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Those tugs also didn’t help the jolts of pain going through her arm. And the pain didn’t help the dizziness. She’d been light-headed since this whole ordeal started, but it was more than just a light head now.
The gunshot and the fear were no doubt to blame.
Kendall drew in several hard breaths and forced herself to look down at the wound. At the gaping hole in her jacket. It turned her stomach, but she tried to make sure she wasn’t bleeding out.
She wasn’t.
There was blood all right, but there didn’t seem to be much more than when he’d initially shot her. That was something at least. A serious blood loss could cause her to miscarry.
The men finally led her out the front door, the same way they’d brought her in after one of them had jimmied the lock. Aiden had a security system, but it hadn’t been on. He probably hadn’t felt the need because he was the sheriff.
Too bad.
If the system had been armed, Aiden might have been alerted and could have nipped this in the bud.
They went onto the porch, down the steps and through the yard toward a thick cluster of trees to the right where the men had left the SUV they’d used to kidnap her from the parking lot of her law office. After they’d grabbed her, they’d stopped several miles outside town to change the license plates and to make a call. Kendall hadn’t learned a thing from that call, because they’d said only one thing to the person on the other end of the line.
“We have her.”
No names used. No hint of the identity of the person they’d called.
So, who had put all this insanity into motion?
Despite Aiden’s accusations and suspicions, it wasn’t Jewell or her daughters. Not Jewell’s stepson, Seth, either. Yes, the three of them loved Jewell, but they wouldn’t resort to this. Unfortunately, other than those three children, Kendall and Jewell’s lawyer, Robert Joplin, there weren’t many people who wanted Jewell to beat this murder charge.
But clearly someone wanted just that.
When they were about ten yards from the SUV, Kendall stumbled just to see how fast the men would react, and she got her answer.
Fast.
Both of them grabbed her, and within a second, she had a gun jammed against her left temple again.
“Keep it up, and you’ll be sorry,” one of the men growled.
No matter what she did, she could be sorry, but Kendall cooperated.
For now.
She continued toward the SUV and didn’t resist when the men practically shoved her inside. As they’d done on the drive there, they buckled her into a seat belt in the middle, and the man who’d spoken only a few words dropped down behind her. The one who’d been doing all the talking walked around the front of the SUV toward the driver’s side.
But then he stopped.
That certainly got her attention, but it got his partner’s, too. “What’s wrong?” the man asked. Unlike the other one, he had some kind of thick accent.
The man still outside raised his finger in a wait-a-second gesture and lifted his head. Listening for something.
Or maybe someone.
Kendall hoped and prayed that it was someone who could get her away from these goons.
“Don’t move,” the guy with the accent said to her, and he stepped out of the SUV. Not far. Just a few inches outside the open door, and he, too, listened. His gaze also darted all around the heavily treed area.
Kendall looked, as well. She tried to pick through the trees and underbrush, but it was spring with everything in full bloom, so she couldn’t see anything.
However, she thought that she might have heard something, like a twig snap. The men didn’t miss it. With their guns raised, they pivoted in the direction of the sound.
Again, nothing.
For several seconds anyway.
Then the shot zinged through the air. It hadn’t been fired by one of her captors but had instead come from the area of that dense underbrush.
It had to be Aiden.
He would have known to cut through the woods and come back after them.
Her captors immediately lifted their guns to return fire, and Kendall sank down into the seat as far as she could. She also looked for something, anything, she could use to cut through the plastic cuffs.
Outside, both men fired, their bullets blasting through the air. She quickly added another prayer that Aiden hadn’t been shot.
Both men continued to fire. Kendall continued to struggle, and even though it made the pain in her arm much worse, she managed to move her hand so she could pop the button on the seat belt. It slid off her, and she got to the floor. Not just for protection but so she could look under the seat.
There was a first aid kit.
She fumbled through it as best she could and found a pair of scissors. They were small, the kind used for cutting bandages and not restraints. Still, they would have to do.
It was hard enough just to pick them up with her hands behind her back. Harder still to try to make any cut. But she had to try.
Kendall glanced out. Both men were now at the front of the SUV and they were tearing up the woods with their bullets. Even though Aiden’s nearest neighbor was a half mile away, maybe he would hear the noise and report it if Aiden hadn’t already called for backup.
The man with the accent looked into the SUV. His gaze connected with hers through the gap between the front seats, and he said something to his partner that she couldn’t hear. But the man must have realized she was trying to escape, because he hurried toward the driver’s door.
Coming for her.
Her heart was pumping now. The adrenaline, too. Kendall worked even harder at trying to cut through the plastic. She could feel them giving way. Little by little. But the man was practically right on her.
The plastic cuffs gave way, finally.
Just as the man crawled across the seat and grabbed for her.
But Kendall brought up the scissors and stabbed him in the face. Because of the ski mask, she wasn’t sure what part of him she hit, but he howled in pain and came at her.
Kendall hit him again with the scissors. This time in his neck.
He made some kind of strangled sound, and she saw the blood. Nothing like her gunshot wound. There was lots of it, and the agonizing sound that he made sent his partner running to him.
Kendall knew she had mere seconds at best. The side door was already open, and she barreled through it. She hadn’t realized just how dizzy and weak she was until her feet touched the ground.
Everything started to spin.
And she would no doubt have fallen if someone hadn’t caught her by the arm. She could just barely make out Aiden’s face.
“Come on,” Aiden said.
He turned, fired a shot at the men, and then he and Kendall started running.
