Coming Unplugged (Welcome to Carson Book 6)

by Renee Harless

  Finally, Jameson pulls back not noticing how Norah’s hands hang limply at her side, confusion swimming in her gaze. At first, Ryker just sits on the couch his anger festering deep within. It’s not until Jameson turns to look at Ryker with a smug look on his face.

  He’s unsure how it happens, but Ryker jumps over the arm of the couch and sprints after Jameson who runs through the front door. His fury and determination control his movements and Ryker can do little to squelch them.

  His brother, his twin, his other half has put his mouth on his woman, and Ryker wants nothing more than to tear his brother from limb to limb. They stumble out the front door and down the porch steps, falling as a heap onto the pathway below. Ryker lands a few punches to Jameson’s face while his brother returns a jab to Ryker’s stomach.

  “She’s mine,” Ryker shouts as he sends an uppercut into Jameson’s chin, his brother wobbling back until he rights himself and roars toward Ryker grabbing him around the waist.

  “She was mine first.”

  The two grapple back and forth as their siblings and spouses look on from the porch silently eating their dinners as if watching a fight on television.

  “Boys,” a solid and steady voice calls out from the porch, and the brothers pull apart, both breathing heavily as their chests rise and fall.

  Only after they separate does Ryker notice Norah standing with his mother as she cries into her shoulder, his mother brushing her hand up and down Norah’s back in comfort.

  “Princess,” Ryker hoarsely calls out. Norah looks at him for a moment and rips his heart out of his chest as she turns and runs back into the house.

  Turning toward his brother standing a few feet away he watches as Jameson wipes away blood trickling from his nose onto his black shirt. “This is all your fucking fault.”

  Jameson lets his shirt fall, and he turns with a look of retaliation.

  “Boys, don’t you even think about starting again.” They turn regretfully in the direction of their mother as she moves down the steps in their path, a feeling of disappointment hanging in the air.

  Ryker points his gaze toward the ground, the same feelings of being a scolded child rushing through him.

  “How could you do this?” his mother asks, and Ryker at first believes that she is speaking with both of them about the fighting, but as he looks up to answer, he finds his mother looking prominently at Jameson.

  “I don’t know,” his brother responds quietly reminding Ryker of the times they would get in trouble as kids.

  “You don’t know? You just threw that poor girl for a spin after the last few days have been some of the hardest of her life and you don’t know?”

  “I just thought -”

  “You just thought that you wanted what your brother had and have this preconceived notion that she was yours first. Did I get that right?”

  Ryker continues to stand silently watching his brother, the one he never feels that he can compare to wilt under their mother’s gaze.

  “He can have any person he wants. Why did he have to want mine?”

  “Oh, good grief. Jameson, this isn’t some toy you both are fighting over like you did when you were seven. This is a woman. A woman that can make her own decisions. And it pains me to hear you speak about your brother this way. He’s never been a playboy, not like your other brother,” she says, and Ryker can faintly hear Austin shout from the porch where Nikki effectively tells him to stuff it. “You don’t get a say in who a woman falls for, and if she made her choice, you better believe that I expect you to stand beside her as her best friend. She’s had it rough, you and I both know that, be the person she needs you to be, not the person you wish you were.”

  Their mother looks back and forth at them, and Ryker waits for her to unleash her anger at him, so he’s surprised as she smiles warmly and brushes her hand across his swelling cheek.

  “She’s a good girl, Ryker. If I could have chosen anyone for you myself, I couldn’t have done a better job. Just remember there are two types of love and she loves your brother just as much. Don’t come between that or it will tear you two apart.”

  “Okay,” he whispers as he feels like an elephant is pressing onto his chest.

  Standing straighter and taking a step back their mother addresses both of them. “Now, both of you say that you’re sorry and hug it out. Just like you used to.”

  “Oh god, Mom. We’re not ten,” Jameson exclaims

  “You will always be my children so hug it out.”

  He and Jameson look at each other apprehensively and then slowly approach until their arms are wrapping around each other. Two halves as one.

  “There, that’s better. Now, Ryker, I believe you have someone to go check on. Jameson, please gather everyone together outside on the back deck. I want to come up with a plan to catch this person going after my family. And we may need to alert the Lady Busy Bees if they haven’t figured out that something is amiss already.”

  Amy spins around like a graceful ballerina, and Ryker fears that once the Lady Busy Bees are made aware of the group trying to kidnap Norah that his quiet home won’t be so silent any longer.

  Inside Ryker searches the first floor and then the upstairs bedroom looking for Norah and his pace quickens as she’s nowhere to be found. He can make out Jameson asking everyone to move outside, and Ryker takes one last look in the sunroom and finds Norah standing on the deck just outside the exit. The same place he found her the other day.

  “So we meet again,” Ryker says as he approaches her doing his best sinister voice.

  Norah turns around quickly and wraps her arms around Ryker’s neck, and he knows he wants to feel her arms around him for the rest of his life. Her touch makes him feel alive, feel wanted, feel worthy. Norah leans back with her hands clenched behind his neck, and he realizes that he doesn’t need to ask her about the kiss. He doesn’t need to question if she felt anything. It’s all there across her face, in her eyes, in her hold.

