“You’ve been good to me through all of this. I won’t forget it.”

Dade stared at her. “That sounds like some kind of goodbye.”

She looked ready to say yes, it was. But Dade wasn’t about to accept a goodbye, so he kissed her. It was ill-timed. But it was also what he needed. Hopefully it was what Kayla needed, too.

“Remember,” he said against her mouth, “I’m the guy who makes you forget to breathe.” He meant to make it sound light, but it sure didn’t come out that way.

Her eyes met his again, but there was no humor, no teasing. “That’s true. And if you don’t think that scares me, think again.”

He brushed his mouth against hers. “Fear is the last thing I want you to feel when it comes to me.”

“Too late.” And she kissed him in a way that made him melt.

Dade returned the favor. “Funny, you don’t sound afraid.” She sounded aroused, and looked it as well, with her heavy eyelids and flushed cheeks.

He felt her muscles go slack, and she slipped her hands around the back of his neck. “I’m only afraid you might stop,” she whispered..

About the Author

Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSEN feels as if she were genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.

Dade
Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Chapter One

Kayla Brennan sure didn’t look like a killer.

That was Deputy Sheriff Dade Ryland’s first thought when his glare landed on the blonde who was running down the staircase. His second thought went in a different direction.

A bad one.

More specifically to her dark purple dress that hugged every curve of her body. Real curves. Something that always got his attention even when it shouldn’t.

Like now, for instance.

Sex and Kayla Brennan shouldn’t be occupying the same side of his brain.

He’d seen her before, of course, from a distance. Just over a year ago at the Silver Creek sheriff’s office where she was being questioned about her husband’s suspicious fatal car accident. That day Dade watched her from the doorway of his office. But she’d been pregnant then and had hidden those spicy blue eyes behind a pair of designer sunglasses. She’d shown no emotion of any kind.

Unlike now.

He saw just a flash of fear before she closed down. That pretty face became a rock-hard wall.

Dade cleared his throat and kicked up his glare a notch, hoping both would give him an attitude adjustment. It did. But then it wasn’t hard to remember that this curvy blonde might be partly responsible for the death of someone he loved.

“I heard the doorbell,” Kayla announced. She paused on the bottom step when she spotted Dade in the doorway, and her attention flew in the direction of the other man in the foyer. “Who’s he?” she demanded.

Because Kayla apparently didn’t recognize him, Dade tapped the badge clipped to his rawhide belt. “He has a name, and it’s Deputy Sheriff Dade Ryland.” He nudged the other man aside and stepped into the foyer so he could close the door.

Her left eyebrow rose, and her gaze slipped back to Dade. “You’re a deputy?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “You look more outlaw than lawman.”

Yeah, he got that a lot, but Dade wasn’t about to let Kayla get away with the observation. “You’d know all about outlaws, wouldn’t you?”

She flinched a little. Just enough to make Dade wonder exactly how raw that nerve was he’d hit.

Her flinch quickly turned to a scalpel-sharp glare, and she was almost as good at that particular expression as he was. “What are you doing in my house?”

House. That was a loose term for what was actually the Texas-sized mansion on the outskirts of his hometown of Silver Creek. A mansion she’d inherited when her husband had been killed. Dade had been raised nearby in a big ranch house with sixteen rooms, but he was betting the Brennan place was double that size.

The same probably went for Kayla’s pocketbook, although Dade had some one-upmanship on her in that particular department. His family had earned their money through hard, back-breaking, honest work on the ranch. Kayla had married her millions, and those millions were as dirty as she no doubt was.

“I’m here on official business,” Dade informed her. He glanced at the bald, gorilla-sized man who moved a few steps away. Dade knew his name was Kenneth Mitchell.

Kayla’s so-called bodyguard.

Probably more like a hired gun as dirty as the woman paying his salary, and that’s why Dade kept his hand on his gun tucked in his shoulder holster.

“The deputy says you’re in his protective custody,” Kenneth relayed to Kayla. His bulky body strained against his black suit, just as the muscles in his face strained against his skin.

She studied Dade, her eyes narrowing. “How did you know I was here? I led everyone to believe that I’d be at my house in San Antonio.”

Dade shrugged, figuring the answer was obvious. “The district attorney, Winston Calhoun, called the sheriff and told him.”

The way she pulled in her breath let him know that the answer had not been so obvious to her after all. “Mr. Calhoun assured me that he would keep my whereabouts a secret.”

Dade tipped his head to the badge again. “He didn’t exactly announce it to the press. He told me because you’re in my protective custody.”

Her eyes narrowed even more. “Protective custody?” she repeated. “How do you figure that?”

Dade walked closer to her. “Easy. You’re the state’s material witness, and the D.A. wants you alive long enough to testify against your father-in-law.”

There it was in a nutshell, but that didn’t begin to cover what Dade wanted from this woman. Yes, he wanted her to testify against her late-husband’s scummy father, Charles Brennan. He wanted her to take the stand and spill her guts about the extortion and murders that Brennan had committed. While she was at it, Dade wanted to know if Brennan had killed his own son—Kayla’s husband.

But those were just the icing.

What Dade really wanted her to admit on the stand was that she’d had some part in another crime.

Ellie’s murder.

Dade had to take a deep breath as those memories crashed through him.

Ellie hadn’t been just his sister-in-law and his twin brother’s wife. Dade had loved her as deeply as he did his blood family. Kayla Brennan and her scumbag father-in-law were going to pay for killing Ellie.

“Don’t worry,” Kayla said with a sappy sweetness that couldn’t be genuine. “I didn’t come out of hiding just to let someone silence me.”

No, but Kayla had come out of hiding after nearly a year. So she could testify, she’d told the D.A. But Dade wondered if there was more to it than that. He knew the D.A. had been trying to contact her for months, and she hadn’t responded.

Until three hours ago.

Then, Kayla had called D.A. Winston Calhoun and told him that she would testify against her father-in-law in an extortion and racketeering trial. A trial that could send Charles Brennan to jail for several decades.

Hardly the death sentence Dade wanted for him.

However, Dade was willing to bet that Brennan had no plans to spend one minute behind bars, much less a decade. And he probably wouldn’t. From what Dade had read, the case was weak at best, and witnesses kept backing out or disappearing.

But now Kayla had arrived on the scene.

Dade couldn’t believe Kayla had doing her civic duty in mind. No, this was probably some kind of revenge move to get back at her father-in-law. No honor among thieves in the Brennan clan.

