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didn’t respond, and instead asked, “Where’s Dad?”
    “Inside his office, waiting. I told him you’d asked about the Range Rover.”
    Houston shoved her gun into the glove compartment and slammed the car door, perhaps not pleased that Dale had even brought up the subject with the senior Sadler. Or maybe that was just Gabrielle’s take on things. Houston’s reaction could have stemmed from the fact that he was still fuming from the attack.
    No fuming for her, but she was still shaking. Gabrielle hoped she could hold herself together long enough to get the heck out of there.
    First though, she was apparently about to see Mack.
    Then, when she was away from the ranch and the Sadlers, she could fall apart and have a good cry.
    “I didn’t call the sheriff, just as you asked, and I sent the two ranch hands after the black car,” Dale explained, as they stepped onto the porch.
    “Did they find it?” Houston asked.
    “They did, and they’re keeping a close watch on it.”
    Gabrielle groaned softly. She didn’t want them to keep a close watch. She wanted the driver of that vehicle apprehended, so she could finally learn why she’d been followed and harassed in the six weeks since Lucas’s birth. Of course, if the sheriff arrested the men in that car, she would have to come out of hiding to give her statement about what they had done.
    Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Either decision could be a dangerous one.
    Houston opened the double front doors and ushered her inside. The entrance was just as grand as the rest of the house, as was each room they passed along the way to his father’s office. Houston stopped outside a closed door, and he glanced at her, then Dale.
    “Why don’t you take Gabrielle to the kitchen and fix her a cup of tea or something?” Houston asked his foreman.
    Gabrielle was shaking her head before Houston even finished. “I don’t want any tea. I want to hear what your father has to say for himself.” She made certain that her tone left no room for argument. The sooner they had this conversation, then the sooner she could leave.
    Houston stared at her for several moments. “Call the ranch hands and find out the latest on the car they’re following,” he instructed Dale. “I don’t want the driver of that vehicle to make any stops anywhere near the baby. Understand?”
    Dale assured him that he would, and the man walked away, leaving Houston and her still staring at each other. She braced herself for him to open the door and confront his father, but he didn’t.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    Gabrielle blinked. His expression was so different than it had been on the drive over. No more iron muscles in his face, and his eyes no longer seemed so icy.
    “I wasn’t hurt,” she clarified.
    “Not even when I wrestled the gun away from you in the stables?”
    She thought of that contact between. Yes, he’d been rough, but it could have been a lot worse. Maybe it was her imagination, but Houston seemed to have treated herwith kid gloves. Gabrielle wasn’t sure she would have been that gentle with him if their positions had been reversed.
    “When I came after you like that,” he continued, “I didn’t know you’d recently given birth.”
    He was worried about hurting her, which was considerate. After all, she’d pulled a gun on him—something she would regret for the rest of her life. But she wouldn’t regret the anger if she learned Houston was behind all of this. If he had done this to her on purpose, then she would somehow make him pay.
    “You didn’t hurt me,” she settled for saying.
    “Good.” A moment later, Houston asked, “Are you still recovering from the delivery?”
    “No. I didn’t have a C-section, so I was back on my feet almost right away.”
    And that seemed like way too much information to be sharing with him. Houston Sadler didn’t have the right to know anything about her personal welfare, other than that she was capable of taking