by Nicole Helm
Duke sighed. “With four out of your five sisters. Come on now, girl. You have a baby to care about.”
She put her hands protectively over her belly. “Caring about this baby doesn’t mean I don’t care about the safety of everyone I love. If some long-lost half brother is after them, it’s not just them. It’s my sisters too and—”
Duke’s hands tightened on her shoulders.
“What did you say?” he demanded, suddenly fierce.
Sarah blinked at the sudden change in his demeanor. Had he not thought the dinner was as serious as that? “They got notes. All the brothers. From one of Ace’s sons they didn’t know about.” She didn’t add the part about Dev knowing. Didn’t need to get into—
“I have to go.” Duke released her abruptly and was immediately striding for his truck.
“Wha—”
“Liza will be over in a bit. You stay put, now.” He got in the truck, pointed at her like she was a little girl again. “I mean it.” The dogs sat on their butts as if he’d been talking to them.
Then he drove off, and Sarah stood in the stark winter afternoon wondering what on earth had gotten into everyone.
* * *
IT WASN’T ANY easier telling the truth to the rest of his brothers. Jamison was the oldest, the one who’d saved them all from the Sons, the one Dev had idolized before he’d ended up broken—so Dev had assumed that would be the worst. Letting down the person you most wanted to make proud.
The others were younger than him. They hadn’t spent as much time in the Sons as he and Jamison had. They didn’t fully...
But of course they did. Ace had kept Cody’s wife on the run, resulting in his daughter being a secret from him for seven years. Ace had almost killed Gage last summer and had been instrumental in Felicity’s own biological father hurting her. Ace had been in the periphery of Tucker and Brady’s troubles this summer—but he’d been there. The reason. Always.
“It didn’t occur to you to tell us once Ace was dead?” Brady said, his expression cop-blank and his voice grim.
“No. I thought it was over. Just like you.”
“Clearly it’s not.”
“Clearly,” Dev echoed.
“I’m still not following,” Gage said. Usually the most easygoing brother, or at least the one more likely to tell a joke, there was nothing remotely light about Gage right now. “This Anth guy saved you?”
“He said he would make sure I didn’t die if I promised to never tell anyone about his existence. I figured it was some kind of...conscience or whatever. We all have one. Why wouldn’t this... Wyatt?” Which of course had an easy answer. Ace was always the why.
“And you don’t have any idea who his mother is?”
Dev shook his head. “We didn’t have much time for a heart-to-heart.”
“After. You didn’t even think to tell us?”
“I was a little busy, you know, recovering from a coma and learning how to walk again.” Dev knew it was wrong to snap at his brothers. Their questions were valid, necessary even. “In the moment, I would have agreed to just about anything. After... Well, he’d held up his end of the bargain. Clearly he knew who I was, if not all of us. If he wanted to be a part of us, he could have been.”
“Clearly he didn’t want to be.”
“Regardless, I’m alive, aren’t I? I certainly don’t know how. Ace wanted to kill me that day. None of this ‘you’re my progeny’ stuff like he had with Jamison and Gage. He wanted me to be the lesson to all of you. So, whatever Anth did—I’m alive because of it. At the time, telling you guaranteed that I’d be bringing Ace back to our doorstep.”
“He could have been behind any of what happened last year,” Jamison said. “Framing Felicity for murder, everything that went down in the Badlands with Brady and Cecilia.”
Dev was still struggling to deal with how utterly destroyed Jamison sounded. As if it was a personal betrayal he’d never get over. Because Jamison couldn’t imagine it. Dev knew Jamison was good through and through, and he would have rather died than make a deal.
Just like then, Dev couldn’t live up to Jamison’s perfect example. “He wasn’t behind any of it though, was he?”
“That we know of,” Jamison said softly.
No matter how soft, the truth of that was like a knife to the heart. Obviously he’d considered Anth might have something to do with all the danger that had befallen them last year. How could he not consider it? But there’d never been any evidence pointing to someone other than Ace or one of his Sons of the Badlands cronies.
