Christmas Conspiracy (6 page)

He climbed into the backseat. With gentle hands he comforted his screaming children. “You’re okay now. I’m sorry for the bad noise. It’s gone.” He hugged them close and closed his eyes, rocking them until only hiccups and sniffles remained. “It’s okay. Don’t be scared. Daddy’s got you.”

Kat swallowed back a tumult of emotions.

Finally, after a few minutes, Hayden squirmed. “Too much hugging.”

“Sorry, little buddy.”

“I like it,” Lanie said, and buried her face into Logan’s chest.

He kissed their cheeks and adjusted them in the car seats. His jaw tight, he snagged his phone from his pocket and tapped it. “Rafe, I left you a mess on highway 34. Take care of it.”

Logan drummed his fingers on the seat back while he listened to Rafe’s response. “We’re being tracked somehow, and if that wasn’t the king’s men, things are worse. I’m dumping the vehicle. I’ll be in touch when I can. Find the leak that’s making it possible for these people to find us.”

Kat brushed the tears of relief from her eyes and swallowed as this new reality hit her. She met Logan’s gaze as he closed the phone. “Is this latest leak in the king’s camp or yours?”

“I don’t know,” he acknowledged, “but until I find out, we’re on our own.”

* * *

P
AULINA PEERED OUT
the curtain and stared at the black SUV and the terrifying man with the patch over one eye. He hadn’t moved from in front of Katerina’s house. Why was he staying there?
La familia
was gone with the other man with the gun. So many scary people. She wouldn’t babysit in that house anymore. She was even afraid in her own house now. What if someone learned what she’d done?

Paulina’s hands trembled and she twisted her shawl, unraveling the stitches. A chilling fear had gone through her when the big man warned her of danger and demanded she leave today. She still couldn’t get warm. Maybe she
should
go to her sister’s house. They wouldn’t follow her across the border. Would they?

She hurried toward her bedroom to pack, but she’d only made it partway when the back door slammed open.

Paulina trembled with fright.

A huge man entered her living room, his face red with anger, blood staining his right shoulder.

“Who are you? Please go. I have no money,” she lied.

“You should. I paid you, but you failed me.”

Paulina gasped. She recognized the voice. The phone call she hadn’t been able to ignore. “But I…I…did what you wanted. You said you would leave me alone.”

“Well, they escaped. And someone has to pay.”

“Please, don’t hurt me.” She glanced at the bloody shirt. “I’ll take care of your wound. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Sorry, but I’ve been shot and the family got away. They will die, and you’re the only one who can tie me to them.”

Paulina backed toward the window, and the giant smiled, his expression evil. He pulled a huge, serrated knife from a leather sheath wrapped around his leg. He slid his thumb along the shiny blade.

Paulina gulped, her heart galloped, skipping beats. Her head swam and she swayed. “Please, no,” she whimpered. “I’ll be silent.”

“Yes,” he said softly and raised the blade. “You will.”

Chapter Three

Logan stayed in the backseat with the kids, his rifle loaded in case of another ambush. He hadn’t recognized the other SUV or the shooters, but they’d been out to kill the entire family. And they’d been tailed too easily. Only one possibility. There had to be a tracking device.

Hayden clung to one arm, Lanie to the other, their small bodies pressed up against Logan. His heart swelled with an all-encompassing need to care for and protect them. He smiled down at them, and they blinked up, their tear-streaked faces caging his soul. They had him. He’d do anything for them.

He studied the terrain. Before the vehicle went much farther, he needed to do a sweep. He hated to risk stopping, but he didn’t think their attackers would quit after one attempt. He wouldn’t make it easy for whoever followed them.

Several miles passed before he identified a relatively safe stopping point.

“Pull over,” he ordered Kat.

“Here?” She gave him a shocked look.

“Now,” Logan insisted. “Take us behind those birch trees. Out of sight of the highway.”

She turned down a dirt road, gripped the wheel tightly and guided them over the bumps and deep ruts.

Logan hated to move. He’d been in heaven, holding his children against him. He hadn’t known what to expect, but even though they’d known him only a few hours, they burrowed against him. They apparently trusted him a lot more than their mother ever had.

