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to that. He’d started to question me about what I really saw the night Jill was murdered. He seemed to try to make me doubt that Riggs was the one to pull the trigger.”
    “It was Riggs,” Clayton verified. “I saw him, too.”
    Lenora nodded. “James knows that, but he kept pushing, as if he was looking for some kind of discrepancies in my report. I dismissed it, thinking he was just trying to prepare me for my testimony at the trial.”
    “That’s possible,” Clayton admitted.
    Possible, yes, but Lenora hadn’t been able to shake the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
    “When James finally called me back after your shooting, he asked me if I’d gone back to my old ways. If I was running laundered money again. He wanted to know if I’d done something to get you shot. I didn’t,” she quickly added.
    Clayton made a sound to indicate he was giving that some thought. “A few days before I was shot, someone broke into your place and vandalized it. I’ve been looking into any connection between that and the shooting, but I can’t find it. Did you?”
    She had to shake her head. “And I looked. The Eagle Pass police weren’t able to get any prints or trace from the break-ins, so there was no arrest.”
    He continued to stare at her. “So your solution was to go into hiding.”
    “I had the baby to think about.” And Lenora wasn’t going to apologize for that. “I didn’t want to take any more risks than I’d already taken.”
    “And I wasn’t around to help you.” He blew out a long breath, stood and stared down at her. “Well, I’m around now, and I want you to go back to Maverick Springs with me, to my family’s ranch.”
    Lenora got to her feet, too. “Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s too dangerous for me to come out of hiding and go with you. Obviously this person is after me, not you, because you’ve been out of the hospital for weeks now and no one has tried to kill you.”
    “Not yet. But I think we should get to the bottom of what’s going on before we jump to conclusions. Maybe Riggs hasn’t sent anyone else after me because he knows it wouldn’t be a smart thing to do. After all, the last person who tried to kill me is dead. Thanks to you,” he added.
    Yeah. Thanks to her.
    Too little, too late.
    By the time she’d put a bullet in their attacker, Clayton had already been shot.
    “I shouldn’t have come there that day to tell you about the baby.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “But you’re not the only one dealing with old baggage here. It played into my decision to tell you.”
    “Old baggage or not, you should have told me,” he confirmed.
    “But you don’t even remember me, do you? You don’t remember sleeping with me.”
    His gaze slid down her face to her body. Something different went through his eyes this time. Something she had no trouble recognizing.
    Attraction.
    Yes, she’d felt it, too, the first time she’d ever looked at him. And every time since.
    She huffed, stood and would have gone to the window if it wouldn’t have put them so close. “It hardly seemed fair to go waltzing into your hospital room to tell you that your one-night stand had led to an unexpected pregnancy. I wanted you to focus on your recovery.”
    “Maybe it wouldn’t have been fair, but it would have been the right thing to do for the baby.” The sunglasses went back on so he could have another look outside.
    The right thing. In other words, turn over her safety—and the baby’s—to him. Under normal circumstances she might have considered it, but it was crystal clear that Clayton was in no shape to be offering her protection.
    Not yet anyway.
    Her best bet was to regroup, go back into hiding under a different name. And a different job. One that couldn’t be traced to anything in her past. Then, once things had settled down and his shooter was in custody, she could go to him and have him be part of their baby’s life.
    It seemed like a logical plan.