Heck.
Dade didn’t want to feel the warmth of holding this child in his arms. Because Kayla was still his family’s enemy. There couldn’t be anything between them.
Well, except for his feelings for her son.
And that kiss, of course.
But Dade was reasonably sure he’d be disgusted with himself about that later. Too bad the attraction he felt for her kept putting off that later.
Dade tried to hand Robbie back to the nanny, but when the baby fussed again, Dade kept hold of him and returned to the living room to check on Kayla. When she spotted them, Dade got another raised eyebrow. Dade looked at Robbie to see his reaction, and the little boy gave him a big toothy grin. Dade couldn’t help but grin back.
“I’m finished.” Kayla scrawled her signature on the last page of the statement and handed both the pages and the pen back to Winston. She didn’t waste even a second taking Robbie from him.
Dade had expected those raised eyebrows from their guests, but he was a little miffed that Kayla would have that reaction, especially because they’d set fire to each other’s lips just minutes earlier.
“I’ll let you know if Brennan gets the trial delay,” Winston assured them. He tipped his head in a farewell gesture, and the two attorneys headed to the door.
Dade followed them, closing the door behind them and resetting the security alarm. He turned to ask Kayla about that raised eyebrow reaction, but she spoke before he could.
“You trust both of those men?” she asked. It didn’t seem like an accusation exactly, but there was concern dripping from her voice.
“I trust Winston.” But then he had to shrug. “I don’t really know Alan. Why, did you get bad vibes from him?”
“From both of them,” she corrected. “But then I’m getting bad vibes from almost everyone.”
He stared at her. “Even from me? I noticed you didn’t care for my holding your son.”
She opened her mouth as if she might leap to dispute it, but then Kayla shook her head. “It’s not that.” And she repeated it. “Your brothers hate me, and I don’t want to do anything that would hurt your relationship with them. I figured the D.A. would report back anything and everything he saw here.”
Oh, he would. Maybe Alan, too. But Grayson had already seen the close contact between Kayla and him at the start of the interview with Misty. Grayson wasn’t stupid, and he no doubt had already noticed what was simmering between Kayla and him.
“It might be too late to do that kind of damage control.” Dade went closer, caught onto Robbie’s foot and gave it a jiggle. He was rewarded with a grin.
“Is everything okay?” Connie asked from the hall.
“Yes,” Kayla quickly answered. “I’ll keep Robbie with me for a while and give you some time for reading.”
The nanny made a sound of approval, but Dade doubted she’d get much quality reading time. The attack from the night before was too fresh on all their minds.
Kayla grabbed the diaper bag from the coffee table, took out several small stuffed animals and sank down onto the floor with Robbie so he could play. Dade checked out the window.
Nothing, thank God. Maybe it would stay that way.
He maneuvered himself so he could keep watch but sat on the floor along with them. Robbie seemed to approve because he handed Dade a blue horse and then laughed when Dade made a neighing sound.
“You’re good with kids,” Kayla said sounding more than a little surprised.
Dade shrugged and took out his wallet. He opened it to show her a picture of his thirteen-month-old niece, Kimmie. The picture was there all right, front and center, but something fell out.
A tarnished silver concho.
Kayla grabbed it before it could hit the floor and stared at it. The concho was a blast from the past that he didn’t need, and Dade had forgotten it was even there.
“It’s the symbol for the Ryland ranch.” The double back-to-back Rs were prominently displayed. “My father gave me and each of my brothers one before…well, before he left.”
One look in Kayla’s suddenly sympathetic eyes, and he knew she’d already heard at least bits and pieces of this tragic story. Boone Ryland had run off and abandoned his six sons twenty years ago, and that had been just the beginning of things gone wrong for what was left of the Rylands.
“Twenty years,” Dade mumbled, “and the gossip hasn’t died down.”
Kayla didn’t deny she’d heard gossip. She reached out, touched his arm and rubbed gently. Her touch was warm and curled through him, but it was also a reminder that the events twenty years would always be a stab to his heart.
