by Desiree Holt
“And I’m supposed to just hide out here and wait?”
“Just like you’ve had other targets do in the past on cases you worked,” Dillon agreed. “But you do have an advantage. You know Morales.”
“Yes, and I can also take care of myself. I’m sure Stanton told you that. Let me come out there with you.”
“And have Liam hang my ass if something happens to you? Uh uh.”
She wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. “I was a cop for ten years, and a damn good one. Let me do what I do best. Let me show myself and draw him out.”
“Charity.” She hated the reasonable tone of his voice. “We have no idea where this guy is at the moment, and I’m not using you as bait. Liam would cut off my balls, and you know it. Be the inside man on this and defend yourself. That’s where you can do me the most good.”
He was right. She knew it and couldn’t argue. She’d said the same thing to others in danger over the years. But then she’d always been the one providing protection.
“Maybe you could point that out to Liam.”
His deep laugh boomed across the connection. “Nice try, but I’m not going there.”
She blew out a breath. “Okay. But I know you’re going to call him next. Don’t say that to him or he’ll lock me in the closet.”
“He just wants to keep you safe,” Dillon reminded her.
“And I want him to be safe too.”
“Good.” He chuckled. “You can take care of each other.”
“Damn.” Hanging up, she glared at Liam, who had just come into the kitchen. “You men think you know it all. If you pat me on the head and say there, there, I swear I’ll shoot off your balls.”
Automatically, one hand went to cover his junk. Then he just shook his head.
“Charity, I am not going to let you put yourself in the line of fire, so just forget it.” He turned away from her.
They’d been having this argument since he’d brought her home from Mike’s and refused to let her leave the house. She couldn’t make him understand that she’d been a cop for ten years, that this was what she’d done for a living. He was constantly moving her away from windows and doors, blocking her with his body if he had to.
“You think it would be better if you got shot?” she demanded. “How do you think I’d feel then?”
“Not up for discussion.”
Angry at his stubbornness, she moved her things into another bedroom, refusing to share his with him.
“I know you think you’re protecting me, but you’re disrespecting who and what I am. Please, Liam.”
By evening, they were still at a standoff, and Charity was getting antsy. Stanton and the feds had arrived. Her former boss had called her to tell her he was at the sheriff’s office.
“And the big guns?” she asked.
“Blending in with the crowd, searching the area.”
“Blending.” She snorted. “I hope they aren’t wearing their stand-issue FBI wardrobes.”
“These guys are out of the San Antonio office and know what they’re doing,” he assured her. “Just keep your phone with you and hang tight.”
Hang tight. Right.
So where the hell was Morales? How long was he going to wait to make his move? This wasn’t like him. He was more of the bull-in-a-china-shop type, not the kind to watch and plan. That was one of the reasons they’d finally been able to take him down.
She shared her thoughts with Dillon.
“He’s in unfamiliar territory,” Dillon reminded her. “You know him better than we do. Will he jump before he’s sure he has the advantage?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
She hung up, ready to jump out of her skin. She’d just gone into the kitchen to get a fresh cup of coffee when her cell rang again.
“Okay. Just got a call from one of the feds. He’s been sighted in town.” Dillon’s voice was hard.
“Here in Saddle Wells? I mean, in town? Where people can see him?” Charity could hardly believe it.
“Yes, and on the move. The feds are keeping track of him. Stanton and I are heading your way, but not until dark, and I’m using Jinx’s car. We’ll come in from the street behind you. I’m going to call Liam and let him know what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell him. I’m not stupid enough to keep that from him. I just don’t want him to get hurt.”
There was a moment of silence. “When this is over, you guys need to have a heart-to-heart about who does what in this relationship. I know where you’re coming from, but I see his point of view too.”
“Thanks a whole fucking lot.” She disconnected the call and shoved the phone roughly into her jeans pocket.
“Was that Dillon?” Liam had followed her into the kitchen.
“Uh huh. Morales is on the move.” She related everything the sheriff had told her.
Immediately, he moved her away from the window.
“He won’t show up while it’s still light out,” she pointed out.
“I know, but I’m still not taking any chances.”
She checked her gun again and patted the extra clip in her pocket. He watched her with narrowed eyes. She tried to read the look on his face, but all she saw was a lack of emotion. The soldier approaching battle. “Liam, I know you’re a warrior and you know how to fight. But please respect who and what I am too, okay?”
They stared at each other for a long moment, then he looked around for a place she could stand without windows, a place with little exposure. That in itself was a problem, because there were a lot of windows in the house. It made for a bright place filled with light, but not a good place to hide when someone was trying to kill you.
Charity wanted to tear her hair out. Or his. There was such a thing as overdoing the protective-male thing. She took a long swallow of her coffee, which had cooled off by now. They stood there, like fighters in opposite corners of the ring, tension thicker than molasses, as outside the sun set and it got darker and darker.
She jumped when Liam’s phone rang.
