Dade Read online

  He waited, trying to tamp down the bad feeling he had about all of this. But the bad feeling stayed right with him, settling hard and cold in his stomach.

  Dade cursed, shoved his truck keys in his pocket and headed back for the estate. He didn’t relish going a second round with the curvy Kayla, but he would for the sake of her son. Dade turned. Made it just one step.

  And that’s when the shot rang out.

  Chapter Two

  Kayla was halfway up the stairs, but the sound stopped her cold.

  A sharp, piercing blast.

  The sound tore through the house. And her.

  She froze for just a second, but Kenneth certainly didn’t. He drew his gun.

  “Get down!” Kenneth shouted. “Someone just fired a shot.”

  Kayla’s heart started to pound, and her breath began to race. She had no intentions of getting down. She had to get to her baby. She had to protect Robbie.

  There was another shot, followed by someone banging on the front door.

  “Let me in!” that someone shouted. It was Deputy Dade Ryland. He was cursing, and while he bashed his fist against the door, he continued to yell for them to let him inside before he got killed.

  Her first thought was that Dade was responsible for the shots, but that didn’t make sense. He’d come here to warn her of danger, and if he’d wanted to shoot at them, then he could have done it in the foyer at point-blank range. Still, that didn’t mean she trusted the deputy.

  “You need to get down,” Kenneth warned her again, and he headed to the door to disengage the security system and let in the deputy.

  Dade didn’t wait for the door to be fully open. The moment Kenneth cracked it, he dived through nearly knocking down her bodyguard in the process. The deputy had his gun drawn and ready, and he reached over to slap off the lights. In the same motion, he kicked the door shut.

  “Lock it and reset the security system,” Dade ordered Kenneth. He took out his phone from his jeans pocket and called for backup.

  Even though he’d turned off the lights in the foyer, Kayla had no trouble seeing Dade because the lamp in the adjacent living room was blazing. Dade’s eyes were blazing, too, and he turned that hot glare on her.

  “I heard your bodyguard tell you to get down. What part of that didn’t you understand?” Dade barked.

  “I have to get to my son,” she barked right back, and Kayla continued up the stairs. Or rather that’s what she tried to do, but the third shot wasn’t just a loud blast. It ripped through the window in the living room, spewing glass everywhere. And worse, the bullet tore into the stair railing just a few yards below her.

  She froze. Oh, mercy. Someone wasn’t just shooting. The person was actually trying to kill her.

  “Now will you get down?” Dade demanded.

  Without warning, Dade aimed his gun into the living room and fired, the blast echoing through the foyer. He shot out the lamp, plunging them into darkness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

  Even over the blast still roaring in her ears, Kayla heard a sound that robbed her of what little breath she had left. Robbie started to cry. He wasn’t alone. The nanny, Connie Mullins, was with him, but Kayla didn’t want to count on the petite sixty-year-old woman when it came to a situation like this.

  A situation that had turned deadly.

  Kayla refused to think of the possibility this could end with her death. And that wouldn’t even be a worst-case scenario. Worst case would be for Robbie to get hurt.

  Dade pointed to the living room where he’d just shot out the light. “Can you see the SOB shooting at your boss?” he asked Kenneth.

  Her bodyguard shook his head, and both men glanced up at her as she started to crawl toward the nursery.

  Dade cursed. “Cover me,” he said to Kenneth. The order barely made it out of his mouth when he came barreling up the stairs, his cowboy boots hitting against the hardwood steps.

  But that wasn’t the only sound.

  More shots came. One right behind the other. Each of them ripped through the expensive carved-wood railing and sent splinters flying in every direction. That didn’t stop Dade. He made it to her, crawling over her to shove her as low as she could get.

  “Robbie,” she managed to say.

  Dade’s gaze slashed to hers. “If you go to him, the bullets will follow you.”

  That was the only possible thing he could have said to make her stop.

  Kayla froze, and the full impact of that warning slammed into her as hard as the bullets battering the foyer. Oh, no. She’d put her son in danger. This was the very thing she’d tried to avoid, the very reason she’d come out of hiding, and she had only made it worse.

  Again.

  The anger collided with the fear, and she wanted to hit her fists against the stairs. She wanted to scream out for the shooter to stop. But more than those things, she just wanted to protect her baby.

  “Is your son with a nanny?” Dade asked.

  Kayla managed a nod. She’d asked Connie to wait in the nursery when she heard Dade ring the doorbell. “In there,” she said, pointing to the first door off the left hall.

  “Are they near a bathroom with a tub?” he also wanted to know.

  Another nod. “There’s one adjoining the nursery.” And Kayla hated that she hadn’t thought of that herself. “Connie?” she shouted.

  “What’s going on, Kayla?” the woman shouted back.

  “I’m not sure,” Kayla lied. “Just take Robbie into the bathroom and get in the tub.” The porcelain tub would be their shield against the bullets.

  Robbie was still crying, and the sound of her son’s wails let her know that Connie was on the move. Robbie’s voice became more and more faint until Kayla couldn’t hear him at all.

  That didn’t help her nerves.

  Hearing him had at least allowed her to know that he was all right. Still, she didn’t want him out in the open in the nursery in case this attack continued.

