she’s in a coma.”
And Sarah had been that way since she’d tried to kill his brother Dallas and Dallas’s wife, Joelle. Dallas had had to shoot the woman, and she’d been in a coma ever since.
“Your foster father is a suspect,” Lyla whispered. “I remember reading that in one of the reports.”
Yeah. Kirby Granger was indeed that. And worse, he might have actually done it, though Wyatt never intended to admit that aloud.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
Especially if it turned out that Lyla Pearson was living proof that Kirby was not just innocent but that someone else was willing to do pretty much anything to cover their own guilt.
“You’re a suspect, too,” Lyla added. Her breathing kicked up a notch, and she got to a crouching position. Maybe because she was just now realizing she could be in danger—from him. Heck, she might even be thinking of running.
Wyatt nodded, watching both her and the window.
She blinked, and he saw the doubt in her eyes. Lyla shifted her position again. Oh, yeah. Definitely planning to run.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said. “But I suspect you know a lot more than you’re saying.”
The remark had no sooner left his mouth when Lyla leaped to her feet and started toward the hall. Probably to get the .38 that was somewhere in her bedroom. Wyatt hadn’t seen the gun, but he figured it must be in the house.
Wyatt latched on to her, trying to stay gentle, but it was hard to do when she brought up her knee to ram into his groin. He had no choice but to drag her to the sofa and pin her body with his.
It didn’t put him in the best of positions. He could no longer see the window or the gunman, but it stopped her from getting away.
Lyla frantically shook her head and tried to punch him. “Why are you doing this?”
He dodged her fist, barely. “Why are you doing this?” And Wyatt dropped his gaze to her stomach.
“I don’t understand.” The words rushed out with her breath.
Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. But Wyatt decided to test a theory or two. “I think you got pregnant so you could manipulate this investigation.”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “My baby has nothing to do with Jonah Webb’s murder.”
“You sure about that?” he countered.
“Positive,” Lyla mumbled, but there it was. The doubt that slid through those intense brown eyes. “Why would it? Why would my baby have anything to do with this?”
Wyatt took a deep breath. Had to. “Because that baby is mine.”
Chapter Two
Lyla figured either Marshal Wyatt McCabe was insane, or someone had told him some huge lies. Either way, she had to get away from him.
She put her hands against his chest and gave him a hard shove. She might as well have been shoving a brick wall, because he didn’t budge. He wasn’t exactly what she would call muscle-bound, but he was solid.
“Please.” Lyla tried to reason with him. “Let me go. Neither me nor my baby has anything to do with you or the murder investigation.”
The marshal made a yeah right sound, but he did move off her. Not far, though. He levered himself up but continued to loom over her. Continued to volley glances out the window, too. Did that mean the man with the gun wasn’t working with Marshal McCabe?
Lyla wasn’t sure.
She wasn’t sure of anything any longer except that she wanted to get away from both men. Her keys were already in her car, which was parked in the garage. If she could get to it, she might be able to escape.
Might.
But she couldn’t risk getting shot. Of course, these men might have something much worse in mind than just hurting her. They might want to kill her.
But why?
She shook her head. Marshal McCabe obviously wasn’t the only one with questions.
“Who’s the gunman?” she asked him again. Maybe now that the facade of the helpful lawman was gone, she’d get some straight answers, because the ones she’d gotten from him so far hadn’t made a lick of sense.
McCabe lifted his shoulder. “I don’t know. Your bodyguard maybe?”
“I don’t need a bodyguard.” But she rethought that. “At least, I didn’t until twenty minutes ago. Clearly, I need one now to protect me from you.”
He studied her as if trying to decide if that was a lie or not. It wasn’t. In fact, everything she’d told the lawman had been the truth, but he obviously didn’t believe her.
Lyla tried to remember everything she knew about Marshal McCabe, but other than the sketchy details about the Webb murder investigation, she drew a blank.
“We’ve met before?” she asked, though she was certain they hadn’t. McCabe was the sort of man a woman tended to remember. Tall, good-looking. Dark brown hair and gunmetal-blue eyes.
Yes, definitely the sort to be remembered.
“No,” he answered. “But you know me.”
“I don’t,” she insisted.
That baby is mine, he’d said, but he had to be wrong about that.
Well, maybe.
“I used in vitro fertilization to get pregnant,” she explained, though judging from the flat look he gave her, he already knew.
“Yeah. At the Hanover Fertility Clinic in San Antonio,” he supplied. “You had the procedure done two and half months ago, on your thirty-first birthday, and it worked on the first try. You got the news two weeks later that you were going to be a mom.”
A chill went through her. It was downright creepy that this stranger knew such private things about her, but it chilled her even more to know he might have told the truth about the baby being his.
“The clinic assured me that the donor I used would be anonymous,” Lyla explained. “In fact, I insisted on it, because I intend to raise this baby myself.”
“Yeah,” the marshal repeated. “Old baggage. I know about that, too.”
Lyla snapped back her shoulders, ready to blast him for invading her life and privacy this way. It wasn’t any of his business about her failed relationships.
She had to get her teeth unclenched so she could speak. “I want you to get out of here now. The deputy’s already on the way, and if you don’t leave, I’ll have him arrest you. I don’t care if you’re a marshal or not.”
“Oh,
