Chapter 3
Bradford
“Hey,” Cade rips his helmet off his heat, his eyes jumping to the hole in the earth. “What’re you guys doing?”
“Who the fuck is that?’ Turnter demands, his gaze landing on me.
“Cade,” I mutter under my breath. “Cade Kellan.”
Turner blinks a couple of times, and I can already see the wheels turning in his head. “You mean… Is this… Is this the Marine from the news?”
“Yep. Keep going,” I let out a pained sigh and jump down from the truck. “You were supposed to show up hours ago.” I shoot a nasty glare at the cocky motherfucker perched on his little dirt bike. “This was your job.”
Cade shrugs, his blonde hair stuck to his forehead in a wet mess. “Yeah, I got caught up, and missed my appointment. Sorry, Doc.”
I fucking hate that nickname.
“You need to stop coming in and out,” I chide him, as Turner continues to finish dropping bodies. “You’re gonna blow my entire operation.” My voice is calm, but internally, I feel like I could put one right between his eyes and never regret it.
“Oh, chill the fuck out,” Cade shakes his head. “You’ve got connections all over this place, and no one here knows who I am.”
I stop a couple feet short of him, my boots buried in the mud. “You’re fucking everywhere, in every system, and if I knew what I know now, I’d have never agreed to help Ben get you out of there.”
He rolls his eyes. “Benny still checking up on me?”
I grit my teeth, my lost cause radar going off. “Knight is the only reason you’re not being strung up for murdering two Marines.”
“Wow, how kind,” he leans back on the seat of the dirt bike. “You want me on my knees with gratitude for you?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap at him, and then turn to peer up at Turner, who’s wiping his hands and watching us with curiosity etched in his expression. “You take this dirt bike back to the office and call it a night. Cade and I will finish it from it here.”
Turner nods, not bucking my orders. “Got it.”
“You,” I rip the helmet from Cade’s hands. “Get your ass off my bike.”
Cade lets out some incoherent noise but obeys. I hand the helmet to Turner and drag Cade back by his jacket. I wait for Turner to get settled and take off into the night, before I shove Cade forward.
“Where the hell have you been?” my voice cuts through the empty area, as Cade trips and falls forward in the mud. “You’ve missed two fucking jobs, and I can’t risk you being caught—not on my watch.”
Cade tips his head back and lets out a laugh, clambering to his feet. “Well, quite frankly,” he brushes off cakes of mud from his jeans, “You’re too controlling.”
I glare at him, the rain dripping off the brim of my hat. “Not buying that, Cade. I don’t know who you’re getting mixed up with around here, but I’m serious. You’re one wrong step from the Marshals picking you up.”
He tilts his head at me. “And that would ruin your happy home for the mentally deranged, yeah?”
I clench and unclench my fists. “Just get in the truck.”
“Sure thing, Doc.”
I walk around to the driver’s side and pull the keys from the ignition. If there’s one thing I know about Cade, it’s that I absolutely will never fucking trust him. Ever.
He gives me a cocky grin as he climbs into the passenger seat. I survey the bed of the truck, which has been washed out by the steady rain. I shut the tailgate but leave the bedcover open.
It’ll need to dry out. The stench of death shows up everywhere, if you let it.
I head right back to the excavator then, and within about ten minutes, I’ve got the hole covered. It’s not great, but it can be smoothed out once the rain stops and the ground dries up some. When I finish, I park it, lock it back up, and trudge back to the truck.
As I slide into the driver’s seat, I can already feel Cade’s beady fucking eyes boring into the side of my head. I ignore it, and start the engine, immediately kicking on the windshield wipers.
“It’s a washout,” Cade says, his tone in one of those unreadable moments. “I saw it on the news tonight.”
“You shouldn’t be watching the news,” I mutter, throwing the truck in reverse and peeling off backward.
“There you go, being controlling again.”
I swallow the annoyance. “You got triggered by it last time.”
“No one gets triggered by anything. That’s what fucking pansies say.”
“Yeah, tell that to my shattered TV.”
Cade shifts in his seat. “It was a shitty TV anyway. I did you a favor.”
“Right.” I roar past the tree farm office and bunkhouse, noting the dirt bike and Turner’s truck. I breathe out a sigh of relief. At least one of them can stay in one place.
