by Lexi Blake
“I agree,” Henry said. “Hayes was not what they were expecting. His election sent ripples through the intelligence community. It makes sense. So they immediately shut down The Ranch and tried to get rid of all evidence that it existed. They buried the research in the hopes that four years from then they might get it back.”
“Are you seriously telling me Moth…Hope McDonald’s research is still down there?” Tucker had gone a pasty white. “I thought Ezra destroyed it.”
This was why he hadn’t talked about this project until he had to. He hadn’t wanted to worry his brothers. But he knew it was there. All that information, including perhaps intelligence on her early targets, including Robert and himself, was there, deep in the earth waiting to be discovered. The timing was so that there might be information on Sasha, Tucker, and Dante, too.
Ezra Fain had destroyed the later formulas of the drug, but there could be something in the early notes, something that might lead to what no one ever mentioned, what they were all too scared to hope for—a cure.
“Yes. I think the answers we’re looking for are all here,” he said. “The Ranch is hidden somewhere in the national forest lands. I don’t know the exact place, though, and we’re going to need a guide.”
Taggart closed the folder. “All right, then. Ezra is handling the locals. He’s meeting with the sheriff to explain our situation. When we’re sure we’re good here, he and Robert are going to figure out the best way to begin our search for The Ranch.”
Sasha leaned forward. “Is that good idea? Talking to the authorities, I mean. Sheriff is law enforcement, correct? Like old western movies?”
“Sheriff Wright is a good man, and he’s been around long enough to know how to handle anything that gets thrown at him,” Henry assured them all. “Nate used to be a DEA agent. He understands how bureaucracies work. I trust him and his deputy implicitly. The mayor of Bliss is a former FBI agent. I believe he actually has ties to one of Ian’s men.”
“And woman. Don’t forget Eve. But, yes, turns out Mayor Kincaid used to work with my partner Alex McKay and his wife, Eve, when they were with the Bureau. Alex speaks highly of him. It’s why we decided on making our base of operations here and not closer to where the actual site is supposed to be,” Taggart explained. “We’ve got friendly authorities we can be honest with and they’ll watch our backs. At least according to Henry they will.”
“I assure you, it won’t be a problem. No one is going to question you here in Bliss. Well, except my wife.” Henry glanced over at the windows. Jax had heard he lived within walking distance of where they were staying. “She’ll probably protest the whole thing. She’s definitely protesting me right now.”
Taggart looked Henry’s way. “Did you think about lying to her? I wasn’t planning on telling anyone outside of the authorities who need to know. I’m not sure that includes your wife. You know we have a pretty good cover.”
They were “reporters’ for this mission. They had the press credentials to prove it. For the rest of their time in Bliss, he was Jax Seaborne, a producer for an investigative television show. They were looking into the rumors that the Army had abandoned an old highly classified base that might be polluting the Rio Grande. It would get people talking, they’d reasoned. Coloradans tended to like to preserve the nature they’d been gifted.
Henry had gone pale. “No. I can’t lie to her again. Not if I want to keep her. I can’t lose her. She’s everything to me so I won’t lie. She’s no threat to the mission. I promise.”
As if talking about her had conjured her, a pretty woman with long, dark hair walked in through the cabin’s doors. She was dressed in a flowy skirt and a cotton shirt, carrying a basket.
Henry was on his feet in an instant. “Hello, love. Are you all right? Do you need something? How are you feeling?”
She frowned, walking past him. “I made muffins. I didn’t know if any of you could cook. I know you don’t remember who you are, but I wasn’t certain about the other things you might have forgotten. I thought since we’ll be neighbors for a while, I would bring you some breakfast. Not that I mean to conform to gender roles, mind you.”
“We would never want that, love,” Henry said.
Owen stood up, offering his hand. “We would love some muffins, dear lady. And we thank you for thinking of us. We might not remember much after the terrible experiments that were performed on us against our wills, but we know kindness when we see it.”
Owen remembered how to deal with a woman, or perhaps he simply had amazing instincts.
It was like Nell melted in front of them, her slightly icy demeanor slipping away, and in its place, pure sunshine and sympathy took over. She took Owen’s hand in hers. “Of course. I can’t imagine what you gentlemen have been through. I want to do everything I can to help. Starting with breakfast. Please sit back down. I’m sure Seth has some juice. He keeps this place stocked for when he comes home. Please, sit and let me take care of you. Except which one of you is Taggart?”
He’d never seen the big boss look slightly afraid. Taggart was always in charge, but he said nothing as the slender woman stared around the room.
So naturally they all pointed him out.
She gave him a long stare, like a fighter evaluating her next opponent. “I am protesting you, sir. I’ve looked into your company and I don’t approve of your recycling practices nor the body count you’ve racked up. You are entirely too invested in handguns.”
Taggart shrugged. “Well, I tried killing my enemies with kindness. Guns worked better.”
She huffed and turned on her sandaled feet. “You and Henry are on your own. The rest of you I’ll take under my wing. There’s also Holly’s banana bread in the basket, though I warn you, it’s not vegan.”
She strode into the kitchen, Henry following behind.
“I recycle stuff,” Taggart complained, his arms over his chest.
