The Lawmen of Silver Creek Ranch

A Texas Lawman will do anything to protect his son—even if it includes reuniting with the boy’s on-the-run mother…

Lucas Ryland always had a way with the ladies—until Hailey Darrow dropped him after a shared night of passion. Then he discovered her unconscious body in a wrecked car, with a fake ID and enough cash to disappear. Unbeknownst to him, the one who got away was leaving town with his baby…

Now Hailey is out of her coma and still in danger. But hiding her at his Silver Creek ranch ignites old passions…and introduces new dangers. Lucas must use every protective instinct in his arsenal to keep Hailey and their infant son safe. And keep his body from remembering how good it felt to hold her in his arms…

The Lawmen of Silver Creek Ranch

Before he could talk himself out of it, Lucas reached out and pulled her into his arms.

“I’m just so scared,” she admitted. “Not for me but for Camden and you. For your family.”

“No one is going to hurt Camden or my family,” he assured her. Not that he was in a position to give that kind of assurance. Not with hired guns after them. Still, those hired guns would have to get past him, and since he was protecting his son, Lucas had no intentions of making that easy for them.

Hailey looked up at him at the exact moment he looked down at her. He was so not ready for this. Well, his mind and heart weren’t anyway, but the rest of him seemed to think it was a good idea to kiss her or something.

Especially something.

The heat came. Memories, too. Vivid memories of Hailey naked and beneath him in his bed.

The very bed that was just up the hall.

Lucas

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DELORES FOSSEN, a USA TODAY bestselling author, has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received a Booksellers’ Best Award and an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. She was also a finalist for a prestigious RITA® Award. You can contact the author through her website at www.deloresfossen.com.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Texas Ranger Lucas Ryland stared at the bed in the room at the Silver Creek Hospital.

It was empty.

He touched his fingers to the sterile white covers, already knowing they wouldn’t be warm. According to the doctor, no one had been in that bed for at least the last fifteen minutes.

Maybe longer.

Mumbling something that Lucas didn’t catch, Dr. Alfred Parton paced across the room. The doctor had already told Lucas that he wasn’t sure how long the patient had been missing. That was one of the first things he had told Lucas when he called him. Of course, first Dr. Parton had dropped the bombshell.

Hailey Darrow is gone.

Lucas had rushed to the hospital to see for himself. And now that he had seen the empty bed with his own eyes, it didn’t help with the jolt of adrenaline he’d gotten.

“How the hell did this happen?” Lucas demanded.

“No idea.” Dr. Alfred Parton scrubbed his hand over his balding head, something he’d been doing a lot since Lucas had arrived. “I’ve asked everyone on the staff, and no one knows. But Hailey must have had some help. She wouldn’t have been able to get up and just walk out of here.”

No. Not after being in a coma for three months. She wouldn’t have been able to stand on her own, much less get out of the bed and leave the building.

Of course, that only brought on a boatload of questions for Lucas—had she awakened and managed to talk someone into helping her leave? It was a valid concern, because the last time Lucas had seen Hailey conscious, she’d been nine months pregnant with their child and running. Not just from some guy who’d been chasing her.

But also running from him.

He’d found her, finally, unconscious from a car accident. She’d plowed into a tree, and a limb that’d come through the windshield had given her a nasty head injury. She’d also had a fake ID and enough cash for Lucas to know that she had planned on disappearing.

Even now, three months later, that felt like a punch to the gut, but a “punched gut” feeling pretty much described his entire relationship with Hailey for the year he’d known her.

“We have some security cameras,” the doctor explained, “but none back here in this part of the hospital. They’re at the front entrance, the ER and the pharmacy. We’re still looking, but she’s not on any of that footage.”

Which meant she might still be inside the place. It wasn’t a huge hospital, but there were clinics, storage closets and probably some unoccupied rooms.

“You think she’ll try to go to the Silver Creek Ranch?” the doc asked.

Lucas cursed and yanked out his phone. He’d been so shocked by the news that Hailey was missing that he hadn’t even considered the next step of how this might play out.

