Grayson

Drop-dead gorgeous was right.

And for several brief moments Eve considered tossing the little bit of pride she had left. She could just throw herself at him and try to seduce him.

But she rethought that.

Grayson would resist. He had already shown her that he had a mountain of willpower and discipline to go along with those looks.

“What will you do?” he asked.

Because she felt the tears start to burn in her eyes, Eve dodged his gaze and grabbed her keys. “Maybe I can hire a friend of a friend.”

She could make some calls the second she was back in her car, but she had no idea where to start.

“Hire someone?” Grayson questioned. He stepped outside the cottage with her.

Eve nodded. She closed and locked the door before she headed for her car. It wasn’t below freezing, but the icy wind sliced right through her.

“You’d hire someone?” Grayson repeated when she didn’t answer. He caught on to her arm and whirled her around to face him. “Eve, listen to yourself. Yes, I know you’re desperate, and this baby must be important to you or you wouldn’t have come here, but you can’t just hire someone to sleep with you.”

“To provide semen so I can be inseminated,” she corrected, maneuvering herself out of his grip. She couldn’t look at him and didn’t want him to look at her. Eve hurried across the yard. “I have no intentions of sleeping with anyone to get pregnant. I was serious about not having a biological father in the picture. I’ll make some calls, find a donor, pay him for his sperm, and, if necessary, I’ll do the insemination at home.”

Grayson made a sound of relief, or something. Probably because he’d thought she was indeed crazy enough to jump into bed with the first guy she ran across on the drive home. Eve’s biological clock was screaming for her to do that, but she wanted a healthy baby and body.

“I want to raise a baby on my own,” she continued. “And if I find someone, he’ll have to agree to giving up his paternal rights.”

No need to rehash the emotional baggage that had brought her to that conclusion. Besides, Grayson knew about her absentee father and the abusive stepfather that she’d had as a kid. He didn’t know about the three failed relationships she’d had since leaving Silver Creek, and that included one episode of her being an honest-to-goodness runaway bride.

It was just as well he didn’t know that.

Best not to spell it out that she considered Grayson and only Grayson for a life partner. He was literally the only man she trusted, even if he had crushed her heart all those years ago. And now he’d managed to do it again.

Frustrated with herself and her situation, Eve threw open the back door of her car so she could dump her bag and equipment onto the seat. She hesitated for just a moment because she knew Grayson was right behind her. If she turned around, she’d have to face him once more.

“I’m sorry I bothered you,” Eve mumbled.

She turned and, still dodging his gaze, she tried to sidestep around Grayson.

He sidestepped, too, and blocked her path. She hadn’t thought it possible, but he looked more uncomfortable than she felt.

“I can call the Silver Creek Hospital,” Grayson suggested. “Doc Hancock might be able to pull some strings and speed up things with a sperm bank. Or I could talk to my brothers. They might know—”

“Don’t involve your brothers,” Eve interrupted.

Anything but that. Just talking about this would be hard enough for Grayson, especially telling them that he had turned her down. Eve didn’t want to be the subject of conversation at the Ryland dinner table.

“Best not to involve anyone from Silver Creek,” she added. “I’ll go to a hospital in San Antonio and, well, beg.” And she would. This pregnancy was going to happen, even if she didn’t have a clue how she would manage it.

She stepped around him and hurried to the driver’s side of the car. Since she wasn’t looking at Grayson, that was probably the reason she saw the movement.

In the cluster of trees about fifty yards from her car.

“What?” Grayson asked when she froze.

Eve looked around the trees, trying to figure out what had caught her attention.

There.

She saw the man.

Dressed in a dark shirt and pants, he had a black baseball cap sitting low on his head so that it obstructed his face. He quickly ducked out of sight, but from just that quick glimpse, Eve recognized him.

“That’s the same man I saw earlier, by the creek,” she told Grayson.

Grayson drew his gun from the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. The metal whispered against the leather, and he moved in front of her. “Any idea who he is?”

