by Lisa Childs
She shook her head. “The tenant wanted me to,” she said. “He even offered to pay me extra. But I didn’t want to leave her possessions there.”
“She had nothing of value,” he said. “You could have left everything. Or given it all away.”
“I kept her belongings,” Annalise admitted.
“But I told you to get rid of everything.”
“I thought you might change your mind,” she said. “I didn’t want you to have any regrets.”
“I regret that you didn’t get rid of her crap,” he said. Especially if having it had put her in danger. “Did you bring it home with you?”
She shook her head. “I have a few storage units. I either put stuff in them when I’m staging houses or store the stuff I use for staging in them.”
“I don’t think my...” He hated calling her Mom. In the short time he’d known her, Penny Payne had already been more of a mother to him than the woman who’d given birth to him had ever been. “... I don’t think Carla had anything you could use to stage a house.”
“No,” Annalise admitted. “But I thought you might want something of hers, something to remember her by. And I didn’t want to have given it all away.”
He had something to remember her by: the letter she’d left telling him who his father really was. She had given him the family he’d never thought he would have. She had given him a real mother. And she had allayed the fear he’d always had that his father was some drug dealer.
What else had she given him? Had she left him something that had put his—and worse, Annalise’s—lives in danger? She had given him one family. But if he lost Annalise and their unborn baby, he’d lost the family he could have made for himself.
* * *
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Annalise dropped her sweater into her open suitcase, turned around and found Nick leaning against the doorjamb. “I’m packing.”
“Why?”
After she’d admitted to ignoring his command to get rid of all of his mother’s things, she’d thought he would be happy to get rid of her.
“Because we’re going back to Chicago,” she said.
“Why would we do that?” he asked.
How could he not know? He was the lawman. She was just a real estate agent. “Because we need to go through the storage units and find what they’re looking for.”
“Did you see a wad of money?”
She shook her head.
“Of course not,” Nick said. “Because anytime Carla got her hands on money, she used it to buy drugs.”
She ached for Nick, for the sad little boy who’d grown up too quickly next door to her family.
“So it must be something else,” she agreed.
He shook his head. “What? If it was anything of value, she would have pawned it for money for drugs. There’s nothing.”
“Then why did someone break into her house and mine and yours?” she asked. “Just hours ago you said somebody thinks you have something they want.”
“Thinks,” Nick said. “We don’t actually have it.”
He was probably right. But that only increased her frustration. “How do we convince whoever is after us that we don’t have it?”
She wanted her life back. She’d worked hard to build her career. And as a single mom-to-be, she needed it more than ever.
“We find him.”
“How do we do that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not you. You’ve already been in too much danger because of this.”
And she heard the anger again. He was mad that she hadn’t done as he’d asked, that she hadn’t gotten rid of everything. Hell, he was right. If she’d known what was going to happen to her life, she would have burned down his mother’s house herself. But she’d done what she’d thought would be best for him, like she always had.
She’d thought she would be best for him. That was why she’d been so persistent in loving him. She’d thought she could make him happy. But all she had done was create more problems for him.
He would be better off without her. She tossed another sweater in the suitcase. Candace had been sweet to buy her more things. But now she had too much.
“Why are you still packing?” he asked.
“I have a job, too,” she said. “I have a life that I can’t stay away from any longer.”
“You still want to go back to Chicago?”
She nodded. She needed to go back, needed to get away from him before she fell any deeper in love with him. Before she began to imagine that they could actually have a life together. It was clear that Nick didn’t want that. She wasn’t even certain that he wanted to have a baby together. Or if she really would be raising their child alone.
“Give us more time,” he implored her.
“Us?” Her heart swelled with hope.
“The Payne Protection Agency,” he said. “Give us more time to figure out what you and I might have that someone wants. We’ll check out the renter in Carla’s house. We’ll find out if he’s involved in all of this.”
“Of course.”
He was talking about his family. They were the us. Not her and him. They had never been an us. And maybe it was time that she accepted that they never would be.
“Annalise?” he called her name as if he’d said it more than once.
She raised her gaze from the suitcase to his handsome face. “Will you give us time?” he asked.
She’d already given Nick her whole life. She couldn’t give him any more time.
* * *
Penny had a wedding to plan. But it wasn’t the one she wanted to plan. She wanted to plan Nick’s to Annalise. As if thinking about him had summoned him, he appeared in the doorway to her office.
She caught a glimpse of what he must have been like as a boy, longing for love. She’d worried that he hadn’t had any in his life. But after meeting Annalise Huxton, she knew he had. The girl next door had loved him her whole life.
Before she could even greet him, he said, “She’s leaving.” And his voice was full of frustration and pain.
Penny pressed a hand to her heart as it leaped with fear—for the young woman and her unborn baby. “But she’s in danger.”
