Читать книгу: «The Mummy Mystery»
Houston Sadler was a wealthy man. A billionaire. And he was accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted.
Gabrielle had seen the love in Houston’s eyes when he looked at Lucas, and that love might blind him to the fact that this was the child she’d planned and carried. This was her baby.
He showed her to her room, and it was even larger than she’d expected. There was even a crib and changing table.
“You’re exhausted,” Houston commented.
And as if it was the most normal and routine thing in the world, he took Lucas from her arms and carried him to the crib. He didn’t lay the baby down right away, but instead kissed his cheek and smiled at him.
Gabrielle could see it then—the strong resemblance. It was uncanny and unnerving just how much Lucas looked like his father. He was indeed a Sadler.
That didn’t do much to steady her nerves.
About the Author
Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSEN feels as if she were genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.
THE MUMMY
MYSTERY
DELORES FOSSEN
MILLS & BOON
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Chapter One
Blue Springs Ranch, Texas
Houston Sadler climbed down from his horse, eased off his Stetson and smacked it against his jeans to get rid of some of the dust he’d accumulated on his ride. Bear, his buckskin gelding, snorted in protest, and Houston led the horse into the stables so he could brush him down.
Neither of them got far.
“Don’t move,” someone said.
Houston didn’t have time to move, or think, before he felt the barrel of a gun jam against his back.
“Lift your hands so I can see them,” the gunman added. Or rather the gunwoman, because that was a female’s voice.
Now the question was, what the hell did she want?
“If you’re after money, there’s none in the stables, and I don’t have my wallet with me,” Houston let her know.
He lifted his hands, releasing Bear’s reins so the gelding would get out of the way. He damn sure didn’t want his horse to get hurt when he took down this would-be robber. And there were no ifs, ands or buts about it, he was going to take her down. No one got away with pulling a gun on him.
“I’m not after your money,” she spat out, as if he’d insulted her. Her voice was clogged and hoarse, and he thought he heard her sniffle.
“Are you thinking about kidnapping me?” he asked, trying another tack.
If so, she wouldn’t get far, because his ranch hands were all over the place. In fact, one could and probably would come into the stables at any moment. All of Houston’s men knew his schedule and knew he’d be at the tail end of his daily ride. At least one would likely come in and offer to groom Bear.
“I’m not here to kidnap you.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now, and she didn’t add anything else to tell him her intentions.
So, if this wasn’t about money, then it was about love or revenge. But those were the likely reasons if he was dealing with a semisane person. He could rule out love, since he hadn’t had more than a basic, no-strings-attached sexual relationship with a woman since his wife died three years ago.
That left revenge.
And if that was the case, then she probably intended to kill him. Or at least try.
“Do I know you?” he asked. Houston angled his head just slightly and looked over his shoulder. Then he cursed.
Oh, yeah. He knew her.
“Gabrielle Markham,” Houston grumbled, and turned to face her.
He also dropped his hands. His mouth dropped open, too. She was the last person he expected to see in his stables with a gun on him. But he rethought that.
The last time they’d crossed paths was … what?… a year ago? Maybe longer. She’d been dressed in a dove-gray business suit in the Bexar County courthouse, where she’d tried to sue his jeans off on behalf of her client, who also happened to be her brother, Jay.
She’d lost the case. Or rather, it’d been dismissed for lack of evidence.
Which meant Houston was back to the revenge motive, even though this was a pretty extreme measure for someone sour over losing a legal battle. People lost legal battles to him all the time.
Houston stared at her, trying to make sense of this situation and her. She certainly wasn’t wearing a business suit today. Khaki pants and a pale pink shirt that was bulky and loose. She was also pale, no makeup, and the whites of her brown eyes were red.
She’d been crying, all right.
Her short, blond hair was spiky and uncombed, and it didn’t look as if she’d done it to make a fashion statement. The cool October breeze rustled through it, messing it up even more than it already was.
“What happened?” Houston wasn’t just alarmed now, he was concerned. Not so much for the woman who was holding him at gunpoint, but for whatever had driven her to come out to the Blue Springs ranch and commit a felony.
