by Nicole Helm
Vanessa glanced back at her. “They got him. Laurel’s arresting him.”
“Who—”
Noah barreled in through the door, all gasping breath and wild eyes. Addie had never seen him in such a state, and she didn’t even get a word out before he grabbed her. Grabbed her, by the arms, searching her face as Seth wriggled between them. It was the most emotion she’d ever seen on the man.
“You’re both all right?”
Addie nodded wordlessly. She didn’t know what to say to him when he was touching her like this, looking at her like this. It was more than just that stoic certainty that he’d protect her. So much more.
“I’m good, too,” Vanessa quipped.
“Shut up,” Noah snapped, seeming to remember himself. He dropped Addie’s shoulders as though they were hot coals. He stepped back, raking a hand through his hair, his face returning to its normal impassive state.
It was as if that simple motion locked all that feeling that had been clear as day on his face back down where it normally went.
If there weren’t a million other things to worry about, she might have been thrilled to see that much emotion geared toward her.
“Who was it? What happened?” Addie asked, cradling Seth’s small head with her hand.
“As to who, we’re not sure. He’s not talking. No ID. We’d canvassed the buildings. Ranch is too big in the dark to find anyone. We were coming back when I caught the figure at your window. We all ran over, pulled him out, Laurel cuffed him. She’ll take him down to the station now. She wanted you to come out and see if you could ID him first.”
It was all so much, and she knew they wouldn’t understand it was only the beginning. This was only the first wave. Peter would keep coming, wave after wave, until she had no strength or sanity left. That’s when he’d take Seth. When she was at her weakest.
She swallowed against the fear, the futility. She wouldn’t let it happen.
She was a Delaney, apparently, and she had a Carson—or four—in her corner. Noah—all that worry and fear and determination and vengeance flashing in his eyes for that brief minute—was in her corner.
They would keep Seth safe. They could.
* * *
HE DIDN’T WALK Addie outside to ID the guy. Couldn’t manage it. Not with all the awful things roiling in his gut. If he went out there, he wasn’t certain he’d control himself around the man who’d been breaking into his house.
So he sent her with Vanessa. He held Seth, the boy back asleep again despite the commotion. Noah studied the room he’d thought was safe, glared at the window where a carefully cut circle gave adequate access for a small man to try to crawl through.
She couldn’t sleep here tonight. It wasn’t safe. No room with windows was safe, it seemed, and all the rooms had windows. Nothing was safe.
He ran his free hand over his face. What a mess.
But it wasn’t an insurmountable mess. They’d caught this guy, and Noah was under no illusions it was the mobster after Addie and Seth, but he worked for him. He had to have information, and with information, they could keep Addie safe.
She had two families ready to take up arms and keep her and the kid safe. He had to let that settle him.
Addie returned, clearly beaten down. “It wasn’t the same man from the store. So Peter has two men here. Usually he only sends one.” She looked exhausted and all too resigned to a negative fate.
Not on his watch.
“You can’t stay here,” he said when she didn’t offer anything.
Her entire face blanched in a second. “But you said...” She looked around the room desperately, then straightened her shoulders and firmed her mouth. “Well, fine, then, better to have a running start.”
“Running?” He stepped toward her, lowering his voice when Seth whimpered into his shoulder. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
She fisted her hands on her hips, that flash of temper from before at dinner. He was glad to see it now. Better than resigned.
“You just told me I can’t stay here!”
“Here. In this room.”
She blinked. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Be more specific next time.”
That she could even think he was kicking her out...
Everything in him ached, demanded he touch her, but he kept the impulse in check. “Nothing that happens is going to change the fact that we’re in this together.”
“Noah...” She bit her lip and took a few steps closer to him. She seemed to be studying him. His eyes. His mouth.
My damn soul.
“You were so worried,” she said, her voice hushed and nearly awed. “When you came in here. About me. About Seth.”
“Of course I was. A man was climbing in your window. You were being threatened in my house. What man wouldn’t be worried?”
“Because it’s your house?”
She was fishing, he realized with a start. Fishing for more. It was his turn to swallow, and he was man enough to admit he backed away. Sometimes a man had to tactically retreat.
She didn’t let him. She took those steps he’d backed off, closing the necessary distance between them. He thought for a blinding second she was going to reach out to touch him.
Instead, her fingertips brushed Seth’s cheek. “I wish I understood you.” She looked up, dark blue eyes too darn perceptive for any man’s good. “I wish I understood what makes a man think people are his possessions to control, to warp, to let live and die at will, and what makes a man protect what isn’t even his.”
You are mine.
It was a stupid thought to have and he needed to get rid of it.
“We need to figure out what we’re going to do. We need to formulate a plan. This house isn’t safe, but I don’t know where else would be safe.”
Addie turned away from him then. He wished he could erase her fear. But he knew even when you were afraid and had someone protecting you, someone helping you, it couldn’t eradicate fear. Fear was a poison.
