Surrendering to the Sheriff

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Except he didn’t want to think of his baby as a price tag.

At the moment, he didn’t want to think of his baby at all, because it wasn’t a good idea for him to be focusing on something that could bring him to his knees when he had a would-be killer gunning for his head.

“You’re just like your father,” Carla added, giving Aiden another dig. “Unable to resist an O’Neal woman. At least he didn’t get Jewell pregnant, though. Now we’ll have a baby to raise.”

Uh-oh. Definitely not the right thing to say, and Kendall stepped in front of him. “You’re not raising my baby.” She slid her hand protectively over her stomach. “In fact, you have no say in this whatsoever.”

The little glance that Kendall shot him was probably to let him know that he didn’t have a say, either. She was wrong about that.

Here came the tears, spilling down his mother’s cheeks. Since this was about to get uglier than it already was, Aiden took hold of Kendall and eased her back away from Carla. “Mom, I need to get Kendall’s statement so I can figure out who tried to kill her and the baby.”

That got Carla’s attention. She’d obviously known about the attack, but it probably hadn’t occurred to her yet that anything bad that happened to Kendall also happened to the baby she was carrying. Of course, maybe Carla didn’t care about that at all, despite her insistence about raising the child.

“Any idea who kidnapped me and tried to force Aiden to destroy evidence?” Kendall demanded. And it was indeed a demand. There was plenty of anger in her voice and narrowed eyes when they landed on his mother.

“What evidence?” Carla questioned.

“The bone fragments,” Aiden supplied.

Carla pressed her hand on her chest as if to steady her head. “Those fragments will convict Jewell of murder. There are only a handful of people who’d want that evidence destroyed. Joplin, Jewell’s children and Kendall.”

“And you,” Kendall added.

Obviously, his mom hadn’t seen that coming.

Neither had Aiden.

“You’re under psychiatric care,” Kendall added a heartbeat later. “Any other secrets you’d like to tell us about?”

Aiden was about to assure Kendall that it wasn’t true, but his mother certainly didn’t jump to deny it. “How did you know that?” Carla demanded.

Ah, heck.

Apparently, another can of worms had just been opened.

“I’d rather not say,” Kendall answered, repeating the words his mother had said earlier.

That put some fire in Carla’s eyes. “So what if it’s true that I’m seeing a psychiatrist? That doesn’t mean I would try to have evidence destroyed.”

“You might if you thought it’d make my sister look bad.” Kendall paused. “Or if you thought it’d get rid of me and the Braddock baby I’m carrying.”

Aiden mentally repeated his ah, heck because he didn’t like the sudden look in his mother’s eyes. The fire was still there, but he also saw something else.

The hatred.

It’d always been there, of course. But Aiden saw it now in a whole new light. Carla loathed Jewell, and that loathing extended to Kendall, since Jewell had practically raised Kendall after their father died.

Maybe his mother’s hatred extended to the baby, too.

Yeah, Carla had demanded to raise the child, but he hoped like the devil that there wasn’t something else going on here. Something that had caused her to put Kendall and the baby in danger.

But then he mentally shook his head.

There were plenty of other suspects with a more obvious motive without his reaching, and motive was something he’d take a hard look at soon. Right now he needed to fix this. Kendall was wobbling again, leaning against him, no doubt because she was dizzy. Probably in pain, too. No way did she need to be standing in the ER having words with his mother.

“We’re leaving now. Come on,” Aiden said to Kendall. “Mom, I’ll call you.”

And this time he didn’t leave any room for argument. He got Kendall out of that corner and left his mother standing there, glaring at them.

Even though he was hurrying, Aiden didn’t let his hasty departure make him stupid. He checked out the parking lot again to make sure no one was lurking around ready to attack.

There didn’t appear to be.

Rather than leave Kendall there with his mother nearby, he drew his gun and hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

“Hurry,” he reminded her, though he figured Kendall wouldn’t dawdle out in the open where her attacker could have another go at her.

Just in case that was the guy’s plan, Aiden kept her close. Right against him to be exact. And even though he didn’t break into a run, he got them to his truck as fast as possible. The moment they were inside and had on their seat belts, he drove away and got on the road that led out of town.

“I thought we were going to the sheriff’s office,” she said, glancing back at Main Street.

“It can wait. You have a security system at your house?”

She nodded but didn’t look too certain about this decision. Heck, Aiden wasn’t a hundred percent with it, either, but it might get Kendall the rest that she clearly needed.

He took out his phone, and while he kept watch around them, he called Leland. All his other deputies and Leland had their hands full with finding the missing attacker and processing the crime scene at Aiden’s place, but Aiden needed some security measures for Kendall. That meant turning to someone he didn’t especially want to turn to.

The McKinnons.

All three of Jewell’s sons were lawmen. That was the good news. The bad news was they were estranged from their mother, since they blamed Jewell for leaving them after the affair with Aiden’s father. An affair that’d led to his father’s murder.

And that meant the McKinnon sons were also estranged from Kendall.

Still, he hoped the lawmen would do their jobs, since Kendall’s house was in their jurisdiction.

“Call the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office,” Aiden told Leland when the deputy answered. “I’ll need a protection detail out at Kendall’s place.”

She was already shaking her head before Aiden finished the request, and if Aiden could have thought of another way to keep her safe, he would have taken it. Leland assured him that he’d get right on that and then gave Aiden a quick update. When he was done, Aiden clicked the end call button so he could argue with Kendall. Not just about this but also the other surprise she’d dropped about his mother.