“I wasn’t worried about you,” Dade corrected. “Just doing a job I was ordered to do.” And he had indeed been ordered by not just the sheriff, who was his brother, but by the D.A. Kayla was a star witness in every sense of the word, and a lot of people wanted her alive.

She made a sound of sarcastic amusement and breezed past him to head toward the double front doors. “I’ll stay alive so I can testify, and I don’t need you or anyone else in your family to protect me. That’s why I hired Kenneth.”

Dade stared at her. Well, he stared at her backside anyway because she was already walking away from him. Her low thin heels made delicate clicks on the veiny marble floor.

“I don’t care how many guns you hire,” Dade informed her. “You’re still in my protective custody.”

Kayla stopped and glanced at him from over her shoulder. The corner of her rose-tinged mouth lifted just a fraction, but it wasn’t a smile on her face. “Protective custody, you say? Right. Those two words don’t go together when it comes to you or any member of your family. The Rylands hate me.”

Dade didn’t deny it. “We have reason to hate you.”

“No.” She huffed, causing a wisp of her hair to move slightly. “You have reason to hate someone for your sister-in-law’s murder, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Got proof of that?”

“Do you have proof to the contrary?” she fired right back at him.

He leaned in a little. “If I did, your butt would be in jail right now.”

Another smirk. A short-lived one. She turned away so that he couldn’t see her face. Her head lowered slightly. “Well, because I’m here and not in the Silver Creek jail, you obviously have no proof. So you can leave.”

“I wish.” Dade went closer while keeping an eye on Kayla’s bodyguard. “Nothing would make me happier than to walk out that door and leave you to deal with the wolves, but I have my orders.”

“You can take your orders and get out.” She reached for the doorknob, but Dade snagged her wrist with his left hand.

The wrist snag obviously didn’t sit well with her bodyguard because he reached for his gun. Dade reached for his, too.

“Stop this!” Kayla practically yelled. She jerked her hand away from Dade and shook her head. “Please,” she said. Her voice was softer now but edged with the nerves that were right beneath her skin. “Just leave.”

Dade’s nerves were too close to the surface, too, and touching Kayla certainly hadn’t helped. He felt ornerier than usual, and that wasn’t good because he was the king of ornery. Best to go ahead and lay down some ground rules.

Dade aimed his index finger at Kenneth. “You draw that gun and I’ll shoot you where you stand. Got that?”

Oh, the man wanted to argue all right. Dade could see it in his eyes, but he knew what was in his own eyes—determination to finish this damn job so he could get the heck out of there.

When Kenneth finally eased his hand away from his weapon, Dade turned back to Kayla. “Where’s your baby?”

She pulled back her shoulders. “That’s none of your business.”

He tapped his badge in case she’d forgotten. “This isn’t personal, lady. I’m asking because I need to establish some security measures.” He got closer, violating her personal space and then some.

Not the brightest idea he’d ever had. His chest brushed against her breasts, and he got a fire-hot reminder that Kayla was a woman.

Dade held his ground and met her eye-to-eye. “Where’s your son?” he repeated.

She didn’t back down, either. “He’s sleeping upstairs. Now tell me what this is all about.”

Dade ignored her question. “Is your son away from the windows?”

She stepped back and her breath rattled in her throat. “Why?”

Dade gave her a flat look. “Because my protective custody extends to your son, Robert.”

“Robbie,” she corrected, although she looked as if she wanted to curse for giving him even that little bit of personal information about her child. A kid who was supposedly just eleven months old. A baby. And it was because of the baby that Dade had quit arguing about this assignment so he could drive out to the Brennan estate.

He didn’t care a rat’s you-know-what about Kayla, but he would do everything within his power to protect an innocent child.

Even her child.

“The deputy’s trying to scare you,” Kenneth interjected.

“Yeah, I am,” Dade readily admitted. He looked at her again to make sure she got what he was saying. “And if you have any sense whatsoever, you’ll be scared because you can’t believe Brennan is going to let you get anywhere near that witness stand tomorrow morning.”

Her bottom lip trembled a little, but she kept her chin up and her expression resolute.

“Your baby’s safety is one of the main reasons for the protective custody,” Dade informed her. “I have to take your son and you to a safe house. Sheriff’s orders.”

She started the head shaking again. “I’ve already had someone upgrade the security system, and I can hire more bodyguards.” Kayla looked at him. “I wouldn’t have come back here to Silver Creek if I hadn’t thought I could keep my son safe.”

Dade made sure they had eye contact again. “You thought wrong.”

She glanced out the sidelight window. “I don’t believe that. Charles wouldn’t do anything that would risk hurting Robbie.”

“That’s a chance you’re willing to take?”

She didn’t answer that. “Besides, I don’t trust you any more than I trust Charles.”

Dade couldn’t blame her. The Rylands hadn’t exactly been friendly since Ellie’s murder. Things would stay that way, too, but it wouldn’t stop Dade from doing his job.

Kayla stepped closer to him. So close that he caught her scent. Not perfume but baby powder.

“I’ll call my attorney,” she said with her voice lowered. “But I’m certain you can’t force protective custody on me.”

She was right. Well, unless he thought she was going to run. But because she’d arrived voluntarily, he didn’t exactly have reason to believe she would leave.

“Think about your son’s safety,” Dade reminded her.

“I am.” And she turned and opened the door. “I can keep him safe without so-called help from the Rylands.”

Fine. Dade had warned his brother and the D.A. that this wouldn’t be an easy notion to sell, and both had told Dade that somehow he had to convince Kayla otherwise. Well, he’d failed, but he darn sure wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

Dade was barely an inch out the door when Kayla slammed it so hard that he felt the gust of air wash over him. It mixed with the blast of chilly February wind that came right at him. He waited a second until he heard her engage the lock. He waited an extra second to see if she would change her mind, but when she didn’t reopen the door, Dade cursed and headed off the porch and toward his truck.

Hell.

He really didn’t want to go back to the sheriff’s office and tell his brother, Grayson, that he’d failed. Not that Grayson was likely keeping count or anything, but Dade figured he already had too many failures on his records. Far more than the other deputies in Silver Creek. Still, he couldn’t force a hardheaded woman to listen to reason.

Dade opened the door to his truck, moved to get inside and then stopped. He lifted his head, listened and looked around.

