work, but it didn’t matter. Whatever Blue had gotten involved in, he’d brought the danger to her and the baby. Her family, too, since her sister, brothers and father were all living on the grounds of the ranch.

The doctor checked the clock on the wall. “Those couple of minutes have long been up. Mr. McCurdy just had a bullet dug out of him and lost too much blood. He needs rest.”

“I don’t want to rest.” Blue sat up again. Tried to stand again, too, but this time it was Caleb who stopped him. “I want to find out what’s going on.”

“I’ll do that.” Caleb’s voice didn’t exactly soften, but he helped Blue back onto the bed.

Not lying down.

Blue would have no part of that. Instead he sat on the edge of the mattress. “You really think I’d try to kill you?” Blue asked her.

Rayanne could feel the veins start to pulse in her head. “I don’t know what to think when it comes to you.”

It was impossible to keep the emotion out of that little outburst. The anger. The worry. And yes, the embarrassment. She wasn’t the sort of woman who dropped into bed with a man. Any man. But especially a work partner.

Yet she had.

Once and only once had she broken that rule and slept with Blue.

And look where that’d gotten her.

Nearly killed, pregnant and she had a coat smeared with her ex-lover’s blood. An ex who couldn’t remember diddly-squat, including the little fact that he could have fathered her child.

However, Blue apparently did remember how to be pissed off, because his nostrils flared. “I wouldn’t have killed you,” he repeated.

His voice was no longer weak. Those words had a bite to them. Maybe because she’d insulted him with the accusation.

Tough.

Because it could be more than an accusation. It could be the truth.

“Then why’d you have the hit order?” she pressed.

“Those minutes are over,” Dr. Howland growled.

They all ignored him, but Blue shook his head, looked at the doctor. “How long before my brain gets straight?”

“Probably a lot longer if you don’t get the rest you need.” He huffed. “Look, I don’t know if the memory loss is from the concussion, the bleeding or the emotional trauma of being in the middle of a gunfight. The only thing I know is that most people make a complete recovery. But they do that by resting and recuperating, not by getting in a shouting match with visitors who shouldn’t even be here.”

“It wouldn’t be from emotional trauma,” Caleb volunteered, once again ignoring the doctor. “Blue’s been in the middle of plenty of gunfights.” He, too, checked the time. “I’ll make some calls and speed up the arrangements to get you out of here.”

“Is moving him a good idea?” Rayanne asked, bringing their attention back to her. It probably sounded as if she was concerned about his health.

Okay, she was.

But not in a “welcome home, lover” kind of way. She didn’t want a move to delay the return of those memories, because she had to know what the devil was going on.

Dr. Howland opened his mouth to speak, but Caleb beat him to the punch. “I’m moving him. Blue’s a federal agent, and he needs to be debriefed.”

That got her attention fast. “Debriefed about what?” Because that was one of those fancy fed words that usually meant an agent was involved in something classified or deep undercover.

Caleb shot her a glare that could have withered spring grass. “This isn’t your concern, Rayanne.”

“To heck it’s not.” She lifted her phone screen in case he’d forgotten what was on there. “Someone hired him to kill me.”

“And we’ll get to the bottom of this. Not you. We,” Caleb repeated, tapping the shiny gold ATF badge on his belt. “I’ll be back to move him,” he added to no one in particular, and he left the room again.

“Your turn to leave,” the doctor insisted, looking directly at her.

Rayanne started to do just that. After all, she could do her own investigating from the Sweetwater Springs sheriff’s office. She wasn’t a deputy there. Her job was one county over, where she was on a leave of absence. But since her brother Cooper was the sheriff and since the shooting had happened on the ranch, she figured Cooper would be more than willing to give her some space to work.

Because something beyond the obvious wasn’t right here.

“I need to speak to Rayanne alone,” Blue said.

She combed through every bit of his expression but couldn’t tell if he was remembering something or if this was yet some other ploy. It didn’t matter. If he had anything to tell her, she wanted to hear it. Because if he did indeed confess to being a hit man, she was going to arrest his butt. And she didn’t care if this was a federal case or not.

