by Nicole Helm
The police would be coming soon. Surely they’d called. Gently, reverently, he pulled the trap open and set it. He watched the ragged edges glint in the light of the sun filtering through the trees.
Like a parent caressing a baby’s cheek, he drifted his finger down the sharp edge. “You’ll do good work for me, won’t you?”
Footsteps sounded, faint but getting closer.
He had to melt away now. Luckily he was excellent at disappearing.
And reappearing when the people who deserved pain least expected it.
Chapter Eleven
Jen hated the fact she was pacing and wringing her hands like some helpless creature. The princess in the tower again. Waiting for Ty to return or the police to show up.
What kind of coward was she?
She fisted her hands on her hips. She was choosing the coward’s way out because she was used to fading into the background and letting everyone else handle the tough stuff. The scary stuff.
Being used to something wasn’t an excuse, though. She wouldn’t be stupid. Leave fighting the bad guys to the people with guns they were trained and licensed to carry. It didn’t mean she couldn’t do something.
Protection. She didn’t think Ty was going to find anything stomping around out there. If he did, he’d probably get hurt. At first, she shied away from that possibility, but then she stopped herself. No. She had to face facts.
He’d gone off half-cocked after a taunt from an unstable maniac. He’d put himself in danger. Luckily, Laurel was sending deputies up. They would handle whatever mess Ty had gotten himself into.
In the meantime, she needed to handle her mess. She was in a cabin all by herself with an unstable maniac on the loose. The man she shouldn’t love, but apparently did, was off proving something or other. And the police were on their way.
What would they all need?
Coffee for the police. Possibly first aid for Ty. And then, she needed to protect herself.
No. Reverse all that. For once she would put herself first. Find a weapon, or ten. Then the coffee. And the dope gallivanting around the woods with a pistol could fend for himself. She’d do the first aid last.
Or so she told herself. In the end, love won out. It irritated her, but she couldn’t have lived with herself if he’d staggered in bleeding like she’d imagined too many times to count already and she didn’t have something.
Maybe it wasn’t so wrong, she decided, placing the first aid kit on the table before going on a gun hunt. Maybe it wasn’t about always putting others first or always putting yourself first. Not always about asking for what you wanted, but choosing the when and knowing the why.
Maybe, it was all about balance.
Everything with Ty was complicated, but the feeling she had for him was simple. She pawed through a closet, turning that over in her head. Maybe in the midst of this...weirdness, she would focus on the simple.
As if on cue, she found a hunting rifle in the back corner of the closet. The chamber was empty, but she’d seen some boxes of ammunition in the tiny cabinet above the refrigerator when she’d been looking for a first aid kit.
She was no fan of guns, but her father had forced her to go hunting when she’d been a kid. All Delaneys needed to know how to hunt.
She’d hated every second of it, which had made her just another anomaly in the great Delaney clan. The rest of them might not love it, but they were good with guns, good with hunting. Jen had never had the patience or the aptitude.
She sighed heavily, grabbing the box of ammunition. Who knew being vaguely threatened by a stranger would have her rehashing so many of her childhood emotional issues?
Still, it allowed her to load the gun efficiently so she’d gotten something out of it.
She felt safer with the gun in her hand, felt calmer with the first aid kit within reach. But she was still just waiting.
Before she could decide what to do about that, something at the door clicked and the door opened. She knew it would be Ty since he obviously had the key, but still she lifted the rifle.
You never knew, after all.
He stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him before he glanced at her in the kitchen. When she didn’t lower the gun, he quirked an eyebrow.
“Gonna shoot me, darling?”
Since she didn’t care for his blasé tone, she used one of her own. “Considering it.”
“Well, I came back unscathed, so apparently your theory about that note trying to draw me out was incorrect.”
“That’s what you think,” Jen muttered, finally lowering the rifle. Mostly because she heard the distinct sound of a car engine, which she figured had to be the police.
Ty lifted the curtain and looked out the broken glass. He nodded. “Police. You stay here.”
“Because?”
“Because.”
“No. Let them come to the door. Where we’ll all discuss what happened together. Rather than you taking over.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were going to go out there and tell them what’s what—from your perspective, and that wouldn’t be a problem, except I’m the one who actually saw him shoot the arrow. You searched the woods and all, but I saw the whole thing happen. They’ll come to the door and we’ll talk to them together.”
She could tell she’d surprised him. He wasn’t used to her giving orders. Well, everyone was going to start getting used to it.
A knock sounded and Ty considered it. “Well, I guess you got your way.”
“It’s not my way, Ty. It’s the right way.” She reached past him and opened the door. She was a little disappointed Hart wasn’t the deputy on the other side of the door, but he was currently working nights so it made sense. “Come in, Deputy.” She gestured him inside.
“Ms. Delaney.”
“I’ve left the arrow where it landed, and I’m sure you can see where it made impact with the window.” She could feel Ty watch her as she took the deputy through the sequence of events. Still, he didn’t interrupt. He didn’t try to take over. He simply watched while Jen answered questions and the deputy wrote notes down in his little notebook.
