Книга - The Mummy Mystery

The Mummy Mystery
Delores Fossen


Rebel billionaire Houston was her baby’s best protection…When Gabrielle showed up at Houston’s ranch, he expected her to serve him with a court order – not a newborn baby boy. After escaping from a deadly hostage situation, Gabrielle sought the one man guaranteed to safeguard her son.Though their past encounters had sparked passion for all the wrong reasons, the billionaire cowboy now had new responsibilities to his miracle baby. Yet as they fought to keep their newfound family intact, their trust and reliance on one another was perhaps the most unexpected result of all.










Houston Sadler was a wealthy man. A billionaire. And he was accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted.

Gabrielle had seen the love in Houston’s eyes when he looked at Lucas, and that love might blind him to the fact that this was the child she’d planned and carried. This was her baby.

He showed her to her room, and it was even larger than she’d expected. There was even a crib and changing table.



“You’re exhausted,” Houston commented.



And as if it was the most normal and routine thing in the world, he took Lucas from her arms and carried him to the crib. He didn’t lay the baby down right away, but instead kissed his cheek and smiled at him.



Gabrielle could see it then—the strong resemblance. It was uncanny and unnerving just how much Lucas looked like his father. He was indeed a Sadler.



That didn’t do much to steady her nerves.




About the Author


Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSEN feels as if she were genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.




THE MUMMY

MYSTERY


DELORES FOSSEN


























www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Chapter One


Blue Springs Ranch, Texas

Houston Sadler climbed down from his horse, eased off his Stetson and smacked it against his jeans to get rid of some of the dust he’d accumulated on his ride. Bear, his buckskin gelding, snorted in protest, and Houston led the horse into the stables so he could brush him down.

Neither of them got far.

“Don’t move,” someone said.

Houston didn’t have time to move, or think, before he felt the barrel of a gun jam against his back.

“Lift your hands so I can see them,” the gunman added. Or rather the gunwoman, because that was a female’s voice.

Now the question was, what the hell did she want?

“If you’re after money, there’s none in the stables, and I don’t have my wallet with me,” Houston let her know.

He lifted his hands, releasing Bear’s reins so the gelding would get out of the way. He damn sure didn’t want his horse to get hurt when he took down this would-be robber. And there were no ifs, ands or buts about it, he was going to take her down. No one got away with pulling a gun on him.

“I’m not after your money,” she spat out, as if he’d insulted her. Her voice was clogged and hoarse, and he thought he heard her sniffle.

“Are you thinking about kidnapping me?” he asked, trying another tack.

If so, she wouldn’t get far, because his ranch hands were all over the place. In fact, one could and probably would come into the stables at any moment. All of Houston’s men knew his schedule and knew he’d be at the tail end of his daily ride. At least one would likely come in and offer to groom Bear.

“I’m not here to kidnap you.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now, and she didn’t add anything else to tell him her intentions.

So, if this wasn’t about money, then it was about love or revenge. But those were the likely reasons if he was dealing with a semisane person. He could rule out love, since he hadn’t had more than a basic, no-strings-attached sexual relationship with a woman since his wife died three years ago.

That left revenge.

And if that was the case, then she probably intended to kill him. Or at least try.

“Do I know you?” he asked. Houston angled his head just slightly and looked over his shoulder. Then he cursed.

Oh, yeah. He knew her.

“Gabrielle Markham,” Houston grumbled, and turned to face her.

He also dropped his hands. His mouth dropped open, too. She was the last person he expected to see in his stables with a gun on him. But he rethought that.

The last time they’d crossed paths was … what?… a year ago? Maybe longer. She’d been dressed in a dove-gray business suit in the Bexar County courthouse, where she’d tried to sue his jeans off on behalf of her client, who also happened to be her brother, Jay.

She’d lost the case. Or rather, it’d been dismissed for lack of evidence.

Which meant Houston was back to the revenge motive, even though this was a pretty extreme measure for someone sour over losing a legal battle. People lost legal battles to him all the time.

Houston stared at her, trying to make sense of this situation and her. She certainly wasn’t wearing a business suit today. Khaki pants and a pale pink shirt that was bulky and loose. She was also pale, no makeup, and the whites of her brown eyes were red.

She’d been crying, all right.

Her short, blond hair was spiky and uncombed, and it didn’t look as if she’d done it to make a fashion statement. The cool October breeze rustled through it, messing it up even more than it already was.

“What happened?” Houston wasn’t just alarmed now, he was concerned. Not so much for the woman who was holding him at gunpoint, but for whatever had driven her to come out to the Blue Springs ranch and commit a felony.

Gabrielle cleared her throat. “You tell me what happened. I want answers, and I want them now.”

He gave her a flat look. “You took the words right out of my mouth. Since I’m the one at gunpoint, I think I deserve an answer or two.”