But, yeah, if she was capable of moving, she would almost certainly try to get to his cousins’ ranch, where Lucas now lived. Hailey would try to get to the baby.

Camden.

His three-month-old son.

But he was Hailey’s child, too.

And Hailey would go after him. Or rather, she would try. As far as Lucas was concerned, Hailey had given up her rights to their precious little boy when she’d gone on the run before Camden was born. Hailey had endangered herself and the baby in that car wreck.

“Search every inch of the hospital,” Lucas ordered the doctor, though that was just the frustration talking because the staff was already looking for Hailey. “And let me know the second you find her.”

Lucas headed out the door, hurrying, but he didn’t call Camden’s nanny because he didn’t want to alarm her, yet. Instead, he called his cousin, Mason Ryland. Mason was a part-time deputy in Silver Creek, but since it was nearly 8:00 p.m., he’d already be home, and his house was just up the road from Lucas’s new place.

“I’m not coming into the office,” Mason said instead of a greeting. His cousin wasn’t the friendliest of the Ryland clan, but he would protect Camden with his life.

Lucas prayed it didn’t come down to that, though.

“Hailey’s missing from the hospital,” Lucas tossed out there. “I’m on my way home now, but make sure she doesn’t get anywhere near Camden.”

Mason cursed, too, and it was ripe enough that Lucas heard Mason’s wife, Abbie, give him a scolding about saying such things in front of their two young sons.

“You can explain when you get here,” Mason said. “I’ll head over to your place now.”

Lucas thanked him and hoped he did indeed have something to explain—like Hailey’s whereabouts and how she’d managed to escape. Right now, he didn’t know nearly enough.

He ran out of the building and across the parking lot to his SUV. The November wind swiped at him, but he didn’t duck his head against it. Lucas kept watch around him. A habit that had saved him a time or two while he’d been a Texas Ranger. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

The moment he was behind the wheel, Lucas started the engine. However, before he could throw the SUV into gear, he caught the movement from the backseat. Lucas whirled around, already reaching for his gun.

But it was too late.

Hailey was there.

She was sitting right next to the baby’s empty car seat, and thanks to the security lights, he could see that she had a gun pointed right at him. His gun. The one he kept as a backup in the glove compartment. Since he hadn’t seen her when he first approached the vehicle, it likely meant she’d ducked down out of sight. Hiding from him so she could—well—do whatever the heck she was doing.

“Leave your weapon in your holster,” she ordered, and it was indeed an order.

That was a hard look Hailey gave him. But the hardness didn’t mesh well with the beads of sweat on her forehead. It was chilly, definitely not warm enough weather for sweating, so this must have been from exertion. There was no color in her cheeks. She looked weak, and no doubt was, but she didn’t need much strength considering the gun she had in his face.

Lucas had no idea if she’d actually shoot him, because she clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Couldn’t be. Or else she wouldn’t have him at gunpoint. Then again, she had run from him three months ago, so it was obvious she hadn’t trusted him.

Still didn’t, apparently.

The head injury that had put her in the coma had healed with the exception of a thin scar near her scalp. Her blond hair was pushed back from her face now so the scar was easier to see, but in another month or two, it’d be practically gone. No signs of the trauma that had nearly killed her and the baby.

No visible signs, anyway.

Lucas would always remember. Always.

“Start driving,” Hailey insisted. “We can’t stay here.”

Because the hospital staff would look in the parking lot. But that didn’t explain why she was hiding and clearly trying to escape.

Hell, it didn’t explain a lot of things.

Lucas did drive. Not far, though, and only after he hit the child safety button to lock all the doors so that Hailey wouldn’t be able to get out. He drove out of the parking lot and went two blocks up before pulling over.

He purposely didn’t choose a spot in front of any businesses in case something went wrong when he wrestled that gun away from her. Instead, he stopped in front of the town park. Since it was already dark, the park was empty.

“All right. Now talk.” Lucas had a string of questions but went with the easiest one first. “How’d you get from your room to my SUV?”

“I walked.”

“Impossible,” Lucas fired back. He glanced around to make sure someone wasn’t out there ready to help her with more than just getting out of that hospital bed. “People who’ve been in a coma for three months just don’t get up and walk.”

