by Nicole Helm
Zach had spent most of yesterday tapping away on his computer conferring with Ty in low tones about what little they knew about Braxton Lynn, going over the layout of the cabin and where they could feasibly install cameras.
They had a plan for the cameras now, but Zach hadn’t been able to find much about the man.
Frustrated, they’d called it a night, and now today was a fresh day. Zach was going to install his surveillance equipment, then try his hand at some hacking.
Jen had felt superfluous. At best. Last night and now, but she didn’t know how to set up cameras or hack into government records, or anything about Braxton or Ty’s military past, so she’d had to accept it. This wasn’t her time.
But she’d listened, and she’d come up with her own conclusions. She’d always been good at observing people and reading them. If you were going to contort yourself to be what someone else wanted, or try, you had to understand them on some level.
The man after Ty didn’t want something as simple as just to hurt him. He wanted to torture Ty, terrorize him, using whatever means—family or past lovers—to do it. The question was, why didn’t he focus on Ty’s family, the most important thing to him?
There was the most obvious reason, one that made Jen’s gut burn with shame. She was the easy target. Carsons were rough and tough and harder to threaten. She was weak and easy pickings.
Well, no thank you.
She let Ty and Zach settle into breakfast as she sipped her coffee and watched them eat and discuss. Like she wasn’t even there.
No thank you to that, too.
“You’re going about this the wrong way,” she announced casually, so irritated with them and herself that it didn’t even bother her when they both gave her the same patently Carson questioning look. Eyebrow raised, mouth quirked, with just enough disbelief in their gaze to make a person feel stupid.
She refused.
“You’re thinking about this like he’s after me, when we know he’s trying to hurt Ty.”
“No. He’s trying to hurt you because of me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s try to step outside of macho egomaniac land for one second. Yes, he wants to hurt you. But how? Emotionally, not physically.”
“So?”
“So? Everything you’re planning is physical. And factual. He’s not interested in either thing. He doesn’t want to physically hurt you. He wants to terrorize you via someone you care about. Even when you’re trying to figure out his connection to you, it’s only so you know his identity, so you can identify and isolate his threat. But what you need to be doing is trying to understand him.”
“How can we understand him if we don’t know who he is?” Zach asked reasonably.
“But we do know. We know his name. We know his foster sister reported him missing, but no one’s really looking for him. So, what does that tell you?”
“Not a whole lot.”
Ty shook his head. “She’s right,” he said, with no small amount of irritation. “He’s alone in the world. No one really cares about him. Which means you can make the reasonable connection that whoever he’s looking to avenge did care about him, or he thought they did.”
“Exactly. And if he’s blaming Ty, out to terrorize Ty, he blames Ty for losing this mystery person. Maybe they died, or maybe they left him. Maybe there’s something else, but he wants Ty to hurt the way he hurts. The key isn’t Braxton or me, it’s the link.”
Both men stared at her, with no small amount of doubt in their expressions. And they were so quiet and military still, Jen fidgeted with her coffee mug. She didn’t let herself blurt out the apologies or at least that’s what I think that filled her brain.
She knew, knew, whether they agreed or not, her theory had more merit than the way they were currently going about things.
“I can’t discount it,” Zach returned, still frowning as if considering and finding her lacking.
No, not her. Her theory. She needed to be better about acknowledging that difference.
“But I can’t wrap my head around it either. It doesn’t make sense why anyone would get it all so mixed up in their head.”
“You’re trying to reason it out,” Ty interrupted. “I think what Jen’s saying is it’s not the kind of reason that’s going to make sense to, well, reasonable people.”
“Exactly,” Jen said, emboldened by Ty’s understanding. “You can’t think about facts and reason, you have to think about the emotion. Revenge is led by emotion.”
“You have to consider both,” Zach countered. “You’ve got a good point. His motivation isn’t one we’re necessarily going to understand because clearly he’s not well. But if we know who he is, identity-wise, we have a better idea of how to deal with his emotion and a better shot at finding the missing link. Facts and emotion need a balance.”
Jen considered that. “I suppose you’re right. Fact informs the emotion side of things, even if it’s not a straight line.”
Zach grinned at her. “Can you say that again? ‘I suppose you’re right.’ I’ve never heard any Carson or Delaney or Simmons for that matter say anything remotely admitting I’m right. I think you’re the most reasonable person in the whole dang bunch.”
Jen flushed with pleasure.
“Maybe you’d like me to leave you two alone,” Ty grumbled.
Jen rolled her eyes at him and got to her feet, clearing the breakfast dishes, but Zach was taking them out of her hand before she could make it to the sink.
“I should do that. You made breakfast. I’ll clean up.”
It was her first instinct to argue, to insist she did the work she knew she could do. But she wasn’t here because she could cook or clean. She wasn’t here to take care of everyone while they did the important work.
No.
She was here because she’d been put in danger. Maybe Zach and Ty were here to protect her, but that didn’t mean she had to take care of everything.
