Josh. Delores Fossen

her knees locking.

      “Yes,” she said.

      She purposely didn’t look at Josh because if he had another wave of nausea or some other unmanly response, he wouldn’t want her to witness it. And besides, she didn’t need the distraction of his response, either. Apparently, something was about to happen, something that would require her to shout to Marita and Blanca to get down before she did the same.

      Something that would likely be dangerous.

      Later, Josh and she could talk about the baby. Yelling would no doubt be part of that discussion, but for now, everything inside her screamed for her to do something—anything—to help with this escape.

      And soon.

      Jaycee felt useless standing there and waiting. Fortunately, she’d had a lot of practice with that during the past months, and she’d learned some other things that Josh needed to know.

      “As far as I can tell,” she whispered, “there are no working exterior cameras, and the computer inside the house seems to be rigged just to monitor the camera here in the barn and our ankle bracelets.”

      “How long will the doctor be here?” he asked. It was a logical question, no hint of the baby bombshell she’d just dropped on him.

      “Maybe awhile. I think one of the women inside is in labor.”

      That brought on some muttered profanity from Josh. With good reason. It would be hard to escape with a woman delivering a baby. As it was, it’d be difficult for some of the women to run for cover. At least Marita, Blanca and she weren’t megapregnant, and they all appeared to be in decent shape.

      It seemed as if time practically came to a stop. Jaycee couldn’t say the same for her breathing. It was gusting now, and there were beads of sweat on her face. The camera wouldn’t pick up the sweat, but the breathing would no doubt alert one of the bald goons.

      As would her continued stay near the door.

      Soon, very soon, one of them would show up to make sure she wasn’t up to no good and to order her back to her cot.

      Hoping to buy them some time from the guard check, Jaycee partially closed the back door, leaving just a one-inch gap—the way it usually stayed during the day. At night, the guards locked them in with deadbolts. She went back in the direction of the cot but didn’t sit.

      Best to stay on her feet, ready to react.

      Marita and Blanca obviously picked up on her nonverbal cues. Maybe the verbal ones, too, if they’d heard Josh and her whispering. Blanca studied her from over the top of her paperback, and Marita kept volleying glances between Jaycee and the movie that she obviously wasn’t watching.

      Finally, Jaycee saw the movement in the gap in the back door. Not one of the guards. This was another cowboy with a badge. She got just a glimpse of him, but he had the same hair coloring and body build as Josh. A strong enough resemblance that this could be his brother.

      The man peeked in, his gaze briefly connecting with Josh’s, and Josh motioned for her to move to the door. She did, though Jaycee tried not to give anything away that the guards would detect.

      “It’s hot in here, huh?” she said to the others as a ploy to cover up why she was headed back in that direction.

      She cracked opened the door again and saw that it was just the one lawman, one, and while he looked capable and in charge, that meant they were still outnumbered and outgunned.

      As Josh had done, this guy dropped his gaze to her belly before he glanced in at the other women. Jaycee wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted her to do, but she figured they had a minute at most before the guard would check to see why she’d reopened the door.

      But she was wrong.

      Not even a minute.

      Just a couple of seconds.

      The front door flew open, and the guard bolted inside. Not the one who’d come in earlier. This guy had a serious mean streak and had even slapped Blanca when she hadn’t in his opinion moved fast enough.

      “Hands in the air!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, and he shifted the gun not toward her but to the stall where Josh was hiding.

      Jaycee braced herself for the guard to move closer so he could do a thorough search.

      But that didn’t happen.

      The man pulled the trigger, and the shot blasted through the barn.

      Chapter Three

      The shot was deafening, and it roared through Josh’s entire body. The flashbacks started again, but he shoved them aside. No time for that now.

      “Get down!” he shouted to Jaycee, but she was already dropping to the floor. From the sound of it, so were the other two women.

      He had no idea if they were out of harm’s way because the harm just kept coming. The man fired another shot into the barn.

      And then another.

      Grayson threw open the back door just as Josh bellied out of the stall. Both of them fired at the shooter. Josh had no idea who’d taken down the man, but he fell, his rifle clattering to the ground.

      “Let’s move,” Josh ordered the women.

      Jaycee sprang up darn fast for someone who was pregnant, and she hurried to the other side of the barn to latch on to the two women. Josh stayed put, guarding the now-open front door where he was certain that it wouldn’t be long before the other guards responded and came in firing.

      “Mason and Dade are covering the house,” Grayson let him know.

      Mason and Dade were Grayson’s brothers. Both were experienced deputies, but covering the house would be next to impossible with the gunmen inside. Unless there was some way to get the captives out so the guards couldn’t use them as human shields.

      Jaycee made it to the door, and Josh looked out, checking for those guards. By now they’d heard the shots, so why weren’t they running to the barn in order for Mason and Dade to pick them off?

      “Go ahead,” Grayson insisted. “Get them out of here. I’ll cover you.”

      Josh nodded, reached into his ankle holster to retrieve his backup weapon so he could give it to Jaycee. But it wasn’t there, of course. He hadn’t carried a backup since he’d left the FBI.

      Big mistake.

      But then, he’d never thought that he would run into something like this in the middle of nowhere.

      With Grayson behind them and Josh in the lead, he maneuvered them out of the barn and to the corner away from the house. He glanced around first to make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed. No one in sight. However, that didn’t mean someone wasn’t there, hiding.

      “Don’t use any of their vehicles,” Jaycee warned. “I’ve seen the guards rig them with explosives.”

      Great. The guards had no doubt done that so the women couldn’t use them to escape, but that was exactly what Josh had had in mind. One of those vehicles would have been the fastest way to get them out of there. Now they had to hoof it a good quarter to a half mile away.

      And each step could be a fatal one.

      He refused to think about the pregnancy now. Refused to think about anything that didn’t involve survival.

      “More backup’s on the way,” Grayson added.

      They’d need it. Josh would have liked to have stayed with the women until they arrived because it was a risk to be outside like this. But staying put was just as much of a hazard as moving.

      With his gaze firing all around, Josh led them to the front of the barn. No guards. But he spotted Mason and Dade on the hill where Grayson and he had been earlier. It was a good vantage point if anyone came out of the house, but