The area surrounding the circular drive and front of the estate was well lit so he had a good view of pretty much everything within thirty yards in any direction. But it wasn’t the lit areas that troubled him. It was the thick clusters of trees and shrubs on the east and west sides of the estate.

He waited, trying to tamp down the bad feeling he had about all of this. But the bad feeling stayed right with him, settling hard and cold in his stomach.

Dade cursed, shoved his truck keys in his pocket and headed back for the estate. He didn’t relish going a second round with the curvy Kayla, but he would for the sake of her son. Dade turned. Made it just one step.

And that’s when the shot rang out.

Chapter Two

Kayla was halfway up the stairs, but the sound stopped her cold.

A sharp, piercing blast.

The sound tore through the house. And her.

She froze for just a second, but Kenneth certainly didn’t. He drew his gun.

“Get down!” Kenneth shouted. “Someone just fired a shot.”

Kayla’s heart started to pound, and her breath began to race. She had no intentions of getting down. She had to get to her baby. She had to protect Robbie.

There was another shot, followed by someone banging on the front door.

“Let me in!” that someone shouted. It was Deputy Dade Ryland. He was cursing, and while he bashed his fist against the door, he continued to yell for them to let him inside before he got killed.

Her first thought was that Dade was responsible for the shots, but that didn’t make sense. He’d come here to warn her of danger, and if he’d wanted to shoot at them, then he could have done it in the foyer at point-blank range. Still, that didn’t mean she trusted the deputy.

“You need to get down,” Kenneth warned her again, and he headed to the door to disengage the security system and let in the deputy.

Dade didn’t wait for the door to be fully open. The moment Kenneth cracked it, he dived through nearly knocking down her bodyguard in the process. The deputy had his gun drawn and ready, and he reached over to slap off the lights. In the same motion, he kicked the door shut.

“Lock it and reset the security system,” Dade ordered Kenneth. He took out his phone from his jeans pocket and called for backup.

Even though he’d turned off the lights in the foyer, Kayla had no trouble seeing Dade because the lamp in the adjacent living room was blazing. Dade’s eyes were blazing, too, and he turned that hot glare on her.

“I heard your bodyguard tell you to get down. What part of that didn’t you understand?” Dade barked.

“I have to get to my son,” she barked right back, and Kayla continued up the stairs. Or rather that’s what she tried to do, but the third shot wasn’t just a loud blast. It ripped through the window in the living room, spewing glass everywhere. And worse, the bullet tore into the stair railing just a few yards below her.

She froze. Oh, mercy. Someone wasn’t just shooting. The person was actually trying to kill her.

“Now will you get down?” Dade demanded.

Without warning, Dade aimed his gun into the living room and fired, the blast echoing through the foyer. He shot out the lamp, plunging them into darkness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

Even over the blast still roaring in her ears, Kayla heard a sound that robbed her of what little breath she had left. Robbie started to cry. He wasn’t alone. The nanny, Connie Mullins, was with him, but Kayla didn’t want to count on the petite sixty-year-old woman when it came to a situation like this.

A situation that had turned deadly.

Kayla refused to think of the possibility this could end with her death. And that wouldn’t even be a worst-case scenario. Worst case would be for Robbie to get hurt.

Dade pointed to the living room where he’d just shot out the light. “Can you see the SOB shooting at your boss?” he asked Kenneth.

Her bodyguard shook his head, and both men glanced up at her as she started to crawl toward the nursery.

Dade cursed. “Cover me,” he said to Kenneth. The order barely made it out of his mouth when he came barreling up the stairs, his cowboy boots hitting against the hardwood steps.

But that wasn’t the only sound.

More shots came. One right behind the other. Each of them ripped through the expensive carved-wood railing and sent splinters flying in every direction. That didn’t stop Dade. He made it to her, crawling over her to shove her as low as she could get.

“Robbie,” she managed to say.

Dade’s gaze slashed to hers. “If you go to him, the bullets will follow you.”

That was the only possible thing he could have said to make her stop.

Kayla froze, and the full impact of that warning slammed into her as hard as the bullets battering the foyer. Oh, no. She’d put her son in danger. This was the very thing she’d tried to avoid, the very reason she’d come out of hiding, and she had only made it worse.

Again.

The anger collided with the fear, and she wanted to hit her fists against the stairs. She wanted to scream out for the shooter to stop. But more than those things, she just wanted to protect her baby.

“Is your son with a nanny?” Dade asked.

Kayla managed a nod. She’d asked Connie to wait in the nursery when she heard Dade ring the doorbell. “In there,” she said, pointing to the first door off the left hall.

“Are they near a bathroom with a tub?” he also wanted to know.

Another nod. “There’s one adjoining the nursery.” And Kayla hated that she hadn’t thought of that herself. “Connie?” she shouted.

“What’s going on, Kayla?” the woman shouted back.

“I’m not sure,” Kayla lied. “Just take Robbie into the bathroom and get in the tub.” The porcelain tub would be their shield against the bullets.

Robbie was still crying, and the sound of her son’s wails let her know that Connie was on the move. Robbie’s voice became more and more faint until Kayla couldn’t hear him at all.

That didn’t help her nerves.

Hearing him had at least allowed her to know that he was all right. Still, she didn’t want him out in the open in the nursery in case this attack continued.

As if to prove to her that it would, more bullets ripped through the foyer.

“How long before backup arrives?” Kenneth shouted.

“Too long,” Dade answered. “At least fifteen minutes. This place isn’t exactly in city limits.”

Kenneth cursed and took cover behind a table. Kayla silently cursed as well. In fifteen minutes they could all be dead.

“I have to move you,” Dade informed her. Other than a glance that had an I-told-you-this-could-happen snarl to it, his attention volleyed between the living room and the front door.

Kayla shook her head. “But you said I can’t go near Robbie.”

“You can’t. But it’s only a matter of time before the shooter changes positions.” He tipped his head toward the front. “There are a lot of windows, and he’ll have a clean shot once he moves.”

Not if he moves but once.

“I’ll roll to the side, just a little,” Dade instructed. “And without standing up, I want you to get to the top of the stairs. Duck behind the first thing you see that can provide some cover.”

Kayla managed to nod, and the moment that Dade lifted his weight off her, she did as he’d ordered. She covered her head with her hands and scrambled up the stairs as fast as she could.

The shots didn’t stop, and one plowed into the wall above her just as Kayla dived to the side of a table. She’d barely managed that when Dade came barreling toward her. He hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her away from the table, away from the wall.

