Lawman from Her Past

by Delores Fossen

  Something that stopped her cold.

  Dara. The nanny had Patrick clutched to her chest, and she was running—fast. Probably as fast as she could go.

  “They found us,” Dara shouted. “Run!”

  Chapter Three

  Cameron hadn’t been sure of what he was going to do, but there was no time left to debate it now. All of his lawman’s instincts told him that the stark fear in the woman’s voice was real.

  So was that baby she had gripped in her arms.

  A little blond-haired boy who was about the same size as Isaac.

  Cameron forced himself not to think that everything Lauren had told him was real. If this was truly his nephew, anything he felt about that would have to wait. Right now he had to get them to safety.

  “Get inside the house,” Cameron told Lauren.

  She didn’t listen, of course. Neither would he if that’d been his child out there. Lauren started to run toward the nanny, but Cameron hurried in front of her. The moment he got to the woman and child, he hooked his arm around them, maneuvering them in front of him, and he got them running again.

  “Keep watch around us,” Cameron told Lauren.

  Maybe that would stop the panic he saw rising in her eyes. It was also something that needed to be done. Because if those two armed thugs were on their tail, then they had to get inside—fast—but they also needed to make sure they weren’t about to be gunned down. If necessary, they would have to take cover before they even reached the house.

  The little boy wasn’t out and out crying, but he was whimpering. Probably because he’d picked up on their fear and because the running was jostling him. Cameron tried to ignore the sounds he was making, and he got them on the porch. He had to fumble in his pocket to get his keys to unlock the door, but the moment he did that, he pushed them inside.

  “Get on the floor,” he ordered.

  Cameron relocked the door, set the security alarm and went to the window to keep watch. He also fired off a text to Gabriel, asking him to come over. Lauren’s brother didn’t live far and could be there in minutes if he hadn’t already left for work. If so, then Gabriel would have to drive back.

  A lot could happen in those extra minutes it would take Gabriel to do that.

  Cameron still had a much too clear image of the bandage on Lauren’s shoulder where she’d been shot. Those goons could be returning now to finish her off.

  Lauren scrambled to the nanny, taking Patrick into her arms and pulling him close. There were tears in her eyes again, and she was trembling. The nanny wasn’t faring much better. Hell, neither was he. Cameron wasn’t trembling the way they were, but he was worried because they had two babies in the house, and he might not be able to protect them if those gunmen started shooting.

  “I saw an SUV coming up the trail,” the nanny said. Her breath was gusting so hard that it was difficult to understand her. “I couldn’t drive off since there were trees blocking the way so I got out and started running with Patrick.”

  Yeah, there were downed trees back there. Probably shrubs, too, since it wasn’t a trail that was often used.

  “It could turn out to be nothing,” the nanny added in a hoarse whisper. “They might not be the men who were after us.”

  Judging from her tone, she didn’t think that was true. Neither did Cameron. It was too much of a coincidence for someone to show up on that trail so soon after Lauren had been shot.

  “Did you get a glimpse of anyone in the SUV?” he asked the woman.

  “Barely. I could just make out the outline of the driver behind the tinted glass. I think there was another man in the passenger seat.”

  Maybe the same two who had attacked Lauren in Dallas. If so, they’d come a long way. And they had probably had some inside help since Lauren had been right about the trail. Not many people outside the area knew it existed. Of course, a police officer might know because they could have tapped into the area maps that were in the database at San Antonio PD.

  Hell, he hoped they weren’t dealing with dirty cops.

  “Is everything okay?” someone called out from the other side of the house. Merilee.

  That tightened the knot in his stomach. He could tell Merilee was terrified, as well. She’d been Isaac’s nanny right from the start, and since there’d already been two attacks on the ranch, she knew something was wrong.

  “Just stay put in the nursery,” Cameron settled for saying. He didn’t want to unnecessarily alarm the woman even though she was probably well past the alarm stage already.

  Cameron also had a second reason for keeping Merilee and Isaac where they were. This way, Lauren wouldn’t see Isaac. Of course, she would see him soon enough, but right now he needed her to focus. If Lauren saw him and truly believed he was her son, then she might fall apart.

  “Hand Patrick to Dara,” Cameron told Lauren. “I need you to keep watch at the window on the side of the house.”

  He hated to ask her to do that, but right now she was their best bet. Besides, he knew Lauren could shoot since he’d been the one to teach her.

  She gave a shaky nod, passed the baby back to the nanny and with a tight grip on her gun, she went to the window near the breakfast table. He didn’t have to remind her to stay back. She did. Lauren positioned herself against the side of the glass so she could still peer out.

  “Nothing,” she relayed to him.

  It was the same from his view. That didn’t mean the men weren’t out there, though. Lauren had been out there for a while before he’d spotted her. Plus, it was possible the men were regrouping, maybe calling for their own backup so they could storm the place and take the baby.

  But why?

  That was something he intended to find out once they were out of any immediate danger.

  Behind him, Patrick started fussing, and he made the mistake of glancing back at the boy. Cameron hadn’t been able to see his face earlier when the nanny was running toward them. He saw it now, though.

