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The seconds ticked with each step the men took, and every inch of him became alert. Tucker had been in situations like this. Facing down suspected killers and waiting for an attack that might or might not happen. But the stakes had never been this high. He had two newborns to protect.
One of the men suddenly stopped, his gaze zooming to the back part of the property. No doubt the route that Rayanne would be taking.
Had they seen her?
If so, he hoped his sister had taken some basic precautions so she wouldn’t get herself shot. He suspected she hadn’t when the other man pivoted in that direction. Tucker knew he couldn’t wait. He had to do something to make sure they didn’t gun Rayanne down.
He reached over and opened the door just a fraction so he could see out. “I’m Tucker McKinnon, Texas Ranger,” he shouted to them.
Like his earlier call to Rayanne, Tucker wasn’t sure what response he’d get from them. But the men stopped and lowered their guns.
That was a good start.
“I’m Sergeant Floyd Hines,” the one on the left answered. In his late twenties or early thirties, he was heavily muscled and had nondescript brown hair. “And this is my partner, Detective Norman Hacker.” He was on the lean side, with a mean-looking scar running down his cheek.
“We traced a fugitive here,” Hines added.
Tucker had to hand it to them—they sure sounded like cops. And maybe they were. Dirty ones. Because he already knew they weren’t SAPD.
The rain started. Tucker stayed to the side of the door so they could still hear him, without him needing to put himself in the direct line of fire.
“What fugitive?” he asked the men.
“Laine Braddock. She assisted in helping a federal prisoner escape.”
Laine made a sound of outrage, but Tucker motioned for her to stay quiet. Maybe the babies would do the same.
“She’s not here,” Tucker lied. “You need to be on your way.”
The men exchanged glances, obviously not pleased with his lack of cooperation.
“Where is she?” Hines asked, in the way a cop would ask. A demand rather than a question.
“Wouldn’t know. I’m not exactly on friendly terms with her.”
Hines mumbled something to his partner that Tucker couldn’t hear. “We have reason to believe she’s inside your house,” Hines continued. “We’re coming in to check.”
Well, they weren’t short of gall. But then neither was Tucker. “You got a search warrant?”
That earned him scowls from both of them. “We figured you’d cooperate with your brothers in blue.”
“Not this time. Come back when you’ve got that warrant.” Tucker shut the door and kept watch out the window.
The pair definitely didn’t turn and leave. They stood there mumbling and looking around for what seemed an eternity. That eternity screeched to a halt when one of the babies started crying.
Not a whimper, either.
A full-fledged cry. Worse, the other one started to cry, too. No way could those men miss that.
Hines raised his gun again and started toward the house. He was no longer moving at a cautious pace. He began to run as if he planned to ram right through the back door.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” someone shouted.
Rayanne.
Hacker pivoted in her direction. Fired. The shot blasted through the air, and he dropped to the ground behind a tree. Hopefully Rayanne had gotten down, as well.
“Stay on the floor, as low as you can get,” Tucker warned Laine again, and he threw open the door so he could return fire.
Hines bolted behind Tucker’s truck. That didn’t stop the man from shooting, though. This time, the bullet smacked into the door less than an inch from where Tucker was standing.
Hell’s bells.
So, he had his confirmation.
These guys were killers, and they were firing shots into a house where they knew Laine and the babies were hiding.
“Don’t go out there,” Laine whispered as Tucker stooped down and opened the door a little farther.
“I can’t let them keep shooting into the house.” And anyway, Rayanne was out there. Responding to his call for backup. He didn’t intend to let her face down these guys alone.
Laine continued to protest, but the sounds of the babies’ cries and the shots drowned her out. Tucker created some sounds of his own by sending a shot at Hines. The bullet smacked into Tucker’s truck, very close to his intended target, but the miss got him the results he wanted.
Hines leaned over to fire again.
And this time, Tucker made sure he didn’t miss.
He didn’t go for a kill shot. He wanted this dirtbag alive so he could explain what the heck was happening here, so Tucker shot Hines in the right shoulder. When the idiot still kept hold of his gun, Tucker put another bullet in his arm.
Even over the noise of the gunfight, Tucker heard Hines groan in pain, and he finally let go of his gun.
Hacker cursed. No doubt because he realized his partner had been shot and was now unable to return fire. Rayanne gave him another reason to spew some profanity. Tucker saw her dart out from behind one of the trees and take aim at Hacker.
“Drop your gun now!” she ordered.
Tucker hurried onto the small porch and took aim at Hacker, as well. A single word of profanity left the man’s mouth before he tossed his gun to the side and lifted his hands in surrender.
“Get on the ground,” Tucker demanded. “Both of you.”
Hines’s arm and shoulder were bleeding, and he was clearly in pain, but he eased himself to the ground. About fifteen yards away, Hacker did the same.
Tucker slid his phone across the floor toward Laine. “Call Colt and tell him to get out here now. We’ll need an ambulance, too.”
Laine gave a shaky nod, and even though she now had both babies in her arms, she managed to grab the phone.
Since Tucker figured the two gunmen could be carrying backup weapons anywhere on their bodies, he kept his own gun aimed and ready when he made his way out the door and down the porch steps. Rayanne kept her gun ready, too, and went to Hacker. Tucker went to Hines.
“Colt should be here soon,” Tucker relayed to Rayanne. But maybe he could use the time to figure out who these guys really were.
