by Nicole Helm
And then things could still go wrong.
“We’re not sacrificing anything.” Mel’s voice was edged with fury. “She has my husband. I will shoot her, and I won’t suffer a second over worrying if it will ruin my life.”
“What about your daughter’s?” Mr. Shaw demanded.
“She won’t hurt him. She knows how much money he has,” Summer said, her fingers still laced with Thack’s. She squeezed, as though she was taking strength from him.
“Where are you? Do I have to shoot you all to make you stay put?” Mom’s voice shouted from the kitchen.
Dad quickly wheeled around so he could return to the kitchen. Mel ran, and Delia and Caleb followed. But Summer gave him another push.
“Go. Run. Please. For Kate. You can’t go in there with us and put yourself at risk.”
“I love you, Summer, but I’m not going in there with you,” he said, squeezing her hand.
She let out a breath, a tear escaping. “Thank you. Thank—”
“But I’m not leaving.”
“Th—”
“No time to argue.” He slipped back behind the door to the cellar. The only advantage they had was the element of surprise, and he’d use it. He’d use it however necessary to keep Summer safe.
Chapter 27
Summer took a deep breath as she returned to the kitchen. Absolutely everyone was here. In danger. Because of her.
She could keep letting them protect her. She could keep trying to fight them. Or…
Or they could all work together. They could all trust one another to find a way out of this. She couldn’t fight Mom alone, not if she wanted to win. She’d only failed in that department before. And she couldn’t keep trying to find a way around the people who were trying to protect her. She certainly couldn’t be angry with them for trying to protect her, when that’s what she was doing for them.
The thing of it was…she’d come here searching for family and love, and she had found both. It wasn’t perfect love. It was complex and shrouded in secrets and past hurts, but here they were facing the seeds of that…
Together. Hand in hand. Dan stepping out with Mom, allowing a gun to be pushed into his ribs for the sake of his daughter and his wife. Caleb standing in front of Delia, and Delia having the good sense not to fight him over it.
Thack breaking in and being ready to help them…for her. At huge risk to himself when he shouldn’t be risking anything.
But when you loved someone…
You risked the things you never thought you could.
Mom and Dan were standing in the kitchen. Mom didn’t have the gun trained on him anymore, so he moved to Mel.
“All right. Much as I love a good reunion, we need to move this along. Montana sure is getting to me.” Mom let out a little breathless laugh. “Something about that big sky, you know? I just feel the need to…put holes in things.”
The circle around Delia tightened, as she seemed like the weakest link.
“I’ve already told you I’ll give you whatever you’re asking,” Dan said, his voice still even, his arm linked with Mel’s. Mel linked arms with Summer, so Summer reached back and took Delia’s hand, the one that wasn’t grasping Caleb’s. They were a circle.
With Dad at the front.
With Thack somewhere in the back, a secret weapon.
He’d been so right. She should have come to them first. She should have asked for help. She should have realized that love was always stronger than fear, than hurt. It was stronger than her mother’s words.
Love had given her everything, and she’d let fear and her mother almost ruin that. Again.
But from here on out…never again.
“Put the gun down, Mom. We know what you need. You just need some money, right? Get you all set up in a nice place?”
Mom’s expression twitched a little, her lackadaisical grip on the gun tightening. “For good, this time. No more assholes running out on me, blowing up my life like they have the right.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place.”
“Because the daughter I left behind did what I’d always tried to get this girl to do.” Mom waved the gun in Summer’s direction. “How does that make you feel, Summer? I bred you for this, gave you every opportunity, and she…this…ranch woman outdoes you.”
“She loves him,” Summer said quietly, bolstered when Mel’s arm tightened its link.
Mom snorted. “Well, who wouldn’t, sweetheart? You could have had a decent-looking guy with one hell of a bank account, and you failed. You ruined it all, and then you ran here.”
Mom slammed the gun against the wall just as she’d done before she’d gone searching for the source of the noise.
Summer turned to Mel. “You have to let me go. Please. You have to let me go. I can handle this. Trust me. Please. I’ll talk to her. Grab Delia. Keep your circle. Let me stand by…Dad.”
It was the first time she’d called him Dad. Not my father or ours or yours. But Dad, as though this changed things between them. It didn’t really. But she wondered if it could. They had to survive first.
“Trust me,” Summer murmured again to Mel. “Like Delia trusted you to come.” She looked around to all of them. “Give me a few steps, and then you can come in and back me up however you want.”
Teamwork. Trust. Love.
Caleb and Dan nodded, then Delia, then most reluctantly, Mel. She loosened her grip, and Summer was free to move closer. She took a deep breath, looked into her mother’s eyes—eyes she’d looked into year in and year out trying to earn her love, her acceptance, her understanding.
It had never come. It never would. But love could win tonight. It could. “Mom, you don’t really want to hurt us.”
“Don’t I? Isn’t that exactly what I want? To put an end to all of you… Every last one of you ruined my life. All of you.” She spun the gun to Dad. “And it started with you.”