“And you saw all of this, Mr. Carson?”
Ty shook his head. “No. Once I handed the binoculars over to Jen I went to get my pistol.”
“The one you’re wearing now?”
“Yes.” He flashed the man his cocky Carson grin. “Not going to ask me if it’s registered, are you?”
The deputy only grunted. Clearly he’d had enough run-ins with Carsons not to press the issue. “So you’re getting the pistol—then what?”
Ty walked him through heading for the door, jumping on Jen when he heard the crash. Then her reading the letter aloud and his heading outside.
“And once you were outside, you searched for the man?”
“No. Not searched. I didn’t go into the woods or look for tracks, I went to the stables.”
Jen frowned. News to her. He’d let her think he was going after whoever had shot the arrow, to hurt him. But he’d gone to the stables?
“There’s a hayloft up there,” Ty continued. “It’s rickety, but if you know where to step you can get up and get a decent view of the surrounding area. I’ll admit, I’d planned to go after him, but the stables caught my eye first. I knew I’d be able to see him if he was anywhere close. But I looked all around and I didn’t see anyone. There could be tracks, but I didn’t want to risk it alone.”
Also news to her. The jerk. She’d been worried for no reason. Maybe she should have given him more credit, but he’d been so angry when he’d huffed off. Was she really supposed to just expect him to make smart decisions?
Maybe the answer was yes, but she wasn’t about to admit her mistake to him.
“We’ll search the woods and see what we can find.”
�
��He isn’t there,” Ty said flatly.
“No, but he might have left a clue behind. You let us investigate Mr. Carson and we’ll—”
Ty said something crude and Jen sighed, stepping forward to smile at the deputy. “Excuse him. He’s so grumpy when he hasn’t had his nap. Like a toddler.” She smiled at the officer, enjoying Ty’s disgusted grunt. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No, ma’am, thank you. I’ll join Burns out there and we’ll see what we can find. If I have any more questions I’ll be in touch, and we’ll let you know if we find anything. And everything we find gets turned over to your sister and Deputy Hart.”
“Why Hart?” Ty demanded.
The deputy eyed Ty with some disdain. “Hart is taking over as detective now that Laurel’s on desk duty. He’ll handle all investigations with her until she’s on maternity leave, then on his own.”
Ty grunted irritably. “I’ll search with you.”
The deputy shook his head and Jen thought Ty would bite it off if he could. So, she moved easily between law and wannabe outlaw and started ushering the police officer to the door.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep him occupied while you do your jobs.” She gave Ty a pointed look at the word, but he only stared back at her, clearly furious. But he let the deputy exit the cabin while he stayed put.
He narrowed his eyes at her once the door was shut.
“What?” she demanded loftily.
“So, you finally decided to use it.”
“Use what?”
“That backbone you’ve been trying to ignore for almost thirty years.”
* * *
HE EXPECTED HER to be pissed. That was the point after all. Undermine all this annoying confidence and take charge thing she had going on, and make her angry.
But she didn’t so much as flinch. She considered.
It was beautiful to watch. This was the woman he’d always known she could be. More like her sister, but still herself. Because she’d only ever needed to stop trying to please everyone, including him.
She wasn’t trying to please him like she had when they’d been together, and it gave him a perverse thrill. It was always the Jen he’d wanted, because he didn’t deserve the girl who’d bent over backward to give everything to him. He’d never deserve her.
“I suppose that is what I decided while you let me believe you were off chasing down a madman, not looking for him from a safe vantage point.”
“If I’d seen him, I’d have gone after him.”
“But you didn’t search the woods. You looked for him from a safe vantage point and then you came back.”
Why her repetition of his very intelligent choices irritated him, he didn’t know. So he shrugged. “Your point?”
“My point is you want me to believe you’re this one thing—you’ve always wanted me to believe certain things about you, but they’re very rarely true.” She frowned a little, as if thinking that over. “Even leaving without a goodbye. You came home ten years later, let me believe you were just a careless jerk—even though I’d known you weren’t, but the truth was you’d done it to protect me.”
“Like you said earlier. I still could have said goodbye.” But he couldn’t have. Not and actually done it. He hadn’t been strong enough then to tell her he was leaving, to be callous and nasty and cut all ties. So, he’d taken the coward’s way out.
He’d like to believe as an adult, he would have made different choices, but sometimes, when he looked into her eyes, he figured he’d always take the coward’s way out when it came to hurting her.
He wanted to cross to her. Hold her. Tell her all the ways he hadn’t been able to face her. Beg her to forgive him.
It unmanned him, all that swirling emotion inside. Worse, the hideous thought she might be able to see it.
“We should—” Jen was cut off by a knock on the door, thank God. “Maybe they found something,” she muttered. Ty was closer, so he answered it. But it wasn’t one of the deputies. It was Zach Simmons.
Ty had found out about Zach’s existence only a few months ago when his aunt, who’d run away long before he’d been born, had come back to town. Zach was technically Ty’s cousin, but he hadn’t quite warmed to the man. Zach might be a Carson by blood, but he’d been FBI and his dad had been ATF and everything about him screamed Delaney to Ty—even if there weren’t any Delaney ties.
