The Mummy Mystery

“Turn onto that trail about fifty yards away,” he told Gabrielle. “It’s on the right.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see it.”

“You will,” he promised.

Houston wanted to remind her that his ranch hands were on the way, that they’d soon have backup. But backup might not arrive in time to do any good. Thankfully, there’d be enough tire treadmarks on the road that his men wouldn’t have any trouble finding them.

“There,” Houston told her, when he spotted the trail.

Since Gabrielle’s foot was already jammed onto the brake pedal, all she had to do was turn the steering wheel. The driver of the other car must have realized what was happening, because he made one last attempt to slam into them. Gabrielle took her foot off the brakes, and the momentum shot them forward on the dirt-and-gravel path.

“Hit the gas,” Houston instructed.

She did, and what was left of the tires kicked up rocks and gravel and spewed the debris back toward the black car. Houston saw their windshield crack, the broken safety glass webbing across the entire surface. However, what he still couldn’t see was the driver or any gunmen who might also be in the vehicle.

Gabrielle kept going, tearing her way through the trail that was little more than a path. Tree branches slapped against the car, and rocks battered like gunfire against the undercarriage.

“They stopped,” Houston mumbled. But he held his breath, waiting. Because maybe it was just temporary.

“Are they coming?” Gabrielle asked. She had her attention nailed to the trail ahead. Good thing, too, because she had to jerk the steering wheel hard to the left when a deer darted right in front of them.

Houston stared at the black car. “No. Stop up ahead by those rocks.”

“You want me to stop? Are you crazy? We’re getting away from them.”

“Yeah. And if we do that, it just means they’ll try this again. And again. It’s been my experience that people get pretty tenacious when there’s a lot of money involved.”

“Right,” she finally answered, and pumped her brakes to bring the car to a stop.

Once the dust settled, Houston had no trouble seeing the black car. It sat there like a jungle cat ready to attack. But Houston was ready, too. He opened the glove compartment so he could get to the extra ammunition, and aimed the gun at the vehicle.

No one got out. They just sat there. And the moments crawled by.

When Houston’s lungs began to ache, he realized he was holding his breath, so he forced himself to relax. He was a good shot—had even won some shooting competitions in his teens—and if necessary, he would kill these attackers if they came after Gabrielle and him.

But they didn’t come.

The black car’s engine roared to life, and the driver threw the vehicle into Reverse. He headed off the trail fast, and back toward the road.

“What should we do?” Gabrielle asked. Her voice was strained and practically soundless.

Houston considered going after them, but he had a better idea. He grabbed his phone and called Dale.

“How far out are the ranch hands?” Houston asked his foreman.

“They left a good five minutes ago.”

Then they’d be here soon. “Tell them to follow the black car I told you about. And they’d better not lose sight of it. I want to know where that driver goes. If the car stops anywhere, I want to know about it.” He didn’t want these SOBs going anywhere near Lucas.

Wherever that was.

“Hang on the line, and I’ll tell them,” Dale assured him.

Houston heard Dale make the call and give the ranch hands the instructions to follow. Good. The driver of that black car wouldn’t know that these men worked for Houston, and maybe, just maybe, he would soon have answers.

“You’re sure you have Lucas someplace safe?” Houston asked Gabrielle.

She nodded. “No one except the nanny and I know where he is.”

Gabrielle sounded confident enough, but Houston wasn’t willing to take that chance. If the car went near where Lucas could be, he’d have the ranch hands stop them, one way or another.

“I called your friend, Jordan Taylor,” Dale said, when he came back on the line with Houston. “The plates on that black car are bogus.”

That wasn’t a surprise. It was clear the driver had criminal intent on his mind, and he wouldn’t want to advertise his real identity.

“And I checked the computer records on the ranch’s vehicles. It only took a couple of seconds, because they’re all linked to a central GPS.”

That had been Dale’s idea, so he would know when all the vehicles were scheduled for maintenance, and which were available for use at any given moment.

“And? “ Houston said, when Dale didn’t continue.

Beside him, Gabrielle’s breath was gusting. She was mumbling what sounded like a prayer. But Houston kept his attention nailed to their surroundings, in case the black car returned.

“The green Range Rover’s only been taken out once in the past month, and that was three days ago,” Dale finally continued. But the man hesitated again.

Hell. Someone had used it. And whoever it was had used it to follow Gabrielle, just as she’d said. What Houston wanted to know now was why the person had done that.

“And?” Houston snarled. “Who took the Range Rover off the ranch?”

Dale cleared his throat. “Your father.”

Chapter Four

“This really isn’t a good idea,” Gabrielle reminded Houston, again.

Like the other reminders that she’d doled out in the past ten minutes since Houston had gotten behind the wheel of her car, this one didn’t do any good, either, because he continued to drive toward his ranch. It was the last place in Texas she wanted to be, after hearing the news from Dale that Mack Sadler had driven the ranch’s Range Rover on the very day that someone had used it to follow her. She didn’t want to see or confront Mack just yet.

