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Sawyer
Delores Fossen
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR DELORES FOSSEN RETURNS TO SILVER CREEK WITH A TALE OF LOVE AND DECEPTION. Sawyer Ryland would know her anywhere: the beautiful blonde who briefly shared his bed only to deceive him in the end. He vowed never to trust her again, but Cassidy O’Neal’s on the run from kidnapperswith a newborn in her arms. Cassidy will do anything to save her family, even flee to her ex-lover with an infant who isn’t hers - but who could belong to Sawyer. The lawman’s fierce code of honor forces him to take Cassidy and the baby girl into protective custody. Now neither can fight the passion heating up between them. A passion that’ll take every ounce of willpower to ignore and every effort to survive.



Sawyer leaned in. “I’ll finish up here and maybe we can get out to the safe house before nightfall.”
Even though he probably hadn’t meant that to sound intimate, it did. This heat between them wasn’t cooling down much.
He tore his gaze from Cassidy’s and looked down at the baby. “You won’t have to tend to her—”
“I want to,” Cassidy interrupted.
“Just don’t get too attached,” he added. “If she’s not mine, we’ll need to find her parents.”
“Too late. I’m already attached.”
He mumbled, “Yeah,” and brushed a kiss on the baby’s cheek.
Then Cassidy’s.
He leaned in and this time brushed a kiss on her mouth. There it was again. The trickle of heat that went from her lips to her toes.
Sawyer
Delores Fossen


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why USA TODAY bestselling author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSEN feels as if she were genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.
Contents
Chapter One (#u253c4f68-0efb-58da-b65b-f5c6e996b26a)
Chapter Two (#u1a24fc72-7725-50ec-8020-a3065a71d579)
Chapter Three (#u777af543-0d1d-59e5-897c-eec05ef368ff)
Chapter Four (#u06a402e9-f459-55ac-9c79-71fc5aa2320b)
Chapter Five (#ufc24ad1a-a985-56c9-9051-015ab1d84f0a)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Agent Sawyer Ryland caught the movement from the corner of his eye, turned and saw the blonde pushing her way through the other guests who’d gathered for the wedding reception.
She wasn’t hard to spot.
She was practically running, and she had a bundle gripped in front of her like a shield.
Oh, mercy.
Sawyer’s pulse kicked up a notch, and he automatically slid his hand inside his jacket and over his Glock. It was sad that his first response was to pull his firearm even at his own brother’s wedding reception. Still, he’d been an FBI agent long enough—and had been shot too many times—that he lived by the code of better safe than sorry.
Or better safe than dead.
The woman didn’t draw only Sawyer’s attention. Nope. His brother, Josh, and their six Ryland cousins were all Silver Creek lawmen, and while Sawyer had his attention pinned on the woman, he was well aware that some of his cousins were reaching for their guns, too.
She stopped in the center of the barn, which had been decorated with hundreds of clear twinkling lights and flowers, and even though she was wearing dark sunglasses, Sawyer was pretty sure that her gaze rifled around. Obviously looking for someone. However, the looking around skidded to a halt when her attention landed on him.
“Sawyer,” she said.
Because of the chattering guests and the fiddler sawing out some bluegrass, Sawyer didn’t actually hear her speak his name. Instead, he saw it shape her trembling mouth. She yanked off the sunglasses, her gaze connecting with his.
And he cursed. Some really bad words.
For Pete’s sake. He didn’t need this today. Nor any other day for that matter.
“Cassidy O’Neal,” he mumbled, and he made it sound like the profanity that he’d just spouted.
Yeah, it was her, all right. Except she didn’t much look like a pampered princess doll today in her jeans and body-swallowing gray T-shirt. No makeup, either. Maybe he’d missed the memo about Hades freezing over, because Cassidy was not the sort to go without makeup, fine clothes or anything else fine, for that matter.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t giving off any welcoming vibes whatsoever, Cassidy hurried to him. Her mouth was still trembling. Her dark green eyes rapidly blinking. There were beads of sweat on her forehead and upper lip despite the half dozen or so massive fans circulating air into the barn.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she thrust whatever she was carrying at him.
Sawyer didn’t take it and backed up, but not before he caught a glimpse of the tiny hand gripping the white blanket.
A baby.
That put his heart right in his suddenly dry throat.
He’d always been darn good at math. Not now though. Not with the air just sucked right out of his lungs. But he didn’t need to do the math to know that while there was no love lost between Cassidy and him, there had been love.
Or rather, sex.
It wasn’t love by any stretch of the imagination.
Using just his index finger, Sawyer eased back the blanket and saw the curly mop of brown hair on the sleeping baby’s head. A lighter color than his own hair but maybe a mix of Cassidy’s and his. A cherub face that resembled every baby he’d ever seen.
Including his own cousins’ babies.
And there were plenty of them around for him to do a split-second comparison.
“No.” Cassidy shook her head so hard that her ponytail came unhooked and her hair dropped against her shoulders. “The baby’s not mine.”
Not mine.
Which meant it wasn’t his, either.
That gave him a much-needed jolt of breath to stop his head from going light. A light head was hardly the right bargaining tool for a lawman, and even though Sawyer had no idea if what was going on would require any of his lawman skills, he figured he’d at least need to be able to think straight for this.
Sawyer wasn’t the only one with breathing issues. Cassidy’s was gusting now, and she pushed the bundled baby toward him again. “You have to take her.”
Again, Sawyer backed up.
“Is there a problem?” someone growled.
It was his cousin Mason, a deputy sheriff of Silver Creek and possibly the most unfriendly looking person on earth.
And he walked up right behind Sawyer.
When Mason and he were kids, people used to say they looked like twins, and their combined badass presence, glares and scowls should have been enough to deter a wedding-crashing heiress from staying put.
It didn’t.
“I don’t have much time,” Cassidy insisted. “You have to take her, and I have to get a picture of you holding her.”
Mason and Sawyer exchanged a glance. They were on the same page in thinking their visitor was a couple of cans short of a six-pack.
“We have to talk,” Cassidy continued, and she freed her other hand from the baby bundle so she could catch onto Sawyer’s arm. “Please,” she added.
Sawyer had known Cassidy on and off for over a year now. Mostly off. But he’d never heard her say please. And he’d never seen that look of pure fear in her eyes. He pushed her hand off his arm and instead caught onto her wrist.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Mason. “Obviously our visitor and I need to have a word.”
“You know what you’re doing?” Mason asked.
Nope. But Sawyer figured he was about to find out something he didn’t want to know. Actually, anything that Cassidy had to say to him would fall into that didn’t want to know category even if she hadn’t been carrying a baby in her arms.
Sawyer led her back through the crowd, weaving in and out of the kids running around and the couples dancing. Nearly every one of his cousins shot him a glance to make sure he was okay, and Sawyer tried not to respond with anything that would cause the party to end. His brother Josh, and his bride, Jaycee, didn’t deserve to have their happy day spoiled.
There was a storm brewing, and it was just starting to drizzle, so Sawyer didn’t pull Cassidy out into the open. Instead, he took her to a long watering trough that had a tin awning overhead.
“Let’s start with some questions,” he told Cassidy. “I ask them and you answer them,” he snapped when she opened her mouth to interrupt him.
Of course she just continued with that interruption. “We don’t have time for a Q and A.”
“Obviously, you missed the part about me asking the questions. Make time.”
It hit Sawyer then. Even though Cassidy had said the baby wasn’t hers, that didn’t mean he’d leaped to the right conclusion about the little one not being his. He hadn’t been seriously involved with anyone in several years, but there had been some short hookups. Like the attorney in San Antonio and the woman he’d met at a party.
Was the timing right for either of them?
He just didn’t know.
He looked in the blanket again. At that little cherub face. At the hair. “Is she mine?”
No more gusting breath for Cassidy. It just streamed from her mouth, and she shook her head again. “I have no idea.”
Well, that didn’t help.
Sawyer wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that he didn’t know if he’d fathered a child.
Time for some direct questions. “Who is she, and where’d you get her?” Sawyer demanded.
“I honestly don’t have time for this.” She looked over her shoulder at the beat-up blue truck just a few yards away. There were more dents and dings on it than smooth surface, and the roof was blistered with rust. The engine was running. The wipers, still going. It was hardly her usual ride, but then nothing about this little visit could be labeled as usual for Cassidy.
