Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
NATALIE
The morning starts like any other.
Cade makes coffee while I feed the dogs. We eat breakfast together at the small kitchen table, knees bumping underneath, trading sections of the newspaper he picks up from town every few days. Luna curls at my feet. Bear watches the window. Moose snores in his bed by the fireplace.
It's been four days since our fight. Four days of rebuilding, of learning how to be honest with each other even when it hurts. We're not perfect. We're not even close. But we're trying, and that counts for something.
"Volunteer shift at the clinic today," Cade says, draining the last of his coffee. "You want to come? Doc Morrison keeps asking about you."
"I'd like that." I've been to town three times now, each visit a little easier than the last. The people of Whisper Vale have accepted me with an ease that still catches me off guard. "Maybe I can stop by the bookshop while you're working."
"Sounds like a plan." He leans over and kisses me, tasting like coffee and maple syrup. "We'll leave in an hour."
I'm in the shower when I hear the dogs start barking.
Not their usual alert barks, the ones that mean a squirrel is taunting them or a deer wandered too close. These are sharp. Aggressive. The kind of barking that raises every hair on my body.
I shut off the water and grab a towel, my heart already pounding.
"Cade?"
No answer.
I wrap the towel around myself and crack open the bathroom door. The cabin is silent except for the dogs, who are going absolutely crazy in the main room.
"Cade?" Louder this time.
Still nothing.
I pull on clothes as fast as I can, not bothering with anything except jeans and a t-shirt. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely manage the button.
When I step into the hallway, I can see the front door standing open. The dogs are on the porch, hackles raised, barking at something in the tree line.
And Cade is nowhere in sight.
Don't panic. He probably just went to check something. He probably heard a noise and went to investigate. He's fine. He's trained for this. He's fine.
I grab my phone from the nightstand. Three missed calls from a number I don't recognize. One voicemail.
With numb fingers, I call and press play.
"Hello, Natalie."
The blood drains from my face.
"I know you're there. I know he's there too.
The big medic who thinks he can keep you from me.
" Kevin's voice is calm. Pleasant. The same tone he used right before the worst beatings.
"I have to say, I'm disappointed. Running off with another man?
That's not like you. But we'll discuss that when I bring you home. "
The message ends.
I'm frozen. Can't move. Can't breathe. Can't think.
He's here. He found me. After everything, after all the running and hiding and starting over, he found me.
A hand closes around my arm and I scream.
"Natalie! Natalie, it's me!"
Cade. It's Cade. He's standing in front of me, both hands raised, his face tight with concern.
"I heard the dogs and went to check the perimeter." His eyes scan my face, reading everything I'm not saying. "What happened?"
I hold up my phone. Can't make words come out.
He takes it from my trembling hand, listens to the voicemail. I watch his expression shift from concern to cold fury.
"When did this come in?"
"I don't know. I was in the shower. Cade, he's here, he found me, I don't know how but he..."
"Hey." He grips my shoulders, steadying me. "Look at me. Breathe."
I try. The air stutters in my lungs.
"He's trying to scare you. That's what men like him do. They use fear as a weapon." Cade's voice is calm. Controlled. "But he made a mistake coming here. This isn't Reno. This isn't some motel parking lot. This is my territory, and he just walked into a fight he can't win."
"You don't know that."
"I do." He pulls me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head.
"I know what I said in my breakdown a few days ago but believe me this ends today.
I've got eight brothers who are already on their way.
Because Tom Parker has been waiting for an excuse to arrest this asshole.
Because this whole town knows your face and his, and nobody here is going to let anything happen to you. "
As if on cue, his radio crackles.
"Cade, it's Deck. We've got movement on the south perimeter camera. Single male, matches the photos. He's heading toward your position."
Cade releases me and grabs the radio. "How far out?"
"Half a mile, maybe less. Wolfe's tracking him now. Mace is setting up a containment line. Do not engage until we're in position."
"Copy that." Cade clips the radio to his belt and turns to me. "I need you to go to the safe room."
"The what?"
"Closet in my bedroom. Behind the coats." He's already moving, pulling a handgun from a lockbox I didn't know existed. "There's a reinforced door, supplies, a radio. You stay there until I come get you. No matter what you hear."
"Cade, I can't just hide while you..."
"You can and you will." He stops in front of me, his eyes fierce. "This is what I'm trained for, Natalie. Let me do my job. Let me keep you safe."
I want to argue. Want to stand beside him and face Kevin together like we promised.
But I also know I'd be a liability out there. A distraction. Something Kevin could use against Cade.
"Okay." The word tastes like surrender. "Okay. But you come back to me. Promise me."
"I promise." He kisses me hard, fast, pouring everything into it. "Now go."
I go.
The safe room is small but well stocked. Water, protein bars, a first aid kit, a radio, and a loaded handgun with a note taped to it in Cade's handwriting: Safety off, point, squeeze. You've got this.
I sink onto the small bench and try to control my breathing.
Through the walls, muffled but audible, I can hear voices. The dogs barking. Footsteps on the porch.
Then Kevin's voice, raised and demanding.
"I know she's here. Bring her out and nobody has to get hurt."
I can't hear Cade's response, but I can imagine it. Low. Dangerous. The voice of a man who's done being patient.
More voices now. Multiple men. The team must be arriving.
"You don't understand." Kevin sounds frustrated. Less controlled. "She's my wife. This is a domestic matter. You have no right to interfere."
