by Debbie Mason
“I won’t, but after I tell you what I have to, you might not feel the same way.”
He went still.
“The gun that you believe killed Brodie is mine. It’s not my brother’s.” She told him everything, including her conversation with her grandmother earlier that evening. She didn’t stop to take a breath. When she was finished, he rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.
She let a moment pass, her heart beating double time against her ribs. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away, but I was afraid. And then it just got harder as time passed. I didn’t want to risk losing you, us, this.”
He turned his head, holding her gaze. “I’m not thrilled that you kept this from me, but I also understand why you did. I am glad you told me now, that you trusted me enough to tell me. I’m not sure if it was your brother or Payton or someone else, but I have an idea how they returned your gun.”
“How?”
“The day we met in the meadow. After you—”
“You mean the day you shot that poor little snake?”
“It wasn’t little. But yeah, that day. After you left, I came back here to check around. I noticed the sliding door was open.”
“I can’t believe I left it open.” She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “And that wasn’t the only time. The front door wasn’t locked the day you moved in with me. For all I know, I’d been leaving either the front door or sliding door unlocked since the day I moved home.”
“You were exhausted. You had a lot on your plate. It was a simple mistake. I was going to tell you but what you’re doing right now, beating yourself up, was one of the reasons I didn’t.”
“So between me moving here and that day, someone snuck in the cottage and returned the gun?” She shivered at the thought.
“It’s not a big window of time. We can check the gas station off the main road. They have cameras, but it’s highly probable that whoever planted the gun wouldn’t use the main road, and you’re pretty isolated out here. But it’s one more piece of the puzzle solved. Don’t worry, I won’t let this blow back on you.”
All her earlier worries vanished with his promise. “Thank you.”
“Anything else you need to share with me?”
“About the case?”
“That’s what I meant but you look as if you had something else in mind,” he said when she got off the chair. As she sat on his lap, he added, “Not that I’m complaining.”
She kissed him and then drew back to look into his eyes. “I don’t want you to sleep on the couch tonight. I want you to sleep with me.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“I’m not sure you get what I mean. I’ve never propositioned a man before so maybe I’m not doing it right. I don’t want you to just sleep in my bed.”
He blinked, looking surprised. He wasn’t as surprised as she was. After having Michaela, she didn’t think she needed or wanted a man in her life, least of all for sex.
“Are you sure? I’m good with just holding you and kissing you, honey. I don’t want to rush—”
She placed a finger on his lips. “I’ve never been surer of anyone or anything in my life. But if you aren’t—”
He nipped her finger. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chase woke up to two sets of beautiful eyes looking at him—baby blue and tawny gold.
Michaela cooed, and Sadie smiled. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I couldn’t ask for a better way to wake up.” He rubbed his head. “But I didn’t mean to fall into that deep a sleep.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m the one who tired you out.” Her mouth curved in a grin.
He laughed, feeling lighter than he had in…he didn’t know how long. It was odd given that he was in the middle of a murder investigation with danger closing in around them.
“You did, but that’s not something you’ll ever hear me complain about.” Last night ranked as one of the best nights of his life; the only one that even came close was the night Michaela was born.
He went to turn onto his side to face them but his feet were trapped under a heavy weight. Finn was stretched out on the end of the bed. Chase nudged their self-appointed watchdog with his foot, feeling a little less guilty about sleeping the sleep of the dead. The officers on duty outside helped too.
Finn moved but not without sharing his displeasure with a couple of low, grumbled growls.
Chase leaned in and kissed Michaela on her forehead. “I love waking up to you,” he said, and then he kissed her mother’s pretty, smiling lips. “And I really love waking up to you, almost as much as going to bed with you.” He looked at Finn. “The jury’s still out on you.”
Sadie stretched lazily. “I wish we could stay here all day.”
He knew the feeling. “One day we will.”
She held his gaze. “Promise?”
He nodded, realizing he’d begun to think of a future with Sadie and the baby almost from the first day they met. “This will be over soon, and life can return to normal.”
“But you and I have never had normal.” She smiled down at Michaela and stroked her daughter’s cheek. “Are you sure you won’t miss DC? It sounded like everything you wanted is there—your grandfather, your job, your career plans for the future.”
“They are.” And that hadn’t changed. “But we can make it work. It’s less than a two-hour flight from DC to here. You guys can come stay with me, and I can come back here. Hey.” He gently tugged a strand of Sadie’s long dark hair to get her to look at him. “There’s no guarantee my boss in DC will offer me my old job back.”
But if this case and Sadie had taught Chase anything, it had taught him he’d been too rigid. He owed his boss an apology.
“Whatever happens, we’ll make the decision together, okay?”
She nodded, looking anything but convinced things would work out for them.
Before he could reassure her, Finn’s head went up, and he growled low in his throat. Chase rolled over and reached for his gun on the nightstand.
“I put it in the drawer.”