Wow. It was a lightning bolt of a thought. That she didn’t have to be the one to clean up all the messes to earn her place here. That she didn’t have to bend over backward to do whatever was asked of her simply because everyone else was more qualified to handle the threat against them.
Because the threat was against her, too.
So, she beamed at Zach and let him take the dishes. “Thank you. I’m going to go call Hilly and see how the store is faring.” And she was going to spend some time thinking about how when this was all over, she was going to make sure her life changed.
* * *
“SURE IS A pretty little thing. Good cook, too.”
Ty looked at where Zach was cheerfully washing the breakfast dishes. He was so shocked by the casual commentary all he could seem to manage was, “Excuse me?”
Zach shrugged. “Best breakfast I’ve had in a while.”
When Ty only stared, Zach kept yammering on.
“Certainly the prettiest scenery I’ve had for breakfast in a long while. Maybe ever. Something about sweet—”
“That’ll be enough,” Ty interrupted, pushing away from the table.
“What? Am I breaking some Carson code? Not supposed to admit a Delaney is pretty as a picture and nice to have around? Figured that nonsense was on the way out with the way everyone’s pairing off. Carsons and Delaneys seem destined to end up saying ‘I do’ in this particular point in history.” Zach stopped drying a plate, an overly thoughtful expression on his face. “She’s a Delaney. Technically I’m a Carson. I suppose—”
“I said, that’ll be enough.”
Zach surprised him by laughing and turned back to finishing the dishes. “You’ve got it bad.”
Ty blinked. “I don’t—”
“I don’t see much point in denying everything. Everyone seems to know you two had something way back when, and it doesn’t take my former FBI training to fig
ure out it’s still simmering under the surface.” He shrugged negligently as he put away the last plate. “Why don’t you do something about it instead of stomping around snarling like a lion with a thorn in its paw?”
It was horrifying to be seen through so easily by someone he barely knew, so he went for derision. “Yeah, let’s just forget the unstable maniac shooting arrows at us.”
“Haven’t seen an arrow yet today. Even unstable maniacs have to rest, and the fact of the matter is, your brain’s going to be a lot clearer if you do something other than brood.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You do an excellent imitation of it, then.”
“What business is that of yours?” Ty demanded sharply.
Zach raised an eyebrow with enough condescension in his expression to remind Ty irritably of Grady.
“Absolutely none,” Zach replied, pleasantly enough. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and nodded toward the door. “I’m going to set up the cameras like we talked about.”
How that made Ty feel guilty was beyond him. He had nothing to feel guilty about. Zach might technically be his cousin, but it wasn’t like they’d grown up together. He hadn’t even known Zach existed until a couple of months ago. Why would he take advice or ribbing from a virtual stranger?
But as Zach stepped outside, his pack with all its surveillance equipment and computer nonsense on his back, Ty felt awash in familial guilt—the kind he hadn’t entertained for a very long time. He shook his head and walked to the room he’d given over to Zach last night to just have a second of privacy to...something.
But he had to pass by the open door to the room Jen was in, where she was happily making the bed—whistling. Her cheerfulness scraped across every last raw nerve.
He scowled at her back. “Hart. Zach. You really go for the law-and-order type.”
She straightened, leveling him with a look he didn’t recognize. “I suppose it’s better than the idiot, pea-brained jealous-for-no-reason type.” She smiled at him, a surprisingly vicious edge to it.
There had to be something a little screwy in him that even as irritation simmered in his gut, he liked the idea of Jen getting a little vicious. “I am not jealous.” Which he knew, very well, was the thing someone said when that was exactly the ugly thing worming around in the person’s gut.
Zach calling her pretty, even if it was just to mess with him—it made him feral. It made him want to stake some claim he had no business claiming.
“No, not jealous,” Jen said with a dismissive edge. “You just have to be snotty anytime another man even acknowledges I exist. Even though you don’t acknowledge I exist half the time. Wouldn’t, if I wasn’t being threatened because of something you did.”
“Is that some kind of complaint? Pretty sure you’ve been avoiding me as skillfully as I’ve been avoiding you since I’ve been home.”
“So you admit it, then?”
“Admit what?”
“That you’ve avoided me.”
He couldn’t figure her out, or why there was now a headache drumming at his temples and all he really wanted to do was scoop her up and make good use of that freshly made bed. “Why’s that an admission? We were both doing it.”
She stepped closer, poked him in the chest. “Yeah, we both were. We both were. I thought it was because you didn’t care, but what an idiot I was. It was because you felt the same way I did.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look disdainful instead of whatever uncomfortable thing fluttered in his chest, squeezing his lungs. “And what way’s that?”
“Hurt. You were hurting just as I was.” She searched his face, so he did everything he could to keep it impassable.
Hurt had always been the enemy. You showed you were hurt, you got knocked around a little extra hard. Literal or metaphorical in his experience with life.
But here she was, calling it what it was, saying they’d both been walking around with it deep inside them. She was cracking away at something inside him, letting something loose he wouldn’t name. Couldn’t.
