by Lisa Childs
If something had happened to him...
If something had happened to either of them...
She would personally track down the person who’d hurt them. And that person would pay for what he’d done.
* * *
“You’re going to pay up one way or the other,” his caller said.
He didn’t recognize the voice emanating from the phone any more than he had recognized the handwriting on the notes that had been left in his motel room for him. But he didn’t have to know who his caller was to know what he was: a killer.
And now he might be the same. Regret and self-disgust churned his stomach, making bile rise up in his throat.
“So you damn well better have done what I ordered,” his new boss continued.
“I did,” he said. “I did what you wanted.”
“You got rid of the detective from Austin?”
“Yeah...” And probably not just him.
A memory ran through his mind, of Colton carrying the baby seat through the parking lot at the law office. Of him securing it into the back seat of Rae’s SUV.
How secure had it been?
“You damn well better have,” the person continued, his voice gruff with disgust. “You owe me a hell of a lot of money.”
He flinched. That wasn’t the way it had started out, or the way it should have wound up. But nothing in his life had ever wound up the way he had expected it to.
Not his career.
Or his family.
Not one damn thing about his life.
His luck had run out a long time ago. He was the only one who hadn’t realized it, though. Everybody else had just kept collecting IOUs from him—until his debt had become insurmountable.
What about Forrest Colton? How lucky was he? Had he survived the crash?
If the detective had survived this attempt, he would not be able to survive the next. Or he was going to wind up repaying his debt with his own life.
Chapter 13
Fury coursed through Forrest. “I don’t care that I’m not the baby’s legal guardian,” he said. “I want to know how Connor is doing.”
The nurse at the desk remained stone-faced as she just shook her head in reply to his questions. He’d been able to crack hardened criminals easier than this woman.
“You need to return to the examination area, Mr. Colton,” she said, “while we’re awaiting the results of your CAT scan.”
He touched his forehead. “It’s just a bump.” That throbbed like hell, but he knew enough to know it wasn’t serious. Neither was the pain reverberating from his hip down his leg. That was because of the seat belt and the bump on his knee that matched the one on his head.
Because of a faulty airbag, the dashboard had done more damage to him than the crash had. But he didn’t give a damn about his own injuries.
“I am responsible for that baby,” Forrest said.
“I thought you admitted you’re not the father,” the nurse reminded him, her brow furrowed as she studied his face.
Forrest cursed his own damn honesty, wishing he’d lied now. At least then they would have let him be with Connor. Had they allowed Maggie back to see him?
“I am a detective with the Whisperwood Police Department,” Forrest said, and he pulled out his temporary badge to show her. “I am responsible for Connor Lemmon because I was protecting him.”
But he hadn’t done a very damn good job. He hadn’t been able to outrun the van, which had kept ramming into them until the SUV had crashed into a parked car.
Forrest didn’t know what had happened next. He might have blacked out for a couple of seconds—because the van was gone when he opened his eyes. And Connor had been screaming hysterically.
Forrest had forced open the crumpled door of the SUV, but when he’d stepped out, he’d nearly collapsed on the street from the pain radiating throughout his bad leg. Even now it threatened to buckle, so he leaned more heavily on the edge of the nurses’ station.
“I need to know how he is,” he persisted. He needed to know how badly he’d broken his promise to Rae.
The baby had looked fine when Forrest had forced open the back door and unclasped his carrier from the seat. The harness seemed to have held him mostly immobile.
But babies were fragile.
The little guy could have had internal injuries, wounds that Forrest hadn’t been able to see. Fortunately someone had witnessed the crash and called 911, so an ambulance, with sirens blaring, had roared up at the same time Jonah and Maggie had. They’d followed the ambulance, with him and Connor inside, to the hospital. But once in the ER, he and the infant had been separated for treatment.
He’d thought he would be able to see Connor again, but the damn staff had refused to reunite them. Why?
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked the nurse. Maybe that was why she wouldn’t tell him, because it was so bad. Panic gripped him as he considered how bad it could be.
Fatal.
Rae had already suffered so many losses: her father’s abandonment during her mother’s illness, and then her mother’s death. But losing her son...
How would someone ever recover from that?
Forrest had known the infant for only a few days, and he was in pain—a pain that was so much more debilitating than physical injuries. His heart ached with it.
“Mr. Colton,” the nurse said as she came out from behind the desk.
He turned toward her, and as he loosened his grip on the counter, his leg shook beneath him, nearly dropping him to the floor.
“You need to return to the examination table,” she said. “You probably have a concussion, and your leg—”
“It’s a mess,” he finished for her. “It’s been a mess since I was shot. I don’t have any injuries from the crash.” None that compared to the gunshot wound that had shattered bone and left him permanently disabled. “What I do have is a responsibility to the person I was protecting and a right to know how he’s doing.”
