by Casey Hagen
“I hope so. I’m kind of hoping he sticks around.”
“Well, he didn’t the first time, so tread carefully with that heart of yours,” her mother said, walking her up the steps.
“It’s too late for my heart. I think it’s been involved since the moment I laid eyes on him. And the first time wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know,” Harlow admitted.
Her mother stumbled to a stop. “You didn’t tell him?”
“No,” Harlow said, dropping her head a bit. Something about the way her mother looked at her made her feel like a damn teenager again.
“Why on earth not?”
“He was chasing dreams,” Harlow said. She tucked her hair behind her ear and fixed her gaze on her mother. “I couldn’t take those from him.”
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe his dreams would change, the way yours did?” her mother asked, giving her a knowing stare.
“I didn’t—you think they would have?” Harlow asked.
“Maybe. Who knows? I know you had all kinds of big dreams, but the minute you laid eyes on Ashton your dreams didn’t die. You just chased new ones.”
“I never thought of it like that,” Harlow said, feeling like a complete bonehead.
“Just keep it in mind. I don’t know what you guys have planned going forward but Ashton is definitely smitten, so I’m sure you’ll be involved one way or another. Then there’s the way he looks at you. I’d bet his heart is in this, too,” her mother said on their way into the kitchen.
Maybe. Hopefully. God, she didn’t want to hope and then be disappointed.
“You noticed the way Ashton looks at him, huh?” her mother asked.
“Oh, yeah,” her mother said on a laugh.
“She’s got a pretty severe case of hero worship; it’s understandable, considering—” Harlow froze.
“Considering what, sweetheart?” her mother asked, handing her a pitcher of iced tea before lifting a tray into her arms and heading for the deck where her father was talking Dylan’s ear off and showing off the grate system of the grill.
“Uh, well, he’s a former Navy SEAL. Can you imagine a more heroic figure?”
Her mother laughed. “I suppose not.”
Close damn call. And what did it tell her? That she wanted to tell her parents. She wanted to come clean with everything that had happened. Most of all, she wanted them to know that their son needed help and that he planned to get it.
It wasn’t necessarily her place, but maybe it was the time. Clear the air so their parents could also be part of his support system, because she couldn’t support Kevin alone. Not anymore.
She followed her mom out to the deck. Leaning over, she set the drinks down on the patio table. The idea of confessing made her heart race and her stomach lurch. “Listen, Mom, Dad, do you think I could talk to you for a minute while Kevin’s not around?”
“Sure, sweetheart. Is everything okay?” her mother asked, shielding her eyes from the sun.
Dylan gave her a look and tilted his head.
“Well, we’re listening,” her father said, taking a glass and filling it.
“Have you guys noticed anything off about Kevin?” Harlow asked.
Dylan’s shoulders stiffened and he slid his hands into his pockets, giving her an encouraging nod.
She hadn’t even warned him she was going to do this and here he was, just switching gears and rolling with it, supporting her.
“You’ve always thought your brother was weird,” her mother said with a laugh.
“Mom, I’m not kidding,” Harlow said quietly.
Her father cleared his throat. His heavy eyebrows snapped down into dark slashes over his narrowed eyes. “Well, I for one don’t understand why he keeps working at Carson Industries. I mean, he’s not going anywhere with them since they shut down the modular home division. I know plenty of people and could get him in where he has room to advance, or he could strike out on his own, but—”
“Wait—where did you say he works?” Dylan asked, his muscles bunching up, shoulders rigid, and jaw tensed.
Harlow had seen that stance before, and it sent chills shooting from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head.
“Carson Industries. Why?”
“The modular home division?” Dylan asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” her father said, glancing between Dylan and Harlow. “Why? What’s this all about?”
“Dylan? What’s going on?” Harlow asked.
“The warehouse where we found Kevin and Ashton is owned by Carson Industries and was purchased to hold their modular home factory. Only, with the crash of the market, they never set up shop,” Dylan said.
“You’re not saying…” Harlow trailed off, taking a step back.
Dylan raked his hands through his hair, linked his fingers around the back of his neck, and blew out a harsh breath. “We thought Moretti was the leader. What if he wasn’t?”
“You aren’t suggesting… You think it’s my brother?”
“Yeah,” Dylan said.
“What the hell is going on?” her father asked.
“When is Kevin getting here?” Dylan asked.
“He’s already here. He’s out on the trails,” her mother said, wringing her hands, her gaze darting between all of them.
“Harlow, call 9-1-1!” Dylan shouted, running for his car.
“This is crazy. He won’t hurt her!” Harlow said, taking off after him.
“Will someone tell us what the hell is happening?” Harlow’s dad bellowed, chasing them to the driveway.
Dylan reached under his seat and pulled out a pistol.
“Sweet Jesus!” her father said on a whoosh of breath.
“Harlow, you need to trust me on this. Call 9-1-1. Keep yourself locked in the house until I come back,” Dylan said.
“But—”
“Dammit! Will you just do it, please? If I’m wrong, you can jump up my ass. But what if I’m right?” He grabbed the back of her head and kissed her hard. “Now get inside. Go!”