“You know what? I wish I did go for the ‘law and order’ type. I wish Hart or Zach were exactly what I wanted out of life. They’re both polite. Kind. Good men who want to do the right thing and aren’t afraid to admit it. In other words, the antithesis of you. But I...” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She looked like she was getting ready to do battle, and he was...
Scared. That thing she was pulling out of him, that feeling a strong, immovable Carson was never supposed to feel over some woman. It stole over him, shamed him deeply that he was bone-deep scared of what this slip of a woman was going to say to him.
He allowed himself to recognize the fear, acknowledge it. Even accepted the fact it was worse than any fear he’d had in the army, because death hadn’t seemed so bad. At least it would have been a noble one.
There was nothing noble or impressive about being scared of the woman who held your heart. No. So he would not be a coward no matter how he felt like one. He squared, too, and prepared for the blow.
“I love you,” she said, and she certainly knew every one of those words was an unerring bullet against his heart. “Yeah, I love you, you big, overbearing moron. I have always loved you and I always will. And I want to punch you. And I’m still mad at the way you left, but understanding it means I can forgive, and I do.”
“Don’t.” He choked it out, rough and telling. But the emotion that clogged his throat, that made his heart feel too big and beating in his chest, was winning against all control. It was this, right here, that had been his reason for leaving her without saying goodbye.
He wouldn’t have ever been able to look at her and hide all those things he felt. He wasn’t strong enough to hurt her, even for her own good. Not to her face anyway. He’d never be strong enough for that.
“It’d be awful for you, wouldn’t it?” she asked, tears swimming and making her eyes look luminous. “If I didn’t hold a grudge. If I just forgave you. Because then you’d have to forgive yourself, and that’s the one thing you’ve never been any good at.”
“I said stop.”
“No, no. I’m done stopping for someone else’s comfort.” She stepped so close he could smell her, that light feminine scent that always seemed to float around her. He could feel the warmth of her—not just generic body warmth, but that piece of her soul that had drawn him long before he’d been willing to admit souls even existed.
Was he willing to admit that now? He didn’t know.
When she touched him, her palm to his heart, he winced. The look she shot him was triumphant. Determined. And so damn strong he thought she might bring him to his knees.
“I love you,” she said, her eyes never leaving his. “I want you.”
He tried to move away, but so much of him was suddenly made out of lead and her hand fisted in his shirt, keeping him right where he was. In this nightmare where she said things he wanted and shouldn’t have.
Couldn’t. The word is couldn’t.
“And what scares you, what horrifies you, is that you love and want me, too,” she continued, hammering every last nail in the coffin that was his self-control. His belief that he could control his life, his emotions, his choices.
“But you know you’d have to forgive yourself for that love. You’d have to look back at seventeen-year-old Ty and think he actually did the best he could in the situation he was given. You’d have to look back at little ten-year-old Ty and forgive him for letting his dad knock him and his brother around, forgive yourself for not killing him when he started knocking Vanessa around, too. There’s so much you’d have to stop blaming yourself for to admit you love me, that we deserve each other—then and now.”
If there were words to be salvaged out of this nightmare, he didn’t have them. She must have taken them all, because they kept pouring out of he
r.
“I should have said all that to you when you got back into town, because I knew it then even when I didn’t know why you left. I’ve always known it. But I was too afraid to tell you what I knew, what I saw. I wanted to make you comfortable instead of making us...well, what would have endured. But I was seventeen, too. Young and scarred in my own ways, because we always are, Ty. All of us. Scarred and scared and uncertain. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have.”
He closed his eyes, but her other hand came to his cheek. He didn’t want to believe her. She had to hate him for what he’d done—because he hated himself for the way he’d left. For the way he’d come back. He couldn’t blame the latter on a young man with few choices. He’d been an adult, and he’d continued to act like she didn’t matter.
Still, she touched him like forgiveness wasn’t just possible. It was done. A given. Something she wouldn’t take back.
“Open your eyes, Ty.”
He did, because he seemed to have no power here. She was in control. She gave the orders, and he obeyed, excellent soldier that he was.
But it was more than that. No matter how much he didn’t want to believe he could have her, no matter how much he knew he didn’t deserve her, his heart still wanted.
“I love you,” she said, and it didn’t hurt so much the second time. “And you love me. That’s where we’ll start.”
So much of his scars and his past fought to win, to deny. But she was touching him, staring at him. Drowning in her eyes, he lost the battle with himself.
“No. This is where we start,” he replied, covering her mouth with his.
* * *
THEY DIDN’T KNOW they were being watched.
Chapter Thirteen
It was home. Ty’s kiss had always been exactly where Jen belonged, and somehow she had made it happen again.
So she threw herself into it, into him, wrapping herself around him with what she might have called desperation just days ago.
But she wasn’t desperate. No. She was determined. She had finally figured out what she wanted, what she was willing to fight for, and it didn’t matter if they were hiding out from danger or if they went home to Bent right now.