Surrendering to the Sheriff

Since Aiden could win an intimidation contest hands down, the guy was smart to nod. “Follow me to the ultrasound room.”

As she probably didn’t look too steady, Aiden took hold of her arm and helped her stand. Good thing, too, because the dizziness returned with a vengeance, and she had no choice but to lean against him. Judging from the way the muscles in his body stiffened, he wasn’t pleased about that. Still, he hooked his arm around her and led her up the hall.

“You were just going to leave town,” Aiden said, clearly not pleased about that, either. Of course, she hadn’t said anything yet that’d pleased him.

Kendall nodded. “I thought it was for the best.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” He probably said that a lot louder than he’d intended, because the medic glanced back at them. “I had a right to know that I made a baby with you that night,” Aiden added in a much lower voice.

He said that night as if it were profanity. Which to him it probably had been. Kendall had felt the same way, too, immediately afterward. Yes, Aiden and she had skirted around this attraction for years, but with their families at serious odds, a one-night stand had been a stupid thing to do.

“I won’t think of this baby as a mistake,” she clarified.

She figured he would disagree with that, but he didn’t. Kendall also figured he wouldn’t go into the ultrasound room, but once they reached it, Aiden waltzed right in.

“I’m staying,” he insisted before she could give him an out.

Again, the medic looked at them, his volleyed glances finally landing on Kendall. “The tech won’t be long, but I can wait here if you want.” There was concern in both his tone and expression. However, Kendall shook her head to assure him that it was all right for him to go.

“It’ll be okay.” Well, she’d be safe with Aiden at least, but Kendall could feel a mighty storm coming her way.

About the baby.

About her decision to leave him out of this.

“Okay, then.” The medic tipped his head to her arm. “If you need something for the pain, just let the ultrasound tech know, and I’ll have the doc write a script.”

Kendall thanked him, knowing that she wouldn’t be taking any painkillers even if she needed them. They’d be too risky for the baby.

The medic stepped out, finally, and Aiden didn’t wait long to get that storm started. “How long have you known you were pregnant?” he asked.

“For about two months.” She probably would have figured it out sooner if she hadn’t been in complete denial. Denial about a possible pregnancy anyway. The memories of that night had stayed with her.

Big-time.

She’d lusted after Aiden for so many years. Too many. They were both thirty-six now, and the heated looks had started about twenty-three years earlier. The heat clearly had some staying power, because even drunken sex had fulfilled more than a fantasy or two. Sadly, Aiden had lived up to those fantasies in spades. If any part of it had been lacking, she maybe could have finally pushed Aiden out of her head.

So much for that happening now.

Especially since he was right in front of her. And his scowl and bunched-up forehead weren’t the lust killers that they should have been. Probably because even with a scowl, Aiden managed to make most men look just plain ordinary.

“Jewell doesn’t know?” he asked.

Kendall shook her head. “I figured I’d tell her after the trial.”

That deepened his scowl. “A trial that might not happen if the goon in the ski mask gets his way.”

She hadn’t even thought of that. If whoever was behind this couldn’t get Aiden to destroy the evidence, then he or she might just hire someone else to do the job.

“I’ve had the evidence moved,” Aiden said. “It’s being couriered to the Ranger Lab in Austin. So Jewell’s out of luck when it comes to that.”

Maybe out of luck, period. The bone fragments had been identified as belonging to Aiden’s father, and that meant Jewell had means, motive and opportunity to have killed the man who was supposedly her lover. It certainly didn’t help that Jewell wasn’t denying the deed.

And now this.

If this was linked back to Jewell, the DA could tack on some obstruction of justice charges along with other assorted felonies like kidnapping and attempted murder of a county sheriff.

“Even you have to admit that it would be stupid for anyone connected to Jewell to try to destroy evidence,” she said.

Aiden made a sound of agreement. “Stupid, yes, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’ll be looking at Jewell’s daughters and stepson. Joplin, too.”

Jewell’s lawyer, Robert Joplin. Of all the suspects that Aiden had just listed, he was the one at the top of Kendall’s list. Because Joplin was hopelessly in love with Jewell. Had been for years and would do anything to save her. However, that didn’t mean Joplin was the only one with motive for this attempted fiasco.

