by Nicole Helm
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice as dangerous as a blade.
“When you were doing your CIA internship,” Nina managed to choke out. “I was going to classes at the community college and living in a little apartment in Sioux Falls. I worked at a coffee shop and...” She felt a wave of dizziness wash over her and knew she should have taken his or Liza’s suggestion to lie down seriously.
Everything hurt and now she felt nauseous with it, but she could hardly stop. “Ace walked in. Like he was any other customer. I only knew him because of the pictures you’d showed me of him.” Before that moment, she’d thought it sweet, if a little unnecessary, that Cody insisted she knew what Ace looked like and made sure she hid if she ever saw him.
Then he’d walked into that coffee shop and she’d known Cody had been right all along. She’d frozen, not run away like Cody had always told her to. Ace’s gaze had landed on her and Nina had known a true fear she hadn’t had since she’d been a little girl unable to wake up her unconscious parents.
It had been worse somehow in that coffee shop because she thought she’d been safe and happy up until that moment. At home, her first home, fear was all she’d ever known.
And suddenly it had come back.
“I was the only one behind the counter, so I couldn’t run away like you’d always told me to. He ordered coffee and a scone.” She could still see it all in her mind’s eye, like a movie.
Ace had smiled at her, treated her like any other customer might. Still she’d known. And the more he’d acted normal—paid his tab, sat down at a table and pretended to enjoy his scone and the scenery—the more she’d turned into a jumpy, scared mess.
“He didn’t do anything. Just ordered and ate and left, but when I went out to my car after my shift ended, there he was.”
Nina left out the detail where he’d been holding a knife. Not threateningly exactly. He’d played with it, but Nina had known it was a threat no matter how out in the open they were.
“It was still light out, though not by much. People came and went. No one... I guess I could have run away or yelled, but he didn’t do anything. He just talked.”
It seems my youngest son has a soft spot for you, Nina Oaks—for you and the law. I don’t plan on allowing him any vulnerability.
“And what did he say?” Cody asked. She knew him well enough, even seven years later, to realize he was trying to sound tough and unaffected while he was anything but.
Nina paused. It was so long ago he hardly needed all the details. “Nothing much. It wasn’t threatening so much as a warning. He didn’t want you distracted, he said. He pretended to be a concerned father. I knew he wasn’t, and he made sure I knew that whatever he said, his true intent was to threaten me into staying away from you.”
“That was why you broke up with me.” He lifted a negligent shoulder. “So?”
“No, that isn’t why I broke up with you, Cody.” She wouldn’t let it hurt that he’d think she was so weak as to have a threat work on her. She’d been too stupid at the time—too sure Cody would handle it.
Until...
He gave her a disbelieving look, which didn’t surprise Nina in the least.
“I went back to my apartment and started packing just like he told me to. I thought I could get home or at least to Bonesteel. If I could get to your brothers, I knew they’d help me out and I thought... I had it in my head once you heard, you’d come home.”
“I would have.”
Nina nodded. “I know. So I was packing up all my stuff and I realized when I started throwing my toiletries in a bag that I hadn’t... Well, that I might be pregnant.”
“Why did that change anything?”
Everything. “I had to stop thinking about myself and what I wanted and focus instead on what my own child would need.”
“You decided my own child didn’t need me,” he said, his control slipping bit by bit. “You decided that you’d protect her on your own,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “You made those decisions and what do you want me to say now? What do you want me to feel?”
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t... I just wish you could understand that I didn’t want to. I loved you more than anything. I just didn’t see a way she could be safe if anyone with the last name Wyatt knew she existed.”
“I would have protected her. Why is it different? You thought I’d come home if I knew my father had threatened you, but you didn’t think I’d do everything in my power to keep my own child safe?”
“What did he care about me, Cody? I was a nobody, doing nothing special. But he threatened me. Just because you loved me. What would he do to a child who was half yours? Part his?”
“Brianna is nothing of his,” Cody replied so viciously she flinched.
“To us,” Nina managed to return though she was starting to shake. “To her. But to Ace? He’d consider her his.”
“If I’d known any of this, I would have killed him when I had the chance.”
Her heart twisted. He believed that, but she knew it wasn’t true. Whatever had happened, whatever little she knew about it, she knew Cody wouldn’t, maybe couldn’t kill in cold blood. To protect someone he loved? Sure. But not just to end something.
A tear slipped over her cheek, but she had to get this out. She didn’t think they could ever get on the same page—for Brianna—if they didn’t really get this out. Maybe he’d never understand, but it had to be out in the open.
“If you’d known, you would have wound up dead before Brianna was even born.” She hadn’t wanted to tell him this part of it. It was cowardly, she knew, but she wanted to protect her heart—the one that had never stopped loving him. “I don’t think you understand I was trying to protect you as much as her.”
His face went slack a moment before he pulled himself back together, as if he sucked in all those emotions and shoved them behind a blank facade. Locked them up and hid them away—far away from her.
“Go take a nap, Nina. I’ll let you know when I have the details for the meeting.”
Then he walked away. Again.
