Under The Cowboy's Protection. Delores Fossen

      A hoarse sob tore from Yvette’s mouth, and she would have likely fallen to the ground if Warren hadn’t caught her. Raleigh didn’t thank him for doing that because he didn’t want the man anywhere around here. Raleigh had enough distractions with Thea and Yvette, and he didn’t need to add his so-called father to the mix.

      Raleigh turned to Dalton. “Take Yvette to the station. Call a doctor for her, too. She might need some meds to calm her down.”

      “The only thing I need is my baby!” Yvette shouted.

      The woman tried Redial again, and she was gripping Thea’s phone so hard that Raleigh thought she might break it. That wouldn’t be good since it was obviously the way the kidnapper had chosen to communicate with them.

      “She’s a newborn,” Yvette went on. “She has to be fed. Someone has to take care of her.”

      “And the men who have her will do that,” Thea said. “They’ll want to keep the baby safe and well. Remember, they took formula so she won’t be hungry.”

      True, but that didn’t mean a newborn was going to get expert care from the thugs who’d snatched her. That’s why they had to find her ASAP.

      Dalton gently took Yvette by the arm. “Once we get to the station,” he told the woman, “I’ll examine the call. I might be able to get a match on his voice, because Raleigh will send me the recording of the conversation.”

      Raleigh would do that, but he wasn’t holding out any hope for a match. Or that the call would be traced for that matter. The kidnapper had almost certainly used a burner cell, a disposable one that couldn’t be traced. Still, they’d try.

      “What can I do?” Warren asked him.

      “You can go home to your wife and family in McCall Canyon until I’ve got time to interrogate you. After all, it was your name on that wall, and there had to be a reason for it.”

      That was a knee-jerk reaction. One that Raleigh instantly regretted. Not because he hadn’t meant it—he had. But it was the wrong time to vent.

      Raleigh took a deep breath to steady himself. “My people have the scene secured,” he added to Warren. There was much less emotion in his voice now, which was a good thing. “Give me a couple of hours so I can deal with this kidnapper, and then I can question you.”

      Warren didn’t balk at any part of that, but judging from his tight expression, something was on his mind. “What about Thea?” Warren asked.

      Of course. Thea. Warren was worried about the woman he’d practically raised.

      “I’ll take Thea to the station so we can wait on this thug to call us back,” Raleigh answered.

      Warren stood there, his hands on his hips while he volleyed glances between them as if he was trying to figure out if that was the wise thing to do. The man didn’t budge until Thea nodded.

      “I’ll be okay,” she assured Warren.

      “Call me if you need anything,” Warren finally said, and he hugged her again. After he pulled away from her, he looked at Raleigh, maybe trying to figure out what to say to him, but he settled for another tip of his hat. This one was a farewell, and he headed to his truck.

      Raleigh and Thea were right behind him, and the moment Raleigh had her in the cruiser, he started toward town. It wouldn’t be a long drive, only about twenty minutes, but he could use that time to get some things straight.

      “The kidnapper said there’d be rules,” he reminded her. “That probably means a ransom demand with instructions for the payout so we can get the baby. You won’t be involved in that. If I haven’t worked out a protective custody arrangement by then, you can wait in my office.”

      She shook her head. “The kidnapper said I was to come and get her.”

      “That won’t be happening.” At least he hoped not anyway. Raleigh didn’t want to involve Thea in this any more than she already was.

      But obviously Thea wasn’t giving up. “I’m the person best suited to make an exchange like that. The kidnapper said if he wanted me dead, he would have killed me on the porch. And he could have done just that.”

      Raleigh wasn’t giving up, either. “Maybe because the person standing next to you was holding a baby, and he didn’t want to risk hurting her. That could have been the sole reason he didn’t kill you.”

      She opened her mouth as if she might disagree with that, but she must have realized it could be the truth because Thea huffed and leaned back against the seat.

      “I’ll get Yvette’s husband in for questioning,” Raleigh added a moment later. “Right now, he’s a person of interest. He could have orchestrated all of this because he doesn’t want to be a father.”

      Though it did seem extreme—unless he hadn’t intended for Sonya to die. Maybe the thugs hadn’t had orders to kill Sonya or anyone else who showed up. That would explain why they’d had a stun gun with them. It would also explain why the one that Thea had seen was wearing a ski mask. He didn’t want his identity known because he hadn’t intended to kill any witnesses.

      That was the best-case scenario though. It was still possible that the goons wanted Thea dead.

      “Warren is a person of interest, too?” she asked.

      “Of course.” Raleigh would love nothing more than to charge the man with something. Anything.

      “And what about your mother?” Thea pressed. “Will you also question her?”

      Raleigh’s gaze slashed to her, and he nearly had another of those knee-jerk reactions. But he forced himself to see this through her cop’s perspective. His mother, Alma, no longer loved Warren. In fact, she might actually hate him.

      “Alma thought Warren was going to leave his wife to be with her,” Thea continued when he didn’t say anything. “That didn’t happen, and when he broke off things with her six months ago—”

      “Don’t finish that,” Raleigh warned her. “I know how upset my mother was, and I don’t have to hear a recap from you.”

      Hell, she was still upset. Alma had carried on an affair with a married man, gotten pregnant and had basically lived her life waiting for the emotional scraps that Warren might toss her. Now that the secret was out, she was just seething in anger.

      Raleigh hated to admit it, but he was seething, too. Because his mother had lied to him about his father. She’d lied all because she didn’t want Warren’s secret life exposed. Well, it was sure as hell exposed now.

      “Did your mother know Sonya well?” Thea asked. It was a cop’s kind of question, because Thea was again trying to link his mom to what was going on.

      “Everyone in town knew Sonya,” Raleigh snarled. But his mom had known Sonya better than most because Sonya had done some office work at his mother’s ranch. “Don’t worry. I’ll question my mom,” Raleigh added. “But there are plenty of other ways for her to get back at Warren. Ways that don’t involve kidnapping a newborn baby and killing a surrogate.”

      It surprised him a little when Thea made a sound of agreement. After all, Warren’s wife, Helen, had raised Thea, too, and that meant Thea and the McCalls likely thought of his mother as the villain in all of this.

      “There doesn’t seem to be a connection between Warren and Sonya,” Thea added. “If your mother was going to try to get back at him in some way, she would go after him or someone he cared about.”

      True. But his mother would only do that if she’d finally gone off the deep end. There were times when Raleigh thought she might be headed there, and he was doing his damnedest to make sure that didn’t happen.

      “I also want to talk to the doctor who did the in vitro procedures for both Hannah and Sonya,” Raleigh continued, and he was about to ask Thea what she knew about