Lucas

by Delores Fossen

  Maybe Colleen wouldn’t do something stupid before then.

  Shortly after Hailey had fallen asleep, Lucas had gotten a text from Grayson telling him that Colleen had refused to stay at the sheriff’s office any longer. Grayson hadn’t had any grounds to hold her, and even though he’d reminded her that the kidnappers could be watching the place, Colleen had left anyway. At best, she was just going somewhere else to wait for the ransom drop. At worst, she was in grave danger. And Grayson didn’t have the manpower to send someone out to make sure she didn’t get herself into trouble.

  Right now, the Rylands had enough trouble on their hands.

  Lucas glanced at the laptop that he’d brought into the bedroom after Hailey had fallen asleep. It was on the nightstand next to him, and it showed the feed from the security cameras positioned all around the ranch. No doubt several of his cousins were watching the cameras, too, as was the head ranch hand. All of them looking to make sure someone didn’t try to sneak onto the grounds.

  So far, so good.

  It was a bad night, though, for any kind of sneaking around outside. The rain was steady and heavy, and there was the occasional jag of lightning in the sky. Maybe the storm would be enough to keep the thugs from another attempt to take Camden or Hailey.

  With a few strokes on the laptop keyboard, Lucas pulled up the feed from another camera. This one was in the nursery at the main house. Tillie had set up the camera so that they could see Camden. And there he was, sleeping in a crib. He was sharing the room with Mason’s son, Max. Tillie was in the guest room just up the hall and would no doubt have a baby monitor next to her bed so she’d be able to hear the babies if they woke up.

  As if she’d sensed what Lucas was doing, Hailey stirred, her eyes opening and her attention going straight to the screen. She smiled. Sat up.

  “It’s not the same as having him here with us, but it’s still nice to see him,” she said.

  Yeah. It was. But the us gave Lucas some hesitation. She’d said it so easily, as if it were normal. It wasn’t. And Hailey must have realized her slip, because she muttered an apology under her breath.

  Lucas hated that she felt the need to apologize. Hated even more that he felt as if he should have one. Because despite the fact that she was in his bed, they were a long way from getting to the us stage.

  Once he’d taken care of the danger, they could start working on that. And Lucas refused to believe he couldn’t put an end to the attacks, because if he couldn’t, it would mean Hailey and Camden going to a safe house. Or her even returning to WITSEC, but this time she would have to take Camden with her since as long as he was out there, the snake behind this could use the baby to get to Hailey.

  “Colleen left the sheriff’s office,” Lucas told her. “Grayson couldn’t talk her out of it.”

  Hailey gave a heavy sigh. “No, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. Did Colleen say where she was going?”

  Lucas shook his head. “But unless she manages to get her hands on the money, she can’t do the ransom exchange.” And he hoped she didn’t even attempt it.

  She looked at Camden again. Then Lucas. “You’re no doubt thinking we messed things up big-time,” she said. “And yes, I’m talking about the sex.”

  He let that hang in the air for a couple of seconds. Then lifted his shoulder. “Well, yeah, when I mess up, I aim for big.”

  She laughed, but it wasn’t exactly from humor. More nerves. Something he understood. Reality was quickly settling in, and there was no way they could go back to where they’d been just hours earlier. There was no such thing as casual sex when it came to Hailey.

  The silence settled between them. And it wasn’t exactly comfortable. Hailey fixed her attention to the laptop and on Camden. As much as he wanted to continue looking at their son, though, he had to switch the camera back so he could help watch the security feed. That didn’t do much to ease the discomfort between them.

  “Just how bad do you think it’ll get tomorrow?” she asked.

  He considered lying and saying “not bad at all,” but he couldn’t make that kind of guarantee. He looked at her, though. Saw the worry on her face again, so Lucas decided to go with a half guarantee.

  “I’ll make it work,” he assured her and brushed a kiss on her cheek.

  Of course, that sparked the attraction again, along with sparking another kiss. This time not on the cheek but her mouth. Hailey moved right into the kiss, too, sliding closer and touching him.

  Not good since they were naked.

  That didn’t stop him, though, from deepening the kiss and hauling her right against him. However, then something stopped Lucas.

  It was just a soft beep, barely audible because he had the sound turned down on the laptop, but it was a sound that went through him like the lightning bolt that slashed outside.

  Because it meant something or someone had triggered one of the dozens of sensors positioned all around the ranch.

  The laptop was showing six different cameras, the ones positioned on the most vulnerable points of the ranch. The fence lines and the road. He looked at each of them but didn’t see anything.

  “Does that sound mean what I think it means?” Hailey asked. She moved away from him, her attention back on the screen.

  “It could be nothing,” Lucas tried to assure her. “Sometimes animals trigger the sensors. The storm could, too, if the wind knocked down a tree branch or something.”

  Lucas held on to that hope, but it was hard not to think the worst. Hard to stave off the knot that was already tightening in his gut. A knot that got even tighter when his phone buzzed, and he saw Mason’s name on the screen.

  “Any idea why the alarm went off?” Lucas immediately asked him.

  “No. I’m looking through the camera feeds now, all of them, and I don’t see anything. You?”

