Chapter Fourteen

Luca tried to tamp down the panic. Tried not to think the worst could be happening. But it might be.

“Gotta go,” Woodrow said, ending the call.

Luca wanted him to go, wanted him to do something to stop Aubrey from attacking them, but it meant Luca now had no way of knowing what was going on.

“Where was Aubrey spotted?” Bree asked, her voice already a tangle of nerves and adrenaline.

“By the back fence. A ranch hand using binoculars saw her, but then she ducked out of sight. He’s sure it was Aubrey because Duncan had given all the hands photos of her so they’d recognize her if they saw her.”

The back fence was about a quarter of a mile from the house, but a good marksman could hit a target from that distance. Luca didn’t know if the target was the house—and those inside it—or if Aubrey had been getting herself into a position so she could shoot them.

“If Aubrey had the ranch under surveillance,” Bree said, “she might have seen us leave and could be waiting for us to get back.”

Yeah, that was a strong possibility. Well, it was if Bree and he were her intended victims. If Gabriel was, then Aubrey could be working her way to the house right now, and heaven knew how many people she’d shoot or kill to get to him.

Slater was already driving fast, probably too fast, considering the narrow country road, but Luca wished they could break speed records to get there. His son could be in danger. Everyone in the house and on the grounds could be, and he needed to be there to stop this woman.

Since it occurred to him that Aubrey could be some kind of decoy, Luca kept watch. He also gave Bree’s hand a gentle squeeze. It wouldn’t help. Nothing would at this point other than arriving at the ranch and finding everyone safe. But he needed the contact with her. Needed her touch to steady him some. Apparently though, she needed something from him as well because she looked at him with tear-filled eyes.

“We’ll stop Aubrey,” he swore to her. Luca didn’t know how, but he would stop her. And her boss, too, once this threat had been neutralized.

But who exactly was her boss?

They still didn’t know, and with Nathan volunteering to give them the ring, it might not be him. That left Tara and Manny. Hell, it might not be one of them either. It could be someone who wasn’t even on their radar, but if so, they’d have to find that person. No way could Luca let Gabriel and Bree continue to be in danger like this.

Luca already had his gun drawn, but he readjusted his position when the ranch came into view. And his heart dropped. The two ranch hands who were guarding the driveway were still there, but they were on the ground behind their truck where they’d obviously taken cover.

Not merely a precaution, either.

Because Luca heard the crack of the gunshot.

The back fence wasn’t anywhere near this spot, but if Aubrey had climbed into a tree, she could have fired pretty much anywhere on the ranch. Maybe she’d decided to take out the hands first, one by one, and from that range she could maybe manage to do it.

More shots came, tearing through the truck. Aubrey probably couldn’t actually see the men on the ground, but the gunfire was keeping them pinned down. Preventing them from returning shots. The same might be happening to the other ranch hands as well.

“I’m going closer,” Slater said. “It’ll maybe draw the gunfire away from them.”

Since the cruiser was bullet resistant, that was the right decision. However, that didn’t mean shots couldn’t get through to Bree. Luca wanted to ask her to get down, but she was already taking out her own gun.

“I need to protect Gabriel, too,” she muttered. She met Luca’s gaze, and he could see the fierce determination there. A determination he fully understood.

“If you get a shot, shoot to kill,” he advised her, hoping it wouldn’t come down to that. Right now, anything and everything was a possibility, including the fact that Aubrey might not be alone. Another hired gun could be with her.

Or her boss.

If so, Luca hoped he got to take a kill shot. Everything inside him was shouting for him to take out the SOB who’d put babies in danger like this.

Slater pulled up behind the hands’ truck, and he motioned for them to move to the side of the cruiser where they’d be better protected. They did while the shots continued. The truck and the hands were no longer the target though.

The cruiser was.

A bullet slammed into the rear window, right where Bree was sitting, but thankfully the glass held. For now. It might not if shots continued to hit that same spot.

“Trade places with me,” Luca said, not waiting for Bree to agree to that. He wanted to be on that side in case the glass gave way. Because then he might be able to return fire and get Aubrey to back off.

“Should I open the door and let the hands in?” Bree asked.

