A little sob bubbled up her throat. Nash would think poorly of her only until she could fully explain. Then he’d understand why she had to get Wyatt away from here.
Denali stood at attention at the foot of the bassinet. If she’d been anyone else trying to remove Wyatt from this house, Denali would’ve raised a fuss. But he trusted her...just like Nash trusted her.
She bent over the bassinet and scooped up Wyatt. “Do you want to meet your daddy? He may not be ready, but it has to be now.”
Marcus still hadn’t answered her texts, but he might be avoiding communication with her. Maybe his wife had gotten ahold of his burner phone and he was in damage mode.
She still didn’t understand why he was in a Border Patrol spreadsheet, but maybe she’d misunderstood. Maybe those people were donors or fund-raisers or something. She knew Marcus had connections with law enforcement in Phoenix and often contributed to their causes.
With Denali standing guard over Wyatt, she grabbed a piece of junk mail from Nash’s counter and scribbled him a note full of apologies and a few explanations. She wanted him to know that she had Wyatt’s best interests at heart and was taking him to his father. She placed the note in the center of the counter, held in place with the half-full wine bottle from last night. He couldn’t miss it.
She settled a sleepy Wyatt in his car seat and strapped him in. Nash hadn’t said she couldn’t take Wyatt in the car, so hopefully he wouldn’t see anything unusual in her actions. He might not even be watching her right now. He had a job to do. He couldn’t stay glued to his security feed all day.
She hitched her bag of goodies over her shoulder and hoisted up the car seat. She smacked a kiss in the air. “Bye, Denali. Be a good boy.”
She locked the front door and trudged to her car, Wyatt swinging next to her. Nash had transferred the car seat base from his truck to her car for just this reason—well, not this exact reason, but he shouldn’t be alarmed that she was taking Wyatt for a drive.
She snapped his car seat into the base in the back seat—facing backward. That had been her in with Nash in that grocery store parking lot. Of course, if it hadn’t been advice about the car seat, she would’ve come up with something else. Nash had been so primed for help, and she’d pounced on his weakness.
She got behind the wheel and swiped a sniffle from her nose as she pulled away from Nash’s house, leaving the GPS tracker in the driveway. By the time one o’clock rolled around, she’d be in Phoenix.
Marcus should be able to protect Wyatt when she got to his place and even admit to being the baby’s father. Her attacker and his sidekick would have no use for Wyatt at that point. They could get their man another way.
She’d had a feeling even if she’d told the guy last night that Wyatt wasn’t Brett’s son, he wouldn’t have believed her. Or maybe he wouldn’t have cared. They’d figured out that Jaycee was lying about Wyatt, so they knew he was her son, and if Brett cared anything about Jaycee and her baby, he might be willing to make a deal.
She rolled up to the end of Nash’s road and turned right, away from the town. She could take a back road to the freeway and wouldn’t have to pass through Paradiso and the Border Patrol office on her way out.
This was going to work.
Emily accelerated, but not too much. She didn’t need to get pulled over for a ticket or draw attention to herself in any way. She checked her rearview mirror and her heart did a flip.
A truck, traveling at a high speed, a cloud of dust in its wake, had appeared behind her out of nowhere. Had they been watching and waiting for her instead of depending on the GPS tracker? They had no way of knowing she’d find that device. They didn’t know her profession...or former profession.
She applied more pressure to the gas pedal, but she didn’t plan to get into a high-speed chase with Wyatt in the back seat of her car. Lodging her tongue in the corner of her mouth, she glanced in her mirror again.
The truck was gaining on her, and then she blinked and adjusted the mirror as if that could change what she saw.
That white truck looked an awful lot like Nash’s truck. She couldn’t afford to see him right now, either. She could tell him she was taking Wyatt for a drive to calm him down, but then how would she escape?
What was he doing home this early, anyway? He’d told her he would be coming home at lunchtime, and he sure as hell didn’t see her leaving on the cameras and drive this far this fast from his office.
Maybe that wasn’t even Nash. Lots of people drove white trucks in this town. She squinted in her rearview and swore. No mistaking the aviator sunglasses. That was Nash on her tail.
She’d have to pull over, or he’d know for sure she was absconding with Wyatt. She eased off the pedal and put on her signal. Gripping the steering wheel with sweaty palms, she veered toward the side of the road and shifted into Park without turning off the engine. Not that she could make a quick getaway with Nash standing beside her car.
As he pulled in behind her, she wiped her hands on her skirt and pasted a smile on her face. “You sure you don’t want to start crying back there to bolster my story, Wyatt?”
The baby gurgled and burped up some white gunk, clearly
