by Nicole Helm
Then. Now.
“I didn’t know how to lead back then. I can’t say I’m glad for the past seven years, that we were apart when we didn’t have to be. I can’t say I’m in any way grateful for what Ace put me—us through. But it gave me something I didn’t have before, and probably never would have found.”
“What?”
She slid over him—a soft, enticing weight as she straddled him. “Courage. Strength.”
“You were always brave.” He found her hips with his hands. “You were always strong. You just hid it.”
She paused above him, but he didn’t. He let his hands roam. Had he ever taken his time with her? They’d been teenagers, forever in a rush toward that magic adulthood when things would feel settled, make sense.
What a joke.
But maybe that just meant it would never feel that way, and for once in his life he had to hold on to the now and enjoy it, believe in it.
He slid his hands up her sides, gentling as he felt the bandage under her shirt. “We’re pretty banged up.”
Fingers traced the bandage on his face.
“Weren’t we always?” she whispered, before kissing him as if the admission they’d been bruised and broken internally all those years ago was too much to bear, even after they’d borne so much these past few years.
“I love you,” she murmured against his mouth, her body moving against his in blissful agony.
He knew he didn’t deserve that—her love, or this, but the same love was inside him, and they had lost so much time. “I love you too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Nina woke up to a throbbing in her side and the feeling that she’d actually slept for more than a few fretful hours. The bed was warm and aside from the pain she was getting used to as being just an everyday part of life, she felt surprisingly good.
If it was a nice day, she and Brianna could...
Reality crashed down not just as she remembered she was in a strange cabin far away from Brianna, but as she realized she was naked.
And so was the man next to her.
She couldn’t roll over on her side, because it would hurt, but she turned her head to study Cody.
He was still fast asleep, one arm thrown above his head showing off the impressive muscle of his bicep. At some point between then and now he’d gotten the tattoo he’d always talked about—the cattle brand Grandma Pauline used at the ranch. A P and an R intertwined, because until Cody’s mother had broken the tradition, everyone in the Reaves family had been given the initials P and R.
Nina had always loved the story. Grandma Pauline bucking societal convention and refusing to take her husband’s name, refusing to act as though he ran the ranch when it was hers. Nina had always been fascinated by the man she’d never met who’d agreed to it—purely out of love.
They’d named their only daughter Patricia Reaves-Henderson. She’d broken Grandma Pauline’s heart by refusing to use the Reaves and going only by Henderson, by refusing to give the name to any of her children.
By loving a madman.
Nina sighed. So many sad stories in the world and she was in the midst of her own, but it didn’t feel sad with Cody next to her. It felt like hope. Life was hard, but there were good things to reach for, hold on to.
Good things to fight for.
The room was dim and Nina realized they’d completely screwed up their sleep schedule and spent most of the day asleep.
The sound of a phone going off in the midst of sleepy silence had Nina jolting and Cody’s arm flashing out grasping for the phone. But his instincts were off as he pawed through nothing but air.
Nina’s heart twisted as she reached over him to the nightstand where his phone vibrated. She took his hand and placed the phone into his palm, sliding her finger across the screen to answer the call for him.
“Hello,” Cody muttered, voice irritated and sleep rasped. Then for the next several minutes he didn’t speak as whoever had called him spoke, the volume too low for Nina to make out any of the words.
Cody kept his expression perfectly neutral. She wanted to touch him, stroke away some of that iron tension inside of him, but she was too afraid of whatever news he was getting.
“All right. Tomorrow then,” he said, not giving away if tomorrow was good or bad. He held the phone to her and she ended the call for him, then set the cell on the nightstand.
He let out a breath. “They’ve been busy.” He turned his face toward her. Then he frowned, whether something new occurred to him or...
“Can you see?”
He blinked a few times and shook his head, making hope launch through her like a spring.
“No,” he said. “But it’s...something is different. Lighter, maybe.”
“Is that good?”
“I don’t... I really don’t know.”
Nina would pray that it was. “Who was on the phone?”
“Brady. Tuck’s got a tail every day, so he’s going to be in charge of making it look like he’s bringing Brianna to us.”
“Won’t he be in danger, like we were, of someone trying to attack him? Especially if they think he has Brianna.”
“They’ve got a plan for that. They’ve got a plan for everything.” He didn’t sound happy about it. He sounded frustrated.
Nina reached out, rubbed her hand against his arm. “You feel...superfluous?”
He shrugged, but it was an irritable move masquerading as ambivalence. “I am superfluous. We wait. They move. The end.” He moved restlessly, inching his way out of bed as he painstakingly felt around for furniture to guide him.
“Let me help you.”
“I don’t need help for every damn thing,” he replied, inching his way down the bed. And he could probably make it out of the room all right, but he was missing a particularly important aspect of getting out of bed.
“You’re going to walk around naked all day?”
His scowl deepened and he said nothing.
“I wouldn’t complain if you did.”
