Six-Gun Showdown

That was the wrong thing to say. A new wave of anger came. “You’re sure you didn’t die because you didn’t want to face the divorce?” Or maybe because she hadn’t wanted to face him?

Her eyes narrowed when their gazes connected again. “No. It was to save Matthew and you.”

Jax didn’t have time to figure out if he believed that or not. Because he heard something he didn’t want to hear.

Belinda’s voice.

“Jax, are you all right?” the nanny called out.

Belinda was on the back porch, peering into the garage. She could almost certainly see him, but probably not Paige. Paige kept it that way by stepping into the shadows.

“Tell her to go back inside,” Paige insisted.

Jax opened his mouth to ask why, but because he was watching Paige so closely, he saw the urgency slide across her face.

And the fear.

“I’m fine,” he told Belinda. “Just checking a few things before I head to the office.”

He waited to see if that’d be enough or if he truly would have to tell her to go inside. But thankfully, it worked. Belinda went back in and closed the door.

“What happened?” Jax asked Paige. And he didn’t need his lawman’s instincts to tell him that not only had something happened...

Something had gone wrong.

“What made you come back now?” he pressed.

The fear in her face went up a significant notch. “I think the Moonlight Strangler is on his way here to draw me out.”

All right. That upped his concern, too. A lot. “And how exactly would he do that?”

Paige’s mouth trembled. “The Moonlight Strangler is coming after Matthew and you...tonight.”

Chapter Two (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)

Paige stood there and waited for Jax to react to the news she’d just delivered.

And he reacted all right.

He turned, ready to bolt inside the house. To protect Matthew, no doubt. But Paige took hold of his arm to stop him.

“Just listen to what I have to say,” she insisted. “I don’t want to give the Moonlight Strangler a reason to fire shots into the house.”

He slung off her grip. “Neither do I, but I’m not going to stand here while he goes after my son.”

Our son, she nearly corrected, but Paige figured that was a different battle for a different time. They had to survive this one first.

“The killer likely knows I’m here,” she explained, hoping it would get Jax to stay put. “I figure he’s watching me. Somehow. Maybe with cameras. Maybe he’s out there somewhere in the woods with infrared equipment. He’s been watching me for the past three days, though I haven’t spotted him yet.”

Jax’s eyes narrowed. “And even though you knew he was watching, you brought him here, to my doorstep?”

She had no trouble hearing the anger in his voice. Or seeing it on his face. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” he snapped.

They weren’t just talking about her being here now, but all the other things that’d happened between them. Again, another battle, another time.

Paige stopped him again when he tried to bolt. “The killer would have come here no matter what I did because he knew he’d be able to use Matthew and you to get to me.”

He went still. Not in a good way. But in that calm, almost lethal way of a lawman who’d just heard something he didn’t want to hear. “And how the heck do you know that?”

“Because he’s sent me several texts. And, yes, I’m certain they’re from the Moonlight Strangler because he knew details about my attack that hadn’t been released to the press. In the last one he sent, he said if I didn’t meet him tonight at 9:00 p.m., then he’d go after Matthew and you.”

That was still nearly two hours away.

Not much time to pull off a miracle. But it might be enough time to bring all of this to an end. An end that would keep Matthew and Jax out of danger.

Jax stood there, obviously processing that, and cursed again. Glared at her, too.

She deserved the profanity and the glare. Deserved every drop of rage that he wanted to sling at her. Because he was right. She had turned his life upside down. Her precious little boy’s, too.

“If you knew the killer was watching you, following you, then why hide here?” Jax asked.

She’d known that question was coming. Others would, too. “Because I didn’t want to pull Belinda or your ranch hands into this. I’m not hiding from the killer. I’m hiding from them. That’s why I parked by the creek and walked here.”

Paige was thankful no one on the ranch had spotted her. Even though she’d altered her appearance, someone could have recognized her. Especially Belinda. They’d known each other since childhood, and a change of hairstyle wasn’t going to fool anyone for long.

“At the time I faked my death,” she continued, “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was trusting the right people.”

“You mean Cord,” he snarled.

Paige hated that Jax was aiming his venom at Cord. Because Cord was the one person she was certain had kept his promise to make sure Jax and Matthew stayed out of harm’s way.

But someone else had betrayed her.

Paige hoped she got a chance to discover who’d done that and deliver some payback. First, though, she had to protect Matthew—and Jax if he’d let her.

“After the attack, I went to a safe house in the Panhandle,” she said. “Not an official safe house,” Paige corrected, “but it was a place for me to recover and get back on my feet. Then, I moved to an apartment in Houston. That’s where I’ve been, where I probably would have stayed, if I hadn’t started getting those texts from the Moonlight Strangler three days ago.”

“And those texts just appeared without any kind of warning or sign that the killer knew you were alive?” His voice stayed a snarl.

“Yes. I’m still trying to figure out how he learned that.” She gave a heavy sigh. “Look, I know you have a lot of questions, but they have to wait. We have to put Matthew’s safety first.”

He couldn’t argue with that, but mercy, she was dreading those questions. Dreading even more that she didn’t have the answers that Jax wanted to hear.

Jax cursed again before he glanced around the garage, the yard and the back of the house. “I don’t want you inside. I don’t want Matthew seeing you yet.”

“Agreed.” Though it broke her heart to say that.