by Lisa Childs
She should have called for help the minute the officer had stepped outside. Or she should have insisted that he wait for backup before going out there. But he’d shrugged off her concern, assuring her that it was probably just an animal that had made the noise.
It had been.
The human kind of animal—the kind who kills young women and threatens babies and...
She flinched at the thought of what could have happened to the cop. Her fingers trembling, she could barely work her phone, but she managed to find the emergency call button.
A dispatcher would find a close officer—would send the person who could get to the house the fastest. That person wasn’t Forrest.
She had no idea where he was or what he was doing. But even if he’d been close, she wouldn’t want him here. She didn’t want whatever had happened to that officer to happen to Forrest. He’d already been hurt once because of her; she didn’t want him hurt again.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” asked a voice emanating from her phone.
She could barely hear it over Connor’s crying and now over the sound of someone banging against her door.
“Someone’s broken in to my house,” Rae said. “And I think they hurt an officer—”
“There was already an officer at the scene?”
“Yes,” Rae said. Then, knowing that it wasn’t always possible for GPS locating to work in her area, she gave her name and address. “Please hurry!”
But no matter how close other police officers were, they wouldn’t get to her and Connor in time to save them from the intruder. Something hacked away at the door, something metallic that clanged against the doorknob. It was only a matter of time before the jamb broke and the intruder pushed his way inside to her and Connor.
She planted herself between the doorway and the crib as she looked for a weapon she could use to defend herself and her son. Because whoever this intruder was, however big he was, he wasn’t getting to her child—not without one hell of a fight.
Chapter 18
Not wanting to sneak up on Rae’s bodyguard, Forrest had called the young officer to let him know he was driving out to her place. But the call went unanswered.
And so did the next one.
And the one after that.
Why the hell wasn’t Officer Baker picking up?
Forrest was already pulling into her driveway when the dispatcher’s voice emanated from his police radio. “Break-in in progress...”
He didn’t even have to hear the address to know that it was Rae’s.
“Possible officer down,” the dispatcher continued. “He’s not responding to radio calls...”
Forrest cursed. He’d known how dangerous the assignment was; he’d been run off the road and injured himself. Guilt weighed heavily on him for putting the young officer in danger and Rae...
He pushed aside thoughts of what could have happened to Rae and Connor. She’d called for help. She was still alive. She had to be.
The call hadn’t come in that long ago, and he was here. He stomped on the brakes, slammed the shifter into Park and threw open the door of the SUV. Drawing his weapon from his holster, he headed toward the house. He hurried up the couple of steps to the porch and crossed it to grasp the doorknob with his free hand. It didn’t turn; the front door was locked. The intruder hadn’t gotten in this way, or if he had, he’d locked the door behind himself.
In his early days of law enforcement, he would have kicked down the door, but if he tried that now, he would mess up all of the rods and pins holding his leg together. Instead he rammed his shoulder against the door over and over until finally the jamb splintered and the dead bolt broke free. He shoved open the door and rushed inside just as a dark figure ran through the kitchen.
“Stop! Police!” he yelled as he raised his weapon. But the man didn’t stop. He shoved open the back door and rushed outside.
Forrest couldn’t shoot someone in the back, no matter how much he didn’t want him getting away. He wanted, even more, to make sure that Rae and Connor were all right, though. Connor’s cries rang out, accompanied by Rae’s soft, reassuring murmurs.
They were okay. The pressure of guilt eased only slightly on his chest. He had to check for the officer—and try to stop the intruder from getting away. Forcing his leg to move faster, he rushed across the kitchen. But as he headed out the back door, Rae called after him, “Don’t go!”
He turned back to make sure she was all right. She stood in the doorway to the nursery, but furniture blocked most of her from view. She’d barricaded the door.
Of course she had; she would have done anything to protect her son, whom she was cradling in her arms.
“Don’t go!” she said. “He must have hurt the officer.”
That was why he needed to go. And she knew it. “Barricade yourself back inside,” he told her. “Other officers are on their way.”
“Then wait!” she said.
He didn’t have time to argue, so he just pulled open the back door and headed off into the night. The officer had to be out here somewhere, but Forrest didn’t call out to him. Instead he just listened.
The silence was all-encompassing—eerily so. If the intruder was running away, why couldn’t Forrest hear his footsteps against the ground, or the rustle of brush as he ran from the yard?
He hadn’t talked to Rae that long, hadn’t given the intruder that much time to get away. Of course the guy could move faster than Forrest could. Because of the damage to his leg, anybody could move faster than he could. That was why he’d considered it smarter to have someone else guard Rae and Connor. But he’d put that officer in danger.
And now he had to find him and help him if he could.
If he wasn’t already too late.
