Reparation

by Kristin Harte

  See? Smart. “I love you, honey. No matter what.”

  She felt stiff as I wrapped my arms around her. I couldn’t blame her. That answer had been shit, but I wasn’t ready to lay everything out for her. Not yet. I needed to hold her, to know she was safe. Then I could throw a big old wrench into the gears of our life together.

  “Tell me.” She tugged on my hair, kissing my neck as she whispered again, “Tell me.”

  There wasn’t enough breath in my lungs. “I have to go away for a few days.”

  “Why?”

  I shook my head, refusing to lie to her. Not willing to tell her either. “I’ve got Finn coming to stay here at the house with you.”

  “Alder.” An admonishment on her lips. One that hurt more than I thought it could.

  I grabbed her face and tugged her closer, pressing my lips against her ear. “You know I can’t tell you. I can’t bring you into this.”

  She gripped my wrists, shaking. Trembling. “When?”

  “Tonight. Soon.”

  “Okay.”

  And that was it—one word, and I had her approval. Her trust. Her…everything. I didn’t deserve it. But she knew what sort of man I was—knew when we got together that I was a soldier. A protector. She’d watched me almost as much as I’d watched her for those three years where we circled one another. She came into this relationship knowing I’d do anything to protect her.

  And I would.

  Anything.

  “C’mon,” she said with a sigh when I didn’t offer up more information. “I made dinner. Let’s get you fed before you have to go do…whatever.”

  I snagged her wrist before she could walk away. “You all right, honey?”

  “I will be. Once you’re back home with me. Safe.”

  Yeah, I understood that.

  Dinner was a quiet affair, just the two of us trying hard not to think about what was coming. Afterward, I loaded the dishwasher and scrubbed the pans. Normal—nothing unusual to that except the suffocating tension surrounding us. When Finn arrived, he took one look at Shye and disappeared into the entertainment room, claiming he needed to check the scores on some game. I had a feeling he was simply trying to give us space, so I let him go without another word and headed upstairs to pack. Shye followed me, silent. Watchful. Worried.

  I checked my jump bag for anything that might be missing and tossed it on the bed. Then I went for my weapons. Thankfully, I had most of those organized in such a way that I could grab a bag or a trunk and take the whole damn thing with me. But there were a few, a handful of items, that were stored separately since they received so little use. A few explosives, some night vision equipment, and armored body wear got added to the pile. My just in case things go to shit section, as it were.

  Shye must have been thinking along the same lines. She suddenly came up behind me, her little body wrapping around mine. Her arms snaking their way across my chest and her head nestling against my spine.

  “I love you, Alder.”

  My heart nearly cracked under the sweetness of those words, and I grabbed one of her hands to pull it to my lips. One kiss, two. Clinging to her as much as I could. “I love you too, honey. More than anything in the world.”

  “You don’t need to do this.”

  I turned around, needing to see her face. To meet her eyes. No matter how much the tears in them killed me. “I do, though. It’s time to clean up the last of this mess, and I’m the only man to do that. Okay?”

  Her goddamned lip trembled, shattering something inside of me into pure pain. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t.”

  “What if you don’t make it home?”

  “I will. No matter what, I’ll make it home to you. Always.” I pulled her into my arms, practically cradling her small body against my chest. Meaning every word of my promise to her. “I’m doing this for us, Shye. And once it’s over—once I know you’re safe—I’m going to marry you, and we’re going to spend the rest of our lives wrapped up just like this. You and me. And maybe a dog.”

  She snorted a sort of laugh. “You think so, huh?”

  “I know so, though the dog is only a possibility. I didn’t like Rex taking so much of your time when we had him those few days.” I gave her a soft kiss, wanting a taste of her but holding back. Knowing she needed words more right then. Serious ones—no more joking around. “I’ll take care of the threat against you, then we can begin our lives together. Once I do my job as your man.”