Those teary brown eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me, Houston Sadler. You might have half the money in Texas, but I won’t let you get away with this. Why did you do it? Why? “

Houston shrugged and tried to stay calm. Hard to do with that gun on him. “Because your brother was wrong to try to sue me, that’s why. He was fired for a legitimate reason. Because he abused one of the cutting mares. Jay’s damn lucky I didn’t go after him the way he did that mare. Instead of beating him senseless, I fired his sorry butt. There was no wrongful dismissal involved. End of story.”

Gabrielle shook her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my brother.” She paused, blinked. “Does it? Did you do this to get back at him by using me?”

Houston huffed. He was tired of these nonsense questions and having a Saturday-night special aimed at him.

He made sure Bear was out of the way first. The gelding was. So he lowered his head and dove right at Gabrielle. He didn’t hit her with his full weight, and cursed himself for being a gentleman at a time like this.

They landed hard, against the stable wall, and her hand smacked right into his groin. She probably hadn’t planned to do that, but it worked. Houston saw stars and growled in pain. He also grabbed her hands, pinning them to the wall so she couldn’t fire that gun.

Gabrielle fought back. No surprise there. Houston hadn’t expected her to give up without a struggle.

He maneuvered his body so that he held her in place. It wasn’t that hard to do. She was five-four, if that, and her feeble attempts to hit him landed like weak thuds on his chest. She was what his father would have called a “pretty little thing.” Houston figured he could add “desperate” to that particular description.

“Now, tell me why you’re here,” he insisted. “And I’m not giving you another chance. Talk now, or I yell for my ranch foreman. He’ll come running, then call the sheriff, who’ll haul your butt off to jail. Got that?”

Her breath gusted against his face, and she continued to glare at him before she finally started to relax. When she nodded, Houston nodded, too, and eased away from her. While he waited for her explanation, he checked the Saturday-night special.

“Forget something?” he asked, showing her the empty chambers. The gun wasn’t even loaded.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I only wanted answers.”

This was getting more and more confusing with each passing moment. “And you thought this was the way to get them? Guess a phone call or e-mail would be too simple? ”

“Too risky,” she mumbled.

Okay, that got his interest. “Why?”

“Because I knew you’d just let them know where I was. Please, call them off. Tell them what you did was a mistake. Don’t try to take him away from me. Please, don’t.” The tears started to stream down her cheeks again.

Well, he’d demanded an explanation and had gotten one … of sorts. But Houston still didn’t have a clue who she meant by “them” or “him.” Was she talking about her brother now? Was someone after Gabrielle and him?

Before he could press for clarification about the mistake she thought he’d made, he heard his ranch foreman, Dale Burnett, call out to him.

“Houston? You in there?”

He also heard Dale’s footsteps coming straight for the stables. His ranch foreman wasn’t alone, either. There were at least two sets of footsteps.

“The sheriff’s with me,” Dale added. “He says it’s important and he needs to speak to you.”

Gabrielle immediately ducked behind a tack shelf. “Please, don’t tell anyone I’m here,” she whispered. She added another “please,” and he saw the color blanch from her face. Her fingers trembled as she caught onto the shelf.

Hell.

Again, Houston cursed his upbringing. He was a sucker for a pretty little thing in trouble, and while Gabrielle and he might have had their differences, she was indeed in trouble.

Even though he figured he’d regret this, Houston shoved her gun into the back waist of his jeans and walked to the stable entrance to meet Dale and Sheriff Jack Whitley.

Dale’s weathered face was ripe with concern, and he looked at Houston as if he had answers. Houston didn’t. But he hoped to remedy that soon.

“Mr. Sadler,” the sheriff said, in greeting.

“Houston,” he offered, for the umpteenth time, though he figured the sheriff would probably never call him by his first name.

None of the townsfolk in Willow Ridge did. That was almost certainly due to Houston’s surly father and grandfather who made sure everybody knew the Sadlers were stinkin’ rich and should therefore be respected.

“What can I do for you, sheriff?”

Sheriff Whitley didn’t jump right into an explanation. In fact, he looked downright uncomfortable when he turned to Dale. “Could you give Mr. Sadler and me some time to talk, alone?”

Dale looked at Houston, and he gave his ranch foreman a nod, to let him know he could leave.

“Is someone hurt?” Houston demanded, the moment Dale walked away. “Dead?”

“No. But I just got a visit from two detectives from the San Antonio Police Department. It’s related to the maternity hostage situation that happened at the hospital about six weeks ago. You remember it?”

“Of course.” It’d been all over the news. Masked gunmen had stormed into the San Antonio Maternity Hospital and held a group of women hostage for hours. People died, including a cop’s wife. If Houston remembered correctly, the gunmen had been killed in a shootout with the police, but there were rumors that they might have had an accomplice who was still at large.

“One of the former hostages, a woman, is missing, and SAPD wants to question her,” the sheriff explained.

While that sounded like a serious problem, Houston wanted to hurry up this conversation so he could finish his little chat with Gabrielle.

“You don’t think the gunmen’s accomplice or the missing woman is around Willow Ridge or the ranch, do you? “ Houston asked.

