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“I was never in a vegetative state, just a deep coma, so the monitor already showed plenty of brain activity for me. The activity increased when I woke up, but I tampered with the machine so that it looked as if it malfunctioned. I kept doing that, and the staff thought they had faulty readings.”
A nurse had indeed told him about the readings, and the hospital had called in someone to repair the machine. The Silver Creek Hospital wasn’t big or modern by anyone’s standards so they hadn’t had another monitor to use on Hailey. That’s why the nurses had been keeping a closer watch on her. Obviously, they hadn’t watched nearly close enough.
“How’d you know how to tamper with the monitor?” he pressed.
She glanced away. “I’m good with computers and such.”
This was the first Lucas was hearing about that, but it didn’t matter. Not when there were so many other things they needed to talk about.
“When I was trying to regain my strength, I made sure no one else saw me,” she added.
Obviously. Just as she’d made sure he hadn’t noticed her before he’d gotten in his vehicle.
Her gaze dropped to her stomach for just a second. “I listened to try to find out if I’d had a boy or a girl, but no one mentioned it. Not even you when you visited me on Monday.”
Clearly she’d known he was there. Lucas had indeed visited her, something he did a couple of times a week. Why, he didn’t know, because he couldn’t get answers from a woman in a coma. It riled him to the core, though, that she’d been awake during that visit and hadn’t said anything.
But what had he said?
Lucas wasn’t even sure—maybe nothing—but he’d almost certainly glared at her. He still was glaring now.
“So, you faked being in a coma for the last week, built up your strength, and just walked out of the hospital?” he asked, going through the probability of that as he said it.
He was skeptical.
Hailey nodded. “I ducked into a supply room, and when I heard the doctor call you, I knew you’d be arriving soon. I made my way to the parking lot and hid behind some shrubs.”
“And then you broke into my SUV,” Lucas snarled.
“The back door was unlocked,” she answered as if that was something she did all the time. To the best of his knowledge, she didn’t, but then, he really didn’t know much about this woman.
The mother of his child.
“Why didn’t you let me know you’d come out of the coma?” Lucas demanded.
Hailey stared at him a long time. “I’ll tell you that if you’ll tell me what I had—a boy or a girl?”
He debated bargaining with her. Even with that gun aimed at him. But it was probably best to give her the information so they could move on to something else. Something that involved his ripping that gun out of her hand.
“You had a boy,” he finally said. “He was born three months ago.”
“Three months?” she repeated. It sounded as if she had to choke back a sob. “That long.”
Yeah, that long. “The doctors had to deliver him by C-section because you weren’t conscious when you went into labor.”
She shook her head, her breath shuddering. “I don’t remember.”
“Comas are like that,” he said, and he didn’t bother to sound even marginally sympathetic. “I named him Camden David. But I have sole custody of him,” Lucas added.
Not a lie, exactly. He did have custody of him and had tried to make it permanent, but the judge had refused on the grounds that Hailey might come out of the coma and her parental rights could be reinstated.
Could be.
Lucas would make sure that didn’t happen.
Something went through her pale green eyes, and Hailey made a sound, part groan, part gasp. At first he thought maybe the reaction was due to his custody comment, but the tears proved otherwise. It was the reaction of a woman who’d just learned she had a son.
But she was a mother in name only.
“And he...Camden’s all right?” Hailey asked, still blinking back those tears. “There were no problems with the delivery?”
“Yeah. No thanks to you.”
“Is he safe?” she asked before Lucas could finish what he was about to say.
“Of course he is.” Lucas couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “What the hell were you thinking when you went on the run like that? And what happened to you? Were you driving too fast? Is that what caused the accident—and that?”
He pointed to her scar, but Lucas didn’t pull back his hand. He knocked the gun away from her, and it fell on the front passenger’s seat. Hailey immediately scrambled to retrieve it, but Lucas was a whole lot faster. He dropped it on the floor, well out of her reach.
“Don’t make me draw my gun,” he warned her and took hold of her wrist in case she was about to try to get out the door.
But she didn’t try to escape.
A hoarse sob tore from her mouth, and Hailey eased away from him. Just in case she had another weapon back there, Lucas leaned over the seat and did a quick check around her. He frisked her, too. Since she was wearing a pair of loose green scrubs, a thin sweater and flip-flops, there weren’t many places she could conceal a weapon.
Still, after what’d happened three months ago, Lucas looked.
His hand brushed against the side of her breast, and she made a soft sound. Not the groan she’d made earlier. This one caused him to feel that tug deep within his body. But Lucas told that tug to take a hike.
Their gazes connected. Not for long. Lucas finished the search and found nothing.
“Now, keep talking,” he insisted. “Tell me what happened to you. Why did you go on the run, and why didn’t you tell anyone before now that you were out of the coma?”
She opened her mouth and got that deer-in-the-headlights look. What she didn’t do was answer him.
“Enough of this,” he mumbled.
He took out his phone to call Mason and then the sheriff, but as he’d done with her earlier, Hailey took hold of his hand. “Please don’t tell your cousins. Not yet.”
Since most of his Ryland cousins were cops, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Did you break the law? Is that why you were on the run?”
“No.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her head wasn’t the only thing shaking, though. She started to shiver, the cold and maybe the fear finally getting to her. “But I’m in trouble. God, Lucas, I’m in so much trouble.”
He was about to curse at her for stating the obvious, but something else went through her eyes.
Fear.