  As if to prove to her that it would, more bullets ripped through the foyer.

  “How long before backup arrives?” Kenneth shouted.

  “Too long,” Dade answered. “At least fifteen minutes. This place isn’t exactly in city limits.”

  Kenneth cursed and took cover behind a table. Kayla silently cursed as well. In fifteen minutes they could all be dead.

  “I have to move you,” Dade informed her. Other than a glance that had an I-told-you-this-could-happen snarl to it, his attention volleyed between the living room and the front door.

  Kayla shook her head. “But you said I can’t go near Robbie.”

  “You can’t. But it’s only a matter of time before the shooter changes positions.” He tipped his head toward the front. “There are a lot of windows, and he’ll have a clean shot once he moves.”

  Not if he moves but once.

  “I’ll roll to the side, just a little,” Dade instructed. “And without standing up, I want you to get to the top of the stairs. Duck behind the first thing you see that can provide some cover.”

  Kayla managed to nod, and the moment that Dade lifted his weight off her, she did as he’d ordered. She covered her head with her hands and scrambled up the stairs as fast as she could.

  The shots didn’t stop, and one plowed into the wall above her just as Kayla dived to the side of a table. She’d barely managed that when Dade came barreling toward her. He hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her away from the table, away from the wall.

  But also away from the nursery.

  He hauled her toward the right, the opposite side from where Robbie and the nanny were, and Kayla was thankful that Dade had given her son that extra cushion of security. However, there was no cushion for Dade and her. They were off the stairs, yes, but the bullets continued to come at them. Dade flattened her on the floor and crawled back over her.

  Kayla was well aware of his body pressed hard against hers. His breathing, too, because it was gusting in her ear. But she also felt his
corded muscles and the determination to keep her alive.

  That didn’t mean, however, he’d succeed.

  And that both frightened and infuriated her.

  Just like that, the shots stopped. Kayla held her breath, waiting and praying that this was over, but it was Dade’s profanity that let her know it wasn’t.

  She glanced back at him, and her gaze collided with those steel grays. He barely looked at her, but in that glimpse he managed to convey his concern and his disgust.

  He hated her.

  All the Rylands hated her. And Kayla couldn’t blame them. Guilt by association. Her father-in-law had probably caused Ellie Ryland’s death. And so far, he’d gotten off scot-free, thanks to a team of good lawyers and a technicality in some of the paperwork that had been used in his original arrest.

  “What?” Dade snarled.

  It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her, and she knew why. She was staring at him.

  “Nothing,” Kayla mumbled. And she forced her attention away from the one man who should disgust her as much as the shooter outside. But much to her dismay, what she felt wasn’t total disgust.

  Yet more proof that she was stupid.

  She had noticed Dade Ryland’s storm-black hair. It was a little too long, and his five o’clock stubble was a little too dark for her to think of him as handsome. No. It was worse than that. He wasn’t handsome.

  He was hot in that bad-boy, outlaw sort of way.

  Well, she’d already been burned by one bad boy, and she wasn’t looking for another. Not now. Not ever again.

  Dade gave her another glance, and she could have sworn he smirked, as if he could read her mind.

  “You see the shooter yet?” Dade called down to the bodyguard.

  “No.”

  “The shooter’s probably moving,” Dade growled. He levered himself up just slightly and re-aimed his gun toward the front of the house.

  Kayla could do nothing other than hope this would end with her baby unharmed. She’d been a fool to come back, a fool to respond to Charles’s latest threat.

  But what else could she have done?

  She had to get out from beneath the hold Charles had on her. She had to try to make a safe, normal life for her son. But instead, she’d gotten this.

  “Someone told Charles I was here,” she mumbled. “Probably the D.A. or a Ryland.” She hadn’t meant to say Dade’s family name so loudly, but by God it was hard to tamp down the anger while bracing for another attack.

  “No one in my family is responsible for this,” Dade informed her. “Lady, you got into this mess all by yourself.”

  She wanted to argue, but the sound stopped her. In the distance she heard sirens. No doubt the backup that Dade had called. Even though she didn’t like the idea of the place crawling with any more Rylands, it was better than the alternative.

  She hoped.

  Beneath them in the foyer, Kayla heard her bodyguard moving around. Maybe so he could try to spot the shooter. Dade moved, too. He used his forearm to push her face back to the carpet, and he maneuvered himself off her. This time not just an inch or two. He reared up and took aim at the front windows.

  He fired.

  The blast roared through her ears, and she had no time to recover before there was another shot. Not from Dade. This one came tearing through the foyer but from a different angle than before. This bullet took out one of the front windows and sent glass flying through the air.

  Dade had been right. The shooter had moved. And now Dade and she were in his direct line of fire.

  For a few moments at the beginning of the attack, Kayla had hoped the shots were meant as a warning. A way to get her to grab Robbie and go back into hiding. But this was no warning.

  This was an assassination attempt.

  Dade sent another shot the gunman’s way, and she put her hands over her ears to shut out the painful noise. However, she could still hear them. And the siren. It grew closer and closer as the gunman’s shots came faster and faster. He wasn’t panicking, and he definitely wasn’t running. He was trying to kill her before the sheriff arrived.