So he flat out didn’t trust the man. “Zach,” he greeted coolly.
“Ty. Jen. Laurel called me. Sounded like you two need some security, so I hitched a ride up with a deputy,” Zach said, his eyes taking in his surroundings, reminding Ty of a soldier. He wore a big black backpack and was carrying a weapon openly on his hip, and he had eyes that reminded Ty way too much of the father he’d hated. Eyes he saw in the mirror.
“We don’t need security.” The only reason Ty didn’t slam the door in his face was the whole blood-tie thing. It wasn’t Zach’s fault he had the old bastard’s eyes. And he’d been nothing but pleasant enough since he’d moved to Bent to work with Cam Delaney at his new security business.
But Ty didn’t trust him.
“I’m pretty sure security is exactly what you need. You might not want it, but you need it,” Zach returned evenly. “Laurel insisted. More, my sister insisted. You try saying no to Hilly.”
It was that evenness Ty couldn’t quite work out. There was a blankness to Zach, a way he kept all personality locked under a very bland shell. But he was a Carson. Even if he’d grown up away from Bent with an ATF agent father, there was Carson blood in there. A man had to feel it.
“Ignore him,” Jen interrupted, smiling at Zach in a way that had Ty grinding his teeth together. She even took his arm and pulled him into the living room. “There’s plenty of room, and I think an extra set of eyes is a good idea.”
“Laurel thought so, too. She wants me to move you—”
“No,” Ty said, trying for some of Zach’s evenness. It came out like a barked order. “We stay where I know the turf.”
Zach looked at Jen as if he was expecting her to argue. That was what Ty didn’t trust about Zach. He didn’t know when to stick with his own.
“I think Ty’s right,” Jen said, surprising him. “Clearly this man is going to track us wherever we go, and we can hardly be on the run forever. It’s best to stay in a familiar place, and protect ourselves.” She smiled winsomely at Zach. “Especially with a security expert around.”
“I want to set up some cameras then. Nothing invasive. Just your typical security measures for dangerous lunatics lurking in the woods.” He pulled the pack off his back and gave it a little pat.
“How much is that going to cost me?” Ty demanded.
Zach arched an eyebrow at him. “I suppose I’d have to give you a family discount. It’ll be borrowed equipment—we can take it all down once this is over. Consider the labor my charitable donation to a good cause.”
Ty wanted to tell him they didn’t need the security again, but that was knee-jerk and stupid. The more footage they had of this Braxton Lynn, the better chance they had of figuring out why he was after Ty.
“I know Laurel’s investigating,” Zach continued. “And I respect your sister and her work ethic. She’ll work on this till she’s keeling over, but she’s going to investigate like a detective.”
“Is there another way?” Jen asked.
“Sure. There’s the FBI way, which I’m rather familiar with. There’s also the bend-the-rules-so-we-can-get-our-man way. I’m a bit fond of that one.” He pulled a laptop out of his backpack and placed it on the table. “Now that I’m not FBI, I’m not beholden to their rules, and I know a lot of ways to get around the bureaucratic red tape.”
Ty considered the computer, then the man. He grinned. “Now you’re sounding like a Carson. Let’s cut some red tape, cousin.”
* * *
&nbs
p; HE GAVE IT a full twenty-four hours before he returned to the cabin. He could tell the cops had sniffed around some, but none had come close to his traps.
He was mildly disappointed, he could admit. It was for the best for his plan that no one had stumbled into one, but finding a bloody corpse or someone whose life was spilling out painfully would have lifted his spirits just a tad.
He looked up from the trap he lovingly caressed. He couldn’t see the cabin from here, but he knew where it was.
Jen was probably letting Ty touch her in there. No, no. She was too pure for that. Jen Delaney seemed so kind, so good. No, Ty was probably forcing himself upon her. She was a victim, and it was his duty to save her.
He rubbed at the headache that began to drum. No, that was all wrong. Ty needed to pay, but he could do that only through Jen. Ty had irreparably damaged Oscar.
Ty had broken his brother when they’d been in the army. It was the only explanation, and once he’d gotten through to Oscar, Oscar had agreed it was all Ty’s fault. Other people were always to blame for Oscar’s shortcomings, but he’d come up with a way to fix that. To get Oscar on his side again.
He would break Ty’s woman, for Oscar. It was only fair. Sometimes innocents were hurt because bad men roamed the world. Bad men needed to be hurt. They needed to suffer.
Once Ty did, his own suffering would go away.
He looked down at his shaking hands. He was getting too far out of control. The plan was hazy and he wasn’t focused on the goal. The goal.
It was all this waiting. All this planning. Vengeance needed to wait and be planned, but a hero acted. A hero did what he came here to do.
He would be Oscar’s hero. Now.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning, Jen was happy to make breakfast for the two men she was temporarily sharing a cabin with. She might have discovered her backbone yesterday, or trusted it enough to use it, but she’d long ago decided she’d rather make the meals her way than be waited on.