The lanky sheriff shook his head, paused again. “SAPD and the FBI don’t have actual proof that there was an accomplice. They don’t know where the woman is, either, but you might be able to help with that.”

Houston glanced at Gabrielle to make sure she was staying put. She was. But he didn’t think it was his imagination that she was even more alarmed than she had been before the sheriff’s arrival.

“How do you think I can help?” Houston wanted to know.

The sheriff took a deep breath. “After the hostage situation ended, SAPD tested the DNA of the newborns left unattended in the nursery during any part of the standoff. When they got the results, they realized one baby boy didn’t match any of the mothers, so they repeated the test. Those results came back yesterday. The first test wasn’t wrong. The child didn’t match any of the mothers. And now, one mother and one baby are missing.”

Was the sheriff talking about Gabrielle? And was a baby snatcher peering out at him from the tack blankets?

“Is this woman involved with the gunmen and the hostage situation?” Houston asked. “SAPD doesn’t think so.”

“I see,” Houston mumbled. So, she might not have taken part in the hostage situation, but she wasn’t completely innocent, either. “She took a kid who wasn’t hers.” There weren’t enough gentlemanly bones in his body to stop him from turning Gabrielle in to the sheriff. He couldn’t let her get away with kidnapping.

Houston looked at her, to let her know that, but she was frantically shaking her head.

“Well, the baby wasn’t hers, not biologically, anyway,” the sheriff explained, before Houston could speak. “But she did give birth to it.”

Houston snapped his attention back to the sheriff. “Excuse me?”

“There was surveillance video of her going into the delivery room. And the baby’s ID bracelet matched the one on the woman’s wrist. The only reason the cops did a DNA test was that they wanted to be a hundred percent sure that the right mothers got the right babies. They hadn’t expected anything like this to turn up.”

Another glance at Gabrielle. She was no longer shaking her head. She was looking at him with the saddest doe eyes he’d ever seen.

That wouldn’t work, either.

“This woman was a surrogate of some kind?” Houston asked, figuring he’d finally worked it out. Gabrielle had been a surrogate and had changed her mind about giving up the baby. However, that didn’t explain why the cops and sheriff would think this had anything to do with him.

The sheriff nodded. “Her name is Gabrielle Markham, an attorney I think you had some dealings with.”

“I know her,” Houston admitted. “Did she break the law when she ran with the baby? ”

“Maybe. The police are still investigating it, but she might have become a surrogate through illegal means. And she might have done that so she could have some leverage over you. If all that’s true, then, yeah, it would be obstruction of justice to take the child.”

Gabrielle made a soft gasp, and even though it was soft, Houston thought it might be laced with outrage.

The sheriff glanced past Houston and looked around the stables. He even took a step forward, probably intending to go inside and have a closer look around to see what had made that sound. Soon, Houston would let him do just that. But he wanted to hear the rest of this little story first.

“How could Ms. Markham hope to gain any leverage over me with an illegal surrogacy?” Houston asked.

Sheriff Whitley met him eye-to-eye. “Mr. Sadler … Houston, this is going to be tough news for you to hear. I figured I should warn you about that upfront.”

A lot of bad things went through Houston’s mind, but he managed a nod. Oh, this wouldn’t be good. In all his thirty-six years, the sheriff had finally called him by his first name, and his tone was that of pure sympathy.

The sheriff eased off his hat. “About five years ago, your late wife, Lizzy, and you used the Cryogen Clinic, in San Antonio, to harvest Lizzy’s eggs so you’d have embryos for in vitro fertilization.”

Houston held up his hand to stop the sheriff. “We did, but we never used the embryos. Well, not successfully anyway.” They’d made a half dozen attempts, but in vitro had never worked for them.

Houston squeezed his hands into fists for several seconds, so he could hold on to his composure. Even now, more than three years later, it was hell talking about this.

“Your wife died of breast cancer,” the sheriff finished for him.

“Yeah.” And Houston left it at that. “So, what do our embryos have to do with Ms. Markham?”

The sheriff shook his head, mumbled something under his breath. “At this point, the police don’t know if Ms. Markham stole the embryo or not. But you can understand why they want to take her into custody. And they darn sure want to learn what she’s been up to, and where she’s taken the baby.”

The sheriff paused again. “Has she been in contact with you about any kind of payment?”

Houston tried to shrug, but he was getting a very bad feeling about this. “Why would she?”

“Maybe she wants to use the child to get you to cough up money? ”

That bad feeling got significantly worse. Each word hit Houston like a fist. “Back up. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

The sheriff took his time, and his forehead bunched up before he nodded. “I’m saying the baby boy that Gabrielle Markham gave birth to six weeks ago is your son.”




Chapter Two


Gabrielle’s instincts were to run, to get out of there as fast as she could. It’d been a terrible mistake, coming to Houston Sadler’s ranch. Now, it might cost her the very thing she was trying desperately to hang on to, her baby, Lucas.

