Protective Operation

by Danica Winters

  “I thought you knew me. My family saved your life. And yet, you think I’m some kind of sleaze?”

  She stepped toward him, but he moved away from her reach. “Chad, no... I don’t think anything like that about you. I appreciate all that you and your family have done for me, but—”

  “But you still thought I had fathered a baby and kept it a secret,” he said, finishing her sentence.

  “You can’t act like it was out of the question,” she countered. “You alluded to the fact that your past isn’t without blemishes.”

  He wanted to tell her that neither was hers, but he didn’t want to stoop to that level. He was mad and hurt by her suppositions, and though it would have been easier to push her away and maybe drive her from his life, he didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted to go back to the way things were before the baby came along and she had made it clear exactly what she thought of him.

  “I’ve had women in my life, you’re right,” he said, but as he spoke the words it was like she had been slapped across the face.

  She looked up at him with pain in her eyes.

  “Damn it. That’s not what I meant. I just mean—”

  “It’s okay, we all have a past, Chad.” She sucked in a long breath, as if she was trying to control her anger, or was it the tears that were starting to well in her eyes?

  “This is all coming out wrong,” he said. “I’m not really upset with you. I get how you could assume what you did. And I’m sorry that I have a reputation that would lend itself to a rush to judgment. But I’m telling you, Shaye, I don’t want to keep secrets from you, of all people—”

  Before he could finish his thought, there was a knock at their door. “Wyatt’s here,” Zoey said and stomped quickly down the hall.

  “The queen is beckoning,” he said, wondering if Zoey had talked about him.

  Shaye gave him a look that made him question his irritation toward his sister. “I know your sister can be...tough.”

  “She hasn’t been kind to you, and for that I’m sorry.” He put his hand on the doorknob as he moved to go out.

  “That’s not entirely true,” Shaye said, shaking her head. “I think she just wants the best for your family and isn’t afraid to upset others to keep everyone safe. Her love is fierce.”

  “And so is her attitude.” He could hear how angry he sounded.

  “Her ferocity is something to be admired, and she is a natural-born leader. If my father was anything like her, I think my life would have been far different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Shaye shook her head. “Just that he doesn’t put his family first. For him, everything and everyone is fair game when it comes to getting himself ahead. My back carries many of his footprints.”

  He let go of the doorknob and wrapped her in his arms. As he hugged her, he drew in the scent of her lavender shampoo and the sweet smell of sleep that still lingered on her skin.

  They both carried wounds deeper than time could completely heal, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t keep trying to learn and move past the pain inflicted by others.

  “Do you accept my apology?” she asked, her breath warming his chest through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.

  “I couldn’t stay mad at you if I tried.” And, oh, how he had tried. Pushing her away would have been so much easier than trying to make sense of what was going on inside him.

  But when she was in his arms and pressed against him, she felt like she was a part of him—like just maybe she was the part of him that he’d been missing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chad and Shaye walked out of the back bedroom holding hands. As they entered the great room and Shaye looked out the front window, she let her hand slip from his. Wyatt was out in the driveway talking with Jarrod. Though it was barely a secret that they had feelings for one another, it didn’t feel like the time or the place to advertise their growing relationship.

  Shaye watched as Jarrod and Wyatt started walking toward the front door. Wyatt laughed, making her wonder if Jarrod had told him anything that even resembled the truth of their precarious situation.

  Zoey walked out from the kitchen and flopped down on the couch. She was eating a banana and scrolling through something on her phone, almost as if it was just any other day and they weren’t holding two men hostage with a stranger’s baby in their midst.

  It made her wonder what else this family had faced. How could they be so nonchalant when law enforcement showed up on their doorstep and so much was at stake?

  Or maybe it was just that they knew they were safe with Wyatt.

  Even assuming the latter, her hands were sweating and she kept rubbing them on her pants in an attempt to rid herself of her nerves. She could only imagine what would happen if Wyatt caught wind of the men in the basement. Would he arrest them all and take the men? Or would he join the family in their craziness? And if he did, would he be as kind as Mindy and Chad had been about her role in the upheaval?

  And that was to say nothing of the baby.

  She tried to swallow back the rest of her nervousness, but it was a losing battle.

  Chad opened the door for Wyatt and Jarrod. Jarrod walked in and Wyatt took off his hat and slapped it against his leg, bumping off the snow before he stepped inside.

  “This is a nice place you got yourselves here,” Wyatt said, looking around the room with animal hides decorating the walls and a large river-rock fireplace at its heart. He whistled through his teeth as his gaze came to rest on the oil painting of a waterfall that sat over the hearth. “You know who this place belongs to?”

  “No,” Zoey said, shoving the last bit of the banana into her mouth and her phone in her pocket.

  “Well, it’s a nice place,” Wyatt said, moving from one foot to the other as he gripped the corners of his bulletproof vest.

  Chad cleared his throat as a long, awkward silence permeated through the room. “So I’m not sure exactly what my sister told you, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  Zoey shot him a look that told him to shut up in every language. The silent edict made Shaye chuckle inwardly. Fierce had been an understatement. Zoey was an inspiration.