But also away from the nursery.

He hauled her toward the right, the opposite side from where Robbie and the nanny were, and Kayla was thankful that Dade had given her son that extra cushion of security. However, there was no cushion for Dade and her. They were off the stairs, yes, but the bullets continued to come at them. Dade flattened her on the floor and crawled back over her.

Kayla was well aware of his body pressed hard against hers. His breathing, too, because it was gusting in her ear. But she also felt his corded muscles and the determination to keep her alive.

That didn’t mean, however, he’d succeed.

And that both frightened and infuriated her.

Just like that, the shots stopped. Kayla held her breath, waiting and praying that this was over, but it was Dade’s profanity that let her know it wasn’t.

She glanced back at him, and her gaze collided with those steel grays. He barely looked at her, but in that glimpse he managed to convey his concern and his disgust.

He hated her.

All the Rylands hated her. And Kayla couldn’t blame them. Guilt by association. Her father-in-law had probably caused Ellie Ryland’s death. And so far, he’d gotten off scot-free, thanks to a team of good lawyers and a technicality in some of the paperwork that had been used in his original arrest.

“What?” Dade snarled.

It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her, and she knew why. She was staring at him.

“Nothing,” Kayla mumbled. And she forced her attention away from the one man who should disgust her as much as the shooter outside. But much to her dismay, what she felt wasn’t total disgust.

Yet more proof that she was stupid.

She had noticed Dade Ryland’s storm-black hair. It was a little too long, and his five o’clock stubble was a little too dark for her to think of him as handsome. No. It was worse than that. He wasn’t handsome.

He was hot in that bad-boy, outlaw sort of way.

Well, she’d already been burned by one bad boy, and she wasn’t looking for another. Not now. Not ever again.

Dade gave her another glance, and she could have sworn he smirked, as if he could read her mind.

“You see the shooter yet?” Dade called down to the bodyguard.

“No.”

“The shooter’s probably moving,” Dade growled. He levered himself up just slightly and re-aimed his gun toward the front of the house.

Kayla could do nothing other than hope this would end with her baby unharmed. She’d been a fool to come back, a fool to respond to Charles’s latest threat.

But what else could she have done?

She had to get out from beneath the hold Charles had on her. She had to try to make a safe, normal life for her son. But instead, she’d gotten this.

“Someone told Charles I was here,” she mumbled. “Probably the D.A. or a Ryland.” She hadn’t meant to say Dade’s family name so loudly, but by God it was hard to tamp down the anger while bracing for another attack.

“No one in my family is responsible for this,” Dade informed her. “Lady, you got into this mess all by yourself.”

She wanted to argue, but the sound stopped her. In the distance she heard sirens. No doubt the backup that Dade had called. Even though she didn’t like the idea of the place crawling with any more Rylands, it was better than the alternative.

She hoped.

Beneath them in the foyer, Kayla heard her bodyguard moving around. Maybe so he could try to spot the shooter. Dade moved, too. He used his forearm to push her face back to the carpet, and he maneuvered himself off her. This time not just an inch or two. He reared up and took aim at the front windows.

He fired.

The blast roared through her ears, and she had no time to recover before there was another shot. Not from Dade. This one came tearing through the foyer but from a different angle than before. This bullet took out one of the front windows and sent glass flying through the air.

Dade had been right. The shooter had moved. And now Dade and she were in his direct line of fire.

For a few moments at the beginning of the attack, Kayla had hoped the shots were meant as a warning. A way to get her to grab Robbie and go back into hiding. But this was no warning.

This was an assassination attempt.

Dade sent another shot the gunman’s way, and she put her hands over her ears to shut out the painful noise. However, she could still hear them. And the siren. It grew closer and closer as the gunman’s shots came faster and faster. He wasn’t panicking, and he definitely wasn’t running. He was trying to kill her before the sheriff arrived.

“Stay down,” Dade warned her. He shifted his gun toward one of the other front windows and fired.

This time, Kayla heard another sound. A groan of some kind, following by a heavy thud. Had Dade managed to shoot the gunman? Maybe.

Kayla looked up and followed the direction of Dade’s aim. There. Through the jagged shards of glass jutting from the window frame, she saw something.

A man.

He was dressed head to toe in black, and it was only because of the porch light that she could see his silhouette. She could also see his gun, and he took aim at Dade and her.

Kayla yelled for Dade to get down, and she latched onto him to pull him back to the floor. But he threw off her grip and fired at the shadowy figure.

The man fired a shot as well and then clutched his shoulder. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought this time maybe Dade had managed to shoot him.

Dade must have thought that too because he headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time while he kept his gun trained on the person on the porch. Kayla could only watch with her breath held and her heart pounding so hard that it might come out of her chest.

The man on the porch fired.

She yelled to warn Dade, but her warning was drowned out by another shot and the sounds of the approaching sirens. She heard Dade curse as if in pain, but what he didn’t do was get down. He raced toward the door, threw it open and fired again.

But so did the gunman.

Oh, God.

She realized then that if this assassin managed to kill Dade that he would come after Robbie and her next. Of course, Kenneth was down there, somewhere, but if the gunman got past the bodyguard, then Kayla would have no way to defend her baby and herself.

Kayla cursed herself for not bringing some kind of weapon with her. But she wouldn’t need a weapon if this goon tried to get to her baby. No. Pure raw adrenaline and the need to protect her child would give her the strength to fight whoever came through that door.

She stood, preparing herself for whatever she had to do, but instead she saw the blue swirls of the lights from a police cruiser. Red lights, too, maybe from an ambulance. The vehicles tore across the lawn and screamed to a halt. There were no more shots, just the noise of the men who scrambled from those vehicles.

Kayla waited, the seconds clicking off like gunshots in her head, and when the waiting became unbearable, she began to make her way down the stairs. The foyer was still dark, and the only illumination came from the jolts of red and blue lights from the responding vehicles.

“Kenneth?” she called out, her voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He didn’t answer. “Deputy Ryland?” she tried.

No answer from Dade either.

Kayla inched down the steps, praying this ordeal was indeed over but also bracing herself for whatever she might see.

She didn’t brace herself enough.

There was blood on the floor of the foyer. In the darkness it looked like a pool of liquid black, but she instinctively knew what it was.

And there, slumped in the doorway was Dade Ryland.

Chapter Three

Dade looked down at his left arm and cursed. This was not a good time to get shot.

