Kidnapping in Kendall County Read online

  “Did you come here to kill me?”

  The beautiful blonde armed with a Beretta is someone FBI agent Austin Duran knows only too well. Rosalie McKinnon was engaged to his best friend, who died on a mission gone south. But the desperate mother isn’t there for revenge...she’s looking for her abducted infant daughter. And she just blew his cover.

  Rosalie’s future is again in the hands of the rogue Texan lawman who’s on an unofficial mission to find his own kidnapped nephew. With a relentless adversary in hot pursuit—and unwelcome desire igniting—Rosalie has to trust Austin. Her baby’s life depends on it…

  “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  His voice was gentle. Almost a whisper. And even though Rosalie figured that being in his arms was a very bad idea, she just didn’t have the strength to push him away.

  Austin made a soft shushing sound and eased her deeper into his arms. Until she was pressed against him. Even with the tears and her heart shattering, she felt his body. Heard the quick rhythm of his breath.

  Just as when she had spotted him at the table with his bedroom hair and eye-catching jeans, the trickle of heat went through her. A bad kind of heat that she didn’t want to feel for him. But felt, anyway.

  Rosalie pulled in her breath, taking in his scent with it, and suddenly everything that happened couldn’t compete with what she knew they were both feeling right at this moment.

  KIDNAPPING

  IN KENDALL

  COUNTY

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Delores Fossen

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and was a finalist for a prestigious RITA® Award. In addition, she’s had nearly a hundred short stories and articles published in national magazines. You can contact the author through her webpage at www.dfossen.net.

  Books by Delores Fossen

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  1091—SECURITY BLANKET#

  1110—BRANDED BY THE SHERIFF%

  1116—EXPECTING TROUBLE%

  1122—SECRET DELIVERY%

  1144—SHE’S POSITIVE

  1163—CHRISTMAS GUARDIAN#

  1186—SHOTGUN SHERIFF

  1205—THE BABY’S GUARDIAN^

  1211—DADDY DEVASTATING^

  1217—THE MOMMY MYSTERY^

  1242—SAVIOR IN THE SADDLE&&

  1248—WILD STALLION&&

  1252—THE TEXAS LAWMAN’S LAST STAND&&

  1269—GI COWBOY

  1314—GRAYSON##

  1319—DADE##

  1324—NATE##

  1360—KADE##

  1365—GAGE##

  1371—MASON##

  1389—CHRISTMAS RESCUE AT MUSTANG RIDGE

  1395—STANDOFF AT MUSTANG RIDGE

  1419—THE MARSHAL’S HOSTAGE%%

  1425—ONE NIGHT STANDOFF%%

  1431—OUTLAW LAWMAN%%

  1457—RENEGADE GUARDIAN%%

  1461—JUSTICE IS COMING%%

  1467—WANTED%%

  1485—JOSH##

  1491—SAWYER##

  1515—MAVERICK SHERIFF**

  1521—COWBOY BEHIND THE BADGE**

  1527—RUSTLING UP TROUBLE**

  1534—KIDNAPPING IN KENDALL COUNTY**

  #Texas Paternity

  %Texas Paternity: Boots and Booties

  ^Texas Maternity: Hostages

  &&Texas Maternity: Labor and Delivery

  ##The Lawmen of Silver Creek Ranch

  %%The Marshals of Maverick County

  **Sweetwater Ranch

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Rosalie McKinnon—A rancher’s daughter who’ll do anything to find her kidnapped baby, and that includes teaming up with a man who could cost her everything. Again.

  Austin Duran—An FBI agent who’s gone rogue to find his own missing nephew, but his search for the baby puts him on a collision course with Rosalie.

  Sadie McKinnon—Rosalie’s missing eleven-month-old daughter.

  Sonny Buckland—A PI who might know a lot more about the kidnappings than he’s admitting.

  Trevor Yancy—A shady businessman who’s already had a tragic run-in with Rosalie and Austin.

  Vickie Cravens—A nanny who might have been duped by the kidnappers.

  Seth Calder—Rosalie’s stepbrother. To protect Rosalie, he’s helping with the investigation.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Rosalie McKinnon tightened her grip on the Beretta that she’d stolen and stepped out of the house and onto the narrow back porch. She stayed in the shadows, away from the milky kitchen light that was stabbing through the darkness.

  There was only a thin lip of an overhang on the roof, so after just a few steps, the December rain spat at her. Not sleet exactly, but close enough. Rosalie didn’t know if she was shivering from the fear or the cold. It didn’t matter. Shivering wasn’t going to stop her.

  Nothing would.

  Tonight, she would get answers. Even if she had to shoot him.

  She made it down the slick, uneven limestone steps and into the sprawling backyard. She paused just a couple of seconds to make sure no one in the house had noticed that she’d left. With all the decongestants and antihistamines she had managed to slip into the guard’s coffee, maybe he’d be out long enough so he wouldn’t realize that she was missing.

