Peekaboo Baby. Delores Fossen

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      Ryan didn’t think it was a phantom or a ghost car. Nor was it some illusion caused by the storm.

      No.

      The vehicle had been real. And now the question was to find out who’d been behind the wheel, why they had been on the road, and why the driver had done what he or she had done.

      Ryan would get answers to those questions, and he wouldn’t rely only on the sheriff to help him. He’d call Quentin Kincade, his security guru, and get some investigators on this immediately.

      “We won’t have to be here much longer,” he heard Delaney say. Ryan wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself or him. She hung up the phone, scrubbed her hands over her arms and started to pace.

      Yep. She was a pacer.

      Ryan had learned that about her over the past two-and-a-half hours. A pacer, a lip nibbler and a mumbler. He’d also discovered that she wasn’t a coffee drinker, had instead opted for bottled water. Perhaps because she was nursing and didn’t want the caffeine, or maybe because she was already too jittery.

      “Are you okay?” he asked.

      “Sure.” She’d answered too quickly for it to be anything but rote. It did stop her, however. She quit pacing, briefly met his eyes and shook her head. The motion sent a lock of her now-dry dark brown hair slipping down onto her forehead. She raked it away. “I just need to get out of here.”

      Ryan understood completely. The fatigue was quickly becoming a factor, and he wasn’t sure he could think straight much longer. As a rule, he never liked to be in a situation where he didn’t have a clear head. “If the sheriff’s not back in a few minutes, I’ll see what I can do to speed things up.”

      Another nod. “Thank you.” She paused a heartbeat. “For everything.”

      “You’re welcome.”

      Because it’d been a while, too long, since he’d said something that genuinely cordial to anyone, Ryan decided it was a good time to shut up and drink his godawful coffee. This forced proximity, and the remnants of the danger had created some kind of weird intimacy between Delaney and him.

      Intimacy that neither of them wanted.

      She folded her arms over her chest and resumed her pacing in her borrowed jeans and the faded blue T-shirt that swallowed her. It was at least three sizes too big, and yet it somehow managed to skim and accent every curve of her body. And she had some curves.

      Something he was sorry he’d noticed.

      Worse, he hadn’t noticed it just once. His attention kept going back to her—her body, her face, those eyes—and Ryan just kept forcing his attention on something else. Anything else.

      Their respective coping behaviors, the pacing, the coffee drinking, the diverted attention worked for several moments. Until the silence settled a little too uncomfortably around them.

      “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” Delaney said. “Not even a fender bender. For a couple of moments there, I thought we were going to die.”

      He’d thought the same thing, but Ryan kept it to himself.

      “Do you think this is connected to what Dr. Keyes told me?” she asked.

      It was the billon-dollar question, and it was a possible connection they hadn’t withheld from the sheriff.

      Well, in a way, they hadn’t.

      Delaney had been careful not to accuse the doctor outright of a crime, but she had told Sheriff Knight about the unsettling call from the medical watchdog group. What she’d left out, however, was any mention of cloning. It was as if she were trying to strike that particular detail from her mind. Ryan was willing to bet she hadn’t been any more successful at it than he’d been.

      However, the cloning allegation wasn’t the only factor to be considered here.

      “I’ve made enemies,” Ryan admitted, staring down into his coffee. And that was a massive understatement. “This could have happened because of me.”

      Not an easy admission to make to her, and Ryan hoped—no, he prayed—that this deed wasn’t on his head. He already had enough unresolved issues in his life without adding this latest episode involving Delaney Nash.

      She came to a halt directly in front of the gray metal table where he was sitting and waited until their eyes met. “You didn’t mention anyone specific to the sheriff.”

      He lifted a shoulder. “Because there’s a lot more than just one. But then, I don’t have to remind you of that.”

      Delaney paused a moment and nodded. “No.”

      She stood there, looking exhausted but determined to dig until they learned the truth. She also looked vulnerable. The vulnerable part wasn’t so obvious, but he knew it was just beneath the surface. The fact she was trying to hide it brought out some of his own feelings.

      He wanted to protect her.

      Which made him an idiot.

      Delaney wasn’t some money-hungry opportunist out to extort from him. During the past couple of hours, he’d gotten past those particular allegations. But she was his enemy’s daughter. And she was embroiled in some kind of…whatever. He couldn’t dismiss the potential issues that had surfaced from the New Hope clinic and Dr. Keyes.

      Nor would it be wise to overlook the obvious.

      “I know we’ve been through this, but I need you to think hard. Is it possible that your father knew you were coming to see me tonight?” Ryan asked.

      He braced himself for her to unleash a vehement protest, A declaration of her father’s innocence. After all, it was practically an accusation. A really serious one. Her father’s involvement would mean that he’d essentially tried to murder them.

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