Of course, if he confessed to something like that, jurisdiction was the least of her worries.

The doctor released a long, slow breath. “At least stay in bed when you talk,” he demanded.

Dr. Howland added a warning glance to both of them and then went into the hall. Caleb was out there, his phone pressed to his ear. No doubt making those arrangements to move Blue to another hospital.

The moment the doctor shut the door, Blue got up again, and this time it was a slightly less wobbly attempt. He took hold of the IV pole with his right hand and started walking.

“Don’t,” he mumbled as if he expected her to object.

She didn’t. But Rayanne did drop back a step when those wobbly steps brought him her way. And not just her way but directly in front of her. She resisted the urge to back up some more and held her ground. No gaze dodging. No fidgeting. She put on her lawman’s face and watched as he did the same.

For a second or two, anyway.

“I need to do something,” he said.

That was all the warning she got before he reached out, slid his hand around the back of her neck and put his mouth on hers.

Rayanne gasped, but the sound got trapped between their lips, and Blue ignored it. He kept on kissing her. Kept on moving his mouth over hers as if he had a right to do that.

Just kept on stirring heat that should have been stone cold.

It wasn’t.

And that riled her to the core.

Damn him for bringing all the heat and the memories flooding back. She’d buried Blue five months ago. Not just him, either, but that one hot night they’d shared. Rayanne intended for that to stay dead and buried.

She would have knocked him senseless, but apparently he already was. She didn’t shove him away, not with all his injuries, but Rayanne slapped her palm on his stomach and then backed up.

“What the heck are you doing?” she snapped. And thank goodness it sounded gruff and not breathless. Somewhat of a miracle since her breath was indeed a little thin.

“Still think I’d try to kill you?” Blue asked.

The cocky voice had returned in spades. Cocky demeanor, too. Blue was a pro at that in part because of his hot cowboy looks. Sadly, he was the best-looking man she’d ever met, and her stupid body wasn’t going to let her forget that.

Rayanne managed to hang on to her glare. “You kissed me to convince me that you don’t want me dead?”

He lifted his shoulder. The one that’d been shot. And he winced enough to wipe that cocky look off his face. “In part. I was hoping it’d make me remember.”

“Did it?”

That prompted him to run those sizzling gray eyes over her face and then lower. To her breasts. Then lower still. She didn’t know how he managed it, but a once-over like that from Blue felt like foreplay despite her pregnant belly.

“No,” he finally said. “But trust me, I’m pretty sure every part of me but my brain remembers you.”

Oh.

That felt like foreplay, too, and since that was the last thing she wanted, she did step back. She’d already had a big dose of Blue, and she wasn’t sure she could survive another round with him.

Best to think about the other mess. The one that involved those gunmen, living and dead. “Why’d the shooting happen? Give me something to go on. Anything to go on,” she added when he just stared at her.

Blue kept staring. “The last solid memory I have is the evening when we finished up that case over in Appaloosa Pass.”

She knew exactly which evening he meant. Rayanne had gone over the detail dozens of times. “The investigation had gone wrong. An innocent bystander was killed.”

He studied her. “We were upset.”

Oh, yeah. Rayanne had never broken down before. Not in front of anyone, anyway. But she had that night, and she’d ended up in Blue’s arms.

And with him in her bed.

He cleared his throat as if he’d filled in the blanks of his memory with some spicy details. “Afterward, did I say anything?” Blue asked. “Call anyone?”

“No, but someone called you. You said it was your good friend and fellow agent Woody Janson. You didn’t put the call on speaker, but I heard him say he wanted you to meet him in a diner in San Antonio.” Rayanne paused. “The guy sounded like he was in some kind of trouble.”

His head snapped up. “So Woody might know what happened. I need to call him.” Blue was already moving toward the landline on the metal table next to his bed, but Rayanne snagged his wrist to stop him.

“Woody’s missing,” she explained. “He has been since you left. I searched for him, but I stopped when your foster brother called to tell me you were dead. Or according to you, the man pretending to be your foster brother.”

“He was definitely pretending. I’m an only child, and I had no siblings when I was placed in foster care. Did you run the number of the caller?”

