Page 30 of The Sheriff's Baby

Photos.

Four of them.

And her heart skipped a beat. Because they were pictures of her father. Not crime scene photos, either. These had been taken just as the blood had started to seep out from beneath his fallen lifeless body.

Oh, mercy.

The killer had taken these. And had left them for her to see.

Joelle’s gaze immediately fired around. Just as there was a blur of motion. A man came charging at the window of the cruiser. Since he was wearing jeans and a gray work shirt, at first she thought it was one of the ranch hands or a deputy.

It wasn’t.

She had a split second to realize this wasn’t someone she knew, and she drew her gun. Too late, though. The man had a gun rigged with a silencer, and he immediately jammed it against the window.

And he fired.

The point-blank shot blasted through the cruiser, deafening Joelle and creating a half dollar-sized hole in the bullet resistant glass. The pain shot through her head and quadrupled when he fired another shot. Then, another.

For a horrifying moment, she thought she’d been hit. But no. He wasn’t aiming at her. He was tearing the glass apart so he could get to her.

He managed it, too.

She turned her gun toward him, ready to fire, but his fist came through the hole, and he knocked her gun away. In the same motion, he unlocked her door from the inside and opened it, dragging her out of the cruiser.

The pain was still ramming into her head and ears, but Joelle didn’t allow that to make her forget her training. She had to protect herself. She had to protect her daughter so she tried to ram the heel of her hand into his throat.

He dodged the blow, and before she could try to deliver another one, he grabbed her hair, dragging her in front of him.

“Stay back or I’ll kill her,” the man snarled.

That’s when she realized Luca, Woodrow and two of the ranch hands had their weapons trained on her attacker. There was no sign of Duncan or Slater, but she figured they were racing out of the attic to the sound of that gunfire. Yes, the gunman had used a silencer, but the shots had still made some sounds that cops would have recognized. Added to that, there’d been the breaking glass. That would have alerted them, too.

“Let her go,” Luca demanded.

“Not a chance,” her attacker growled, and he began to walk backward with her.

He was pulling her hair hard, causing more pain to shoot through her, but Joelle was gearing up to start fighting him. He stopped her with a single sentence.

“Don’t do anything stupid to get your kid hurt,” he whispered right against her ear.

She didn’t pivot and try to throw the punch she’d been planning. Nor did she attempt a kick. Joelle froze for a moment. Her baby. He was threatening to hurt her baby. And he could do it. That’s why he’d said it, and he likely thought it was cause her to give up.

It wouldn’t.

No way was she going to let her baby be at the mercy of this SOB. If he managed to get her away from the ranch, then heaven knew where he’d take her. And what he’d do to her and her precious child.

Joelle braced herself and got ready to do what she had to do.

Fight.

Chapter Eight

Everything inside Duncan went cold when he heard the shots. Three of them, one right behind the other.

He forced himself not to think, especially about Joelle and their baby. Duncan just scrambled down the attic ladder and started running. Fast. As if Joelle and the baby’s lives depended on it.

Because he had the sickening feeling that it did.

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