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Obviously, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear from her. He probably expected a much warmer greeting, because he stepped around Landon and reached out as if to hug her.
Landon, however, blocked his path. “How did you know she was here?” he pressed.
Joel looked at her. Then at Landon. And it must have finally sunk in that this was not a good time for a social visit. If that was indeed what it was.
“What happened to you?” Joel asked her.
“I’m not sure.” That was only a partial lie. “Someone drugged me and then tried to kill me.”
Joel nodded. “In the barn fire. My assistant got a call from a friend who works at the fire department. He told her that you’d been brought here to the Silver Creek Hospital. I came right away.”
“Why?” Landon demanded.
Joel huffed as if the answer were obvious, but he snapped back toward Tessa when the baby made a whimpering sound. He peered around Landon, and Tessa watched Joel’s face carefully so she could try to gauge his reaction.
He was shocked.
She hadn’t thought for a second that the baby was his, because Tessa was certain she’d never slept with Joel. She definitely didn’t have any memories of him being naked in her bed. But she’d considered that he might have known if she’d had a child.
If she had, that is.
Joel stepped back, the shock fading, and in his eyes, she saw something else. The raw anger, some directed at her. Most of it, though, was directed at Landon.
“You two had a baby,” Joel snapped. “That’s why I haven’t heard from you in months.”
Months? Had it been that long? Mercy, she needed to remember.
“I didn’t think things were serious with you two,” Joel added. “You said it was just a one-time fling with him.”
She figured Joel had purposely used the word fling to make it seem as if what’d happened between Landon and her had been trivial. Of course, that was exactly what she’d led Joel, and even Landon, to believe.
Tessa needed to settle some things with Joel, but she couldn’t do that now. Not with the baby here. And not until she was certain that this jumble of memories was right.
“I want the name of the person from the fire department who contacted your assistant and told her about Tessa,” Landon continued.
It took Joel a few moments to pull his stare from her and look at Landon. “I’ll have to get that for you. My assistant didn’t mention a name, and I didn’t think to ask.”
Well, it was a name that Tessa needed so she’d know if Joel had someone in the Silver Creek Fire Department who was on the take.
“I’ll want that information within the next half hour,” Landon added. “And now you’ll have to leave because Tessa and the baby have to be examined by the doctors.”
Joel turned to her as if he expected her to ask him to stay. And she might have if Tessa had had the energy to keep up the facade so she could try to get what info she could from Joel. She didn’t. It was time to regroup and tell Landon what she’d remembered, but she couldn’t do that in front of Joel.
“Landon’s right. The baby and I need to be examined,” Tessa stated to Joel. “Please just go.”
She could see the debate Joel was having with himself, but Tessa also saw the moment he gave in to her request. “Call me when you’re done here,” Joel said. “We have to talk.” And he walked away as if there were no question that she would indeed do just that.
Tessa and Landon stood there watching him, until Joel disappeared around the hall corner.
“I’ll need a minute with Tessa,” Landon told the doctor and security guard.
The doctor hesitated, maybe because Landon’s jaw was clenched and he looked ready to yell at Tessa. But Tessa gave the doctor a nod to let him know it was okay for him to leave. As Landon and she had done with Joel, they waited until both men were out of sight.
Since she knew that Landon was about to launch into an interrogation, Tessa went ahead and got started. “I don’t think the baby is ours,” she said. “And I’m certain she’s not Joel’s.”
“How would you know that?”
She got another image of Landon naked. Good grief, why was that so clear? It was a distraction she didn’t need. Especially since the man himself was right in front of her, reminding her of the reason they’d landed in bed in the first place.
“I just know,” she answered. An answer that clearly didn’t please him.
“Then whose baby is that?” Landon snapped.
Even though Landon wasn’t going to like this, she had to shake her head. “Memories are still fuzzy there, but I don’t have any recollection of being pregnant. I think I would have remembered morning sickness, the delivery...something.”
“And you don’t?”
“Nothing.” She wasn’t certain if he looked relieved, disappointed or skeptical. But she wasn’t lying.
“The doctor will be able to tell once he examines you,” Landon reminded her.
She nodded. “I do have plenty of memories about Joel, though.” Tessa had to lean against the wall when a new wave of dizziness hit her. “And some memories about me, too. I’m not a real PI.”
Landon stared at her as if she were lying. “But you have a PI’s license. A real one. I checked.”
Of course he had. Landon probably wouldn’t have asked her out unless he’d run a basic background check on her. And he definitely wouldn’t have slept with her.
Then she rethought that.
The sex hadn’t been planned, and it’d happened in the heat of the moment. Literally.
“Yes, I have a license.” Best just to toss this out there and then deal with the aftermath. And there would be aftermath. “But I had it only because of Joel. He said he wanted me to get it so I could help him vet some of his business associates. It’s easier for a PI to do that because I had access to certain databases.”
She got the exact reaction she expected. Landon’s eyes narrowed. Tessa wasn’t sure of all of Joel’s activities, but there were enough of them for her to know the kind of man she was dealing with. Landon had called him scummy, but he was much worse than that.