He pulled out the drawer and grabbed his gun, glad he’d at least put on a pair of sweats before he’d gone to sleep. He walked around the end of the bed and went to the window, lifting a wooden slat to look out. “It’s okay. Gabe’s officer is on it. She’s talking to someone. I don’t recognize—” The man turned around to look at the cottage. Chase was wrong. It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all.
“Who is it?” Sadie asked, coming to stand beside him with Michaela in her arms.
“Drew.” He released the wooden slat and faced her.
“Drew? As in my ex, Drew?”
He nodded, and her eyes went wide. He put his hands on her shoulders. “There’s something you need to know.”
“He’s not coming to try and take Michaela from me, is he?”
“No, not as far as I know, but that’s not something you need to worry about. He wouldn’t stand a chance in court.” Chase didn’t want to do this now but he didn’t have a choice. “Sadie, I’m the reason Drew dropped out of your life.”
“What do you mean? You don’t even know him.”
He came clean, telling her everything he’d uncovered about Drew and what he’d said to him that night at the strip club.
“You paid him off? You paid him to stay away from his daughter?”
“I did, but you have to—”
“Do you know how that made me feel? He’d left his own daughter without a backward glance. Every time I looked at her, I thought of the day I’d have to tell her that her father hadn’t cared enough to stick around.” Like her mother, and his.
“He doesn’t deserve her. He was never good enough for either of you.”
“That was for me to decide, not you. You didn’t have the right to make that decision for me.”
“Maybe not, but you were in no condition to make it, or to deal
with him. You hadn’t read his file.”
“You had no idea what I was capable of. You didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I had to deal with a colicky baby on my own. At least if you hadn’t scared off Drew, I might have had some help, and I wouldn’t have felt like I was a horrible mother or that I couldn’t do anything right.”
“Yeah? You really think so? Because the guy whose file I read would have only made things worse, not better.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to no doubt defend the piece of crap who was now knocking on the door. “I’ll go let him in. But don’t expect an apology from me. All I did was try and protect you and Michaela, and I’d do it again.”
He grabbed his T-shirt off the floor and shrugged into it. “I’ll be out front if you need me. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your reunion.” He wasn’t just angry or worried about Drew’s influence over Sadie. He was afraid he might lose her, her and her trust.
The fact that she stayed stubbornly silent didn’t alleviate his fears. If anything, it made them worse. He wanted to hide her and Michaela away.
No, he thought as he opened the door, what he really wanted to do was slam his fist into Drew’s smiling face. A smile that fell as his eyes went wide with shock, tinged with what looked like horror. “You.” He gasped.
“Yeah, me.” Chase grabbed him by his pristine, white button-down shirt and pulled him inside before he broke Chase’s cover to the officer standing beside him.
“Everything all right, Michael?” the officer asked him, eyeing Drew with distaste. He’d probably hit on her.
“All good. Thanks for sticking around last night.” He reached around to tuck his gun into the waistband of his sweatpants.
“No problem. We’re just changing shifts. Another officer will be along any minute now.”
“Appreciate it. Thanks again.” He closed the door and shoved Drew against the wall, getting in his face. “You hurt either one of them, and I will bury you.”
“Chase!”
Sadie stood with Michaela in her arms between the entryway and hall. She wore black leggings and an overlong, black short-sleeved shirt that slid off her shoulder to reveal a white tank top underneath. Chase wanted to grab the throw off the couch and wrap her in it. He didn’t want this piece of crap looking at her the way he was now. He shoved Drew against the wall one last time before he released him.
“You can go now,” Sadie said with a stubborn tilt to her chin. “I’ve got this.”
Chase walked to her. Closing his fingers around that obstinate chin, he held her gaze. “You’re mine, and so is she.” He lowered his head and kissed her hard before letting her go to gently cup Michaela’s face in his hand. “I’ve loved her since the day she was born, and that’s not going to change, no matter what you decide.” He kissed Michaela’s head and stepped back.
“What’s going on? I thought he was FBI. The officer called him Michael.” Drew flattened himself against the wall when Chase walked past him.
“He is an FBI agent. He’s undercover as Michael Knight.”
“Wait, you named my kid after him?”
Chase smiled and closed the door behind him. Explain that, Sadie, he thought as he stepped over the flower bed and onto the grass. He looked back at the cottage, wishing he’d left a window open so he could hear the conversation inside. He turned at the sound of a truck headed his way. It was Nate. He pulled up behind a Volvo that had seen better days.
“Who’s here?” Nate asked, eyeing the beater with distaste as he got out of his truck and walked across the lawn.
“Drew.”
“What the hell? Are you shitting me?”
“No. I wish I was.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, blowing out the anger that had led to what felt like an out-of-body experience. He’d never felt that level of anger before or felt so out of control. “I acted like a Neanderthal.”
Nate grinned. “Yeah, what did you do?”
Chase told him what he’d said to Sadie, his face warming as he did.
Nate laughed. “Love makes us do crazy things, my man. Bet the guy nearly shit his pants when you pushed him against the wall. You’re a scary dude when you lose your cool.”
