Reed felt that punch again.

The one he darn sure shouldn’t be feeling right about now.

Not with them so close and her mouth just a few inches from his.

A part of him—definitely not his brain—reminded him that a kiss wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now. Their nerves were raw and frayed. Emotions, sky-high. And a kiss might be the ticket to settling them both down.

It was a bad lie, of course.

But the majority of Reed’s body just went along with it, and he lowered his head and kissed Addison.

If he thought he’d gotten an avalanche of memories before, that was nothing compared to what he got now. This wasn’t one of those little pecks of reassurance. The heat went bone-deep, and it silenced any part of him that was trying to stay logical and keep away from her.

There was nothing logical about this.

Reining in Justice

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.

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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

There was blood on the porch.

That kicked up Deputy Reed Caldwell’s pulse a significant notch. He’d already drawn his Colt .45, but he called for backup because this wasn’t looking good.

He walked to the end of the porch, his breath mixing with the early morning air and causing a filmy haze around him. Reed peered into the window of the dining room and saw that the table and chairs had been toppled over. There’d been some kind of struggle.

Mercy. What was going on?

No sign of any intruders or the owner—his ex-wife, Addison.

But Reed was pretty sure she was inside somewhere. Alive. Or at least she had been a few minutes earlier when she’d made a frantic nine-one-one call to the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office. Reed had intercepted the call because he’d been on his way home after pulling a night shift and was driving right by her place.

“Someone’s trying to break in.”

That was the only thing Addison had managed to say before the line went dead. There was no bad weather to cause a dead phone line. No maintenance that he’d heard about. Just the frantic one-line message.

Reed hadn’t been sure what to expect when he arrived at the small country house Addison had recently inherited, but he’d parked by her mailbox, twenty yards or so from the house so that the sound of his truck engine wouldn’t alert anyone. Even with the extra precaution, Reed had figured this would turn out to be a false alarm. Or else he’d find Addison cowering inside while some would-be burglars were making their escape.

But he definitely hadn’t expected blood. Or the toppled furniture.

Maneuvering around the drops of blood, he turned the doorknob. It was unlocked. And he eased open the front door. Reed wasn’t a blood expert, but there were more drops in the foyer, and it looked like high-velocity spatter as if someone had been hit hard.

It didn’t take him long to see that more stuff had been knocked down in the entry. A small table. The landline phone that’d been ripped from the wall.

Most noticeable, though—an empty infant car seat.

Since Addison had recently adopted a baby, the seat wasn’t unexpected, but it put a knot in Reed’s gut to see it tossed on its side like that.

Where was the baby?

And where the heck was Addison?

If it was her blood, then she’d clearly been hurt. Maybe hurt badly enough that she couldn’t even call out to him.

That didn’t help the knot in his stomach.

His backup wouldn’t be there for at least fifteen minutes, but Reed didn’t want to waste any more time in case she was bleeding out. Listening, he quietly stepped inside, pivoted, checking every visible corner of the house. No one was in his line of sight, but he heard some movement in the adjacent living room. He peered around the edge of the wall, and his heart walloped against his chest.

Addison.

There was blood on her forehead and smeared in the side of her light brown hair. Her eyes were wide, and there was a large swatch of silver duct tape covering her mouth. The same tape had been used to tie her hands and feet, but despite the restraints, she was frantically trying to crawl toward him.

Still keeping watch around them, Reed hurried to her and eased back the tape from her mouth.

“They’re upstairs,” she whispered, the words rushing out with her breath. She tried to crawl again while fighting to get her hands and ankles free.

“Who’s up there?” Reed asked, looking in that direction.

“I think they’re kidnappers.”

Hell. Sweetwater Springs wasn’t a perfect town, but he hadn’t expected kidnappers to break into someone’s house.

“Get me out of this,” Addison insisted, still fighting the tape.

Reed pulled out his pocketknife, sliced through the layers, but the moment that Addison was free, she sprang to her feet. Or rather she tried. She stumbled and probably would have fallen if Reed hadn’t caught onto her. She smacked right against him and into his arms.

Despite the nightmare of the moment, that gave him a jolt of memories. Of when they’d been married and she’d been in his arms for a totally different reason. However, Reed shoved those memories aside and instead focused on trying to hold back an injured woman who was hell-bent on barreling up the stairs where she could be killed.

Reed took her by the shoulder and forced eye contact. How many are up there? he mouthed.

She shook her head. “Two, maybe three.” Her breath broke. “I saw them on the porch, then called for help, but one of them hit me.”

That explained the blood. But not why they’d broken in.

“I heard them say something about the baby,” she added in a hoarse whisper. “Emily’s upstairs sleeping.”

Reed figured that was her adopted baby’s name. And if there were indeed two to three kidnappers trying to take the child, then he needed to get to the baby now. The only problem was, he didn’t hear any movement upstairs, and he hadn’t seen any extra vehicles when he’d driven up.

Of course, this could be just a simple burglary, and the men could have mentioned the baby to threaten Addison, to make sure she cooperated and didn’t fight back.

Addison wasn’t rich, but the house she’d inherited from her aunt might have something burglars would want, and it was off the beaten path. The men might be looking for quick cash or jewelry. Or maybe they didn’t even know that anyone would be there because the place had been empty for months. Addison had returned only a few days earlier.

Or so Reed had heard from the gossip mill.

After their bitter split, Reed had done his best to avoid any and all info and gossip about his ex.

He fired off a text to his backup and fellow deputy, Colt McKinnon, who would no doubt be arriving soon. Reed didn’t want Colt walking in on this without some kind of heads-up.

“Stay here,” Reed warned Addison when he finished the text.

She didn’t, of course. Even on good days Addison could be hardheaded, but he doubted anything short of duct-taping her again would get her to stop. Not with her baby in possible danger.

“At least stay quiet and behind me,” Reed amended.

This time she listened, but she grabbed an umbrella from a basket next to the overturned table. She was still shaky, her breathing was way too fast, but she kept up with him as he eased up the stairs. Reed had made it just a few steps from the top when the sounds stopped him cold.

Footsteps and whispers.

“They’re in my aunt’s old bedroom,” she muttered. “I’m using it as a temporary office.”

Better there than the nursery, but that didn’t make things safer. Burglars could still do all sorts of bodily harm—Addison’s head was proof of that—but maybe they’d leave the baby out of this.

Reed eased onto the stairwell but had to take hold of Addison when she tried to dart past him. She didn’t try to go toward the sounds in her office but rather to the room at the end of the hall.

The nursery, no doubt.

There wasn’t anyone moving around in there, not that Reed could hear anyway. The only movement was coming from the room on his right.

He shot Addison a warning glance for her to stay put, and he hoped this time she’d listen. Thankfully, she did. With a death grip on the umbrella, she waited and held her breath.

Reed was holding his breath, too, when he glanced around the edge of the door of her office. Like in the downstairs, things had been tossed and turned in here, too. There were two men dressed all in black, their backs to him, and they were stuffing papers and a laptop into a large satchel.

Both were armed.

“We got two minutes,” one of the men called out. “Don’t want the locals in here on this.”

Locals. As in Reed or someone else from the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office. Did the men know Addison had managed to call him? If so, they probably thought the cops were still en route. They likely wouldn’t have known that Reed would be driving right by her place at the exact moment she’d needed him.