But Summer stepped in between the gun’s aim and her father, lifting her chin. “You don’t want to hurt us.”
“Summer,” Dad said in a low, gravelly voice. “I’m not worth it.”
She didn’t look back at him, was afraid to lose the eye contact with her mother, but she spoke to him, because something good was going to come of this. One way or another. “You could be.”
“Touching and all but—”
Again an unexpected bang, and again it wasn’t a gunshot. Summer flinched anyway, but it was the door flinging open.
And Thack walking through. Summer felt her knees nearly give out, but her father’s hand gripped hers, and it was surprising how that force could give her strength.
Mom didn’t even flinch at the sight of Thack training a rifle on her.
“Summer, step forward,” Mom said, that same voice she’d used on Summer her whole life. A deadly order, wrapped up in cheerful coldness. Summer found herself obeying, an old habit, but Dad’s grip held her.
“Summer,” Thack said evenly, his gaze never leaving Mom. “Stay exactly where you are.”
“This is an interesting turn of events,” Mom said, tapping her chin with her free hand. The gun she held in the other was aimed somewhere in Summer and Dad’s vicinity, though Summer was shaking too hard to figure out who the bullet might hit. “Who’s at home watching your little girl?”
Thack’s jaw hardened, but he didn’t otherwise react. In fact, the change was so infinitesimal that Summer wondered if she was the only one who noticed it.
“Pretty little thing.” Mom’s gaze moved to Summer, cold and calculating. “You’d sacrifice so much for…” Mom sneered. “So very little.”
“I’d sacrifice a lot for love,” Thack returned, his voice tense but not scared.
“You really think she loves you?” Mom’s voice dripped with disdain, and Summer made a sound, tried to argue, but Thack shook his head, his
mouth curving in the closest approximation of a smile a person could manage in this situation.
“I know she does.” His gaze held hers, and Summer relaxed, as much as someone could relax with two guns being held up ready to shoot.
Mom’s manipulations couldn’t work here. Not with all this love. Not with her family working together.
“Put the gun down,” Thack said coolly. “Everyone can walk out of here without anyone getting hurt.”
Mom’s gaze narrowed, and Summer watched in horror as Mom’s arm twitched a little, the gun’s aim coming to rest more clearly on Summer herself rather than Dad.
But Thack made a quick movement, and Mom swung the gun toward him. But she didn’t get a shot off before two sheriff’s deputies ran through the space Thack had vacated and tackled Mom to the ground.
The gun was wrestled from Mom’s grasp and the handcuffs were slipped onto her wrists. She fought at first, but then went limp. “You ruined everything. Everything,” she repeated over and over, as one deputy led her out and the other started taking statements.
Thack appeared in the front door, and Summer knew she shouldn’t, after everything she’d messed up and said, but she crossed to him and collapsed into him. Her choices had been wrong, made in a panic, and she had no doubt those choices had hurt him, but that didn’t erase how much she loved him.
He was here. That had to mean they could heal from this day. That they all could heal.
* * *
Thack held on to Summer, exhaustion seeping into his bones. Based on the way she could barely hold herself up, he supposed she was exhausted too.
But he didn’t let her go, and she didn’t let him go. Even while the police officers questioned them, going through the events of the evening, they held on to each other.
They weren’t the only ones. Mel and Dan, Caleb and Delia—the only person not intertwined with someone else was Mr. Shaw. It struck Thack as sad, but he knew enough about complicated family dynamics to know there was more to what was going on here than he’d ever truly understand.
Once the police left, everyone seemed incapable of following suit. They huddled in the living room in the glow of the twinkling tree lights, feeling an odd peace and hush after the craziness of the evening.
Caleb eventually insisted that Delia get into bed, while Summer fussed over making her something to eat. Thack knew he should get back home. He didn’t want Kate to wake up with him not there, and he had so much to do.
Technically, it was Christmas Eve.
But he couldn’t get himself to go. Not without talking to Summer. She was fluttering around, taking care of everyone, and he noted how much the Shaws were depending on her warmth and strength to slowly move on from this moment.
Thack didn’t belong here, that much was true, but he’d helped. He’d stepped in and kept Linda from taking a shot at anyone, kept her talking long enough for the police to arrive.
It wasn’t as heroic as Summer standing completely defenseless between the father who hadn’t given her much and the mother who’d failed her immeasurably, but he was never surprised that his Summer was a hell of a lot stronger than he was.
So, thank God for police and decent enough timing. Because everyone was okay, and he could go home to his daughter. He and Summer could go home to Kate and find a way to start something free of all this baggage and ugliness.
No, not free of it. You couldn’t erase the past. He’d never erase his, but it could become a foundation instead of a rift.
Summer wouldn’t be going home with him tonight—well, this morning. She had family issues to work through, but damn, he wanted her with him. Even if he was still angry with her, he was angry with himself too. He’d been harsh and unfeeling, even knowing she was trying to help people, save people.
But, damn it, at the sake of everything.
