Chapter 1

      Man, he’d really needed this night out, Detective Dugan Cavanaugh thought. He loved his job, no question about it, but after putting in what felt like three weeks straight to get all those slippery little ducks in a row, it really felt good to unwind and blow off some steam tonight, even for a little while.

      However, the problem with blowing off steam was that sometimes time did manage to get away from him. Like tonight. It was ten after midnight.

      He really hadn’t intended to be out this late.

      “And tomorrow is a school day,” he chuckled to himself under his breath. That meant that he couldn’t sleep in—not that he even knew how at this point in his life. “Time to get you home, Detective Cavanaugh, before you suddenly turn into that pumpkin that your mama used to read to you about way back when.”

      Dugan grinned to himself. Anyone overhearing him would have thought he was three sheets to the wind. Truth was, he wasn’t even quite one sheet. Despite coming out to Malone’s and hoisting a few beers, he wasn’t drunk, just feeling very good.

      And relaxed.

      But he wasn’t intoxicated. Dugan knew better than to get behind the wheel of his car if he were. The beers, both of them, had been consumed over the course of six hours, and given the fact that he was six-three and had a physique that would have made a bodybuilder envious, those beers had less than no effect on him. It just felt good to get together with a number of his friends and family.

      This was what it was all about for him, Dugan thought. Friends and family. And keeping the world safe for those friends and family—as well as the public at large.

      But right now, it was time to go home and get some very well-deserved sleep so that tomorrow morning, he could get up and do it all again. For him, as well as most of the members of his family, that meant finding ways to put the bad guys away—the faster the better. In his particular case, that involved getting the goods on drug dealers.

      He stifled a yawn. Man, he was more tired than he thought, Dugan realized. He’d also parked his car farther away than he’d thought. But when he’d arrived six hours ago, the parking lot behind the bar was packed and there were cars lining both sides of the street. It turned out that there was an impromptu bachelor party being held at the bar, so the place was really packed. That made the owner quite happy, Dugan thought, remembering the wide grin on the former police officer’s face as the man tended bar. But the extra customers had made parking a particular challenge.

      “Maybe I’ll walk off some of those calories from the beer,” Dugan murmured as he crossed what was normally a busy intersection. At the moment, the streets were totally deserted.

      His upbeat attitude was due to the fact that he’d been taught to always look at the bright side of things, even when things appeared to be dark and bleak. It was something his late mother, Eva, had instilled in him, as well as in his three younger brothers, and while none of them could be accused of being mindlessly happy-go-lucky, her philosophy had helped all of them weather the personal storms that came their way.

      There it was, Dugan thought, finally sighting his pride and joy, an old 1965 Mustang he had personally rebuilt and restored over the course of three summer vacations in between juggling part time jobs while he was going to college.

      A warm feeling filled him the way it always did whenever he looked at the cherry-red product of all his hard work.

      “I’m almost there, old girl,” he said, as if the car could hear him. “Almost—”

      A screeching sound suddenly disrupted the otherwise still April night.

      Dugan stopped short, instantly alert—just in case. Turning his head toward the sound, he listened, trying to discern where it was coming from and, more importantly, what it was.

      Was that awful noise coming from a cat being attacked or—

      The sound came again, louder this time and definitely filled with agony. It wasn’t a cat, it was human—of a sort.

      It was the kind of sound that, had he been lost in the Alaskan wilderness, he would have attributed to coming from a Yeti, a mythical creature sometimes equated with the equally mythical Big Foot.

      All this was going through Dugan’s head at lightning speed as Dugan broke into a run, heading toward the source of the unearthly screeching.

      In short order, he realized that the gut-wrenching noise was coming from a car that was pulled up, askew, against a curb in an alley that was a block away from where his own car was.

      The car’s lights were on, but the engine appeared to be off.

      Another scream, even more powerful this time, ripped though the air. Dugan pulled out his weapon just before he reached the vehicle.

      Cautiously, not knowing what he was about to find, he looked into the car and saw a woman, gripping the steering wheel. Her face was contorted with pain and she was screaming. There was a gun lying on the passenger seat beside her.

      She also had to be the most pregnant woman he had ever seen.

      * * *

      Dugan knew he was taking a chance.

      Ordinarily, a gun on the scene demanded that certain protocol be adhered to. But unless the woman was smuggling a double order of watermelons, she appeared to be in just too much pain to be a threat. She certainly didn’t look like any drug dealer he had ever come across.

      So, taking a breath, he lowered his weapon and rapped on her partially opened window to get her attention.

      “Ma’am? Do you need help?”

      The woman instantly jerked at the sound of his deep male voice, looking his way. Fear telegraphed through her with the speed of a lightning bolt.

      She was not about to die in this car tonight, she thought.

      Working her way through the searing pain, she reached toward the gun on the passenger seat, stretching and groaning.

      Dugan reached in through the open window even though it was tricky and managed to grab the gun before the woman could get her fingers around it.

      “Give...me...that!” she managed to grind out. She was breathing hard now and every word took effort. She felt as though her dark blond hair was plastered against her forehead. Even the top of her head felt