Sawyer cupped her chin, lifted it, forcing eye contact. “Where. Did. You. Get. The. Baby?” Best to slow down his words and see if that helped.
“From two men. They were both wearing cartoon masks and they were armed.”
Now, that was an answer he sure as heck hadn’t expected. He drew his gun and positioned himself in front of Cassidy. Even if she was lying—and he couldn’t figure out why she’d do that—he had to treat this like a crime in progress.
“Did the men bring you here to the ranch?” he asked.
“No. I drove in the truck they told me to use.” She huffed, glanced at the phone she had clutched in her left hand. “They gave me the baby, said to bring her to you and take a picture of you holding her. I’m supposed to leave the baby with you and then get back so I can give them the picture.”
Say what? That still didn’t make a lick of sense.
“Where are these men?” Sawyer went on full alert, his gaze firing all around the grounds. And it was a lot of ground to cover. What didn’t help was there were guests coming and going, and there were vehicles parked everywhere.
“I don’t know.” Cassidy’s eyes were wild, a different kind of storm brewing there, and every muscle in her body was rock hard.
Sawyer got right in her face. “The sooner you answer me, the sooner I can help. Where are these men, and where are you supposed to meet them?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “They said they’d call me in thirty minutes and tell me where to drop off the photo. It’s already past the time.” Her voice broke, and a hoarse sob tore from her throat.
Okay. He could add sheer terror to her panic. That wasn’t helping his own reactions, and while Sawyer wanted to know if this child was his, he needed to figure out if any danger was imminent.
“So, you don’t know who the men are?” Not sure he believed that, but he pressed for details. He figured the devil was in those. “How’d you meet them?”
“I didn’t meet them. They kidnapped me two days ago and have been holding me blindfolded.”
All right. So, there had been a crime, and he believed her—about that anyway. It was hard to fake that kind of body language, the broken breath and the sob.
But he immediately rethought that.
This was Cassidy, and she’d lied to him before. In fact, it was the reason their very brief affair had ended. And it was that reminder that caused his stomach to start churning.
“Does this have anything to do with your brother?” he asked. Except Sawyer didn’t just ask. He demanded it.
She swallowed hard. Nodded. “Yes.” It was one of the first direct answers she’d given him since her arrival, and it wasn’t a good time for it.
“Bennie’s behind this,” Sawyer grumbled, and he would have cursed some more, but he didn’t want to do that in front of the baby.
Bennie, her low-life, scheming younger brother. There were about a hundred more labels he could have slapped on the idiot, but the bottom line was that Bennie was really bad news. Always one step ahead of the law and the crooks that he dealt with. And big sis, Cassidy, was always there to bail him out.
But if the baby was Sawyer’s, then why the heck was Bennie involved?
He didn’t have an answer to that, either. Yet.
Cassidy’s phone rang, the sound shooting through his thoughts. He didn’t have to tell her to answer it. Bobbling the baby in her arms, Cassidy fumbled to press the answer button. Sawyer hadn’t really planned on it, but he took the child so Cassidy wouldn’t drop her, and he waited. The first thing he saw was the blocked caller ID on the screen.
Not a good sign.
Even though his entire focus should have been on the call, he glanced down at the baby again. Soon, very soon, he’d have to know the truth about her paternity. For now, he pressed the speaker button on Cassidy’s phone so he could hear what the caller was saying.
“You got the picture?” the man on the phone growled.
“I’m getting it,” Cassidy assured him. “What about my brother? Where is he? How is he?”
“You’ll get to see him as soon as you bring us back that picture.”
Sawyer huffed. “Genius, she wants proof that her brother’s still alive,” he spelled out to the person on the other end of the line. He didn’t bother to take the sarcasm out of his voice, either. “Now, here’s the part where you provide that proof, or this conversation ends.”
Silence. For a long time.
Grabbing on to his jacket sleeve, Cassidy frantically shook her head. Probably because she wanted him to stay quiet.
Sawyer ignored that.
In the next couple of minutes, he was going to have to ignore a lot of head-shaking and just about anything that she was saying. Because there was no way he was going to let her leave to face these kidnappers alone—no matter how much proof of life they provided.
There was some mumbling and cussing on the other end of the line. “Here he is,” the man snapped, and the phone dinged, indicating there was a message.
Cassidy hit the button, and a moment later the video loaded. There was Bennie, all right. His hands were tied with a rope to what appeared to be wooden beams on a ceiling. He was stretched out like a moth in a science experiment.
“Oh, God.” Cassidy pressed her fingers to her mouth, but she didn’t manage to silence the gasp. “You’ve hurt him.”
Sawyer had to agree with her on that point. His face was bloody and bruised, as if he’d taken a good beating. His hair was matted, maybe with more blood, and even though he was moving and mumbling, he looked like a man on the verge of losing consciousness.
Or dying.
“Why are they doing this to you?” Sawyer asked Bennie.
But just like that, the video ended. “That’s all the proof you’ll get. Now, it’s your turn. Get that photo here,” the caller demanded. “You got thirty minutes, or we finish him off.”
“Why?” Sawyer repeated. He needed to keep them talking. Needed to find out their location and anything else he could learn about them. He spotted his cousin, Sheriff Grayson Ryland, in the doorway of the barn, and Sawyer motioned for him to come over.
But Grayson had barely made it a step when there was a flash of light. Since his body was on full alert, it took Sawyer a second to realize that it had come from the camera.
Cassidy had snapped his picture.
With the baby.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and Cassidy took off running.
Chapter Two
Cassidy didn’t look back, but she could hear Sawyer cursing at her and shouting for her to stop. A moment later, she heard more than just his voice.
She heard footsteps. Someone running. And she had no doubt that it was Sawyer coming after her.
Her heart was past the racing stage now. Breath, too. And her hands were shaking so hard that she was surprised and relieved when she managed to open the truck door. She jumped in and immediately threw the gear into Reverse. She had to get out of there now and get the photo back to those men.
The images of her brother’s battered face flew through her head. Images of the shock on Sawyer’s face, too, when she’d handed him the baby. Later, if there was a later, she’d need to deal with him.
Except later came a lot sooner than she’d planned.
She felt the thud and looked into the rearview mirror to see that Sawyer had jumped into the truck bed.
Mercy.
She didn’t need this.
He no longer had the baby. He’d obviously handed the newborn off to the other man who’d been approaching them when Cassidy had snapped the picture. And now that Sawyer’s hands were free, he was making his way from the back of the truck bed and toward her. If looks could kill, that glare he shot her would have hurtled her to the hereafter.
Still, Cassidy didn’t stop. In fact, she slammed her foot on the accelerator and threaded the truck through the sea of other vehicles. Not the best time to attempt something like this with all the partygoers around, but she hadn’t exactly had a choice.
She didn’t want to hurt Sawyer, but she couldn’t have him go to the kidnappers with her, either. Earlier, they’d warned her if she didn’t return alone, her brother would die. That couldn’t happen. She couldn’t lose Bennie.
The moment that she was in a small clearing, Cassidy jerked the steering wheel to the right to try to toss Sawyer off the back. It didn’t work. He held on, and it only made his glare a whole lot worse. Still, she tried again.
Again, no luck.
Sawyer held on, bouncing around on the metal surface of the truck bed. He managed to hang on to his gun, and she was afraid he might use it on her if he got the chance. He already hated her, and this certainly wasn’t going to make things better between them.
Cassidy sped across the driveway that coiled around the sprawling main house and the barns, and she finally reached the ranch road that would take her to the highway. She’d lied when she told Sawyer she didn’t know where the kidnappers were.
A necessary lie.
If he had learned their location, he’d just go in there with guns blazing, and Bennie would be caught in the middle of a firefight. Of course, that might still happen if she couldn’t ditch Sawyer before she made it to the abandoned building where they were holding her brother.
Cassidy tried again to toss him from the truck, but she failed that time, too. Sawyer not only held on, he made his way toward her. Inch by inch.
There was a small slider window that separated them. Not nearly big enough for him to crawl through, and it had a lock that would prevent anyone on the outside from opening it. Thank goodness. Still, that didn’t solve her problem of getting rid of him.
She was already going too fast, and as if fate and Mother Nature were working against her, the drizzle turned to a hard rain, making the road even more slick than it already was. Cassidy tried to focus on her driving. On ditching Sawyer. And getting this photo to the kidnappers.
But Sawyer obviously had other ideas about the ditching part.
He lifted his gun, took aim. Not at her. He aimed the barrel of his gun at the passenger’s window.
