Landon

by Delores Fossen

  “Why would someone text you about Courtney?” Tessa asked.

  Joel lifted his hands in the air. “None of this makes sense, but what I don’t want you doing is blaming the messenger. I did the right thing by bringing you this photo, and I don’t want to be blamed for anything.”

  Landon would reserve blame for later, but Joel could be just as much of a snake as he was a messenger.

  Dade finished his call and motioned for Landon to step into Grayson’s office with him. Since Landon didn’t want Tessa left alone with Joel, he took her with him.

  “Gage said someone was spotted near the fence at the ranch,” Dade explained.

  That didn’t help the color return to Tessa’s face, and Landon had to step in front of her to keep her from bolting.

  “The baby’s okay,” Dade assured her. “Everyone is. The person ran when one of the hands confronted him, but all of this is starting to feel like a trap.”

  Landon made a sound of agreement. “Have Josh and Gage stay put at the ranch. I’ll get Joel and Ward out of here, and then while Grayson stays with Tessa, you and I can go look for Courtney.”

  Tessa was shaking her head before he even finished. “Courtney won’t trust you. If I go with you, maybe we can get her out of there.”

  Now it was Landon’s turn to shake his head. “You’re not going out there.”

  “I agree,” Dade said and then looked at Landon. “But I don’t think you should go, either. The two of you are targets. I’ll call in the night deputies, and Grayson and I can go after Courtney.”

  His cousin didn’t wait for him to agree to that. Probably because Dade knew he was right. He went to the interview room to fill in Grayson, and Landon returned to the squad room to tell Joel to take a hike. But it wasn’t necessary.

  Because Joel was already gone.

  Normally, Landon would have preferred not having Tessa around a creep like Joel, but it gave him an uneasy feeling that the man had just run out like that.

  “I demand to know what’s going on,” Landon heard Ward say. “Someone’s trying to kill me, and I need to know everything about this investigation.”

  “We’ll fill you in when we know something,” Grayson said. “Now leave. I’ll have someone call you and reschedule the interview.”

  Ward came out of the interview room, but he didn’t head for the exit. He stopped in front of Landon and Tessa. “Tell me what’s going on.” Then he huffed, and Landon could see the man trying to put a leash on his temper. “I can help,” he added as if they would agree to that.

  They didn’t.

  Landon didn’t want help from one of their suspects.

  “Just go,” Landon insisted.

  Ward glanced at Tessa. Why, Landon didn’t know. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him to hang around, and while mumbling some profanity, Ward finally turned and stormed out.

  Almost immediately Tessa’s gaze started to fire around the room. No doubt looking for something she could do to help save her friend. Or at least, the woman she thought was her friend. As far as Landon was concerned, the jury was still out on that.

  “Courtney’s alive,” Landon assured Tessa. “Hang on to that.”

  She shook her head. “Courtney was alive when that photo was taken. Just because someone sent it to Joel twenty minutes ago, doesn’t mean that’s when it was taken.”

  No, it didn’t, and there was no way to assure Tessa otherwise.

  “Dade and I will leave as soon as the night deputies arrive,” Grayson said as Dade and he gathered their things. That included backup weapons.

  Hell. Landon wanted to go with them. He wanted to help if his cousins were walking into a trap, but he caught a glimpse of something that reminded him of why he should stay put. Or rather a glimpse of someone.

  And that someone was Quincy.

  The timing sucked. It usually did when it came to Quincy, but this was especially bad. Landon didn’t want Quincy to find out Courtney’s last known location, since the woman was on the run, probably because of him.

  “I need to see you, Deputy Ryland,” Quincy said the moment his goon helped him maneuver the wheelchair through the door.

  “I don’t have time for you right now,” Landon fired back. “You need to get out of here.”

  But Quincy wasn’t budging. He had some papers in his hand, and he waved them at Landon. “Here’s the proof for me to take my daughter. Now, hand her over to me.”

  Landon really didn’t want to deal with this now, but he was hoping that Quincy’s proof was bogus.

  “This is the result of the DNA test I had run yesterday,” Quincy went on. “I paid top dollars to have the results expedited so I’d know the truth. You lied about the baby being yours, and you’ll both pay for that lie. Did you honestly think you could keep my daughter from me?”

  That was the plan, and Landon wanted to continue with that plan.

  He went to Quincy and took the papers, and Tessa hurried toward them so she could have a look, as well. Grayson and Dade stayed back, watching, but both his cousins knew how this could play out if the test results were real.

  And they appeared to be.

  Appeared.

  Landon handed off the paper to Dade so his cousin could call the lab and verify that a test had been done.

  “Where did you get the baby’s DNA?” Landon asked.

  “From Courtney’s place in Austin. There was a pacifier in the crib, and I had it tested.”

  Landon glanced at Tessa to see if that was possible, and she only lifted her shoulder. So, yeah, it was possible. But Landon had no intentions of giving Quincy an open-arms invitation to take a child he’d fathered. Any fool could father a baby.

  “Did you just admit that you broke into your ex’s house?” Landon pressed.