He met Kat’s gaze in the rearview mirror briefly. Every second with his children raised his frustration with her. It shouldn’t be this way.

Lanie stirred beside him as Kat eased the car into a hidden spot. The little girl was a strange creature, so delicate. He’d felt like an oaf holding her. He was a guy. He understood Hayden and his daredevil instincts, but this fragile baby? He worried he’d break her. Maybe if he’d been there from the start it would be different, but he’d missed everything. He’d make it up to the twins, though. That, he promised.

He didn’t know what to do with Kat, except save her life. Trusting her wasn’t going to come easy.

The SUV rolled to a bumpy stop, startling Lanie from sleep. Her wide eyes met his gaze in panic. “It’s okay, sweetie. Daddy’s got you.”

She patted him. “Daddy,” she whispered.

Hayden, on the other hand, looked like he’d had enough.

“Down,” he ordered, his expression mutinous.

His kid was right. Logan had to move quickly.

“Why are we stopping?” Kat asked, shifting in her seat.

“I’m checking the SUV for bugs. Get them out of their car seats.”

He passed Lanie to Kat then lifted Hayden. As he did, he caught the whiff of a distinctly toxic odor. “Whoa.” Logan stared at Hayden as recognition hit. “You wear diapers?”

“Good thing for us or we’d be stopping every ten minutes. They’re not potty trained,” Kat said, biting her lip, but humor danced in her eyes. “They’re
considering
it.”

Logan clutched his squirmy son. The imp just grinned at him, tugged at the waist of his small jeans and started pushing them down his legs.

“Uh, Kat. He’s taking his clothes off.” Logan fought to keep his son from undressing but within seconds Logan had clearly lost the battle. As much as he wanted to ignore Kat’s laughter, he was way out of his league here. Give him a bomb that needed disarming, a grenade launcher or room full of terrorists any day over these two.

He shot her an exasperated look. “Take him. I’ll learn the intricacies of diaper changing later. For now, I need to check out the SUV’s rear end, not Hayden’s.”

Logan leaped out of the car and sucked in a breath of fresh air. Man, the kid was ripe. Logan yanked the tailgate, but it wouldn’t budge. He moved to the front and turned the key, rolling down the back window as far as the damaged back allowed.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, as she quickly changed both kids, then sat them down on a blanket with juice boxes and a snack.

“My equipment bag. I have a bug sweeper in there. Those men knew where we were,” he said. “I need to check for a transmitter.”

He rounded the SUV and reached in. Part of his duffel was caught in the crumpled metal of the rear tailgate and it had been littered with bullets. Great. He unzipped the bag and rifled through its contents. The case containing his electronic detector had been decimated. Holding his breath, he pulled out the shot-up equipment. The bug detector was beyond hope.

He grabbed his phone, another link to the outside world. Supposedly secure. Only his computer expert, Zane, should be able to trace his location with it.

Logan hesitated. His gut told him to remain incommunicado. He pulled the battery from the phone and unhooked the GPS power source. He wasn’t taking any more chances. Not with his kids’ lives.

He looked over at them. Each child sipped on a juice box while Kat sang softly to keep them entertained. He wanted to watch and listen, but they couldn’t afford to stay anywhere for long. He needed to find that transmitter. Nothing else explained how the gunmen had found them.

Logan rifled through the equipment, searching for anything out of place then checked the kids’ seats before beginning a swift visual search on the vehicle’s exterior.

“What are you doing now?” Kat asked. “I thought you had a detector.”

“It’s ruined. That makes us vulnerable.” He rose quickly and dusted off his jeans. “Get everything else out of the SUV, Kat. Fast. If we don’t absolutely have to have it, we’re dumping it and getting the hell out of here.”

Logan stripped the vehicle of anything not nailed down except for his most sensitive high-tech equipment, the diaper case and one toy each to distract the kids. He grimaced at Kat’s dismay as she dumped a garbage bag of clothes and toiletries, but when he grabbed the small bag from the floor of the backseat and threw it on the trash pile, she clutched his arm.

“No,” she hissed. “Those are Christmas presents. It’s all they’ll have. Please don’t.”

