Chapter 18
Eighteen
Cayla was sobbing so hard, it was a miracle she made it up the mountain. When she saw the outside lights weren’t on, she almost collapsed into a puddle of defeated misery. But it looked like there were lights inside, so she stumbled out of her car and to the front door. Misty had to be home. If she wasn’t… well, Cayla hadn’t thought that far ahead.
The light on the front porch came on and the door swung open. Denver Hershel, Misty’s fiancé, took one look at the tears streaming down Cayla’s face and lost at least two shades of color from his own. With clear I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-female-tears panic in his eyes, he shouted, “Misty!”
A few moments later, Misty’s head appeared past Denver’s shoulder. “Oh dear God.” She hurried outside, wrapping her arms around Cayla in a tight hug.
At the kind touch, Cayla lost hold of whatever scraps of control she’d had and the sobbing cranked up again, uncontrollable. Misty just held on, not offering reassurances or platitudes. Eventually, she steered Cayla into the house, nudging her toward the living room and down onto the sofa without letting go.
“Do you want some tea? Something stronger?”
Because she couldn’t speak, Cayla just shook her head. When a bottle of water appeared in her line of vision a minute later, she glanced up at a grim-faced Denver. Taking the bottle, she sniffled, “Thanks.”
With shaking hands, she opened the water and drank, the cold liquid soothing her burning throat.
“What happened? Is it Arthur?”
“Yes. No. I… don’t know.” Her thoughts were too scattered, her mind shying away from the truth of what she’d heard. She drank more water and tried to pull herself together enough to explain herself.
“Arthur is suing for full custody of Maddie.”
“Oh, shit. That’s what you were afraid of, right?”
“As it turns out, that’s the least of it. Things have gotten… bad.” She laid it out as best she could. “On the way home, I tried to apologize and talk to Holt about the fight, but he wouldn’t even look at me. He dropped me off at the house and said he’d be working late. I stewed about it for a while and eventually called my mom to come stay with Maddie so I could go up and talk to him. I wanted to clear the air because I can’t stand where we are right now.”
Her throat threatened to close up again as fresh tears welled. “And when I got there, Arthur was there, and Holt was making a deal with him to divorce me for money.”
Misty’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me.”
“That can’t possibly be right. I know your marriage started under unconventional circumstances, but I just can’t fathom him doing something like that.”
“Neither could I.” Not in her wildest nightmares. “But I heard it with my own two ears. I walked in on this conversation, and Holt turned around and looked at me, and he didn’t say a word.” Not one word. Not one blink or change in expression to indicate regret or guilt or secret assurances that it wasn’t really what it looked like.
“Okay, that’s bad,” Misty conceded. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Why would Holt do that?”
It didn’t make sense. It didn’t at all match up with the man she thought she knew. But she didn’t know how else to explain what she’d seen and heard. “I mean, Arthur’s done everything he can to ruin us. To ruin all three of them. He wants to save his business, I guess. I wondered what it was going to take for him to regret marrying me. Where his line would be. I guess now I know.” And she’d probably been the one to push him over it when she’d lost faith in him. In them.
Misty took her hand and squeezed in sympathy.
Someone pounded on the front door.
“Holt.” It had to be. Who else would be knocking hard enough to sound like the big bad wolf?
Denver rose to his full height, crossing big, tattooed arms. “Do you want me to get rid of him?”
He was a sizable guy. Nearly Holt’s height and close to his weight. But Holt had considerably more training and Cayla had no idea what his mental state was. Before she could answer, Misty spoke up. “He tracked you down for a reason. Maybe give him a chance to offer some kind of explanation? Then, if you want us to throw him out, we can throw him out.”
Desperate for any scrap of possibility that this was all some horrific mistake, Cayla nodded. “Okay.”
Denver answered the door.
“Where is she?” There wasn’t a trace of calm in Holt’s tone.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ll hold your shit together or you won’t be coming into my house,” Denver informed him.
“Fine. Let me see her. Please.” This last was gritted out.
Denver stepped back. As soon as he was through the door, Holt made a beeline for the living room. This wasn’t the cold, distant soldier she’d seen for the past couple of days. Wasn’t the expressionless pod person who’d stood in the bakery kitchen and looked through her. Outright panic was written across his features. It was so unexpected, so unlike him, Cayla almost asked him what was wrong.
At the sight of her, he loosed a ragged breath, visibly relaxing. “Thank God, you’re okay.”