“No!” Cassidy shouted.
Too late.
He turned his head and fired, the shot blasting through not just both windows—the side and back—but the sound seemed to rip through her, too. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she hit the brakes. Not the best idea she’d ever had, but it was hard to make a good decision with the pain from the noise crashing through her ears and head.
The truck tires fishtailed on the wet asphalt, slinging Sawyer and her around. Even though she was wearing her seat belt, her shoulder slammed so hard into her door that she swore she saw stars. She certainly lost her breath.
Unlike Sawyer.
The truck hadn’t even come to a full stop yet when he reached through the gaping hole in the safety glass on the passenger’s side and unlocked the door. Opened it. As if it were a routine maneuver for him, he slid from the truck bed and into the cab.
He put his gun to her head.
“You will tell me what’s going on now,” he growled. His glare was even worse, and the tendons in his neck corded.
“I’ve already told you all I know.” She tried to sound tough as nails, like him. And she failed miserably. She wasn’t tough. She was terrified, exhausted and just wanted this ordeal to end. “Now, get out.”
“Not gonna happen.”
There it was. That smart mouth that she used to think was funny and a complement to his bad-boy persona. It had been the very thing that had lured her to him. But his mouth and his tenacity weren’t much of a lure now. Nothing was.
Well, except for that brief slap of attraction she’d felt when she first saw him in the barn.
That slap might have to be a real one that she delivered to herself, because an attraction to Sawyer should be the last thing on her mind.
“They’ll kill Bennie if you’re with me,” she reminded him. Somehow, she got the truck moving again because like everything else, time wasn’t working in her favor.
He shook his head, cursed her again and slung the water off his face. It didn’t help. The rain coming in from the window just walloped him once more, soaking his jacket, white shirt and jeans. His hair, too. The drops of water slid off those dark brown strands and dripped onto his face.
“Who says they won’t just kill you when you give them the photo?” he asked. “You should have taken this to the cops and not tried to handle it yourself.”
“I didn’t go to the cops because they said they’d kill Bennie.”
“Kidnappers always say that,” he snapped. “And they always tell the mark to cooperate and that you’ll get your loved one back in one piece. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. But they could just as easily put a bullet in you as Bennie.”
Obviously, he thought she was stupid.
“They won’t do that because I haven’t given them all the ransom money yet, that’s why. The other half won’t be transferred to their account until Bennie and I are away from the pick-up site. And I’m the only one with the bank account information. If they kill me, they don’t get the other half million.”
He mumbled something she didn’t catch. “You’re paying a million dollarsʼ ransom for your brother?”
“You’d do the same for your brother.”
“Yeah. Because he’s a good guy and not some low-life weasel. What’d Bennie do this time to get himself in this mess?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked, and she could feel what little composure she had cracking, too. “At this point, it doesn’t matter. Bennie’s the only family I have, and I’ll give them every penny I own to get him back.”
And while a million wasn’t every penny she owned, it was close. It would wipe her out financially, but there was no way she could live with herself if she hadn’t agreed to the kidnappersʼ every demand.
Including that photo.
“Is the baby yours?” she asked. Cassidy took the turn too fast toward the town of Silver Creek, and the tires squealed on the road.
“I don’t know,” Sawyer said after several long moments. He slung off more water, swiveled in the seat and looked around.
“You don’t know if you had sex with a woman about ten months ago?” Cassidy pressed.
Yes, she sounded irked about that. And was. She’d always been attracted to the bad-boy types, but it never felt good to know that she was in a mountain-high pile of women that Sawyer had discarded.
Even if she’d contributed a lot to the reason he’d discarded her.
“There’s someone,” he admitted. “I’ll call her as soon as I’m finished with this. But I’m pretty sure if she’d gotten pregnant, she would have told me.” And he took out his phone. “I’m calling my cousin, the sheriff.”
“No!” Even though she had to take one of her hands off the steering wheel, Cassidy did it so she could grab his phone. “No cops. No anyone but me.”
He leaned in, a major violation of her personal space. So close she could smell wedding cake on his breath. “I’m going to the drop site with you. Close your mouth,” he added when she opened it. “Because arguing won’t help. You’re taking me to those kidnappers so I can find out why they want the photo. And why they took Bennie.”
Sawyer fired off a text message. Probably requesting backup that could make this mess a thousand times worse.
“I could stop the truck and refuse to go there,” she lied.
And the flat look Sawyer gave her with those blistering blue eyes let her know that he, too, knew she was lying.
“Where’s this place?” He sounded like the tough FBI agent that he was.
“Just off Miller’s Road.” She checked the time on the dash clock. “And I have less than ten minutes to get there.”
“Where on Miller’s Road?” Sawyer didn’t address that time was ticking away, either.
“It’s an abandoned building.” Now she was the one to get in his face. For a brief glare, anyway. “Don’t you dare make me regret telling you.”
“Abandoned,” he repeated. “The Tumbleweed? It used to be a bar.”
She nodded. The sign had been rusted and battered, but the name was still partially visible. “You know the place?”
“Yeah.” And that one word held a lot of emotion. Or something. “I was raised in Silver Creek. The Tumbleweed used to belong to my grandfather.”
Oh, mercy. Cassidy doubted that was a coincidence. “So, what does Bennie’s kidnapping have to do with you?”
Sawyer lifted his shoulder. “Like I said, that’s what I intend to find out. Take that next left.”
“That’s not Miller’s Road.”
“I know. And that’s why we’re taking it. Turn!” he growled.
It was the second time in the past few moments that she’d hoped she didn’t regret this, but Cassidy took the turn. It wasn’t a road but an old ranch trail with thick underbrush on both sides. Not exactly a good driving surface with the rain, and the first pothole she hit made the truck bounce, and their heads struck the ceiling.
“Slow down and stop up there,” Sawyer instructed, and he pointed to a pile of limestone boulders.
Again, she did as he said, but the moment she stopped, Cassidy took hold of his jacket and forced eye contact. “I know you think Bennie doesn’t deserve to live, but swear to me that you won’t do anything to make this worse.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m an FBI agent, sworn to uphold the law. That includes upholding it for people who don’t deserve it. Like your brother. Now, kill the engine and wait here.”
As if she would take that order as gospel, which she did, Sawyer stepped from the truck, his gun ready, and he climbed to the top of the boulders.
Cassidy couldn’t be sure, but she thought that Miller’s Road might be just on the other side. She’d been so frantic when she’d driven out of there earlier with the baby, that the only thing she had paid attention to was the GPS that the kidnappers had programmed with the directions to the Ryland family’s Silver Creek ranch.
What the two men hadn’t told her was there would be a wedding reception going on and that she’d have to get that photo with dozens of witnesses milling around. But certainly the kidnappers must have known because they’d told her that’s where she would find Sawyer.
So, why take the photo there?
Too many things about this didn’t make sense, and that was yet more reason to get Bennie away from these men.
“I have less than five minutes now,” she reminded him in a whisper.
Sawyer didn’t respond to that, fired off another text, and then without warning, he scrambled over the rocks, out of sight. That got Cassidy moving from the truck, and she hurried to the boulders to see where he’d gone.
She didn’t have to look far.
He was there, just on the other side, crouched down by yet another heap of boulders. Beyond that was the road.
Then, the Tumbleweed bar about fifty yards away.
It wasn’t much of a place. Rust-streaked tin roof. Weathered clapboards. Eye-socket windows with vines coiling in and out of them. What was left of the neon sign was connected by a single electrical wire, and it creaked back and forth with each gust of wind.
Sawyer gave her a stare down even though he was looking up at her. “Think hard. Do you remember me telling you to wait in the truck?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Because that’s exactly what you’re going to do. My cousin Grayson will be here soon to watch you.”
She huffed. “I don’t want a babysitter. I want to help.”
“And you’ll do that by waiting here.” He tipped his head to the building. “No vehicles. Were there any when you left?”
“No. They brought me here in the truck. They already had Bennie tied up inside.”
It hurt just to think of seeing him that way. To see the terror on his face. To know that he’d seen the same on hers. She was the big sister. Had always taken care of him just as she’d promised.
This time, she’d failed.
Sawyer started to move but then stopped and caught her gaze. “If you follow me, it could get all of us killed. Nod so I know you understand.”
Her stomach twisted, the acid rising to her throat. But she nodded. “Please, hurry,” she begged. “Save him.”
