by Nicole Helm
Cecilia blinked at him. “That’s what I was going to say.”
“Then we’re on the same page.”
She turned in her seat to face him, to study him as though she were somehow confused by their agreement. “You’re not going to pull the macho you-need-a-man-to-protect-you card?”
“No, in part because you don’t need a man—you just need a partner. But also in part because, if Elijah is anything like Ace, he thinks less of women. Which means you being on your own is going to be impossible for him to resist. It won’t occur to him he could be beaten by a woman. He’s more likely to go after you, most especially if he thinks you’re alone.”
She nodded grimly. “True enough. So, I’ll walk the last block, and you’ll stay here. Can you do that?”
He nodded, though the idea of her walking that last block on her own made him edgy. “You’ll have to watch for anyone who might be following you. Have your phone and your gun and—”
She rolled her eyes. “Duh, Brady.”
“Duh. Really?”
She shook her head, digging through her backpack to pull out a holster. She slid her gun inside. “I’ll walk over and check in. I’m thinking you should stay here till dark so no one at the hotel sees you.”
Brady glanced at the clock. No, that’d be too much time. “You’ll text me the room number and leave the rest up to me.”
“We want everyone to think I’m alone so no hotel employees can give us away if Elijah or his men come sniffing around. You’re hardly inconspicuous.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re—” she waved a hand at him, from his head to his foot on the brake “—big.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Come on. You’re all Wyatt. Tall and broad and it isn’t going to take a genius to put it together. There’s no mistaking a Wyatt.”
He didn’t like it, but she was probably right. Much as he’d rather not admit it, he and his brothers all looked like Ace. Whoever Elijah sent would be able to put it together pretty easily even if they’d never seen Brady.
“He’s after both of us. Maybe we both—”
“Don’t start second-guessing just because you want to protect me, Brady. You were right the first time. If he thinks I’m alone we’re more likely to get Elijah.”
“It’s not about wanting to protect.” He wasn’t sure what it was about, but surely he was more evolved than that.
“My butt.” She slid out of the truck. “Wait until dark,” Cecilia insisted before quietly closing the door.
He did not like being told what to do, and liked even less the high-handed way she’d ended any more discussion on the matter. They were supposed to be partners, working together.
Even if he’d all but forced her into that. Still, she’d agreed. Which meant they had to agree on the next courses of action. Teams agreed on what they were doing.
He could have gotten out of the truck and followed her. He could have driven over to the parking lot. There were a great many things he could do—she wasn’t in charge of him.
But they’d come up with this plan, and he knew it was the best one. Even if it bothered him, on a deep, cellular, not-intellectual level that she was walking by herself, getting a room by herself. He wouldn’t even know if she’d been intercepted.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and tried to talk himself out of all the worst-case scenarios. But worst-case scenarios existed because sometimes the worst case did.
He didn’t have to blow their plan to bits to try and mitigate some potential worst cases. He’d parked on the curb of a pretty deserted street. Empty storefronts, a few with broken windows on the higher stories. There were two cars parked on the street—one in front of him, and one behind. Both were rusted severely, and one had a flat tire, so they likely hadn’t moved in a while.
If he backtracked, there was a narrow alley. He could fit the truck back there, and as long as he made sure the buildings on either side were empty, and it looked like the alley was unused, he could park there without being noticed.
Then he could sneak up to the motel behind the building. Check things out and see if Cecilia had anyone watching her. He hadn’t spotted a tail on the drive over, so he was pretty sure they hadn’t been found yet.
Satisfied with his plan, he took a circular route to the alley—still no tail, and there weren’t many places for one to hide in this deserted part of Dyner. He parked the truck, searched the alley for signs of use, and when he found none, settled his bag on his shoulder and started walking toward the motel.
It was easy to go around back and avoid the parking lot. The motel was a small, old, bedraggled building. It was squat but long, and separated into two sides of rooms with the main office at the end. The back of the buildings abutted a small copse of scraggly-looking trees.
Brady used the trees as cover as he moved toward the motel. From the back it was just a slab of concrete with the tiniest of squares in each unit that were bleary windows that didn’t look like they’d been cleaned in decades.
The two sections of rooms were split by a breezeway in the middle. Brady stopped and watched the narrow space. It would have taken Cecilia some time to not just walk up to the motel office, but also check in. If Brady stayed put and watched the breezeway and Cecilia passed, he’d know her room was on the east side. If she didn’t pass after a certain amount of time, she was likely on the west side.
Unless she’d already gone to her room. But just as he was considering that possibility, Cecilia walked briskly past the breezeway.
He moved out of the woods, careful and alert to the potential of being watched. He moved through the breezeway, looked out just in time to see Cecilia step into the last unit.
