Shelter from the Storm (Finley Creek Book 2)

by Calle J. Brookes

  “I know. But you don’t have to push yourself.”

  “I’m not. And I’m not afraid.” Not of Handley Barratt anyway. Mel had said the man had promised her the night he’d scared Mel in St. Louis that he would never hurt their family again. Brynna believed him. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her out in Oklahoma.

  “We can’t live afraid, Elliot. I know that. After my mother died I was afraid of everything. Of losing my dad and Mel especially. Jilly and Syd, too. But it was different with them since they were younger. Mel being a TSP detective didn’t help. It took a while to stop being afraid all of the time.”

  “I know. I’ve been there myself. I’m not sure my brother has ever left that stage.”

  “Your brother doesn’t let himself get close to anyone so that he doesn’t have to fear losing them again.” She wasn’t great at reading emotions, but surprise was a pretty easy one to get. Elliot wasn’t hiding it very well at all. “I’ve thought about him a lot. Tried to figure out why he does the things he does. We spent a lot of time together.”

  He leveled a look at her. “I know. I don’t want to know any details but I’m glad the two of you were together and kept each other safe. I’ll always be grateful you saved my brother’s life. And that he was there to save yours.”

  “But the rest of it is personal.” Brynna pulled in a deep breath, and then put into words what she’d been thinking for a while. “I’m not going back to the TSP.”

  He nodded. “I understand. Same for Gabby.”

  She understood. She’d always suspected Gabby used the TSP as a hiding place because she’d been afraid the killers would be coming after her.

  That one of those killers had been right there in the same room with them every single day made Brynna shudder. And feel like vomiting again.

  Not that she hadn’t spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom after waking doing exactly that. And then another twenty after breakfast.

  “Things change. I have money. I don’t have to do anything for a while. A long while, actually. Possibly years. I’m free to do nothing but work on my software designs.” And have a baby.

  But she wasn’t telling the baby’s uncle that quite so soon.

  “Congratulations. That’s quite a big accomplishment.”

  “Yes it is. And it makes things easier, I guess. Thank you. I’ll talk to your brother tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER NINETY.

  * * *

  CHANCE had his bag over his shoulder and knew the first thing he needed was a shower. He’d wash up and change into decent clothes, then head over to the TSP. He hated official inquiries, but the TSP bigwigs had finally gotten their asses in gear.

  It was just the first step in a long process. Someone would have to answer for what Bennett Russell had done, especially to Brynna and Gabby.

  Gabby.

  Elliot had spent the last few weeks wrapped around his woman every night. He’d seen her across the breakfast table, ate dinner with her every night. Laughed with her over the little things.

  Held her when the nightmares came.

  Whereas Chance had bounced around a bunch of Mexican hotels, searching for that bastard Handley Barratt. Barratt had the answers he wanted.

  Still wanted.

  But Chance had woken up again in some hotel he couldn’t even remember the name of, shouting Brynna’s name and reaching for...her. The only thing he’d come away with was the realization that he could have been spending those nights with her. It had taken him weeks to realize that he could have had the only woman in the world who made him feel again right next to him. He could have been holding her the way Elliot had been holding her best friend.

  He was just too damned cowardly to give them both that.

  Let others find Handley Barratt. Chance had given enough of his life to finding the men who’d killed his family. He’d identified two of them, wasn’t that enough?

  Wasn’t that enough to turn over to others now? Wasn’t it time he lived the rest of his life?

  Wasn’t it time he had something—someone—for himself? There had been a redhead on the plane who’d looked so much like Brynna that at first he’d been certain it was her from behind. That it wasn’t had hurt.

  More than he’d ever thought possible.

  Elliot had made a point of telling him every time they spoke about how she was doing. Healing. Had told him of how the Becks had gathered for Christmas, and he and Gabby had joined them. His brother had even sent him a photo of Brynna cuddling her sister’s baby and smiling softly at the little girl.

  He’d ached from that, but he’d told himself that she was doing ok. She’d looked happy. The baby looked like a dark-haired version of Brynna, and had gripped a lock of carrot hair in one tiny fist. His brother was a real asshole for sending him that pic, reminding Chance of what he could have had. If he wasn’t so stupid.

  Chance had studied that photo so many times since Christmas. He saw it in his dreams at night. He’d kept himself in another damned country to keep from going to her.

  It was when he’d found himself staking out Houghton Barratt’s Mexican estate on the slim possibility she’d come down to Mexico with her sister did he realize how utterly stupid and wasteful with his life he was being.

  He’d stopped off at the bank and retrieved his maternal grandmother’s wedding rings. What he intended to do with them had his gut tightening. Elliot had inherited his paternal grandmother’s. That’s what Gabby would be wearing after her wedding next month.

  They’d buried their mother and father with the wedding rings they’d given each other. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

  Elliot had found a photo in a box of others at the house. He’d sent Chance a copy of that one, too.

  Kevin Beck’s family and his. Right there, three feet from where Chance had been standing next to Elliot, was a tiny redheaded girl. He’d barely remembered that day. He was close to graduating high school, she was about seven or eight. Beautiful.