“No.” But she knew that he was hiding, and that couldn’t be good.

Did this have anything to do with the hang-up calls she’d been getting? Or could it be her imagination working overtime? Everything suddenly seemed to be going against her.

“I’m Sheriff Grayson Ryland,” Grayson called out. “Identify yourself.”

Eve stood there and held her breath, waiting. But the man said nothing.

“You think it’s a local kid playing a prank?” she whispered, praying that was all there was to this.

Grayson fastened his attention to those trees. “No. A local kid would have answered me.”

True. Grayson commanded, and got, respect in Silver Creek. And that caused her heart to pound against her chest. After all, there was a killer on the loose. Eve almost hoped this was connected to the hang-up calls. Better that than having a killer just yards away.

Grayson lifted his gun, and he took aim. “Well?” he prompted, his voice loud enough that the person hiding wouldn’t have any trouble hearing him. “Come out so I can see who you are.”

Still nothing.

“Get in your car,” Grayson instructed from over his shoulder. “I’ll get a closer look.”

Eve wanted to latch onto him, to stop him from walking toward those trees, but this was his job. Plus, Grayson wouldn’t stop. Not for her. Not for anyone.

“Just be careful,” she whispered, her voice cracking a little. Eve eased open her car door and ducked down to get inside.

The sound stopped her.

It was a loud blast, and it shook the ground beneath them. Her stomach went to her knees, and her breath stalled in her throat. For a split second she thought someone had shot at them.

But this was much louder than a gunshot.

“Get down!” Grayson shouted.

He didn’t give her a chance to do that on her own. He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her behind her car door and to the ground.

Eve glanced behind her, at the cottage, and she saw what had caused that nightmarish sound.

An explosion.

Her grandmother’s cottage was on fire.

Chapter Three

What the hell was going on?

That was Grayson’s first thought, quickly followed by the realization that if Eve and he had stayed inside the house just a few more minutes, they would have both been blown to bits.

Behind them, the cottage had orangey flames shooting from it, and there was debris plunging to the ground. Maybe a propane tank had exploded or something, but Grayson wasn’t sure it was an accident.

After all, there was a guy hiding in the trees.

Grayson figured it was too much to hope that the two things weren’t related.

Had this person somehow rigged the explosion? If so, that meant the man would have had to have gotten close enough to the cottage to tamper with the tank that was just outside the kitchen window, but Grayson hadn’t heard him. Of course, he’d been so involved with Eve’s baby bombshell that he might not have noticed a tornado bearing down on them. He would berate himself for that later.

Now, he had to do something to protect Eve.

Grayson took cover in front of her and behind the car door, and he re-aimed his gun in the direction of the person he’d seen just moments before the explosion.

“Get out here!” he shouted to the person.

After hearing no response to his last demand, Grayson didn’t expect the guy to comply this time. And he didn’t.

No answer.

No sign of him.

Grayson kept watch behind them to make sure no one was coming at them from that direction. Other than the falling debris, the fire and black smoke smearing against the sky, there was nothing.

Except Eve, of course.

Her eyes were wide with fear, and he could feel her breath whipping against his back and neck. “We could have died,” she mumbled.

Yeah. They’d been damn lucky. A few minutes wasn’t much of a window between life and death, and her storming out had literally saved them.

Because she looked to be on the verge of panicking, Grayson wanted to reassure her that all would be fine, but he had no idea if that was true. The one thing he did know was that it wasn’t a good idea for them to be in the open like this. There could be a secondary explosion, and he needed to get Eve someplace safe so he could try to figure out what had just happened.

He glanced at his truck, but it was a good thirty feet away. Too far. He didn’t want Eve to be out in the open that long. There wasn’t just the worry of a second explosion but of their tree-hiding friend and what he might try to do.

“Get inside your car,” he told Eve, “and slide into the passenger’s seat so I can drive.”

“Oh, God,” he heard her say.

