Page 154 of Proof of Guilt

“Who’s out there?” Eli shouted when he made it to the living room.

The footsteps on the porch came again, and this time the person was running. Maybe that meant this was possibly some kind of prank from local teenagers.

Since it was July, school was out, and his ranch was just a stone’s throw off the road leading into town. It could be that some kids had too much time on their hands. If so, Eli was in an ornery enough mood to arrest their sorry butts for waking him up. Then he’d take them into Longview Ridge to the sheriff’s office, where his brother, the sheriff, could put them in jail for a few hours.

“Just in case you’re too stupid not to know this—I’m Sergeant Eli Slater, Texas Ranger,” he added.

No more footsteps, but he did hear something else. A strange mewing sound. Maybe a kitten? Oh, man. Had the pranking clowns left a stray cat on his porch?

Eli went to the door, keeping to the side of it while he opened it, and he peered out into the darkness. Nothing. Until he looked down.

What the hell?

It was a car seat, and there was a thin blanket draped over it. At first glimpse Eli thought maybe the cat was inside it, but then the blanket moved, and he saw the foot.

A baby’s foot.

That put his heart right in his throat, and he fired glances all around the yard to see who’d done this. No one was in sight.

The baby whimpered, kicking at the blanket, and while Eli still kept watch of the yard, he stooped down for a better look. That look got a whole lot easier for him when the baby’s kicking caused the blanket to slide off the car seat.

Yeah, it was a baby all right, and not some automated doll as he’d hoped.

A baby dressed in a pink gown. He wasn’t an expert on kids by any means, but he thought that maybe she was a couple of months old. And she wasn’t very happy. Her bottom lip was poked out, and she was staring up at him as if she might start crying at any second.

“If this is a joke, I don’t find it funny,” Eli called out to the person who’d left her.

But a joke didn’t feel right. This went well beyond something that bored kids would do. Had someone actually abandoned the baby on his porch? His place wasn’t a “safe haven” for leaving unwanted infants; that was usually reserved for fire stations and police departments. But it could have happened.

Still keeping watch in case someone was out there, Eli checked to make sure the little girl was okay. She didn’t have a scratch on her that he could see, and she appeared to be clean. That was something, at least. And whoever had left her had tucked a bottle between her and the side of the seat. So someone had been feeding her.

“Who did this?” Eli shouted, trying again to get some kind of response from the person responsible for the baby.

But nothing. Well, nothing other than the baby, and she started to whimper. Hell. That caused the adrenaline to spike through him, and while he took out his phone, he rocked the car seat a little, hoping it would soothe her. It didn’t. Her whimpering turned into a full-fledged cry.

He scrolled through his contacts to his brother Kellan, the sheriff, but before Eli could even press the number, he saw a slash of headlights as a vehicle turned off the main road and started toward his place.

Fast.

The car sped right at him, skidding to a stop in front of his house. His first thought was this was someone who was about to clear up the situation. Maybe someone frantic. A blond-haired woman wearing a gauzy white dress bolted from the car. She was armed, and she aimed the gun that she whipped up right at him.

And he groaned.

Because he knew his visitor—Ashlyn Darrow. As a lawman, he’d made enemies, had dealt with his share of bad blood, and Ashlyn was at the top of the bad blood list. In her mind she thought he was the bad guy.

He wasn’t.

But Eli doubted he would convince her of that—ever. Especially after what’d happened.

Despite him trying to push it away, pieces of the repeating nightmare came. Ashlyn was in that nightmare, but like now she was very much alive. The other woman wasn’t.

“Get away from her,” Ashlyn ordered.

If Eli had had on his badge, he would have tapped it to give her a reminder that she didn’t need. Ashlyn knew full well that he was a Ranger, and she had no badge and no right, legal or otherwise, to pull a gun on him. Still, he had no intention of trading shots with her, not with the baby right at his feet. Just in case Ashlyn pulled the trigger, though, he moved in front of the little girl. He seriously doubted she would do something like that if she knew there was a baby involved, but maybe she didn’t know.

“Put down your gun,” he warned her. “Along with pissing me off, you’re endangering a child.”

A burst of air left her mouth. It was a humorless laugh. “You’ve already endangered her. Just like you did Marta.”

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