Gabrielle cleared her throat. “You tell me what happened. I want answers, and I want them now.”
He gave her a flat look. “You took the words right out of my mouth. Since I’m the one at gunpoint, I think I deserve an answer or two.”
Those teary brown eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me, Houston Sadler. You might have half the money in Texas, but I won’t let you get away with this. Why did you do it? Why? “
Houston shrugged and tried to stay calm. Hard to do with that gun on him. “Because your brother was wrong to try to sue me, that’s why. He was fired for a legitimate reason. Because he abused one of the cutting mares. Jay’s damn lucky I didn’t go after him the way he did that mare. Instead of beating him senseless, I fired his sorry butt. There was no wrongful dismissal involved. End of story.”
Gabrielle shook her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my brother.” She paused, blinked. “Does it? Did you do this to get back at him by using me?”
Houston huffed. He was tired of these nonsense questions and having a Saturday-night special aimed at him.
He made sure Bear was out of the way first. The gelding was. So he lowered his head and dove right at Gabrielle. He didn’t hit her with his full weight, and cursed himself for being a gentleman at a time like this.
They landed hard, against the stable wall, and her hand smacked right into his groin. She probably hadn’t planned to do that, but it worked. Houston saw stars and growled in pain. He also grabbed her hands, pinning them to the wall so she couldn’t fire that gun.
Gabrielle fought back. No surprise there. Houston hadn’t expected her to give up without a struggle.
He maneuvered his body so that he held her in place. It wasn’t that hard to do. She was five-four, if that, and her feeble attempts to hit him landed like weak thuds on his chest. She was what his father would have called a “pretty little thing.” Houston figured he could add “desperate” to that particular description.
“Now, tell me why you’re here,” he insisted. “And I’m not giving you another chance. Talk now, or I yell for my ranch foreman. He’ll come running, then call the sheriff, who’ll haul your butt off to jail. Got that?”
Her breath gusted against his face, and she continued to glare at him before she finally started to relax. When she nodded, Houston nodded, too, and eased away from her. While he waited for her explanation, he checked the Saturday-night special.
“Forget something?” he asked, showing her the empty chambers. The gun wasn’t even loaded.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I only wanted answers.”
This was getting more and more confusing with each passing moment. “And you thought this was the way to get them? Guess a phone call or e-mail would be too simple? ”
“Too risky,” she mumbled.
Okay, that got his interest. “Why?”
“Because I knew you’d just let them know where I was. Please, call them off. Tell them what you did was a mistake. Don’t try to take him away from me. Please, don’t.” The tears started to stream down her cheeks again.
Well, he’d demanded an explanation and had gotten one … of sorts. But Houston still didn’t have a clue who she meant by “them” or “him.” Was she talking about her brother now? Was someone after Gabrielle and him?
Before he could press for clarification about the mistake she thought he’d made, he heard his ranch foreman, Dale Burnett, call out to him.
“Houston? You in there?”
He also heard Dale’s footsteps coming straight for the stables. His ranch foreman wasn’t alone, either. There were at least two sets of footsteps.
“The sheriff’s with me,” Dale added. “He says it’s important and he needs to speak to you.”
Gabrielle immediately ducked behind a tack shelf. “Please, don’t tell anyone I’m here,” she whispered. She added another “please,” and he saw the color blanch from her face. Her fingers trembled as she caught onto the shelf.
Hell.
Again, Houston cursed his upbringing. He was a sucker for a pretty little thing in trouble, and while Gabrielle and he might have had their differences, she was indeed in trouble.
Even though he figured he’d regret this, Houston shoved her gun into the back waist of his jeans and walked to the stable entrance to meet Dale and Sheriff Jack Whitley.
Dale’s weathered face was ripe with concern, and he looked at Houston as if he had answers. Houston didn’t. But he hoped to remedy that soon.
“Mr. Sadler,” the sheriff said, in greeting.
“Houston,” he offered, for the umpteenth time, though he figured the sheriff would probably never call him by his first name.
None of the townsfolk in Willow Ridge did. That was almost certainly due to Houston’s surly father and grandfather who made sure everybody knew the Sadlers were stinkin’ rich and should therefore be respected.
