Fucking asshole.
“You’re worth it, Aria.” She timidly gazes at me and frowns. “You’ve proven you can survive; you can start over. You’re moving on and he’s going to be behind bars.”
She shifts uncomfortably. “Maybe,” she murmurs. “But I can’t stop thinking of what could happen. The FBI isn’t going to let Olson stick around this long. Your brothers have their own lives. You…” She almost betrays herself.
“I’m here for you,” I remind her.
“You have a daughter and are in the middle of a custody battle. What I’m trying to say is, Charlie’s patient when he needs to be. He knows all he needs to do is to wait everyone out. And I’m afraid once this is all over, or if the baby comes, he’ll make a move and I risk all of those women’s lives.” She blinks away tears.
“I know it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, but I promise you we’re going to catch him. Nobody is going anywhere until he’s caught. He’s a threat to national security.”
“If that’s the case, I should be staying home where he can’t hurt anyone—”
But her.
This needs to stop. This martyr thing she has going on, it needs to stop.
“You can’t let him win. He wants you to be cowering in fear over his next move. But Ace, that’s not the answer. You’re making major change with this shelter. You are going to change so many lives because of what happened to you.” I pause for a beat while she soaks this all in.
“I wish you would stop giving me hope.”
“Can you feel a change with us, Aria?”
She squeezes her eyes shut as a few traitorous tears escape her hazel eyes.
“Please don’t do this, Derek. I’m not strong enough to fight you on this.”
“Then don’t fight it.” I get out of my chair and cross the desk, crouching beside her, resting my chin on her thigh. “We’ve talked about reincarnation before, but I think every moment I spend with you, I start to believe it more and more every day.”
She sniffles and shakes her head.
“Our hearts know each other, Aria McKenzie. I don’t know how I know that, or how to explain it, but deep down, I think you know we are supposed to know each other.”
She wipes the tears from her eyes and leans her head against the headrest. “Maybe that’s the case,” she admits. “Our hearts know each other from how many other lifetimes ago. But right now, I can’t put a label on us. I can’t be in a relationship with you because I’m not done healing. I’m not finished grieving who I was.”
She gently rests her hand on my cheek, caressing the stubble of my five o’clock shadow.
“Okay,” I tell her. Because in the end, I want her to be comfortable. I want her to be able to answer her phone without screening her calls and freezing when she wonders who it is. I want her to be able to leave the house without someone tailing her to make sure she’s okay. “But I want you to know, you’re not in this alone. I’m here for you.”
A sob wracks her body and I pull her close.
In this reality, I’m a simple man who is actively falling for a broken woman. I believe in what I told her. Reincarnation is an odd phenomenon I haven’t put a lot of thought into before I met her. But now, there’s something so familiar about her. It’s like I’m fully attuned to her thoughts, and I know how to act without her even having to tell me what she needs.
“What about Zoey?” She asks.
“I’m still going to fight for her.”
“I don’t want to distract you from that.”
“My fight for Zoey doesn’t end just because I care about you too.” I reach for her hand and squeeze. “Nothing has to change right now.”
We reach an impasse. So I finish cleaning up and then walk her to her car. I follow her home, making sure nothing happens on the drive home. But as I drive, I think about that last statement.
Please don’t do this, Derek. I’m not strong enough to fight you on this.
She feels it too. I know she does. All I’d have to do is string together a few pretty sentences together and she’d melt into me and never let go.
But that’s not who I am anymore.
I’m exactly where I thought I’d never be— in the position to care for someone–and I mean truly care for them. It’s like falling into an anxious pit of love with stomach aches mixed in. When I look at her, or when she curls into me at night, I’m all in.
Even if it meant raising that baby with her. I’d do it.
When we reach the property, she pulls into Annie’s driveway. I immediately disappear inside my house and change into my running gear. The sky is a dreadful gray, almost black. The heavens threaten to open up and rain it’s frustration on the human race.
But whatever.
I need to run. I need to clear my head before I start spouting off forever’s and babies.
Joey meets me outside, ready to run. We haven’t spoken all day, so him reading my mind and not saying anything is welcome. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to run.
We start down the cul-de-sac and off to the country road. I don’t bother with my phone or music, but with our rhythmic thumping of our shoes slapping the pavement, I feel my stress melting away.
My heart thunders in my chest, and even as the first few raindrops fall, it doesn’t bother me. The coolness of the rain is refreshing.
I didn’t think I could ever give up the single life. It was nice, fresh, exciting. This woman, on the other hand, has some kind of magic spell over me—one that has me wanting to follow her around like she’s a dog in heat but doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what I do.
That might be true, actually. She might not care.
But she came to you after work today. She warms your bed every night. She plays with your daughter when she doesn’t have to.
Right.
Thunder rolls above us. Two miles off the property, Joey shoves me into a ditch just as thunder crashes and a bolt of lightning strikes too close to us.
“What the fuck was that for?” I bellow.
“That wasn’t thunder,” he says, his voice dropping.
