phone rang, the sound shooting through his thoughts. He didn’t have to tell her to answer it. Bobbling the baby in her arms, Cassidy fumbled to press the answer button. Sawyer hadn’t really planned on it, but he took the child so Cassidy wouldn’t drop her, and he waited. The first thing he saw was the blocked caller ID on the screen.
Not a good sign.
Even though his entire focus should have been on the call, he glanced down at the baby again. Soon, very soon, he’d have to know the truth about her paternity. For now, he pressed the speaker button on Cassidy’s phone so he could hear what the caller was saying.
“You got the picture?” the man on the phone growled.
“I’m getting it,” Cassidy assured him. “What about my brother? Where is he? How is he?”
“You’ll get to see him as soon as you bring us back that picture.”
Sawyer huffed. “Genius, she wants proof that her brother’s still alive,” he spelled out to the person on the other end of the line. He didn’t bother to take the sarcasm out of his voice, either. “Now, here’s the part where you provide that proof, or this conversation ends.”
Silence. For a long time.
Grabbing on to his jacket sleeve, Cassidy frantically shook her head. Probably because she wanted him to stay quiet.
Sawyer ignored that.
In the next couple of minutes, he was going to have to ignore a lot of head-shaking and just about anything that she was saying. Because there was no way he was going to let her leave to face these kidnappers alone—no matter how much proof of life they provided.
There was some mumbling and cussing on the other end of the line. “Here he is,” the man snapped, and the phone dinged, indicating there was a message.
Cassidy hit the button, and a moment later the video loaded. There was Bennie, all right. His hands were tied with a rope to what appeared to be wooden beams on a ceiling. He was stretched out like a moth in a science experiment.
“Oh, God.” Cassidy pressed her fingers to her mouth, but she didn’t manage to silence the gasp. “You’ve hurt him.”
Sawyer had to agree with her on that point. His face was bloody and bruised, as if he’d taken a good beating. His hair was matted, maybe with more blood, and even though he was moving and mumbling, he looked like a man on the verge of losing consciousness.
Or dying.
“Why are they doing this to you?” Sawyer asked Bennie.
But just like that, the video ended. “That’s all the proof you’ll get. Now, it’s your turn. Get that photo here,” the caller demanded. “You got thirty minutes, or we finish him off.”
“Why?” Sawyer repeated. He needed to keep them talking. Needed to find out their location and anything else he could learn about them. He spotted his cousin, Sheriff Grayson Ryland, in the doorway of the barn, and Sawyer motioned for him to come over.
But Grayson had barely made it a step when there was a flash of light. Since his body was on full alert, it took Sawyer a second to realize that it had come from the camera.
Cassidy had snapped his picture.
With the baby.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and Cassidy took off running.
Chapter Two
Cassidy didn’t look back, but she could hear Sawyer cursing at her and shouting for her to stop. A moment later, she heard more than just his voice.
She heard footsteps. Someone running. And she had no doubt that it was Sawyer coming after her.
Her heart was past the racing stage now. Breath, too. And her hands were shaking so hard that she was surprised and relieved when she managed to open the truck door. She jumped in and immediately threw the gear into Reverse. She had to get out of there now and get the photo back to those men.
The images of her brother’s battered face flew through her head. Images of the shock on Sawyer’s face, too, when she’d handed him the baby. Later, if there was a later, she’d need to deal with him.
Except later came a lot sooner than she’d planned.
She felt the thud and looked into the rearview mirror to see that Sawyer had jumped into the truck bed.
Mercy.
She didn’t need this.
He no longer had the baby. He’d obviously handed the newborn off to the other man who’d been approaching them when Cassidy had snapped the picture. And now that Sawyer’s hands were free, he was making his way from the back of the truck bed and toward her. If looks could kill, that glare he shot her would have hurtled her to the hereafter.
Still, Cassidy didn’t stop. In fact, she slammed her foot on the accelerator and threaded the truck through the sea of other vehicles. Not the best time to attempt something like this with all the partygoers around, but she hadn’t exactly had a choice.
She didn’t want to hurt Sawyer, but she couldn’t have him go to the kidnappers with her, either. Earlier, they’d warned her if she didn’t return alone, her brother would die. That couldn’t happen. She couldn’t lose Bennie.
The moment that she was in a small clearing, Cassidy jerked the steering wheel to the right to try to toss Sawyer off the back. It didn’t work. He held on, and it only made his glare a whole lot worse. Still, she tried again.
Again, no luck.
Sawyer held on, bouncing around on the metal surface of the truck bed. He managed to hang on to his gun, and she was afraid he might use it on her if he got the chance. He already hated her, and this certainly wasn’t going to make things better between them.
Cassidy sped across the driveway that coiled around the sprawling main house and the barns, and she finally reached the ranch road that would take her to the highway. She’d lied when she told Sawyer she didn’t know where the kidnappers were.
A necessary lie.
If he had learned their location, he’d just go in there with guns blazing, and Bennie would be caught in the middle of a firefight. Of course, that might still happen if she couldn’t ditch Sawyer before she made it to the abandoned building where they were holding her brother.
Cassidy tried again to toss him from the truck, but she failed that time, too. Sawyer not only held on, he made his way toward her. Inch by inch.
There was a small slider window that separated them. Not nearly big enough for him to crawl through, and it had a lock that would prevent anyone on the outside from opening it. Thank goodness. Still, that didn’t solve her problem of getting rid of him.
She was already going too fast, and as if fate and Mother Nature were working against her, the drizzle turned to a hard rain, making the road even more slick than it already was. Cassidy tried to focus on her driving. On ditching Sawyer. And getting this photo to the kidnappers.
But Sawyer obviously had other ideas about the ditching part.
He lifted his gun, took aim. Not at her. He aimed the barrel of his gun at the passenger’s window.
“No!” Cassidy shouted.
Too late.
He turned his head and fired, the shot blasting through not just both windows—the side and back—but the sound seemed to rip through her, too. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she hit the brakes. Not the best idea she’d ever had, but it was hard to make a good decision with the pain from the noise crashing through her ears and head.
The truck tires fishtailed on the wet asphalt, slinging Sawyer and her around. Even though she was wearing her seat belt, her shoulder slammed so hard into her door that she swore she saw stars. She certainly lost her breath.
Unlike