He took the concho from her, shoved it back into his wallet and put it away. Out of sight but never out of mind.
Kayla cleared her throat and eased Robbie back into her lap when he tried to crawl away. “Nate’s child is your only niece or nephew?” she asked.
Dade was a hundred-percent thankful for the change in subject. “Yeah, but Grayson and his wife have one on the way.” He kept his attention fastened to the window.
“Grayson looks as if he’d be a good father,” she remarked. Her forehead bunched up. “Not your other brother, though.”
He knew exactly which brother she meant. “Mason.” And he couldn’t disagree with her. “Mason is a hard man to figure out. Hard on himself. And others. After our dad left, Mason took his concho, shot it with a .38 and then nailed what was left of it to his bedroom wall. Said it was the first thing he wanted to see when he got up in the morning so he’d remember how much he hated the old man.”
When Kayla didn’t say anything, he glanced at her. Her mouth had dropped open a little. “That doesn’t sound…healthy.”
“Not much about our past was,” he admitted. He sure hadn’t planned on spilling his guts this way, but he didn’t stop, either. “Plain and simple, my father gave us those conchos to relieve his guilt, and then he destroyed us, especially our mom. She committed suicide on Grayson’s eighteenth birthday and left a note begging him to keep the family together.”
Kayla touched his arm again. Probably to give him another of those soothing rubs, but Dade moved away. “Grayson succeeded.”
“Yeah, I guess. He’s happy now anyway.” One of six wasn’t exactly a good track record, but before Grayson’s wife, Eve, had come back into his life a few months earlier, the Rylands had been batting a thousand in the bad-relationship department.
Kayla stayed quiet a moment. “So what about you—have you always kept your concho in your wallet?”
This wasn’t a story he was used to telling, not out loud anyway, although he remembered it like it was yesterday. “When we were fourteen, Nate and I threw ours in Silver Creek. But like a bad penny, mine turned up. Grayson’s wife found it about a week ago when she was out taking some pictures for a newspaper article she’s working on.”
Kayla’s mouth dropped open again. “She found it after all these years?”
He shook his head and waved her off. “Don’t go there. This isn’t some kind of cosmic sign for me to forgive my father.” Dade bit back the profanity of what he really wanted to call Boone Ryland because Robbie was in the room. “It was just blind luck she found it, that’s all. And first chance I get, I’ll toss it right back in the creek. Heck, maybe the Gulf of Mexico. Doubt anyone would find it then.”
The silence came. Of course it did. He’d just saddled a mountain of old baggage on Kayla. Right about now she was probably thinking he needed some big-time therapy, and she was no doubt regretting that kiss, too.
“Don’t throw the concho away.” Her voice was a whisper now. “Give it to me.”
Dade was sure he looked at her as if she’d sprouted horns. “Why?”
She flashed him one of those half smiles, the ones that weren’t of the happy variety. “So I have something to remember the man who saved my and my son’s lives.”
Good grief. That wasn’t a good reason because it seemed intimate. Or something. It definitely didn’t s
eem right.
“Plus,” she continued. The smile was gone now, and her chin came up. Second-guessing her request, he figured. “If you want cosmic justice, what better way to get it than to give your enemy the guilt gift from a father you despise?”
Dade just stared at her, and she stared back. Robbie did, too, as if he was trying to figure out what was going on.
“Forget I said that,” Kayla added. She tried to chuckle. Failed. “I won’t need anything to remember you.”
Yeah. Dade felt the same about her. Kayla would be in his dreams—hot, uncomfortable dreams—long after this assignment ended. It’d been a while since he’d wanted a woman as much as he wanted Kayla.
Dade could already feel his hands on her. Could taste her. Could hear the sounds she’d make when he was deep inside her. And that hard ache went through his body and begged him to kick this attraction up a notch.
But he couldn’t. Because of her safety. And because of that cute little kid staring up at him.
