by Nicole Helm
She cocked her head, those blue eyes studying him. He might have fidgeted if he’d had the energy.“You’ve hurt people? I mean, besides today?” she asked on a whisper.
Part of him wanted to lie or hedge, but he was too tired, too beat down to do either. “When I’ve had to.”
“Like when?”
“It isn’t important now. What’s important is surviving until Grady and Ty get here. What’s important is coming up with the next step of our plan.”
“What on earth is the next step going to be?”
The trouble was, he didn’t know.
Chapter Ten
Watching Noah search for an answer to that question hurt almost as much as watching him suffer through what must be unbearable pain. Even though the paramedic she’d talked to who’d walked her through sterilizing and bandaging Noah’s wound had assured her that Noah would survive for days as long as he rested and kept hydrated, Noah looked terrible. From his ashen complexion to the way he winced at every move.
Seth began to fuss in the main room and she forced herself to smile at Noah. “Be right back.”
She wasn’t sure if it was fear or something else written all over his face. He clearly didn’t want her to leave, but she had to get Seth and try to feed Noah.
It was strange, and maybe a little warped, but knowing Noah was hurt calmed her somehow. Much like protecting Seth, it gave her a purpose. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t fall apart. She had to be strong for her men.
Noah is not your man.
Well, she could pretend he was. It might get her through this whole nightmare, and that was the goal. Coming out on the other side.
She moved into the living room and smiled at Seth. He made angry noises, though hadn’t gone into full-blown tantrum yet. He’d been up for a solid eight hours now, and was fighting a nap like a champ. But he was otherwise unaffected by everything that had happened, and she could only be grateful for that. It soothed.
She picked up the toy he’d thrown out of his travel crib and handed it to him. He took it, though he didn’t smile. When she picked him up, he sighed a little and nuzzled into her shoulder.
Oh, he was getting so big. And somehow she had to make sure he grew up. When she stepped into the room, she laid Seth in the middle of the bed next to Noah.
He fussed, then rolled to his side, cuddling up with Noah’s not-shot side.
Noah looked slightly alarmed, but Addie didn’t have time to assure him Seth would be okay for a few minutes. She went back and folded the travel crib, then set it back up in the room before heading to the kitchen.
She ladled out some soup she’d been keeping warm for when Noah woke up. She went through the very normal motions of making Noah dinner, then went through the not-so-normal motions of taking it to him.
In bed.
With a sleeping baby between you and a gaping wound from a bullet in his side and who knows how many psychopaths after you.
She darted a look at the door, the many locks, then the windows and all the boarding up they’d done. She’d found a heavy metal cabinet in a back mudroom and moved it over the door to the cellar. None of these things would permanently keep bad people out, but it would slow them down and give her and Noah warning.
Besides, she had the snow in her favor now. Unless there’d been other men with the two they’d killed who were lying in wait, any more of Peter’s men would have to contend with the same weather Grady and Ty were facing.
She straightened her shoulders and breezed back into Noah’s room, hoping she looked far more calm and capable than she felt.
She lost some of that facade, though, when she caught sight of the big, bearded cowboy with his arm delicately placed around the fast-asleep baby. Something very nearly panged inside her, but she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on any pangs.
“You need to try to eat as much of this as you can,” she said quietly. She placed the bowl of soup on the sturdy, no-nonsense nightstand. “I’ll go get a chair,” she said, searching the room. “Then I can feed you.”
“No.”
“Noah—”
“Just need to sit up, and I can do it myself,” he said through clenched teeth as he worked to move himself into a sitting position, pain etched all over his face.
She stood over him, fisting her hands on her hips. “You shouldn’t. Don’t make me stop you from moving.”
He winged up an eyebrow at her, and something in that dark expression had her faltering a little bit. Because it made her think of other things she shouldn’t be thinking of with Seth asleep next to him and the gaping wound in Noah’s side.
“You’re not feeding me,” he said resolutely as he struggled to get into a sitting position in the bed.
She wanted to push him back down, but she was afraid she’d only hurt him more, so she tried to take a different approach. “It wouldn’t be any problem to do it. You’re injured. Let me take care of—”
“You’re not feeding me,” he repeated.
Maybe she was reaching, but his complexion didn’t seem quite as gray, even as he managed to lean against the wall...because in this sparse, no-nonsense room there was no headboard.
She frowned at him, then at the soup, then back at him. “Fine. You’ve worn me down. Let it cool while I move Seth to—”
“He’s fine. Give me the soup.”
“Noah.”
“Addie, you killed a man. Saved us. Boarded up windows and talked to paramedics. Give me the soup and take a sit.”
You killed a man. She was trying so very hard not to contemplate that. So she handed him his soup.
“What part of take a sit did you not understand?” Noah asked, and though his tone was mild she didn’t miss the harsh thread of steel in his tone.
“What part of I killed a man don’t you understand? I might snap and kill you, too, if you keep bossing me around.”
Noah smiled then. Actually smiled. “I’ll take my chances.”
