Delores Fossen - Lucas

“You had a boy,” he finally said. “He was born three months ago.”

“Three months?” she repeated. It sounded as if she had to choke back a sob. “That long.”

Yeah, that long. “The doctors had to deliver him by C-section because you weren’t conscious when you went into labor.”

She shook her head, her breath shuddering. “I don’t remember.”

“Comas are like that,” he said, and he didn’t bother to sound even marginally sympathetic. “I named him Camden David. But I have sole custody of him,” Lucas added.

Not a lie, exactly. He did have custody of him and had tried to make it permanent, but the judge had refused on the grounds that Hailey might come out of the coma and her parental rights could be reinstated.

Could be.

Lucas would make sure that didn’t happen.

Something went through her pale green eyes, and Hailey made a sound, part groan, part gasp. At first he thought maybe the reaction was due to his custody comment, but the tears proved otherwise. It was the reaction of a woman who’d just learned she had a son.

But she was a mother in name only.

“And he...Camden’s all right?” Hailey asked, still blinking back those tears. “There were no problems with the delivery?”

“Yeah. No thanks to you.”

“Is he safe?” she asked before Lucas could finish what he was about to say.

“Of course he is.” Lucas couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “What the hell were you thinking when you went on the run like that? And what happened to you? Were you driving too fast? Is that what caused the accident—and that?”

He pointed to her scar, but Lucas didn’t pull back his hand. He knocked the gun away from her, and it fell on the front passenger’s seat. Hailey immediately scrambled to retrieve it, but Lucas was a whole lot faster. He dropped it on the floor, well out of her reach.

“Don’t make me draw my gun,” he warned her and took hold of her wrist in case she was about to try to get out the door.

But she didn’t try to escape.

A hoarse sob tore from her mouth, and Hailey eased away from him. Just in case she had another weapon back there, Lucas leaned over the seat and did a quick check around her. He frisked her, too. Since she was wearing a pair of loose green scrubs, a thin sweater and flip-flops, there weren’t many places she could conceal a weapon.

Still, after what’d happened three months ago, Lucas looked.

His hand brushed against the side of her breast, and she made a soft sound. Not the groan she’d made earlier. This one caused him to feel that tug deep within his body. But Lucas told that tug to take a hike.

Their gazes connected. Not for long. Lucas finished the search and found nothing.

“Now, keep talking,” he insisted. “Tell me what happened to you. Why did you go on the run, and why didn’t you tell anyone before now that you were out of the coma?”

She opened her mouth and got that deer-in-the-headlights look. What she didn’t do was answer him.

“Enough of this,” he mumbled.

He took out his phone to call Mason and then the sheriff, but as he’d done with her earlier, Hailey took hold of his hand. “Please don’t tell your cousins. Not yet.”

Since most of his Ryland cousins were cops, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Did you break the law? Is that why you were on the run?”

“No.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her head wasn’t the only thing shaking, though. She started to shiver, the cold and maybe the fear finally getting to her. “But I’m in trouble. God, Lucas, I’m in so much trouble.”

He was about to curse at her for stating the obvious, but something else went through her eyes.

Fear.

“It won’t take long for word to get out that I’m awake,” Hailey said, speaking barely louder than a whisper. “And he’ll find out.”

“He?” Lucas snapped.

Hailey’s voice cracked. “There’s a killer after me.”

Chapter Two

Hailey closed her eyes a moment, hoping it would help with the dizziness.

It didn’t.

It was hard to think with her head spinning, the bone-deep exhaustion and the muscle spasms that kept rippling through her body.

Hard to think, too, with Lucas glaring at her as if she were the enemy. Of course, in his eyes, that’s exactly what she was.

He obviously didn’t believe her. Didn’t trust her, either, but somehow Hailey had to make him understand. First, though, he had to take care of what was most important—the baby.

“Are you sure Camden is safe?” she asked.

That caused a new slash of anger to go through his eyes. Probably because he believed she was dodging the news she’d just dropped on him.

There’s a killer after me.

“He’s safe,” Lucas finally said, but he spoke through clenched teeth. “Now, tell me why you need to make sure of that. Does it have something to do with the so-called killer?” He didn’t give her a chance to say a word, though. “Or are you trying to lie your way out of why you ran from me three months ago?”

“It’s not a lie.” She wished it was. “But I didn’t tell the truth about some other things.”

That tightened the muscles in his jaw even more. “Start from the beginning, and so help me, there’d better not be any lies this time.”

Hailey nodded but glanced around them. Since it was Tuesday and a school night, Silver Creek wasn’t exactly teeming with activity, but she did spot someone jogging in the park. She kept her attention on him until he disappeared around the curve of the tree-lined trail. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the guy was just that—a jogger—but he could have been someone after her.

“We need to find a better place to talk,” Hailey told him.

Lucas gave her a flat look. Cursed. “I’m not taking you to the Silver Creek Ranch.”

That was no doubt where the baby was.

Camden.

Hailey mentally repeated that, something she’d been doing since Lucas had first mentioned her precious son’s name. Learning something—anything—about her baby caused her heart to ache. It felt as if someone was squeezing it hard.

Mercy, she’d lost so much already. Three months. And there was a lot more she could lose. Thank God the baby was okay, but it was up to her to make sure he stayed that way.

“I can’t see Camden,” Hailey answered. Saying it aloud added an even deeper pain. “Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”

“You won’t see him at all,” Lucas snapped. He spewed out more of that profanity. “You don’t have a right to see him.”

No, in his eyes, she didn’t. But if and when this was over, she would see her son. Even if she had to push her way through an army of Ryland lawmen. No one would keep him from her.

Since it was obvious Lucas wasn’t going to budge, Hailey tried to figure out the fastest way to convince him that it wasn’t safe for her to be out in the open like this.

That meant starting from the beginning.

“I’m not who you think I am,” she said.

A burst of air left his mouth, but it wasn’t a laugh. “Obviously. You slept with me and then sneaked out, leaving me a note saying you couldn’t see me again.”

Hailey didn’t need a reminder of that. She could have recited the note word for word.

Lucas, I’m sorry, but this was a mistake. I can’t get involved with you.

“That was the truth,” she continued. “I shouldn’t have let things get so...intimate between us.”

“But you did, and you got pregnant.”

Yes, she had. Since they’d used a condom, the pregnancy definitely hadn’t been something Hailey had been expecting. But that hadn’t stopped her from wanting the child right from the start.

“Mistakes aside,” Lucas continued, “you had no right to run away from me while you were carrying my baby.” He cursed again. “If you hadn’t had that car accident, I might have never found you. Of course, that was probably the plan, wasn’t it? To run away so that I’d never be able to see my child?”