  “Nothing.” Lucas put the phone on speaker so he could get dressed, but he also tapped the keyboard to scroll through some of the other security feeds. “But I’ll keep watching.”

  “Yeah, be ready just in case,” Mason said, ending the call.

  That sent Hailey scrambling from the bed. There were no signs of the heat and attraction on her face now. Just the fear as she grabbed her clothes and started putting them on. Fear that Lucas needed to rein in right now, because this could be a long wait to find out if anything was truly wrong.

  “No one can get near the main house,” he reminded her. “Not without going through a dozen ranch hands and plenty of other houses.”

  Since those places all had lawmen inside them, Lucas was pretty sure Camden was safe. But “pretty sure” didn’t ease the knot in his stomach. He wanted a hundred percent guarantee when it came to his son, and it didn’t matter where Camden was. He wouldn’t have that guarantee until the person responsible for the attacks was dead or behind bars.

  Hailey finished dressing—obviously she was preparing herself in case they had to go outside, but Lucas was hoping that didn’t happen.

  Lucas put back on both his weapons, and even though it was hard to force himself to sit down, he did for Hailey’s sake. So that she’d sit, too. She did, right beside him, and they both watched the screen as he scrolled through all the feeds.

  She shook her head. “I still don’t see anything.”

  Neither did he, but it was dark, and even with the security lights, there were still plenty of shadows. Plenty of places for someone to hide, too, what with all the fences, trees and outbuildings. But if someone was out there and that person moved, then the sensors would pick him up, and the alarm would ding again.

  The seconds crawled by, turning into minutes, and just when Lucas was ready to try to level his breathing, he saw something. Movement not near the fence line but near the road. It was just a blur of motion, barely in camera range and not actually on ranch land.


  “What?” Hailey asked. She’d obviously noticed that he’d tensed.

  “Maybe nothing,” he repeated.

  Lucas clicked on that specific screen, enlarged it and zoomed in on the area where he’d seen the motion. He was hoping it was a deer or an illusion caused by the rain.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was a man dressed all in black. And he had a rifle aimed right at Lucas’s house.

  * * *

  HAILEY COULDN’T STOP herself from gasping when she saw the man. He was lurking behind one of the trees directly across the road from the ranch.

  “Oh, God,” she said, and she scrambled to get the gun from Lucas’s nightstand.

  He took hold of her hand and had her sit next to him again. He also adjusted the view of the camera so that she could see the truck that was parked at the end of the road. Unlike the man with the rifle, the truck was actually on the ranch.

  “Two of the hands are in the truck,” Lucas explained, and he took out his phone and fired off a text. No doubt to warn them that there was definitely a problem.

  Lucas went back to the camera angle so they could see the man, and Hailey realized he wasn’t alone. There was another armed guy directly behind him.

  The skin crawled on the back of her neck. Because she knew what those men wanted.

  They wanted her.

  And they’d try to use Camden to get her.

  “Get down on the floor,” Lucas instructed.

  She did as he said, and he grabbed the laptop to bring it to the floor with him. The difference was he had her lie all the way down while he stayed in a sitting position. Probably so he’d be better able to respond if things turned bad in a hurry.

  Hailey tried not to panic. Hard to do, though, when all she could feel was the panic and fear. Both went up a significant notch when she saw the headlights of an approaching car on the screen. The vehicle no doubt carried more thugs arriving to launch a full-scale attack.

  Both the hands in the truck opened their doors, and they put out their rifles. Ready to return fire.

  She gasped again when the dinging sound shot through the room. But it wasn’t a security alarm. It was Lucas’s phone to let him know he had a text. She saw Mason’s name on the screen.

  “Mason’s on the line with the hands at the road,” Lucas said when he read the text. “He’s sending them backup right away.” He cursed. “But I need to stay here.”

  She knew the profanity wasn’t for her but the situation. He wanted to be down there helping the hands, but all of this could be designed to have him do just that. So that she’d be alone and an easy prey.

  The car came to a stop directly in front of where the hands were parked. Hailey saw another vehicle, too. A cruiser barreling down the ranch road toward the hands, the two armed men and the newly arrived vehicle. A moment later, another cruiser followed the first. So there were plenty of lawmen responding to what was no doubt about to become the scene of another attack.

  “What the hell?” Lucas said, moving closer to the laptop screen.

  Hailey watched as the driver of the car got out. Colleen. And her sister lifted her hands into the air as if surrendering. Colleen said something to the ranch hands, but since there was no audio, Hailey had no idea what.

  But this couldn’t be good.

  Either her sister was part of the oncoming attack, or else she was going to be right in the middle of it.

  Even though it was pouring rain, Colleen stayed outside the car, and after a very short conversation with the hands, she took out her phone. A moment later, Lucas’s own phone rang. He answered it and put it on speaker.

  “Hailey?” Colleen asked. Her voice was frantic. As was her expression. “You have to tell these men to let me onto the ranch.”

  Hailey debated how to answer that. But Lucas had no such debate with himself. “Did you bring those gunmen with you?” he asked.

  “What gunmen?” Colleen’s gaze began to slash all around her.

