Ranger's Baby, page 15
Barb crossed her arms over her chest. “My family stands together. You have a problem with one of us, you have a problem with all of us.”
“Then that would make you guilty as an accessory to murder or at least for obstruction of justice,” Duncan said. “And my family stands together as well. Fiona and Caity are part of my family, and we don’t take kindly to people who hurt members of our family or threaten them.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” Barb asked. “You appear to be outnumbered. What’s to keep us from killing you and dumping your body in one of the canyons?”
“Family is what will keep you from killing our brother,” Angus said, stepping out of the shadows with one of the sentries in his grasp, a sock in his mouth and his wrists zip-tied behind his back. Angus held a gun pointed at Beau Faulkner.
“You think just because you were some hotshot in the military you can take down every last one of us?” Mark snorted. “You must have rocks for brains.”
“Or more brothers to stand up for family.” Colin pushed a man in front of him, similarly bound and gagged as the one Angus had standing in between him and the Faulkners.
“McKinnons stand for each other,” Sebastian said, nudging yet another of the Faulkner clan out into the open.
“You’re damn right we do,” Molly said, shoving her Faulkner catch in front of her. “We all heard you admit you killed Clay Bennett and Wally Bing. We have enough witnesses to testify that we won’t need the flashlight to convict Mark and Beau for murder.”
“It’ll be Faulkners’ word against McKinnons. And everyone knows the families don’t get along,” Barb growled.
“Think again.” Sheriff Barron walked out into the open, his weapon drawn. “Everyone, put your weapons down. Mark, Tripp and Beau Faulkner, you’re under arrest for murder. Barb, you’re under arrest for kidnapping and aggravated assault.”
“You won’t be taking me anywhere,” Tripp said. He lunged for Fiona.
Fiona, clutching Caity to her breast, dodged Tripp’s grasp.
A shot rang out.
Tripp fell to the ground at Fiona’s feet and lay moaning.
When Fiona turned back to the clearing, she fully expected an all-out war to have begun.
The Faulkner men stood still, their hands on their guns, but none of them drawn.
Hank’s men had stepped out of the woods, along with the deputies in uniform.
Fiona’s heart filled with hope,
“Who wants to be next?” the sheriff called out.
Duncan crossed to Fiona and stood between her and the Faulkners.
No one spoke.
Barb’s eyes narrowed. “You gonna help my boy, or let him bleed to death?”
“Now, that’s up to you,” the sheriff said. “When your people lay down their guns, we’ll check on your son.”
Barb nodded. “Put ’em down, boys.”
When no one moved to follow her orders, she barked, “Now!”
Rifles, shotguns and handguns hit the dirt.
“And the knives,” Sheriff Barron said.
“You heard the sheriff,” Barb grumbled.
Knives dropped to the ground.
“You, too, Mrs. Faulkner.” Sheriff Barron nodded toward her. “I know you keep a pistol strapped to your leg. It goes, too.”
She leaned down, lifted her pantleg, pulled a small handgun from a leather holster strapped to her ankle and tossed it onto the ground.
Sheriff Barron turned to one of the deputies. “Bring in the ambulance.”
Moments later, the sound of an ambulance’s siren wailed not far from where they were. A few minutes later, it bumped up the rutted road to the compound.
EMTs leaped out. One examined Caity. The other bent to work on Tripp.
Fiona wished Tripp would die. She didn’t like that she felt that way, but after he’d threatened to take her child and sell her on the black market, the man deserved a slow painful death.
Duncan stood by her as the EMT took Caity’s vitals and found a diaper in one of the storage cabinets in the ambulance.
Fiona changed her daughter and brushed her dark hair away from her face.
When she was dry and more comfortable, she lay against Fiona’s chest, her body shaking with hiccups from having cried so much.
Anger burned inside Fiona. Anyone who could take a baby away from her family and use her as a pawn in a deadly game wasn’t human.
While Hank and his men stood guard over the Faulkner clan, the deputies hurried back to where they’d parked their cars on the highway and came back to collect Mark, Beau and Barb, tucking them into the back of different vehicles to be transported to the jail in Eagle Rock. They’d be transferred to the state prison the following day. Tripp was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the nearest hospital.
The sheriff processed half a dozen more of the men in the Faulkner compound for outstanding warrants. His deputies would be busy transporting them to the jail.
Fiona didn’t care. Caity needed to be fed and bathed to get the stench of the Faulkners off her skin.
Duncan slipped his arm around her and pulled her into the strength of his big body. “Ready to go home?”
She nodded and let him lead her to the SUV.
Caity cried when she tried to put her into her car seat.
