RENEGADE GUARDIAN by Delores Fossen Page A

the verge of mumbling some profanity. “What’s wrong?” he asked his brother.
    “Pretty much everything. The person behind the wheel was a thug, Clifford Atwood.”
    Not Randall, the owner. Maybe he’d been telling the truth about his vehicle being stolen.
    “Atwood has a long history of drug-related crimes,” Declan added.
    Slade repeated the man’s name. So did Maya, but it wasn’t a name she recognized. “Why would a druggie want to kidnap my son?”
    “I think Atwood was just a lackey,” Declan explained. “Now he’s a dead one. Someone shot him at point-blank range on the left side of his head.”
    Maya couldn’t stop the images from coming. Not images of a man she didn’t know but those from her own attack.
    It wasn’t logical, but violence always brought back memories. Of course, in this case Atwood deserved to die because he’d tried to kidnap Evan. Or worse. The way he’d bashed into her car with the SUV, he could have killed Slade, Evan and her.
    Slade’s jaw muscles tightened and stirred. “Please tell me there’s some evidence in the SUV that points to the missing babies or whoever hired Atwood.”
    “Nothing,” Declan answered right away. “SAPD will keep looking, though. We might get lucky.”
    Might. But it sounded like a dead end—literally.
    “You want me to get started on another safe house?” Declan asked.
    Maya groaned softly. They definitely needed a safe place to go, but the thought of being discovered again made her feel sick. She brushed a kiss on Evan’s forehead. Then his cheek. And wished she could do more to keep her baby out of this dangerous mess.
    “Hold off on the safe house,” Slade answered. “I’m thinking about taking them to the ranch.”
    Even though she couldn’t see Declan’s face, Maya could feel his surprise. He paused a long time. “Let me know what you decide. I’ll see you in a few.” And Declan ended the call.
    “The ranch?” she challenged. “As in the one you and your brothers run?”
    Slade nodded. “Yeah, and I know what you’re thinking. The kidnapper will know to look for us there, but it won’t be his first choice of places to launch another attack.”
    Maybe. After all, from what she’d gathered in her internet search, all five of his brothers were marshals and lived at the ranch. It no doubt had some kind of security along with ranch hands who could keep watch for a kidnapper. But there was another side to going there. A bad one.
    “Your family could be hurt in an attack.”
    Slade didn’t jump to deny that. “We’ll have to take precautions.”
    He didn’t have time to say what those might be, because his phone rang again, and Evan started to fuss. It wasn’t time for his bottle, but it was possible he needed a diaper change. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any way of doing that. She didn’t even have a pacifier, but Maya tried to gently rock the car seat. It didn’t help. Evan’s whimpers turned to cries.
    “We’re almost there,” Slade let her know. And he took the turn off the highway and toward Maverick Springs.
    Probably because her nerves were already at the breaking point, Evan’s cries only made it worse. Maya wanted nothing more than to pull him into her arms and try to comfort him, but she couldn’t risk taking him from the seat.
    It seemed to take an eternity for Slade to turn into the parking lot of the Marshals Service, and the moment they came to a stop, she picked up her baby. He just kept crying.
    “I know how you feel, little man,” Slade mumbled, and he hooked his arm around both of them to help them from the truck.
    And just like that, Evan hushed.
    It seemed like such a petty thing, for her to be upset that Evan was responding better to Slade than to her. But it was worse than pettiness. Was Slade’s ability to soothe the baby some kind of proof of a genetic connection?
    She silently groaned.
    You’re losing it.
    Slade got them inside the building and up the stairs, past the