Surrendering to the Sheriff

She wasn’t.

There was blood all right, but there didn’t seem to be much more than when he’d initially shot her. That was something at least. A serious blood loss could cause her to miscarry.

The men finally led her out the front door, the same way they’d brought her in after one of them had jimmied the lock. Aiden had a security system, but it hadn’t been on. He probably hadn’t felt the need because he was the sheriff.

Too bad.

If the system had been armed, Aiden might have been alerted and could have nipped this in the bud.

They went onto the porch, down the steps and through the yard toward a thick cluster of trees to the right where the men had left the SUV they’d used to kidnap her from the parking lot of her law office. After they’d grabbed her, they’d stopped several miles outside town to change the license plates and to make a call. Kendall hadn’t learned a thing from that call, because they’d said only one thing to the person on the other end of the line.

“We have her.”

No names used. No hint of the identity of the person they’d called.

So, who had put all this insanity into motion?

Despite Aiden’s accusations and suspicions, it wasn’t Jewell or her daughters. Not Jewell’s stepson, Seth, either. Yes, the three of them loved Jewell, but they wouldn’t resort to this. Unfortunately, other than those three children, Kendall and Jewell’s lawyer, Robert Joplin, there weren’t many people who wanted Jewell to beat this murder charge.

But clearly someone wanted just that.

When they were about ten yards from the SUV, Kendall stumbled just to see how fast the men would react, and she got her answer.

Fast.

Both of them grabbed her, and within a second, she had a gun jammed against her left temple again.

“Keep it up, and you’ll be sorry,” one of the men growled.

No matter what she did, she could be sorry, but Kendall cooperated.

For now.

She continued toward the SUV and didn’t resist when the men practically shoved her inside. As they’d done on the drive there, they buckled her into a seat belt in the middle, and the man who’d spoken only a few words dropped down behind her. The one who’d been doing all the talking walked around the front of the SUV toward the driver’s side.

But then he stopped.

That certainly got her attention, but it got his partner’s, too. “What’s wrong?” the man asked. Unlike the other one, he had some kind of thick accent.

The man still outside raised his finger in a wait-a-second gesture and lifted his head. Listening for something.

Or maybe someone.

Kendall hoped and prayed that it was someone who could get her away from these goons.

“Don’t move,” the guy with the accent said to her, and he stepped out of the SUV. Not far. Just a few inches outside the open door, and he, too, listened. His gaze also darted all around the heavily treed area.

Kendall looked, as well. She tried to pick through the trees and underbrush, but it was spring with everything in full bloom, so she couldn’t see anything.

However, she thought that she might have heard something, like a twig snap. The men didn’t miss it. With their guns raised, they pivoted in the direction of the sound.

Again, nothing.

For several seconds anyway.

Then the shot zinged through the air. It hadn’t been fired by one of her captors but had instead come from the area of that dense underbrush.

It had to be Aiden.

He would have known to cut through the woods and come back after them.

Her captors immediately lifted their guns to return fire, and Kendall sank down into the seat as far as she could. She also looked for something, anything, she could use to cut through the plastic cuffs.

Outside, both men fired, their bullets blasting through the air. She quickly added another prayer that Aiden hadn’t been shot.

Both men continued to fire. Kendall continued to struggle, and even though it made the pain in her arm much worse, she managed to move her hand so she could pop the button on the seat belt. It slid off her, and she got to the floor. Not just for protection but so she could look under the seat.

There was a first aid kit.

She fumbled through it as best she could and found a pair of scissors. They were small, the kind used for cutting bandages and not restraints. Still, they would have to do.

It was hard enough just to pick them up with her hands behind her back. Harder still to try to make any cut. But she had to try.

Kendall glanced out. Both men were now at the front of the SUV and they were tearing up the woods with their bullets. Even though Aiden’s nearest neighbor was a half mile away, maybe he would hear the noise and report it if Aiden hadn’t already called for backup.