But you didn’t have to be the perpetrator of something to be involved. Ace had escaped connection with who knew how many crimes.
Duke burst into the kitchen, looking a little wild as all the brothers turned to him.
“What is it? Is something wrong?” Dev demanded, thoughts immediately going to Sarah and those contractions this morning.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Duke said, a little out of breath. “You were threatened.”
“Duke, I can’t tell you not to worry when there’s a threat against us and your girls are involved, but it’s being taken care of,” Jamison said calmly, none of that hurt in his tone like it was when he spoke to Dev.
“Don’t take that high-handed tone with me. Not only are all my daughters in the crosshairs here, but... Tell me about this son of Ace’s.”
All Dev’s brothers turned to him. Because Anth Wyatt was his cross to bear. “I don’t know much about him. Anth Wyatt spared my life back when Ace wanted to kill me. I don’t have the slightest clue why he’d be threatening the six of us now, but I think it’s him.”
“He could have others,” Tucker offered—speaking for the first time. “If Ace had one son with another woman, there could be more than one.”
Duke scraped his hands over his face. “Could be, it’s true, but this one...this Anth...” Duke trailed off on a pained breath.
“You know something about him?” Jamison asked.
“Not exactly. But I know who his mother is.”
“How?”
Duke’s expression was so grim, and the eye contact he made was with Dev and Dev alone. “Sarah’s mother. Biological mother. She’d had a son with Ace, which was why Sarah’s father asked Eva and me to take her. They were scared for her safety. Not because of Ace. Because of the son. Anth Wyatt.”
Chapter Four
“I don’t need babysitting.”
Liza cooed at their niece, Felicity and Gage’s sweet little Claire who was quickly creeping toward her first birthday. It would have been a nice moment. Hanging out with just Liza and the girls. Liza had six-year-old Gigi, technically her half sister, but Liza and Jamison were her guardians with her parents dead. Cody and Nina’s eldest daughter Brianna and Gigi were good friends and were occupying each other upstairs.
“You can’t be alone this close to your due date. Besides, Jamison already filled me in on what they’re covering over at the ranch.”
“What about me?”
“Your job is baby-growing and, soon enough, baby-pushing into the world. That’s the big stuff, Sarah.” Liza smiled reassuringly, but there was something all wrong about everything. The way Duke had taken off, the way Liza refused to talk about Anth Wyatt.
“Nina’s pregnant,” Sarah pointed out petulantly.
“She’s five months pregnant and not having contractions on and off,” Liza returned equitably.
“What’s going on over there? I know about the mysterious brother, but...” She couldn’t put her finger on the wrong feeling that kept crawling up her spine. Ever since Duke had taken off.
When Liza turned her back to Sarah, making a big fuss over putting Claire in her travel crib, Sarah’s dread sank deeper.
“Liza, what is going on?”
Liza took a deep breath and let it out. She came back to Sarah, kneeling in fron
t of where Sarah sat on what was usually Duke’s recliner but she’d commandeered during this last month of her pregnancy.
“We all want you to take care of yourself,” Liza said, patting Sarah’s knee. “Contractions are nothing to mess around with.”
“I wasn’t even dilated. The doctor told me what to do and I have an appointment every week. Baby is pretty much all baked in there. The worry is over the top, unless there is something bigger at work here.”
Liza started to shake her head, but Sarah pressed.
“Explain to me how knowing there’s danger, but no one will tell me exactly what, is supposed to give me a calm, relaxing last few weeks of pregnancy?”
Brianna thundered down the stairs from where she and Gigi had been playing dolls. She slid into the living room in her usual boisterous fashion. “Aunt Sarah, can I feel your baby?” Brianna asked. Eight year old Brianna had been fascinated with Sarah’s pregnancy ever since finding out her own mom was pregnant.
