One Night Standoff. Delores Fossen

Lenora couldn’t understand, so she put her ear closer to his mouth.

      “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

      That seemed to get his attention, and he tried to open his eyes. “The baby.” The two words didn’t have any sound, but she was pretty sure that’s what he was trying to say.

      The baby.

      The reason for this visit. Lenora had dreaded coming here. Telling him. And had braced herself for his reaction. But now she had a different reason to dread why she’d decided to tell him.

      If she hadn’t come here, this might not have happened.

      From the corner of her eye, she saw the movement of the man approaching and nearly lifted the gun again before she realized it was Marshal Harlan McKinney. With his own gun drawn and holding his cell to his ear, he raced across the street toward the diner and had to dodge a car that nearly plowed right into him.

      “Get here now!” Harlan shouted into his phone.

      “The driver of that black truck,” Lenora managed to say. “He shot Clayton.”

      “I saw it from the window,” Harlan mumbled, and he practically pushed her aside so he could take hold of his foster brother. The fear was right there, in his eyes and in every part of his body.

      “Hold on, Clayton,” Harlan said. “The ambulance should be here any minute.” His gaze flashed to her. “Why’d this happen?”

      “I’m not sure.”

      “Then guess!” Harlan insisted. “Because I want to know why my brother was shot.”

      But Lenora didn’t even get a chance to speculate.

      Or lie.

      She heard a welcome sound. The ambulance sirens wailed from up the street, and it didn’t take long for the vehicle to screech to a stop directly in front of the diner. Two medics got out and came rushing toward them.

      Harlan and she stepped back out of the way, and Lenora watched. Prayed. And tried to keep it together. In addition to the flashbacks and the fear crawling through her, she thought she might throw up.

      Bad timing.

      She’d had few symptoms of the pregnancy, and she didn’t want to be queasy now when so much was at stake.

      “Marshal Caldwell?” one of the medics said to Clayton.

      Still no response.

      “Clayton?” Harlan tried.

      And this time Lenora saw his eyelids flutter and open just slightly. Clayton’s coffee-colored eyes were unfocused, glazed, but he turned them in his brother’s direction.

      “You’ll be okay,” Harlan assured him.

      Lenora prayed that was true.

      Clayton mumbled something. Or rather he tried, but like before Lenora couldn’t hear what he said. The medics moved in front of her, easing Clayton onto the gurney, and they hurried to the ambulance with him.

      Lenora moved, too. She didn’t want to lose sight of him, and apparently neither did Harlan, because he latched on to her arm and dragged her into the back of the ambulance with him. He didn’t ask them for permission to ride.

      The ambulance sped away from the diner, and Harlan and she watched as the medics took Clayton’s vitals.

      “You returned fire,” Harlan said and held out his hand. “I’ll need Clayton’s gun.”

      For a moment Lenora had forgotten that she was still clutching it. She had to force her hand to open, and she gave the Glock to him.

      “Not a smart thing to do,” Harlan snarled. “Discharging a firearm in a crowd.”

      “There weren’t any bystanders in my line of sight,” she blurted out, wishing that she hadn’t, because it brought Harlan’s attention directly to her.

      “Why did you come to see Clayton?” he demanded.

      The truth would only lead to more questions, and she didn’t want to be interrogated by this particular marshal. “Two months ago, my friend was murdered. I wanted to know if there’d been any new developments. I wanted to make sure her killer would stay in jail.”

      Harlan no doubt knew all about Jill and the investigation. He stared at her, suspicion in his eyes, and Lenora had enough instincts to know that if Harlan’s foster brother hadn’t been just a few feet away and bleeding from a head wound, he would have called her a liar.

      She was.

      And Harlan would have pushed for a better answer than the one she’d just told him.

      But there was no reason for her to tell this man about the pregnancy. When Clayton was better, he could break the news to his family. And he could also decide if he wanted to be part of this baby’s life.

      If Clayton survived, that was.

      She stared at the father of her unborn child. The man she’d slept with because she’d been too distraught to make a logical decision.

      Sex wasn’t always logical, though.

      Neither was the attraction she’d felt for this lawman. The attraction had been instant. Probably because he had rock-star looks to go along with that cowboy attitude. Or maybe it was because she’d felt this, well, connection with him. Connection aside, it’d been beyond stupid to sleep with him. She should have just walked away. Should have written Clayton and this attraction right out of her life.

      That would have been the safe thing to do.

      But she hadn’t. And now he was lying on a gurney, maybe dying.

      Harlan’s phone buzzed, and while he took the call, Lenora moved slightly closer so she could get a better look at Clayton. There was blood on his dark brown hair, on the side of his face as well, but the flow was barely a trickle now. She had no idea if that was good or bad. The only experience she had with head wounds was they were usually fatal.

      “That was Dallas,” Harlan said when he finished the call. “Marshal Walker,” he added, but Lenora already knew who Harlan meant. Another of Clayton’s foster brothers. Another federal marshal.

      In fact, Clayton had five foster brothers, all of whom were U.S. marshals. That would mean five sets of questions, and each of them would deserve answers as to why one of their own had been shot while having a cup of coffee with her.

      “They found the shooter,” Harlan added. “He wrecked his truck only about four blocks from the diner.”

      Lenora certainly hadn’t expected that and would have thought the guy would manage to get out of the area. “Who is he?”

      “According to the ID in his wallet, his name is Corey Dayton. Ring any bells?”

      “No.” And that wasn’t a lie. Of course, the ID could be fake, and she might recognize his real name. “Does your brother have him in custody?”

      Harlan shook his head. “He’s dead.”

      Lenora pulled in her breath. “From the bullet I put in him?”

      “Maybe. But he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and he crashed into a parked garbage truck.”

      Part of her was relieved that the man who’d shot Clayton was out of the picture, but a dead man couldn’t give them answers, and Lenora very much wanted to know why this guy had fired into the diner.

      “Tell me,” Harlan said, “is this connected to your friend’s murder?”

      “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “When you can, you’ll want to question the man who murdered Jill. Adam Riggs,” she supplied, though Harlan no doubt knew the name of the man behind bars. And he would absolutely question him.

      When his brother was out of the woods.

      It