The Mommy Mystery (14 page)

Gabrielle waited, her attention divided between a very alert Lucas and Houston, who had his cell pressed to his ear while he paced across the floor of her suite.

Houston volleyed glances between Lucas and her, and while he seemed on the verge of a smile whenever his attention landed on Lucas, his face was tight with anger and concern.

Dale was the reason for this latest round of that concern.

Even though Gabrielle hadn’t immediately recognized the man’s clothes on the surveillance footage they’d been watching, Houston certainly had, and he’d been trying to speak to Dale for the past six hours. He’d left plenty of messages but hadn’t managed to talk to the man.

“No luck,” Houston mumbled, shutting his phone. “I keep getting a recording that says he’s out of the service area.”

Which could mean nothing. There were plenty of dead zones in the countryside and even around the ranch. Besides, the person on the surveillance footage could be someone who wanted to make them think it was Dale.
Mack, maybe. Or it could have even been Salvador or some unknown accomplice there to help Cordell.

The one person she knew it wasn’t was Jay. At the time of the footage, he’d been lying in the foyer at the house. Probably with a fake wound and the hope that he could milk Houston or Mack for some money.

Houston put away his phone and came back to the bed where she was lying with Lucas. Gabrielle was on her side, facing the baby. Houston climbed onto the bed next to Lucas.

“I’ve never seen him this alert,” Houston commented, and he caught on to the baby’s tiny toes as Lucas kicked.

“It won’t last,” Gabrielle said. “He usually falls asleep within a half hour after nursing.” And since it’d already been fifteen minutes since he’d finished his dinner, he wouldn’t stay awake much longer.

Lucas pursed his mouth, but then flinched when he made a loud cooing sound. Both Gabrielle and Houston laughed.

Gabrielle risked looking at Houston, figuring there would be more awkwardness between them, but it wasn’t there. They were just two people marveling at the miracle of a newborn.

“Have you thought about getting married?” Houston asked.

She nearly choked on her own breath. “W-hat?”

“Married,” he said, as if that clarified everything. He calmly continued to run his fingers across Lucas’s toes.

Gabrielle opened her mouth, then closed it while
she rethought how she should respond to that. “Is that a proposal?” she finally settled for asking.

Houston shrugged, then nodded. “What if it was?”

She sat up. “Well, it wasn’t much of one,” she told him.

Houston frowned and seemed genuinely hurt. “I wasn’t sure I should even ask.”

“Then you shouldn’t have.” She couldn’t help it. That riled her. “Houston, I’m not looking for a husband. Especially not one who feels obligated to marry me for the sake of my son. Lucas and I can get along just fine without my having a wedding ring on my finger.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.” His gaze came back to hers. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just know that we have to work out something, and after what happened in my office, I thought marriage might be a reasonable solution.”

“‘A reasonable solution,’” Gabrielle repeated. She gave him a flat look. “When and if I marry, there will be only one reason—because I’m in love with a man and he’s in love with me.” She paused. Waited.

Houston didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought,” she concluded, sounding snippier than she meant to. “You’re not in love with me.”

“I didn’t say that,” he snapped back.

He looked ready to launch into an argument, and Gabrielle was too tired for that, so she decided to nip it in the bud. “If and when you fall in love with me, and when and if I fall in love with you, then we’ll discuss marriage.”

But she didn’t intend to settle for anything less than
love. If she’d learned anything over the past few days, it was that life was too short, and that she deserved more than just a “reasonable solution.”

Now, the question was, was she ready to surrender her heart to Houston?

Thankfully, she didn’t have to answer that, because his phone buzzed again. He took it from his pocket and pulled in his breath. “It’s Dale.”

He moved off the bed but put the call on speaker.

“I was over at my dad’s place,” Dale said. “No phone service out there, but I just listened to your messages.”

“And?” Houston prompted, when Dale didn’t continue.

“And you were right. I was there at the fence.”

Houston groaned and mumbled some profanity. The tension in the room was suddenly thick and dark, in contrast to the soft sounds that Lucas was making.

“Why?” Houston demanded.

