Baby Breakout (14 page)

“I can’t get in more trouble than I already am,” Jed pointed out.

“You can get dead just like Marcus Leighton and that female witness,” Rowe warned him. “The real killer is out there and determined to cover his tracks, Jed. You’re in danger from him, too.”

“If this guy wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of framing me for crimes I didn’t commit,” Jed reasoned. “He would have just killed
me
.” That would have been far more merciful than ruining his reputation and then his life.

“
Whoever
this guy is—” Rowe rolled his eyes “—and I’m with Erica that you know his identity or at least strongly suspect, he really hates you or he wouldn’t have wanted you sent away to prison for life.”

“Two lifetimes,” Jed reminded him of his sentence. That sick psycho had given him two lives; now maybe he would try to take two lives. He glanced toward the hangar apartment but could only see Macy inside. Maybe Erica had been so exhausted from her sleepless night that she’d lain down with their daughter. “You have to protect Erica and Isobel.”

“They are in danger,” Rowe agreed. “We all are for helping you. If anyone can prove that we have…”

He swallowed hard. Mrs. Osborn might testify against Erica, saying that she had claimed him as an old friend. No matter if he proved his innocence of the original charges, he had still broken out of jail and she had still helped him. He would do what he could to protect them. He would claim that he’d forced her to help him, but nobody had believed him when he’d professed his own innocence. Why would they believe him when he professed hers?

“Let me get the hell out of here. Then you can get Isobel and Erica away, too,” he suggested. “You need to take them someplace where no one can find them.”

As his trial had proven, anyone could get bought off. Lawyers, witnesses…probably police officers could, too. He had learned to trust no one but Macy. And because of Jed’s love and devotion to her, the DEA agent was an extension of his sister.

Rowe shook his head as if denying his request. But then he groaned and said, “I’m a damn fool for going along with this.”

“Not arresting me will make Macy happy,” Jed reminded him.

“Your getting killed will make her hate me.” Rowe’s throat rippled as he swallowed hard. “Forever.”

“That’s a good reason for my not going to jail until I can prove I was framed.”

“I’m not as worried about that shoot-on-sight order as I am about you confronting a killer all by yourself, Jed. I’ll go with you.”

“No.” He rejected the DEA agent’s suggestion. “I need you to take care of them.”

Rowe shook his head. “You don’t need me to do that. Your sister is pretty formidable.”

“I wouldn’t put my sister in that kind of danger. She’s not formidable enough to handle this guy without getting hurt or killed,” Jed warned him. “This man is more devious and more powerful than even Warden James. He has to be stopped.”

The thought of his fiancée in danger had Rowe reaching for the tense muscles in the nape of his neck, just below his blond hair. “And you think you’re the only one who can stop this monster?”

“I know I am,” Jed confirmed.

Rowe shook his head in disbelief—not in what Jed had claimed but apparently over what he had decided. “There’s a car in the back of the hangar under a bunch of tarps. The plate and the vehicle identification numbers are untraceable. Use it and get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”

Jed didn’t say goodbye to anyone but Rowe. He didn’t step back inside that apartment to kiss his sister goodbye or take one last look at his daughter. And Erica.

If he had, he might not have left.

And he had to leave to keep them safe.

* * *

W
ARDEN
J
AMES
KEPT
HIS
EYES
closed but his ears opened. He wasn’t the only one disgusted with the new sheriff. The jail guards weren’t happy with him, either—especially as he kept running off to chase down escaped convicts and came back with precious few.

He wouldn’t have to worry about York much longer. The mayor would probably call a special meeting with the town council and have him recalled. And thankfully, he probably wouldn’t have to worry about Jedidiah Kleyn much longer, either.

Sure, the sheriff wasn’t wrong about Kleyn being hard to kill. But then, probably not even in Afghanistan had the man ever had as many people gunning for him then as he had now.

It was just a matter of time before he turned up. Dead.

And then the case against Jefferson would die, too, when the only witness against him, who hadn’t benefited from his crimes, was gone.

Jefferson hoped that eventually it was discovered who really committed the murders for which Kleyn had been convicted. Because he wanted to shake that guy’s hand…

* * *

T
HE
MORE
DISTANCE
J
ED
PUT
between himself and his family the easier he breathed. The pressure, over his mere presence putting them in danger, eased off his chest.

Just over a week ago, Rowe had promised to protect Macy from the fallout of helping the DEA agent escape from Blackwoods and the hit the warden had put on him. Rowe had kept that promise, but as he’d said, Macy was formidable. She could defend herself.

Could Erica defend herself, if she had to? She had been stubborn with him when she’d insisted on going along to see Leighton. But was she strong enough to fight for her life and their daughter’s life if she had to?

He didn’t have to worry about her, though. She and Isobel were safe with Rowe and Macy. He expelled a ragged breath of relief and heard an echoing gasp from the backseat.

His muscles tightened in reaction. He wasn’t alone. For three years, in the most dangerous prison in Michigan, he hadn’t let anyone get a jump on him.

