Cowboy Behind the Badge Read Online Free PDF Page B

minutes.
    Boxes of pasta and canned soup tumbled off the shelves, pelting the floor. Despite the hard grip the man still had on her, Laine dropped back down so she could prevent the babies from being hit.
    She didn’t stay there long. Once the pantry items had stopped falling, she did the only thing she could do. She came up fighting.
    Laine grabbed the first thing she could reach—a large can of mixed nuts—and threw it at him. It hit him on the chin, the can flying open, flinging nuts at him, but the can and nuts bounced off him as if he hadn’t even felt it.
    She didn’t stop. She hurled a can of soup at him next, and received the same reaction as before. Well, almost. She hadn’t thought it possible, but the fury in his expression actually went up a notch.
    Making a feral growling sound, he came after her again.
    But he froze. Then cursed. Without warning, he caught onto her hair and hauled her out of the pantry and into the kitchen.
    She heard them then.
    The footsteps.
    With his gun gripped in his hand, Tucker came in from the living room and took cover by the partial wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the house. Maybe he’d tried to sneak up on the guy, but if so, it hadn’t worked. The man dragged her in front of him and put the gun to her head.
    She was now a human shield.
    â€œPut down your gun,” Tucker ordered him. Rainwater dripped from his hair and clothes. “Your friends are cuffed in the yard, and my sister’s guarding them. Or maybe she’s killing them,” he added. “More backup will be here in a few minutes.”
    Despite having a gun to her head, relief flooded through Laine. Well, temporarily anyway. The other killers had been caught, and now this guy was the only one left standing. Hopefully not for long, though. Tucker needed to arrest them all so she could find out about the woman these monsters had murdered.
    â€œYou won’t make it out of here alive,” Tucker told the man. He stayed behind cover, using his left hand to bracket his shooting wrist.
    â€œOh, yeah? With those kids and her, I believe I will,” he growled.
    Laine could no longer see her captor’s expression, but she could certainly see Tucker’s. Every muscle in his body was hard and tight. He was a lawman ready for the fight, but this was a fight they could all lose if she somehow didn’t manage to protect the babies.
    â€œEscaping with newborns will be tricky at best,” Laine reminded the man. “You can take just me and move faster.” Not that she especially wanted to play the martyr here, but she didn’t have many options.
    Obviously, her option didn’t please Tucker because he shot her a glare. Laine ignored it. If she could do anything to change her captor’s mind, she would.
    â€œTaking me and me alone is your best option for staying alive and escaping,” she added. “The babies would just slow you down.”
    She got exactly the reaction she’d expected. Another glare from Tucker when he glanced over at her.
    â€œLaine, if you want to get out of this big hole, you need to stop digging,” Tucker warned her. “He doesn’t want to take an innocent woman.”
    â€œInnocent?” the guy growled. “Yeah, right. You might wanta check your facts there, bud. She’s a lot of things, but innocent ain’t one of them.”
    Tucker’s glare faded, and for a split second he got a confused look on his face. “What the heck does that mean?”
    She couldn’t be sure, but Laine thought the guy might be smiling. “It means you need to ask her.”
    â€œI’d rather stop you,” Tucker fired back. “The questions and answers can come later.”
    If she made it out of this, and it was a big if, then she obviously had some explaining to do. But for now, Laine had to get the gunman away from the babies.
    â€œOkay,” the gunman finally said,