Sarah nodded and motioned her over. She took Brianna’s hands and placed them on her stomach. “He’s not moving around much right now, but you never know when he’ll start kicking up a storm.”
Gigi had followed and was peering down into Claire’s crib, making funny faces at the baby who squealed in appreciative laughter.
Sarah wished she could enjoy it. Her nieces, her sister. Liza had only lived with the Knights a couple years after she’d escaped the Sons of the Badlands with Jamison when she’d been a teenager. Then she’d run away to go back into the gang and keep her sister safe. But Sarah had always looked up to her. She’d missed her when she’d left, been so angry at her for disappearing, but the past year and a half had done a lot to heal those hurts.
Liza was still that oldest sister who seemed to know how to hold everything together. After the girls got tired of baby watch, they moved to TV, and Claire dozed in her crib. Liza forced Sarah to eat dinner on the chair, fussing over her as if she was an invalid.
If it had been any other night, Sarah might have been able to relax and enjoy it, but worry kept her tense and frustrated.
Liza returned from the kitchen with a brownie, and Sarah took it eagerly as Liza perched on the arm of the chair and ate her own.
“Are you ever going to tell us who the father is?” Liza asked, quiet enough that the girls wouldn’t hear as they watched their show.
Sarah shifted uncomfortably—both emotionally and physically. “It doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t you have rather lived a life without your father? Gigi’s okay now, but wouldn’t she have been better off if her mother had been able to get her away from your father?”
Liza pressed her lips together. “You’re not doing this alone, because you have all us, but there is something to be said for a partner. I know you can do this, but I don’t want you to close yourself off to possibilities.”
Brownie finished, Sarah placed her hands firmly on her belly. “The only possibility I want is holding my son and raising him here. I’m not closing myself off to a partnership. I just know that everything I want is right here.”
“Here. On this ranch with Duke. Getting a whole heck of a lot of help from Dev.”
“We’re neighbors. That’s what ranching neighbors do. Help each other out. Especially when we’re practically family what with the way you lot have off and married Wyatts.”
“You two have an interesting relationship.”
Sarah scooted down in the armchair. She had a bad feeling she knew where Liza was going, but she wasn’t going to play along. “Interesting. Antagonistic. Potato potahto.”
“You’re a unit. You have been for quite some time. You work together. You have your own weird language. Dev’s a tough nut to crack, but you seem to have cracked it on occasion.”
Sarah snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I know you, Sarah. You get plans and you go about enacting them without letting anyone know what you’re doing. You have ideas that you keep to yourself but make happen through sheer force of will. I’m not saying I wouldn’t bet on you if it came to it, but betting on Dev is...well, people are complicated.”
Sarah fidgeted, her belly felt too weighted and her back was aching. Which was totally about pregnancy and not how Liza’s words seemed to hit their mark. “I’m not betting on Dev.”
Liza shrugged. “I don’t believe you.”
Before Sarah could get bent out of shape about that, Jamison came to collect Liza and Gigi, then Cody and Nina to pick up Brianna. They took Claire with them to drop back off at the Reaves Ranch since Felicity and Gage were staying with Grandma Pauline.
When Duke came in, he wasn’t alone, and that scared Sarah to her bones. Dev was with him and they both looked at her with a grimness that could never be good.
* * *
DEV KNEW HE shouldn’t have come. He should have let Duke handle this aspect of things. Duke would take care of his own. They’d all take care of each other. He didn’t need to be smack dab in the middle of anything that involved Sarah.
But he’d found himself trailing after Duke anyway, and when Duke hadn’t offered any objections, they’d driven over to the Knight house together.
Sarah eyed them both with mounting suspicion, her hands coming over her belly in a protective gesture. Something he refused to acknowledge twisted in Dev’s gut.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice coming out strong even if the worry showed in her eyes.
