Cowboy Behind the Badge

The different sexes could mean they weren’t twins after all, though they looked alike and appeared to be the same age. But what if the dead woman had rescued her own child and then someone else’s? It could mean there was another woman being held captive.

Or another woman who was already dead.

That sickened Laine even more.

“If my friend doesn’t call back in the next few minutes, we’ll need to get someone else out here to take them,” Tucker explained. “I mean, we don’t even have any way to feed them. My nephew’s two, and he doesn’t drink from a bottle. I doubt we’d even have anything like that around the ranch.”

Laine couldn’t dispute what he was saying. Nor could she push aside the feeling that these babies felt like her responsibility now.

Tucker mumbled something she didn’t catch and went to the kitchen window to look out again. When the baby kept squirming and started to fuss, Laine eased him into her arms.

She had little experience holding a baby, and even though she’d run through the pasture with them, the babies had been wrapped in that bulky blanket. With nothing but the gown and his diaper between them, the baby felt as fragile as paper-thin crystal.

Tucker glanced at her and frowned. “You know what you’re doing?”

“No.” But the baby did seem to settle down when she rocked him, so Laine kept doing it. “I’m sorry for bringing them to your doorstep, but I drove out of town as fast as I could and didn’t know where else to go.”

She glanced around the kitchen. “We used to play here when we were kids.”

“Yeah. It was my grandfather’s house.”

The explanation was clipped, as if it were the last thing he wanted to discuss with her. Maybe because they’d done more than just play in this house. They’d shared a childhood kiss there. She had been ten. Tucker, eleven. Twenty-three years ago.

Just days before her father’s murder.

After that, there’d been no kissing.

No more playing together. No more friendship.

Even though she’d just been a kid, it hadn’t taken long before Laine had realized what gossip everyone was spreading—that Tucker’s mother, Jewell, and her father, Whitt, had done something bad. Later, she would come to understand that something bad meant they’d been lovers. And that Jewell had murdered her father when he’d tried to break things off and work on saving his marriage. A murder that Jewell had yet to be punished for. At least now the woman was in jail, awaiting trial.

“Don’t,” Tucker warned, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t want to take any trips down memory lane right now.”

Fair enough. His mother was a touchy subject for both of them. From everything Laine had heard, Tucker and his brothers weren’t disputing Jewell’s guilt. They only wanted the woman who’d cheated on their father and abandoned them to get out of their lives and leave Sweetwater Springs.

Tucker’s cell phone rang, causing the baby to fuss again, and Laine leaned in so she could see the caller’s name on the screen.

Colt.

The fear returned with a vengeance, and she prayed that Tucker’s brother had found something—anything—that would help her keep the babies safe.

Laine leaned in so she’d be able to hear what he said. Obviously she leaned too close, because her arm brushed against Tucker’s chest. He shot her a “back off” scowl and hit the speaker function so she’d be able to hear.

“Just got off the phone with Lieutenant Ryland,” Colt immediately said. “He doesn’t know a thing about two SAPD cops coming to Sweetwater Springs.”

“So they’re fake,” Laine concluded.

“Looks that way. And there’s also no warrant for your arrest.”

She hadn’t expected to feel as much relief as she did. Laine knew she’d done nothing to have an arrest warrant issued against her, and the last thing she needed right now was real cops trying to arrest her for a fake warrant.

“What about the parking lot?” Tucker asked. “You find anything?”

“I sent Reed to check it out. Still waiting to hear from him.”

He was talking about Reed Caldwell, one of the deputies. Laine hoped the two men who’d fired those shots had managed to leave some kind of evidence behind. And then she thought of something else.

“Maybe the dead woman’s fingerprints are somewhere on my car? She had her hand on the door when I first spotted her.”

“Dead woman?” Colt questioned.

Tucker groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. “Laine thinks she witnessed a murder.”

“I don’t think it. I know I did.”

“She witnessed a shooting,” Tucker said, “by two men dressed as cops. Her car’s parked in the woods near my place. When Reed’s done with the parking lot, can you send him out to check for prints?”

“Sure. But you know as well as I do, if there was really a murder, I need Laine down here now to make an official report.”

Tucker glanced at her and then at the baby she was holding. “There’s a complication. The woman left two babies, and they’re newborns by the looks of it. Any reports of missing babies?”

“None,” Colt said without hesitation. “If something like that had come in, I would have known.”

Yes, he probably would. Amber Alerts got top priority, even in a small-town sheriff’s office.

“But I’ll make some calls,” Colt continued. “Maybe this is a case of parental abduction and the local authorities haven’t reported it yet.”

Tucker mumbled his thanks. “Hold on a second, Colt.” He motioned toward Laine’s phone. “Give it to me.”

It took some doing, balancing the baby while working her way into her jeans pocket to retrieve the phone. She handed it to Tucker.

Normally, Laine wouldn’t have been wearing jeans on a workday, but she hadn’t had any appointments. She’d simply gone in to catch up on paperwork and rearrange some things in her office.

As bad as her situation was, she shuddered to think of how much worse it could have been if she hadn’t been there to rescue the babies. Either the killers would have found them, or else it would have been heaven knows how long before someone spotted them in the parking lot.

Tucker scrolled through the list of calls she’d received and read Colt the number of the last one on the list. It was the one from the woman.

“It’s possible that phone was stolen from those two fake cops,” Tucker explained to his brother. “It’s also possible that it’s a prepaid cell.”

It was clear with his possible comments that Tucker was withholding judgment about the veracity of her story. But every word of it was true.

Colt didn’t respond to that right away, but she heard some movement on the other end of the line. “Yeah, it’s a burner all right, and it’s no longer in service.”

Laine tried not to groan because it might disturb the baby, but it was hard to hold back her disappointment. That phone number could have given them clues about the men’s identities.

The dead woman’s, too.

“Call me if Reed finds anything in the parking lot,” Tucker added. He ended the call and turned to her. “I can’t sit on this any longer. If that woman was murdered, then every minute we delay could increase the odds of her killers getting away.”