She had to shake her head. Rayanne had no intention of telling him that she’d kind of fallen apart after hearing he was dead. Investigating the caller had been the last thing on her mind.

It wasn’t now.

Once she had this other issue of the hit resolved, she’d look into a fake foster brother making an equally fake death notification.

She made the mistake of looking at Blue. Her eyes meeting his. And that punch came, one that brought the memories flooding back again. For a few bad seconds, anyway. Thankfully, her phone rang, giving her mind something better to do than remember intimate things she should forget.

“Seth,” she answered after seeing her stepbrother’s name on the screen. “I need some good news.”

“Sorry. Won’t get it from me. How’s Blue?” But it sounded more like something he should say rather than something he wanted to know. It was one of the reasons she loved Seth. He wasn’t a natural-born hugger, but if he thought it’d help her, he’d do hugs.

And walk through fire for her.

“Blue’s alive,” he said, obviously able to hear Seth’s question. Blue grumbled something else that she didn’t catch, and he shuffled his way back to the bed, dragging the IV pole along with him.

The back of his gown was wide open, giving her a much-too-good view of his naked butt, which on a scale of one to ten was a forty-six. Rayanne did some grumbling of her own and looked away.

“What’s the not-so-good news, then?” Rayanne asked Seth.

“Just got off the phone with Rex Gandy. And no, he didn’t confess to hiring those gunmen who attacked Blue and you. In fact, he claims he hasn’t seen them in months.”

That seemed to be going around. “Please tell me you’re still bringing him in for questioning.”

“Yes and no. Gandy will be coming in, but I can’t question him. The ATF has called dibs on this.”

Rayanne tried not to groan too loud. She hadn’t expected to be allowed to do the questioning, but she’d wanted Seth in on the interview. Or a second choice would have been her brother Cooper. They weren’t exactly on the same side when it came to their mother’s trial, but Cooper was a decent sheriff. And better yet, both Seth and he would have told her exactly what Gandy had or hadn’t said.

But the ATF was a different matter.

“I’m guessing Caleb Wiggs will run the interview?” she asked.

“I’m sure he’d like that, but Gandy’s already objecting.”

“Why? They have some kind of history together?”

“Gandy won’t say. He just told me I’d be a bloomin’ fool to trust Caleb. And before you ask me, I’m already on it. I’ll check out the connection between the two men and see if there’s any reason for me not to trust a fellow Justice Department agent.”

Good. Because she’d already been blindsided enough and didn’t want to go another round with a man she couldn’t trust. “If you can, go ahead and run another check on Blue’s missing friend, Woody Janson.”

Seth stayed quiet a moment. “You think he has something to do with this?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Rayanne admitted.

She heard Seth’s heavy sigh. “Does Blue know about the baby?”

“He knows.”

“And what the heck is he going to do about it?” Seth snapped.

“Absolutely nothing, because I’m not going to let him do anything.”

Again, it seemed as if Blue had filled in the blanks about the conversation, because he glared at her in a stubborn way that only he and a mule could have managed.

“Hold a sec,” Seth suddenly said, and the line went silent. Probably because he’d had to take another call.

Maybe one that would give them good news.

Any news, she amended.

She watched as Blue fumbled to get back in the bed. Another view of his backside. But it didn’t hold her attention, because she saw the sweat pop out on his forehead, and he was clenching his teeth.

Clearly in pain.

Rayanne reached for the door to see if Doc Howland was still hanging around so he could give Blue another dose of meds. But reaching for the door was as far as she got.

“We have a problem,” Seth blurted out when he came back on the line. “You have your gun?”

That didn’t help steady her nerves, and they were already on edge just hearing the tone of Seth’s voice.

“Yes. Why?” Rayanne asked her brother.

“Because I just got a call. A guy matching the description of the missing gunman was spotted on the traffic camera just a block from the hospital. He’s not alone, and he’s headed your way.”

Chapter Four

Before Rayanne even said a word, Blue knew something else had gone wrong.

He didn’t waste his energy on another groan or more profanity. He’d already been doing way too much of that, and he was already figuring this wasn’t something a groan or cursing could fix.