Ever.

Just a few days out of prison and already his reflexes had dimmed. But the car had been covered with all those tarps, so he hadn’t thought to check to see if anyone had crawled inside. The windows were all tinted, so he hadn’t even been able to see into the backseat. And peering into the rearview mirror revealed nothing.

Had he imagined the sound? His gut told him no. Every nerve taut with awareness, he knew he wasn’t alone.

He doubted it was the sheriff. The man would have shown himself before now, before Jed had gotten so many miles away from the hangar.

Unless that was what he’d been waiting for—distance and seclusion so that no one would witness him gun down the escaped convict—the cop killer—in cold blood.

If distance and seclusion was what the
law
man wanted, Jed would make sure he got it. He pulled off the two-lane highway onto what looked like a two-track that probably led to someone’s seldom-used cottage or maybe to an abandoned oil well.

At least he hoped the road was seldom used because he didn’t want his stowaway calling in reinforcements. Jed wasn’t about to go out without a fight…

Chapter Thirteen

It wasn’t Jed that had made Erica feel panicky earlier in the confined space. And even though she was wedged in tight behind some seats and covered with a dusky, mildew-smelling tarp, it wasn’t the confined space either that had her so scared. It was the fear of being caught.

If only the tarp wasn’t so thick, it would have been easier for her breathe. But it was also so foul-smelling that she’d been compelled to hold her breath until she’d had to gasp for more.

Had he heard her?

Was that why he had pulled onto some bumpy road? Or was he just following the directions Rowe had given him to the witness’s house? If so, that man hadn’t received the payout that Marcus Leighton had. Or maybe he had already drunk or drugged his way through whatever money he had received to perjure himself on the stand.

She bounced against the floorboards as the car hit every rut. Her elbow knocked against the metal bracket that fastened the driver’s seat to the floor, and her fingers tingled and went numb. She swallowed a curse at the pain. She had to stay as quiet as possible.

The car stopped, sparing her any more abuse from the bumps. The driver’s door opened and slammed closed. Maybe this wasn’t the witness’s house. Maybe this was actually where the man Jed had recognized driving the car lived.

Anxious to see, she closed her fingers over the edge of the tarp. But before she could pull it away from her face, the back door opened. Through the heavy canvas, big hands grasped her legs and dragged her from the floor. Her head struck the metal opening of the door, then gravel bit into her back as she dropped to the ground.

“It’s me,” she said, but the heavy canvas muffled her voice.

And what if it wasn’t Jed?

What if they hadn’t really lost that man in the black sedan and he had returned and run Jed off onto the bumpy road? She reached in her pocket for the weapon Macy had pressed into her hand earlier. She hadn’t wanted it; she had been more concerned about hurting herself with it. But now she unsheathed the blade and hacked at the heavy canvas, trying to cut through the tarp to defend herself.

A man cursed, but his voice was muffled, just as hers undoubtedly was to him. She couldn’t yell out his name, though, because what if it was the police or maybe that husky-voiced female bounty hunter who had pulled him over? Then they would know she was willingly with him.

She would not willingly go with them. She pushed the scalpel through the canvas again and elicited another curse from the man. It was definitely a man—not the female bounty hunter.

Then the tarp lifted, as he pulled it off her face and body. She rolled with it, coming up on her side with the hand holding the scalpel trapped beneath her body. The blade nipped through her heavy jeans and nicked her hip.

She gasped at the little stab of pain and tried to roll off the weapon. But a foot was on her other shoulder, shoving her into the ground. She turned her head toward her attacker. And she gasped again. Fear had her heart racing as she stared up at the look of intense rage on his face.

She had thought she would only be in danger if it was someone other than Jed who had dragged her from her hiding place. Now she wasn’t so sure. He looked as though he intended to kill her.

He cursed her but lifted his foot from her shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What I should have done three years ago,” she said. “Help you prove your innocence.”

He reached a hand down toward her to bring her upright, and blood dripped from his fingers.

“Oh, my God, I hurt you.”

He nodded in agreement, but she suspected he referred to more than the shallow wound on the back of his hand. The canvas must have taken the brunt of the blade. She’d hurt him more with her doubts than she ever could have with the scalpel.

“’Least I don’t have to worry about you being able to defend yourself,” he remarked as he smeared his blood off on his jeans.

Erica had been worried that she wouldn’t be able to use the weapon even if she needed it. So pride overtook the twinge of guilt she felt for hurting him. “Your sister gave it to me.”

He nodded. “I figured that out. What I can’t figure out is why you’re here. Why aren’t you with our daughter and Macy and Rowe?”

“She’s safe with them.” She truly believed that Macy and Rowe would protect her little girl as if Isobel were their own. Or she never would have left her precious baby with them.

“I know that,” he agreed. “That’s why I asked Rowe to protect her.” He stepped closer and pushed her tangled hair back from her face. “I also asked him to protect you. By letting you get into this car, he broke his promise to me.”

She shook her head. “Rowe doesn’t know I climbed into the back.”