Dade stood and took out his wallet. Then, the concho. He tossed it into Kayla’s lap. Quick, like stripping off a bandage that had been in place way too long.
She picked up the silver-dollar-sized concho the way a person would handle fine crystal and closed her fingers around it when Robbie reached for it, as well. She gave her baby a kiss instead.
Yet another too-intimate moment that he shouldn’t be experiencing with Kayla. He’d be thankful when this trial was over so he could put some distance between them.
And Dade was almost sure he believed that.
“A car,” Kayla said at the same moment Dade heard the sound of the engine.
Hell. What now? Maybe Winston had driven back to tell them that Brennan had gotten the delay he’d requested. If so, Dade was going to give them instructions on how to use a phone to relay information.
Dade hurried to the window next to the door and looked out. He groaned, but inside his reaction was much worse.
Kayla latched onto Robbie and hugged him close to her body. “Who is it?”
“It’s trouble,” Dade let her know, and when he drew his gun he was afraid this time he might have to use it.
Chapter Eight
Kayla tried to brace herself for the worst, and the worst would be Charles. However, he wasn’t the person who stepped from the car.
It was her sister, Misty.
Dade glanced back at her as if expecting an explanation, but Kayla didn’t have one. “I didn’t tell anyone including Misty, where we were staying.”
“Well, someone did, unless it’s blind luck she found her way out here,” he snarled. “Go to the bedroom and wait. Keep Robbie quiet if you can. Maybe she’s just on a fishing expedition and doesn’t actually know you’re here.”
Kayla was about to insist that Misty was no threat. Old habits died hard, and she had a lifetime habit of defending Misty. But the truth was their location had likely been compromised. Now the question was how?
“Carrie Collins,” Dade spat out like profanity.
It took Kayla a moment to realize why Dade had said the woman’s name, but then she spotted the tall brunette who got out of the driver’s side of the car. It was the paramedic who’d come to her estate right after the shooting.
“Your sister knows Carrie?” Dade asked, his attention fastened to the two women making their way to the porch.
“I don’t think so.” Yet, here they were together.
What was going on?
Kayla shoved the concho into her pocket and hurried to the hall where Connie was waiting. The nanny had no doubt heard the car engine and was wondering if they were about to be attacked again.
She handed Robbie to Connie. “I’ll be back after I talk to my sister.”
And by God, Misty better have some answers.
By the time Kayla returned to the living room, Dade was talking on his cell. She didn’t know who he had called, but he clearly wasn’t happy. He had such a grip on the phone that she was surprised it didn’t crush to powder, and his eyes were narrowed to slits.
“Who says I’m at the Wellman ranch?” Dade barked. He paused, then cursed. “How the hell did you manage to follow Winston?”
Kayla’s stomach dropped. If her sister and this medic had followed the D.A., then Charles’s hired guns could have done the same. Oh, mercy. This had just gone from bad to worse.
As if he’d declared war on it, Dade paused the security system and threw open the door. Carrie tried to push her way in, but Dade blocked her.
“I need to check your arm,” Carrie insisted. “You could get an infection. Or worse.”
“My arm is fine,” Dade insisted right back, and he jerked away from Carrie when she tried to check the bandage that was visible just beneath the sleeve of his black T-shirt.
Carrie’s eyes narrowed as well, and she shot Kayla a glare. Kayla ignored it and saved her glare for Misty, who was practically standing behind the much taller Carrie.
“Why did you come?” Kayla asked her sister.
“Why?” Misty stepped to Carrie’s side. “Because you believe I tried to kill you. I had to see you, to convince you of the obvious. I would never take money from someone who wants to hurt you.”
It certainly sounded convincing, and Kayla wanted to believe her, but there was the issue of the money that Misty had recently acquired. There was also her sister’s mere presence.
“Why did you come here?” Kayla asked. Again, she had to dodge a glare from Carrie. “You must have realized that someone could have followed you.”