“I hope you’ll look at your own family, too,” Kendall tossed out there. “Your mother and sister Shelby aren’t exactly fans of Jewell, and they might have done something like this to make her look even more guilty.”

And while that wasn’t as strong of a motive as her family’s, Jewell knew that Aiden’s family had secrets.

Secrets that even Aiden might not know.

She braced herself for him to jump to their defense. Didn’t happen. “I’ll be talking to them and anyone else who hated Jewell and my father.”

Good. But then, she’d figured all along that Aiden would be thorough. He was loyal to his family. Well, mostly. He didn’t exactly have a friendly relationship with his mother, but Aiden would never forget that he was a Braddock.

Never.

Ditto for remembering that she was an O’Neal.

The door eased open, and Aiden automatically reached for his gun. After what’d happened with the gunmen, Kendall didn’t blame him, but she was thankful it was a false alarm.

“I’m Becky Lovelle,” the young blonde said. “I’ll be doing your ultrasound.”

Kendall certainly hadn’t forgotten about the ultrasound, but her strained discussion with Aiden had pushed the reminder of a possible problem to the fringes of her thoughts. No fringes now, though. Her heart went into overdrive.

“This won’t hurt,” the woman said.

But Kendall was already tuning her out, her attention nailed to the screen. It was blank now, but soon she’d see her precious baby. Hopefully, unharmed.

Aiden didn’t move closer. In fact, he leaned against the wall and watched from there. Even when the tech pushed up Kendall’s top and shoved down her skirt to expose her belly and coat it with some goopy gel, he kept watching.

Kendall suddenly felt way too bare with Aiden in the room, but there was no way she’d convince him to leave. There was no way to convince Aiden of a lot of things, and once she had the all-clear with the ultrasound, she’d need to figure out a way to handle him and this situation.

Aiden wasn’t going to like it when she insisted she leave.

But she would insist on it.

And maybe Aiden would soon see that it was the right thing for all of them.

The tech put the wand on Kendall’s stomach, and when she moved it around, Kendall could see the baby’s beating heart. Her breath rushed out.

“The baby’s okay?” Kendall immediately asked.

“Appears to be. That’s a strong, steady heartbeat.” The woman continued to move the wand, and even though it was hard to make out some of the images, Kendall definitely spotted two arms and two legs. All moving.

“Amazing,” Kendall said. “So much movement, and I haven’t even felt it yet.”

“Is that normal?” Aiden snapped.

The tech nodded. “Some women don’t experience quickening or movement until week twenty.”

That meshed with the maternity books that Kendall had been reading, but obviously this was all new to Aiden. He moved closer to the screen, his focus on the tiny baby.

Their baby.

Kendall saw and heard the moment that it finally sank in for him. Aiden made a hoarse sound that came from deep within his throat, and he mumbled something while his eyes tipped toward the ceiling. Maybe asking for divine help. She’d done that a few times early on, as well.

He dragged in a long breath. “Yeah, you should have told me.”

That didn’t sound like a man on the verge of rejecting fatherhood. Or even putting this in perspective. The bottom line was his family wasn’t going to embrace this child, and hers likely wouldn’t, either.

“Is that what I think it is?” Aiden asked.

Because he was looking gobsmacked again, Kendall’s gaze rifled back to the monitor, and she tried to brace herself for whatever had put that bleached-out expression on Aiden’s face.

“I’m sorry,” the tech said, sending Kendall’s heart into a tailspin again. “It’s usually not that clear this early on, and I should have asked first if you wanted to know the sex of the baby. This is a new machine, and it gives much clearer images than we used to get with the old one.”

Oh. Kendall got it then. Nothing was wrong with the baby, but the ultrasound had obviously shown her something she hadn’t known before now.

The baby was a boy.

“A son,” Aiden said, staggering back a bit.

Kendall had never seen him like this. Aiden was always in control. Always in charge. But this news had shaken him to the core.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Kendall insisted.

But she had the feeling he would have had the same reaction if it’d been a girl. It was just that seeing the baby on the screen made everything, well, real.

