But why?
Addie kept going back to the initial threat from the Moonlight Strangler. He’d been afraid that she might remember something.
And maybe she had.
That swing set was becoming clearer and clearer in her mind. Did that mean she’d really been here all those years ago? Addie figured soon, very soon, she’d give that more thought, but for now she just watched Weston and prayed that they all got out of this alive.
Jericho kept watch, too, his gaze firing all around them. Mack did, as well. Daisy was no longer screaming, but she was sobbing and begging Mack to get her to the hospital.
That’s when Addie spotted the blood on the woman’s arm.
“I think Daisy’s been shot,” Addie let Jericho know.
Her brother cursed when he glanced up at the porch. “How bad is she hurt?” he called out to Mack.
Mack shook his head. “She was cut by some wood flying up off the porch. She’ll need stitches.”
That didn’t sound life-threatening, thank goodness, but Daisy had to be terrified. Addie certainly was.
Unlike Weston.
He was charging forward, fast, closing the distance between him and the gunman.
“Watch out!” she shouted to Weston when she saw the man bring up his gun.
He fired.
But so did Weston.
And the gunman crumpled to the ground.
* * *
NORMALLY A DEAD hit man wouldn’t give Weston a moment’s pause, but he’d needed this one alive. Too bad Weston had been forced to kill or be killed.
“Maybe Jericho will find something when he checks the hit man’s body,” Addie said. “A phone. More photos. Something to tell us why he came after me again today.”
Her words were right. Hopeful, even. However, Weston didn’t see any of that hope in her eyes or body language. Of course, the adrenaline crash might have something to do with that. She looked past just being plain tired.
And probably was.
In addition to surviving two attacks, she was dealing with all the other stuff. The baby. The memories that might be returning.
Him.
All of that was taking a toll.
“I want you to get some rest,” Weston insisted the moment they stepped into the ranch house. Her brother Jax had already searched it, and two armed ranch hands were standing guard at both the front and the back of the house. The alarm system was on, too.
Security was in place.
Now to make sure Addie didn’t go into overload. She was already blinking back tears, and any little thing could push her over the edge.
His phone dinged, and while trying to brace himself for more bad news, Weston looked down at the screen. Nothing bad. Everything considered, it was actually good news.
“Your mom’s settled at her sister’s house, and Jericho hired a private bodyguard to stay with them,” Weston said, reading the text. “And Jericho managed to get a DNA sample from Daisy.”
“She volunteered it?”
“Not exactly. She refused when Jericho asked, but her blood was on Mack’s shirt so we got it anyway.”
“Oh.” The disappointment was there now. “I didn’t expect her to refuse. I thought maybe she’d want to help in any way possible.”
Not judging from the woman’s reaction when they’d gotten her to the hospital. She’d barely spoken a word to them, but Weston had heard her tell the doctor that she didn’t want any of the Crocketts or Weston near her.
He couldn’t blame Daisy if she was truly innocent in all of this, but the jury was still out on that, and he always found it suspicious when a suspect refused a DNA request. It usually meant they were hiding something. Of course, she could have merely been reacting to the ordeal she’d just been through.
Weston slipped his arm around her waist to lead her to the sofa in the adjoining living room. He figured he stood a better chance of getting her to take a nap there than he did taking her upstairs.
Besides, it would be a really bad idea for him to try to put her to bed.
Addie’s defenses were down. His, too. Added to the crash of emotions, and a bed would feel more like a powder keg. That’s the reason Weston let go of her as soon as he had her seated. But Addie fixed that. She took his hand and pulled him down next to her.
“What if Daisy’s a match?” Addie wasn’t talking to him exactly but more to herself. “What if she’s my birth mother?”
“Then, it’ll soon put an end to this. Because if she is, she’ll tell us the identity of your birth father, and we can arrest him.”
Weston was certain of that. If Daisy knew who the Moonlight Strangler was, then he’d make sure she talked. Along with paying for anything that she’d done wrong. Including abandoning her child.
“Good. Maybe she’ll be a match.” Addie’s breath was weary now. Like the rest of her. “I want to get on with my life. I want normal again.”
“Good luck with that,” Weston said before actually thinking about what he was saying. “I meant the pregnancy, the baby. That’ll change things.”
Not just for them but for her entire family.
She nodded. “Mom’s already planning on turning one of the guest rooms into a nursery.”
Of course she would want to raise the baby here. Her home. A place where three generations of Crocketts had been raised.
But it wasn’t Weston’s home.
And even though Jericho and he had worked out a somewhat shaky peace agreement for the sake of the investigation, Weston doubted any of the Crockett lawmen would ever welcome him there.
His phone dinged again. Instant tightening in his chest, and it tightened even more when he read through the lengthy text.
“Bad news?” Addie asked.
“Ogden is being transferred to the hospital at the jail. His lawyer is going to use an insanity defense to try to get him moved to a mental facility.”
She touched his forehead. “That didn’t put the worry lines there. What else happened?”
“The safe house is ready.”
Addie studied him. “How soon do I leave?”