The absurdity of the statement cut through the devastation and had her sputtering in disbelief. “Okay? Really?”
He held up his hands, palms out. “Not what I meant. I just—Look, I know what you walked in on looked bad. But it wasn’t what you think.”
It was exactly what she’d wanted him to say. Combined with the uncharacteristic show of vulnerability, a fragile ember of hope began to glow. She’d been wrong before. She’d misjudged situations with him before. Maybe, somehow, some way, there was a viable reason for his actions. Cayla wanted to believe there was because she wasn’t ready for their marriage to be over.
Misty rose. “We’re just gonna give you two some privacy.” Grabbing Denver by the arm, she towed him from the room.
Not wanting to face whatever was coming sitting down, Cayla shoved up from the sofa. “And what is it you think I think?”
“That I betrayed you. That I meant anything I said to him.” Holt took a step closer. “I didn’t. The whole thing was a sting operation.”
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. “It was what?”
“A sting operation. The only way to make Arthur stop is to make him think he’s getting what he wants. He’s an arrogant son of a bitch. If he thinks he’s won, he’s more likely to get careless enough to make a mistake. So I decided to play to that arrogance. I talked to Hadley and Rebecca. We set them up as deliberate targets, trying to get him to go after their accounts, their information, to do the same thing to them. I had to meet with him to plant both of them as potential targets. To make it seem like I was desperate to keep him from going after them. Because that’s exactly what we want him to do.”
The idea of deliberately baiting Arthur to go after people they cared about had her chest seizing. “Why would you want him to do that? And who is ‘we’?”
“Remember, I told you my buddy Cash used to be Army Intelligence?”
“Yeah. You said he’s in cybersecurity now.”
“He is. He’s also a consultant for the FBI, among other alphabet soup agencies. I put him in touch with Special Agent Marquez. He’s got a mechanism in place—don’t ask me what, I don’t understand all the ins and outs of that hacker shit—so when Arthur goes after either them, we get access to his system, and the FBI can get everything they need to prove that he’s been behind all of this shit from the beginning. So he can get sent back to prison. You just happened to show up in the middle of the whole damned thing, and I couldn’t break character to come after you until he was gone.”
He’d edged closer through the whole explanation until he was standing close enough she could feel the heat of him.
“You said you couldn’t live like this anymore. Neither could I. This is probably more of a Hail Mary than a miracle, but it’s what we’ve got. And I’m so sorry that you heard that. I’m so damned sorry that, for even a single moment, you thought that was the truth. I love you, and I’d never, ever deliberately hurt you like that.”
Cayla stared up at him, her mind spinning through everything he’d just said. He’d given her the impossible. A rational explanation. One that meant their marriage wasn’t a lie. And he’d given her something even bigger than that.
“You love me?” It was everything she’d hoped for but hadn’t let herself truly believe was possible.
His brows drew together. “Have I done that shitty a job of showing you?”
She barked out something halfway between a cry and a laugh. “No. No, you haven’t.” Because everything he’d done, every action he’d taken, had been a silent declaration she hadn’t been ready to trust. But after all this, how could she ever do anything else?
Holt framed her face between his broad palms. “Then let me be perfectly clear. I love you. I am in love with you. I am in love with our daughter. And I don’t want to let either of you go. Ever.”
Relief and joy were a tangle inside the heart that was suddenly beating again. She flowed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I love you, too.”
“Thank Christ.”
Holt’s mouth found hers, and his kiss tasted of relief and desperation. Cayla held on, pressing closer, even as his arms banded tight enough to squeeze her breath. She didn’t care, so long as he never, ever let her go again.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured.
“I thought you didn’t want me anymore. That I’d driven you away with my lack of faith. Of trust. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
Holt combed the hair back from her face. “You have nothing to apologize for. We’ve both got issues and sore spots. Those are challenging enough in a normal relationship under the best of circumstances. These past weeks haven’t been the best of circumstances. The important thing is that he didn’t break us. No matter what else he pulls, no matter how powerful he seems to be, he can’t do that. We won’t let him.”
Cayla tightened her hold as she looked up into those beloved blue eyes. “No. We won’t let him do that.”
Someone cleared their throat. “I mean, this is touching and all, but am I the only one who wants to know if it worked?”
“Denver!” Misty hissed.
“Sorry, but they’re not exactly quiet, and I’m invested now.”