She nodded. Dragged in a thin breath. That’s when he noticed she was shaking. “I’ve been out of the coma for nearly a week now, and I’ve been exercising my legs when no one was watching.”

Nearly a week.

Damn.

“And none of the medical staff noticed?” he snapped.

“I was never in a vegetative state, just a deep coma, so the monitor already showed plenty of brain activity for me. The activity increased when I woke up, but I tampered with the machine so that it looked as if it malfunctioned. I kept doing that, and the staff thought they had faulty readings.”

A nurse had indeed told him about the readings, and the hospital had called in someone to repair the machine. The Silver Creek Hospital wasn’t big or modern by anyone’s standards so they hadn’t had another monitor to use on Hailey. That’s why the nurses had been keeping a closer watch on her. Obviously, they hadn’t watched nearly close enough.

“How’d you know how to tamper with the monitor?” he pressed.

She glanced away. “I’m good with computers and such.”

This was the first Lucas was hearing about that, but it didn’t matter. Not when there were so many other things they needed to talk about.

“When I was trying to regain my strength, I made sure no one else saw me,” she added.

Obviously. Just as she’d made sure he hadn’t noticed her before he’d gotten in his vehicle.

Her gaze dropped to her stomach for just a second. “I listened to try to find out if I’d had a boy or a girl, but no one mentioned it. Not even you when you visited me on Monday.”

Clearly she’d known he was there. Lucas had indeed visited her, something he did a couple of times a week. Why, he didn’t know, because he couldn’t get answers from a woman in a coma. It riled him to the core, though, that she’d been awake during that visit and hadn’t said anything.

But what had he said?

Lucas wasn’t even sure—maybe nothing—but he’d almost certainly glared at her. He still was glaring now.

“So, you faked being in a coma for the last week, built up your strength, and just walked out of the hospital?” he asked, going through the probability of that as he said it.

He was skeptical.

Hailey nodded. “I ducked into a supply room, and when I heard the doctor call you, I knew you’d be arriving soon. I made my way to the parking lot and hid behind some shrubs.”

“And then you broke into my SUV,” Lucas snarled.

“The back door was unlocked,” she answered as if that was something she did all the time. To the best of his knowledge, she didn’t, but then, he really didn’t know much about this woman.

The mother of his child.

“Why didn’t you let me know you’d come out of the coma?” Lucas demanded.

Hailey stared at him a long time. “I’ll tell you that if you’ll tell me what I had—a boy or a girl?”

He debated bargaining with her. Even with that gun aimed at him. But it was probably best to give her the information so they could move on to something else. Something that involved his ripping that gun out of her hand.

“You had a boy,” he finally said. “He was born three months ago.”

“Three months?” she repeated. It sounded as if she had to choke back a sob. “That long.”

Yeah, that long. “The doctors had to deliver him by C-section because you weren’t conscious when you went into labor.”

She shook her head, her breath shuddering. “I don’t remember.”

“Comas are like that,” he said, and he didn’t bother to sound even marginally sympathetic. “I named him Camden David. But I have sole custody of him,” Lucas added.

Not a lie, exactly. He did have custody of him and had tried to make it permanent, but the judge had refused on the grounds that Hailey might come out of the coma and her parental rights could be reinstated.

Could be.

Lucas would make sure that didn’t happen.

Something went through her pale green eyes, and Hailey made a sound, part groan, part gasp. At first he thought maybe the reaction was due to his custody comment, but the tears proved otherwise. It was the reaction of a woman who’d just learned she had a son.

But she was a mother in name only.

“And he...Camden’s all right?” Hailey asked, still blinking back those tears. “There were no problems with the delivery?”

“Yeah. No thanks to you.”

“Is he safe?” she asked before Lucas could finish what he was about to say.

“Of course he is.” Lucas couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “What the hell were you thinking when you went on the run like that? And what happened to you? Were you driving too fast? Is that what caused the accident—and that?”

He pointed to her scar, but Lucas didn’t pull back his hand. He knocked the gun away from her, and it fell on the front passenger’s seat. Hailey immediately scrambled to retrieve it, but Lucas was a whole lot faster. He dropped it on the floor, well out of her reach.

