Close Range Christmas

by Nicole Helm

  Still, it was disturbing to see Cecilia, of all people, look so...worried and helpless.

  “You’re a fighter,” Sarah said, hoping to see some of Cecilia’s usual stubborn surety.

  “We’re all fighters. But even fighters get tired.” Her hands briefly touched her stomach and Sarah’s eyes went wide. She wouldn’t have thought anything of it if she hadn’t spent the past nine months touching her stomach, just like that.

  Cecilia’s cheeks turned red.

  “Are you...”

  “I don’t know for sure yet,” Cecilia hissed, looking around the room to see if anyone was paying attention to them. No one seemed to be. “Don’t say anything.”

  Sarah’s eyes welled with tears. She couldn’t help it. She’d have her son soon, Nina would follow in a few months, and then Cecilia. And they’d all be cousins and...

  “Stop that right now,” Cecilia said, pointing her finger in Sarah’s face. “We are being terrorized. No crying over potentially happy things.”

  “But that’s exactly when you should cry over such things. Bad doesn’t blot out the good, Cee.”

  “No, no it doesn’t.” Cecilia took Sarah’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “But I’d sure like to be done with the bad.”

  “We will be.” They had to find a way. Not just for her baby, but for all their kids. For all of them. For family.

  * * *

  DEV COULDN’T REMEMBER a time he’d been this revved and this exhausted at the same time. Two days had passed without a letter for anyone. No more dead bodies. No more attacks. Just tension and stress and so many questions he didn’t have the answer to.

  Sarah had floated her theory that whatever was going on had less to do about Ace’s death and more about family in general, but Dev still didn’t know how to wrap his head around that.

  His brothers had never had any interaction with Anth—hadn’t even known about his existence. Dev had only interacted with Anth once, and under the promise he’d never let anyone know about him.

  Three days of nothing didn’t make the obsessing over it any easier. In fact, it made it more frustrating. He couldn’t shut off his mind. He could only think. Not one of his favorite places to be—and he couldn’t do what he usually did when that happened—bury himself in the ranch.

  No, there were people around constantly. He didn’t even get his own room to sleep in what with the crowded house. Every night he went into his own room after Sarah had fallen asleep in his bed and slept on the floor.

  But Sarah wasn’t asleep tonight like she should be. She was all cuddled up in his bed, but sitting up, leaning against the headboard.

  Something heavy shifted in his chest. A dream realized. Except Sarah was not his dream. He’d never let himself dream about a future because he’d been adamant there wouldn’t be one.

  Wasn’t that the best way to avoid pain and failure?

  But she made all those walls he’d built crumble, and he felt more like he’d been at twenty and stupid than he was now. He knew what could go wrong when you reached for everything. He’d had the scars to prove it.

  She smiled at him and he didn’t know how he’d survive any of this, even if they caught Anth and everything went back to normal.

  “You should be asleep.”

  She sighed. “I’ve tried. Brain’s too jumbly tonight. I hate that nothing has happened. I keep thinking if I could just work out some missing piece, we’d be able to set a trap for the next note. But if it never comes...”

  “It’ll come,” Dev replied. This wasn’t over. That’s what Anth’s first note had said. Which meant nothing ended until it was over.

  “I know. That’s why I can’t stop thinking.”

  “Yeah, I think we’re all having that problem.” He couldn’t seem to get himself to move inside the room. Instead he just leaned against the door frame.

  “We share a mother. Anth and I. There should be some...bond of connection. Like you have with your brothers.”

  “We grew up together. It isn’t blood that bonded us. It was everything we survived. I don’t have any bond with Anth and we share a father. I’ve actually met him, even if it was only once.”

  Sarah looked down at her belly, smoothed her hands over the bump. “It’s weird...isn’t it? There’s a connection here, and he’s coming at us when I’m nine months pregnant?”

  “There’s no way he could know that, Sarah. Our own family didn’t.”

  “I know. I just... It’s the thinking. He’s making us wait on purpose because he has to know we’re sitting here driving ourselves crazy trying to understand him. And we can’t, can we? We don’t know him. I grew up knowing I was adopted, but loved. So loved. I didn’t remember anything about my parents, and I’m not saying I never thought about them, but I was given a life I could never resent. I really doubt he had that.”

  “Yeah. But he wasn’t with the Sons, so it was possible.”

  Sarah shook her head, her blond hair falling out of its messy braid. Her hair on his pillowcase made his heart ache all over again, but she kept talking about Anth and danger, and for the first time in his life he didn’t want to focus on the bad.

  “He wouldn’t have hooked up with Ace, wouldn’t have scared my mother enough to leave me with Duke and Eva, if he had some good life somewhere.”

  “Maybe.”

  She fixed him with a look—one of those looks that meant she had some...plan or something. A battle light, he would call it. He was too weary to figure out an excuse to walk away—get away from Sarah’s constant battles.

  Or, you kind of like them.

  “What was it like to grow up in the Sons?” she asked, clasping her hands over her stomach.

  That was not the battle he’d expected, and in hindsight he probably should just walk away. But the answer wasn’t as traumatizing as she was probably expecting.

