Carsons and Delaneys have always been enemies...

Until these two must join forces to save their unborn child

Vanessa Carson informs Dylan Delaney she’s pregnant moments before armed robbers break into his family bank...and Vanessa loses her memory. Despite the obstacles against them—including their feuding families—Dylan can’t forget the passionate night he and Vanessa shared. Now, trapped together in a remote cabin, the former soldier must use his best sniper skills to safeguard three lives...

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

Also by Nicole Helm

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Wyoming Cowboy Justice

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Wyoming Christmas Ransom

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Wyoming Cowboy Sniper

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09390-3

WYOMING COWBOY SNIPER

© 2019 Nicole Helm

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For opposites who attract.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Prologue

Dylan Delaney considered the scene around him an atrocity: Carsons and Delaneys of Bent, Wyoming, not just mingling in the same yard but celebrating.

Celebrating the marriage of his sister—an upstanding, rule-following sheriff’s deputy with too good of a heart—to a no-good, lying, cheating, saloon-owning Carson.

The fact his sister looked so happy as she danced with her newly pronounced husband was the only reason Dylan was keeping his mouth shut. That and a well-stocked makeshift bar in the Carson barn that had been transformed into a wedding venue for Laurel and Grady.

Dylan had been bred to hate Carsons and what they represented his whole life. Delaneys were better than thieving, low-class, lying Carsons—and had been since the town had been founded back in the eighteen hundreds.

Dylan’s siblings had always been too soft. Though Jen had held strong with him, Cam and Laurel were growing even softer in adulthood as they mixed themselves up with Carsons.

Romantically of all things.

Dylan had prided himself on being hard. On being better. Half his siblings had been happy to ignore the calling of the Delaney name, but he’d used everything he had in him to live up to it.

If it felt hollow in the face of his sister happily marrying Grady Carson, he’d ignore it.

“Worried about your precious bloodline, Delaney?”

Dylan sneered. Normally, he wouldn’t. Normally, he’d be cool, collected and cuttingly disdainful of Vanessa Carson even breathing the same air as him, let alone addressing him. But the liquor was smoothing out just enough of his senses for him to forget he never engaged with the Carson he hated the most.

“Aren’t you worried about catching a little law and order? Ruining that bad-girl reputation of yours?” Dylan smiled, the way he would have smiled at a dirty child who’d just smeared mud over his freshly dry-cleaned suit.

She wore the same shade of black as his suit, but not in a sedate cocktail dress that might have befit a wedding. He’d have even given a pass to a funeralesque sundress, because it was a rather casual affair all in all, and it felt like a funeral on his end.

But no. Vanessa wore tight leather pants and some kind of contraption on top that flowed behind her like a cape down to her knees. It knotted in the front above her belly button. A little gold hoop dangled there, mocking him.

He was so attracted to her, it hurt. He hated himself for that purely animalistic reaction that he’d always, always refused to act on. He’d dealt with cosmic jokes his whole life. This was just another one to be put away and ignored. He was stronger than the cosmos. Had to be.

She flashed a grin meant to peel the skin off his face. “My bad-girl reputation is rock-hard solid, babe.” She sauntered around Dylan and the makeshift bar, then started looking through the collection of bottles and cans.

The hired bartender blinked at her, clearly caught off guard and having no idea what to do despite making a living from serving drunk and rowdy wedding guests. “I can get you what you—”

“No worries.” She nudged the bartender away and rummaged around, then poured herself an impressive and possibly lethal combination of alcohol. She lifted her cup in Dylan’s direction, which was when he realized he’d been watching her. She drank deeply.

“If that was for my benefit, color me unimpressed,” he muttered, looking away from that long slender neck and the way long wisps of midnight-black hair danced around her face.

“Baby, I wouldn’t do anything for your benefit, even if you were on fire,” Vanessa said, her voice a smooth purr.

He refused to let his body react. “Someone’s going to be carrying you out of here if you drink all that.”

She laughed, low and smoky. It slithered through him like—

Like nothing.

“I could shoot you under the table, sweetheart.”

“Wanna bet?” he muttered, forcing himself to stare ahead even though he could feel her come to stand next to him.

She laughed again, the sound so arousing he wanted to bash his own head in.

“I know you didn’t just say that to me, Delaney. You’re not that stupid.”

Which poked at all the reactions he kept locked far, far away. Apparently the rather potent drinks he’d been downing in swift succession were the key to unlocking them. “I’ll repeat it, then. Want to bet?” He enunciated each word with exaggerated precision as he turned to look at her.

She smirked, somehow a few inches shorter than him even though she always seemed to take up so much space. “Oh, I’ll take that bet. How much?”

He named a sum he knew she couldn’t possibly afford.

She rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand that glinted silver and gold with an impressive array of rings, including more than one in the shape of a skull or dagger.

He despised her. Every inch of her. Which he drank in against his will.

“Delaneys love to flaunt their money.”

He flashed a wolfish grin, enjoying far too much the way her eyes narrowed as if preparing to ward him off. Good luck, little girl. “Chicken?”

Some little voice in the back of his head reminded him of propriety. Reminded him of his place in Bent and the fact that getting in a drinking competition with Vanessa would only end in embarrassment and trouble. It went against everything he believed and stood for, and he should just walk away.

He stood where he was and ignored that voice.

When he woke up the next morning, definitely not in his own bed, ignoring that voice was the last thing he remembered.

* * *

VANESSA WAS DYING. From the inside out. So, so many bad decisions made last night. But it was her brother’s fault for marrying a Delaney. That she was sure of.

She groaned, rolling over in bed as her stomach roiled in protest. She’d had her fair share of hangovers, but this one was truly something.

And now she was hallucinating.

Had to be. Because there was no way on God’s green earth that Dylan Delaney was in her bed.

No Delaney man was naked in her bed, in the middle of her apartment above her mechanic shop. She looked to the left. There was her little kitchen, the hall with the bathroom door. She looked to the right, at the door to the stairs down to the shop, and in that line of vision was clearly a man.

As she blinked at that shape of a man next to her, it was Dylan’s dark eyes that widened and sharpened. It was every gorgeous plane of Dylan Delaney’s face that went very, very hard.

Vanessa closed her eyes tight, counted to ten in a whisper. It had to be a dream. It had to be an alcohol-induced mirage. It had to be anything but the truth.

But when she was done counting, Dylan was still there.

“Apparently bad dreams do come true,” Dylan said, his voice all delicious rough gravel.

Get yourself together. Nothing about Dylan Delaney is delicious.

She watched, horrified, really she was horrified and not intrigued at all, as he flung the covers—her covers—off of him and stood, clearly having no compunction about being naked in her room.

With jerky movements, he pulled on his pants from last night. Last night. She’d...

“You can’t tell anyone.” If she’d been feeling better she would have kept that inside. Ignored the panic and held on to the upper hand. But she was dying, and she’d apparently slept with Dylan Delaney.

She remembered nothing. Nothing about last night beyond the wedding ceremony where her rough-and-tumble brother had promised himself forever to goody-two-shoes Laurel Delaney. A cop.

Beyond that, everything got fuzzier and fuzzier until...

