Lawman from Her Past

by Delores Fossen

  So the thugs belonged to the loan shark. That was why none of them had been willing to negotiate a deal with Cameron. Their boss wouldn’t have killed them. And this way, the loan shark ensured that he’d get not only the money Julia owed him but then some, too. Heck, the loan shark might end up taking most of the entire estate. Along with killing Julia. But the woman probably hadn’t realized that.

  “Your deputy might have managed to take out the person who was manning the launcher,” Julia went on. “But there’s someone else out there who can do the same job. He has orders to fire if Lauren doesn’t come to me with Isaac. You’ve got a minute to send her out here.”

  “I’ll go,” Lauren whispered.

  Cameron cursed and muted the call. Even though Lauren already knew this, he thought it was worth repeating. “She wants you dead.”

  “Yes, but when I get to the car, she’ll want to take a look at Isaac, to make sure I’ve brought the right baby. When she does that, I can escape.”

  There were way too many things that could go wrong—especially since Julia would have at least one hired gun in the car with her. Still, they didn’t have a lot of options here. If the guy with the launcher fired at them, then they’d all die.

  Cameron forced himself to think, and there was no completely safe way to handle this. But maybe he could do something to ensure that Lauren made it out of this alive.

  “Make sure there’s not another launcher,” Cameron told Jameson.

  Jameson nodded, and he started moving. Unlike Lauren had done, he kept low. Obviously trying to stay out of sight while he made his way closer to the cruiser and the area where they’d last seen the launcher.

  “Give me thirty seconds before you start walking out to Julia,” Cameron added to Lauren. “I’ll try to get as close to Julia’s car as possible so I can be in place to help you escape.”

  He gave one of the blankets an adjustment and gave her a quick kiss. Cameron wished there was time to say more. Exactly what, he didn’t know. But he hated to think that these might be his last moments with her.

  “Thirty seconds,” he repeated, and Cameron started moving.

  Thankfully, there was plenty of underbrush so he could keep hidden, but Julia had probably figured he’d be trying to do something exactly like this.

  He counted off the seconds in his head, and once he was close to that thirty-second mark, Cameron stopped and got ready to fire. He considered just shooting into the windshield of Julia’s car with the hopes he’d hit her or her goons. But then the guy with the launcher would no doubt retaliate.

  Cameron felt the punch of dread go through him when Lauren stepped out. Right out in the open. Of course, that’d been the plan, but still, he hated that she had to be in harm’s way like this.

  “I’m coming,” Lauren called out to Julia.

  She had a bundled blanket in the crook of her right arm. And she also had her gun. It wasn’t hidden nearly enough, but there was no way Cameron could warn her now. Lauren was walking directly to the car.

  The car doors opened. Both on the driver’s and front passenger’s side, and even though no one got out, Cameron figured these were the hired goons. Julia was probably in the backseat, but he couldn’t see her.

  “You’ll want to drop that gun,” one of the thugs told Lauren.

  Lauren stopped, hesitating, and she let go of it so that it fell to the ground. She started walking again. Only making it a few steps.

  Before the shot blasted through the air.

  * * *

  LAUREN HEARD THE sound and braced herself for the bullet to hit her. The old saying was true. Her life did flash before her eyes. The pain and the happiness. She’d known that Cameron had been a big reason for a lot of her happiness, and she regretted that she had never told him that.

  But the bullet didn’t hit her.

  Stunned, she stood there a moment before she realized the guy on the driver’s side of Julia’s car had fired the shot at Cameron. Lauren’s stomach went to her knees, and she called out for him.

  No response.

  The anger came, quickly replacing the stunned fear, and Lauren charged toward the gunman.

  “Don’t shoot her,” Julia yelled. “Not until we have the kid.”

  Lauren had figured all along that Julia had no plans to let her live, and Julia had just confirmed that. Since holding the baby gave Lauren some protection, she kept running. Except she didn’t go to the driver. She ran to the other side of the vehicle, where she hoped to get her hands on Julia.