  “Oh, Alder.” She rose up to kiss me again, to lay the softest press of her lips against mine before dropping back down. “I’d marry you today if you asked.”

  That, at least, was a bright spot to my day. “I’d ask you right now if I had this shit handled. So, be ready, beautiful. I’ll have a question for you when I come home.”

  I grabbed my bags, knowing it was time to get rolling. Deacon would be waiting for me at the Jury Room. The sooner I left, the sooner I got shit handled. And the sooner I could come home to my girl and the life I’d always wanted.

  Shye followed me to the front door and out onto the porch. Watching as I loaded up my truck. Looking like a goddamned angel leaning against the post at the top of the stairs as the last of the sunlight peeking over the mountains and trees bathed her in a golden glow.

  How was I supposed to say goodbye to her?

  How could I not, knowing what was lurking in the shadows?

  Once I had my truck ready to go, I hurried back to the porch. Back to her. I gave her one last deep kiss—making sure to run my hands over her ass just because I could—before pulling away. Before walking down the steps. Before leaving her. But I’d be coming back, and then…

  “Be ready, honey.”

  “For what?”

  I shot her a grin. “For me to ask you to marry me the second I come home.”

  “Oh, I will be, but you’d better be ready too.”

  “What for?”

  She spun on her heel and flounced her way back toward the door, only answering me once she was practically inside again. “For me to say yes.”

  I couldn’t hold back my grin. Yeah, I’d be ready for that. There was just one obstacle in my way, and I’d be taking care of that. It was time.

  Time to kill her stepbrother.

  Chapter Five

  “Well, ain’t this the perfect little hideaway?” Deacon looked out the side window, his face in shadow. “This guy set us up good, didn’t he?”

  “He sure did.” I turned the corner one last time before parking along the curb on a quiet stretch of residential street one block over from our goal. “Let’s go on foot for now. We’ll come back for the stuff.”

  No sense giving our quarry a heads-up that something was going on—taillights were hard as hell to hide.

  “Sounds like a plan.” Deacon hopped out of the truck, shutting the door quietly as he looked around the dark and nearly deserted neighborhood. Yeah. Our guy had set up his own murder well, even if he didn’t know it yet.

  Pistol, aka Colt, aka dead man walking, lived in a single-story ranch house just outside the city limits of Boulder. His place sat back from the street with large, overgrown bushes all around it and huge trees shading most of the property. Shabby would have been a good way to describe the property—neglected worked too. He fit right in, though. The neighborhood itself had obviously taken a turn for the worse over the years as there were plenty of empty homes lining his street, along with ones that looked to be in need of some serious rehab.

  Lucky for us, our research had discovered there was an empty place right across the road from Pistol’s. Like most of the houses on the street, our temporary home sat back from the road and was shaded by large, old trees and overgrown bushes. I doubted anyone could even see the place from the street. The situation was one we would have wished for back in Special Forces—easy move-in, easy access to the target for monitoring, easy extraction. The only hard part would be having the patience to wait for the right time to s
trike. This was no standard government mission—this involved my woman, and finding the control not to go racing across the street to snap the neck of the fucker who instilled fear in her heart was probably the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.

  Deacon handled the actual break-in—he always had been handy that way—so I took care of humping the equipment in, cutting through yards and staying off the sidewalks, just in case. As soon as we’d gotten ourselves relatively settled, we set up our equipment for capturing pictures, video, and sound from Pistol’s place. Legal? Hell no. Neither was what I planned to do to him once we had enough intel to make our move.

  The next morning, as Pistol headed off to his weekly lunch meeting with his club president—thank you, Gage, for all your research—I snuck inside his place to install a few bugs. I didn’t think we’d get anything useful from them, but verifying targets and intel was old hat to Deacon and me. Almost habit. We’d listen and watch for a day or two before taking action.

  Which meant time away from my girl, and that didn’t exactly put me in the best mood. Something my partner in this endeavor didn’t appreciate.