We position ourselves so we can see ahead of us, from where the shot rang out.
“I’m not armed,” says Joey.
Yeah, I’m not either. Fuck.
“If we move, we’re done,” I tell him. I can’t see anyone around us. This mound of dirt and grass protects us for the time being. We have our hand to hand combat training should the guy get brave and come close to us, but we’ll only have half a second to react.
“Somebody has to have heard that,” he murmurs.
Aria’s words come back to me. Charlie’s patient when he needs to be. All he has to do is wait everyone out.
He has to know about us at this point. He’s a sick fuck probably watching her like a hawk. Now he’s here to take me out of the equation.
Joey glances around us while I keep watch, looking for anything to get his attention. Another shot gives up his location. And lucky for us, he doesn’t have the same training as we do.
The rain pelts down on us, our clothes completely soaked through. And being this is a road nobody travels on unless it’s to go to the McKenzies, we’re stuck.
“I’ve got nothing,” Joey says.
“My pockets are empty,” I reply.
“Then we wait for him to come to us.”
I shift my gaze to my brother, thankful he’s here.
“She’s pretty, Bubba.”
I roll my eyes and agree. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever come to know.
“Yeah. She is.”
“She’s prickly too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any woman put you in your place like she has.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, still scanning the pasture next to us.
“She’s been through a lot,” I reply.
Joey nods, and to my horror, he stands up and waits.
Another shot rings out, and I feel the bullet fly over my head, missing Joey
completely. He crouches back down and smirks at me.
“He’s a bad shot,” he comments with a boyish grin.
“Dude, don’t do that again. That was stupid!”
“Maybe, but I got a good look at where he fired from. About five hundred yards east.”
He’s on the mother fucking property and nobody knows.
“They don’t know he’s there,” I tell him.
“He’s not there for her. He’s here for you, buddy. He’s wiping out the competition.”
For a moment, I’m relieved. If the pressure is off of her, then it’s for the best. But then Zoey crosses my mind. If I leave her with Emily, she won’t ever forgive me.
“Whose property is this?” he asks, pointing to the pasture behind us.
“Steve’s.”
“Any building we can find shelter in?”
“No, it’s an empty pasture.”
Joey curses.
“Okay. This ditch runs this deep for about a mile back to the main house. Stay low, stay out of sight.”
It feels like Afghanistan all over again, only, it’s raining. I stick close to Joey, stopping every few feet and listening to our surroundings.
We stop when a car stops a few yards ahead of us. I’m ready to pounce. I’m ready to end this fucker once and for all.
35
ARIA
33 weeks pregnant…
“Those were shots,” I say, pacing the dining room of my house. Logan stays with me while Nate and Tanner leave to find Joey and Derek. He watches outside the window, disregarding me completely. I wish he’d say something. I wish he’d tell me they’re all right.
I need to know they’re all right…
“Yeah,” he replies.
That’s it? That’s all he has to say?
“Do you think they’re okay?”
Finally, the sad man turns around to look me eye to eye.
“We’re trained to notice everything around us. Even when we’re running.” He returns to the window. And while he thinks that should satisfy me, it doesn’t to a god damned thing.
“He’s been out of the Navy for a while now…”
“It’s not something that leaves us. Trust me.”
I stand next to him. If he can look out the window and be this calm, maybe it’ll work out for me too.
My body vibrates. I can’t stand the thought of losing them, Derek, more. If I got them killed, I’d give myself up to Charlie to end it all now.
There it is.
It’s that thought that stops me in my tracks.
Would I sacrifice myself for Derek?
The black SUV makes its way down the driveway. I don’t give it another thought as I race to the door and wrench it open. Logan’s beefy hand wraps around my wrist and yanks me back.
“Don’t go out there. Hold on.”
We watch through the front window. Tanner and Nate hop out and open the passenger doors. Derek hops out, along with Joey. Relief washes over me and I feel Logan relax slightly next to me.
They’re soaking wet from head to toe. Their clothes are muddy and clinging to their cut bodies. They talk for a moment outside and make their way inside. I launch myself into Derek’s arms and squeeze the life out of him.
“I’m okay, Ace.”
Tanner smirks and moves back over to the computer.
“What happened?” Logan asks.
Joey regards me for a moment, turning over if they want to tell him with me in the room.
“Sniper, two miles down the road. He’s a terrible shot.”
“I couldn’t see him, but I saw where the shots are coming from.”
He approaches the map that lies open on the table and points to the exact spot where they were ambushed.
“What’s over there?” Nate asks.
When it registers, my blood runs cold.
“The treehouse,” I murmur and meet Nate’s eyes. “It was JJ’s and Chris’s when they were younger. It hasn’t been used in years, but there is a roof on it and it’s hidden in the woods.”
Nate nods.
“Archer, Hawthorn, sit this one out. Shower. Barnes, Novak, you’re with me. Novak, can you get any satellite images of that area?”
He nods, but I know they’re not going to find him.