  “The ones across the road.”

  A sob tore from Colleen’s mouth, and she ducked back into the car. “No, I didn’t bring them, but I think they want me dead.”

  “If they wanted that, you already would be,” Lucas pointed out. “They had a clean shot and didn’t take it.”

  And it wasn’t as if the men had left. Hailey could still see them on the corner of the screen. Could see the approaching cruisers, too. They pulled to a stop behind the ranch hands’ truck. The doors opened, and four of Lucas’s cousins—Dade, Sawyer, Josh and Gage—all took aim at the gunmen while they used the doors of the cruisers for cover.

  “You’re just going to let me stay out here?” Colleen protested.

  Hailey was torn about what to do. Her instincts were screaming for her to protect her sister, but her instincts were even stronger to keep Camden safe.

  “Answer me!” Colleen practically shouted.

  “I can’t let you near my son,” Hailey said. “Leave and go to the sheriff’s office. You’ll be safe there.”

  That brought out some vicious profanity from Colleen. “I stopped Preston from having you killed. You owe me!”

  That chilled her to the bone, but then Hailey reminded herself that it might not even be true. It could be Colleen who wanted her dead. Or even Colleen just carrying through on Preston’s old wishes.

  Colleen added some more profanity, but Hailey shut her out when Lucas’s phone dinged, indicating he had an incoming call.

  Unknown Caller popped up on the screen.

  “I have to put you on hold,” Lucas said to her sister, and he answered the other call.

  “I know I said I’d be in touch in the morning,” the man said by way of greeting, “but I just couldn’t wait.” It was the kidnapper, the same one who’d been communicating with them.

  “Where are you?” Lucas asked.

  “Nearby but out of range of all those pesky cameras you got all around the ranch. You might be able to see a couple of the fellas I brought with me, though.”

  “I do, and you probably see that there are six men with guns aimed right back at them.”

  “Yeah, they know. None of us want a gunfight. Especially not Hailey and you. Not with your boy and all those Ryland kids and babies so close. Somebody might get hurt.”

  Instead of ice in Hailey’s blood, that sent some hot rage through her body. How dare this snake threaten not only her son but also everyone else on the ranch? She nearly yelled at him and wanted to use some of those same curse words that her sister just had, but Lucas spoke before she could say anything.

  “If you don’t want a gunfight, what do you want?” Lucas asked the man.

  “I thought you’d like to see who’s with me,” he said, obviously not answering Lucas’s question. “I’m sending you a pretty picture now.”

  Almost immediately, Lucas’s phone dinged with a text. Again from Unknown Caller, and it did indeed have a picture attached. It took a moment to load.

  Hailey’s heart went to her knees.

  Because it was a picture of Colleen’s baby. Not alone. Minton was holding her in the crook of his arm.

  And there was what appeared to be a bomb strapped to Minton’s chest.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hailey snapped to a sitting position, and she practically snatched the phone from his hand so she could get a closer look of the photo that the kidnapper had just sent them.

  But Lucas didn’t need a closer look. He’d already seen more than enough.

  “It could be fake,” Lucas reminded Hailey. “Minton could be their boss, and he could have set all of this up.”

  She gave a shaky nod, repeated that last part. But he wasn’t sure she was buying it. Her breathing was already way too fast, and she was no doubt having to battle the panic that
had to be crawling through her. Lucas felt some of that same panic, too, but he had to rein it in so he could focus on what exactly he was seeing.

  And how to fix it.

  “Let me speak to Minton,” Lucas told the kidnapper.

  “Thought you’d want to do that. I’ll put him on the line, but for just a few seconds. After that, you and I will have a little chat about what you need to do for this to turn out good for all of us.”

  Lucas didn’t have to wait long before he heard Minton’s voice. “They hit me with a stun gun when I was going into my office,” Minton said, his voice a snarl. His expression in the photo matched the snarl, as well. Either he was one unhappy camper or he was pretending to be one. “Now I have a bomb on me, right next to the baby.”

  “Yes, I saw the photo. Is it real?” Lucas came out and asked.

  “Hell, yes, it’s real!” Minton’s shout must have startled the baby, because she began to cry.

  Not good. Hailey’s nerves were clearly already frayed enough, and the baby’s cries only added to the urgency of this situation.

  “How do you know the bomb is real?” Lucas pressed. “Do you have personal knowledge of explosive devices?”

  “Yes, I do, but not in the way you’re insinuating. I didn’t put this bomb on myself. These idiots did after they kidnapped me. And I don’t know who they’re working for, but if you don’t do as they say, they’re going to start the timer. After that, I’d have only two minutes before this kid and I get blown to bits.”

  Lucas glanced at the photo again, at the placement of Minton’s hands, and he saw that they were literally tied around the baby. Two minutes probably wouldn’t be enough time to get out of those ropes and remove the bomb. Especially since it was possible the kidnappers were also holding Minton at gunpoint and wouldn’t give him a chance to escape.

  “Well?” the kidnapper said, coming back on the line. Lucas could still hear the baby crying, so obviously the little girl and Minton weren’t too far away. “Convinced that we mean business?”