  “I love you,” Ryker blurts.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know-”

  Ryker interrupts her apology and says, “I know, and I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she cries as she presses herself against him once again, her face burrowing into his neck.

  They only get to stay like this for a moment because Jameson’s voice rings out. “Guys, we need you.”

  They walk across the side deck and pass Jameson along the way, but his hand reaches out and presses against Ryker’s chest. Norah turns around, but Ryker shakes his head telling her to go on.

  “I don’t want to fight with you again,” Ryker says as he takes a step back.

  “Then don’t. Look I really am sorry. It’s not that I am in love with Norah. It’s just . . . I needed to make sure.”

  Ryker thinks about the way his chest had felt as if it was caving in the moment his brother’s lips met Norah’s. Did he know her lips taste like the cherry Chapstick she uses? Did he feel how soft those plump lips are? Did he feel anything more?

  “I want to apologize and just ask you to take care of her. She’s special. Not just because she’s smart and beautiful, but because she has a black hole in her past that she could easily be sucked back into.”

  “I know, she told me.”

  “She told you?” Jameson asks in surprise. “I’m not even supposed to know, but I had to check on her before I brought her home the first time.”

  “Yeah, we don’t have secrets. Norah knows all about my insecurities, and I know all of hers.”

  “Yeah, okay. Sorry, she just never talks about it and -”

  “Jay, I’m not going to hurt her. I’m in love with her. I’d rather die than hurt her.”

  “You sound like an idiot.”

  “No, I sound like every person sitting out on that deck right now. Come on, let’s not keep them waiting. Oh, and I accept your apology but you may need some ice for your face.”

  The brothers stare at each other and then break into laughter as t
hey recall the earlier fight.

  “I honestly had no idea you had that in you. I mean, the rest of us work out because of the volunteer fire team, but, dude, you throw a mean punch.’

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Ryker adds as he throws his arm over his brother’s shoulder and they walk back as one to the group.

  Norah looks up at him first quickly followed by their mother, both smiling widely.

  “Everything, okay?” Norah whispers from beside him, and Ryker tosses his arm across the back of the wicker sofa, touching her shoulder with his hand, and then leans down to press a kiss to her stunned lips.

  “Everything is perfect.”

  She curls her body into him, and as the sun sets off in the distance, Ryker feels that for the first time today everything seems right.

  Dylan stands to address the group just as Preston saunters onto the porch, the sheriff bringing with him a slew of the town folk in the rear.

  “Good, everyone’s here. So far, here is what we know. This person is a specialized black market dealer with intel in the government. Specifically the military. There is no other way someone could have learned of the whereabouts of the device without that knowledge.

  “At roughly fourteen hundred hours Norah was able to infiltrate the lab. Unfortunately, the suspect had planted a camera with the hopes that she would return.”

  “Why would they hope that?” Fred Fitzgerald, ex-sheriff of Carson, asks.

  “Great question. Let me back up. Norah and her team member Dr. Lewis created a device for the military. He has been kidnapped, and we are confident he has disclosed that Norah is the sole creator of the launching software for the program. Her coding is necessary to make the device work. It’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo but to put it mildly Norah is crucial for the suspect to make the device work in a way it was not intended.

  “At fourteen three zero Norah was attacked in a public area in an attempted kidnapping. The suspect was thwarted by Ryker, but he escaped. We currently have Agent Alexis learning their position.

  “What we need now is a lookout. Norah will be in grave danger until we apprehend the suspect and we are certain that they are aware of her position.”

  Cassidy raises her hand as if she is in school and waits for Dylan to call on her. “Let me get this straight, someone is out there trying to kidnap Norah so they can launch this device, which still does God knows what but it’s bad.” As Dylan nods Cassidy continues, “You want her to sit like a waiting duck for someone to come out of the woodwork?”

  “Yes, it’s the safest method.”

  “Safest, probably, but how long will she need to wait? How long do we have to keep our eyes peeled?”

  Squirming slightly from Cassidy’s gaze Ryker watches as Dylan shuffles his stance slightly. Ryker would smirk at the man’s situation if the thought of Cassidy flinging her gaze toward him didn’t terrify him. There is a reason she owns her own business, Cassidy is as cut-throat and no-nonsense as they come.

  “I don’t know,” he responds as he pleads to his wife and Ryker’s sister Sydney to get Cassidy to ease up on him.

  “I have a better solution,” Cassidy touts.

  As a cunning smile graces Cassidy’s lips, Ryker’s gut churns with the words he is dreading to hear. “We should set her up as bait.”

  “No,” he says as he launches himself from the seat causing Norah to fall back onto the cushions. “Absolutely not.”

  “Ryker,” he hears his name called, but he’s too overwhelmed to acknowledge the person.

  “She’s been through too much already. How could you even consider it, Cassidy? In the past year or two it seems like almost everyone in this family has been stalked or kidnapped. What the fuck is wrong with us?”