He retraced his steps to the back of the building, moved down the length of the east side until he reached the end. He sent her a text telling her to unlock the door.
Her response was about what he expected.
I told you to stay put.
So he repeated his previous text: Unlock the door.
She didn’t reply to that one. He moved around the corner, watching the entire area around him for someone who might be watching the door Cecilia had gone into. She hadn’t just left it unlocked, she’d left it ajar.
He slid inside.
She closed and locked the door behind him, and while her stance was calm, her eyes were fury personified.
“I told you to wait.”
“It was too long to wait. I could have just as easily been spotted in that truck. I haven’t seen any tails or any signs of being watched. Have you?”
She frowned. “No.”
“They haven’t figured us out yet.”
“That only means they’re hanging around the ranches. I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I, but you yourself said we can’t contact Elijah and lure him out. He has to think we’re on the run.” Brady looked around the room. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke and mildew. He was sure the bedding hadn’t been updated since 1990, at best. Everything had a vague layer of grime over it.
“I gave a fake name at the desk,” Cecilia said, pacing the small patch of threadbare carpet. “They didn’t ask for my ID.”
“He’ll be looking for someone with your description, not your name.”
“I know.” She hugged her arms around herself. “I just hate that while we wait for him to find us, he’s going to be harassing our families.”
“Cody will have that covered.”
She didn’t say anything to that, but he could read her doubts. There was no way to assuage them. He had doubts of his own. No matter that Cody had trained with the CIA and been part of a secret group who’s purpose was to take down the Sons, no amount of security could protect everyone 100 percent. Not long-term.
So, they had to focus on the short term. “Tomorrow
, we’ll head east. I’ll check in at the next motel and you’ll hang out in the truck till the coast is clear. We’ll switch off like that—in different directions, buying two or three days in the motels and only staying one. I think he’ll follow you, but if he sends some men after me, it’ll split his resources.”
“You’re not in charge here, Brady. You can’t just stomp in and order me around.”
“I wasn’t ordering, and I most definitely wasn’t stomping.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “Weren’t you?”
“Is there a problem with my plan?”
She made a face—pursed lips, wrinkled nose, frustration personified. “No,” she ground out, clearly irritated.
“Well, then.”
“You’re infuriating,” she said disgustedly.
“I don’t see how.”
“You’re a Wyatt. You wouldn’t.” She plopped herself on the edge of the bed. She sat there like that, looking irritable and pouty. After a few moments it changed. She looked around the room, then narrowed her eyes at him.
After a few more seconds, she smiled, and boy did he not trust that smile.
* * *
THERE WAS NO way to fight Brady when he was right. No one was onto them yet, so it made sense he’d come into the room. Moving to another motel tomorrow and doing the same thing, only with Brady being the one to check in made sense too.
It would work better if they split up, but that would leave them both in danger. It made more sense to be partners in this.
But if he was going to irritate her, she had the right to irritate him right back. So, she smiled. “Guess we’re gonna share a bed tonight.” Because if there was one way to really make Brady uncomfortable it was to acknowledge that little spark of heat between them.
“No.”
“Afraid I’m going to take advantage of you?” she asked sweetly.
His eyes darkened, and it was probably warped, but she shivered a little. She could picture it just a little too easily. Especially now that he’d pinned her to the truck and she’d felt his body against hers.
What she knew now, that she hadn’t known or fully believed back on New Year’s Eve, was that he felt it too. That undercurrent of attraction. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt a buzz quite that potent. She’d always assumed she was immune to that—something about being a cop, being tougher and harder than most of her past boyfriends. They’d all liked the idea of her, but in practice it had never worked.
No man wanted a superior. At best they wanted an equal.
Brady is definitely equal.
“We shouldn’t both sleep at the same time, Cecilia. That’s just common sense.”
Oh, she hated that reasonable, condescending tone. More annoying, the fact he was right when she was just trying to get under his skin. There really was something wrong with her thinking he was so attractive when he was equally as obnoxious.
There was something really pathetic about the urge to needle him when she should let it go. So, he hadn’t listened and stayed in the truck. She had no doubt he’d evaded any kind of detection. Everything was as fine as it could be under the circumstances.
But she wanted to poke at him until he exploded—until she saw some of that reaction she’d seen last night when he’d been angry and incapable of controlling it.
Apparently he was having the same kind of thoughts.
“Would calling the ranch and checking in make you feel better? Check in on your babies—I mean sisters?”
He asked it so blandly she might have missed the direct dig. She might have even let it go if it didn’t make her think she was having the same effect on him that he was having on her. That edginess that left each other incapable of acting reasonably.
When they had to act reasonably. They had to focus on the danger they were in, and first and foremost, keeping Mak safe. “I do not treat them like they’re babies, but maybe I should treat you like you’re one. Or just a cranky five-year-old in need of a nap.”