And Grayson silently repeated it. He didn’t know just how bad this situation could get, and he didn’t want to find out with Eve in tow.

“Put the keys in the ignition,” Grayson added when he felt her scramble to get into the car. “And stay down. Get on the floor.”

No Oh, God this time, but he heard her breath shiver as it rushed past her lips. He wasn’t exactly an old pro at facing potentially lethal situations, but he had the training and some experience during his time as sheriff. This had to be a first for Eve.

Not too many people had ever come this close to dying.

Grayson glanced behind him to make sure she had followed his orders. She had. Eve had squeezed herself in between the passenger’s seat and the dashboard. It was safer than sitting upright, but Grayson knew a car wouldn’t be much protection if anything was about to happen. A secondary explosion could send fiery debris slamming right into them.

He tried to keep watch all around them while he eased into the driver’s seat and adjusted it so he’d fit. He needed to put some distance between the cottage, woods and them, and then he would call for assistance. Someone could take Eve to the sheriff’s office, and Grayson could figure out why all of this didn’t feel like an accident.

While keeping a firm grip on his gun, he shut the car door and started the engine. He took out his phone and handed it to Eve. “Call the fire department.”

She did but without taking her stunned gaze off the flames that were eating their way through what was left of the cottage. It had to break her heart to see the damage, and later the full loss would hit her.

As if she hadn’t had enough to deal with for one day.

Even now, with the chaos of the moment, he still had her request going through his head.

I need you to get me pregnant.

He’d made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, so the situation was over for him. But not for Eve. He had seen that determination in her eyes, and one way or another, she was going to get this dream baby. Hell, this near-death experience might even make her more determined.

“Hang on,” Grayson warned her as he drove away—fast. He didn’t exactly gun the engine, but he didn’t dawdle, either.

The narrow road was dirt, gravel and mud since it had rained hard just that morning. With the sinkholes poxing the surface, it was impossible to have a smooth ride. But a smooth ride was an insignificant concern. Right now, he just wanted Eve out of there so he could deal with this situation on his own terms.

In other words, alone.

“The gas was turned off,” Eve murmured. “It’s been turned off for months. So, what caused the explosion?”

“Maybe a leak in the gas line.” And if so, that would be easy to prove.

“Call the first number on my contact list,” Grayson instructed. It was for the emergency dispatcher in the sheriff’s building. “I want at least one deputy out here with the fire department. Have them meet me at the end of the road.”

Once help arrived, he could hand off Eve to whichever deputy responded, and Grayson could escort the fire department and others to the scene. He didn’t want anyone walking into a potential ambush.

Eve made the call, and he heard her relay his instructions to the emergency dispatcher. Just ahead, Grayson spotted the first curve of the snaky road. He touched the brakes.

And nothing happened.

Nothing!

The car continued to barrel toward the curve. So, Grayson cursed and tried again, but this time he added a lot more pressure.

Still nothing.

Hell.

“What’s wrong?” Eve asked.

Grayson dropped his gun onto the console between them so he could use both hands to steer. “I think someone cut the brake line.”

Eve put her hand against her chest. “W-hat?”

She sounded terrified and probably was, but Grayson couldn’t take the time to reassure her that he was going to try to get them out of this without them being hurt. The curve was just seconds away, and the road surface was as slick as spit. But his biggest concern was the trees. The road was lined with them, and if he crashed into one of them, Eve and he could both be killed on impact.

“Get in the seat and put on your seat belt,” he told her, fastening his attention on the curve.

She scrambled to do just that, but he figured there wasn’t enough time. To buy them a little more of that precious time, Grayson lifted the emergency brake lever, even though it wouldn’t help much. The emergency brake would only work on the rear brake, and it wouldn’t slow them down enough. Still, he had to try anything to reduce the speed.

“Hold on,” he warned her.

Eve was still fumbling with the seat belt when the car went into the curve. Grayson had no choice but to try to keep the vehicle on the road since the trees were just yards away.

