Badlands Beware

by Nicole Helm

  “Has there been any new trouble at the rez that might make Duke nervous about Rach teaching her upcoming session?” Tucker asked.

  Rachel scowled at him. “I wasn’t going to bring her into it, jerk.”

  Cecilia’s brow puckered. “I haven’t heard anything. Dad doesn’t want you teaching? Kind of late to have concerns about that, isn’t it? Doesn’t your session start the first of the month? And why didn’t you want to bring me into it?”

  Rachel sighed heavily. “Yes, it does, and yes, it’s late.” She looked pointedly in Tucker’s direction, but when she spoke it was to Cecilia. “I wasn’t going to bring you into it, because obviously it’s not about you. I don’t think it’s about the rez, either. I think it’s about the Wyatts.”

  “Look, Rach, I know the Wyatts are an easy target, no offense, Tuck. But if something bad was going on over here, Brady would have told me.”

  Because Cecilia and Brady now shared a room at his grandmother’s house, a simple fact Tucker wasn’t used to. Four of his brothers all paired off. And with the Knight girls of all people. It was sudden and weird.

  But he just had to keep that to himself. Especially when Brady and Cecilia lived here now. “Well, I’ll let you ladies figure this out. I’ve got a meeting to get to,” Tucker said, quickly slipping past Rachel even as she began to protest.

  Whatever was going on with Duke and Rachel was not his business, and he had to meet with his boss at North Star to nip this whole mission in the bud. It wasn’t for him. He was a detective, and a damn good one, but he would never become adept at lying to his family.

  He got in his truck, and drove to the agreed upon location. A small diner in Rapid City. Tucker had never met Granger McMillan, the head of the North Star Group. He’d been approached by field operatives and dealt with them solely.

  Until now.

  Tucker scanned the diner. Granger had said he’d know who he was, and Tucker had thought that was a little over-the-top cloak-and-dagger, but the large man in a cowboy hat and dark angry eyes sitting in the corner was quite familiar.

  The man he was sitting across from turned in his seat, looked right at Tucker and gestured him over.

  Tucker moved forward feeling a bit like he’d taken a blow to the head. Why was Duke here? What was this?

  “You two know each other,” the man, who could only be Granger McMillan, said. Not a question. A statement. “Have a seat, Wyatt. We have a lot to discuss.”

  Chapter Two

  Rachel didn’t get anywhere with Cecilia. Falling in love had certainly colored her vision when it came to the Wyatts. It was a disappointment, but one that was hard to hold on to when Brady had come in and he’d exchanged a casual goodbye kiss with her sister.

  She would have never put Brady and Cecilia together, but when they were together, it seemed so right. Two pieces clicking together to mellow each other out a bit.

  But even if that softened her up, Rachel wasn’t ready to give up on being mad at the Wyatt brothers. So, she sought out someone she knew would back her up.

  Sarah wiped her brow with the back of her arm. She’d been hefting water buckets into the truck to move them to a different pasture while Rachel laid out her case.

  “Yeah, it’s weird Dad took off, but what do you want me to do about it? I’m kind of running a ranch single-handedly here while he’s doing whatever.” Dev Wyatt’s dogs raced around Sarah and Rachel. “My biggest concern is why I suddenly have two dogs. I did not consent to these dogs.”

  Rachel patted Cash on the head. Sarah talked a big game, but Rachel had overheard her just last night loving on the very dogs she was currently irritated over.

  With a pang, Rachel missed Minnie, her old service dog. She knew she should start working on getting another one, or maybe even work on training her own, but it just made her sad still.

  “What do you need help with?” Rachel asked, feeling guilty about unloading on her sister when she was so busy. The Knight ranch wasn’t the biggest operation in South Dakota, but Duke and Sarah had to work really hard to make it profitable, and with all the danger around lately, hiring outside help felt like too big a risk.

  “It’s fine,” Sarah replied, hopping off the truck bed and closing the gate. “Dev’s coming over this afternoon to help. Maybe he’ll take those stupid mutts back with him.”

