Kidnapping in Kendall County

She didn’t care about that. Didn’t care about anything right now but her daughter. That included choking back her hatred for this man and making this work for Sadie and the other babies who were being held inside so they could be sold like cattle.

“You owe me,” she insisted. “For Eli’s death. And you’re going to help me find his missing baby.”

Austin didn’t jump to do just that. He lay there, silent as death, and Rosalie was about to repeat her demand when she heard the sound.

Something she definitely didn’t want to hear.

Footsteps.

Those steps were the only warning they got before there was another sound. The door flew open, and Austin scrambled in front of her.

But it was too late.

Two armed guards hurried into the cottage, and both pointed assault rifles at them.

Chapter Two (#ulink_4cc9f4ca-1c2a-5a08-bac7-07df6eeef5bf)

Austin had already spent the past twenty minutes or so cursing fate. And cursing Rosalie’s untimely arrival in the cottage. It wouldn’t do any good, but now he cursed the guards and those rifles trained on him.

“What the hell do you two want?” Austin growled, and he made a show of zipping up his jeans.

Austin didn’t know the guys’ names. Over the past week since he’d been undercover at the ranch, the flow of guards had stayed steady, none of them remaining in place for more than forty-eight hours. But it didn’t matter what they called themselves. Austin just needed to get them out of there.

“Well?” Austin added in his worst snarl. He made sure he sounded like the person in charge.

He wasn’t.

Heck, he didn’t even know who had that particular title of being in charge or who exactly was watching him on the camera. However, it was pretty clear that someone had gotten suspicious of Rosalie’s visit. The mock sex hadn’t fooled them, and if Austin didn’t do something fast to diffuse the situation, it could go from bad to worse.

The pair of guards exchanged glances as if trying to figure out what to do, but the guy on the right had a communicator in his ear, so he was no doubt receiving instructions.

“Why is she here?” The goon on the right tipped his head to Rosalie.

Austin gave him as cocky and flat of a look as he could manage. “Why do you think?”

“She’s supposed to be inside,” he snapped.

“The babies are asleep,” Rosalie volunteered as if that explained everything.

It didn’t, of course.

There were two newborns inside, along with a nanny and the guard. Since Rosalie had no doubt been hired as a nurse, she should have been inside and nowhere near Austin’s quarters.

“I’ll be going,” Rosalie mumbled. She fished around on the floor for her scrub pants and pulled them on. She also pushed her long blond hair from her face.

Austin noticed that both her voice and hands were shaking, but hopefully the guards would think that was a reaction from being caught in the act of a lover’s tryst. And nothing else.

Soon, if they got out of this, he’d need to convince Rosalie to leave so he could get on with his investigation.

This was a bad place for her to be.

She started for the door, but the men blocked her path. And they didn’t lower those rifles. “You two know each other?” one of them asked.

“We do now.” Austin shot her a sly smile. “But I’m ready for her to leave. Gotta get some sleep.”

And he waited.

The guards still didn’t move, though he could hear some chatter on the one guard’s earpiece. Austin wished he could snap his fingers and make the real boss appear so they could settle this man-to-man, but so far he didn’t have even a description of the person responsible for so much pain.

“Walk her back to the house,” one of the guards finally said to Austin. “Make sure she stays put.”

Austin tried not to look or sound too relieved, but he was. Rosalie and he had just dodged a bullet or two.

For now, anyway.

The real boss obviously didn’t trust him, or the goons wouldn’t have been sent in to see what was going on. Maybe that meant Rosalie and he would be placed under a more careful watch. However, she wouldn’t be reined in like that.

Nope.

There’d be no deterring Rosalie from looking for her stolen baby. Austin knew how she felt, but he also knew that her persistence would get her killed the hard way. He couldn’t let that happen.

She was right about one thing. He did owe her.

But that was a debt he could never repay.

Still, maybe he could do something to bring his late partner’s baby back to her mother’s arms.

The guards stepped back. Finally. And as soon as they were out of the doorway, Austin grabbed his shoulder holster and coat from the peg near the door. He still had his backup weapon in the holster in the back waistband of his jeans, but if this little walk to the house went wrong, he wanted all the firepower he could get.

“Come on,” Austin told Rosalie and got her moving.

He picked up her Beretta, as well. Or rather, the guard’s Beretta. Austin wasn’t sure he wanted to know how Rosalie had gotten it from the man.

She glanced back at the guards, who were now making their way to the barn. Not an ordinary one, either. It had become a modified command post and living quarters to house the guards and all sorts of people who’d been coming and going. Austin had sneaked some photos and jotted down license plate numbers, but he was a long way from piecing this together.

“Why didn’t my brother know the FBI had undercover agents working the black market adoptions here?” Rosalie whispered.

“Because the FBI doesn’t know I’m here.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she looked ready to accuse him of something, but she must have remembered that she’d sneaked in here, too. Of course, he had the training to carry out undercover work.

Rosalie didn’t.

But she obviously had some kind of contacts to get her in this place. Austin sure had. Well, one contact, anyway. A former FBI agent who’d helped him create the bogus background and references so Austin would look “legit” to someone running a criminal operation. It had worked, and he’d been hired as head of security at this particular site.

Austin purposely kept their steps slow to give them time to talk, and he looped his arm around her waist so they’d look like the lovers they were pretending to be.

“Who hired you for this job?” he asked.