“Yeah? Okay.” He unlocked the back door and then looked at her. “Dillon’s here.”
In a moment, the door eased open and Dillon Cross, dressed all in black, slipped into the house. Milo Stanton was right behind him. They each carried handheld radios.
Stanton took a moment to pull Charity into an embrace. “We’ve got your back, kiddo,” he assured her.
She introduced him to Liam who stood next to her like a guardian.
“Morales is on his way,” Dillon told them in a quiet voice. “The FBI guys are tracking him. And, yes, Charity, they know what they’re doing.”
“Then why don’t they just arrest him?” Liam demanded. “He’s an escaped felon after all.”
“Because if we catch him in an attack on an officer of the law, we can throw life in prison on the table.”
“Even if I’m no longer active?”
Stanton’s smile was positively lethal. “He doesn’t know that.”
“He’s got three assholes with him,” Dillon told her. “The word is they’ve got semiautomatics. Liam, I want to do this so your house doesn’t get shot up to hell.”
Liam snorted. “How exactly do you plan to do that?”
“I’ve got men out there covering all sides of the house. The feds are closing in too. If we can do this with precision timing, we’ll make it work.”
“You’ll pardon me if I think you’re dreaming,” Charity remarked. “I was in a firefight with Morales not too long ago, remember?”
“I need—” He was interrupted by the sound of his cell. He clapped it to his ear. “Yeah? Yeah? Uh huh. Okay.”
“What?” Liam asked.
“They’re here. They parked down the street and they’re sneaking around the back. I need to get out there.” He looked at Charity and then Liam
. “Keep your guns ready, but I want both of you in here. And keep your cell phones handy.”
“Be careful,” Charity cautioned. “These guys won’t hesitate to take out any neighbors who get in the way. I told you we should have done this differently.”
“We can argue about that later. Okay, hang tight.” He slipped out the back door and was gone.
Stanton remained behind with them.
“I’ve got this.” Liam’s voice was tight and uninflected. He moved to stand in front of her, nudging her away from the door.
“Damn it, Liam, we’ve both got it.”
“And I’ve got the radio,” Stanton pointed out. At that moment the instrument crackled to life.
“They’re moving in,” came Dillon’s voice. “We’ve got enough manpower to cover all of them and round them up, hopefully without a firefight.”
But the moment the words were out, they heard shots outside, several of them followed by silence. Then the radio spat out another message.
“We’ve got them,” Dillon told her. “All except Morales. He wasn’t with any of them, but I know he’s here, so be alert.”
“I’m ready.” Stanton nodded to Liam and Charity.
“His usual style. Let the others take it on the chin. He thinks while we’re all occupied and maybe letting our guard down, he’ll slip in and get the real target.” He pointed at Charity. “You.”
He barely got the words out before there were more shots in front and then the door crashed in. Paco Morales himself stood there, holding a semiautomatic rifle.
“A few less gringo lawmen out there to get in my business.” He sneered.
Charity’s throat went dry. She hoped to hell those cops were just wounded and not dead.
“I wanted to do you myself, bitch.” Paco spat on the floor. “Puta. Time for you to get yours.” He fired into the ceiling, his signature announcement of firepower, confident they would cower and fall to his next volley of bullets.
Then everything happened in the span of mere seconds, although to Charity it felt as if it were all in slow motion. Liam moved to step around her, but his bad leg collapsed beneath him. He still managed to get off a series of shots, hitting Paco in the shoulder and the legs.
Charity threw herself flat on the floor, steadied her gun hand and emptied the clip into the man just as his finger hit the trigger. Bullets sprayed down the hall and into the kitchen as he fell backward on the floor. Yanking the other magazine from her pocket, she jacked it into the gun and lay there, frozen, waiting to see if he moved again.
She barely registered the sight of strangers rushing in through the front or the sound of the back door opening.
“He’s dead, Charity.” Dillon’s calm voice came from behind her. “He won’t be bothering you again.”
He crouched beside her, a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Still she lay there, unable to move. Her brain seemed to be in park, along with her body.
“I’m fine, damn it.” She heard Liam growl as if from a distance. “Stupid fucking leg. Get the fuck away from me.”
“Sorry.” Stanton’s voice. “I just—”
“I said get away.”
Charity heard the voices, but they sounded faint and far away. She lay there, staring at Paco’s dead body, gun still pointed at him until large hands lifted her to her feet. She looked up, dazed, as Dillon gently removed her gun and placed it on the counter.
“It’s all good now, Charity.”
“How the fuck did this happen?” Liam demanded, still sitting on the floor.
“That’s what we have to sort out,” Dillon answered. “This was the FBI’s operation, so they need to tell me how they missed him when we got the others.”
“I heard shots out front,” Charity managed. “Is anyone…are they—”
“Sheriff,” someone called from the porch. “We have a couple of wounded here.”
“Call for the paramedics,” he told them. “And check to make sure everyone else is okay. There were a lot of bullets flying out there.”