  If not...

  Well, best not to go there.

  Even though she had stolen the guard’s gun after he’d passed out, there were other armed guards on the grounds. If they discovered her, she’d be dead within seconds. Especially if they figured out what she was doing. They were no doubt capable of killing.

  That also applied to the man she had to see.

  Maybe, just maybe, he’d be sleeping, too, so she could get the jump on him. It was the only chance she had of making this plan work.

  Hurrying now, Rosalie crossed the bare winter grass to a much smaller house at the back of the barn. Once, it’d probably been a guest cottage when the ranch was a real working operation. Now there was no livestock around, no hint of the life that’d once gone on here other than a tractor and hay baler that had been left to rust away. These days, the place was a glorified prison for the babies being processed for black market adoptions.

  Since it made her sick to her stomach to think of that, Rosalie pushed the thought aside and tested the doorknob on the cottage.

  Unlocked.

  A big mistake on his part.

  Rosalie opened the door and stepped inside. All dark and toasty warm. It smelled of too-strong coffee and the fast-food burgers that’d been brought in for their dinner.

  The only light in the room of the cottage came
from the kitchen in the main house, where she’d just been. It cut like slivers down the tiny front windows that were streaked with rain.

  It took a couple of moments for Rosalie’s eyes to adjust, and in the shadowy silhouettes, she saw a desk, a sofa and the small bed against the wall. There were two interior doors, both closed, and from what she’d learned from the guard’s idle chatter, one was a bathroom. The other, a bedroom that was being used as a storage closet.

  But it was the man on the bed who grabbed her full attention.

  He was on his side, facing away from her. No cover on him, and he appeared to be wearing the same jeans and shirt he’d had on when she had spotted him earlier in the yard.

  The guard had called him boss.

  She’d yet to see him up close, but Rosalie had gotten another glimpse of him from the upstairs window of the main house. His dark brown Stetson had covered most of his face, but she’d watched to see where he would go. And he hadn’t gone far—just to the cottage. All in all, it wasn’t the worst place to confront a monster because he was alone here, away from the guards who would protect him.

  Keeping the Beretta by her side, she walked closer, her heart thudding with each soft step. She had to remind herself to breathe. And to keep a clear head. Her instincts were to shoot, or run, but neither of those things would get her what she needed.

  Too bad she wasn’t a cop like her siblings. They would have no doubt handled this much better.

  But then they would have never gotten into this place.

  Not with their cops’ eyes and attitudes. Plus, they’d all been tied up with other leads and other investigations. Important ones. Her mother was about to stand trial for first-degree murder, and while finding the baby was critical, so was the trial since her mother was facing the death penalty.

  That’s why she’d come up with her own plan several months ago while she was staying at her family’s ranch. A plan that’d started with finding any info to get her inside this place or any other place that would possibly lead her to her daughter.

  Rosalie leaned over and jammed the gun to the back of the man’s head. “I want answers,” she managed to say even though her throat clamped shut. Her voice had hardly any sound.

  He moved, just a fraction. “Darlin’,” he drawled.

  Her shoulders snapped back, and it was that split second of shock that caused her breath and body to freeze.

  The man reached out, lightning-fast, snagged her by the right hand and stripped her of the Beretta. In the same motion, he pulled her down onto the bed with him and rolled on top of her, pinning her beneath him.

  That unfroze her.

  Her heart jolted, throbbing in her ears, and Rosalie started to fight back. She couldn’t just let this man kill her.

  “Play along,” he growled, his voice no longer a drawl but rather a whisper. “There’s a camera.”

  She’d already brought up her knee to ram any part of him that she could reach, but she stopped. Stared at him. Well, she stared at what she could see of him, anyway.

  “Rosalie,” he muttered.

  Mercy. How did he know her real name? She was using a fake ID with the name Mary Williams. If he was onto her, why hadn’t he already told the guards?

  “Who are you?” she tried to ask, but he put his hand over her mouth.

  “I figured you’d drop by,” he said. No longer a whisper, and the cocky drawl had returned. “I saw you eyeing me earlier from the window.”

  She had. She’d eyed him and committed everything she could see about him to memory from his sandy-brown hair to lanky build. He normally wore a shoulder holster, and judging from the bulge in the back of his coat, he had another gun tucked in the back waistband of his jeans.

  And the keys.

  Three of them.

  They jangled from a metal ring hooked to his belt loop.

  Rosalie believed one was for the truck she’d seen him driving, but one of the others was for the room inside the main house where she’d gotten a glimpse of computers and files. The room was always locked, and there was a camera mounted on the doorjamb, but she needed his keys to get a look at those files.

  She glanced around, to try to see if there was indeed a camera here, but the room was too dark.