“It was just a joke, Cecilia,” he said in a bored tone. “Let it go.”
Which of course meant she couldn’t. “I will not let it go. I do not treat them that way. If I’m a little protective, it’s because I’m a cop.”
He rolled his eyes. Rolled. His. Eyes. “Okay.”
She jumped up. “You don’t understand because you Wyatts are all cops. So you don’t have to worry about any of you being naive.” She winced a little. “Or were cops.” A reference to Dev whose injuries had ended his police career after just a few months on the job.
“What does it matter if I think you treat your sisters like toddlers?”
It didn’t. Not at all. But he was purposefully goading her. And she had to be the bigger person. She had to let it go. “It doesn’t matter. At all, in fact.”
“There you go.” Then he reached out and patted her on the head.
Patted her. On the head.
She poked him square in the chest, which was quite the feat when what she really wanted to do was deck him. “Don’t pat me on the head, you pompous jerk.”
“Don’t poke me,” he returned, taking her wrist and pulling her hand away from his chest. But each finger that wrapped around her narrow wrist was like fire.
It was ridiculous and so over-the-top potent, this thing between them. And it was just going to keep happening. Trying to lure Elijah toward them while working together—spending nights in the same room together—the fights would get old, and they would all end in this. Attraction was going to keep leaping up until they dealt with it head-on. One way or another.
She met his gaze. “We can’t pretend this away, Brady.”
He dropped her wrist, his armor clicking into place clear as day. “Watch me.”
Chapter Ten
Pretend. Brady didn’t have to pretend anything away, because this...thing between them was nothing more than weird timing and circumstance. It was just an illusion made up of frustration and fear and danger.
If there was some teeny tiny ember of attraction, it could be easily stomped out.
Once she stopped poking at him.
Why he’d expect her to do that was beyond him. Cecilia was not someone who stepped back from any kind of challenge. She met them head-on. She said things like we can’t pretend this away.
But clearly she had no clue who she was talking to, because there were a great many things he could pretend away. This included. This was at the top of the list.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Cody. “Need to check in,” he muttered to Cecilia without looking her way.
He didn’t watch for her response, so if she had one, it wasn’t verbal. When Cody answered, Brady kept his greeting short.
“What’s the status?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?”
Cody sighed. “You just took off. You and Cecilia. We agreed—”
“We didn’t agree on anything. Have you had any incidents?”
Cody muttered something Brady couldn’t make out, which was probably for the best. “We’ve definitely had some people poking around, but it’s all been pretty weak. I think they know you guys aren’t here, and don’t suspect you left Mak. Unless they’re biding their time.”
“Any word on Elijah himself?”
“No. He’s laying low as far as we’ve been able to figure—without digging too deeply so he might realize we’re looking into him. Where are you?”
“Best if you don’t know.”
“I’ve been in this exact position,” Cody said, his tone serious and grave. “Working together, all of us, was—”
“Something that worked for your situation, and it might in the future work for this one. But right now, we have to keep Elijah away from Mak any way we can. This is the best way.”
Before Cody could respond, the phone was plucked out of his grasp. He turned to scowl at Cecilia.
She had his phone to her ear and a screw you expression on her face. “Cody? Yeah. Listen. Stay away from Elijah. Your priority is Mak. All of you out there—your priority is Mak. You let me and Brady deal with Elijah.”
Whatever Cody said in response must not have met with her approval because she clicked the end button and then tossed his cell on the disgusting bed.
“Mature, Cecilia.”
“I don’t need to be mature, and I don’t need your baby brother’s approval.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “We need Elijah to follow us. That’s it.”
“Did it occur to you I wasn’t seeking approval so much as diplomatically trying to get everyone on the same side without barking out orders?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “We do not have time for every Wyatt and every Knight to get on board. Not right now.”
“And if they go after Elijah themselves? You’re not the only one who does something just because someone tells them not to.”
“They won’t,” she said, as if she actually believed it. “Not only is it not in anyone’s best interest—if they start reaching out to Elijah, it puts us in more danger. He’ll build his forces for a Wyatt showdown. If he thinks we’re working on our own, we have a better chance. Every one of your brothers will come to that conclusion before they try to take something upon themselves, especially with Mak there to remind them.”
She wasn’t wrong. His brothers might not approve of the plan, but they wouldn’t try to interrupt it unless they could guarantee it didn’t put more danger on him and Cecilia. Knowing the Wyatts were involved would no doubt increase the danger, so no matter how they complained about it, they wouldn’t interfere unless they had a safe way of doing it.
“You can admit I’m right at any time.” She smiled at him, all smug satisfaction. Then she moved closer, a saunter if he had to characterize it. With that same look in her eyes she’d had on New Year’s Eve.
