THE CORBIN BROTHERS: The Complete 5-Books Series

by Lexie Ray

  I gave her a hard look. “You know the risks of that.”

  “I do. And I did. And I still don’t regret it.”

  The note Green had left for me explicitly said that there was to be no police involvement. Harriet’s plan could’ve gotten the both of us killed, but it was hard to be indignant at this point. Green was dead, Amelia and I were alive, and nothing seemed altogether real yet.

  “We kept our distance, at first,” she said. “Then, we got reliable surveillance and moved in.”

  “Green fired at your team,” I said, the realization dawning on me. “He saw you entering and that’s why he fired.”

  It had been terribly fortunate he had been surprised that way, but luck that chilled me to the bone. He’d threatened to shoot Amelia if I made a single bold move, then shoot me. It was his arrogance — and his lack of preparation — that had gotten him killed.

  “He missed,” Harriet said. “We got the drop on him and we finished him.”

  Amelia tried to say something and had a wretched coughing fit.

  “We need to get her to a hospital,” I said. She was exhausted and injured and probably in shock. I wouldn’t be fully relieved until she was comfortable and completely recovered. There were a couple of cops grinning at their own success, but I didn’t join them.

  “And you need some clothes,” Harriet countered. “What exactly happened in here?”

  Someone draped a blanket over my shoulders and I used it to shield Amelia from everything.

  “I’ll tell you everything I can,” I said, lifting Amelia in my arms as her feet finally failed her for good. That was fine. They’d seen her through the worst of today. Now it was time to rest. “Let’s get her seen about, first.”

  “You’re a hero, you know,” Harriet said, waving away a couple of cops who sprang forward to help me with Amelia, one of them carrying the bundle of my clothes. “There’ll be awards and ceremonies and all that bullshit.”

  “I’m not a hero,” I said. “I don’t care about any of those things.”

  All I cared about was the woman I carried in my arms, and getting her well again. Everything else was utterly secondary.

  Chapter 9

  The next few months were hard. There wasn't really a way to gloss over that. I wished there was some kind of procedure or magic pill that would bore through our memories of Oscar Green and rid us of them, but life would never be that simple.

  Amelia and I just had new volumes to add to our nightmares. That was all.

  After we'd given our statements to the police, and after Amelia had gotten the all-clear from the hospital, she had an almost paralyzing war of self-doubt.

  "Amelia?"

  She'd stopped in the middle of the lane in the parking garage at the hospital, looking numb. She’d been given scrubs to wear out in favor of the soiled clothing she’d worn throughout her ordeal, and she didn’t look quite like herself.

  "The truck is over there," I said, pointing. A couple of former colleagues had done me the favor of driving it to the garage from the warehouse. It would be a long drive back to the ranch, but I was more than ready to put Dallas behind me. All I wanted to do was shower and sleep for roughly a week, but I hadn’t taken into account what Amelia’s prerogatives were.

  “I don’t know where to go,” she said, her voice small and still hoarse, a testament to the bruises and chafing marring her neck.

  “Do you see the truck?” I asked, pointing, figuring she probably hadn’t even had a chance to ride in it before she’d been taken from the ranch. “It’s that red one, right over there. Next to the silver car?”

  But Amelia just shook her head. “I don’t know where to go,” she repeated.

  I was slow to understand. “You don’t know how to get to the truck?”

  I walked back over to her and took her gently by the hand. I got her out of the middle of the lane and to the truck, but at that point, she dug her heels in and refused to take another step.

  “What is it?” I asked, my brow furrowed as I tried to figure out what was wrong. “Do you want to go back inside the hospital and talk to someone? Is that it?”

  She’d been through a barrage of medical tests and interviews and preliminary sessions with a team of psychologists, but I wondered if there was perhaps something they’d missed. Or something she had neglected to tell them. Or some other task that made her reluctant to leave here.

  “Where is safe?” Amelia finally asked, lifting her eyes carefully to mine. “Is my old apartment safe? Is the ranch safe?”

  I opened my mouth to reassure her and closed it again. I wasn’t in the business of making statements I couldn’t back up. At some point, her apartment had been safe. During the years that stretched from Green’s first attempt on her life to his re-emergence, she had been as safe as she could’ve been. When that home became unsafe, she’d come to the ranch. We’d touted it as a safe space, too, but Green had still subverted that, kidnapping Amelia from the very place she’d taken refuge in.

  I took her other hand and lifted them both to my mouth, kissing first one, then the other.

  “I’ll tell you one thing I know for certain,” I said. “Green is gone. He is dead. It really is over. The world is a safer place because of it, and you’re safe with me.”

  I had a momentary squeeze of panic while Amelia pondered this. For some reason, I had stopped expecting that she would one day return to her apartment in the city. I assumed she would live with me and the rest of my family on the ranch. Sure, there had been a time when I’d wanted nothing more than for her to get over her fear and get out of my life, but things had shifted dramatically. At that point, I’d been much more invested in protecting myself from my past than anyone else. I wasn’t proud of that selfishness, and I would do anything and everything I could for Amelia now.