  Behind her, she heard the explosion. Mercy, that was where Jameson had been going, and she prayed he hadn’t been hurt. Maybe he’d managed to get out of the path before that blast went his way, but she couldn’t risk even glancing over her shoulder to check on him.

  There was another shot.

  The bullet slammed into the driver, and it’d come from Cameron’s direction. She prayed that meant he hadn’t been hurt and added the same prayer for her brother.

  The thug on the passenger’s side took aim at Cameron, and he started shooting. One shot right after the other. And Cameron wasn’t returning fire.

  Lauren kept moving, pushing aside all the gunfire and the possibility that the gunman would turn his weapon on her. In case he tried that, she held the blanket even higher so that it would make it harder for her to kill him.

  When Lauren reached the car, the thug stopped shooting at Cameron, and he reached out to grab her. She didn’t give him a chance to do that, though. She used the entire weight of her body to ram into the car door, which, in turn, rammed into him. He cursed her and howled out in pain. But Lauren ignored him and threw open the back door.

  Julia.

  The woman sat there, alone on the backseat, and she had a gun aimed right at Lauren.

  “Give me the kid,” Julia snarled.

  Her sister-in-law had never been friendly to her, but now Lauren saw the pure hatred in the woman’s eyes. She was certain there was hatred in her own eyes, too. Hatred that she aimed at Julia.

  Yelling at the top of her lungs, Lauren tossed the blanket at her. She caught just a glimpse of Julia’s stunned look before Lauren launched herself at the woman. Pinpointing all of her rage into her fist, she punched Julia right in the face.

  Julia didn’t just sit there and take that, though. She let out her own feral yell, and she came at Lauren, grabbing her by the hair and shoving her back. They fell out of the car and onto the ground. Unfortunately, Julia landed on top of Lauren, and she whacked her gun across Lauren’s jaw.

  The pain slammed through Lauren so hard and nearly robbed her of her breath. Still, that didn’t stop her from fighting back. Nor did the shots that she heard being fired all around them. Cameron and maybe Jameson were in a fight for their lives, but Lauren was in her own fight. One that she had to win so that she could help Cameron and the others.

  Lauren managed to catch on to Julia’s wrist to stop the woman from hitting her with the gun again, but Julia only punched her with her left hand. That one wasn’t nearly as hard as the first one had been, but it still dazed her for a moment.

  “You should have just brought the kid!” Julia shouted. “They’ll kill me now, but first I’ll make sure you’re dead.”

  Lauren had no intention of just letting her do that. While she still had a grip on Julia’s wrist, Lauren shoved up her hand—and Julia’s gun slammed into the woman’s chin. Julia cursed her again.

  And pulled the trigger.

  The gun was close to Lauren’s ear. Too close. Because the blast from the bullet was so loud that it deafened her. But she had no trouble feeling, and even though Julia’s shot had missed her, that didn’t stop her from head-butting Lauren.

  Enough of this. Lauren wasn’t just going to lie there while Julia beat her into unconsciousness. Then she’d be an easy kill. She didn’t intend to make any of this eas
y for Julia.

  Lauren mustered as much energy as she could, and she threw Julia off her. She moved fast to pin the woman’s hands to the ground by throwing her body over Julia’s.

  “Kill Cameron,” Julia shouted out to her hired thug. “Kill him now.” And the thug fired some shots.

  That was not the right thing for Julia to say, and it caused a new wave of anger to wash through Lauren. She slammed her forearm into Julia’s face, causing the woman’s head to flop back. Lauren took full advantage of that. She ripped the gun from Julia’s hand, turned toward the thug.

  Lauren fired.

  But her shot wasn’t necessary. The thug was already in the process of falling to the ground. That was when she saw Cameron. Alive, thank God. And with his gun aimed right at the fallen man.

  Beneath her, she felt Julia’s body tense. The woman was probably about to gear up for another round of the fight. She didn’t get a chance to do that, though. Cameron raced toward them, and he pointed his gun at Julia.

