The Lawmen of Silver Creek Ranch

The shots didn’t stop, and one plowed into the wall above her just as Kayla dived to the side of a table. She’d barely managed that when Dade came barreling toward her. He hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her away from the table, away from the wall.

But also away from the nursery.

He hauled her toward the right, the opposite side from where Robbie and the nanny were, and Kayla was thankful that Dade had given her son that extra cushion of security. However, there was no cushion for Dade and her. They were off the stairs, yes, but the bullets continued to come at them. Dade flattened her on the floor and crawled back over her.

Kayla was well aware of his body pressed hard against hers. His breathing, too, because it was gusting in her ear. But she also felt his corded muscles and the determination to keep her alive.

That didn’t mean, however, he’d succeed.

And that both frightened and infuriated her.

Just like that, the shots stopped. Kayla held her breath, waiting and praying that this was over, but it was Dade’s profanity that let her know it wasn’t.

She glanced back at him, and her gaze collided with those steel grays. He barely looked at her, but in that glimpse he managed to convey his concern and his disgust.

He hated her.

All the Rylands hated her. And Kayla couldn’t blame them. Guilt by association. Her father-in-law had probably caused Ellie Ryland’s death. And so far, he’d gotten off scot-free, thanks to a team of good lawyers and a technicality in some of the paperwork that had been used in his original arrest.

“What?” Dade snarled.

It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her, and she knew why. She was staring at him.

“Nothing,” Kayla mumbled. And she forced her attention away from the one man who should disgust her as much as the shooter outside. But much to her dismay, what she felt wasn’t total disgust.

Yet more proof that she was stupid.

She had noticed Dade Ryland’s storm-black hair. It was a little too long, and his five o’clock stubble was a little too dark for her to think of him as handsome. No. It was worse than that. He wasn’t handsome.

He was hot in that bad-boy, outlaw sort of way.

Well, she’d already been burned by one bad boy, and she wasn’t looking for another. Not now. Not ever again.

Dade gave her another glance, and she could have sworn he smirked, as if he could read her mind.

“You see the shooter yet?” Dade called down to the bodyguard.

“No.”

“The shooter’s probably moving,” Dade growled. He levered himself up just slightly and re-aimed his gun toward the front of the house.

Kayla could do nothing other than hope this would end with her baby unharmed. She’d been a fool to come back, a fool to respond to Charles’s latest threat.

But what else could she have done?

She had to get out from beneath the hold Charles had on her. She had to try to make a safe, normal life for her son. But instead, she’d gotten this.

“Someone told Charles I was here,” she mumbled. “Probably the D.A. or a Ryland.” She hadn’t meant to say Dade’s family name so loudly, but by God it was hard to tamp down the anger while bracing for another attack.

“No one in my family is responsible for this,” Dade informed her. “Lady, you got into this mess all by yourself.”

She wanted to argue, but the sound stopped her. In the distance she heard sirens. No doubt the backup that Dade had called. Even though she didn’t like the idea of the place crawling with any more Rylands, it was better than the alternative.

She hoped.

Beneath them in the foyer, Kayla heard her bodyguard moving around. Maybe so he could try to spot the shooter. Dade moved, too. He used his forearm to push her face back to the carpet, and he maneuvered himself off her. This time not just an inch or two. He reared up and took aim at the front windows.

He fired.

The blast roared through her ears, and she had no time to recover before there was another shot. Not from Dade. This one came tearing through the foyer but from a different angle than before. This bullet took out one of the front windows and sent glass flying through the air.

Dade had been right. The shooter had moved. And now Dade and she were in his direct line of fire.

For a few moments at the beginning of the attack, Kayla had hoped the shots were meant as a warning. A way to get her to grab Robbie and go back into hiding. But this was no warning.

This was an assassination attempt.

Dade sent another shot the gunman’s way, and she put her hands over her ears to shut out the painful noise. However, she could still hear them. And the siren. It grew closer and closer as the gunman’s shots came faster and faster. He wasn’t panicking, and he definitely wasn’t running. He was trying to kill her before the sheriff arrived.

“Stay down,” Dade warned her. He shifted his gun toward one of the other front windows and fired.