“What can I do for you, sheriff?”
Sheriff Whitley didn’t jump right into an explanation. In fact, he looked downright uncomfortable when he turned to Dale. “Could you give Mr. Sadler and me some time to talk, alone?”
Dale looked at Houston, and he gave his ranch foreman a nod, to let him know he could leave.
“Is someone hurt?” Houston demanded, the moment Dale walked away. “Dead?”
“No. But I just got a visit from two detectives from the San Antonio Police Department. It’s related to the maternity hostage situation that happened at the hospital about six weeks ago. You remember it?”
“Of course.” It’d been all over the news. Masked gunmen had stormed into the San Antonio Maternity Hospital and held a group of women hostage for hours. People died, including a cop’s wife. If Houston remembered correctly, the gunmen had been killed in a shootout with the police, but there were rumors that they might have had an accomplice who was still at large.
“One of the former hostages, a woman, is missing, and SAPD wants to question her,” the sheriff explained.
While that sounded like a serious problem, Houston wanted to hurry up this conversation so he could finish his little chat with Gabrielle.
“You don’t think the gunmen’s accomplice or the missing woman is around Willow Ridge or the ranch, do you? “ Houston asked.
The lanky sheriff shook his head, paused again. “SAPD and the FBI don’t have actual proof that there was an accomplice. They don’t know where the woman is, either, but you might be able to help with that.”
Houston glanced at Gabrielle to make sure she was staying put. She was. But he didn’t think it was his imagination that she was even more alarmed than she had been before the sheriff’s arrival.
“How do you think I can help?” Houston wanted to know.
The sheriff took a deep breath. “After the hostage situation ended, SAPD tested the DNA of the newborns left unattended in the nursery during any part of the standoff. When they got the results, they realized one baby boy didn’t match any of the mothers, so they repeated the test. Those results came back yesterday. The first test wasn’t wrong. The child didn’t match any of the mothers. And now, one mother and one baby are missing.”
Was the sheriff talking about Gabrielle? And was a baby snatcher peering out at him from the tack blankets?
“Is this woman involved with the gunmen and the hostage situation?” Houston asked. “SAPD doesn’t think so.”
“I see,” Houston mumbled. So, she might not have taken part in the hostage situation, but she wasn’t completely innocent, either. “She took a kid who wasn’t hers.” There weren’t enough gentlemanly bones in his body to stop him from turning Gabrielle in to the sheriff. He couldn’t let her get away with kidnapping.
Houston looked at her, to let her know that, but she was frantically shaking her head.
“Well, the baby wasn’t hers, not biologically, anyway,” the sheriff explained, before Houston could speak. “But she did give birth to it.”
Houston snapped his attention back to the sheriff. “Excuse me?”
“There was surveillance video of her going into the delivery room. And the baby’s ID bracelet matched the one on the woman’s wrist. The only reason the cops did a DNA test was that they wanted to be a hundred percent sure that the right mothers got the right babies. They hadn’t expected anything like this to turn up.”
Another glance at Gabrielle. She was no longer shaking her head. She was looking at him with the saddest doe eyes he’d ever seen.
That wouldn’t work, either.
“This woman was a surrogate of some kind?” Houston asked, figuring he’d finally worked it out. Gabrielle had been a surrogate and had changed her mind about giving up the baby. However, that didn’t explain why the cops and sheriff would think this had anything to do with him.
The sheriff nodded. “Her name is Gabrielle Markham, an attorney I think you had some dealings with.”
“I know her,” Houston admitted. “Did she break the law when she ran with the baby? ”
“Maybe. The police are still investigating it, but she might have become a surrogate through illegal means. And she might have done that so she could have some leverage over you. If all that’s true, then, yeah, it would be obstruction of justice to take the child.”
Gabrielle made a soft gasp, and even though it was soft, Houston thought it might be laced with outrage.
The sheriff glanced past Houston and looked around the stables. He even took a step forward, probably intending to go inside and have a closer look around to see what had made that sound. Soon, Houston would let him do just that. But he wanted to hear the rest of this little story first.