Besides, she needed to get back to Lucas.

She’d assured Houston that Lucas was safe from the people in that black car, but Gabrielle didn’t want to risk being away from him any longer. She also didn’t want to press the point of getting back to the baby, because that would only spur Houston into demanding that he go along with her. So she tried a different angle.

“Someone just tried to run us off the road,” Gabrielle said. “Maybe this time he didn’t use the green Range Rover. Maybe Mack used another vehicle from the ranch.”

“My father had nothing to do with what just happened,” Houston snapped. He had his attention fastened to the road ahead, and every muscle in his face was iron hard.

“Right,” she mumbled. “Then who was it?”

His jaw muscles tightened even more, something she hadn’t thought possible. “I don’t know, but I sure as hell intend to find out.”

She didn’t doubt that he would try to do that. Houston was invested in this now. Unfortunately.

He knew about Lucas, and he wasn’t just going to forget that he had a biological son. That meant Gabrielle would have to go on the run again. Somehow, she’d have to hide.

A pang of guilt hit her harder than she’d expected.

Lucas was indeed Houston’s son, and that perhaps did give him some legal rights, but she couldn’t let him be part of her baby’s life. The incident with the black car was a stark warning that Lucas’s safety had to come first.

The problem was, how could she outrun the danger?

Gabrielle had some savings, but it wasn’t unlimited, and it would be eaten up quickly if she had to use it for hotels and travel. She didn’t have any rich relatives, either. Her brother, Jay, lived from paycheck to paycheck, when and if he was working, and he wasn’t what anyone would consider responsible.

She was on her own, and obviously in deep trouble.

“My father wasn’t in that black car,” Houston mumbled. “He also wouldn’t have done anything to make you an unwilling surrogate. And he would have no reason to follow you three days ago. Whoever took that photo of the license plates made a mistake.”

Was it her imagination, or did he seem to be trying to convince himself?

Still, it didn’t make sense that Mack would risk hurting his own son in a car crash. For that matter, Mack’s possible involvement with her didn’t make sense, either. She’d never met the man, and he’d had nothing to do with the lawsuit involving her brother.

So, did that mean someone had set up Mack to make him look guilty?

It was a good theory, except that Gabrielle couldn’t think of a reason for that, either. If this had something to do with a possible accomplice of the gunmen who’d taken her hostage, then how did that connect back to the Sadlers?

Maybe it didn’t.

But Gabrielle wasn’t about to declare either of them innocent just yet. The only thing she knew was that her routine request for a donor embryo had somehow turned into a nightmare—a nightmare that had produced a baby she loved more than life itself.

Houston turned into the driveway that led to the front of the ranch house. Except, it was really more of a sprawling mansion than a mere house. It was three stories, all pristine white, with porches and columns that stretched across the front on all three levels. It was yet another reminder that, if it came down to a custody battle, it wouldn’t be easy to fight Houston and his money.

Dale was waiting for them on the first-floor porch, and he hurried out to the car the moment Houston brought it to a stop. “Are you okay?” he asked Houston, and then looked at Gabrielle, as well.

She nodded, but Houston didn’t respond, and instead asked, “Where’s Dad?”

“Inside his office, waiting. I told him you’d asked about the Range Rover.”

Houston shoved her gun into the glove compartment and slammed the car door, perhaps not pleased that Dale had even brought up the subject with the senior Sadler. Or maybe that was just Gabrielle’s take on things. Houston’s reaction could have stemmed from the fact that he was still fuming from the attack.

No fuming for her, but she was still shaking. Gabrielle hoped she could hold herself together long enough to get the heck out of there.

First though, she was apparently about to see Mack.

Then, when she was away from the ranch and the Sadlers, she could fall apart and have a good cry.

“I didn’t call the sheriff, just as you asked, and I sent the two ranch hands after the black car,” Dale explained, as they stepped onto the porch.

“Did they find it?” Houston asked.

“They did, and they’re keeping a close watch on it.”

Gabrielle groaned softly. She didn’t want them to keep a close watch. She wanted the driver of that vehicle apprehended, so she could finally learn why she’d been followed and harassed in the six weeks since Lucas’s birth. Of course, if the sheriff arrested the men in that car, she would have to come out of hiding to give her statement about what they had done.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Either decision could be a dangerous one.

Houston opened the double front doors and ushered her inside. The entrance was just as grand as the rest of the house, as was each room they passed along the way to his father’s office. Houston stopped outside a closed door, and he glanced at her, then Dale.

“Why don’t you take Gabrielle to the kitchen and fix her a cup of tea or something?” Houston asked his foreman.