“Don’t make me draw my gun,” he warned her and took hold of her wrist in case she was about to try to get out the door.

But she didn’t try to escape.

A hoarse sob tore from her mouth, and Hailey eased away from him. Just in case she had another weapon back there, Lucas leaned over the seat and did a quick check around her. He frisked her, too. Since she was wearing a pair of loose green scrubs, a thin sweater and flip-flops, there weren’t many places she could conceal a weapon.

Still, after what’d happened three months ago, Lucas looked.

His hand brushed against the side of her breast, and she made a soft sound. Not the groan she’d made earlier. This one caused him to feel that tug deep within his body. But Lucas told that tug to take a hike.

Their gazes connected. Not for long. Lucas finished the search and found nothing.

“Now, keep talking,” he insisted. “Tell me what happened to you. Why did you go on the run, and why didn’t you tell anyone before now that you were out of the coma?”

She opened her mouth and got that deer-in-the-headlights look. What she didn’t do was answer him.

“Enough of this,” he mumbled.

He took out his phone to call Mason and then the sheriff, but as he’d done with her earlier, Hailey took hold of his hand. “Please don’t tell your cousins. Not yet.”

Since most of his Ryland cousins were cops, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Did you break the law? Is that why you were on the run?”

“No.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her head wasn’t the only thing shaking, though. She started to shiver, the cold and maybe the fear finally getting to her. “But I’m in trouble. God, Lucas, I’m in so much trouble.”

He was about to curse at her for stating the obvious, but something else went through her eyes.

Fear.

“It won’t take long for word to get out that I’m awake,” Hailey said, speaking barely louder than a whisper. “And he’ll find out.”

“He?” Lucas snapped.

Hailey’s voice cracked. “There’s a killer after me.”

Chapter Two

Hailey closed her eyes a moment, hoping it would help with the dizziness.

It didn’t.

It was hard to think with her head spinning, the bone-deep exhaustion and the muscle spasms that kept rippling through her body.

Hard to think, too, with Lucas glaring at her as if she were the enemy. Of course, in his eyes, that’s exactly what she was.

He obviously didn’t believe her. Didn’t trust her, either, but somehow Hailey had to make him understand. First, though, he had to take care of what was most important—the baby.

“Are you sure Camden is safe?” she asked.

That caused a new slash of anger to go through his eyes. Probably because he believed she was dodging the news she’d just dropped on him.

There’s a killer after me.

“He’s safe,” Lucas finally said, but he spoke through clenched teeth. “Now, tell me why you need to make sure of that. Does it have something to do with the so-called killer?” He didn’t give her a chance to say a word, though. “Or are you trying to lie your way out of why you ran from me three months ago?”

“It’s not a lie.” She wished it was. “But I didn’t tell the truth about some other things.”

That tightened the muscles in his jaw even more. “Start from the beginning, and so help me, there’d better not be any lies this time.”

Hailey nodded but glanced around them. Since it was Tuesday and a school night, Silver Creek wasn’t exactly teeming with activity, but she did spot someone jogging in the park. She kept her attention on him until he disappeared around the curve of the tree-lined trail. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the guy was just that—a jogger—but he could have been someone after her.

“We need to find a better place to talk,” Hailey told him.

Lucas gave her a flat look. Cursed. “I’m not taking you to the Silver Creek Ranch.”

That was no doubt where the baby was.

Camden.

Hailey mentally repeated that, something she’d been doing since Lucas had first mentioned her precious son’s name. Learning something—anything—about her baby caused her heart to ache. It felt as if someone was squeezing it hard.

Mercy, she’d lost so much already. Three months. And there was a lot more she could lose. Thank God the baby was okay, but it was up to her to make sure he stayed that way.

“I can’t see Camden,” Hailey answered. Saying it aloud added an even deeper pain. “Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”

“You won’t see him at all,” Lucas snapped. He spewed out more of that profanity. “You don’t have a right to see him.”

