It was the most workable theory Sebastian had heard. And when he’d shared it with Ruby after the police left, she’d agreed with him.

  “Your father was a doctor, so maybe there’s someone who lost a loved one he couldn’t save—a kid who’s now grown, who maybe had a hard life after their parent died.” It made sense. Better sense than anything else he’d heard to date.

  At Jaxon’s suggestion, the police were already broadening their search into his parents’ lives. For all Sebastian knew, one or the other of them had had an affair and there was some illegitimate child who was jealous that Sebastian had everything. Maybe it was someone who had just, in recent months, discovered their heritage through one of the popular DNA-testing organizations.

  The thought was out there. He recognized that.

  And yet...the uncertainty lingered.

  He stood in the kennel with Ruby, watching Echo, who’d calmed dramatically and whose heart rate Ruby had just pronounced a little high, still, but within normal range. Sebastian felt a twinge of resentment when his phone rang.

  Because...what? He wanted a minute alone with the woman he’d already determined he didn’t want to be personally alone with?

  The call took all of thirty seconds. Phone still in hand after he hang up, Sebastian told Ruby, “James Greenaway just quit.” One of his three part-timers, James had been cleaning out the kennels. “He said that three interviews with the police was enough. He didn’t do anything wrong, but they’re treating him like a suspect. He wants to be done.”

  Sebastian could have argued, tried to reason with James, talk him back to work, but he hadn’t. He didn’t blame the kid. And hoped that James had nothing to do with the attacks. He’d hired him right out of high school. Had had hopes of moving him up to assistant trainer in another year or so.

  Still standing there in the dimly lit structure that housed the dogs’ separate living quarters, Sebastian called Steele one more time to report James’s resignation.

  “It’s probably going to make the police look at him harder,” Ruby said as he disconnected that call. She still didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to leave.

  He nodded, not liking the feeling of helplessness that had been pervading his life over the past weeks. First Oscar’s gunshot injury, then Ruby’s windshield, the puppies, and Echo...

  A baby.

  “How exactly does putting you out of business, if this is what the guy’s trying to do, help him any? You still own the land. And five lakefront acres with the newly remodeled, enlarged and updated home...”

  “Unless he’s just bitter and trying to make me suffer as he has.” Before killing him? And filing for a possible inheritance? The only way that worked was if there was another biological child...

  He stared at Ruby.

  “What?”

  “I set up a trust for...the child. It’s in your name, so you can use the money however you see fit without having to go through any hoops.”

  “I don’t need your money, Sebastian.” In her jeans, tennis shoes and long-sleeved short black shirt, she stood up to him. Didn’t back away.

  And he said, “It’s done, Ruby. You can choose to use it or not, and whatever is there when the child turns eighteen will belong to them.” But something else had just occurred to him.

  “On Monday, I’m going to be drawing up a will.” He’d write it yet that night. Sign it. In case something happened to him over the weekend. “Everything I have will go to the child in the event of my death.”

  Her frown, the rush of emotion in her gaze, held him captive. “Don’t talk like that,” she said. “This guy...they’re going to stop him.”

  He nodded. Wasn’t fearing for his life.

  He was just figuring out how to be a father to a child he couldn’t live with or raise.

  * * *

  She had to get out. Get away from Sebastian’s magnetism. His conscientious heart.

  He wasn’t offering to be an active father to her child. She wouldn’t accept if he had been.

  So why did his distance, and yet his immediate help with money and wills—legal, lawyerly things—hurt?

  He was the only person in the world other than herself who knew that he was her baby’s father. The only one who could share that with her.

  And he was thinking about money and wills.

  She understood.

  Admired him.

  And had to hold back tears because...his actions left her feeling utterly alone. In a building filled with him. And dogs.

  How could she possibly feel bereft surrounded by any of her beloved four-legged beings?

  “I need to get back,” she said, maintaining her calm as she started for the door. She was not going to make a scene. Or give Sebastian any reason to doubt that she could be pregnant with his child while remaining friends and maintaining a healthy working relationship.

  At the door, she smiled at Della, who was coming into the kennel, and when the trainer spoke to Sebastian, Ruby just kept on walking.

  With all the outside lights still on in the training areas, she could make her way on her own as though the sunshine still lit her way.

  One foot in front of other.

  To her waiting SUV. Paid for. In her name. Her property. Hers. And, soon to have a car seat in it, would be the baby’s main mode of transporation, too.

  The little flip-flop in her heart at the thought was...nice.

  Realizing that her vehicle looked a little lopsided was not nice, however. Hurrying, wanting to get out of there before Sebastian came to find her—or, maybe worse, didn’t—Ruby looked at the back driver-side tire with a sinking sensation that went far beyond having a flat.

  The tires were less than a year old. Still under warranty.

  Didn’t mean she hadn’t punctured one. Driven over a nail. It happened.

  But that it would go flat right now? Another injury to her vehicle at Sebastian’s? After dark?