Best kiss of your life.

Ha! She’d been drunk. How would she have known?

Dylan gave her one smoldering look—enough her heart started pumping overtime and her whole body seemed to blaze with heat. She could almost, almost picture them together, feel his big rough hands on her—

But Dylan Delaney, a bank manager, did not have rough hands. She was hallucinating. And was that a tattoo on his chest that disappeared as he pulled his shirt on and began to button it?

“Who on earth do you think I’d tell about this horrifying lapse in judgment?” he said disgustedly.

It didn’t sting, because she felt the same way. Except lapse in judgment was way too tame. Catastrophe of epic proportions was more appropriate.

A catastrophe she would also blame on Grady, because if he hadn’t married a Delaney, she wouldn’t have gotten drunk enough to sleep with one.

Dylan was now completely dressed, and she was still naked in her bed. Naked.

“We’ll both forget this ever happened,” Dylan said. No. He demanded it, like she was a peon to be ordered about. But even she couldn’t work up contrariness at his tone when this had happened.

“I don’t even know what happened. We didn’t really...” But he’d been naked, and she was naked so...

“I don’t remember either. So we’ll just say we didn’t.”

“But—”

“We didn’t,” he said firmly, patting down his pockets. “I have my wallet. No keys.”

“Surely neither of us were stupid enough to drive.”

“Surely neither of us were stupid enough to have someone drive us together anywhere.” He sighed, running an agitated hand through sleep-tousled hair. He did not look like his normal slick self. He was disheveled and...

Appealing.

No, not that.

“Hate sex is a thing,” she blurted, feeling unaccountably out of control and nervous. Which did not make any sense, but she couldn’t seem to straighten herself out. It had to be the hangover and all the booze still in her system.

He scowled, and Vanessa didn’t understand why her eyes wanted to track the small lines around his mouth or note the way dark stubble dotted his chin where it had been smooth last night.

There was something compelling about him. She’d admit it now and regain some of her control. They were polar opposites, and sometimes when polar opposites got drunk enough, they ended up attracting.

She’d swear off alcohol for the rest of her life right here, right now.

“Hate sex is not a thing. Not for me it’s not.”

“Apparently for drunk you it was.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m leaving. We’ll never speak of this again. And if anyone saw us...”

“We lie,” Vanessa supplied for him.

He seemed startled by that word, but what else was there to do?

Eventually, he gave a sharp nod. “Through our teeth.” He turned and strode out her apartment door.

Vanessa stared at the ceiling, hoping she never, ever remembered what had transpired and willing herself to forget about it for good.

Chapter One
Four months later

Vanessa Carson was not a coward. In her entire life, she’d never backed down from an insult, a challenge or a fist. She’d faced all three of those things practically since she’d been born, and yet none of it held a candle to this moment.

She sat in the driver’s seat of her ancient sedan in the back parking lot of Delaney Bank. She preferred her motorcycle but... Without thinking the movement through, she placed her hand over her stomach. It was starting to round, just a little bit. No one else would notice, but she could tell. It wouldn’t be long before other people would be able to tell, as well.

The morning sickness had been hell, but it seemed to dissipate more every day. She’d taken to eating better, and she’d sworn off alcohol for different reasons ever since that night. Her doctor said she and baby were healthy as a horse.

Luckily, she was surrounded by clueless men for the most part, so no one in her life had any idea. She was convinced it was paranoia that on more than one occasion she’d caught her cousin-in-law or new sister-in-law staring at her with a considering gaze when she did something like eat a veggie plate or pass on another hit of caffeine.

Paranoia or not, she had to face the music before anyone actually put the puzzle together. Had to. Before the music told him itself.

You are not a coward.

She repeated those words with every step toward the bank. She had never once stepped foot in Delaney Bank, would have rather chewed her own arm off—or simply driven the twenty-plus minutes to Fremont whenever she needed a bank.

But this wasn’t about asking for a loan or sullying the white halls of such an upstanding establishment run by the Delaneys. It was about the very unfortunate truth.

She was going to have Dylan Delaney’s baby.

For a few weeks she’d considered running away. Disappearing. Grady would likely try to find her, with her cousins Noah and Ty not far behind him. But it would have been possible if she’d played her cards right. Eventually, they’d have given up on her. Maybe.

But Bent was her home. Her life. Her mechanic shop was everything she’d built her life on. She’d paid in blood, sweat and tears for it. She wasn’t ever going to let a Delaney scare her into running away.

Your baby is half Delaney.

She paused at the corner of the bank building. Ruthlessly, she reminded herself Dylan wouldn’t want anyone to know that any more than she did. He’d agree to her plan. He had to. He’d never risk his reputation just to be a part of his baby’s life.

Which was why she had to tell him. He’d be spiteful if he found out some other way. She needed this to be quick, easy and painless. Which meant she couldn’t just stand here.

She heard a noise from behind her and turned to see a back door opening. Dylan stepped out, looking perfectly dapper in a suit with a briefcase clutched in his hand. He slid sunglasses onto his face in defense of the setting sun, his dark looks tinged with gold in the fading light.

She’d never understood her reaction to him—a tug, a want. No matter how much she knew she did not want the uptight, soft banker boy, something deep inside of her begged to differ.

Luckily, she was a smart woman who knew when not to listen to stupid feelings. She just needed to explain to him how things were going to be, and be done with him for good.

“Dylan.”

He startled, as if he recognized her voice instantly and how incongruous it was at his precious bank. He immediately scanned the lot before turning his gaze to her.

When he’d seen there was no one else around he took a few steps toward her, suspicious and uncomfortable, but not sneery. She would have preferred a little sneery to get her back up.

“Vanessa,” he said, his voice cool and clipped, though not nasty.

“Dylan. We need to talk.”

He raised an eyebrow. Such a disdainful look, and yet she didn’t feel that same animosity from him she’d always had when they’d been growing up. They’d avoided each other even more carefully than usual since Laurel and Grady’s wedding, which was hard to do in a small town when your siblings were married. But they’d done it.

Still, there’d been a cooling of antagonism on both their parts. Perhaps they now knew a little too well where unchecked dislike could lead. Being apathetic worked a heck of a lot better.

But she wished he’d be nasty, so she could be angry and defensive instead of so nervous she felt sick.

This is better. You can be calm and collected and show him he’s not the only one with some control.

“We really need to talk,” Vanessa repeated when he said nothing. “Privately.”

Again he scanned the lot and seemed satisfied no one lurked in the dusky shadows. “Follow me.”

He used a key card on a pad outside the door he’d come out of, then pulled it open and gestured her inside. She went, chin too high and sharp, shoulders back and braced for a fight.

But it wouldn’t be a fight. It would be a quick, informative conversation, and then she’d walk right out of the bank with this awful weight off her shoulders. She wouldn’t run her mouth. She’d just say it plain.

He stepped inside, the door closing behind him with a definitive slap. With a nod, he moved down the hallway, leading her to another door—this one glass. Inside was a fancy office. Evidently his, since his name was printed on the glass.

“You know, in my shop I don’t have to put my own name on the door to my office.”