  “I don’t know.” At her sharp look, he shook his head. “It sounds flippant, but it isn’t. I don’t... It feels like it all happened to someone else. I don’t try to remember and the more I don’t, the more foggy it gets.”

  “Did you feel alone?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “No. I always had Jamison, and... I think we remember our mother a little better than the younger ones. I think she loved us, but...”

  “But what?”

  “Her whole life was survival. Her own. We were...pawns of that survival. Which sounds harsher than I mean it. It’s hard to blame her...doing what she could to stay alive.”

  “Couldn’t she have escaped back to Grandma Pauline like you all did?”

  Dev shrugged. These days he couldn’t seem to feel anything for his mother except a sort of pity. What little he remembered of her was of a woman beaten down by...everything. “Maybe. I don’t think she knew how. Whatever...whatever attracted her to Ace kept her a victim of his mind games. Or maybe she didn’t want to leave. I was a kid. I don’t know. I know she feared for her life, but hell, maybe she liked that.”

  Sarah grimaced, but Dev couldn’t deny the possibility. There were too many awful things he’d seen and endured to think some people didn’t enjoy or crave that kind of thing.

  “After your mother died, what happened?”

  “I don’t know. We kept...living. Jamison took care of us. Kept us together. Taught us how to survive and planned our escapes. He stepped into her role, I guess. And did a better job of it.”

  “Anth didn’t have either. Not a loving family. Not even the Sons.”

  “We don’t know what he had.”

  “No. We don’t. But what if he had nothing?”

  Dev had the uncomfortable memory of what his father had done to them all at seven—except Cody, who they’d managed to get out before Ace’s...ritual.

  “There’s no record of Anth Wyatt,” Dev said carefully. “It’s possible... Well, what if Ace kept hi
m isolated from everyone? He expected us to be able to survive in the wild at the age of seven. Why not Anth too?”

  “What do you mean survive in the wild?”

  He cursed himself for forgetting himself. Forgetting that there were things he didn’t want to get into. Didn’t want to rehash. Like all of it?

  But it was Sarah, nine months pregnant with his child, who was waiting for an answer. Who was trying to understand, and he didn’t have it in him to change the subject. Not when she was in his bed, her hands on her stomach where his own child’s heart beat.

  “Ace had a ritual. When we turned seven, he’d leave us in the Badlands by ourselves. We had to survive on our own with no supplies for as many days as years we were old every year on our birthdays.”

  “At seven?” Sarah demanded, wrapping her arms protectively over the child inside of her.

  That child would never know the kind of terror Dev had known, if he could help it. If he had any say. He’d lay down his own life to keep that child happy and safe. He cleared his throat, hoping to deflect the wave of emotion. “I was twelve when Jamison got me out of there. He had to do it until he was eighteen.”

  “Jamison being stuck in that awful place longer than you were doesn’t mean your trauma wasn’t bad. Twelve days all alone in the Badlands when you were a baby.”

  “I was hardly a baby.”

  “You were. Seven or twelve or whatever. And it is a trauma. It’s awful. No kid should have to survive it.”

  “But... The thing is, Sarah? We did. We survived it and here we all are. Still surviving.” Which was a much more hopeful thought than he’d had in a long while. Survival... He had done that. For years on end—as a kid, then after his coma and injuries. Survival he was good at.

  But his brothers hadn’t just survived. Now they were all living. Building. Shouldn’t he be doing the same? Wasn’t it time to build?

  No. Right now was still survival. “We should go to bed. Rest while we can. You especially.”

  She nodded, still studying him with that speculative look. Then she glanced at his sleeping bag on the floor. “You know, you don’t have to sleep on the floor. You’re certainly not getting much rest.”

  “Less to do with the floor and more to do with...you know, constant danger.”

  She pulled back the covers and scooted over in the bed. “There’s plenty of room.”

  All those complicated emotions that had been crashing around inside of him stilled under that very not-innocent offer.

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t think—”

  “Oh, don’t be so...you about it. I’m just offering to share your bed. It is yours, after all. You deserve a good night’s sleep too.”

  “I’m pretty sure that bed was made for two, not for three.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just come to bed.”

  He should ignore her. Turn off the lights and climb into his sleeping bag. Stick with sanity, reason and just taking time to...evaluate the situation. But when he turned off the light, she turned on her phone, the light a guiding beacon as if he didn’t know the way to his bed by heart.

  It wasn’t really that big of a deal. She was just offering him part of his bed. He’d sleep next to her and nothing would happen. This didn’t mean anything. Or didn’t have to. It was just a better place to sleep.

  Gingerly, he got into his own darn bed.

  She laid the covers over him, then curled up next to him—her pregnant belly pressing against his side, her head nudging onto his shoulder until he had to put his arm around her. She laid her hand on his chest and moved in closer.

  There was a physical pain in the center of his chest, right where she placed her hand. He didn’t know what it was, only that it made it hard to breathe. He felt...everything.

