Gage

by Delores Fossen

  The burst of temper drained her, and Lynette dropped back down onto the sofa. Gage studied her a moment, and his pacing took him back to the door where he armed the security system. He then paced to the kitchen and came back with a Lone Star beer and a pint-size carton of milk.

  “Drink,” he ordered.

  “Well, since you asked so nicely...” Lynette took the milk.

  “Don’t,” he warned her. “If you’d told me we were still married—”

  “My father would have picked a fight with you sooner,” she interrupted. “Just remember, there’s a reason I tried to make him think I’d gone through with the annulment.”

  His thumb whacked against his chest. “Yeah. To save me. Lynette, I didn’t need saving. Not at that price!”

  “The price was worth it to me.”

  He gulped down a good portion of the beer, and it was obvious he was still wrestling with the bombshell that her father had just delivered. “How much did it cost you to bribe the official?”

  She took a moment, drank some milk, dodged his gaze. “Ten thousand,” she mumbled.

  His mouth dropped open. And she knew why. Her father was rich, but he’d never shared that wealth with her. She’d worked for every penny that she had in the bank. Which wasn’t much, considering she had a mortgage for the condo in Dallas and her house in Silver Creek.

  “Where’d you get that kind of money?” Gage demanded.

  She decided it was a good time to avoid his gaze some more. “I sold my mother’s jewelry.”

  The profanity was there, in his eyes, but he didn’t voice it. Instead, he sank down onto the coffee table across from her. “Not her gold heart necklace?”

  Lynette nodded. “All of it.”

  “What about your wedding ring?” he asked.

  “I kept that.” She didn’t manage to say that above a whisper, but Gage no doubt heard it loud and clear.

  Lynette undid the top button on her shirt so she could reach her bra. She pulled the ring from the tiny pocket she’d sewn into the right cups of all her bras and held it up for him to see.

  “My father has a bad habit of searching my place when I’m not there,” she explained. “I figured it was best if I kept it on me as much as possible. Less chance of him finding it.” She slipped the ring back into her bra. Rebuttoned her shirt.

  Now he cursed, but there was no anger in it. “If you tell me you’re over me, I’ll...”

  “Take me where I stand?” she finished, hoping the levity would help.

  He shot her a scowl. “I’ll make you take a nap.” Gage groaned. “If you’d just told me...” He didn’t finish that, either. Didn’t need to.

  “It probably seems selfish and a little crazy on my part, but I wanted to hang on to the marriage as long as I could because it was my way of hanging on to you. I knew that you’d get on with your life. That you’d find someone else and when you did, I’d planned to get a quick annulment so you wouldn’t be committing bigamy.” She paused. “But you didn’t find anyone else. Not that I know of anyway.”

  Another scowl. “No.” He drained more of the beer. “And I didn’t have to sell something I loved or keep a secret that burned into my soul.”

  “Yes, you did,” she reminded him. “You left your family. Faked your death to save me and your brothers. If we’re comparing our martyr badges, I think they’re about the same size.”

  He looked at her. “So, where does that leave us?”

  Lynette drank her milk. “Our martyrdom failed. Even after all these years, we’re right back where we started. Married and in danger.”

  “Yeah.” And that’s all he said for a long time.

  Except this time around, the danger was even worse. Because it wasn’t just Gage and her. Their baby was now involved in this.

  Gage set his beer aside, stood, and without warning, he scooped her up. “You’re taking that nap,” he growled. “Alone,” he added, heading for the bedroom. “I have some things to work out.”

  “You’re not leaving?” she asked.

  “No.” A moment later, he repeated it along with a heavy sigh and deposited her onto the bed. “I don’t want you here by yourself.”

  His gaze dropped from her face, to her body.

  All of her body.

  Lynette could have seduced him to make him stay in the room with her. She could keep an eye on him that way and make sure that he didn’t go after her father.

  Of course, seducing Gage had other benefits, too.

