by Nicole Helm
“And they very well might be.”
“But your theory is based on eight years of watching this guy, right? Eight years of him toying with you. Eight years of you not telling anybody someone was harassing you.” She blinked, looking up at him. “That’s why you didn’t tell your brothers.”
He refused to meet her gaze. “I didn’t tell them for lots of reasons.”
“You didn’t want them to have to think there were more Wyatts out in the world. Ones who didn’t get out.”
“Look. We’re here.” He pointed in the direction of where the motel would be. “Go check in and—”
“You could never be like them, Brady,” she said quietly, but with a vehemence that had him looking over at her. “Jamison or no,” she said, dark eyes straightforward and fierce. “Grandma Pauline or no. You could never be like them.”
Something inside of him cracked, because it was the lie he’d always wanted to believe. But how could he? “We don’t know that. I don’t need to know that. Because I’m not like Ace or Elijah. But Ace and Elijah are the constant threats in my life, and I’m tired. I want this over. So, why don’t you go check in, huh?”
She pursed her lips, but nodded eventually. “All right,” she said, and slid out of the driver’s side, leaving him in the truck alone with his thoughts.
Not a place he really wanted to be.
* * *
CECILIA’S MIND REELED as she walked toward the motel. Elijah as Ace’s secret son. It made a creepy kind of sense. An awful kind of sense.
No matter how she tried to reason and rationalize it away, she kept coming back to the simple fact it was possible. Maybe even probable.
It put Mak in even more danger, especially with the Wyatts. Hell, it made Mak part Wyatt.
If it were true. She understood Brady’s hesitation to believe it. There wasn’t evidence and it didn’t make sense why Ace would have kept it a secret. It also opened the horrible Pandora’s box that Ace might have more children. Children who hadn’t been saved like the Wyatt brothers had been.
And if Ace had kept them all a hidden secret—or even just Elijah—the reasons could only be bad. Really, really bad.
Cecilia stepped into the motel’s cramped front office.
“Got a room available?” she asked the woman behind the counter, remembering belatedly to smile casually rather than frown over the problem in her head.
The woman looked her up and down.
“You a cop?”
Cecilia managed a laugh even as she inwardly chastised herself for walking in here with her cop face on. “No. I really look like one of those nosy bastards?”
The woman wasn’t amused. “Got any ID?” she demanded with narrowed eyes.
“Oh, sure,” Cecilia said casually even though her heartbeat was starting to pick up. The woman’s careful inspection might just be the sign of a conscientious business owner.
But Cecilia doubted it.
She patted down her pockets. “Must have forgotten it in my car.”
“Then I suggest you go get it, if you’re really wanting to stay here.”
Cecilia rolled her eyes. “My money ain’t good enough for you, that’s fine.” She tried to sound flippant rather than irritated.
The woman behind the counter didn’t say anything, just crossed her arms over her chest. Which Cecilia took as a clear sign that she would not be handing over any keys, regardless of money, without ID.
A little prickle of unease moved up the back of Cecilia’s neck. She couldn’t help but wonder if Elijah, or his men, had already been here and warned the woman off letting Cecilia get a room. She hadn’t run into any motel owner this discerning yet.
Or maybe they’d been asking questions and that had simply made the woman nervous enough to take precautions.
The woman hadn’t seemed afraid, though. Suspicious, distrusting and a little rude, yeah. But not afraid.
Cecilia moved back out of the office into the early-afternoon sun. She immediately picked out two men pretending to be otherwise occupied, but she knew they weren’t. She didn’t recognize them on a personal level, but she’d bet money they were Elijah’s messengers.
She could take two. Unfortunately she had the sneaking suspicion there were more. Surely Elijah realized that she had no problem fighting off two of his pea-brained followers.
Still, she walked through the parking lot as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She didn’t have to look behind her to know the two were following her. Carefully and at a distance, but the farther she got from the hotel, the closer they got—to each other, and to her.
She’d made it maybe half a block, the park still not in view, when a man stepped out from behind a building in front of her.
Two behind. One in front. Not great odds, but if these three were as dim-witted as the two who’d knocked her off the road with Rachel, she could do it. Probably get a little banged up in the process, but she could do it.
She reached into her pocket and palmed her phone. She’d made a deal with Brady that if she didn’t text within twenty minutes, he could come barreling after her. It hadn’t been more than ten. Maybe she could get off a quick text and—
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A fourth one popped out right next to her. Unlike the other three, who were likely armed but had their guns hidden, this one had his out and pointed at her. She froze with her hand still in her pocket.
As a police officer, Cecilia had learned how to defuse situations. How to talk men out of doing stupid things. Her goal, always, was to remain calm and use her words first.
As a woman in the world, she knew the opposite to be true. So, she didn’t use her words, or wait.
She fought. Her immediate goal was disarming the man closest to her. She managed to get the gun out of his hand, but the others were quickly circling her.
She couldn’t pay much attention to them when the one she’d disarmed was coming at her with a big, solid fist, but the fact no gunshots rang out meant they were supposed to keep her alive.
