by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
Every part of Remi went on alert. She could have sworn if a pin had dropped in between his earlier words, she could have heard it as easily as if a bowling ball had been dropped onto the hardwood.
“And what do you want?” she chanced.
The father of her unborn child smiled.
“I know I want to be a part of my kid’s life, from now until I’m old, gray, and then in the grave. Everything else? Well, I’m just too tired to think about any of that right now.” His mood darkened. He didn’t need to say it but Remi knew his thoughts had found their way back to Cooper Mann and then the attack and chase at Claire’s.
It was the only reason she didn’t push him for more.
And the only reason she didn’t give any of what she wanted to say back.
Instead, Remi tried to be reassuring.
“No one has their entire life planned out. You’ll have plenty of time to figure out what’s next for you. Until then, why don’t you go get some sleep.”
Declan snorted. He kicked his feet up and swung his legs over onto the couch. Then he slid down against the cushions with a sigh. It reminded Remi of when she slid into a much-needed warm bubble bath.
“I’m good right here,” he said, his eyes closing. “Feel free to eat whatever else you want. There’s a spare toothbrush in the cabinet over the sink and some more pj’s in the dresser.”
That surprised Remi.
“You want me to stay?”
He nodded, eyes still closed. Then he yawned.
“I can’t make you but I’d feel better if you were close. Last time I—” He yawned again. This one was deeper, longer, too. The man was dancing near the edge of sleep, there was no denying it. “Last time I left you all hell broke loose. Not gonna happen again. Bed’s yours.”
Remi smiled into her Pop-Tart. Then she remembered something she needed to tell the man before sleep claimed him.
“Hey, Declan. I told Jonah about the baby in the hospital today.”
Declan opened his eyes.
“Did you tell him I’m the father?”
“I did.”
Declan surprised her with a nod and a simple response.
“Good.”
Remi smiled. Declan returned it. Then his eyes closed and, just like that, Declan quieted. By the time Remi had finished her Pop-Tarts the man was sound asleep.
* * *
THE HOUSE WAS different in winter.
The heater made it smell like something was burning sometimes. Not like an all-out fire or anything but more of a lingering firepit smell that always reminded Declan of the day after a bonfire had burned out. That smell, rare since Declan hardly ever turned the heater on in the house, combined with the lack of noise he was used to surrounding the ranch, sometimes disoriented him when he first woke up. It didn’t matter that he’d had just as many years knowing winter in Overlook as he’d known summer. There was just something about the cold outside that threw off his internal navigation and understandings.
Like when he opened his eyes to the darkness, smelled something burning and heard something he wasn’t used to hearing.
Declan sat up so quickly he nearly pulled a muscle.
It was dark in his immediate area, but on the other side of the room there was a soft glow. That light was enough to show him a space he knew. It clicked in place with the smell of the heater and the feel of the couch beneath him.
And the old wool blanket he was particularly fond of that he’d thrown to the ground in half-asleep earnestness.
He rubbed at his eyes and then worked at blinking away the haze of sleep. Wondering what had wakened him, he turned toward a window. Through the open slats of the blinds he could just make out another glow, though this one wasn’t as focused.
It was dawn, and Declan bet that routine had been the thing that had wakened him. He’d never quite shaken waking up early on the ranch as a kid, especially when school was out. As the oldest child he’d had the most to do. Now he normally used the time to go on a run or drink coffee and worry.
He snorted in the dark.
I sure am exciting, he thought ruefully.
His gaze returned to the soft glow nearest him. The one that he knew came from his bedside lamp in the bedroom. Moving slowly, careful to be quiet, Declan got up, went to the open doorway and looked inside.
Dark blond hair was splayed across a navy pillowcase while the covers he hadn’t gotten beneath in days housed a woman wearing his clothes.
Remi.
She’d stayed.
Her face, slack with sleep, was turned toward Declan, as beautiful as when she was awake.
And what do you want?
Declan hadn’t meant to come clean with what he was feeling the night before. He hadn’t meant to admit he’d had tunnel vision with his job the last several years. Just as he hadn’t meant to say that her news had finally made him confront the fact that he’d forgotten about himself in the grand scheme of things.
He’d honestly just been tired as hell and ready to fall asleep so he could start fresh in the morning. Yet, when he’d seen Remi sitting at the dining table eating a pack of Pop-Tarts of all things, Declan hadn’t been able to stop himself. He’d seen the woman just as he’d seen the girl who had once been his friend.
He’d felt comfortable. So, he’d opened up.
What he had meant to say was his realization that, no matter what his future held, he knew without a doubt he wanted it to include their child. It was just a declaration he’d hoped to make in better circumstances, not in his sleep pants after a majorly crappy day.
Also, not immediately before he’d fallen asleep.
But there she’d been and there he’d told her.
And now there she was, asleep in his bed.
