Close Range Christmas

by Nicole Helm

  Dev slid her phone away from her and she scowled at him. “Take a break. It’s almost Christmas.”

  “Since when are you known for taking a break and enjoying Christmas cheer?”

  “Well, I’m not, but I figure I’d start.”

  She felt a bit like the Grinch with a heart swelling too many sizes to possibly be healthy. With all that amazement and heart growing came this ever evolving fear that...well, a million things would go wrong.

  Cody and Gage got up and headed for the basement as Grandma Pauline had instructed earlier. Sarah was distracted enough to return to her previous thoughts. Because as great as it was to have Dev here, wanting to be a father, wanting...something...it didn’t matter until they were safe.

  She wasn’t sure she knew how to believe it was real until the danger was gone. Maybe it was all an act, or some kind of hysteria brought on by worry.

  “If we could work it out, the letters, the pattern—maybe we could catch him in the act. Whether it’s one of these attacks, or it’s in leaving one of the letters. I know there’s a connection.”

  “Until we know what it is, I’m not sure what we can do about it. He keeps cutting through all Cody’s safety measures, and I took the dogs over to the Pullman Ranch until we know they won’t get hurt in the crossfire.”

  “Brethren and North Star and caves,” Sarah muttered, repeating the info from the letters. “Brady’s standoff with the Sons was in the Badlands. So maybe—wait. Caves.” She grabbed Dev’s arm. “Crawl space. A crawl space is like a cave. Like Gage said. Anth could only hurt him if—”

  Dev was already to the basement door. He yelled a sharp stop as he flew down the stairs. Sarah had to struggle to her feet. “I think there’s something in the crawl space. I think—”

  “It’s a bomb,” Dev yelled from the basement. “Get everyone out.”

  * * *

  CODY BARKED ORDERS into his phone as they ran upstairs. Everyone who’d been in the kitchen was already filing out the door.

  “Do we have everyone?” Cody asked.

  “Yes. We made sure,” Sarah answered. She had a handful of coats in her arms. Grandma Pauline and the girls were already long gone, and the rest of the Wyatts were trailing out behind them.

  Dev took Sarah by the arm as they got to the mudroom. He didn’t chastise her for still being inside, just pulled her with him as they hurried outside.

  “Let’s get away from the house. None of us know enough about bombs to know how much power that one could have.”

  “We need to get out of the elements,” Liza returned. “We grabbed what boots and coats we could, but not enough for everyone to be out in the cold like this.”

  Liza was carrying Gigi. Brady had Brianna since she was too big for Nina to carry and Cody had been back with Dev. Felicity had Claire wrapped in someone else’s coat. Duke had his arm linked with Grandma—and Grandma didn’t even yell at him for treating her like an old lady.

  “Head to the stables,” Dev said. “That’ll give us shelter.” And cover if the explosion was particularly violent. It hadn’t been a large device. Dev wasn’t even sure he’d have thought it was a bomb if Cody hadn’t been certain and Sarah hadn’t thought the crawl space was dangerous and connected to the last letter. Still, who knew what kind of damage it could do? If they were in the stables, they’d all be together and the walls should protect them.

  God, he hoped.

  Dev’s gaze swept the area around them. No sign of anyone. No shots rang out. The move to the stables made him nervous, but there was no other choice with a bomb in the house.

  Which could have been Anth’s purpose.

  Dev pulled open the stable door and ushered everyone inside. He double checked to make sure they had everyone, then closed the door.

  The horses neighed and nickered. They weren’t getting the kind of exercise they were used to, even with the cold winter months. They were restless, and it didn’t settle Dev’s nerves any.

  “I called in North Star,” Cody said once they were all in the barn. “Shay has a bomb expert on her team. He’s in Washington right now, so I’ll have to go back in there and—”

  Pretty much everyone shouted “no” at him before he could finish that idiotic statement.

  “He can video chat and instruct on—”

  “No.”