This time, Kayla heard another sound. A groan of some kind, following by a heavy thud. Had Dade managed to shoot the gunman? Maybe.

Kayla looked up and followed the direction of Dade’s aim. There. Through the jagged shards of glass jutting from the window frame, she saw something.

A man.

He was dressed head to toe in black, and it was only because of the porch light that she could see his silhouette. She could also see his gun, and he took aim at Dade and her.

Kayla yelled for Dade to get down, and she latched onto him to pull him back to the floor. But he threw off her grip and fired at the shadowy figure.

The man fired a shot as well and then clutched his shoulder. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought this time maybe Dade had managed to shoot him.

Dade must have thought that too because he headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time while he kept his gun trained on the person on the porch. Kayla could only watch with her breath held and her heart pounding so hard that it might come out of her chest.

The man on the porch fired.

She yelled to warn Dade, but her warning was drowned out by another shot and the sounds of the approaching sirens. She heard Dade curse as if in pain, but what he didn’t do was get down. He raced toward the door, threw it open and fired again.

But so did the gunman.

Oh, God.

She realized then that if this assassin managed to kill Dade that he would come after Robbie and her next. Of course, Kenneth was down there, somewhere, but if the gunman got past the bodyguard, then Kayla would have no way to defend her baby and herself.

Kayla cursed herself for not bringing some kind of weapon with her. But she wouldn’t need a weapon if this goon tried to get to her baby. No. Pure raw adrenaline and the need to protect her child would give her the strength to fight whoever came through that door.

She stood, preparing herself for whatever she had to do, but instead she saw the blue swirls of the lights from a police cruiser. Red lights, too, maybe from an ambulance. The vehicles tore across the lawn and screamed to a halt. There were no more shots, just the noise of the men who scrambled from those vehicles.

Kayla waited, the seconds clicking off like gunshots in her head, and when the waiting became unbearable, she began to make her way down the stairs. The foyer was still dark, and the only illumination came from the jolts of red and blue lights from the responding vehicles.

“Kenneth?” she called out, her voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He didn’t answer. “Deputy Ryland?” she tried.

No answer from Dade either.

Kayla inched down the steps, praying this ordeal was indeed over but also bracing herself for whatever she might see.

She didn’t brace herself enough.

There was blood on the floor of the foyer. In the darkness it looked like a pool of liquid black, but she instinctively knew what it was.

And there, slumped in the doorway was Dade Ryland.

Chapter Three

Dade looked down at his left arm and cursed. This was not a good time to get shot.

Hell.

Using the doorjamb for support, he got to his feet and tried not to look as if his arm was on fire. He figured he’d failed big-time when he saw Kayla. Her eyes were wide, her face way too pale.

“You’ve been shot,” she said, the words rushing out.

Was that concern he saw and heard? He had to be wrong about that. No, this was probably just a reaction to the blood. And there was no doubt about it, there was blood.

“Check on your bodyguard,” Dade barked, and he pulled back his shoulders so he could face the responders who were coming right at him.

First, there was his brother, Sheriff Grayson Ryland. Tall and lanky like most of his five siblings, Grayson might not have been the biggest of the half-dozen people who came out of the cruisers and ambulance, but he was automatically the center of attention and the one in charge. Grayson commanded respect just by stepping onto the scene.

Another brother, Mason, stepped out from a vehicle, too—a weathered Ford truck that had been red once, maybe twenty years ago. Mason, like Dade, was also a deputy sheriff but worked only part-time because he also ran the family ranch.

Dressed in his usual black jeans, black shirt and equally black Stetson, Mason made his way toward the estate. Not with Grayson’s speed, authority or concern. Mason always looked as if he were stalking something. Or headed to a funeral.

“You’re hurt,” Grayson said, and he used his head to motion to the medics so they’d hurry to Dade. Grayson also kept his gun trained on the man sprawled out on the porch.

The dead man.

Dade had managed to take the guy out, but not before the SOB had fired a shot into Dade’s arm. Talk about a rookie mistake, and he hadn’t been a rookie in fourteen years, not since he’d joined the Silver Creek sheriff’s department on his twenty-first birthday. Considering that being a cop was his one-and-only desire in life, he always seemed to be screwing it up.