“The doctor will look over these images,” the tech said, finishing up. She wiped the goop off Kendall’s stomach. “But everything looks fine, right on target for the end of the first trimester.”

The moment the woman stepped out of the room, Kendall fixed her clothes. Best not to feel exposed when she had this discussion with Aiden. A discussion he wasn’t going to like. It was also a discussion she didn’t even get to start because Aiden’s phone buzzed, indicating that he had a text message.

“Leland got a hit on the dead guy’s prints,” Aiden said, reading the info on his phone. “His name was Montel Higgins.”

She repeated it, hoping that it would jog some kind of memory. It didn’t. “He has a record?”

Aiden nodded. “Both here and in his home country of Jamaica. He’s worked as muscle for loan sharks but never anything this serious. Leland’s checking to see if he can find a money trail so we can figure out who hired him.”

Good. That was a start. “What about the other one? Any sign of him?”

“Not so far, but they’ll keep looking.”

Kendall didn’t want them to stop looking, but she had to be realistic. It’d been several hours since the men kidnapped her, and the one who got away was probably long gone by now.

She stood, straightened her clothes. “You ready to talk?”

His gaze drifted to the ultrasound screen that was now blank. “Not about that. Not yet. But if you’re up to it, I need to take your statement about the attack. You might be able to recall some detail that’ll help us figure this out.”

Kendall definitely wasn’t feeling up to reliving the nightmare or giving a statement. She was exhausted and dizzy, and her arm was throbbing. Still, if she didn’t do it now, she’d only have to go to Aiden’s office tomorrow. Besides, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to returning to her house right now. Not with that escaped gunman still at large.

Aiden got her moving out of the ultrasound room and into the hall, but he stopped when they reached the glass doors that led from the ER to the parking lot. He slid his hand over his gun and looked out, his gaze slashing from one side of the lot to the other. Since it was close to 9:00 p.m., there weren’t many cars, only those of the workers and the handful of people in the ER itself. But Aiden still took his time, no doubt making sure they weren’t about to be attacked.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get my truck and bring it right to the door.”

However, he didn’t even make it a step before Kendall spotted movement in the parking lot. Aiden saw it, too, because he pushed her behind him and drew his gun.

But it wasn’t the masked attacker coming back for another round.

It was a woman Kendall instantly recognized, and she groaned. It was almost as loud as the one Aiden made.

His mother, Carla, was making a beeline toward them.

Since Carla and she didn’t live in the same town and definitely didn’t travel in the same circles, it’d been a decade or longer since Kendall had seen the woman. She hadn’t changed a bit. Tall and lean and dressed to perfection in a spring-yellow dress. Her dark blond hair was swept up and her makeup flawless. She looked ready for a church social.

Except for that troubled expression.

Aiden grumbled something Kendall didn’t catch and maneuvered her back, away from the door.

“Your deputy said you were here,” Carla greeted.

“I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt.”

“Good to hear.” She spared him a glance as if it was the last thing she’d intended to ask about. And it probably was, since her attention stayed on her son for only several brief moments before it went to Kendall.

That definitely wasn’t a loving look she gave Kendall.

“I figured I’d find you here with my son,” Carla complained.

Aiden tapped the badge clipped to his belt. “She’s with me because I’m doing my job. Two men kidnapped Kendall, and she was shot.”

Again, that didn’t appear to be what Carla had come to discuss. “Kendall O’Neal’s not only a job to you.” Carla’s breath shuddered, and tears watered her eyes. “How could you crush me like this, Aiden? How could you let Jewell McKinnon’s sister seduce you?”

Oh, no. Not this. Not now.

“It wasn’t like that,” Aiden insisted, but he might as well have been talking to the air, because his mother didn’t even look at him. She was glaring at Kendall.

“I know what happened between Aiden and you,” Carla said to Kendall. “And now we need to figure out what we’re going to do about this baby you’re carrying.”

Chapter Five

Aiden really didn’t need his mother in his face right now. His fun meter was at zero, and judging from the start to this particular conversation, everything about it was going to fall into the nonfun category.