“How could Ms. Markham hope to gain any leverage over me with an illegal surrogacy?” Houston asked.
Sheriff Whitley met him eye-to-eye. “Mr. Sadler … Houston, this is going to be tough news for you to hear. I figured I should warn you about that upfront.”
A lot of bad things went through Houston’s mind, but he managed a nod. Oh, this wouldn’t be good. In all his thirty-six years, the sheriff had finally called him by his first name, and his tone was that of pure sympathy.
The sheriff eased off his hat. “About five years ago, your late wife, Lizzy, and you used the Cryogen Clinic, in San Antonio, to harvest Lizzy’s eggs so you’d have embryos for in vitro fertilization.”
Houston held up his hand to stop the sheriff. “We did, but we never used the embryos. Well, not successfully anyway.” They’d made a half dozen attempts, but in vitro had never worked for them.
Houston squeezed his hands into fists for several seconds, so he could hold on to his composure. Even now, more than three years later, it was hell talking about this.
“Your wife died of breast cancer,” the sheriff finished for him.
“Yeah.” And Houston left it at that. “So, what do our embryos have to do with Ms. Markham?”
The sheriff shook his head, mumbled something under his breath. “At this point, the police don’t know if Ms. Markham stole the embryo or not. But you can understand why they want to take her into custody. And they darn sure want to learn what she’s been up to, and where she’s taken the baby.”
The sheriff paused again. “Has she been in contact with you about any kind of payment?”
Houston tried to shrug, but he was getting a very bad feeling about this. “Why would she?”
“Maybe she wants to use the child to get you to cough up money? ”
That bad feeling got significantly worse. Each word hit Houston like a fist. “Back up. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
The sheriff took his time, and his forehead bunched up before he nodded. “I’m saying the baby boy that Gabrielle Markham gave birth to six weeks ago is your son.”
Chapter Two
Gabrielle’s instincts were to run, to get out of there as fast as she could. It’d been a terrible mistake, coming to Houston Sadler’s ranch. Now, it might cost her the very thing she was trying desperately to hang on to, her baby, Lucas.
She looked at the back of the stables for a way out. There was a set of double doors, both closed, and Gabrielle only hoped they weren’t locked—and that the big horse that Houston had ridden would get out of her way. While she was hoping, she added that neither the sheriff nor Houston would spot her while she escaped.
Gabrielle made her way behind the shelves and was about to climb over a stall when she heard the sound. It was a loud groan, so loud and so filled with emotion that it caused her to turn around. Houston had made that sound, and even though his back was to her, he had his head tilted toward the sky as if seeking divine help.
She understood his reaction.
Lately, Gabrielle had been doing her own share of praying.
“You’re sure about this baby being mine?” Houston asked the sheriff.
“I’m sure. What SAPD hasn’t figured out yet is how Ms. Markham got the embryo in the first place. Your wife hadn’t left a signed agreement that it could be donated, so there’s no legal way Ms. Markham could have used it. That’s why SAPD is so concerned. They don’t know what she intends to do with the baby.”
That stopped Gabrielle in her tracks, and the anger slammed through her again. How dare they accuse her of doing anything wrong. She was the victim here, and Houston Sadler was the person who’d probably put this sick plan together.
At least she’d thought that when she sneaked onto the ranch and into the stables to wait for him.
When she’d come up with the idea to get Houston to confess to his dirty deeds, she’d been thankful that he was a man of routine. Just about everyone in Willow Ridge knew that Houston took his favorite horse out for a ride after lunch, so she’d delivered some flowers to the house and then made her way to the stables. The ranch was such a big operation, with dozens of employees, that no one had seemed to notice her, and no one had been in the stables to question why she was there.
Her plan had succeeded—except for the fact that she might have been wrong. Judging from that emotion-filled groan, Houston could be innocent. But Gabrielle wasn’t ready to buy that just yet. He was the only one with a motive for making this pregnancy happen. Her only motive was that she’d desperately wanted a child and hadn’t been able to have one of her own.
“Are you all right? “ the sheriff asked him.