Chase opened his mouth to apologize for how he’d reacted the day he’d found out Nate had dragged him into all of this without going through the proper channels.
Nate raised his hand. “No need to apologize. I get it. You pulled something like that on me, I would have lost my shit too.” He glanced at the cottage. “You should have let me bury the guy like I wanted to.”
Chase nodded. He’d been thinking the same. “What happened last night? Did you manage to get any intel on who in the sheriff’s department is involved with the gang?”
“No, but something’s going down tonight. Sounded like whoever is calling the shots is paying them a visit. They were all on edge.”
“Did they buy that you had several parties interested in purchasing their product, including yourself?”
“You didn’t really just ask me that. Of course they did.”
Chase smiled, glad of the distraction his partner provided. “Anyone you think you can turn?”
“Yeah. There’s a kid, can’t be more than twenty. He’s in over his head and wants out. You have anyone that can cover Mrs. M? Other than a cop. We’re already stretching the Highland Falls Police Department pretty thin.”
“Yeah. Colin Murphy.”
“Mrs. M’s paramour. You know anything about the guy?”
“My bet’s former CIA. I ran a background check on him and hit nothing but firewalls. Last guy I ran that had as many was former CIA. I’ll talk to him first, see what vibe I get, but he handled things well last night.” He filled Nate in on what went down at Payton’s place and what Sadie and Abby found. Then he told him about Sadie’s gun.
“I can’t leave you kids alone without all hell breaking loose. Looks like I was wrong about Elijah. Almost feel sorry for the guy. So you think Dwight turned Payton against Elijah?”
“It’s looking that way. When you factor in Sadie’s suspicions about Payton’s pregnancy, you have to wonder—”
Nate held up a finger. “Hold that thought.” He brought his phone to his ear and answered, “Hey, Gabe.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s for you. You’re not answering your phone. Again.”
It was sitting on the nightstand. Beside a bed in which he’d shared an incredible night with a woman who’d kicked him to the curb to talk to her ex. He took Nate’s phone. “Hey, Gabe, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Sadie around?”
“Nope. She’s canoodling with her ex,” Nate said. “Ow. Shit, that hurt. What is your fist made of, reinforced steel?”
“Shut up, Nate.” Chase shook out his hand. He could say the same about his partner’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about Drew. I have it covered.”
“I hope you do because that guy is a douche,” Gabe said.
“Agreed. What’s going on?”
“Brooklyn Sutherland dropped by the station a couple of minutes ago to talk to me.”
“Is that the blond babe from Spill the Tea?” Nate asked.
“Tell me why you’re my partner again?” Chase held up his hand when Nate opened his mouth to no doubt list his sterling qualities. “Go ahead, Gabe.”
“Brooklyn’s worried about Sadie. Her mother seems to think the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department has a warrant for Sadie’s arrest. I’m looking into it, but I wanted you to be prepared in case there was some truth to the rumor.”
Gabe had barely gotten the words out when they heard it—the sound of sirens headed their way. “I think we just got our proof,” Chase said, his voice a hundred times calmer than he felt. “Nate, get out of here.”
His partner’s face hardened. “They’re going down, and they’re going down tonight. If you need me, call.” He took off for his truck at a run.
“I know what you’re thinking, Chase. If it was Mal, I’d be thinking the same. Don’t do anyth
ing stupid. Let them take her.”
“To hell with that.” He nodded at Nate as he peeled out, heading in the opposite direction of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.
“Listen to me. This is the break we were looking for. Sadie won’t be alone. I’ll be there before they get a chance to book her. It’ll give me the opportunity to nose around without drawing suspicion. I’ve already called Eden Mackenzie. She’s a lawyer. She can handle herself, and the sheriff.”
“Okay. There’s something you should know.” He told Gabe about the gun.
“All right. If the gun is listed in the arrest warrant as probable cause, they’ll have shown us their hand.”
Two county sheriff vehicles pulled behind Drew’s car. “They’re here.”
“Keep it locked down, buddy. She’ll be back before you know it,” Gabe said.
Chase walked into the cottage at the same time the three men climbed out of their vehicles. Dwight and Bulldog had brought reinforcements—the sheriff.
From where he awkwardly held Michaela on the couch, Drew cast a nervous glance at Chase. Sadie’s hands were poised as if worried Drew would drop her daughter while Finn sat beside the couch on alert.
Sadie glanced over her shoulder, straightening at what must have been the panicked look on his face. He was having a difficult time keeping it together no matter what Gabe said. “Chase, what’s wrong?”
He walked to her and took her in his arms. “You need to listen to me. The Jackson County sheriff has a warrant for your arrest.”
She backed away, her face stricken.
He put his hands on her shoulders and brought his face close. “You need to go with them. You’ll be out before you know it. Gabe is headed there with a lawyer. They—”
“Wait. What’s going on? What is she being arrested for?” Someone pounded on the door. Drew jumped, startling Michaela. Finn looked from Drew to the door and growled.
