Page 21 of Rescuing Baylee

Then the kid was gone.

“Fuck,” he hissed.

If they knew Baylee’s name, they probably had enough information to track her down. He took off, dialing Morgan as he went. He needed to get home.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Baylee’s nerves were zinging today, and she didn’t know why. Was it because this was the first time she’d been out since the shooting? Or was her gut trying to tell her something?

Tired of being in her apartment, she’d showered and gotten dressed, then headed out the door. It was Saturday, and the Barton Creek farmer’s market was going on. She needed some fresh veggies.

As she wandered the stalls looking at the wares, she got the feeling she was being watched. Baylee was used to that. People watched her all the time. This feeling persisted, though, all through the market. From beneath her lashes, she looked around.

That was when she saw the detective. He was sitting at an outdoor seating area, watching her as he sipped from a bottle of water. The man was too big to hide, so he hadn’t even tried. His long legs were spread in that way men did, and he was slouched in the tiny little wrought-iron chair.

The man was delectable and for the first time in a long time, she registered the desire to be with a man.

Baylee knew she should be upset with him for following her, because that’s obviously what he’d done, but she was actuallykind of happy to see him. What were the chances of running into each other in a city the size of Austin? Slim to none.

But there was another part of her that was hyper aware that he sent butterflies fluttering in her tummy. Wading through the pedestrian traffic, she crossed over to him, clasping her arms in front of herself. “Detective,” she said.

“Landon,” he corrected. “Hello, Baylee. Find anything good?”

She held up her cloth grocery bag. “Some fresh strawberries, and some Thai basil to plant in the flower bed.”

“Nice,” he said, smiling up at her.

“What’s going on?”

He cocked his dark head at her. “What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t be following me unless there was something going on. Something with the gang.”

He motioned for her to take the seat opposite him. “I knew you were a sharp cookie. Yeah, there’s been a development.”

His bright eyes were kind, but now that she was this close, she could see the worry in them. She sank down onto the bench and waited.

“I talked to a gang informant earlier, and Chino Vega’s brothers want vengeance. It’s how the gangs run. And somebody in the hospital outed you.”

Baylee felt her mouth drop open. “Someone told them I was the one that took him out?”

Landon nodded his head once, and her stomach fell. Who could have done that? She knew a lot of the people down there, and she’d saved them.

“Do you think it was someone that works at the hospital?” The thought of one of her own nurses selling her out nauseated her.

He shrugged lightly. “Could have been one of the people in the waiting room, or one of the patients. It could have been anybody with a phone. The informant said they had a grainypicture of you. And a description of a woman with a scar down her face.”

Baylee scowled, shaking her head. “That kind of narrows it down, huh? Doesn’t matter that he was killing innocent people. They have to get revenge so they can be all macho.”

Why did men have to be such dicks? She glanced around, suddenly very aware of how open it was around her. Somebody could shoot her from hundreds of yards away. No, these were gangsters. They would want to be close.

“So, what do I do?” she asked, feeling lost.

Landon leaned toward her a little. “I’ve got my partner working on getting a team to watch your place. I also have Cass asking around. Quietly. She has a lot of CIs. Right now, though? I suggest you go home and let us try to track the brothers down.”

Baylee shook her head, suddenly angry. She glanced around herself, looking for gang bangers. But Austin had a large Hispanic population, and there was little to no chance she’d be able to pick them out of this crowd.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she knew it was because of her internal alarm system. It had never let her down before. She turned her head, scanning the crowd. At first, she didn’t see anything. Then she noticed a glint of dark hair moving through the crowd behind her. It wasn’t definitive, but she thought it might have been someone watching her, then moving away to not be seen.