It wasn’t a new sight for Declan to see her asleep. One time he’d seen her drift off at a school assembly, bored out of her mind. Lon McKinnley had tried to pull her hair to wake her then, so Declan had thumped the boy on the head and dared him in silence to do it again.
What was new was how it felt to watch her do so.
The urge to join her was almost as strong as the urge to run a hand across her cheek and tuck behind her ear the strands of hair that had escaped. To feel the warmth of her skin. To feel the smoothness. To—
Adrenaline shot through Declan’s bloodstream. It zipped his spine straight and had him retreating into the living room to look for his phone.
Shame, deep and biting, mingled with the new sense of urgency.
How had he not put together the pieces before?
How had he been so blind to not understand what was going on?
Declan cussed, low and with vehemence.
How had he not seen the pattern until now?
Rose hadn’t been targeted, per se, but her face had.
Sam wasn’t the plan, getting shot in the arm was.
Just like Madi and Caleb.
The day they had been abducted.
Chapter Eleven
“He’s not going to figure it out,” the woman whined. Her name was Candy and, unlike it, she was not at all sweet. She’d spent the entire car ride back complaining that she hadn’t been the one to shoot the man or hit the woman or even put a gun to the other man’s head.
Candy was what some professionals might call a sociopath. For him, he thought of her as nothing more than a nuisance.
“He’ll put it together,” he assured her. “He’s smart.”
She snorted.
“He sure didn’t seem like a man who had put it together at the hospital. He just stood there and made puppy dog eyes at the pregnant chick from the café.”
“Remi Hudson,” he interjected.
Candy cocked her head to the side at that.
“Hudson? As in—”
He nodded, not needing her to finish
the thought.
“The very same.”
Candy, for once, looked slightly satiated. It never lasted. Her need to always be doing something was a big part of why she’d been chosen to join him.
She rarely shied away from what they needed to do.
“Well, while this has some potential to finally be interesting, it won’t matter at all if our dear sheriff doesn’t put any of the pieces together. Why leave bread crumbs if the idiot won’t ever follow them?”
He sighed.
“He’s dealing with a lot. Give the man a few beats. He’ll get to where we need him.”
Candy’s eyebrow rose in thinly disguised disgust.
“You sound like you’re fond of the eldest Nash. Then again, I’ve heard you have a soft spot for all of the Nash kids. Had several chances to take them out over the last few years and now look where we are. Here, waiting for a man to find breadcrumbs.”
Unlike some of the men and women he surrounded himself with, he kept his cool, even if he would have liked nothing more than to tell the woman off. Point out her brazen attitude would only ever get her, and maybe him, killed. That she might have joined them two years ago, but she was nowhere near his level.
“It wasn’t my job to kill them, just like it’s not my job to kill Declan now,” he said, keeping his voice as crisp as the chill outside of the building above them. “I come up with plans and I follow plans. That’s how I serve this organization and that’s how I stay off the radar and alive.”
“Whisperer.”
He snorted at the moniker he’d been given by the men and women within their group. One that hadn’t yet made it to any law enforcement ears.
“There’s something to be said about the power of suggestion.” He lost all humor. “Just like there’s something to be said about the Nash family.” He leaned across the table enough to focus her attention. Candy lost her humor, too. She might have been insolent nine times out of ten, but for that one time she knew when to bite her tongue and listen. “In the last few years people, for whatever reasons, have taken their cracks at them. Threatened them, attacked them, tried to hurt them and the people they loved. Now, answer me this...” He ran a thumb across the raised skin on his hand, a scar he’d had for years. “Who’s still standing? The people who went after the Nashes or the Nashes themselves?”
Candy didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to because they knew exactly who had come out on top in those encounters.
“Respecting the enemy means you don’t underestimate them,” he added. “A lesson you might want to learn.”
Candy opened her mouth, but approaching footsteps kept the words back. The man who filled the doorway next demanded quick respect with his silence.
Even more with the pointed stare. He addressed Candy, who tried her best to look as if she wasn’t afraid of him.
“Go tell Hawthorne to shut up about today. You two keep bragging like you’ve done something a child couldn’t easily do. Go.”
Candy didn’t sneer or back talk him or try to be clever. She fled the room like her life depended on it.
And maybe it did.
Depending on his mood, their boss could be a very difficult person to be around.
Still, when it came to the boss he wasn’t like Candy. His fear of the boss was surrounded by a thin protective layer that had been built over time.
They had something in common.
Something none of the others had.
That didn’t stop him from being worried that the boss was standing in front of him.
“I heard about yesterday. You did a good job.” He came closer but didn’t sit down. “I also heard that you didn’t use Miss Hudson because she said she was pregnant.”
“It was a complication I wanted to avoid. Once she said it out loud, it didn’t matter if she was pregnant or not, that kind of news might have inspired someone else in the café to be a hero. I didn’t have the time for it.”
The boss nodded.
