However, Caitlyn could still feel the tug of attraction. The one she’d had for Drury the first time she’d laid eyes on him. That attraction was all one-sided now, on her part. Drury’s glare proved it.
“Please just help me by letting me leave right now,” she begged.
It seemed to take him a couple of seconds to get his jaw unclenched so he could speak, and he didn’t look at her when he did it. He volleyed his attention between the baby and the window. Drury was no doubt looking to see if the thug had indeed sent someone else to come after her.
Good.
Because Caitlyn was looking, too.
“How’d you get the baby?” Drury asked.
She huffed. There wasn’t time for all this talk, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to let her leave until he had some answers. Maybe not even then. That meant she had to get away at the first chance she got.
“I took her from that man,” Caitlyn said, blinking back the tears that were burning her eyes. Her voice, like the rest of her, was trembling. “I really don’t know who he is, and I didn’t see his face. He was wearing a ski mask.”
“Keep talking,” Drury insisted when she paused again.
“I was meeting him to deliver another payment, but this time I brought a stun gun with me.”
Mercy. It was hard to relive this. The memories were still so fresh and raw. The fear, too.
“When I handed him the money,” she went on, “I reached for the baby. He smashed me on the head with his weapon, but I was able to hit him with the stun gun. He fell to the ground. I grabbed the baby and got away.”
No groan this time. Drury cursed again instead. “You could have been killed.”
“I could have lost her,” Caitlyn pointed out just as quickly. “Even if she’s not my daughter, she belongs to someone, and I had to get her away from that monster.”
Drury didn’t seem swayed in the least by that. “You should have involved the cops.”
“I couldn’t because the man said he’d know if I brought anyone with me.” In addition to the tears and trembling, Caitlyn had to fight the sudden tightness in her chest. “He said he would hurt the baby if I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t risk it.”
She must have looked ready to fly into a million little pieces because Drury huffed. Then did something surprising. He touched her arm. It barely qualified as a pat, but she’d take it.
Too bad he didn’t offer her a hug, or she would have taken that, too.
The touch didn’t last long. Drury looked at her, his gaze lingering for a moment before it also slipped away.
“During any of your conversations, did this clown say if he was working for someone or how he got the baby in the first place?” Drury asked.
“No. But I’m not sure he’s connected to anyone at Conceptions Clinic.” She hesitated about adding the next part. Not because it wasn’t true.
It was.
But it wasn’t going to shorten this conversation.
“I think the man might be working for Helen Denson.”
There, she’d said it aloud. Her worst fear. Or rather, one of them. She had plenty of others at the moment, but at the top of that list was that her dead husband’s rich, manipulative mother could be the one who’d orchestrated this nightmare.
Caitlyn could almost see the wheels turning in Drury’s head, and he was likely trying to work out why she’d just accused her former mother-in-law of such a heinous crime.
“Helen hates me,” Caitlyn explained. “And she was furious when she found out Grant left his entire estate to me. I think she would do anything, including something like this, to get back the money.”
Of course, that could mean the baby wasn’t hers. After all, Helen could have used any baby to carry out a scheme like that.
“Why would Helen be upset about you inheriting what belonged to your husband?” he asked.
This was another long explanation, one she didn’t have time or energy to give him. Caitlyn went with the short version. “Grant and I were separated when he was killed in that car accident. I was already in the process of getting a divorce.”
He pulled back his shoulders just slightly. Surprised by that. Later, if there was a later, she would tell him more. For now, though, she had to remind him of the urgency of her situation.
“That man who had the baby wasn’t working alone,” she continued. “When I made the first payment, there were two of them, and I’m pretty sure they had a lookout or someone nearby because one of the men had a communicator in his ear, and he was talking to someone. I can’t stay here because they’ll come back.”
“Come on,” Drury said. He still had a firm grip on her arm. “We’ll go to the sheriff’s office and get this all straightened out.”
“They’ll look for me there if they don’t attack us along the way first. The baby could be hurt. You, too.” She almost added that she couldn’t live with that, but it was an old wound best left untouched.
“If you didn’t want me involved, then you shouldn’t have come here,” he grumbled.
“I swear I didn’t know the man would follow me. I mean, he was out from the stun gun, and he didn’t have his partner with him this time. Didn’t have the communicator in his ear, either.” A heavy sigh left her mouth. “I guess he had a lookout after all.”
Caitlyn figured Drury would ignore everything she’d just told him and demand once more that she leave with him.
But he didn’t.
His gaze volleyed from her to the baby. “Whose coat is that?” he asked.
She had to shake her head. “It was right next to the baby on the seat of the kidnapper’s SUV, and I grabbed it to cover her from the rain.”
“Put the baby on the sofa,” Drury instructed, and his tone and body language sent a chill straight through her. “It could have a tracking device—or something worse—in it.”
Sweet heaven.
Caitlyn hurried to the sofa, easing the baby onto it. The little girl was still sleeping, thank goodness.
“I checked her after I brought her into your house,” she explained. “No cuts or bruises.” It sickened her, though, to think there could have been.
Drury didn’t respond. He moved in front of the newborn, eased back the sides of the coat.
The baby was wearing a pink drawstring gown with little ducks on it. There was even an elastic headband with a bow holding back her dark brown curls from her face, and she had a thin receiving blanket around her. She was clean. Her diaper appeared to have been changed recently, and since she wasn’t crying, that probably meant she’d been fed. Whoever had her had at least taken care of her.
Probably so they could protect their investment.
Something twisted inside Caitlyn at the thought.
She almost hated to feel this kind of anger. This kind of love for that precious little girl. Because the baby might not even be hers.
Caitlyn repeated that to herself.
It didn’t seem to stop the flood of feelings that poured through her, and that love could mean she would be crushed if she had to hand over the baby to someone else.
“Lift her up,” Drury said, still searching every inch of the coat. “Gently.”
That