Page 49 of The Sheriff's Baby

She fired.

He yelled, the sound echoing along with the blast of the shot. Staggering, he let go of her hair, and the maneuver allowed her to take aim again. At his left leg. The bullet slammed into him and caused him to drop to his knees.

Joelle heard the sound of running footsteps and Slater calling out to her. Help would be here soon. But she didn’t take her attention off the goon. She couldn’t see his face, but she figured it had to be twisted in pain.

“Move and I’ll put another bullet in you,” she warned him, wrenching her hand from his grip.

The goon didn’t listen. He moved, reaching out so fast that it was just a blur of motion. But before Joelle could pull the trigger, someone else did.

Duncan.

He was still on the floor, but he’d lifted his head and shooting hand enough to deliver the fatal shot. Her attacker slumped forward.Dead.

Chapter Thirteen

Duncan paced while he waited on hold with Slater. Paced and kept his eye on Joelle who was now seated at his kitchen table.

Since she’d been covered with their attacker’s blood, he’d brought her here to his place instead of the sheriff’s office so she could shower. That was after she’d had yet another exam to make sure both she and the baby were all right.

They were. By some miracle, they were.

So was he since he’d also needed to be checked to make sure the stun gun hadn’t done any permanent damage. It hadn’t.

Duncan figured he’d be saying a lot of thanks and prayers for that. After he’d put an end to the danger so Joelle could make it through a blasted day without someone trying to kidnap her again. Because that’s what had happened. Another attempted kidnapping. If the masked thug had wanted her dead, he would have shot her the moment Duncan opened the door of that hospital room.

Even though she hadn’t been shot or hurt beyond a few minor scrapes and bruises, it still twisted away at him that she’d come so close to being taken. He should have put more precautions in place to prevent that. And he would. He couldn’t continue to put her in harm’s way when so much was at stake.

That’s why he’d brought Luca with him, and like before, the deputy was in Duncan’s home office doing reports of this latest incident.Incident, he silently repeated, the anger rising in him again. A sterile word for something that damn sure hadn’t been sterile. Joelle and he had been attacked, and Duncan had been forced to kill the SOB. He’d add more thanks and prayers for having regained enough feeling in his shooting hand to manage that. If not, Joelle would have had to do it, and Duncan didn’t want her having to deal with that on top of everything else.

Andeverything elsewas huge.

She’d been attacked three times now, and while Molly thankfully hadn’t been this time around, the dispatcher was shaken to the core. So much so that she’d asked Duncan to have not one but two reserve deputies stay with her. Duncan had complied, pulling the two off the search for Kate.

Kate was another investigative thorn in his side right now. There was no sign of her, and worse, she could have been the one who’d hired that thug to come after Joelle and him in the hospital. If Duncan hadn’t allowed himself to get distracted by Brad and Hamlin’s fight, then he might have seen the woman sneaking out.

Or being taken.

“Stop beating yourself up,” Joelle muttered.

She was watching him and sipping some milk that Slater had had delivered, and she looked so small in the loaner clothes she’d gotten from the sheriff’s office. Loose gray jogging pants and a black tee that was a couple sizes too big for her.

“I deserve to be beaten up,” he was quick to remind her. “I should have brought you to the sheriff’s office before I ever started searching for Kate.”

Joelle lifted her shoulder, sighed and stood, going to the fridge to refill her glass of milk. That meant walking right by him, and she brushed her arm against his. Probably not by accident. He took out theprobablywhen he looked at her.

“Stop beating yourself up,” she repeated. “I’m a cop, and I could have made the decision to go to the sheriff’s office when Luca was transporting Hamlin. If I’d done that, then who’s to say this kidnapper wouldn’t have come after me in the cruiser. Willie Jay did.”

He had to fight back the horrific images of that attempt and this one. There had been enough bad for a lifetime, and it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t be over until he had the culprit behind bars.

She reached up and touched her fingers to his forehead. Duncan didn’t exactly recoil, but the touch hurt a little. When he’d fallen after being stunned, his head had smacked on the floor, and the gash had needed a couple of stitches. He’d gotten those in the ER while the doctor had been examining Joelle and the baby.

There was finally a crackle of sound on the other end of the phone, and a moment later, Duncan heard Slater’s voice. He went ahead and put the call on speaker since this was an update Joelle would want to hear.

“The dead guy is Arlo Dennison,” Slater provided.

Hell. That circled right back to Kate since the man had been one of her employees. It was possible Arlo had still been an employee, just in a different capacity as a hired gun.

“Four dead men,” Slater emphasized. “That could mean whoever hired them has run out of muscle.”

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