Chapter Seventeen
A simple spit test was all it would take to prove Blaize wasn’t Rue’s father. So why couldn’t he bring himself to stop by a pharmacy and pick up a test? It was more than Rue’s safety he was concerned about.
Taking the test meant closing the door on being the one legally allowed to raise her. Could he see himself as a single father? What about the ranch? Kit? Was there any way possible to fit all the pieces together and be a family?
And what about this Stephanie/Sharon person.
His mind was all over the place. One part said she died in the crash and they were awaiting confirmation.
Another part said she went into hiding and faked her death.
Yet another part wondered if she’d gone into Witness Protection.
Or did she simply disappear once she learned about the crash?
Creating a fake identity was possible with computers.
What about Thomas? He seemed like a good person. Could he be trusted? He’d said his uncle was connected to Stephanie/Sharon. How? Why?
Too many questions. Not nearly enough answers.
Blaize should be used to life throwing him twists by this point. Unless he uncovered a hidden tackle box full of cash at the ranch, he wasn’t sure how to save it. His brothers were united against him. Kit, of all people, had been the one to convince them to sell.
What was she thinking?
Maybe he should jump at the opportunity to rid himself of the responsibility of the ranch. He couldn’t. Taking away Kit’s home felt like the worst kind of wrong. He knew in his heart that she didn’t want that to happen.
Could he make his brothers see it, too?
Cormac Wilde’s death might have brought Blaize back to Maverick Pass, Texas, where Blaize had grown up, but raising a daughter might make him decide to stick around once the dust settled.
Damn that he’d lost touch with his brother and pushed Kit away. Guilt punched him again. If he’d done a better job of staying in touch, he might not have been blindsided by the state of the ranch.
Kit had dropped a bomb on him about his father.
He needed to have a sit-down with her to find out what in Cormac’s past could possibly excuse his behavior.
Complicated didn’t begin to describe Blaize’s emotions since hearing of the man’s passing.
His brothers must’ve been in the same boat.
They all had a difficult relationship with their father, if difficult was the right word.
Digging into Stephanie/Sharon’s background could stir up big trouble based on Thomas’s reaction. It dawned on Blaize that the car attacker from the other night might have been related to her and not someone from Carys’s past.
Speaking of Carys. Blaize hadn’t felt an emotional pull this strong since…
well…ever. The redheaded beauty challenged every belief he ever held about how deep an attraction could run and how impossible it could be to fight against it.
This one was stronger than he dared admit to himself or anyone else.
Seeing her hold the child stirred up a whole bunch of feelings that had been dormant.
Becoming a father had been put in the For Other People category once Lynn closed the door to the possibility.
After the terminal diagnosis, any thoughts of changing her mind had to be put on the backburner so he could care for Lynn.
She’d been dead set against adoption, too.
Said she couldn’t see putting a child through her mood swings.
Blaize had had the same concern even though he hadn’t owned up to it with her.
Now that being a parent might not just be possible but could be a safety net for a little girl, too, he needed to deal with feelings that had been shoved down so deep he wondered if they could be resurrected.
There was another consideration. If he didn’t take the spit test, could Carys let him keep Rue and then walk away like he’d never argued against the idea of her being his biological child?
She might’ve been one to bend the rules when necessary but that was big.
He was getting ahead of himself. They needed to figure out who this Stephanie/Sharon person really was, and they had a solid lead.
Blaize finished getting dressed and packed up the few clothing and supplies he’d brought, tabling those thoughts for the time being.
“Are you ready to roll?” Blaize asked Carys.
She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Let’s go,” he said, taking the lead after shouldering his backpack.
Once safely in the Jeep, Carys asked, “Should we check on how things are going back home?”
She probably meant home as in Maverick Pass and not home as in the ranch. He still liked hearing how the word rolled off her tongue so easily and how natural it sounded in conversation.
“I texted earlier, but a phone call would be good.” He motioned toward his phone, which he’d placed inside the cupholder. “Do you mind? They won’t pick up if you call. Kit is trained not to answer calls from strangers.” He chuckled. “It goes against her nature.”
“Sounds like Kit.” She picked up the phone. The screen came to life. “You don’t password protect your cell?”
“No need. I live alone and I work alone.” Why did that make him sound so lonely all of a sudden?
Speaking of lonely, he remembered one of the people he’d spent time talking to at Deep Roots Bar.
Sierra Jones. She’d walked up to the stool beside him and asked to sit.
The fact that she was alone and not with girlfriends didn’t raise any big red flags.
Deep Roots was the kind of place where folks showed up when they didn’t want to be alone and didn’t necessarily have to talk to anyone.
It was dimly lit inside, a place where conversations were more like a quiet hum.
The first night Sierra had walked up beside him, he barely noticed her.
Would she be considered beautiful by most standards?
She was tall with long legs. Her long straight dark hair fell between her shoulder blades.
She always wore a skirt that hugged her hips and highlighted one of her best features, her legs.
She had almond-shaped, catlike green eyes accented with black eyeliner.
She smelled of expensive perfume and carried a handbag that he was sure was designer.
Yet she had a salt-of-the-earth quality that made her easy to talk to.
Or maybe it was the whiskey. Hell, he didn’t know.
“No answer,” Carys said.
“We’ll try again in a few minutes.”
“Do you think everything is all right?” she asked.
“I hope so. We’ll give it a minute.”
Carys set the phone down and stared out the window, looking lost in her own thoughts.
As for his, they drifted back to Sierra.
She’d been the one to strike up a conversation first. Blaize swore to himself that he wouldn’t fall in love again or consider the “marriage and kids” bit.
Neither talked about the past. They were two strangers in a bar who slowly started to open up to each other.