Sawyer scowled as if insulted that she had to ask, and he put his hand on the top of the boulders to lever himself up. However, he didn’t make it an inch before they heard the sound. A sound that Cassidy definitely didn’t want to hear.
A bloodcurdling scream.
Chapter Three
Sawyer had to take hold of Cassidy to keep her from bolting toward the building. He had to fight his own instincts, too, because that scream was the sound of someone terrified.
Maybe even dying.
“We have to help him,” Cassidy insisted.
And there was another scream. Like the first one, it didn’t sound like a man’s, either.
“Who else was in that building?” Sawyer demanded, and because she was still in fight mode, he had to snap her to him so that her face was just a few inches from his.
Cassidy was breathing through her mouth now, her chest pumping, and she shook her head. “No one that I saw.”
The third scream got to him. Since Grayson wasn’t there yet and because he knew for a fact that Cassidy wouldn’t stay put, Sawyer shoved her behind him. “If I tell you to get down, you’ll do it,” he barked.
Whether she would was anyone’s guess, but he couldn’t wait while a woman was murdered. Heck, it could be the baby’s mother.
Sawyer didn’t waste any time getting Cassidy across the narrow dirt road. The mud caked on the soles of his boots, but he forced himself to run. Cassidy ran, too, despite the flimsy flip-flops she was wearing. They darted behind some trees, using them for cover so he could make his way to the Tumbleweed.
He knew every inch of the place and thought back to the video he’d seen of Bennie. It had been dark, but the only part of the building with beams like the ones he’d seen were in the main bar. Or rather what was left of it. Time and vandals had taken their toll.
Cassidy tapped her phone screen where the time was displayed. Yeah, he knew they were down to seconds now, but they couldn’t just go charging in there.
He led her to the side of the building and to what had once been the private entrance to his grandfather’s office. There was no door now, just a dark hole of a room. Sawyer stepped inside, pulled Cassidy in behind him and listened.
No more screams.
Just the creepy sounds of the wind and the rain pushing and squealing through the sliver-thin gaps in the wood.
Cassidy tapped the time again and put her hand on his back to push him forward. He went, but clearly not at the breakneck, run-into-a-trap pace that she wanted. Sawyer paused again in the doorway that led into the bar itself and peered inside.
“No,” he warned her. Cassidy would have rushed straight into the room if Sawyer hadn’t stopped her.
There was enough light spearing through the holes in the roof and windows that Sawyer could see the room was empty. So were the ropes that dangled from the exposed ceiling beams.
“Bennie was right here when I left,” she said, the words gusting out with her breath. “We’re too late.”
Maybe. But Sawyer doubted the kidnappers would just walk away from half a million dollars. Keeping his gun ready, he started to the center of the room. Toward those ropes.
With each step, the debris, dead insects and God knows what else crunched beneath his boots. Along with the rain bulleting on the tin roof and the other sounds from the storm, it made it hard to hear footsteps or anything else to indicate the kidnappers’ location.
Cassidy stayed plastered against his back, literally breathing down his neck, and they approached the ropes together.
Sawyer cursed.
First, when he spotted what was on the ropes. Then again, when he stepped in a puddle of dark liquid. With his luck, he figured that wasn’t rainwater from the leaky roof.
Nope.
It was blood.
“They hurt him,” Cassidy mumbled, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth. No doubt to suppress the sob.
Sawyer felt for her. If that were his brother’s blood, he’d be ready to panic, too, but panicking wasn’t going to help Bennie.
He passed her his phone. “Text Grayson and tell him we’re inside the Tumbleweed and that your brother’s missing.”
Her hands were shaking, so it wasn’t a speedy process for her to type the message, but she finally did it, and he heard the little dinging sound to indicate it had been sent.
“We have to find him,” Cassidy insisted. “He probably needs a doctor.”
Yeah. If he was still alive. But Sawyer kept that possibility to himself and double-checked the room. It was one big open space, the tables and chair long since removed so there weren’t many places for two kidnappers and their hostage to hide.
That meant they’d likely gone outside.
Of course they had.
Over the years, the woods had closed in on the place so it was hard to even tell that there had once been a parking lot back there. Since he hadn’t seen anyone on the road itself and no one was here, it was likely the kidnappersʼ escape route.
Cassidy must have figured that out, too, because she bolted around him, heading straight for the rickety-looking double doors that led out back. One of them was completely off its hinges and propped against the jamb. The other, however, was closed just enough to conceal someone who might be lurking around.
Sawyer snagged her by the shoulder and put her behind him again. He also tossed her a glare, hopefully a reminder that she was playing by his rules. And his rules didn’t involve her running out there until he was sure they weren’t about to be gunned down. He’d heard no shot to go along with those screams, but that didn’t mean the kidnappers wouldn’t pull their triggers.
Taking slow, cautious steps, Sawyer went to the remaining door. Took aim and made a quick check.
No one was there.
He glanced around, looking for any sign of the men, and he soon found it. Even though the rain was quickly washing it away, there was blood on the ground, and the underbrush had been stomped down in spots. It left a visible trail that led deeper into the woods.
His phone dinged, and since Cassidy was still holding it, she looked at the screen. “Grayson will be here in five minutes,” she relayed. “That’s too long. I want to find my brother now.”
Five minutes was indeed a long time for someone who might be bleeding out. “Text Grayson to get an ambulance out here.”
That sent her breath gusting again, but she did as he said. Sawyer did something, too. He ignored that warning knot in his gut. The one that told him it wasn’t a bright idea to go in the woods with Cassidy in tow, but it was too dangerous to leave her behind.
Too risky for Bennie not to be rescued.
So, the warning knot lost out, and Sawyer moved forward. Listening and praying this wasn’t a decision that would get them killed.
Cassidy put her forearms against his back, pushing him. Or rather she was trying to do that. But Sawyer held his pace steady, looking for any evidence that the rain would soon destroy. If they didn’t find Bennie soon, they’d need any and all clues to figure out where the kidnappers had taken him.
But why had they moved him?
Had they spotted Sawyer and decided to run? Or maybe Bennie had tried to escape. If he’d managed to get loose from those ropes, he could have run. And maybe he’d been hurt in the process.
Sawyer maneuvered them several yards deeper. Stopped and listened. This time, he heard something other than Cassidy’s breathing and the rain slapping at them.
It was just a swish of a sound. But not like anything else that he’d heard since this little trek had begun. Sawyer pulled Cassidy beneath the sagging branches of a mesquite and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
There was another of those swishing sounds, but this time he heard it a whole lot clearer. Oh, man. Someone had fired a gun rigged with a silencer. It was hard to tell the exact origin of the shots, but they hadn’t come from behind them.
Definitely ahead.
“Gunshots,” Sawyer whispered to Cassidy when she kept pushing him to get moving.
That stopped her. But it didn’t stop the fear from rising inside her. Sawyer could feel that in her tightened muscles and trembling hands.
“Send Grayson another text to give him our location,” he told her.
That would get her mind on something other than the panic that was no doubt about to eat her alive. Still, the texting served a necessary purpose, too. He didn’t want his cousin walking into gunfire.
There were no more swishing sounds, but Sawyer heard something else that grabbed his attention.
A moan.
Definitely human, and with the blood they’d found, it had likely come from someone injured. Bennie, maybe. At least that meant he was alive.
For now anyway.
Cassidy must have heard the sound, too, because she nudged him to get moving again. Sawyer did, maneuvering from beneath the mesquite and to some thick underbrush that would hopefully give them enough cover if those kidnappers started shooting at them.
There was a small clearing ahead, and because there were no trees, the rain was soaking the ground, making it hard to tell if anyone had gone that way. If the kidnappers had learned their way around these woods, and Sawyer had to assume that they had, they would know there were two ways out.
Doubling back to Miller’s Road.
Or continuing through the woods about a mile until they reached an old farm road.
Since he hadn’t seen another vehicle, it was possible the kidnappers had parked on that farm road. Of course, it was risky to be so far away from transportation in case something went wrong.
And something obviously had.
They likely hadn’t wanted to shoot at a hostage when they were so close to getting their hands on the entire chunk of ransom money.
“Bennie and the woman have to be alive,” Cassidy mumbled, and her breathing got even faster.
Mercy. She was on the verge of hyperventilating now, and Sawyer reached behind him and touched his fingers to her lips. Cassidy jerked back as if he’d burnt her. Their gazes met. Not one of those ordinary meets, either. This was one of blasted nonverbal connections between a man and a woman.