  Proof they’d been connected for years. Or so he’d like to think.

  Elliot had given him two more that he’d printed out; they were still in his wallet. A quick snapshot of his mother in the kitchen—with that same little redhead wearing a too big apron and a serious expression. And another of a little girl with a bowl on her head, batter dripping down her cheeks along with the tears. He was just visible in the background.

  Chance remembered that day. He looked down at his hand. He still had the faint scar where Jillian had bitten him for what he’d done to Brynna.

  He was turning into a maudlin idiot where Brynna was concerned.

  The papers he’d signed that morning rested in his bag. He’d give them to her when he gave her the first of the rings. Chance hoped she’d just let him become a part of her dreams, too.

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE.

  * * *

  BRYNNA hated official hearings. She’d testified at one in the past, when a member of the Computer Forensics team had been brought up on review charges stemming from an evidence tampering case. Her colleague had been cleared, but the whole process was something Brynna hated.

  To compound it, Chance was supposed to be there soon.

  She wasn’t ready to face him.

  Not on top of everything else.

  “Are you ok?” Elliot leaned down and asked. Chance’s brother seemed to have taken it on himself to hover over Brynna whenever they were together. She appreciated it, she truly did.

  But she just wanted to forget what had happened. All of it.

  Forget the past, move on to the future. Her hand covered her stomach. Where their baby rested.

  She’d lain awake for hours last night, terrified that everything Benny had done and all the drugs the hospital had pumped into her had adversely affected the baby somehow. She needed to speak with her doctor again. They’d told her there would be concerns throughout the pregnancy, but that she most likely would have a perfectly healthy baby. But…she still needed answers. Otherwise the questions were going
to drive her crazy. Once she told Chance, she’d talk to Lacy. That’s what she would do. Lacy would tell her straight.

  “Bryn?” Gabby said her name again, and Brynna realized she hadn’t answered Elliot’s question. “You ok?”

  “I…I don’t want to go in there again.” The TSP building stood at the center of the block, tall and imposing. She used to love going inside, heading to the back annex where she and Gabby would hide for hours on end. Now all she remembered was red. The red of Benny’s blood, of hers. She didn’t want to go in there ever again. “Gabby, I don’t want to go in there again, again.”

  Elliot was there, strong and close and so much like Chance. He put his big body between Brynna’s and the building. He stepped close enough that he blocked out the sight. “Then we won’t. We’ll use the courthouse for this. Or somewhere else. I’ll make the calls. You and Gabby can wait right here.”

  Brynna nodded, feeling like a great big idiot. Benny was dead. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. Raymund and Handley Barratt were both in Mexico. The third guy was probably dead somewhere—Brynna’s cracking his head open had been pretty definite, in Chance’s opinion. They were gone.

  It didn’t make sense that they’d ever come back. It was done.

  “Thank you.” She fought back tears. Gabby was the one who cried over everything, not her. “I just…can’t go in there.”

  “I understand.” He patted her shoulder lightly.

  “I don’t want to go in there either, Bryn.” Gabby stood at her shoulder. “I think the courthouse would be much better. Or…a conference room somewhere. Anywhere else.”

  Elliot waved to someone entering the building. Brynna looked up, right into Daniel McKellen’s warm brown eyes. “McKellen, can you stay with Gabby and Brynna for a few moments? They don’t want to go inside the building and I agree it is a good idea to move the hearing.”

  “Of course,” McKellen smiled down at her. He had checked on her almost daily since she’d returned from St. Louis. He was a good friend, but they both knew there would never be anything more than that between them. She almost wished there was. It would have been so much easier, wouldn’t it? “Anything you need.”

  Why couldn’t she have loved someone like him? “I just…want normal back and soon, Daniel. That’s all.”

  “Then let’s get it for you. Gabby, how are you today?”

  He chatted with them until Elliot returned fifteen minutes later. The longer he spoke the more it became clear that while he was a wonderful man, her heart would always belong to Chance. Why did that depress her so much?

  “The committee has agreed to meet down the street at the hotel.”

  “The Barratt?” Gabby asked.

  Elliot winced. “I know. Not my first choice, either.”

  “But we just can’t escape Houghton Barratt, can we?” Mel certainly couldn’t. Her sister refused to even speak about the man she’d married. What was happening between them was anyone’s guess, as far as Brynna could tell.

  Mel wasn’t happy. That was about all she knew.

  Elliot and Daniel kept her and Gabby between them on the short walk to the Barratt-Finley Creek Hotel, four blocks down from the TSP.

  “How long is this going to last?” Brynna asked.

  “I don’t know. Several hours, at least. I know there will be quite a few questions for the both of you. Both of you need to understand something. You control today. If you need a break or if anything upsets you, tell me. I’ll get you a break right there. I’m not going to let anyone push you today.”

  Brynna nodded. It was nice to have the chief of the post so protective, at least, wasn’t it? “We can do this, and then when it’s over we can forget Benny, right?”

  “Absolutely, Bryn. Then you can help me pick out bridesmaids dresses. I was thinking banana yellow…” Gabby grinned softly.