At her desperation, Logan stopped and peered inside. A used train and doll lay alongside two tiny packaged toys and one outfit for each child. His knuckles whitened on the bag as he viewed the meager items. He’d known money was tight for Kat, but this? He raised his head. Embarrassment laced her gaze. Silently, he checked the toys out and handed her the bag. She clutched it, looking away.

He wanted to comfort her, but what could he say?

He slid under the car and, using telescoping mirrors, checked the undercarriage, front to back. After a few minutes, he cursed. “Gotcha.”

He showed her the bug, then smashed it. “Okay, we’re out of here. They could be close by for all we know.”

They buckled the kids into the car, but remained silent. For a brief few moments earlier, they’d experienced the initial ease that had existed between them three years ago. From the moment they’d first met, they couldn’t stop talking or touching each other. Being with her then had felt so natural. Now, the awkward silence made his chest ache.

Logan forced his mind from the past and quickly covered the pile of equipment and Kat’s belongings with dead branches and leaves. She stared at the mound, then, without speaking, climbed into the passenger’s seat. Holding herself stiffly, she peered out at the flat landscape beyond the birch trees.

Sighing, Logan took one look at his sleepy children and started the vehicle. He waited until the kids had finally nodded off before broaching the subject he’d wanted to talk about for hours. “I would have helped you any way I could, if you’d just come to me.”

Her eyes flashed with anger and residual embarrassment. “I did come to you.”

“When?”

“Once I found out I was pregnant, I tracked you down. I came to your ranch and pleaded to see you. Your men wouldn’t even let me through the gate. They said you were
indisposed
and nothing I said would get you to talk to me.” Pain punctuated every word. “After that heartwarming welcome, I didn’t have to be told twice that you didn’t want me around.”

Logan looked at her in shock. “I never turned you away.”

“So what? I’m lying?” she shot back. “You think I would make up a story about going to your ritzy ranch in Carder, Texas?”

He glared at her. “
You
don’t exactly have a great track record for reliability and honesty, Kat. Point in fact—me meeting my kids for the first time today.”

She flinched, but then her jaw tightened. “I don’t lie. I hate liars. Do you want proof I went to you that day? You want me to describe the entrance to your ranch? The iron gates with the horseshoe? The horses and cattle? My walk from the bus station? Or maybe you want the original bus ticket I purchased as proof that I bought it. Sorry, I try not to hold on to unhappy memories, of which you were my biggest one
ever
, Logan Carmichael.” Her breath came fast and furious.

Dead silence fell over the car.

Fuming, hurt and confused as hell, Logan turned his full attention back to the road, struggling to make sense of it all. Her anger seemed too real, too visceral. Could she be telling the truth?

The miles passed and only the gentle breathing of the two sleeping children broke through the thick silence.

“You weren’t my most unhappy memory, Kat,” he said quietly. “Not at first.”

She brought her head up in surprise.

“We made love all night long, then
you
left
me
. Remember?”

God knows Logan did. He’d held her close and confided to her about his dreams, of making his ranch more than his mother ever believed possible before she’d vanished when he was thirteen. He’d laid open his heart to Kat. He’d spoken of the future and they’d drifted off to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

Once morning light hit, her sheets had gone cold.

“I searched for you,” he said. “I came to your house.”

“I know.” She twisted her fingers.

“What?”

“I saw you.” She paused. “I was coming home from the store. You were going up the stairs. I noticed your expensive car. The nice clothes and…I hid.”

“From me? Why? Why did you run in the first place?”

She fidgeted in her seat, toying with the seat belt, gazing anywhere but at him. “I was afraid. Everything had been so magical. I knew it couldn’t last. Then, when you talked about your ranch, I looked it up on the hotel computer. I saw your beautiful spread. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks with nothing. I knew I’d never fit into your world. I was afraid if I fell for you, and you realized that, I would be left behind, like my mother was. I knew you deserved more than I could offer someone like you. You proved me right when you turned me away.”

“What a crock.” He glared at her. “You know nothing about my life or how I grew up. My father was an alcoholic and nearly drove the ranch into the ground. He gambled away half the acreage that had been in my mother’s family for five generations. I begged, borrowed and stole to keep the place running. I thought I saw something special in you. I never would’ve rejected you.”