She couldn’t hear what Houston mumbled, but if it was “yes,” then it was a lie. Either he’d just learned for the first time that he was a father, or else he’d learned that his devious plan had been uncovered.
Gabrielle got moving again with her escape, because either scenario spelled trouble for her.
Houston glanced over his shoulder, and Gabrielle ducked down behind the stall door so he wouldn’t see her. He didn’t look around the stables for her. Instead, he turned his attention back to the sheriff.
“I need some time to think about this,” Houston said, suddenly sounding more alert. “Don’t say anything to my dad, just yet. But could you tell my foreman, Dale, what you told me, and let him know I’ll be in the stables for a while? ”
Gabrielle waited, with her pulse thick and throbbing. Was Houston really going to send the sheriff away? Or was this some kind of trick?
She cursed the fog in her head. If her thoughts were clearer, she might be able to figure out all of this, but she hadn’t slept more than three hours straight in the past six weeks. Before that, there had been the delivery, immediately followed by the hostage situation. She was exhausted, spent and beyond punchy. Still, this might finally all come to a head. She might finally learn what was going on. If Houston would finally come clean.
Of course, that was a big if.
Houston waited until the sheriff walked away before he entered the stables. He shut the doors. And Gabrielle cursed again. Had she made yet another mistake by staying so she could get his side of the story? Or rather his side of the lie?
“Is it true?” Houston asked.
Gabrielle eased up so she could see him from over the top of the stall—and was stunned by the raw feelings she saw there in his eyes. If Houston had indeed put all of this together, then he was a good actor.
She walked out of the hay-strewn stall so she could face him. But Gabrielle didn’t get close. She didn’t want him trying to kill her to cover up his plan. However, he didn’t seem a man with murder on his mind.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
Even though he looked like an average cowboy, with his jeans, worn black leather vest and denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he also wore his privileged bloodline. It was there. In his glacier-blue eyes, and saddle-brown hair that was a little too long and messy for the boardroom, but perfect for a man who worked with both his hands and his mind.
Houston Sadler was a wealthy man. A billionaire. And he was accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted.
“Is it true?” he repeated.
Gabrielle hiked up her chin and forced herself to answer. “I did get pregnant through in vitro, but I didn’t steal an embryo. I didn’t steal anything.”
“Except a baby from the nursery at the San Antonio Maternity Hospital,” he quickly pointed out.
“My baby,” she insisted.
In the same moment, Houston said, “I want to see him. I want to see my son.”
Oh, God. This was exactly what she feared most. “Lucas is not your son. I gave birth to him.”
He rammed his thumb against his chest. “With my late wife’s embryo that you stole.” He groaned again and shook his head. “I have a son.”
She wasn’t totally immune to that painful reaction. Gabrielle almost went closer. Almost. But she forced herself to stop and think, even though her head felt foggier than it had when she’d started all of this.
“Because I’m infertile, I asked for a donor embryo from the Cryogen Clinic in San Antonio,” Gabrielle explained. “I certainly never intended to have your child. But you, on the other hand, might have wanted exactly that. Did you set all of this up so I’d be your surrogate?”
He just stared at her for several long moments. “How the hell could you think that?”
“Well, it’s one of the few theories that makes sense. Maybe, like me, you desperately wanted a baby, and you decided this was the way to go about it. You might have figured that, once I gave birth, you could step in and challenge me for custody. And then you’d have the child you always wanted with your wife.”
Houston cursed, and it seemed to take him a moment to rein in his own fit of temper. “First of all, I’d forgotten about the embryos. I thought Lizzy and I had used them all on our last try at in vitro. And if I’d wanted a surrogate, I would have hired one—the best money could buy. I wouldn’t have tricked you into it.”
Gabrielle let that sink in. Slowly. And she repeated it to herself. It sounded … reasonable but it didn’t explain everything.
“Someone’s been following me since the hostage incident,” she admitted. “I keep losing him, but then he pops up again. The last time, three days ago, the person used a dark green Range Rover.”
Houston threw up his hands. “Maybe the gunmen from the hospital had an accomplice after all. Then again, it could be your imagination running wild. You seem to have a tendency to do that.” He pointed his index finger at her. “Look, I don’t care. Right now, I only want you to take me to my son.”