“The guy who tried to kill you is less than a block away from the parking lot,” she explained, helping him from the bed. “Backup’s on the way, but it might not get here in time.”

Yeah, he’d been right about that something gone wrong.

What he needed was a gun so he could try to protect Rayanne. And the baby. Of course, she wouldn’t exactly appreciate any efforts from him to protect her, but she was going to get those efforts whether she wanted them or not.

Well, maybe.

His third attempt to stand wasn’t any easier than his first two had been. Blue had to fight to push away the pain, but he finally got to his feet. In the same motion, he yanked the IV needle from his arm.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rayanne snarled.

“We’re getting out of here. I figured that was pretty obvious.”

Judging from the way her eyes widened, then narrowed, that wasn’t so obvious after all, and it clearly wasn’t the solution she’d had in mind. “We can hide in the bathroom.”

“Bullets can go through the door, and I’d rather not be trapped in a small room with someone gunning for me.”

Even if he couldn’t remember who exactly wanted him dead or why. But he seriously doubted these thugs were coming here to fill in his memory gaps or have a conversation with him. Whatever he’d done to rile them, it was serious enough for them to send out a death squad. A squad that, according to the hit order, he was supposedly a part of.

He wasn’t.

He hoped.

Even without the memories to prove it, Blue knew in his gut there was no way he would kill Rayanne. Agreeing to do it and making someone else believe it, however, was a different story. He could have done that for some reason that he hoped like the devil would become clear to him soon.

“My brother will be here in a few minutes,” she reminded him. “And there’s a deputy outside.”

That was a start, but it wasn’t nearly enough to fight off hired guns. “Stay away from the door,” Blue warned Rayanne when she headed in that direction.

Blue rifled through the bag that Caleb had brought him, and he located some jeans, a shirt and boots. No badge or gun. But he did drag on the clothes so he could ditch the drafty gown. Every move he made was a painful effort.

“You got a backup weapon?” he asked, stepping in front of her.

A gesture that caused her to scowl and mumble something that didn’t sound pleasant. “No. I only carry backup when I’m on the job.”

Not good. But at least he had her weapon. Something he would have to convince her to hand over to him. Of course, that was only part of the convincing he’d have to do.

“You took a huge risk saving me earlier,” he reminded her, dropping his gaze to her stomach, “and I won’t let you take another one.”

“It wasn’t a risk.”

But she stopped, knowing that there was no way she could convince him otherwise. Heck, she could no doubt still hear the sounds of the bullets flying around her. Yeah, it’d been a huge risk.

“I had no idea three gunmen would be out there when I rode out to the pasture,” she added, “and I certainly didn’t take the risk for you. I took it because I wasn’t in a position to do anything else. If I’d tried to get out of there, one of them would have spotted me and tried to gun me down.”

Fair enough. Too bad the fairness couldn’t continue, because Blue snatched her gun, and before the protesting gasp could even leave her mouth, he eased open the door. The lanky dark-haired deputy was indeed still there, and he was on the phone.

“I’m Deputy Reed Caldwell,” he said, his gaze snapping toward them. He shoved the phone back in his pocket. “There are three of them, and they’re in the parking lot.”

Man, they had gotten there even faster than he’d thought. Rayanne and he probably had only a minute or two at most because in a town the size of Sweetwater Springs, the exact location of his hospital room likely wasn’t much of a secret.

“How much backup’s on the way?” Blue asked the deputy at the exact moment that Rayanne asked a version of the same. They were both still lawmen to the core, and whether Rayanne liked it or not, they were also on the same side.

For this, anyway.

“The sheriff and another deputy,” Reed answered. “Both are Rayanne’s brothers, and they’re about five minutes out.”

Good news about her brothers coming so fast. Blood kin meant they’d no doubt fight hard to make sure Rayanne stayed safe. Not so good news about the five minutes, though. That was more than enough time for the armed goons to get inside and do plenty of damage.

Blue glanced around and spotted exits at both ends of the corridor, which was lined with doors to patients’ rooms on each side. He considered having Reed duck inside one of the rooms with Rayanne.

Any one of them but his own.

