Rancher Defender
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Delores Fossen
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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.”
