take the boys to one of the other rooms?” Merilee asked after glancing at Gabriel’s expression.
“No,” Lauren answered without hesitation. Cameron agreed. He didn’t want the babies out of his sight for now. If Lauren’s brothers were going to have words with her, they’d have to keep it G-rated.
Lauren kissed Jameson on the cheek, and she went to Gabriel. Her steps were tentative and so was the kiss on the cheek she gave him.
“I don’t expect you to understand what I did,” she said, her voice a little shaky now. “And I’m sorry for bringing this danger to the ranch.”
Gabriel stared at her, the muscles in his jaw battling each other. He seemed to be ready to start that tirade that was bubbling inside him, but he reached out, pulled Lauren to him and kissed the top of her head. It would have been a perfect moment if Lauren hadn’t winced. It wasn’t from the kiss, though. It was because of the pressure the hug was putting on her injured arm.
She stepped back, both her and Gabriel’s gazes going to the fresh bandage, and Cameron figured Gabriel would have cursed if it hadn’t been for the little ears in the room.
“You should have come to me when the trouble started,” Gabriel insisted.
Lauren shook her head. “I thought the men who did this were cops.”
“They weren’t,” Gabriel said without hesitation. “And I don’t need ID’s on them to know that.”
Jameson made a sound of agreement, went to the babies and sank down on the floor next to them. “The one who accused you of hiring him had a prison tat on his neck. Plus, this wasn’t the kind of attack a cop would do. Not a smart cop anyway. If they’d been the real deal, they could have gone to your house, flashed their badges and gained entry that way. You’re the daughter and sister of cops, and you would have let them in.”
Now it was Lauren who made a sound of agreement after making a soft moan. “I panicked. I didn’t want them to get to Patrick.”
Gabriel nodded. “Panicking is exactly what they wanted you to do because it caused you to run.”
Her brother hadn’t come out and said it, but he likely believed that it’d caused Lauren to run to the wrong man—Cameron. In Gabriel’s way of thinking, she should have gone to him, immediately, and that way he could have perhaps prevented this attack.
“So, how did this baby swap happen?” Jameson asked.
It was the question that had been repeating through Cameron’s mind. “Gilly maybe orchestrated it,” he admitted.
Gabriel looked ready to mumble some more profanity, but he bit it off when he glanced at the boys. “To protect her son from Evelyn and that scumbag boyfriend of hers.”
Cameron hated that his sister had been in a position like that, and he also hated he hadn’t been there to give her another option.
“We need to start from the beginning,” Gabriel continued a moment later. “We’ll need DNA tests on the boys—”
“I’ve already done one on Patrick,” Lauren volunteered. “I’m waiting on the results now.”
“Good. But we have to do Isaac’s, as well, and we should repeat Patrick’s, too, and compare it to Cameron’s.” Gabriel looked at Cameron as if questioning to see if he was opposed to that. He wasn’t. What Cameron was opposed to, though, was the fallout.
“I love Isaac,” Cameron admitted. He hadn’t intended to say that aloud. It was stating the obvious, and that obvious was true for Lauren, too. She loved Patrick.
Gabriel didn’t need for them to spell out where this would eventually lead. To some kind of custody issues. Maybe a huge legal battle if Lauren tried to go after both boys.
“If the DNA results prove there was a switch,” Gabriel went on, “then the next step will be to get hospital surveillance footage to see if we can spot who’s responsible. In the meantime, I can get someone to the jail to question Evelyn.”
“I can do that,” Jameson volunteered, and he stood, taking his cell from his pocket. He was about to make a call, but the ringing shot through the room. Not Jameson’s phone, though, but Lauren’s.
She looked at her phone screen as if steeling herself up for what she might see there. Probably because she thought this could be another attacker. But she didn’t look afraid. She groaned, a sound of frustration.
“It’s Julia,” she explained. “My late husband’s sister.”
Good. While it was obvious Lauren didn’t want to talk to the woman, Cameron wanted to hear what she had to say. Especially since Julia could be a suspect in this. Of course, the most obvious person was Evelyn, and it didn’t matter if she was locked up. People could do all sorts of bad things from behind bars.
“She calls you often?” Cameron asked.
“Rarely. And it’s never a pleasant conversation. We talk mainly through our lawyers these days.”
Lauren stepped out of the room, but Cameron followed her. Anything that happened right now could be related to the investigation, and he wanted to hear what Lauren’s sister-in-law had to say. Lauren obliged by putting the call on speaker. She also moved as far up the hall as she could go.
“What the hell is going on?” Julia immediately demanded. No wonder Lauren had been dreading this. The woman was clearly hostile.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Lauren countered without even pausing. “Someone tried to kill me, and I need to know if you had anything to do with that?”
“What? You’d better not be accusing me of something like that.”
Cameron considered holding his tongue but then decided against it. “Lauren is fine, by the way. Good of you to ask.”
“I don’t care if she’s fine,” Julia spat out. “And who the hell are you anyway?”
“Deputy Cameron Doran,” Lauren answered. If she was bothered by Cameron inserting himself into this conversation, she didn’t show it. She just gave another weary sigh.
“Your old boyfriend.” Julia said that as if Cameron were some kind of disease. “Yes, I know about you. I know everything about Lauren. She moaned out your name when she was under anesthesia after having an emergency appendectomy. Cameron, Cameron, she kept saying, so I did an internet search and found out you were a deputy in that hick town she comes from.”
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