Delores Fossen - Surrendering to the Sheriff

Good. But then, she’d figured all along that Aiden would be thorough. He was loyal to his family. Well, mostly. He didn’t exactly have a friendly relationship with his mother, but Aiden would never forget that he was a Braddock.

Never.

Ditto for remembering that she was an O’Neal.

The door eased open, and Aiden automatically reached for his gun. After what’d happened with the gunmen, Kendall didn’t blame him, but she was thankful it was a false alarm.

“I’m Becky Lovelle,” the young blonde said. “I’ll be doing your ultrasound.”

Kendall certainly hadn’t forgotten about the ultrasound, but her strained discussion with Aiden had pushed the reminder of a possible problem to the fringes of her thoughts. No fringes now, though. Her heart went into overdrive.

“This won’t hurt,” the woman said.

But Kendall was already tuning her out, her attention nailed to the screen. It was blank now, but soon she’d see her precious baby. Hopefully, unharmed.

Aiden didn’t move closer. In fact, he leaned against the wall and watched from there. Even when the tech pushed up Kendall’s top and shoved down her skirt to expose her belly and coat it with some goopy gel, he kept watching.

Kendall suddenly felt way too bare with Aiden in the room, but there was no way she’d convince him to leave. There was no way to convince Aiden of a lot of things, and once she had the all-clear with the ultrasound, she’d need to figure out a way to handle him and this situation.

Aiden wasn’t going to like it when she insisted she leave.

But she would insist on it.

And maybe Aiden would soon see that it was the right thing for all of them.

The tech put the wand on Kendall’s stomach, and when she moved it around, Kendall could see the baby’s beating heart. Her breath rushed out.

“The baby’s okay?” Kendall immediately asked.

“Appears to be. That’s a strong, steady heartbeat.” The woman continued to move the wand, and even though it was hard to make out some of the images, Kendall definitely spotted two arms and two legs. All moving.

“Amazing,” Kendall said. “So much movement, and I haven’t even felt it yet.”

“Is that normal?” Aiden snapped.

The tech nodded. “Some women don’t experience quickening or movement until week twenty.”

That meshed with the maternity books that Kendall had been reading, but obviously this was all new to Aiden. He moved closer to the screen, his focus on the tiny baby.

Their baby.

Kendall saw and heard the moment that it finally sank in for him. Aiden made a hoarse sound that came from deep within his throat, and he mumbled something while his eyes tipped toward the ceiling. Maybe asking for divine help. She’d done that a few times early on, as well.

He dragged in a long breath. “Yeah, you should have told me.”

That didn’t sound like a man on the verge of rejecting fatherhood. Or even putting this in perspective. The bottom line was his family wasn’t going to embrace this child, and hers likely wouldn’t, either.

“Is that what I think it is?” Aiden asked.

Because he was looking gobsmacked again, Kendall’s gaze rifled back to the monitor, and she tried to brace herself for whatever had put that bleached-out expression on Aiden’s face.

“I’m sorry,” the tech said, sending Kendall’s heart into a tailspin again. “It’s usually not that clear this early on, and I should have asked first if you wanted to know the sex of the baby. This is a new machine, and it gives much clearer images than we used to get with the old one.”

Oh. Kendall got it then. Nothing was wrong with the baby, but the ultrasound had obviously shown her something she hadn’t known before now.

The baby was a boy.

“A son,” Aiden said, staggering back a bit.

Kendall had never seen him like this. Aiden was always in control. Always in charge. But this news had shaken him to the core.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Kendall insisted.

But she had the feeling he would have had the same reaction if it’d been a girl. It was just that seeing the baby on the screen made everything, well, real.

“The doctor will look over these images,” the tech said, finishing up. She wiped the goop off Kendall’s stomach. “But everything looks fine, right on target for the end of the first trimester.”

The moment the woman stepped out of the room, Kendall fixed her clothes. Best not to feel exposed when she had this discussion with Aiden. A discussion he wasn’t going to like. It was also a discussion she didn’t even get to start because Aiden’s phone buzzed, indicating that he had a text message.

“Leland got a hit on the dead guy’s prints,” Aiden said, reading the info on his phone. “His name was Montel Higgins.”

She repeated it, hoping that it would jog some kind of memory. It didn’t. “He has a record?”

Aiden nodded. “Both here and in his home country of Jamaica. He’s worked as muscle for loan sharks but never anything this serious. Leland’s checking to see if he can find a money trail so we can figure out who hired him.”

Good. That was a start. “What about the other one? Any sign of him?”

“Not so far, but they’ll keep looking.”

Kendall didn’t want them to stop looking, but she had to be realistic. It’d been several hours since the men kidnapped her, and the one who got away was probably long gone by now.

She stood, straightened her clothes. “You ready to talk?”

His gaze drifted to the ultrasound screen that was now blank. “Not about that. Not yet. But if you’re up to it, I need to take your statement about the attack. You might be able to recall some detail that’ll help us figure this out.”

Kendall definitely wasn’t feeling up to reliving the nightmare or giving a statement. She was exhausted and dizzy, and her arm was throbbing. Still, if she didn’t do it now, she’d only have to go to Aiden’s office tomorrow. Besides, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to returning to her house right now. Not with that escaped gunman still at large.

Aiden got her moving out of the ultrasound room and into the hall, but he stopped when they reached the glass doors that led from the ER to the parking lot. He slid his hand over his gun and looked out, his gaze slashing from one side of the lot to the other. Since it was close to 9:00 p.m., there weren’t many cars, only those of the workers and the handful of people in the ER itself. But Aiden still took his time, no doubt making sure they weren’t about to be attacked.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get my truck and bring it right to the door.”

However, he didn’t even make it a step before Kendall spotted movement in the parking lot. Aiden saw it, too, because he pushed her behind him and drew his gun.

But it wasn’t the masked attacker coming back for another round.

It was a woman Kendall instantly recognized, and she groaned. It was almost as loud as the one Aiden made.

His mother, Carla, was making a beeline toward them.

Since Carla and she didn’t live in the same town and definitely didn’t travel in the same circles, it’d been a decade or longer since Kendall had seen the woman. She hadn’t changed a bit. Tall and lean and dressed to perfection in a spring-yellow dress. Her dark blond hair was swept up and her makeup flawless. She looked ready for a church social.

Except for that troubled expression.

Aiden grumbled something Kendall didn’t catch and maneuvered her back, away from the door.

“Your deputy said you were here,” Carla greeted.

“I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt.”

“Good to hear.” She spared him a glance as if it was the last thing she’d intended to ask about. And it probably was, since her attention stayed on her son for only several brief moments before it went to Kendall.