“I’m guessing, in your shop, you’re not entertaining wealthy clients in your office.”

She flashed him a hard-edged grin. “You’d be surprised who likes me doing the oil change on their car.”

His lips pressed together. She couldn’t help but remember him not as the slick, suited businessman who stood before her but as the rumpled, slightly shaken man she’d woken up with that morning all those months ago.

He set his briefcase down and took a seat behind the big, gleaming desk, then ran a hand over the lapel of his suit jacket. He looked impossibly elegant. He wasn’t like his siblings. They were the down-home noble type. Laurel the cop, Cam the former marine and Jen the shopkeeper.

Dylan had style—with an edge to it. She didn’t know why he stayed in Bent when he was clearly meant to be somewhere a lot more posh than this nowhere Wyoming town.

She didn’t know why she had this odd memory of his hands on her feeling right.

Just insanity and liquor, she supposed.

“What did you need to discuss?” he asked in the cool, detached voice he’d almost always used on her. Even when they’d been in the same class in first grade, he’d spoken like that to her at the age of seven. Like he was inherently better.

It should have put her back up, but all she could do was stare at him behind his big desk, looking imposing and important in this big, fancy bank office.

She swallowed as an unexpected emotion swamped her. Regret. It was a shame the way her baby had been conceived because this whole Delaney legacy belonged to him or her too.

Money. The kind of reputation people slaved a lifetime to never live up to. The baby wouldn’t even have to deal with being the first commingling of Carson and Delaney. Laurel and Grady would always take whatever heat people blamed on a foolish curse, because they’d promised to love each other in front of God himself.

Not everyone in town took the feud between the Carson and Delaney families as seriously as she did, and not everyone in town believed the old tale that if a Carson and Delaney ever fell in love, the town itself would be cursed to destruction.

A story passed down from generation to generation since the Carsons had accused Delaneys of stealing their land back in the eighteen hundreds.

Enough people believed it to make it a thing.

The fact Bent hadn’t immediately crumbled or been struck by lightning didn’t soothe the most superstitious. They were still waiting for it. As for Vanessa, she was more of a take-life-as-it-comes type of girl. She’d deal with a curse if there was one, and she wouldn’t be surprised if life went on as it always had.

“I know you’re not here for the view. Or a repeat performance,” Dylan said, shocking her out of her reverie.

Repeat... She clamped her jaw shut so it wouldn’t drop. No one ever turned her off-center like this.

It was the baby softening all her edges. Which was fine and dandy, once she’d done her business. She was determined to be a good mother—the kind hers had never been—where her kid came first and foremost. And not one man was going to ruin that for her kid. She’d soften every last edge, sand off her tattoos and cut out her own swearing, drinking, idiot tongue if it meant giving this baby the kind of idyllic childhood she’d never had.

Which meant no strife with the father of the baby, even if Vanessa didn’t plan on him being involved.

The best way not to have any strife was to be quick and to the point. She took a deep breath in and let it out, forcing herself to meet Dylan’s dark, imposing gaze.

“I’m pregnant.”

* * *

THE WORDS LANDED like a blow, the kind that had your ears ringing and your eyes seeing stars. Even as Dylan’s brain scrambled to make sense of those two simple words, he desperately held on to his composure.

In business, composure was everything.

This wasn’t business.

Pregnant. Baby. She was telling him she was pregnant and that meant...

He opened his mouth to speak, though he wasn’t sure what it was he meant to say. No words or sound came out, anyway.

“I’m not asking you for anything,” she said clearly. Her gaze was calm, direct, but he saw the way she clutched her hands together in her lap. For a woman like Vanessa she might as well have been shaking in her boots. “I’d rather—”

“Yes, I can imagine all you’d rather,” he muttered. He glanced at her stomach where her hands were clutched. There was no evidence a child grew there, but one did and it was his.

His.

His heart squeezed as if gripped by some iron outside force, a mix of panic and awe. Mostly panic, he assured himself.

“But if I didn’t tell you, you’d figure it out and assume. So I’m telling you. You don’t need to worry or do anything. I’ll keep your part in this a secret and raise this baby myself.” Her hands squeezed harder, and he couldn’t seem to bring himself to lift his gaze from them to meet hers.

“Yourself,” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes. I’m capable. Maybe I don’t look like the most maternal—”

“I’m not challenging you, Vanessa,” he snapped, looking away from her hands. Her eyes were storms of a million things. Things he didn’t want to consider.

But she was pregnant with his child. His child.

Hell.

“Regardless,” she said, sounding surprisingly prim. “I wanted to be clear that I’ll be taking care of everything. As long as you don’t yap, we’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” he echoed. Fine. This was not fine.

She began to stand.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Home. I told you what I had to say and—”

“And you think I’d just step back and ignore the fact I have a child? You honestly thought you’d make your little announcement and that would be it?”

Her eyes went cool, the nervousness in her clutched hands gone as they came to rest on the arms of the chair. “Obviously, I considered you’d be obnoxious, but I held out hope you’d understand that yes, that’s it. Because it’s a Carson child.”

He stood, pressing his hands to the shiny surface of his desk in an effort to center himself and leash his anger. “Half Delaney.”

She folded her arms across her chest and gave him one of those patented Vanessa Carson, you-are-a-bug-to-be-scraped-off-my-boot looks. “Are you suggesting we cut the baby in half?” she asked dryly.

“I’m not suggesting anything. You’re not giving me time to suggest anything. You’ve dropped your bomb and now seem to think you’re going to waltz out of here and leave me to deal with the fallout.”

“I believe that’s usually how bombs are dropped,” she replied. She was back to herself. Sharp, dismissive and oh so sure she was better than him.

But she hadn’t been for a few minutes, and she was carrying his baby. His child.

A living, breathing human being.

He sat back down. The weight of it floored him. “I can’t... How long? It’d be...” He did the math. “You’ve been sitting on this for a while.”

She shrugged. She wore jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Heavy black boots. Even with her tattoos covered, she looked like trouble. She always had. He didn’t know why he’d think pregnancy would change it.

He focused on her. On the gleaming silver skull ring on her thumb. The way her hair seemed all that much blacker against the fair, freckled skin of her cheeks. Sharp edges with surprising hints of vulnerability.

And she was carrying his child.

She sighed heavily. “Look, I don’t know what you think sitting there staring at me is going to accomplish, but this is how things are going to be. I have the kid, tell people the father’s some random out-of-towner. I live my life and you live yours.”

“Knowing your child is mine.”

“Consider yourself a sperm donor.”

“I will not,” he said, managing to keep his voice as even as hers. It was a hard-won thing. “I don’t know if you’re trying to be difficult or if it just comes naturally, but this is not a small thing. It’s a huge, bomb-sized thing.”

“You seem pretty calm and collected to me,” she muttered.

“Years of practice,” he said through clenched teeth. The lies he’d told and the things he’d seen. Yes, he’d had years of practice in how to appear calm when he was anything but. In control of a world that would not bend to his will—here in Bent or out there where he’d lived his secret life.