Reed glanced back at Addison to make sure she was okay. She hadn’t stayed put for long and was now inching her way to the nursery. That maybe wasn’t a bright idea, but Reed had enough to deal with now. Besides, Addison would likely do whatever it took to protect the baby, and that meant he could focus on these morons ransacking the place.

“You think we got it all?” one of the men asked his partner.

“Can’t be sure,” he answered. “Let’s go to plan B and torch the place.”

Reed didn’t have time to curse or try to get Addison and the baby out of there. He heard a vehicle approaching. Colt, no doubt. The siren was off, but it still must have alerted one of the men, because he pivoted, his attention zooming right to Reed.

“I’m Deputy Reed Caldwell,” he identified himself.

Both men raised their guns. Not ordinary weapons but ones rigged with silencers. One of them fired, just as Reed scrambled to the side, and even though it wasn’t a normal loud blast, the bullet tore through the doorjamb.

Hell’s bells.

He hadn’t wanted to get into a gunfight with anyone but especially not without backup in place.

Another shot quickly came at him, and Reed hurried out of the way while he readied himself to return fire. He latched on to Addison and pulled her into the adjacent open doorway. It was her old bedroom, still decorated as it’d been when she was in high school.

“The bullets could hit Emily,” she said, fighting to get away from him. But she didn’t go toward the nursery. She hurried to her nightstand and took out a gun. That definitely hadn’t been there when she was in high school.

“Reed?” someone yelled. It was Colt, and it sounded as if he was already inside the house.

“Upstairs.” Even though the men had fired guns rigged with silencers, Reed figured Colt had heard the shots and knew that this situation had gone from bad to worse.

However, worse took yet another bad turn.

No more shots, but it was a sound that got Addison moving fast.

Soft cries.

Definitely the baby, especially since the cries were coming from the nursery. Reed had to put Addison in a body lock to keep her from racing out into the hall where those men could kill her with an easy shot.

“Let’s get the hell out of here now,” he heard one of the men growl.

Reed didn’t want them to escape, but he also didn’t want any more shots fired in the vicinity of the baby. He pulled Addison to the side of the bed so he’d be in a better position to protect them both, and he braced himself for the men to come running past them. If that happened, he could stop them before they got to the nursery.

Maybe.

“Watch out, Colt!” Reed shouted down. Because he figured these guys might eventually head Colt’s way if they didn’t go to the nursery. If they did indeed run for the stairs, then Reed could let go of Addison and race after them.

But no one came out of the makeshift office.

Reed still heard the scrambling around. Still heard voices. However, the men didn’t come his way or toward the stairs.

The seconds crawled by. With his heartbeat crashing in his ears. His hand tight and hard on his gun. Addison struggling to get loose. The baby’s cries.

“They’re getting away,” Colt called out.

Reed had no choice but to let go of Addison, and he hurried to the doorway so he could glance into her office.

No men.

But the window was wide-open. He hadn’t spotted a ladder when he drove up, but they’d obviously gotten out somehow.

“They’re on foot,” Colt added, “and I’m in pursuit.”

Reed raced to the office window and looked down. Not the best idea he’d ever had. The two men were there on the ground. A ladder, too. Not the standard metal one but the portable rope kind that could be carried in an equipment bag.

One of them turned and fired a shot directly at Reed. The bullet tore through the window and sent a spray of glass over the room. He felt the sting of a cut near his eyes, ignored it and took aim.

Reed fired.

His shot slammed into the nearest man’s shoulder, and even though the guy stumbled, his partner took hold of him, and they ran toward the barn. Reed got a glimpse of the black SUV parked inside, and both men barreled into the vehicle. The SUV was out of his firing range, but if the driver came back toward the road, he might get another shot at stopping them.

But then Reed saw something else.

A second rope ladder.

This one was three windows over, and it took him a moment to realize it was outside the nursery. That had barely registered when he heard the scream.

Addison.

Reed bolted out of the office, directly toward her scream, and he found her in the nursery. She was at the open window, climbing out on the rope ladder.

The crib was empty.

“They have her,” Addison sobbed. “They took Emily.”

Reed pulled her back so he could get a better look at the SUV as it sped out from the barn. The windows were heavily tinted, too dark for him to see inside. But he did spot Colt.

“Aim for the tires,” Reed shouted down to his fellow deputy.

If the baby was indeed inside the vehicle, he didn’t want to risk a stray bullet going her way.

Colt took aim. Fired. But the shot smacked off the bumper.

“Go after them!” Addison begged.

He did. He barreled down the stairs and toward the door. But he was already too late.

Reed barely managed to ready his gun before the SUV sped away.

Chapter Two

Everything inside Addison was spinning out of control. She wanted to keep screaming, to force those men to bring back Emily, but more than that, she just wanted to stop the SUV and put an end to this nightmare.

“Give me back my baby!” Addison yelled, but she had no idea if they could even hear her.

She was still dizzy, her head was pounding, but she took hold of the railing as she ran down the steps. Reed was right there at the bottom to catch her again, but she didn’t want him to hold her back. Addison darted onto the porch, looking for any sign of Emily or those men.

And her heart dropped to her knees.

There was the wall of dust that the tires had kicked up as the SUV sped out of her driveway.

They’d gotten away.

God, no.

This couldn’t be happening.

“No license plates,” Colt shouted out to them, “but I’m calling in a description of the vehicle.”

Maybe that meant every cop in the area would respond so they could stop the kidnappers, but Addison couldn’t just stand by and wait for it to happen. She had to do something. Anything. Even if it meant risking her life.

Even if it meant risking Reed’s and Colt’s.

The only thing that mattered now was saving Emily.

“We have to go after them,” she told Reed. She was willing to beg if necessary. One way or another, she was leaving to follow the SUV.

Reed glanced at her, as if trying to decide what to do, and then ran toward his truck by the mailbox that the SUV had skirted around. He jumped inside.

“You need to stay here with Colt,” he grumbled to her.

But again, he didn’t stop her when she threw open the passenger door and dropped down onto the seat beside him. Addison still had her gun, and even though she wasn’t sure she could see straight enough to aim, she’d do whatever it took to get her baby back.

The memory of Emily’s cries echoed through her head, but she tried to shut them out. Tried to hold herself together. Hard to do with everything crashing down on her.

“I can’t lose her,” she heard herself say.

She also heard the hoarse sob that followed. And worse, felt the tears burn her eyes. Addison couldn’t stop them, but tears and sobs wouldn’t help now. Her little girl needed her to stay strong.

“You won’t lose her,” Reed promised.

Of course, it was a promise he couldn’t really give her, but Addison didn’t care. She would take anything she could get right now. She only wanted them to catch up with the SUV so she could have Emily back in her arms where she belonged. Too bad she didn’t know how to do that, but she was certain if she could just see Emily, she’d figure out a way.

“Put on your seat belt,” Reed reminded her as he sped away from her house.

Somehow, despite her shaking hands, Addison managed to get the seat belt on, and she grabbed on to the dash when Reed peeled out onto the road. To the left was a dead end. The main road was to the right, and that was the way he went. It was almost certainly the path the SUV had taken, too, and she prayed the kidnappers stayed on the road so that Reed and she could find them.

“I don’t see them,” Addison said, and she cursed the sharp curves in this part of the road.

There were too many blind spots. Plus, there were old ranch trails that a vehicle could pull into and hide on. Reed and she couldn’t lose them, and heaven knew where they’d take Emily. She might never see her baby again, and that felt like a crushing vise around her heart.