  “Who are you?” she asked, shoving his hand from her mouth.

  He pulled back, stared down at her, though she still couldn’t clearly see his face. “You don’t know?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He mumbled some really bad profanity, and his grip tightened on her wrists. “Why the hell are you here, anyway?”

  He didn’t shout it, but she had no trouble hearing the anger in his voice. Or maybe not anger, but something.

  What was going on? She couldn’t see enough of his face to recognize him, and that raspy whispered voice wasn’t enough of a clue. He could be friend or foe, but clearly he fell into the latter category since he was the boss here.

  So, what was her next move?

  She hadn’t thought beyond getting answers and then trying to escape, but clearly she hadn’t expected this. Whatever this was.

  “Did you come here to kill me?” he demanded, still whispering.

  “If necessary.”

  Except a dead man couldn’t tell her what she needed to know. But she would have pulled the trigger if it’d come down to it. Unfortunately, she no longer had a gun as a bargaining tool. She had only shaky hands. Shaky body, too, and her heart just kept pounding.

  The moments crawled by. Him, still staring at her and obviously waiting for an explanation. The only sounds were the rain pinging against the window and their rough breaths.

  “Pretend,” he finally snapped.

  Rosalie didn’t get a chance to ask what the heck that meant before his mouth went to her neck. He nuzzled it, as if kissing her, but he was still mumbling profanity, and his jaw muscles were way too tight for this to be a real kissing session.

  So, what was this? Some kind of act for the person on the other end of the camera? If so, why was he trying to cover for her?

  “I’m not leaving without answers,” Rosalie whispered. “And I want these babies safely out of here and back where they belong.”

  “Pretend we’re having sex or you might not be leaving at all. You’ll be dead. And so will I.”

  That was the only warning she got before the pretense went into full swing. He kneed her legs apart, yanking off her green scrub pants. He didn’t touch her panties, thank goodness, and he threw the covers over them.

  He fumbled between them, pretending to unzip his jeans before the fake thrusting started.

  “If necessary?” he said, repeating her response to his question of Did you come here to kill me? “If you’re not here for revenge, then why did you come?”

  Revenge, yes, she wanted that. And justice. But more than those things, she just wanted answers.

  It was impossible to think with everything going on. The sex was fake, but it was still a man’s body shoving against her. And then there was the fear. Obviously, this man knew her. Knew she was as phony as the sex they were having. So, why hadn’t he shouted out for the guard?

  Why hadn’t he killed her?

  After all, he had her gun and his.

  “I’m looking for my baby,” she said. Her mouth trembled. And she felt her heart breaking all over again.

  He stopped moving, met her gaze. For a few seconds, anyway. Then, he let out a loud groan, the sound of a man who’d just reached a climax, and he collapsed against her.

  “You had a child,” he said. Not a question exactly but more like something a person would say when trying to piece things together.

  She nodded. Bad idea. It caused her mouth to brush against his neck, and because his sex was still aligned with hers, she felt a stirring.

  Yes, this was pr
etend, but his body was obviously having a hard time remembering that.

  “I gave birth to a baby girl nearly a year ago.” Eleven months. Six days. Heck, she knew the hours and minutes.

  “Nearly a year ago,” he repeated. “She was your fiancé’s baby?”

  Again, not a question that she’d expected. Rosalie nodded and tried to tamp down the massive lump in her throat. Her eyes burned with tears that she couldn’t cry. Tears wouldn’t help her baby now.

  “Sadie...that’s what I named my daughter. She was born eight and a half months after my fiancé was murdered.”

  The memories of that day came. Of his shooting. That horrible flood of images that just didn’t stop. So senseless. Her fiancé, Special Agent Eli Wells, had died because of a botched investigation, and Rosalie had wanted to die right along with him.

  And then she’d learned she was pregnant.

  The baby had saved her. Because she’d put all her love and emotions into surviving, into the pregnancy, so she could have the child of the man she’d loved.

  “Someone stole Sadie from the hospital just a few hours after she was born,” Rosalie added, “and I’ve been looking for her ever since.”

  His breath was thicker now, practically gusting. “She wouldn’t be here. They only bring newborns here, and they’ve only used this place for a couple of months.”

  Yes, she knew that from the guard’s ramblings before he’d actually dozed off from the meds that she had slipped him. “I thought there would be records on the computer in a locked room of the house.”

  “There are. But only for the babies being held at this location. You’re sure the black market ring took your daughter?”

  “No.” And it hurt to admit that. She wasn’t sure of anything, but she’d exhausted her leads and had gone with this different angle. “A criminal informant said there might be information here.”

  There was a lot more to it than that, but Rosalie didn’t want to rehash everything it’d taken to bring her to this point. All the lies, the payoffs and the bogus identity she’d had to create.

  “Why haven’t you killed me?” she came out and asked. “And how do you know who I am?”