Someone laughs. It sounds like Mace.
"Your ex-wife?" A new voice. Deck, maybe. "The one with the restraining order against you? The ex-wife you put in the hospital twice? That ex-wife?"
"Whatever she told you, she's lying. She's mentally unstable. I'm trying to help her."
"Funny." Cade's voice now, clear enough to hear through the walls. "She seems pretty stable to me. Smart, too. Smart enough to get away from you."
"You don't know what you're dealing with." Kevin's mask is slipping. I can hear the rage bleeding through. "I have lawyers. Connections. I could bury this whole town in litigation."
"Go ahead." A voice I don't recognize. Wolfe, maybe? "We'll still be standing when the dust settles. Will you?"
A long silence.
Then Kevin says, very quietly, "Give me my wife, or I'll burn this cabin to the ground with all of you in it."
My blood runs cold.
"Try it." Cade's voice is ice. "See what happens."
The next few seconds are chaos.
I hear scuffling. A shout. Something crashes. The dogs are barking furiously. Someone yells "Down, down, get down!" and there's a sound that might be a body hitting the ground.
Then silence.
I sit in the dark, clutching the handgun with sweaty palms, counting my heartbeats.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
A knock on the safe room door.
"Natalie? It's Cade. It's over. You can come out."
I fumble with the lock, my hands shaking too badly to work properly. When the door finally opens, Cade is standing there with blood on his knuckles and a grim smile on his face.
"Is he..."
"Alive. Unfortunately." He pulls me out of the closet and into his arms. "Tom's got him in cuffs. Assault, criminal threats, violation of a restraining order across state lines. He's not getting out anytime soon."
I sag against him, all the adrenaline draining out of me at once.
"It's over?"
"It's over." He strokes my hair. "You're safe, sweetheart. He can't hurt you anymore."
I want to believe him. Want to accept that this nightmare is finally finished.
But I need to see it for myself.
"Take me to him."
Cade pulls back, searching my face. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
He leads me through the cabin, past overturned furniture and broken glass, out onto the porch where the afternoon sun is blazing down like nothing happened.
Kevin is on his knees in the dirt, hands cuffed behind his back. Tom Parker stands over him with a expression of barely contained disgust. The Guardian Peak team forms a loose circle, arms crossed, looking like the most dangerous men I've ever seen.
And they are dangerous. I know that now. But their danger isn't pointed at me. It never was.
Kevin looks up when I appear. His face is bruised, his lip split, his expensive suit covered in dirt. He looks smaller somehow. Diminished.
"Natalie." His voice turns pleading. "Baby, please. Tell them this is a misunderstanding. Tell them I just wanted to bring you home."
I stare at the man I was married to for six years. The man who controlled every aspect of my existence. Who made me believe I was worthless, unlovable, lucky to have him despite the bruises he left on my body.
I used to be afraid of him. Terrified, even.
Now, looking at him cuffed and bleeding in the dirt, all I feel is pity.
"I am home," I tell him. "And I never want to see you again."
I turn my back on him and walk into Cade's arms.
Behind me, I hear Tom reciting Miranda rights. Hear Kevin shouting, demanding, threatening. Hear the other men's quiet laughter at his impotent rage.
But none of it matters anymore.
The monster under my bed turned out to be just a man. A small, pathetic man who couldn't handle a woman choosing to leave him.
And I'm done being afraid.
Later, after Tom has taken Kevin away and the team has helped clean up the cabin and Vivian has arrived with enough food to feed an army, I find myself alone on the back porch watching the sun set over the mountains.
Cade joins me, pressing a cold beer into my hands.
"How you doing?"
"I don't know." I take a long sip. "Relieved. Exhausted. Weirdly numb."
"That's normal." He settles into the chair beside me. "Adrenaline crash. It'll hit you tomorrow, probably. You might cry for no reason. Might feel like the world isn't real. Just ride it out."
"Voice of experience?"
"Multiple experiences." He reaches over and takes my hand. "You did good today, Natalie. You stayed calm. You followed the plan. A lot of people would have panicked."
"I did panic. In the safe room. I was terrified."
"But you didn't let it control you. That's the difference." He squeezes my fingers. "You're stronger than you think."
I lean my head against his shoulder and watch the sky turn orange and pink.
"What happens now?"
"Tom's charging him with everything he can make stick. Between the restraining order violation, the threats, and the assault when he tried to rush Mace, Kevin's looking at serious time. And that's before we factor in the private investigator he hired, which opens up a whole other can of worms."
"He'll fight it. He has good lawyers."
"So does Vivian." Cade's voice is warm with amusement. "She's already made some calls. Apparently there's a whole network of prosecutors who'd love to see an abusive asshole like Kevin Pierce get what's coming to him. He's going to have a very bad time in court."
For the first time since this morning, I smile.
"Remind me to thank her."
"You can thank her by eating some of that lasagna she brought. She's been stress cooking for hours and if we don't make a dent in it, Deck's going to have to roll her home."
I laugh. It surprises me, the sound bubbling up from somewhere I thought was empty.
Cade pulls me to my feet and wraps his arms around me. We stand there for a long moment, just holding each other, breathing together.
"I love you," I say quietly. "I don't think I've said that yet. But I do. I love you, Cade Marshall."
His arms tighten. "I love you too, Natalie Pierce. More than I know how to say."
"Then don't say it." I pull back and look up at him. "Show me."
His smile is slow and warm and full of promise.
"That," he says, "I can do."