Hell.

Using the doorjamb for support, he got to his feet and tried not to look as if his arm was on fire. He figured he’d failed big-time when he saw Kayla. Her eyes were wide, her face way too pale.

“You’ve been shot,” she said, the words rushing out.

Was that concern he saw and heard? He had to be wrong about that. No, this was probably just a reaction to the blood. And there was no doubt about it, there was blood.

“Check on your bodyguard,” Dade barked, and he pulled back his shoulders so he could face the responders who were coming right at him.

First, there was his brother, Sheriff Grayson Ryland. Tall and lanky like most of his five siblings, Grayson might not have been the biggest of the half-dozen people who came out of the cruisers and ambulance, but he was automatically the center of attention and the one in charge. Grayson commanded respect just by stepping onto the scene.

Another brother, Mason, stepped out from a vehicle, too—a weathered Ford truck that had been red once, maybe twenty years ago. Mason, like Dade, was also a deputy sheriff but worked only part-time because he also ran the family ranch.

Dressed in his usual black jeans, black shirt and equally black Stetson, Mason made his way toward the estate. Not with Grayson’s speed, authority or concern. Mason always looked as if he were stalking something. Or headed to a funeral.

“You’re hurt,” Grayson said, and he used his head to motion to the medics so they’d hurry to Dade. Grayson also kept his gun trained on the man sprawled out on the porch.

The dead man.

Dade had managed to take the guy out, but not before the SOB had fired a shot into Dade’s arm. Talk about a rookie mistake, and he hadn’t been a rookie in fourteen years, not since he’d joined the Silver Creek sheriff’s department on his twenty-first birthday. Considering that being a cop was his one-and-only desire in life, he always seemed to be screwing it up.

Like now, for instance.

The gunman who could have given them answers was as dead as a doornail. Added to that, Dade had nearly let Kayla Brennan be gunned down, her bodyguard had been shot, or worse, and the jagged slice on his arm from the bullet graze was hurting like hell.

Grayson stooped down and put his fingers to the gunman’s neck. “He’s dead.”

Yeah. No surprise there. “You need to check on Kayla’s bodyguard,” Dade let his brother know. He would do it himself, but he wanted a chance to catch his breath and get ahead of the pain.

“Kayla?” Grayson questioned, standing upright. He aimed a questioning glare at Dade, and Dade knew why. Kayla was way too personal to call someone who might be responsible for a family member’s death.

Grayson was right, and Dade silently cursed that, too. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress, and while he wasn’t sure about the damsel part, Kayla was definitely in distress.

And so was her baby.

With his glare morphing into a disgusted scowl, Grayson flipped on the lights and walked past him and into the foyer where Kayla was kneeling down next to Kenneth.

“He’s still breathing,” Kayla announced, and that sent two of the medics scurrying in the bodyguard’s direction.

One medic, however, Carrie Collins, a leggy brunette in snug green scrubs made a beeline toward Dade.

“I’m okay,” Dade tried to tell her, but she latched onto his arm to examine it.

“I’ll decide if you’re okay or not,” Carrie answered.

Like Kayla, there was way too much concern in her voice and expression. In this case, though, Dade knew why. Carrie and he had once been lovers, but that wasn’t just water under the bridge. The water had dried up nearly a year ago. Too bad Carrie didn’t always remember that.

“You need stitches,” Carrie mumbled, her forehead bunching up. “And probably a tetanus shot.”

But Dade tuned her out and put his attention on Kayla, Grayson and the unconscious bodyguard. Grayson caught onto Kayla and moved her away from the man so the medics could get to work, but it was obvious Kayla had tried to help her employee. Her hands and dress were covered with blood.

Kayla looked down at her palms, which were shaking almost violently, and she shuddered. Now that the lights were back on, Dade also saw the tears well up in her eyes.

Dade’s feet seemed to have a mind of their own because he started toward her. So did Mason. Mason grunted and glanced down at Dade’s arm.

“You scratched yourself,” Mason remarked with zero sympathy in his tone. “Don’t expect me to do the paperwork for this goat rope.”

It was just what Dade needed to hear. Sarcasm without sympathy. He knew his brother loved him. Well, Dade was pretty sure of that anyway. But Mason wasn’t the sort to cut anyone any slack.

Unlike Kayla. Blinking back tears, she made her way toward Dade with her attention fixed on him. “I thought you’d been killed.”

Dade was aware that both his brothers were watching and listening. “No. You didn’t get lucky this time.”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her, but quickly regained her composure. “Lucky?” she challenged. “Right. Well, let’s just say I’m grateful you did your job and put yourself in front of bullets for me.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “Thank you, Dade.”

Dade was one-hundred-percent positive that his brother hadn’t missed the way his given name had just purred right off her sympathetic rose-tinged lips. Or maybe the purring and the sympathy were his imagination.

Oh, man.

Kayla was going to be trouble with a capital T.

“I have to check on my baby,” she let them know.

Dade snagged her by the arm. “Have the nanny and Robbie stay in the bathroom, okay? This might not be over.”

As expected, the fear returned to her eyes. She swallowed hard, nodded and raced up the stairs.

“I’ll need to question you when you come back down,” Grayson called out to her.

Without looking back, she gave another shaky nod.

Dade wanted to hit himself in his fire-burning arm just to get his mind off this asinine need to comfort and to play nice with the one woman he shouldn’t want to comfort or play nice with.

The three of them watched her make her way up the stairs, and Dade waited for the lecture from his brothers. A lecture that would no doubt include a reminder to think with his brain and not with what was behind the zipper of his Wranglers. But the lecture didn’t come.

Not verbally anyway.

Grayson stepped away to give the medics some instructions, and then he took out his phone to call the county medical examiner, something Dade should have already thought to do.

“Did the dead guy give you any warning before he started shooting?” Mason asked.

Dade shook his head. “Kayla …” He considered calling her Ms. Brennan, but heck, the damage had already been done. “She refused protective custody, and I was on my way back to town when I figured out something was wrong. The guy opened fire before I could get back inside.”

Mason stayed quiet a moment, but his forehead bunched up. “She refused our help.” It wasn’t a question. Mason sort of growled it out in a disapproving way.

Dade shrugged and then winced when that sent another shot of fire through his arm. “Understandable. She doesn’t trust us. Just like we don’t trust her.”