The man with the accent looked into the SUV. His gaze connected with hers through the gap between the front seats, and he said something to his partner that she couldn’t hear. But the man must have realized she was trying to escape, because he hurried toward the driver’s door.

Coming for her.

Her heart was pumping now. The adrenaline, too. Kendall worked even harder at trying to cut through the plastic. She could feel them giving way. Little by little. But the man was practically right on her.

The plastic cuffs gave way, finally.

Just as the man crawled across the seat and grabbed for her.

But Kendall brought up the scissors and stabbed him in the face. Because of the ski mask, she wasn’t sure what part of him she hit, but he howled in pain and came at her.

Kendall hit him again with the scissors. This time in his neck.

He made some kind of strangled sound, and she saw the blood. Nothing like her gunshot wound. There was lots of it, and the agonizing sound that he made sent his partner running to him.

Kendall knew she had mere seconds at best. The side door was already open, and she barreled through it. She hadn’t realized just how dizzy and weak she was until her feet touched the ground.

Everything started to spin.

And she would no doubt have fallen if someone hadn’t caught her by the arm. She could just barely make out Aiden’s face.

“Come on,” Aiden said.

He turned, fired a shot at the men, and then he and Kendall started running.

Chapter Three

Aiden pulled Kendall behind the nearest tree, shoving her against it so that he could lean out and try to stop these guys from coming after them.

And they were coming all right.

Well, one of them anyway.

The other one had his hand clamped to his neck and was slumped against the SUV. Aiden hoped that whatever the heck his injury was, it would kill him. Harsh, yes, but maybe necessary for Kendall’s and his survival. One armed man was enough to deal with, considering that he had an injured, pregnant woman to rescue.

Pregnant.

That one little word came with a boatload of emotions attached and packed a wallop. Especially since Kendall was the one who was pregnant.

With his baby, no less.

That sounded about as unright as something could sound, but he had indeed slept with her. He’d also used protection. However, something had clearly gone wrong other than them just landing in bed together.

Fate had to be laughing its butt off about that. Whitt Braddock’s son and Jewell’s sister together, making a baby.

The town, and his family, would have a field day with it. That’d be minor, though, compared to the firestorm going on inside Aiden, but he pushed all those feelings aside for now. It was going to take every bit of his concentration to get them out of this alive.

Aiden had already called for backup. Not using normal channels in case these brainless wonders had indeed managed to plant bugs in his office and others. Instead he’d used his personal cell to phone his deputy Leland Hawks.

With any luck Leland would be here within twenty minutes.

That was way too long for Leland to help save Kendall and him, but Aiden had told the deputy to make a loud approach. Lots of sirens. Hopefully, the noise would send the guys on the run so that Aiden could track them down.

If this fight didn’t end with the men’s deaths, that is.

Aiden wanted one of them alive, though, if at all possible. Because when this was all said and done, he wanted answers as to who was really behind this.

Another shot smacked into the tree. Though it was hard to hold back, Aiden didn’t return fire yet. He didn’t have a lot of ammo and didn’t want to waste any bullets in case this went on too long. But he did glance out at the pair to check on their latest position. They were in front of the SUV again. Where they were well protected.

Aiden couldn’t say the same for Kendall and him.

The tree wasn’t that wide, and he figured these two had brought enough firepower with them to tear right through the young oak. Added to that, there weren’t any wider, thicker trees nearby for Kendall and him to move behind. Just plenty of underbrush and wildflowers, and none of that would stop bullets.

Kendall looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her breath gusting. Her body trembling. “Thank you for coming back for me.”

That riled him. Of course he’d come back for her. It was his job, and there was no way he’d let something personal get in the way of the badge. She probably hadn’t meant it as an insult, but it was.

“I found some scissors in the SUV, cut off the plastic cuffs, but then I got so dizzy,” she added.

She was still terrified, just as she had been kneeling on the floor of his house. Aiden didn’t want to know what kind of effect this was having on her unborn child.

It couldn’t be good.

But it was better than the alternative. If those men had gotten Kendall away from his place, they would have killed her. Even if he’d done what they asked, that wouldn’t have saved her life.

