Lucas figured he could probably get off a shot if he left cover. Of course, that would leave Kylie in a highly vulnerable spot since the remaining gunman would no doubt turn that rifle on her.
Hell.
How had things come to this? Lucas couldn’t take the time to berate himself, but he’d sure do it later. He should have insisted they leave the ranch while they had a chance. He should have pressed harder to find a safe house. Now, his mistake just might cost them their lives.
A chunk of the flaming roof tumbled to the ground, bringing with it more smoke and fire. Lucas waited, praying the smoke would soon clear because he needed to move Kylie.
They were much too close to the burning house.
For that matter, they were much too close to those gunmen.
Beside him, Kylie whispered something, but Lucas wasn’t able to hear what she said. A blast drowned her out. A bullet slammed into the ground right next to her head. And it hadn’t come from either of the two riflemen. No, this shot had been fired from the general area of the storage shed.
So, there were three gunmen. At least. That didn’t do much to steady his heart. He couldn’t see the one near the storage shed, but he still had a view of the others. Kylie’s and his only chance was to turn the odds in their favor.
“I’ll take the one on the right,” Kylie said as if reading his mind.
It was the only thing they could do—eliminate the riflemen—but still Lucas debated it. Though a debate was useless. Both Kylie and he knew what they had to do. It was their only chance.
“Stay down as much as you can,” he ordered.
“Ditto,” Kylie ordered in return.
They exchanged one last glance, and in that too-brief moment, a thousand things passed between them. Lucas wished he had time to tell her things he should have said. But there was no time. Kylie moved, levering herself up slightly so she’d have a better position.
Lucas did the same.
He took aim and squeezed the trigger. Beside him, Kylie did the same. One shot each. Thick, loud blasts that tore through the smoke and moonlight. And Lucas immediately ducked back down. Thank God, Kylie did, as well.
And he waited.
Listening.
“Two down,” Kylie said. “One to go.”
Only then did Lucas realize she’d lifted her head to look through the shrubs. Cursing, he pushed her back down, came up and fired. Not one round. But three. Finally, he saw the rifleman in the pasture collapse onto the ground.
There wasn’t a second of reprieve. Definitely not even time to take a breath.
Above them, Lucas heard the groaning sound of the wood, and he saw what was left of the attic tear away from the frame of the house. It was coming down.
Right on them.
Lucas grabbed Kylie’s arm, though she had already started to move as well. They launched themselves off the ground.
“The barn,” Lucas shouted.
And he let go of her so he could take aim. Even though they’d taken out all the visible shooters, that didn’t mean there weren’t others. He knew there was still a risk of being shot, and that the person could easily do that while they were out in the open. However, it would have been an even greater risk for Kylie and him to remain by the shrubs.
The attic and a good portion of remaining roof crashed onto the flower beds and sent sparks and flames flying. Lucas didn’t look back. Instead, Kylie and he raced toward the barn and ducked inside.
No shots.
Thank God.
But that didn’t mean they were safe.
They’d barely stepped inside when Lucas heard something he didn’t want to hear. There were the sounds of a struggle, and there was the smell of fear.
He pushed Kylie behind him again and saw what had caused those sounds.
It was Cordelia.
KYLIE BLINKED to make sure the smoke hadn’t affected her vision. It hadn’t. Cordelia was there in the barn. Standing with her back pressed against one of the stall gates.
Sweet merciful heaven, was she the person responsible for those gunmen?
If so, Kylie knew she didn’t stand a chance of holding her temper because those three men had nearly gotten them killed.
“What are you doing here?” Lucas demanded, taking the question right out of Kylie’s mouth.
But Cordelia didn’t answer. She stood there, shivering. Trembling, actually, from head to toe. And it was only then that Kylie noticed she wasn’t wearing a jacket. In fact, not even long sleeves. She stood there barefoot in only a pair of girlie pink silk lounging pajamas that were dotted with tiny flowers. Hardly the attire for a trek outside in January.
Or for an attack.