“Who are these men?” Reed asked.

She had to shake her head. “I don’t know.”

And she didn’t. Addison had gotten glimpses of their faces, and she was certain she’d never seen them before.

“Think,” Reed insisted. “Tell me everything you remember about what happened.”

Not easy to remember anything with her thoughts flying around like an F-5 tornado, but Addison drew in several hard breaths, forced herself to clear her head as much as she could.

“I came down to get a cup of coffee, and I saw them on the porch. There were two of them, but I think there was another one. I got a glimpse of something or someone behind me before I was bashed on the head.”

Reed said something she didn’t catch. “There must have been a third one. I saw two men running from your office window. The third must have taken the baby while the other two were rummaging around in there.”

Just the thought of it tore her into a million little pieces.

Some stranger grabbing her baby while she was taped up downstairs. Addison couldn’t bear it if they hurt her.

But who would hurt a precious little baby?

Emily was only two months old. No one could possibly want to do anything bad to someone so young and innocent. Did that mean this was some kind of kidnapping for ransom? If so, she didn’t have much, but she’d give them everything she had, everything she could get her hands on.

“What do you think they wanted?” Reed asked.

Addison was about to go with the ransom idea, but then she froze, the thought flashing through her mind. It couldn’t be that.

Could it?

“What?” Reed pressed when she didn’t answer.

It took her a moment to get it out. “I hired a P.I. to make sure everything was okay with the...adoption.”

Reed glanced at her, and even though she hadn’t thought it possible, there was even more concern on his face. Probably because there’d been a lot in the news lately about a black-market baby ring that’d been uncovered in the area.

“I didn’t do anything illegal to get Emily,” Addison quickly added. “But...”

And that was when her explanation ground to a halt.

How much should she tell him?

Not the whole truth, that was for sure. Not now anyway with everything else going on. Maybe not ever.

“You trust this P.I. you hired?” Reed asked. He didn’t slow down. Didn’t glance at her again. He just kept driving at breakneck speed around the curvy road.

“I thought I did. He had excellent references, and he contacted me to say he’d been doing other background checks for families with recently adopted babies. The P.I.’s name is Blake Rooney.”

And once she had her baby safely back in her arms, then she’d make sure Rooney hadn’t had any part of this.

Whatever this was.

If the P.I. had done something wrong, then Addison would make sure he paid, and paid hard. But for now, she had to battle herself. The tears came again. The fear, too. It felt as if it were choking the life right out of her.

“Focus,” Reed insisted. Probably because he sensed that she was about to lose it. “Did this P.I. find out anything suspicious about the adoption?”

It took her a moment to get her mouth working. “I don’t think so. He was supposed to email me a report this morning.”

Reed cursed. “Those men were going through papers in your office. And they took your laptop. They were clearly looking for something.”

Oh, God. Had it been the P.I.’s report they were after?

If so, Addison wasn’t even sure she’d received it yet. She had planned to check her email after she’d had coffee if Emily hadn’t wakened yet. However, she hadn’t gotten the chance to do that, because the kidnappers had shown up.

“What exactly was the P.I. looking for?” Reed asked.

Again, she had to fight through the panic so she could answer. Where the heck was that SUV?

“I just asked Rooney to do background checks on the lawyers and the woman who gave birth to Emily,” she answered.

And maybe Rooney had found something. But what? What could he have found that would have sent a team of kidnappers after her baby?

“You’re bleeding,” Reed let her know. And he grabbed a handful of tissues from a box between the seats and pressed it against her head.

She didn’t feel the blood. Didn’t feel any pain at all and was about to push the tissues away when Reed rounded the next curve.

There. Just ahead.

The SUV.

Not driving away from them.

It had stopped right in the middle of the road.

Reed cursed, slammed on his brakes, and tried to push her down onto the seat. Addison batted him away because there was no chance she would stay out of this. Not after what she saw in front of them.

There was a man dressed all in black holding Emily.

At least she was pretty sure it was her baby. Addison couldn’t see any part of the baby’s face, but she recognized the blanket. It was the pink one that’d been in Emily’s crib.

“Wait!” Reed shouted when Addison bolted from the truck.

She didn’t listen. Addison hurried out and faced the man head-on. He had a gun in his right hand, the baby cradled in his left arm, but he didn’t take aim at her.

Addison soon realized why.

There were two other gunmen inside the SUV, and both of them had weapons trained on Reed and her. One of them was slumped forward, bleeding, but that might not affect his aim.

Reed got out and pointed his gun at the driver.

“Give me the baby,” Addison insisted.

Even though she still had hold of her gun, she also didn’t aim it at the men. She didn’t want to give them any reason to start shooting again.

Addison glanced around to make sure another vehicle wasn’t coming. This wasn’t a busy road, but that didn’t mean the deputy, Colt, or someone else couldn’t come around the corner and crash into them. It was early, and there was still some slick moisture on the road surface. Not the best place for an impromptu meeting, but at least she had her baby in front of her.

“We’ll trade the kid for you,” the man said, tipping his head to Addison. He was big. Well over six feet tall and had bulky shoulders. It was the same man she’d seen on her porch before she was hit.

“No,” Reed answered. “Hand her the baby and drop your weapon. You, too,” he added to the others. “I want those guns on the ground now.”

Reed sounded like the cowboy cop that he was. A man with a badge and in charge. However, she hadn’t expected the kidnappers just to do as he’d ordered.

And they didn’t.

The man holding Emily stared at Addison. “You want to save her? Then get in the SUV with us now.”

Addison wanted to do just that if it would get Emily safely out of there. But she had just enough sanity left to know this was almost certainly a trick. If she got into the vehicle, there was nothing to stop them from killing Reed and driving away with both Emily and her.

Still, she’d be with her baby.

“Don’t,” Reed warned her when Addison took a step toward the man.

“It’s the only way,” the man insisted. “We have to know what you learned and who you told.”

That stopped Addison in her tracks, and she shook her head. “I didn’t learn anything.”

“Time’s up,” the driver said, ignoring her denial. He pointed his gun right at her. “We need to get out of here now.”

She braced herself for an attack. But it didn’t happen. The man holding Emily charged forward, and he thrust the baby toward Reed. Addison got a glimpse of what was inside the blanket then.

Emily!

The relief was instant. Thank God. And her baby appeared to be unharmed. She was awake and flailing her arms around as if she was about to start crying.

“Take her!” Addison shouted to Reed.

Reed did. He moved fast, and he scooped the baby from the man’s arms. In the same motion, the gunman reached out for Addison, and he probably would have managed to latch on to her arm if the sound hadn’t distracted him. The kidnapper glanced up when the vehicle came around the corner.

It was Colt.

The deputy had obviously taken the turn too fast and was in a full skid. His dark blue truck flew past them just as Reed got the baby inside his own vehicle.

Addison ran there, too, racing toward Emily. However, she’d barely made it a step when Colt’s truck crashed right into the side of the SUV. The air was suddenly filled with the sounds of metal scraping against metal.

The gunman shouted something but got out of the way in time. He was just a blur of motion from the corner of Addison’s eye, and she didn’t wait to see where he’d land or what would happen next.

She hurried as fast as she could back toward Reed’s truck, jumped inside and scooped the baby up into her arms.

Emily didn’t cry. The baby only looked up at Addison as if trying to figure out what was going on.

“Get down!” Reed yelled.