  She knew what he was going to think, even before she called him.

  Truth was, she was having a hard time not going there herself.

  Their vandal had struck again.

  But to what purpose? And how? The lights had been on.

  Around the kennels. Not behind her car. And not down by the lake.

  “It’s just a flat,” she told Sebastian when he came jogging over from the kennels.

  “Steele has officers coming back out just to check the area,” he told her. “And for now, you need to stay away from Crosswinds.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Sebastian. This one is probably not even an attack. Why just do one tire?” And only her car?

  “I don’t know why.” His tone held the frustration she could read on his expression as he bent to the tire, shining his phone light all around it, following with his hand. “I don’t know why any of this is happening. But I do agree that one flat tire seems to be a bit of a de-escalation. Why risk getting caught for one tire?”

  Unless the perpetrator had been interrupted again. Like with the puppies.

  From his squatting position, he came back with, “How could anyone have known that Echo was the one dog that would cost me the most, today of all days?” He looked up at her and then added, “I can’t find anything. Not a nail, or an obvious cut.” Moving around to the back, he opened the hatch and the flooring to access the spare tire.

  “You don’t have to change that,” Ruby said quickly. “I’ll call...”

  “Are you serious?” The look he gave her was long and hard. “I know how to change a tire. And would do so for anyone who got a flat on my land.”

  With a nod, she silently acknowledged her overreaction, with a note to keep a better watch on herself.

  “You don’t think Echo was just a random choice,” she said then. Sebastian had a real issue going on. One that involved both of them. One they could actually talk about.

  “Do you?”

  She didn’t. The handler in town, the potential for so many more clients... “But how would anyone know that?”

  He hauled out the tire, set it standing up right next to him, holding it with his jean-clad knee. And met her gaze. “I know, right?”

  Only someone who knew...

  “You think James is doing this? But why?”

  “Maybe not doing it, but he could have been passing on information. Even unknowingly. Just talking about work...”

  She loved that he was trying to think the best of his young, ex-employee. And wasn’t so sure that James couldn’t be behind the vandalism. “His dad died in Afghanistan, did you know that?”

  He nodded. “We talked it about it once.”

  “Maybe he’s jealous that you came back. That you’re building something great here, and helping other veterans better their lives, when he’s struggling to make ends meet.”

  He shook his head, then said, “Maybe, but it doesn’t make sense. I’ve been paying his community college tuition.”

  She hadn’t known that. Flooded with warmth to know that he’d do such a thing. And remembered the baby she was carrying.

  One who wouldn’t have a father, but would have Sebastian paying college tuition.

  “I went to the doctor yesterday.” She didn’t plan the words. They just fell out. And when she heard them out in the open, she started to panic. She didn’t have answers yet. Didn’t want to talk to him again until she had herself firmly settled wherever she was going to land with her new life. “There was a cancellation,” she said, starting to babble. “A woman who’d also had an ultrasound scheduled, so I was able to get it all over with in one quick visit.”

  There. It was done. Time to move on. “What do you need me to do there?” she asked, pointing toward the spare tire he was still holding. When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him. The struggle in his gaze grabbed her.

  “I can just send someone to get the vehicle in the morning,” she said inanely. “Catch a ride home with Della.”

  “Do I ask what you found out? How it went?” He seemed stupefied. Frozen.

  “I don’t know.” She barely got the words out.

  “I feel like I need to know.”

  Her heart soared for the second it took her to get a hold of it. “Then I guess you should ask.”

  She didn’t offer the answer. He had to need it badly enough to seek it.

  Instead of asking, he set about changing her tire. Like a madman in a race to save his life. Bolts flew out, tire off, tire on, bolts back in. All without a noticeable breath.

  Tool loaded back in her spare-tire compartment. Floorboard replaced.

  He finally spoke. “Steele asked that you leave the tire, for now. As possible evidence. Just in case.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.” She didn’t look his way as, hugging her satchel to her side, she reached for the driver’s-side handle.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Freezing with one foot on the floor of the car, the other still on the ground, she faced the windshield, not Sebastian, and said, “Yes.”

  She moved to sit down, but stopped again as he asked, “What did the doctor say?”

  She’d told him to ask. Implied that she’d answer. “About what?”

  “Everything.”

  Ruby took her foot back out of the car, but left the door open, leaned herself against the frame and part of the seat. Ready to fall in. To get away.

  “I’m eight weeks along, everything looks perfect—her word, not mine. She said I needed to start prenatal vitamins, and that she’d see me in a month.” She left out the part where she’d said Ruby might experience some fatigue, and to get enough rest. Those were both on her.

  “And the ultrasound?”

  Ruby stared at him. “We’re really going to do this?”

  His expression didn’t harden, really, but it grew less tentative. He crossed his arms. “You said to ask.”

  “Why are you?”

  With a shrug, Sebastian met her gaze, his face half-shadowed by the bright lights on one side of him and darkness on the other. “I have no idea,” he said, sounding like the words had been wrung out of him.