He took a breath. That was not for tonight. Tonight she had a family to take care of, and so did he.
Thack touched Summer’s arm lightly, and she looked away from the water she was foisting on her father. She didn’t smile. She didn’t frown. There was only hope and fear in her expression.
And then, her determination. Her determination never failed to impress him. Even here and now when all he wanted to do was hold her and make promises he couldn’t keep.
He wanted to tell her that everything would be perfect from here on out.
Except that nothing would be perfect. He couldn’t promise that. But they could make it right. They could make it good. “I need to head home.”
“Oh, right.” She glanced back at her father, who was studying Thack with an unreadable expression.
Thack ignored Mr. Shaw for now. There would be time later to maneuver the complicated family situation he’d waded into. After all, she’d waded into his without a qualm.
“Stay here. Take care of your family. For the love of God, rest, and when you’ve done all that, come…” He wanted to say home. Come home to us, but there were things to discuss and now wasn’t the time. So he touched her cheek and did his best to offer some approximation of a smile. “Come over and we’ll talk.”
Her attempt at a smile was possibly worse than his. “It’s…Christmas Eve. I don’t want to…get in the way.”
“Summer.” That she could think, at this point, she’d be in the way about broke his heart. So, even with her father looking on, he drew Summer into the circle of his arms, holding on tight. “You’re never in the way. Not ever.”
She made a little sound, and he thought maybe she was crying, though she’d buried her head in his shoulder so he wasn’t sure. He held on, rubbing a hand up and down her back, trying to comfort her the way she always seemed to comfort him.
“You need to go,” she croaked into his shirt.
He only hugged her tighter. “I can hold on to you for a little while longer.”
A broken sob escaped her, muffled in the fabric of his shirt, followed by another. He wasn’t sure how long she cried into his shoulder, but it didn’t matter. She needed this, a release from trying to be so brave.
Eventually her breathing evened out, and she slowly pulled herself from his embrace. She wiped at her face and smiled at him sheepishly. “Sorry about that, I—”
“No apologies or explanations.” He reached out and wiped a tear on her jaw she’d missed. “Not for that.”
Her lips wavered, but she pressed them together and gave a little nod. “Thank you. Now, go. Go home and rest, and I’ll come by tomorrow.”
“Promise me it’ll be after you get some rest.”
She blew out a breath. “Okay, I promise.”
He tipped his hat and turned to leave, but her not-quite-steady voice stopped him. “Thack?”
He looked back at her. At some point when he hadn’t been paying attention, Mr. Shaw had wheeled himself to a different corner of the room.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.” No hurried words over a phone call. No desperation tinging her voice. Instead, she was giving him her heart.
“I love you,” he replied, certain and sure and not at all wavering, because she’d had his love for probably a lot longer than even he realized.
Chapter 28
Everyone had gone to sleep, even Dan and Mel who’d decided to rest before heading back to Lissa and Dan’s parents.
It was so late that the sun would be rising soon. Summer should have slept, but she found she couldn’t.
She stood at the window in the living room, staring out into the darkness. Someone had turned the tree lights off, and it was just as dark inside the house as out. Summer didn’t know what she felt except a disconcerting kind of numbness.
But she heard the telltale squeak and whir of her father’s wheelchair, and it sent a skitter of nerves down her spine. Not the same kind of nerves her mother produced, but wasn’t it sadly telling that neither of her paren
ts afforded her much comfort or ease?
“You should be sleeping, girl.”
Summer sighed. In the past twenty-four hours he’d said as much to her as he’d said in years, and here he was, telling her what to do. She was too exhausted and anxiously strung out to know how to feel about that.
“I can’t.”
“Come here.”
She looked at the man who was, with no doubts any longer, her father. A man she barely knew, and one who over the last year had mostly treated her as though she didn’t exist.
Still, she went, because there had to be some hope. Who would she be if she didn’t hope for better? Who would they all be if tonight didn’t change things?
The Christmas tree lights blinked on, and she realized he of all people had leaned over and flicked the timer switch to on.
In the white shining light of the Christmas tree Summer had helped Caleb pick out and dutifully decorated as Delia looked on, her father held out a small, wrapped gift.
She could only stare at it.
“Take it,” he said with a grunt, jutting his arm toward her.
Summer had to swallow and force her legs to move close enough that she could take the outstretched gift.
A present. The wrapping paper was a plain, solid green. There weren’t any ribbons or bows, but her name was written in black marker across the top.
“Open it,” her father instructed, irritation and something she was afraid to name in his voice. Something like nerves.
With shaking hands, Summer slowly opened the package, lifting the tape carefully and trying not to rip the paper.
“What on earth are you doing, girl? Open the damn thing.”
“It’s the first gift you’ve ever given me,” she managed to say through her too-tight throat. She glanced up at him as she carefully pulled the box out of the wrapping paper.
He looked pained, haunted by a million things she’d probably never fully understand. She opened the lid of a little white box and pulled out a necklace.