Now this. He wanted to be angry, but every time it spurted up, this strange weight settled over him. Calm wasn’t the right word for it. There was something like a flash of her, from that night. Something he should remember and couldn’t. A softness. A rightness.

He shook it away, but he couldn’t shake away the realization he didn’t have a choice here. She thought he could walk away, turn his back on his own child, and he wouldn’t in a million years.

Which meant he had to find common ground with the one person in this whole town—and possibly world—he wasn’t sure he could.

There had to be common ground here though, whether he liked it or not. They had to find a compromise.

Something had changed that night, and not just the life it had created. The animosity between him and Vanessa had dulled. Or maybe it was watching Laurel and Grady these past few months. No matter how much grief they got from the town or Dad, they laughed and smiled and...didn’t care. Something had changed inside of them so they didn’t care.

Dylan had made a child. It was time to not care. “Vanessa.”

The distinct sound of a gun being fired jolted them both. It had come from the front. Dylan was on his feet in seconds.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

“Stay here?” Vanessa repeated incredulously. “You can’t... Was that a gun?”

But he was already striding out of his office. He made it not even halfway down the hall before he heard footsteps behind him.

He whirled on Vanessa. “I told you—”

“Was that a gun? We should call someone! Why are you running toward it?”

He didn’t have time to explain, but she could call. “Go back to my office, lock the door from the inside and dial 911. Tell them you heard two shots fired in the lobby. One employee inside, not sure about customers. Go.”

He nudged her back toward the office.

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I have to make sure Adele—”

Two masked men slammed through the door from the bank lobby. It was a robbery. Possibly the stupidest of all crimes in this day and age. Surely Adele had hit the alarm and these two men would be caught before they even tried to leave.

Dylan glanced down at the assault rifles they each carried. Unless they’d shot her first. He felt the horror move through him, but quickly pushed it aside. Compartmentalized and assessed the situation.

Two armed robbers in front of him. The Carson woman, pregnant with his baby, behind him.

And he’d thought it was going to be your average Monday.

Chapter Two

Vanessa tried to think, but unfamiliar panic tickled the back of her throat. Masked men with guns. She’d faced a lot of bad crap in her life, but this was a first. Fear had turned her body to lead.

“Office,” Dylan said under his breath. He didn’t look back at her, just ordered her to move.

But she couldn’t. She was rooted to the spot by a mind-numbing panic that barely allowed her to suck in a breath. The guns. She wasn’t usually rendered useless by the sight of guns. She’d shot her fair share, sometimes even carried one, and had been in the presence of them her whole life.

But these were so big, and they looked more military than recreational. She was sure she and Dylan were dead where they stood, and all the fight she was so certain she had in spades deserted her.

“Who are you?” one of the men demanded, gesturing his gun toward her. “Supposed to be one,” he muttered to the other man. “Boss promised us it’d be one.”

“What have you done to Adele?” Dylan asked.

Dylan’s calmness was downright creepy. He didn’t shake or seem panicked. Vanessa managed to keep a decent mask of not freaking out on the outside, but Dylan didn’t seem to be acting. Easily, he stepped toward the two men, even as they aimed their guns at him.

Vanessa tried to swallow down the labored breathing that threatened to make too much noise in the quiet hall. She tried to move, but her body was still lead weight.

“Put the guns down and we’ll make sure this ends well for everyone,” Dylan said, still moving toward them, even as their fingers curled around the triggers. “Now, what have you done with my employee?”

Vanessa couldn’t catch a breath. She and Dylan were going to die here in this hallway. Not just them, but their baby too. Her balance swayed and she had to squeeze her eyes shut and lean against the wall to find it again.

“Take them both?” one man asked the other.

The other seemed to consider it. “Only set up for one.”

“Tricky business. Shoot her?”

Some awful sound escaped her throat, and she couldn’t open her eyes or breathe. She was going to die. Her baby was going to die. Dylan was going to die.

Fight. You have to fight.

“Boss’s got space. Rather take them both than get any blood on our hands till we know we can get away with it.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be two here. Boss’s fault if we have to kill her.”

Vanessa opened her eyes. She was still unaccountably dizzy, but she had to fight. For her baby. For herself. Dylan. “Are you seriously discussing whether or not to kill someone in front of said someone? What kind of criminals are you?” Vanessa demanded.

“Yeah, we’ll take her,” the bigger one sneered.

“Over my dead body,” Dylan seethed, moving forward.

“I can arrange that,” the sneering man said, jabbing the barrel of his gun right into Dylan’s chest.

Vanessa went cold all over, even as she couldn’t work out why Dylan was trying to save her. Just the baby, she supposed. Her teeth were chattering now, and she berated herself for being such a coward, but that didn’t help give her the strength to push off the wall. To do anything. She could only stand here, shaking, falling apart, wondering why everything was spinning around her.

Except Dylan’s profile. Something clicked off in his expression. It wasn’t fear that overtook him, even though this huge, monstrous weapon was pressed to his heart. It was...determination.

“You should leave her. She’s pregnant. You don’t want to mess with that. I’m the son of the bank president. Think of the ransom you could ask for. You don’t need her, and you don’t need to hurt her.” Then Dylan did the damnedest thing. He smiled.

“Dylan,” Vanessa managed. The hallway seemed to be getting dim, and she thought maybe she was going to throw up. She tried to say something, warn somebody that it wasn’t going to be pretty. But the world was moving. The walls. The floor.

“Pregnant, eh?” One of the men eyed her and she had to close her eyes again. She had to think of the baby. If she could get her brain to stop being a jumbled mess, get the panic to stop freezing her, she could barricade herself in Dylan’s office and call 911.

These men would be able to shoot through the glass door though. She’d left her cell phone in her car. Did Dylan have his on him? He seemed like the type who wouldn’t be parted from it. She opened her eyes, trying to study his pants to see if there was the hint of a phone in his pocket.

“She’s a liability,” Dylan said, still so damn calm while she was shaking. Had the lights gone out? Everything seemed so dark. “Any harm you cause her would come back on you tenfold. It’s one thing to kidnap and demand ransom, another to harm a woman and her unborn child.”

“Only if we get caught,” the other man said, his smile going so wide half his mouth was hidden behind his black face mask.

Vanessa thought she could all but read Dylan’s thoughts from the simple murderous expression he gave the man: oh, you’ll be caught.

She’d never given Dylan much credit for bravery or having a backbone, but watching him face down two goons with giant guns, she realized she had to reassess her opinion of him.

“We need to get going. We should have been gone ten minutes ago. Stick to the plan, or the boss—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” The man holding the gun to Dylan’s chest pushed him with it. “You’re coming with us.” He gestured toward the back door Dylan had led her through not that long ago. Dylan started moving toward it, the gun now to his back.

He didn’t even look at her as he passed.

“We can’t leave her, pregnant or not. She’s seen too much. We have to take her with us. Come on, little girl.”

The man not pushing Dylan reached out for her, but she flinched away. She wanted to deck him, but she couldn’t manage to move her arms. She couldn’t move, period. Bile rose in her throat.

“I’m going to...” But the room was something like black, and she wasn’t on her feet anymore. Then something crashed against her head and painful stars burst in her vision, but it wasn’t light. She heard Dylan say her name, but she couldn’t seem to do anything but stay still—and then float away.