Mason made a sound, one of his grunts that could have meant anything. Or nothing at all. “I’ll keep watch outside. We don’t need any more of Charles Brennan’s henchmen showing up here tonight.”

No, they didn’t. And it could happen all right. Dade figured there was no way Brennan was going to let Kayla get anywhere near a witness stand.

“I need to clean that wound,” Carrie let him know.

“Later.” Dade moved to the side so the medics could take the bodyguard out on the gurney. Grayson had finished with his call and Dade wanted an update. Thankfully, Carrie didn’t follow him.

“The M.E.’s on the way,” Grayson relayed. “And the rest of the deputies. Once they arrive, we can get Kayla and her baby out of here.”

Dade glanced at the pool of blood and the shards of glass on the glossy marble floor. Maybe that would convince her to accept protective custody and leave for someplace safer.

If a safe place actually existed.

“Did she say why she changed her mind about testifying and came back to Silver Creek?” Grayson asked.

Dade shook his head and looked in the direction of the footsteps he heard. Kayla was making her way back downstairs, and she was no longer wearing the blood-soaked dress. She’d put on black pants and a gray blouse. She’d also adjusted her attitude. No more threat of tears or sympathetic looks. She was sporting a first-class glare.

“How’s your son?” Dade asked, pleased that he would have to deal with the real Kayla rather than the damsel.

“He’s fine,” she snapped and then turned her attention to Grayson. “Someone obviously leaked my location,” she accused before she even reached them in the foyer.

“Seems that way,” Grayson admitted. “I suppose you think it was one of us.”

“I do.”

Dade stepped in front of his brother so he could finish this fight. “We have better things to do than endanger a witness. So that means the leak came from your side. Who knew you were coming here?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You mean besides the Rylands?”

“Yeah, besides the cops.” Dade didn’t budge an inch. He met her eye-to-eye and practically foot-to-foot. But when she glanced down, Dade looked as well and saw the drop of his blood that had spattered onto one of her high-priced shoes.

“You need stitches,” Grayson grumbled.

“I need answers from Ms. Brennan,” Dade grumbled right back. But he did step slightly away so he wouldn’t bleed on her fancy clothes.

And speaking of clothes, she’d missed a button on the blouse. Why he noticed that now, he didn’t know.

Wait, yeah, he did know.

His male brain was too alert to the fact that Kayla was a woman. A woman with a gap in her blouse that allowed him a peek of the top of her right breast.

Dade did a double take.

She had a tattoo, a little pink heart right there on the swell of her breast.

Kayla made a soft sound of outrage, obviously noticing what had caught his attention, and she quickly buttoned her blouse as if she’d declared war on it.

“Your son’s nanny knew you were here,” Dade reminded her. He rolled up his shirt sleeve to put some pressure against his grazed arm.

She gave him a flat look. “My nanny is not responsible for this. She was in just as much danger as we were.”

Dade couldn’t argue with that. “So who else knew?”

Kayla wearily touched her fingers to her forehead. “My sister, Misty Wallace, but she wouldn’t have told anyone.”

Grayson and Dade exchanged glances, and Dade knew that Grayson would verify that as soon as he could.

Kayla noticed that glance and must have realized what it meant. “Don’t waste your time with my sister. I trust her with my life, and she would die rather than tell Charles where I am. Instead, investigate the D.A.,” she answered, her voice edged with anger.

“Winston Calhoun’s not in the business of killing witnesses, either,” Dade let her know, although he would check to make sure the D.A. hadn’t accidentally said the wrong thing to the wrong person. “I’ve known Winston my whole life. We can trust him.”

“Maybe not,” Kayla disagreed. “Is he rich like you and your family?”

“No.” And Dade didn’t like where this was going. “But not everyone can be bribed.”

“My former father-in-law has a knack for finding a person’s weak spot and getting his way.” There was no smugness in her statement, and a frustrated sigh left her mouth.

He couldn’t argue with that, either. “What about your sister, then? Is Misty dirty rich like you?”

Oh, that got a rise out of her. The anger flashed through her eyes. “This isn’t about Misty. It’s about Charles and whomever he could have bribed.”

“Maybe,” Dade concluded. “Then I’ll go back to my original question. Who knew you were coming here? A boyfriend? A lover?”

She shook her head and looked ready to slug him. “No, on both counts.”

“Your driver, then.” Dade tried again.

“I drove myself, and I didn’t tell anyone else where I was going.” She paused. She glanced around the foyer, her attention landing on Dade’s bloody arm. “I came here because I thought Charles would believe this was the last place I’d be.”

“Obviously you got that wrong,” Dade grumbled.

“Obviously,” she grumbled right back.

“Why did you change your mind about testifying?” Dade pressed when she added nothing else.

Kayla dodged his gaze. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Because she was staring at the floor, Dade ducked down a little to make eye contact. “Try.”

She lifted her shoulder, stepped away from him. “I wanted to do the right thing.” Kayla paused. “This morning, I got a threatening email from my ex-father-in-law.”

Dade and Grayson exchanged another glance. “You told the D.A. about this?” Grayson asked.

“No, what would have been the point? Charles’s threats are nothing new and never specific enough to bring charges against him. But this time, something inside me … snapped.” She paused. “Or maybe for the first time things got crystal clear.” Her gaze came to Dade’s again, and she blinked back tears. “After reading that email, I knew the only way I could get this to stop was to testify and make sure Charles is put away for the rest of his life.”

Oh, hell. There it was again. Sympathy. It was burning as hot as the gash on his arm. Grayson obviously wasn’t immune either because he gave a heavy sigh.

“And that’s the reason I need you in protective custody,” Grayson concluded. “I want to take you and your baby to a safe house so that Brennan can’t get to either of you. Brennan is out of jail on bond, and we’re trying to keep an eye on him. But you know better than anyone, he can hire guns to do his dirty work.”

Kayla stared at Grayson. Then stared at Dade, too. “After what happened tonight, how can you possibly keep my baby safe?” she asked. Her voice broke on the last word.

Dade was about to assure her that he would do his best, but Grayson’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and mumbled some profanity before he stepped away to take the call.

“I still don’t trust you,” Kayla whispered to Dade.

He nodded. “Yeah, I get that.” He pointed to the blood on the floor. “But you’ve got a very short list of people you can trust right now.”

She must have known that was true, but she still didn’t agree.

“That was one of the medics,” Grayson relayed, putting his phone back in his pocket. He walked back across the foyer toward them, his attention nailed to Kayla. “Your bodyguard died on the way to the hospital.”

