Snowbound with the Bodyguard & The Cowboy's Secret Twins: Snowbound with the Bodyguard / The Cowboy's Secret Twins

He’d known he’d find Janette, and he had. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the windows. Even though Dalton West had told him he’d never heard of Janette Black, that there was no woman with a baby inside his place, Brandon knew he’d lied.

The sheriff had done his homework. He knew Dalton West was a bachelor who lived alone. But he’d watched the silhouettes move back and forth in front of those windows and knew the professional bodyguard wasn’t alone. And if that wasn’t enough, when Dalton had opened the door and Brandon had gotten a glimpse inside, he’d seen a diaper bag on the living-room floor, a diaper bag with the same blue teddy bear print that had decorated one area of one of the small bedrooms in the trailer.

She was in there, and there was no way she was going to escape him. One Oklahoma bodyguard wasn’t going to stand in the way of Brandon Sinclair getting exactly what he wanted.

Chapter 6

The cough woke Dalton. An irritating cough that pulled him groggily from his sleep. His eyes burned as he sat up on the sofa and realized the air was filled with the acrid scent of smoke.

Fear shoved aside the last of his sleepiness as he grabbed his gun off the coffee table where he’d placed it before going to sleep the night before.

He turned on the lamp next to the sofa and gasped as he saw the dark smoke that swirled in the room. Fire! They had to get out.

Maybe George had forgotten to turn off a stove burner and something had caught flame. Dalton didn’t give much thought to what caused the smoke, he just knew he needed to get Janette and Sammy out, for the smoke appeared to be thickening by the second. Fire could be dangerous, but smoke was just as deadly.

He pulled on his boots, then grabbed a coat, his cell phone and car keys and hurried into the bedroom where Sammy and Janette were asleep. He turned on the overhead light and Janette stirred, but didn’t awaken.

“Janette.” He walked over to the bed and shook her shoulder with a sense of urgency. A spasm of coughing overtook him as she opened her eyes. “We need to get out of here,” he finally managed to gasp.

She didn’t ask questions, obviously aware of the imminent danger that whirled and darkened the room despite the overhead light. “I’ll get your coat,” he said. “Just grab what you need.”

As Dalton raced back through the kitchen into the small utility room where he’d hung her coat the night she’d arrived, he felt no heat beneath his feet, heard no ominous crackle of flames. But that didn’t mean they weren’t in danger.

She met him at the bedroom door, pulling her suitcase behind her and Sammy in her arms with a blanket over his head. He thought about telling her to forget the suitcase, but realized the case contained all the possessions she and Sammy had left in the world.

He grabbed the suitcase from her and motioned her toward the door that led to the interior staircase. He needed to make sure George got out as well.

Before he opened the stairwell door he felt the wood, wanting to make sure it wasn’t hot, that deadly flames weren’t already attempting to burn through. The door radiated no heat so he opened it and motioned for her to precede him down the stairs.

The smoke wasn’t as intense in the staircase, and still he could feel no heat radiating from any of the walls. But where there was smoke, there had to be a fire.

They hit the landing to the first floor and Dalton entered George’s area of the house. “Wait here,” he said to Janette as he raced through George’s living room and down the hallway to the bedroom where the old man slept.

It took him only minutes to rouse George from sleep and get his coat and shoes on him, then together they all made their way to the front door.

It wasn’t until they opened the front door to get out that Dalton’s brain fully kicked into high gear. “Wait,” he said urgently before Janette ran outside.

His mind whirled with suppositions. Brandon Sinclair had burned down Janette’s grandmother’s place. This evening he’d come to ask if Janette was here. Was it possible Sinclair hadn’t believed Dalton when he’d said he didn’t know Janette? Was it out of the question that he’d set a fire to try to smoke her out?

“Janette, my truck is in the driveway. I’m going out first and when I get outside you run for the truck. George, you come out after Janette.” He released the lock on his gun, knowing he might have to provide cover for her if Sinclair was outside.

He knew by the look in Janette’s eyes that she perceived his thoughts, realized the potential for danger. She gripped Sammy more tightly against her as George took the suitcase from her hand.

“Problems?” George asked.

“Possibly,” Dalton replied. George nodded and straightened his thin, sloped shoulders.

Dalton went out the door, gun drawn, and with every sense he possessed on high alert. The night held the eerie silence that snow-cover produced, a preternatural calm that could be deceptive.