  Chad stopped talking.

  “Jarrod, do you want to go get the package while I talk to Wyatt here?” Zoey said, motioning her toward the back bedrooms, where the baby was sleeping.

  Jarrod nodded as Zoey turned to face the deputy. “We meant to call you sooner, but hearing all that you were facing the last few days, we didn’t want to burden you.” Zoey sounded far softer and more supplicating than Shaye had ever heard before.

  “Yes, things have been running amok here lately,” Wyatt said, frowning at them. “Though I must admit, I’m not sure I want to know exactly how you all know what’s going on. By chance, you and your brothers wouldn’t have any knowledge about a strange series of events that occurred at the local hardware store, would you?”

  Zoey shook her head and smiled. “No idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “All I’d heard was that there was something going on downtown, something that involved the coroner. What happened?” She gave Wyatt a concerned look.

  The woman could’ve been up for an award with that kind of performance.

  “Apparently, one of the store’s employees tripped and landed on a knife.” Wyatt gave them a disbelieving look. “Though there was no evidence of foul play, and everything seems to add up to a brutal accident, if you ask me... It looked a bit forced.” He looked over at Chad as if he could smell the guilt and fear emanating from him.

  Without thinking, Shaye reached down to touch the welts on the back of her legs where she had been struck by their attacker. Did Wyatt have an idea about what had really happened?

  Zoey’s smile grew ever larger, and she looked more and more like the Cheshire cat. “Was there any kind of recording, anything that could help
make sense of his death?”

  She sounded so innocent.

  Wyatt turned to her. “Unfortunately, here in Mystery, you’ll find that most everyone thinks of that as an invasion of privacy. Now and again you find somebody with cameras,” he said, eyeing Zoey knowingly. “However, I find that people who run high-tech gadgets around their places always have something to hide.”

  “Cousin, come on. What would we have to hide from you?” Zoey laughed. “Besides, I have to disagree. In our case, we find our surveillance helps keep us safe. In fact, from what I know about your family, it may not be a bad idea for you all to get a little more security.”

  “You’ve got me there,” Wyatt said with a chuckle. “Maybe our two families are more alike than I ever thought possible. And if that’s the case, we’ll be lucky if this town is left standing.”

  Shaye laughed—he was more on point than he even knew.

  Zoey wrapped her arm in Wyatt’s. “Now, cousin, you know that whatever we take down, we’ll do our best to rebuild.”

  “Just make sure you don’t go about taking down my career—got it?” Wyatt said, raising an eyebrow.

  Shaye wasn’t sure, given the circumstances, that was a promise that Zoey could make.

  Zoey walked Wyatt back toward the kitchen and she and Chad followed behind.

  Chad leaned down to her ear and whispered, “I have a bad feeling that this isn’t going to go as well as Zoey was hoping. We are going to need to watch for the fallout.”

  “Hey, trust your sister. She knows what she’s about.” Shaye patted him on the arm, though she had a sneaking suspicion that Chad was right.

  Zoey handed Wyatt a steaming cup of coffee and motioned for him to sit down at the bar that stood at the center of the room. “Yesterday, we became the proud caregivers of a little boy.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Wyatt said, taking a long draw from his coffee. He glanced over at Chad, and Shaye could feel Chad grow tense. “And whose baby would this be?”

  Zoey smiled and took out her phone. “Well, we are currently working on trying to find the identity of the woman who left him on our porch.”

  “Whoa, she left him on your porch?” Wyatt said, dropping the mug to the counter with a ping as it struck the glass. “What have you guys gotten yourselves into?”

  “Nothing we can’t get ourselves out of,” Zoey said, her voice hard and unwavering and leaving no room for Wyatt to argue or question.

  He shifted like he was trying to prepare himself for the weight of the situation that had been presented to him. “Do you know the baby’s name? Birthdate?”

  “As of right now,” Zoey said, “all we know is that he’s a little boy and we’re guessing he’s about two months old. I’ve been searching missing children’s databases, and nothing has matched his description.”

  “Sounds like you’ve put in your paces,” Wyatt said, inspecting her. “In fact, it sounds like you’ve done hours of research. So how long has this baby been in your care?”

  Zoey’s face twitched, as though she intended to say something, but checked herself. “Less than twenty-four hours.”

  Mindy walked out from the hallway carrying the baby and Jarrod followed after her with the baby’s things. The sight made a deep, inexplicable pool of sadness within her. The feeling made her question herself. The baby wasn’t theirs, so why did she feel as she did? From the very moment she had set eyes on the child, she had known that he was only going to be in their lives temporarily. And yet, watching this unfold, she couldn’t help the feeling that he was being ripped out of her arms.

  Glancing up, Mindy stopped as she stared at Wyatt, then back down at the baby. She looked like she was just a second away from making a run for it, baby in tow.

  “Is this the dude?” Wyatt asked gently, as he walked over and pulled down the boy’s blanket just enough to look on his face. As he moved the blanket, Peanut squirmed and let out a high-pitched wail, as if he was experiencing the same panic Shaye was. “Whoa, little guy, it’s okay. Shh... Shh...” Wyatt said, trying to quiet the baby, but instead of quieting down, his cries became louder and more piercing.