It was on the tip of Kylie’s tongue to ask what had happened, but Kylie’s question was delayed when Cordelia’s eyes angled in the direction behind her.
Into the darkened stall.
Kylie and Lucas both aimed their weapons at the stall. And Kendrick Windham raised his head. Kylie saw Windham’s hands covered with surgical gloves. And then she saw the gun. Not pointed at Lucas and her, but at Cordelia.
“He kidnapped me,” Cordelia muttered, her voice ripe with fear.
“Guilty,” Windham volunteered. “I’d so hoped it wouldn’t come down to this.” He sounded only mildly annoyed that he now had a hostage situation on his hands.
Kylie was annoyed, as well, but there was nothing mild about her reaction. They’d moved from one dangerous situation to another. Worse, neither Lucas nor she had a clean shot. If she fired now, she’d put Cordelia, and ultimately them, in even greater danger.
“Your hired guns are dead,” Kylie gladly let him know. It also let him know that he was outnumbered. Of course, that didn’t take away his advantage, not with his gun aimed at Cordelia.
“Hired guns? That’s such a generous term for them. I’d prefer to call them idiots. All they had to do was kidnap you and bring you to me. But did they do that? No. They had to get Sheriff Creed here involved. The last person who should be involved in anything like this.”
“Yeah. I see your point,” Lucas interjected. Unlike Cordelia, there was no fear in his voice. But Kylie heard lots of determination. He wouldn’t give up without a fight. “If your idiots hadn’t botched the kidnapping, then you could have killed Kylie, and I would have never known about the illegal surrogacy activity. Or that she was carrying my baby.”
“Oh, trust me, I would have come up with a reasonable substitute for a child. There’s always a solution when money’s involved. After all, I wouldn’t have wanted to forfeit your final payment.”
Money was his motive. Windham obviously wanted to silence her, and now Lucas, because they would have ultimately threatened his income.
“What did you do to the guard and the deputies?” Lucas demanded.
“They’re alive. I used tranquilizer darts on them just like the ones I used on the dogs. Despite what you think of me, I don’t enjoy killing. But I’ll do it, if necessary. I think I proved that with Tiffany Smith.”
“Among others,” Lucas interjected.
“No others. Only Ms. Smith, who had a penchant for not keeping her mouth shut. Thankfully, she was one of a kind. My other surrogates are obedient and make me what I am—a very wealthy man. They’ll continue to make me wealthy, too. Which is why we need to end this little encounter soon before those men you hired wake up from the sedation.”
So, time was on their side. Maybe if the guard or one of the deputies came out of the sedation earlier than Windham had anticipated, they’d call for backup. However, Kylie couldn’t count on that happening.
“You’re holding an innocent woman hostage,” Kylie pointed out. Then, she paused. Rethought that. “Cordelia is innocent, isn’t she?”
“Of course, I am!” Cordelia snapped. Gone was some of the fear, and in its place was more than a little anger. Kylie understood that anger.
Windham had put all of them in grave danger.
“Well, she’s innocent only in a legal sen
se,” Windham explained. “But the police will think differently. It’s her gun, by the way. So, her fingerprints are already on it. I need a scapegoat, and that means I’ll have to set her up to take the blame for all of this.”
Cordelia’s mouth tightened. “You what?” But asking that unnecessary question wasn’t the only thing she did.
“Don’t!” Lucas shouted.
Cordelia either didn’t hear him or didn’t heed his warning because she turned, apparently to launch herself at Kendrick Windham.
Windham was fast. And lethal. He repositioned his gun a few inches lower and pulled the trigger.
The bullet sliced through the outer edge of Cordelia’s shoulder. Cordelia screamed, a bloodcurdling sound. But she didn’t fall to the ground as Kylie had hoped she would. That would have given her a clear shot at Windham. Instead, Windham hooked his left arm around Cordelia and fastened her back against his chest.
A human shield.
Except this human shield was bleeding, moaning and cursing in pain.