“Well, it wasn’t to help Cordell, that’s for sure. But I’m guessing that’s what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think. That’s why I want to know why you were there.”

“When I left the ranch, I saw a car parked near one of the trails by the fence. I got out and had a look. That’s when I spotted Zeke Dawkins, the ranch hand. And I also saw Cordell. He pulled a gun from the back of his pants and he fired into the air.”

“Into the air?” Houston questioned.

“Yeah. He definitely wasn’t aiming at anyone. But I didn’t have a gun with me so I ran back to my truck to get the one I keep in the glove compartment. By the time
I got back, Cordell was gone, and Zeke was hightailing it back toward the ranch. I went after Cordell.”

Houston met her gaze as if trying to judge her reaction, but Gabrielle had no idea what to make of Dale’s story. It could be true. Maybe the ranch hand hadn’t seen him, and that’s why he hadn’t said anything.

Still, she wasn’t ready to trust Dale just yet.

“I don’t suppose you found Cordell?” Houston asked.

“No. I lost him. I went looking for him up the trail. And I guess he doubled back, because a couple of minutes later I heard him drive away.”

“Any reason you didn’t call me and tell me about this?”

“I called one of the deputies. I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me just yet.”

Convenient that he’d phoned the deputy, and he almost certainly did, since that was something Houston would confirm. But again, it didn’t mean Dale was telling the truth.

“Houston, I’m on your side,” Dale told him.

Houston scrubbed his fingers hard over his forehead. “I want to believe that. I really do.”

“Well, until you do, I’ll stay away from the ranch.”

Dale hung up, leaving Gabrielle with a bad feeling. If he was truly innocent, then Houston and she had some fences to mend with the man. However, it wasn’t the time for that. There were too many unanswered questions.

Despite everything that was going on, Gabrielle yawned. She couldn’t help it. She was exhausted, and the large dinner she’d eaten an hour earlier had only zapped more of her energy.

Houston obviously didn’t miss the yawn, because he leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll give Lucas a tour of the house?”

It was both tempting and a little alarming. Yes, she needed sleep, but part of her still wanted to hold on to Lucas, to make sure he would always be hers. A tour of the house wasn’t likely to change that, but with every passing moment, Houston and Lucas were getting closer.

“It’s just a tour,” Houston assured her, as if reading her mind. He gently picked up Lucas and snuggled him into the crook of his arm. “Sleep,” he insisted.

She had another thirty-second debate with herself and finally surrendered to the fatigue. Gabrielle kicked off her shoes and pulled the comforter over her.

“Don’t be long,” she told him.

Houston smiled, kissed Lucas and headed out the door.

Gabrielle was actually thankful for the bone-weary exhaustion, because with everything happening, she would have been a basket case if she could have mustered enough emotion for a real reaction. As it was, she couldn’t even fight sleep for a solid minute. She felt her eyelids immediately drift closed.

They didn’t stay closed.

The sound hummed through the estate and brought her off the bed. It wasn’t a bullet or anything human. Just the mechanical hum of some kind of alarm. Her first thought was that it was a smoke detector. Her next thought was if there was a fire, she needed to get to Lucas.

Gabrielle hurried to the suite door, but Houston opened it before she could get to it.

“Is there a fire?” she immediately asked.

Houston shook his head and handed her the baby. “That’s the security alarm. It means we might have an intruder.”

H
OUSTON DIDN’T EVEN
try to reassure Gabrielle that everything was okay, or that maybe one of the employees or ranch hands could have tripped the alarm. He could tell from the look on her face that she knew the security alarm could mean the person who’d tried to kill them had just broken in.

Once Gabrielle had the baby out of his arms, Houston moved them back into the suite. “Who’s there?” he called out, hoping it would be Greta who answered.

But Greta had probably already left after she’d prepared the dinner trays for them. Despite the size of the ranch, there normally was no full-time inside help. No one except for Dale.

But his foreman shouldn’t be anywhere on the grounds, and especially not in the house, after Houston had put him on paid leave.

“Anyone there?” Houston tried again. No one answered.