* * *

DYLAN’S FACE THROBBED in time with his heavy beating heart. He should have been able to fight them off, but he’d been trying to get to Vanessa to make sure she was all right.

Now his hands were zip-tied behind his back, and he was pretty sure his shoulder was dislocated from trying to fight that off. It was possible his jaw was broken from the butt of the gun being smashed into his face, but since he could move it, he’d hope for just a severe bruise.

He’d never be able to break the bonds on his hands or feet, or even loosen them, but he kept feeling around the back of the van, trying to find something sharp.

Trying to keep his mind off the fact Vanessa was unconscious on the floor of the van and carrying his baby.

They’d been in the back of the vehicle for at least fifteen minutes by his count, and Vanessa was still out cold. She was so pale. So...vulnerable.

He’d save her. He had to. His skills at survival had dulled somewhat these past few years of playing dutiful banker and protégé to his father. But he’d remember them. He’d bring them all back, and he and Vanessa would escape this mess.

Poor Adele. He hoped she was all right. Surely she’d have hit the alarm, even if they’d hurt her. But the two morons who’d abducted them had certainly taken their time getting out of the bank, and no one had shown up.

Well, someone would notice him missing. A Carson would surely notice Vanessa missing. Someone would notice she didn’t come home and that her shop wasn’t open. They’d see her car in the bank lot and know something was very, very wrong.

If he assured himself of those facts, he could concentrate on how they were going to escape. Because they were going to escape.

A quiet, gasping sound came from Vanessa’s direction. Dylan scooted toward her. He wished he could maneuver himself to grab her hand, feel her pulse, but there wasn’t enough room on the floor of the van.

“Vanessa.”

She groaned this time, moving her head and then groaning again.

“Vanessa. Come on, sweetheart. Wake up.” He tried nudging her with his elbow, but he couldn’t lean that way without falling at every bump.

“Wh-what...?” She jerked at her arms, her legs thrashing wildly.

“Calm down. It’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.”

She jerked her gaze to him, all vicious anger hiding a little flash of fear. “Why would you being here make anything okay, Delaney?” she demanded, her voice rough. She looked around wildly.

“Just try to breathe. You fainted. Take your time to wake up. Then I’ll help you sit up as best I can.”

She sucked in a breath then let it out, eyeing their surroundings. The back of the van was all metal, and though the windows were tinted completely black, enough light shone through that they could make each other out. She moved her gaze to him.

“Fainted?” She tugged at the bonds on her hands as she moved herself into a sitting position—without his help—with a wince. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“First time for everything. I’d imagine it had to do with—”

“How the hell am I tied up with you of all people?” She looked around, her expression one of panic with a steely disgust instead of that ashen terror from before. It was some comfort. “Where are we?”

“They took us both as hostages.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” She pulled at the ties on her wrist again, then winced. She squeezed her eyes shut. “How did I get here? I can’t...”

“What do you mean, ‘you can’t’?” He recalled that sometimes people with head injuries didn’t remember what had caused them. Added to that, she’d fainted and suffered a trauma. Maybe she didn’t even remember coming to see him at the bank. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” she snapped.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

She flashed him an impatient look, then her eyebrows drew together. “Man, someone did a number on your face.” She seemed to finally understand he was tied up too.

“Yeah, yeah. We can talk about that later. Vanessa, what’s the last thing you remember?”

She blinked, frowned. “I don’t. Things are fuzzy around the edges. Fuzzy everywhere. I went to the grocery store this morning. Yeah.” She closed her eyes and swallowed. “I’m not going to be sick,” she muttered to herself, as if saying it aloud would make it so.

“That’d be preferable.”

She frowned at him, but the confusion dominated her expression. “You look different. Your face is different.”

“Must be the impressive bruising.”

“No. You have lines.”

“Lines?”

“Around your eyes. Your mouth. And that’s some suit. Are we in Bent?” She tried to peer out the window, but she was still sitting and it was too black to see out of. “You’re supposed to be in college, aren’t you? Somewhere out east. Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

“College?” Panic threatened. College. She was just a little confused. By over a decade.

“A fancy one, right? I certainly remember your dad bragging all over himself about it when I went to the store this morning. Dylan this. Dylan that. For my benefit. As if I’d be impressed.”

“Vanessa. God.” It was as jarring of a blow as the butt of the gun to his face had been. “What year do you think it is?”

“What kind of question is that? It’s...” Her brow furrowed again, and she shook her head. “It’s... I’m sure it’s...” She looked up at him helplessly. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You fainted. And you hit your head. Things are jumbled, but they’ll clear up.” He said it far more confidently than he felt it. She’d lost over a decade. That little trickle of panic turned into a full-on frantic clawing, but he ruthlessly shoved it down.

She’d just woken up. She was disoriented. The past ten years would come back. Everything with the baby would be okay.

It had to be.

“Got a phone on you?” he asked, his last hope at getting a message to someone.

“Why would I have a phone on me?”

Dylan swallowed down the bubble of hysterical laughter that tried to escape. He wouldn’t panic and he wouldn’t be hysterical. She’d be fine. She’d have to be. Surely pregnant women fainted and were fine, even with a little memory loss. Women had survived life on the prairie and what-have-you and had had plenty of babies. Everything was going to be fine if he kept his mind calm, his body ready.

He’d been a soldier once. He could be a soldier again.

“Okay, no phone. Anything sharp?”

“There should be a knife in my boot, but I can’t get it with my hands behind my back like this. Who took us? Why are we both tied up? I don’t—”

“One thing at a time. Let’s get free and then I’ll explain everything.” Hopefully. Maybe she’d remember once she fully woke up. He had to hope there really was a knife in her boot, and she wasn’t remembering a knife in her boot from thirteen years ago. “Put your legs out.”

She did as he instructed, straightening her legs out in front of her.

“Which boot?”

“Right. There’s a slot for it behind the outside of my ankle.” Dylan scooted forward, maneuvering himself so the hands tied behind him were close to her ankle. He’d have to kind of lean over her legs and brush up against her to get his hands anywhere near her boot.

It was uncomfortable and awkward, but the most important thing was finding the knife, if in fact she had one down there in the here and now.

She fidgeted just as he finally got his fingertips down the side of her boot. “This is weird,” she complained.

“No weirder than what you don’t remember,” he muttered, concentrating on leaning this way and that and ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs where one of the goons had kicked him, and the fact his head was all but in her lap.

It took a lot of time, a lot of contorting and a hell of a lot of pain every time the van went over a bump, but he managed to pull the knife out of her boot.

He was sweating by the time it clattered to the floor of the van, but he didn’t wait around to catch his breath. The sooner he got them out of their bonds, the better. He leaned back, managed to grasp the knife. In a few swift movements, he cut the zip tie off his wrists.

Sometimes military training did come in handy in the civilian world. He wouldn’t have guessed.

He didn’t take a second to enjoy the feeling of freedom, however. He shook off the plastic and immediately cut the one around his ankle, and then freed Vanessa.