  “That’s wonderful. I’d even wear yellow for you, Gabs.”

  “I know. And that’s why I’m thinking green. You and Mel would both look awesome in green.”

  There was some relief, at least.

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO.

  * * *

  CHANCE got the text from his brother about the change of location just as he was pulling into the TSP parking lot.

  What had once been the annex was roped off with crime scene tape. They were keeping it as-is until all the forensics was gathered, all the reports written, and all the information gathered that they could get. Weeks of exposure to the weather wasn’t helping erase the desolation of the rubble.

  Chance despised the very sight of it. The betrayal that burned-out shell represented sickened him. The knowledge that Brynna had almost died there nearly brought him to his knees whenever he saw it.

  He woke in a cold sweat more nights than not since it had happened. His subconscious had yanked him back to his family’s funerals, only instead of them it had been Brynna in a coffin.

  Brynna he had almost lost forever.

  He couldn’t deal with that. He knew what kind of coward that he was. She was right there where he could get to her, and he was too damned afraid to go to her.

  She was with his brother now. He was going to get her. Everything else could wait.

  Chance parked and started down the sidewalk toward the Barratt hotel. It was a luxury place right in the middle of Finley Creek. That damned Barratt was everywhere, wasn’t he?

  He’d spent most of the day before in Mexico tracking down a dead end lead on Handley Barratt. Common knowledge said the man had a mistress a year younger than his only son south of the border.

  Chance was a man and he knew how it worked—follow the path a man’s pants led him in and you’d eventually find that man.

  But it wasn’t working out that way. Barratt the elder wasn’t anywhere to be found. Cagey.

  Chance was tired of chasing shadows. Tired of wasting so much damned time. He saw the group outside the Barratt when he walked up.

  Carrot hair was hard to miss.

  As was that damned McKellen, hovering at Brynna’s shoulder. She was smiling up at the other man, a look of open gratitude on her pretty face. He knew what McKellen thought when he looked at her. Hell, Chance had the same damned thoughts, both awake and asleep.

  Brynna was…Brynna was…

  Damn it, she was his everything.

  And he wasn’t going to let her go to someone like Daniel McKellen. Chance might not be the best man out there for her, but he’d make sure she was safe and taken care of…and loved.

  He couldn’t deny that he’d loved her probably from the first moment she’d looked at him and asked why couldn’t they have sex. The first moment she’d looked up at him with those eyes and cracked every barrier he’d erected around his heart.

  The sun seemed drawn to carrot hair, just like he was. Chance stopped walking and stared.

  He loved her. Loved her just as deeply as Elliot loved Gabby. Just as deeply as his father had loved his mother.

  Putting distance between them to keep himself from getting hurt was never going to change that fact. All that did was keep them apart when they could be together.

  He could have a thousand miles between them and he’d still love her.

  But what in the hell did he want to do about that?

  It would be better for her if he just left her alone. Let her find another man, have her pretty house and her pretty babies and her pretty life with someone else.

  That’s what he should do, wasn’t it?

  But damn it, he wanted that pretty house and those pretty babies and that pretty female all for himself. Selfish of him?

  Probably.

  He patted his pocket—the papers and the ring box were right where he’d put them earlier.

  But he’d spent the last ten years of his life grieving for his family. The one that he had lost. Maybe it was time he worked on building another family? One with Brynna and Elliot and Gabby and the rest of the Becks?

  With Brynna.

  Brynna in his bed every night, Br
ynna carrying his child, Brynna rocking his child at night. Brynna eating purple pasta sauce and telling him all about lightning or snakes or whatever subject she got into her complicated little head.

  Carrot hair spread over his pillow at night. Light brown eyes looking at him, making him feel like he was a slug whenever he did something completely stupid.

  Her soft hands on his skin, his lips on hers. Her in his bed every night, looking up at him like he was the only man in her world.

  That sounded like exactly what he wanted.

  But did she? Or had his stupidity made her change her mind? Maybe she wanted Daniel McKellen instead?

  Why else would the guy be right there with her and Gabby and Elliot—right where he should be?

  Chance increased his pace. He wanted to have an opportunity to talk to her before they had to go in and explain to the TSP bigwigs how one of their own had gone off the deep end and tried to kill the two women in the world who mattered to Chance the most.

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE.

  * * *

  SHE knew he was there before she saw him. It was weird, it was like she had a radar or homing beacon where Chance Marshall was concerned.

  For the first time since she’d met him he was dressed in a suit and tie. Chance filled out his suit very nicely. He put Elliot and Daniel to shame, didn’t he?

  Elliot called his brother’s name, but Brynna barely heard him. Chance was looking at her. And she was looking at him.

  It seemed like it had been years since she had seen him last, instead of the forty-five days that she knew it had been. Where had he been?

  It took every bit of self-control she had to keep from demanding the answer to that very question. It wasn’t her right to know where he spent his time, was it? Instead she kept her expression as neutral as she could. Which was harder than she thought it was ever going to be.

  He moved right up next to her, sidestepping in front of Daniel. Chance stared down at her. Brynna looked up at him. It was just the two of them for a long moment. “Bryn.”