Because Joel was a dangerous man.
With that reminder, she looked around them again. Tessa could still see the parking lot and the hall, and Landon made an uneasy glance around, too.
“You’ll want to keep going with that explanation,” Landon insisted. “But remember, you’re talking to a cop.”
The threat was real. He could arrest her, but it was a risk she had to take right now. She needed Landon on her side so he could help her protect this baby. Maybe from Joel.
Maybe from someone else.
Mercy, it was so hard to think.
Tessa had to clear her throat before she could continue. “I think Joel might have murdered someone.”
His eyes were already dark, but that darkened them even more. “Who? Emmett?”
But she didn’t get a chance to answer.
Landon stepped in front of her, drawing his weapon. That was when she saw the man in the hall.
He was coming straight toward them.
And he had a gun.
Chapter Five (#ulink_06fd55f9-dfd9-5b28-a2b8-997a174cff17)
Landon had a split-second debate with himself about just shooting at the armed man who was coming right at them.
But he couldn’t.
It would be a huge risk to start shooting in the hospital around innocent bystanders.
A risk for Tessa and the baby, too.
The man obviously didn’t have a problem doing just that. He lifted his gun and took aim. Landon hooked his arm around Tessa and yanked her out of the line of fire.
Barely in time.
The bullet smacked into the concrete block wall where they’d just been standing. The noise was deafening, and the baby immediately started to cry.
Landon pulled Tessa and the baby to the side so that he could use the wall for protection, but it wouldn’t protect them for long, because the idiot fired another shot and sent more of those bits of concrete scattering.
“Tessa?” the man called out. “If you want the bullets to stop, then hand the kid to the cowboy cop and come with me.”
Because Landon still had hold of her, he felt her muscles turn to iron, and she held the baby even closer to her body.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
Landon mumbled something significantly worse. This was not what he wanted to happen.
Of course, Landon had known there could be another attack since someone had tried to kill Tessa in that barn fire, but he hadn’t thought a second attempt would happen in the hospital with so many witnesses around. Plus, the guy wasn’t even wearing a mask. That meant he either knew no one would recognize him or didn’t care if they did. But whoever he was, one thing was crystal clear.
This thug wanted Tessa.
Later, Landon would want to know why, but he figured this had something to do with one of the last things she’d said to him before the guy started shooting.
I think Joel might have murdered someone.
Landon didn’t doubt it for a second. Nor did he doubt this armed thug was connected to Joel. But why exactly did Joel want her? Had she learned something incriminating while she was working for him vetting his “cattle broker” associates?
“Tessa?” the man called out. “You’ve got ten seconds.”
“He knows you,” Landon whispered to her. “You recognize his voice?
“No,” she answered without hesitating.
“Think about it,” the guy added. “Every bullet I fire puts that kid in danger even more. Danger that you can stop by coming with me.”
“He’s right,” Tessa said on a rise of breath.
She moved as if preparing herself to surrender, but Landon wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Stay back,” he warned her.
Landon leaned out, trying to time it so that he wouldn’t get shot, and glanced into the hall. The guy was no longer out in the open. He’d taken cover in a doorway.
Hell.
Hopefully, there wasn’t anyone inside the room where this man was hiding or he would no doubt shoot them.
On the second glance, Landon took aim and fired at the moron. The guy ducked back into the room, and Landon’s bullets slammed into the door.
He couldn’t stand there and trade shots with this guy, because sooner or later, the gunman might get lucky. Certainly by now someone had called the sheriff, and that meant Grayson would be here soon. Although it might not be soon enough.
“Let’s go,” Landon told her.
He leaned around the corner and fired another shot at the man, and Landon hoped it would pin him in place long enough to put some distance between those bullets and Tessa.
Staying in front of her while trying to keep watch all around them, Landon maneuvered her down the back hall toward the other end, where there was another line of patients’ rooms. He prayed that all the patients and staff had heard the shots and were hunkering down somewhere.
The baby was still crying, and even though Tessa was trying to comfort it, her attempts weren’t working. Too bad. Because the sounds of the baby’s cries were like a homing beacon for that shooter.
Landon had no choice but to pause when he reached the junction of the halls, and he glanced around to see if there was a second gunman waiting to ambush them.
Empty.
Thank God.
But his short pause allowed the shooter to catch up with them. The guy leaned around the corner where Landon had just been, and he fired at them.
Since it was possible for the gunman to double back and come at them from the other end of the hall, Landon needed better protection. Again, it was a risk because he didn’t know what he was going to find, but he opened the first door he reached.
Not empty.
And the young twentysomething woman inside gave him a jolt until he noticed that she wore a hospital gown and was hanging on to an IV pole. She was a patient.
He hoped.
“Go in the bathroom,” he ordered the woman. “Close the door and don’t come out.”
She gasped and gave a shaky nod but followed his instructions. Landon would have liked to have sent Tessa and the baby in there with her, but he couldn’t risk it. Anyone bold enough to send this gunman could have also planted backups in the rooms.
“Keep an eye on the woman,” Landon whispered to Tessa.