This time, Addison did exactly as he said. She dropped to the floor, sheltering Emily’s body with hers.

She heard the squeal of the tires on the asphalt.

Followed by a shot.

Addison looked up in time to see the bashed-in SUV coming right toward them. Obviously the crash hadn’t disabled the engine.

There was no time for Reed to get his truck out of the way. He could only brace himself for a collision, and Addison tried to do the same. The SUV was damaged, banged up on the side where Colt’s truck had hit it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have a hard enough impact to hurt the baby.

Reed managed to get off a shot to try to stop the driver, but the bullet skipped off the roof of the SUV just as it darted around his truck.

And the kidnappers sped away.

Chapter Three

Reed finished his call with the sheriff and watched as the medic put the bandage on Addison’s head. She didn’t even react. She had her attention solely on the baby cradled in her arms. The little girl seemed to be sleeping peacefully now, but Emily still occasionally sucked the bottle that the nurse had made for her.

The medic had cleaned away the blood from Addison’s forehead, but there was a dark blue bruise already forming. The same color as her troubled eyes.

“Any sign of the kidnappers?” Addison asked the moment Reed put his phone away. She was still ash pale except for that bruise, and along with the relief of being safe at the hospital, he could also see the fear etched on her face.

Reed had to shake his head. “Not yet. But everyone’s out looking for them. Plus, there’s a CSI team headed out to your place. They might find some prints or DNA to tell us who they were.”

After all, Reed had shot one of them, so there’d be blood in the backyard. If the guy was in the system, then they could get a match, and in Reed’s experience, once they had a name, they could start figuring out what had gone on. People generally didn’t commit assorted felonies, including attempted kidnapping and murder, for no reason.

“Thank you,” Addison told Reed when the medic walked away. “You saved our lives.”

True, but only because they’d gotten lucky by being in the right place at the right time. Reed hated it’d taken something as fragile as luck to make that happen.

Luck might not be on their side again.

After the SUV sped away, his lawman’s instincts had been for him to turn his truck around and go in pursuit, but it would have been too big a risk. Those gunmen could have started shooting again. Reed wanted to catch the dirtbags, but he hadn’t wanted to do that by putting Addison, the baby and even Colt in further danger.

Even though the adrenaline was still pumping through him, Reed forced himself to sit down next to Addison in the E.R. examining stall. Over the past year he’d completely avoided any contact with his ex, and she’d done the same with him. But this wasn’t personal now.

He repeated that to himself.

Funny, but it always felt personal with Addison, and that wasn’t personal in a good way. Too many old, bad memories were in the mix, too.

Before the split, they’d been married for nearly three years, had dated five years before that, but their long relationship had soured big-time when Addison pressed and pressed him to have kids.

And they’d tried despite his reservations about fatherhood and the strain that pregnancy would put on her body.

However, her infertility had only added to their differences. One failed in vitro procedure after another, and they’d finally pulled the plug a year ago on both the baby plans and the marriage, and he had filed for a divorce. Addison had moved to San Antonio, and Reed had thought he might never see her again.

Clearly, he’d been wrong about that, because here she was and apparently in a boatload of trouble.

“I was only going to be here a few weeks,” Addison volunteered. “Just enough time to get the place ready to sell. If they’d come after me while I was at my apartment in San Antonio, they might have succeeded in taking her.”

It was true, but Reed didn’t bother confirming it. Addison was already shaken up enough. “Did the P.I., Blake Rooney, visit you at your apartment?”

She nodded. “He came earlier this week.”

Reed didn’t like the timing of that. “Did you tell him you were coming to your late aunt’s place here in Sweetwater Springs?”

Addison shook her head, at first, but then the alarm went through her eyes. “He saw my suitcases and baby things and asked if I was going on a trip. I told him I’d inherited a house and was going to sell it. You think Rooney had something to do with those kidnappers?”

“Maybe. Colt’s trying to contact him now,” Reed explained. “We’ll make sure he’s okay and bring him in for questioning.”

It was possible Rooney had indeed suspected something illegal about Emily’s adoption or had even been a part of it. That was Reed’s top theory now. But it must have been many steps past being bad for someone to send three armed men to steal whatever the P.I. had discovered.

Or to learn what Addison might have done.

If she had indeed participated in an illegal adoption, then someone might have wanted to cover it up. The problem was she might not even have known she’d done anything illegal. That meant Addison would need to be questioned thoroughly to make sure everything was aboveboard.

The door to the examining room opened, and a nurse stuck her head in. “You’ll be able to go soon. Just waiting on the paperwork from the doctor.”

Soon couldn’t come soon enough for Reed. He needed to put some space between Addison and him, but that wouldn’t happen until he started to get some answers to all those questions he had.

“Why’d you decide to go ahead and adopt a baby?” Reed asked, figuring it was a simple enough question and a good way to go back to the beginning. “Being a single parent couldn’t have been an easy decision for you.”

Something flashed through Addison’s eyes. Maybe because this wasn’t exactly a safe subject for them. After all, it’d been at the root of their breakup.

“I’m thirty-four and decided not to wait any longer for the right fertility treatment,” she finally answered. “Or wait for Mr. Right, for that matter. Haven’t had much luck in that department.”

She paused just long enough for him to understand he was in the Mr. Wrong category, but Reed hadn’t needed the pause to get that.

“You know how much I’ve always wanted to be a mom,” she added a moment later.

He did, and that said it all. Addison had wanted it and had gone for it. But maybe in going for it, she had cut the wrong kinds of corners.

“If you hired Rooney, you must have suspected something wasn’t right,” Reed tossed out there.

She got that look in her eyes again, as if this was the last thing on earth she wanted to discuss. Tough. They were discussing it.

“Not suspected. But I was worried,” she explained, “because of all the things I was hearing.”

Yeah, he got that, too. The black-market baby rings had been all over the news. Pregnant women had been kidnapped and their babies sold. In some cases, the birth mothers had been murdered, but others had escaped. Maybe Addison had wanted to make sure one of those escapees wasn’t Emily’s real birth mother. If so, that birth mother could step in and take Emily from her long after the adoption had been finalized.

“Could this be related to something...well, personal?” he asked. “Like maybe a boyfriend or ex who wants to get back at you?”

She shook her head, seemingly relieved, and looked away. “You’re the only ex I have who hates me.”

Reed opened his mouth to say he didn’t hate her. That he only hated the demands she’d put on him to become a father.

However, it was best not to go there.

“But, no. There’s no recent ex. No recent anything since Emily,” Addison said.

Maybe, but Reed kept pressing. “What about your job? Are you still working as an accountant?”

Another nod. “But I’m not working on anything that’d cause kidnappers to come after Emily and me. I’m sure,” she added before he could challenge that.

“I’ll need a list of all your recent clients anyway,” Reed continued. Addison dealt with people’s bank accounts and such, and it was possible someone hadn’t wanted her to uncover some illegal activity.

“I’ll give you whatever you need to find those men,” she said, her voice shaky again. Actually, she was shaky, too. The room wasn’t cold, but he figured she was about to deal with an adrenaline crash.

A sob tore from her mouth, and she leaned her head against him. Reed would have had to be a coldhearted jerk to push her away. But he made things a lot worse by putting his arm around her and pulling her against him.

“I’m scared,” Addison whispered.

She had reason to be scared, but Reed didn’t voice that. Nor did he ease her away though the shaking started to ease up a little.

