One Bear and a Baby: BBW Bear Shifter Baby Paranormal Romance (Who's the Daddy? Book 1) by Harmony Raines

everything? And lost?
    Cade was not a gambling man, but it seemed he had inadvertently taken a chance and the odds were stacked against him.
    “Here. Hold this one down,” Isabelle ordered, and as they swapped places, she took her phone out of her pocket and pressed the screen, her hand shaking. Then she listened. “No answer at the sheriff’s office either.”
    “Damn it,” Cade said.
    “Wake him up,” Jenni said, sobbing. “Give him what he wants and Maisie will be safe.”
    “Wait,” Isabelle said, and dialed another number. He could see her lips moving as they silently repeated, pick up, pick up . “Tony?”
    He could hardly breathe as he listened to one half of the conversation. “So they are safe,” she concluded. “Good work, Tony. Yes. Wait. I have something I need you to do. Get the deputy to give their phones back to them. In the next few minutes they will get a phone call. We need them to tell Stanhope that his plan worked. That they have the baby.”
    He watched her face, understanding what she was attempting to do. They couldn’t let anyone spoil that plan. He raised his fist and the guy he was holding down, went limp as his fist smashed into his face. “Tell them if they don’t have full cooperation, they should set a bear or two on them.”
    “Did you hear that, Tony? Good. I’ll see you soon. Yes, you are better than any other informant I’ve ever had.” She hung up and then muttered, “He doesn’t know I’ve never had an informant.”
    “What happened?” Cade asked.
    “Two strange men showed up in town. Tony Marello noticed them and called the deputy. When they asked if a Cade Easton was in town, they soon figured there was trouble. Of course they tried to phone me but my phone was busy listening on your conversation.”
    “So now we get Stanhope to phone his men?”
    “That is the plan. But first I have to make a phone call,” Isabelle said, standing up and moving away from them.
    “Are you OK?” he asked Jenni.
    “I think so,” she replied, slumping to the ground. “Are you sure she’s safe?”
    “That’s what Isabelle was told.”
    “Then it’s over?” She wiped her eyes. “I knew you were looking for me, part of me wanted to be found. Then he found me instead. That’s why I told you to drop it. Then he said he knew exactly where Maisie was. That as long as I played along, everything would be fine.”
    “That’s why you got involved in this?” Cade asked, pointing to the warehouse.
    She nodded. “I knew what he was capable of. He burned her when she was so young. Made me swear I’d do what he wanted. That’s when I bought her to you and then ran. I hoped it would be enough to give her a chance of a new life.”
    “Why didn’t you let me help you then?”
    “I thought she was safer, that at least if he found me, he wouldn’t be able to hurt you. That she would be able to settle down and have a life that wasn’t spent looking over her shoulder. I knew he would find me, that he had contacts. I’d gone back to see my sister. He had the local sheriff looking out for me. I was, after all, a wanted woman because of the evidence Stanhope stole. It was easy for the sheriff to believe someone like Stanhope. The sheriff made a phone call and Stanhope was there before I knew it.”
    “But you knew I had Maisie?”
    She shook her head. “He was so convincing. Said she had turned up at a foster home. I thought maybe I had got it wrong, that I shouldn’t have trusted you.”
    “I’d never let Maisie, or you, down.”
    “I can see that.”
    “Right. Wake him up,” Isabelle said, coming back to them.
    “I’ll do it,” Jenni said, giving Stanhope a prod with her foot. “Wake up.”
    “We need him to think he’s won.” Isabelle positioned herself just behind Stanhope, while Jenni slapped his cheeks.
    “Get up, you bastard,” Jenni shouted at him. “Get up.”
    Stanhope moved. It took him a couple of minutes to open his eyes, and even longer to focus on