Then they would have come after him.

“You’ve lost some blood,” he reminded her. “That’s why you got dizzy.”

No need to mention that it could be shock, but he hoped that wasn’t the cause. He might need Kendall’s help before this was over, and something like shock could incapacitate her.

“When the smaller one came at me, I stabbed him with the scissors,” she said. “Twice.”

She looked a little sick about that. Understandable. Most people were never in a position where they were forced to do bodily harm, but Aiden was thankful for the scissors and the stabbing.

“You did what you had to do,” he let her know and then cursed himself for sounding so sympathetic.

He didn’t want her to suffer. Not over some injury she’d managed to inflict on this homicidal idiot, but each kind word from him, each thought about this pregnancy nipped at barriers that had to stay in place when it came to Kendall.

“Leland’s on the way,” Aiden whispered when her trembling got worse. “That means we’ll have backup soon, and we’ll be okay.”

Kendall nodded, and he figured she was trying to look a lot stronger than she felt right now.

Another bullet flew at them. Then another. And soon they were coming nonstop. Aiden had hoped it wouldn’t come down to this, but the men were no doubt getting desperate, since they knew he probably had help on the way. That meant they had only two choices.

Escape or try to recover their hostage.

They appeared to be going for the latter, though the two had to know they could kill Kendall in the process. Of course, they could be doing cleanup.

Trying to eliminate all witnesses.

If so, these next few minutes were going to be bad, because Aiden had no intention of making an elimination easy for them. Nope. He was fighting back along with being fighting mad. How dare these morons pull a stunt like this in his own yard and house!

Now the problem was trying to figure out how to stop them from getting lucky with their elimination attempts.

Aiden knew every inch of his property, and there was a dry narrow gully about ten yards behind Kendall and him. Not as close as he would have liked, but maybe if he could distract these guys long enough, Kendall would be able to crawl to the gully, where she’d be better protected from the bullets.

“I didn’t have any part in this,” she said. Another look up at him.

Damn. He had enough uncomfortable things running through his mind right now without adding her emotions.

“Yeah. I figured that out.” Too bad he had plenty of other things to figure out.

“And I meant what I said about leaving,” Kendall added. “I had no intention of ever telling you about the baby.”

The woman knew how to rile him. In the middle of a gunfight no less. Aiden didn’t have a clue how he felt about this pregnancy, yet, but he darn sure hadn’t wanted her to hide it from him. And Kendall had rattled that off as if he’d be pleased about her plan to sneak off.

Well, he wasn’t.

Of course, right now he wasn’t pleased about much of anything except that Kendall and he were still breathing.

Aiden glanced out at the two men again. They were still in place where he couldn’t blow off any of their body parts. Then he glanced at Kendall.

But not at her face.

Too much emotion there for him to deal with, but he needed to see how her arm was holding up. The bleeding had stopped. That was something at least. But that gash was deep, and it had to be throbbing like a bad toothache.

“How does your arm feel?” Aiden asked, and he fired a shot at the men just so they wouldn’t try to move closer.

“I’m okay.”

A lie, for sure, but Aiden would take it for now. He’d already asked Leland to bring out an ambulance, but the medics wouldn’t get close to the place with shots being fired. That was yet another reason for Aiden to put an end to this.

“I need you to get to the ground,” Aiden said. “Stay behind me and stay down. Crawl to the gully.” He tipped his head in that direction.

Kendall glanced over at the gully. Then at him. “But what about you?”

“I won’t be far behind.”

Possibly a lie as well, but Kendall had enough fear running through her without his spelling out that there’d be no one to cover him if he tried to move from the tree to the gully. No, it was best for him to make his stand for as long as he could behind the tree.

She finally gave a shaky nod and inched herself lower to the ground. It wasn’t easy. They were plastered against each other—her backside sliding against a part of him that needed no such touching. Especially from her. He got a split-second jolt of the blasted heat that’d always been there between them.

