The jolt tossed Cameron and Lauren around again, and it didn’t help that the SUV managed to ram them one more time.
Cameron got his door shut, and he pivoted in the seat to try to figure out what he could do. Not much. The front of the SUV had almost certainly been reinforced, but there wasn’t much damage to it. That meant the driver had no trouble coming at them again. Gabriel pushed the accelerator even more, trying to get them out of there.
Despite the ringing in his ears, Cameron heard a welcome sound. Sirens. Backup had arrived. But the thug in the SUV no doubt heard them, as well, because he slammed on his brakes. The road wasn’t that wide, but he managed to get turned around in just a few seconds.
And he drove off.
Cameron wanted to go after the SOB and beat the truth out of him. He wanted to find out who’d hired him and his dead partner to try to kill them. But it was too risky to do that. Instead, Gabriel instructed the backup to go after the SUV while he continued to drive toward town. It didn’t take long for the SUV to disappear from sight.
Lauren’s hands were shaking hard, but she was able to use his phone to call the ranch. “The SUV might go there,” she said.
That upped his concern a couple of notches. Even though he knew there were plenty of security measures in place, Cameron didn’t release the breath he’d been holding until he heard Jameson tell Lauren that all was well at the ranch. The babies were fine.
Two cruisers went flying past them, heading in the same direction as the SUV. Cameron only hoped they could catch up with him and bring the snake in alive for questioning.
Gabriel kept volleying glances in the rearview mirror and at Maria, but he also made a call to the sheriff’s office.
“Are you okay?” Cameron asked Lauren.
She nodded. “But you’re not. Your head is bleeding.”
“I’m fine.” That was possibly the truth, and even if it wasn’t, Cameron had no plans to do anything about it.
He cupped Lauren’s face, checking for any injuries but didn’t see any. However, there was a new level of fear in her eyes. Of course, she had just killed a man. Her second one in two days. It would only add to the other nightmares she already had.
“How about you?” he asked Gabriel. “Are you hurt?”
“Just some bruises.” He tipped his head to Maria. “She can’t say the same, though.”
No. Now that the woman was in the cruiser, Cameron had no trouble seeing that the front of her dress was drenched in blood. Cameron pulled off his shirt and held it to her chest wound. It wasn’t much, but maybe it would help until they could get her to the hospital.
“What about the ambulance?” Lauren asked. “How soon can it get here now that the shots have stopped?”
“It’s just about a half mile up,” Gabriel answered. “I talked to Jace at the office, and he said they’re waiting for us.”
Good. That would mean Maria would soon get the medical attention she needed.
“Julia,” Cameron heard Maria mumble. Her voice was too weak, and he wasn’t sure if she could manage more than just that one word, but Cameron had to try.
“Did Julia hire the men who did this to you?” Cameron asked.
Maria opened her eyes, and it was as if she was surprised he was there. “Deputy Doran,” she said. Her gaze drifted to Lauren. “I’m so sorry.”
“The apology can wait.” Cameron hated to sound harsh, but hearing that wasn’t going to help them. “Why do you keep saying Julia’s name?”
Maria dragged in a shallow breath. “She came to see me.”
Probably not a good thing especially since Julia was desperate for money. “You told her about the baby swap?”
Maria nodded, and her eyes drifted down. “Be careful.”
It was definitely a warning, but Cameron didn’t get a chance to press her for more. That was because Gabriel hit the brakes again. This time, though, it was for the ambulance. He pulled to a quick stop right next to it, and the medics rushed out to take Maria.
“I’ll ride with her to the hospital,” Cameron insisted.
With the seconds ticking away, he figured he only had a few minutes at most to get what he needed from Maria. The truth. And then maybe he could finally put an end to this once and for all.
Chapter Eleven
Lauren sat at Gabriel’s desk and waited. Something she’d been doing since they’d arrived at the sheriff’s office over an hour ago. There wasn’t much else she could do until Cameron called with news from the hospital.
Maybe the news would be good. Maybe Maria would survive surgery and be able to tell them what was going on. Until then, Cameron had no plans to leave.
At least the boys weren’t anywhere near the danger and the aftermath. Lauren hadn’t been able to stop herself from calling Dara three times to make sure all was well there. It was. And now she had to pray it stayed that way.
She heard the footsteps heading toward her, and Lauren practically jumped to her feet. But it wasn’t Cameron. It was Gabriel. He had a foam box in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, and he was sporting a very concerned look.
“A sandwich from the diner,” he said, putting the box and water on the desk in front of her. “You need to eat.”
Yes, she probably did, but she wasn’t hungry. In fact, her stomach was churning. Still, she would try to keep something down. It wouldn’t do any of them any good if she got light-headed.
“Anything from Cameron?” she asked, but she already knew the answer. If there had been, Cameron would have texted her. He knew she was on pins and needles while she waited.
He shook his head and opened the foam box when she didn’t touch it. Lauren sat down and took a small bite of the BLT. There wasn’t just one sandwich, though, but two. Gabriel must have thought she was starved. Or just eager to sample something she hadn’t had in a long time.
“You remembered this was my favorite,” she said. He’d even gotten a bag of her favorite chips to go with it.