  “I think he needs a quick change and a bottle,” Mindy said, her voice cracking as she headed out of the room. As she moved away, the sounds of her cooing to the baby echoed out toward them.

  Jarrod stood there staring like he wasn’t quite sure what he should do. He finally turned and followed his fiancée out of the room.

  “I’m assuming that there’s a hell of a good reason you didn’t tell me about this baby earlier,” Wyatt said, glaring at all of them. “You do know, that if the baby’s parents wanted, they could actually charge all of you with kidnapping if they played their cards right.”

  Shaye hadn’t thought of that and a sickening sense of dread crept up within her. “But we didn’t kidnap the baby—we have video of the mom dropping him off.”

  Zoey jerked and almost imperceptibly shook her head, reminding Shaye to be quiet.

  “You have what?” Wyatt said, looking directly at Zoey. “I can’t believe this family.” He put his hands up in submission. “I’m sure you think you have your reasons for not getting me involved, but not telling me right away was stupid. It’s almost like you guys are trying to get yourselves in trouble.”

  Once again, she couldn’t disagree with the deputy. But she was right alongside the rest of the Martins, in this constant blurring between right and wrong.

  “We called you now.” Chad stepped between her and Wyatt, like he could somehow protect her from his cousin’s fiery glare. “And we know that you’re the best option that we have right now.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Wyatt asked, rubbing the back of his hand over his nose in a huff.

  Chad stretched his neck like he had a nervous tic. “We want you to help us keep him safe.”

  “I notice that you didn’t say you wanted me to help find his parents,” Wyatt countered.

  She wasn’t sure why, but somehow this family fight—even in its explosive possibilities—made it clear what a real family would do for one another. Though Wyatt had been angry about the prospect of getting this baby, and hiding it, he hadn’t overtly said no. Instead, he was just angered that they’d left him out.

  This family, regardless of what they could lose, were bound together by something so much more than blood.

  She envied that. Moreover, she wished she could be a part of this forever.

  “Of course, we want you to try and find this little boy’s family, but if you don’t, I know that I would be more than happy to take him under my care.” As the words came from Shaye’s mouth, they surprised even her. “I have the means, and I’m happy to supply you with whatever else in the way of paperwork you should need to get the adoption started.”

  Chad turned on his heel, staring at her as she spoke. “Do you really mean that?” he whispered, so that only she could hear.

  She nodded. For the first time since she’d gotten here, she was actually certain about something. Though she was scared witless, and though she was likely nearly the last person that anyone would entrust with the baby—given her current circumstances—she would do anything to make sure that he was protected and well-loved.

  Wyatt rubbed his hands over his face, exasperated. “Whoa now. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. A lot of things need to happen before we can even talk about long-term care options for this child. For now, we need to get him into the care of CPS.”

  “No, that’s not an option.” Zoey sounded angry at the proposition. “We’re not putting this kid in some foster home while your department comes to the same dead ends I’ve been facing. While I know that there are some great foster-home options out there, there are also some that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemies. If you’re gonna stick him in some hellhole, I am not giving you this baby. It may be a little bit dangerous here, but it’s better
than whatever he might face out there.”

  Shaye walked over and stood at Zoey’s side, making a show of a united front.

  Wyatt sank down, resting on the sofa as he dropped his head into his hands.

  “There has to be another option. If not, we can keep working to figure out who the baby’s biological parents are, and maybe even get his name.” Zoey crossed her arms over her chest. “If I find something I don’t like or if I can’t get the information I need, I’m more than capable of getting my hands on the appropriate paperwork to make it seem like he was born into this family.”

  Wyatt looked up at her. “If you’re hell-bent on breaking the law, why did you call me here? Did you want some moral support, someone to tell you that it was okay to steal a baby just because someone left him on your porch? We don’t understand or know the circumstances behind this baby’s arrival at the ranch, but I’m more than certain that we need to follow the law with this one.” Wyatt’s hands flew around as he spoke. “It can’t just be circumstantial that this baby randomly arrives on your doorstep the day a man turns up dead by some freak accident and I also get reports of a high-speed chase on the highway. You guys are up to something, and I know it. You’re lucky you’re family, or I would be dragging all of your butts to jail.”

  She had heard the expression “so angry a person could spit” but until now she hadn’t experienced a moment that quite fit that idiom. Yet as she watched Wyatt’s face redden with anger and little bits of spittle fly from his lips, she finally understood.

  But she couldn’t be upset with him for his reaction. He was a man with honor, a man bound by the oath of his office to do what was right...a man who cared about this nameless baby and his welfare just as much as they did, and he’d only met the child for a few seconds.

  Shaye walked around Chad and sat down beside Wyatt on the sofa, hoping against all hope that she could do something to help instead of further strain the situation. “Wyatt, we all understand how you’re feeling. And we are sorry for putting you in such a terrible position. If we didn’t feel as though it was absolutely necessary, we wouldn’t have called you here.”