She had to hope.
She dodged the fist, landed a knee and her attacker dropped. She whirled to the ones she could feel closing in on her. They stood in a triangle around her. One had rope, one had a knife, and the other was just big as a Mack truck.
Crap.
Chapter Twelve
Brady surveyed the White River in the distance. It was narrow, the banks a grassy green where most of the landscape around him had gone brown under the heat of late summer. But here, near the river with a constant supply of life-giving water, things were green.
He tried to focus on that, on the landscape of his home state, on anything except the ticking seconds.
He’d promised Cecilia he wouldn’t come barreling in like he had last time, though he did not characterize his previous actions as barreling. Still, there was no need today. They had their routine down pat and they’d found a compromise with her texting an okay after twenty minutes.
Still, the seconds seemed to tick especially slowly as he waited for a text message.
Brady got out of the truck. Not to barrel after her. Simply to stretch his legs. To walk off a little of his anxiety over the situation. Just in the little park.
He checked his watch. Twelve minutes down.
Now, technically, if it was twenty minutes from when they’d stopped, there’d only be three minutes left. And it would take him those three minutes to walk to the motel, so really he could head that way and not be breaking their deal.
She’d argue, but he had a...thin, shaky argument. Still, it was an argument.
She’d probably call it sexist, but he considered it just two different temperaments. She apparently couldn’t fathom every possible worst-case scenario while she’d waited for him yesterday.
It was all Brady could think about while waiting for her. It wasn�
�t a gender thing. It was a personality thing.
He’d start walking, but he’d do it slowly. Eke out the minutes but at least get the motel in his sights. Scout out a back way to get to the room without being detected.
Nothing wrong with that.
He locked the truck and started out. He stopped and frowned at a strange, faint noise. Something like a shout. Probably his imagination.
But maybe it wasn’t, and he was a cop, trained to investigate that which didn’t add up.
He moved stealthily up the street, hand already resting on his weapon with the holster unsnapped. He heard the noise again, closer this time, in the direct path between the park and the motel.
He forced away all those worst-case scenarios and focused on the task at hand. He approached the corner where he’d have to turn to continue the route to the motel. He took one calming breath, readied his body and his nerves, and then moved carefully to get a view of what was happening.
Immediately he could tell there was a fight. Four men—one on the ground crawling away from three men who seemed huddled around something. Maybe another person, it was hard to tell from this vantage point.
Brady inched forward, gun pointed in the direction of the scuffle. If he announced himself, they’d no doubt scatter and he wanted to get an idea of what was going on and descriptions of who he was dealing with before he decided which one to target.
The crawler wasn’t going to be hard to pin down, but Brady noticed he was moving toward a small pistol. If he ran, he could beat the injured man to it, but judging by the fact he was hurt, the guy might just as well be a victim in the whole thing.
Brady glanced back at the trio. One let out a howl of pain and bent over, giving Brady a glimpse of what the three were huddled around.
He froze for less than a second, then immediately pointed his gun at the man crawling. No one had seen him yet, and shooting would put all four men on alert, but Brady couldn’t let the crawling man get the gun. Not with Cecilia in the middle of that pack of jackals.
Brady shot, aiming for the arm that was reaching for the gun. The crawling man rolled onto his back, grabbing at his arm as he screamed. The three men around Cecilia jumped. They looked toward the crawling man, then wildly around until they found Brady.
Cecilia struggled to her feet, a piece of rope dangling from one arm, blood trickling down her face in a disturbing number of places.
Despite the fact she was clearly severely hurt, she didn’t even pause. She kicked out, landing a blow to one’s back. He stumbled forward, then whirled on Cecilia.
Brady charged forward as one man brandished a knife. Brady found it odd none of these three seemed to have guns, but he didn’t have time to question it.
He ducked the first jab, pivoted and landed an uppercut so the man went pitching backward. Someone behind him landed a nasty kidney punch, but Brady only sucked in a breath and flung a fist backward. He connected with something that let out a sickening crunch followed by a wail of pain.
The knife flashed into his vision, and an ungainly leap backward allowed him to duck away from the sharp blade’s descent with only a centimeter to spare. As the knife missed and momentum brought the assailant downward, Brady used his elbow as hard as he could.
A loud, echoing crack and the sound of a gurgling scream as the man stumbled onto his hands and knees. Brady kicked him with enough force to have the man falling onto his back. Brady stepped on his wrist—eliciting another gurgling scream from the man, but he let go of the knife.
Brady kicked it away and turned to find Cecilia. She’d taken one of the other men out, but the third man was trying to drag her by a rope he’d apparently tied around one of her arms.
“No, I don’t think so,” Brady said, reaching out and grabbing the taut rope. He ripped it out of the other man’s grip with one forceful tug. He aimed his gun at the man’s chest. “You want me to kill you, or you want me to let Elijah do it, nice and painful?”