She looked at the back of the stables for a way out. There was a set of double doors, both closed, and Gabrielle only hoped they weren’t locked—and that the big horse that Houston had ridden would get out of her way. While she was hoping, she added that neither the sheriff nor Houston would spot her while she escaped.

Gabrielle made her way behind the shelves and was about to climb over a stall when she heard the sound. It was a loud groan, so loud and so filled with emotion that it caused her to turn around. Houston had made that sound, and even though his back was to her, he had his head tilted toward the sky as if seeking divine help.

She understood his reaction.

Lately, Gabrielle had been doing her own share of praying.

“You’re sure about this baby being mine?” Houston asked the sheriff.

“I’m sure. What SAPD hasn’t figured out yet is how Ms. Markham got the embryo in the first place. Your wife hadn’t left a signed agreement that it could be donated, so there’s no legal way Ms. Markham could have used it. That’s why SAPD is so concerned. They don’t know what she intends to do with the baby.”

That stopped Gabrielle in her tracks, and the anger slammed through her again. How dare they accuse her of doing anything wrong. She was the victim here, and Houston Sadler was the person who’d probably put this sick plan together.

At least she’d thought that when she sneaked onto the ranch and into the stables to wait for him.

When she’d come up with the idea to get Houston to confess to his dirty deeds, she’d been thankful that he was a man of routine. Just about everyone in Willow Ridge knew that Houston took his favorite horse out for a ride after lunch, so she’d delivered some flowers to the house and then made her way to the stables. The ranch was such a big operation, with dozens of employees, that no one had seemed to notice her, and no one had been in the stables to question why she was there.

Her plan had succeeded—except for the fact that she might have been wrong. Judging from that emotion-filled groan, Houston could be innocent. But Gabrielle wasn’t ready to buy that just yet. He was the only one with a motive for making this pregnancy happen. Her only motive was that she’d desperately wanted a child and hadn’t been able to have one of her own.

“Are you all right? “ the sheriff asked him.

She couldn’t hear what Houston mumbled, but if it was “yes,” then it was a lie. Either he’d just learned for the first time that he was a father, or else he’d learned that his devious plan had been uncovered.

Gabrielle got moving again with her escape, because either scenario spelled trouble for her.

Houston glanced over his shoulder, and Gabrielle ducked down behind the stall door so he wouldn’t see her. He didn’t look around the stables for her. Instead, he turned his attention back to the sheriff.

“I need some time to think about this,” Houston said, suddenly sounding more alert. “Don’t say anything to my dad, just yet. But could you tell my foreman, Dale, what you told me, and let him know I’ll be in the stables for a while? ”

Gabrielle waited, with her pulse thick and throbbing. Was Houston really going to send the sheriff away? Or was this some kind of trick?

She cursed the fog in her head. If her thoughts were clearer, she might be able to figure out all of this, but she hadn’t slept more than three hours straight in the past six weeks. Before that, there had been the delivery, immediately followed by the hostage situation. She was exhausted, spent and beyond punchy. Still, this might finally all come to a head. She might finally learn what was going on. If Houston would finally come clean.

Of course, that was a big if.

Houston waited until the sheriff walked away before he entered the stables. He shut the doors. And Gabrielle cursed again. Had she made yet another mistake by staying so she could get his side of the story? Or rather his side of the lie?

“Is it true?” Houston asked.

Gabrielle eased up so she could see him from over the top of the stall—and was stunned by the raw feelings she saw there in his eyes. If Houston had indeed put all of this together, then he was a good actor.

She walked out of the hay-strewn stall so she could face him. But Gabrielle didn’t get close. She didn’t want him trying to kill her to cover up his plan. However, he didn’t seem a man with murder on his mind.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

Even though he looked like an average cowboy, with his jeans, worn black leather vest and denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he also wore his privileged bloodline. It was there. In his glacier-blue eyes, and saddle-brown hair that was a little too long and messy for the boardroom, but perfect for a man who worked with both his hands and his mind.

Houston Sadler was a wealthy man. A billionaire. And he was accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted.

“Is it true?” he repeated.

Gabrielle hiked up her chin and forced herself to answer. “I did get pregnant through in vitro, but I didn’t steal an embryo. I didn’t steal anything.”

“Except a baby from the nursery at the San Antonio Maternity Hospital,” he quickly pointed out.

“My baby,” she insisted.

In the same moment, Houston said, “I want to see him. I want to see my son.”

Oh, God. This was exactly what she feared most. “Lucas is not your son. I gave birth to him.”

He rammed his thumb against his chest. “With my late wife’s embryo that you stole.” He groaned again and shook his head. “I have a son.”

She wasn’t totally immune to that painful reaction. Gabrielle almost went closer. Almost. But she forced herself to stop and think, even though her head felt foggier than it had when she’d started all of this.

“Because I’m infertile, I asked for a donor embryo from the Cryogen Clinic in San Antonio,” Gabrielle explained. “I certainly never intended to have your child. But you, on the other hand, might have wanted exactly that. Did you set all of this up so I’d be your surrogate?”

He just stared at her for several long moments. “How the hell could you think that?”

