They talked about it. They made their decisions. I sat on the couch, my knees pulled up to my chest, too tired to fight them anymore. It was Sutherland who suggested the motel, Lance who insisted on the Gray Wolf personnel hanging around outside our door. My only requirement was that Cassidy be told nothing, that she remain under the watchful eye of Sutherland back at the ranch.
I had to get out of here. If I left... it was the only way. If Kennedy was arrested, the Mahoneys would come after me harder than he ever did. Why did they think I was constantly moving? It wasn't just that Kennedy was with the FBI and had their resources at his fingertips. It was the Mahoneys. They put my father in jail because he pissed them off. They ruined our lives, stole our money, took away everything that mattered. What would stop them from coming after me, just this nothing girl who had nothing except for a child who was related to them by blood?
They would kill me and they would steal my child, force her into their lifestyle, into their world. And she would never have a chance at a normal life. I was content with the idea that my life would never be normal again. But Cassidy had her entire life in front of her. I'd be damned if I'd let those people take her from me. Sutherland and Hank and Lance were delusional if they thought anything short of death would keep Kennedy and his people away.
He thought I was asleep, but I wasn't. I lay there in the semi dark room, trying to figure out how far I could get on the remaining three hundred dollars stuck in my boot. I was imagining how nice it would have been to escape to Italy and buy a little villa in Tuscany. I was regretting all the things I'd grown so fond of here in Wyoming and the fact that I would never be able to return.
I regretted all the trouble I'd brought to Sutherland's doorstep.
Lance bent and kissed my forehead. I lay still until I heard the door snap shut. I'd already noted the large window in the bathroom that overlooked the alley in the back. I pulled my boots back on and started for the bathroom, but paused when I saw that Lance had left his wallet. I hesitated even after I opened it and saw how much cash he had there. It wasn't a huge sum, but every penny would help. I took it, not proud of myself, but content in the knowledge that he would understand.
I stood on the toilet and looked out the window. I could see that new girl, the operative Sutherland hired a couple of weeks ago, kissing some cop at the fire end of the alley. I cursed under my breath, wishing she'd move on. But, again, she was occupied. She might not hear me if I was quiet enough.
I pushed the window up, weary of the little squeak it made when it moved. It was only up a few inches before I realized I'd heard this squeak before. And then he grabbed my wrist.
"Great minds think alike. But I can't let you do that."
He pulled me back, forcing me off the toilet and onto the ground. I didn't turn to look at him, didn't really want to look him in the eye. I'd dreaded, but expected, this moment a million times over the years. I always wondered what I would do, if I would have the courage to fight him. But what was the point?
"I've missed you, Vivian," he said softly against my ear, his voice as deep and familiar as the day he first spoke to me with affection. "Every single day, I've missed you."
I didn't respond because there were no words. I hadn't missed him, but I couldn't say that, could I? He was carrying a gun. I could feel the pistol pressed against the small of my back. Anything I said, anything I did, could end badly.
"I looked for you. I couldn't believe that you'd just walked away from that accident. They said you were confused. The cops... they thought you'd suffered a serious head injury and you either had amnesia, or you'd wandered off and died somewhere. But I knew better."
He sighed against my neck, his hand slipping around my waist like we were in a lover's embrace. He was familiar, his touch was familiar. Goose pimples burst out all over my body, my nerves reacting to his touch. I wanted to pull away, wanted to forget what it felt like to be held by him. The idea was unsettling, especially after the time I'd spent recently with Lance.
I knew now what real affection felt like. I didn't want this.
"I came close so many times. I'd arrive in a town where I'd heard you were, but you were already gone. Denver. Miami. Seattle. I was right behind you, but you were always one step ahead."
"You must not be that great of a cop, Grant. I was here in Wyoming for five years and you never once suspected."
"You're right. I didn't. But you'd changed your name."
"That shouldn't have been enough to stop you."
He grunted, his arm tightening around my waist. "I've been a little busy. The Mahoneys have expanded their business, moving into more places, more types of business. It takes a lot to work a day job and work for them."
"That's too bad."
"Yeah, well, Uncle Jack has decided he doesn't need me in the FBI any longer. I'm putting in for my retirement as soon as I get back to Chicago."
"Good for you."
"So, you can come home and we can start putting into play all those things you wanted to do."
"Like what? The house? The children?" I snorted softly. "Do you really think I still want that with you?"
"You're mine, Vivie. You've always been mine."
"Not anymore."
He pressed that gun barrel harder against my back even as his arm tightened around my waist. His voice was harder when he spoke, his lips so close to the side of my ear that I could feel the spittle flying against my sensitive skin.
"You are mine. You will be going back to Chicago with me. In case you've forgotten, you are still legally my wife no matter who or what you've been doing here!"
"I don't want you, Grant. Why do you think I left you?"
He stepped back word and turned, flinging me into the bedroom. I slammed my legs against the mattress of the bed before falling onto it. He followed, pulling he hard under his body, the gun pressed to my temple. I lay perfectly still, afraid he would use it. But as he stared down at me, his eyes watching closely as his hand slipped under my shirt, I began to think dying might be preferable to what he clearly had in mind for me now.
