Chapter Fourteen
The sound woke Lauren, and she jackknifed in the bed. It was a loud boom. And for several heart-stopping moments, she thought they were under attack, that one of those hired thugs had made it onto the ranch and fired a shot at them.
“A storm moved in,” Cameron said. He was close to the bed. Very close. Right by the nightstand just a couple of inches from her. “It’s thunder.”
She heard the words, but it took a while for them to register. It was indeed storming. Lauren could hear the rain hitting against the windows and the tin roof. There was even a crack of lightning. But she wasn’t sure how she’d managed to sleep through that or Cameron getting out of the bed.
Actually, she wasn’t sure how she’d managed to sleep at all.
She had, though. She had apparently fallen asleep after Cameron carried her to the bed, and now it was morning. Late morning. Well, late for her anyway. It was seven thirty.
“I took the boys downstairs when they woke up about a half hour ago,” Cameron said as he made an adjustment to his shoulder holster. “Dara and Merilee changed them and are feeding them breakfast.”
Good grief. She’d slept through the babies getting up, as well. Obviously, sex with Cameron was an amazing stress reliever for her to be able to do that. She hadn’t slept through the night since she’d become a mother.
“You should have gotten me up sooner,” she grumbled.
He shrugged. “I had some things I had to work out. Things to do with the investigation,” he added. “Besides, I wanted you to get some rest.”
She wanted him to have some rest, too, but she was betting he hadn’t gotten much. They’d gotten in bed together, but before she’d fallen into a deep sleep, she’d remembered him getting up to go to the window to look out. Keeping watch to make sure those thugs didn’t come back for another round.
She threw back the covers, only to remember that she was stark naked. Cameron noticed, too, and he gave her one of those lazy smiles that reminded her of why she’d landed on the bathroom floor with him in the first place.
“We need to talk, so you should probably get dressed.”
“Talk?” she questioned.
“About the safe house. About some other things.” He was obviously keeping it vague, and she might have pressed for more, but he leaned down, brushing a kiss on her mouth. Coming from any other man, it would have qualified as a peck, but even a brief kiss was potent when it came from Cameron.
“I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” he added and headed for the door. But then he stopped and looked back at her. “By the way, Gabriel knows we were together last night. He came to the room at around five to check on you.”
Lauren groaned. She didn’t mind Gabriel knowing, but it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with him. Gabriel wouldn’t feel the same way, though. She’d get another big-brother lecture from him about guarding her heart.
And it was a lecture she needed to hear.
She should do some heart-guarding, but considering she’d had sex with Cameron—amazing sex at that—that ship had already sailed.
The moment Cameron was out of the room and had shut the door, Lauren hurried from the bed and to the shower. She didn’t even wait for the water to reach the right temperature. She just rushed through it and tried not to think of what could go wrong with the move to the safe house. They’d already been through so much, and she didn’t want anything else bad to happen.
Lauren changed her bandage, got dressed and was ready to rush out of the room when she spotted something on the floor to the side of the vanity. Cameron’s wallet. She’d tossed it there after she’d taken out the condom, and Cameron must not have seen it. She picked it up, the wallet falling open. And that was when she saw it.
The edge of the photo.
It was tucked in one of the slots normally used for credit cards. Without thinking, she lifted it out and got a shock. It was a picture of Cameron and her. They were smiling, and he had his arm slung over her shoulders.
She instantly remembered when it’d been taken. They’d been outside the barn at her house, and Ivy had just walked in on them making out. They’d been fully clothed, thank goodness, but Ivy had insisted on snapping the shot with her phone. Her sister had sent them both the picture, but Cameron must have had his printed out.
Strange that he would have kept it all these years. It seemed like something a man would do when he was in love, and Cameron had never come close to saying the L-word to her. Of course, maybe he’d put the photo there way back then and had forgotten about it.
Lauren headed downstairs, hoping to find Cameron alone so that she could give him the wallet without anyone noticing. No such luck. He was in the kitchen and so was everyone else who was staying in the house.