  “Where do you want to go?” I asked carefully. It would break me if she didn’t choose the ranch, if she decided that looking at me would be too much of a reminder of the trials she had suffered. But I would do anything she wanted to do — even suffer.

  “I just want to go home,” she said finally, even if it wasn’t clear where home was for her in her mind right now.

  “Okay,” I said as easily as I could manage, still holding her hands. “If you get in the truck, I can take you home.”

  Amelia let herself be led again, and I got her comfortably seated in the truck before struggling with myself for a moment. Where was home? Would she pitch a fit if I drove out of Dallas and neglected to go by her apartment? Or if I did take her by her apartment, would she see it as a rejection? I locked the doors discreetly as I turned the key in the ignition.

  “Ready to go home?” I asked, trying to insert a positive tone in my voice. I wasn’t sure if I succeeded or not, but Amelia nodded lightly.

  The ranch ended up being the right choice.

  Amelia would’ve been alone at her apartment, and that wasn’t what she needed right now. I’d alerted everyone back home that we were on our way as soon as Amelia had been released, and as we pulled up in front of the house as the sun crept closer to the horizon, everyone — even the ranch hands — had gathered to welcome us back. Somebody — by the looks of the tenuous handwriting, Toby — had painted a welcome home banner, which hung crookedly across the porch.

  “I hope this is okay,” I said, looking at Amelia as we idled in the truck. “Looks like everyone was really excited to see you here at home.” I used the word “home” cautiously, still not sure what definition it was going by in Amelia’s mind. But she had a ghost of a smile on her mouth, which I took as a good sign.

  I parked the truck and got out, waving at everyone before helping Amelia down from her seat.

  “You don’t think I’ll scare Toby, do you?” she asked, worried for a brief moment, her hand fluttering around her neck.

  “You look just fine,” I said. “He’ll probably be so excited to see you that he won’t even notice. He’s a tough kid.”

  I worried a little
about how Amelia would handle all this close contact, but she smiled and latched on to my hand, only letting go to receive hugs from everyone in attendance.

  “It’s good to have you all back,” Chance said, beaming. It almost seemed like we had been away on a vacation and not fighting for our lives, but I thought I preferred it that way. Amelia didn’t need any more reminders about what she’d gone through, and I decided that I could do without them, as well.

  “I figured we’d better hurry back,” I joked. “I know you’re two hands down and busy as hell.”

  “Like always,” Chance confirmed, giving me a bear hug that took my breath.

  “The house was too big and too quiet without you,” Zoe volunteered, giving me a hug after she tightly embraced Amelia. “We had to have sleepovers to help fill that space, didn’t we, Toby?”

  “They were fun,” he said eagerly. “We all got to sleep on the floor and tell stories — but no scary ones. Hunter’s stories were the best.”

  “The truth is out,” Hunter said, pumping his fist triumphantly before slapping me on the back.

  “The truth hurts,” Avery complained jokingly. “I thought you liked my stories the best.”

  “He’s going to be a diplomat, that one,” Emmett said. “He knows how to keep the peace among us all.”

  I hadn’t been away from the ranch for very long, but it felt like it had been ages. This ranch — and my family — meant so much to me. I was glad Amelia could share it, happy she could adopt this family in place of her own. We worried so much and so often about things like the weather and money and the business side of everything, but now, it seemed so superfluous. The most important thing was that we were all together, all of this extended Corbin family. We had our lives and our health, and the rest of everything would figure itself out.

  We all enjoyed a massive picnic dinner that everyone had contributed to, stuffing ourselves on hamburgers and hotdogs and junk food. Amelia was in good spirits, even if she just picked at her food. I imagined that eating hurt her, and I resolved to run into town as soon as possible to see about getting a blender and frozen fruit, or maybe even some protein milkshakes.

  She looked up and caught me studying her, and I smiled for her benefit.

  “Doing all right?” I asked her.

  “I’m a little tired,” she confessed, looking down at her plate. “I just don’t want to disappoint anyone by leaving the party early.”

  “You’re not going to disappoint anyone,” I said. “They’ll understand.”

  I took her upstairs and started to get her settled in her room.

  “Are we staying in here tonight?” she asked.

  “Would you rather stay in my room?” I didn’t know what she wanted or needed, and I felt like I was fumbling on every move I tried to make. Did she want space, or did she want to stay close to me?

  “Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be,” she said. I kissed her gently on the top of her head, afraid she would break, and lay down in bed beside her after turning the light off. She clung to my shirt, pressing her entire body against mine, and I held her to me. She was asleep almost instantly, but the desperate need for contact stayed with her. I couldn’t get comfortable enough to rest, but it didn’t matter. As long as she was asleep, and if this was what it took to bring her a little peace, I would stay up every night, holding her, no problem.

  Without really talking about it over the next few weeks, my brothers and I worked out a schedule that ensured Amelia would never be alone. We strived to keep her busy but not to exhaust her. Both Hunter and I intimately understood what it could do to a person who had just experienced a trauma to have too much time on their hands to think about it. It would do her good to always have a task or activity to tend to.

