and her blond hair spilled onto her shoulders. She untangled the yarn from the nail and slipped the cap back on. “I didn’t come here for food.”
He hadn’t thought for a minute that she had. “Then, maybe it’s a good time for you to tell me why you did come?”
“Because you’re Dylan Greer.” She inched away from him. “I saw you yesterday. You were in town.”
That was true. He had gone into town the day before to do some early Christmas shopping. However, during all his errands, Dylan hadn’t seen this woman.
That caused his concern level to spike again.
Because Dylan wanted to make sure she understood that he didn’t approve of her, her presence or what she’d done, he leaned in closer. Too close. So that they were practically eye-to-eye.
She didn’t cower from him. In fact, her chin came up, and instead of fatigue and frustration, he saw some resolve in her expression.
“What’s a P.I. from San Antonio doing following me around town?” he demanded.
Her resolve increased even more. “I’ve been looking for you a long, long time, Dylan Greer.”
And it sounded a little like a threat.
“I’m not a hard man to find. I’ve lived in Greer all my life. The town is named for my great-great grandfather. And I own a fairly well-known horse-breeding business. My name is even on the mailbox at the end of my driveway.”
She made a soft sound of frustration. “You weren’t easy to find because I didn’t know I was looking for you.”
He heard the sheriff’s siren in the distance. Finally. It was about time. In five minutes, maybe less, he could turn all of this over to the authorities. But he couldn’t do that until he learned more about his visitor.
Tired of answers that weren’t making sense, Dylan decided to cut to the chase. “Did you kill my sister and my fiancée five years ago?”
Her eyes widened. “No. God, no.”
Collena Drake sounded adamant enough, but it didn’t satisfy Dylan. “Are you telling me that you didn’t know about their murders?”
“I knew. I mean, I ran a background check on you. Their deaths popped up on the computer records. But the computer records didn’t say anything about murder.”
“Trust me,” he snarled. “It was murder. Now, I want to know what you had to do with that.”
“Nothing. Until three days ago, I’d never even heard of you.”
Yet something else that didn’t make sense, especially since she’d said she’d been looking for him for a long, long time. “So, what changed three days ago?”
“Everything.”
The single word that left her mouth was more breath than sound.
Dylan didn’t need the winter to chill him, because that comment put some ice in his blood. He stood and stared down at her. Waiting for an explanation. And not at all sure that he really wanted to hear it.
“I’m a cop,” Collena Drake said, getting to her feet.
It was another crazy twist in this crazy encounter. “If you thought that would stop me from having you arrested, you thought wrong.”
“I have no expectations about how you will or won’t react to me.” She hugged the blanket tighter to her chest and waited a moment until her teeth stopped chattering. “Last year I took a leave of absence from the San Antonio PD so I could work full-time on the Brighton case.”
“Brighton?” he repeated. Dylan shrugged. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“You should. I’m talking about the Brighton Birthing Center investigation. Last year, the police discovered that the center was a front for all sorts of illegal activity.” She paused. “Including illegal adoptions.”
His heart felt as if someone had clamped a meaty fist around it. Because last year he’d adopted his own precious son, Adam. And he wasn’t just a part of Dylan’s life, Adam was his life.
“I didn’t go through Brighton to get my son,” he informed her.
“No. But Brighton still supplied the newborn that you adopted through the law firm you used.”
“What makes you think that?” Dylan fired back.
Her jaw muscles stirred. “Because for months I’ve investigated every detail, every file and every person who had any association whatsoever with Brighton. Then, three days ago, all the pieces finally came together, and I was able to figure out what’d happened.”
The siren grew closer, and Dylan knew that the sheriff was now on the ranch itself and headed straight for the birthing stable.
“Are you saying you believe that my son was illegally adopted?” Dylan asked.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.
Oh, the thoughts that went through his mind. Nightmarish thoughts. Had the birth parents changed their minds about the adoption? Did they want Adam back? If they did, it wasn’t going to happen. Adam was his son in every way that mattered, and he wasn’t going to give him up.
Dylan pushed aside all the emotion he was feeling and focused on one glaring hole in her theory. “If you thought the adoption was illegal, then why did you come? Why aren’t the San Antonio police here instead?”
She met his regard head-on. “I came because I have a personal stake in this.”
Outside, the siren fell silent. Dylan heard the tires crunch on the frozen ground as the patrol car braked to a sudden stop.
“Is this your case?” he clarified.
Collena Drake shook her head. “It’s not just that I’m the investigating officer. I, too, was a victim of the Brighton Birthing Center. After giving birth there, my baby was stolen.”
Dylan was about to ask what that could possibly have to do with him, but the doors burst open. It wasn’t the sheriff but Deputy Jonah Burke, a hulk of a man who was armed with a semiautomatic. The deputy definitely wasn’t the person that Dylan wanted to see and, judging from Jonah’s expression, he felt the same about Dylan.
“Everything okay?” the deputy asked, his attention nailed to Collena Drake.
She let the blanket fall to the floor so that she could again lift her hands in a show of surrender. However, she kept her gaze pinned on Dylan.
“Sixteen months ago, I gave birth to a son,” she continued. Her voice cracked on the last word and her bottom lip began to tremble.
Dylan wasn’t trembling, but he felt some of that raw emotion himself.
“So?” he challenged.
“So, you illegally adopted him. I’m Adam’s