“Well, it’s one of the few theories that makes sense. Maybe, like me, you desperately wanted a baby, and you decided this was the way to go about it. You might have figured that, once I gave birth, you could step in and challenge me for custody. And then you’d have the child you always wanted with your wife.”

Houston cursed, and it seemed to take him a moment to rein in his own fit of temper. “First of all, I’d forgotten about the embryos. I thought Lizzy and I had used them all on our last try at in vitro. And if I’d wanted a surrogate, I would have hired one—the best money could buy. I wouldn’t have tricked you into it.”

Gabrielle let that sink in. Slowly. And she repeated it to herself. It sounded … reasonable but it didn’t explain everything.

“Someone’s been following me since the hostage incident,” she admitted. “I keep losing him, but then he pops up again. The last time, three days ago, the person used a dark green Range Rover.”

Houston threw up his hands. “Maybe the gunmen from the hospital had an accomplice after all. Then again, it could be your imagination running wild. You seem to have a tendency to do that.” He pointed his index finger at her. “Look, I don’t care. Right now, I only want you to take me to my son.”

“He’s not yours!” she yelled. “Lucas is mine!”

The horse whinnied and pranced around, moving even farther toward the back of the stables.

Gabrielle immediately hated the outburst. She didn’t want the sheriff and the foreman to hear her and come in after her. She didn’t want to go to jail, because heaven knows how long it would take all of this to be settled. And in the meantime, the courts would no doubt give temporary and then permanent custody to Houston.

He had both biology and money on his side. Even though she hadn’t stolen the embryo or manipulated the situation in any way, she might not be able to prove her innocence.

“Where is he?” Houston demanded.

“Someplace safe.”

That was all she intended to tell him. She might not be able to keep Lucas from him forever, but she would try.

“Three days ago, I saw the license plates of the person who followed me,” she explained. “The person driving that dark green Range Rover. And I took a picture of the plates with the camera on my cell phone. I had a friend run them through the database, and I learned the vehicle belongs to you.”

“Me?” he challenged.

“You. And that’s why I believe you’re behind this. Why else would you follow me? The cops didn’t have the latest DNA results until yesterday.” That’s when they’d called and left her a message on her work cell phone, even though they could have known earlier than that. “And they only officially told you about Lucas just now. So how did you know three days ago to follow me?”

He couldn’t have, unless he’d known about all of this before today. “This doesn’t make sense,” Houston finally said.

For the first time since she’d heard those results, Gabrielle breathed a little easier. “No, it doesn’t. And if I’m to believe that you had no part in this, then who else would have done it? ”

His glare returned. “Maybe you. Maybe you figured I was your permanent meal ticket.”

Now Gabrielle was the one to glare. They were right back where they started. It was clear she wasn’t getting anywhere with this explanation or argument, and that meant it was time to leave.

Besides, she’d already been away from Lucas for nearly three hours, and it would take her thirty minutes or more to get back to him. She’d left breast milk in a bottle for the nanny to give him, but it wouldn’t be long before her son wanted to nurse. Ditto for her. She could feel the pressure in her breasts, and that wrestling match with Houston hadn’t helped matters.

“Lucas is my son,” she said, under her breath. Only hers. And it would stay that way.

She turned and started to walk toward the back doors, but Houston latched on to her arm and spun her around.

“I will see him,” he insisted.

Gabrielle decided to placate him—or rather, lie. “All right. You can see him tomorrow morning. I’ll call you with the address.”

He didn’t exactly roll his eyes, but it was close. However, the man’s voice cut off another stinging remark he was obviously about to make.

“Houston?” the man called out, and the front stable doors flew open.

Gabrielle darted to the side, next to the stall, but instead of going in it where she’d be trapped, she ducked around the front and then behind the tack shelves again.

“Dad,” Houston answered. “What do you want?”

Mack Sadler was an older, genetic copy of Houston. Houston didn’t look at his father, but he angled his body so he could keep an eye on Gabrielle.

“I made the sheriff tell me what he told you,” Mack announced. “Is it true? Did that Markham woman really steal one of those eggs Lizzy had stored and use it to give birth to your son?”

Houston blew out a long breath before he answered. “It seems that way.”

Mack went closer, and Gabrielle used the sound of the man’s footsteps to move farther behind the shelves. She began to inch her way toward the open doors. Maybe Houston’s father would distract him long enough for her to get out of there. That was a long shot, of course, but it was the only one she had.

“Well, hell.” Mack shook his head and propped his hands on his hips. “You gotta get the boy. He’s a Sadler, and he belongs here at the ranch with us. Where is he?”

“I’m not sure,” she heard Houston say.

“Then find him. Hell, I’ll find him.” Gabrielle made it to the door, but Houston was staring at her.

“Don’t worry, I intend to get the baby,” he assured his father. “But for now, I need just a little time to come to grips with this.” Houston paused, swallowed hard and tipped his head to the horse. “Could you see to Bear? I’m going for a walk.”

