had been left on his doorstep, but she couldn’t stay indefinitely and in any case he needed to make some kind of a report.
Was it possible her mother would return later tonight? Maybe sometime tomorrow? He couldn’t take the chance of waiting around for her to come back to retrieve the baby. Eventually the baby would wake up and need something and he wouldn’t know what to do.
He made the call and when he finished, the baby opened her slate blue eyes and gazed at him. Her rosebud lips curled upward and she released a soft coo. He closed his eyes and steeled his heart. No matter how cute she was, he absolutely refused to care about her.
* * *
Rookie K9 Officer Elle Gage hunkered down behind the back of a pickup truck in the warehouse parking lot. Next to her was her partner, her bulldog named Merlin, who was trained in protection.
Merlin had entered her life eight months before, after going through an intense ten weeks of training at the Red Ridge K9 Training Center. He was not only her partner, but also her best friend and companion. As far as she was concerned he was the best dog in the whole entire world.
The pavement smelled of grease and oil baked under the June sun that day. Her heart beat quickly in anticipation and her blood sizzled through her veins as she stared at the warehouse in the distance.
Tonight she was hoping to finally prove herself, not only to her chief, but also to her brother and fellow officer, Carson. She also wanted to prove herself to her brother Lucas, who was a bounty hunter.
In her mind she always thought of her brothers as South Dakota’s Most Overly Protective Brothers. She was more than ready for them to trust that she could take care of herself and stop watching over her so carefully.
She stared at the warehouse that belonged to the Larson twins, suspected mobsters who were involved in everything from money laundering to drugs and gunrunning. This was where the smooth, handsome men held their meetings and it was suspected that tonight the place was packed with illegal guns and drugs.
The parking lot was filled with vehicles belonging to the twins’ known associates. She’d love to be part of the team who took them down, although she hated the fact that whenever she was assigned to any job, her brother Carson made sure he was assigned to the same job. She was twenty-six years old. Jeez, couldn’t a girl get a break?
She wanted to be the one to cuff one of the twins, not just because they were a menace to society, but because they stole a prized German shepherd named Nico from the RRK9 Training Center and got away with it, and they were also suspected of having one of their thugs steal a puppy from the center. Evan and Noel had clearly had an immoral veterinarian remove Nico’s microchip and replace it with one declaring them the dog’s owner. Nico had been a day or two from being paired with a K9 handler; that’s how highly trained he was. Now he was in the wrong hands. And the puppy had cost the center a small fortune. Elle knew the Larson twins were slimeball criminals, but stealing a dog? For that crime alone, the two should be jailed for the rest of their lives.
Crouching, she moved a couple of steps closer, still hugging the body of the pickup that was her cover. All she was waiting for was the official word to go in.
Tonight she would prove to everyone that she was a good cop and could hold her own under any circumstances. Tonight she would prove to her brother that she didn’t need them babysitting her anymore.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out, unsurprised to see her brother Carson’s number. She punched the button to answer, but before she could say anything, Merlin released a deep, loud grunt, his trained alert for danger.
Elle whirled around in time to see a big man barreling down on her. She dropped her phone and raised her hands in a defensive posture, her heart nearly beating out of her chest.
He was about to make full-body contact with her. She had no time to think but could only react. She quickly sidestepped and when he brushed by her body, she used her elbow to chop him on the back. Obviously surprised by her quick action, he went down hard on his hands and knees.
She gave him no time to recover. She kicked his midsection as hard as she could once, twice, and a third time. He groaned and attempted to regain his footing, but before he could get to his feet, she had drawn her gun.
“Raise up slowly and turn around,” she commanded. “Ignore my instructions and I’ll shoot you,” she warned. He turned and she quickly snapped cuffs on his wrists. It was only then that she leaned over, breathing hard, but not as hard as her prisoner who, even though he was winded, managed to gasp out some ugly language directed at her.
“Shut up,” she said as she picked up her phone from the pavement. “All I have to do is say one word and my partner here will tear out your throat.”
He’d obviously thought she’d be an easy takedown because she was a woman. The joke was on him for underestimating her skill and clear focus. She’d had the same training as the men and she was as good as any one of them...including her brother.
Footsteps slapped pavement, coming toward her. She held her gun tight, unsure if it was more danger approaching. She relaxed as she saw her brother and his partner running toward her.
“Elle, are you okay?” Carson asked, his eyes blazing with concern. He stopped abruptly at the sight of her prisoner.
“Elle, why didn’t you yell for help? I was on the phone with you,” he said angrily. “All you had to do was say that you were in trouble.”
“Cool your jets, Carson. I didn’t need any help from you. He attacked me and I handled the situation.” A sense of pride swept through her as she watched his panic turn to grudging respect.
“Good job,” he replied. “I heard the commotion on the phone and knew you were in trouble.”
“Like I said, I handled it. This is one bad guy—a thug associate of the Larson twins—who will be off the streets for a while,” she replied. At that moment her phone vibrated again. Carson took control of the prisoner while she answered her phone.
It was Chief Finn Colton. “I want you to get over to the foreman’s cabin on the Double C Ranch. A baby has been abandoned there with Anders Colton. Your brother can handle the surveillance without you.”
An abandoned baby. It was a nonthreatening job and if she didn’t know better she’d swear that her brother had talked to the chief and told him to pull her off this more dangerous case.
She hated to leave the surveillance at the warehouse. She really wanted to catch one of the Larson twins red-handed and put at least one—if not both—away.
At least her sense of pride stayed with her as she and Merlin got into her car and headed for the Double C Ranch. She’d taken care of the thug all by herself, without the help of one of her Overly Protective Brothers. She hadn’t even had to set Merlin into motion.
She wasn’t particularly happy to be going to interact with any Colton other than the police chief and her fellow officers. The feud between the Coltons and the Gages was legendary. It began a century ago when the Gage family lost a good plot of land to the Coltons in a poker game. There had been cheating accusations, and the bad blood between the two families remained today.
Most recently she had a wealth of rage directed toward one particular Colton...Demetria “Demi” Colton, the woman she believed had murdered her brother, Bo.
On