However, if the gunmen managed to pick the right door or if they just started randomly shooting, Rayanne could be hit or worse. Innocent bystanders could be, too. Right now he was a bullet magnet, but he wasn’t sure he trusted this deputy who he didn’t even know to be the one to protect Rayanne.

“Which exit is closest to the parking lot where those gunmen are?” Blue asked.

Reed pointed to the one to his left. Blue got all three of them moving in the opposite direction, and he hoped he could get Rayanne out of the hall before trouble arrived.

“You sure you’re well enough to be doing this?” the deputy asked.

“No, he’s not,” Rayanne answered for him.

She was right. He wasn’t well enough. Not well enough to fight off gunmen, anyway, but the pain zapping through him wouldn’t stop him from getting Rayanne to safety.

Blue heard some sounds. Shrieks and shouts of people panicking. Someone had no doubt spotted the gunmen, and those sounds were far too close for comfort. He dropped back so that he’d be between the gunmen and Rayanne. He also kicked up the pace a notch, racing toward the exit.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled to Rayanne. He didn’t have any experience with pregnant women, but he figured it wasn’t a good thing to make her run like this. Of course, the stress wasn’t good, either.

“Don’t do anything that will make me regret this any more than I already do,” she snapped.

That was Blue’s intention. To do no more harm. Then once he had her safely tucked away, he could figure out who these morons were and what they wanted.

He could also deal with the baby then.

Just thinking about it now clouded his head. The pain did, too. And a clouded head was a good way to get them killed. He needed to think straight and be able to react.

They got to the exit just as Blue heard another unwelcome sound. Footsteps.

Not the ordinary variety, either.

These were the footsteps of someone flat-out running, and they seemed to be headed straight toward them.

Blue took out the seemed when he spotted one of them. There was no seeming about it. They were coming for them.

The first was big, bulky, mean looking.

And armed to the hilt with a gun in his hand and two others in holsters.

He looked a lot like the other two guys who came running in behind him.

Blue practically pushed Rayanne to the exit when the deputy opened the door. They raced with her.

Not a second too soon.

A shot cracked through the air.

Blue bit back the profanity when the bullet tore through a chunk of the doorjamb. Getting shot at twice in one day sure wasn’t how he’d wanted this to play out.

“Hurry,” Blue told Rayanne.

He shut the door. No lock. And the exit led them to a large covered area where vehicles dropped off patients. It was way too open for comfort, and Blue hoped there weren’t any gunmen lurking outside waiting for them.

“My truck’s this way,” Reed said.

Blue hoped “this way” was close, because the armed idiots wouldn’t be far behind. They ran, a lot faster than Blue’s body wanted to run, and while they were midstride, the deputy took out his keypad and used it to open a silver truck.

“Stay ahead of me,” Blue warned Rayanne. She didn’t argue, thank goodness, and she held her hand protectively over her belly.

The moment they made it to the truck, Blue threw open the door and pushed Rayanne inside. Reed and he quickly followed, but Reed had barely managed to get the engine started when the gunmen bolted from the exit.

The three pivoted around, looking for them, and it didn’t take them long to spot the truck. The goon in the lead took aim.

Fired.

Just as Reed peeled out of the parking lot.

The deputy thankfully didn’t waste any time getting them the heck out of there. Blue spun in the seat, ready to return fire. Well, as ready as he could be considering he was dizzy as all get-out.

But he didn’t have a shot, anyway.

It was too big a risk that he might hit someone other than the snake who’d just tried to kill him—again.

Reed practically flew out of the parking lot, and Blue heard and saw the cruiser then. Rayanne’s brothers, no doubt. Maybe they’d be able to catch these dirt wads so that Blue could question them. Or beat them senseless for this stunt they’d just pulled.

“I don’t think they’re following us,” Reed said, his attention volleying between the road and the parking lot. He reholstered his gun and took out his phone. Probably to call his boss, the sheriff, to let him know what was going on.

“Please tell me this jogged your memory,” Rayanne mumbled through clenched teeth.

Blue had to shake his head. Man, that hurt, too.

However, his vision wasn’t so blurry now that he couldn’t see how pale Rayanne was. And that her hands were trembling. He’d worked with her on several cases and had never seen her like this.