  Toby started school at the elementary campus on the other side of our property, so Zoe and Amelia walked him there in the morning and walked back together. From there, Emmett and Peyton would take over, putting Amelia to work in the stables at the horse rehab project. After lunch with as many people who could make it to the house, Hadley used Amelia down at the clinic, working the receptionist desk and chatting with the ranchers waiting in there to be treated. If business was slow after a few hours, Avery would show up with an extra horse and take Amelia riding the fence lines. She was never alone, never idle, and I was thankful to my brothers for enabling that. She would go right to sleep almost immediately after dinner, worn out from her days we were careful to keep so full.

  I was worn out, too, because I couldn’t stop shadowing her. I was struggling to do my work and to also make sure Amelia stayed safe from place to place. I trusted my brothers, but maybe I didn’t quite trust the world, yet. It was the ranch, after all, and there were still about a million things that could go wrong at any given moment.

  “You’re spread thin these days,” Chance observed as I delivered him an updated cattle log three days after he’d asked for it.

  “We can talk about this later,” I said, eager to get back out the door again. “Amelia tends to get restless around this time if there isn’t much traffic at the clinic, and Paisley said she’d take her shopping this evening.”

  “Why do you need to be there?” Chance asked. “Everyone’s working together to take good care of Amelia.”

  “I just need to make sure nothing goes wrong,” I said.

  “Tuck, you’re running ragged,” he said. “You have to relax and leave some things to us.”

  “I really appreciate everything everyone is doing,” I said. “I just really need to be there.”

  “I have a proposition for you.” Chance pushed over a folder filled with slick advertisements and brochures.

  “What’s this?”

  “I’ve been pricing security systems for the ranch,” he said. “This one is one of the higher models, but I think we’ll get a lot more bang for our buck. More cameras, better range, sturdier, and an easier interface to monitor everything.”

  “You said this wasn’t feasible.” I examined the materials in the folder, looking at the screen shots of security footage. The picture was quite clear even though it was pouring rain.

  “I think we need to make it feasible,” Chance said. “I think we’ll all feel safer around here if we know there are lots of eyes around the property.”

  He’d said “we’ll all feel safer,” but I knew he really meant I’d feel safer. I knew he was counting on me trusting the security cameras as my eyes instead of having to see Amelia for myself at all times.

  “This is going to be too expensive,” I said finally, after reading a portion that talked about phone apps that could tap in to whichever security feed I wanted. This was really next-level technology. “I know for a fact that we don’t have this kind of money in the budget.”

  “We’ll have enough if you agree to contribute your bonus toward it,” Chance said. “Everyone else has already agreed to it.”

  “Emmett already spent his,” I argued. “And you said that money was supposed to be for fun.”

  “I think this is really important, and everyone saw the wisdom in it,” he said. “Emmett is turning some nice profits at the rehab, and he’s already given back the bonus.”

  “Jesus.” Emmett and Peyton had to be clearing a lot of money for them to be able to repay the bonus so quickly. I bet Chance was chomping at the bit for a chance to study their ledgers.

  “Should’ve listened to him a long time ago, right?” Chance smiled wryly. “Mom was always fussing at me to give Emmett a chance, to give him more attention, to listen to what he had to say.”

  “Mom knew best,” I agreed. “And of course I’ll give my bonus for the security cameras. I didn’t really have anything special in mind for it, anyway.”

  “Will you trust us on Amelia?” he asked.

  “I do trust you all with her.”

  “But will you stop following her around all the time? Let yourself relax?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was possible to relax after Oscar Green had co
me here, even if he was dead and would never visit again. But I nodded all the same because it was hard to admit that kind of thing to Chance.

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll get these ordered.”

  I helped install them on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Amelia sitting out on the porch with me, swaying in the old swing we’d recently hung back up. It was a really advanced system, and we were all pretty impressed with it. There were cameras in nearly every pasture, enough so that we had a comprehensive look at the entire ranch for the first time. Chance was right. They did make me feel better — even if they hadn’t been here to help us do anything about Green.

  “It doesn’t really feel like justice, does it?” Amelia said, apropos of nothing.

  “What’s that?” I turned from installing the surveillance camera on the porch overhang.

  “Oscar Green getting cut down like that,” she elaborated, not looking at me, staring sightlessly instead across the yard and toward the barn. “It doesn’t feel like justice was served.”

  I set the drill on top of the ladder and climbed down. “What makes you say that?”

  “I was just thinking,” she said, her voice trailing off. “I saw him lying there. I’m sure you did, too. It just didn’t have the impact on me that I thought it would.”

  “It’s hard when he’s taken so much,” I agreed. “But I thought maybe it was for the best that it ended like that.”

  “Really?” This time, she did look at me, cocking her head and squinting her eyes like she was trying to get a bead on me. “Why?”

  “There won’t have to be a trial, so he would never get a chance to have a stage to perform on,” I reasoned, trying to tread carefully. This was the most we’d talked about Green since the incident, and I was a little unsure about the way Amelia was reacting right now. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought she had sympathy for the serial killer being gunned down during the SWAT operation.

  “There’s that,” she said slowly. “But now his life is just … over.”