Like now, for instance.

The gunman who could have given them answers was as dead as a doornail. Added to that, Dade had nearly let Kayla Brennan be gunned down, her bodyguard had been shot, or worse, and the jagged slice on his arm from the bullet graze was hurting like hell.

Grayson stooped down and put his fingers to the gunman’s neck. “He’s dead.”

Yeah. No surprise there. “You need to check on Kayla’s bodyguard,” Dade let his brother know. He would do it himself, but he wanted a chance to catch his breath and get ahead of the pain.

“Kayla?” Grayson questioned, standing upright. He aimed a questioning glare at Dade, and Dade knew why. Kayla was way too personal to call someone who might be responsible for a family member’s death.

Grayson was right, and Dade silently cursed that, too. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress, and while he wasn’t sure about the damsel part, Kayla was definitely in distress.

And so was her baby.

With his glare morphing into a disgusted scowl, Grayson flipped on the lights and walked past him and into the foyer where Kayla was kneeling down next to Kenneth.

“He’s still breathing,” Kayla announced, and that sent two of the medics scurrying in the bodyguard’s direction.

One medic, however, Carrie Collins, a leggy brunette in snug green scrubs made a beeline toward Dade.

“I’m okay,” Dade tried to tell her, but she latched onto his arm to examine it.

“I’ll decide if you’re okay or not,” Carrie answered.

Like Kayla, there was way too much concern in her voice and expression. In this case, though, Dade knew why. Carrie and he had once been lovers, but that wasn’t just water under the bridge. The water had dried up nearly a year ago. Too bad Carrie didn’t always remember that.

“You need stitches,” Carrie mumbled, her forehead bunching up. “And probably a tetanus shot.”

But Dade tuned her out and put his attention on Kayla, Grayson and the unconscious bodyguard. Grayson caught onto Kayla and moved her away from the man so the medics could get to work, but it was obvious Kayla had tried to help her employee. Her hands and dress were covered with blood.

Kayla looked down at her palms, which were shaking almost violently, and she shuddered. Now that the lights were back on, Dade also saw the tears well up in her eyes.

Dade’s feet seemed to have a mind of their own because he started toward her. So did Mason. Mason grunted and glanced down at Dade’s arm.

“You scratched yourself,” Mason remarked with zero sympathy in his tone. “Don’t expect me to do the paperwork for this goat rope.”

It was just what Dade needed to hear. Sarcasm without sympathy. He knew his brother loved him. Well, Dade was pretty sure of that anyway. But Mason wasn’t the sort to cut anyone any slack.

Unlike Kayla. Blinking back tears, she made her way toward Dade with her attention fixed on him. “I thought you’d been killed.”

Dade was aware that both his brothers were watching and listening. “No. You didn’t get lucky this time.”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her, but quickly regained her composure. “Lucky?” she challenged. “Right. Well, let’s just say I’m grateful you did your job and put yourself in front of bullets for me.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “Thank you, Dade.”

Dade was one-hundred-percent positive that his brother hadn’t missed the way his given name had just purred right off her sympathetic rose-tinged lips. Or maybe the purring and the sympathy were his imagination.

Oh, man.

Kayla was going to be trouble with a capital T.

“I have to check on my baby,” she let them know.

Dade snagged her by the arm. “Have the nanny and Robbie stay in the bathroom, okay? This might not be over.”

As expected, the fear returned to her eyes. She swallowed hard, nodded and raced up the stairs.

“I’ll need to question you when you come back down,” Grayson called out to her.

Without looking back, she gave another shaky nod.

Dade wanted to hit himself in his fire-burning arm just to get his mind off this asinine need to comfort and to play nice with the one woman he shouldn’t want to comfort or play nice with.

The three of them watched her make her way up the stairs, and Dade waited for the lecture from his brothers. A lecture that would no doubt include a reminder to think with his brain and not with what was behind the zipper of his Wranglers. But the lecture didn’t come.

Not verbally anyway.