  That first full day was a long one.

  “Here,” Deacon said on that first morning in the house as he shoved a cup of coffee and a donut from one of those chain places in my face. “I picked up breakfast while on my perimeter watch.”

  No way that coffee was as good as Shye’s. “I’m not hungry.”

  “No, but you’re an asshole. Have some sugar—maybe your mood will improve.”

  The only thing that would improve my mood was finishing this mission and getting back home to my girl. An impossibility at the moment. I couldn’t even text her without worrying about her somehow being tied to this. No one could know we were in Boulder—according to our friends and Shye, we were in Vegas for a guys’ weekend away. We even had Bishop making a few purchases along the way with a couple of credit cards we’d sent him, just to cover our bases. If anyone ever asked, there was a paper trail that Alder Kennard and Deacon Manns were hanging out on the Strip. So long as no one went looking for camera feeds, what happened in Vegas would stay in Vegas.

  So, yeah. I was cranky. Deacon was likely tired of dealing with me already.

  I took the fucking coffee and donut. “Thanks.”

  “That’s better.” He took a sip of his coffee before settling into his spot against the front window. He would have liked to be higher up—a second-story window or the roof, even—but we didn’t have that option with the house we were squatting in. No matter. If the time came, he’d get a shot off. That wasn’t what we wanted—I preferred to deal with the bastard face-to-face. Let him see what was coming for him instead of giving him the gift of a quick death. Plus, shooting across a street, no matter what sort of noise suppressing device Deacon had on that long-range rifle, could attract attention. We definitely didn’t want that, but I’d take Pistol out any way I could. So long as neither Deacon nor I could be pinned with his murder, I figured it’d be a good kill. I’d rather make it a perfect one, though.

  “Think Camden’s coming back?” Deacon asked out of the blue, tearing my attention from the house across the street.

  “Yeah,” I said after giving the question the thought it deserved. “Someday. He’s as Justice as they come.”

  “What happened to him…it changes a man. Might make him a different person than you know.”

  True. The Soul Suckers had burned down Camden’s home while he’d been out, trapping his wife inside and killing her in the process. We’d taken out one of the fuckers who’d done it, but the other—a Soul Sucker with the road name Coyote—was still out there. Camden knew it, knew one of the men responsible for Leah’s death was still breathing, and that fact had eaten at him until he’d snapped. The scar from Leah’s murder still ran deep with me. I couldn’t even imagine how deep it ran with him. If those fuckers had gotten to Shye like they’d tried…

  “Fuck.” I shook my head when Deacon looked up. “Just…worried about Shye.”

  “Finn’s with her.”

  My youngest brother—one of a set of twins—and a former drug addict. “Yeah.”

  And yet, doubt ate at me—was I doing the right thing? Was Shye safe? Had I made good decisions for her, for the town, for everyone? The death of Camden’s wife had thrown me for a loop, and Camden putting the blame of that death on me before he’d left town had put a substantial chink in my confidence. What if all my decisions were wrong? What if—

  “Stop it.” Deacon pointed a finger at me when I looked his way. “I know you too fucking well and can almost smell your thoughts burning up in that head of yours. Stop doubting yourself. No one could have predicted what happened to Shye’s trailer or Camden’s house. No one. Not even the great and powerful Alder Kennard.”

  Jackass. “I should have left you with Shye and brought Finn with me. At least he doesn’t talk as much.”

  “Yeah, but then I’d be alone with your woman.”

  “You saying you’d try to steal her from me?”

  “A man can’t steal what doesn’t want to be stolen. But I’m one charming motherfucker. Even Felicia says so.”

  A woman from Rock Falls whom Deacon had been spending a little time with. “You’ve had what…three dates? I’d hold off on assuming your charm is working.”

  “I’ll have you know sleepovers are happening. I’ve got this in the bag.”

