Cowboy Behind the Badge. Delores Fossen

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.

      She was now a human shield.

      “Put down your gun,” Tucker ordered him. Rainwater dripped from his hair and clothes. “Your friends are cuffed in the yard, and my sister’s guarding them. Or maybe she’s killing them,” he added. “More backup will be here in a few minutes.”

      Despite having a gun to her head, relief flooded through Laine. Well, temporarily anyway. The other killers had been caught, and now this guy was the only one left standing. Hopefully not for long, though. Tucker needed to arrest them all so she could find out about the woman these monsters had murdered.

      “You won’t make it out of here alive,” Tucker told the man. He stayed behind cover, using his left hand to bracket his shooting wrist.

      “Oh, yeah? With those kids and her, I believe I will,” he growled.

      Laine could no longer see her captor’s expression, but she could certainly see Tucker’s. Every muscle in his body was hard and tight. He was a lawman ready for the fight, but this was a fight they could all lose if she somehow didn’t manage to protect the babies.

      “Escaping with newborns will be tricky at best,” Laine reminded the man. “You can take just me and move faster.” Not that she especially wanted to play the martyr here, but she didn’t have many options.

      Obviously, her option didn’t please Tucker because he shot her a glare. Laine ignored it. If she could do anything to change her captor’s mind, she would.

      “Taking me and me alone is your best option for staying alive and escaping,” she added. “The babies would just slow you down.”

      She got exactly the reaction she’d expected. Another glare from Tucker when he glanced over at her.

      “Laine, if you want to get out of this big hole, you need to stop digging,” Tucker warned her. “He doesn’t want to take an innocent woman.”

      “Innocent?” the guy growled. “Yeah, right. You might wanta check your facts there, bud. She’s a lot of things, but innocent ain’t one of them.”

      Tucker’s glare faded, and for a split second he got a confused look on his face. “What the heck does that mean?”

      She couldn’t be sure, but Laine thought the guy might be smiling. “It means you need to ask her.”

      “I’d rather stop you,” Tucker fired back. “The questions and answers can come later.”

      If she made it out of this, and it was a big if, then she obviously had some explaining to do. But for now, Laine had to get the gunman away from the babies.

      “Okay,” the gunman finally said, “it’s just you and me, darlin’. And if you try anything funny, your cowboy here is gonna be the one who pays. Got that?”

      That was the only warning Laine got before the man hooked his arm around her neck. He kept the gun pressed to her head.

      “Just so you know, cowboy,” the man drawled. “I got no problem putting a bullet in her, or you for that matter, so my advice is for you to back off.”

      Tucker stayed put. But the man maneuvered her forward, each step taking him farther away from the babies. She couldn’t see them, but they definitely weren’t asleep. Laine could hear them making some whimpering sounds, and she prayed everything was okay.

      “This way.” Her captor didn’t lead her toward the kitchen door, where Tucker’s sister was likely holding his comrades. Instead, he dragged her forward, which meant they’d have to go right past Tucker.

      Tucker adjusted, moving just out of the guy’s reach, but his gun stayed trained on him.

      “You’re not going to get far on foot,” Tucker said. “Especially not with the storm moving in.”

      The man shook his head. “Won’t need to go far.”

      Maybe because he had a vehicle stashed nearby. But more likely it was because he intended to kill her once he’d used her to escape.

      No way would he want to keep her alive, since she’d witnessed the murder.

      Even if he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger, he would still be charged as an accessory, which carried the same sentence. He was looking at the death penalty if she stayed alive and could testify against him.

      Behind her, the babies began to cry. She desperately wanted to go to them and try to comfort them, but each step she took kept the killer away from them. That’s why Laine didn’t resist when the goon practically dragged her past Tucker and toward the front of the house.

      Tucker followed, of course. Using the furniture for cover along the way, he kept his attention pinned to the man. They went through the small dining area and into the living room. Without taking the gun from her head, he reached behind him and opened the front door.

      Laine immediately felt the dampness of the rain, and even over the sound of it on the tin roof and the babies’ cries, she heard something else. Sirens in the distance.

      Backup was on the way.

      The man’s arm stiffened, and he mumbled some profanity. Still, that didn’t stop him maneuvering her onto the porch with him.

      There were six limestone steps leading down into the yard. A fence and gate, too, and some woods on the other side of the narrow road.

      Those woods were no doubt where he intended to take her. And kill her. That meant she had to do something in the next few seconds.

      But what?

      She looked at Tucker to see if he could give her a suggestion, but he only shook his head. “Sooner or later, this clown will make a mistake, and I’ll take the kill shot,” Tucker said.

      “You wish,” the guy growled.

      His choke hold on her neck got even tighter, and he began to back down the steps with her. Escaping would take precious time, and with sirens moving closer with each passing moment, Laine could feel the gunman’s muscles getting tenser.

      He was trapped.

      “Maybe you could get a plea bargain,” she suggested.

      “Maybe you could shut up!”

      The moment he cleared the steps, the rain began to swipe at them. Either the rain was cold for September, or it was just her nerves, but Laine immediately started shivering. Unlike Tucker. He was using the doorjamb for cover, but there were no signs that this was anything but routine for him.

      Again, the man reached behind them and opened the gate, pulling her through the opening and onto the road. Because of the way he was holding her, she couldn’t turn her head, but from the corner of her eye, she saw flashes of blue lights approaching.

      It wouldn’t be long before backup was in place and ready to help, but Laine didn’t know