  Even if Sarah could convince the dogs to go back with Dev, Rachel knew Sarah was all talk. She’d be bribing the dogs back over by suppertime.

  “Well, I’ll go make up some sandwiches for lunch. Want some pasta salad to go with it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Rachel walked back to the house over the well-worn path along the fence that led her to and from the stables. She moved through her normal chore of preparing lunch for Sarah and Dad, though Dad still wasn’t home.

  Rachel set the water to boil for pasta salad and frowned. It wasn’t like her father to run errands on a ranch morning, even more unlike him to be gone for hours at a time. Cecilia had seemed concerned, but not enough to miss work. Plus, now she was going to tell Brady and he’d talk about it with his brothers and Rachel was fed up with Wyatts interfering.

  Ughhh, those Wyatts. Rachel let herself bang around in the kitchen. She supposed Cecilia was a little right and Rachel was maybe projecting some feelings on them because it was safer than being upset with her father.

  But Rachel didn’t really care about being fair or balanced in the privacy of her own thoughts. Pasta salad and sandwiches made, she set them in the fridge and went to handling the rest of her normal chores, grumbling to herself the whole way.

  Duke and Sarah were terrible housekeepers, so Rachel was often the default cleaner in the house. She didn’t mind it, though. Having things to do made her feel useful. She tidied, swept, vacuumed, even dusted. She went upstairs and made the beds. Once she was done, she tapped her clock for the time.

  The robotic voice told her it was nearly noon. Still no Sarah and even worse, no Dad. Rachel headed downstairs, wracking her brain for some reason her father would be gone this long without telling her.

  She stopped halfway down the stairs. A horrible thought dawned on her. What if he was sick? Like Mom. What if he was at the doctor getting terrible news he wanted to hide?

  The thought had tears stinging her eyes. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t lose her mom and her dad before she was even twenty-five. Before she found a significant other. Before she had kids. Dad had to be around for that. Mom couldn’t, so Dad had to be.

  Rachel marched toward his room, propelled by fear masked as fury. If something was wrong, she’d find evidence of it there.

  She stepped inside. He’d moved down to the main floor with Mom when she had gotten sick. He’d never moved back upstairs. Sometimes Rachel worried about him wallowing in the loss. Now she worried the same fate was waiting for him.

  No. I refuse.

  She tidied up, deciding it was an easy excuse to poke around his things. Which wasn’t out of the norm. When she deep-cleaned the house, she took care of Dad’s room. She didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, though she wouldn’t be able to read any of the medicine bottles to tell if there was something off there—but based on the number and size there didn’t seem to be anything more than the usual over-the-counter painkiller and heartburn medicines.

  She’d need Sarah to read the labels to be sure, but then she’d have to bring her sister into this and Sarah had enough to worry about with the ranch.

  She pondered the dilemma as she made Dad’s bed. As she adjusted the pillows, she felt something cool and hard. She reached out and touched her fingers to the object. It was a black blob in her vision, but she quickly realized she was touching a gun.

  Rachel stood frozen in place for a good minute, pillow held up in one hand, her other hand grasping the gun. It wasn’t that her father didn’t have firearms. He had a few hunting r
ifles, kept in the safe in the basement. He had one hung above the back door because after reading the Little House books to her, he’d decided that’s where one needed to go.

  But this was a small pistol. Like the ones the Wyatt boys carried when on duty. And it was under his pillow. Carefully she picked it up and felt around some more, getting an idea of the gun model before she checked the chamber.

  Loaded, which seemed very unsafe in his bed. Rachel didn’t know what to make of it, but his whole talk about safety sure made it seem like he was worried about some kind of threat.

  What on earth kind of threat would Duke be facing?

  “Rachel?”

  She nearly dropped the gun at Sarah’s voice. Luckily, it came from the kitchen, not from right next to her. She quickly slipped the gun back under the pillow, left the bed unmade and tiptoed into the hallway.