And she was too tired to go after him.
* * *
CODY WORKED HIMSELF to the bone on ranch chores the rest of the day. He checked in with Shay but only reached her voice mail. He tested all his security—that no one on the ranch knew he’d set up.
Grandma believed Ace wouldn’t step foot on the ranch because of some curse she’d put on him back when her daughter had still been alive and not totally convinced of Ace’s evil. Cody’s belief in curses didn’t extend far enough to think his father could be scared by one.
So, years ago, on a variety of visits, he’d slowly begun installing a complicated and extensive network of security measures around the entire property.
He’d never even told Jamison about it. He supposed he should now. It was the day for telling people things.
He’d never tell Grandma. She’d skin him alive. Once upon a time he’d thought her invincible, but these days, whether it be her age or his, he understood all too well she was also a target. Maybe Ace did believe in her curse, since he fancied himself something of a god, but that only meant he’d find a way to make Pauline pay.
Because Ace Wyatt was determined to make every one of his sons pay for the betrayal of leaving, the insult of going into law enforcement, which he thought was the lowest occupation known to man.
You didn’t cross Ace.
Worst of all, Ace had the patience to make you wait years, or even decades, before he decided it was time for retribution.
Cody kept thinking about the day he’d saved Jamison and Liza from Ace’s clutches. He’d had a gun, held it to Ace’s head. He could have pulled the trigger. He could have ended everything.
But all he’d been able to think in the moment, thanks to Jamison, was that’d only ma
ke him like Ace.
Sometimes Cody feared it was in his DNA, in his bones, to be too hard. To be cruel. To be evil. Maybe it was.
But he chose, time and time again, not to give in to it.
Cody stood outside, looking up at a starry sky, freezing and yet not being able to bring himself to go inside. Because if he continued that choice of good over evil, he had to find a way to handle Nina. To be kind. To find some form of understanding.
He just kept playing the conversation over and over in his head. The way she’d cried. The way she’d clearly left some things out to spare his feelings.
This terrible thing inside of him wondered if she was right. If she’d told him about being pregnant and being threatened by Ace, he would have gone off half-cocked and probably gotten himself killed.
Had she really made the right choice? He supposed they’d never know. Cody had to live with that decision either way.
He blew out a breath and slipped inside. He heard Grandma and Dev talking in low tones in the kitchen and bypassed it, instead heading upstairs. The bedroom Nina was staying in had the door closed with no light coming from underneath it.
He inched down the hall toward voices. When he looked into the open door to the room Brianna and Gigi were sharing, he found Liza on one of the small beds—a girl on either side of her. She was reading a story complete with dramatic theatrics, and the girls were eating it up.
When she finished the book and looked up, she smiled at Cody. “It’s getting late, girlies. Come on, Gigi. Let’s go brush your teeth.”
Gigi grumbled, but she got out of her bed and followed Liza out into the hall. Cody smiled weakly at Brianna, who looked so small with her hair wet and her pink sparkly pajamas.
“Maybe you’d let me read it to you?”
Brianna smiled brightly at him, holding up a book. “Will you do the voices?”
“Uh... Sure. I guess. I can’t promise I’ll be as good as Liza.”
“Even Mom isn’t,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.
Cody couldn’t help but smile at that. Gingerly, he slid onto the bed next to her. He took the book she handed him and began to read. He felt foolish, but he tried to do voices for the dragon and the princess. The more Brianna laughed, the easier it was to get into it.
When he finished the story, Brianna was snuggled into his side. “I’m glad we’re here,” she said.
Cody gave her a gentle squeeze. “Me too.”
“Did you know when Liza and Jamison get married that Gigi will be my aunt?” she laughed, then looked up at him as her expression sobered. “Can we all live together now? Forever? Uncle Dev is going to teach me how to ride horses.”
Cody didn’t know how to answer the question. Not by a long shot. “I can teach you to ride horses.”
“Really? Uncle Dev said you’re not very good.”
“Uncle Dev is full of sh—Full of...it.” Uncle Dev. This was his life. And weirdly this life he’d never planned to have—the ranch and living under his grandmother’s roof—was exactly the life he wanted to give her.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen yet, Brianna. The one thing I know is I’m going to keep you safe, no matter what. Whether I’m with you or not, I want you to know I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe. I promise you that, and I do not break my promises.”
“The bad men are coming again,” Brianna said, looking down at her book.
Cody noted it wasn’t a question, and there was a weary resignation to her voice. Too resigned for a girl of six.
But he’d been, hadn’t he? He’d known exactly the kind of danger his life held for him at this age. He should keep her here, resigned and weary so she didn’t get any ideas. So she didn’t make any mistakes.
He couldn’t bear it. “What did your mom tell you about the Wyatt brothers?”
Brianna lifted her face, mouth curving just a hint reminding him so much of Nina’s smile he almost couldn’t breathe. He’d loved Nina more truly and fiercely than he’d ever imagined possible, and no matter how the years passed he couldn’t convince himself it had been an illusion or even teenage idiocy.
“She always told me stories that you all were brave knights.”
