Читать книгу Lucas - Delores Fossen, Delores Fossen - Страница 10

Chapter Four

Hailey’s breath froze. She wanted to scream, to shout out for Lucas to hurry to the ranch so they could protect their son, but the words and sounds were wedged there in her throat.

No. This couldn’t be happening. This monster couldn’t get to her baby.

Even without her warning, Lucas thankfully understood just how dangerous a situation this could be, because he took off running toward the front of the building. Hailey followed him. Or rather, she tried.

Lucas must have remembered she was still hobbling, because he spun around, scooped her up in his arms and hurried toward his shot-up SUV still parked just outside the door.

“We need to use a cruiser,” Grayson called out to them. “Because this could be a trap to lure you into the open.”

Lucas stopped, and while everything inside Hailey wanted to move, to hurry to the ranch, she knew Grayson was right.

“Wait right here for me,” Grayson insisted. “I’ll bring the cruiser around to the front.”

Hailey didn’t want to waste precious minutes while he did that, but they didn’t have many options here. Lucas and she waited, the time crawling by slower than a snail’s pace, and it seemed to take an eternity for Grayson to drive up. Even before the cruiser came to a stop, Lucas and she jumped into the backseat, and Grayson took off again.

“I’ll call the ranch and get an update,” Lucas said.

As much as she wanted to know what was going on, Hailey didn’t want anyone there distracted right now. She wanted all the focus on protecting the baby.

Camden.

The name seemed foreign to her. Probably because she’d yet to see her son, but maybe that would change soon. Maybe they’d get to the ranch and put an end to the danger.

“Tillie,” Lucas said to whoever answered his call.

“One of the nannies,” Grayson provided to Hailey, but he didn’t even glance back at her when he spoke. He looked all around, no doubt in case someone was trying to follow them.

Or attack them again.

Hailey couldn’t hear what the nanny was saying, but since Lucas’s arm was pressed against her, she felt his muscles relax just a little. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.” He paused. “Hailey’s with me.”

The nanny perhaps hadn’t even heard she was out of the coma, so this could be a real shock. An unwanted one. Hailey didn’t know Tillie, but she doubted she was going to get a warm reception from anyone at the Silver Creek Ranch. It wouldn’t matter that she thought she’d done the right thing.

Still did think that.

But a family of lawmen wouldn’t see it that way. They would believe she should have trusted them. However, maybe they could see now that all the trust in the world wouldn’t have put an end to the danger.

Oh, mercy.

That reminder came at her hard, like a heavyweight’s fist. The reason she’d tried to escape was to avoid this. To keep her child safe. And now he wasn’t safe because of her.

“Whoever’s behind the attacks will use Camden to get to me,” Hailey said under her breath.

She hadn’t intended to say that aloud, and it stung even more when Lucas made a sound of agreement. He’d finished his call with the nanny and now was keeping watch. Along with glancing at her.

“That doesn’t mean you’re going to try to take him and disappear,” Lucas snapped. There wasn’t a shred of gentleness in his tone. In fact, it was the same tone he likely used with criminal suspects.

“It’s too late to take him and hide,” Hailey agreed. “Too late for me to disappear, as well. Because now that they know I’m awake, they won’t stop, and they’ll try to use the baby to come after me.”

That meant she needed to find out who they were. And fast. For that to happen, she needed to rely on Lucas.

Something that wouldn’t please him.

It didn’t please her, either, but no one would work harder than Lucas to keep Camden safe. Of course, once that happened, and this snake was captured and behind bars, Lucas and she would have another battle to fight.

For custody.

But that was a fight that would have to wait for another day. Right now, Hailey had enough to deal with.

“The fences are all rigged with security alarms?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Grayson and Lucas answered at the same time. It was Lucas who continued. “There are also sensors on the grounds. Cameras, too. Since this clown tripped a sensor, the ranch hands and my cousins will be able to pinpoint his exact location before he can get near one of the houses.”

Good. But pinpointing him wasn’t the same as stopping the threat.

“Hurry,” Hailey said to Grayson. She was speaking purely out of frustration, because he was going as fast as he safely could.

The rural roads that led to the ranch weren’t exactly straight. Plenty of sharp curves and turns, and it certainly wouldn’t help them if Grayson wrecked.

Something she knew all too well.

Hailey couldn’t quite choke back a gasp when the cruiser tires squealed around one of those turns and it felt as if Grayson was losing control of the vehicle. All the memories of that other night came flooding back.

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

The pain.

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

“Flashbacks?” Lucas asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, mercy.

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

Still, waiting was hard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course,” Tillie quickly agreed.

Hailey was shaking her head before the nanny even answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lucas jumped right on that. “She lied?”

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

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

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

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

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

A shot.

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

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

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

Or in it.

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

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

“Is he talking?” Lucas asked.

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

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

Just as the ranch hand had done, Mason hesitated. “No. Nothing else is showing up on any of the security feeds, either. It looks as if this clown came alone. And I don’t think he came here to kill anybody. He had surveillance equipment on him.”

So there could be others on the way. It was too much to hope that this guy’s injury and arrest would get the person behind this to back off.

“It’s safe for you to come to the house,” Mason continued. “If you want to come, that is.”

She knew what he meant by that. Mason was giving his cousin an out in case Lucas didn’t want her to see the baby. Hailey was about to insist that happen when Lucas gave Grayson the go-ahead to get moving.

Toward the house.

Hailey sat back up, keeping watch around them, but she was also looking for the house. It finally came into view since it was the first building on the ranch road. All of the interior lights were off, probably as a safety precaution, but there were security lights on all four corners of the property. Enough for her to see the barn and corral that hadn’t been there a year ago.

Lucas was making this place a home.

Part of her was thankful for that. Their son deserved it. But she was betting there was no place in this home for her.

Grayson pulled to a stop directly in front of the porch, and the door opened. Mason. Yet another unfriendly face, but then, Mason usually looked unfriendly. As he’d done at the sheriff’s office, Lucas got her in—fast. This time, though, he didn’t carry her. He looped his arm around her waist to steady her, and the moment they were inside, he moved away from her.

Hailey immediately looked around for the baby. But there was no sign of him or the nanny. She was about to demand to see him, but Mason stepped in front of her.

“Just got a text from Sawyer,” Mason said, his voice low and dangerous. “The guy he shot is drifting in and out of consciousness, but this is what the guy said.”

He held his phone screen up for her to see, and the words there caused her to drop back a step.

Hailey Darrow paid me to take the kid.