  And once again, her heart relented. “If you’re feeling guilty, Sebastian, don’t. This isn’t on you. My choice. I don’t need a man to complete me. I’m as independent as you are. I don’t know why this happened. The odds are so completely against it. We only did it one night. It was my first time in years, and we used condoms. The chances are minuscule and yet...”

  She heard herself. Grew instantly self-conscious that she was babbling again, and finally said, “I’m okay doing this alone.”

  “I don’t think it’s guilt that’s pushing me to know.”

  Oh. She stared at him, her mouth suddenly dry as her heart pounded. Not in any way that felt good. “What then?” she asked.

  When he shrugged, shook his head again, she wanted to sit down, shut the door in his face and gun it out of there.

  Which made about as much sense as him just shaking his head at the important answers.

  “How was the ultrasound?”

  A fine came to mind first. Succinct. Followed by a dramatic exit. She waited herself out. “It was amazing,” she said, finally telling him the truth. “I look at those films all the time, and so seeing, not only a human one, but my own body, with that tiny orb of life in my own uterus...”

  Her throat clogged up with tears and she had to stop. Swallowed. Blinked. Took a deep breath. Needed to show him how strong she was. How capable.

  And then she looked at his face, the set chin, unsmiling mouth, eyes wide...and glistening.

  “I heard the heartbeat,” she told him. Felt her own chin trembling and sat down. “That was it,” she concluded, all business, a doctor in her own right. Her own field. “Thanks again for changing my tire,” she said, then shut the door, started her vehicle, pulled away and...

  Left him standing there.

  Unmoving.

  The first glance in the rearview mirror was a mistake.

  The second one, curiosity.

  The third, just plain not smart.

  If she lived twenty lifetimes, she was never going to forget the sight of that big mountain man, the father of her baby, standing all alone.

  Chapter 10

  A razor-thin spike was found in Ruby’s tire. A matching piece had been retrieved from the ground nearby. While there was a small chance that she’d brought the spike in with her, the bigger probability was that the shard had been put in her normal parking spot on the chance that she’d drive over it.

  Not a life-threatening event. Not even a potentially dangerous one. At most, she’d have had a slow leak, rather than the more rapid one that had transpired.

  Sebastian wanted to believe the flat tire on Saturday night was just a fluke. But his gut was telling him otherwise. No one but Ruby parked next to the medical building.

  She parked there every single time she was at Crosswinds.

  Her windshield being shot out, and a tire flattened, definitely seemed to him to have both been done on purpose. Aimed at Ruby.

  Other things—the puppies, Echo, the complaints, Oscar—were clearly meant to hurt him. Or, at least, Crosswinds.

  And on three of those occurrences, Ruby had saved the day.

  Her windshield had been shot out after she’d saved Oscar.

  Then the tire flattened after the puppies were poisoned. And her unexpected arrival that evening had most likely prevented the rest of the puppies and Jasmine from also being poisoned.

  He didn’t want to find out what would happen to her if she returned to Crosswinds after saving Echo. Most particularly after Jaxon Walker paid for the dog and made arrangements for a couple of more weekend training sessions before taking Echo back to New York.

  Maybe the perpetrator didn’t know that yet, but Sebastian had to figure he would.

  By the following Thursday, Sebastian had received three calls through Jaxon Walker’s referrals, resulting in at least one sale. And every time something good happened for Crosswinds, he got more tense. Wondering if his stalker, as he was beginning to think of the vandal, would somehow find out and make him pay.

  Or, God forbid, go after Ruby again.

  The police had followed leads and were watching young James and checking out his associates. But so far, nothing had clicked. The chocolate bar that had poisoned Echo, their most concrete lead, was sold in every tourist shop in town, in hotel gift shops and in the local grocery store, too.

  The biggest issue on Sebastian’s mind was getting the mystery solved, the threats stopped, before word of Ruby’s pregnancy got around. They hadn’t spoken since she’d driven away Saturday evening, but he’d texted her every day. Asked how she was feeling. If she’d had any more light-headedness. How her work was going. And she’d responded promptly.

  Almost as if they’d made an agreement that it would work that way.

  He could go about his life knowing that she was working normal hours, eating well and feeling fine.

  But he needed to speak with her. He didn’t want any mention of the baby or pregnancy in writing that could be seen, hacked, or looked up by law-enforcement officials. Was he paranoid? Hell, yes.

  It was all going to come out. She’d start to show. Her family wouldn’t rest until they knew who the father was.

  And Sebastian wasn’t going to hide from his responsibility, either.

  But she wasn’t showing yet.

  And had sworn her sisters to secrecy.

  Dialing her on Thursday afternoon, her early day at the clinic, he half expected his call to go to voice mail. Was pleasantly surprised when he heard her pick up.

  “I won’t keep you long,” he began. “I’d just like to suggest that as long as you aren’t showing, as long as we can keep the situation under wraps, I’d rest a lot easier if we could do so.”