“Soon. The marshals will be here in an hour or so.”
“That is soon,” she said under her breath. Then, the realization flashed through her eyes. “You won’t be going with me?”
Weston decided to make this as light as possible. “No. Sounds like you’ll miss me, though.”
It was a dumber-than-dirt thing to say. She probably wouldn’t miss him, but there were still those little flashes of fire between them, and that was creating this pull inside him. Maybe inside her, too.
Definitely inside her, he decided, when their eyes met.
Those little flashes of fire were starting up again.
“I don’t want to be attracted to you,” she insisted.
That wasn’t much of a surprise. But it was a surprise when her mouth suddenly came to his.
Everything inside him yelled that this was a mistake. It complicated an already complicated situation.
Did that stop him?
No.
In fact, Weston pushed his dumber-than-dirt actions to the limit. He slipped his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to kiss her for months now. He figured if he was going to make a mistake, then it might as well be a good one.
And this one was good.
Yeah, that taste always got to him. The feel of her in his arms, too. It was obviously getting to Addie as well because she wiggled closer and closer until they were plastered against each other.
Great.
Now they weren’t just kissing, they had advanced to a full-blown make-out session. While being alone in the house. And those little flashes of fire snapped high and hot when her hand landed on his chest.
She stopped, looked up at him, and a shivery breath left her mouth. Finally. She had come to her senses and was finally putting a stop to something they should have never started.
But no.
/> She pulled him back to her as if starved for him. Weston knew the feeling, and he also knew that kisses and touches were only going to skyrocket that need.
And they did.
He was clearly brainless when it came to Addie, and he proved it by lowering the kisses to her throat. She’d been his lover. For three whole days. Enough time for him to have learned how to pleasure her. Too bad she’d learned the same about him, because while Weston was kissing the tops of her breasts, she put her hand on his stomach.
Oh, man.
He was in big trouble here, and while sleeping with her again would please every inch of his body, it would also distract him at the worst possible time.
Weston got instant proof of that when he heard one of the ranch hands shout his name.
Weston cursed himself, and he practically jumped off the sofa while drawing his gun. “Stay away from the windows,” he warned Addie, and he rushed to the door.
“We got a visitor,” the ranch hand called out to him. “A truck’s coming up the road right now.”
Well, at least it wasn’t someone climbing over the fence. And it could be the marshals arriving a little earlier than planned. Weston disarmed the security system so he could open the door and stepped onto the porch.
The ranch hands and Weston all trained their guns on the truck as it pulled to a stop in front of the house. The windows were heavily tinted so Weston didn’t get a look at their visitor until he threw open the truck door.
Definitely a stranger.
Tall, lanky with sandy brown hair. Jeans, cowboy boots and a Stetson hat. He looked like a cowboy. Until he flashed a badge when he stepped from the truck.
“I’m Special Agent Cord Granger, DEA,” he said.
DEA? Not a marshal. He handed his badge to one of the ranch hands. “It looks real,” the hand relayed to Weston.
“It is real,” the man assured them. Not exactly a friendly sort, but then Weston wasn’t in a friendly mood, either.
“Stay right there until I verify who you are,” Weston insisted. “We’ve had some trouble lately.”
“Yeah,” Granger grumbled, but didn’t come closer.
Without taking his eyes off the man, Weston called Jericho. “A DEA agent just showed up here. Cord Granger. Can you make sure this isn’t another hit man?”
Jericho didn’t say a word, but, as he’d done when Addie had asked him to verify Weston’s identity, he got straight to work. “He’s DEA. Records sealed. I’m texting you his photo.”
Weston waited for the picture to load. Yes, it was Granger all right.
“I’ll call you back after I find out why he’s here,” Weston said to Jericho, and he ended the call.
“I’m Weston Cade, Texas Ranger.” And now that they’d gotten introductions out of the way, Weston went for the obvious. “What do you want?”
“To speak to Addie Crockett.”
Now, why would a DEA agent want to see her? Unless her birth father was on the DEA’s radar. If so, she wasn’t exactly up to a round of questioning.
“Is this about the Moonlight Strangler?” Weston demanded.
He didn’t jump to answer that, but finally mumbled another “Yeah.”
Weston heard the movement behind him and cursed when he realized Addie hadn’t stayed put.
“What about the Moonlight Strangler?” she asked.
Again, the agent didn’t jump to answer. But his gaze fixed on Addie as he made his way toward them.
Weston glanced at her and saw that her attention was on the visitor, as well. “You know this guy?”
“No,” Addie and the agent answered in unison.
He stepped onto the porch with them. Addie and the agent continued staring at each other.
“I don’t remember you,” Granger said almost in a whisper. “I thought, hoped, maybe I would.”
“Who the hell are you?” Weston snapped.
It took Granger several more moments to look away from Addie. Then he extended his hand for Weston to shake. “The Moonlight Strangler is my biological father. I’m Addie’s brother.”
Chapter Ten
Addie’s head was still spinning from the spent adrenaline and the kissing session with Weston. Spinning so much that she was certain she’d misunderstood what this DEA agent had just said.