  “Stay down,” Dade warned her. He shifted his gun toward one of the other front windows and fired.

  This time, Kayla heard another sound. A groan of some kind, following by a heavy thud. Had Dade managed to shoot the gunman? Maybe.

  Kayla looked up and followed the direction of Dade’s aim. There. Through the jagged shards of glass jutting from the window frame, she saw something.

  A man.

  He was dressed head to toe in black, and it was only because of the porch light that she could see his silhouette. She could also see his gun, and he took aim at Dade and her.

  Kayla yelled for Dade to get down, and she latched onto him to pull him back to the floor. But he threw off her grip and fired at the shadowy figure.

  The man fired a shot as well and then clutched his shoulder. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought this time maybe Dade had managed to shoot him.

  Dade must have thought that too because he headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time while he kept his gun trained on the person on the porch. Kayla could only watch with her breath held and her heart pounding so hard that it might come out of her chest.

  The man on the porch fired.

  She yelled to warn Dade, but her warning was drowned out by another shot and the sounds of the approaching sirens. She heard Dade curse as if in pain, but what he didn’t do was get down. He raced toward the door, threw it open and fired again.

  But so did the gunman.

  Oh, God.

  She realized then that if this assassin managed to kill Dade that he would come after Robbie and her next. Of course, Kenneth was down there, somewhere, but if the gunman got past the bodyguard, then Kayla would have no way to defend her baby and herself.

  Kayla cursed herself for not bringing some kind of weapon with her. But she wouldn’t need a weapon if this goon tried to get to her baby. No. Pure raw adrenaline and the need to protect her child would give her the strength to fight whoever came through that door.

  She stood, preparing herself for whatever she had to do, but instead she saw the blue swirls of the lights from a police cruiser. Red lights, too, maybe from an ambulance. The vehicles tore across the lawn and screamed to a halt. There were no more shots, just the noise of the men who scrambled from those vehicles.

  Kayla waited, the seconds clicking off like gunshots in her head, and when the waiting became unbearable, she began to make her way down the stairs. The foyer was still dark, and the only illumination came from the jolts of red and blue lights from the responding vehicles.

  “Kenneth?” she called out, her voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He didn’t answer. “Deputy Ryland?” she tried.

  No answer from Dade either.

  Kayla inched down the steps, praying this ordeal was indeed over but also bracing herself for whatever she might see.

  She didn’t brace herself enough.

  There was blood on the floor of the foyer. In the darkness it looked like a pool of liquid black, but she instinctively knew what it was.

  And there, slumped in the doorway was Dade Ryland.

  Chapter Three

  Dade looked down at his left arm and cursed. This was not a good time to get shot.

  Hell.

  Using the doorjamb for support, he got to his feet and tried not to look as if his arm was on fire. He figured he’d failed big-time when he saw Kayla. Her eyes were wide, her face way too pale.

  “You’ve been shot,” she said, the words rushing out.

  Was that concern he saw and heard? He had to be wrong about that. No, this was probably just a reaction to the blood. And there was no doubt about it, there was blood.

  “Check on your bodyguard,” Dade barked, and he pulled back his shoulders so he could face the responders who were coming right at him.

  First, there was his brother, Sheriff Grayson Ryland. Tall and lanky like most of his
five siblings, Grayson might not have been the biggest of the half-dozen people who came out of the cruisers and ambulance, but he was automatically the center of attention and the one in charge. Grayson commanded respect just by stepping onto the scene.

  Another brother, Mason, stepped out from a vehicle, too—a weathered Ford truck that had been red once, maybe twenty years ago. Mason, like Dade, was also a deputy sheriff but worked only part-time because he also ran the family ranch.

  Dressed in his usual black jeans, black shirt and equally black Stetson, Mason made his way toward the estate. Not with Grayson’s speed, authority or concern. Mason always looked as if he were stalking something. Or headed to a funeral.

  “You’re hurt,” Grayson said, and he used his head to motion to the medics so they’d hurry to Dade. Grayson also kept his gun trained on the man sprawled out on the porch.

  The dead man.

  Dade had managed to take the guy out, but not before the SOB had fired a shot into Dade’s arm. Talk about a rookie mistake, and he hadn’t been a rookie in fourteen years, not since he’d joined the Silver Creek sheriff’s department on his twenty-first birthday. Considering that being a cop was his one-and-only desire in life, he always seemed to be screwing it up.

  Like now, for instance.

  The gunman who could have given them answers was as dead as a doornail. Added to that, Dade had nearly let Kayla Brennan be gunned down, her bodyguard had been shot, or worse, and the jagged slice on his arm from the bullet graze was hurting like hell.

  Grayson stooped down and put his fingers to the gunman’s neck. “He’s dead.”

  Yeah. No surprise there. “You need to check on Kayla’s bodyguard,” Dade let his brother know. He would do it himself, but he wanted a chance to catch his breath and get ahead of the pain.

  “Kayla?” Grayson questioned, standing upright. He aimed a questioning glare at Dade, and Dade knew why. Kayla was way too personal to call someone who might be responsible for a family member’s death.