He could go two ways with this. Placate Carla with some kind of “we’ll discuss this later” and go ahead and take Kendall to his office to get started on the paperwork. Or he could confront his mother as to how she’d learned about a one-night stand that Aiden hadn’t mentioned to a soul.

Since he figured the first option had little chance of ending this conversation in a hurry, he went with the second route and maneuvered them to the corner of the room so they could have a semiprivate talk.

“Did Laine tell you?” Kendall asked.

Aiden got his answer to that when Carla’s eyes widened. Those eyes then slashed toward Aiden. “You told Laine but not me?” But his mother waved off any answer that he might have given her. “It doesn’t matter. Laine and I aren’t on speaking terms since she married a McKinnon.”

Yeah, and it was something his mom brought up often. Laine had indeed married Tucker McKinnon, Jewell’s own son, and they were the parents of adopted twins. Something that had put a permanent rift between Carla and Laine.

Now Aiden was about to give her the same reason for a rift.

“If Laine didn’t tell you, how did you find out?” Aiden asked. Not that it was critical for him to know how the proverbial cat had gotten out of the bag, but he wanted to know just who was feeding information about him to his mother.

“I’d rather not say,” Carla insisted. “I’d rather focus on how to deal with this baby.”

Kendall sighed. “My baby isn’t something you need to deal with.” Her voice was strained, and while her words were crisp, Aiden figured it was better than her telling Carla to mind her own business.

But his mother would see this baby as her business.

“You’re wrong,” Carla answered. “You’re carrying a Braddock. My son’s blood. And I can’t let my grandbaby be raised by someone whose kin murdered my husband.” She pointed to Kendall’s stomach. “Your sister murdered that baby’s own grandfather.”

Oh, yeah. This was definitely not going in a fun direction.

“Someone shot Kendall,” Aiden said in case his mother had already forgotten. “The doctor wants her to get some rest.” The doc hadn’t specifically said that, but Aiden figured rest was much preferred over another dose of stress that his mother was doling out. “You wouldn’t want to do anything to cause her to miscarry, would you?”

Aiden hoped the answer to that was no, but his mother didn’t budge.

“This won’t take long,” Carla insisted. Now her gaze came back to his. “Then you and I can have a private discussion tomorrow.” The tears threatened again, followed by a whimper. “Why couldn’t you just leave Kendall alone?”

Aiden had asked himself that a thousand times and still didn’t have an answer. He’d developed an itch for Kendall about the same time he’d started to grow chest hair, and that itch had resulted in a kiss when they were thirteen. Kendall’s first. There probably would have been more kisses in their immediate future if just days later they hadn’t learned that his father had been murdered, and Kendall had left town with Jewell.

Of course, Kendall had come back to the area a time or two. Just enough to remind him that scratching the itch would feel pretty darn good even if it would also carry a huge price tag. Like now.

Except he didn’t want to think of his baby as a price tag.

At the moment, he didn’t want to think of his baby at all, because it wasn’t a good idea for him to be focusing on something that could bring him to his knees when he had a would-be killer gunning for his head.

“You’re just like your father,” Carla added, giving Aiden another dig. “Unable to resist an O’Neal woman. At least he didn’t get Jewell pregnant, though. Now we’ll have a baby to raise.”

Uh-oh. Definitely not the right thing to say, and Kendall stepped in front of him. “You’re not raising my baby.” She slid her hand protectively over her stomach. “In fact, you have no say in this whatsoever.”

The little glance that Kendall shot him was probably to let him know that he didn’t have a say, either. She was wrong about that.

Here came the tears, spilling down his mother’s cheeks. Since this was about to get uglier than it already was, Aiden took hold of Kendall and eased her back away from Carla. “Mom, I need to get Kendall’s statement so I can figure out who tried to kill her and the baby.”

That got Carla’s attention. She’d obviously known about the attack, but it probably hadn’t occurred to her yet that anything bad that happened to Kendall also happened to the baby she was carrying. Of course, maybe Carla didn’t care about that at all, despite her insistence about raising the child.

“Any idea who kidnapped me and tried to force Aiden to destroy evidence?” Kendall demanded. And it was indeed a demand. There was plenty of anger in her voice and narrowed eyes when they landed on his mother.