Gabrielle was shaking her head before Houston even finished. “I don’t want any tea. I want to hear what your father has to say for himself.” She made certain that her tone left no room for argument. The sooner they had this conversation, then the sooner she could leave.

Houston stared at her for several moments. “Call the ranch hands and find out the latest on the car they’re following,” he instructed Dale. “I don’t want the driver of that vehicle to make any stops anywhere near the baby. Understand?”

Dale assured him that he would, and the man walked away, leaving Houston and her still staring at each other. She braced herself for him to open the door and confront his father, but he didn’t.

“Are you okay? “ he asked.

Gabrielle blinked. His expression was so different than it had been on the drive over. No more iron muscles in his face, and his eyes no longer seemed so icy.

“I wasn’t hurt,” she clarified.

“Not even when I wrestled the gun away from you in the stables?”

She thought of that contact between. Yes, he’d been rough, but it could have been a lot worse. Maybe it was her imagination, but Houston seemed to have treated her with kid gloves. Gabrielle wasn’t sure she would have been that gentle with him if their positions had been reversed.

“When I came after you like that,” he continued, “I didn’t know you’d recently given birth.”

He was worried about hurting her, which was considerate. After all, she’d pulled a gun on him—something she would regret for the rest of her life. But she wouldn’t regret the anger if she learned Houston was behind all of this. If he had done this to her on purpose, then she would somehow make him pay.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she settled for saying.

“Good.” A moment later, Houston asked, “Are you still recovering from the delivery?”

“No. I didn’t have a C-section, so I was back on my feet almost right away.”

And that seemed like way too much information to be sharing with him. Houston Sadler didn’t have the right to know anything about her personal welfare, other than that she was capable of taking care of Lucas on her own.

“But you must have had some health problems,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have had to use a donor embryo.”

“I’m sterile because of chemo I had to have when I was a kid.” Again, way too much information. “And I’d rather not talk about that.”

The silence turned awkward in a hurry, and Gabrielle didn’t like that he suddenly seemed to be feeling sorry for her, or for what he’d done. This was essentially war between them, and she wanted to hang on to every drop of the anger, because it would fuel her for the inevitable battle with the Sadlers.

Houston looked as if he might add something else, but then he shook his head, knocked once and opened the door.

Mack was standing behind his grand oak desk with the bay windows framing him from behind. He had several shots of liquor in a cut crystal glass and took at least one of those shots in one gulp.

“Dale said somebody tried to run you off the road,” Mack greeted. His attention landed on Gabrielle. “Was it because of her?”

“We’re not sure,” Houston answered.

“Well, son, we’d better find out because now that you know she’s got your boy, you can’t let anything happen to him.”

Gabrielle had to bite her tongue. She hated that this arrogant man felt he had the right to dictate anything about Lucas. Lucas was hers!

“How you handling things?” Mack asked Houston.

By “things,” he no doubt meant Lucas. But Houston didn’t even address that.

He put his hands on his hips and stared at his father. “Dale told you about the green Range Rover.”

“He did. What’s that all about? Why does it matter if I drove it or not? ”

Gabrielle didn’t wait for Houston. She jumped right in with her answer. “Three days ago, someone driving a Range Rover followed me. A PI friend traced the plates to one of your ranch vehicles.”

“I see.” Mack had another gulp of the liquor. “And you think it was me? ”

“Was it?” she demanded.

Mack didn’t jump to deny it. “I used the Range Rover,” he calmly admitted. “It was the anniversary of my wife’s death, and I just wanted to get out for a while. I drove into San Antonio, to the Menger Bar, and had a few drinks. Last I heard, that wasn’t a crime.”

He was denying his guilt, and that shot her anger through the roof. “You followed me. Why?”

Gabrielle expected Houston to jump in and tell her to back off, that his father was innocent, but he didn’t. He, too, stared at his father and waited for an answer.

Mack took a deep breath and eased into the chair behind his desk. However, he didn’t address Gabrielle’s question. Instead, he looked at Houston. “I was worried about you, son. It’s been three years since Lizzy died, and you haven’t moved on with your life.”

Everything inside Gabrielle went still.

Houston apparently had the opposite reaction. “What the hell does that mean? “ he snarled.

Mack dodged his son’s glare and slowly ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “It means I wanted to help you.” He paused. “And I did.”

She felt the knot form in her stomach, and Gabrielle slid her hand over it. It didn’t soothe her. Nothing would at this point. Her entire body was bracing itself for what Mack was about to say.

“How did you help?” Houston demanded.

Mack finished his drink, taking the rest in one gulp. “Almost a year ago, when you were out, you got a call from the Cryogen Clinic, the place where Lizzy had stored those embryos y’all were using before she got the cancer. I was worried the call would upset you, so I pretended to be you so they’d tell me what the problem was. They said there’d been a serious mixup.”

Houston shook his head. “What kind of mixup?”