  “Yeah, well…bags rip, motherfucker. You’d better be reinforcing that thing.”

  “That what you do with Shye? Reinforce?”

  My girl didn’t seem to need to be reminded of how much she meant to me, but I still did it. Every day. “Damn right, it is.”

  “You’re whipped.”

  “So be it. I’m happy.”

  “See? I told you the sugar would put you in a better mood.” He shot me a grin before taking another sip of his coffee and adjusting his rifle to sight down the scope. Christ, the man had attitude to spare. And I was the luckiest fucker on the planet for having him by my side.

  “You think Finn’s going to stay sober?” I asked, breaking the silence as the sun began to sink below the treetops. We’d been at this all day—watching, waiting, listening to the nothing of another man’s life. We hadn’t learned anything new except Pistol liked lemons in his water and peanuts in his beer. Vital, this shit. Totally vital.

  Deacon, lounging half under the front window, shrugged, not taking his eyes off the house across the street. “Depends on how bad he wants it.”

  “Seems to want it pretty bad.”

  “Seems to. For now.” He sat up a little, cracking his neck. “You worried about something in particular?”

  “Anabeth.” Our other brother’s girl. Bishop and Anabeth had been hot and heavy back in school, but then she’d disappeared on him. I knew how much that had gutted him because I’d been the one to pick his sorry ass up out of the Las Vegas gutter after he’d tried tracking her down. She’d come back recently, and we finally knew she’d left because of her and Finn’s drug use. Bishop worried about Finn dragging her back into that life—my worries went in the other direction.

  “She doesn’t use.”

  “I know that.” I did. I knew it. And yet… “But there’s a memory there each person is dealing with, and there’s also Bishop’s anger. I’ve never seen him as pissed as the day he punched Finn.”

  “Not to condone violence—” Deacon shot me a sarcastic sort of smile “—but Finn deserved that shot. If for nothing else than keeping her drug use secret from B. Finn knew Bishop wanted to marry that girl—that goes beyond friendship. The code between married people surpasses everything.”

  “Even between brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Between brothers-in-arms?”

  His face went serious. “Yeah, it does. I know where I sit when it comes to Shye. She’ll always outrank me with you. I know it, I accept it, and I’m thrilled you found her. She’s a part of you, and I’ll do anything to keep her safe f
or you.” He rose to his feet and stretched. “Except sit on this hard floor for another goddamned second. My ass is never going to forgive me for this.”

  The man was king of the subject change, but his words still hit home. “You know I’d feel the same way if things were reversed.”

  “I do. Which is why I’m glad I don’t have anyone yet—you’d be all demanding and shit to keep her safe. It’d drive me crazy.” He patted me on the shoulder as he walked past. “I’m grabbing a pillow to sit on. My ass deserves it.”

  Yeah. It did. As did the rest of him—he deserved the best because he was the best friend a man could ask for. And he always would be.

  I was going to kill Deacon.

  “Seriously, though. Shye’s just so small.”

  “Deacon.”

  “I just don’t understand it. You’re so much bigger than she is. How does it work?”

  “Christ. I’m not talking about this.”

  Deacon rose to his feet and hurried out of the room, leaving me alone for the first time in a number of hours. He returned way too soon, dropping a pad of paper and a marker in my lap. “What the fuck is this?”

  “You said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  My sex life with Shye? Not a bit. “Yeah. So?”

  “So, don’t talk. Draw. Stick figures will do. I need to understand the logistics of how—Ow. Fuck, man, that hurt.”

  I flipped the pad of paper off my lap and grinned, pretty fucking proud of hitting my target dead on. “You’re not the only one with good aim.”

  Deacon rubbed his forehead before bringing his hand down to look at it. “You threw that with the cap off.”

  “Sure did.”

  “That’s permanent marker.”

  Not really. He’d get that black slash off eventually. “Don’t ask about my sex life.”

  Day two passed much as day one had with one massive change. Pistol had company.