But then, he’d never seen her pregnant, either.

It still wasn’t a good time to think about it. Not with those gunmen so close. However, Blue just couldn’t shove it aside.

“You must hate me,” Blue said, keeping watch around them in case those goons surfaced.

Her gaze whipped toward him, her eyes narrowed more than just a bit. “You’re right about that. I do.”

He wanted to think she was exaggerating, but he doubted she was. After all, he’d just endangered her life twice in a very short period of time. Then there was that part about sleeping with her and then running out on her without so much as a thank you, ma’am.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Blue assured her, but judging from another of Rayanne’s huffs, it was no reassurance at all. Of course, she didn’t have a lot of reasons to trust him.

So Blue went in a different direction. One that he hoped would be common ground for them. “I need a truce, only until this mess in my head settles down, and I can figure out what’s going on.”

She certainly didn’t agree.

He looked at her stomach again. “And I need you to be checked out by the doctor. All that running couldn’t have been good for you and the baby.”

“The running wasn’t a problem. The doctor said I could keep up my workouts.” Her mouth tightened as if she’d told him more than she meant to.

Still, it didn’t matter. He’d call the doc first chance he got and have Rayanne checked out, because that hadn’t been just a workout session.

“I’m not the one who needs to see the doctor,” she mumbled, and she threw down the visor so Blue could get a glimpse at himself in the vanity mirror.

He was pale, beads of sweat dotted his face, and he didn’t look like an ATF agent ready to take down some killers. He looked like a man who’d just had surgery.

“I’m okay,” he lied.

He probably wasn’t even 50 percent yet, but he didn’t have the luxury of recovering when there were gunmen out there who wanted to make his injuries even worse than they already were.

“I filled Cooper in,” Reed said when he finished his call. “He’s the sheriff and Rayanne’s brother,” he added to Blue. “Cooper wants us to wait at the sheriff’s office while he and the others go after those men.”

It was a good plan. Well, a safe one, anyway, for Rayanne. Blue hoped her brother would be able to catch them, but if the men hadn’t followed Reed, then they’d probably already hightailed it out of town so they could regroup.

And come after him again.

Reed pulled his truck into the parking lot of the sheriff’s office, and even though Blue didn’t see anyone suspicious lurking around the building, he got Rayanne inside as quickly as possible. However, with the exception of a woman working at the front desk, the place seemed deserted, and that put him on edge again.

“We need to lock up,” Blue told the deputy.

But Reed was already doing that. He obviously knew that they were vulnerable to another attack. Rayanne knew it, too, because she snatched her gun from him. At first he thought she’d done that just because she was upset that he’d taken it from her, but Blue realized he was wobbling.

Ah, heck.

“You need to sit down,” Rayanne snapped, and she slid her arm around his waist, leading him into one of the offices. Sheriff Cooper McKinnon’s nameplate was on the wall next to the door.

Disgusted with himself, Blue shook his head. “I should be the one protecting and taking care of you.”

That earned him a predictable eye roll from her. “I’m pregnant, not incompetent.”

Rayanne practically dumped him into a chair, then shut the door. Locked it, too, before she went to the window to make a cop’s sweeping glance of the parking lot. No doubt checking to make sure those gunmen weren’t lurking around out there.

Blue intended to do the same, but first he needed a gun. Since they were in the sheriff’s office, he figured it wouldn’t be hard to find one of those, and he started his search in the desk drawers.

Thankfully, the drawers were within reach, which meant he didn’t have to stand up just yet. He really needed a moment or two to catch his breath and try to settle the tornado going on in his head.

Blue finally located a Smith & Wesson. Some extra ammo, too, which he crammed into his jeans pocket before he joined her at the window. He’d barely had time to get in place when there was a sharp knock at the door.

“We got another problem,” Reed announced.

Rayanne hurried to the door, threw it open, and yeah, Blue could tell from the deputy’s expression that something else had gone wrong.

Reed shook his head. “I don’t know what you and Blue started, but all hell’s breaking loose at the ranch. We need to get out there now because someone’s trying to kidnap your sister.”

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