Delores Fossen - Lucas

“I’ll call the ranch and get an update,” Lucas said.

As much as she wanted to know what was going on, Hailey didn’t want anyone there distracted right now. She wanted all the focus on protecting the baby.

Camden.

The name seemed foreign to her. Probably because she’d yet to see her son, but maybe that would change soon. Maybe they’d get to the ranch and put an end to the danger.

“Tillie,” Lucas said to whoever answered his call.

“One of the nannies,” Grayson provided to Hailey, but he didn’t even glance back at her when he spoke. He looked all around, no doubt in case someone was trying to follow them.

Or attack them again.

Hailey couldn’t hear what the nanny was saying, but since Lucas’s arm was pressed against her, she felt his muscles relax just a little. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.” He paused. “Hailey’s with me.”

The nanny perhaps hadn’t even heard she was out of the coma, so this could be a real shock. An unwanted one. Hailey didn’t know Tillie, but she doubted she was going to get a warm reception from anyone at the Silver Creek Ranch. It wouldn’t matter that she thought she’d done the right thing.

Still did think that.

But a family of lawmen wouldn’t see it that way. They would believe she should have trusted them. However, maybe they could see now that all the trust in the world wouldn’t have put an end to the danger.

Oh, mercy.

That reminder came at her hard, like a heavyweight’s fist. The reason she’d tried to escape was to avoid this. To keep her child safe. And now he wasn’t safe because of her.

“Whoever’s behind the attacks will use Camden to get to me,” Hailey said under her breath.

She hadn’t intended to say that aloud, and it stung even more when Lucas made a sound of agreement. He’d finished his call with the nanny and now was keeping watch. Along with glancing at her.

“That doesn’t mean you’re going to try to take him and disappear,” Lucas snapped. There wasn’t a shred of gentleness in his tone. In fact, it was the same tone he likely used with criminal suspects.

“It’s too late to take him and hide,” Hailey agreed. “Too late for me to disappear, as well. Because now that they know I’m awake, they won’t stop, and they’ll try to use the baby to come after me.”

That meant she needed to find out who they were. And fast. For that to happen, she needed to rely on Lucas.

Something that wouldn’t please him.

It didn’t please her, either, but no one would work harder than Lucas to keep Camden safe. Of course, once that happened, and this snake was captured and behind bars, Lucas and she would have another battle to fight.

For custody.

But that was a fight that would have to wait for another day. Right now, Hailey had enough to deal with.

“The fences are all rigged with security alarms?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Grayson and Lucas answered at the same time. It was Lucas who continued. “There are also sensors on the grounds. Cameras, too. Since this clown tripped a sensor, the ranch hands and my cousins will be able to pinpoint his exact location before he can get near one of the houses.”

Good. But pinpointing him wasn’t the same as stopping the threat.

“Hurry,” Hailey said to Grayson. She was speaking purely out of frustration, because he was going as fast as he safely could.

The rural roads that led to the ranch weren’t exactly straight. Plenty of sharp curves and turns, and it certainly wouldn’t help them if Grayson wrecked.

Something she knew all too well.

Hailey couldn’t quite choke back a gasp when the cruiser tires squealed around one of those turns and it felt as if Grayson was losing control of the vehicle. All the memories of that other night came flooding back.

The frantic rush to get away from the person trying to kill her. The adrenaline and the fear. Even the feeling of the impact.

The pain.

But more intense than the pain and the fear had been the sickening dread that she’d failed.

“Flashbacks?” Lucas asked.

She nodded. “I remember that you’re the one who found me that night. If it hadn’t been you...”

Hailey didn’t finish that thought. No need. Lucas had found her, and while it hadn’t made things perfect, it had allowed her to deliver the baby safely.

Grayson took the final turn, and Hailey saw the ranch come into view. To say it was sprawling was an understatement. It’d been huge, but now that the Ryland cousins were buying up the adjacent land and building their own homes, the place stretched out for miles and miles.

They’d also added more security since the last time she’d visited. There was now a large security gate, and she saw several men near it. Ranch hands, probably, since she didn’t recognize any of them.

“Get down,” Lucas told her as they approached the gate. He lowered the window. “Anything?” he asked the men.

“Yep. Just a few seconds ago Sawyer called to say he shot at a guy who’d crossed over the fence. He and two of the other hands are chasing him.”

Hailey sucked in her breath. Sawyer was his cousin as well as an FBI agent. “Did Sawyer have to fire shots anywhere near the houses?”

The guy volleyed glances among Lucas, Grayson and her. Maybe he was trying to figure out if it was okay if he answered since he probably didn’t even know who she was.

“No, the shooting happened in the back pasture,” the guy said after Lucas gave him a go-ahead nod. “Mason said, though, that y’all should wait down here until they’ve made sure there’s only one.”

Oh, mercy.

As hard as that was to hear—and it was even harder for her to stay put—Hailey knew he was right. The attacker might not be alone. Heck, he could have brought an entire army with him, and it was best to aim that army at her rather than launch an attack near the houses.

Still, waiting was hard.

Even if she lifted her head, something Lucas wouldn’t like her to do, Hailey couldn’t see Lucas’s house from this part of the road, but she knew it was less than a half mile away. She knew because he’d taken her there for the one night they’d been together. The night she’d had a serious lapse in judgment and gotten way too personal with a man she should have avoided. Or so it’d seemed at the time. But without that night, she wouldn’t have her son, and despite everything that’d gone on, the one thing she was certain of was that she loved her baby.

Lucas didn’t seem to be having an easier time waiting than she was. He put the window back up, mumbled some profanity and took out his phone. This time she saw that he was calling the nanny again.

“Just checking to make sure everything is okay,” Lucas said when Tillie answered.

Hailey automatically scooted closer so she could hear what the nanny had to say, but that only earned her a scowl from Lucas. He put the call on speaker, her cue to inch away from him. She did.

“The baby’s fine,” Tillie assured Lucas. “He went straight to sleep after his bottle. And Mason’s still here just in case.”

Just in case everything went from bad to worse. Hailey hated that it was a possibility, but Mason was another lawman, so it was good to have him there. She prayed, though, that he wouldn’t be needed and that the danger would end soon. With this idiot intruder not just in custody but also willing to tell them the name of the person who’d hired him.

“You said earlier that Hailey was with you,” Tillie went on. She paused. “Is, uh, everything okay? Did that man try to get onto the ranch because of her?”

“Yeah,” Lucas admitted. Now he was the one who paused. “I’ll need to take the baby someplace safe. Will you be able to come with us?”