Delores Fossen - Drury

Jeremy.

“Well?” Jeremy snapped when Drury didn’t immediately answer.

“Well what?” Drury snapped right back.

“You know. You damn well know.”

Drury huffed. “I’m giving you one more chance to make sense, and if you don’t, I’m ending this call. Then you can bother someone else. What is it that you think I did?”

“You sent those men after me,” Jeremy insisted.

Drury looked at Caitlyn, no doubt to see if she knew anything about this, but she shook her head.

“What men?” Drury questioned.

“The men who want money. A ransom, they said. They want me to pay them for Grant’s kid.”

It took Caitlyn a moment for that to sink in. Had the kidnappers really contacted Jeremy? If so, they’d probably done the same to his mother, too. Of course, that was assuming that Jeremy was telling the truth, but Caitlyn didn’t trust him. Trusted his mother even less.

Drury cursed. “Start talking, and tell me everything,” he ordered Jeremy.

“I’ve already told you everything. Two men showed up at my office a couple of minutes ago. Or rather the parking lot at my office. They accosted me, showed me a picture of some kid that they claimed was Grant and Caitlyn’s.”

“Who were the men?” Drury pressed. “And where are they now?”

“I don’t know. Never saw them before in my life. But they said something about the kid being born through a surrogate and if I wanted the kid that I was to pony up a million bucks. They said I had one hour to get the cash, and they left. They drove off in a black SUV.”

“I’m still trying to figure out why you think I had anything to do with this,” Drury said.

Jeremy made a sound to indicate that the answer was obvious. It wasn’t. “The men told me to pay the money to you.”

Because Drury’s arm was touching hers, she felt his muscles tense. “Me?”

But Jeremy didn’t jump to verify that. Instead, he cursed. “The men are back.”

Caitlyn heard some shouts, one of them belonging to Jeremy. “Stop!” he yelled.

“Get someone out to Jeremy Denson’s office,” Drury told his brother. “Jeremy, are you there?”

No answer.

The line was dead.

Chapter Five

Drury waited. Something he’d been doing all night.

Patience had never been his strong suit, and that was especially true now. He wanted answers. Answers that he wasn’t getting. Well, he wasn’t getting the right answers anyway.

He’d certainly gotten a string of wrong ones.

No news on Jeremy. Nothing else on the kidnappers, either. Ronnie was sticking to his story about Caitlyn stealing his child. And CPS was pushing Grayson to disclose the location of the baby.

Grayson was staying quiet for now on anything about the baby, though he almost certainly knew that they were at the ranch. Drury wasn’t sure how long Grayson’s silence would last. Especially since CPS had said they would get protection for the little girl. If they did that, Drury wasn’t even sure it was a good idea for Caitlyn and him to keep her.

Unless the child turned out to be hers, that is.

If the baby was indeed her child, then there was no way Caitlyn would give her up. A match wouldn’t mean the baby was safe, though. Caitlyn, either. And that left Drury with another question for which he didn’t have an answer.

What then?

The logical part of him was saying he should step away from this. That his past with Caitlyn was just that—the past. But the illogical part of him put up an argument about it. Drury figured it had plenty to do with the old attraction. The one that was still there.

He threw back the covers and got off the sofa where he’d spent the night. Not sleeping, that’s for sure. The sofa was about six inches too short for his body, and the thoughts racing through his head hadn’t exactly spurred a peaceful sleep. He could still hear the shots. Could still see that look of terror on Caitlyn’s face.

Of course, the shooting had brought back the old memories. Of that same look of terror on Lily’s face before she’d died in his arms. Memories that he pushed aside. Like the attraction for Caitlyn, he didn’t want to cloud his mind with things from the past that he couldn’t change.

Since he didn’t hear Caitlyn stirring in the bedroom, he tried to be quiet when he went to the kitchen and made some coffee. The small counter was dotted with baby formula and other supplies. Something Lucas had managed to get for them before he’d left the guesthouse shortly after midnight. Later, Drury would need to thank him for helping. Grayson, too.

And that thanks would include them not mentioning that he shouldn’t be under the same roof with Caitlyn.

Drury sipped his coffee, went through his emails on the laptop that Lucas had also provided. No updates since the last time he checked other than Grayson was going to have the deputy at the hospital talk to Ronnie again. Maybe the man would cave on his story so that there’d be no question about Caitlyn’s innocence.

She already had enough strikes against her with his family of lawmen without adding that.

He heard a slight thudding sound in the bedroom, and Drury practically threw his coffee cup on the table and hurried to find out if anything had happened. Not that he had to go far. It was literally only a few steps from the kitchen. He drew his gun from his shoulder holster and threw open the door, bracing himself for the worst. But it wasn’t the worst.

Caitlyn was standing there naked.

Almost naked anyway. She was putting on an oversize bathrobe, and he got a glimpse of her body before she managed to yank the sides together and tie the sash.

“Sorry,” she whispered. Maybe an apology for the peep show. Or maybe because she’d clearly startled him. Caitlyn picked up the plastic baby bottle that she’d obviously dropped. “I’m on edge, too,” she added.

No doubt, but at the moment she didn’t exactly look on edge. Their gazes connected. Held. And he saw in her eyes something he didn’t want to see. The old heat.

Drury looked away and reholstered his gun. Since he was already there, he also checked on the baby. There’d been no time to get a crib, so the little girl was sleeping on the center of the bed where she’d likely spent most of the night. The covers on the floor told him that Caitlyn had probably slept there.

“I was afraid of rolling onto her during the night,” Caitlyn said. “She’s so little.” There was some fear in her voice, but he didn’t think it was from the danger but rather because it was true. The baby really was tiny.

“Did she sleep okay?” he asked.

Caitlyn nodded, then shrugged. “I guess she did. I don’t really know how often a baby should be waking up.”

Neither did Drury, but Caitlyn had gotten up twice in the night to warm bottles. Drury had asked if he could help. Especially since Caitlyn had had to walk right past him to get to the kitchen. But she’d declined his offer.

“Please tell me you have good news. Any good news,” Caitlyn said.

It took Drury a couple of moments to come up with something that could possibly be considered good. “Grayson is bringing in both Helen and Melanie for questioning.”

Caitlyn flexed her eyebrows. “I’m betting neither was happy about that.”

“They weren’t. Especially Helen. Grayson said she didn’t seem too concerned when he told her about the call we’d gotten from Jeremy.”

“She wouldn’t be. Jeremy and she haven’t been on friendly terms in years. Jeremy’s a hothead.”

Yeah, Drury had figured that out from the brief phone call. But the “hothead” was about to be labeled a missing person if they didn’t hear from him soon.

“Someone had tampered with the security cameras in the parking garage where Jeremy made that call,” he explained. “There’s no footage for fifteen minutes before the call or for a half hour afterward.”