His father didn’t protest, though he did take his time looking at Houston before he started toward the horse. That was Gabrielle’s cue to get moving again. She darted out from behind the tack shelves and bolted for the door.

She started running. And she didn’t look back.

However, she didn’t have to look back to hear the sound of the racing footsteps behind her. Houston was following her.

Gabrielle wasn’t surprised. In fact, she’d expected it, but she had a good head start on him. She needed to make it to her car, which was still parked in front of the main house so she could try to drive away.

That wouldn’t stop him.

Houston would continue to follow her; but if she could just get back onto the highway, she might be able to lose him. Then, she could pick up Lucas and the nanny and go into hiding again. This time, she wouldn’t come out until she had all of this mess settled.

Gabrielle’s heart pounded harder with each step. Her lungs felt ready to burst. She was out of shape and hadn’t run since early in her pregnancy, but she used every bit of her energy and resolve to race across the yard and to the front. Thankfully, she’d left the car unlocked, and she jerked open the door and dove inside. Not so thankfully, her keys were in her pocket, and she had to dig for them.

She finally pulled them free, jammed the key into the ignition and started the car. She had barely touched the accelerator, when the passenger door flew open and Houston jumped inside.

“Keep going,” Houston demanded.

He wasn’t breathing hard and certainly didn’t look as if he’d just sprinted across his massive yard. But he did look intense. Eyes narrowed. Mouth tight. His jaw muscles were working hard against each other.

“I said keep going,” he repeated. “Drive. Take me to my son. Or I’ll call the sheriff and have him arrest you right now.”

Oh, God. Some choice. Revealing her son’s location or jail.

If she went to jail, it was all over. The nanny, Lily Rose, would eventually start making calls to find out where she was. That would in turn lead the police to Lucas. Then Houston would take him.

But if she pretended to cooperate with Houston, it might buy her some time.

Gabrielle put on her seat belt and drove away from the ranch. Houston put on his belt, too, and then turned to face her.

“I figure you’re up to something,” he accused. “You’re trying to decide the best way to ditch me. That’s not going to happen, Gabrielle. I didn’t come up with this so-called plan to produce a baby, but the child exists now, and I won’t walk away from him.”

Gabrielle knew she should just shut up, but she couldn’t make herself stop. “You might have to walk away when I prove you orchestrated this. I took a picture of the car that followed me, the one registered to you.”

He stayed quiet a moment. “Then why not just go to the police?”

“I considered it. But then I decided you’d have some kind of explanation, or enough cops in your pocket, that I’d be the one who ended up in jail.”

“I don’t own any cops, and there are several logical explanations. Someone could have used fake license plates. Or maybe the photo isn’t clear and you had your friend run the wrong numbers. Stating the obvious, again, but you could also be lying because you think I’ll give you a big payout for giving birth to Lizzy’s and my baby.”

Gabrielle huffed and took the turn to the farm road that would lead her to the highway. From there, she would take the interstate south, the opposite direction she’d need to go if she had any intentions of driving Houston to see Lucas.

“I didn’t lie,” she insisted, though she knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“How much money did you plan to ask for?” Houston wanted to know.

“None. Because Lucas is not for sale.”

Houston obviously ignored that. “How much? Because you know what? As much as this disgusts me, I’ll give you fifty million for him.”

She made a sound of outrage.

“Seventy-five million,” Houston countered.

That did it. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone behind her because Gabrielle slammed on her brakes. Her tires squealed in protest, and she brought the car to a jarring halt amid the fumes and smoke of the rubber burning on the asphalt.

Gabrielle grabbed him by his shirt, gathering up wads of fabric in her fists, to make sure they would have a face-to-face conversation and complete eye contact. “I didn’t have Lucas so I could sell him to you, or anyone else. I had him because I’ve wanted a baby my entire life, and I didn’t want to wait until Mr. Right showed up so I could have a traditional family. Lucas is my family now. Your late wife might be his biological mother, but I carried him for nine months. I gave birth to him.”

She fought it, but the emotion clogged her throat, making her voice a whisper. Tears sprang to her eyes. “He’s my baby, and I won’t let you take him.”

Houston opened his mouth, probably to return verbal fire, but he stopped and glanced behind them. When he didn’t bring his gaze to hers, Gabrielle looked to see what had captured his attention.

It was a black car.

And it had come to a stop about thirty yards behind them.

“Is that the same car that you said was following you, the one that belongs to me? “ he asked.

Gabrielle turned fully in the seat so she could get a better look. Not that she needed it.

She recognized the black car with the heavily tinted windows. That tint made it impossible to see the driver or anyone else who might be in the vehicle.

“No. I told you that was a Range Rover,” she clarified. “The one behind us is a different vehicle, but I have seen it before.”

“When and where?” he snapped.

She fought through the fog in her head so she could remember. “The first time was the day I took Lucas home from the hospital.”

“The day you stole him.”

