LITMIR.BIZ

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quite choke back a gasp when the cruiser tires squealed around one of those turns and it felt as if Grayson was losing control of the vehicle. All the memories of that other night came flooding back.

      The frantic rush to get away from the person trying to kill her. The adrenaline and the fear. Even the feeling of the impact.

      The pain.

      But more intense than the pain and the fear had been the sickening dread that she’d failed.

      “Flashbacks?” Lucas asked.

      She nodded. “I remember that you’re the one who found me that night. If it hadn’t been you...”

      Hailey didn’t finish that thought. No need. Lucas had found her, and while it hadn’t made things perfect, it had allowed her to deliver the baby safely.

      Grayson took the final turn, and Hailey saw the ranch come into view. To say it was sprawling was an understatement. It’d been huge, but now that the Ryland cousins were buying up the adjacent land and building their own homes, the place stretched out for miles and miles.

      They’d also added more security since the last time she’d visited. There was now a large security gate, and she saw several men near it. Ranch hands, probably, since she didn’t recognize any of them.

      “Get down,” Lucas told her as they approached the gate. He lowered the window. “Anything?” he asked the men.

      “Yep. Just a few seconds ago Sawyer called to say he shot at a guy who’d crossed over the fence. He and two of the other hands are chasing him.”

      Hailey sucked in her breath. Sawyer was his cousin as well as an FBI agent. “Did Sawyer have to fire shots anywhere near the houses?”

      The guy volleyed glances among Lucas, Grayson and her. Maybe he was trying to figure out if it was okay if he answered since he probably didn’t even know who she was.

      “No, the shooting happened in the back pasture,” the guy said after Lucas gave him a go-ahead nod. “Mason said, though, that y’all should wait down here until they’ve made sure there’s only one.”

      Oh, mercy.

      As hard as that was to hear—and it was even harder for her to stay put—Hailey knew he was right. The attacker might not be alone. Heck, he could have brought an entire army with him, and it was best to aim that army at her rather than launch an attack near the houses.

      Still, waiting was hard.

      Even if she lifted her head, something Lucas wouldn’t like her to do, Hailey couldn’t see Lucas’s house from this part of the road, but she knew it was less than a half mile away. She knew because he’d taken her there for the one night they’d been together. The night she’d had a serious lapse in judgment and gotten way too personal with a man she should have avoided. Or so it’d seemed at the time. But without that night, she wouldn’t have her son, and despite everything that’d gone on, the one thing she was certain of was that she loved her baby.

      Lucas didn’t seem to be having an easier time waiting than she was. He put the window back up, mumbled some profanity and took out his phone. This time she saw that he was calling the nanny again.

      “Just checking to make sure everything is okay,” Lucas said when Tillie answered.

      Hailey automatically scooted closer so she could hear what the nanny had to say, but that only earned her a scowl from Lucas. He put the call on speaker, her cue to inch away from him. She did.

      “The baby’s fine,” Tillie assured Lucas. “He went straight to sleep after his bottle. And Mason’s still here just in case.”

      Just in case everything went from bad to worse. Hailey hated that it was a possibility, but Mason was another lawman, so it was good to have him there. She prayed, though, that he wouldn’t be needed and that the danger would end soon. With this idiot intruder not just in custody but also willing to tell them the name of the person who’d hired him.

      “You said earlier that Hailey was with you,” Tillie went on. She paused. “Is, uh, everything okay? Did that man try to get onto the ranch because of her?”

      “Yeah,” Lucas admitted. Now he was the one who paused. “I’ll need to take the baby someplace safe. Will you be able to come with us?”

      “Of course,” Tillie quickly agreed.

      Hailey was shaking her head before the nanny even answered.

      The head shaking caused Lucas to scowl again. “I’m going to protect my son,” he snarled as if she didn’t want the same thing.

      She did. More than anything, she wanted him safe. Lucas and his family, too. “But I want to see him.”

      That got Lucas’s muscles tightening again. “And then what?”

      It was a good question. Hailey didn’t have anything resembling a good answer. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I need some answers, and I think the place to start is with my sister.”

      “I agree,” Lucas said without hesitation. “I’ll want her contact info and anything recent you have on her. I’ll especially want to know why she could want you dead.”

      “I don’t know any of those things,” Hailey had to admit. “I haven’t seen or heard from Colleen since I’ve been in WITSEC.”

      Lucas huffed, clearly not pleased that she hadn’t given him something to go on. “You two were close?”

      “Once.” But that was another round of bad memories. “We were both working as computer systems analysts for Preston DeSalvo’s company. I testified against him, but Colleen didn’t. She claimed she didn’t see the incriminating evidence that I found.”

      Lucas jumped right on that. “She lied?”

      “Maybe. But I can’t believe she’d be the one behind this. I’m still her sister.”

      He gave her a flat look. “Cain and Abel were brothers, and you know how that ended.”

      Yes, with one murdering the other, but Hailey had to hang on to something, and that something was that her only sister hadn’t betrayed her like this. Still, she wanted to talk to Colleen and get this all sorted out.

      She nearly reached for his phone to make a call, but there was no one who came to mind that she could trust. Well, no one other than Lucas.

      “I’ll bring Colleen in for questioning,” Lucas said as if reading her mind. He didn’t get a chance to add anything else because the sound got their attention.

      A shot.

      Even though it was in the distance, it still caused Hailey’s heart to slam against her chest. She held her breath, waiting, and even though she tried to steel herself for whatever would happen next, she still gasped when Lucas’s phone buzzed.

      “Mason,” he said looking at the screen before he answered it and put the call on speaker.

      She hadn’t thought her heart could beat any faster, but she’d obviously been wrong. Mason was with the baby, and if he was calling then maybe that meant the shot had been fired close to the house.

      Or in it.

      Hailey pressed her fingers to her mouth and listened, praying.

      “Sawyer fired the shot,” Mason said. “The guy’s alive for now.”

      “Is he talking?” Lucas asked.

      “No, but I just called an ambulance, so maybe he’ll say something on the way to the hospital. Sawyer has a way of getting dirt to talk.”

      Good. But that didn’t mean this was over. “Are there any other attackers out there?” Hailey pressed.

      Just as the ranch hand had done, Mason hesitated. “No. Nothing else is showing up on any of the security feeds, either. It looks as if this clown came alone.

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