“Of course I remembered. You’re my sister.”
There was some emotion that went with that comment, and Lauren knew they were talking about a lot more than just the sandwich.
She looked up at him, their eyes connecting. “I can’t apologize for leaving Blue River. I had to go.”
If he agreed with that, he didn’t show any signs of it. “Now you’re back.” He paused, a muscle flickering in his jaw. “With plans to marry Cameron.”
There was definitely no hint of agreement for that, either. “We don’t want any chance of the boys being sent to foster care.”
Gabriel nodded. Finally, they’d found some common ground. “And then what? What do you do when we stop the person behind the attacks?”
At least he’d said when and not if. This had to stop. They couldn’t keep going on like this.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “When the DNA tests prove there’s been a swap—”
“There was,” Gabriel interrupted. “I just got the results back. I texted Cameron, too, so he knows.”
Obviously, Lauren had known the swap had taken place, but it still felt like a shock. A violation, really. Someone—Maria, probably—had swapped the babies, and in doing so had robbed Lauren of being with her son for the first year of his life. She’d done the same to Cameron.
“I love Patrick just as much as I do Isaac,” she said, pushing the sandwich aside. No way could she take another bite.
“I know. Cameron feels the same way.”
He did. Lauren had no doubts about that, either. “That’s another reason for the marriage. Neither of us can give up the babies we’ve been raising.”
Gabriel stayed quiet for a moment. “So you...what? Try to make a real go of it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because if you’re not, then that’s not right for Cameron or you. Especially Cameron. You’ve
had a marriage, a real one, but Cameron’s never had that. He deserves it.”
Lauren was already reeling from the DNA news and everything else that’d happened, but that only added to the feeling. She hadn’t expected her brother to have that objection.
But he was right.
Cameron did deserve better. He deserved a real wife who loved him and wanted to build a family with him. Lauren could give him the family—that was already in place—but she wasn’t sure she could handle the rest. A real marriage to Cameron would mean her staying in Blue River. It would mean forgetting her past. And she wasn’t sure she could do that just yet.
“What are you suggesting?” she came out and asked.
“That you hold off on saying I do at least for a day or so until you’ve had time to give it more thought.”
Good advice. But it wasn’t advice she could take. “It would crush me if the boys were taken away. In fact, I couldn’t let that happen, and that means Cameron and I could end up breaking the law.”
Gabriel gave her a snarled look that only a lawman big brother could manage, and he made a suit-yourself sound. Since she’d obviously ruffled his feathers, Lauren went to him and brushed a kiss on his cheek. She hadn’t expected it to help and was surprised when it did. It soothed his expression a bit anyway.
“I love you,” he said. “I only want the best for you. For Jameson, Cameron and Ivy, too.”
She knew that. So did they. But there were no easy ways for her to get “the best.” Right now she’d just settle for keeping the babies and the rest of them safe.
“I love you, too,” Lauren answered.
They had a nice moment, one that felt like old times before Gabriel tipped his head to the sandwich. “You should finish eating. You’re going to need your strength. Duane and Julia are on their way here now.”
That wouldn’t be fun, but it was necessary. “They agreed to come?”
Gabriel gave her a flat look. “I didn’t exactly ask. I told them I’d put out warrants for their arrests if they didn’t show up. I want to question Julia especially.”
Yes, because Maria had kept repeating the woman’s name.
“I thought if I had Julia and Duane here together, that one of them might blurt out something when they started arguing with each other,” Gabriel went on. “There seems to be enough bad blood between them that it brings out the fangs.”
It did. And the two had had no trouble incriminating each other in their other conversations. Too bad nothing had panned out on those so Gabriel could make an arrest. There’d been no proof that Julia had hired those gunmen, and the Rangers hadn’t had any luck confirming that the files Julia gave them were real and not some attempt to set up Duane.
“And Evelyn?” she asked. “Are you bringing her in, too?”
Gabriel got that hard look again. “She’s not answering her phone, and according to her housekeeper, she didn’t come home last night.”
Lauren thought about that for a moment. “Could she be with her friend, Judge Olsen?”
Gabriel shook his head. “I called him. He didn’t know where she was, either. I pressed him for some info about his relationship with Evelyn.” He put relationship in air quotes. “But he got huffy and reminded me that I was a small-town cop who had no right to question him.”
“That sounds like something a guilty man would say. Please tell me there’s something that proves Evelyn has bought off Judge Olsen?”
“Nothing. So far,” he quickly added. “I’m hoping either Julia or Duane will have something to say about that, too. All three—Duane, Julia and Evelyn—seemed to be coiled around each other like a family of snakes.”
They did. And that was unsettling. It was bad enough if only one of them was behind this, but if they’d teamed up...well, Lauren didn’t want to go there.
She heard more footsteps, and Lauren hurried to get past Gabriel so she could peer out into the hall. Gabriel didn’t let her get far, though. He stepped in front of her, probably because he thought it was one of their suspects. It wasn’t.
It was Cameron.
He was wearing a bandage on the side of his head near his right temple, but even seeing that didn’t diminish the relief she felt. It flooded through her, and Lauren practically ran to him. She hadn’t intended to do it, but she put her arms around him and kissed him.