The right tires caught the gravel-filled shoulder, kicking up rocks against the metal undercarriage. The sound was nearly deafening, and it blended with his own heartbeat, which was pounding in his ears.

Eve’s car went into a slide, the back end fishtailing. Grayson steered into the slide. Or rather that’s what he tried to do, but he soon learned he had zero control. He saw the trees getting closer and closer, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

For just a split second, he made eye contact with Eve. Her gaze was frozen on him while her hands worked frantically to fasten the seat belt. Her eyes said it all.

She thought they were going to die, and she was silently saying goodbye.

Grayson didn’t say goodbye back because he had no intention of dying today.

He heard the click of her seat belt, finally. And Grayson jerked the steering wheel to the left. The car careened in that direction, but not before the back end smashed into a live oak tree. The jolt rattled the entire vehicle and tossed them around like rag dolls.

Thank God they were wearing their seat belts.

He also thanked God that he was able to hang on to the steering wheel. They’d dodged a head-on collision, and the impact with the tree had slowed them down some, but they literally weren’t out of the woods yet.

The car went into a skid in the opposite direction.

More trees.

Grayson didn’t even bother to curse. He just focused all his energy on trying to control an out-of-control car.

And it was a battle he was losing.

There was a trio of hackberry trees directly in front of them. If he managed to miss one, he would no doubt just plow into the others, or one of their low-hanging limbs.

He fought with the wheel, trying to make it turn away, but they were in another skid, the mud and rocks helping to propel them in a direction he didn’t want to go.

“There’s the man we saw earlier,” Eve said, her voice filled with fear.

She pointed to Grayson’s right, but he didn’t look in that direction. Not because he doubted her. No. The hiding man probably was there, but Grayson had to give it one last-ditch effort to get the car into the best position for what would almost certainly be a collision.

“Cover your face,” Grayson managed to warn her. Because the limbs would probably break the glass.

His life didn’t exactly flash before his eyes, but Grayson did think of his family. His brothers. His little niece, Kimmie.

And Eve.

She was there, right smack-dab in the middle of all of his memories.

He watched the front end of the car slide toward the middle tree, but at the last second, the vehicle shifted. No longer head-on. But the driver’s side—his side—careened right into the hackberry.

Grayson felt the air bags slam into his face and side. The double impact combined with the collision rammed him into Eve and her air bag. There were the sounds of broken glass and the metal crunching against the tree trunk. The radiator spewed steam.

“We’re alive,” he heard Eve say.

Grayson did a quick assessment. Yeah, they were alive all right, and the car was wrapped around the hackberry.

“Are you hurt?” he asked Eve, trying to assess if he had any injuries of his own. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he was hoping it was just from the air-bag punch and that it hadn’t been dislocated. He would need that shoulder to try to get them out of this crumpled heap of a car.

When Eve didn’t answer, Grayson’s stomach knotted, and he whipped his head in her direction. Her hands were on the air bag that she was trying to bat down, but her attention was fixed on the side window.

Grayson soon saw why.

The man, the one who’d hidden in the trees, was running straight toward them.

Chapter Four

The man was armed, a pistol in his right hand.

Eve heard Grayson yell for her to get down, but she didn’t have time to react. Grayson pushed her down, her face and body colliding with the partially inflated air bag.

“My gun,” he snarled.

Grayson cursed and punched at the air bags. He was obviously trying to find his weapon. When Eve had last seen it, Grayson had put it on the console, but the crash had probably sent it flying.

Oh, mercy.

That meant they were sitting ducks, unarmed, with a gunman bearing down on them. She couldn’t get out of the car, not with the man so close and on her side of the vehicle. They couldn’t get out on the driver’s side because it was literally crunched around a tree. Thank God for the air bags, or Grayson would have been seriously injured or killed.

Eve glanced up at the approaching man. The person who was likely responsible for the explosion that had destroyed her grandmother’s cottage. The fear raced through her.