  Oh, man.

  It felt like someone had knocked the breath right out of him. The kid had blond hair, and those were definitely the Doran gray eyes. In fact, the resemblance was close enough that Patrick could have been mistaken for Cameron’s own son. He wasn’t.

  But the boy was his nephew.

  Cameron silently cursed. This was not what he wanted in his head right now, but it was a fight to keep the thoughts at bay. What the hell was he going to do?

  He forced his attention back to the window just as the sound shot through the room. Clearly, everyone was on edge because both Lauren and the nanny gasped. But it wasn’t a shot being fired. It was just his phone ringing, and Cameron saw Gabriel’s name on the screen. Good. Maybe that meant the sheriff was there.

  Cameron put the call on speaker, laying his phone on the counter so his hands would be free in case there was an attack.

  “What the hell is going on?” Gabriel demanded the moment he came onto the line.

  Since he wasn’t going to have time to get into everything, Cameron went with the short version. “Lauren’s here, and some men are after her. They tried to kill her.”

  Gabriel cursed, but he quickly reined it in, no doubt because he realized his kid sister was listening. “Any reason she came to you and not me?”

  Gabriel didn’t rein in his emotions on that question. Cameron heard the anger come through loud and clear. The emotion was in Lauren’s expression, too. Her forehead was bunched up, and she had her still-trembling bottom lip clamped between her teeth. With everything else she was facing, she probably didn’t want a showdown with her brother, as well, but it was going to be on the agenda whether she wanted it or not.

  “I’ll explain it all later,” Cameron told him, but he had to raise his voice to speak over Patrick. The baby was fussing even louder now. “The men who are after Lauren will be in an SUV,” he added to G
abriel. “It’s possible they’re on the trail behind my house.”

  “They’re not. I just spotted a black SUV coming up from the back of my folks’ old place.”

  Cameron bit back a groan. The trails coiled all around the ranch, and the men had obviously found a way out of the woods. That meant they could be trying to escape so they could regroup and come at Lauren again. As much as Cameron hated the notion of that, at least it would give him a chance to get the babies, nannies and her to a safe place.

  “The SUV isn’t moving,” Gabriel went on, “and I can’t tell if anyone is still inside it. They could have already gotten out and slipped onto the ranch grounds.”

  Not exactly a comforting thought, but Gabriel was right. Cameron didn’t know how long it’d taken the nanny to get to Lauren and him, but the thugs could have driven off the moment she started running. If so, that would have given them plenty of time to get to the old Beckett house, and then the chance to escape.

  Or sneak up on Cameron’s house.

  “I’ve stopped on the road and am waiting for Jameson,” Gabriel continued a moment later. “Once he’s here, we can go closer. Why do they want Lauren?” he tacked onto that.

  “She’s not sure yet.” But it gnawed away at him to think it could be because of his sister’s scummy dead boyfriend. “Just give me a heads-up if you see these clowns.”

  “Will do. Is that Isaac crying?”

  “No. It’s...Lauren’s son.” Cameron hadn’t meant to hesitate, but it’d just seemed to stick in his throat.

  Gabriel’s silence let Cameron know it hadn’t been easy for him to hear. That was probably because Lauren hadn’t bothered to introduce her son to the rest of her family. Even though things had been strained between Lauren and him since their parents’ murders, it still had to cut Gabriel to the core. For him, it was all about family, and he’d worked damn hard to bring his siblings back to their birthplace.

  Cameron ended the call, and he went to the back door to look out the small windows there. The angle was better for giving him a view of the opposite side of the yard that Lauren was watching. The SUV was the other direction, but it didn’t mean the thugs couldn’t have brought some help along.

  “I think I see something,” Lauren said.

  That sent Cameron running to her, and he followed her pointing finger in the direction of the far side of his barn. Since the barn was closer to the old Beckett house than Cameron’s, it would be a likely place for someone to hide.

  But he didn’t see anything.

  “I’m obviously on edge,” Lauren admitted. “It could have been my imagination.”

  She looked up at him at the exact moment he looked down at her, and it seemed as if there was something else she wanted to say to him. An apology, maybe, but the silence said it all. Because she’d been giving him the silent treatment for the past decade. No reason for this to be any different.

  He kept watch, but even though he didn’t see anything, it didn’t mean someone wasn’t out there. Which made him rethink their position. There were way too many windows in this part of the house. Plus, it was hard to hear anything with Patrick crying.

  “Stay low,” Cameron instructed the nanny, “but take the baby to the nursery. It’s the first room off the hall.” He tipped his head in that direction. “Go with them,” he added to Lauren.

  But she shook her head. “You need me to help you keep watch. I don’t want those men getting in the house.”

  Neither did he, but Cameron had figured she’d want to be with her baby. And she probably did. However, like him, Lauren almost certainly knew things could turn on a dime.

  “Merilee?” he called out. “A woman and little boy are joining you in the nursery. Once they’re in there, lock the door, and all of you get down on the floor.”

  “What’s happening?” Merilee asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Lauren is here,” he said after a pause.