“Well. You move...fast,” she said, as if that surprised her. “You better not have gotten me roped into this, Delaney.”

“Quite the opposite.”

“Figures. Always blame a Carson.” She rubbed at her wrists, then delicately touched her fingertips to the side of her temple. She winced. “Some blow to the head.”

“You folded like a card table and hit the ground before anyone could do anything.”

She scowled. “I find that story very hard to believe.”

“Well, I didn’t knock you around and then tie us both up. But someone with guns did tie us up, so we need to be quick about getting ourselves out of this mess.” But before they could do what needed to be done, she needed to recall one very important thing.

“You don’t remember why you came to see me?” he asked carefully.

“I’m assuming these goons had a gun to my head, because that’s the only way I would ever voluntarily go to see you. Unless you were being tortured. And I was invited to watch.”

“Nice.” Dylan sighed. This was going to make everything so much more difficult, but he didn’t have time to get his nose out of joint about it. “I need you to understand something, okay?” He took a deep breath. If she really didn’t remember years’ worth of stuff, he doubted she’d believe him. He doubted a lot of things, but he couldn’t let her go running around thinking it was just her. “You’re pregnant.”

She barked out a laugh. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious. That’s why we’re together. You came to tell me.”

“And why would I tell you... Oh. No. No.” She shook her head back and forth. “You really expect me to believe I slept with you?”

“We were very drunk.”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “I don’t believe it. There’s not enough liquor in the world.”

“Okay. Don’t believe it. But I need you to understand you are pregnant, it’s thirteen years later than you think it is and bank robbers have kidnapped us to get a ransom. But I’m going to get us out of this, and when we escape you have to do everything in your power to keep the baby growing inside of you safe.”

She went pale at that, but they didn’t have time to keep discussing. The van had been moving too long, too far, and they had to make a serious jump-and-run effort here. She had to believe it, even if she didn’t want to.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, pressing her hand to her stomach.

“But it is.”

Chapter Three

Vanessa didn’t believe him. Maybe things were all wrong—from the lines on his face to the nausea in her gut to the van they were trapped in—but she would have never slept with Dylan Delaney, even with a blow to her head.

And he would have never slept with her.

Dylan was fiddling with the door, looking serious and in control. He’d been beaten up pretty badly, but he didn’t seem to pay it any mind. He wore a suit—and even though it was dirty and rumpled, she could tell it was expensive.

Her eyes stung, and it took a few moments to realize she wanted to cry. Everything was wrong, like a bad dream where only half the things made sense, no matter how real it all felt.

But cry? Not her. Not in this lifetime. She blinked a few times, and focused on the here and now. Not anything Dylan was claiming, but the fact they were tied up in the back of a van, and now Dylan was using her knife and his bloody hands to mess with the door.

“Can I help?” she managed to ask once she could trust her voice.

“Just sit back.”

She scowled. She wasn’t a sit-back kind of girl, but she wouldn’t have pegged Dylan as a take-charge kind of guy. Sure, to order people around maybe, but not to try and bust them out of a moving van.

How could this all be happening? She was about to demand he explain this and tell her the truth instead of his nonsense dream—lies—about her being pregnant with his baby.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, acknowledging that she might feel really off. But couldn’t that just be the head injury? Couldn’t Dylan have caused the head injury? Sure, he was all beat up, and he’d been tied up too, but...

She tried to remember. Tried to order her thoughts and memories, but the very last thing she remembered was flipping off Dylan’s dad as she left the Delaney General Store.

Not her finest moment, but...

But nothing. The old jerk deserved it. She opened her eyes to the young Delaney jerk in front of her, still trying to jimmy the back door open. He didn’t look right. He looked older. Was she really missing such a big chunk of time?

She looked down at her hands. There were pink marks and scratches where the zip ties had dug into her skin around her wrists, but otherwise her hands looked the same. Same rings she always wore... Well, maybe not exactly. She fiddled with a dainty-looking gold one in the shape of a mountain. She didn’t remember that one.

She had to find some kind of center—both a mental one and a physical one. This weakness in both wouldn’t save her, and it wouldn’t fill in whatever memory blanks she had.

But the van chose that moment to rumble to a stop, followed by the engine shutting off.

Oh, God.

Dylan swore, then sat down on the floor of the van right by the doors. “Stand behind me,” he ordered, like he knew what he was doing, like he could get them out of whatever this was. “Be ready to jump. On my signal, run as fast as you can for whatever cover you can find.”

“What about you?” Not that she cared about Dylan, but...

He flashed her a grin so incongruous with the Dylan Delaney she’d grown up alongside, she could only gape at him.

The door made a noise, like a lock being undone. “Be ready,” Dylan murmured, leaning back on his palms as he watched the door.

“What are you—”

The door began to open, and on an exhale Dylan kicked his legs out as hard as he could against the doors. There were twin grunts of pain as the doors hit something, but Dylan didn’t pause. He flung the doors back open and jumped out.

“Go!” he instructed.

Because she saw one man on the ground, struggling to get to his feet, with a huge gun next to him, she did as Dylan instructed. She jumped out of the van and immediately started to run.

“Opposite way!” Dylan yelled. She turned, ready to do whatever Dylan instructed if it’d get her out of here, and watched in the fading dusk as his yell ended on a grunt as one of the large men landed an elbow to his gut.

Dylan Delaney, a hoity-toity Delaney who was getting a fancy degree and likely hadn’t done an ounce of manual labor in his entire life, took the blow like it barely glanced off him. Then he pivoted, swept a leg out and knocked one large man on his butt. Dylan reared back a fist and punched the other guy in the throat, then whirled as the fallen man got back to his feet.

Vanessa blinked.

“Go!” Dylan yelled at her, and it got through her absolute shock at seeing him fight like he knew what he was doing. No, not even like he knew what he was doing. Like he was born to do it.

But there were angry men and guns, so she ran the opposite way she’d been going, toward the front of the van. It acted as a buffer between her and the men and gave her the opportunity to get away without them seeing exactly where she was going.

Dylan knew what he was doing—between the instruction to run this way and fighting off two men. What the hell? She shook away her confusion and focused on running as hard as she could. Her stomach lurched and her head throbbed, but the guns brought it home that she was running for her life here.

And your baby’s life?

She couldn’t think about Dylan’s nonsense right now. She just had to get away. She ran hard, but the farther she ran, the darker it got. She had to slow her pace so she didn’t trip. So she didn’t throw up.

With heaving breaths, she slowed to a stop and pressed her hand to her stomach. She had a cramp in her side that felt like a sharp icepick. When she stopped, she was nearly felled by a nasty wave of nausea. Her head downright ached, and the stinging behind her eyes was back.

But she was in danger, and a Carson knew how to get herself out of danger. She swallowed at the sickness threatening, focused on evening her breath, then studied her surroundings.

She had run for the trees—the best cover she could find—but they were spindly aspens, and it wasn’t ideal to be hiding behind even a cluster of narrow trunks. The van must have driven them up in elevation, but where? It was completely dark now, and she couldn’t get a sense of her bearings.

