Denying the Devil

by Calle J. Brookes

  Had it been the eyes Jay had fallen for first?

  She and her twin—all of those Tylers—had those same blue eyes. Hers were big and round, just like her aunt Robin’s had been so many years ago.

  Clive remembered Robin, too. So many nights he’d thought of her. Until Paula.

  Hell, Robin had been just a kid the last time he’d seen her twenty years ago. A few years younger than this woman in front of him and hiding behind Perci’s father. Telling Clive she didn’t want anything to do with him.

  Robin had walked away from him, too. “Don’t go.”

  “I have no reason to stay.” The girl’s tone was cool, uncaring. Because she didn’t care.

  And why should she? She didn’t have reason to care that Jay was dead. Jay had almost killed her. Some said she had scars, didn’t they?

  For the first time, he wondered how bad those scars were.

  She had almost died because of Jay. So why had she lived and his boy not? How was that right? There was another damned version of her walking around somewhere. One of them at least should have died. The fates could have taken one of them and spared his only son. It wasn’t right that he’d lost everything and she’d lost nothing. “Yes, you do. You’re going to answer my question.”

  “Let go!” She pulled against his hand. Those eyes shot fire at him. Life.

  Damn it, he needed to feel that life for a minute.

  “No. You’re coming with me.” Clive tightened his grip and yanked.

  He spun her around. She cried out. He just tightened his hold and pulled her into his chest. It was pitifully easy to shove the gun just under her breast.

  “If you make another sound, I’m going back inside that diner. You understand me? That deaf sister of yours just walked in with that littlest brother of yours. Not to mention that baby Masterson’s mother was hauling around. You and me...we’re going to go talk. Right now.”

  He dragged her back toward his truck, knowing his threats toward her family would do the trick. They always had before.

  54.

  .

  PERCI WANTED TO FIGHT. But she’d seen Phoebe and Parker, too. And Ivy. Ivy was inside. Clive had never physically hurt her before—but he’d just lost his son. He could snap, and she knew it.

  If she could just get him away from the diner...

  She’d fight like hell to get away from him then.

  “Open it.” He pushed her toward the door of his truck. Perci complied. Her hand shook, and his grip on her shoulder was far too tight. She finally got the door open. Clive pushed her up the running board and into the cab. He shoved her onto the older bench seat. “Move over.”

  She thought about sliding out the other side, but he’d follow. And there was nothing to stop Phoebe or Rhea or anyone else from coming outside and looking for her.

  Getting right in the middle of everything.

  He hadn’t moved that pistol away from her since the moment he’d first said her name.

  There was no way in hell she was letting him near her family.

  55.

  CLIVE HAD NO IDEA WHERE he was taking her. He kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the pistol. She was huddled against the door, looking small and scared.

  Making him feel like a total ass. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Then why did you do this?”

  “Life. I need life.”

  “What?”

  “Jay’s dead. I need to understand why he did it. What is so special about that twin of yours that he’d die to get her? Tell me. Help me understand.”

  Clive continued to question her as he drove the miles out toward her daddy’s home. Where his boy had done something so wrong he’d died for it.

  He didn’t see the huge, flashy truck that belonged to her boyfriend until it was almost too late.

  Clive swerved.

  The girl screamed out, calling that damned doctor’s name. The hope and fear in her tone echoed through his head.

  56.

  NATE WAS HALFWAY TO his home when the old red truck came bulleting around the curve behind him. He swerved, but the truck scraped his side. He yanked the wheel to the right, going off the shoulder.

  The truck sped up.

  And kept going. Nate pulled over and grabbed his phone. He hadn’t been able to see the people inside, but he’d gotten enough of the license plate to funnel that information to his brother.

  Tomorrow. Tonight he had important, life-altering plans, and he wasn’t about to be derailed because of some scraped paint.

  Joel answered his call on the first ring. “Nate? Where the hell are you?”

  “Driving out to my place. Some asshole just ran me off the road.”

  “Listen. Clive Gunderson has Perci. He took her from the diner parking lot twenty minutes ago. I need you to get here fast. He’s in a red truck, eighties model. Chevy. License...”

  Nate interrupted, then rattled off the half of the license plate he’d just gotten, lead filling his gut. “He just ran me off the road. He has her. Just past mile marker forty-eight.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid! We’re on our way. I have two choppers about to take off now.”

  He reached into the glovebox and pulled out the .38 he’d inherited from his father. “Get your ass in one. I’m going after her.”

  Nate threw his phone on the seat and jerked the gearshift to drive.

  He floored the pedal and took off after that damned red truck.

  57.

  PERCI’S HAND TIGHTENED on the door handle. She bit back another scream when he took the curve just past the turn off to Levi and Pan’s home far too fast.

  A part of her wanted to just open the door handle and jump. Take her chances and run toward her sister and brother-in-law, and safety.

  But at the speed they were going, it was far too risky. She be injured—or outright killed by doing something that desperate. That stupid.

  He had to stop sometime.

  Nate’s truck appeared in front of them, almost by a miracle.