That was all he said. Grayson didn’t offer any details or reiterate that she could have been the one in that ambulance.

Kayla pulled in her breath, and what little color she had drained from her face. She gave one crisp nod and turned toward the stairs. “I’ll let the nanny know that we’re moving to a safe house tonight with Dade—Deputy Ryland,” she corrected, her voice now chilled with that ice-queen tone.

Dade didn’t exactly celebrate because it had taken way too long to convince her to do the right thing. Now, he only hoped it was the right thing. After all, she’d just put her son’s and her lives right in his hands.

“I think we might have found our leak,” Mason said, stepping into the doorway.

That got everyone’s attention. Kayla stopped on the bottom step and turned to face him.

“I checked the dead gunman’s phone.” Mason held up the bagged cell for them to see. “About a half hour before this guy started shooting, he made three calls.” He aimed his usual surly expression at Kayla. “First one was to some guy named Danny Flynn, a lowlife who likely works for your ex-father-in-law, Charles Brennan.”

“He does,” Kayla admitted. “I remember that name.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly a bombshell. Everyone knew how much Brennan wanted to stop Kayla. Of course, Brennan would deny any association with the employee who’d gotten the call, but the cops might be able to break the employee and get him to confess.

“You said you’d found the leak?” Dade prompted.

Mason glanced at the screen on the dead man’s cell. “We got two possibilities. The next call the gunman made was to Misty Wallace.”

The breath seemed to swoosh right out of Kayla. “My sister?”

“Your sister,” Mason confirmed.

Kayla frantically shook her head. “But Misty wouldn’t tell Charles or anyone else where I was going.”

“Right,” Mason grumbled. “That call to her says otherwise.” He went to Grayson and handed him the phone so that his brother could also check out the screen.

From his angle Dade couldn’t see what caused both his brothers’ eyes to narrow.

Kayla had a white-knuckled grip on the stair railing. “Who’s the third person he called?”

“What kind of game are you playing, Ms. Brennan?” Grayson demanded.

“What do you mean?” And her shock sure as heck sounded sincere.

But Dade didn’t take her sincerity of the head shaking at face value. He leaned in so he could see the name of the last person the gunman had called.

Hell.

What was going on?

Chapter Four

Kayla was trembling, but that didn’t stop her from marching across the foyer to see what had caused the Rylands to turn those accusing stares on her. And then she saw the cell phone screen.

No, it couldn’t be. But it was.

It was her name and number.

“Why did the gunman call you?” Dade demanded.

“He didn’t,” Kayla answered as quickly as she could get out the words.

“The phone says otherwise,” Mason Ryland growl.

“Then it was faked somehow.” She hated the quiver in her voice. Hated even more that she cared one iota what these Rylands thought of her, but by God she’d had no part in this attack. “I wouldn’t have hired someone to shoot into a house where my son was staying.”

The trio exchanged glances. A united brotherly front against her. They didn’t just look alike—they had the same scowls. And they were also waiting for more of an explanation. However, Kayla didn’t have one.

“Where’s your phone?” Dade asked after first giving an impatient huff.

She glanced around but didn’t see it and remembered she hadn’t seen it upstairs, either. Just moments before Dade’s arrival, she’d been searching through her purse for it. “I must have left it in my car.” She pointed to the side of the estate where she’d parked.

Even though none of the lawmen came right out and accused her of lying, it was clear from their deepening scowls they didn’t believe her.

“I’ll look for it,” Mason insisted, and he strolled out, leaving her to face the remaining two.

“I didn’t speak to the gunman,” Kayla tried again. “And if he called me, it was to set me up.”

“Why would he do that?” Grayson asked.

Kayla didn’t have to think too hard to come up with an answer. “Maybe to try to discredit my testimony. Charles could have hired the gunman to do that because if he could prove I had an association with a killer, then it might make a jury less likely to believe anything I say.”

Another exchange of glances before Grayson spoke again. “Or you could have hired the gunman to make Brennan look guilty of attempted murder. A crime that could put him away for life and not just the twenty years he’d get for the other charges.”

Oh, mercy. As theories went, it wasn’t a bad one, and Kayla had no idea how she would convince the Rylands that she was innocent.

“Maybe your sister is the one who did the hiring.” Dade tossed that out there, not tentatively, but it wasn’t a roaring declaration of Kayla’s innocence, either.

But what had she expected?

Yes, Dade had saved her life. Had even been wounded in the process, but to him she was lower than dirt. Well, except for those heated looks that he hadn’t quite been able to suppress. Kayla was too familiar with those looks. Her late-husband, Preston, had certainly given her enough of them, and she was painfully aware of where that had gotten her.

“I’ll call my sister,” Kayla mumbled and started for the house phone that was on a table in the foyer. Of course, to get to it, she would literally have to walk through her dead bodyguard’s blood.

“Here,” Dade offered, handing her his cell.

Kayla took it, her hand brushing against his. Not a gentle hand, either. It was rough. No doubt from the physical labor of ranch work.

The adrenaline was playing havoc with her body and memory so it took her a while to remember Misty’s number. She began to press it in when she heard Robbie. Not crying, but he was making fussy sounds, and those sounds were getting closer. Kayla looked at the stairs and saw her nanny, Connie, making her way toward them. The petite brunette looked completely weighed down with Robbie in the crook of her left arm and a suitcase gripped in her right hand.

Kayla stopped the call so she could go help, but Dade motioned for her to finish it. Instead, he hurried to the stairs, took the suitcase himself and set it on the floor. Robbie was rubbing his eyes and fussing when his attention landed on Dade. The fussing stopped, and much to Kayla’s surprise, her son mumbled something indistinguishable and reached for the lawman.

Her surprise grew to shock when Dade reached out as well and eased Robbie into his arm.

“I have two other suitcases upstairs,” Connie let him know, and she looked at Kayla. The nanny’s eyebrow lifted to verify if it was all right for Dade to have hold of her son.

It wasn’t all right, and Kayla moved to do something about that.

Just as her call to Misty went straight to voice mail.

“I’ll get the suitcases,” Grayson offered. “Show me where they are,” he directed to Connie, and the two started up the stairs.

“Misty,” Kayla said when the voice mail instructed her to leave a message, “call me immediately. I have to talk to you. It’s important. I need to know if you told anyone where I’d be staying.”

