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child,” he said.
    Collena took black leather gloves from her pocket and put them back on. She also took a deep breath. “Sean Reese was a lawyer. We’d been engaged nearly a year when I got pregnant.”
    A year. That wasn’t a casual relationship. “You planned a family?”
    She shook her head. “No. I was on the pill, hadn’t missed taking any, so the pregnancy wasn’t planned. When I came home from work the day after I told him, he was gone. He’d moved out and left me a typed letter saying he didn’t want to be a father and that he was breaking up with me.” She paused. “That’s the kind of man he was.”
    “And he’s really dead?” Dylan managed to ask through his suddenly tight jaw. Because he didn’t want a guy like that in Adam’s life.
    “Yes. About six months after he moved out, one of his drug-dealing clients murdered him when he received a guilty verdict that obviously didn’t please him.”
    Dylan hated to feel relieved, but he was. It was bad enough having one birth parent in the picture. If Collena was indeed a real birth parent. It was hard to doubt it though, especially when he looked at her mouth.
    That was Adam’s mouth.
    Heart shaped. And capable of expressing a huge range of emotions.
    So, if Collena Drake was truly Adam’s birth mother, then the question was—what was he going to do about it?
    He didn’t get a chance to come up with any possibilities because Collena spoke before he had time to think.
    “There’s something else you should know about Sean Reese,” Collena said. Her voice was practically a whisper now, and she looked down at her gloved hands. “I hadn’t planned on telling you this soon, but you’ll probably find out when you press your P.I. for a deeper background check on me.”
    Which he would do, especially after an opening like that. “There really is someone from Brighton after you?” he asked.
    “No. Not Brighton. The problem is Sean’s father, Curtis Reese. He’s been looking for Adam, too.”
    Well, that sounded ominous, and Dylan didn’t like where this conversation was going.
    “Curtis Reese is very wealthy,” Collena continued. “And Sean was his only child. He loved him, and he was obsessive about it. Once he learned that I was pregnant with Sean’s child, he became consumed with his unborn grandchild, as well.”
    Dylan quickly came to a conclusion, but he hoped he was wrong. “Are you saying that this Curtis Reese will try to get custody of Adam?”
    “He’ll try,” Collena confirmed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but since the adoption was illegal, you don’t stand much of a chance of keeping Adam.”
    His jaw tightened even more. “That’s debatable.”
    “It’s true. There are things in my past that Curtis Reese will try to use to challenge my own custody. Nothing criminal,” she quickly added.
    Dylan would have questioned exactly what those things were if he hadn’t seen the smoke ahead. Collena obviously saw it, too; she pointed in that direction.
    “That’s where I left my car,” she said.
    With the snow and the wind, it wasn’t a day to burn brush. Besides, he’d given all the hands the day off. Dylan took the last turn, dreading what he would see.
    There, off to the side of the narrow dirt road sat a dark blue compact car, engulfed in flames.

Chapter Four
    Collena saw the fire and smoke.
    She felt the instant slam of adrenaline, and she reached for her gun, which wasn’t there. Because Dylan still had it in his pocket.
    Dylan reacted, too. He caught on to her shoulder and shoved her down onto the leather seat. Hard. Then, he drew his own weapon, threw his truck into Reverse and sped backward to put some distance between them and her burning vehicle.
    It was a good decision. With the flames already eating through the interior, the car could explode.
    “Do you see anyone?” she asked, trying to get up. But he merely used his muscled body to keep her in place. Protecting her.
    More than likely, it was