Like all the other rooms, the curtains and blinds were drawn here. Merilee and Dara were at the table eating breakfast. Jameson was holding Patrick, and Cameron had Isaac. Jodi was at the back window, peering out the side of the blinds. And Cameron and Gabriel were going over a map that was on the laptop computer screen.
They all stopped what they were doing and looked at her.
Gabriel’s eyebrow lifted, and since it seemed as if everyone in the room knew what had happened in the guest room bath, she went to Cameron, kissed his cheek and handed him his wallet. What he didn’t do was smile or kiss her back. For a moment she thought that was because Gabriel was standing there, but everyone else was looking somber, as well.
“What happened?” Lauren immediately asked.
Cameron put his wallet in his pocket and touched the map. That was when Lauren realized it wasn’t an ordinary map. It was the ranch. It showed not only some of the trails but also the nearby roads.
“About two hours ago, one of the hands spotted a suspicious vehicle here. A black SUV.” Cameron tapped the road that was only about a quarter of a mile from Gabriel’s house. “The hands were down by the cattle gate and used binoculars to read the license plate.” He paused. “It was bogus. There’s no vehicle registered with those plate numbers.”
Well, there went any trace of that dreamy morning-after feel from sex. Lauren glanced at the others and realized they’d already learned this bad news. And it was bad. That vehicle had been way too close to the house. Obviously, this is what Cameron had meant by needing to talk to her, but Lauren had figured it was going to be a discussion about arrangements for the safe house.
“Two hours,” she repeated. “Why didn’t you come up and wake me?”
“I woke Cameron instead,” Gabriel said, looking straight at her.
Good grief. She wasn’t normally such a sound sleeper, but that did explain why they’d had the time to come up with this plan. They’d probably been talking about it for the past two hours, and that meant Cameron hadn’t just rolled out of bed when she’d awakened. He’d probably come up just so he could have her get dressed.
There was a loud boom of thunder, and Patrick started to fuss. Lauren took him, cuddling him close to her and hoping he didn’t pick up on the fear that was starting to crawl through her.
“The SUV was gone by the time I made it to the road,” Jameson said, obviously taking up where Cameron had left off. “I looked around but didn’t see it.”
What he didn’t say was that didn’t mean it was gone. The SUV could be on one of the trails or a side road.
“I have a reserve deputy posted here.” Gabriel tapped the road that led from town to the ranch. “About an hour ago he saw a black SUV. It had different license plates from the one that was near here. But the plates were fake, too. The deputy went in pursuit, but the vehicle got onto the main highway before he could reach it.”
If there were hired thugs in the second SUV, they could have doubled back. Or while the deputy was out chasing them, more hired guns could have gotten in place to launch an attack. That spelled out the bottom line for Lauren.
“It’s too risky to take the babies out on the road,” she said. “We can’t take them to a safe house.”
Gabriel, Jodi and Jameson all made sounds of agreement. Cameron groaned. “That doesn’t mean they’ll be safe here, either. You saw how easily Evelyn got through the trails. So could these guys.”
That panic and fear weren’t just crawling now. Both emotions were at a full sprint. Their situation sounded hopeless, but it couldn’t be. They couldn’t just stand by waiting for another attack.
“We need to do something.” Lauren knew she sounded desperate because she was.
Cameron nodded, then paused. He looked as if he wanted to curse. “I don’t like even asking you to do this, but I can’t think of another way. Our first priority has to be to keep the babies safe.”
“I agree,” Lauren said without hesitation. “What do we need to do?”
Cameron looked her straight in the eyes. “We’re going to have to force the gunmen to come after us. We’ll have to make ourselves bait.”
* * *
“FOR THE RECORD, I don’t like this plan,” Gabriel spat out.
Neither did Cameron, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of the babies being caught up in another attack. Apparently, neither could Lauren.
“So, how do we do this?” she asked. Again, no hesitation. “How soon can we make it happen?”
She probably had doubts, just as Cameron and Gabriel did, but Cameron knew something that was much worse than doubts and fear, and that was having the babies they loved in danger.
“The cruiser is already parked out front,” Cameron explained. “You and I will pretend to get into it with the babies. What we’ll be carrying are blankets that will hopefully look as if we have the boys. Since it’s pouring rain, it shouldn’t seem suspicious that we’d have them covered up like that.”
