“Hurry,” he reminded her, though he figured Kendall wouldn’t dawdle out in the open where her attacker could have another go at her.
Just in case that was the guy’s plan, Aiden kept her close. Right against him to be exact. And even though he didn’t break into a run, he got them to his truck as fast as possible. The moment they were inside and had on their seat belts, he drove away and got on the road that led out of town.
“I thought we were going to the sheriff’s office,” she said, glancing back at Main Street.
“It can wait. You have a security system at your house?”
She nodded but didn’t look too certain about this decision. Heck, Aiden wasn’t a hundred percent with it, either, but it might get Kendall the rest that she clearly needed.
He took out his phone, and while he kept watch around them, he called Leland. All his other deputies and Leland had their hands full with finding the missing attacker and processing the crime scene at Aiden’s place, but Aiden needed some security measures for Kendall. That meant turning to someone he didn’t especially want to turn to.
The McKinnons.
All three of Jewell’s sons were lawmen. That was the good news. The bad news was they were estranged from their mother, since they blamed Jewell for leaving them after the affair with Aiden’s father. An affair that’d led to his father’s murder.
And that meant the McKinnon sons were also estranged from Kendall.
Still, he hoped the lawmen would do their jobs, since Kendall’s house was in their jurisdiction.
“Call the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office,” Aiden told Leland when the deputy answered. “I’ll need a protection detail out at Kendall’s place.”
She was already shaking her head before Aiden finished the request, and if Aiden could have thought of another way to keep her safe, he would have taken it. Leland assured him that he’d get right on that and then gave Aiden a quick update. When he was done, Aiden clicked the end call button so he could argue with Kendall. Not just about this but also the other surprise she’d dropped about his mother.
“Think about the baby,” Aiden said. “Yeah, you and the McKinnon boys don’t get along, but Cooper, Tucker and Colt will do their jobs. They don’t have to like you to protect you.”
He let that hang in the air.
“Obviously, that’s true. You don’t like me, and you’re protecting me,” she said.
Aiden thought about that a moment, and he decided there was no way to answer that so it wouldn’t put him in butt-deep hot water. If he agreed that he didn’t like her, it would only make this protective custody arrangement even more uncomfortable than it already was.
Besides, it was a lie.
He did like her. Well, her mouth anyway.
Okay, the rest of her, too.
He was just opposed to putting his mother and his sister Shelby through any more hell because of the choices that brainless part of him made in sleeping partners.
Of course, Kendall was more than just a former sleeping partner. She was the mother of his unborn son.
A reminder that required him to take a deep breath.
The fact they’d slept together didn’t automatically mean he had to like her, but again reminding her that they were bad news for each other wouldn’t fix anything right now.
“You’d rather I stayed with you than the McKinnons?” he asked, knowing the answer to that.
Now she was on the spot. Similar to him not liking her comment.
“It wouldn’t be smart for you to stay with me,” she answered.
Finally, they could agree on something, and once he had the McKinnon boys in place, he could get back to figuring out what the heck was going on and stopping any other attacks.
Not that he was positive there’d be another one.
The kidnappers had clearly lost, and with the evidence already moved, the danger might be long gone. Aiden hoped so anyway, but it still wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
He took the turn to Sweetwater Springs and moved onto the next subject. “How’d you know my mother was seeing a shrink? And spare me the answer of you’d rather not say, because that won’t work with me.”
“It worked when your mother used it so she wouldn’t have to tell me how she found out I was pregnant.”
“That ship hasn’t sailed yet. I’ll find out who told her. Now it’s your turn to come clean.”
She raked her fingers over her eyebrow and shifted in the seat a little. “I’ve been doing some checking, to try to find anything that might free Jewell.”
Of course she had. “And you decided to check out my mother?”
Kendall nodded. “I had a PI follow her, and he reported back to me that she’s been visiting a psychiatrist in San Antonio.”
“My mother has a history of depression.” Though he hadn’t known about these visits to a shrink. Did that mean her depression had gotten worse? “It’s a stretch, though, to think depression would have caused her to come after you to make Jewell look bad. Especially since I could have gotten hurt.”
“But she knew about the baby,” Kendall quickly pointed out. “Maybe she was willing to risk hurting you to make sure I’m out of your life for good.”
It turned his stomach to think of that, and he wished he could totally dismiss it.
But he couldn’t.
The truth was, his mother had been flirting with mental instability for years. All the way back to the time of his father’s murder. He’d seen that vacant look in her eyes one time too many. Ditto for the sheer hatred that she just couldn’t let go of. So yeah, news of a baby could have tipped her over the edge, and that was why Aiden needed to learn when she’d found out about the pregnancy and who’d been the one to tell her.
“While you were doing this checking and having people followed, did you hear anything else I should know?” he asked.
“Lee Palmer,” she said without hesitation. “He also hired a PI to follow your mother.”
Yet another hit of news that he hadn’t been aware of.
Palmer.
The man’s name kept turning up like a bad penny. A nearby rancher and his father’s old nemesis. Palmer would love to see Jewell walk on this murder. Heck, Palmer would have loved to do the kill himself. Too bad he had a decent alibi for the time of Whitt’s death. The man had been in the hospital recovering from a mild heart attack.
Still, Aiden had to shake his head on this one. “So, why would Palmer have my mother followed?”
“Maybe for the same
