Rock-A-Bye Rescue. Karen Whiddon

a man if needed, but...could she?

      “Until you have the assurance of the FBI that all danger from this Pitts character has passed,” he said, “I’m not leaving this cabin. Not without you, anyway. The truth is, we should all clear out until this cult guy is captured.”

      His offer to protect her silenced her. For several seconds, she fumbled mentally to process his offer—no, his dictate. He hadn’t asked if she wanted his help; he’d declared he was staying, her wishes be damned.

      Finally she cleared her throat and managed to stutter, “Special Agent D-Dunn said...um, a police officer is coming.”

      “Good.” He jerked a nod. “That’s the least they can do.”

      “With this ice storm and bad road conditions, Special Agent Dunn said that moving anywhere is dangerous. Besides, since they’ve sent someone to watch my place, there’s no need to move me anywhere. Anyway, you don’t have to—”

      “But the cop’s not here yet. And while having a cop, probably a rookie, sitting in his patrol car in your driveway is helpful, it’s not enough. I’m staying.”

      She should be affronted by his high-handedness, but she was...relieved. Because in truth, the idea of the Pitts brothers hunting down the babies, the prospect of protecting little Eve should one of these dangerous men show up at her cabin, scared her spitless. She didn’t want to be alone—even if his company made her nervous and uneasy on a different level.

      The fact that Dean was strong and skilled with a weapon didn’t hurt. She might have questions about his integrity, based on his youthful crimes of vandalism, petty theft and trespassing, but she’d never heard anything about him being violent or vicious.

      When she made no reply, Dean strode to the front door, unlocked it and yanked it open. “So—” He took the shotgun from the porch, where he’d set it and came inside. “Is this thing loaded?”

      It wasn’t. “Well...”

      He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Geez, Lila! You threatened a trespasser, a potential thief with an unloaded weapon? Are you insane?”

      She frowned. “We are still talking about you, right? I’d have thought you’d be glad to know I couldn’t have really hurt you.”

      “What if it hadn’t been me?” He stalked into her kitchen, lit only by the watery daylight from one small window thanks to the power outage, and started opening drawers. “Do you understand how vulnerable you are up here by yourself?”

      “What are you doing?” She carried Eve into the kitchen, closing drawers in his wake.

      “Cell reception is spotty at best. The nearest neighbor is on the other side of the ridge,” he continued as he searched her kitchen, “and emergency help is at least thirty minutes away. Probably more, given the ice storm.”

      “What’s your point?” She slammed shut a cabinet he’d opened.

      He lifted the shotgun by the barrel. “Where’s your ammunition for this thing? Since we’re stuck here, we need to be ready if one of the Pittses gets here before the cops do.”

      She shuddered and nodded toward the back of the house. He was right, of course. And it rattled her to think he’d been quicker to think through the ramifications and needed preparations. She had a duty to protect Eve, and she’d let Dean distract her, even if briefly. “I, um...in the laundry room.”

      He headed down the dark hall, still lecturing her, his tone just short of angry. “The locks on your front door wouldn’t keep a hungry bear out, much less a seasoned burglar. You still haven’t answered me about whether you have a generator. And I’m guessing your windows can be jimmied open from outside with a screwdriver if they’re like the ones at my parents’ cabin.”

      “If you’re trying to frighten me—” She swallowed hard. She’d never considered all the weaknesses in the cabin’s security. “It’s working.”

      Lila pushed past him to reach into a cabinet over her washing machine. Taking the box of shotgun cartridges down, she shoved the ammunition into his hand.

      He sighed, and in the semidark room, the sound seemed amplified. “I’m not trying to scare you. But if you’re going live up here alone, you have to think about these things. Take better precautions.”

      “We’ve never had a problem in all the years my parents vacationed here or rented the place in the off-season. Even when you went on your crime spree as a teenager.” She hated her cattiness as soon as she spoke it, but his preaching to her about staying safe from thieves was sublime irony, and her own edginess was sharpening her tone. She took a breath to calm down. He was, in his own way, trying to help.

      A grunt rumbled from Dean’s chest. “If I didn’t break in here, it was because I didn’t want to, not because I couldn’t,” he growled. “And a track record is simply history, not a predictor of the future.”

      Eve was getting especially squirmy, and her whimpers were tuning back up to full cries of distress. Lila could imagine the tension in their voices was a factor in the baby’s fussiness. She lowered the volume and hostility in her voice when she replied, “I agree this cabin is far from Fort Knox, but it is quiet and inspiring and restful. That’s all I was concerned with when I moved here a few months ago. I didn’t realize I’d need to keep a murderer at bay or—” she waved a hand toward him “—neighbors from stealing from my ax.”

      “Give it a rest. I would have brought the ax back.” He brushed by her and disappeared down the hall, leaving behind a hint of his scent—wood smoke and crisp soap. She stared into the blackness of the laundry room, quaking at her core. But whether her tremors were from the fear that still hovered like an apparition, from their heated discussion, or from the casual contact of his body as he scooted past, she couldn’t say. Probably all of the above.

      Eve rubbed a damp fist in her eye, a clear indication of how tired the baby was. “Okay. To bed with you, little one.”

      She stopped at the nursery and found Chloe sleeping in the crib. “Hey, you. That’s not your bed. Scat, cat.” She nudged the sleepy feline, but Chloe didn’t budge. “Vamoose, fuzzy girl. That’s the baby’s bed.”

      Chloe tucked her head down and got comfortable again.

      “Come on, Chloe. Please, move.” Lila gave the cat’s butt a push.

      Still Chloe ignored her until Eve let out a loud wail of discomfort.

      Putting her ears back, the cat gaped wide-eyed at the baby then jumped out of the crib and scurried out the nursery door. Probably to hide under Lila’s bed, if she knew her cat.

      “Sorry, Chloe!” Lila changed Eve’s diaper before putting her in the crib. The little girl fought sleep for a minute or two while Lila patted Eve’s back and stroked her head before Eve’s eyelids drooped closed for good. With a flip of a switch, Lila turned on the nursery monitor and picked up the receiver. When she tiptoed out of the bedroom, she found Dean on the couch, the shotgun across his lap as he loaded it.

      She watched his deft movements in silence for a moment, and without looking up from his task he said, “You have a cat.”

      “Yes. Why?”

      “I almost shot it.”

      Lila tensed. “What!”

      “It came tearing out of the nursery and startled me.”

      Her jaw dropped. “So you shoot first and ask questions later?”

      “Did you hear me shoot anything?”

      She tucked her hair behind her ear. “No.”

      He glanced at her and lifted one eyebrow in a manner that said, So there. “Any other animals around here that might burst out of the shadows?”

      “Are you always this jumpy?”

      “Only since