That almost got a smile out of him.
“Let me make you some break... Well, I think it’s past dinnertime. I’m not sure what you’d call this meal. Postsex sustenance, I guess.”
“Stop trying to make me laugh,” Cody grumbled.
She slipped on her clothes before going around to his side of the bed. She took his hand.
“Why? You probably need a laugh.” She picked up his discarded clothes and helped him into them.
“You’ve had plenty of laughs these past seven years?” he returned.
“I’ve tried. For Brianna. We both know bad things happen, terrible things really. We were born knowing that, right? So yeah, I had to figure out how to laugh in spite of it. For Brianna.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and brushed her mouth against his. “So, I’ll do the same for you.”
With only a little fumbling his hands closed over her elbows. Though she knew he couldn’t see her, he stared hard at her as if he could. Maybe his sight was coming back—whatever injury was healing and... Maybe this would all be okay.
Hoping for okay seemed so dangerous. Could Cody really get his sight back, could they be some kind of family, without the threat of Ace? Ever?
It was too much to hope for, but all that hope filled her up until she couldn’t breathe. It didn’t smother the fear inside of her, but it tried.
“Come on. We need to eat something,” she said, her voice tight with all those emotions swirling around inside of her.
Still he stared or whatever it was he was doing, holding her in place. It made her heart beat too hard and her pulse scramble for purchase. What was going on in that head of his?
He opened his mouth as if to say something, something serious and important and she held her breath.
Which allowed her to hear a muffled sound that came f
rom outside. Cody frowned, inclining his head where the sound had come from.
Before Nina could ask what he thought it was, or even make a move to look, Cody’s phone beeped.
“Get my phone, Nina,” he said with a gravity that had her jumping to do just that without asking why.
“There’s a gray box, but it’s blank.”
“Tap it.” He talked her through opening some app that made no sense to her, but once he had walked her through it, four squares appeared on the phone screen. Clearly they were video feeds from some kind of surveillance camera.
“What do you see?” Cody demanded.
Nina shook her head trying to make sense of the boxes. They were black-and-white and she could make out trees on one. She didn’t remember there being very many trees around the cabin when they’d walked up. Maybe in the back there’d been a cluster? But the memory was hazy because she’d been so focused on Cody and getting to the cabin and help.
“I don’t see anything that makes any sense,” she finally said as she could sense Cody growing more and more impatient. “Four squares. One has trees, the rest just look gray.”
“Ironic,” Cody muttered. “Watch the screen.”
“What am I looking...” She trailed off as a shadow appeared on the screen. She couldn’t make it out, but she could tell something was moving just out of sight of the camera.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I just could tell something is moving out there, but it’s not on the screen. Where are these cameras pointed?”
“You’ve got four quadrants. A, front. B, left side. C, right side. D, back. Where was the shadow?”
“D.”
“That’s back. Which area is the shadow in?”
“I... I don’t understand all this.”
“North, east, west or south, Nina?”
“I don’t know!”
“Give me your hand,” he ordered.
She wanted to be petulant and refuse—he couldn’t see her after all, so he couldn’t make her. But there was a shadow, and a noise, and a million other fears pounding through her.
She slid her hand into his. He gripped her hand, pulled her toward him, his other hand finding her other arm. His palms moved up until he gripped her shoulders and then he rested his forehead against hers.
“We’re okay. I’m frustrated because I can’t see. Not at you. Okay?”
She nodded, even if he couldn’t see the movement, he could feel it.
“Just describe to me everything you see, and if I snap about something just remember you can take it out on me later if it makes you feel better.”
“Did you just make a joke?” She was incredulous, not because of the timing—God knew you had to laugh even in awful times or you never would—but because he of all people was joking. Period. Let alone about sex.
“I don’t want to add to this...” He made a vague motion with his hands. “I don’t want to be a jerk, but I can’t see and I’m frustrated so I probably will be. The situation is bad enough without me adding to it, so I’m trying to rein it in. This is my—”
“It isn’t your fault. If it was your fault you’d be purposefully hurting me and Brianna and you’re trying to save us from the man whose fault it is,” she returned, gripping his arm in turn even as he still held her shoulders.
“He’s part of me, Nina. I can’t escape that.”
“Of course you can. If I believed that, I’d have to believe my addict, negligent parents were a part of me I’m helpless to resist, and I’ve never been helpless.”
He shook his head, whether to argue or in exasperation that she had an iron-tight argument, she didn’t know.
“We can talk blame later. Explain the shadow.”
* * *
NINA EXPLAINED WHAT she’d seen on the monitors. Cody bit back his impatience with how hard it was to understand what she’d seen when he couldn’t see.
He couldn’t let himself hope that the fact he seemed to make out some light and some shadow now pointed to the fact he might be healing, the fact he might heal. Because he could just as easily be stuck in this place forever.
And now was not the time to deal with either scenario.