She uttered a weary-sounding sigh. “You are persistent.”
Not persistent enough to have kept his promise to Rae, though.
“Return to your examination area at least until we get back the results of your CAT scan, and I’ll—” she lowered her voice and whispered “—tell you about the baby.”
A moment of panic struck him. Now that she’d agreed to share Connor’s condition with him, Forrest wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
What if he’d broken his promise?
What if he’d failed Rae?
She would never forgive him.
And neither would Forrest ever forgive himself.
* * *
Rae clasped Connor’s limp body to her madly pounding heart. He seemed so lifeless, but for the soft breaths escaping his lips. He was alive.
Tears of relief coursed down her face.
“He’s fine,” Maggie assured her. “The doctor just told us that he has no injuries—no effects—from the accident at all.”
Rae had heard him, too. But she hadn’t believed it until she’d held Connor, until she’d felt his warmth and heard the sounds of his soft breathing.
“He must just be exhausted,” Maggie said as she stared at the baby, too. Her beautiful blue eyes were damp with either tears of relief or of the fear she’d felt when she’d realized that he’d been in an accident.
Rae nodded in agreement with Maggie’s assessment. Connor got like this—limp with exhaustion—after he cried, and she imagined he must have been crying during and after the crash. That he must have been terrified.
“What happened?” she asked. Now that she knew he was all right, she wanted those details. But before giving Maggie a chance to answer, she added, “How is Forrest?”
“Sorry,” a deep voice said, and then the curtain around Connor’s examination area was pulled aside
to reveal Forrest. A red bump swelled on his forehead, and he leaned on one crutch for support.
A twinge of pain struck her heart over his injuries. He had not escaped as unscathed as Connor had. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m fine.” He didn’t look fine. His jaw was clenched and his hazel eyes were dark with concern. He gestured at Connor. “How is he?”
More tears welled in her eyes—more tears of relief—that Forrest had survived, as well. Emotion choked her, and she couldn’t speak for a moment.
Maggie answered for her. “He’s really fine. Not even a bump or a bruise—unlike you.”
“That nurse wouldn’t give me any information about Connor’s condition, but she told you about mine?” Forrest asked.
Maggie pointed at his head. “She didn’t need to say anything. It’s clear you didn’t escape without any injuries like Connor did.”
A ragged breath of relief escaped his lips. “He’s really okay?” He wasn’t looking at Maggie, though. He was looking at Rae.
She nodded. “Yes, he is.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I had a feeling there was someone in the parking lot of the law office. And then he started following us to the day care center.”
He hadn’t just followed them, though.
“I tried to lose him,” Forrest said.
“Him?” Rae asked. “You saw him?”
He shook his head. “The windows were tinted, so I couldn’t see who was behind the wheel. And after he forced us off the road, he drove off. He got away.”
She shivered and clutched Connor tighter in her arms. He had gotten away, so he could come back. To her house. To her office. Here.
She shuddered. “We need to get Connor out of here,” she said.
As if he’d read her mind, Forrest assured her, “He’s safe. This place has some pretty tough security, and that’s just the nurses.”
One of them had followed him inside the curtained area, and she glared at him now. “Mr. Colton was quite concerned about your son,” she told Rae. Then she turned back toward him. “But you can see that he’s fine. You, on the other hand...”
“What?” Rae asked. “Isn’t he okay?”
The nurse ignored her as she continued to speak to Forrest. “We got back the results of the X-rays on your leg and the CAT scan on your head.”
“And I’m fine,” Forrest insisted.
But the nurse didn’t confirm this. All she said was, “You need to speak to the doctor, Mr. Colton.”
And the crushing panic returned to Rae’s chest, pressing down on her lungs and heart so that she had to struggle to breathe. “Forrest...”
But the nurse was already leading him away from her.
Maggie stepped closer and wrapped her arm around Rae’s waist. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said.
“Then why wouldn’t she tell him that?”
Maggie shrugged. “Privacy rules. She wouldn’t give us any information about Connor until you got here, and then the doctor had to do it.”
Rae nodded in agreement. “That’s right. That has to be what it is.”
But would Forrest’s results be as good as Connor’s?
With the bump on his head and the crutch under his arm, he had obvious injuries. How severe were they? And were there any other ones?
Concussion? Broken bones? Internal injuries?
He’d promised to protect them, but at what cost to himself? His life?
* * *
Josephine Colton studied her husband’s face as he held his phone to his ear, listening. The color had left his skin, and there was a slight tremble along his jaw. “You’ll let us know how he is and if we need to come.”
It wasn’t a question. He was informing his caller that it was required. While always diplomatic and polite, her husband had a backbone of steel, and anyone who’d worked for him or that he’d raised would attest to it. The steel was bending a bit with age and worry over those kids they’d raised.