The man sneered. “One of these days, every last high-and-mighty Wyatt’s going to be wiped off this earth.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.” Brady decided not to shoot—with the men unarmed he could call up the sheriff’s department and have these four rounded up once he got Cecilia to safety. So, instead, Brady leapt forward and used the butt of the weapon to deliver a punishing blow to the head.
The man crumpled immediately and fell to the ground.
Brady whirled to Cecilia. She was kneeling next to the two men on the ground and had used the rope that had been tied around her wrist to tie them together.
“Want to add him?” she asked, her voice raspy. She was shaking, but she’d managed decent knots.
“He’ll be unconscious for a while.”
She struggled to get to her feet. There was blood just...everywhere. Parts of her shirt were torn and her hair had come completely undone so it was a wild tangle of midnight around her face.
“Almost had ’em,” she managed to say before she swayed a little.
Brady scooped her up before she fell over. He didn’t think he could stand to listen to her tell a bad joke in that ragged voice.
She wriggled slightly in his grasp as he started walking purposefully back to the truck. They weren’t staying here. Not in this town or at that motel. He needed somewhere clean and sanitary to check out her wounds.
“I can walk.”
“I can’t say I care what you can do right now, Cecilia.” He walked toward the crawling man who’d apparently gotten over the initial shock of his gunshot wound and was dragging himself toward the gun again.
“Don’t know when to stop, do you?” Brady adjusted Cecilia’s weight in his arms and then kicked the gun as hard as he could into the grassy field. If the injured man found the gun before Brady managed to call for backup, Brady’d consider him a magician.
He walked briskly back to the truck. With care, he placed Cecilia on her feet, though he kept one arm around her and supported almost all her weight.
“I’m fine,” she muttered as he dug his keys out of his pocket. He ignored her and unlocked the truck, opened the door, then lifted her into her seat over her protestations. He even buckled the seat belt for her, though she weakly tried to bat his hands away. Then he looked her right in the eyes. “Don’t you dare move,” he ordered.
He was more than a little concerned that she listened.
* * *
CECILIA ONLY HALF listened as Brady drove and made a phone call. First she knew he was talking to the police. He was giving descriptions and accounts and locations of the fight that had transpired.
Cecilia closed her eyes against a wave of nausea. Four against one wasn’t such great odds and as much as she’d held her own she was pretty banged up. She’d never admit it to Brady because he’d fuss, but she wasn’t sure when she’d ever had such a bad beating.
But all four men would wind up in jail, and she would heal. So. There was that.
Brady made another call, driving too fast down deserted highways. She couldn’t watch or she’d throw up. At first she’d figured he was calling his brothers, or worse, a hospital. But then he’d said something about cabins and fishing and her brain was a little fuzzy.
It was hard to focus and think over the bright fire of pain in various parts of her body. Harder still not to whimper every time the truck hit a bump. But if she showed any outward signs of pain Brady was going to baby her even worse than carrying her around.
It had been kind of nice to be carried but it was certainly not behavior she wanted to encourage. Maybe it was the worst beating she’d ever gotten, but she’d been in her share of fights. Breaking them up, having big men take swings at her. She wasn’t some helpless stranger to a few punches.
Of course, she’d never been stabbed before, and she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to hide that from Brady. Surely she could find some Band-Aids and tak
e care of it.
She winced a little, knowing it was probably too deep to be handled by a Band-Aid. It was fine, though. She’d figure it out. Brady would whisk her away to a hospital if he knew and that just couldn’t happen. Not now when they’d delivered a blow to Elijah.
God, he’d be pissed she’d taken on four of his men. It almost made her smile to think of.
She wasn’t sure if she’d fallen asleep or lost consciousness or what, but suddenly the truck was stopped and Brady was already standing outside. She tried to push herself up a little in her seat, but it nearly caused her to moan in pain.
She bit it back last minute as Brady was opening the passenger door.
“Where are we?” she demanded. She looked around, but nothing was familiar. They were on a little gravel lot and there was a scrubby little yard in front of a tiny, tiny cabin on a small swell of land.
Beyond the cabin was pure beauty. A sparkling lake stretching out far and wide, bracketed in by rolling rock. If she had to guess, they were closer to the Badlands than they’d been out in Valiant County.
It distracted her enough that Brady had her unbuckled and back in his arms before she had a chance to protest.
“I can walk, Brady.”
“But you’re not going to. Not until I check you out.” He started walking, as if she weighed next to nothing and his shoulder hadn’t been hurt for months. He took the little stone stairs up to the cabin without even an extra huff of breath.
“Buddy of mine’s,” he offered conversationally, even though his expression was completely... She didn’t have a word for it. Tense, determined, fierce. “Well, more Gage’s buddy. Pretended like I was Gage. Haven’t done that since middle school, and it was never me. Gage was always the one pretending.”
“He couldn’t have fooled anyone who actually knew you two.”
“You’d be surprised.” He set her down, with the kind of gentle care one might use with a one-hundred-year-old woman. Then he futzed around with a planter in the shape of a bass. Something wilted and brown was growing out of the fish’s mouth, but Brady pulled a key out from underneath.