  “You want one of the County guys going in there and getting blown up? You want to wait around for some state official?” Cody demanded, impatience bubbling.

  “I want that more than I want you blown to bits,” Grandma Pauline said, Nina and Brianna nodding emphatically behind her.

  “We need to search the entire building. Make sure there isn’t anything here that might be a threat,” Dev said in a low voice that only Jamison could hear. Obviously the children knew something was wrong, but he wanted to keep them as in the dark about the danger as he possibly could.

  Jamison nodded.

  “Is a bad man going to come again?” Brianna asked. “Should we hide?”

  Poor Brianna had already lived through danger. Months of terror, really. One of those moments right here in this barn when she and Gigi had hidden from men after Cody.

  “No, sweetheart,” Nina said, kneeling so she could pull Brianna into a hug. “We’re all sticking together this time.”

  “This could be a way to move us,” Sarah whispered to Dev and Jamison, clearly also trying to keep her suspicions from the children. “To get us less protected. It could all be a farce.”

  Dev nodded. “Could. We’re going to check to make sure nothing has been moved. We’ll keep the doors closed and the girls occupied until we can get help with the bomb. Just stay put for a few.”

  She scowled at him, but she did in fact stay put as he moved around the stables. There was nowhere he could go where she couldn’t see him, unless he went into the far reaches of one of the stalls, which he only did twice. Jamison and Brady handled the other stalls. They even went into the hayloft and rooted around up there.

  But there was no sign of anything amiss. No bombs, no evidence anyone besides him and Duke had been in here.

  It didn’t sit right. None of this did. He was beginning to understand Sarah’s line of thinking. The notes clearly meant something. The threats that—thankfully—didn’t end in any harm were meant more to terrorize than to hurt.

  But why?

  He’d hoped action would mean something, but they could only react. The only way to act was to figure out what Anth was trying to accomplish, if it wasn’t actually sentencing anyone to death.

  And why hadn’t he gotten a letter? Logically, Dev had kicked this all off by trying to take Ace down all those years ago when Anth had basically saved his life. Saved his life only to take it? That didn’t make sense either.

  Dev shrugged off his coat and put it on Sarah. How had she ended up one of the people without one?

  “I’m not that cold.”

  “You’re not that warm.” He turned to the group all crowded in the center of the stables. “I can’t find anything out of the ordinary or any evidence someone besides us has been in here.”

  “What I can’t figure is how did he get inside the house? We’ve had lookouts. We’ve got everything locked up tight and I didn’t notice anything amiss. How could he have been inside to plant the bomb?” Gage asked, cradling Claire to his chest. “How could he have known I’d be one of the ones to go get the Christmas decorations?”

  “Maybe it was just...coincidence.” Felicity looked at the girls and then leaned forward to whisper, “He was going to blow up the house with all of us in it.”

  “Felicity’s right. It didn’t have to be you,” Dev said, scratching a hand through his hair as he tried to make sense of it. “Isn’t that the point? This is all just...theatrics. We’re all still alive and well. No one’s been hurt—and if he can plant a bomb in the basem
ent, surely he could catch us off guard and hurt us. Sarah was right with the last one. This is some kind of warped game.”

  “How much longer do we live like this?” Liza demanded.

  “We know Brady’s note will come next. Soon, if pattern follows. Maybe we can set some kind of trap,” Sarah offered hopefully.

  “Unless he sends a messenger,” Cody pointed out.

  “But we’d still have someone, if we could catch the messenger. Someone who would have some clue as to what’s going on,” Dev replied.

  “But the notes have come in a variety of ways. How could we possibly predict when and how the next one is going to come?” Brady asked.

  “It’s not a bad angle. But we know one thing for sure. He’s close. Really close. He got in the house. We need to know how,” Gage insisted.