“I would have made the same call. No sense in muddling the message with unnecessary drama. But, as it turns out, she is pregnant.” His expression transformed into something he hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Glee. “With Declan Nash’s child.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He shook his head with a little laugh.
“She told her brother in the hospital after yesterday’s events.”
For a moment the two marveled at the news. Then the boss slowly hardened back into the determination that had been driving him for over two decades.
“Using Declan was always a risk. Miss Hudson has taken that risk out entirely. We get her, we get him. The other Nashes will follow, trying to save the day.” He moved back to the doorway, his mind no doubt already spinning a revision to his plan. Even though they’d gone over every variation there had been to it, every possible outcome, every contingency they could think of, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end when the boss got to the bottom line. The endgame. The only reason they were all there.
“Then we’ll kill them all.”
Chapter Twelve
Madi Nash had a thin scar across her cheekbone.
Caleb Nash had a scar across his upper arm from a bullet graze.
Desmond had a limp that would never fully heal.
Cooper Mann had none of the above. The only affliction he seemed to have was that he tended to be more nerves than anything else. Like right now, through the bars of a Wildman County cell. His eyes were wide and tired. He’d seen better days and it showed.
Instead of pleading his case, repeating over and over that he hadn’t tried to take Lydia Cartwright, he simply watched Declan stop just outside of the bars. Even as Declan studied him, the young man remained quiet.
“Cooper, do you know what I did this morning before I got here?” Declan started. He didn’t wait for Cooper to try to guess. “I went out to the impound lot and took a look at your car because something just isn’t sitting right with me. You know what I found? An oddly clean car, leather seats that were well taken care of, and a CD player. I can appreciate you having one because I know that isn’t the standard with newer cars, but I just have to question the CD that I found in it.” Declan recalled the name from memory with a slight head tilt in question. “How to Learn Spanish in Three Easy Steps. It was on the third track of five and in the middle of a lesson. Were you listening to it before you got out of the car and saw Lydia?”
Cooper’s eyes flitted from one side of the room to the other. He didn’t move off the cot he’d been sitting on as he answered.
“Yeah, I was.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because I’m trying to learn Spanish,” Cooper deadpanned. Declan almost laughed. He’d sure walked into that one.
“No. I mean, why are you trying to learn Spanish? Is it something you’ve been wanting to do for a while now or something you tried on a whim?” Cooper straightened. He crossed his arms over his chest, defensive. Declan sighed. “Cooper, I left a beautiful woman at my house and in my bed to go to the lot before hours to check your car and now I’m here. The case against you is already as damning as damning can be. Lydia Cartwright swears up and down that you are the man who attacked her. Answering me now, about a CD in your car, isn’t going to do any more harm. Not answering will only make me grouchier than I already am.”
Cooper seemed to weigh his options.
“A beautiful woman,” he said. Declan thought he was repeating him and then realized it was an answer.
“A beautiful woman is why you’re trying to learn Spanish?”
Cooper nodded.
“Her name is Inez. She works at Waypoint as one of the bartenders.” He sighed deeply. It deflated him. “It was love at first sight for me. Dark hair, dark eyes, and this laugh thing she does when she’s brushing drunk guys off. Most b
eautiful woman I ever saw.”
“Have you asked her out?” Declan prodded when the man trailed off.
“Yeah,” Cooper exclaimed with sudden vigor. “I sure did! And do you know what she said? ‘Ask me in Spanish and then we’ll talk.’ Can you believe that?” Even though his voice was raised in frustration, it was clear he wasn’t angry at the bartender. In fact, when he spoke again it was akin to being impressed. “Nothing worth having is ever easy, though, is it? I ordered the CD since I like driving around a lot. Was hoping to go back this coming weekend and show off but...” Cooper’s face fell. Any and all feeling he’d had went with it. He didn’t bother finishing his thought.
Sympathy started to sprout in Declan’s chest. A seed that had always been there, watered by Cooper’s story.
One that was growing now.
“Cooper Mann, come over here and look me in the eye,” he barked, a little more forcefully than he meant.
But it did the trick.
Cooper hopped up and came to the bars. Through them he met Declan’s stare.
“Why would you try to kidnap Lydia Cartwright if you were so worried about learning Spanish to ask out the most beautiful woman in the world this weekend?”
Cooper might have been nervous and he might have been scared, but he answered with a steady voice.
“I wouldn’t.”
And, by God, if Declan didn’t believe him.
* * *
THERE WAS A package of Pop-Tarts on the kitchen counter with a sticky note stuck to it. Declan said he was sorry for leaving, but he’d gotten her car to his house and he’d call her later.
Remi was both let down and touched.
She changed back into her clothes, pocketed the pastries and decided it was time to go to Heartland.
While Jonah had promised to keep the pregnancy under wraps until she told Josh and their father, she remembered how bad Jonah had been at keeping secrets when they were younger. He had too much honor when it came to their father. He snitched quicker than Josh could gallop between the stables and Heartland’s outer fence.
Which was pretty damn quick.