He settled for saying, “I don’t think these guys were amateurs. They could have killed you the moment they broke into your house. They didn’t. Instead they wanted to know what you’d learned and who you’d told. Maybe about the adoption, maybe about something else. I think that’s why they took your files, laptop and cell phone.”

“Oh, God.” Addison got to her feet so fast that she startled the baby. “Last night I called Jewell at the county jail.” She frantically shook her head. “I just wanted to tell her about Emily.”

Of course. Jewell. Yet another source of bad blood between them.

Jewell McKinnon and Addison were friends despite their age difference, and Jewell was his boss’s estranged mother. Estranged in a very bad way because twenty-three years ago, Jewell had abandoned her sons and husband and left town under a cloud of suspicion that she’d murdered her lover. Well, the suspicion had caught up with her, and now Jewell was in jail waiting on her upcoming murder trial.

A trial that would put Addison and Reed at odds yet again since Addison believed Jewell was 100 percent innocent. He thought the woman was as guilty as sin. Plus, Reed wasn’t exactly fond of Jewell abandoning people he cared about—like Jewell’s sons.

“Call the county jail,” she insisted. “Make sure these men don’t go after Jewell.”

“The jail’s secure,” Reed reminded her, and he tried to make her sit back down. “If those men show up there, they’ll be caught.”

Of course, Reed doubted they’d get that lucky or the men would be that stupid. It was ironic, but right now Jewell was safer than the rest of them.

“I also called my attorney, Dominic Harrelson,” Addison quickly added. “You think they’d go after him?”

Reed couldn’t rule that out so he made a quick call to the sheriff, Cooper McKinnon, and asked him to have someone check on the attorney. “Who else did you contact?” he pressed when he’d finished the call.

“No one. I’ve been spending all my time with Emily. I haven’t had much time for anything else.”

For the investigation, that was a good thing. Fewer contacts meant fewer people might be in danger.

Of course, Reed had no idea how many people were involved in this.

The door opened again, and Reed automatically moved away from Addison so he could stand in front of her. However, it wasn’t the kidnappers or the nurse. But rather Colt. And Reed hadn’t moved fast enough away from Addison, because Colt had seen the close contact between them.

Colt frowned, added something that Reed didn’t need to catch to understand. His fellow deputy certainly knew the emotional wringer Reed had been through with Addison and the divorce. Reed was right there with Colt in the disapproval department, and he made a note to keep his hands off Addison.

Reed soon realized, though, it wasn’t just the close-contact stuff that’d put the look on Colt’s face. Colt and he had been deputies together for over six years, and that was plenty enough time for Reed to know something was wrong.

“Before the CSI team could get out there and have a look around, someone torched Addison’s house,” Colt explained. He’d said it practically under his breath, but Addison must have heard it, because she gasped and clutched the baby even closer to her.

“They burned down my aunt’s house?” she asked. And even though Reed had told himself that there’d be no more close contact, he took hold of Addison again because she looked ready to sink to the floor.

“They did cleanup, too, of the blood in the yard,” Colt added. “Still, they might have left something behind.”

Addison was mumbling, shaking her head.

And crying.

Yes, the tears came, too, but Reed tried to focus on what this turn of events meant. The men were pros, definitely. Someone with lots of money and with a whopper of a motive. But what?

Everything that Addison had said and done in the past couple of days could be critical to finding out what they wanted.

And how to stop them.

“I have to get out of here,” Addison insisted.

Colt and Reed exchanged glances. “She needs to give us a statement about what happened,” Colt reminded him.

Reed hadn’t forgotten that, but he also didn’t think Addison was in any shape to do it right now. Except he rethought that when he looked at her. She was still pale. Still well past the shaky stage, but she met him eye to eye.

“What can I do to stop them?” she asked.

That was a good question, but it wasn’t the foremost one in Reed’s mind. “We’ll be the ones doing the stopping. You need to be in protective custody.”

She blinked. “Yours?”

Reed went through the options. There weren’t that many.

Either Addison would have to be with him or she’d have to stay with one of Jewell’s sons—sons who disliked Addison because of her friendship with their murdering, abandoning mother. With the trial bearing down on them, that would breach all sorts of legal issues because Addison would no doubt be called as a character witness for Jewell.

“I’ll stay with you for now,” Reed said. But he’d remedy that soon even if he had to call in the Rangers or the marshals.

“Take her statement, Reed,” Colt added over his shoulder as he left.

He intended to do just that, but something wasn’t right here. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. That something wasn’t right feeling only got worse when Addison dodged his gaze again.

“Who was involved in the adoption?” he asked Addison, and that was when Reed noticed she’d gone pale again.

Hell.

“You did cut corners,” he spat out.

She swallowed hard. “Not like you’re thinking. I went through a private agency called Dearborn, but they don’t only do adoptions.” She paused, gathered her breath. “They have surrogates.”

“Surrogates,” he repeated. Reed gave that a moment to sink in.

It didn’t sink in well.

Oh, man.

“I hired a surrogate to carry her,” she said. Addison’s gaze came to his. “Emily is our baby.”

Chapter Four

The only thing Addison could do now was wait for the fallout. And there would be fallout. She was certain of it. She’d just delivered a bombshell to Reed. One that was going to make him hate her even more than he already did.

If that was possible.

Reed’s gaze rifled from her. To Emily. And back again.

“Oh, man,” he said, and Reed just kept repeating it while he got up and went to the other side of the stall. As far away from Addison as he could get.

“I’m sorry,” Addison said.

That covered a multitude of things but not Emily herself. Addison wasn’t sorry at all that she had her precious little girl, but she’d made mistakes to get the baby.

Well, one big mistake anyway.

Reed groaned, put his hands on the sides of his head and turned away from her. For several long moments he stood there, repeating that “Oh, man” before he swung back around to face her.

“It’s true,” Reed said. Not a question exactly, but Addison nodded. “How? Why?” he asked.

His questions no doubt covered a multitude of things, too, so Addison started from the beginning. Well, the beginning after the end of their marriage, that is. The past year had been eventful to say the least.

“Six weeks after we separated, I got the divorce papers your lawyer sent. Even though I’d known they were coming, I was still shaken up.” A massive understatement, but it wasn’t something Reed would want to hear now.

Maybe not ever.

He’d washed his hands of their marriage and wasn’t the sort to take treks down memory lane.

“As you know, I’d already had two miscarriages and three failed in vitro procedures, and there was only one of our embryos left in storage,” she continued. “I figured I stood a better chance of having it work with a surrogate than me trying again.”

His jaw muscles seemed to freeze. Not his eyes, though. He glared at her. “And you didn’t think you should include me in a decision like that?”

“Of course I did, but I knew you’d say no. And at that point, I knew I couldn’t live with a no. I wanted a baby, and I was desperate and willing to do whatever it took to make that happen.”

Even if what she’d done was wrong.

“My doctor told me I couldn’t have any more eggs harvested for at least a year. Maybe not ever because I’d had a bad reaction to the fertility drugs.” A reaction that’d almost killed her. “I figured one fertilized embryo was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. So I hired a surrogate, Cissy Blanco, to carry Emily for me.”

Reed cursed, groaned again. He opened his mouth, closed it and with his back against the wall, sank down onto the floor.

“I didn’t tell you, because I knew how you felt about becoming a father,” Addison added.

“You knew it, and yet you went through with this.” His voice was raw and clipped, each one of his words punching into her like fists.