That should have given her another jolt of anger, but she was too concerned about that menacing vehicle behind them. “I didn’t steal him. After the hostage situation ended, the police had completed the DNA test on him, and I figured we were free to go. My mistake was in not telling the police that I used a donor embryo. Needless to say, I wasn’t thinking straight after being held at gunpoint for hours.”

“But you had something to hide,” Houston reminded her. “Because you went on the run.”

“Yes, because of that car back there. I thought it was following me, and I was afraid it might be someone involved with the hostage situation.”

“An accomplice?” he questioned.

She nodded. “I figured that was a strong possibility, so I asked for police protection. They didn’t have the resources to provide a round-the-clock guard, but they did say they would send an officer to patrol my neighborhood. I didn’t think that was enough.”

He made a sound that was possibly an agreement. If he’d lived through the hostage situation as she had, he wouldn’t have thought it was enough, either.

“I lost sight of the car that day,” she continued, “but it reappeared about a week later, outside the hotel where I was staying. That’s when I changed locations.” And why she continued to change.

The fear started to grow. That same fear that’d caused Gabrielle to be on the run for the past six weeks. “Please tell me you know who’s in that car. Is it someone who works for you? “ she asked, hoping.

“No.” And Houston didn’t hesitate, either. He took out his phone.

Gabrielle grabbed his wrist to stop him. “If you call the sheriff, he’ll take me into custody for questioning. Maybe he’ll even arrest me for what the cops think is an illegal surrogacy. If I’m arrested, you’ll never find Lucas.”

Houston volleyed glances between the car and her. The vehicle started to inch its way toward them. “You said you had Lucas hidden safely away?”

“Yes. Of course,” she answered, cautiously.

“Good. Because that’s not one of my vehicles back there, but it could belong to someone connected to the hostage situation.”

Her fear went up another notch, even though she’d already been through this mentally a hundred times. “But why follow me? If they want to eliminate a potential witness, why not just try to kill me?”

“Maybe because they haven’t had the right opportunity. Maybe they wanted to wait to kill you when they figured there would be no one around to see. Like now, for instance, when you’re on a deserted country road.”

Oh, God. He could be right.

“Start driving,” Houston instructed. “But keep your speed down.”

She glanced at the car, nodded and got her own vehicle moving. Thankfully, the black vehicle stayed put.

“If the gunmen did have an accomplice, would he have known that you had a child?” Houston asked her.

Gabrielle didn’t have to think long about that. “Probably. Lucas was born in the hospital not long after the gunmen stormed the place. After I delivered him, the gunmen made the nurse take him and put him in the nursery because they wanted all the babies in one place.”

She shuddered and bit her bottom lip to keep those nightmarish memories at bay.

Houston cursed and shook his head. “Could this accomplice know that he’s my son?”

She started to say no, but the truth was, Gabrielle had no idea, because she didn’t know who these people following her were. She’d been a lawyer long enough to know that leaks happened. Information could be misdirected. And people could be bribed.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Houston agreed. “There could be a good reason why the accomplice hasn’t already killed you. They might want you to lead them to Lucas. That way, they have you, Lucas and about a billion dollars they can demand for my son’s ransom.”

Gabrielle’s gaze flew to the rearview mirror.

The black car was coming right at them.




Chapter Three


Houston wanted to curse. How the hell had he let this situation come to this?

He should have tackled Gabrielle when she ran from the barn, or else forced her to stay put while he made arrangements to go and get the baby. He damn sure shouldn’t be sitting on a backcountry road with would-be kidnappers who might be ready to pounce.

A billion dollars was lot of motive to get a potential kidnapper to force Gabrielle into revealing Lucas’s location. God knows what they would do to her to get the information they wanted.

Houston laid his phone on the dash so his hands would be free. “Do you have ammunition for this?” he asked, taking the Saturday-night special from the back waist of his jeans.

She gave a shaky nod but didn’t take her eyes off the black car behind them. “In the glove compartment.”

Houston jerked it open and started to load the gun.

“What should I do?” she wanted to know.

“Keep driving.” Not that he thought that would solve their problem. The car would probably continue to follow them. But anything was better than just sitting there waiting for the worst to happen.

Houston finished loading the gun then he grabbed his phone.

“No!” she insisted. “You can’t call the sheriff. What if he’s in on this? If the DNA information was indeed leaked to the men following us, he might have been the one to do it.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Well, as a minimum, he told your father about Lucas, something you asked him to keep to himself.”

“True. But you don’t know my father. He can be a very persuasive man. He probably convinced the sheriff I was on the verge of suicide or something.”

Sheriff Whitley was decent and honest. But Houston didn’t know his deputies nearly as well. Or any of the people who worked in the sheriff’s office. One of them could be in on this, and Gabrielle was right—a call to the sheriff might be giving yet more information to the wrong people.

“I’ll hold off calling him for now,” Houston let her know. He angled the visor so he could use the attached vanity mirror to keep watch on the car behind them. As expected, it was still there. “But I need to talk to Dale, my foreman.”

“You can trust him?”