“She’s not leaving right now,” he said. “I talked her out of that. But she’ll leave soon.”
“Not if you stop her.”
“I can’t,” he said. “She has a great career in Chicago. She has to go back.”
Penny shook her head. “Give her a reason to stay.”
“What reason can I give her?”
“You know what reason, Nick,” she said. The most important reason. “Give her your love.”
His handsome face—so like her sons’ faces—twisted into a grimace. “I don’t know how.”
Her heart ached for him, for the love he’d never known. “Nick...”
He shook his head, brushing off her sympathy. “I don’t know how to love someone,” he said. “You can’t give what you’ve never received.”
“Hasn’t that changed?” she asked. “Haven’t we changed that for you?”
He sighed. “I think it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late to love someone,” she insisted.
He looked at her, his blue eyes steely, his gaze intense.
“What?” she asked uneasily. Nick could see through her like no one else ever had. Even his father had never understood her like this son of his.
“You talk about love,” he said, “but I don’t think you’re an expert, either. I don’t think you know how to love any more than I do.”
“I know how to love,” she insisted. “I love my kids. I love you.”
“What about a man?”
“Nicholas died so many
years ago.”
“Exactly,” he said. “He died years ago. You should have moved on. You should have had another relationship.”
She shivered at the thought. “I didn’t need another one. I had my great love.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Because he cheated on me?”
“Exactly. He didn’t deserve you, Penny. He betrayed your love and your trust, and I think you never had another relationship because you’re afraid you’d get hurt again. You’re afraid to trust again.” He stepped closer, and for once he took her hand instead of the other way around. He squeezed it gently. “I think you’re afraid to love.”
She couldn’t argue with him. She couldn’t even stop him as he walked out of her office. But she followed him and watched as he pulled away from the chapel. She wasn’t the only one. Another vehicle pulled away from the curb and trailed after his.
Was it someone from Payne Protection? She shivered and knew that it wasn’t. Someone else followed Nick. He wasn’t in danger of losing just his heart. He was in danger of losing his life, too.
Chapter 20
Nick was being followed. But he was alone, so he didn’t care. He wasn’t putting Annalise or Nikki in danger. His life was the only one at risk.
He couldn’t give Annalise his heart. He didn’t have one to offer her. But he could give her back her life—the one she’d worked so hard to build for herself. That was the least he could do for her, for all she had endured because she’d thought she was helping him.
She didn’t realize he’d made peace with his mother long ago, before she’d died. He’d realized she had a disease, an addiction she couldn’t beat. He hadn’t been able to help her because she hadn’t wanted help.
So he’d dedicated his life to the people he could help. He could help Annalise.
He could stop the person who was after them. He spoke into his phone. But he wasn’t talking to anyone at the Payne Protection Agency. He asked for directions to the nearest storage facility. Whoever was following him thought he was going to get whatever the hell he thought he had.
Maybe he could lure him out in the open. Maybe he could end this now. He turned in the direction the phone had told him. He was sure whoever was following him wasn’t alone. There had to be someone else back there.
A Payne Protection bodyguard...
Milek. Garek.
The only person he was certain it wasn’t was Nikki. Her brothers weren’t going to let her anywhere near him until this was over. And maybe not even after that.
As he thought of her, his phone lit up with her number. He touched the speaker button. “That was quick,” he said. He’d called her on his way to the White Wedding Chapel.
“It was easy,” she replied. “He gave Annalise a fake name on the rental application.”
“That was why she couldn’t find any credit or work history for him,” he surmised. “But if all you have is a fake name...”
“Fake name,” she said. “Real person. Ralph Adams died over thirty years ago.”
“Ralph Adams...” The name sounded vaguely familiar.
“Your mom testified in his murder trial,” she said. “Her testimony helped put away the drug dealer who killed Ralph. Darren Snow. His nickname was—”
“The Iceman,” Nick said. After her death—after he’d found that letter—Nick had checked out everything his mother had claimed in it. He’d learned about the Iceman.
“Who was just paroled,” Nikki said, “six months ago.”
Nick glanced into his rearview mirror, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver in the vehicle tailing him. “It has to be him.”
“But what does he want?” Nikki asked. “What could your mom have that he thinks is his?”
The car was bearing down on him quickly. The driver was not even trying to hide the fact that he was following Nick.
“We’ll have to talk about that later,” Nick said. “I have to go now.”
He clicked off the phone and returned to his directions to that storage facility. It had to be close—the facility and the end of the danger in which he and Annalise had been living.
* * *
Annalise shivered. And it wasn’t just because of the conversation she’d overheard Nikki having with Nick about a killer drug dealer named the Iceman. It was because of the abrupt way that conversation had ended.
“What’s going on with him?” she asked.