Who’d once been lovers.
Not a good time to remember that. Never a good time, actually. And he scowled to let her know that.
She scowled, too, her eyes narrowing a bit, and just like that, he’d cured her panic attack and hyperventilating.
“Let’s find him,” Cassidy snarled, and considering she’d just whispered it, she’d done a thorough job in conveying that snarl.
Her gaze fired around. “I have the picture,” Cassidy shouted without warning.
Sawyer reeled to her so fast that his neck popped. “What the heck are you doing?” he mouthed.
“Giving them what they want,” she mouthed back, her teeth clenched.
“If they’d wanted the photo bad enough, the kidnappers would have hung around.” And maybe they had. If so, Cassidy had just given away their position.
So, Sawyer moved again, trying hard not to let his anger turn what should be quiet footsteps into stomps. They’d only made it a few feet when he heard another moan. It was weak, barely audible, but it had come from a clump of cedars about fifteen yards away.
But that wasn’t the only sound.
There were footsteps that even the rain couldn’t conceal. Sawyer froze, holding back Cassidy again, but he didn’t have to hold her for long. There was a blur of motion, and Sawyer automatically took aim.
It was someone running.
Someone dressed all in dark clothes who quickly darted out of sight. In the video, Bennie had been wearing a light colored T-shirt similar to the one Cassidy had on.
The runner had to be one of the kidnappers.
There were more footsteps. Not from the same direction where the runner had disappeared to, but on the opposite side of the clearing. It wasn’t the running pace of an injured man who was hurt enough to moan. This was another runner.
And likely the second kidnapper.
Sawyer cursed himself for bringing Cassidy into this. Of course, if he’d left her to wait for Grayson, she would have no doubt been another set of those fast-moving footsteps trudging around in the rainy woods.
The seconds crawled by while he waited and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. He certainly couldn’t just start shooting with Bennie out there.
Behind him, he heard more footsteps. Not a runner this time, but the slow, cautious steps of a lawman. Sawyer glanced over his shoulder and spotted Grayson.
He motioned to the clearing so that Grayson would know what he was about to do.
“Stay here,” he warned Cassidy, and Grayson moved closer to her.
Good. If bullets started flying, Grayson would be able to pull her to the ground.
Sawyer tightened his grip on his gun and stepped out, making a beeline toward the cedars where he’d heard the moaning. No moans now, which might mean the kidnappers had moved their injured hostage.
When he reached the cedars, Sawyer used his elbow to push aside some of the branches. The first thing he saw was more blood.
And lots of it.
It had mixed with rainwater, making it impossible to tell just how much, but the bleeder had left a trail for him to follow.
No more footsteps. Just the sound of his own heartbeat crashing in his ears.
Sawyer pushed back another cedar branch, and he cursed when he saw the lifeless body on the ground in front of him.
Chapter Four
“No!” Cassidy blurted out. Nothing could have stopped her from running to Sawyer.
And toward the person lying on the ground.
Sawyer stooped down, touched his fingers to the person’s neck and shook his head. “Dead.”
Her heart was practically beating out of her chest by the time she made it there, and she tried to brace herself for the worst. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she could handle the worst.
Sawyer took hold of her to stop her from going closer, but she still got a good look at the person lying on the ground.
Not Bennie.
The victim was a woman with jaggedly chopped hair, black with streaks of blue. Cassidy had no idea who she was, but she had no trouble seeing the bullet wound on the side of her head.
Despite the gruesome scene, the relief was instant and overwhelming. It robbed her of what little breath she had left. But the relief was also short lived. It wasn’t Bennie. But where was he?
“Bennie?” she yelled.
No answer. Nothing.
Cassidy would have bolted again to go look for him, but Sawyer stopped her. “Who is she?” He tipped his head to the woman on the ground.
“I don’t know.” Again, she tried to leave, and Sawyer stopped her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he insisted. “The kidnappers have already killed one woman. You want to make it two?”
“I want to find my brother,” she insisted right back.
“We’ll do that. Come on. This is a crime scene now, and it needs to be processed. That’s our best bet at finding Bennie.”
Maybe. But everything inside her was screaming for her to run and find her brother. Even if she knew it wasn’t the logical thing to do.
“Something obviously went wrong here,” Sawyer said as he led her away from the body. “But the kidnappers will contact you again. They’ll keep Bennie alive because they want to get that ransom.”
That made it through the panic and the haze in her head. Yes, the kidnappers wanted the money. She had to believe that, hold on to it. Because it was the only way to keep herself sane.
Sawyer and she approached Sheriff Grayson Ryland, and he handed Sawyer a set of keys. “Use my truck and get her to the hospital so she can be checked out. I already have an ambulance and CSI team on the way.”
“The woman’s dead,” Sawyer told him.
The sheriff looked as if he wanted to curse, and he made another call. This time to the medical examiner.
“Please let me know if the men come back with Bennie,” she said to the sheriff.
He nodded, continued his call, and Sawyer got her moving toward a silver pickup parked just up the road. Not a slow pace, either. They were practically jogging, and he kept watch, his gaze firing all around.
Cassidy doubted the kidnappers would kill her. But she rethought that. She’d broken their rules by not returning with the photo in time.
Was that the reason they’d killed the woman?
The emotion was already high, boiling through her, and that caused her to gasp. “Did the kidnappers kill her to punish me?” she managed to ask.
Sawyer didn’t answer because he obviously didn’t know. He stuffed her into the truck, got behind the wheel and drove out of there fast.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she told him. “I’m okay. Or at least I will be when we find Bennie.”
“It’s standard practice to be checked out. After all, you were kidnapped.”
Yes, and she was rattled, but there wasn’t a scratch on her. She knew after seeing that video that Bennie wouldn’t be able to say the same thing. Those men had clearly hurt him.
“Don’t try to make sense of this,” Sawyer warned her after glancing at her face. “Let’s just get an ID on the body and go from there.”
It didn’t seem nearly enough, not with Bennie’s life at stake. Still, she knew Sawyer was right. They couldn’t go blindly running in the woods looking for him.
“But what does that woman have to do with the kidnapping and my brother?” she asked.
“Maybe she was one of the kidnappers.”
Cassidy was about to disagree, but the truth was, she had no idea if anyone else was involved. “I only saw the two men with cartoon masks.”
He spared her another glance before his eyes went back to the road. “And you’re sure they were both men?”
Was she? Well, she had been until Sawyer had asked that question. “Only one of them spoke, and it was definitely a man. But even if the other one was a woman, why would he have killed her?”
“Maybe because he didn’t want to split the ransom money with her. It happens all the time. Despite the cliché, there’s not much honor among thieves.”
He was right, and the kidnapper could now be a killer. A killer who had her brother.
Even though it wasn’t cold, she was soaking wet, and Cassidy began to shiver. Sawyer noticed, turned on the heat, and he sped up the wipers, too. It didn’t help much. The rain was coming down even harder now, and the wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour.
“This is destroying the crime scene, isn’t it?” Cassidy asked.
He lifted his shoulder, kept his gaze pinned to the road. “Grayson’s a good sheriff. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”
She thought about that a moment, trying to piece together this puzzle. “They held Bennie and me in your grandfather’s bar. Why? Why would they believe you and I have a connection?”
Another lift of his shoulder, but that wasn’t a casual response she saw in his eyes. No way. He was troubled by all of this—especially about the baby that she’d photographed in his arms.
Why would the kidnappers have wanted that?
She was about to ask him, but his phone buzzed, and she saw Grayson’s name on the screen. Cassidy held her breath, waiting and praying again that this wasn’t bad news about her brother.
“The dead woman had a wallet in her pants pocket,” she heard Grayson say. Since the call wasn’t on speaker, she scooted closer to Sawyer so she could listen to every word. “According to her driver’s license, her name is April Warrick.”
Cassidy repeated it, hoping it would spark some kind of recognition. It didn’t.
“I’m having someone run a background on her now,” the sheriff added.
“Good, we’re almost at the hospital. After Cassidy sees the doctor, I can help get all of this sorted out. What about the baby?” Sawyer asked. “Any calls about her? Is she okay?”
“She’s still with Mason at the E.R.—where you told him to take her. He says the baby’s fine, that he’s just waiting on the paperwork.”
That was something at least. Cassidy hated the thought of an innocent baby being put in the middle of this mess.
“I told Mason to have the doctors do blood and DNA tests on the baby,” Sawyer added.