  Her body was always burning for him. Plus, she was already on the bed with him just inches away, and she knew his weak spots. Some neck kisses would get this seduction started the right way.

  But she had some things to work out, as well.

  Like how she was going to neutralize her father. She’d been trying to work it out for ten years now, and it was past time she came up with a permanent solution.

  But what?

  Her investigation had failed to turn up anything, but maybe that just meant she had to dig deeper or in a different place. Maybe she could get someone at the asylum in Mexico to spill what her father had done to her. It wasn’t a good angle, but it might be the only one they had.

  “I’ll keep digging,” she promised him.

  He shook his head. “After you rest.”

  Gage leaned down, and for a moment she thought he had changed his mind about joining her. But his mouth didn’t go in the direction of hers. Instead, he dropped a kiss on her stomach.

  On the baby.

  The moment was so perfect, so sweet, that it brought tears to her eyes.

  “Get some sleep.” He threw the covers over her and walked out.

  Lynette watched him stride away in those jeans that hugged his best asset. Well, one of them anyway. His heart was at the top of that asset list.

  A tear spilled down her cheek.

  Loving Gage seemed to be something she couldn’t stop. Even though loving him was the fastest way to get him killed.

  Lynette pulled the covers to her chin and knew that the only way to save him was to say goodbye.

  Again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gage’s eyes flew open. He groaned and got up from the sofa where he’d fallen asleep. His thirty-minute catnap had turned into four hours. His body had needed rest, but he should have been thinking and planning instead of dozing off.

  Planning how to bring Ford Herrington down.

  He stumbled toward the bedroom, and nearly had a heart attack when he didn’t see Lynette where he’d left her.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” she called out to him.

  He turned to hurry to her, bashed his knee against the doorjamb and had to go into the kitchen limping. But the hurrying up wasn’t necessary. Lynette was seated at

  the country-style kitchen table eating—Gage looked

  at her plate—pancakes smeared with crunchy peanut butter.

  “You okay?” she asked, glancing at the knee that he was rubbing.

  Gage nodded. “You?”

  She nodded, too. Lynette slid some of the pancakes onto another plate and passed them his way.

  His stomach growled, and Gage realized the only thing he’d had to eat or drink in the past twenty-four hours was a beer. Hardly food for thoughts and planning. He grabbed a fork from the drawer and dug in. It wasn’t steak and eggs, his favorite, but it was good.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  Lynette poured him a glass of milk, set it next to his plate and then sank down in the chair across from him. Uh-oh. That look in her baby blues told him this wasn’t going to be a conversationless meal.

  And they should talk, he reminded himself.

  But for a moment he let himself take all of this in. Lynette and he doing something as ordinary as sharing a meal. Of course, ordinary and Lynette didn’t fit. An oxymoron. She was anything but.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked. And made him smile when she ran her hand over her shoulder-length blond hair to smooth it down.
>
  “You,” he admitted. “You’re prettier now than when you were seventeen. Wouldn’t have thought that was possible, because you caught a lot of eyes even then.”

  She blushed. Made him smile again. “Look at yourself in the mirror, Gage Ryland. You’re the hot guy every girl in high school wanted in their dreams. And in their beds. I was just lucky enough to get you in mine.”

  The last part had her looking uncomfortable and glancing away. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  He shrugged. “You don’t have to say the words aloud to make me think of being in bed with you.” And he waited to see where that would take him.

  Apparently, not far.

  When her gaze returned to his, she looked serious again. “When I was at the asylum in Mexico, there was a nurse, Rosa Mendez, who was nice to me. She seemed to believe me when I told her that I’d been sent there against my will and that I wasn’t crazy. I want to see if I can find her. Maybe she’ll have some proof that my father had me committed there illegally.”

  Gage gave that some thought, but he didn’t have to think long or hard to see where this could go.