Grasping his gun tightly, he moved away from the light on the back patio, toward the shadows. The officer had to be out here somewhere. Officer Baker was too loyal a lawman to have skipped out on security duty.
The crime-scene tape fluttered in the light breeze, drawing Forrest to the area where he’d found the body. And sure enough, he found another body—lying facedown beside that hole. It was nearly as lifeless as the first one he had found. The officer didn’t move, murmur or groan.
Forrest hunched down and felt for a pulse in the officer’s muscular neck. A faint beat fluttered beneath his fingertips. He was alive. But just barely.
Blood pooled beneath his head from a nasty-looking gash on the back of his skull. Even if he survived, he might never be the same—like Forrest.
Something skittered across the patio stones, something that could have been a shoe scraping across the bricks. Was the intruder hiding somewhere in the shadows, like the shooter had been all of those months ago? Was he waiting to attack when Forrest would least expect it?
* * *
Chief Archer Thompson cursed himself as much as he cursed what he’d heard of the dispatcher’s call. Possible officer down...
Damn it. He should have taken those threats more seriously against Rae Lemmon. Now another officer had probably been hurt protecting her and her baby, just like Forrest Colton had been hurt. Holding his cell phone in his hand, he punched in the contact for Detective Colton. A deep voice answered, but the message was prerecorded, promising a call back when he was available.
Forrest hadn’t called in his location, but Archer knew where he was. At Rae Lemmon’s.
No matter where he’d been, the detective probably would have made damn certain he was first on the scene.
Archer cursed again. He was good friends with Hays and Josephine Colton. The last thing he ever wanted to do was have to notify them that they’d lost one of their sons—especially on his watch.
His watch?
Hell, he hadn’t been watching anything. Consumed with thoughts of how he’d failed his sister, he’d started failing his officers, as well.
As he shoved his phone into his pocket, he pulled out the keys to his SUV. He wouldn’t be the first on the scene; he already knew that. But he was going to damn well show up and do whatever he could to save his officers.
And the woman and her baby.
* * *
Rae had been terrified when the intruder had been fighting to get inside the nursery. Even though he was gone, she was no less afraid; she just wasn’t worried about her and Connor right now. Sirens, ringing out in the distance, announced the imminent arrival of the officers Forrest had said were coming.
But would they get to the house in time to help Forrest? And to help the young officer? Something must have happened to him; he hadn’t come back.
Would the intruder?
She shivered as she considered that he might have pulled the same trick on Forrest that he had on the officer. Lure him outside, disable him and then return for her and Connor.
Forrest had told her to barricade herself and Connor back inside the nursery. But as she tried to pull the door closed, it bounced back open against the splintered jamb. The intruder had been determined to get inside—to get to them.
She shuddered as she relived the terror of those moments when the intruder had been so close to them, to hurting her son like his threats had promised. But then Forrest had rushed to her rescue—again.
At risk of endangering his own life.
He wasn’t rushing back inside. Was it because he was busy helping the officer?
Or had something happened to him?
Fear had her heart pounding frantically, and Connor, clasped in her arms, must have felt that fear, as he continued to scream despite her efforts to comfort him. But she struggled to comfort Connor, because she needed comfort so badly herself.
But only one person could offer her that: Forrest.
She needed him to come back to her. She needed him to be safe and unhurt.
Each minute he stayed outside dragged on and on and increased her fear. If not for Connor, she would have gone outside to look for Forrest—to make certain he was all right. But she couldn’t put the baby in danger.
Why was he in danger?
What did the intruder want from her? She couldn’t stop the murder investigation. She couldn’t stop Forrest from doing his job.
But the intruder could.
And maybe he had.
Where the hell was Forrest?
She heard footsteps against the hardwood as someone came in through the front door. But no voice called out to her. It wasn’t him.
He’d gone out the back, so he wouldn’t have come in the front. But the intruder might have—if he’d circled around the house to come back for her and Connor.
Using her hip, she shoved the dresser back against the battered door to the nursery. It hadn’t kept the intruder out last time, though.
And she doubted it would keep him out any longer this time.
Chapter 19
The ambulance tore out of the driveway, lights flashing and sirens blaring. The chief had climbed into the back with the young officer. Two police vehicles drove in front of it and one behind to escort the fallen officer safely to the hospital.
Officer Baker had regained consciousness while Forrest had been checking his pulse. Baker’s first concern had been for Rae and Connor, though, not for himself.
He was a good cop. And since he’d been so lucid, Forrest was fairly confident that he’d be all right. He’d been tempted to climb into the ambulance, along with the chief, and make sure the officer arrived at the hospital. But the cop wasn’t the only one in danger.
Rae and Connor were also in danger, since the intruder had tried so hard to get to them again.