“It won’t take long for word to get out that I’m awake,” Hailey said, speaking barely louder than a whisper. “And he’ll find out.”
“He?” Lucas snapped.
Hailey’s voice cracked. “There’s a killer after me.”
Chapter Two (#u22dc40c6-d642-5aab-bd04-820e082802cd)
Hailey closed her eyes a moment, hoping it would help with the dizziness.
It didn’t.
It was hard to think with her head spinning, the bone-deep exhaustion and the muscle spasms that kept rippling through her body.
Hard to think, too, with Lucas glaring at her as if she were the enemy. Of course, in his eyes, that’s exactly what she was.
He obviously didn’t believe her. Didn’t trust her, either, but somehow Hailey had to make him understand. First, though, he had to take care of what was most important—the baby.
“Are you sure Camden is safe?” she asked.
That caused a new slash of anger to go through his eyes. Probably because he believed she was dodging the news she’d just dropped on him.
There’s a killer after me.
“He’s safe,” Lucas finally said, but he spoke through clenched teeth. “Now, tell me why you need to make sure of that. Does it have something to do with the so-called killer?” He didn’t give her a chance to say a word, though. “Or are you trying to lie your way out of why you ran from me three months ago?”
“It’s not a lie.” She wished it was. “But I didn’t tell the truth about some other things.”
That tightened the muscles in his jaw even more. “Start from the beginning, and so help me, there’d better not be any lies this time.”
Hailey nodded but glanced around them. Since it was Tuesday and a school night, Silver Creek wasn’t exactly teeming with activity, but she did spot someone jogging in the park. She kept her attention on him until he disappeared around the curve of the tree-lined trail. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the guy was just that—a jogger—but he could have been someone after her.
“We need to find a better place to talk,” Hailey told him.
Lucas gave her a flat look. Cursed. “I’m not taking you to the Silver Creek Ranch.”
That was no doubt where the baby was.
Camden.
Hailey mentally repeated that, something she’d been doing since Lucas had first mentioned her precious son’s name. Learning something—anything—about her baby caused her heart to ache. It felt as if someone was squeezing it hard.
Mercy, she’d lost so much already. Three months. And there was a lot more she could lose. Thank God the baby was okay, but it was up to her to make sure he stayed that way.
“I can’t see Camden,” Hailey answered. Saying it aloud added an even deeper pain. “Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”
“You won’t see him at all,” Lucas snapped. He spewed out more of that profanity. “You don’t have a right to see him.”
No, in his eyes, she didn’t. But if and when this was over, she would see her son. Even if she had to push her way through an army of Ryland lawmen. No one would keep him from her.
Since it was obvious Lucas wasn’t going to budge, Hailey tried to figure out the fastest way to convince him that it wasn’t safe for her to be out in the open like this.
That meant starting from the beginning.
“I’m not who you think I am,” she said.
A burst of air left his mouth, but it wasn’t a laugh. “Obviously. You slept with me and then sneaked out, leaving me a note saying you couldn’t see me again.”
Hailey didn’t need a reminder of that. She could have recited the note word for word.
Lucas, I’m sorry, but this was a mistake. I can’t get involved with you.
“That was the truth,” she continued. “I shouldn’t have let things get so...intimate between us.”
“But you did, and you got pregnant.”
Yes, she had. Since they’d used a condom, the pregnancy definitely hadn’t been something Hailey had been expecting. But that hadn’t stopped her from wanting the child right from the start.
“Mistakes aside,” Lucas continued, “you had no right to run away from me while you were carrying my baby.” He cursed again. “If you hadn’t had that car accident, I might have never found you. Of course, that was probably the plan, wasn’t it? To run away so that I’d never be able to see my child?”
Hailey didn’t even have to think about that answer. “No. That wasn’t the plan.”
He didn’t believe her, but it was the truth.
“I was trying to stay alive, trying to keep the baby from being hurt,” Hailey explained.
He tapped his badge. “I’m a Texas Ranger.” That was probably his way of saying that if something was wrong, she should have gone straight to him.
But Lucas had been in danger, too.
Something he didn’t know.
Yet.
Figuring she would need it, Hailey took another deep breath. “Two years ago, I was employed as a computer systems analyst in Phoenix for a man named Preston DeSalvo. I found out he was working with someone in the FBI. A dirty agent. And they were selling confiscated weapons. I went to the cops, DeSalvo was eventually arrested, and after I testified against him, I was placed in witness protection and given a new identity. The marshals relocated me here to Silver Creek.”
She paused, giving him a few moments to let all of that sink in, but Lucas didn’t take the time. He whipped out his phone again, and before she could stop him, she saw him press the contact for one of his cousins.
Sheriff Grayson Ryland.
“Don’t tell him I’m with you,” Hailey insisted. “The sheriff’s office could be bugged.”
She saw the debate Lucas was having with himself, but he didn’t stop the call. He did put it on speaker, though, and it didn’t take long before Grayson answered.
“I heard about Hailey,” Grayson said right off the bat. “I’ve sent two of the deputies to the hospital to help look for her.”
“Thanks,” Lucas said. And he paused. A long time. “Can you look up info on a guy named Preston DeSalvo?”
Grayson paused, too. Hailey knew the sheriff well because she’d worked for him as an emergency dispatcher shortly after her arrival in Silver Creek. Grayson had a lot of experience as a lawman and was probably suspicious.
“Is DeSalvo connected to Hailey?” Grayson asked, though she could hear the clicks of his computer keys.