“We’re just going to move you over to Grandma Pauline’s. Aside from Jamison and Cody’s families in Bonesteel, everyone’s going to be staying there, much as they can. Strength in numbers.”
“What about you?” Sarah demanded, as Dev had known she would. Before Duke could give his lame excuses, Sarah continued. “If we’re all going to be there, you should be, too.”
“We’ve been trying to tell him that,” Dev muttered, earning a glare from Duke.
“It’s not necessary.”
“Why not?” Sarah insisted.
“I’m not a part of this.”
“Then neither am I,” Sarah replied. “Not married to a Wyatt, and if working together on both ranches doesn’t count for you, it doesn’t count for me either. And if this is about me being pregnant—”
“It isn’t,” Dev said firmly. Again he got a glare from Duke. Maybe this was why he’d come though, because he knew she wouldn’t get the unvarnished truth from anyone else. They’d try to dance around the problem—the danger.
He understood why. She was supposed to be relaxing and avoiding stress—but she had a connection to the man threatening them and it could not be ignored.
“Duke, you have to tell her. No amount of moving her and installing people around her is going to keep her safe if she doesn’t know.”
“Knew I shouldn’t have let you come,” Duke muttered.
“If someone doesn’t tell me what I don’t know right this second I am liable to go straight into labor. Spit it out.”
Dev wished it was a much less scary a situation so he could find some enjoyment in how quickly Duke jumped to explain himself after that.
“I know a little about Anth Wyatt.”
Sarah’s eyebrows drew together. “More secrets?”
Dev winced at the hurt in her tone. Because this whole disaster was the unraveling of more secrets than he’d ever expected.
“I won’t apologize for this secret. When your parents—”
“My parents!” she screeched, trying to push herself out of the chair, but Dev was quicker and was gently pressing his hand into her shoulder to keep her put.
“Let him finish,” Dev ordered.
Sarah whipped a killing look up at him, but he nodded toward Duke.
“Your father was friends with Eva. From way back. We were friendly with your parents. They knew we had fostered girls. At that point we thought we couldn’t have any ch
ildren of our own.” Duke rubbed a hand over his graying hair. “They came to us, a few weeks before you were born. Your mother had had a child from a previous relationship. They were afraid of both the man and the child. He’d been threatening your mother. They were worried about your safety. They wanted someone to take you until they could be sure they were safe.”
“What does this have to do with the Wyatts?” Sarah asked. Her voice was flat and emotionless, but her hand had come up to grip Dev’s on her shoulder.
“Your mother had been involved with Ace Wyatt.”
The hand that had been clutching his fell off and into her lap. She didn’t say anything, so Duke continued. But Dev knew what those little gestures meant. She didn’t want any kind of link with a Wyatt.
Even him.
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to pull his hand off her shoulder and leave her sitting there absorbing all that information without some kind of understanding. Connections to monsters he knew all too well.
“Ace and your mother had a son before she managed to leave,” Duke continued. “She met your father, started a new life. Or thought she had.”
“Anth Wyatt is the son,” Sarah said, her voice even flatter. She slid her hands over her belly, that protective gesture.
It wasn’t about him, but it still made Dev feel like slime. He’d known Anth was out there and hadn’t used that as a reason to keep her at arm’s length when it came to the whole helping her have a baby thing.
“Yes. They knew Eva and I would take good care of their child, and they knew that being close to Pauline Reaves wouldn’t hurt any.”
Sarah swallowed loudly, though absolutely no emotion showed on her face. “My...parents. Are they...”
“They both died, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” Duke sighed heavily. “Eva and I had agreed that if Ace wasn’t a threat anymore, we’d tell you. Once he finally wasn’t, it didn’t seem any good to stir up a hornet’s nest.”
Sarah was quiet for a long time, and Dev and Duke stood in silence, letting her decide what to say next.
“But right now the threat is against you.” She looked up at Dev. Her blue eyes weren’t accusing, but Dev wasn’t accustomed to the cold light in them.