Cayla dropped her head to Holt’s chest with a watery laugh before pulling back just far enough to look up at him. “ Did it work? Or did I screw everything up? Was it all for nothing?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. We’ll just have to see what happens. Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be another waiting game.”
She was so very tired of waiting.
The phone in his back pocket began to ring.
Keeping one arm around her, Holt fished it out. “It’s Cash.”
“Put it on speaker,” Cayla urged.
“Hey. You’re on speaker. Tell me you’ve got something.”
“Bet your ass I do.” Cayla had no idea what Cash looked like, but even she could hear the smug grin in his voice. “The bastard didn’t wait twenty minutes before going after Hadley. I’ve got a back door into his entire system and access to everything he has. He’s officially locked down. Can’t hurt anybody else. I’ll be transferring all the information to the FBI in short order.”
“Really? Does that mean it’s over?” She hardly dared to believe it.
“This son of a bitch is going back to prison real soon.”
“And he wasn’t able to actually touch Hadley’s information?” Holt confirmed.
“What do you take me for? I promised she’d be safe. She’s safe.”
A woman’s voice came over the line. “Don’t insult the man, Holt.”
He tensed. “Why is my sister there with you?”
“Like I was going to sit out on a sting? This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in ages. Our boy, Cash, is a computer genius.”
“Why, thank you, madam.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Hadley told him. “I have way too many stories about you from when we were kids to see you as anything other than a mere mortal.”
“I’ve got plenty more on you.”
“Mutually assured destruction,” Hadley said cheerfully. “We’re gonna go now and let you finish making up with your wife. Bye, Cayla!”
There was something in their banter that had Cayla wondering if there was more between them than a lifelong friendship. But given Holt’s reaction, she kept the question to herself.
When the line went dead, Holt stared at the phone for a moment before shoving it back in his pocket. “Well, that was… faster than I expected. Also, a little anticlimactic.”
“Wishing you were there for the takedown?”
“For the chance to plant my fist in his face for all the pain and suffering he’s caused us and everyone else? Hell yeah. But that wasn’t my role to play in this.”
“You stepped way out of your comfort zone to put an end to this whole nightmare. And it worked. I don’t know how to thank you for that.”
“I protect what’s mine. You and Maddie are mine.” His smile turned a little wicked. “But if you’re feeling like you have to express gratitude, I’ve got some ideas.”
Cayla linked her arms around his neck. “Then let’s go home, warrior mine.”
“Can I go outside to play with Banana Bread some more?” Maddie folded her hands in a prayer position. “Pleeeeeease, Daddy?”
As if Holt could refuse her anything when she called him Daddy? “Well, since school is officially out for the summer and you don’t have to be up and out first thing tomorrow, I suppose you can have a little more playtime.”
“Thank you!” Without giving him a chance to change his mind, she bolted out the backdoor, BB on her heels, into the newly fenced backyard.
Cayla huffed a laugh.
“What?” he asked.
“She’s totally figured you out. Hit you with those big brown eyes and call you Daddy, and you’ll agree to almost anything.”
“I fit quite neatly around her little finger. I admit it.” Holt snagged his wife around the waist and nuzzled her neck. “I’m just as big a softie for her mama.”
Cayla’s hand skated down his back to cop a friendly squeeze of his ass. “Well, maybe softie isn’t the right word.”
Even as he hummed a note of approval, the doorbell was ringing.
She frowned. “It’s nearly eight. Who’s stopping by this late?”
Holt strode to the front door and pulled it open. The man on the front stoop was a Fed. Holt recognized that from the suit and the stance before he even took in the guy’s salt and pepper hair and the bronze skin that hinted at some kind of Hispanic ancestry.
“Mr. Steele. I’m Special Agent Anthony Marquez. May I come in?”
Holt’s first instinct was to bar the door to whatever bad news this guy might carry. But his manner was easy, with no suggestion of dread in his posture.
“Sure.”
Cayla stepped into the room. “Special Agent Marquez!”
“Ms. Black.” He stepped into the house, frowning. “Or is it Mrs. Steele now?”
Oh, Holt liked the sound of that.
“How about Cayla? I feel like maybe we’re past the formalities at this point.”
“Fair enough. Please call me Anthony. I’m sorry to stop by so late, but I had some news.”
Holt automatically reached for her, stepping close to be brace or shield as necessary, though he didn’t really think it was bad. “Why don’t we step out back? Maddie’s out there playing. We want to keep an eye on her.”
“Of course.” Marquez followed them out to the back porch.