Windham jammed the gun to Cordelia’s head and stared at Kylie and Lucas. “Now that you know I mean business, drop your weapons. And I won’t ask twice. The next bullet goes in her head.”
This was being caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place. If they didn’t put down their guns, Kylie had no doubts that Windham would kill Cordelia and then try to kill them. Of course, they’d be attempting to kill him, as well. Which meant bullets would be flying.
Someone would die.
And Kylie couldn’t be sure that the someone would be Windham.
“Don’t shoot her,” Kylie said to Windham. Not that a request or even begging would help at this point. But she hoped to distract him long enough for either Lucas or her to do something. “It’s obviously me that you want.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Lucas demanded in a gruff whisper.
Windham paused, staring at her. “You’re absolutely right.”
Before the last syllable left his mouth, he fired a shot at Lucas. It missed.
Barely.
Lucas scrambled to take cover against one of the empty stalls. He yelled for Kylie to do the same. But Kylie didn’t have a chance. Windham shoved Cordelia straight at her. The impact rammed their bodies together, catching them off balance.
Kylie’s gun clattered to the floor.
And before she could regain her balance, Windham reached for her. Kylie had one thought.
A horrible one.
She would die before she had the chance to tell Lucas that she was in love with him.
WINDHAM MOVED fast.
Too fast for Lucas to get off a safe shot or for Kylie to try to escape. The man seized Kylie’s arm, and in the same motion he shoved the semiautomatic against the back of her head.
Lucas immediately aimed his weapon and stepped out from the cover of the stall. “Put down your gun, Windham, and let her go.”
Lucas said the words by rote after years of having been a sheriff, but there was nothing rote about the fury that rose in his throat. Or the rock-hard knot that tightened in his stomach.
The SOB had Kylie.
Lucas met her gaze. For only a second. It was all he could handle, or it’d distract him at a time when he needed no more distractions. However, he couldn’t completely dismiss that look he saw in Kylie’s blue eyes. Fear, yes. But not as much as he’d expected to see there. She was doing her best to keep herself together.
“This won’t help,” Lucas said as calmly as he could manage. He glanced at Cordelia to make sure she wasn’t bleeding profusely. Thankfully, she was lying on the floor and had managed to clamp her hand over her wound. But she still needed medical attention ASAP. “Surrender your weapon, and you won’t be hurt. You’ve got my word on that.”
“Your word. And that’s supposed to make me feel reassured? Well, it doesn’t. The only reassurance I want is a trip away from this place, and I want Ms. Monroe to come with me.”
So he could kill her.
And that’s why Lucas had to figure out how to end this now.
Windham kept stepping back, moving toward the back exit of the barn. Kylie’s expression didn’t change, but she no doubt knew where this scum was taking her. Her life wouldn’t be worth a dime if he got her outside the line of fire. He’d simply kill her when he no longer needed a hostage to escape.
And worse, Lucas wasn’t sure how long Kylie could keep up that cool veneer. If she panicked, Windham would likely kill her on the spot. In his experience, criminals didn’t like noisy hostages.
“Tell me what it’ll take to get you to release her,” Lucas offered. He hoped it’d stop Windham from moving.
It didn’t.
“Trade me for her,” Lucas suggested. “I’m a sheriff. The cops will be more than willing to bargain with you if you’re holding me.”
“You don’t understand. I have no wish to bargain.”
In other words, he wanted to carry out his plan of killing all of them.
That couldn’t happen.
He couldn’t lose Kylie and the baby. He just couldn’t. And in that moment, he realized just how true that was. He only hoped he got the chance to tell her. Because he was about to do whatever it took, including sacrificing himself, to make sure she got out of this alive.
Lucas quit thinking, and he reacted out of instinct to protect Kylie and their baby. He lunged toward Windham, only to see Kylie slam her elbow into the man’s stomach and tear away from him. She dove forward to the floor, grabbed her weapon and came up ready to fire.
Windham turned in her direction.
He also turned his gun on her.