No, in his eyes, she didn’t. But if and when this was over, she would see her son. Even if she had to push her way through an army of Ryland lawmen. No one would keep him from her.

Since it was obvious Lucas wasn’t going to budge, Hailey tried to figure out the fastest way to convince him that it wasn’t safe for her to be out in the open like this.

That meant starting from the beginning.

“I’m not who you think I am,” she said.

A burst of air left his mouth, but it wasn’t a laugh. “Obviously. You slept with me and then sneaked out, leaving me a note saying you couldn’t see me again.”

Hailey didn’t need a reminder of that. She could have recited the note word for word.

Lucas, I’m sorry, but this was a mistake. I can’t get involved with you.

“That was the truth,” she continued. “I shouldn’t have let things get so...intimate between us.”

“But you did, and you got pregnant.”

Yes, she had. Since they’d used a condom, the pregnancy definitely hadn’t been something Hailey had been expecting. But that hadn’t stopped her from wanting the child right from the start.

“Mistakes aside,” Lucas continued, “you had no right to run away from me while you were carrying my baby.” He cursed again. “If you hadn’t had that car accident, I might have never found you. Of course, that was probably the plan, wasn’t it? To run away so that I’d never be able to see my child?”

Hailey didn’t even have to think about that answer. “No. That wasn’t the plan.”

He didn’t believe her, but it was the truth.

“I was trying to stay alive, trying to keep the baby from being hurt,” Hailey explained.

He tapped his badge. “I’m a Texas Ranger.” That was probably his way of saying that if something was wrong, she should have gone straight to him.

But Lucas had been in danger, too.

Something he didn’t know.

Yet.

Figuring she would need it, Hailey took another deep breath. “Two years ago, I was employed as a computer systems analyst in Phoenix for a man named Preston DeSalvo. I found out he was working with someone in the FBI. A dirty agent. And they were selling confiscated weapons. I went to the cops, DeSalvo was eventually arrested, and after I testified against him, I was placed in witness protection and given a new identity. The marshals relocated me here to Silver Creek.”

She paused, giving him a few moments to let all of that sink in, but Lucas didn’t take the time. He whipped out his phone again, and before she could stop him, she saw him press the contact for one of his cousins.

Sheriff Grayson Ryland.

“Don’t tell him I’m with you,” Hailey insisted. “The sheriff’s office could be bugged.”

She saw the debate Lucas was having with himself, but he didn’t stop the call. He did put it on speaker, though, and it didn’t take long before Grayson answered.

“I heard about Hailey,” Grayson said right off the bat. “I’ve sent two of the deputies to the hospital to help look for her.”

“Thanks,” Lucas said. And he paused. A long time. “Can you look up info on a guy named Preston DeSalvo?”

Grayson paused, too. Hailey knew the sheriff well because she’d worked for him as an emergency dispatcher shortly after her arrival in Silver Creek. Grayson had a lot of experience as a lawman and was probably suspicious.

“Is DeSalvo connected to Hailey?” Grayson asked, though she could hear the clicks of his computer keys.

“Maybe.”

More keyboard clicking sounds. “Well, Preston DeSalvo was sent to prison about eighteen months ago. He’s dead. Killed in a fight at a maximum security prison in Arizona a little over three months ago.”

“Why was he in prison?” Lucas pressed.

“A laundry list of charges, including murder, extortion and gun running. An employee, Laura Arnett, testified against him, and she’s in WITSEC.” He huffed. “Now, what does this have to do with Hailey?”

“Maybe everything. I’ll call you back when I know more. In the meantime, can you make sure the ranch is on lockdown?”

“Already have. Mason called and said you’d asked him to go to your house. You think Hailey could be headed there?”

“I’ll call you back,” Lucas repeated, probably so that he wouldn’t have to lie to his cousin.

But the stalling wouldn’t last long. Soon, very soon, his cousins would be demanding answers. Especially Grayson, since he wasn’t just the sheriff but also the head of the Ryland clan. However, Lucas would be demanding them first.

“Laura Arnett?” Lucas repeated. “That’s your real name?”