“Where will the babies be?” Lauren asked him. Patrick was still fussing a little so she rocked him gently, brushing a kiss on the top of his head.
“Patrick and Isaac will stay here at the house with Gabriel, Jodi, the nannies and Mark, the reserve deputy. Jameson and Jace will come with you and me.”
Cameron took a deep breath before he continued. Here was the part that was going to make Lauren very uneasy. “The gunmen probably have the place under surveillance, so we need to make them believe the babies are truly gone from the ranch. That means sending the hands back to the bunkhouse and to the barns. We need them out of sight.”
She shook her head. “But what if gunmen come here after we leave?”
That was a question that had bothered Cameron right after he’d learned about the SUV being in the area. “The ranch hands will be close enough to respond.” Not immediately, though. And that in itself was a risk.
“Merilee and Dara will be in the hall bathroom with the boys,” Gabriel added. “It’s the safest place in the house since there are no windows. Jodi, Mark and I will stand guard. If there’s a sign of trouble, we’ll sound the alarm and get all of you back here.”
And there was the other concern that was eating away at Cameron. If there was trouble, then Lauren and he could be right in the line of fire. That was better than having the babies at risk, but it was nowhere near ideal.
Simply put, Lauren could be hurt.
Heck, Jace and Jameson could be, too.
“If we see the SUV once we’re on the road,” Cameron continued, “then it’ll almost certainly follow us. We’ll lead them here.” He pointed to one of the larger trails that was about five miles from Gabriel’s house. “Or here.” Cameron moved his finger to another trail. “It’s far enough away from the ranch—”
“Wait,” Lauren interrupted. “Why lead them there? There are woods. The river, even.”
“There’ll be some hands, reserve deputies and even Rangers hidden on those trails.” He checked his watch. “They’ll be in place by now.”
And with some luck, the hired guns hadn’t spotted them. If they had...well, Cameron didn’t want to go there.
“We also recorded this shortly before you came downstairs.” Jameson hit a button on his phone to play the sound of the baby whimpering. It was almost identical to what Patrick had been doing just moments earlier, but this had come from Isaac when Merilee had stopped him from spilling his sippy cup of milk.
“Why would you need that?” she asked, turning first to Jameson and then to Cameron.
“In case the attackers call us.” Cameron patted his phone. “They have my number because they’ve called me before. This way, they’ll hear the recording and believe the babies are with us.”
Lauren stood there, her forehead bunched up. She was obviously processing all of this, and Cameron wished he could give her more time, but he couldn’t.
“If you can think of a safer way to do this,” Cameron said to her, “I’d love to hear it.”
Lauren rocked Patrick some more and shook her head. “Would we leave now?”
Cameron nodded. “The sooner the better. We need to put some distance between the boys and us.”
She blew out a breath, kissed Patrick again and then did the same to Isaac. Lauren handed Patrick to Dara. “Please take care of them,” she whispered, and she included Gabriel and Jodi in the glances she gave the nannies.
“I’ll get the blankets ready,” Jodi said, passing Isaac to Merilee. She headed out of the room.
Gabriel handed Lauren a gun that he took from the top of the fridge, and she tucked it in the back waistband of her jeans. “I’ve already given Cameron some extra ammo,” Gabriel explained. “And make sure your phone is with you. Just in case.”
Yeah, in case this plan went south and those goons tried to kill them. If that happened, then Lauren would be the one who’d probably have to make the call since Jameson, Jace and he would be returning fire.
Lauren checked to make sure, and she already had her phone in her front pocket. That meant they were as ready as they could be.
Jameson certainly didn’t seem so eager to get out the door. He huffed and grabbed two Kevlar vests that he’d gotten from Gabriel’s home office. “My advice is to lay this on top of the blankets. So it looks as if you’re protecting the babies. Then, once you’re in the cruiser, put them on.” He tapped his chest. “Jace and I are already wearing ours.”
That was something Jace and Jameson had done because they’d thought they would be taking the babies to the safe house. Now they would be doing backup for Lauren and him, and the vests might come in handy.