Worse, the security system alarm probably wasn’t loud enough for any of the ranch hands to hear it from their quarters on the other side of the barn. When the system had been set up, Houston hadn’t considered that he might need outside help. He’d figured the alarm would alert his father, the security company, Dale and him to a possible burglary or fire. But alerting the occupants of the house
was no longer enough. With Lucas and Gabrielle around, he needed more.

That meant he had to call someone for backup. Houston shut the door and reached for his phone. The screen lit up, but he saw the two words that sent his heart to his knees.

No Service.

That shouldn’t happen in the house itself.

“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle moved Lucas to her shoulder while she tried to soothe him.

“I’m not sure, but I think someone’s jamming the phone.” He hurried to the house phone in Gabrielle’s sitting room and got the same result. The phone line was dead.

Since there weren’t any storms in the area, and since they had electrical power, his theory about the jamming was probably right. And that meant they could be in big trouble.

He cursed himself for not doing more to protect his son. He shouldn’t have waited for something like this to happen. But then, he’d never been in this kind of situation before.

There was a frantic knock at the door, and a moment later Lily Rose rushed in. “What’s happening?”

“Someone might have broken in,” Gabrielle answered.

Houston stopped and listened, hoping he’d hear a friendly voice or at least a familiar one. He didn’t. And he couldn’t take the chance that they’d be safe just waiting around to see what this alarm tripper would do next.

“I have to get a gun,” he told them. He hated to leave
them alone for even a second, but he needed a way to defend them. There were several weapons in the house, and the nearest one was in his bedroom.

Houston looked out into the hall and didn’t see anyone. But then, most of the lights were off. He also didn’t hear any footsteps or sounds to indicate a person might be running up the stairs toward them. Still, he couldn’t take the chance that it might happen.

“Come with me,” he ordered.

He stepped out, had a closer look around and got them moving toward his bedroom. He moved them inside, shut the door and locked it.

“Try the phone again,” he told Lily Rose. “Try to dial nine one one.”

While the nanny did that, Houston went to the nightstand to take out his gun. He didn’t have any spare ammunition, only what was loaded in the gun. That might not be enough. He hated to think of getting into a gun battle with Lucas and Gabrielle in the house, but he might not have a choice.

“The phone isn’t working,” Lily Rose said.

Houston mentally cursed.

“What should we do?” Gabrielle whispered. She had Lucas against her chest and shoulder and was patting his back.

“First, I need to find out who’s in the house. And then, I have to get another gun and more ammunition. That means I have to go down the hall to my office.”

Her eyes widened, and she drew in her breath. But then she nodded. “What about Lucas?”

Houston was on the same page with her. Their son had to come first. He glanced around, trying to come up with
a plan. On the top of his list, he had to get Lucas into a safer area. There were too many windows in his room, and even though there might be an intruder inside, that didn’t mean someone wasn’t outside, as well.

Someone armed and ready to fire.

“Take Lucas to the bathroom and lock the door,” he told Lily Rose. Houston waited until the nanny had done that before he motioned to the laptop on a corner desk. “Boot it up and click onto the security icon. You might be able to see if anyone is inside because there are some security cameras in the foyer and the sunrooms.”

Though it was a long shot that an intruder would be in one of those three places. The house had twenty-seven rooms, and that meant there was plenty of space to hide and not be in camera range.

Houston pressed the gun into her hand.

Gabrielle frantically shook her head. “You’ll need this if you’re going out into the hall to get to your office.”

Houston couldn’t dispute that. He might need it. But Gabrielle might need it more as a last line of defense. “I want you to lock the door, and if anyone other than me tries to get it, you might have to shoot. Understand?”

She glanced at the gun and then at him. “I understand.”

Good. Because he didn’t have time to try to calm her fears. He needed to get the items from his office and then return so he could protect them.

Houston did take the extra second or two to brush a kiss on her mouth, and he hurried to the door. He peered out, bracing himself in case there was an attack, but he saw no one. There were still no sounds, either, and that made him hope that this was all some kind
of malfunction with both the phones and the security system.