Gabrielle could only stand there and listen. The knot tightened, and her breath began to race.

“Lizzy hadn’t signed an agreement,” Mack continued, “but the only embryo of hers that was left was accidently donated to someone. So I drove over there to talk to Salvador Franks, the head of the clinic. He didn’t want to tell me who’d gotten the embryo, but I said if he didn’t I’d sue him into bankruptcy. That’s when I learned Gabrielle here was the one who got it.”

Houston groaned and pushed his hands against the sides of his head. “You knew? All this time you knew?”

He took the words right out of her mouth. But she already knew the answer. Mack had indeed known, practically since the moment she’d become pregnant.

But the question was, what had he done about it?

“Why the hell didn’t you tell Gabrielle or me?” Houston demanded.

“I couldn’t tell you because you would have gone to her and spilled everything.” Mack got to his feet. “I knew she hated you. I thought she might do something to end the pregnancy.”

“Never,” Gabrielle snapped.

And she wouldn’t have. But she would have liked the time to come to terms with what had happened. She’d planned the entire pregnancy around a donor embryo and figured she would never know the identity of the couple who had given her such a precious gift. And that was exactly the way Gabrielle had wanted it.

Mack aimed his index finger at her. “You say that now, but you would have been riled to the core to learn about the screwup at Cryogen.”

Riled, yes. But not riled enough to end the pregnancy. She’d planned this pregnancy for years.

“Salvador Franks and I worked out a deal,” Mack added. “He agreed not to tell anyone about Gabrielle getting the wrong embryo. Now SAPD is investigating the whole damn thing, and Franks is trying to cover his butt. I figure he’s putting the blame on Gabrielle.”

She looked at Houston, and his gaze slowly came to hers. There. She saw it: the shock and the hurt. He wasn’t faking that, and that meant he probably hadn’t known about any of this before now.

That didn’t help.

It only meant Houston was another wounded party in all of this, but it didn’t change the fact that she had indeed given birth to his and his late wife’s son.

“You planned to buy off Gabrielle,” Houston stated, turning a glare to his father. “You thought you could buy the baby from her.”

“Well, after she defended her worthless brother the way she did, I didn’t think she was a woman of principle,” Mack answered. “I figured I could offer her enough money to hand over the baby to us.”

Houston was as obviously stunned as she was, because they both just stood there and listened.

“That’s why I’ve been following her,” Mack continued. “Or trying to, anyway. That woman’s like a cat with nine lives. She kept getting away from me. But I learned that SAPD had done DNA tests on the babies after that hostage mess, and I figured it was a matter of time before the cops figured out the boy was yours. Then, I knew I could bargain with Gabrielle.”

So it hadn’t been her imagination, as Houston had suggested. Someone had followed her since she’d left the hospital. That twisted the knot in Gabrielle’s stomach even more.

“There’s not enough money in the world to make me give up my baby to you or anyone else,” Gabrielle told him.

She blinked back the tears, turned and hurried toward the door. She had to get out of there and back to Lucas.

“The boy belongs to Houston,” Mack shouted out to her. “He’s a Sadler and should be here with us.”

Mack added something else, but Gabrielle couldn’t make out his words. However, she could hear the footsteps behind her. It was no doubt Houston. But she didn’t care to speak to him, either.

She started to sprint toward the front door. Her car was seriously damaged, but somehow it’d have to get her away from the ranch and back to San Antonio.

Gabrielle made it all the way to the foyer before Houston latched on to her arm and whirled her around to face him. The tears were blurring her vision but not enough that she couldn’t see his stunned expression. It was identical to the one he’d had earlier when he learned that Lucas was his biological child.

Neither of them were having anything close to a good day, and under normal circumstances, Gabrielle might have actually felt sorry for him. But she had more to lose here. She’d carried Lucas, given birth to him and had taken care of him for the past six weeks. As cold and hard as it sounded, Houston didn’t even know the baby.

She wanted to keep it that way.

“I had no idea my father knew about this,” he said, the emotion straining his voice.

“I don’t care.” She tried to throw off his hand, but Houston held on. “None of this matters. Lucas is my son, not yours.”

“But he is mine,” Houston reminded her. “And even though I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to you, I can’t just let you walk out.”

Gabrielle tried again to break free from him, but it was hard to do with the tears streaming down her cheeks. The raw sensations didn’t help, either. She felt totally drained and defeated. But that couldn’t last. She had to dig deep and fight her way out of this situation.

“I have to go,” she insisted.

Gabrielle threw her weight back, so she could wrench herself out of his grip. And she succeeded. For a few seconds, anyway. Then Houston grabbed her by the shoulders and put her against the wall.

“I can’t just let you walk out,” he repeated.

A dozen different emotions went through her, and she pounded her fists against his chest. But Houston held on, pinning her in place with his body. He took every one of her punches. He just stood there and waited her out.

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