“He’s not yours!” she yelled. “Lucas is mine!”
The horse whinnied and pranced around, moving even farther toward the back of the stables.
Gabrielle immediately hated the outburst. She didn’t want the sheriff and the foreman to hear her and come in after her. She didn’t want to go to jail, because heaven knows how long it would take all of this to be settled. And in the meantime, the courts would no doubt give temporary and then permanent custody to Houston.
He had both biology and money on his side. Even though she hadn’t stolen the embryo or manipulated the situation in any way, she might not be able to prove her innocence.
“Where is he?” Houston demanded.
“Someplace safe.”
That was all she intended to tell him. She might not be able to keep Lucas from him forever, but she would try.
“Three days ago, I saw the license plates of the person who followed me,” she explained. “The person driving that dark green Range Rover. And I took a picture of the plates with the camera on my cell phone. I had a friend run them through the database, and I learned the vehicle belongs to you.”
“Me?” he challenged.
“You. And that’s why I believe you’re behind this. Why else would you follow me? The cops didn’t have the latest DNA results until yesterday.” That’s when they’d called and left her a message on her work cell phone, even though they could have known earlier than that. “And they only officially told you about Lucas just now. So how did you know three days ago to follow me?”
He couldn’t have, unless he’d known about all of this before today. “This doesn’t make sense,” Houston finally said.
For the first time since she’d heard those results, Gabrielle breathed a little easier. “No, it doesn’t. And if I’m to believe that you had no part in this, then who else would have done it? ”
His glare returned. “Maybe you. Maybe you figured I was your permanent meal ticket.”
Now Gabrielle was the one to glare. They were right back where they started. It was clear she wasn’t getting anywhere with this explanation or argument, and that meant it was time to leave.
Besides, she’d already been away from Lucas for nearly three hours, and it would take her thirty minutes or more to get back to him. She’d left breast milk in a bottle for the nanny to give him, but it wouldn’t be long before her son wanted to nurse. Ditto for her. She could feel the pressure in her breasts, and that wrestling match with Houston hadn’t helped matters.
“Lucas is my son,” she said, under her breath. Only hers. And it would stay that way.
She turned and started to walk toward the back doors, but Houston latched on to her arm and spun her around.
“I will see him,” he insisted.
Gabrielle decided to placate him—or rather, lie. “All right. You can see him tomorrow morning. I’ll call you with the address.”
He didn’t exactly roll his eyes, but it was close. However, the man’s voice cut off another stinging remark he was obviously about to make.
“Houston?” the man called out, and the front stable doors flew open.
Gabrielle darted to the side, next to the stall, but instead of going in it where she’d be trapped, she ducked around the front and then behind the tack shelves again.
“Dad,” Houston answered. “What do you want?”
Mack Sadler was an older, genetic copy of Houston. Houston didn’t look at his father, but he angled his body so he could keep an eye on Gabrielle.
“I made the sheriff tell me what he told you,” Mack announced. “Is it true? Did that Markham woman really steal one of those eggs Lizzy had stored and use it to give birth to your son?”
Houston blew out a long breath before he answered. “It seems that way.”
Mack went closer, and Gabrielle used the sound of the man’s footsteps to move farther behind the shelves. She began to inch her way toward the open doors. Maybe Houston’s father would distract him long enough for her to get out of there. That was a long shot, of course, but it was the only one she had.
“Well, hell.” Mack shook his head and propped his hands on his hips. “You gotta get the boy. He’s a Sadler, and he belongs here at the ranch with us. Where is he?”
“I’m not sure,” she heard Houston say.
“Then find him. Hell, I’ll find him.” Gabrielle made it to the door, but Houston was staring at her.
“Don’t worry, I intend to get the baby,” he assured his father. “But for now, I need just a little time to come to grips with this.” Houston paused, swallowed hard and tipped his head to the horse. “Could you see to Bear? I’m going for a walk.”
His father didn’t protest, though he did take his time looking at Houston before he started toward the horse. That was Gabrielle’s cue to get moving again. She darted out from behind the tack shelves and bolted for the door.
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