She watched him take off onto the trail, the same sense of powerlessness from the night before hitting her.
She wasn’t having it.
“Why does he have a gun, and why the hell is he going after your brother?” her father blustered.
“Kevin has a gambling problem, and to get their money they kidnapped Ashton. Dylan got her back,” Harlow said in a rush, racing into the house with her parents hot on her heels.
“How could you keep this from us?” her mother demanded.
“Because I thought I could fix it. And I can’t. I thought I could be enough for Ashton, be both mom and dad, but I can’t.” She headed for the key she knew her father kept in the pencil holder over the kitchen sink and ran for the gun cabinet.
Her father shot out a hand and grabbed Harlow’s wrist. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She shook his hand off and met his eyes. “I’m going to help him. Call 9-1-1.”
He reared back, his eyes wide. “And tell them what?”
“I don’t know. Tell them there’s a kidnapping on the property. A shooting. Just get them here.” She grabbed her father’s 9mm and the clip in the compartment below it. Snapping it into place, she ran out the door and headed for the trail.
The hard, flat dirt made it easy to run. She followed the twists and turns, dodging bushes and trees. Getting too close to a few, they scraped at her legs, leaving red scratches across her skin.
It had seemed like a good idea to have the trails until now. Now the idea of four miles of paths to navigate was daunting while time ran out.
The sun beat down on her, making sweat break out over her temple and neck; she ran as fast as she could without losing her balance, careening around corners.
She made a sharp left and an arm shot out and grabbed her, slapping a hand over her mouth. She tried to scream, but his hand just got tighter.
She sank her teeth into the pad of his middle finger.
&
nbsp; “Ouch! Dammit, Harlow, it’s me,” Dylan whispered in her ear.
“Why did you grab me?” she said, turning in his grip.
“Because I was hoping for the element of surprise, while you’re stampeding through like a herd of elephants,” he replied softly.
Harlow spun, searching the area around them. “Did you find her?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe I can help. Who are we looking for?” Kevin said. He came around the corner, his fingers wrapped around Ashton’s arm and a gun aimed at her chest.
Harlow’s stomach dropped to her toes. Her own brother.
Dylan had been right.
Harlow had been a fool. “Kevin,” she whispered.
Ashton’s wide-eyed gaze met Harlow’s. The blood had drained from her normally- rosy face. “Mom,” she whimpered.
“It’s going to be okay, baby. I promise,” Harlow told her. The weight of the gun in her waistband grew heavier by the minute when thinking about what she might be forced to do.
Dylan raised his gun and aimed it right at Kevin. “Drop the gun, Kevin.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You see, there’s still the matter of the money I didn’t get. Money that one of you is going to deliver.”
“You don’t need it anymore; the guy you owed it to is dead,” Harlow said.
“God, you really don’t get it, do you?” Kevin sneered. Droplets of spit burst from the corner of his mouth. Sweat ran down his cheeks, over his jaw, and under the collar of his dress shirt.
She took a step toward him. “Get what?”
“You think you got the head of the snake,” Kevin said with a twisted laugh.
“You’re the snake,” Dylan said quietly, taking a step toward Kevin.
“That’s right. I can’t tell you how nice it would have been to have you here as a part of the family, had the circumstances been different. Sometimes Harlow can be a bit dim,” Kevin said, shooting her a smirk.
Every bit of caring she had for Kevin died. It was one thing to believe him sick. This, this was something else.
Something sinister.
This wasn’t her brother. Not anymore.
“What do you think you can do with $200k? You really think you can just take it and go? It’s not enough to live the rest of your life on,” Dylan said, taking another half step.
“I’ll get it back to the people it belongs to. You see, I took out a bit of a loan. Only, I didn’t ask.”
“From who?” Dylan asked.
“Ramone Scally,” Kevin said.
Dylan whistled low. “You stole money from the biggest drug lord on the West Coast? I can’t tell if you’re insane or colossally stupid.”
“So, you see the problem. I know you’ve got the cash. Your team mentioned it last night while they were all shooting the shit, talking about how great their muscles are.”
“So, that’s it? You just want the money? Then let’s go get it,” Dylan said.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve got the leverage here. You go get it and bring it back to me. If you can do that, I won’t have to leave my niece here, bleeding out in the middle of the woods for the animals to find.”
Ashton whimpered.
“You sick son of a bitch!” Harlow lunged at him.
Dylan grabbed her wrist. “Harlow, no.”
“He’s going to kill her,” she protested.
“Only if you make me,” Kevin said with a shrug.
The sound of sirens wailed in the distance. Thank God her parents had listened and called the police.
“Just let the girl go. It’s too late, Kevin. You’re not getting the money. Don’t make this worse,” Dylan said.
“Shit,” Kevin ground out. He grabbed Ashton by the hair and dragged her back the way they came.
“Let her go,” Dylan said as he followed.
Ashton stomped down on Kevin’s foot with her heel.
Kevin growled and backhanded her. Ashton’s hair whipped to the side with the force of it right before she spun and fell in the dirt.
“No!” Harlow screamed.