It didn’t take Jodi long to return with the blankets, and she’d already rolled them up in such a way that it did look like bundled babies. She handed one to each of them, and while Lauren took it, holding it against her shoulder as she’d done to Patrick, she also gave both boys another kiss.
Cameron kissed them, too, and he draped the vests over the blanket bundles, but he didn’t linger. “Go ahead and take them to the bathroom,” Cameron instructed the nannies.
No need to stretch out this goodbye. For one thing, it wasn’t the safe thing to do, and besides, there were tears in Lauren’s eyes. Best not to have her break down. Not until they were in the cruiser, at least.
Cameron waited until he heard the bathroom door shut with the nannies and the boys inside, and Jameson, Lauren and he headed to the front door where Jace was waiting.
“Move fast,” Gabriel instructed.
Lauren probably hadn’t needed anything else to put more alarm in her eyes, but that did it. Because it was a reminder that there could be snipers.
Gabriel turned off the security system so they could get out the door, but Cameron was certain he would reset it. There wasn’t anyone else he trusted more to protect Patrick and Isaac, but Cameron prayed it would be enough.
The rain seemed to be coming down harder now, and the lightning was close. So close that the thunder boomed almost immediately after the strikes. Definitely not a good time to be out driving, but they couldn’t wait it out. The storm was supposed to last most of the day.
Cameron took hold of Lauren’s arm to help her down the slippery steps, and Jace and Jameson ran ahead of them to open the doors. The moment they were inside, Jace drove away.
Lauren looked back at the house, tears watering her eyes, and even though Cameron doubted it would help, he kissed her. Her gaze came to his then, and even though she didn’t say anything, he knew her heart was breaking.
She’d been through way too much in the past couple of days, and he certainly hadn’t helped matters by having sex with her. Yeah, it’d felt necessary at the time, but it had caused them both to lose focus. Had been confusing, as well. But that was something he could dwell on another time.
“Go ahead and put on the vest,” Cameron instructed.
He lay the blankets on the seat next to her and helped her into the Kevlar before she put on her seat belt. Cameron got on both his jacket and his seat belt, and then he immediately drew his gun. That didn’t help with the alarm in Lauren’s eyes, either.
“It’s just a precaution,” he told her. A necessary one.
As they’d discussed, Jace drove away from town and in the direction of one of the trails. It was hard to see much of anything because of the rain sheeting over the windows. Still, Cameron kept watch. So did Jameson and Jace from the front seat.
“So what’s put Gabriel in a snit?” Jameson asked. He glanced back at his sister. “And it’s not a snit because of the danger. I’m pretty sure this one’s more personal.”
Lauren frowned. “Gabriel found me with Cameron.”
Jameson laughed. “Like old times. I seem to remember him not approving of you two way back when.”
He hadn’t. Gabriel had thought Cameron was too old for Lauren. And he had been. But that age difference no longer seemed like an obstacle. A good thing, too, because they had plenty of other obstacles to get in their way.
“Want my advice?” Jameson said, but he didn’t wait for Lauren to answer. “Just let Gabriel know you’re in love with Cameron, and he’ll back off. Love cures a lot of ill will between siblings.”
Lauren made a sound of surprise that was borderline outrage. That meant she didn’t love him. Not that he thought she did. Lauren had fallen out of love with him years ago, and heck, it probably hadn’t even been real love then. He’d been her crush.
A thought that made him frown.
Was that all it’d been?
The attraction had definitely been there, now and then. But maybe her feelings for him hadn’t gone beyond basic lust.
“You were more than a crush to me,” Cameron mumbled under his breath, but it was obviously loud enough for Lauren to hear because she practically snapped toward him.
However, she didn’t blurt out anything to reassure him that he’d just babbled the truth. “You have a picture of us in your wallet,” she said.
Now she was the one who looked alarmed at saying something she hadn’t meant to say. He nodded, admitting that he did indeed have a picture. One she must have seen when he’d left his wallet on the bathroom floor. But Cameron didn’t get a chance to add anything to his nod. That was because Jameson spoke first.
“A black SUV just pulled out of the side road behind us.” Jameson drew his gun and turned in the seat. “And it’s following us.”