“Not yet,” Joelle said. “They’re safer on the ground where they are. Besides, there could be a shooter waiting for you to open it.”

Bree didn’t gasp, didn’t make any sharp sound of surprise, which meant those kind of scenarios had already occurred to her.

Slater’s phone rang, the sound slicing through the noise of the stream of gunfire, and after he answered it, Luca heard Duncan’s voice.

“Everyone inside the house is okay,” Duncan was quick to say. “No shots have been fired at us. Lenny’s spotted Aubrey though,” he added, referring to one of the hands. “And she’s no longer by the back fence. As you’ve probably guessed from the direction of the gunfire, she’s taken up position near the back edge of the property by the road.”

Luca immediately looked in that direction. And cursed. Because there was nothing but trees there. Thick clusters of them where Aubrey could be hiding.

“Lenny doesn’t have a clear shot, but he can fire into the trees to distract her. I would suggest you just get yourself and the ranch hands to the house—” Duncan continued.

“No,” Bree interrupted. “If we do that, she’ll just try to shoot us there.”

Duncan didn’t dispute that. Couldn’t. Because it was exactly what would happen.

“The hands here both have rifles,” Luca said. “I might be able to take Aubrey out.”

Bree was frantically shaking her head, but she stopped when Luca met her gaze again. This had to be done.

“I’ll tell Lenny to fire those shots,” Duncan said after a long sigh. “If it flushes her out, then put an end to her.”

Luca gave Bree one last look, trying to reassure. Knowing he failed. Then, he moved back to the side with the hands just as he heard the new rounds of shots. From Lenny, no doubt.

“I need your rifle,” Luca said, getting out of the cruiser. “Both of you get in the back seat.”

The hands did as he’d instructed, and Luca took aim over the top of the cruiser. Not exactly the safest position, but he had to see if he could spot Aubrey. He didn’t. Not at first anyway. But then, there was an exchange of gunfire, and Luca saw the movement in the trees. Aubrey was in one of the large oaks, and she was moving out onto a thick limb, probably so she could kill Lenny.

Luca didn’t let that happen.

He took his own advice that he’d given to Bree. Shoot to kill. Even if that meant Aubrey wouldn’t be able to tell them who’d hired her. He took aim. Fired.

And put two bullets in the woman trying to murder them.

B REE CONTINUED TO hold Gabriel even though the baby was asleep and had been for nearly a half hour. It was his bedtime, and she should have already put him in his crib for what would likely be a three-or four-hour stretch of sleep, but she needed to have him near her a few moments longer.

Those moments ended when Luca came into the guest room, and she could tell from his body language and expression that he needed to be near her as well. Along with that, he probably had updates on Aubrey. Updates she wanted to hear. So, she eased Gabriel into his crib, went to Luca and pulled him into her arms.

Bree hadn’t planned to kiss him. But that’s what she did, and the moment her mouth landed on his, she realized she needed this as much as he obviously did. Luca sank right into the kiss, stretching it out for several long moments before he ended it and pulled her close against him.

“There was nothing on Aubrey’s body to indicate who hired her,” Luca whispered. His voice was strained with fatigue, spent adrenaline and worry. “She had a burner phone, but she’d used that only to call another burner. We tried to call it, but no one answered.”

Bree had expected that. Aubrey’s boss likely would have demanded that she use a burner so Aubrey couldn’t be linked back to him or her. But Aubrey’s boss had almost certainly wanted her to kill or kidnap Gabriel, Luca or her, and the woman had failed. In fact, no one on the ranch had ended up getting shot except for Aubrey.

“Are you okay?” Bree asked him. She could only guess at the emotional toll this was taking on him.

He nodded, but she figured that was a lie. None of them were going to be okay until the killer was caught. The only thing they could do was make the ranch as safe as possible, but they all knew that might not be safe enough. Now that it was night, the killer could use the darkness to get close to the house. Bree tried to imagine which of their suspects could manage to do that. Maybe all of them.

Or none.

It was just as possible the killer would send another hired gun like Aubrey.

“I need a shower,” Luca said, stepping back from her. “I, uh, have blood on my clothes. After the CSIs had photographed the scene, I helped them move the body into a bag,” he explained.