“No one did,” Carrie snapped, and she repeated it to Dade. “I’m not stupid, Dade. I know how to watch my back—and yours.”
“Winston was certain no one had followed him, either,” Dade informed them. “But you somehow managed it. How?”
Carrie huffed, and her glare softened. “I figured Winston or Alan would be out to see you sooner or later, so I kept an eye on the parking lot at the D.A.’s office. I got lucky and saw them leave.”
“You did all that so you could check on my arm?” Dade didn’t sound happy about that. Or convinced that Carrie was telling the truth.
That put some fire back in her eyes. “I care about you,” Carrie snarled under her breath. And then she put that snarl into the look she gave Kayla.
Oh, so that’s what was going on. Carrie had a thing for Dade. That was, well, reasonable. After all, Dade was a hot guy and no doubt a prime catch. Still, it made Kayla uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to explore why she didn’t like Carrie going to extremes to check on Dade.
Kayla walked closer until she was side-by-side with Dade and snared her sister’s attention. “Were you watching the D.A.’s parking lot, too?”
The seconds crawled by before Misty answered. “Yes, and when Carrie spotted me, we got to talking. I asked her to bring me out here with her.”
“She demanded I bring her,” Carrie clarified to Dade. “I agreed finally because I didn’t want her to do something stupid by trying to follow me.”
Kayla figured the something stupid had already happened.
“You put Robbie in danger by coming here,” Kayla told Misty. Her sister opened her mouth, but Kayla spoke right over her. “We can talk about your innocence after the trial. After Robbie is safe. But for now, I need you just to back off and stay away from us.”
Misty flinched, and her eyes actually watered. Because Kayla had never seen Misty cry anything but crocodile tears, she had to wonder if these were genuine. If so, Kayla would owe her a huge apology. Later. After the trial.
“You both need to leave,” Dade said. And it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order. He started to close the door, but Carrie caught onto it.
However, the woman didn’t look at Dade. She looked at Kayla. “You don’t even remember me, do you?”
Kayla lifted her shoulder. “You were at the estate last night.”
“Before that. I was with Preston the night you two met.”
Kayla hadn’t expected the woman
to say that, and with so much already on her mind, it took her a few moments to remember that night.
“A charity fundraiser in San Antonio,” Carrie added. “I was talking to Preston, and you interrupted us.”
Yes, she remembered meeting them, and she vaguely recalled a woman next to Preston. Until now she’d had no idea it was Carrie. “A friend interrupted you,” Kayla corrected, “so she could introduce me to Preston.”
At the time, Kayla had thought it was one of the best moments of her life. And she continued to think that until she got to know the abusive man behind that million-dollar smile.
“Does this have anything to do with the trial or Kayla’s safety?” Dade demanded. He clicked on his phone. “Because I have security arrangements to make.”
“Yes, it does have something to do with the trial.” Carrie had a death grip on the door to keep Dade from closing it. “Kayla was bad news then, and she’s bad news now. She went to that fundraiser to meet a rich guy, and she succeeded. She didn’t care that Preston and I were dating. She just moved right in on him.”
Stunned by Carrie’s accusation, Kayla pulled back her shoulders. “I wasn’t aware you were seeing Preston. He didn’t mention it.”
“And I’m sure you didn’t ask.” Carrie paused and glanced away. “Preston ended things with me that night, and I figure you had plenty to do with that. I know your type, and I know you would have said and done anything to snag a man like him. All that money, all that power. You wanted it, and you didn’t care who you pushed aside to get it.”
Kayla could only shake her head. “You know nothing about me,” she insisted.
“Kayla’s right—you don’t,” Misty agreed. “And I didn’t come out here so you could attack my sister.”
Carrie ignored them and switched her attention to Dade. “Kayla could get you killed. You must know she had something to do with that attack last night. Why else would the gunman have called her?”
Because Kayla was right against Dade’s back, she felt his muscles go stiff. “How did you know about that call?”
Dade Page 7