But it could also be the foundation. He’d lived in fear and learned to protect out of it. So he would figure out a way to protect her.
“There’s a cabin,” he continued. “It’s well-known Carson property and it’s entirely possible that since someone tracked you here, they could track you there. But it’s smaller. We could protect it better.”
“We?” She turned around again. “Noah, what about the ranch?”
“Grady and Ty can take care of the ranch. And Vanessa, if necessary. I have plenty of help to carry out the day-to-day, and to keep an eye out in case any other uninvited guests show up.”
She shook her head vigorously. “You can’t leave your ranch. It’s your work. It’s your home.”
It was. His heart and soul. But he could hardly send her off alone, and he’d be damned if he sent her with anyone else.
“We’ll go. Until we get some information from Laurel about who this guy is and what he’s doing. We’ll go. You’ll be safe there. Seth will be safe there, and we’ll figure something out. A plan.”
“Now?”
Noah nodded firmly. “Pack up whatever you need for yourself and for Seth. I’ll make arrangements.”
“Noah.”
He told himself one of these days he would get that wary bafflement off her face. But for now, there was too much work to do.
“I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know how to...” Her gaze moved from his face to the little boy in his arms. “You’ve been so good to us.”
“It sounds like you deserve a little of people being good to you.”
She nodded. “Deserve.” She blew out a breath and he could see the exhaustion and stress piling on top of her, but she was still standing. He remembered that first moment, when he’d been irritated Grady and Laurel had thrust someone fragile on him.
But Addie had turned out to be something else entirely, and he would do whatever it took to ease some of that exhaustion from her. Get her out of here now, and then once they got to the cabin she could sleep. Rest. He’d take care of everything.
“I will keep you safe. I promise you.” She didn’t believe him yet. He didn’t need her to, but he’d keep saying it until she did.
She stared up at him and reached out. He thought she was going to take Seth, or gently brush the baby’s cheek again, but this time she touched him. Her fingertips brushed his bearded jaw. “I know you want to.”
“I will. I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
Her mouth curved the slightest bit, but Noah couldn’t catch a breath because she was still touching him. She traced the line of his jaw to his chin, then back up the other side, and no amount of stoicism he’d adopted over the years could keep the slight hitch out of his breathing.
Her smile grew. “I believe that,” she said, watching her own hand as it traveled down to rest on his chest, just above his heart.
She looked up at him from underneath her lashes, and it wasn’t the first time in three months he’d wanted to kiss her, but it was the first time in three months it seemed right. Possible. Infinitely necessary.
He shifted Seth easily, carefully, and if he leaned toward Addie’s pretty, lush mouth, well, he was a man, damn it. Who could deny this attraction when they were both exhausted and scared to their boots?
The door swung open and Addie jumped back. Noah had some presence of mind. He simply glared at their intruder.
“Hey, you guys ever com...” Ty trailed off, looking from Noah to Addie, and then back again with a considering glance. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“Weren’t,” Noah returned, that one word all he could manage out of his constricted throat at first. “I’m going to take Addie to the cabin.”
Ty nodded. “Good idea. Safer. Less room to watch. Grady, Vanessa and I will handle things here.”
Noah jerked his head in assent. “Let’s move fast.”
Chapter Seven
Addie slept like the dead. No matter how many fears or worries occupied her brain, she’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours by the time they reached the isolated Carson cabin.
And, she supposed, as she awoke slowly in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house, knowing Noah was nearby keeping her safe had made sleep easy.
She stretched in the surprisingly comfy bed. Surprising because everything about the Carson cabin was rustic and sparse, but the bed was nice.
She had to get out of it, though, because Noah would need some sleep. He’d probably been up before her yesterday, and now he’d spent who knew how long taking care of Seth and keeping them safe.
She pressed her hand against her chest. It simply ached at how much that meant. How much she’d wanted to kiss him last night. Or this morning. Whatever moment in time. He’d been about to. She’d almost been sure of it.
Almost.
She pushed out of the bed. She hadn’t even changed out of her jeans and T-shirt last night. She’d fallen into that bed, making noises about when Seth would wake up and need a diaper change, and Noah had hushed her, and that was the last thing she remembered.
She ran a hand through her hair. It’d be good to tidy up, but she had no idea how long she’d slept. There was no clock in here, the window was boarded up and she had no idea where she’d left her phone.
She opened the bedroom door and stepped into basically the rest of the cabin. A small living room, an even smaller kitchen that attached, and a bathroom on the other side. There was another door she had to assume was another bedroom.
The diminutive size of the place made it far more secure than the ranch. Just as isolated, of course, but there wasn’t much in Bent by way of bustling cosmopolitans.
She frowned at the empty room. The front door was locked shut. Multiple times. A door lock, a dead bolt, a padlock on some latch-looking thing. It was dark because all the windows were boarded up. Surely Noah couldn’t have done all that while she was sleeping.
And where was he?