Lucas’s response was automatic. He aimed high and fast. For the head. Two shots. A double tap of gunfire. Shots not meant to distract or injure. Shots meant to kill.
The gun blasts ripped through the barn. Kylie didn’t move. She kept her gun level, in case Lucas’s shots hadn’t done the job.
But they had.
Windham collapsed into a heap, his weapon dropping to the ground.
Lucas hurried to the man to make sure he was dead. He was. The shots had done exactly what they had been intended to do.
“It’s over?” Cordelia asked.
Lucas nodded and turned back to Kylie. She was pale and shaky, but other than that, she was fine. He couldn’t say the same for himself. It might take him a dozen years or so to get over almost having lost her.
He made his way to her and pulled her into his arms.
Chapter Nineteen
Kylie came out of the kitchen and set the Blue Willow plate on the table. She had a fork in her hand and was ready to do some groveling.
Finn stared at the contents of the dish as if it were navel lint. “What is it?”
“Crow.”
His eyebrow arched. “Crow?”
“Well, symbolically it’s crow. Literally, it’s blackened veggie beef with peppercorns that I’ve sorta shaped to look like a crow.” Even Kylie had to admit it didn’t look that appetizing.
“It looks more like a charcoal bunny,” Lucas pointed out.
“Maybe. But let’s all use our imagination and think crow.” She turned to Finn. “That’s why I called and asked you to drop by—so you could see me eat crow.”
Finn glanced at Lucas, who just shrugged. “Hey, I just wanted to apologize for thinking you were a criminal. The crow was Kylie’s idea.”
Finn stabbed some of the “crow” with his fork and had Kylie sample it.
“Yuck.” She managed to swallow it, and that seemed to be all the punishment he was willing to force on her. “I’m really sorry.”
“Me, too,” Lucas added.
Finn nodded, trying to appear to be his old cocky self, but Kylie thought he was a little sentimental about all of this. “Apologies accepted from both of you.”
Probably so they wouldn’t have to look at it, Lucas put the plate on the counter behind him, and he and Finn finished off the longneck bottles of beer. Kylie settled in for her ev
ening with a glass of milk, which she’d spiked with gobs of malted chocolate syrup, her own version of a celebratory treat. And there was no mistaking that they were celebrating. Windham was dead, the illegal operation had been shut down, and a new clinic would soon open to serve the needs of those who wanted qualified, legitimate surrogates. Even more, they were alive. All was right with the world.
Well, almost.
“How are your dogs?” Lucas asked.
“They’re back to their old sweet selves. Cordelia, too.”
“Sweet?” Kylie challenged. She started to sit down in the empty chair next to Lucas, but he snared her and pulled her into his lap instead.
That earned them a little hmm sound from Finn.
“Cordelia is on the mend and is singing your and Lucas’s praises,” Finn continued. “She’s not using the s-word anymore. As in sue. She dropped the lawsuit. And she said she hoped you would forgive her for all the ugly things she said and did to you. I’m telling you—Cordelia’s had a real change of heart,”
“I guess having someone save your life does that to you,” Lucas concluded dryly. “Isaac Dupont doesn’t seem so riled at us either.”
“Probably because we cleared his name by nailing Kendrick Windham,” Kylie pointed out. “According to Sgt. O’Malley, SAPD discovered that Windham had doctored all sorts of paperwork to make Dupont look guilty. I guess Windham did that to cover himself in case the clinic was investigated. If it hadn’t been for that doctored paperwork, I would have never suspected Dupont, and I certainly wouldn’t have alluded to him in the article I wrote.”
Lucas circled his arm around her and put his hand on her belly.
Finn obviously didn’t miss that, either. Both his eyebrows lifted. “I get the feeling I should go so you two can have some private time.”
“We already had private time before you got here,” Kylie teased.
But Finn got to his feet anyway and tossed his empty beer bottle in the recycling bin by the sink. He looked at them. “So, are you guys going to shack up here at Kylie’s place?”
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