“I never expected you to be a father to the baby,” she went on.

“But I fathered her!” he practically shouted. It was so loud that it startled Emily, and she started to whimper.

Addison pulled the baby closer to her and rocked her, hoping it would help, but it was possible that Emily was picking up on the tension in the room. There was certainly plenty enough of it to pick up on.

The door flew open again, and just like that, Reed was back in lawman mode. He pulled his gun and got to his feet. But it was just the nurse again. This time there was plenty of concern in her eyes.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I heard someone shouting.”

“Everything’s fine,” Addison lied.

A burst of air left Reed’s mouth. A laugh, but definitely not from humor. “My ex-wife and I were just having a little talk,” he grumbled.

The nurse gave Addison a long look, no doubt silently asking if it was okay for her to leave, and Addison finally nodded. There was no need for an audience for the argument that Reed and she were about to continue having.

Once the nurse had left, Reed walked closer, staring down at Emily. Every muscle in his body was tight, the pulse in his throat throbbing.

“Are you going to ask if she’s really yours?” Addison tossed out there.

The staring went on for several more long moments. “No.”

Maybe he could see the resemblance. Emily had his dark brown hair, and even though Emily’s eyes were closed now, they were the same shade of deep blue as Reed’s. There were times, like now, when Emily had that same intensity in her expression as Reed.

“I went to the storage facility with the nurse to pick up our embryo, and I was with the surrogate when it was implanted. If I’d thought I could harvest more eggs,” Addison continued, “I wouldn’t have used our embryo.”

She would have used donor sperm with newly harvested eggs so that Reed wouldn’t have been included in this process. Of course, her intentions meant nothing to him now. He’d just learned he was something he’d never truly wanted to be.

A father.

Nothing she could say to him would soothe that. Still, she tried.

“I didn’t intend to tell you,” she went on. “I knew all along this was my baby, not yours. I don’t expect or want anything from you.”

That sent a flash of anger through his eyes, but that anger faded when he looked at Emily. He reached down, brushed his finger over Emily’s cheek and turned away. “She looks like my mother.”

Addison wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Reed hadn’t talked much about his folks, and she’d never met them. However, from what Addison had gathered, Reed had been physically abused by his alcoholic father and left alone after cancer finished off his mother. He would have ended up in foster care if it hadn’t been for Roy McKinnon. Roy had taken him in when Reed was fourteen and raised him as his own, but by then the damage had been done, and Reed had wanted nothing to do with parenthood.

Damage that Addison had always thought she could undo and convince him that he would indeed make a wonderful father.

She’d failed big-time.

“Go ahead,” Addison insisted. “Yell at me. Tell me how wrong I was to do this to you.”

She braced herself for him to carry through on her offer, and maybe he strongly considered doing just that, but he glanced down at his badge. The thing that’d always anchored him.

“You hired a surrogate,” Reed said. The emotion was still in his voice, but at least he wasn’t yelling. “From this Dearborn Agency. I don’t remember them coming up in the baby farm investigations, but it’s possible they did.”

That sent another chill through her even though it was something Addison had to consider. Those kidnappers had come after her for a reason, and the reason might have something to do with Dearborn or even the surrogate herself.

“I need to contact Cissy Blanco, the surrogate,” Addison said. “To see if she knows anything about this.”

“I’ll contact her.” Reed didn’t leave any room for argument, either. He was taking charge of getting to the bottom of this. “Is it possible the surrogate developed a strong attachment to the baby and she didn’t want to give Emily up?”

Addison was about to jump to say no, but then she remembered something. “I don’t think she developed an attachment, but about midway through the pregnancy, something about Cissy changed. She was moody. Maybe even scared.”

“Scared? About what?”

“There was a question about some mix-up with embryos, and the doctor at Dearborn gave Cissy an amnio test to make sure the baby she was carrying was ours. It was. But I think having the test was the start of her being upset.”

“The start? There was more?” Reed snapped.

Addison nodded. “She’d mentioned being worried about her sister, who was also a surrogate at Dearborn, but when I brought it up again at our next visit, Cissy said everything was okay, that I should forget she even said anything about it. I blew it off, thinking she was just going through pregnancy hormones.”

But Addison couldn’t be sure of that now.

“Maybe not all of Dearborn’s surrogates were legal,” Reed said. “Maybe some of them were involved with the baby farms.”

That put Addison’s heart in her throat. Was that true? If so, it would perhaps explain why the attack had happened.

“We should do a DNA swab on Emily just in case the question of her paternity comes up,” Reed suggested.

It wasn’t even something she wanted to consider, and Addison had been there with Cissy for the in vitro procedure. She was positive Emily was Reed’s and her baby. Still, Reed was right. They needed to have proof in case there were arrests made at Dearborn.

“When’s the last time you had contact with Cissy?” he asked.

“Not since Emily was born seven weeks ago. I was in the delivery room with her, and a few hours afterward I went in to thank her again, but Cissy was already gone. She checked herself out of the hospital.”

That got Reed’s attention. “And you didn’t think anything was wrong with that?”

Sadly, Addison had to shake her head again. “I wasn’t thinking of anything but the baby. I sent the last of Cissy’s payments to Dearborn and figured that was the end of it.”

Of course, Addison hadn’t even attempted to get in touch with the woman. In a way, she’d wanted to put the whole surrogacy behind her and get on with her new life. That could have turned out to be a mistake.

“What do I do now?” she asked, kissing Emily’s forehead.

That got his muscles working hard again. “The baby and you will need protective custody until I can find out why those men came after you, and...” But his explanation ground to a halt. “I need a minute,” he said, and reached for the door.

Addison figured it’d take a lot more than a minute for Reed to come to terms with what he’d just learned. Heck, maybe a lifetime wouldn’t be enough. However, he hadn’t even made it out of the room before his phone rang.

He glanced down at the screen, and when he pulled back his shoulders, Addison got up so she could see what’d caused that reaction.

Unknown caller.

“It could be just a telemarketer or wrong number,” Reed reminded her.

Maybe, but after the hellish morning they’d had, Addison doubted it. Reed hit the answer button and put the call on speaker.

“Don’t bother to trace this, cowboy,” the caller said. “I’m using a burner cell.” It wasn’t a normal voice but had been disguised with a scrambler.

One of the kidnappers, no doubt.

“You need to tell your ex that this isn’t over,” the caller continued.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Reed demanded.

“Addison knows what we want. The names of everyone she told.”

“Told what?” Addison said, rushing closer to get to the phone.

“You know. If you want to see what’ll happen to you, then look at the surprise we left for you at your house.”

“What surprise?” Reed and she asked together.

“You’ll see,” the voice taunted. “You’re a dead woman, Addison, and this time that cowboy won’t be able to save you.”

Chapter Five

There was so much going on in Reed’s head that he thought he might explode. How the devil had things gotten this crazy in such a short time?

He was a father.

Him!

Reed bit back another groan and tried to force himself to think. Not about Emily. Or Addison. Hard not to think about them, though, when the two were right in front of him, seated at his desk at the sheriff’s office. Every time he looked at the baby’s face, he was reminded that Addison had gone behind his back and done the very thing he hadn’t wanted her to do. Still, his ex’s betrayal had to go on the back burner for now.

Because of the threat.

“You’re a dead woman, Addison, and this time that cowboy won’t be able to save you.”

