of adopted twins. Something that had put a permanent rift between Carla and Laine.
Now Aiden was about to give her the same reason for a rift.
“If Laine didn’t tell you, how did you find out?” Aiden asked. Not that it was critical for him to know how the proverbial cat had gotten out of the bag, but he wanted to know just who was feeding information about him to his mother.
“I’d rather not say,” Carla insisted. “I’d rather focus on how to deal with this baby.”
Kendall sighed. “My baby isn’t something you need to deal with.” Her voice was strained, and while her words were crisp, Aiden figured it was better than her telling Carla to mind her own business.
But his mother would see this baby as her business.
“You’re wrong,” Carla answered. “You’re carrying a Braddock. My son’s blood. And I can’t let my grandbaby be raised by someone whose kin murdered my husband.” She pointed to Kendall’s stomach. “Your sister murdered that baby’s own grandfather.”
Oh, yeah. This was definitely not going in a fun direction.
“Someone shot Kendall,” Aiden said in case his mother had already forgotten. “The doctor wants her to get some rest.” The doc hadn’t specifically said that, but Aiden figured rest was much preferred over another dose of stress that his mother was doling out. “You wouldn’t want to do anything to cause her to miscarry, would you?”
Aiden hoped the answer to that was no, but his mother didn’t budge.
“This won’t take long,” Carla insisted. Now her gaze came back to his. “Then you and I can have a private discussion tomorrow.” The tears threatened again, followed by a whimper. “Why couldn’t you just leave Kendall alone?”
Aiden had asked himself that a thousand times and still didn’t have an answer. He’d developed an itch for Kendall about the same time he’d started to grow chest hair, and that itch had resulted in a kiss when they were thirteen. Kendall’s first. There probably would have been more kisses in their immediate future if just days later they hadn’t learned that his father had been murdered, and Kendall had left town with Jewell.
Of course, Kendall had come back to the area a time or two. Just enough to remind him that scratching the itch would feel pretty darn good even if it would also carry a huge price tag. Like now.
Except he didn’t want to think of his baby as a price tag.
At the moment, he didn’t want to think of his baby at all, because it wasn’t a good idea for him to be focusing on something that could bring him to his knees when he had a would-be killer gunning for his head.
“You’re just like your father,” Carla added, giving Aiden another dig. “Unable to resist an O’Neal woman. At least he didn’t get Jewell pregnant, though. Now we’ll have a baby to raise.”
Uh-oh. Definitely not the right thing to say, and Kendall stepped in front of him. “You’re not raising my baby.” She slid her hand protectively over her stomach. “In fact, you have no say in this whatsoever.”
The little glance that Kendall shot him was probably to let him know that he didn’t have a say, either. She was wrong about that.
Here came the tears, spilling down his mother’s cheeks. Since this was about to get uglier than it already was, Aiden took hold of Kendall and eased her back away from Carla. “Mom, I need to get Kendall’s statement so I can figure out who tried to kill her and the baby.”
That got Carla’s attention. She’d obviously known about the attack, but it probably hadn’t occurred to her yet that anything bad that happened to Kendall also happened to the baby she was carrying. Of course, maybe Carla didn’t care about that at all, despite her insistence about raising the child.
“Any idea who kidnapped me and tried to force Aiden to destroy evidence?” Kendall demanded. And it was indeed a demand. There was plenty of anger in her voice and narrowed eyes when they landed on his mother.
“What evidence?” Carla questioned.
“The bone fragments,” Aiden supplied.
Carla pressed her hand on her chest as if to steady her head. “Those fragments will convict Jewell of murder. There are only a handful of people who’d want that evidence destroyed. Joplin, Jewell’s children and Kendall.”
“And you,” Kendall added.
Obviously, his mom hadn’t seen that coming.
Neither had Aiden.
“You’re under psychiatric care,” Kendall added a heartbeat later. “Any other secrets you’d like to tell us about?”
Aiden was about to assure Kendall that it wasn’t true, but his mother certainly didn’t jump to deny it. “How did you know that?” Carla demanded.
Ah, heck.
Apparently, another can of worms had just been opened.
“I’d rather not say,” Kendall answered, repeating the words his mother had said earlier.
That put some fire in Carla’s eyes. “So what if it’s true that I’m seeing a psychiatrist? That doesn’t mean I would try to have evidence destroyed.”
“You might if you thought it’d make my sister look bad.” Kendall paused. “Or if you thought it’d get rid of me and the Braddock baby I’m carrying.”
Aiden mentally repeated his ah, heck because he didn’t like the sudden look in his mother’s eyes. The fire was still there, but he also saw something else.
The hatred.
It’d always been there, of course. But Aiden saw it now in a whole new light. Carla loathed Jewell, and that loathing extended to Kendall, since Jewell had practically raised Kendall after their father died.
Maybe his mother’s hatred extended to the baby, too.
Yeah, Carla had demanded to raise the child, but he hoped like the devil that there wasn’t something else going on here. Something that had caused her to put Kendall and the baby in danger.
But then he mentally shook his head.
There were plenty of other suspects with a more obvious motive without his reaching, and motive was something he’d take a hard look at soon. Right now he needed to fix this. Kendall was wobbling again, leaning against him, no doubt because she was dizzy. Probably in pain, too. No way did she need to be standing in the ER having words with his mother.
“We’re leaving now. Come on,” Aiden said to Kendall. “Mom, I’ll call you.”
And this time he didn’t leave any room for argument. He got Kendall out of that corner and left his mother standing there, glaring at them.
Even though he was hurrying, Aiden didn’t let his hasty departure make him stupid. He checked out the parking lot again to make sure no one was lurking around ready to attack.
There