Still, she felt anger, too.

This idiot had endangered them and was continuing to do so. She wouldn’t just stand by and let him shoot Grayson and her. Neither would Grayson.

They both grappled around the interior of her car, and Eve remembered her own gun in the glove compartment. It took some doing to get the air bag out of the way, but she finally managed it. She threw open the glove box door, latched onto the gun and handed it to Grayson.

He immediately took aim.

The man must have seen him do that because he ducked behind a tree. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. If the man had stayed out in the open, Grayson would have had a clean shot. This way, they were still trapped.

“One of the deputies will be here soon,” Grayson reminded her.

Probably one of his brothers. Both Dade and Mason were Silver Creek deputy sheriffs, and since Grayson had requested backup, they would no doubt get there as soon as humanly possible.

But that might not be soon enough.

Using his left hand Grayson continued to bat away the air bag, but he kept his attention pinned to the tree where the man had ducked out of sight. Eve kept watch as well, but there were other trees near that one, and it wouldn’t take much for the man to move behind one of those closer trees and sneak right up on them.

“Who is he?” Eve meant to ask herself that question, but she said it aloud.

“I don’t know,” Grayson answered. “But he could be the killer we’re after.”

Yes. Eve was aware that there was an unidentified killer on the loose.

Thanks to the newspaper coverage, she was also aware that just a few days ago a young woman’s body had been found in the creek. The woman had been fully clothed, no signs of sexual assault, but her fingerprints and face had been obliterated. That’s the term the press had used, obliterated, and Eve had assumed the killer had done that to prevent her from being identified.

It had worked.

So, why would this killer come after Grayson and her now?

Until the body was identified, and that might never happen, it wasn’t likely that Grayson would be able to come up with a list of suspects.

But Eve had a sickening thought.

Perhaps the man had killed the woman in or near the cottage. Maybe he was destroying any potential physical evidence that would link him to the crime. And here she’d walked in with so much on her mind that she hadn’t even considered a trip home could be dangerous. This in spite of her knowing about the murder that possibly happened just a stone’s throw away from the cottage.

That oversight could be deadly.

She choked back a sob. Only minutes earlier her main worry had been getting pregnant, but for that to happen Grayson and she had to survive this. If something went wrong and he got hurt, it would be her fault because he wouldn’t have been out here in these woods if she hadn’t called him.

“I’ll get you out of here,” she heard Grayson say.

It sounded like a promise. But Eve knew backup was still a few minutes away. A lot could happen in those few short minutes.

Because she had her attention pinned to that tree, she saw the man lean out. Or rather she saw his gun.

“Get down!” she warned Grayson.

Just as the shot slammed through the window directly above Eve’s head. The sound was deafening, and the bullet tore through the safety glass.

Grayson moved forward, his body and forearm pushing her deeper onto the floor so that she could no longer see what was going on.

And Grayson fired.

Eve automatically put her hands over her ears, but the blast was so loud that it seemed to shake the entire car. What was left of the safety glass in the window came tumbling down on top of her.

Grayson elbowed the chunk of glass aside and fired another shot. All Eve could do was pray, and her prayers were quickly answered. Even with the roaring in her ears from the shots, she heard a welcome sound.

A siren.

Maybe the fire department. Maybe a deputy. She didn’t care which. She just wanted Grayson to have backup. Her gun was fully loaded, but Eve didn’t have any other ammunition with her, and she didn’t want to risk a gun battle with the man who had a better position behind the tree.

“The SOB’s getting away,” Grayson growled.

Eve hadn’t thought this situation could get more frightening, but that did it. If he managed to escape, he might try to come after her again.

She didn’t need this, and neither did Grayson.

Grayson obviously agreed because he climbed over her and caught on to the door handle. He turned it, but it didn’t budge. Eve didn’t relish the idea of Grayson running after a possible killer, but the alternative was worse. Besides, the gunman had quit shooting.

For now, anyway.