Charity heard a groan, glanced around and realized Liam was holding his leg, blood staining his jeans.
“You’re hit?” She felt as if she were listening to someone else say the words. She tried to move, to get to him, but nothing seemed real to her.
Dillon knelt beside Liam, checked his leg, grabbed a kitchen towel to staunch the blood.
“Just a graze,” she heard the sheriff say. “We’ll get it looked at.”
“I can take care of it myself. It’s hardly anything. It just hit my bad leg.”
Charity watched as Dillon wrapped two dish towels around the wound, vaguely aware of other people in the house. Of deputies and the feds talking to Dillon. Of the body being removed. Of phone calls in the background. Someone guided her to sit at the kitchen table and placed a mug of steaming coffee in her hands. She was glad because she felt thoroughly chilled, inside and out. Empty, as if a part of her had died.
When she looked up, Liam sat across from her, agony lining his face.
“Ten years,” she said at last. “Ten years, and this is the first time I’ve actually killed someone.”
He closed one of his large, warm hands over her free one. “I can help you deal with that.”
She just shook her head and looked down at her mug. “I’ve already done enough damage to you. I just want to be left alone.”
She had no idea how long she sat there, watching while the paramedics arrived and took care of Liam’s leg and treated the wounded federal agents. Or of Stanton murmuring reassuring words to her. Or of the ride to the B&B where she insisted on going. Dillon called Georgie, who came with Cade and picked her up. The last thing she remembered was crawling into bed, still half dressed and trying to shut out the nightmare.
“She won’t talk to me,” Liam said to Georgie. “Won’t come out of her room even to eat. But of course, you know that.”
They were sitting in the kitchen of the B&B. He had insisted on going to the B&B and being with Charity, leaving his house to all the various law enforcement officials and his father. He and Charity were staying there since the house was in such a mess. Besides, he didn’t want her to have to keep looking at the spot where she’d killed Morales.
The feds and Stanton were gone now, along with the bodies of Morales and his cartel lieutenants. None of them had survived the firefight, for which he was glad.
“We’ll keep her name out of it as much as possible,” Milo Stanton assured him before taking off.
That was all well and good, but now he had another problem to deal with. He might as well have been in another state for as much as she acknowledged his presence. Even at night in bed, she lay not touching him, rigid as a stick.
“I wish I had words of wisdom for you.” Georgie reached over and closed her fingers over one of his hands. “I think she might have to get some professional help.”
“It shocked me that in ten years, as many times as she told me she’d had to pull the trigger, this is the first time she’s actually killed.” He shook his head. “I recognize PTSD when I see it. God knows, Afghanistan and Iraq produced enough cases of it.” He rubbed the stubble on his cheeks. “I can search for someone she can see, but first she has to talk to me.”
“At least she’s sharing the room with you.”
When Charity hadn’t insisted on her own room, he’d held out hope they could break through the wall she’d erected around herself. But he might as well have been with a stranger. She ate in the room, slept in the room, never set foot outside its four walls. She moved little more than a robot. She showered and dressed each day and then sat in the big chair by the window, staring outside. But he knew she wasn’t seeing anything. Her eyes were too filled with agony. At night, she lay in bed like a stone, as far away from him as she could get. Sometimes, he’d wake up and see her lying on her back, just
staring at the ceiling.
He, more than a lot of people, knew how devastating the taking of a life could be, no matter how justified the act. If only she’d talk to him, let out some of her pain and stress.
“I have a suggestion, if I might be so bold,” Cade put in.
“Yeah? I’ll take anything.”
“Why not call Lieutenant Stanton. Or ask Dillon to call him. She worked for him for a number of years. He knows her maybe better than she knows herself. If anyone can get through to Charity, it might be him.”
“I just wish it could be me,” Liam told him stubbornly.
“The two of you have your own issues to work through,” Georgie reminded him, “on top of everything else. This man has known her and worked with her for ten years. What can it hurt to give him a call?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll take a run over to the sheriff’s office and talk to Dillon. Get him to contact Stanton while I’m there.” He looked at the couple sitting across the table from him, sympathy for the situation plain on their faces. “You guys have been great. I really appreciate it. And I know Charity does, even if she’s not acknowledging it yet.”
“We’re all family of a sort.” Cade grinned. “A rather oddly assorted one, but still family. We watch out for each other.”
Liam rose, being careful of his leg. The damn leg that had collapsed on him when he’d needed it most. Never mind the fact a bullet had grazed him. He’d been hit worse than that in a firefight and still functioned as he should. He was angry with himself, angry with the situation and frustrated by his inability to break through the barrier Charity had erected. He had to find the key to unlock that door. Did she blame him for not being the one to take the shot?
“I’ll be back after a while.”
Dillon agreed with the suggestion, and two days later, Milo Stanton walked into the B&B, everything he was feeling showing on his lined face.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“I’ll take you to her.” Liam motioned him toward the stairs.