And with that done, Kayla hurried to Dade and practically wrenched Robbie away from him. That didn’t make her son or Dade happy. The baby immediately started to cry, and Dade winced when she bumped against his wounded arm.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Kayla eased Robbie’s head against her shoulder and began to rock.

Dade gave her a flat look after he was done wincing. “I wasn’t going to kidnap him.”

“I know. It’s just …” But she had no idea how to finish that explanation. At this point it would sound petty if she admitted that she didn’t want her son in a Ryland’s arms. “Misty didn’t answer her phone, so I left a message.”

Dade waited a moment, his stare drilling through her, and she earned another of those impatient huffs. “You do realize I’ll be around the baby and you while you’re in my protective custody?”

Kayla was sure she blinked. “But you’re injured. I thought someone else would guard us.” Preferably someone who wasn’t a Ryland.

“No…. ” He stretched out the word. “This isn’t an injury. It’s a scratch, and it won’t affect my aim if I need to take out another gunman.”

Another gunman. That sent an icy chill through her. Thankfully, it was a chill her son didn’t seem to notice because he finally calmed down and started to go back to sleep. But Kayla knew there would be no sleep for her in the immediate future.

And she knew who to thank for that.

“I need to make another call,” she told Dade, and she didn’t wait for his permission to use his cell. Nor did she have to try to remember this particular number. She’d seen it countless times on her own phone.

Charles Brennan answered on the first ring.

“Dade Ryland?” Charles greeted, though he sounded more amused than concerned. “Why would the deputy sheriff be calling?”

“No, Charles. It’s me,” Kayla informed him.

Dade rolled his eyes and reached for the phone, but she moved away from him and held on tight to both Robbie and Dade’s cell.

“Did you send someone to kill me tonight?” she demanded from Charles.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She listened for any differences in his voice. Anything that would confirm that he was behind this attack. But he sounded like his normal arrogant self.

“Someone hired a gunman to come after me,” Kayla clarified, even though she was certain he already knew what she meant.

“And where are you exactly?” Charles asked. Still no change in his inflection.

Even though she doubted Dade had actually heard Charles’s question, he got right in her face, and his scowl intensified. Something she hadn’t thought possible.

“I’m at a place where I won’t be much longer,” Kayla answered. “And I want you to stop this now. Robbie could have been killed tonight.”

“What?” Charles barked, and it had a cold, dangerous undercurrent to it.

“You heard me. The idiot you hired could have killed us all. Call off your dogs, Charles, and take your punishment like a man.”

“I wouldn’t have sent an idiot after you.” And there was the change of inflective. It sounded as if he were telling the truth.

Sounded.

But Kayla had learned the hard way that Charles was capable of deception in its purest form. He certainly hadn’t denied that he’d hired a hitman.

“The gunman phoned one of your goons,” Kayla informed him, even though Dade gave her a have-you-lost-your-mind look. “I want you to call whomever it takes to make this stop.”

Charles didn’t answer right away. “I’ll get back to you.” And he hung up.

Dade threw up his hands and winced again. “Did it occur to you to ask me before you made a call to our number-one suspect?”

“I thought I was your number-one suspect,” she snarled and thrust his phone at him.

He opened his mouth, probably to confirm that she was, but he didn’t. Dade just shook his head, snatched his phone from her hand and stuffed it into the front pocket of his jeans. “That call accomplished nothing.”

“Well, it made me feel better,” Kayla fired back. It didn’t. Nothing would make that happen, not with her bodyguard dead and the body of a hired assassin on her front porch.

Dade mumbled some profanity. “Don’t do anything else that might end up helping your father-in-law, understand?”

Oh, that stung. She would never help Charles. Never. “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but we’re on the same page when it comes to my late-husband’s father. It’s possible Charles was responsible for your sister-in-law’s death. Likely, even. But you couldn’t possibly want him in jail more than I do.”

Dade met her eye-to-eye. “Wanna bet?”

Kayla didn’t dodge him. She held her ground. “As long as Charles is free, I’m not. And neither is my son.” Because she needed it, she brushed a kiss on Robbie’s forehead. “It’s not my fault that Charles isn’t behind bars. If you want someone to blame, blame the cops who investigated Ellie Ryland’s murder.”

Dade didn’t flinch, but it was close. Probably because his brother had been in on the investigation. Heck, all the Rylands had, even though it hadn’t been their jurisdiction. In fact, the case had gone to the FBI when the lead investigator had uncovered some evidence of Charles’s money laundering that was linked to a federal case.

“The FBI’s search warrant was screwed up. It didn’t include the storage facility at his estate,” Dade reminded her. “And that meant all those files and records that were seized there couldn’t be used to convict Brennan. To add insult to injury, there was no more proof to arrest him, much less get a conviction.”

Kayla knew all of this by heart because she’d read the reports too many times to count. “Then blame the FBI. Blame Charles’s team of lawyers who challenged the warrant in the first place. But know this—if I get the chance to put Charles away, I’m taking it. Not for you. Not for your late sister-in-law. But for my son. When are you going to believe me?”

The fit of temper and energy went as fast as it came, and Kayla felt beyond drained. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t heard Mason come back into the house. And he wasn’t the only one to reappear. Grayson was at the top of the stairs, a suitcase in each hand, and all of them were staring at her again.

“Maybe we’ll believe you when there’s proof that you’re innocent.” That came from Mason—the dark and dangerous Ryland. The one who made her more nervous than even Dade. “Your phone wasn’t in the car. I searched every inch of it.”

Kayla wearily shook her head. “Then I must have lost it or left it at the condo where I was staying.”

“Convenient,” Mason mumbled.

“No, it’s not,” she argued, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “I wish I could produce the phone so you’d know I had no part in this.”

“Call her cell,” Grayson said, making his way down the stairs. “The number is there on the dead gunman’s phone.”

Kayla huffed and was about to tell any Ryland who would listen that calling her on the missing phone would be useless. She didn’t have it with her in the house, and she honestly had no idea where it was. But she decided just to let them have their way.

Mason lifted the gunman’s phone so he could see the numbers through the plastic bag, and he used his own cell to make the call.

Kayla’s heart nearly stopped.

Because the moment that Mason finished pressing in the numbers, the sound shot through the foyer.

While the rest of them watched and while Kayla held her breath, Mason followed the sound.

He didn’t have to go far.

Just a few feet away from her.

There, under the foyer table, at the edge of the pool of blood, her missing cell phone was ringing.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.