Cowboy Behind the Badge

He nearly reminded her again that he’d merely asked that she be reassigned because of their old baggage. His supervisor had agreed with him. End of story.

Except it obviously wasn’t.

“What’d you do?” Tucker asked, once he got his teeth unclenched.

“The case was important to me,” she said, her chin coming up in a defiant pose. Just as quickly, it came down, and she dodged his gaze. “I didn’t want to just drop it because you and I couldn’t get along. I wanted to help find those women and babies.”

Yeah, so had he.

By all accounts, there were dozens of missing women and babies lost in the maze of a massive black-market baby ring. Not just illegal adoptions, but illegal surrogacies, as well. Even pregnant women who were kidnapped until their babies were born, at which point the new mothers were murdered.

Cooper had helped to uncover and shut down a baby farm. That was a start. But there was evidence of many other farms.

And just as many cold-blooded killers operating them.

“Please tell me you didn’t do anything dangerous or stupid,” Tucker said.

Laine sure didn’t jump to tell him that she hadn’t. Which meant she had.

Tucker groaned. “What’d you do?” he repeated.

“I used some of the criminal informant contacts from the investigation to try to find another baby farm.” She paused, her gaze coming back to his. “And I found one.”

“Where?” But unfortunately Tucker had to wave off her answer when he heard a soft whistle.

It was Colt.

And the whistle was a signal they’d used since they were kids playing cops and robbers. It was just to let Tucker know he was approaching so he wouldn’t mistake him for a bad guy. Or in this case, shoot him.

Tucker glanced back and spotted Colt making his way across the road. His brother wasn’t headed inside the house with them, but rather toward Rayanne and the prisoners.

“What’s wrong?” Laine asked, and despite having both arms filled with babies, she hurried to the door beside Tucker and looked out. The medics were lifting the wounded prisoner into the ambulance.

“Rayanne, can you ride in the ambulance and keep an eye on this guy?” Tucker asked. “Colt and I will get someone else there shortly, but first I need to settle some things with Laine.”

“Laine?” she repeated in an unfriendly tone. “As in Laine Braddock?”

Tucker nodded, knowing the confirmation wasn’t going to help the venom in Rayanne’s eyes. Unlike Rayanne, he didn’t care much about their mother’s upcoming trial, but he didn’t want his dad and brothers dragged into it. The Braddocks, especially Laine’s mother, had threatened to do just that. She’d tossed around plenty of accusations about obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence.

All unfounded and untrue.

So basically Tucker was caught in the middle. Not a comfortable place to be, especially with Laine right by his side and an estranged sister snarling at both of them.

“You mean you called me out here to save her sorry butt?” Rayanne spat out.

“Not just her,” Tucker explained. “She had two newborns with her. Even you wouldn’t refuse to help little babies.”

Despite the rain and storm winds lashing at her, Rayanne stood there, glaring at him. Glaring at Laine, too, since she was now peering over Tucker’s shoulder.

“Let me guess,” Rayanne snapped, shifting her glare back to Tucker. “They’re your kids?”

Now it was time for Tucker to give her an eye roll. “I’m not exactly the daddy type, now, am I? No, these are babies that Laine rescued.”

He hoped.

If he was to believe anything their attacker said, then it was a strong possibility that Laine hadn’t told him the truth about the babies. Or about anything else.

Still grumbling something under her breath, Rayanne followed the medics into the ambulance.

“Thank you for helping,” Laine called out to her. Not a good thing to say. Anything at this point would have been unwise, especially anything coming from Laine, because it earned her another nasty glare from Rayanne.

“I’ll call for more backup,” Colt said, getting the second man into his cruiser. “I’m guessing Laine and the babies need a doctor, too?”

“Yeah.” At least for a checkup. “I’ll drive them to the hospital.”

“But what about the missing gunman?” Laine asked the moment Tucker shut the door. “He could follow us into town and attack us again.”

“He could, but it’s my guess he’s in regroup mode. And that means you need to tell me everything you did to cause these goons to come after you. Start with that criminal informant who helped you find the baby farm.”

Tucker motioned for her to start talking while he went to the doors and locked them. He didn’t intend to be in the house for long, but he also wanted to take a few precautions in case he was wrong about his regroup theory.

Laine didn’t jump to answer, something that put a knot the size of Texas in his gut. Tucker motioned for her to get on with it.

“The criminal informant was Gerry Farrow, and he took me to the baby farm,” Laine finally said. “He made me wear a blindfold so I couldn’t see where we were going, and he drove around for a long time. In circles, I’m sure, so I wouldn’t be able to find the place later.”

His groan didn’t help hush the babies any. “And you thought it was a good idea for a civilian to go walking into something like that with a person you didn’t even know if you could trust?”

She glanced away again. “I wanted to find those pregnant captives and save them. I didn’t want their babies sold like cattle. And I thought I had a better chance of getting in there than the cops, Rangers or FBI.” Laine paused. “I saw two women, including the one who was killed in the parking lot.”

Oh, man. “Funny you didn’t mention that connection right off the bat. You’ve told the FBI all of this?”

“I told them about the baby farm, but by the time we were able to work out where it was, it was too late. When they got there, the guards and the pregnant women were all gone.”

No surprise there. “You were lucky those guards didn’t kill you at the farm.”

She made a soft sound of agreement. “I pretended to be a potential buyer for one of the babies.”

“And they believed you?” Tucker asked, not bothering to hold back on the skeptical tone in his voice. He motioned for her to follow him to the bedroom so he could do something about their wet clothes.

Laine nodded. Then she lifted her shoulder. “They didn’t try to kill me, anyway. They made some calls, did a quick background check and learned that I had indeed been trying to adopt.”

Tucker hadn’t thought there could be any more surprises today, but he’d been wrong. “You did a fake adoption request for the sake of the investigation?”

“No,” she snapped. That put some fire in her ice-blue eyes, but it quickly cooled down. “I can’t have children, so I’ve been trying to adopt for months now.”

In a town the size of Sweetwater Springs, it was hard to keep secrets, but Laine had obviously managed to keep that one.

And it caused him to curse again.