Cameron’s muscles tensed, probably because he hadn’t been expecting it. And because Gabriel was almost certainly watching them. Still, Cameron didn’t push her away. He let the kiss linger until Lauren eased back.
And that was when she saw the weariness in his eyes. Lauren was pretty sure she knew what it meant, too.
“Maria’s dead?” she asked.
He nodded and brushed a kiss on her cheek. Not a kiss of relief as hers had been. Also not one of passion. That had been meant to comfort her, and much to her surprise, it worked.
She’d been right about Gabriel watching them. He was in the doorway, but he walked out, stopping directly in front of them. “Did Maria say anything else?”
“No.” Cameron scrubbed his hand over his face and blew out a long, frustrated breath. “She was unconscious by the time she went into surgery, and she died on the operating table.”
Lauren reminded herself that the woman’s chances of surviving hadn’t been that good, but it was still a blow. Not just because they wouldn’t be able to get answers from her but also because a woman was dead. Maria hadn’t exactly been innocent since she was the one who’d switched the babies, but she didn’t deserve to die because of what she’d done.
“Whoever’s behind this can now be charged with murder,” Gabriel said.
He was right, but the trick would be to catch the person.
As if waiting for something, Gabriel glanced at both Cameron and her. Maybe he wanted to discuss the marriage, but he didn’t get a chance to do that. That was because his phone rang. When he glanced at the screen, he mumbled something about having to take the call, and he went into the squad room.
“Make sure she eats,” Gabriel told Cameron from over his shoulder. “Her lunch is on my desk.”
Cameron immediately took her back into her brother’s office, and she was about to remind him that he needed to eat, too, but he sat across from her and helped himself to some of the chips. She handed him half the sandwich, and he started in on that, as well.
“You know about Duane, Julia and Evelyn?” she asked.
He nodded, then drank some of her water, too. It seemed...intimate or something. Which her body thought was good. Of course, her body often had thoughts like that around Cameron.
“SAPD is looking for Evelyn,” he explained, which meant Cameron had been keeping up with the case even when he’d been at the hospital. “The justice of the peace will be here soon, too.”
He took something from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. A marriage license.
“I had the clerk bring it to the hospital,” Cameron added. He ate more of the chips and stared at her. “Having second thoughts? Or did Gabriel talk you out of doing this?”
“He tried,” she admitted. And paused. “FYI. You deserve better, though. Better than a marriage of convenience.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up in a slight smile, and he leaned across the desk to drop a kiss on her cheek. “Lauren, there’s nothing convenient about you,” he drawled.
There it was. The heat that always went to flames. It set off red flags in her head. Because the heat could lead her to do things that shouldn’t be happening. At least not now anyway. Cameron and she had too much without adding sex to the mix.
The heat faded considerably when she heard the voices in the squad room. Julia and Duane had arrived. And they’d brought their lawyers from the sound of it. Someone—a man—was talking about this being harassment.
“I haven’t started to harass you yet,” Gabriel gr
owled, his voice low and dangerous as only Gabriel could manage. “Trust me, you’ll know when I’ve started.”
Cameron and she stepped into the hall just as she saw Gabriel motioning for Duane and Julia to follow him. Lauren had been right about the lawyers. There was a man and woman, both wearing business clothes, and they fell in step behind Gabriel as he led them toward the interview room.
Julia stopped to give Lauren a glare.
Lauren glared back and hoped she wouldn’t lose her temper and punch the woman. Julia had been a thorn in her side for years, and Lauren had reached her limit. So that her brother wouldn’t have to arrest her for assault, she stayed just slightly behind Cameron when they went into the interview room with the others.
“They’re going to stay for this?” the female lawyer balked.
“Yes,” Gabriel said without hesitation. “And rein in your attitude. Just a short while ago, the three of us had thugs shoot a lot of bullets at us. They killed a woman. And before that woman died, she said one thing—the name of your client. I think Cameron, Lauren and I deserve a few answers about that.”
“What?” Julia had just sat down, but that brought her right back to her feet. “That nurse said I did this?”
Obviously, Julia knew plenty about this situation, and judging from her lawyer’s scowl, she didn’t like that her client had just admitted as much.
Gabriel put his hands on the metal table and leaned in, his face getting very close to Julia’s. “Tell me everything you know about that nurse.”
Duane huffed. “I don’t know why I got called in for this. Obviously, this is Julia up to her old tricks again.” He got up to leave, too, but Cameron shot him a glare that could have frozen Texas in August.
“Sit,” Cameron said through clenched teeth.
Duane sat, but his lawyer—the bald guy in a gray suit—rattled off a legal protest. He didn’t mention the word harassment, though.
“Your client has the means, motive and opportunity to be behind that attack,” Gabriel reminded the lawyer. “That’s why he’s here. And that’s why he’s staying here until I get answers. Don’t,” he added when the lawyer opened his mouth. “I have enough to arrest your client, and I’m in a bad enough mood to do it. Just let Deputy Doran and me ask the questions, and we might be able to get to the bottom of this.”
Lawman from Her Past Page 11