Thankfully, the fresh round of bullets slugged that heat aside.

He pushed Kendall all the way down until she was practically on her belly and then crouched by his side. “Move slowly if you have to.” Because of her injured arm and the pregnancy. But Aiden was really hoping that she could do this fast.

Aiden leaned out, took aim at the front of the SUV and fired a shot just as Kendall started crawling.

She stayed down just as he’d ordered, and she moved through the wildflowers and other underbrush. Thankfully, fast. Still, Aiden fired another shot at the gunmen just to keep their attention on him. He breathed a little easier once he saw Kendall slide down and into the gully.

She was safe.

Well, maybe.

He’d parked just on the other side of the gully. Off the road and behind some trees. Aiden hadn’t seen any other hired guns lurking around, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t have been some hiding.

The big talkative guy lifted his head, fired a couple of shots. Not the nonstop barrage like before. And in between the shots, Aiden heard the men talking. Or rather arguing.

Clearly, their plan had gone to Hades in a big ol’ handbasket by losing their hostage and what with one of them being on the business end of Kendall and her scissors. Now they were no doubt trying to figure out a way to salvage this, and it was possible the injured one needed some medical attention, too.

In the distance Aiden heard a welcome sound.

Sirens.

That got the men chattering even more, and Aiden braced himself for whatever they were going to try to throw at him next.

What they threw were bullets.

And lots of them.

The men fired into the tree. A volley of gunfire. All of it aimed at Aiden.

He ducked down, trying to shelter his body as best he could, but he was getting pelted with flying pieces of wood from the tree and other debris that the bullets were kicking up from the ground. There was no way he could lean out and try to get off a shot of his own. It’d be suicide, so he stayed put and prayed that he got a break soon.

He got it.

But it wasn’t the break he had in mind. The shots slowed to a trickle, but even over the sound of the blasts, he heard another one.

The SUV.

One of them had started up the engine.

No. It was too soon for this to happen. Judging from the sirens, Leland was still a quarter of a mile out. Maybe more. These guys could get away before Leland even arrived.

Aiden moved to the other side of the tree, leaned out just a fraction and saw the two men already in the SUV. Only one, the injured one on the passenger’s side, was firing through the open door, and even though his aim seemed wobbly, he still hit the dang tree.

Aiden had to dive back behind it for cover.

“Stay down!” Kendall yelled.

He wanted to curse when he saw her lift her head. “You stay down,” Aiden snarled right back at her.

Aiden leaned out again. Took aim at the guy who was firing. And he pulled the trigger.

His bullet smacked right into the man’s chest, and just like that, the guy tumbled out of the SUV and onto the ground. If he wasn’t dead, he soon would be. But that wasn’t Aiden’s concern now.

It was the driver.

The chatterbox gunman hit the accelerator and flew out onto the gravel road that fronted Aiden’s property. He fishtailed, the tires bobbling over the uneven surface, but that didn’t slow him down nearly enough.

Aiden raced out from cover, bracketing his shooting wrist with his left hand, and he kicked the injured gunman’s weapon aside. In the same motion, Aiden took aim at the SUV.

The bullet Aiden fired slammed into the back window, shattering the glass into a million little pieces.

But the driver kept going.

Aiden ran after him, took another shot. He missed. Then another. That one hit the SUV. At the right angle to have injured the driver, but Aiden couldn’t be certain of that.

Because the SUV sped away.

Chapter Four

Kendall watched while the medic dabbed the wound on her arm with antiseptic and gave her a shot. The throbbing pain quickly turned to fire, but she clamped her teeth over her bottom lip so that Aiden wouldn’t hear the groan bubbling up in her throat. He already had enough to handle without adding more concerns about her injury.

Not that Kendall expected him to be overly concerned about her, but at this point, anything and everything would feel like more weight on his shoulders.

The gunman who’d gotten away.

The dead one Aiden had been forced to kill in a shoot-out.

And then, of course, the bombshell about the pregnancy.