“If I couldn’t, he wouldn’t be working for me,” Houston said, assuring her. He scrolled through the names, hit the call button, and Dale answered on the first ring. “You okay?” his foreman immediately asked. “For now. But I got a problem and I need your help. This stays between us, got that? Not a word of it to my father.”

“I understand. What do you need me to do?”

“First, I want you to get two ranch hands, ones you trust. Ones who are good with a gun and can keep a calm head. Have them take one of the trucks and drive out to Farm Road six six one, so they can follow me. I’m in Gabrielle Markham’s blue Ford. She’s the one who just drove away from the ranch. We’ve got someone who’s tailing us, and I’d like a chance to talk to that someone.”

Dale’s breathing was suddenly audible. So was Gabrielle’s, and she gripped on to the steering wheel so hard that she’d likely have bruises. She was scared and had good reason to be.

Hell, he was scared, too.

Not for himself. Not even for her. But for the son he’d just learned he had.

Later, he would have to come to terms with that. Later, he’d celebrate and file away all the emotions and old pain that was now right at the surface. Lizzy and he finally had the baby they’d always wanted, and that baby was at risk.

“Houston, are you okay?” Dale repeated.

“I will be when you get those ranch hands out here. Don’t call Sheriff Whitley yet. Instead, phone my old friend, Jordan Taylor, the security specialist in San Antonio, and have him run the license plate, VSM seven six eight,” he read from the black car that was following them. “And I need you to do one final thing.”

“Just say the word.”

In some ways, this would be the most unsavory request of all. But it was a necessary one. “Check through the records of the ranch’s vehicles and see who last used the green Range Rover and when.”

“Will do,” Dale assured him. “I’ll call you when I have news, and I’ll get help out to you right away.”

Houston hung up and put the phone on the seat next to him so he could reach it in a hurry.

“Which way should I go?” Gabrielle asked, drawing Houston’s attention back to her. The sign ahead pointed to the turn for the highway.

“Stay on this road,” Houston instructed.

It was deserted, which meant there would be no one around to help if those guys started shooting, but he knew this road like the back of his hand, and Gabrielle and he might need to take one of the old ranch trails if necessary. That would be a last option, but Houston wanted to keep that possibility available.

“If that’s the gunmen’s accomplice back there and he’s really after Lucas, then he won’t kill us,” he tried to assure Gabrielle.

Not intentionally, anyway. But such an accomplice would likely want to keep Gabrielle alive only so they could get Lucas’s location.

Which she probably wouldn’t give up.

So they could indeed kill her, and then figure out another way to get the child. Houston was expendable, too, because they could always get the money from his father, who was wealthy in his own right. But Houston didn’t want to let things get that far.

Best to stop this now, so he could go about seeing his son.

Gabrielle sucked in her breath. “They’re speeding up.”

Because Houston had his attention nailed to the other vehicle, he noticed it immediately. Gabrielle sped up, too.

That was all right for now; but within two miles or so, there were some deep curves, and Houston didn’t want her losing control of the car and slamming into the thick trees that lined the road.

Houston got the gun ready, just in case. He watched the black car come closer. And closer. It was closing in on them fast.

“Brace yourself,” Houston warned Gabrielle.

But the words had hardly left his mouth when the black car bashed into their rear bumper. The jolt tossed them forward, a fierce jerking motion that caused his teeth to hit together. He tried to steady himself and kept a tight grip on the gun.

“You’ll have to slow down ahead,” Houston warned her.

The car rammed into them again.

Houston heard the scream bubble up in Gabrielle’s throat, but she clamped on to her lip to stop the full sound. She was obviously terrified. So was he. If they both died right here, right now, what would happen to his son?

Gabrielle did as he asked and slowed down, which only made the next jolt even harder. The black car was bigger, and obviously, the driver wasn’t concerned about damage, because he bashed into them again. And again.

This time though, the car didn’t fall back to launch another assault. It stayed pressed right against their bumper, and the driver sped up.

The SOB was trying to make them crash. And with those curves ahead, he just might succeed.

“Hit your brakes.” Houston had to yell over the sound of the metal grinding against metal.

Gabrielle did, and that kicked up a curtain of smoke and sparks. But they still didn’t stop. The black car kept propelling them forward, even though it was now a slow, creeping speed.

Houston quickly thought of the road that lay ahead, and just on the other side of the upcoming curve, there was a ranch trail to the right. It was wide enough for Gabrielle to turn onto safely.

He hoped.

Then, maybe she could get far enough ahead on the trail so that they could stop and try to protect themselves. If he could get some cover, like an outcropping of rocks or a cluster of trees, he’d be able to make a stand. Against who or what exactly, he didn’t know, and that bothered him. Houston had no idea if he was up against one or many, because it was hard to see through the tint on the windshield. It was also possible that some of the car’s occupants could have ducked down and out of view.

The smoke from the brakes and tires was so thick now that he could hardly see the car behind them, but he could feel it. The driver was trying to push them to the right, off the road. And for now, Houston would use that to his advantage.

“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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