  Gunderson cursed. He whipped his older truck around Nate’s. Then they were sliding into the driver’s side of Nate’s truck. She screamed.

  Gunderson yelled again. At her. Told her to shut up.

  Perci curled up against her door and prayed. Prayed he hadn’t just sent Nate’s truck careening off the side of the damned mountain.

  She risked turning to see.

  His truck was right there. Safe. Thank God, he hadn’t careened off the cliff like their car had the night her mother had died.

  Wreck Curve Road was just up ahead.

  If Clive didn’t slow down soon, they were going to go right over the edge.

  “Slow down!”

  58.

  CLIVE JERKED THE TRUCK to the side and grabbed his pistol tighter. Masterson was coming up behind him. That damned doctor was not going to ruin this for him.

  Not until he got his answers. He wrapped his free hand in the girl’s red hair. “Come on. We’re getting out. Going to take care of your boyfriend. Then you and I are going to finish this.”

  She fought. Clawed and snarled like a little kitten. She wasn’t much bigger than one, it seemed.

  He had a good two hundred pounds on this girl. It was easy to drag her out of the truck. Even with her fighting.

  Clive lost his grip on her, and the girl fell to the ground in front of him, landing on her hands in the loose gravel.

  Nate Masterson’s truck squealed to a stop.

  Clive took aim and fired at the center of the windshield.

  59.

  HE DUCKED JUST IN TIME. Nate’s front windshield splintered in front of him. He didn’t stop.

  “Let her go, Gunderson. My brothers are on their way now. So are the Wyoming Highway Patrol.” Nate didn’t take his eyes off Gunderson. Nor did he aim the revolver he’d carried in his glovebox away from the other man. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to talk to her. Find out why.”

&nbs
p; “Why what?”

  Perci was on her knees now. Staring at him.

  Inching her way toward his truck. To him. So that he could keep her safe.

  Gunderson reached for her.

  Nate almost pulled the trigger, but Perci was too close. It would be too easy to hit her instead.

  There was no way he’d ever risk hurting her.

  If Gunderson kept going backward, they’d be at the edge of a thirty-foot drop-off.

  Wreck Curve Road, County Rd. 480, was one of the worst in this southern part of the county.

  More people had died there than he even wanted to think about. He knew.

  He’d had so many of them come through his ER.

  Including Perci’s mother.

  He hadn’t been on shift that night, but he’d looked up her medical records after Joel had gotten with Phoebe. Had compared them with what Joel had found in the original accident reports.

  Phoenix’s car had gone over the guardrail when he’d swerved. It had landed on his mother’s side. She’d been in the passenger seat. Perci had been in the rear center. Perci had survived with a concussion, cracked ribs, and the scar on her brow.

  The scuff marks were still there on the metal guardrail.

  Five feet to the left of where Gunderson stood.

  60.

  CLIVE WANTED TO KILL the bastard right in front of him. Just put a hole in the center of the man’s chest and get it over with. Do something about how dead he felt inside.

  He could do it.

  Clive had shot three men while he’d been the sheriff; one had lived. He knew how to do it to ensure Masterson didn’t live.

  It would be so simple.

  Red caught the corner of his eye. The girl was moving away from him.

  Toward Masterson.

  Leaving him all alone again.

  Clive reached down and grabbed her, dragging her up to her feet.

  Masterson was an amateur in gun standoffs. The younger man almost broke cover to get to his girl.

  “Don’t move, Masterson, or I’ll shoot her now.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?” Masterson yelled back. “Just let her go. She has never hurt you. Not even once.”

  “No?” Hell, he knew that. This girl hadn’t even been the one Jay had wanted.

  He just wanted to talk to her. See if she was as full of the life he remembered from all those nights ago.

  Life.

  He didn’t see much of one for himself any longer.

  “No. She hasn’t.”

  He had to give the boy credit. Most people when faced with a man holding a gun to them, and to their girl, would fold. Do whatever he was told, putting himself straight in the control of the gunman.

  Not Masterson. Guy was calm and collected—except the one time he looked down at the girl.

  Damn it, he hadn’t had a woman look at him like that in decades.

  Masterson was a damned lucky sonofabitch. That was for sure.

  To have a woman with that kind of life in her...

  “Get over here, girl.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to protest. He lifted her by the shirt. Clive tucked her up tight against his side.

  If Masterson got trigger-happy, it wouldn’t be Clive he hit.

  He imagined it for a half second. The devastation it would cause.

  If the girl died.

  Like Jay had.

  Two entire families would feel the pain he felt right then. They’d feel it. All of it. The questions, the hurts, the what-ifs. The knowledge that maybe they could have done something differently and it would have all worked out better.

  Masterson especially. “Did you let my son die?”

  “No. After stabilizing him that day, I put my best burn trauma staff on him until we could get him to Colorado. It’s the best hospital in this region. We did not cause him to die. Burn infections are risky from the very beginning. I did not let him die.”

  “But he’s still dead, isn’t he? Why?”

  “Because of his choices!” the girl hissed at him. Her nails clawed at the arm he now had around her neck. Clive ignored it. He’d been scratched before. He tightened that arm until she gasped.