“What evidence?” Carla questioned.

“The bone fragments,” Aiden supplied.

Carla pressed her hand on her chest as if to steady her head. “Those fragments will convict Jewell of murder. There are only a handful of people who’d want that evidence destroyed. Joplin, Jewell’s children and Kendall.”

“And you,” Kendall added.

Obviously, his mom hadn’t seen that coming.

Neither had Aiden.

“You’re under psychiatric care,” Kendall added a heartbeat later. “Any other secrets you’d like to tell us about?”

Aiden was about to assure Kendall that it wasn’t true, but his mother certainly didn’t jump to deny it. “How did you know that?” Carla demanded.

Ah, heck.

Apparently, another can of worms had just been opened.

“I’d rather not say,” Kendall answered, repeating the words his mother had said earlier.

That put some fire in Carla’s eyes. “So what if it’s true that I’m seeing a psychiatrist? That doesn’t mean I would try to have evidence destroyed.”

“You might if you thought it’d make my sister look bad.” Kendall paused. “Or if you thought it’d get rid of me and the Braddock baby I’m carrying.”

Aiden mentally repeated his ah, heck because he didn’t like the sudden look in his mother’s eyes. The fire was still there, but he also saw something else.

The hatred.

It’d always been there, of course. But Aiden saw it now in a whole new light. Carla loathed Jewell, and that loathing extended to Kendall, since Jewell had practically raised Kendall after their father died.

Maybe his mother’s hatred extended to the baby, too.

Yeah, Carla had demanded to raise the child, but he hoped like the devil that there wasn’t something else going on here. Something that had caused her to put Kendall and the baby in danger.

But then he mentally shook his head.

There were plenty of other suspects with a more obvious motive without his reaching, and motive was something he’d take a hard look at soon. Right now he needed to fix this. Kendall was wobbling again, leaning against him, no doubt because she was dizzy. Probably in pain, too. No way did she need to be standing in the ER having words with his mother.

“We’re leaving now. Come on,” Aiden said to Kendall. “Mom, I’ll call you.”

And this time he didn’t leave any room for argument. He got Kendall out of that corner and left his mother standing there, glaring at them.

Even though he was hurrying, Aiden didn’t let his hasty departure make him stupid. He checked out the parking lot again to make sure no one was lurking around ready to attack.

There didn’t appear to be.

Rather than leave Kendall there with his mother nearby, he drew his gun and hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

“Hurry,” he reminded her, though he figured Kendall wouldn’t dawdle out in the open where her attacker could have another go at her.

Just in case that was the guy’s plan, Aiden kept her close. Right against him to be exact. And even though he didn’t break into a run, he got them to his truck as fast as possible. The moment they were inside and had on their seat belts, he drove away and got on the road that led out of town.

“I thought we were going to the sheriff’s office,” she said, glancing back at Main Street.

“It can wait. You have a security system at your house?”

She nodded but didn’t look too certain about this decision. Heck, Aiden wasn’t a hundred percent with it, either, but it might get Kendall the rest that she clearly needed.

He took out his phone, and while he kept watch around them, he called Leland. All his other deputies and Leland had their hands full with finding the missing attacker and processing the crime scene at Aiden’s place, but Aiden needed some security measures for Kendall. That meant turning to someone he didn’t especially want to turn to.

The McKinnons.

All three of Jewell’s sons were lawmen. That was the good news. The bad news was they were estranged from their mother, since they blamed Jewell for leaving them after the affair with Aiden’s father. An affair that’d led to his father’s murder.

And that meant the McKinnon sons were also estranged from Kendall.

Still, he hoped the lawmen would do their jobs, since Kendall’s house was in their jurisdiction.

“Call the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office,” Aiden told Leland when the deputy answered. “I’ll need a protection detail out at Kendall’s place.”

She was already shaking her head before Aiden finished the request, and if Aiden could have thought of another way to keep her safe, he would have taken it. Leland assured him that he’d get right on that and then gave Aiden a quick update. When he was done, Aiden clicked the end call button so he could argue with Kendall. Not just about this but also the other surprise she’d dropped about his mother.