Aiden wasn’t dealing with that—yet. He was still on the phone with his deputy who had a team out searching for the man who’d shot her. It was his fifth call since they’d arrived at the Clay Ridge Hospital. She suspected there’d be plenty more before the night was over.

“I’ll just do a couple of stitches,” the medic said to her while he numbed the area around the wound with another shot. “Then I’ll get you to the tech for an ultrasound.”

A few stiches didn’t sound serious at all, but the second thing he said captured both Aiden’s and her attention. Until his gaze snapped to hers, Kendall hadn’t even been sure Aiden was listening to what the medic was saying, but he issued a quick “I’ll call you right back” to his deputy and stared at the medic.

“An ultrasound?” Aiden questioned. “Is something wrong?”

The medic shook his head and got busy doing the stitches. “It’s just a precaution, something Dr. Kreppner ordered because of the trauma Miss O’Neal’s been through.”

Kendall’s breath rushed out. The emotions, too, and she was no longer able to choke back that groan. Sweet heaven, there had indeed been trauma—both physically and mentally—and the baby could have been hurt.

Aiden shifted his attention from the medic to her, and even though she couldn’t fight back the tears, Kendall had no trouble seeing the conflict going on inside him. There was concern in his eyes, and the muscles in his jaw had turned to iron. Maybe because of the possible danger to the baby. Maybe because of her tears.

Or perhaps both.

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Aiden said to her, his voice a low growl. “You heard what he told you, that it’s just a precaution.”

Kendall nodded, but she wouldn’t breathe easier until she knew that all was well. She was only twelve weeks pregnant, and she wasn’t even sure what an ultrasound could tell them exactly. Hopefully, it would be plenty enough to rid her of this overwhelming fear.

Her tears continued, clearly something that didn’t please Aiden, because he huffed and handed her some tissues that he grabbed from the examining table.

“Thanks.” She blotted her eyes and cheeks, looked up at him. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

That apology covered a multitude of things, including his learning about the baby and this attack that could have gotten them all killed.

Her I’m sorry didn’t cause his jaw to relax, though. “We’ll talk about the baby later. For now, I want to know anything you haven’t told me about what those men said to you. And no, I’m not accusing you of being a part of it. I just need to know anything that’ll help us find that dirtbag who drove away in the SUV.”

Kendall didn’t especially want to relive the images of the attack or her kidnapping, but she also didn’t want to focus on the pain that the stitches were causing in her arm.

“I don’t know either of them,” she started. “At least I don’t think I do.”

Aiden latched right on to that. “You don’t think you do? Does that mean maybe there’s something you recognized?”

“Maybe,” she had to concede. “There was possibly something familiar about the one who did most of the talking, but I just don’t know what. The other, however...the dead one...he had an accent. Jamaican, perhaps, and he was black, because I saw his hands.” She paused. “I’m guessing he didn’t have an ID on him?”

“Nothing, but we’re running his prints now. Once we know who he is, we might be able to figure out who hired him.” Aiden stared at her, apparently waiting for her to suggest who that might have been.

“I don’t have a clue who hired them, but it wasn’t me or any of Jewell’s kids.”

“You’re sure?” he pressed.

She nodded. Prayed she was right about that. “Rosalie, Rayanne and Seth all love Jewell and want her cleared of the murder charges, but they wouldn’t put me at risk to do that.”

“They know about the baby?” he snapped.

Kendall shook her head. “Only your sister Laine knows. Like I said, she saw me coming out of the OB clinic. Since she’d also somehow heard rumors about us being together that night at the bar, she put one and one together.”

“And she didn’t tell me,” Aiden grumbled under his breath.

“Don’t blame Laine. I begged her not to tell you or anyone else.” Much to her surprise, it appeared that Laine had kept her secret.

That comment earned her a glare from Aiden. “She’s my sister, and she should have told me.”

Kendall was about to ask if he had actually even wanted to know, but the medic eased a bandage on her arm and stood.

“What you heard in this room stays in this room,” Aiden warned the medic. “Got that?”