  “Coming!” she called, trying to steady her beating heart. Sarah didn’t need to know about this. Not just yet. First, Rachel had to figure what was going on.

  * * *

  “SO, WHAT YOU’RE telling me...” Tucker raked his fingers through his hair, not knowing whether to look at Duke or Granger “...is Knight ranch was a witness protection hideout.”

  Duke’s gaze was patently unfriendly, which was odd coming from a man he’d always looked up to. Tucker had grown up in a biker gang surrounded by nothing but bad. Ever since he’d gotten out, Duke had been there. Grandma Pauline and Eva had been mother figures. Duke had been the father figure.

  But Duke clearly didn’t want Granger letting Tucker in on his past. His true identity. How did Duke Knight of all people have a true identity?

  “And the girls don’t know?”

  “Why would they know?” Duke asked, his voice a raspy growl. “I left that old life behind over thirty-five years ago. Met Eva two years later, and we built this family on who I was now, not who I was then. Then was gone, and has been for a very long time.”

  “A cop.” Duke Knight had been a cop. A cop who, in his first year on duty, had taken down a powerful family of dirty police officers. And then had a bounty put on his head and had to be moved into WITSEC.

  A ranch in the middle of nowhere South Dakota sure made sense, and feeling safe enough to find a wife and build a family here made even more sense. But Tucker didn’t know how to accept it.

  “Grandma Pauline... She had to know.”

  Duke shrugged. “Don’t know if she did or didn’t, but Pauline never asked any questions. Never poked her nose into my business.” He looked pointedly at Granger.

  Granger, who was here for a current reason. That somehow involved Tucker. “Why would this group want to come after you when thirty-five years have passed? Wouldn’t it be water under the bridge?”

  “You’re Ace Wyatt’s son and you really have to ask that question?”

  Tuck was chastened enough at that. When fear was currency, the years didn’t matter so much. Only proving your strength, your ability to destroy did.

  Tucker turned to face Granger across from him at the diner table. “And how does this connect to North Star?”

  “We’ve been working under the assumption Vince MacLean was casing your grandmother’s ranch because of the Wyatt connection, which is why we brought you in,” Granger said. Facts Tucker was well aware of.

  Granger was a tall man, dressed casually. A layperson might not think anything of someone like him, sitting in a diner, having a friendly cup of coffee. But Tucker saw all the signs of someone on alert. The way his gaze swept the establishment. The way he filed away everyone who entered or exited.

  “We couldn’t quite figure his role out. But the information you’ve passed along to us, plus what we already had, started to point to the fact there might be a different target.” Granger nodded toward Duke. “We started looking into not just who Vince was directly reporting to, but who the people he was reporting to passed information to and so on. What we found is a connection to the Vianni family.”

  Tucker didn’t need to be led to the rest. “Who were the family of dirty cops you took down?”

  Duke nodded.

  “We started digging into the family, into possible connections, and figured out Duke’s. Since he was the target, we brought him in. And now we’re bringing you in. The Sons connecting to the Vianni family is an expansion. It gives both groups more reach, and makes them stronger than they were.”

  “The Sons have been weakened.”

  “You can keep throwing their leaders in jail, Wyatt, but that doesn’t end their infrastructure or ability to regroup.”

  “What does?” Tucker returned.

  Granger’s gaze, which had been cool and controlled up to this point, heated with fury. But his voice remained calm as he spoke. “We need Duke to help us. Which means he has to disappear for a little while. Duke’s not too keen on leaving his ranch or his daughters.”

  “Nor should he be,” Tucker snapped, his own temper straining. “Have you been paying attention these past few months? Duke being gone doesn’t make the threat go away.” He turned to Duke, who was sitting next to him in the booth. “You’re leaving them to be a new target, that’s all. And you—” Tucker faced Granger “—you’re caring about your own North Star plots and plans without thinking about innocent lives.”