Panic joined the swirl of queasiness in her stomach. She breathed through both. She could survive a night in the wild. She didn’t particularly care to, but she could survive. As long as Dylan had taken care of those two armed men, she was safe enough. Anyone could brave the elements for one night.

And if Dylan didn’t fight them off?

It was hard to imagine it. He’d moved like a dancer. A really violent, potentially lethal dancer. Dylan Delaney. She would have labeled him the prissiest of the four Delaney kids. Even his younger sister Jen had more spitfire to her than Dylan.

But he was claiming they’d slept together, that he’d impregnated her somehow, and then she’d watched him fight like a dream.

Touching fingertips to the bump on her head, where everything throbbed and ached, Vanessa had to wonder if the blow had caused hallucinations.

Either way, she was alone in the dark in the middle of the Wyoming woods. She lowered herself to the ground, leaning her back against one of the rough trees. It was uncomfortable, and a chill was creeping into the air.

It would be fine. There wasn’t snow on the ground, and the leaves still clung to the trees, though they’d gone gold in a nod to fall. But they hadn’t completely fallen.

Luckily, she was too nauseous to be hungry, though she wouldn’t mind a drink of water. But she’d live. She was alive, and she’d live.

“There you are.”

She would have screamed if a hand hadn’t clamped over her mouth. She turned her head to find herself face-to-face with Dylan. It was too dark to make out the individual features of his face, and yet she knew it was him.

“Shh. Okay?”

She nodded and his hand fell off her mouth.

“What happened? How are you... How am I... What is going on?”

Breathing only a little heavily, he scanned the dark. “I managed to incapacitate one.”

“Incapaci-what?”

“I didn’t have time to incapacitate the other,” he continued, clearly not worried about how odd his word choice was. “Figured I had a better chance to catch up with you so we’re armed.”

And he had caught up with her.

He’d fought off two armed men like he belonged in some sort of action spy movie, run fast enough to catch up with her and now, in his rumpled, torn suit, was holding a giant semiautomatic weapon as if he knew how to use it.

“Who are you?”

He flashed her that incongruous grin again, just barely visible in the night around them. “Well, clearly not who you think I am.”

* * *

THEY WERE IN TROUBLE. Dylan would be less worried about being stuck he wasn’t quite sure where in the dark if Vanessa wasn’t pregnant and sporting a hell of a head injury. He couldn’t let himself dwell on that too much. All he stood to lose.

No, a good soldier focused on the mission at hand, not the future.

He hadn’t had a chance to put his real talents to use, he thought bitterly as he looked at the gun. Knocking out the first guy and getting his weapon had taken more time than Dylan cared to admit, and when the second guy had hopped into the van and tried to run him down, Dylan’s best choice had been to run, not shoot like the sniper he’d been once upon a time.

“I need an explanation,” Vanessa said, and he knew she wanted to sound strong and demanding, but he heard the tremor of fear in her voice.

How had this day gone so far to hell so fast?

“I don’t really have one,” he said softly. None of this made sense to him. A bank robbery was foolish, but they’d gotten away with it. Except they hadn’t taken any money. They’d taken him and Vanessa.

“More of one than I do.”

Dylan sighed. He couldn’t see well in the dark, but he was fairly the certain the other man had lost him in the trees where his van couldn’t follow and headlights couldn’t penetrate deep enough.

Still, Dylan needed to be on alert until morning. Maybe with daylight he’d be able to figure out where they were and get them home.

Surely someone knew something was wrong at this point, with both him and Vanessa missing, Vanessa’s car in the bank’s parking lot. Adele was likely hurt—he had to accept that more-than-possibility, and she didn’t have anyone waiting for her at home. But maybe she wasn’t fatally hurt and—

“Dylan. Answers.” Vanessa gritted her teeth, and he wondered if it was to keep them from chattering.

“Still no memory, then?”

She was silent for a few moments, except for the rustling of her fidgeting. “No. I... No. My last memory is that morning in the store with your dad, but if I try to come up with a year or how old I am, it all jumbles up. Some things make sense and some don’t.” Her voice trembled at the end, and she didn’t say more.

“You seem to be missing about a decade. More than, actually. I’ve been home from...college for ten years.”

“Why’d you pause all weird before you said college?”

“I didn’t,” he replied, irritated that she’d picked up on that. “Now, can we focus on the here and now?”

“I have amnesia and lost ten years plus off my life and you—”

“Just fought off two armed men who wanted to kick us around and use us for ransom. In the best-case scenario. Now we’re alone in the woods with no supplies or help. Do you have any idea where we are?”

“It’s too dark. It’s too...”

He wouldn’t let her panic, so he spoke over her. “The way I figure it we drove south out of town, and kept on that way since the sun was setting into the window when we left. That puts us close to Carson territory. Maybe.”

“Maybe. But none of this looks familiar to me.”

“That’s okay. We don’t want to be moving around in the night anyway. In the morning we’ll have a better idea.” One way or another. “How are you feeling?”

“Am I really...?” She paused, then audibly swallowed.

“Pregnant? As far as I know. You came by the bank to tell me. That’s when these men came in. I hope they didn’t kill Adele.” He muttered the last to himself. “I was too hard on her. Sharp mind, abrasive attitude, sure, but she was always a stellar employee. I should have...” Not the mission at hand though. He blew out a breath. “You need to rest. Tomorrow might be a bit of a rough day. We’ll have a lot of walking to do.”

He moved from a crouch to a seated position next to her. He positioned the gun so he was able to hold it and wrap his free arm around her shoulders.

She tensed and leaned away. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Being your makeshift pillow, sweetheart.”

“You think I’m going to sleep on you?” She sounded so horrified it gave him some semblance of hope.

“You may not remember, but you’ve done a lot worse on me.”

She recoiled, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. “If it helps, on that front, I don’t remember either. It is no exaggeration that the night we were together was the drunkest I’ve ever been. Somewhere during the reception my mind goes black.” Maybe he had a few flashes here and there of soft sighs or the silk of her hair, but she didn’t need to know that.

She didn’t lean into him, but she’d stopped leaning away. “I...”

“It’s going to be a chilly night. We’ll keep each other warm. Hopefully, you catch a few hours sleep. We move at first light. No ulterior motives. Just common sense and getting through this...ordeal.”

“Are they going to come after us?”

Dylan wanted to lie, to reassure her. It was strange to want to comfort Vanessa, but she wasn’t herself. She was pregnant. With a bump on her head. And amnesia. She was a mess, and everything in him had softened completely at that.

Still, it was important she knew what they were up against. “I have no idea. Which is why you need to sleep, and I’ll keep watch.”

“Don’t you need to sleep?”

“I’ll be just fine.”

She leaned into him, slowly, almost incrementally. Eventually, her head rested against his shoulder.

It felt oddly comforting.

“Where did you learn to fight?” she asked, her voice thick with exhaustion.

Briefly, he wondered if he should keep her awake because of concussion concerns, but she needed rest. She was pregnant. And they had no food or water. Surely rest was better, and it wasn’t like they’d get much anyway.

He didn’t answer her question, and when she didn’t push, he figured she’d fallen asleep.

