Under The Cowboy's Protection. Delores Fossen

need to get inside.” Raleigh hooked his arm around Thea’s waist, pulling her to her feet. She wobbled, landing against him. Specifically against his chest. He shoved aside the next dose of memories that came with that close contact.

      “You have to go after the man,” Thea said. Her voice was as shaky as the rest of her. “You have to get Sonya.”

      “I will.”

      His deputy would be here in ten minutes or so, and Raleigh would start searching as soon as he had someone to watch Thea. She wasn’t in any shape to defend herself if her attacker returned. At the moment though, he was much more concerned about Sonya. After all, Thea was alive and okay, for the most part anyway, but Sonya could be in the hands of a kidnapper.

      Or a killer.

      But that didn’t make sense. Who would want to hurt her, and what did any of this have to do with Warren? Unless...

      A very unsettling thought came to mind.

      “Did this happen because Sonya’s a surrogate?” Raleigh asked. He helped Thea into a chair at the kitchen table and then went back to the window to see if he could spot any sign of the woman or the person who’d taken her.

      “I don’t know. Maybe...” Thea’s voice trailed off, and that’s when Raleigh noticed that Thea’s attention had landed on the painted message on the wall. She shuddered, but she didn’t turn away. “I don’t suppose you put that there?” But she shook her head, waving off her question. “No. You and Sonya were friends.”

      Raleigh wasn’t sure how Thea knew that, but then he wasn’t sure of a lot of things right now. “Start talking. I want to know everything that happened.” Though it was hard to stand there and listen to anything Thea had to say when his instincts were screaming for him to go after Sonya.

      Thea didn’t jump right into that explanation; instead, she got to her feet. “We can talk while we look for her. Do you have a backup gun you can lend me?”

      Raleigh frowned. Thea didn’t look at all steady on her feet, which meant her aim would probably suck, too. Still, she was a cop.

      Warren’s star deputy, in fact.

      Warren had not only trained her and given Thea her start in law enforcement, his father had made it clear that he loved Thea like a daughter. That was convenient, since Thea loved him like a father.

      Raleigh wasn’t sure how Thea had managed to overlook the fact that Warren was a lying, cheating snake, and he really didn’t care. Heck, at the moment he didn’t care if Thea was having trouble standing. She had the right idea about looking for Sonya as they talked, so Raleigh gave her his backup gun from his boot holster.

      “I got here about a half hour ago,” Thea said, glancing at the clock on the microwave. While she held on to the kitchen counter, she made her way to the back door. “Sonya didn’t answer my call this morning, so I came over to check on her.” She paused. “I’ve been checking on her a lot lately.”

      “I didn’t know Sonya and you were that close,” Raleigh commented. Sonya had only moved to Durango Ridge about ten years ago, so it was possible she’d known Thea before then. Or maybe they’d recently become friends. But after one look in Thea’s eyes, he knew that wasn’t the case.

      Raleigh groaned. “This has to do with Sonya being a surrogate.”

      Thea nodded and managed to get the back door open. “I haven’t given up on finding Hannah Neal’s killer.”

      Neither had Raleigh. And he especially wasn’t forgetting her now, because that message on Sonya’s wall was identical to the one found at Hannah’s apartment a year ago. Hannah had been murdered only a couple of hours after she’d given birth. That same person who’d killed Hannah had almost certainly been the one who had taken the newborn.

      “Sonya didn’t know Hannah,” Thea continued, “but they were both surrogates, and they used the same doctor for the in vitro procedures that got them pregnant.”

      Raleigh’s gut twisted. Because he’d known that. And he had dismissed it as being something unimportant. Of course, he sure wasn’t dismissing it now.

      Still, it didn’t make sense. Why would someone go after two surrogates to get back at Warren? Especially since Sonya had no personal connection to Warren.

      Or did she?

      Raleigh didn’t have the answer to that, either, but he soon would.

      Thea stepped out onto the back porch, and like Raleigh, she looked around. She also caught on to the porch railing to keep herself from falling. Raleigh nearly had her sit down on the step, but babysitting Thea wasn’t his job. His job was to find Sonya.

      “Tell me about this man who took Sonya,” Raleigh demanded. “Was he here when you arrived?”

      Thea nodded and followed him into the yard. Not easily, but she made it while still wobbling and using every last inch of the porch railing. “I saw him. He wore a ski mask and was holding her at gunpoint. He was about six-one and about two hundred pounds.”

      That tightened his stomach even more. Sonya was barely five-three and had a petite build. She wouldn’t have stood a chance against a guy that size. Especially if he had a gun.

      Thea stopped once she was in the yard, and with the rain pouring down on her, she looked back at him. “Sonya had the baby. Not with her,” she added when she must have seen the shock on his face. “But she was no longer pregnant.”

      That didn’t make sense, either. Sonya’s doctor was in town. So was the hospital she’d intended to use to deliver. If she’d had the baby there, Raleigh would have certainly heard about it.

      “Did she say anything about the baby? About the man?” Raleigh pressed.

      “No. He had her gagged and already in the yard when I got here. I moved toward him, but there must have been a second man. Or a second person. He hit me with a stun gun when I came onto the porch. I think they took Sonya that way.” She tipped her head to the woods.

      Thea was lucky the guy hadn’t killed her. Or maybe luck didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe keeping her alive had been part of the plan.

      “I would tell you to wait here, but I doubt you will,” Raleigh grumbled to her, and he started for those woods.

      He didn’t get far though, because he heard the sound of a car engine. At first he thought it might be the deputy, but it was a woman who came running out the back door, and Raleigh recognized the tall brunette.

      Yvette O’Hara.

      The woman who’d hired Sonya to be a surrogate. Like Thea and him, Yvette was wet from the rain. The woman was breathing through her mouth, her eyes were wide and her forehead was bunched up.

      “Where’s Sonya?” Yvette blurted out.

      “We’re not sure.” Raleigh figured Yvette wasn’t going to like that answer. Judging from her huff, she didn’t. But it was the best he could do. “Stay here. Deputy Morris and I were about to look for her.”

      Yvette glanced at Thea. “What’s going on? Did something happen to Sonya, to the baby?” She was right to be concerned—especially if she’d noticed the toppled furniture and messages on the walls.

      “Stay put,” he warned her again.

      But Yvette didn’t listen. She barreled down the steps, and also like Thea, she had some trouble staying steady. In her case though, it was because she was wearing high heels.

      “Sonya’s doctor called me,” Yvette said, her words running together. “She missed her appointment. She wouldn’t have done that if everything was all right.”

      Probably not. But Raleigh kept that to himself. Yvette already looked to be in alarm-overload mode, and it was best if he didn’t add to that. He didn’t want her getting hysterical.

      “Just