Cowboy Behind the Badge by Delores Fossen

badly as he does could have done some desperate things. Maybe when Dawn tried to run away from him, he had her kidnapped and taken to the baby farm until she delivered. If she escaped, he wouldn’t have liked that much.”
    Laine had to process it first, but eventually, she nodded. “It’s possible. Darren has a temper, and if he thought Dawn had betrayed him in some way, he could have struck out in anger.”
    Tucker mumbled some profanity. “And you were going to marry that jerk?”
    â€œYes.” But then she shook her head. “Maybe.”
    He looked at her as if she’d sprouted wings.
    â€œI wanted a family,” she explained. “You know, mom, dad, babies. He wanted the same thing.”
    Yet another sprouted-wings look. “What about love?”
    Here was where things got a little tricky. “I’d just turned thirty, and I thought time was running out for having that family. And Darren was there, pushing for the very life that I desperately wanted. For a while I thought that was enough.”
    Tucker mumbled some profanity, shook his head. “My advice—never settle for enough. ”
    Laine nearly smiled at Tucker giving relationship advice, but she didn’t have a chance to respond because his phone rang. They got into the truck before he took it from his pocket and looked at the screen.
    â€œIt’s Rosalie,” he said.
    That put Laine on instant alert. “The babies,” she managed to say.
    All sorts of bad things started running through her head. Obviously through Tucker’s, too, because he fumbled with the phone, trying to answer it quickly.
    â€œTucker, you need to get back here right away,” Rosalie said the moment she came on the line. “Martin Hague’s here with a court order, and he’s taking the babies.”
    Â 

Chapter Nine
    Thank God the roads were no longer wet, because Tucker knew he was driving way too fast. Everything inside him was racing, too, and even though he’d sworn to uphold the law, there was no way he was going to let Hague use that court order to take the babies.
    The trouble was, he didn’t know exactly how to stop him.
    It was hardly legal extenuating circumstances for Tucker to say he wouldn’t hand over the babies because he didn’t trust the social worker.
    But he didn’t.
    And it wasn’t just all that unexplained money that Reed had uncovered, or the fact that one of the women rescued from the baby farm was Hague’s cousin. It was something else.
    Something that Tucker couldn’t quite put his finger on.
    He’d already called Hague’s boss, Rita Longley, as soon as he’d left Darren’s ranch, and Tucker had told the woman to back off on the court order. He hadn’t outright accused Hague of wrongdoing, but he’d warned Ms. Longley that Hague could have a conflict of interest and that he should be pulled from this particular case.
    Tucker hadn’t gotten a resounding yes from Hague’s boss, so she might not agree with Tucker’s demand. But even if she did, it might not be soon enough to stop what Hague had already set into motion.
    â€œHurry,” Laine repeated.
    She was obviously just as distressed about this as he was, maybe more. Tucker hoped like the devil that all their concern was for the babies’ safety and not for the babies themselves.
    There was a difference.
    And it wasn’t a good thing for a lawman to lose his objectivity, especially when the babies could belong to a man—Darren—who was just as desperate to get his hands on them as Hague apparently was.
    Tucker turned onto the ranch road and immediately spotted Hague’s car parked directly in front of the house. Like his other visit, he had a Department of Public Safety officer with him, and the guy was on the steps, along with Hague, Rosalie and Mary. The women each had a baby in their arms, and it was clear from their body language that