Chapter Three (#ulink_fe40589b-c4ea-54f3-b8d8-53856d915fbd)
Aiden pulled Kendall behind the nearest tree, shoving her against it so that he could lean out and try to stop these guys from coming after them.
And they were coming all right.
Well, one of them anyway.
The other one had his hand clamped to his neck and was slumped against the SUV. Aiden hoped that whatever the heck his injury was, it would kill him. Harsh, yes, but maybe necessary for Kendall’s and his survival. One armed man was enough to deal with, considering that he had an injured, pregnant woman to rescue.
Pregnant.
That one little word came with a boatload of emotions attached and packed a wallop. Especially since Kendall was the one who was pregnant.
With his baby, no less.
That sounded about as unright as something could sound, but he had indeed slept with her. He’d also used protection. However, something had clearly gone wrong other than them just landing in bed together.
Fate had to be laughing its butt off about that. Whitt Braddock’s son and Jewell’s sister together, making a baby.
The town, and his family, would have a field day with it. That’d be minor, though, compared to the firestorm going on inside Aiden, but he pushed all those feelings aside for now. It was going to take every bit of his concentration to get them out of this alive.
Aiden had already called for backup. Not using normal channels in case these brainless wonders had indeed managed to plant bugs in his office and others. Instead he’d used his personal cell to phone his deputy Leland Hawks.
With any luck Leland would be here within twenty minutes.
That was way too long for Leland to help save Kendall and him, but Aiden had told the deputy to make a loud approach. Lots of sirens. Hopefully, the noise would send the guys on the run so that Aiden could track them down.
If this fight didn’t end with the men’s deaths, that is.
Aiden wanted one of them alive, though, if at all possible. Because when this was all said and done, he wanted answers as to who was really behind this.
Another shot smacked into the tree. Though it was hard to hold back, Aiden didn’t return fire yet. He didn’t have a lot of ammo and didn’t want to waste any bullets in case this went on too long. But he did glance out at the pair to check on their latest position. They were in front of the SUV again. Where they were well protected.
Aiden couldn’t say the same for Kendall and him.
The tree wasn’t that wide, and he figured these two had brought enough firepower with them to tear right through the young oak. Added to that, there weren’t any wider, thicker trees nearby for Kendall and him to move behind. Just plenty of underbrush and wildflowers, and none of that would stop bullets.
Kendall looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her breath gusting. Her body trembling. “Thank you for coming back for me.”
That riled him. Of course he’d come back for her. It was his job, and there was no way he’d let something personal get in the way of the badge. She probably hadn’t meant it as an insult, but it was.
“I found some scissors in the SUV, cut off the plastic cuffs, but then I got so dizzy,” she added.
She was still terrified, just as she had been kneeling on the floor of his house. Aiden didn’t want to know what kind of effect this was having on her unborn child.
It couldn’t be good.
But it was better than the alternative. If those men had gotten Kendall away from his place, they would have killed her. Even if he’d done what they asked, that wouldn’t have saved her life.
Then they would have come after him.
“You’ve lost some blood,” he reminded her. “That’s why you got dizzy.”
No need to mention that it could be shock, but he hoped that wasn’t the cause. He might need Kendall’s help before this was over, and something like shock could incapacitate her.
“When the smaller one came at me, I stabbed him with the scissors,” she said. “Twice.”
She looked a little sick about that. Understandable. Most people were never in a position where they were forced to do bodily harm, but Aiden was thankful for the scissors and the stabbing.
“You did what you had to do,” he let her know and then cursed himself for sounding so sympathetic.
He didn’t want her to suffer. Not over some injury she’d managed to inflict on this homicidal idiot, but each kind word from him, each thought about this pregnancy nipped at barriers that had to stay in place when it came to Kendall.
“Leland’s on the way,” Aiden whispered when her trembling got worse. “That means we’ll have backup soon, and we’ll be okay.”
Kendall nodded, and he figured she was trying to look a lot stronger than she felt right now.
Another bullet flew at them. Then another. And soon they were coming nonstop. Aiden had hoped it wouldn’t come down to this, but the men were no doubt getting desperate, since they knew he probably had help on the way. That meant they had only two choices.
Escape or try to recover their hostage.
They appeared to be going for the latter, though the two had to know they could kill Kendall in the process. Of course, they could be doing cleanup.
Trying to eliminate all witnesses.
If so, these next few minutes were going to be bad, because Aiden had no intention of making an elimination easy for them. Nope. He was fighting back along with being fighting mad. How dare these morons pull a stunt like this in his own yard and house!
Now the problem was trying to figure out how to stop them from getting lucky with their elimination attempts.
Aiden knew every inch of his property, and there was a dry narrow gully about ten yards behind Kendall and him. Not as close as he would have liked, but maybe if he could distract these guys long enough, Kendall would be able to crawl to the gully, where she’d be better protected from the bullets.
“I didn’t have any part in this,” she said. Another look up at him.
Damn. He had enough uncomfortable things running through his mind right now without adding her emotions.
“Yeah. I figured that out.” Too bad he had plenty of other things to figure out.
“And I meant what I said about leaving,” Kendall added. “I had no intention of ever telling you about the baby.”
The woman knew how to rile him. In the middle of a gunfight no less. Aiden didn’t have a clue how he felt about this pregnancy, yet, but he darn sure hadn’t wanted her to hide it from him. And Kendall had rattled that off as if he’d be pleased about her plan to sneak off.