It was then she heard the faint snore. She pivoted so she could see the front of the couch, and there was all six-foot-who-knew of Noah Carson, stretched out on a tiny couch, a cowboy hat over his face, while Seth slept just as soundlessly in the little mobile crib, Noah’s arm draped over the side—his fingertips touching Seth’s leg.
It was too much, the way this big, gruff cowboy had taken to a small child who wasn’t even his. But Addie understood that. Seth was her nephew, not her own, but he was hers now. All hers.
Noah wanted to protect her and Seth, but he was putting himself in danger to do so. He was even changing his life, for however brief a time, to do so.
So she would protect him right back. Take care of him as much as he’d allow.
She tiptoed to the kitchen and started poking around the cabinets seeing what kind of provisions they had. She knew Noah had packed a lot of things before they’d loaded up Vanessa’s small car—an attempt at throwing anyone who might be watching off the scent—and drove up the mountains in the starry dark to this place. Vanessa had driven off so no evidence would be left that the cabin was occupied, and then it’d just been her and Noah and Seth.
She blew out a breath. Breakfast. She needed to focus on the here and now, not what came before and not what would come after. She looked around for her phone, found it on the small kitchen counter.
She flipped it open, searching for the time, only to see the text message from a Boston-area number.
Her stomach turned. She’d gotten a new burner phone in every city she’d stayed in for a while, but Peter somehow always found out what her number was.
She wanted to delete the message before looking at it, because she knew it would say something awful. Something that would haunt her. She remembered each and every one of his previous messages, and how many had made her run again.
All the words of the terrible things he was going to do to her once he found her that she’d read months and months ago swirled around in her head. She couldn’t erase them.
But she could erase this message.
“What’s wrong?”
Addie jumped a foot, not having realized Noah had woken up and was peering at her over the back of the couch.
“Nothing,” she said automatically.
“Addie, I know you’re scared, but you have to be honest with me if we are going to do this. There can’t be any lies between us anymore.”
She glanced at the crib where Seth was still sleeping. Was the fact that Seth wasn’t her child a lie? How could it be? He was hers now. One way or another.
Then she glanced at the phone in her hand.
“It might be nothing,” she said hopefully. She didn’t believe it was nothing. There wasn’t anything nothing about a Boston area code texting a number she’d given no one except Carsons and Delaneys.
Noah stood. He skirted the couch and raked fingers through his hair. It was sleep tousled and all too appealing. Even with the awful fear and panic fluttering in her breast, she looked at him and there was this soothing to all those awful jitters. They still existed, fear and worry, but it was like they were wrapped up in the warm blanket of Noah’s certainty.
Noah’s certainty, which existed around him like his handsomeness. Funny in all of this mess, she could finally admit to herself that she wanted him. Not just a little attracted, not just a silly little crush because he’d given her a home.
No, she wanted. Maybe it had to do with that moment last night where she’d thought he was about to kiss her, because he’d never given any inclination of interest before. So surely his reciprocating feelings was her silly fantasy life taking over because a man like Noah... Well, he knew what he wanted. In all things. If he wanted her, he would’ve said something.
Probably.
Unless there was some noble reason in his head he thought he shouldn’t. There was no reason to wish for that. Except, she wanted.
She had to push all these thoughts and feelings away, though, because right now Noah was standing there, frowning at her. And she was going to protect him and take care of him right back, so that meant not irritating him.
Which apparently meant the truth.
“There’s a text message,” she managed to say, reluctantly holding her phone out to him. “From a Boston area code.”
“That’s where this bastard is?” Noah demanded, his voice hard as he took the phone out of her hands.
Addie nodded. “I don’t want to open it. It’s always some vile thing.” At the spark of Noah’s temper moving over his face, she quickly continued. “Whenever he finds me, he texts me threats. This is the first one I’ve had here. I think he likes making me scared.”
Something in him closed up. That anger vanished off his expression, but she could still feel it vibrating under that stoic demeanor. “Some people like knowing they’re in your head. That you’re running scared. Gives them a thrill.”
“Yes,” Addie agreed, feeling sick to her stomach. “He could have had Seth by now. So, what he’s doing isn’t just about getting him back. I mean, I think he wants him back, but he wants me to suffer for as long as possible. I think. I don’t know. He doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I have to run.” She wanted to sink to the floor, but she leaned against the wall and it held her up.
“You’re done running,” Noah said forcefully, as if it was his decision to make. “Now we go after him.”
* * *
NOAH ANGRILY PUSHED a button on the phone. Though he heard Addie’s intake of breath, his anger was too close to a boiling point to worry about comforting her. Besides, he wasn’t any good at comforting. He had learned how to protect, and that’s what he would keep doing.
He read the text message grimly.
Hello, Addie. Wyoming. Really? Going to ride a few cowboys? Are you about to get lassoed? Maybe we’ll have ourselves a little standoff. You, me and the baby. Who will live? Only time will tell.