  “Please move so I can shoot you,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Julia went limp, her hands dropping to her sides. Lauren didn’t relax, though. She got up and took aim at the woman, as well.

  Lauren risked a glance at Cameron to make sure he was okay. He seemed to be. No blood anyway. She was certain she was bleeding, though, from the punches she’d taken from Julia.

  The sound of running footsteps sent Cameron snapping in the direction of the cruiser. Lauren looked there, too, and saw a welcome sight.

  Jameson.

  Her brother seemed fine, too.

  “The guy with the launcher’s dead,” Jameson said. “I don’t see any other hired guns around, but we need to get out of here.” He glanced down at Julia. “We can get that piece of slime behind bars.”

  Julia had a strange reaction to that. She looked up at Lauren and laughed. “It’s not over,” the woman said. “I had a backup plan in case something went wrong. In case you didn’t bring the babies with you, after all.”

  “What do you mean?” Lauren asked, and she reminded herself that anything that came out of the woman’s mouth could be a lie.

  But this didn’t feel like a lie.

  Not with that sick smile on Julia’s face.

  “Evelyn didn’t want any part of the violence,” Julia continued. “She didn’t want to get her hands dirty. But she’s at the ranch now to get her grandson. And I sent enough hired guns with her to do just that.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cameron couldn’t get to his phone fast enough, and he prayed that Julia’s threat was all just a bluff. But he also knew Evelyn. Knew that she was desperate to get her hands on Patrick, so she might indeed have fallen for something like this.

  “Hurry,” Lauren said. She was firing glances all around, no doubt looking for a way to get to the ranch ASAP.

  “I’m calling Gabriel,” he told her, and he pressed the number. It rang and then went to voice mail.

  Hell.

  That was not what Cameron wanted to hear. Apparently, neither did Lauren, because she hurried to Julia’s car. “The keys are in the ignition.”

  If they took it they could leave immediately, especially since the cruiser had been disabled. “Jace...” Cameron mumbled.

  “Go,” Jameson insisted. “I’ll stay with him and see if I can get the ambulance out here. If not, I can take the gunmen’s SUV.”

  Cameron figured there were some concerns about the plan, but his bigger concern was getting to the boys. He ran to the car, motioning for Lauren to get in, but she had by the time he got behind the wheel.

  There was no place to turn around, so he threw the car into Reverse. “Look for any kind of tracking devices,” he added to Lauren.

  He figured Julia wouldn’t have put anything like that on the vehicle, but it was possible the loan shark had. That was just one possible obstacle. The next one was the hired guns that Julia said were at the end of the trail—the very place they needed to go to get back on the road to the ranch.

  “I don’t see anything,” Lauren said. She shook her head, the panic in both her expression and her voice. “But if it’s small enough, it could be hidden underneath something.”

  Yeah, and it probably wouldn’t be that small. Still, it wasn’t something he could worry about right now, especially since there was the biggest worry of all—possible gunmen at the ranch. And Gabriel was short some hands and deputies because they’d been at the sites where they were supposed to trap the gunmen.

  They’d failed at that.

  But Cameron couldn’t fail at getting to Isaac and Patrick.

  “Try calling Gabriel again,” Cameron told her.

  She did, all the while she was mumbling something. A prayer from the sound of it. Cameron said a few himself.

  “Voice mail,” Lauren relayed to him, and she groaned. Not an ordinary one but the kind that sounded as if she was about to cry.

  “Keep trying,” he pressed. “And get down on the seat.”

  He knew that was only going to cause her more alarm, but there was nothing he could do about it. They were approaching the end of the trail, and while he didn’t hear any gunfire, that didn’t mean the shooters weren’t there. Added to that, the car probably wasn’t bullet resistant like the cruiser.

  While she kept redialing Gabriel’s number, Lauren did sink lower in the seat, but she kept her head high enough to keep watch. Cameron was watching, too, and that was why he had no trouble spotting the three vehicles at the intersection of the trail and the road. One was a black SUV, identical to what the other hired guns had driven. There was also a cruiser and a truck that he knew belonged to one of the ranch hands.