  Tucker didn’t wilt when Granger lifted his eyebrows regally. “Watch your step, boy. I know more about protecting innocent lives than you could even begin to imagine. But Duke is our key between the Sons and the Viannis, and without him, more innocent people get hurt. A lot more.”

  Tucker whipped his gaze back to Duke, too angry to be chastened by Granger’s words. “You didn’t tell any of us? This whole time you knew you were a target and you didn’t think to give us a heads-up so we could help?”

  “I didn’t want to bring you or your brothers into it. I don’t want my daughters brought into it, and that’s all your brothers seem capable of doing.” Duke nodded toward Granger. “His father is the reason I have the ranch I do. The life I do. When Granger here came to me... I might not like it, but I owe the McMillan family, and I owe it to the other people the Viannis have hurt after I bowed out.”

  Tucker snorted in derision. Maybe he should have felt sorry for Duke, but all he could think about was Rachel already coming to him worried about her father. “You think your girls are going to buy you leaving?”

  “It’ll be your job to convince them,” Granger said matter-of-factly, like that was a mission anyone could accomplish. He pushed a manila envelope over to Tucker. “This includes a letter to the daughters from Duke, a packet of fake vacation itinerary. You’ll take it to Sarah and Rachel and say you found it—where and how is up to you.” Then Granger slid a phone across the table. “You’ll also take this. It’s been programmed with your cell number, as well as a secret number that will allow contact with someone at North Star directly. We’ll reach you through this if we need you. It’s also got access to security measures set up around the Reaves and Knight ranches, thanks to your brother. He has no idea you have access to any of this, and no one in your family or Duke’s can know, either. Is that understood?”

  Tucker looked at the folder and the phone. None of this made sense, and how on earth was he going to convince Sarah and Rachel—and the rest of either family for that matter—that Duke, who’d barely left the ranch even for errands throughout all their lives, was going on vacation. Suddenly, and without warning. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I’m deadly serious, Wyatt. And so is this.”

  Chapter Three

  “Something has to be wrong.” Rachel stood in Grandma Pauline’s kitchen, Sarah next to her. She could hear the dogs whining outside, but Grandma Pauline did not allow dogs in her kitchen.

  “If he’d come home before dinner, I wouldn’t think too much of it. But he still isn’t back and he won’t answer his cell,” Sarah said, wring
ing her hands together.

  “I called Gage,” Brady offered. “He’s going to head over to Valiant County and see if he can sweet talk them into putting some men on it before the required hours for a missing person. Then he’ll look himself. Cecilia said she’s going to ask around town after her shift, too. If he’s around, one of them will find him.”

  “What do you mean if?” Sarah demanded. “Where else would he go?”

  Which echoed the fear growing inside of Rachel. “Do you think something happened to him?” she asked, straight out. Because if Brady Wyatt thought something had happened to him, his instincts were most likely right.

  Brady’s response was grim. “Duke left the ranch of his own volition, but you were concerned about him being worried about danger. Maybe there’s something he wasn’t telling us.”

  The door opened and Tucker entered. Aside from Brady and Gage, Rachel could tell the difference in the Wyatt brothers by general shape. Even though they were all tall and broad, they had a different presence about them.

  If she took a lot of time, she could figure out Gage and Brady, but being twins made it a bit more difficult, and she could always tell from their voices.

  But Tucker was always a slightly...lighter presence. His hair wasn’t so dark, his movements were always a little easier. But something about the way he entered the kitchen now was all wrong.

  “Hey, all. What’s going on?”

  Rachel frowned. He did not sound his usual cheerful self. Something was weighing on him, and that was clear as day in his voice.

  “Duke’s missing,” Sarah said plainly.

  “Missing?”

  “We can’t find him. He hasn’t come back to the ranch since this morning.”

  “You’re sure he’s not out in the fields?” Tucker asked.

  “No. I’m worrying everyone because I didn’t look around the ranch,” Sarah replied sarcastically. “Don’t be an ass, Tuck.”