Delores Fossen - Sawyer

Sawyer didn’t answer because he obviously didn’t know. He stuffed her into the truck, got behind the wheel and drove out of there fast.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she told him. “I’m okay. Or at least I will be when we find Bennie.”

“It’s standard practice to be checked out. After all, you were kidnapped.”

Yes, and she was rattled, but there wasn’t a scratch on her. She knew after seeing that video that Bennie wouldn’t be able to say the same thing. Those men had clearly hurt him.

“Don’t try to make sense of this,” Sawyer warned her after glancing at her face. “Let’s just get an ID on the body and go from there.”

It didn’t seem nearly enough, not with Bennie’s life at stake. Still, she knew Sawyer was right. They couldn’t go blindly running in the woods looking for him.

“But what does that woman have to do with the kidnapping and my brother?” she asked.

“Maybe she was one of the kidnappers.”

Cassidy was about to disagree, but the truth was, she had no idea if anyone else was involved. “I only saw the two men with cartoon masks.”

He spared her another glance before his eyes went back to the road. “And you’re sure they were both men?”

Was she? Well, she had been until Sawyer had asked that question. “Only one of them spoke, and it was definitely a man. But even if the other one was a woman, why would he have killed her?”

“Maybe because he didn’t want to split the ransom money with her. It happens all the time. Despite the cliché, there’s not much honor among thieves.”

He was right, and the kidnapper could now be a killer. A killer who had her brother.

Even though it wasn’t cold, she was soaking wet, and Cassidy began to shiver. Sawyer noticed, turned on the heat, and he sped up the wipers, too. It didn’t help much. The rain was coming down even harder now, and the wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour.

“This is destroying the crime scene, isn’t it?” Cassidy asked.

He lifted his shoulder, kept his gaze pinned to the road. “Grayson’s a good sheriff. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”

She thought about that a moment, trying to piece together this puzzle. “They held Bennie and me in your grandfather’s bar. Why? Why would they believe you and I have a connection?”

Another lift of his shoulder, but that wasn’t a casual response she saw in his eyes. No way. He was troubled by all of this—especially about the baby that she’d photographed in his arms.

Why would the kidnappers have wanted that?

She was about to ask him, but his phone buzzed, and she saw Grayson’s name on the screen. Cassidy held her breath, waiting and praying again that this wasn’t bad news about her brother.

“The dead woman had a wallet in her pants pocket,” she heard Grayson say. Since the call wasn’t on speaker, she scooted closer to Sawyer so she could listen to every word. “According to her driver’s license, her name is April Warrick.”

Cassidy repeated it, hoping it would spark some kind of recognition. It didn’t.

“I’m having someone run a background on her now,” the sheriff added.

“Good, we’re almost at the hospital. After Cassidy sees the doctor, I can help get all of this sorted out. What about the baby?” Sawyer asked. “Any calls about her? Is she okay?”

“She’s still with Mason at the E.R.—where you told him to take her. He says the baby’s fine, that he’s just waiting on the paperwork.”

That was something at least. Cassidy hated the thought of an innocent baby being put in the middle of this mess.

“I told Mason to have the doctors do blood and DNA tests on the baby,” Sawyer added.

Grayson stayed quiet a moment. “You want the DNA compared to yours?”

“Yeah.” Sawyer paused, too. “And if I’m not a match, then I’ll run it through the system to see if we can find out who is.”

She wasn’t sure what to hope for. At least if the child were Sawyer’s, then she would have him to protect her.

“Any sign of Bennie?” Cassidy asked. She moved even closer to Sawyer, until they were shoulder to shoulder. He noticed, glanced down at the contact between them and scowled. But Cassidy stayed put.

“Nothing yet,” Grayson answered, and with that, Sawyer did hang up. Another glance at her had Cassidy moving back to her side of the seat.

“You still haven’t forgiven me,” she mumbled. No surprise there. Sawyer wasn’t ever likely to forgive her.

“What do you think?” he mumbled back.

His voice was a growl, and it should have unnerved her. Along with that steely glare he was giving her. But sadly, even now, her reaction to Sawyer was a different kind of unnerving.

The images of them naked in bed flashed through her mind. Memorable images. But with bad timing. Then and now. She had been his one-night stand.

His decision, not hers.

She’d known him for months before that one-nighter. Months of lusting after him. And when Cassidy had finally run into him at a party, they’d left together to go back to his place for that one glorious night.

“I was attracted to you,” she reminded him. Still was. “That’s why I slept with you, not so I could get information about the investigation you were conducting on my brother.”

“Right,” he grumbled. “But it was a nice perk that you got that information.”

Cassidy swallowed hard. “Only by accident, because I overheard your phone conversation with your boss.”

“Worked in your favor, didn’t it.” Not a question. He spoke it as gospel.

And it was something she couldn’t argue with.

She had alerted her brother about the investigation into his possible involvement with money laundering. Not intentionally but only because she’d questioned Bennie about it. She hadn’t wanted to believe he was involved in something so awful. However, Sawyer was certain that Bennie had used that info to cover his tracks so he couldn’t be arrested.

Maybe he had.

But when she’d slept with Sawyer, she certainly hadn’t known that was going to happen. An investigation had been the last thing on her mind.

Sawyer pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, and he made more of those glances around before he got out and ushered her inside and to the E.R. The first sound she heard was a baby crying, and they followed that sound to an examining room, where she spotted a dark-haired man holding the baby.

Cassidy actually dropped back a step. This guy had a deputy’s badge clipped to his belt, but with his desperado stubble and hard eyes, he looked more outlaw than lawman.

“Hope you have better luck with her than I have,” the man said over the baby’s cries. “She won’t hush. Won’t take her bottle, either.” And he eased the baby into Sawyer’s arms.

Despite everything that had just happened, Sawyer looked amused. Well, for a split second he did.

“Your wife’s due any day now,” Sawyer said to the man. “Better get used to it.”

The deputy grumbled something Cassidy didn’t catch and put the baby’s bottle on the table next to Sawyer.

“This is Mason, my cousin,” Sawyer told her. “And this is Cassidy O’Neal.”

Mason made a sound deep in his throat that she figured was disapproval. It was possible Sawyer had spilled all about their brief affair, and even if he hadn’t, she was sure her reputation preceded her. Most people thought she was a spoiled heiress. She was rich but worked plenty hard to manage the real estate investment business that her late parents had left her and her brother.

With his attention on the baby, Sawyer dropped into the chair and studied the baby’s face. No doubt trying to decide if she was his. At least the baby stopped crying, and she looked up at Sawyer, examining him with the same intensity with which he was examining her.