“Wait, did she say vegan?” Robert frowned at the basket.
Tucker already had a muffin halfway down his throat.
Jax reached for what looked like a blueberry muffin while Owen was divvying up the banana bread. Sweet, sweet carbs. They hadn’t been allowed them while Mother had been in charge. Of course, they hadn’t been allowed to do much of anything except be tortured and commit crimes.
He glanced outside again. He couldn’t wait to explore.
* * * *
Marie Warner stared at her for a moment, her intelligent eyes likely seeing far more than River wanted her to. She didn’t get into Bliss often. Usually she went into Creede. It was slightly closer, but she’d heard Marie took less of a percentage of the real estate sale then normal and would be easy to work with.
“Didn’t your father recently pass?” Marie asked.
She nodded tightly, trying not to think about the last year and a half. Her father’s few weeks had turned into torturous months, months where she watched him drown daily, where his misery became her daily life, every choice she made with him in mind. Every moment of her life revolving around his death. “Yes, he did, but it was expected.”
It had been a relief. And a horrifying loss. How could it have been both? How could she mourn and weep and still feel like a burden had been lifted? How could the quiet in her home be both peaceful and suffocating?
“Hon, that kind of thing can be expected and still devastating.” Marie had a gruff voice. She was a solidly built woman in her early sixties, her hair a helmet of steel. “It’s usually best to wait a bit before you make big life decisions.”
She would love to wait. She would love nothing more than to sit on her porch and let time heal her, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her past had caught up to her again.
She’d never gone to see Nathan Wright to talk about what her con man husband had done. She’d put it off and put it off. She could tell herself that the reason had been her father, but it had been shame. Embarrassment.
Now she would pay for it again, but by god, her employees wouldn’t. She
wasn’t going to sell off her business. She had one employee who’d stood beside her through this hell and she’d recently hired two more. Things were starting to look up on that front. She wasn’t going to allow her evil ex to screw this up for her. This time, she would fight back.
But she couldn’t do that without some cash. She only had one thing left to sell.
“I’m good.” She kept every word even, pressing any emotion she felt down. “I’ve been ready to move for a while now. I don’t need all that space. I’m going to move into the apartment over the shop.”
It wasn’t an apartment. It was more like a storage closet, but it was all she could afford now. She had to choose between her business and her home. She’d only recently managed to get a loan to secure some new equipment. She had to keep up the payments or she would lose it all again.
“I’m glad to hear you’re working. You’re the best guide around these parts,” Marie was saying. “I always feel comfortable telling folks to go to you.”
She’d grown up in Creede where her father had worked as a wilderness guide during the summer and in the ski resort during wintertime. She’d taken over his small business at the tender age of twenty and built it up into something that made serious money. Mountain Adventures had grown from a room in the cabin to a big office nestled between the Rio Grande and the National Forest. At one point she’d had ten employees and offered guided tours of some of the most beautiful country in the world.
Unfortunately, one of those employees had been Matt Lewis. Well, he’d told her that was his name. She had no idea what his real name was. He’d romanced her, married her, and looted every dime she had. Every dime her father had worked hard to save.
She’d let most of the employees go and sold that gorgeous office and most of the equipment—the rafts, the skis, and snowboards. She’d moved to a much smaller office and kept only the equipment that was essential to hiking and guided camping. It was the most cost-effective way to keep going. Ty Davis had stayed on, though he had another job. He’d helped her survive.
It still hadn’t been enough. She’d gone hungry more than once in favor of feeding her father and getting his medications.
“I’m glad, too. It’s been too long since I got out there.” She hoped being out in the forest would start to ease the tightness in her chest. It seemed like it was always there now, as though her grief and guilt required a physical manifestation. “I want to concentrate on working. I sold off a lot of equipment when Dad got sick. I hope I can use some of the proceeds of the sale of the cabin to buy it back.”
And to have a way to fight her ex.
“Well, if you’re sure, but it’s a slow time right now,” Marie warned her. “There are a couple of places that have been on the market for a while now. I’ll come out next week and take some pictures.”
Marie would catalog the home River had grown up in so she could sell it for far less than it was worth. Someone would buy it if she was lucky and her childhood home would turn into a vacation spot. “Thank you. Give me a call. I’m spending a lot of time at the office. If you let me know when you’re coming out, I’ll make sure to be home.”
Home. It wouldn’t be her home for much longer. She would miss it. She would miss the porch and the tiny kitchen where her father had prepared pancakes every Sunday morning when she was growing up.
She turned and headed out, the easy part of her morning over with. She would love to do anything but what she needed to do now. She would take a group of hypersensitive princesses on an eight-hour nature hike a hundred times before she would do this.
She stopped, staring at the stationhouse. Maybe she should let Matt Lewis have everything. She could walk off into the wilderness and let a bear have her. Then she wouldn’t have to let anyone know how stupid she’d been.
“Hey, are you going to finally do it?”