“He’s the new favorite, huh?” Cade’s voice drops. “He’s easier than me.”
Oh, good God. Here we go, off into one of his pity spirals.
“He’s not.” I don’t know how to explain to this shithead that Turner and I go way back—that he’s personal. Cade is just a business favor.
There’s a difference.
“He has blackouts,” Cade comments, leaning back in the seat. “I know it. I can see it in the way his eyes do weird shit.”
“Had no idea you were so intuitive.” I punch the gate opener and pull out of the tree farm. “You’re something else, Kellan.”
He stiffens in the seat beside me. “Don’t call me by my last name. You know I hate that.”
I eye him, his face twisting in a strange way. He’s fascinating, mostly just in the way that he’s so unpredictable. One moment, he can be a rational individual, and then next he’s losing it over being called by his last name.
Under normal circumstances, I might think it’s funny.
But it’s a fucking problem when he’s wanted by multiple agencies.
“Are you locking me in your basement?” Cade asks as I take the turn off toward my own house. “Because I told you that I get claustrophobic, remember?”
“Well, you won’t stay put in the bunkhouse, so clearly, we have a problem, don’t we?” I turn to him, forcing myself to keep my tone light.
He sinks into the seat. “Fuck.”
I almost laugh. “Better than the brig, yeah? Least I won’t strip search you before breakfast randomly.”
He winces at that fact, giving me a look before dipping into silence.
His eyes shift to the window, and I won’t lie, there’s something about his demeanor that tugs at something in my chest. I don’t know what the fuck he endured, but I know the problems he brings come from something way, way before he joined the Marines.
He’s got deeper scars than what we gave him.
And those are always the most vulnerable.
“At least there’s a microwave,” Cade’s voice dips low. “I can make popcorn.”
“Okay.” I breathe out a sharp exhale. “Whatever the hell makes you…” My voice trails off as I pull into my driveway, my heart jumping to my throat. Why the fuck is she here? I spot my daughter’s Jeep.
I’m not even parked before she’s flying out the front door, her eyes wide.
“Where have you been? I needed to talk to you about Mom’s new boyfriend, and…
And… Where were you?” Molly explodes, her hands in the air, as I step out of the truck.
Her dark hair is blowing wild around her face, her petite stature looking even smaller in the light of the porchlight of my cabin. “I was about to call the fucking cops!”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” I grunt, immediately bristling as Cade opens the truck door. Molly’s eyes jump to him, and then to the mud and whatever else on my jeans.
“What…”
“Farm stuff.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Right, okay.”
“Go inside,” I keep my voice calm. “We’ll talk in a minute. He’s staying in the basement tonight.”
My daughter purses her lips together, and I hate the way she’s looking at me right now. She knows my life is really fucking complicated, but she doesn’t ask. Probably because she knows I won’t tell her.
Because I love her. It’s that simple.
“You’re Molly?” Cade’s voice cuts through the night air, as she heads back to the porch steps.
“I—”
“Nope,” I cut off my daughter and grab the back of Cade’s shirt. I drag him toward the exterior entrance into the basement. I unlock the door, never letting go of him, and then force him down the steps, flipping the light on.
It’s basically like a studio apartment down here, and while it serves its purpose, I only ever use it if I can’t trust guys to stay in the bunkhouse.
Clearly, Cade is one of those.
“You can’t keep me in here forever,” Cade says as I release him, and he stumbles back. He plops down on the edge of the bed, peering up at me. I hate the sympathy I have for the murderer. “You know I go stir crazy.”
“Then you should’ve stayed put in the bunkhouse, and not wandered.”
“I needed a release.”
“Then you call me.”
“Controlling motherfucker.”
I raise my brows. “I’m shocked you label me that, when you were buddies with Ben Knight. He might be the worst of them all.”
Cade’s jaw does a hard set, and I know I’ve struck a hard nerve. “You don’t know the first thing about me. I’ve been here for six months, and you still don’t get me. I thought you were like fucking Ghandhi.”
“And I thought I could trust you to show up. But you keep dropping off when I need you. There are people looking for you, and I can’t keep you from those people if we don’t work together,” I say, noticing the water droplets pooling up around my muddy boots.
I need a fucking shower.
And a nap.
And my daughter to do as I say for once.