  For a man who’d spent a lot of time focusing on feeling nothing, it wasn’t just overwhelming, it was paralyzing. But she didn’t do anything. She just lay there, snuggled up against him, her hand resting over his raging heart.

  Until, second after second, he relaxed. It wasn’t going to kill him—probably. Sleeping like this was just...

  “It’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” she asked, her voice soft and...something else. Something he didn’t associate with Sarah. That vulnerability she was trotting out all of the sudden.

  “What?” he asked gruffly, wishing he didn’t feel so clumsy with her.

  “This.”

  Nice was not the word. That was too easy, and this was...all those things he’d never given himself a chance to believe in. He had his family, but it wasn’t...this. He didn’t have a choice about loving his family, caring about their well-being. He didn’t have a choice about being bonded with his brothers over everything they’d been through.

  He had a choice with Sarah, because he’d been making the choice to ignore and avoid for years now. There was too much at stake to change his mind, but she kept...changing it anyway.

  It’s what she’d always done. Pulled him out of or away from his worst impulses. She was always giving to him, and what did he ever give to her?

  He’d keep her safe, come hell or high water, but didn’t she deserve more than just safe? Didn’t she deserve the things he’d told himself he didn’t. A partnership and...

  She cared about him. Enough to fight for him. Didn’t she deserve him to care back?

  He placed his hand over hers on his chest. “I guess it would.”

  She chuckled into his neck. “You guess. Such a sweet talker.”

  “I wasn’t trying to sweet-talk you.”

  “No. Why would you need to when I’m throwing myself at you?”

  “You’re not throwing yourself at me.”

  Her lips grazed his jaw. “Aren’t I?” she asked huskily.

  That pain in his chest turned into heat—made all the hotter by how much he remembered of their night together. It had haunted him all this time, because nothing else had ever stayed with him, moved him, changed him quite like that.

  Maybe it had taken time to come to grips with the change, but it had started then.

  He still held her hand on his chest. She had small hands, but they were rough from ranch work. She was small in general, even with the baby belly, and yet she was one of the strongest, hardest ranchers he’d ever worked beside.

  “Sarah...”

  “Dev...” she returned, clearly mocking the gravity in his voice.

  “I don’t know what I have to offer you.”

  She shifted, her arms sliding around his neck. “It’s pretty simple. All I want is you.”

  Which reminded him of what Jamison had said. Sometimes being you is enough. But Dev thought maybe Jamison had it wrong. It wasn’t just being yourself—it was wanting to be more of yourself because of someone.

  Because of her. Because of Sarah he wanted to be better. To live. To give. It was a terrifying realization, but there was so much terror going on around them, real, psychological terror, that his feelings for her didn’t seem quite so overwhelming. Not such a disaster.

  No, it seemed a bit like...those good things he’d convinced himself he couldn’t have because of a decision he’d made in his early twenties while being beaten almost to death by his father.

  Maybe it was time to forgive that kid, just like he would have forgiven all of his brothers—just like his brothers had forgiven him.

  Forgiveness seemed too complicated a concept when she was kissing him, pressed up against him, in his bed. He could figure out forgiveness later. For tonight he could just be him. Just be what she wanted. Later he’d worry about being what she needed.

  He pulled Sarah’s hand from his chest and pressed a kiss to her palm. Then to her wrist. He shifted onto his side and slid her arm up and over his shoulder. Her belly was between them, a reminder that no matter what happened, they’d created life together.

  She’d
brought him back to life because of it. So he kissed her. He let himself pour all the different emotions inside of him into her—fear and worry and all those dark spaces he didn’t think were good enough. These small little buds of life inside of him, of revival. The tiny but growing warmth of hope she’d given him, year after year.

  She kissed him back with all of her strength and determination. No surrender or passive acceptance—a challenge, because she’d always been one. And he thought, she always would be one. Which seemed about right. It seemed like just the thing he needed.

  But she was soft. There were vulnerable parts to her. It wasn’t all strength against strength—her hard head against his. No, they’d have to explore these more tender areas too.

  Which right now felt like heaven.

  She sighed against his mouth, languid and perfect. “I love you,” she murmured.

  The words had him freezing.

  She didn’t stop moving against him. “You don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to feel it yet. I’ve got quite the head start.”

  “I don’t...” It was all too much. Every time he thought he was taking this small, positive step—she flipped everything on him.

  “And I know you didn’t know I was in love with you this whole time because I didn’t really admit it to myself.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, held tight around his neck. “I was talking with Cecilia the other night about everything and... Well, we shouldn’t ignore Christmas or love just because someone wants to hurt us.”

  “No, we shouldn’t. Sarah, I—”

  “And you’re not there yet. It’s okay.” She pressed her mouth to his. “Don’t stop,” she murmured against his lips. “Ignore everything I’ve said.”

  But how could he ignore love? How could he go back to the place he’d been when she’d introduced a whole new level? One he didn’t understand.

  One she deserved. And if she deserved it, didn’t that mean he needed to find it in himself to figure it out? “I don’t know where I am. I’m not even sure I know who I am. I don’t know how to love or how to be a partner. I’ve been...dormant or something.”