Or so he thought. Weeks went by and he started looking forward to Tuesday nights at Deep Roots, to seeing Sierra.
He should have looked for the signs, but his guard was down.
Sierra asked him to go to her place for a nightcap. He’d declined.
She didn’t show for two weeks. He had no way to reach her to say he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings.
She didn’t know about Lynn. He talked about work and the fact that he’d been married.
That was it. He couldn’t bring himself to discuss Lynn’s illness or any of the details of their life together.
Sierra assumed divorce, and he didn’t correct her.
She talked to him about the difficulties of raising her kids essentially alone, a boy and a girl.
The twins were nine years old. She talked about carpools and sports, summer camps.
She went on about how difficult it was to manage everyone’s schedule, including her own.
A couple of months passed. They started meeting up twice a week.
This was the early days after Lynn had passed. Sierra said she wasn’t looking for a relationship, which worked out great because he didn’t have anything left of himself to give.
Then it was three times.
Not exchanging phone numbers should have been his first red flag. He’d be so lost in his own grief that his guard was down. Then he realized he’d slipped up and developed feelings for Sierra.
He convinced himself they weren’t strong. Told himself this was a phase and it would pass. The invitation stood, she’d said, to go back to her place any time. He took that as a sign she was developing feelings for him, too.
Blaize didn’t do casual sex, not even when he was swimming in grief.
Then he broke their unspoken agreement one night after one too many whiskeys. He opened a vein and said he’d developed feelings for her that were more than bar meetups. Once again, she suggested a hookup.
His thinking wasn’t clear. Grief mixed with whiskey didn’t do good things to a person’s brain or judgment. So, he’d laid his cards out on the table and said he wanted to take her on a dinner date and then another after that. He wanted to see if they had anything in common besides bar stools.
The minute he mentioned that he might be open to a relationship if things went well, Sierra dropped a bombshell on him: She was still married and wouldn’t dream of leaving her husband, who traveled a lot, leaving her lonely and with nothing to do to fill the time.
She’d told him that she had an arrangement with her husband that allowed them both “extracurricular” activities but that she would never risk a divorce.
Blaize had been angry at himself more than anything else for falling into the trap of developing real feelings. Plus, he no longer trusted his judgment if he could so easily be lied to.
He’d bought the lies and never once questioned why she kept insisting on a hookup rather than trying to build something real. Guess he wasn’t great at catching red flags while he was drowning in grief.
Was anyone?
“Did you notice the SUV with blacked-out windows following us?” The concern in Carys’s voice shocked him back to the present.
He’d been distracted with memories and could have gotten them killed.
Dammit.
A memory came back in a flash. It was hazy. There’d been someone who took the barstool next to him at Deep Root after Sierra left the night of his confession. A blonde. Medium height and build. His memory might be foggy, but she looked familiar.
Could the person have been Stephanie/Sharon?
BLAIZE CHECKED HIS mirrors and frowned. “How long has the SUV been trailing us?”
“Long enough for me to notice, so more than a couple of blocks at this point,” Carys said. He’d gone somewhere dark in his mind. She’d seen the wrinkle in his forehead and the way his jaw ticked whenever he was deep in thought.
“I need to get us away from traffic,” he said. “If we slow down anymore, they’ll be able to get out of their vehicle and walk to us.”
Carys had been uncomfortable ever since the phone call that had rolled into voicemail.
Maybe a better word was unsettled. Something felt off.
It was possible Kit was taking a nap along with the baby.
Raiden wouldn’t answer her phone for her, so it wasn’t exactly time to hit the panic button. Still. She was uneasy.
Would Raiden call if something had happened? He should. There was no reason to keep Blaize in the dark.
Her mind had been drifting all over the place until the SUV.
Now she studied the sideview mirror, waiting to see if the driver or a passenger made a move.
With the sun’s glare and the window tint—tint that should’ve been illegal if it wasn’t already—it was impossible to see if there was anyone else in the vehicle other than the driver.
The only reason she knew someone sat in the driver’s seat was because it made logical sense.
Breathe.
“Slide down in your seat as much as possible in case…”
Carys did as instructed as she finished the sentence in her mind…they shoot.
He weaved in and out of traffic like a skilled race-car driver. She did her best not to panic about all the unknowns in this situation.
“Bear with me.”
“Okay.”
Blaize cut across two lanes of traffic and banked a right with so much speed she could swear they went up on two tires. At the very least, the tires squealed.
“Grab a phone, either one, and look up nearby police substations,” he said. “We don’t have a reason to call 911. Should that change, you’ll have your phone in hand and ready to go.”
Carys grabbed his since it was closest. She checked the map feature, half holding her breath as she searched for a substation.
He was right, though—a criminal wouldn’t likely follow them into the parking lot of a cop station.
Officers could be on shift change or drifting in and out of the lot for other reasons.
“You’re going to want to take a left at the next light,” she said to him after risking a glance out the front windshield to verify.
“Hold on,” he said.
Carys braced herself as he cut a hard, last-minute left turn. Her stomach churned, a mix of stress, speed, and being tossed around.
The seat belt locked, cutting into her chest.
“What else?” he asked.
She refocused on the screen. “Did I mention that I get seasick?” Trying to focus on the device made her stomach turn even more. She wished she had one of those motion-sickness patches she’d heard about.
“I’m sorry, Carys.”
“I know,” she said through measured breaths. “Maybe sitting up would help.”
He nodded.
She pushed up enough to ease some of the queasiness. “Go straight through this light. We’re a little more than two blocks away.”
“Got it,” he said, pressing the gas pedal more.
Carys glanced to her right in time to see the SUV coming but not enough to react before…
Crunch!