Grayson stayed quiet a moment. “You want the DNA compared to yours?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer paused, too. “And if I’m not a match, then I’ll run it through the system to see if we can find out who is.”
She wasn’t sure what to hope for. At least if the child were Sawyer’s, then she would have him to protect her.
“Any sign of Bennie?” Cassidy asked. She moved even closer to Sawyer, until they were shoulder to shoulder. He noticed, glanced down at the contact between them and scowled. But Cassidy stayed put.
“Nothing yet,” Grayson answered, and with that, Sawyer did hang up. Another glance at her had Cassidy moving back to her side of the seat.
“You still haven’t forgiven me,” she mumbled. No surprise there. Sawyer wasn’t ever likely to forgive her.
“What do you think?” he mumbled back.
His voice was a growl, and it should have unnerved her. Along with that steely glare he was giving her. But sadly, even now, her reaction to Sawyer was a different kind of unnerving.
The images of them naked in bed flashed through her mind. Memorable images. But with bad timing. Then and now. She had been his one-night stand.
His decision, not hers.
She’d known him for months before that one-nighter. Months of lusting after him. And when Cassidy had finally run into him at a party, they’d left together to go back to his place for that one glorious night.
“I was attracted to you,” she reminded him. Still was. “That’s why I slept with you, not so I could get information about the investigation you were conducting on my brother.”
“Right,” he grumbled. “But it was a nice perk that you got that information.”
Cassidy swallowed hard. “Only by accident, because I overheard your phone conversation with your boss.”
“Worked in your favor, didn’t it.” Not a question. He spoke it as gospel.
And it was something she couldn’t argue with.
She had alerted her brother about the investigation into his possible involvement with money laundering. Not intentionally but only because she’d questioned Bennie about it. She hadn’t wanted to believe he was involved in something so awful. However, Sawyer was certain that Bennie had used that info to cover his tracks so he couldn’t be arrested.
Maybe he had.
But when she’d slept with Sawyer, she certainly hadn’t known that was going to happen. An investigation had been the last thing on her mind.
Sawyer pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, and he made more of those glances around before he got out and ushered her inside and to the E.R. The first sound she heard was a baby crying, and they followed that sound to an examining room, where she spotted a dark-haired man holding the baby.
Cassidy actually dropped back a step. This guy had a deputy’s badge clipped to his belt, but with his desperado stubble and hard eyes, he looked more outlaw than lawman.
“Hope you have better luck with her than I have,” the man said over the baby’s cries. “She won’t hush. Won’t take her bottle, either.” And he eased the baby into Sawyer’s arms.
Despite everything that had just happened, Sawyer looked amused. Well, for a split second he did.
“Your wife’s due any day now,” Sawyer said to the man. “Better get used to it.”
The deputy grumbled something Cassidy didn’t catch and put the baby’s bottle on the table next to Sawyer.
“This is Mason, my cousin,” Sawyer told her. “And this is Cassidy O’Neal.”
Mason made a sound deep in his throat that she figured was disapproval. It was possible Sawyer had spilled all about their brief affair, and even if he hadn’t, she was sure her reputation preceded her. Most people thought she was a spoiled heiress. She was rich but worked plenty hard to manage the real estate investment business that her late parents had left her and her brother.
With his attention on the baby, Sawyer dropped into the chair and studied the baby’s face. No doubt trying to decide if she was his. At least the baby stopped crying, and she looked up at Sawyer, examining him with the same intensity with which he was examining her.
“She’s what...about a week or two old?” Sawyer asked no one in particular. “Any reports of a missing newborn?”
Mason shook his head. “None in this area. There was a newborn boy taken in San Antonio, but that was a custody dispute.” He checked the time. “I’ll see what’s keeping Dr. Michelson. He said he’ll examine Cassidy, but if she’s hurt, you’re to take her over to one of the E.R. docs right away,” he added.
“I’m not hurt,” she insisted.
“Then I’ll let the doc know that,” Mason answered. “Right now, he’s dealing with Social Services. They’re supposed to come and get the baby.”
Sawyer’s head whipped up, as if he might challenge that, but he didn’t. Cassidy thought she might challenge it, too. She’d been in the Social Services system briefly when her parents died, but she had been sixteen. And could fend for herself. Plus, a huge inheritance had helped pave the way to her emancipation, but it cut her to the core to realize this baby could be handed over to strangers while the truth was sorted out.
And speaking of sorting, Sawyer looked to be doing just that. He took out his phone and scrolled through the numbers. Since that wasn’t easy to do with the baby in his arms, Cassidy took the child, easing her into the crook of her arm. It didn’t exactly feel natural since she didn’t have much experience with babies, but it didn’t feel wrong, either.
Not the best time for her biological clock to start ticking.
Sawyer clicked on one of the numbers, waited. “Laurie,” he said when the woman obviously answered.
Cassidy felt an emotion of a different kind. A punch of jealousy, and she would have laughed at herself for feeling it, but laughter at this point would no doubt make Sawyer think she was insane. Maybe she was, for still feeling attracted to a man who clearly hated her.
“Yeah, I’d like to catch up, too,” he added a moment later, “but maybe some other time.” Sawyer paused, his forehead bunching up. “Uh, did you recently have a baby?”
Unlike in the truck, Cassidy couldn’t hear what the woman said, but judging from Sawyer’s reaction it wasn’t good. “Sorry to have bothered you,” he added a moment later and ended the call.
“Well?” Cassidy asked when he didn’t say anything to her.
However, all she got from Sawyer was another shoulder lift. “It’s not Laurie’s baby.”
Which meant it wasn’t Sawyer’s.
“Then, who is she?” Cassidy looked down at the baby. So precious and little. She touched her finger to the baby’s hand, and the little girl grabbed on to it. “And why hasn’t someone reported her missing?”
“I don’t know, but if she were mine,” he said under his breath, “I’d definitely be missing her.”
She had to do a mental double take at that. Sawyer was the ultimate bad boy, the reason she’d been attracted to him in the first place. But this was a side of him that she’d never seen, and he suddenly looked uncomfortable that he’d let her get a glimpse of it.
“Is there anyone else that you could have gotten pregnant?” she came out and asked.
“Other than Laurie or you,” he said, stating the obvious. “There’s one other woman. I barely knew her. It was a hookup-at-a-party kind of thing. I’m not sure how to get in touch with her.”
“With your FBI resources, you should—” But she stopped. Rethought that. “You don’t remember her name.”
Sawyer scrubbed his hand over his face. “No. But I doubt she remembers mine, either. And if you think I’m proud of that, I’m not.”
He stood, as if ready to take the baby from her, but then they heard footsteps. Clearly, they were both still on edge because Sawyer stepped protectively in front of her and the baby. But it wasn’t a threat.
Well, not a real one anyway.
It was Mason.
“Just got off the phone with Gage,” he said.
“Did they find Bennie?” Cassidy immediately asked.
Mason shook his head. “They’re still looking. The doc’s still working on the papers for Social Services, and then he’ll examine you.” Mason turned his attention to Sawyer. “But Gage found out the dead woman, April Warrick, was a con artist with a mile-long rap sheet.”
“Any kidnapping charges on it?” Sawyer wanted to know.
“None.” Mason shifted his attention to the baby. “But April gave birth about ten days ago. She had a girl. We don’t know much more than that, but she was a criminal informant for the San Antonio P.D. Nate’s looking into it now and should be calling you any minute.”
“Nate and Gage are Mason’s brothers,” Sawyer explained to her, but she could tell his mind was on other things.
Mason reached for the baby. “Why don’t I go ahead and take her to the hospital nursery. It could take a while for Social Services to get here.”
“No,” Cassidy jumped to say. It was crazy, but she wanted to keep the baby with her as long as possible.
Mason looked at Sawyer, obviously waiting for his say in the matter, and Sawyer finally nodded. “After the doc’s checked out Cassidy, I’ll bring the baby to the nursery and then head to the sheriff’s office so we can write our reports.”
Mason didn’t question that, though it probably did seem strange to him. He made a sound that could have meant anything and strolled away.
“You can’t keep her, you know,” Sawyer said, standing. He went to her, looking down at the baby, and he touched the little girl’s cheek with this finger.
The corner of the baby’s mouth lifted as if she was smiling.
And that caused Cassidy to smile, too. Well, for a few seconds anyway, and then reality hit her.