Aubrey’s blood. Bree hadn’t seen for herself how that’d happened, but once she was secure in the house, Slater and he had gone to check the body, to make sure Aubrey was truly dead and no longer a threat.

Bree took Luca by the arm and led him into the bathroom. She left the door open to the bedroom so she could hear Gabriel and turned on the shower. When Luca just stood there, staring at her, she unbuckled his holster and laid it and his gun on the vanity.

He kept his gaze on her.

Bree didn’t shy away from that. After she pulled off his shirt, her eyes locked with his—those incredible brown eyes that always seem to drown her in heat—and she considered her options. She could go back into the bedroom and let Luca have that shower. Or she could do something about those raw nerves. Not just his but her own.

She went with option two.

So did Luca.

He slid his arm around the back of her neck and kissed her. Not exactly a kiss of comfort either since it was long, deep and filled with need. Still, his mouth did the trick of firing enough heat through her that the raw nerves just melted. Heck, she melted, but then she always did when Luca kissed her.

Maybe because his jeans had blood on them, he moved his hands between them to undo his belt and unzip. The touching added to the flames, especially since Luca didn’t break the kiss to do that. It took some maneuvering, some dipping down and moving to the side with him, but their mouths continued to pleasure each other while he rid himself of his jeans and boots.

Bree took full advantage of having a nearly naked Luca. She touched him, sliding her hands down his back over all those muscles. The man was certainly built. And even though she knew the feel of every one of those muscles, this moment, this now felt new, as if she’d never had him before. That was probably because her body was starved for him, and that’s why Bree didn’t hold anything back. She kissed and touched until Luca was cursing her.

Cursing her clothes, too.

That’s when she realized that unlike him, she was fully dressed. Luca did something about that. He yanked off her top, immediately kissing the skin he’d just bared. Her neck. Then, the tops of her breasts. He stopped though. Just stopped, and his gaze fired to hers.

“Is it okay?” he asked, nearly stopping her heart because she thought he might, well, be stopping. “I mean, Gabriel’s two months old.”

Her heart revved up again. “Yes, it’s more than okay.” Except now, she had to pause. “Well, it is if you have a condom.”

He pulled away from her, located his jeans and fumbled through his wallet until he came up with the foil wrapper. She’d known he usually carried one, but Bree had never been more thankful to see it.

Luca smiled, probably because of her obvious relief, and he launched back into another kiss. Not solely that, though. He was obviously a man on a mission, and that mission was to get her naked because he unzipped her jeans and push them down until they dropped around her feet. He lifted her, turning her so she was sitting on the vanity.

Then, he kissed her again.

This slam of heat was so hard and fast that she couldn’t catch her breath. Soon, though, she didn’t care if she ever caught it again because all she could think of was what Luca was doing to her. He was taking her on one wild ride all the while firing up the need until it became a throbbing ache in the center of her body.

Luca didn’t ease away that ache but added to it when he stepped between her legs and pressed them center to center. He was hard as stone and pushed against just the right spot to make the need skyrocket.

Bree wanted him naked, and she wanted it now so she went after his boxers. Luca went after her panties and bra, but he clearly wasn’t in the frantic now mode. Not yet anyway. She did something about that by closing her fingers around his erection.

He cursed her, and the sound that rumbled in his chest was all male, all need. All now. Finally.

It was Bree who did some cursing when it seemed to take a couple of lifetimes to get the condom on, and she might have cursed, too, at the immense pleasure when he pushed into her. She didn’t have breath to form words. The only thing she could do was feel, and she was having no trouble with that.

Luca and she had been lovers for a long time so she knew the familiarity of this rhythm they found. And because he knew every inch of her body, he knew how to draw out the pleasure. He knew how to take her to the peak, right to the edge and then bring her back down so it could last a little longer.

He kissed her again but then pulled back, spearing her gaze as he made those now frantic thrusts inside her. Bree couldn’t have come down from the peak now even if he stopped. She was past the point of no return, and Luca knew it. That’s why he gave her exactly what she needed to feel the climax slam through her.

Bree let herself shatter, let the sensations wrack her body and wash over her. And when it was Luca’s turn to take that fall, she gathered him into her arms and held on.