Page 35 of Targeted in Silver Creek

“You’re okay,” Hanna murmured.

He nodded, ran his hand down the length of her hair and shifted his attention to his mom and Evan. “You can come back into the nursery now,” he assured them, and they both helped Melissa out of the tub. “I locked up the house and reset the security. Ava will be staying inside with us until Grayson is sure the scene is secure.”

That didn’t help with the nerves. Someone else could be out there. But by now, Grayson probably had every available deputy either on scene or on the way.

When they were back in the nursery, Melissa immediately returned to the rocking chair. Maybe because, like Hanna, her legs were a little shaky. The rocking would also help to keep Evan asleep.

“Who are the gunmen?” Hanna asked him in a whisper so they wouldn’t wake the baby.

Jesse shook his head. “I don’t know either of them, and neither had any ID. Grayson will be taking the live one in for questioning, so we might know something soon.”

“Maybe he’ll want a deal and will give up the name of the person who sent him.” She paused. “Someone did send them, right?”

“It looks that way. If they’d been local with a grudge against me, or you, I would have recognized them. Grayson can compare their photos to those of yet-to-be-identified militia members. We might get a match. Might get a match, too, when we run their prints.”

Yes, because men like that probably had criminal records.

“I heard gunshots,” Hanna said. “You’re sure no one other than the gunman was hit?”

“Positive. The dead gunman fired two of the shots.” He stopped, muttered some profanity, and she saw that was eating away at him as much as it was her. Those shots could have gone through the walls. “Grayson fired the third shot and killed him. The second man surrendered. Well, he surrendered after Grayson, me and the ranch hands all had our weapons pointed at him.”

Jesse kept staring at her. “Did the sound of the shots trigger...anything for you?”

He was asking if she was on the verge of a panic attack. She wasn’t, so Hanna shook her head. But she was well past the stage of being riled to the core.

“Where’s my mother?” she asked.

“In her car with a ranch hand standing guard to make sure she stays put. She wants to see you, of course.”

“Of course,” Hanna mumbled. “I’ll want to see her, too, and demand to know if she had any part in this.”

Jesse did another of those soothing hand strokes, this time down her arm. “Trust me, I want to know the same thing.” He hesitated a heartbeat. “Agent Shaw is out there, too.”

Hanna groaned. “Why is he here? Did he have something to do with the gunmen?”

“He claims he just wanted to ask about what Marlene had told us,” Jesse answered.

“You believe him?” she asked.

“Right now, I’m not inclined to believe him, Marlene, or your mother.”

“I agree,” Hanna couldn’t say fast enough.

Jesse’s phone dinged with a text, and he frowned when he read the message. “Grayson said your mother’s been searched. She’s not armed, and he wants to know if you want her to come inside for that chat?”

Hanna didn’t have to debate that answer either. “Yes. Let’s go ahead and get this over with.”

She wanted to do this while the adrenaline was still high, while she still had very vivid feelings of how close her son and Jesse could have come to being hurt today. Two shots. That’s how many bullets Jesse said the gunman had fired.

Two shots that could have been deadly to anyone in the vicinity.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just keep holding Evan instead of putting him in his crib,” Melissa told them.

“Please do,” Hanna agreed. “I’ll come and get him when I finish talking to my mother.”

“Good luck,” Melissa whispered to her and, considering the conversation they’d just had, Jesse’s mom no doubt knew this was not going to be a pleasant mother-daughter kind of chat.

Ava stayed put with Melissa while Jesse and she went to the front of the house. Jesse disengaged the security, unlocked the door and motioned to someone. Grayson, probably, because several moments later Isabel and he stepped onto the porch. Isabel actually froze, probably because she noted the expression on Hanna’s face, but then she broke into a run and pulled Hanna into her arms.

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