She turned and one of her recent employees was standing roughly five feet away, a reusable shopping bag slung over her shoulder. Heather Turner was a gorgeous blonde in her mid-twenties. She was also willing to work for far less than she was worth. Five months ago, River had hired Heather as a guide. She’d done the same job for a company in her native California, but a bad breakup had sent her wandering. She’d gotten to Colorado and needed some cash so she’d done a couple of temp jobs for River. Now she was full time and living in a small cabin on the outskirts of Bliss.
She was also a good drinking buddy, which was how she knew way too much of River’s business. Not even Ty knew the real reason she’d been forced to downscale. She’d told them Matt had taken half in their “divorce.” But one night and too much tequila and Heather knew everything.
She shouldn’t have talked so much to a woman she’d known for roughly six weeks at the time.
This was what happened when she kept too much inside. River was a powder keg waiting to blow. The trouble was she wasn’t sure what would come out—the molten hot lava of rage or pure, unadulterated sorrow.
“I’m thinking about not doing it at all,” she admitted. “I’m standing here weighing my need for justice versus my horrific embarrassment.”
“Because you trusted the wrong guy? There isn’t a single woman on the planet who hasn’t done that. Stop being arrogant.” Heather moved beside her.
“Arrogant?” What was Heather smoking? “I assure you after the last couple of years I’ve been through, there’s no arrogance left in me. Not a drop.”
“Oh, that’s untrue. Look, I haven’t been around for long, but I’ve spent enough time with you to have figured a few things out. You come off as super quiet and humble, but you’re a control freak and that equals arrogance. All the control freaks I know will tell you it’s because it’s simpler or they just like things a certain way, but it’s truly because deep down you think you know better.”
Okay, maybe they weren’t such fast friends. “I really don’t.”
“I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing. Shouldn’t the boss know better? Someone has to take control. Someone has to be in charge. And so far you’re a good boss. But there’s a flip side. You think you have to be in control all the time and that’s not good for anyone. The one time you took a shot at sharing control with someone, he turned out to be a complete asshole. You should have gone after him with both barrels, but somewhere deep down you blame yourself because you should have seen it coming. See, that’s kind of the definition of arrogance. You couldn’t have known he was lying. You couldn’t have known he was a con artist. Did you marry him right away?”
River shook her head, hating the memories rolling around in there now. “No. I was cautious. My father had been sick. We didn’t know what it was at the time. I hired Matt because he had excellent recommendations and he knew his stuff. I needed someone to take over the front office when I had to take care of my dad. Matt was perfect. I didn’t even say yes to dinner with him until he’d been around for a few weeks. I got to know him. Well, the him he wanted me to see.”
“You did everything you should have in the beginning. You didn’t rush in. The trouble is he’s a patient con man,” Heather said. “You have to forgive yourself, and that starts by walking into the office of Sheriff Nathan Wright and admitting you got conned. The reason you haven’t done it is you’re punishing yourself, and that has to stop.”
Was she punishing herself? Had she gotten so mired in misery that she believed pain was all there was? It felt like it. God, it had been three months since her father died and she still woke up in a panic, wondering if he needed something. She felt guilty enjoying the morning without him.
And she felt the loss like a gaping canyon in her soul.
How had she gotten so stuck? Trapped between grief and relief. Unable to truly feel either.
Heather stared at her for a moment. “Or you can go back to the cabin and sit for a while if you’re not ready. It won’t fix what’s wrong with you. I’m going to tell you something, River. I like you. I’m surprised at how much I like you. It’s not something I expected.
”
“You had expectations?”
“Always,” she replied. “I’m that girl. I can’t help myself. I meet people and usually can sum them up after a couple of minutes. You’re different. I met you and thought there was no way we would be friends. You were cold the first time I met you.”
It hadn’t been too long ago. At first, River had been reluctant to take on another guide, but then the requests had started coming in. She wasn’t sure why, but business had rolled in at the end of summer, more than she and Ty could handle alone. She’d had to send the rafters to another company, but she’d taken every guided hiking job she could. Heather had waltzed in with a pack on her back, worn-in hiking boots, and a smile that she couldn’t match. Clients loved Heather. She was a born salesperson. A few months later, River had been able to hire on Andy Cox. She now had a small but reliable crew. “I didn’t mean to be cold. Dealing with my father’s illness was hard. I was his caregiver most of the time. We had a nurse at the very end, but when you hired on, I was pretty overwhelmed.”
Those blue eyes of Heather’s softened and she put a hand on River’s shoulder. “I know, and now I know how hard that was on you. I wasn’t close to my dad. I kind of grew up on my own. It made me a little cold, too, until I met the right guy. And then I screwed up with the right guy and found a total asshole.”
Sometimes Heather talked about this amazing man she’d been close to years before and then she moved on to her asshole ex. It was something they had in common. Well, the asshole ex part. She’d never dated a truly amazing guy. They were all over Bliss, but she always seemed to meet them after they found a woman and settled down. Perhaps that was why she’d fallen so hard for Matt.
River stared at the station house. Half a block and she would be standing in front of it. Another few steps past that and she would be inside, and then she would either have to tell Nate Wright how stupid she’d been or look silly standing there and saying nothing.
“Matt deserves everything the sheriff can do to him,” Heather said quietly. “And you deserve some peace. You can’t have that while he’s out there. How much was it this time?”