Addie tried not to dwell on thatvery dangerouspart and instead pinned her focus and attention on the road. Judging by the GPS, they’d be taking a lot of turns to get to the cabin.
Livvy slowed to take one of those turns, but then she slammed on the brakes. Clearly, she’d spotted the same thing Addie had: a red truck pulled just off the side of the road. There was a woman standing outside the vehicle, and she was waving to get their attention.
Addie’s first thought was that the woman had broken down and needed help, but she looked more frantic than just a breakdown would warrant. Then again, she might have been out here for a while, and she might have seen the black car if it’d passed this way.
“Is that Yvette?” Livvy asked.
“No,” Judson was quick to say. “Yvette’s only forty-eight, and according to her latest DMV photo, she still has brown hair.”
This person had to be in her late sixties, and her hair was pure gray. The moment Livvy stopped, the stranger hurried to the cruiser.
“She sped off before I could stop her,” the woman said, her words rushing out with her racing breath.
“Who sped off?” Livvy asked. “And who are you? What’s your name?”
“Nan Fredrick. My farm is just up the road a piece.” She motioned behind her. “And as for the woman in the black car, I don’t know who she was. Never saw her before in my life. I’d stopped to gather up some dried twigs to make a wreath, and she pulled up beside me. I was about to ask if something was wrong, but she got out and picked up two babies from her back seat.”
Oh, mercy. The twins. They’d been here, right here.
“She shoved them into my arms and sped off,” Nan went on. “I was about to call 911, but then I saw the cruiser and flagged you down.”
Addie’s breath had vanished, and she was glad Judson was able to voice what she wanted to know. “Where are the babies now?”
She pointed to the truck. “I laid them on the seat so I could use my phone. They were squirming, and I was afraid I’d drop them. I put my purse on the edge of the seat so they wouldn’t fall off.”
Before Nan had even finished her explanation, Addie heard a welcome sound. Actually, two sounds—fussing babies.
Addie bolted from the cruiser, sprinting toward the truck and throwing open the door the moment she reached it.
And there they were.
Lily and Rose were cuddled together in a pink blanket.
CHAPTER THREE
Judson watched from the doorway of the den as Addie and Etta Jean each eased a sleeping baby into the pair of bassinets that had been set up in the room.
The change of location had been a necessity since the nursery itself was still being processed by the CSIs. Every inch of it would have to be checked for fibers or trace evidence to confirm that Yvette had indeed been in that room and had been the one who’d taken the babies.
Even after Addie and Etta Jean had the babies settled in, neither woman was eager to move away from the twins, and he figured it’d be a long time before Addie would want to let them out of her sight.
Especially since Yvette was still at large.
That’s why some serious precautions had been taken, including posting a deputy with Nan Fredrick in case Yvette returned to try to get the twins from her. That probably wouldn’t happen, since Yvette would likely assume that Nan had called the cops. Still, Yvette might be desperate enough to take the risk and return to the spot where she’d handed off Lily and Rose to the woman.
Another precaution was Judson had already decided that he’d be spending the rest of the day and the night at the Horseshoe Ranch. Because he, too, intended to keep an eye on Lily and Rose. Also on Addie and Etta Jean. It was just toorisky to leave them alone, and despite Addie’s now fairly calm demeanor, she was no doubt still going through an emotional upheaval.
Still, they’d gotten damn lucky. The twins had not only been found, but they’d also both gotten two thumbs-up from the pediatrician who’d examined them and said there wasn’t a scratch or a mark on them. Getting that exam, and the clean bills of health, had required a trip to the hospital before Addie and he had finally been able to bring the girls back to the foster home shortly after noon.
As Judson had expected, Addie and Etta Jean continued to stay by the bassinets even though the babies were now sleeping after being fed, changed, burped and rocked to sleep. The last part of that hadn’t taken long, since the girls had drifted right off despite having their routines, and their safety, shot to hell and back.
Judson had to tamp down his fury over what Yvette had done to them. Yes, the babies were safe and they hadn’t been harmed, but any number of bad things could have happened, and Judson intended to make Yvette pay for what she had put them all through.
After several more minutes, Addie finally turned away from the bassinet, automatically reaching for the baby monitor that had been moved into the den along with other baby supplies. Then she shifted to look at Judson, their gazes connecting and holding.
Normally, when Addie and he had that kind of eye contact, he could see the heat there. The old chemistry between them. It’d been around for a long time, since they were teenagers, and more than once they’d given in to that lust and had kissed.
Later on, those kisses had escalated, and they’d landed in bed a couple of times, but afterward, something had always pulled them apart. First, it’d been his stint in the military, and whenhe’d come home to sign on as a Renegade Canyon deputy, it’d been her brief engagement to another guy. After that particular relationship ended, the pulling apart had been instigated by them having to deal with Mellie’s murder.