“He’s going to change his location,” I tell him. “If he saw you pick them up, he’ll know he didn’t kill them.”
“He doesn’t have time to move anywhere else,” Derek pipes in. “There’s literally nothing else around there. Unless he had a car, which I doubt since the only way in and out is by the main house. He would’ve been seen.”
And there haven’t been any helicopters.
“What else is around there?” Nate asks.
I wrack my brain, trying to think of the other hideouts I told him about.
“He could’ve slipped through the fencing and had a getaway car,” Tanner offers.
“You’re thinking one of the associates?” Nate asks.
“His people are loyal. It’s possible he’s been on the run with someone,” I reply.
“Regardless, we need to search the treehouse.” Nate turns to Logan and Tanner. “Suit up. Let’s go.”
While the flurry of men arm themselves and rush out the door, Joey and Derek stand quietly, dripping on the hardwood flooring in the middle of my dining room.
“I’m sorry,” I tell them, looking them both in the eye.
“Ace…”
“Ms. McKenzie, the apologizing stops here.”
I freeze at Joey’s authoritative voice. For a moment, I’m transported back to the apartment, awaiting my punishment.
“You’re ours now,” Joey says, his voice softening.
“What?”
I shift my gaze to Derek who grins. “Just like Heidi was ours,” he says. “Heidi was our sister. She was Logan’s fiancé.”
“Yeah. You’re Bubba’s, and we’re not letting anything happen to you. We’ve already lost too many people we care about.”
With a nod, he disappears up the stairs. Derek shivers in the cool air. He motions for me to follow him. He laces his fingers with mine and leads me outside, through the rain and into his house.
Locking the door behind him, we shuffle to the bathroom, leaving a trail of sopping wet clothes behind us. Derek turns the shower on, and while he leans over, my eyes follow the sharp contours of his back.
It’s so picture perfect, like he was chiseled by an artist. Unlike me, his back is scar free, save for the one on his right arm…one I hadn’t noticed before. We step inside the shower, and bask in the heat. He lowers himself in the tub, and I straddle his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and breathing in his scent.
“I was worried about you,” I admit while the water pelts my back. I feel his lips curl into a smile on my breasts.
“I live to see another day, Ace.”
“If anything happened to you…I was ready to go back to Charlie—”
His head whips up and his hands cradle my face.
“Promise me, Aria, even if something happens to me, you won’t go back to him.” The look in his eyes is feral, urgent. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. “No matter what happens, you can’t go back to him. Your safety is what matters.”
“And what about yours?” I ask softly, gently licking the pad of his thumb that’s tracing my bottom lip.
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me.” He kisses me deeply, like he’s trying to coax it out of me. That I won’t do anything stupid that will make his sacrifice in vain.
“I know you’re staying with Annie, but what do you think about sleeping over?”
“Tonight? Sure, I guess—”
“No, I mean…every night.”
My heart stops in my chest.
“Derek…”
“It would give me peace of mind that you’re safe. You don’t have to sleep in my bed if you don’t want to. Though, I hope you do…”
I giggle nervously.
“For a f
ew nights,” I agree. “But I don’t want to leave Annie all alone.” He nods.
“Okay.”
A few hours later, when we’re showered and in fresh, dry clothes, we meet back at my house. The boys who left to scout are in clean clothes and are deep in thought when we walk in. Nate nods to me and eyes Derek, speaking their own telepathic language I’m not privy to.
“Treehouse was empty, just like you thought.”
“Did you find anything?” I ask.
“Other than the shells he left behind, no. The rain probably damaged fingerprints, but I’m sending them to the lab regardless.”
“So…what do we do now?” I ask.
“Stay vigilant. We’ll continue with property searches, and I’ll start showing his picture around town to see if anyone recognizes him. You need to stay put. Maybe talk to Jo about working from home for a bit until we can catch him.”
While the boys gather around the dining room table and talk their legal jargon about the case, I raid the fridge and pantry and start making dinner. The simplest thing I can make is spaghetti since I have everything for it. While my sauce is simmering, I make garlic butter for garlic bread.
After about an hour, a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist. “Smells good, Ace.”
“Thank you.”
“What are your plans tomorrow?” Nate calls to me from the dining room.
“I have my amniocentesis at Dr. Cash’s office.”
The room comes to an awkward silence as they silently figure out who will accompany me.
“What time?” Derek finally pipes up.
“Um, two o’clock. But it’s okay. I can have my mom come with me.”
“One of us needs to be with you too,” Nate reminds me.
I timidly glance to Derek who turns the decision over in his head. He waits for my response, but I’m terrified to ask him. What if this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back? What if this is moving too fast?
“I can come with you if you want me to,” Derek offers softly, so only I can hear. “It doesn’t have to be weird. I can wait in the waiting room.”
“Um…okay.”
Suddenly, the tension hangs in the air like ivy growing on the side of an abandoned house. I stay in the kitchen, avoiding Derek.
Make Me Dream (The Sage Creek Series Book 1) Page 27