“If April was her mother, then her next of kin is her father.” She hated to say it aloud, but she figured Sawyer was thinking it, too. “What if her father’s the other kidnapper?”
“It’s possible,” Sawyer readily admitted. “That’s why we need to catch him and then get the results from the DNA and blood tests. We might be able to exclude him on the blood test alone.”
Yes, but it wouldn’t solve her other problem of finding Bennie. If the kidnapper had murdered his own lover, the mother of his child, and used that child in some kind of kidnapping scheme, then she wanted her brother far away from this monster.
Sawyer’s phone buzzed, and because he was so close to her, she saw the name on the phone screen.
Nate Ryland.
His cousin and the cop from SAPD that Mason had mentioned. Sawyer stepped away from her, but he did put the call on speaker.
“Mason said you wanted some info on April Warrick,” Nate started. “Well, that’s her body you found in Silver Creek. Grayson sent me a photo, and I was able to confirm it with Doug Franklin, the detective who used her as a criminal informant.”
Cassidy was glad the baby was too young to understand the news they’d just gotten.
“Did April really have a baby?” Sawyer asked.
“Yeah. A girl, but I can’t confirm if it’s the baby that the kidnappers had. Still working on that. But we do have a lead. Doug said last year April was involved with a real hothead. A guy named Willy Malloy.”
Sawyer took a notepad from his pocket and wrote down the name. “I want to talk to him.”
“Figured you would. I’ll track him down and get him out to Silver Creek so Grayson and you can question him.” Nate paused. “There’s someone else you’ll want to talk to. A couple of months ago, April was ordered to see a court-appointed therapist, Dr. Diane Blackwell. She’s already called here looking for April, and I told her to get in touch with you.”
A therapist could definitely give them some info. If she’d talk, that is. Cassidy hoped she didn’t play the client-confidentiality card, especially now that her client was dead.
“There’s more,” Nate said a moment later. “Doug said April hadn’t mentioned Willy in months, that she’d been seeing some rich guy, and that April was worried that the guy might be up to no good.”
“You got a name?” Sawyer asked.
“Yeah. It’s a name you’re not going to like. Doug said it was Bennie O’Neal.”
Cassidy wasn’t able to bite back her gasp. No. This couldn’t be happening. But Sawyer only tossed her an I-told-you-so look.
“The detective said if you want to find April’s killer,” Nate added, “then start with Bennie—that judging from the way April talked bad about him, he’s the one who probably murdered her.”
Chapter Five
Sawyer finished up the call with his brother, Josh, and gave him both an apology for having to leave the reception early and well-wishes since Josh was about to leave on his honeymoon with his new bride. Even though Josh had asked about the kidnapping, Sawyer kept the details brief. No need to trouble his brother with a case that didn’t make sense anyway.
When he ended the call, he glanced up to check on Cassidy. Sawyer had no idea what to do about her. Obviously waiting, she was pacing the hall of the Silver Creek sheriff’s office. The trouble was, it might be a long time before they heard anything from the kidnappers.
If there were indeed kidnappers.
It was possible this was all some kind of elaborate scheme concocted by Bennie to get his sister’s money under the guise of a ransom. That part of the twisted plan actually made sense, but not much else did.
Like why had April been murdered?
And why had the kidnappers demanded a photo of Sawyer holding a stranger’s baby? A baby who may or may not belong to April.
One thing was certain—the little girl wasn’t Laurie’s and his. Sawyer wanted to be relieved about that, but there was a flip side to this coin. At least if he was her father, he could have decided her fate. He could have made sure she was in a good place where she’d be safe—with him. As it was now, the baby would become a ward of the state, and that was, sadly, a best-case scenario.
There was a birth father out there. And judging from April’s rap sheet, that father might be scum.
Either her ex-boyfriend Willy Malloy.
Or Bennie.
Sawyer didn’t want either man to have a claim on the newborn and didn’t want the baby to be placed in their care. Of course, he might not have to worry about that if it turned out that April wasn’t the baby’s mother. And if she wasn’t, he really needed to remember the name of the woman he’d met at the bar.
Because if that woman was the mother, then it meant the baby could possibly be his after all since they’d had a one-night stand.
Yeah, this was a tangled mess, all right.
Cassidy paced by the office door again, and Sawyer saw her check the clock on the wall next to the sheriff’s desk. It was going on 6:00 p.m.
“The kidnappers should have called by now,” she grumbled. “Maybe I should check and make sure the calls to my house are routed here.”
“If a call comes in there, you’ll get it here,” he assured her.
He’d made the arrangements for that himself. Ditto for getting her a replacement cell phone with the same number, and he’d had it delivered to the office so the kidnappers could contact her. She had a death grip on the phone now, and other than some emails having to do with her family business, there had been no communication from anyone.
Especially not from Bennie.
She huffed, pushed her hair from her face. “Maybe I should just go home and wait for the call.”
He gave her a flat look to let her know that wasn’t going to happen. Not without him anyway. “Should I remind you one more time that you were kidnapped, too? Those thugs might try to take you again, and the safest place you can be is here with me.”
Sawyer hoped that was true anyway.
He didn’t have time to add to his argument because his phone rang, and he saw Mason’s name on the screen.
“There’s been a snafu with Social Services,” Mason said, “and they want to know if we can keep the baby overnight. It’s either that, or she can be admitted to the hospital.”
Even though Cassidy probably couldn’t have heard what he said, she was studying Sawyer’s face and obviously saw the concern in his expression.
“No hospital,” Sawyer insisted. “Go ahead and take the baby to the ranch. Cassidy and I will be there soon to pick her up and take her to my place.”
He ended the call, knowing that she’d want an explanation about several things. “It’s either the hospital or my house for the baby,” he said. “I figured she’s already been through enough. And besides, there are plenty of us at the ranch to help take care of her.”
“Including me?” Cassidy asked with a boatload of skepticism.
And here was the part she was not going to like. Heck, Sawyer didn’t like it much, either. “You need to be in protective custody. So does the baby. Because the kidnappers could come after either of you again.”
Cassidy’s mouth trembled a little. Not enough to stop her from arguing though. “But your family’s ranch? I won’t be welcome there.”
“You won’t be turned away. Besides, there’s a lot of baby stuff already out there.”
In addition, there were plenty of ranch hands who could provide extra security. To get that kind of security at the hospital, he’d have to tie up several of Grayson’s deputies. They were already busy enough with a murder investigation, the kidnappings and the search for Bennie.
“We’d be in the same house with all your cousins?” Cassidy asked, nibbling on her lip.
“No. There are a lot of houses on the grounds. Including mine. It’s on the back part of the property. It used to be my parents’ house before their divorce.”
Definitely a no-frills kind of place, but it suited Sawyer, and it would have to suit Cassidy, too, since he wasn’t giving her another option.
She still didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t have time to continue the argument. The bell on the front door jangled, and Sawyer pulled Cassidy into the office just in case there was a problem.
And there might be.
The man who stepped into the sheriff’s office had trouble written all over him. From his greasy black hair, prison tattoos on his neck and dingy gray muscle shirt.
“I’m Willy Malloy,” he told the woman at the reception desk, who was Deputy Bree Ryland—his cousin’s wife. And as she stood, she slid her hand over the butt of her gun.
If Willy was intimidated by that, he didn’t show it. The man’s gaze landed on Sawyer. “Are you Agent Ryland?”
Sawyer nodded and gave him back the badass stare that the man was giving him. “Wait here,” he told Cassidy, and Sawyer walked a few steps closer to the man.
“You gonna pay me back for gas?” Willy asked, propping his hands on his bony hips. “Because it was a long drive all the way out here, and I’m not made of money.”
“Didn’t figure you’d mind the drive since this visit is about April, your ex.”
Judging from the surprised look in his eyes, that got Willy’s attention. “She’s not my ex. She’s still my girlfriend, and I’ve been looking for her for months now. You know where she is?”
Oh, man.
Willy hadn’t heard about the murder, or else he was pretending not to have heard. In case it wasn’t an act, Sawyer decided to do this fast and hard.
“April’s dead. Did you kill her?” Sawyer asked, and he studied Willy’s body language and expression.
Sawyer expected the man to curse or howl his innocence, but he just stood there, his mouth open, staring at Sawyer. “Is this some kind of bad joke?”
“No. Someone murdered her earlier today. Was it you?”
Willy put his hands on each side of his head, and blowing out some loud breaths, he practically fell back against the wall. “Murdered,” he repeated. “Who the hell did that to her?”