That in itself was bad enough, but there was the kidnapper’s other comment about the surprise at Addison’s house. Or rather what was left of her place. According to Colt, who was on the scene, the place had indeed been burned to the ground.

“I can’t get a good look at the rubble yet,” Colt said from the other end of the line. “The fire department’s still hosing it down.”

Both Colt and Reed cursed. For a good reason. The water was necessary to make sure the fire didn’t spread, but it would also likely destroy any evidence. Of course, there might not be any evidence to find.

The surprise could just be an empty threat. A ploy to put the fear of God into Addison. If so, it was working.

“Anything?” Addison asked the moment Reed ended the call with Colt. As she had been doing once they arrived at the sheriff’s office, she was nibbling on her bottom lip. Clearly panicked by all this.

Not Emily, though.

Now that she’d finished her bottle, the baby was sleeping in Addison’s arms. Even though Reed had said he wouldn’t focus on the little girl now, it was hard to ignore the tiny bundle that was causing such an avalanche of emotions inside him.

She was his daughter.

They’d done the DNA test, just in case her paternity came up, but Reed was certain what the test results would be.

“Nothing yet,” Reed answered. “But if there’s anything to find in the house, Colt will find it.”

He hoped. They had enough unanswered questions without adding this so-called threat to the list.

Cooper and the other deputy, Pete Nichols, were on their phones trying to track down that black SUV so Reed figured he’d better push aside the emotional avalanche and get to work on other things.

Like finding a safe place for Addison and Emily.

He seriously doubted she wanted to spend the rest of the day at the sheriff’s office. Or with him for that matter. But Reed couldn’t let her out of his sight until he knew both Emily and she would be safe.

“Why is this happening?” Addison asked on a rise of breath.

That was one of the big questions on Reed’s mind, too. So he sank down in the chair across from her to see if they could come up with something, anything that would help him catch the people responsible for this.

Of course, first he had to figure out what this was.

“I don’t believe the kidnappers actually wanted the baby,” Reed said, testing a theory that he’d been tossing around in his head with all the other jumbled thoughts. Maybe if he talked it out with her, it’d make more sense. “I believe they only took her to get you to cooperate with them. Think about it. They handed her to me, but they were going to take you.”

Addison’s eyes widened. “You’re right. It’s me they’re after.”

The kidnappers probably hadn’t wanted to have to take care of a newborn. That’s why they’d intended to make such a fast trade of Addison for the baby. Now that their plan had failed, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to use the baby to get Addison again.

But Reed didn’t intend to let them do that.

“Cooper ran a check on the baby farm investigation, and the Dearborn Agency didn’t come up,” Reed continued. “But there were some surrogates in the baby farms that have been found and interviewed. Ones who’d been hired by less than sterling prospective parents. In some cases the surrogates had been kidnapped, or at least pretended to be kidnapped, and the babies held for ransom from the couples who’d hired them.”

“You honestly think some of the surrogates were in on a scheme like that?” Addison asked.

“Possibly. Did Cissy try to get any extra money from you?”

Addison quickly shook her head. “No.” Then she paused. “But she knew I’d used most of my savings to pay for the surrogacy. And I didn’t inherit my aunt’s house until the week after Emily was born.”

That was right. Reed remembered it’d been held up in probate court for nearly a year because Addison’s aunt hadn’t left a will. Addison had eventually been given the house after it was determined that she was her aunt’s only legitimate heir, but neither anyone at Dearborn nor Cissy would have known for certain Addison was getting the place.

“Besides, if milking more money from me was the motive, then why wait seven weeks after the probate court’s ruling?” Addison asked. “Why not just kidnap Emily then and demand a ransom?”

Those were the reasons Reed had dismissed that particular part of the theory, too. But it brought him back to the surrogate angle itself.

“Even though Dearborn didn’t come up in the investigation, they could have been involved with the baby farms. They’d probably do anything to make sure the surrogate doesn’t say a word to you about the baby farm operation.”

Addison gave a quick nod. “We have to find out who owns the Dearborn Agency.”

“I’m working on that,” Cooper said, sliding his hand over the phone receiver. “So far, it’s like digging through a very big haystack.”

Oh, man. That wasn’t good at all. People with nothing to hide generally put their names on businesses they owned.

Cooper opened his mouth to add something to that, but he stopped, his gaze going to the glass door. Reed whirled in that direction to see what’d gotten the sheriff’s attention, and he immediately spotted the two men making their way from the parking lot.

Not the kidnappers, but Reed didn’t recognize them, so he slid his hand over his gun.

The man in the lead was tall and thin with dark hair. He was wearing a bright blue suit that was fitted close enough to his body that Reed didn’t think he was carrying concealed. However, he could have a weapon in the briefcase gripped in his hand.

The other man was a different story. Early forties. Bulky around the middle, and he was wearing a coat over his suit jacket. Plenty of places for him to hide a weapon.

“It’s Rooney, the P.I., and my attorney, Dominic Harrelson,” Addison said, getting to her feet.

She clutched Emily even tighter to her. That body language didn’t cause Reed to relax any, and he kept his hand on his gun.

“Good.” Cooper stood, too. “I called them both and told them to get in here.”

Reed stepped in front of the baby and Addison when the pair stepped into the building. Cooper and Pete moved next to him, all three protecting Addison just in case one or both of their visitors turned out to be a threat.

“Addison,” Dominic said, his attention going straight to her. He would have walked to Addison if Reed hadn’t blocked his path. “Are you all right? It’s all over the news about the kidnapping attempt.”

“We’re okay,” Addison answered.

Dominic flinched, maybe surprised Addison hadn’t given him a warmer greeting. Or maybe because Addison had stayed behind Reed. Of course, that nasty bruise on Addison’s forehead might have something to do with Dominic’s response, too, because along with the kidnapping attempt, it was obvious that Addison wasn’t anywhere close to being okay.

“You wanted to see me,” Rooney said, extending his hand first to Reed, then to Cooper. Reed kept his grip on his gun, but Cooper shook hands with the P.I.

“Did you two come together?” Reed asked, just so he’d know if these two were chummy or not. He definitely wasn’t picking up on any friendly vibes, but he wanted to know the dynamics here before they got started with the questions about the investigation.

“No,” Rooney assured him. “I’ve taken a hotel room here in town, and we just happened to drive up at the same time.”

Reed hoped that was a coincidence, and one wasn’t following the other. Of course, at this point, he suspected nearly everybody of doing something wrong. Hard to rid his mind of that possibility after what’d happened.

“I understand Addison hired you to do some background checks,” Reed said to the P.I.

Judging from the surprise in his eyes, Dominic didn’t know about that, and judging from Rooney’s scowl, this wasn’t something he wanted to discuss with Reed or Dominic.

Tough.

Rooney was discussing it.

“It’s okay,” Addison assured the P.I. “I’ve told Reed and Sheriff McKinnon everything.”

Everything, including the fact that Reed was a father. But again, he shoved that thought aside.

“Background checks?” Dominic questioned. “On who?”

“You, for one,” Rooney readily admitted. He shucked off his overcoat, then his jacket, but the P.I.’s shirt was still bulky enough to have hidden a gun. Which he probably had. After all, Rooney had a license to carry a concealed weapon.

“A background check on me?” Dominic snapped.

Addison nodded. “The Dearborn Agency, too. After all the news about the baby farms, I thought I should just make sure everything was aboveboard,” she added, though Dominic’s mouth had dropped open.