“I want to be relieved you’re feeling good enough to smile, except you so rarely smile, I’m just prone to think you have a fever or some kind of horrible brain sickness.”
“If I do, you should probably sit down because your fluttering around is stressing me out.”
Addie frowned. “I’m not... I don’t flutter.” This time he didn’t smile, but his lips did quirk upward. She slid onto the bed, Seth’s sleeping body between them. She sighed heavily. “If I sit still, all I think about is all the ways things can go wrong.”
He reached over and touched her arm, just a gentle brush of fingertips. “We’ll get through this.”
Addie blew out a breath. “We’re stuck in a room in a tiny cabin that people have already infiltrated in the middle of a blizzard with no medical help or backup.”
“But we fought off two armed men.”
She frowned. “You’ve been shot, that’s not exactly a victory.”
“Not dead, though.” He gave her arm a little squeeze, and though he tried to hide it, she noticed the wince. “Why don’t you try to sleep while I eat? We need to take the opportunities to rest while we can.”
“Noah...” Only she didn’t know what to say or ask. She glanced down at Seth, who was sprawled out between them, blissfully unaware of everything going on around him.
She had to make sure he stayed that way, and this ended. “Noah, when you said you’d hurt people before this because you’d had to, what did you mean?”
He opened his mouth, most definitely to change the subject, but she needed to know. Needed to know how to go on from here. How to deal with the fact she’d hurt someone. “Tell me.”
* * *
NOAH BROUGHT THE spoon to his mouth, slowly, carefully. Not because his body hurt, though it did, but because every part of him recoiled at the idea of telling her that. It would likely change her opinion of him, and more
than that, he didn’t want to tear down all those walls that kept it firmly in the past.
But maybe she needed to hear it. She needed to understand how to justify it so she could accept the things a person had to do to keep the people she loved safe.
She was so tense, sitting there on the opposite side of his bed. Eyes darting everywhere, hands clasping and unclasping. It was an interesting dichotomy: the woman who’d managed to do everything while he’d been unconscious, and this nervous, afraid-to-sit-and-think woman sharing a bed with him.
With a baby between you, idiot.
“My father wasn’t a particularly kind man.” Understatement of the year. “Ty and I were capable of withstanding that, but sometimes his targets weren’t quite as fair or equal to the task.”
“I’m not sure a son should ever have to be equal to the task of an unkind father.”
“It was fine. We were fine, but Vanessa came to live with us for a bit when she was in high school. Her dad had died, and she’d gotten kicked out of her mother’s house when her mother’s new husband hadn’t treated her so well. It was the only place to go, and we figured we’d keep her safe.”
“From what? Unkindness? Because safe sounds like more than an unkind father.”
“I suppose it was. It most certainly was when it came to Vanessa. Dad drank, more once Mom was gone, and she was by this point. Once Dad decided someone had the devil in them...”
“What does that even mean?”
Noah shrugged, trying not to think too deeply on it. Trying not to remember it as viscerally as he usually did, but it was a bit too much. Seth and Addie. This cabin. The pain throbbing at his side.
He took another spoonful of the soup, trying to will all this old ugliness away with the slide of warm soup down his throat. It didn’t work. Instead the black cloud swirled around him like its own thick, heavy being.
But Addie slid her hand over his forearm. Gentle and sweet, and the black cloud didn’t depart, but that heaviness lifted.
“He was a hard man. A vicious man. Made worse when he was drinking. He decided Vanessa had the devil in her and it was his job to get it out. I never quite understood it. He was not a religious man. No paragon of virtue. A Carson villain as much as any that came before.”
“So you hurt him to protect Vanessa?”
Noah shouldn’t have been surprised Addie could put it together, though it shamed him some. It must be obvious, the mark his father had made on him no matter how many years he’d striven to do good, be good.
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, that’s the general gist.”
“Then what’s the actual story? I don’t just want the gist.”
He glanced at her then, the frown on her face, the line dug across her forehead. He didn’t quite understand this woman, though he supposed he’d very purposefully tried not to understand her. To keep his distance. To keep everyone safely at arm’s length.
But she’d slid under that at some point, and he didn’t think she’d even really tried. She’d shown up at his door looking fragile and terrified, and he’d been certain it would be easy or she’d disappear or something.
She’d killed a man. In self-defense. Of herself, her son, of him. And her hand rested on his arm, a featherlight touch, soft and sweet.
But she was stronger than all that. It was probably the blood loss, but he wanted to tell her now.
“Sometimes he’d whale on us,” Noah offered, lifting a shoulder. “We were big enough to take it. Vanessa wasn’t. I couldn’t let him hurt her. Not just because she was my cousin and family, but because she hadn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t deserve it.”
“Then neither did you or Ty.”
But they’d weathered their father’s many storms and Noah had never felt... It had felt like his lot in life. The way things were. He wasn’t a philosophical man. He’d always played the cards he’d been dealt. Bitterness didn’t save anyone.
But violence could. “He went after her one day. Really went after her.” Noah tried to block it out. The sound of Vanessa sobbing, how close his father had come to hurting her. In every way possible.