  Clearly, Quincy didn’t like that. He leaned forward and for a moment looked ready to come out of that chair and launch himself at Landon. “You can’t keep my daughter from me,” Quincy snarled.

  Maybe not forever, but he darn sure could for now. “A DNA test is a far cry from a court order. I’m guessing even with that so-called proof, which can easily be faked, by the way, that you’ll have trouble getting custody. Plus, you haven’t proven that the DNA from the pacifier even belongs to the baby we have in custody. So leave now and come back when and if you have a court order.”

  Quincy would have almost certainly argued about that if the two trucks hadn’t pulled to a stop in front of the building and the deputies hadn’t hurried inside.

  “What’s going on?” Quincy asked.

  Landon didn’t answer, but he did motion for the goon to get Quincy moving. “Either you can leave or I’ll arrest you both for obstruction of justice.” A charge like that wouldn’t stick, of course, but at least Quincy would be locked up.

  Quincy glanced at all of them, and while it was obvious he thought this was somehow connected to him, he didn’t argue. He said something under his breath to the hired goon, and the guy wheeled him out of the sheriff’s office.

  “This isn’t over,” Quincy said from over his shoulder. It sounded like the threat that it was.

  “He’ll try and follow you,” Landon reminded Dade and Grayson.

  Grayson nodded, and Dade and he headed out the back.

  “I’m not giving Quincy the baby,” Tessa insisted.

  Just lately they hadn’t been in complete agreement, but they were now. Landon put his hand on her back to get her moving to Grayson’s office, but they’d hardly made it a step when Landon heard a sound of glass shattering behind them.

  He turned to step in front of Tessa, but it was already too late.

  The blast tore through the building.

  * * *

  ONE SECOND TESSA was standing, and the next she was on the floor. It took h
er a moment not only to catch her breath but to realize what had happened. Someone had set off some kind of explosive device.

  Oh, God.

  Just like that, her heart was back in her throat, and her breath was gusting. Someone was trying to kill them. Again.

  Cursing, Landon drew his gun, and in the same motion, he crawled over her. Protecting her again. But not only was he putting himself in danger, Tessa wasn’t even sure it was possible to protect her. The front door had been blasted open and one of the reinforced windows had broken.

  “Car bomb,” she heard Landon say, though it was hard to hear much of anything with the sound of the blast still ringing in her ears.

  The words had hardly left his mouth when there was a second explosion, and even though Tessa hadn’t thought it possible, it was louder than the first.

  Landon caught on to her, scrambling toward Grayson’s office, and he pushed her inside. But he didn’t come in. He stayed in the hall with the gun ready and aimed.

  “The deputies?” Tessa managed to say. She wasn’t sure where they were, though she could hear them talking.

  “They’re fine.”

  Good. That was something at least, but another blast could bring down the building. Plus, they had Grayson and Dade to worry about. They were outside, somewhere, and while they’d gone out through the back, that didn’t mean someone hadn’t been waiting there to ambush them.

  If so, the photo of Courtney had been a trap.

  That sickened Tessa, but if that was indeed what it’d been, that didn’t mean Courtney had wanted this to happen. Courtney would have likely been forced to have that picture taken. Which meant she was innocent.

  “Stay down,” Landon warned her when Tessa lifted her head.

  She did stay down, but Tessa crawled to the desk, opened the center drawer and found exactly what she’d hoped to find.

  A gun.

  She wasn’t a good shot, but she needed some way to try to defend herself if things escalated. And they did escalate.

  “There’s a gunman!” Grayson shouted.

  Tessa couldn’t tell where the sheriff was, but the sound of the gunshot confirmed his warning. And from the sound of it, the gunshot came through into the squad room. It wasn’t a single shot, either.

  More came.

  “Hell, there’s more than one gunman,” Landon grumbled.

  Tessa was about to ask how he knew that, but it soon became crystal clear. Bullets started to smack into the window just above her head. The reinforced glass was stopping them. For now. But whoever was firing those shots was determined to tear through the glass.

  But how had the shooter known Landon and she were inside the office?

  Maybe their attackers had some kind of thermal scan or were on the roof of one of the nearby buildings. Not exactly a thought to steady her nerves, because it was daylight and any one of those shots could hit an innocent bystander.

  “One of them is using an Uzi,” Grayson called out. “Everybody stay down.”

  Tessa certainly did, but Landon didn’t. He scurried toward her and maneuvered into the corner so that the desk was between the window and her. Not that it would do much good. The Uzi could fire off a lot of shots in just a few seconds, and it wouldn’t be long before those bullets made it through the glass, and then Landon and she would be trapped. He must have realized that, too.

  “We have to move,” he said. “Stay low and go as fast as you can.”

  Tessa barely had time to take a breath before Landon had them moving. He stayed in front of her as they barreled out into the hall, and he didn’t waste a second shoving her into the interview room where Ward had been just minutes earlier.

  She caught a glimpse of the shooter then. One of them, anyway. The man had on a ski mask and was behind a car parked in front of the café across the street. The position gave him a direct line of sight into the sheriff’s office, especially now that the door was open. And the shooter made full use of that.

  He fired at Landon.