Grayson stepped away to give the medics some instructions, and then he took out his phone to call the county medical examiner, something Dade should have already thought to do.

“Did the dead guy give you any warning before he started shooting?” Mason asked.

Dade shook his head. “Kayla …” He considered calling her Ms. Brennan, but heck, the damage had already been done. “She refused protective custody, and I was on my way back to town when I figured out something was wrong. The guy opened fire before I could get back inside.”

Mason stayed quiet a moment, but his forehead bunched up. “She refused our help.” It wasn’t a question. Mason sort of growled it out in a disapproving way.

Dade shrugged and then winced when that sent another shot of fire through his arm. “Understandable. She doesn’t trust us. Just like we don’t trust her.”

Mason made a sound, one of his grunts that could have meant anything. Or nothing at all. “I’ll keep watch outside. We don’t need any more of Charles Brennan’s henchmen showing up here tonight.”

No, they didn’t. And it could happen all right. Dade figured there was no way Brennan was going to let Kayla get anywhere near a witness stand.

“I need to clean that wound,” Carrie let him know.

“Later.” Dade moved to the side so the medics could take the bodyguard out on the gurney. Grayson had finished with his call and Dade wanted an update. Thankfully, Carrie didn’t follow him.

“The M.E.’s on the way,” Grayson relayed. “And the rest of the deputies. Once they arrive, we can get Kayla and her baby out of here.”

Dade glanced at the pool of blood and the shards of glass on the glossy marble floor. Maybe that would convince her to accept protective custody and leave for someplace safer.

If a safe place actually existed.

“Did she say why she changed her mind about testifying and came back to Silver Creek?” Grayson asked.

Dade shook his head and looked in the direction of the footsteps he heard. Kayla was making her way back downstairs, and she was no longer wearing the blood-soaked dress. She’d put on black pants and a gray blouse. She’d also adjusted her attitude. No more threat of tears or sympathetic looks. She was sporting a first-class glare.

“How’s your son?” Dade asked, pleased that he would have to deal with the real Kayla rather than the damsel.

“He’s fine,” she snapped and then turned her attention to Grayson. “Someone obviously leaked my location,” she accused before she even reached them in the foyer.

“Seems that way,” Grayson admitted. “I suppose you think it was one of us.”

“I do.”

Dade stepped in front of his brother so he could finish this fight. “We have better things to do than endanger a witness. So that means the leak came from your side. Who knew you were coming here?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You mean besides the Rylands?”

“Yeah, besides the cops.” Dade didn’t budge an inch. He met her eye-to-eye and practically foot-to-foot. But when she glanced down, Dade looked as well and saw the drop of his blood that had spattered onto one of her high-priced shoes.

“You need stitches,” Grayson grumbled.

“I need answers from Ms. Brennan,” Dade grumbled right back. But he did step slightly away so he wouldn’t bleed on her fancy clothes.

And speaking of clothes, she’d missed a button on the blouse. Why he noticed that now, he didn’t know.

Wait, yeah, he did know.

His male brain was too alert to the fact that Kayla was a woman. A woman with a gap in her blouse that allowed him a peek of the top of her right breast.

Dade did a double take.

She had a tattoo, a little pink heart right there on the swell of her breast.

Kayla made a soft sound of outrage, obviously noticing what had caught his attention, and she quickly buttoned her blouse as if she’d declared war on it.

“Your son’s nanny knew you were here,” Dade reminded her. He rolled up his shirt sleeve to put some pressure against his grazed arm.

She gave him a flat look. “My nanny is not responsible for this. She was in just as much danger as we were.”

Dade couldn’t argue with that. “So who else knew?”

Kayla wearily touched her fingers to her forehead. “My sister, Misty Wallace, but she wouldn’t have told anyone.”

Grayson and Dade exchanged glances, and Dade knew that Grayson would verify that as soon as he could.

Kayla noticed that glance and must have realized what it meant. “Don’t waste your time with my sister. I trust her with my life, and she would die rather than tell Charles where I am. Instead, investigate the D.A.,” she answered, her voice edged with anger.