Tucker took aim at Hines’s head. “Start talking. Tell me about the woman you killed.”
“Didn’t kill nobody,” the man snarled. He had his hand clamped to his arm, the pain etched all over his face, but he still managed to look cocky and defiant.
“Wrong answer. Try again.” Tucker made sure he sounded cocky, too. “Who sent you here?”
His tobacco-stained teeth came together in a sneer. “Even if I knew that, I wouldn’t tell you. Wouldn’t be good for my health.”
“Neither is bleeding out.” Though the man didn’t seem to be in danger of doing that, Tucker took his threat a little further. “I can get an ambulance out here real fast. Or real slow. Your choice.”
His mouth tightened even more. “You’re not gonna let me die.”
No. But Tucker figured he could bluff him into thinking otherwise. “You just took shots at me, my sister and a friend of mine.”
“She ain’t no friend of yours. I know who she is. And who you are. I know that your mama killed her daddy, and there’s bad blood between you two. No reason to protect her.”
“I’m a real lawman,” Tucker snapped.
That only deepened the man’s sneer.
The rain started to come down harder. The thunder rumbled, too. Maybe that ambulance would get there before one of them got hit by lightning.
“You don’t need this guy alive, do you?” Rayanne called out. She was standing over Hacker, her gun aimed right at him, while he wriggled belly-down on the ground.
“Why’d you ask that?” Tucker wanted to know.
“Because he’s got that look, that’s why. The one that morons get right before they do something really stupid, like try and go for my gun. If he does, I want to make sure it’s okay for me to put some bullets in his head.”
The moron quit moving.
“We don’t need him alive,” Tucker assured her.
And that wasn’t exactly a bluff. Of course, he would prefer both men breathing so he could try to pit them against each other during the interrogations, but since Hacker’s shots could have hurt those newborns, Tucker wasn’t feeling very charitable toward the man.
Or toward Hines.
Hines was on his back on the ground. Tucker put his boot against the man’s throat. “Talk. Tell me why you came here for Laine.”
“Laine,” he repeated. “Sounds as if you two have mended some fences.”
Not exactly. But being caught in a gunfight together had a way of pushing those old issues to the side.
For a little while anyway.
“Mending fences won’t save her,” Hines said. His top lip lifted. It was more sneer than smile, but the warning put a knot in Tucker’s gut.
So did the sound.
Behind them, in the house, Tucker heard something he sure didn’t want to hear.
Laine’s shout.
“Tucker! There’s another gunman.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_1a6176fc-2cb7-5672-938e-c83bd6af6cf4)
Laine saw the third man. But it was seconds too late to try to get the babies out of the house. Too late to do anything other than call out to Tucker and hope that would be enough to save them.
The hulking goon must have come in from the front of the house, away from the fight that’d been going on in the side yard with Tucker, his sister and the other two killers.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” the man warned her. He stepped into the doorway of the pantry, blocking her exit, and pointed a gun right at her.
Just the sight of him caused the skin to crawl on the back of her neck, but Laine forced herself not to panic. She had the babies gripped in her arms, but she put them back on the floor so she could position herself in front of them. Trying to protect them while she prayed that Tucker would get there fast enough to put a stop to this.
If Tucker was able to do it, that is.
She’d heard those shots outside, and one of them could have hit Tucker before he even made it out to stop the gunmen. It sickened her to think of that. She hadn’t wanted to involve him or his sister in this, but she’d had no choice.
Laine didn’t recognize the guy in front of her, but he was huge. At least six foot four and with a hulking body and wide shoulders. Even if he hadn’t had the gun, he would have been formidable.
“The three of you are coming with me,” the man snarled, and he used the barrel of his gun to motion for her to get moving. “Now!” he added when she didn’t budge.
Laine couldn’t risk him firing, because even if he didn’t intend to hurt the babies, it could easily happen in such a confined space.
“Please don’t hurt them.” Not that she thought pleading would help, but it might be able to buy her some time.
Or not.
“I said move!” he shouted.
The man came right at her, caught onto her arm and flung her against the pantry shelves. Her shoulder hit the shelves hard, and the pain jolted through that entire side of her body. In the back of her mind, Laine realized she’d have bruises. Too bad worse things could happen in the next couple of minutes.
Boxes of pasta and canned soup tumbled off the shelves, pelting the floor. Despite the hard grip the man still had on her, Laine dropped back down so she could prevent the babies from being hit.
She didn’t stay there long. Once the pantry items had stopped falling, she did the only thing she could do. She came up fighting.
Laine grabbed the first thing she could reach—a large can of mixed nuts—and threw it at him. It hit him on the chin, the can flying open, flinging nuts at him, but the can and nuts bounced off him as if he hadn’t even felt it.
She didn’t stop. She hurled a can of soup at him next, and received the same reaction as before. Well, almost. She hadn’t thought it possible, but the fury in his expression actually went up a notch.
Making a feral growling sound, he came after her again.
But he froze. Then cursed. Without warning, he caught onto her hair and hauled her out of the pantry and into the kitchen.
She heard them then.
The footsteps.
With his gun gripped in his hand, Tucker came in from the living room and took cover by the partial wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the house. Maybe he’d tried to sneak up on the guy, but if so, it hadn’t worked. The man dragged her in front of him and put the gun to her head.
