Oh, God. She hadn’t even considered that. Those shots had been aimed at Judson and her, so Addie had assumed this was some sort of retaliation. But it could have been to eliminate them.
“We’re beefing up security around here,” he spelled out, obviously noticing the fresh round of fear in her eyes. “It’s too risky to bring in someone from a security company right now, since we can’t be sure our attacker won’t use that as a chance to sneak onto the grounds. But the ranch hands will continue to patrol, and we’ll keep all windows and doors locked.”
She shook her head. “Is that enough—”
“And I’m sleeping in the room with you and the twins tonight,” Judson interrupted.
“All right,” she said, noticing his tone and body language. The muscles in his jaw were having a battle with each other. “You don’t sound especially pleased.”
Judson opened his mouth, closed it. Then sighed and cursed. “I’m doing it. I want to stay here and protect all three of you.” He paused. “But I’ll admit that it won’t be easy.”
She knew what he meant. What he felt. Because she was feeling the same exact things. All this close contact was testing those barriers again. It was tearing the pact to shreds. But at the moment she was having a hard time remembering why that would be such a bad thing.
And that’s why she leaned in and kissed him.
She immediately felt the jolt. A sizzle of heat like electricity firing through her. It was always this way with Judson. So intense.
So hot.
But somehow it also managed to feel both wrong and right at the same time.Damn pact.They’d made that pact for good reasons, but those reasons and pretty much all logic went out the window whenever they kissed.
For now, Addie just settled on the part that felt right. The heat. The pleasure of his mouth and taste that set her on fire. Judging from the moan that came from deep within his throat, he was feeling the same thing.
He didn’t throttle back. Didn’t try to cut the kiss short. Just the opposite. The kiss became hotter, and he slid his hand to her waist. Definitely what her body wanted. His touch coupled with the kiss. And that’s what she got.
Judson kept his hand in place for a couple of heartbeats before he hooked his arm around her back and drew her to him. So close. With a lot of him touching a lot of her.
That amped up the heat even more, and Addie felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into that fire. She wanted to give into it. Give in to Judson. She wanted to drag him off to bed. But thankfully there was just a sliver of reasoning coming through in her foggy brain, and that reasoning started to tick off why sex couldn’t happen.
And it had nothing to do with the pact.
The house was full of cops, and there was an intense search going on. Even if they could be sure they’d have some uninterrupted time to sneak off to a bed, or the floor, it wouldn’t be right. They needed to be helping with the investigation so they could stop any further threats.
Judson must have remembered that, too, because he tore his mouth from hers and stepped back. What he didn’t do was curse or show any signs that the kiss had been a huge mistake.
Just the opposite.
Addie thought he might be on the verge of saying something about putting this on hold, but he didn’t get a chance to actually voice that. Or anything else, for that matter. Because his phone rang.
“It’s dispatch,” he relayed to her, and he put the call on speaker.
Addie appreciated that. She didn’t want to be kept in the dark about anything, but she tried to steel herself up since any contact from the dispatcher or his fellow cops could be another round of bad news.
“Judson, I’ve got someone on the line who wants to talk to you,” the dispatcher said.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“She won’t say, but she insists she had to talk to you. I can try to push her on giving me her name. Or I can have her contact Grace. You know we always get crackpot calls when there’s any kind of investigation going on.”
Judson made a sound of agreement, and his forehead bunched up while he no doubt considered what to do. “Put the call through,” he finally said.
It took only a couple of seconds for the dispatcher to do that, and before Judson could get out a greeting, the woman’s frantic voice poured through the room. “I tried to save those babies. I swear, I tried to save them.”
Addie’s chest went tight. But then she made herself remember that this could be a hoax.
“Who is this?” Judson demanded.
“Yvette Cates,” the woman blurted.