"Lance Griffin is my lover," I announced, my hands brushing at his despite the danger of that pistol against my head. "He's been my lover for a long time. He wants to take me out of the country, wants to run with me. He wants to protect me from you."
Anger and hurt sliced across Kennedy's face. I heard the click of the gun cocking, closed my eyes in preparation for the bullet I knew would be cutting through my skull at any moment.
"What about Cassidy?"
I froze, my heart falling into my stomach. "What?"
I opened my eyes to find him studying me.
"Did you think I didn't know?" he asked. "Did you really think you could hide our child from me?"
And that's when I knew it was over. I knew he would never let me go, he'd never walk away.
"She's beautiful," he said. "Those blond curls just like mine. And so smart. She makes awesome grades at that tiny school!"
"Stay away from her!"
He stared at me a moment longer. Then he sat up, straddled me, the gun resting in both his hands as he studied it, as he seemed to contemplate his next move.
"I loved you from the moment I set eyes on you, Vivian." His eyes came up to mine almost shyly. "When they told me to arrest your father, I was reluctant because it was the first time they'd tested me like that. I didn't believe the warrant would be legitimate. I thought I would show my hand to my supervisors and they would have me arrested instead. But then I set eyes on you and I forgot about all that. You were the one who gave me the strength to do what I needed to do."
I shook my head, rolling it against the firm mattress. "I was fifteen."
"You were beautiful. And kind. And polite despite the fact that we were destroying your world. You only cried when we took the horses and, even then, you had this dignity about you. I knew then that you were the only woman I would ever love."
"Please, Grant," I said softly, tears beginning to fall. "She's a good girl. Y
ou don't want this life for her."
"I don't. That's why I never approached her, never told her who I was. I didn't want to do that to her."
Hope sprang up at those words. I touched his thigh, tried to reach out to him as a human being, tried to keep him in that mindset.
"I'll do whatever you want. Just... don't touch her."
"I won't." There was puzzlement as he studied my face this time. "Do you really think of me that way, Viv? Do you think I'm some sort of monster?"
I closed my eyes again, wiping at my tears even as a sob slipped from between my lips.
"Do you love him?"
There was the ultimate question. Did I love Lance? Was I still in love with Kennedy? What did I want?
"I think I could love him, given the chance."
"And me?"
I looked up at him, saw pain dancing in his eyes once again. "I loved you so much once." I touched his thigh again. "I thought you were my hero, come to save me from the darkness my father had plunged us into. But when I realized you were the darkness... what am I supposed to do with that?"
"I never meant to hurt you."
"Your choices hurt me. Don't you see? I can't live that life, can't live in constant fear of those people. I can't pretend that it's okay that my husband was doing everything that my moral code told me was wrong! And I couldn't raise my children in that!"
He nodded. "I'm sorry, Vivian."
He lifted the gun and, for a brief second, I once again thought my life was over. But then he pressed it to the temple of his own head and... it was over so quickly. One second he was okay, talking coherently to me. The next, his blood, his... other things were splattered over my face, my body, and he was falling from me, falling sideways and off the bed.
I screamed and screamed and screamed...
Chapter 24
At the Ranch
Sutherland watched from the porch as Becky rode Lincoln in the narrow paddock. She would lean forward from time to time, whisper in the horse's ear. Sutherland always wondered what it was she said to the horses, but realized she didn't want to know. It would take some of the magic away if she knew.
It'd only been a few days since Grant Kennedy committed suicide. Becky refused to talk about it, refused to even acknowledge that any of it had happened. She simply went back to her life, driving her daughter to school and feeding the horses twice a day. She rode, sometimes for hours, but mostly kept to herself.
She'd worried so much what would happen when Becky graduated from veterinarian school. Turned out she wasn't even enrolled. She'd been auditing the classes, but she couldn't register as a full-time student because it would require her using her real social security number. She supposed Becky hadn't intended to be here when it came time to graduate.
Cassidy didn't seem to suffer any ill effects from the whole thing. Sutherland wished she could say the same of Lance. Becky brushed him off, refused to talk to him just as she refused to speak to everyone else. She wouldn't even come to the house and have tea with Sutherland as had become their habit over the years.
Sutherland was worried. It must have been the shock of the suicide, the grief of someone she once cared about dying that way. She needed someone to talk to, but she'd refused the suggestions the hospital had made when she was discharged in the aftermath of everything. Then again, Sutherland understood better than anyone how long some people needed to reconcile the finality of death. She turned and went back into the house, curling up in her office chair with the cup of tea Mable had just set there for her.
"You should stay," Sutherland said.
Mabel's head came up from the computer screen she'd been studying. She was Sutherland's unofficial office manager, helping her manage the financial and business end of running a ranch. She'd unraveled messes Sutherland hadn't even realized she'd created, making it so much easier to keep things simple. Sutherland didn't know what she did before Mabel arrived.
"You and Kirkland both. You should stay. There's an old guest house, a sort of mother-in-law house out on the east side of the property that isn't in terrible shape. You're welcome to do whatever you want with it."
Mabel cocked her head. "You'd really want us to stay?"