Cody nodded. “And brave knights always win, Brianna. In the end, good wins.”
He hadn’t always believed that, but now that he had a daughter, he had to. For her.
Chapter Eight
It was happening too fast. Nina had hoped to have weeks before she’d have to confront Ace. But Cody had tersely informed her they’d be going to speak with Ace tomorrow.
That had thrown her for a loop this morning, made her edgy and irritable. Even more so when no one would let her do anything. Grandma Pauline insisted she sit whenever she walked into the kitchen. Liza shooed her away from the laundry. Even Brianna wouldn’t play with her, telling her to lie down—she was going to feed the chickens with Gigi and Grandma Pauline after breakfast.
So Nina wandered the house achy and irritable. When she heard low male voices, she moved toward the kitchen.
The Wyatt brothers sat around the kitchen table. They made quite a sight together. Tall, broad men—Gage was in his uniform, Tucker had a gun holster strapped to his chest. Dev was in ranch clothes, Brady and Jamison in plainclothes, as was Cody. They all looked incredibly grave.
“She’ll have to have a script of some kind,” Tucker was saying, spreading his hands out on the table. “We have to be careful and meticulous.”
Gage shook his head. “A script would be too obvious. She’d sound stilted and Ace would smell a rat.”
“He can’t smell a damn thing past his ego,” Dev muttered irritably.
Nina stood in the entrance to the kitchen and blinked. They were making plans. About her. Without her.
“What is this?” she demanded.
No one responded. Cody lifted a hand and offered a dismissive wave.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever wanted to punch someone as much as she did in that moment.
“If we don’t go the script route, then we should practice,” Tucker was saying, looking around the table to meet each of his brothers’ gazes.
But not Nina’s.
“What? Like role-play?” Gage returned with a snort.
“It’s an effective training tool,” Cody retorted, clearly unamused. “Practicing what you’re going to say can give you a confidence. It can prepare you for the different ways a conversation can go.”
“Nothing’s going to prepare anyone for Ace,” Dev said gruffly.
“I have faced Ace before,” Nina noted.
“He’s going to eat her up and spit her out and give us nothing,” Dev continued bitterly without even glancing at Nina.
“I am right here.”
Gage smiled up at her. “Of course you are, darling.”
He didn’t seem to register the killing look she sent him. So she did the only thing she could think to do.
She walked over to Grandma Pauline’s dinner bell, which she knew didn’t get used too often anymore. Never with a tableful of people already sitting down. She grabbed the wooden spoon off the hook—as this wooden spoon was specifically meant for striking the bell for stubborn, hardheaded men.
She struck the spoon against the bell as hard as she could.
It echoed and clanged and all six men flinched and looked in her direction.
“Is that all it takes to get your attention then?” she asked sweetly.
“We don’t have much time to plan,” Cody said.
“No, we don’t. As I’m the main player in this little act, shouldn’t I have a seat at this table? Or am I too feeble to handle the particulars of what you are asking me to do?”
All six men shifted uncomfortably. They looked at Jamison as if to say you handle her. She stared him down, slapping the spoon against her palm jus
t like Grandma Pauline did when she was waiting for an explanation of poor behavior.
“He’s our father,” Jamison replied calmly, though he eyed the spoon suspiciously. “We know him as best as he can be known. It should be our plan, Nina.”
“But I’m the one who has to put the plan in play, which means I deserve a spot at the table.”
Both Jamison and Cody’s mouths firmed, but Tucker stood. “She’s right, of course.” He smiled and motioned for her to take his seat.
She didn’t smile at him, since it felt all too placating, but she took the seat because she deserved it.
Then they all looked at her expectantly and she realized she hadn’t thought this part through. She’d just been mad that they weren’t including her. She didn’t actually have any ideas.
“So?” Cody asked, and she didn’t miss the edge of irritation in his voice.
She smiled sarcastically at him, brain scrambling for something intelligent to say. She made a big show of clasping her hands together in front of her on the table and cleared her throat. “Well. I haven’t heard everything you six have cooked up without me. Why don’t you fill me in on how far you are first?”
“We haven’t gotten anywhere,” Gage said, and he was grinning at Cody like he was amused at his brother’s clear irritation. “We’ve argued.”
“How like you all,” Nina returned. Which earned her a chuckle from Gage and no one else.
“We need a game plan,” Cody said sourly. “We’re trying to agree on one.”
“Before you plan any games, which this isn’t, you need to start with the goal.”
“The goal is to get Ace to talk, without realizing he’s given us anything,” Jamison said.
Nina nodded. “We’re trying to figure out what he knows. Which means the first step is giving him a darn good reason I’m going to see him. He shouldn’t think we’re trying to get information. He should think we’re trying to prove something. If I’m coming to see him out of nowhere, it has to be solid.”
“He shot you. Isn’t that enough?” Dev replied.
Nina shook her head and noticed Cody was doing the same. Well, at least they were on the same page with some things. “He didn’t shoot me. In fact, I killed the man who did. Right?” She looked at Tucker for confirmation even though she had no doubts. But he was the detective on the case.