  “I doubt Ford left that kind of loose end behind.” And if he did, he would just neutralize her before she could give them anything they could use. However, he didn’t say that to Lynette. “But I’ll check into it.”

  And he would make sure this Rosa Mendez had some protection. Of course, protection hadn’t worked so far.

  “It could be a good lead,” Gage assured her with confidence he didn’t feel.

  She nodded, stared at him. “If you don’t swear to me that you’ll stay away from my father, then I’m leaving when I finish these pancakes. I’ll call Mason to come and get me, and I’m out that door.”

  Oh, man. That was an ultimatum he hadn’t seen coming. “It’s not safe for you to go.”

  “And it’s not safe for you if I stay.”

  Gage had another bite of the pancake that he no longer wanted. “No deal. Your father won’t quit just because I back off.”

  “Maybe not. But he might if I tell him I’m going to the press, that I’ll do an interview with every tabloid in Texas, and I’ll tell them how he confessed to killing my mother.”

  Gage started shaking his head. She ignored him.

  “I’ll tell my father that I’ll convince the new assistant district attorney, who happens to be your sister-in-law, to take the case to a grand jury. I’ve never had anyone in the D.A.’s office on my side, but I do now with Darcy.” She paused. “I’ll also tell him that the way to stop me is to leave you the hell alone.”

  Gage groaned, stood and went to her. He pulled her to her feet and then into his arms. “What the devil am I going to do with you?”

  One thing he did know. Lynette was not going to fight his battles for him.

  She didn’t exactly melt against him. “You’re going to agree to leave for a while until things settle down.”

  He blinked, pulled back so he could see her stubborn face. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “It’s not a choice. If you want to drop kisses on my baby belly and make me cry.” Her voice quivered a little, and she cleared her throat. “If you want a chance for us to try to work things out, then you have to leave.”

  He stared at her. “Let me get this straight. Both scenarios involve leaving. You in the first one. Me, in the second. That’s going to be hard to do because I don’t intend to let you out of my sight until the danger has passed. Remember the hit men who tried to kill you?”

  “I remember.” She swallowed hard.

  Gage hated that he shoved those nightmares right back at her, but he wasn’t backing down. “No one will do more to protect you and this baby than I will,” he promised her.

  She opened her mouth to argue, but thankfully the phone mounted to the wall rang. Without taking his attention from her, he reached over and pushed the speaker button to answer the call.

  “Gage,” the caller said.

  Not Ford or one of his brothers. But his handler, Sherman Hendricks.

  Gage didn’t miss the tone in Sherman’s greeting, and he reached to take the call off Speaker. But Lynette stopped him. She gave him a look, reminding him that she had the right to know. And she did.

  “This is about Dalvetti?” Gage asked his handler.

  “Yes.” Sherman’s pause was long enough to make Gage more than uncomfortable. “We’ve confirmed that Dalvetti knows you’re alive.”

  Gage automatically went to the window, lifted the blinds and looked out. “How’d you confirm it?”

  “Dalvetti left a message with the informant who told us about the hit man who was after Ms. Herrington. The now-dead informant. Dalvetti carved the message on the guy’s chest and stomach. It said, This time Gage Ryland dies for real.”

  Gage checked to make sure Lynette was okay. She wasn’t. She sank back onto the chair. He cursed himself for not doing it sooner, but he grabbed the phone from the receiver and took the call off Speaker. Of course, the damage had already been done.

  “The safe house is nearly ready,” Sherman continued. “We had to take even more precautions than we normally take.”

  And those extra precautions might not be nearly enough. “Finish the preparations for it and send two agent decoys there. Because Dalvetti might have an informant in the CIA.”

  Sherman didn’t jump to say that wasn’t possible. It was. And both of them knew it. Dalvetti could already know the location of the safe house. Heck, he could know that Lynette was with him.

  “What are you going to do?” Sherman asked.