“Think about the baby,” Aiden said. “Yeah, you and the McKinnon boys don’t get along, but Cooper, Tucker and Colt will do their jobs. They don’t have to like you to protect you.”

He let that hang in the air.

“Obviously, that’s true. You don’t like me, and you’re protecting me,” she said.

Aiden thought about that a moment, and he decided there was no way to answer that so it wouldn’t put him in butt-deep hot water. If he agreed that he didn’t like her, it would only make this protective custody arrangement even more uncomfortable than it already was.

Besides, it was a lie.

He did like her. Well, her mouth anyway.

Okay, the rest of her, too.

He was just opposed to putting his mother and his sister Shelby through any more hell because of the choices that brainless part of him made in sleeping partners.

Of course, Kendall was more than just a former sleeping partner. She was the mother of his unborn son.

A reminder that required him to take a deep breath.

The fact they’d slept together didn’t automatically mean he had to like her, but again reminding her that they were bad news for each other wouldn’t fix anything right now.

“You’d rather I stayed with you than the McKinnons?” he asked, knowing the answer to that.

Now she was on the spot. Similar to him not liking her comment.

“It wouldn’t be smart for you to stay with me,” she answered.

Finally, they could agree on something, and once he had the McKinnon boys in place, he could get back to figuring out what the heck was going on and stopping any other attacks.

Not that he was positive there’d be another one.

The kidnappers had clearly lost, and with the evidence already moved, the danger might be long gone. Aiden hoped so anyway, but it still wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

He took the turn to Sweetwater Springs and moved onto the next subject. “How’d you know my mother was seeing a shrink? And spare me the answer of you’d rather not say, because that won’t work with me.”

“It worked when your mother used it so she wouldn’t have to tell me how she found out I was pregnant.”

“That ship hasn’t sailed yet. I’ll find out who told her. Now it’s your turn to come clean.”

She raked her fingers over her eyebrow and shifted in the seat a little. “I’ve been doing some checking, to try to find anything that might free Jewell.”

Of course she had. “And you decided to check out my mother?”

Kendall nodded. “I had a PI follow her, and he reported back to me that she’s been visiting a psychiatrist in San Antonio.”

“My mother has a history of depression.” Though he hadn’t known about these visits to a shrink. Did that mean her depression had gotten worse? “It’s a stretch, though, to think depression would have caused her to come after you to make Jewell look bad. Especially since I could have gotten hurt.”

“But she knew about the baby,” Kendall quickly pointed out. “Maybe she was willing to risk hurting you to make sure I’m out of your life for good.”

It turned his stomach to think of that, and he wished he could totally dismiss it.

But he couldn’t.

The truth was, his mother had been flirting with mental instability for years. All the way back to the time of his father’s murder. He’d seen that vacant look in her eyes one time too many. Ditto for the sheer hatred that she just couldn’t let go of. So yeah, news of a baby could have tipped her over the edge, and that was why Aiden needed to learn when she’d found out about the pregnancy and who’d been the one to tell her.

“While you were doing this checking and having people followed, did you hear anything else I should know?” he asked.

“Lee Palmer,” she said without hesitation. “He also hired a PI to follow your mother.”

Yet another hit of news that he hadn’t been aware of.

Palmer.

The man’s name kept turning up like a bad penny. A nearby rancher and his father’s old nemesis. Palmer would love to see Jewell walk on this murder. Heck, Palmer would have loved to do the kill himself. Too bad he had a decent alibi for the time of Whitt’s death. The man had been in the hospital recovering from a mild heart attack.

Still, Aiden had to shake his head on this one. “So, why would Palmer have my mother followed?”

“Maybe for the same reason I did.” She paused. “He had your younger sister, Shelby, followed, too.”

Aiden cursed. “And you didn’t think you should come to me with this?”

Kendall lifted her shoulder. “You and I aren’t exactly on the same side in this investigation, and technically I’m one of Jewell’s attorneys. If anything had come up that was legally pertinent to the investigation, I would have disclosed it as I’m required to do. But a private citizen hiring a PI isn’t something I have to disclose.”

Hell’s bells. She sounded like a lawyer and it set his teeth on edge again. “I’ll have a talk with Palmer, and these little following adventures will stop.” Aiden gave that some more thought. “Did he have me followed, too?”

“No, not that I know of anyway, but Palmer’s digging into your old investigations. Into the McKinnon investigations, too. I think he’s looking for anything that’ll weaken the case against Jewell.”

Yes, and he could try to smear Aiden’s name in the process. He followed the law, but there was always a gray area or two when it came to investigations. Palmer better not be looking to throw him to the dogs to save the likes of Jewell.

Palmer also had better not be behind tonight’s fiasco.

Apparently, Aiden had yet someone else to question, along with Jewell’s attorney, Joplin. Maybe if he poked around enough, he’d find the snake responsible for that bullet Kendall had taken.

“I need some good news,” she said, staring out the window into the darkness. “Any good news.”

Aiden could possibly help with that. “Leland managed to get the surveillance footage from a camera just up the street from your office. One of the deputies is looking at it now to see if they can find any clues about the attack.”

She shivered, rubbing her hands along the sides of her arms. Then she winced when her fingers brushed against the stitches.