“I asked you first,” Sawyer fired back.
“Well, it sure as heck wasn’t me. I love her. I wouldn’t have killed her.”
Sawyer looked down at the notes he’d been reading. “According to your rap sheet, you were arrested for assaulting her not once but twice. Doesn’t sound like love to me.”
“I slapped her around, yeah. And she deserved it. That woman’s got a smart mouth on her.” Willy stopped, shook his head. “Had a smart mouth,” he corrected, groaning. “She sure as heck didn’t deserve to die. How’d it happen? How was she killed?”
“We’re still trying to determine that.” It was a lie. She’d been shot point-blank in the head, but Sawyer kept that detail to himself. Best not to give a suspect too much information because Willy could use it to concoct an alibi.
Despite his warning, Cassidy stepped into the hall. “My brother’s Bennie O’Neal. Do you have any idea where he is?”
Willy’s eyes instantly narrowed. “Bennie O’Neal,” he repeated like profanity. “He’s the no-good louse that April was cheating on me with. I warned both of them that it wouldn’t be a pretty sight if they kept it up.”
“So you threatened them,” Sawyer concluded. He was detecting a pattern here, and he got in front of Cassidy to stop her from moving closer to the man.
No more narrowed eyes. Willy no doubt realized that wasn’t the right thing to say to a lawman, especially since he was now a murder suspect. “I got a right to protect what’s mine, and April was mine.”
Sawyer doubted that, and he asked a necessary question he didn’t really want to ask this thug. “What about the baby?”
Willy’s mouth tightened. “What about it?”
“You did know that April was pregnant?” Sawyer prompted when Willy didn’t add more.
“I knew.” And that’s all he said for several moments. “April said the kid was mine. Wouldn’t believe her without one of those paternity tests. April’s not real good on telling the truth. So, she said she’d do the test they do on unborn babies. But if she had it done, she never showed me the results. Probably because the kid wasn’t mine.”
Or maybe because April hadn’t wanted Willy in her and the baby’s life.
Sawyer tipped his head to Bree and then the supply cabinet. “We’ll need to verify what April didn’t tell him.” And he didn’t especially want to leave Cassidy alone with this piece of work while that happened.
“I’ll get a DNA swab kit,” Bree volunteered, moving out of the reception area and down the hall.
“Now, wait a minute,” Willy challenged. Bree didn’t stop. She continued toward the supply cabinet. “If April’s dead, so is the kid, right?”
“No.” Except Sawyer didn’t know if that was true or not. He was assuming the baby that the kidnappers gave Cassidy was April’s child. But maybe she wasn’t.
“Are you saying she had the kid already?” Willy pressed.
Sawyer settled for a nod.
Willy cursed and his hands went back on his hips. “Then, the kid’s not mine. Can’t be. April and me have what you call an on-again, off-again kind of relationship. Nine months ago, we were definitely off.”
“Then, how the devil do you still consider her your girlfriend?”
“Easy. We got back together about six months ago. Things stayed hot and heavy for about a month, and then she lit out again after telling me she was pregnant.”
Willy’s gaze shot to Cassidy. “And I figured that’s when she went to your slimeball brother.” More cursing. “If that was his kid, if April got knocked up by another man, then she deserved to die.”
And that just spelled out Willy’s motive for murder.
“You killed her,” Cassidy concluded. “Did you do something to my brother, too?” That time, Sawyer wasn’t able to hold her back, so he followed her to the front of the building.
“I didn’t kill nobody,” Willy snapped. “But if I was planning to do something stupid like that, your brother would have been on my list.”
Willy just kept digging that hole deeper and deeper.
Sawyer and Bree exchanged a glance as she walked past him with the DNA kit. “Want me to move him to an interview room and take his statement?” Bree asked, and Sawyer nodded.
“Statement?” Willy howled. “I don’t have time for that kind of nonsense.”
“You’ll make time. If not, I’ll just arrest you now and charge you with murder,” Sawyer warned him.
That obviously didn’t please Willy. It didn’t please Sawyer, either. Even though he wanted this idiot off the street, it wasn’t a good time to make an arrest.
Not with so many details to work out.
Heck, Willy might even have an airtight alibi. A real honest-to-goodness one. But if Willy was the kidnapper and had helped orchestrate all of this, then maybe he was stupid enough to have left evidence behind.
Bree handed Willy the swab from the kit. “You can do it yourself, or Agent Ryland here and I can do it for you.”
Willy shot all three of them glares, but he rubbed the swab on the inside of his mouth past his chipped, yellow teeth, and he dropped it back into the plastic bag.
“Let’s go to an interview room,” Bree insisted, sealing the bag and motioning for Willy to follow her. He did, after mumbling more profanity, but then he stopped when the woman approaching the door caught everyone’s attention.
The tall, thin brunette stepped into the sheriff’s office. She closed her umbrella, set it by the door and looked around at all of them. She was dressed to the nines, all right. A pale gray suit and mile-high heels. Expensive, no doubt. Ditto for the chunky diamond wedding ring.
Her expression was pleasant enough until it landed on Willy. “I see you’ve already brought him in,” she said. “I’m Dr. Diane Blackwell. I was April’s therapist. I understand you’d like to talk to me?”
“I would,” Sawyer confirmed. He studied her a moment. “You look pretty young for a shrink.” He doubted she was even thirty yet.
The corner of her mouth lifted a fraction. “Thank you, I think. I’ll accept that as a compliment and not a concern that I might be too young to be an effective therapist. Trust me, I’m very good at my job.”
Sawyer considered that for a moment and decided to do a background check on her just to see how good she was. “I’m Agent Sawyer Ryland,” he said, making the introductions. “And this is Deputy Bree Ryland and Cassidy O’Neal.”
The doctor’s gaze lingered a moment on Cassidy, maybe wondering what she had to do with all of this, but she didn’t ask any questions.
“The doc’s nothing more than a quack shrink,” Willy snarled. “The judge made April see her once a week, and April was scared to death of her.”
Until Willy had added that last part, Sawyer had been ready to stop this little confrontation, but maybe he could learn something that would help the investigation.
Especially since Diane didn’t jump to argue with Willy.
“Last time April and me talked,” Willy went on, “she said she thought this quack was messing with her mind.”
Diane dismissed that with a cool glance at Willy. “April was a troubled woman, and she was terrified of you.”
“So says you, and now that April’s dead, I got no way of proving different.”
“That’s right.” Diane spared him another frosty glance with her cool green eyes before fastening her attention on Sawyer. “I’ll try to answer any questions you have. I want to help you catch April’s killer.” And judging from the quick glare she gave Willy, she thought he was that killer.
“Come on,” Bree instructed Willy, and she led him to the first interview room.
“Don’t believe a word that quack says,” Willy warned them. “And if she tries to pin this murder on me, she’ll be sorry.”
Other than a single soft sigh, Diane had no reaction to Willy’s threat. Bree, however, did. She put her hand on Willy’s shoulder and practically shoved him into the interview room. Sawyer waited a moment to see if Bree needed some help, but obviously she didn’t. Bree might be on the petite side, but she had a tough lawman’s attitude and a whole lot of Ryland muscle to back her up if the attitude didn’t work.
“Tell me where you were this morning,” Bree ordered Willy.
While the doctor made her way toward them, Sawyer listened in on Willy’s answer.
“At home sleeping in. And before you ask, no one can verify that ʼcause I live all by my lonesome. That still don’t make me a killer.”
No, but it made him a violent man with no alibi and a strong motive for murdering April.
Sawyer stepped into Grayson’s office with Cassidy, and Diane followed him.
“We’ve met,” Diane said to Cassidy and extended her hand for Cassidy to shake. “At a fund-raiser last year in San Antonio. I don’t expect you to remember, but someone introduced me to you and your brother.”
Judging from Cassidy’s reaction, that wasn’t much of a surprise. Probably because she attended a lot of functions like that.
“Now, back to April,” Diane went on. “Like I said earlier, she was a troubled woman. I’d be happy to help you in any way that I can.”
So, her offer of help was one possible roadblock removed, and Sawyer didn’t waste any time. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
“Two weeks ago for our regular counseling session. When she didn’t show for her appointment yesterday, I had to report it to the judge. It’s part of her parole agreement.” She opened her mouth, no doubt to ask some questions of her own, but Sawyer went first.
“April was still pregnant two weeks ago?”

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