“You thought I had something to do with all that baby farm mess?” Dominic continued, and after glaring at Addison and Rooney, he turned to Cooper. “I didn’t. I was Addison’s attorney for the surrogacy agreement, that’s all.”

“I’d like to see the agreement,” Reed said quickly.

There’d been a lot of color in Dominic’s cheeks, but some of that color faded after Reed’s demand.

“The agreement was stolen, right?” Rooney asked.

Dominic nodded. “I’m not sure when it happened. I looked for it after the sheriff called, but it wasn’t there.”

Not that Reed needed proof this was a bad situation, but if he did, that was it. Reed turned to the P.I. “How’d you know it’d been stolen?”

“I guessed, that’s how. Someone stole all the surrogate files from Dearborn, too. They also ransacked Addison’s apartment. I found that out on the drive over.” Rooney shifted his attention to her. “The San Antonio cops will be calling you soon about it.”

“Sweet heaven,” Addison mumbled. “The kidnappers likely took the copy from my aunt’s house, too.”

Yeah, and even by some miracle they’d missed it, the fire would have destroyed it. Someone wanted to be thorough about this, which made Reed wonder what exactly was in that surrogacy agreement.

Someone obviously had something to hide.

But what, exactly?

“What about the surrogate Addison hired? Any chance she could be involved in this?” Cooper asked.

“No,” Dominic said as Rooney answered, “Possibly.”

Reed gave each of them an explain that look.

It was Dominic who continued first. “I read a report on Cissy and several of the other surrogate possibilities from Dearborn. There was nothing in any of their reports to indicate criminal activity on her part.” Then he shook his head and lifted his shoulder. “Of course, someone could have falsified the reports I read.”

The lawyer was right. And heck, maybe it wasn’t just the report that was fake. It was possible that Cissy Blanco wasn’t even the surrogate’s real name.

“I’m on it,” Cooper volunteered, and he headed back to his desk, no doubt to make calls about the surrogate.

“You think Cissy was possibly involved in this,” Reed said to Rooney.

Even though the room wasn’t that warm, there were beads of sweat on his face, and Rooney wiped them away with the back of his hand. “I don’t have anything specific, but something’s not right with the Dearborn Agency itself.”

It meshed with what Cooper had said, too. “What have you found?” Reed pressed.

“That’s just it. I haven’t found much of anything. It’s a corporation, but it’s buried under layers of paperwork, and I can’t find out who actually owns it. When I asked the office manager about the owner and the board of directors, all I got was the runaround.”

That brought Addison out from behind him, but she turned toward Dominic, not Rooney. “And you didn’t know any of this?”

Dominic threw up his hands. “Why would I? You contacted Dearborn before you ever asked me to do the surrogacy agreement. I just assumed you had vetted them and trusted them.”

Reed looked at Addison to see if that was true. Apparently, it was. “A woman at the fertility clinic I used recommended Dearborn. So did my fertility specialist. I hired Dominic to make sure there were no holes or discrepancies in the contract I had to sign with them.”

It was a smart move on Addison’s part so she could ensure that she actually got the baby if the surrogate managed to become pregnant. However, the discrepancies might not be with the contract but with the agency itself.

Or with the lawyer who’d blessed the agreement.

“Who do you think tried to kidnap Addison?” Reed asked.

However, before their visitors could answer, a sound distracted Reed. Emily’s soft whimper. When he looked back at the baby, he realized she was staring at him. Studying him as he’d done to her earlier. Reed didn’t want to feel anything, not right now anyway, when he had so many questions to ask their visitors.

But he did.

He felt as if someone had knocked the breath right out of him. And maybe someone had. Emily. That tiny baby bundled in Addison’s arms had nearly brought him to his knees.

“Are you all right?” Addison whispered.

No, he wasn’t, far from it, but he needed to finish these interviews so he could sit down and try to process everything that’d happened.

Reed must have looked sick to his stomach, because Rooney took out a foil roll of antacids from his pocket and offered him one. When Reed shook his head, declining, Rooney popped two of them into his own mouth.

“I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here,” Rooney concluded, “but I don’t want to be caught up in the blame game. For the record, I only did the job that Addison hired me to do, and I’ll continue doing it unless she tells me to stop.”

“You might want to rethink that. All of this could be dangerous,” Addison said. Not exactly firing the man, but the warning was definitely warranted.

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ that. Kidnapping attempts, your place burned down and it all seems to lead back to either you...” He motioned toward Dominic before putting his thumb against his own chest. “Me. Or Dearborn. My money’s on the agency.”

Addison shook her head. “But who in the agency? The only person I dealt with there was the office manager, Donna Cannon.”

“She’s gone,” Rooney explained. “She quit about a month ago, and they’ve been using a temp ever since.”

Well, that explained why Cooper wasn’t getting a lot of answers. “Who do you think is behind Dearborn?” Reed asked.

“Gunther Quarles,” Rooney said without hesitation.

Dominic looked at the P.I. as if he’d gone mad. “Quarles is a judge.”

Reed knew the name. Not just a judge but a rich, respected one. In addition to his being a judge, Quarles’s family had a charity foundation for underprivileged kids.

“I know exactly what he is,” Rooney said. “But I don’t like the way his name keeps popping up in my investigation. He signed at least five of the recent adoption decrees from Dearborn.”

Now it was Reed’s turn to shrug. “I’d imagine he’s signed dozens of decrees like that. It’s his job.”

“I thought that at first, too, but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find at least three of the birth mothers were teenagers and had spent some time in facilities run by Quarles’s foundation.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, either,” Dominic insisted. The attorney had never looked comfortable with this interview, but his discomfort went up a significant notch. He fingered his collar and then moved those fidgety fingers to the back of his neck. “It’s not a good idea to antagonize a man like Quarles.”

The lawyer checked the time on his phone. “I have another appointment.” Dominic spared Addison a glance. “I’ll be in touch.”

Reed moved in front of Dominic when he reached for the door. “Sorry, but I’ll need both you and Rooney to stay and give statements. We need to find out everything you know about this investigation.”

Dominic huffed. “But I’ve already told you everything.”

“Then you won’t mind writing it down.” Reed didn’t give either of them a chance to refuse, either. He pointed toward the two interview rooms just up the hall. “Rooney on the right. Dominic, you can take the left one.”

Rooney headed in the direction he’d been instructed, clearly cooperating. About this anyway. But Reed had been a deputy long enough to know that sometimes the most cooperative suspects were the guiltiest. Rooney could be here to manipulate the investigation or at least try to figure out what Reed knew.

Which wasn’t much.

Reed would have to do something fast about his lack of information, but first on his agenda was finding that safe house for Addison and the baby.

Pete and Cooper followed the P.I. and the lawyer into the rooms. Maybe they’d be able to get more out of them while they wrote up their statements.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Addison whispered the moment that Dominic and Rooney were out of earshot.

He was still riled about her going through with the surrogacy without telling him, but Reed figured Addison had more than enough to deal with right now. He managed a nod, brushed his hand on her arm and reached for his phone so he could start making those safe-house arrangements.

However, the phone rang, and when Reed saw Colt’s name on the screen, he answered right away and put the call on speaker so Addison could hear.

“The firemen finally put out the fire,” Colt said immediately. But his hesitation after that had Reed groaning.

“What’s wrong now?” Addison asked.

“The kidnappers weren’t lying. They left something in the house.” Again, Colt hesitated. “It’s a body.”

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