She nodded. “I haven’t thought of myself as that since all of this happened. I’m Hailey Darrow. For now, anyway. But I’ll have to come up with another identity. DeSalvo’s dead, but no one knows who his partner was,” she added.

“The dirty FBI agent,” he spat out like the profanity he tacked onto that. “And you believe he’s after you?”

“I know he is. Well, one of his henchmen, anyway.”

She glanced around again, praying that one of those thugs wasn’t nearby, looking for her.

“I don’t know how he found me,” Hailey continued. “Maybe he hacked into the WITSEC files, or he could have bribed someone to give him the info. But three months ago, I found an eavesdropping device in my house here in Silver Creek, and I knew my identity had been blown.”

“You should have come to me.” His jaw muscles were at war with each other again. “Or since you were in WITSEC, you could have called your handler.”

“I didn’t get a chance. Before I could do anything, a hired gun showed up at my house. I hid, but he yelled out that if I didn’t give myself up, he’d go after you and use you to get me to cooperate.”

The skepticism was still written all over his face. “Cooperate with what?”

Oh, he was not going to like this. “I have some computer files that I didn’t turn over to the cops. Files that incriminate Preston’s son, Eric. Nothing as serious as murder, but it would have put him away for a few years.”

“I’ll want to see those files.” And it wasn’t a suggestion.

She nodded. “It’ll take a while to access them. I put them in online storage with some security measures. I set it up so the files won’t open until twelve hours after I put in the password.”

“Clever,” he mumbled, but Hailey didn’t think that was a compliment. No. Lucas was silently cursing her for not bringing this to him sooner.

“I let Preston know I’d leak the files if anything happened to me,” Hailey explained, “and that his son would head to prison right along with him. It was my insurance, a way of making sure he didn’t send his hired thugs after me.”

Lucas lifted his shoulder. “But he sent them anyway?”

“No. Preston was dead by then. I think the person who sent the thugs is the dirty agent. First, though, he wants those files.”

“Or it could be his son who’s after you,” Lucas quickly pointed out.

“Maybe. But I didn’t personally mention anything to Eric about having incriminating info on him.”

Of course, that didn’t mean Eric hadn’t found out. Eric hadn’t visited his father in prison. Not once. But Preston could have said something to one of his lackeys, who in turn passed the info on to Eric. Which wouldn’t have necessarily been a bad thing. Because it could have kept Eric off her back, too, had he ever decided to come after her.

“How did you get away from that hired gun?” Lucas asked a moment later.

“I sneaked out the back of the house. I had a car, some cash and new identity papers in a storage unit.” Hailey huffed. “I’ll answer all your questions. I promise. But we can’t stay here. In fact, you can’t be with me.”

He looked at her as if she’d just sprouted wings. “You think I’m going to dump you out here on the street?”

“No, but I was hoping you’d arrange to get me a car. Or let me use this SUV for a couple of hours.”

“That’s not going to happen. But I am taking you somewhere—to the sheriff’s office.”

“No.” She couldn’t say it fast enough, and Hailey went to the edge of her seat so she could take hold of his arm again. “Didn’t you hear me? The office could be bugged. My hospital room was. That’s why I didn’t say anything to any of the medical staff. I wasn’t sure who’d put it there or if I could trust any of them.”

Lucas had already put the SUV in gear to drive away, no doubt to head toward the sheriff’s office, but that piece of information stopped him. He turned, studying her, probably to decide how much of this was the truth.

Before he could make up his mind, his phone rang, and again she saw Grayson’s name on the screen. She doubted Lucas would keep her secret much longer. He would spill everything to the sheriff.

And that meant she had to get out of there—fast.

But how? Lucas had all the doors locked, and she wasn’t nearly strong enough to break the windows.

“We might have a problem,” Grayson said when Lucas answered, and he put the call on speaker. “Dr. Parton called, and he said right after you left, a man showed up looking for Hailey. He claimed he was her brother.”

Oh, God. “I don’t have a brother,” she mouthed.

“Doc Parton got suspicious,” Grayson went on. “And he just sent me the surveillance footage of the guy coming in through the ER entrance. I put his photo into the facial recognition program and got an immediate hit.”