  Gage looked out the window again. “I’d rather not say. I trust you, Sherman, but the less you know, the better.” Gage didn’t wait for him to agree. “How long do I have before Dalvetti comes here?”

  “A day, maybe less.”

  Well, it wasn’t good news, but it was better than the drug lord being on the front porch.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Gage promised Sherman.

  By the time he hung up, Lynette was on her feet again and coming toward him. “Gage” was all she managed to say.

  The fear on her face was enough to make him sick, and so that he wouldn’t make that fear worse, Gage clamped down his own feelings.

  “The safe house wouldn’t be a good idea,” he explained. “But I can do things to make you safe.”

  Gage sat and pulled her onto his lap. It was wrong to leach comfort from her this way, but by God, he needed to have her in his arms right now. That didn’t stop him from taking the phone again and calling Mason.

  “I’ll make this quick,” Gage said the second Mason answered. “The drug lord is coming to Silver Creek, and it won’t take him long to find the ranch. You need to get everyone out of here.”

  If Mason had a reaction to that, he didn’t voice it. “How much time do we have?”

  “Do it as fast as possible. You have a place to go?”

  “Dade’s wife has a place in San Antonio. We had to use it a couple of months ago when there was trouble at the ranch.” Mason paused. “But we have a little problem this time around. Eve just went into labor.”

  Eve, Grayson’s wife. Gage loved her like the sister he’d never had, but it was not a good time for her to be giving birth.

  “Grayson’s on the way to the hospital with her,” Mason added.

  Of course he was, but Grayson would be tied up with the delivery and he wouldn’t be thinking about security.

  “Kade’s heading to the hospital to be with them, too,” Mason went on.

  Good. His little brother Kade was an FBI agent and could protect them. That would leave Dade and Nate to get the wives and children to San Antonio.

  “I’m staying with you?” Mason asked as if he’d already grasped the plan that Gage hadn’t even come up with yet.

  “I’d like family backup,” Gage admitted.

  “Then you got it.” And Mason didn’t hesitate.

  Until that moment Gage hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his famil
y. And how lucky he was to be a Ryland.

  “What about Lynette?” Mason asked.

  “I’m handling that now.”

  Gage glanced at Lynette to see how much he had to handle with her. But she wasn’t panicking. If anything, now that the initial shock had worn off, she looked resolved to the danger.

  That riled him even more.

  Danger should have never entered her life, and now she had so much that heaven knows what the stress was doing to her and the baby.

  Gage had to do something.

  But what he couldn’t do was go off half-cocked. His instincts were to cram Lynette into the nearest vehicle and drive out of there fast. But there had to be some things in place first. And he didn’t want to take Lynette to the house in San Antonio with the others because the danger might follow them there.

  “Call me when you’ve worked things out with Lynette,” Mason insisted, and he ended the call.

  “Good news,” he started. “Eve’s having her baby.”

  Lynette managed a smile of sorts. Brief and barely. But there. She slid her hand over her stomach and was hopefully thinking one day she’d be there, safe in the hospital. Giving birth.

  That seemed like an eternity from now.

  “There could be a bright side in all of this,” he said to her. “Maybe your father, Nicole or Patrick didn’t try to have you killed after all.”

  “Maybe,” she repeated, clearly in deep thought. Lynette wasn’t a coward, but right now she had to be worried about the safety of the baby she was carrying.

  Gage was worried, too.

  Because even if Ford wasn’t guilty of attempted murder, he’d still murdered. Sooner or later, Gage was going to have settle that score.

  He pulled her closer, careful not to touch any part of her that would distract them. Lynette and he had a problem with touching. It always turning to kissing and kissing led to sex. She didn’t need that right now. And he vetoed his body’s suggestion that it would help her get her mind off things.

  Nothing was going to do that.

  “How will Dalvetti come after us?” she asked, slicing right to the point.

  “Not us. Me. You’ll be at the main house with Mason and as many armed ranch hands as he has guarding you.”