Two
Jaycee cursed the panic that shot through her.
After months of being held captive, she should be used to having a gun pointed at her, but maybe that was something that never got old. Especially since each time one of the guards pointed a gun at her, they aimed at her stomach.
The one place that they knew would get her to cooperate.
She’d risk her own neck, but not the baby.
However, there was a new reason to do whatever they wanted so she could get the guard out of there. Josh’s life depended on it, and sadly, so did hers and the other two women’s, Marita and Blanca.
Her cell mates spoke only Spanish, but they understood enough English to know what they had to do. When the guard came in, they got to their feet, cowering. Both pregnant, like Jaycee, and both willing to do anything to protect the babies they carried.
“You sure you ladies aren’t up to something?” the man growled.
Jaycee didn’t know his name, but he was bald, ugly and big, which described every guard who’d been at the ranch over the past month.
This one came in at least several times a day, and he always made a repeat visit after bringing one of them back from the house. Maybe because he thought they were going to discuss whatever they’d seen or heard in there. Or maybe he thought they’d break some more cameras.
On each of these visits, Jaycee wished she could punch the guy in the face, take that rifle and get herself and the others out. But so far, escape had been impossible.
Maybe it still was.
She couldn’t risk verbally warning Josh to stay put, but hopefully he would. He was a good agent. At least he had been before the shooting that’d nearly left him dead. If they survived the next few minutes, maybe she would be able to ask him how he’d found her and how he planned to get them all out.
And he’d better have a plan.
A darn good one.
Keeping herself directly in front of the door, Jaycee lifted the leg of her scrub pants to remind the jerk that since her attempted escape, she had been wearing an ankle monitor. One that would alert him if she did manage to get out of the barn. So far, she’d had no luck in getting the monitor off or disabling the Big Brother camera inside that watched them 24/7.
The jerk stared at them awhile longer. Jaycee didn’t prolong his stay by glaring at him as she sometimes did. Her glare would rile him, she knew that for a fact, but a riled man just stayed longer.
She wanted him out of there now.
Finally, he mumbled something and got moving. So did Jaycee. She knew the angles of the camera and the blind spots. Well, one blind spot anyway. Even the bathroom that’d been added in the corner had no door. But she had learned that any time she moved into the remains of the horse stall just to the left of the back barn door that one of the jerks came running to make sure she was still there.
Definitely a blind spot.
“Stay low,” she whispered to Josh, “and go in there.”
Jaycee tipped her head to the stall. She had to get him out of the yard because the guard would soon be making a sweep of that area. Maybe he wouldn’t come upon the backup that Josh had hopefully brought with him. If Josh had come alone, well, they were in trouble.
Without making a sound, Josh slipped through the bottom part of the door and into the stall.
“Keep your voice at a whisper,” she warned him, angling her head away from the camera. She couldn’t do that for long, either, or it would prompt another look-see from the guard. “There’s a listening device on the post by the camera, but I’ve crammed bits of hay in it to muffle the sound.”
She was sure he heard what she said, but his smoky blue eyes were planted firmly on her stomach.
Oh, that.
She owed him an answer to his question.
Since she’d first eyed that little plus sign on the home pregnancy test over four months ago, she’d wondered how she would spill this news. Josh wasn’t exactly a family man. Thirty-four and had never even lived with a woman or been engaged. Jaycee didn’t consider herself a relationship expert, but she figured that meant he hadn’t planned on becoming a father this year.
And she didn’t care.
This was her baby. She’d spent the last three and a half months protecting it, and she didn’t intend to stop now. The only thing she needed from Josh was his help in getting them all the heck out of there.
Jaycee moved back to the door, propped her shoulder against the frame and pretended to examine the split ends on her hair. She spent a lot of time pretending to do mundane things that concealed her eyes and mouth just so the guards wouldn’t be alerted that she was looking for a way out of this Hades of a prison.
“Well?” Josh prompted.
Since an answer to that question would only waste time and distract him, Jaycee went in a different direction. One that would fully occupy his lawman’s attention.
She hoped.
“There are four guards total,” she explained. “At least two are on watch at all times. And right now, there’s a doctor inside. He’s already given me and the two women here checkups, but he’ll examine the other four women who are also being held captive in the house.”
She risked a glance at Josh, and judging from the way he looked at her—as if she’d lost her bloomin’ mind—he hadn’t known those details.
“You did know about the captives, right?” she asked. “And that this is a baby farm, and they’re holding us against our will?”
He shook his head.
That sucked the breath right out of her.
He didn’t know. So why the devil was he here?
Josh shucked off his black Stetson and generally looked as if he wanted to throw up in it. That only lasted a split second, and he became the tough FBI agent again.
Or rather the hot cowboy cop.
That wasn’t an FBI shield on his rawhide belt. It was some kind of local badge. And he was wearing jeans and a denim shirt that looked as if he’d been born to wear them. Ditto for the rumpled chocolate-brown hair. Definitely not FBI regulation length. Later, if she got the chance, she’d tell him that it suited him.
Later, she’d tell him a lot of things.
And maybe he would listen.
Josh eased his phone from his pocket and fired off a text. “Will these men kill you if you try to escape?” he mouthed.
“Oh, yeah.” She didn’t have to think about that.
Jaycee had had enough experience with killers to know one when she saw one, and the guards were killers. She figured their boss was, too,