Funny, Vanessa was one of the few people who probably wouldn’t be horrified by where he’d learned to fight, by all the lies he’d told. She’d love it.

She’d also tell his family with relish and glee, regardless of the accidental pregnancy.

Why that made him want to smile in the middle of this mess, he didn’t have a clue.

Chapter Four
Back in Bent

Laurel Delaney parked her police cruiser in front of Delaney Bank and glanced at the man in the passenger seat.

Deputy Hart didn’t know it yet, but she’d asked him to be her second on this call because soon enough she’d have to disclose her pregnancy to her superiors. They might let her continue to do some light detective work but not in the field. Desk duty. Ugh.

Regardless of how she felt at having to sit things out for months, Hart would be a good replacement for the duration of her desk duty and maternity leave. Yet that didn’t make it easy to accept someone else taking the role she’d worked so hard for. Bent County only had one detective spot, and she loved it.

Sometimes you sacrificed what you loved for who you loved. She may have only just found out about this baby, but she already loved the child she and Grady had created with everything she was.

Which was why Hart would take the lead on this case. Probably best regardless of her physical condition, considering the man who’d called it in was her father.

Dad stood in front of the bank, looking grave and irritated. His patented look.

He didn’t know about the pregnancy yet—no one but her and Grady did at this point. Dad wouldn’t be happy. But then, nothing about his children’s choices of significant others lately made him happy. Dylan and Jen were his only hopes. Laurel and Cam had been relegated to black sheep at best due to their choice to connect their lives with Carsons.

It hadn’t been a choice, falling in love with Grady. Though she supposed they’d chosen to center their lives in that love.

Laurel sighed and gave Deputy Hart a thin smile. “I’d ask you to take the lead, but my dad is only going to want to deal with me.”

Hart grinned. Laurel knew he cursed his baby face, but she thought it’d often work in his favor as a detective. People underestimated the sharp mind and conscientious attention to detail underneath. “I’m counting on it,” he offered cheerfully.

Laurel rolled her eyes but got out of her car. Darkness had settled around the bank, but the lights were still on. She took a deep breath of fresh air and shored up her patience to deal with her father.

“Dad.”

“Laurel.” He didn’t even give Hart a cursory look. “Took you long enough.”

“You said it wasn’t an emergency.”

Dad merely shrugged. “Have you heard from Dylan?”

“No, but I wasn’t expecting to. Why don’t you tell me what you think happened?”

“I don’t know what happened,” Dad snapped. He smoothed out his features, clearly remembering that it wasn’t just her in his audience. He had to play the role of upstanding Delaney for Deputy Hart. “I was driving home from the airport after my meeting in Denver. I passed the bank and saw the normal lights on instead of the security lights. So I pulled in, thinking someone had forgotten to switch over to closing lights, but the door was unlocked and no one was inside.”

“And you suspect foul play?”

Dad pressed his lips together, a sure sign of irritation. “I don’t know what to suspect. Neither your brother nor Adele will answer their phones. The safes are all closed and locked, and nothing appears out of place, but the evening paperwork wasn’t done, so I can’t be sure if every dollar is accounted for.”

“So it was just Adele and Dylan working?” She nodded at Hart to start taking notes, pleased to see he already was. He was going to be a good replacement. Just hopefully not so good she couldn’t get her detective spot back when she returned from maternity leave.

But that was so far away. She didn’t need to think about it now.

“As far as I know. Adele was scheduled to close. Dylan wasn’t scheduled, but it’s not unheard of for him to be here until close. Still, we didn’t have any meetings, and he tends to check in with the foreman at the ranch before the foreman’s done at five.”

“Why don’t Hart and I take a look around? Have you been home to see if Dylan’s there?”

“No, but I called George and he hadn’t seen him.”

Laurel felt the first little tickle of worry at the base of her spine. “Hart, I’ll take the inside. You take the outside. Dad, do you have security tapes?”

He puffed out his chest. “Of course. I haven’t had a chance to look at them. I called you once I realized my bank had been abandoned and unlocked for who knows how long.”

“Pull up the footage,” Laurel instructed, stepping inside. She began to look around the front counter. Though she’d never planned on following her father’s footsteps at the bank, she’d spent some time working as a part-time teller when she’d been in the police academy, since Dad had refused to pay for that.

She knew her way around, and nothing appeared out of place. It didn’t look like your typical burglary. Surely it had just been someone’s mistake. She couldn’t imagine her brother or Adele Oscar, one of Dad’s higher-up employees, being that careless. But maybe if there’d been an emergency elsewhere?

Yet there was the gut feeling that had gotten her through her years as a deputy, and now as Bent County Sheriff’s Department’s detective, that told her something was off. That this was more than an oversight.

Hart appeared at the front doors. “There are two cars in the employee lot out back,” he said. “You want to come see if you recognize them?”

Laurel nodded and motioned Hart to follow her through the back hall that would cut through the bank to the back lot. She passed Dad’s office and stopped when she saw him scowling and punching at the computer keys.

He looked up and, though his face was scowling and angry, she saw the hint of worry in his gaze. “I’m not sure what happened, but there’s no footage today. It appears the cameras were turned off last night.”

“Purposeful?”

Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose it could be an accident, but whoever did it had access.”

“I’ll need a list of anyone who has access and opportunity to turn on or off the cameras. Hart, sit down with him and write down everyone who had access. I’m going to check out the cars.” She moved through the back hallway briskly, that gut feeling diving deeper.

She immediately recognized the first vehicle, her brother’s sleek sports car. It was enough to make her feel uneasy. Why would Dylan have left his car behind? Still, she could have come up with a few reasons. But the second car, parked farther down, made her stomach flip over in absolute police-level concern.

What was Vanessa Carson’s car doing in the Delaney Bank parking lot? That wasn’t just abnormal—it was unheard of.

Laurel immediately pulled out her phone. When the rough voice answered, the noise of his saloon a steady hum behind him, she couldn’t smile like she usually did. “Grady.”

“What’s up, princess?”

The nickname didn’t bug her anymore, but this feeling did. “Have you seen Vanessa today?”

“Van? Hmm. Guess not, but I wasn’t expecting to.” There was a pause. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure. Can you send someone to see if she’s at her shop and give me a call back?”

“Laurel, do I need to be worried?”

It was her turn to pause. “I’m not sure.”

“But you are. Worried, that is.”

“Call me back, okay? Love you.”

“Laur—”

She couldn’t sit on the phone and argue with her husband. She marched back inside to her father’s office. “It’s Dylan’s car and Vanessa Carson’s.”

Hart’s eyebrows rose and Dad’s face turned a mottled red.

“Are you telling me—”

“I’m telling you those are the cars left in the lot, and both people are unaccounted for. We need to find Adele Oscar. If she was working, and her car’s gone, we need her story. If she won’t answer her phone, we’ll have to go find her.”

Hart nodded. Laurel looked at her father. “Lock up. Go home. I’ll let you know when I’ve got more information.”

“I demand—”

“Go home, Dad. Let us investigate.” She pushed Hart toward the front doors and to the police car.

She had a bad feeling Adele Oscar had something to do with this weirdness. Now they just had to find her.

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