The minute he clicked off his cell, she asked, “Who is it?”
But there was a part of her that knew already. The minute he’d accepted the interim position with the Whisperwood Police Department, she’d begun to worry that this would happen again, that he would be wounded in the line of duty.
Hays had worried, too. And he was worried now, with deep grooves beside his mouth and between his brows. “Forrest.”
Her fears confirmed, she gasped. “How badly?”
“According to Jonah, he’s conscious and pissed off,” Hays replied with a smile he mustered for her sake.
She smiled back at him, like he wanted her to, but her fears did not subside. He’d been conscious and pissed off after he’d been shot in the leg, and that injury had been so severe, the doctors had thought they might have to amputate.
“What happened?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Something to do with Bellamy and Maggie’s friend Rae.”
The pretty brunette. Josephine had seen her talk to Forrest at the wedding, but he’d walked away from her then. “Is she all right?”
“She wasn’t in the car with him,” Hays replied, and his brow furrowed more as he added, “but her baby was.”
Josephine gasped again with fear for the infant. He was so young, so fragile. “Is he all right?”
Hays shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“We should go to the hospital.” She glanced around the farmhouse kitchen. Where had she put her purse? Hell, she didn’t need it. She just needed to make sure her son was all right and that Rae Lemmon’s son was, too.
“Jonah said he would call back once he knew more,” Hays said, and he walked over and put his arm around her. “You know how tough Forrest is. By the time we’d get there, I’m sure he would have already checked himself out.”
“With or against doctor’s orders,” she murmured. Because he was that stubborn.
And that stubbornness would probably be the death of him. Or of her.
Josephine loved all of her boys, but she didn’t love worrying about them like she did. And since they’d all chosen to be lawmen or military men or rescuers, she was constantly worrying about their physical and emotional well-being.
Dallas was still devastated from losing his wife, and Forrest over losing his job. Only Donovan and Jonah were truly happy now. She wanted that kind of happiness for all of her children.
Chapter 14
The front door closed behind Jonah and Maggie, leaving Forrest and Rae alone in the living room. Connor, exhausted from the ordeal, slept peacefully now in his crib. Forrest and Jonah had searched the house the minute they’d arrived, looking for any more notes or signs of another intrusion.
But they had found nothing here.
“I have an officer picking up the note from your office, along with all of the building’s security footage from the morning,” Forrest said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to figure out who left that note on your desk.”
They already knew why. Someone wanted him out of the way.
Either because of the investigation or because of her.
That was why Forrest had returned to her house when he’d really wanted to assign the young officer to protection duty instead. He hadn’t talked to the chief yet, but surely the guy had to see that Rae was in real danger. Or at least her son was, and who wouldn’t deem security necessary for a defenseless infant?
Forrest sucked in a breath as he relived those interminable moments when he hadn’t known how Connor was, if he’d survived the crash without injury.
And he remembered that he needed to call his folks. Unfortunately Jonah had told them what had happened, and they were worried. Now he understood some of what they must be feeling.
Not that Connor was his kid. But he cared about the little guy. And he cared about Rae. Too much.
&n
bsp; Too much to stick around if it was his presence that was putting them in danger. But was the reason someone wanted him gone more to do with Rae than the murder investigation?
Did she have some admirer or stalker who wanted her all to himself?
Another memory flitted through his head of that lawyer watching Rae from his doorway. The way he’d looked at her...
It hadn’t been like a boss should look at an employee, or a colleague at a coworker. It had been how a man looks at a woman he wants.
The way Forrest looked at Rae.
He wanted her.
Maybe that was the real reason he’d come back to the house with her instead of assigning that young officer. Not that he intended to be as selfish as he had been the night before.
He couldn’t act on his desire for her. He couldn’t risk being distracted, not after someone had tried and nearly succeeded to kill him and Connor.
“You’re right,” she said.
He tensed. Had she read his mind? Did she know what he’d been thinking—about what they’d done the night before, about what he wanted to do to her now?
“It’s too dangerous for me to go to the office, to bring Connor to day care,” she said, and she shivered. Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth or comfort, she added, “I don’t want to think about what might have happened if you and Connor had made it to the day care, if something happened to him there or to the other children.” She shivered again.
His chest ached with the need to wrap his arms around her, to comfort her. But he knew that his comforting her might lead to more, like it had the night before.
“I’m sorry,” she continued. “I should have listened to you.” She stepped closer then, and after unwrapping her arms from around herself, she reached for him.
But he stumbled back a step, to avoid her touch.
She flinched and murmured again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes and studied his face with suspicion. “The ER doctor seemed concerned about you leaving the hospital.”