  The bullet came too close, smacking into the wall right next to Landon’s hand. Tessa latched on to his arm and pulled him into the room with her, and she prayed the deputies were doing something to stay out of the path of those shots. There was another hall leading to the holding cells on that side of the building, so maybe they’d used that.

  More shots.

  Maybe some of them were coming from Grayson or Dade, though it was hard to tell. Though it wasn’t hard to tell when Landon fired. He leaned out the doorway, took aim and pulled the trigger.

  “The shooter got through the window,” Landon growled.

  Mercy. That meant he was in the building, and if this was the gunman with the Uzi, he could mow them all down.

  Landon fired another shot. Then another.

  It was hard for Tessa to see much of anything, but she did catch a glimpse of a man peering out from Grayson’s office. He, too, wore a ski mask and what appeared to be full body armor.

  Landon had no choice but to duck back into the interview room when the guy started firing, but there was no way they could let this monster get any closer. Though she knew Landon wasn’t going to like it, she lifted her head and body just enough to fire a shot.

  She missed.

  The bullet tore into the office doorjamb, but it must have distracted the guy just enough. Landon cursed—some of the profanity aimed at her—and he fired again. This time at the guy’s head.

  Landon didn’t miss.

  Tessa heard the shooter drop to the floor. Thank God. But she also heard someone else.

  The shots stopped.

  The relief washed over her. Until Grayson shouted out something she didn’t want to hear.

  “The second gunman’s getting away!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Landon wanted to kick himself. Two attacks now at the Silver Creek sheriff’s office. And either attack could have killed Tessa, his cousins or the other deputies. They’d gotten damn lucky that there hadn’t been more damage and there had been no injuries.

  Of course, one of the shooters hadn’t had much luck today.

  The guy was dead, but that wasn’t exactly a dose of great news for Landon. Just like the gunwoman from the day before, dead shooters couldn’t give them answers, but maybe Grayson and the others would be able to find the gunman who’d gotten away. While Landon was wishing, he added that the moron would cough up a name of who was behind the attacks.

  And that they’d find Courtney.

  The last might not even be doable. When the deputies had finally made it out to the bridge, there’d been no sign of the woman. If someone was holding her captive, then it was possible that person had taken her far away from Silver Creek.

  Tessa got out of the truck and went into the guesthouse ahead of Landon. As instructed, she hurried, and that precaution was because of the stranger one of the hands had seen in the area just minutes before the attack at the sheriff’s office. Landon doubted that was a coincidence, and because of the possible threat and the attacks, everyone was on high alert.

  By the time Landon got inside, Tessa was already at the bassinet and was checking on the baby—who was sleeping. At least Samantha was too young to know what was going on. That was something.

  Tessa sighed and touched her fingertips to the baby’s hair. She didn’t have to tell him that she was worried about both Courtney and the little girl. There were threats all around them, and not all of those threats came from armed thugs. The biggest threat could come from the child’s own father.

  Landon thanked the nanny and Gage for staying with the baby, but he didn’t say anything to Tessa until the two had left. Since he was essentially planning a crime, it was best not to involve his cousin and the nanny.

  “If Quincy gets the court order,” Landon told her
, “we’ll take the baby from the ranch. I know a place we can go.”

  “A safe house?”

  “Not an official one. I don’t want to go through channels for that, but it’ll be a safe place.” He hoped. And not just safe. But a place they could stay until they managed to stop Quincy from taking the newborn.

  She nodded, and Landon nearly told her to go ahead and pack. Then he remembered Tessa didn’t have much to take with her. It wouldn’t take them long at all to get out of there if Quincy showed up with the law on his side.

  “Why don’t you try to get some rest?” Landon suggested. “You’ve been through a lot today.”

  “You’ve been through worse,” Tessa quickly pointed out. “You had to kill a man.”

  Yeah, a man he would kill a dozen times over if it meant neutralizing the threat. Except there was more to it than that, and even though Landon tried to push it aside, the thought came anyway.

  He’d kill to protect Tessa.

  Hell.

  This was about that blasted attraction again.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” she added, and when she turned away from him, Landon knew there were tears in her eyes.

  She was coming down from the adrenaline rush, and soon the bone-weary fatigue would take over, but for now there was no fatigue. Just her nerves firing. Landon’s nerves were doing some firing, too, but unfortunately, his body was coming up with some bad suggestions as to how to tame those nerves.

  “This isn’t your fault,” Landon said.

  They weren’t just talking about the danger now. Somewhere in the past couple of seconds, they’d moved on from nerves, danger and gunmen to something so basic and primal that he could feel it more than the nerves.

  “I’m sorry about this, too,” Tessa whispered, and she went to him, sliding right into his arms.

  And Landon didn’t stop her. Heck, if she hadn’t come to him, he would have gone to her. That meant this stupid mistake was a little easier to make.

  Landon hated that she landed in his arms again. Hated it mainly because it was the only place he wanted her to be. Along with giving her some comfort, it was doing the same thing to him. But it was also playing with fire. Having her in his arms made him remember how much he wanted her, and sadly, what he wanted was a whole lot more than a hug.