Delores Fossen - Rustling Up Trouble

That didn’t do much to ease the already twisted knot in Blue’s gut.

Of course, a cop-bodyguard was only partially responsible for that. The main reason for the knot was the woman standing beside his bed and glaring at him.

“All of this is true?” he came out and asked.

She nodded. Her jaw muscles stirred. And she studied him. “Is this memory thing an act?”

“No.” He couldn’t say it fast enough. “I have no reason to fake memory loss.”

He hoped.

Though he knew it would hurt, Blue lifted his head off the pillow and levered himself up. It wasn’t pretty, and he did a lot of wobbling to get to a sitting position.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Rayanne snarled, and she reached out to take him by the arms.

Probably to force him back down. But being flat on his back wasn’t much of a bargaining position, and if he hoped to get answers from her and not smart-mouthed comebacks, he needed to try to soothe some things with Rayanne.

If that was possible.

She continued to protest, even called him a bad name, but Blue got his feet off the bed. He also reached for the metal pole that held his IV so he could use it for support.

That, however, ended a lot faster than he’d planned.

Everything started to spin, and the dark spots winking in and out prevented him from seeing much. Or keeping his balance. He would have pitched forward if Rayanne hadn’t caught him.

“Don’t make this worse than it already is,” Rayanne snapped.

She put her hand on his back to steady him. Bare skin on bare skin.

The hospital gown hardly qualified as a garment with one side completely off his bandaged shoulder. Judging from the drafts he felt on various parts of his body, Rayanne probably got an eyeful.

Of course, it apparently wasn’t something she hadn’t already seen, since according to her they’d slept together five months ago.

“Will saying I’m sorry help?” he mumbled, and because he had no choice, he ditched the bargaining-position idea and lay back down.

“Nothing will help. As soon as you’re back on your feet, I want you out of Sweetwater Springs and miles and miles away from McKinnon land. Got that?”

Oh, yeah. It was crystal clear.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t know why he’d done the things he had, but he’d screwed up. Maybe soon Blue would remember everything that he might be trying to forget.

Her phone rang, the sound shooting through the room. And his head. Rayanne fished the phone from her pocket, looked at the screen and then moved to the other side of the room to take the call. It occurred to him then that she might be involved with someone.

Five months was a long time.

And this someone might be calling to make sure she was okay.

Blue felt the twinge of jealousy that throbbed right along with the pain in various parts of his body, and he wished he could just wake up from this crazy nightmare that he was having.

“No, he doesn’t remember,” she said to whoever had called. She turned to look back at him, but her coat shifted to the side.

Just enough for Blue to see the stomach bulge beneath her clothes.

Oh, man.

It felt as if someone had sucked the air right out of his lungs. He didn’t need his memory to understand what that meant.

Rayanne was pregnant.

Chapter Three

Rayanne heard the low groan that Blue made, and she whirled around, expecting to see some evidence that the pain had gotten significantly worse.

It wasn’t pain, though, that made him groan.

His mouth was partly open, his attention fastened to her stomach, and she knew the reason for his reaction. He’d clearly noticed that she was pregnant.

Now it was her turn to groan. She hadn’t intended for him to see the bump and had thought it was hidden well enough. Apparently not. It was getting harder and harder to hide it these days.

“Hold on a sec,” she said to her brother Seth, who was waiting on the other end of the line with what no doubt was important info.

Probably not as important as this, though.

“Is that my baby?” Blue came right out and asked.

He’d put one and one together pretty darn fast for a man with supposed memory issues and a concussion.

Rayanne considered lying, only because she didn’t want to deal with the truth right now, but if there was any trace of the real Blue left in his banged-up head, he wouldn’t let go of this.

Plus, she was fed up with this whole lying mess from Blue. It’d be like the pot calling the kettle black if she started telling whoppers, too.

“Yes, the baby’s yours,” she said, holding her hand over the phone so Seth couldn’t hear.

Her brother already knew, of course, but she hadn’t shared the news with a lot of people, only her doctor, mother and siblings. Not the estranged ones, either: Cooper, Colt and Tucker. Nor her father, Roy. Though she was certain that they, too, had noticed her growing belly.

Blue didn’t exactly take the news well. He sucked in a quick breath, nearly choking on it. Rayanne wanted to blast him for his reaction, but the truth was, she’d been stunned, as well, when she’d seen that little plus sign on the home pregnancy test. She’d done her own share of quick breaths and head shakes.

“For the record, this is my baby, and you just happened to be the one who fathered it.” She might have added more of a warning, something along the lines that Blue had zero claim to this child or any other part of her life, but she heard Seth calling out to her from over the phone.

“Can this wait a second?” Rayanne snarled to her brother.

“No,” Seth snarled right back. “I’m sending you a photo of something you need to see. And this isn’t a suggestion—it’s an order. Stay away from McCurdy. His boss is on the way there.”

With that, he hung up before she could tell him that Blue’s boss had already arrived. The quick hang-up also left her to wonder what the heck else had gone wrong now.

“When are you due?” Blue asked.

Rayanne hated to give him any details whatsoever, but it seemed a little petty to withhold something he would figure out, anyway. “In four months.”

Exactly nine months to the day since Blue and she had lost their minds and landed in bed. A big mistake, obviously one he hadn’t been able to handle, because he’d walked out on her—literally. She’d woken up to find him gone. No note on her pillow. No phone calls. No contact of any kind.

Until now, that is.

“Four months,” he repeated, sounding like a man on the verge of losing it.

She ignored him for the time being when there was a little dinging sound from her phone to indicate she had a text. Rayanne looked at it.

And looked again.

Her shoulders tightened even more, and she stared at the liar in the bed.

“What kind of sick game are you playing, huh?” she demanded from Blue.

“No game,” he assured her. “What’s going on? What’s got you so upset now?”

“This has got me upset.” She shoved the phone right in his face, but judging from the way he squinted, his eyes were still too blurry to see the small print.

“Why, Blue?” she practically yelled.

It was loud enough to get the doctor and Caleb running back into the room, but Rayanne didn’t budge even when Caleb tried to push her out of the way.

“He owes me an answer,” Rayanne said through clenched teeth, and she showed the text to Caleb.

“Where’d you find that?” Caleb asked.

She kept her glare on Blue. “It was in his shirt pocket. The one that the medics cut off him when they put him in the ambulance. They gave it to Seth so he could process it for possible evidence.”

“What is it?” Blue demanded.

“It’s a hit order,” Caleb finally said. Rayanne was glad he’d answered the question, because she might have choked on the words.