Delores Fossen - Cowboy Behind the Badge

Colt.

The fear returned with a vengeance, and she prayed that Tucker’s brother had found something—anything—that would help her keep the babies safe.

Laine leaned in so she’d be able to hear what he said. Obviously she leaned too close, because her arm brushed against Tucker’s chest. He shot her a “back off” scowl and hit the speaker function so she’d be able to hear.

“Just got off the phone with Lieutenant Ryland,” Colt immediately said. “He doesn’t know a thing about two SAPD cops coming to Sweetwater Springs.”

“So they’re fake,” Laine concluded.

“Looks that way. And there’s also no warrant for your arrest.”

She hadn’t expected to feel as much relief as she did. Laine knew she’d done nothing to have an arrest warrant issued against her, and the last thing she needed right now was real cops trying to arrest her for a fake warrant.

“What about the parking lot?” Tucker asked. “You find anything?”

“I sent Reed to check it out. Still waiting to hear from him.”

He was talking about Reed Caldwell, one of the deputies. Laine hoped the two men who’d fired those shots had managed to leave some kind of evidence behind. And then she thought of something else.

“Maybe the dead woman’s fingerprints are somewhere on my car? She had her hand on the door when I first spotted her.”

“Dead woman?” Colt questioned.

Tucker groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. “Laine thinks she witnessed a murder.”

“I don’t think it. I know I did.”

“She witnessed a shooting,” Tucker said, “by two men dressed as cops. Her car’s parked in the woods near my place. When Reed’s done with the parking lot, can you send him out to check for prints?”

“Sure. But you know as well as I do, if there was really a murder, I need Laine down here now to make an official report.”

Tucker glanced at her and then at the baby she was holding. “There’s a complication. The woman left two babies, and they’re newborns by the looks of it. Any reports of missing babies?”

“None,” Colt said without hesitation. “If something like that had come in, I would have known.”

Yes, he probably would. Amber Alerts got top priority, even in a small-town sheriff’s office.

“But I’ll make some calls,” Colt continued. “Maybe this is a case of parental abduction and the local authorities haven’t reported it yet.”

Tucker mumbled his thanks. “Hold on a second, Colt.” He motioned toward Laine’s phone. “Give it to me.”

It took some doing, balancing the baby while working her way into her jeans pocket to retrieve the phone. She handed it to Tucker.

Normally, Laine wouldn’t have been wearing jeans on a workday, but she hadn’t had any appointments. She’d simply gone in to catch up on paperwork and rearrange some things in her office.

As bad as her situation was, she shuddered to think of how much worse it could have been if she hadn’t been there to rescue the babies. Either the killers would have found them, or else it would have been heaven knows how long before someone spotted them in the parking lot.

Tucker scrolled through the list of calls she’d received and read Colt the number of the last one on the list. It was the one from the woman.

“It’s possible that phone was stolen from those two fake cops,” Tucker explained to his brother. “It’s also possible that it’s a prepaid cell.”

It was clear with his possible comments that Tucker was withholding judgment about the veracity of her story. But every word of it was true.

Colt didn’t respond to that right away, but she heard some movement on the other end of the line. “Yeah, it’s a burner all right, and it’s no longer in service.”

Laine tried not to groan because it might disturb the baby, but it was hard to hold back her disappointment. That phone number could have given them clues about the men’s identities.

The dead woman’s, too.

“Call me if Reed finds anything in the parking lot,” Tucker added. He ended the call and turned to her. “I can’t sit on this any longer. If that woman was murdered, then every minute we delay could increase the odds of her killers getting away.”

It was the voice of experience. Maybe not just as a Texas Ranger, either. After all, it’d taken twenty-three years for his mother to be brought to justice.

Still...

“Those fake cops were just at the sheriff’s office,” she reminded him. “What if they come back?”

“Then Colt and I will deal with it.” He looked out the window at the sky again just as some lightning zipped across the sky. “We should get the babies in my truck before the rain starts.”

Laine glanced out at the clouds, too, trying to gauge how much time they had, but Tucker cursed again and took hold of her arm to push her behind him. The movement was so sudden that she couldn’t figure out why he’d done it.

Then Laine looked over his shoulder and out the window.

Her heart dropped to her knees.

There were two men, dressed in blue cop uniforms, walking across the pasture directly toward the house.

Chapter Three

Tucker didn’t consider that he might be going out on a limb by assuming the two men stalking toward his house were also the men who’d killed a woman in cold blood.

Well, if she had indeed been murdered.

But believing that wasn’t much of a stretch, either. Laine had arrived at his place, scared out of her mind. She must have thought a murder had taken place and that the danger still existed.

These men could be proof of it.

They were both wearing sidearms, both shifting their gazes from one side of the pasture to the other. Keeping watch. Something lawmen would do.

Criminals, too.

The one on the right pointed toward the ground. Probably because he’d spotted Laine’s footprints. Too bad the rain hadn’t hit to wash them away, because her tracks led right to his back door.

“Oh, God,” Laine mumbled, and she just kept repeating it until he was certain she was losing it.

“Get back in the pantry,” Tucker ordered her.

He took out his phone to call Colt, but it would take his brother at least twenty-five minutes to get from town to this part of the ranch.

Hell.

That was too long, so he tried to figure out a faster solution.

His other brother, Cooper, wasn’t at the main house because he was away on his honeymoon. That would have been his best bet, since Cooper could have gotten to Tucker’s house in just a couple of minutes. Without that option, he had to call someone he didn’t want to see.

His sister Rayanne.

She was a deputy sheriff on a leave of absence, and by all accounts, she was solid at her job. But since his twin sisters, Rayanne and Rosalie, had been raised by his mother, the girls were on their mom’s side when it came to this trial.

Tucker wasn’t anywhere near that side.

And that had made for plenty of tense moments in the past couple of weeks since Jewell, his sisters and his stepbrother, Seth, had arrived at the ranch. Because Jewell owned Sweetwater Ranch, he and his brothers hadn’t been able to turn them away, but there hadn’t been any warm welcomes, either.

However, for now Tucker had to put that bad blood and ill will aside and find a backup. Even if it meant turning to a sibling or a stepsibling who disliked him as much as he disliked them.

Tucker quickly scrolled through the numbers. He tried Rayanne first. He didn’t have her cell number, but unlike Rosalie and Seth, she was staying in the main house.

His home.

Because Rayanne had reminded everyone that it was her home, too.

Yeah, calling her wouldn’t be much fun.

Mary, the housekeeper, answered, and Tucker asked her to buzz Rayanne’s room. He said a quick prayer that she’d be there and not out visiting Jewell all the way over at the county jail.