  “Whatever this is, it’s planned. Really planned.” Dev realized maybe even more than they’d thought. “Ace has been dead for over a year. If that was the tipping point? He’s had all that time to plan. And who knows—maybe it wasn’t the tipping point. Maybe he’s been planning this for a lot longer. I haven’t had any interaction with Anth since that day over a decade ago. The ways he could have gotten into the house are legion if we go back farther than we’ve been on guard.”

  “So, why now?”

  Dev shook his head. “I couldn’t say. But, to Sarah’s point, it’s all planned. It’s careful, and even if it’s not logical, there’s a pattern. It’s not random and even if it doesn’t make sense to us, there’s some thread of sense. If we can access it, we can stop it.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  “There’s an end game. There has to be. We just have to keep fighting until it gets there.” He looked around the stables. His entire family. Everyone he loved. Everyone he...

  Sarah’s hand slid into his. He looked down at her, pregnant with his child. So determined to figure out the pattern. When he wanted to act, she wanted to sit and think it through—and he figured the opposite was also true.

  Balance. They had it—always had. Evened each other out, even when they were bickering. Or were they always bickering because it had been the only way to get him to engage at all for a while there?

  She’d brought him back to life, whether he’d wanted to admit that for a very long time or not. It was true. She and the baby were the last missing piece and that was why he was scared of them—better to believe he didn’t deserve it than reach for something that might bring him back to fully living.

  But there were bigger things to be scared of—real things. Anth and losing any of these people to a madman’s whims. He’d once vowed to fight everything Ace was and touched, but he’d given up on that when he’d almost died.

  But there was too much at stake to ignore who and what he was. “There’s too much at stake to lose, so we’ll figure out a way to win.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eventually between the local police department and Cody’s connections to the North Star group, a bomb expert was called in. It took most of the day, but they managed to defuse and take away the bomb.

  Jamison and Cody had talked about the technicalities. All the Wyatts currently employed by Valiant County helped the other officers dust for prints and try to figure out how Anth, or someone else, had gotten in to plant the bomb.

  But there were no answers to be had. Everyone was on considerable edge. The house didn’t feel safe. Nowhere felt safe.

  Cody and Dev had set out to change all the locks in the house. Brady and Gage had gone out with the other officers to do a sweep of the property. Jamison, Duke and Tucker were keeping a watch on the outdoors with Felicity and Nina, while Rachel, Grandma and Liza were entertaining the girls by decorating the tree.

  Sarah was superfluous—in actuality and size. She couldn’t do anything fast. She couldn’t do anything. She sat on the couch looking at the twinkling lights, feeling sorry for herself and thinking how pointless she was.

  Which didn’t do anyone any good. Maybe she couldn’t act in the ways she might like, but she could still think. She had to think.

  When Cecilia came into the room, she looked...drawn. Sarah wasn’t sure what she’d been doing upstairs, but it certainly hadn’t been resting up for her night assignment of lookout.

  Sarah motioned her to come sit next to her. Cecilia made her way through the Christmas debris, giving Brianna’s braid a little tug on the way. Brianna grinned up at Cecilia, then went back to unwrapping ornaments.

  Cecilia plopped on the couch next to Sarah and sighed. “Seems so weird to be doing normal things.”

  “It’s almost Christmas,” Sarah offered, even though she’d had the same negative reaction this morning.

  “Yeah. And we’re dealing with bomb threats and hanging up crystal angels.”

  Cecilia sounded somewhat disgusted, but Sarah had begun to accept it was comforting. Stars and angels and all the symbols of the season of peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

  Too bad there was one man she didn’t have much peace or goodwill for. Brady would be next, if the notes kept following the pattern. Maybe that was why Cecilia looked so worried. While they were all family and all loved each other, it was probably more stressful when your husband was the next target of unknown sentencing.

  Sarah should probably let it be. Focus on Christmas and hope, but... Well, there had to be some way to figure out what was coming next. “Tell me about when you and Brady faced off with Elijah.”

  Cecilia sighed. “I don’t really want to relive that particular moment in my life, Sarah.”

  “Even if it helped us figure out what’s next?”