What had he intended to do to them?
Hurt them?
Kill them?
Killing them wouldn’t get Forrest to back off from finding the killer. It would make him so much more determined to stop the guy so that he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else. Ever.
So, was it the killer?
Or was it someone else?
Someone who might have cased the situation earlier that day when he’d come to visit her.
After watching the ambulance disappear from sight, Forrest walked back into the house. He wasn’t the only member of law enforcement who’d stayed behind. In addition to the officers fixing the locks and the broken window of the kitchen door, there was a whole crew of techs in the backyard, looking for evidence from the officer’s attack. A few other officers searched the property for the intruder. If he was here, they would find him.
But Forrest was pretty damn certain he’d gotten away. Again.
If only he’d moved faster—if only he’d been able to move faster—he might have caught the son of a bitch before he’d even gotten out of the house. He knew he should appoint one of the other officers to protect Connor and Rae. But an image of burly Officer Baker, bleeding and unconscious, burned in his mind.
Forrest didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.
But he sure as hell didn’t want Rae and Connor in danger either.
She pulled the nursery door shut behind her and joined him in the living room. “Is Officer Baker going to be all right?” she asked anxiously.
He lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “I don’t know for certain, but he had regained consciousness and was lucid when I found him.”
She expelled a little ragged sigh. “That’s a good sign then.”
It didn’t mean he was out of danger, though.
Neither was she.
Yet.
“You need to pack up some stuff for you and Connor,” he said. “We need to get you out of here.” He should have made her leave the house when he’d first found that body in her backyard—then she wouldn’t have been threatened at all.
But the intruder had left a note at her office, too.
Maybe it wouldn’t matter where she went; she would still be in danger.
She shook her head. “No. I just finally got Connor settled down again. I don’t want to risk waking him up.”
“But you’re not safe here,” Forrest said. “Surely you realize that now.”
“I wasn’t safe with one officer,” she said. But she gestured at him and at the officers who were finishing up with the locks. “But there are more than one here now.”
“Not for much longer,” Forrest said.
“We’re actually done now,” one of the young cops chimed into the conversation.
Forrest nodded his permission. “You can leave now.”
While they left, Rae stared at him with narrowed eyes.
“They want to get to the hospital to check on their friend,” he told her.
She flinched. “Of course. I’m sorry. You probably want to do that, too.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” he said. “You need to come with me.”
“Where?” she asked, and her fear cracked her voice when she added, “Where will Connor and I be safe?”
“With me,” he said.
“Then stay,” she said. “Stay with me.”
* * *
It was selfish. Rae knew it the moment the words had left her lips. She was putting him in danger again. But the break-in had scared her so badly that she didn’t care how selfish she was being. She just wanted to feel safe again, and she only felt safe with Forrest.
“I’m not leaving,” Forrest said, “without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere tonight,” she said. “Connor has already been through enough.”
“And if the intruder returns?” Forrest asked.
She gestured at the backyard, which was aglow with lights from the crime-scene technicians. “He might have been brave enough to take on one police officer—but a whole yard of them?” She shook her head. “He’s not that...”
What was he?
Why was he so determined to hurt her or Connor? Or was he trying to hurt Forrest?
The best thing she could do for Forrest was to send him away. But he was the only one who really made her feel safe—when she was in his arms. She didn’t want him to leave, but she didn’t want him winding up in an ambulance. Again.
“We don’t know what he is,” Forrest finished for her. “Or do you know now? Did you see him?” He stepped closer to her and wrapped his big hands around her arms.
She could feel the strength in those hands and the heat of his touch through the thin material of her summer robe. Her skin tingled, and awareness and desire coursed through her. She shook her head, as much in denial of those feelings as in response to his question.
“But he’d broken open the nursery door,” Forrest said, almost as if he doubted her.
“I didn’t see him,” she said. “I just saw the nursery door being pushed in—along with the furniture I’d stacked behind it—after he broke the lock on it.”
“How do you know it’s a man then?” he asked.
She opened her mouth then closed it again, pausing to think before replying. “I don’t know. I just assumed since he hurt the officer and broke down the door...” Heat rushed to her face with embarrassment that she would be so sexist. “But that doesn’t mean that a woman couldn’t have done that, as well.”
“She could have,” Forrest agreed. “You stacked all that furniture against the nursery door.”
“To protect my son,” she said.
He nodded. “I’ve seen the strength a mother can summon when her child is in danger.”
She didn’t know if he was referring to something he’d witnessed while working in Austin or as a volunteer with the Cowboy Heroes or...
He slid his hands up to her biceps and gently squeezed. And she knew; he was talking about her. “You’re amazing.”
She shrugged. “I’m not so sure about that. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t showed up when you did.”