“Winston Calhoun’s not in the business of killing witnesses, either,” Dade let her know, although he would check to make sure the D.A. hadn’t accidentally said the wrong thing to the wrong person. “I’ve known Winston my whole life. We can trust him.”

“Maybe not,” Kayla disagreed. “Is he rich like you and your family?”

“No.” And Dade didn’t like where this was going. “But not everyone can be bribed.”

“My former father-in-law has a knack for finding a person’s weak spot and getting his way.” There was no smugness in her statement, and a frustrated sigh left her mouth.

He couldn’t argue with that, either. “What about your sister, then? Is Misty dirty rich like you?”

Oh, that got a rise out of her. The anger flashed through her eyes. “This isn’t about Misty. It’s about Charles and whomever he could have bribed.”

“Maybe,” Dade concluded. “Then I’ll go back to my original question. Who knew you were coming here? A boyfriend? A lover?”

She shook her head and looked ready to slug him. “No, on both counts.”

“Your driver, then.” Dade tried again.

“I drove myself, and I didn’t tell anyone else where I was going.” She paused. She glanced around the foyer, her attention landing on Dade’s bloody arm. “I came here because I thought Charles would believe this was the last place I’d be.”

“Obviously you got that wrong,” Dade grumbled.

“Obviously,” she grumbled right back.

“Why did you change your mind about testifying?” Dade pressed when she added nothing else.

Kayla dodged his gaze. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Because she was staring at the floor, Dade ducked down a little to make eye contact. “Try.”

She lifted her shoulder, stepped away from him. “I wanted to do the right thing.” Kayla paused. “This morning, I got a threatening email from my ex-father-in-law.”

Dade and Grayson exchanged another glance. “You told the D.A. about this?” Grayson asked.

“No, what would have been the point? Charles’s threats are nothing new and never specific enough to bring charges against him. But this time, something inside me … snapped.” She paused. “Or maybe for the first time things got crystal clear.” Her gaze came to Dade’s again, and she blinked back tears. “After reading that email, I knew the only way I could get this to stop was to testify and make sure Charles is put away for the rest of his life.”

Oh, hell. There it was again. Sympathy. It was burning as hot as the gash on his arm. Grayson obviously wasn’t immune either because he gave a heavy sigh.

“And that’s the reason I need you in protective custody,” Grayson concluded. “I want to take you and your baby to a safe house so that Brennan can’t get to either of you. Brennan is out of jail on bond, and we’re trying to keep an eye on him. But you know better than anyone, he can hire guns to do his dirty work.”

Kayla stared at Grayson. Then stared at Dade, too. “After what happened tonight, how can you possibly keep my baby safe?” she asked. Her voice broke on the last word.

Dade was about to assure her that he would do his best, but Grayson’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and mumbled some profanity before he stepped away to take the call.

“I still don’t trust you,” Kayla whispered to Dade.

He nodded. “Yeah, I get that.” He pointed to the blood on the floor. “But you’ve got a very short list of people you can trust right now.”

She must have known that was true, but she still didn’t agree.

“That was one of the medics,” Grayson relayed, putting his phone back in his pocket. He walked back across the foyer toward them, his attention nailed to Kayla. “Your bodyguard died on the way to the hospital.”

That was all he said. Grayson didn’t offer any details or reiterate that she could have been the one in that ambulance.

Kayla pulled in her breath, and what little color she had drained from her face. She gave one crisp nod and turned toward the stairs. “I’ll let the nanny know that we’re moving to a safe house tonight with Dade—Deputy Ryland,” she corrected, her voice now chilled with that ice-queen tone.

Dade didn’t exactly celebrate because it had taken way too long to convince her to do the right thing. Now, he only hoped it was the right thing. After all, she’d just put her son’s and her lives right in his hands.

“I think we might have found our leak,” Mason said, stepping into the doorway.

That got everyone’s attention. Kayla stopped on the bottom step and turned to face him.

“I checked the dead gunman’s phone.” Mason held up the bagged cell for them to see. “About a half hour before this guy started shooting, he made three calls.” He aimed his usual surly expression at Kayla. “First one was to some guy named Danny Flynn, a lowlife who likely works for your ex-father-in-law, Charles Brennan.”