“Oh, sweetie, everything’s going to be all right, now. The bad people won’t ever hurt you, again. Mama and Daddy will take good care of you.” She strapped Caity in, her heart squeezing hard in her chest as Caity reached out, wanting Fiona to hold her.
“Ride in the back with Caity,” Duncan said. “I’ll drive.”
Fiona slid into the backseat with her baby and draped her arm over the child.
Caity wrapped her little arms around Fiona’s hand and pulled it up to her cheek. She cried and fussed a little as they bumped along the rutted road out to the highway. Once they were on a smooth road, the baby drifted off to sleep, waking every so often to look for her mother.
Fiona fought tears all the way home. She wondered how long it would take for Caity to recover from the trauma of being taken away from the people she knew and loved. Would she have nightmares about the bad people who’d stolen her away?
Fiona would do everything in her power to make her baby feel safe again. And she’d do whatever she could to ensure her daughter would grow up knowing what a brave father she had. A man who would risk his life to save her and her mother from murderers and thieves.
“You two all right back there?” Duncan asked as they drove through the stone and wrought iron gate of the Iron Horse Ranch.
Fiona felt a huge sense of relief as they passed through the gate and continued to the ranch house.
To her, this was the closest she’d felt to coming home in a very long time. She hoped and prayed that what Duncan had said right before she’d gone in to make the exchange for Caity were words he meant, that he really did love her. Because she loved him with all of her heart and couldn’t imagine going through the rest of her life without him.
Chapter 15
Duncan stayed with Fiona and Caity throughout the night. They’d laid Caity on the bed between them until she’d fallen asleep, and then moved her to her crib.
He held Fiona in his arms, happy they’d survived the whole ordeal with the Faulkners without anyone but Tripp sustaining a wound.
Caity woke a couple of times during the night, crying for her mother.
Each time, Fiona held her in the rocking chair until the little girl settled down and finally slept until morning.
When Caity woke in the morning, Duncan took her downstairs to let Fiona rest. With his mother’s help, he fed her a bottle of formula and some baby cereal and played with her on the floor.
The child was nothing if not resilient. She smiled and played as though she hadn’t been kidnapped and nearly killed the day before.
“How’s she doing?” Duncan’s mother came to sit on the floor with Duncan and smiled at Caity. “I’m so sorry about what happened yesterday. It was all my fault. I never should have left Caity alone with Missy.”
“You couldn’t have known,” a voice said from behind Duncan.
He turned to find Fiona dressed in a pale-yellow sundress and white sandals, her glorious red hair freshly washed, dried and hanging in soft waves down around her shoulders. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. And brave. She’d gone into the lion’s den to rescue her baby and had come out the victor.
Duncan held out his hand to her.
She dropped to her knees beside him on the rug and smiled at his mother. “Caity’s going to be fine.”
As if to prove it, Caity held out a toy to her grandmother as if to invite her to play.
Tears welled in Duncan’s mother’s eyes. “I love this child so much. I don’t know what I would have done if…”
“It’s over,” Fiona said. “If I had been here yesterday when Missy had come to visit, I probably would’ve done the same thing. There was no reason to believe she’d take off with Caity. She’d never done anything like that before.”
Duncan’s mother wiped at a tear and nodded. “I hope someday you’ll trust me to keep her sometimes. I miss having a baby around this big old house.”
“I trust you, now,” Fiona assured her. “I’m so glad Caity has a grandmother to love and who loves her.”
“I had a call this morning from Cole Drennan,” Duncan’s mother said softly. “He called to check on Caity and Fiona. He apologized for what Missy did and said he was getting her the best help he could find. He loves her so much. You know they’ve been trying to get pregnant for years, and when she miscarried her last pregnancy, she had a nervous breakdown. She’s going to see someone about getting on antidepressants. And he thought about getting her a puppy to keep her company. Something she could love and care for while she’s working on getting better.”
“I feel so bad for her.” Fiona shook her head. “I can’t imagine not being able to have a baby. I feel very lucky to have had Caity, and I would do anything for her.”
“And so would I. Anytime you want me to watch her, I’m there.” Duncan’s mother pushed to her feet. “Now, I need to figure out what I’m going to make for lunch. You haven’t even had breakfast. Can I get you anything?”
Fiona shook her head. “I’ll just wait and eat something at lunch. Thank you.”
Once his mother was out of earshot, Duncan faced Fiona.
And she faced him.
“We need to talk,” he said at the same time she did.
He laughed and reached for her hand. “Yes, we do.” Now that they were going to have that conversation, he wasn’t sure exactly what he could say to convince her that he loved her, and not just because she was the mother of his baby.
“Fiona, I meant what I said when you were going into the Faulkner compound.”