  “I don’t see any gunmen,” Lauren said on a rise of breath.

  Other than Allen, the ranch hand, neither did he. He had the butt of a rifle resting against his hip. There was a Texas Ranger next to him and a reserve deputy on the other side of the trail. Cameron slowed down and lowered his window.

  “The gunmen are dead,” Allen said to Cameron. He tipped his head to the trail. “How about up there?”

  “Dead. There could be trouble at the ranch. Lauren and I are headed there now, but you should go check on Jameson and Jace. Jace will need an ambulance. Is the road clear?” he asked without pausing.

  “As far as I know. I’ll follow you,” Allen volunteered.

  Cameron thanked him but didn’t wait for the man. He backed out onto the road, and now that there was room to turn around, that was exactly what he did. Fast. And he sped toward the ranch.

  The rain had slowed some, but there was still plenty of water on the road. It was a risk, but Cameron didn’t slow down. Everything inside him was yelling for him to get to the boys as fast as he could.

  “Gabriel,” Lauren said.

  Finally. But Cameron didn’t breathe easier just yet. “Put the call on speaker. Are the boys okay?” Cameron asked the moment Lauren did that. “Julia said there could be gunmen at the ranch.”

  “Yeah to both. The boys are fine, but we’ve definitely got some armed thugs.”

  The panic slammed through Cameron. Through Lauren, too, because he heard her make a hoarse sob.

  “That’s why I couldn’t answer your call,” Gabriel continued. “I’m out by the barn where I just took out two of them.”

  Two. But Cameron was betting there were more than that. Heck, Julia could have sent a dozen of them.

  “Julia sent them,” Cameron explained. “And Evelyn will be with them.”

  “We have Evelyn in handcuffs, facedown on the porch, but we haven’t managed to round up a final gunman yet. He’s somewhere near the front of the ranch. Maybe by the road. If I thought it would do any good, I’d tell you two to wait until—”

  “We’ll be there in about a minute,” Cameron interrupted.

  “I figured
you’d say that. Just be careful because this guy has a rifle with a scope.” Gabriel ended the call, probably because he had his hands full making sure the house was safe. Which was exactly what Cameron wanted him to do.

  “I’m not staying down on the seat this time,” Lauren said. “I want to stop this guy.”

  Like Gabriel, Cameron knew he didn’t stand a chance of winning that argument with her. Besides, he might need her. Lauren had proven herself to be a good shot, and he wanted all the backup he could get. No way did he want this guy firing anywhere near Gabriel’s house.

  Cameron slowed when they approached the turn for the ranch, and he drew his gun, keeping it in his hand, but he didn’t see anyone. Well, no one that he didn’t recognize anyway. There were two ranch hands, both armed, and they were in a truck parked on the side of the road. He pulled to a stop next to them and lowered his window again.

  “We lost sight of the guy,” the hand said. “But he came this way, and he’s wearing all black.”

  That wasn’t an especially good camouflage color, but he could be hiding in the trees that were nearby. Of course, that would be the first place someone would look for him. And maybe this man knew that.

  “Check the ditch on your side,” Cameron told Lauren.

  He kept his window down and moved the car up so the hands’ truck wouldn’t be obstructing his view. He angled his head to get a better look. Like the ditches on the trail, these were filled with water. Water that was almost black under the iron-gray sky and rain.

  Cameron crept along at a snail’s pace, searching, while Lauren did the same on the other side. He was a good twenty yards from the ranch hands before he spotted something.

  The gunman.

  The guy was squatting chest-deep in the water. And yes, he had a rifle. One that he immediately started turning toward Cameron.

  Cameron didn’t even bother telling Lauren to watch out. There wasn’t time. He just took aim and fired. Not one shot but three. The bullets slammed into the guy’s chest, and they must have killed him instantly because the thug didn’t even get the chance to pull the trigger.