“It was my sister’s idea?”

“It was mine,” she corrected him. “Macy only mentioned the car when it looked as though Rowe wasn’t going to arrest you. She’d hoped that he’d brought the car there for you to use as an escape vehicle.”

“Yeah, some escape,” he said, his voice gruff with irony.

“You wanted to escape from me, too?” she asked. “You tracked
me
down.” Something she hadn’t thought he would be able to do, or she would have hidden from him the moment she’d learned of the prison break. But then she might have never learned the truth. And she needed that knowledge—for Isobel. So the little girl learned the truth about her father instead of the lies everyone else—including Erica—had believed.

“That was because I thought you could help me,” he reminded her.

She flinched that all he had wanted from her was an alibi. But then, what could she expect from him after he had spent the past three years believing she’d betrayed him?

“I can help you.” She could stop him from doing something he would live to regret. As she’d snuck out to the car, she had overheard his conversation with Rowe and knew that Jed was on his way to talk to the remaining witness. Or threaten that witness as he had probably intended to threaten Marcus Leighton.

Or was that just what he had told Rowe so that the DEA agent wouldn’t suspect that he was on his way to confront the real killer?

Rowe might have been willing to trust Jed to go off alone, but she couldn’t. Her silence might have cost him three years of his life; she wasn’t going to be silent again while he wound up serving more jail time.

“You can’t help me,” Jed insisted. “You’re just going to get in my way.”

As she suspected, he was going after the real killer—not the witness. “Jed, you can’t do this alone.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do this with you.”

“I can take care of myself,” she reminded him.

“A scalpel isn’t going to save you from a bullet,” he pointed out. “And no one’s going to save you from me.”

Erica gasped at his ominous tone. She lifted her gaze to his face. He had that intense look again—the one that had her fearing for her safety. She’d hidden in the vehicle because she had been afraid for Jed. Now she was afraid of him…

* * *

H
ER
EYES
WIDENED
and all the color left her beautiful face; she was scared of him. He should have felt satisfaction since that was what he’d wanted. But regret clutched his heart.

He had so many regrets where Erica Towsley was concerned. And now he was about to have another. He reached for her, dragging her up against his body, which was hard with desire for her.

She was still hanging on to the scalpel; she could have used it on him. He wouldn’t have blamed her since he’d intended to deliberately frighten her.

And maybe he had intended this kiss to scare her, too, because he started out rough. He pressed his mouth tightly against hers, forcing her lips apart for the bold invasion of his tongue.

She gasped for breath and lifted her hands to his shoulders. Instead of pushing him away, she clutched him closely and moaned. Her reaction snapped his control. He didn’t care that she was scared of him and that she didn’t trust him; all he cared was that she wanted him, too.

He pulled her down to the ground with him, releasing her only long enough to spread the heavy tarp across the dirt path next to the car. Despite the trees that densely lined both sides of the two-track lane, the sun had melted whatever snow had fallen here. That bright sun had also warmed the day so that it felt like spring again—fresh and full of promise.

They had once had that promise before he’d gotten the orders calling him back to active duty and deploying him overseas. Their instant attraction and emotional connection had been so strong.

Maybe it was because he’d been locked up for three years, but that attraction felt even stronger now. He couldn’t fight it. And she wasn’t fighting him.

Instead she was lying down beside him on the tarp. Her hands ran up his chest, her palm settling against his pounding heart. Maybe she’d wondered if he still had one.

He was actually kind of surprised that he had; he’d thought he had lost it three years ago. He’d thought she’d stolen it and stomped all over it. He wanted her. But he wouldn’t give her his heart again. He didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him.

“Why?” he asked her.

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t you fighting me?” he wondered aloud. “Why aren’t you jabbing that scalpel into my chest?”

She shivered. “Should I be fighting you? Are you going to hurt me?”

He had to answer her honestly. “Probably.”

* * *

I
F
HE
HAD
LIED
TO
HER
—if he’d made her promises that they both knew he might not be able to keep—she would have pulled away from him. But his honesty increased her desire for him. And she’d already never wanted anyone—even him—more.

He still scared her, but what she felt for him frightened her more. She couldn’t fall for a man she didn’t even know anymore…if she’d ever really known him at all. Before she’d gotten the chance to really know him, he had pushed her away and left her for war. Then he’d only been back a short while before he’d left her for prison.

She knew she would never be able to keep him, but she wanted these stolen moments off the beaten track. So she clenched her hands in his shirt and dragged it over his head.

Sunlight shone through the trees and shimmered off his massively muscled chest. Her breath caught in appreciation and desire. But she had barely a moment to enjoy the sight of him before he pushed off her coat and pulled her shirt over her head.

“Are you cold?” he asked, dragging her tight against his naked chest.

Heat flushed her skin, which tingled everywhere she touched him. “No…”

Then he was kissing her again—deeply, his tongue sliding through her lips and over her tongue. She could taste him and feel him. And she wanted him too much to feel anything but desire. She certainly didn’t notice the cold.