  “Calm down, honey,” his mother says calmly from her perch at the outdoor dining set. “People always take what they can’t have. A lot of people see our family as a perfect and loving group, and they want to tear it apart. We can’t control their actions, but we can control our own.”

  “Then explain to me why this is a good idea? A better idea? Why should she risk her life?”

  “Because if it protects everyone else, I want to do it. I was going to suggest it actually,” Norah says from behind him, and Ryker spins around and pins her with his astonished gaze.

  “Ryker,” Cassidy begins. “If we put her somewhere out in the open where they believe they have a chance to capture her we can capture them in return. You know how this works. We have enough people living in this town to have eyes, ears, and strength in every fissure.”

  “And you want to do this?” Ryker asks to Norah who nods vigorously.

  Ryker doesn’t wait for a reply or to learn how they plan to make this work. Instead, he turns around and storms back through the house.

  I just found the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, and she wants to risk losing it all.

  As he makes his way to the staircase, Ryker looks out the front window and is surprised to see a car barreling toward the house at a breakneck speed. The car’s brakes lock up, and it drifts around the fountain rounding out into a perfect parallel park on the edge of the driveway. He stares there stunned, most likely with his mouth hanging open wondering who is driving the vehicle. To his surprise, Alexis jumps from the car and runs en route of the front door.

  Ryker opens it easily and lets her pass, amazed that she isn’t huffing for air from the speed at which she ran.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” he says, but she quickly cuts him off.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Out back. I’ll take you.”

  Somehow he ends up following her out to the deck as if she’s been on his property before. At first, everyone looks at her as just another guest to the party until she begins to move toward Norah. Ryker’s nerves go on alert, and he shuffles in behind her.

  “I know who it is. Who is behind it all,” Alexis says to the crowd in general but crouches down beside Norah to speak to her privately. But fuck if Ryker is going to let that happen.

  “It’s your father.”

  Chapter Eight

  THE WORDS SOUND MUFFLED to her ears, and if she weren’t sitting down, Norah would most certainly feel as if she would pass out.

  “But he is in jail,” she hears someone’s deep voice point out from around her and then a reply, “Do you have any idea how easy it is for someone in the Mob to have a double? It’s almost common practice. And see, Anthony Moretti burned off his fingerprints decades ago so if he does the same to his double it's almost impossible to catch.”

  The heaviness settles on Norah, forcing her down into the dark depths of the blackness that surrounds her. She’s slipping, grasping on anything to pull her free but the hand is out of reach. She’s drowning in her own fear and despair with no one to save her.

  “Norah?” she vaguely makes out the call until she feels light, weightless as if she’s flying. A scent surrounds her. The smell of something warm, something solid, and something loving. It beckons her, offers a reprieve from the depths, and she grabs it with both hands.

  “Norah, are you okay?” Ryker asks as he cradles her in his arms holding her close as if he is afraid she may slip away.

  “What happened? I . . . I think I passed out.”

  “You did, but you weren’t out long. What is the last thing that you remember?”

  “Um, I remember you leaving and then Alexis and you coming out on the deck, and I think I remember her saying something about – my father! Oh my gosh,” Norah cries out as she sits up quickly almost knocking Ryker in the chin with her head. “Are you sure? Positive?” she asks as she eyes Alexis.

  “I’m positive. I’m so sorry,” the normally gruff female says in kind.

  “What are we going to do?” she returns her gaze back to him and asks.

  “I think the question is what do you want to do? Do you continue on with your plan which I am still not behind and try and capture your father. Or do you live your life fearing h
e may come after you? They still want you for whatever it is they have planned.”

  “What if I’m not sure? On the one hand he’s still my father, though I haven’t seen him in God knows how many years but in my heart I’m not sure if I could turn him in. And on the other hand, I know without a doubt in my mind that the device isn’t what he’s after.”

  Alexis perks up and inquires, “What do you think he wants?”

  “Leverage. See he can only do so much damage with the device and only ten of the prototypes. But if someone, i.e., the commissioner, believes that by having Dr. Lewis and me my father could produce more of the implants. It’s really nothing more than gaining power. My father wants full reign of the streets, and he’s going to do whatever he can to get it. He’s power hungry and determined and will stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

  “Even if it means taking you?” Ryker asks.

  “Especially if it means taking me. I’m nothing more than a pawn, and as much as I love him because he’s the only family I have left, I can’t have him hurt any more people.”

  “So you’re still going through with it?” he asks as he pins her with his gaze, his fearful eyes sending shivers down her spine.

  “I don’t think that I have a choice. If I don’t, I’m afraid of what he’ll do next.”

  She watches as Ryker’s face falls, his crestfallen expression burning a hole through her heart but she knows that if she doesn’t do this, her father will continue to hunt her down until he gets what he wants.

  Ryker’s free hand runs through his hair, tugging at the longer locks and sucking his bottom lip into his mouth.

  “Ryker,” she whispers as she tries to explain to him why she needs to do this. Not just for herself but for him too. They can’t be together with this hanging over them and if her father so much as gets a whiff of her being close to someone so famous it wouldn’t take but a well-placed attempt to destroy something and someone she loves.