“Do you think someone is out there?”
Cody considered. “Maybe. There are blind spots on the cameras. If someone is out there they don’t want us to know and they know how to avoid detection.” His father’s men hadn’t been that smart before now.
At least the men he could get. Cody had to wonder at that. The Sons were a well-oiled machine. Sure, Ace had lost some of his best men in the explosion a few months ago—including his right-hand man. In fact, the death toll included many of the Sons highest-ranking members.
Who had stepped into that power vacuum? Could it be someone who was happy Ace was in jail?
Was it possible Ace had some reach from prison, but not a particularly large span because the Sons had gone in a different direction?
He and his brothers had been so focused on Ace in particular, had they considered that Ace might not have the Sons full support now that he was behind bars?
Maybe it had taken him time, or his messenger time, to get someone worth a darn.
And maybe they were here now, which would be the problem at hand he needed to focus on. Not what-ifs about the Sons.
“So what do we do? I should call Jamison. I should—”
“We’re not calling anyone.”
“Cody. Teamwork. We have to be a team. We have to be. For Brianna.”
He had been a part of a team for years, but that wasn’t what she meant. She said team and what she really meant was family.
He’d kept himself isolated from his family until two months ago. Visiting infrequently at best, convinced it was necessary to remain secretive about his work with North Star. That had been part of it, but much like why nothing had ever happened with Shay, there was more to it.
He hadn’t wanted to depend on anyone. Hadn’t wanted to be the littlest Wyatt. He’d wanted to do something on his own—for pride and whatever else.
But now he had a daughter, and his pride would have to be swallowed.
“All right. I still want to try and handle this ourselves, but we’ll let Jamison know we’ve got a visitor.”
“Or visitors, plural,” Nina pointed out.
“Yeah, well. I’ll call Jamison. I need you to get the weapons.” He explained to Nina where she would find them and how to unlock them. She connected with Jamison’s name in his phone for him and he held the cell to his ear as he listened to Nina retreat to where the weapons were hidden.
“Cody.”
“J. We think we’ve got a visitor.” He didn’t mention there might be more than one. “I don’t think we’ll need help, but I wanted to let you know.”
“But you might need help.”
“We can’t afford to mess up the plan.”
“I’ll tell you what we can afford.”
“No. You won’t. This is my kid at stake. My...” He didn’t know what to call Nina, so he didn’t finish that sentence. “I call the shots.”
“You can’t see.”
“Everyone keeps reminding me of that as if I don’t know very well what I can’t do. I’ve still got a brain.”
“A stubborn one.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to life with the Wyatts, Jamison. I want to try to capture him and get him to talk.”
“How on earth do you think—”
“Have you noticed? How sloppy this barrage of Ace’s men are? They’re making mistake after mistake. Have you thought about what that could mean?”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a while, so Cody kept talking. “We don’t have time to look into it right this second, but it’s something to start looking into when we can. It’s very possible Ace doesn’t hav
e the power we think he does.”
“Cody...”
“I’ll check in every thirty minutes or so. Don’t send anyone out unless I don’t check in.”
“Cody. That’s—”
“It could be a trap, or worse, a distraction. Give me time to handle this. Give us time to handle it.”
“Twenty minutes. A check-in every twenty minutes,” Jamison said, his voice hard, which meant he didn’t exactly approve, but he’d go along with it because in the end, Jamison trusted all of them.
Cody had to wonder why. After Dev nearly getting himself killed, Cody couldn’t fathom why.
But he’d take it. “Fine. Twenty. Is... Brianna close by?”
“Hold on.”
It took a few seconds before a young girl’s voice filled his ear. “Daddy?”
It was amazing, the fierce sweep of love and longing that swept through him. He’d known her for a few days, and yet her voice steadied him, strengthened him. “Hi, Brianna. Everything going okay at the ranch?”
“Yeah, I guess. I miss Mom.”
“I bet you do. Here, I’ll have you talk to her in a second, okay?” He could hear Nina approaching. “Are you wearing the necklace I gave you?” he asked quietly into the receiver.
“Uh-huh. Gigi wants one too. Can you make her one?”
“Sure. When I get back. Here’s Mom.” He held out the phone in the general direction he thought Nina was.
Her fingers brushed his as she took the phone from him. “Brianna?” There was a pause, the faint sound of a sob being swallowed. “Uh-huh. I miss you, baby. I’ll be home as soon as I can, okay? Okay. I love you, baby. I love you.” Another pause, and then the croak of a goodbye.
“Come here.”
He’d barely gotten the words out when Nina filled his arms. He held her tight and she held him back just as strong. She didn’t make much noise, but he knew she was crying into his shoulder.
“I just miss her. I can handle it when I don’t hear her voice, but...”
“I know. I know.” He pulled her back, trying to squint himself into being able to see her face, but it was all still shadows. “So, let’s see if we can get back to her sooner rather than later.”