  “Hold still. I’m not finished with him, yet.”

  Clive heard the chopper headed toward them in the distance.

  “Just shut up. I need to think. I just want to know why Jay wanted your sister so bad he’d die for her. I just want to understand.”

  There had to be some meaning in Jay dying and those damned Tyler twins living. There had to be.

  61.

  PERCI WAS TRYING HER best not to panic. His arm kept tightening and loosening on her neck.

  He’d jammed his pistol into her ribs and dragged her closer to the guardrail.

  The sun cast the shadows over those wooden crosses again.

  The shadow from her mother’s memorial crossed the toes of her shoes as the clouds overhead shifted to allow more of the setting sun through.

  Perci swallowed.

  Her mother.

  The injuries that had led to her mother’s death had happened not even six feet from where he was dragging her.

  If it hadn’t been for his son, her mother and Phoenix wouldn’t have driven in to pick her up that night after she’d worked a double shift.

  Her father hadn’t let her or her sisters drive anywhere alone at night after Jay had attacked Pip. After Clive had threatened them that next day. Her mother had promised to come and get her. Phoenix had gone along so he could protect them all.

  Instead, Clive Gunderson had almost destroyed her brother, too.

  She had never told her father that Clive had found her so many nights and reiterated those threats. Never told. Never asked for help.

  Never did anything to stop him.

  If she had...

  “Let me go, Clive. Now! Just stop this! It’s time to stop this!” Perci squirmed as much as she could in his hold.

  The chopper with help in it was now visible in the distance.

  62.

  NATE WASN’T GOING TO shoot Gunderson. Not with the bastard holding Perci so tightly. He wasn’t that good of a shot. He’d never enjoyed it. Not like Joel and Levi had. The two of them could hit a walnut off the head of a pin, and had competed as boys to do just that.

  But he and Matt hadn’t.

  All he could hope to do was buy them all some time for Joel and the WHP to get there. “What about Clint, Clive? I think he’s going through a pretty bad time right now. Shouldn’t he get your attention now? He needs help.”

  “He ain’t my problem. Never has been.”

  “He’s your son!” Perci said.

  Never had she looked smaller to Nate.

  “No, he ain’t. My brother’s boy. I married Paula to give him a name.”

  Stall. That was Nate’s primary thought. To stall. Before that bastard stepped any closer to the edge, or shot Perci. “So he’s your nephew. He needs you. He lost his brother, too.”

  “That’s not what this is about. It’s about answering my damned questions once and for all!”

  “What questions do you have?”

  63.

  HE KNEW WHAT THE BOY was doing. Clive wasn’t stupid. He’d played the negotiation game himself a thousand times before. This one wasn’t experienced at it, but he was better than most. Masterson was good in tense situations, even those with some seriously negative potential consequences.

  He held the woman Nate Masterson loved and had a gun shoved in her ribs. And still that boy didn’t break down.

  The doctor had done a lot of good in the world. Clive had no doubt about that. So had his brother, the vet.

  Good men, some said.

  He’d heard it during his last bid for reelection. Mastersons were good men.

  So many had said it, while looking at him and thinking it wasn’t true for his son.

  Clint, yes. But that boy had more uphill struggles than he could possibly fight. He didn’t need Clive clut
tering up his way.

  After today, he wouldn’t need Clive around at all.

  He was going to be an embarrassment to Clint, no doubt. Could ruin everything that boy had worked for. His brother a criminal and attempted murderer. His stepdaddy going off the deep end and kidnapping a young woman who had never hurt him like this.

  What would that do for Clint’s career?

  It could potentially destroy everything his stepson had worked for. And it couldn’t come at the worst time. Not with Clint and that baby girl of his needing every penny he could bring in.

  No one in this town was going to want to have anything to do with Clint and the baby after this.

  No one would be able to look at Maria and not snicker and gossip about who she’d let into her bed.

  Damn, it would embarrass her. Ruin everything she’d built since she’d divorced that bastard who’d liked to knock her around. It had taken him years to get her to trust him at all.

  Now she wouldn’t trust him at all.

  He was going to jail no doubt. With these kinds of cases, crimes, there could be extenuating circumstances on account of his recent loss. But he was still facing jail time for the car, for the window, for Masterson’s truck.

  For taking this girl away at gunpoint.

  Everything—his life—had just imploded. And he didn’t even know why.

  He didn’t realize he was repeating the question in the girl’s ear until he—they—were far too damned close to the edge.

  Right next to where her mama had been killed.

  “Tell me, Perci. Why did you and that sister of yours live, and my boy die?”

  Clive just needed to know.

  To make everything have some sort of meaning again.

  64.

  WHY HAD SHE AND PIP survived? Perci had given it a lot of thought in the weeks since that horrible day when Jay had nearly killed Pip. And her. “Because we were together. I wasn’t leaving that barn without my twin, Clive. My sister. My family. I loved her and would do anything for her. That day...she ran back into get Jay. To help him, after I was already out. No one chose to leave him in there. We didn’t. But he chose to try to kill us all. Especially Matt. Because he wanted who wasn’t his.”