Kevin raised his gun and aimed it right at Harlow. “If I don’t make it out of this, neither do you,” he said, squeezing the trigger.
“Get down!” Dylan yelled as he leapt in front of her.
One pop.
Dylan’s body jerked in the air, his arms flung wide, as he fell to the ground next to Ashton.
While Harlow drew her father’s gun, Kevin smiled down at Dylan as he clawed the rich dirt, dragging his body to get to Ashton and cover her. The minute Kevin looked up to Harlow, with the gun aimed at Dylan and Ashton, she squeezed the trigger.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Blood spread from the holes in his chest, soaking into his shirt as he dropped to his knees. The gun slid from his fingers, he gurgled, his blue eyes locked on her face, then rolled back in his head as he fell face-first into the dirt.
“Ashton!” Harlow cried out, leaping for them. She rolled Dylan off Ashton and onto his back. The minute she did Ashton shot to her knees, bending over her father.
“Mom! Oh, God, Mom—he’s bleeding,” Ashton said, pushing her hand over the blood spreading just below his shoulder.
“It’s okay; it’s going to be okay,” she told Ashton.
“Dylan? Can you hear me? Say something,” Harlow said, grabbing his face and turning him to her.
His eyes flickered open as he struggled for air. “Is the fucker dead?” he wheezed.
She glanced over at where her brother laid still, a pool of blood spreading under him. “Yes, I think so,” Harlow said.
“Good,” he said, right before his head lolled to the side and his body went limp.
Epilogue
“Hey, put those down. That’s what Slyder, Evan, and Cole are here for,” Harlow said, pointing a finger at Dylan from the kitchen of the condo.
The woman was everywhere and saw everything. “I’m not an invalid,” Dylan yelled out to her from the living room as he stacked one last box on the hand truck and ignored the pinch in his chest when he tipped it up.
“I’ve got that,” Slyder said, reaching for the handle.
“I can do it,” Dylan bit out in frustration.
Slyder hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “She’s the boss. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be. I sure as shit don’t want Nebraska to catch me letting you get this on your own. Besides, don’t you have more packing to do?”
Dylan glanced around. “A little, but it’s not like I have that much. It’s a twenty pound box for fuck’s sake.”
“No, you’re not, but you have a weight restriction for another week. You promised to zip line with Ashton. You want a setback to ruin that?”
He hated when his friends were sensible. If they’d been in the field, no one would be coddling him like a baby. “No,” he admitted.
“I thought so,” Slyder said with a grin Dylan recognized. The guy was gloating.
Dylan crossed his arms and tilted his head. “You know, if I can’t do any lifting I’m going to have to take on a more supervisory role.”
“Shit,” Slyder grumbled.
“Yeah,” Dylan said with a laugh.
“Go kiss your woman and let me get some work done,” Slyder said, taking the load and heading for the door.
He crept up on her and snagged her around the waist as she bent down, taking supplies out from under the sink to put it in boxes.
She squealed and grabbed his hands. “I’m way over your weight limit,” she said, turning in his arms as they stood.
He grazed his thumb over her cheekbone and smiled down at her. “Nah, you’re light as a feather.”
“For now,” she said.
He leaned back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She smirked. “Well, my forties are coming soon. Women tend to put on a few as they get older. It’s bound to happen.”
“And I’ll love every last inch of it,” he promised.
“Yeah? Well, what if
I carry it funny and it all goes straight to my hips and ass?”
He laughed. “You can mortify Ashton by making some twerking videos and loading them on YouTube.”
“Do you hear yourself? I’m willing to bet before meeting her you didn’t know what twerking was.”
“You’d be right. At least she doesn’t do it.”
She held up a finger. “That we know of.”
“Nah, not my daughter. Now, what if this weight goes straight to a certain other area,” he said, nuzzling her neck and dragging his lips down her collarbone towards the area in question. God, he couldn’t get enough of her taste.
“Well, that’s the more likely spot, and sooner rather than later,” she whispered, tilting her chin up and sliding her fingers through his hair.
“Hmmm, why’s that?”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
He jerked his head back. He blinked down at her. At least he thought it qualified as blinking. He was doing it so fast it was more like a strobe light effect.
Or a stroke.
“What? Are you sure?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“But we’ve been using protection.”
“Except that one time,” she said.
“Which time?” he asked.
“The first time.”
He threw his head back and laughed. Of course it was. Why would it be any other way? He slid his hands in her hair and kissed her soft lips. “I get to be there this time around.”
She curled her fingers over his wrists and nodded. “You do. You’re not mad?”
He kissed her temple. “Feeling a whole bunch of things…mad isn’t one of them.”
“Happy?” she said with a tremble of uncertainty in her voice.
He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. Shit circumstances brought them back together. Then, Harlow had been forced to kill her own brother. Her parents had been struggling to come to terms with everything they hadn’t seen in their son, and grieving for him. Ashton had nightmares some nights and had needed to start seeing a therapist. Dylan had a close call with a collapsed lung that slowed his recovery.
But he was packing his condo and moving in with his family. He’d taken to making time for father/daughter dates once a week where they picked an activity and did it together, the first truly physical one coming up.