But she had no idea where she was or in which direction she’d run.
“Gah!” The baby’s sudden noise startled her.
She fell back from her crouch, landing on her butt on the cold ground.
“Shh,” she urged, terrified that whoever had followed them would hear.
What had the psycho woman done to Officer Stallworth? Had she shot him? Bailey hadn’t really taken it seriously when her mother had warned her that someone hadthreatened her. Who would want to hurt her besides her cruel ex-boyfriend?
“Bah!” The baby made another little noise that might as well have been a cannon shot for the way it carried through the quiet woods.
Bailey pressed her knuckle gently to Aiden’s lips, where he gummed it happily for a moment. Squeezing her eyes tight shut for a moment, she prayed for a clue of what to do. It wasn’t just her at risk here.
What if that crazy woman hurt Aiden? Her heart hurt at the thought. Who could hurt a helpless little baby?
Dawson’s words from the other night echoed in her ears...about how much it sucked to watch someone else be hurt and not be able to do anything about it. She couldn’t imagine that kind of pain—so different from being the target of someone’s abuse. Awful in a whole different way.
Her stomach curdled around the granola bar she’d eaten after school. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t throw up now; it would make too much noise.
Another good one to share with Meg. She’d write her next descriptive essay for AP English on why puking was too loud when a homicidal maniac was chasing you.
She looked down at Aiden in her arms. Were they better off running to put more distance between them and whoever chased them? Or was it safer to hide?
She decided to listen a while longer. See if she could catch her breath, get her bearings and come up with a plan. But already she had one small part of her plan set.
If she was lucky enough to get both her and Aiden out of here alive, she wasn’t going to be keeping her secret about J. D. Covington anymore. Dawson had said telling the truth would keep her safe. And never in her life had she wanted to feel safe more than she did right now.
She’d go to the sheriff and file a complaint. That might also help ensure J.D. didn’t hurt another girl down the road.
The fierceness of that new realization straightened her spine as she looked out over the forest. Maybe she really had channeled some of that damn archer queen after all.
GET TO ONE of her brothers’ houses?
Not happening.
Amy might not want to make her teenage encounter with a sexual predator public, but that didn’t mean she was going to cower in fear every time trouble lurked. She was already in her car on her way to the Hasting home. She’d listened to the police scanner long enough to find out Aiden and Bailey were missing from the home. While Amy had been gathering that bit of information, she’d double-checked the contents of her purse for her pepper spray and her baton.
She’d drop-kicked a post beam she’d installed in the kitchen, testing her fighting skills. It made her feel strong, though she doubted she’d be able to drop-kick anyone who dared to hurt Aiden Reyes. Although she might.
It amazed her how much stronger she felt when she focused on protecting a child she cared about as opposed to protecting herself. There was no comparison. She’d already lost her own baby. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Sam’s.
And if that sounded like a maternal thought...
It was. She acknowledged, even as she turned her beat-up old car into the Hasting driveway along with what must be every emergency vehicle in town, that she already loved his son as much as if the boy were her own. He’d capturedher heart the moment she’d seen him cradled in Sam’s strong arms.
She might not be ready to think about what that meant for her feelings for the sheriff himself. But with Aiden missing, her love for his child was a clear, shining, immutable thing, filling her with a sense of purpose.
She wasn’t sure what she could contribute at the scene, so she parked her car out of the way of the emergency vehicles. She just knew she couldn’t sit around and do nothing. A couple of uniformed officers were working at the front of the house, searching the bushes by the windows and examining the flower beds. Another officer sat in the back of the ambulance with a couple of EMTs working on him. She didn’t see Sam as she shut off the ignition.
Her aging vehicle backfired, making every head swivel her way. Two of the cops straightened, hands moving for their weapons, perhaps thinking a gun had discharged. Amy held very still, just in case, silently cursing her car.
“She’s cleared.” Sam’s voice boomed over the yard, and the man himself suddenly stood in the front doorway.
The rest of the first responders quickly went back to whatever they’d been doing. She raced toward Sam, her feet taking off before she even thought about what she was doing. She knew without question, no matter how stern and serious he looked looming over the site, that he felt the same strangling fear inside that she did. Maybe that was the only reason she was here. To hold on to him just long enough to share that panic for his child and somehow give it less power by facing it together.
“I told you to go somewhere safe.” He opened his arms to her and squeezed her hard. Fast.
No matter what else happened between them—no matter if he couldn’t forgive her for not testifying against aman who’d cost them both so much—she was glad she’d been in Heartache for this. To lend Sam her faith in him right now.