Sutherland nodded as she lifted the tea to her lips. She took a long sip and sighed.
"I can't do this alone." She looked over at Mabel. "It's taken me a long time to come to that conclusion, but now I can't deny it any longer. I've tried and I nearly lost the ranch a dozen times every year I've been in charge. But you're here now and not only are we no longer struggling, we're beginning to make a little profit. We actually have some money to spend at the cattle auction next week."
Mabel smiled. "It's simple bookkeeping."
"I know paperwork. I can fill out a permit application like nobody. But I don't know the intricacies of business like you do. And I don't know security like Kirkland." The pitter patter of little feet out in the hallway came at just the right time. Sutherland smiled bit when Mabel's five-year-old son came running into the room, his arms held out to his mother, followed closely by Sutherland's own daughter. "And it would be a shame to separate these two."
"Separate who?" Elizabeth demanded.
Sutherland just shook her head, holding out her hand to her beautiful daughter.
"No one," Mabel said, tears filling her eyes as she looked Sutherland in the eye over the head of her son. "Absolutely no one."
It was a warm moment, ruined as Shelby, Sutherland's foreman, came rushing into the room.
"He's at it again!"
"Who?"
"Archer. He's set a brush fire out in south pasture!"
Chapter 25
Becky
I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror much too often, wondering who I was now, who I'd been all these years. I'd been Vivian for so long, then Vivie, Viv, Vi...and then I came here and I was Becky. I had no idea where I'd gotten the name, had no idea why I'd not chosen something less informal, why I hadn't called myself Rebecca or Becca or something more exotic like Giselle. I was Becky for five years—Becks to the people who really counted.
Who was I now?
How could I go on with my life if I didn't know who I was? How could I accept Lance as a part of me if I didn't know what name I wanted him to call me by?
I walked around in a confused fog, not sure what to do with myself now. Did I move on? Did I stay on MidKnight Ranch? There was no longer a reason to hide, but my old life... there was nothing left back there for me.
I called my mom. She was still alive, still living in Connecticut not far from the prison where my father was serving his time. I told her everything, told her how sorry I was that I'd run away. Maybe I'd go visit her sometimes, but... the connection was no longer there. Too much time had passed, too many things had changed. I couldn’t go home.
The Mahoneys scared me. I knew Jack Mahoney would eventually want revenge for what had happened to Kennedy. I knew he would blame me. But was I really any safer away from this ranch?
And then came the fire.
I organized the stable boys, rushed them out there with buckets. There was no running water that far from the houses. We had to fill buckets from the stream and toss them onto the fire. It was slow going, but we had all the ranch hands, the guys from Santa Monica, and our own Gray Wolf operatives. I watched Lance, watched how hard he worked to save something that wasn't even his. He was a good man. He was hurting, but I knew if I just said the word, he'd be there for me. He came to the apartment every night these last few nights and helped Cassidy with her homework. He'd smile at me, try a little small talk, but he didn't push me when I refused to raise to his bait.
He was a good man. He was my man.
And then it just all seemed so obvious.
When the fire was out, Sutherland had everyone back at her place, served them a quick supper of ham and potato salad. Everyone was exhausted, covered in soot from the fire. I watched them come in, watched them sit wearily at the tables someone had
set up in the cold night air. Mabel and Jonnie were there for their men, wiping their faces with wet napkins, whispering the right words in their ears. Eve was there, too, just as covered in soot as everyone else, leaning into Grainger's arms as he insisted she eat.
Lance came and took a plate, but then he disappeared into the bunkhouse. I followed, knocking on the door of his room.
"Becky Kay," I said, holding out my hand to him when he answered the door, exhaustion so clear on his face that it almost excused the irritation that filled his eyes.
"I know your name," he said.
"You couldn't because I wasn't sure what it was until tonight."
He cocked his head, his dark eyes lost in the even darker soot on his face.
"I wasn't sure what I wanted," I explained. "When Kennedy came back, when my secrets came out, I didn't know if I was Becky Kay anymore, if I'd just revert to Vivian Kennedy, the too young, too naive wife of a bad cop. But then I was watching you, watching everyone I care about fight that fire, and I knew. Vivian Kennedy died a long time ago. I'm not that woman anymore."
"What does that mean?"
I reached up and touched his face, rubbed a little of the soot from the corner of his mouth.
"It means I want to start over. I want to be Cassidy's mother, Sutherland's stable girl, and your... whatever you want for me to be."
His eyes softened as he studied my face. "Are you sure? I'm not a one-night stand kind of a guy."
"I know."
"If I said I was falling in love with you, would that scare you away?"
I smiled, moving closer to him. "It would be a relief because I think I'm falling in love with you, too."
"You think?"
"A few more kisses might make it clearer."
He tilted his head slightly, a slow smile filling his eyes with a lovely light.
"I think I can handle that."
CLINTON
Prologue
I found myself watching her. She was everything I'd imagined she'd be: beautiful, capable, content. She moved around the room like a woman who knew she was in control and was confident in that knowledge. And she seemed to have this comradery with the other men in the room. They respected her. That was abundantly clear.
Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming Page 45