“Her brother?” Weston challenged.
She was glad Weston had asked because it took Addie a moment to find her voice. “How?” Considering there was a whirlwind in her head, Addie was glad she could come up with a question.
Now she needed an answer.
One that Cord Granger didn’t jump to give her. Instead, he glanced around. A lawman’s glance, one that showed he was uneasy. And Addie didn’t think that unease was all because of this bombshell of a meeting.
“We need to talk,” he finally said to her. “And I’d rather not hang around on the porch with you standing there. Especially after what happened earlier.”
Addie saw the fierce debate in Weston’s eyes before he finally stepped back so that Cord could enter. Weston shut the door, but he kept himself between her and their visitor.
“Start talking,” Weston told him. “And what you say had better make sense, or I’m tossing you out of here.”
“None of this makes sense,” Cord said. But then he huffed and put his hands on his hips, his gaze going to her, not Weston. “I compared my DNA to the Moonlight Strangler, and it was a match. A match to yours, too, Addie. We’re fraternal twins.”
A twin brother. Her brother. Addie had never lacked for siblings since she already had four brothers, but it’d been years since she’d considered the possibility of a biological one. “Why didn’t you come forward sooner?” Weston snapped. “Addie’s known for three months about the DNA match.”
Cord shook his head. “I was on a deep cover assignment. No way for anyone to contact me. And because of what I do, my DNA isn’t in the normal law enforcement databases so that’s why there wasn’t an immediate hit.”
She looked at Weston to see if that was standard, and he nodded. He still didn’t seem as if he was buying this, though.
“After I got off assignment,” Cord continued, “I learned about Addie’s DNA match, read about her background. It was too similar to mine so I had my DNA compared to hers and the Moonlight Strangler.”
“Your background?” she questioned.
“When I was three, I was abandoned in the men’s room of a gas station about a hundred miles from Appaloosa Pass. It was the same day you showed up here at the Crockett ranch. I don’t have any memories of those things, but I learned about both later.”
Cord’s gaze slid around the foyer. Not exactly elegant, but Addie knew her family had a lot more than most. “You were lucky,” he added.
Addie got the feeling that it hadn’t been the same for him. She also got the feeling that it was something he didn’t want to discuss with her. Not with anybody.
Almost frantically, she studied Cord’s face and saw some features that were like hers. The eyes, mainly. And his mouth. Yes, a definite resemblance even though his hair was a lot darker than hers.
She didn’t want to take a leap of faith and believe this man. But she did. There was something, maybe genetic memories or the weird bond between twins, but she knew in her heart that this was indeed her brother.
Weston’s scowl, however, told her he didn’t feel the same. “I want proof of what you’re saying,” he insisted.
“I figured you would. You have a reputation for being...driven. I had the DNA results couriered to Sheriff Crockett.” He checked his watch. “He should have them by now.”
While keeping himself in front of Addie, Weston took out his phone and called Jericho. He put it on speaker when Jericho answered, and he opened his mouth, no doubt ready to tell her brother what was going on, but Jericho beat him to it.
“I just got a classified DNA report on some federal agent. A Joe. What the hell do you know about this?”
“A Joe?” she question
ed.
“Slang for deep cover,” Weston explained. “What’s in the report?” he asked Jericho.
Cord’s gaze met hers while they waited, and Addie could have sworn a dozen things passed between them.
Memories, maybe?
Not of the swing set this time, but a toy. A stuffed brown bear. And a little boy handing it to her. It came like a flash and was gone before she could even try to hang on to it.
“According to this, Addie has a biological brother,” Jericho snapped.
“Yeah, and the brother is here at the ranch,” Weston supplied.
Jericho cursed. “And you let him in?”
“It’s okay,” Addie spoke up.
“Hell, no, it’s not okay,” Jericho fired back. “He might be a DEA agent, but we don’t know if we can trust him.”
“I trust him,” she said. That earned her a scowl from Weston and more profanity from Jericho.
“I’m on my way out there,” Jericho insisted, and he ended the call.
If Cord had a reaction to that, he didn’t show it. In fact, he showed no emotion at all when his attention went back to Weston. “Why would I lie about this?”
“Because you could be a serial killer groupie, someone who wants to get close to Addie.”
Cord held the stare between them. “It appears she already has enough people close to her.”
Addie couldn’t help it. She smiled, though heaven knew there was nothing to smile about.
“Do you remember anything about me?” Addie asked him. “About your childhood?”
“No.” Unlike his other responses, it was fast. “When I found out about the DNA match, I went through hypnosis, therapy and lots of questioning. Lots. No memories before age four, but my handler pulled me from duty until they could get all of this sorted out.”
That tightened his jaw.
She’d known this man only a few minutes, but Addie knew that had cut him to the core.
“The DEA is working on the case?” Weston asked.
“Plenty of people are working on it. Me included. Until the Moonlight Strangler is caught, killed or otherwise put out of circulation, the Justice Department believes I shouldn’t be in the field doing a job that I’m damn good at.”
Lone Wolf Lawman Page 9