“I wanted to kill him. To end it. Part of me wanted that.” Still, even years after Dad had died in a cell somewhere. He wished he’d killed him himself.
“And that weighs on you,” Addie said, as if she couldn’t understand why even though it was obvious.
“He was my father. Everything he was weighs on me.”
“But you’re you.” Her hand slid up his arm to cup his cheek. She even smiled. How could she possibly smile at that? “A good man. A noble one. I didn’t think they existed, Noah. Not outside of fairy tales.”
“I’m no fairy tale.”
Sheer amusement flashed in her eyes, and it sent a pang of longing through him he wasn’t sure he’d ever understand.
“No. You’re no fairy tale, but you remind me good exists in the real world when I most need to remember that.” She leaned across the sleeping baby and gently brushed her mouth across his bearded cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Maybe if they weren’t on the run, if she hadn’t killed a man, if he wasn’t bleeding profusely where a man had shot him, he might have known what to do with all that. As it was, all he could do was stare.
“You should rest,” he managed to say, his voice rusty and pained.
She sighed, dropping her hand from his cheek and settling into the pillows underneath her head. She stared at the ceiling rather than him. “So should you.”
“Food first for me, which means you rest first. Just take a little nap while Seth does, huh?”
She yawned, snuggling deeper into the pillows. “Mmm. Maybe.” She turned her gaze to him, so solemn and serious. “Noah...”
“We’re going to make it out of here. I promise.” If he of all people could make her believe in good, he could get her out of here. He would.
“No, it isn’t that. It’s just... Seth’s not—”
A loud pounding reverberated through the cabin. Noah bit back a curse as he tried to jump into action and the move caused a screaming burn in his side. He put a hand on Addie’s arm as he glanced at her pale face.
Three short raps later and Noah let out a sigh of relief. “It’s Ty.”
Chapter Eleven
Addie scurried out of the bed and toward the front door, hoping Seth would stay asleep and Noah would stay put.
Even though Noah had seemed so abundantly sure it was Ty at the door, Addie hesitated. What if it was a trick? What if Noah was hallucinating? She frantically searched the living room and kitchen for a weapon. For anything.
Before she could grab a knife from the kitchen, she heard Noah’s footsteps and labored breathing. She turned and glared at him.
“You should have stayed in bed.”
He didn’t say anything, just carefully maneuvered himself to the door. He pounded on it, and it was only then she realized he knew it was Ty because they were pounding in some secret code.
“You could have explained.”
Noah merely grunted.
“Move this?”
Addie hurried to move the couch away from the door, Noah reaching out to open the locks on the door as she did.
Irritably, she slapped his hand away and undid the last lock herself before yanking the door open.
Ty stood there, his hat pulled low and the brim dusted with snow. He had to step up and over to get through the snowdrift that had piled up outside the door.
“What the hell are you doing on your feet, idiot?” Ty demanded the moment he stepped inside and his eyes landed on Noah. He quickly started pushing Noah back toward the room he’d only just come from.
“Where’s Grady?” Noah said.
“Shoveling out some room for the horses in the barn. We’ll search the
area once I’ve got you patched up,” Ty returned. With absolutely no preamble he turned to Addie. “Boil water, find me all the bandages or makeshift bandages you can, and a few towels. Bring them to the bed.”
“Seth’s asleep in the bed,” Noah muttered as Ty kept pushing him toward the bedroom.
Without even stopping, Ty barked out another order Addie’s way. “Move the kid out of the bed.”
“You’ll be respectful,” Noah said in that stern, no-nonsense tone.
Ty rolled his eyes. “Leave it to you with a bullet hole in your side to worry about respectful.”
“It’s fine. The most important thing is patching Noah up,” Addie said resolutely, passing them both into the room and carefully maneuvering Seth from the bed to the mobile crib.
She stood there for a second looking at her baby as he squirmed, scowled, then fell back to sleep. She’d been so close to telling Noah he wasn’t hers, which had been so silly. What did it matter? In every important way, Seth was hers.
No one needed to know that she had no legal claim over him. That would complicate everything.
On a deep breath, she turned to Ty, who was disapprovingly helping Noah into a prone position on the bed.
“Boiling water, bandages, towels. Anything else?”
“That’ll do,” Ty returned, lifting Noah’s makeshift bandages she’d put on him herself. “You’re one lucky son of a gun,” Ty muttered to his brother, and it was in that moment Addie realized Ty’s gruffness and irritation all stemmed from worry and fear.
It softened her some, and steadied her more. This family was like nothing she’d ever known, and she’d do whatever she could to help them, protect them. She just had to remind herself every now and again she didn’t really belong to them, no matter what it might feel like when Noah touched her so gently, kissed her to distract her or smiled at her despite the bullet wound in his side.
As Addie marched to the kitchen, Grady came inside. He stomped his snowy boots on the mat as he latched the front door with the variety of locks. He looked pissed and dangerous, and yet it didn’t make her nervous or even guilty. It made her glad this man was on her side.