  Cecilia scowled. “I don’t see how it would,” she grumbled, but she scooted closer to Sarah on the couch so she could speak in low tones the girls wouldn’t hear over their chattering. “It all started with me hiding Mak from Elijah.” Cecilia’s friend had had a baby with Ace’s protégé in the Sons. When the mother had been hospitalized, Cecilia had taken the baby to keep him from going to Elijah. She and Brady had worked to keep Mak safe from both Elijah and the dangerous reach of the Sons.

  “You miss him.”

  Cecilia shrugged. “I’m happy Layla’s happy. Jarrod is good for her and spending a few weeks with his family in Denver is great for all of them. But, yeah, I miss having them closer.”

  “So, in reality, you started it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, you took Mak and Brady got involved. Before that, Felicity was the one being framed for murder, and Gage got involved. In fact, Felicity was the one who shot Ace, even if he did survive.”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  Sarah straightened in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position for her belly. “And Nina went on the run because Ace threatened her. She came back because Ace sent men after her. Liza came to Jamison when Gigi disappeared.”

  “What’s your point? The only reason the Wyatt boys are ever in trouble is because of us? Sorry, that doesn’t fly.”

  “No, but listen. Why wouldn’t you guys be targets too? Why wouldn’t he come after Liza, Nina or Felicity? You? Even Rachel was involved because of Duke, which had nothing to do with Ace, even if it did connect to the Sons.”

  “I don’t know.” Cecilia’s eyebrows drew together. “Well, technically someone shot at Liza.”

  “Shot at, not killed. Regardless, the letter referencing that was to Jamison, not to Liza.” Sarah grabbed Cecilia’s arm. “What if it’s not about Ace?”

  “How could it not be about Ace?”

  “I don’t know.” But it made more sense. Liza, Nina and Felicity had had specific run-ins with Ace. Cecilia had been involved with his protégé being hurt. The women should be more involved, but Anth was focused solely on the brothers.

  Of course, they were the actual relations to him. Was it about blood? Brotherhood?

 
“The notes all say treason. I thought it had to do with leaving the Sons, but is it something more? Something...personal? Beyond Ace, I mean.”

  Cecilia took some time to think that over. “Well, we don’t know how Anth was raised. Ace was in the Sons, but by all accounts Anth wasn’t there. Nor was his mother there.”

  “Our mother.” She’d had to explain her blood connection in the barn this afternoon, and she could feel the pity from all her sisters. That her parents hadn’t been bad people and were now dead. That she was connected by blood to someone terrorizing them.

  Cecilia smiled sadly. “I know that’s...”

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know what it is. I haven’t had time to work it out really.” She rubbed her belly, hoping her baby never had to have complicated feelings about their parentage. “But you’re right. He wasn’t with his parents that we know of. Until after the Wyatts were all out of the Sons.”

  “It’s possible he was there in the few years Liza was out, but it seems unlikely.”

  “Still, he was with Ace when Dev tried to arrest him. So, wherever he was, he knew Ace. He was working with Ace. Even if he did help Dev, he’s connected to Ace.”

  “Maybe the betrayal is a deeper familial sense. Maybe he’s not blaming them for Ace, but they didn’t come for him. They didn’t help him. They all got out, but he... We don’t know what he did, but maybe it was terrible.”

  “But he made Dev promise not to tell anyone about him,” Sarah pointed out, though she thought there had to be something to this line of reasoning. Something about family and connections. Not just Ace. It had to be more. Or the brothers wouldn’t be singled out the way they were.

  Cecilia sighed deeply. “I wish I thought all these mental circles would get us somewhere, but I think we just have to wait. Wait for him to make a mistake and hope...” Cecilia didn’t finish her sentence and shook her head.

  Sarah got the feeling she was worried about Brady being next to get a letter. About him being the next target. Even though no one had been hurt yet, anyone could have been by the bomb. Anyone could have been shot. It seemed a bit of blind luck that they were all still intact.