  Merilee would remember Lauren since she’d been the Beckett housekeeper all the way up until the time of the murders. Lauren’s mom was a former cop who also worked the ranch, and Merilee had been a pseudo-nanny to Lauren and her siblings.

  He nearly asked about Isaac, to make sure his nephew was all right, but right now Cameron only wanted to focus on what was going on outside. Besides, if something had been wrong in the nursery, Merilee would have let him know.

  “Thank you,” Lauren whispered.

  Cameron was about to tell her not to thank him yet, but the movement stopped him cold. This time he saw what Lauren had almost certainly spotted by the barn.

  A man.

  He only got a glimpse of him, but the guy was wearing camo. Definitely not a ranch hand.

  “He’s got a gun,” Lauren relayed to Cameron.

  Yeah, he’d seen it, too. Again, just a glimpse, but it appeared to be a rifle. Not good because it gave the intruder a longer range that he could use to shoot into the house.

  Without taking his attention off the man, Cameron pressed redial on his phone, and Gabriel answered on the first ring.

  “Jameson’s here,” Gabriel explained. “We’re going to the SUV now.”

  “Don’t. One of the shooters is here at my place by the side of my barn. I figure he’s not alone.”

  Gabriel made a sound of agreement followed by some profanity. “Okay, we’re on the way to your place. I’ll also get some of the hands over there.”

  “Tell them to be careful. The guy is armed, and he’s in position to pick off anyone who comes up the road to my house.”

  And that was probably the reason he was there. Which made that bad feeling inside him go up a significant notch. If these goons knew the trail, maybe they’d watched the place. Perhaps his house. It wouldn’t have been hard to do. On any given day there were at least two dozen hands working the ranch along with deliveries and the normal traffic that came with a place this size.

  There could be gunmen waiting to ambush Gabriel, Jameson and anyone else who came this way.

  Because if their ultimate goal was to get the baby, then it wouldn’t matter how many people they killed.

  He hated to put something else on Lauren’s shoulders, but he needed an extra pair of eyes at the front of the house. That meant he’d have to stay to keep watch of the thug by the barn. Cameron was about to give her instructions as to what to do, but the blur of motion stopped him.

  There was a second gunman at the back of the barn.

  Unlike his partner, this one didn’t immediately duck back behind cover. He lifted his rifle and fired. The shot crashed through the window right where Cameron was standing.

  Chapter Four

  Lauren shouted for Cameron to get down, but it was already too late. The gunman had fired the shot, the bullet blasting through the window.

  In the blink of an eye, she saw a piece of glass slice across Cameron’s arm. He was wearing a shirt, and she could immediately see the blood start to spread across the sleeve.

  She ran to him, but Lauren wasn’t quite able to reach his arm. That was because Cameron took hold of her and dragged her to the floor. But he didn’t stay there. He got right back up and took aim out the now gaping hole in the window.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, her breath gusting so hard that Lauren had trouble speaking.

  “I’m okay,” he grumbled.

  But she had no idea if that was true. She couldn’t tell if the glass was still in his arm or not because of all the blood.

  From the other side of the house, Lauren heard a sound she didn’t want to hear. Patrick was crying. Probably because the noise from the gunshot had frightened him. She considered going to him, but she didn’t want to leave Cameron alone. She got confirmation that would be a bad idea when two more shots came through the window. These slammed into the side of the fridge.

  “Merilee!” Cameron call
ed out to the nanny. “All of you need to get down on the floor and stay there.” He glanced at her then, letting Lauren know that applied to her, too.

  However, she shook her head. “If I go to the side window, I might have a clear shot and be able to stop the gunman.”

  “Yeah, and he might have a shot to stop you. Stay down,” he repeated, this time through clenched teeth. She couldn’t tell if the tight expression was for her or because he was grimacing in pain.

  Lauren huffed. She’d forgotten just how stubborn Cameron could be, but this brought it all back. Worse, he didn’t stay out of the line of fire. He leaned away from the wall, took aim out the window and pulled the trigger.

  The blast echoed through the room. Through the entire house. And Lauren heard both babies cry. She prayed the nannies could keep the boys as calm as possible, but better yet, she just wanted the women to protect them so that none of the bullets could make it to them.

  Her son was in danger.

  Both her sons.

  Because Isaac might be hers by blood, but Patrick was also hers in every way that mattered. Now the babies were at huge risk, and she didn’t even know why. That was what cut away at her right now. That, and the bullets that continued to tear into the house.

  She thought of what Cameron had said earlier. About Trace’s mother, Evelyn, pulling a gun on him. And Lauren wondered if she was behind this. But she couldn’t be. For one thing, the woman was in jail, and for another, she wanted custody of her grandson and almost certainly wouldn’t put him at risk like this.

  But Julia or Duane were capable of that.

  They wouldn’t have nearly the level of concern for Patrick or any other child that Evelyn likely would. In fact, it would make things easier for Julia or Duane if Lauren and her son were out of the way.

  That certainly didn’t help her raw nerves.

  However, there was a third player in all of this. The idiot who was sending those threatening messages to her and her family. If so, they didn’t have a clue who they were dealing with, and that person might not care if everyone inside the house died in a gunfight.