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Clare glanced at him. “She confirmed she offered you money to break up with me, by the way.”
The guys stilled again.
“Planning on giving away all our secrets today?” He didn’t think she’d mention the baby, but she’d told them enough.
Clare shrugged. “I guess she thought in her twisted way of thinking that she was doing me a favor. Because if you’d taken the money, then she’d have been right about you.”
“I didn’t.”
“So she got you to walk away, and she saved the money.”
“Did she spend it on you?”
“She probably just used it to buy another pair of shoes.” Clare made a face and drank some more coffee. She hadn’t touched her eggs, but she’d plowed through most of the serving of potatoes she’d drowned in both ketchup and mayonnaise. “Since you apologized, I figure you should know it didn’t come from me. That was all Mom.”
He wanted to ask her how she’d been, but his phone rang and he didn’t want to have that part of the conversation in front of three cops under him. He looked at the screen. “Warrant is signed.”
The boys all got up. Everyone tossed cash on the table, and they headed out. Four uniformed SWAT officers and Clare.
Six minutes later, they were suited up and in position outside the residence.
“You’re a man down, right?” Clare came over from her car, securing a bulletproof vest over her wool sweater.
He didn’t like this, and tried to figure out how to tell her no.
Liam slapped his shoulder. “Yep. Fall in, Ms. Juarez. You’re with the lieutenant on the front door. Blake. Jas. You take the back. I’ve got the side door by the garage.”
They all called out confirmation. Checked the radio. Got in position.
Gage looked at Clare. “I don’t like you being—”
She pointed at the corner of the porch, under the roof overhang. “Cameras.”
Gage looked where she’d pointed and frowned.
Every nerve ending he had went on alert. He heard the distant, muffled ratchet of a shotgun.
Clare turned toward him, already moving. He tackled her, and they both went down.
The front door exploded above their heads.
THIRTY-TWO
Clare’s head glanced off the front step. She hissed. “Ow.”
Gage started to shift off her.
Clare caught movement in the doorway. She reached across his back, grasped his vest under his left arm, and rolled him to the side as she turned onto her left hip. She lifted her gun at the same time and squeezed off two shots.
A muffled yell came from inside, and the door slammed.
She heard footsteps from beyond the front door grow quieter. “He ran off.”
Gage grunted, then pushed off the ground, held his hand out, and helped her to her feet. Much like when he’d apologized she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing—or hearing. The man Gage had turned to was amazing. A good guy, nothing like who she thought he had been when he left her, alone and pregnant.
She thought he’d been living the high life.
Instead, he’d become a cop. Found faith in Jesus Christ, just like her friend Ember. Now he was a SWAT lieutenant. Someone he could be proud of.