Snow crunched beneath his boots as he stepped onto the front porch. The cold air stabbed his lungs as he drew deep, even breaths. He looked both directions, seeing nothing amiss but unwilling to trust that the night shadows held nothing dangerous.

He took several more steps, then turned back to the house, noting dark smoke rolling out of a partially opened basement window. Had George left it open? The old man had a workshop downstairs where he did some woodworking. Had he left his wood-burning tool on, and somehow it had caught fire?

His heart pounded as adrenaline continued to pump through him. He had no idea how big a fire might be burning there, but it was apparent he needed to get the others out of the house as soon as possible.

Looking around once again he saw nothing that indicated any danger. He walked back up to the door and motioned for Janette to follow him as he tried to watch every direction around them.

The gunshot came from the left, the bullet whizzing by Janette’s head as she screamed in terror. Dalton’s body slammed her to the ground, and he hoped that in the process Sammy wasn’t hurt.

“Get down, George,” he yelled at the old man, who had just stepped off the porch. George dove into a snow-bank with the agility of a man one-fourth his age.

Another gunshot exploded in the quiet of the night and the snow next to where Dalton and Janette lay kicked up. The shots had come from the direction of a large oak tree in the distance. Janette screamed again and Sammy’s cries added to the melee.

Dalton’s heart crashed against his ribs and he thought he could feel Janette’s heartbeat through their coats. “I’m going to roll off you and start firing. When I do, run like hell to the truck and get inside. Stay down.” He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and gave them to her. “And if anything happens to me, drive away and don’t look back.”

He didn’t give her time to protest or accept, he rolled off her and began firing at the tree. At the same time he heard the sound of a siren in the distance and knew that somebody had heard the shots and called for help.

When he saw that Janette was safely in the truck, he stopped firing and waited to see if there would be an answering volley.

Nothing.

For a long moment he remained where he was, not moving, but listening…waiting…wondering if the threat still existed or not.

He got up into a crouch as the siren grew louder. Still no answering shots. He had a feeling the shooter had run at the first sound of the siren. He hurried to the driver’s side of the truck and was surprised to see George come burrowing up from the snowdrift and running to throw the suitcase in the back of the truck bed.

Dalton had just backed out of the driveway when Zack’s patrol car came screaming to a halt. “Get down,” he ordered Janette. She bent so she wasn’t visible and Dalton was grateful that at the moment Sammy wasn’t wailing. He rolled down his window as Zack rolled down his.

“Call the fire department, and see to George,” Dalton said. “I’ll be in touch.” As Zack yelled a protest, Dalton pulled out onto the street and sped away from his brother, the house and the quiet, solitary life he’d led.

Thankfully, Janette remained silent as he headed out of town and kept a watchful eye on the street behind him for anyone that might be following.

He needed to think.

Zack was a newly elected sheriff and aware of everyone’s eyes on him. After the disgrace of Jim Ramsey, the last sheriff of Cotter Creek, Zack was proving himself to be a strictly by-the-book kind of lawman.

Dalton believed in rules, but sometimes rules had to be bent, even broken, and he wasn’t convinced that Zack would see things his way.

If Brandon Sinclair had an arrest warrant for Janette, then Dalton feared his brother would feel it necessary to turn her over to him. He wouldn’t want to put himself in the middle of a problem that wasn’t his, especially in bucking the authority of a fellow sheriff.

“Where are we going?” Janette asked, finally breaking the tense silence in the truck as they left the town of Cotter Creek behind.

“A place where you’ll be safe until we can figure things out,” he replied.

Besides, if he did decide to confide in Zack, what could he tell him? That a strange woman had shown up on his doorstep and had initially lied about everything, but finally had told him a story that he believed?

Zack would ask for cold hard facts and Dalton had none. He couldn’t prove that Brandon Sinclair had set the fire tonight or fired the shots. No doubt Sinclair hadn’t used his service weapon; ballistics would probably lead to a dead end. He couldn’t prove that Janette hadn’t stolen money from her employer, although he could attest to the fact that she hadn’t been anywhere near that trailer when it had gone up in flames. Unless Sinclair screwed around with the reported date of the fire.

He didn’t want to put his brother in the untenable position of having to choose between doing his job or supporting Dalton’s decision to break the law by hiding Janette.