Nikki’s face had paled beneath the bruises, and she shook her head. “I don’t know. He seemed like he was in a hurry.”
“To get back here?” Annalise asked and hoped.
Instead of answering her, Nikki clicked another button on her cell phone. “Hey? Who’s on Nick?”
She hadn’t put the call on speaker, so Annalise couldn’t hear the name that Nikki heard. But from the look of doubt and concern on her face, she suspected she knew.
Gage. And apparently Nikki didn’t think Annalise’s brother was ready for the assignment. Unfortunately, neither did Annalise.
“Does he know where Nick is going?” Nikki asked whomever she’d called—probably her brother Logan. She grunted. “Of course not.”
Nikki turned her focus back to the computer she’d brought to investigate the person to whom Annalise had rented Nick’s mother’s house. Because Annalise had been giving her information, she’d been sitting next to Nikki and could easily see the screen. After tapping the keyboard a few seconds, Nikki pulled up Nick’s phone record.
“Yeah, I’m hacking,” she told her brother—with no shame. “Last thing Nick did was get directions to the nearest storage facility.” She gave Logan the name and address.
Even though he wasn’t on speaker, Annalise could hear Logan’s curse. He knew what Nick was doing.
“Is anyone else close enough?” Nikki asked. She really didn’t trust Gage as Nick’s only backup. And she cursed at Logan’s reply.
Annalise’s stomach churned with concern and with the baby’s restless kicks. It was as if he knew, too, that his father was in danger. She waited until Nikki clicked off the phone before she said, “He’s risking his life.”
Nikki shrugged. “Just leaving the condo puts his life in danger.”
Hers, too. Annalise had learned that the hard way. But she wanted to leave now. She wanted to be with Nick—to make certain that he was all right.
“What’s going on?” Annalise asked.
“He picked up a tail after he left Mom’s chapel.” There was more unsaid in Nikki’s tone.
“And...?” Annalise prodded her.
“He’s leading the tail to that storage facility.”
“He’s using himself as bait,” Annalise realized. “To catch whoever’s after us.” And he was out there with only her brother as backup—a man who hadn’t trusted himself to protect her. Why had he trusted himself to protect Nick?
He obviously wasn’t ready. And if Nick died, would Gage ever be able to forgive himself? Would she?
It was Annalise’s fault that Nick was in danger in the first place. She should have sold the place the way he’d told her to—totally furnished. Then his mother’s possessions would all have been gone. Nobody would be looking for something he was so desperate to retrieve that he was willing to kill.
But then, according to what Nikki had said, the Iceman had killed before. He would have no compunction about killing again.
* * *
Gage had heard the doubt in everyone else’s voices. They’d thought him ready to protect an elderly woman from her own paranoia. They hadn’t thought he was ready to protect Nick. Just a couple of days ago, he wouldn’t have thought he was ready, either. He hadn’t trusted himself to protect Annalise. But he’d been feeling better—stronger.
He hadn’t been having the nightmares lik
e he had before. He hadn’t been sleeping much, so the nightmares weren’t really an issue.
Maybe what he’d been through wasn’t the reason the others hadn’t trusted him to protect Nick. Maybe it was because of what Nick had done to Annalise.
He’d gotten her pregnant.
Gage waited for the betrayal and anger to rush over him again. But instead, he felt an odd surge of happiness. He was going to have a nephew, a child that would be equal parts of the two people Gage loved most in the world. Now.
He had loved someone else more before. But that seemed like a lifetime ago. He wasn’t the man he’d been back then. That man was still missing.
Gage doubted he would ever be found. That was fine, though. Maybe it would make it easier for him to move on—at last.
What about Nick?
When they caught whoever was after him and Annalise, would Nick move on? Or would he want to be part of his son’s life? Part of Annalise’s?
She loved him. She had always loved him.
But what about Nick?
He touched the radio on his collar and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Gage?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re my tail?”
“I don’t know who the hell your tail is,” Gage said. But he’d been following him since Nick had left the chapel. “He’s driving a rental. And all I can see through the back window is a bald head.”
“So there’s just one of them?” Nick asked.
“As far as I can tell...” Inside that vehicle. But there could have been other ones—ones that had stayed farther back so neither he nor Nick had made them.
Nick’s sigh of relief rattled the phone. “That’s good. We’ve got him outnumbered. We can catch him.”
Gage worried that Nick was giving him too much credit. “This is risky,” he said. “We haven’t had time to plan. We need more backup.”
“They’re on their way.” Nick was certain, probably because the Paynes seemed to travel in a pack. There would be other bodyguards close.
But Gage didn’t think they would make it in time. The gate to the storage facility came into view. Nick must have broken the lock and jimmied open the gate, because that rental vehicle passed easily through. Not wanting to tip the man off, Gage hesitated a moment before driving through the broken gate himself.