Page 66 of Protecting the Newborn

“Yeah,” he managed to say through the vised muscles in his throat.

Gracelyn’s head whipped up, and she looked him straight in the eyes. “We need to check on her. We need to make sure Abigail is okay.”

Ruston didn’t argue. They started running toward Duncan and the cruiser.

Chapter Seventeen

Gracelyn felt both exhausted and pumped up as if every nerve in her body was on high alert. And on the verge of crashing. Her mind was a tangle of thoughts and fears as Ruston sped toward his family’s ranch.

It’d been nearly a half hour since the shoot-out with Devin. Time when they’d had to wait for backup to arrive so that Duncan wouldn’t be left at the crime scene alone. During those thirty minutes, Gracelyn had spoken with Joelle not once but twice, and Joelle had assured her that all was well, that no one had come for Abigail. Gracelyn believed her, but she wouldn’t breathe easier until she saw the baby for herself.

The moment Woodrow and Luca had arrived, Ruston and she had left, and she’d gotten one last glance of the baby farm in the rearview mirror. Despite nearly being killed there tonight, it no longer held that bogeyman fear for her. It was just a place that bad people had used to do bad things.

And now the leader of those bad people was dead.

Gracelyn didn’t feel a drop of grief about that. Just the opposite. A monster was dead, and his death made the world a safer place. Devin wouldn’t be around to hire any more henchmen. Wouldn’t be around to try to kidnap and sell babies.

“I would suggest you go to the hospital for those injuries,” Ruston said, “but I’m guessing you’d rather have an EMT come out to the ranch and examine you.”

“The EMT,” she immediately agreed. “And you should be checked out, too. We both got some heavy hits of tear gas tonight.”

Ruston made a sound of agreement and glanced at her. “How are you, really?”

She did a quick assessment. Her head was hurting, but it wasn’t a throbbing pain. “I’m okay enough. How about you?”

“Okay enough,” he repeated, and he reached over, took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

There was plenty of emotion in his voice, and she thought they were on the same emotional wavelength here. Well, maybe they were. She had been terrified when she’d thought she would lose Ruston. But there had been an extra layer to that terror.

That she might lose him before she even got the chance to tell him how she felt about him.

She was in love with him.

Gracelyn nearly blurted that out now, but Ruston’s phone rang, and she saw Slater’s name pop up on the dash screen. All her fears about Abigail came rushing back. It must have been the same for Ruston, because he answered it right away on speaker.

“Nothing’s wrong here,” Slater said right off the bat. “Abigail is fine.”

Gracelyn’s breath of relief came out like a loud moan. Ruston did his own version of a breath of relief by muttering something she didn’t catch.

“How far out are you?” Slater asked.

“About fifteen minutes,” Ruston answered. “Thirteen,” he amended when he sped up. Good. The sooner they got there, the better.

Slater made a sound to indicate he was pleased about the shorter arrival time as well. “I thought Gracelyn would want to know that Allie came out of surgery, and she’s critical but stable.”

Gracelyn had to fight through the fatigue to try to process that. Unlike Devin, she didn’t wish her sister dead. Yes, Allie had done some horrible things, but she didn’t deserve to die.

“When Allie came out of the anesthesia,” Slater went on, “she asked the doctor to give Gracelyn a message.”

Everything inside Gracelyn went still. And she waited for Slater to finish. Her sister had done so many reckless, dangerous things that Gracelyn wasn’t sure what kind of message she’d want to have passed on to her.

“Allie said that Abigail is yours, Gracelyn, that she’ll sign over custody to you,” Slater spelled out. “She also won’t fight going to prison either.”

It took a moment for that to sink in. A long moment where her stomach unclenched. Where so many of her nerves settled.

Abigail was hers.

“Why the change of heart for Allie?” Ruston asked.

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