Maddie was out in the yard, playing some bastardized version of fetch with the dog where she threw a ball and they both chased after it. Her delighted giggles filled the air. For a moment, they all watched her and smiled. It was hard not to. She was the picture of childhood innocence. They’d managed to preserve that for her.
At last, the agent turned to face them. “I’ll get straight to the point. Arthur Raynor is officially back in prison, and we’ve got all the evidence we need to keep him there this time. He will still face trial for the additional counts of fraud that he committed while he was out. I wanted to personally let you both know that I’m pulling some strings to fast track getting the fraud cleared from your records and those of your friends. It will still take a little time, but everything should be sorted by the end of the month. I apologize for how long it took, and for the fact that he was out to cause trouble in the first place.”
Cayla sucked in a breath. “So, it’s really over?”
“It’s really, really over,” Marquez confirmed.
“Thank you.” She shook the agent’s hand and held it for a moment. “Truly. I know I was a little hard on you at the end there.”
Marquez waved that off. “Completely understandable. I didn’t take it personally. And anyway, you weren’t wrong. We wouldn’t have tied things up quite so neatly without your husband’s help, and that of his… associate.”
That was a polite way of saying he wasn’t sure who the hell Cash was, but he wasn’t looking the gift of good intel in the mouth.
“He’s a handy guy to know.”
The older man’s lips twitched. “Let’s just say we’re glad he’s on our side. Anyway, I just wanted to come by and let you know in person. You’ve certainly earned that. I’ll let you folks get back to your evening.”
After he was gone, they settled on the swing, thigh to thigh, as the last rays of sun faded from the watercolor sky. Maddie continued to romp with Banana Bread, now switching to chasing the fireflies winking on and off. He put his arm around Cayla, and she snuggled close against him. For long minutes, they sat in silence, and Holt absorbed everything about this little slice of contentment.
“Has it sunk in yet?”
She glanced up. “I don’t know if it’s ever really going to sink in. I think there’s always going to be a piece of me that worries Arthur might get out again and try to pull the same stunts.”
“Oh, even if he does, he won’t be able to pull off what he pulled off again. Cash has set up the mac daddy of all identity protection services on all of us. But I don’t think he’s gonna get out for a very long time.”
Her sigh was full of relief, but her silence was full of something else.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m thinking about what’s next.”
Holt definitely had some ideas about that. “What did you have in mind?”
Tearing her gaze away from Maddie, she looked up at him, face serious. “Are you really happy being a family man? I mean, you jumped into this for honorable reasons. And those reasons are now resolved.”
“Are you seriously trying to give me an out?”
“I mean, it’s only fair. We haven’t ever had the chance to think about us without Arthur in the equation. So I’m thinking about it now.”
He didn’t get any kind of sense that she wasn’t happy with them being an “us”, so he took a moment to consider how best to reassure her.
“Marrying you and becoming a family man was the best decision I’ve ever made. I was kind of thinking I’d like to do it all over again.”
She blinked in surprise. “You want to get married again?”
He stopped toying with the ends of her hair to trace a finger across the bare patch of skin exposed by her tank top. “No, I’m fine with what we did as long as you are. Though if you wanted to change your name, that’d be cool.”
“I would love to be officially Mrs. Holt Steele.” Her sexy smile gave him the confidence to push on with the rest of it.
“And I want to adopt Maddie. Officially. I don’t want her to ever have reason to think she’s not wanted. And on the unlikely chance Arthur ever comes back, I want to have the rights to do something about it.”
Her dark eyes gleamed with happy tears. “Yes, absolutely. She’s already yours.”
“And…”
“There’s more?” she teased.
He traced that finger lower on her shoulder. “Then I was thinking more along the lines of doing the whole family thing again.”
For one beat, two, she just stared at him. Then her eyes went dark with realization. “You want to have a baby?”
“Yeah. I want one with you. I want to have all the fun of the trying, and I want to get to be there from the beginning. For the whole thing. What do you say? Do you want to give Maddie a little brother or sister?”
The silence stretched out for so long he wondered if he’d pushed for too much too soon.
“I mean, not like we need to tackle that right away. I know we’ve had a lot of changes, and we’re still getting used to a lot of stuff. But I just thought you should know that’s where my brain is headed. If that’s something you want.”
She leaned in close, dropping her voice low. “Then we both better get much, much better at being really, really quiet.”
Holt grinned. “Challenge accepted.” And he kissed his wife in the summer twilight with their daughter’s laughter in the air.