“You said a lot of things.” She laced her fingers through his. “Can you be more specific? Because, if you can’t, I can go first.”
“No, I need to say this,” he said bringing her hand up to his lips where he pressed a kiss to the backs of her knuckles. “Growing up, you were always there. My best friend, my buddy and my sidekick. I could count on you for anything, including giving me advice on the poor decisions I made in the girls I dated.”
She nodded, her lips twitching into a smile. “You didn’t always choose well.”
“No, I didn’t. And I think it was because I didn’t need any of them, and I chose girls who weren’t right for me because I had the right one already, and I didn’t know it.” His lifted his chin and gazed into her eyes. “I think I’ve always loved you, but I didn’t realize that was what it was until the night fifteen months ago when we conceived Caity.” He turned to smile at the baby trying to pull her knees under her to crawl.
“You had a funny way of showing me that you loved me,” Fiona said, dropping her focus to their joined hands. “I didn’t hear from you until you came home fifteen months later.”
He nodded. “I’m not the smartest guy. I went back to a thirteen-month deployment to the hills of Afghanistan. I thought you would write to me like you always had. When you didn’t, I figured you didn’t feel the same way I did. I’d screwed up our friendship, and I regretted that the most.”
“I was busy working and being pregnant and missing you. I thought you’d sobered up and realized you’d made a big mistake. I didn’t tell you about the baby, hoping you’d call me, write to me, or anything, to tell me how you really felt. When you didn’t, too much time had passed. I knew you were deployed, and I didn’t want you to lose focus on your missions. I wanted you to come home alive.” This time she lifted his hand and pressed her lips to his knuckles.
“I’m sorry. I wish I’d called the next day and all the days after.” Duncan captured her hand in both of his. “Please, will you forgive me and give me a second chance to win your heart? Because, you see, I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I don’t want to go another day without you in it.”
She looked up, her gaze meeting his, her eyes filling it tears. “You’re not just saying that because of Caity?”
He shook his head. “I love Caity, and I’m so very glad she’s a part of my life, but even if she hadn’t been born of our union, I would have eventually figured out that I love you. All those months in the field, I looked for your letters. When they didn’t come, I felt as if I’d lost the best part of me. My heart. I love you, Fiona Guthrie. And want you and Caity in my life. And when Caity is grown and moves out, I want to grow old with my best friend and the woman who makes me happy.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “The only one who makes me happy is you.”
Fiona wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead to his. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words.”
“Fiona,” he said against her lips. “Will you marry me?”
She laughed and cried all at once. Then she whispered against his mouth, “I thought you’d never ask.”
He leaned back, frowning. “That’s not an answer.”
She smiled and gave him the answer he’d been longing for. “Yes, Duncan McKinnon, Caity and I will marry you.”
* * *
Later that day
* * *
“What’s this I hear about you and Fiona?” Angus asked as he climbed the porch stairs with his fiancée, Bree, on his arm.
“What did you hear?” Duncan tightened his arm around Fiona who sat beside him on the porch swing with Caity sleeping in her arms.
Bree smiled. “You’re engaged?”
Fiona grinned. “We are.”
Colin stepped out of the house. “About damn time, too. We all knew you and Fiona belonged together.”
Duncan frowned. “You did?”
“Hell, yes.” Sebastian followed Colin out of the house, carrying a couple bottles of beer. He handed one to Duncan. “She only had eyes for you, and you never could settle with any other female. It was obvious to everyone.”
“Everyone but you,” Angus said. “You must have taken too many knocks to the head, playing football.”
Duncan nodded. “I must have. I had the best girl all along, and I was too thickheaded to realize it. But I have now, and she’s agreed to marry me. I just need to get a ring to make it official.”
“Speaking of rings,” Molly said as she walked up from the direction of the barn. “I called the pawn shop Tripp mentioned in Bozeman. At first, they didn’t remember it. When I sent them a picture, they recalled that a woman brought it in a couple of days ago.”
“Did they say who she was?”
“She said her name was Trixie Samuels. She gave an address in Bozeman. I wrote it down. He wasn’t really confident that she was telling the truth. She looked like she was strung out and needed the money for drugs.”
“Did he describe her?” Duncan asked.
Molly nodded. “He said she was a bleached blond with dark eyes.”
“That could be a lot of women,” Colin said.
“He said when she held out her hand for the money, she had a tattoo of a unicorn on her wrist.”
“Well that narrows it down, probably to one woman. We just have to find her.”
Colin nodded. “I’ll go into Bozeman tomorrow and check out that address.”
Duncan’s lips pressed together. “It’s about time we had a break. Dad’s out there. I just know it. And he’s waiting for us to find him.”
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