Chapter 4
4
“A re you dipping out of town soon?” Chloe asked, and relief washed over Kade.
“As a matter of fact, I’d planned to,” he said, figuring one lie of omission was enough deception for today.
“Can I ask where you’re headed to next and why you’re in such a hurry?”
“Alaska,” he said, “but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell any of the others just yet.” Kade stared at his blond-haired, blue-eyed baby sister from across the table. Everything about Chloe came from the light. No matter how difficult the circumstances were, she always managed to turn on a smile and brighten a room. He would never know how she pulled off bringing up a kid on her own with very little resources while staying so damn positive.
At twenty-four, she had no college degree, no partner, and no reason to believe life would get any easier as a single parent. She worked in a bar late at night, slept a handful of hours, and got up early in the morning to be with her kid and Miguel.
“Are you listening to me right now?” Chloe snapped her fingers as she tried to catch his attention. All he really wanted to do was forget this day had happened. Except the weird part was that he didn’t hate the idea of having a kid with Bree. Forcing her to be tied to someone she didn’t love was a whole different story. Had his mother ever loved Beaumont? Or had she been tricked by his charm when he’d turned it on? The “off” switch must have come early on during their marriage. All of Kade’s memories of his mother were of her being miserable.
He rubbed the two-day-old stubble on his chin and took another sip of coffee as his three-year-old nephew, Grayson, belted out a loud cry from his bedroom.
Chloe was up and making a beeline toward the hall in two shakes. Grayson had a set of lungs on him. The heartbreaking cries made Kade wish there was something he could do to help. He’d probably just make things worse, so he sat there feeling helpless.
A few minutes later, the cries hushed, and Chloe came walking back into the room, carrying a boy who’d sprouted since the last time Kade had been here. Guilt smacked into him for not doing more for his sister.
“Do you want me to hold him?” he asked, but Grayson was already shaking his head and clutching his mom tighter.
Kade’s nephew didn’t even want him. The kid’s instincts must have told him just how unfit Kade was. How was he supposed to know what to do with an infant?
Chloe mouthed, I’m sorry, while gently bouncing as she moved to the fridge and pulled out a juice box. She fumbled with the package, using the counter as leverage to hold Grayson in place on her hip.
“Here, let me,” Kade said, standing up and coming around the table. The least he could do was open a damn drink box.
Grayson’s cries intensified as he buried his face.
Kade backed away.
“He’s just being grumpy,” Chloe said with an apologetic look. “Let me get him settled. It’ll take two secs.”
His sister was right. Grayson calmed down after she turned on his favorite cartoon and then set him down on the couch with the juice and a threadbare blanket that looked like it had done a tour overseas.
“There,” she said, sitting down and picking up her coffee mug. One drink caused her face to wrinkle. “Cold.”
Kade was out of his seat faster than the cartoon settled Grayson. “Let me get you a refill. It’s the least I can do.”
“You’re fine,” Chloe said. She knew better than to argue, so she handed over her mug.
A few short minutes and a couple of pods later, they both had refills.
“Sure is cold out today.” There was no mistaking the mischief in Chloe’s eye. She was trying to make a point.
“Yeah.” Best to let it play out and see which tact she’d decided to take this time. Not that he really wanted to go down that road again, the one that led to his own guilt trip about abandoning her.
“Winter’s almost here. Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a nasty one.” No road signs were needed to figure out the argument she was about to put up. Best to nip it in the bud.
“All my furniture is about to be sold.”
“When?”
“Put it on an app. Folks will start showing up tomorrow to pick up their items,” he said.
“That fast?”
“I put them up on a neighborhood for sale site the second I was told about Beaumont,” he explained.
“You work fast,” she quipped.
“It’s a helluva lot easier when you only have yourself to think about.” Kade regretted saying those words out loud. “Grayson is amazing, and I wasn’t—”
Chloe cut him off with a snort-laugh. “I get it. Life is easier when you only have to consider your own needs.”
“Don’t listen to me. I’m a selfish sonofabitch.”
“You’re not,” Chloe argued. “I just wish you’d stay around. It’d give Grayson a chance to get to know his uncle.”
Those words stung. “I took the job. What do you want me to do, Chloe? Quit? Talk to my old landlord and see if I can rent my old place after it’s already been committed to someone else? What exactly would I be coming back to Saddle Junction for?” He took a sip of coffee to stop himself from continuing down that road. “And since when did you start following weather patterns?”
“You’re not the only one who knows how to use an app.” Chloe nodded toward her phone on the countertop. “It just feels like I barely get to see you, you’re barely home, and you’re already leaving again—”
“Not leaving. Not shipping out. Moving. There’s a difference.” His tone came out harsher than he’d intended, and he felt even worse when Chloe winced like he’d knocked her off balance.
“Can I ask what’s so great about living in Alaska?”
“The wildlife. Three million lakes. The open plains—”
She studied him. “Did you know that in January, it’s not uncommon for it to be minus one degree? There isn’t a sweater warm enough for that, and you don’t even own a winter coat.” A smug smile crossed her lips. “You’ve hated the cold your entire life.”
“It’s better than the desert.” Anything was better than the fucking Middle East. Even sixty degrees below zero, freeze his balls off and hibernate in the winter, cold Alaska. “And there are bears. When do we ever get a chance to see those?” He’d seen a helluva lot of things overseas but never bears.
“When did you become so fond of bears?” One look at his sister said she was cooking something up in that overactive brain of hers.
“Who doesn’t like bears?” he fired back, trying to lighten the mood.
“Salmon, for one.” She had a point there. He laughed, and it was a good break in tension.
“Did you know that Alaska accounts for twenty-five percent of all oil produced in the United States?” He was going for the job, the fishing, and the fact that it was away from everything familiar.
“Since when do you hate Texas so much?” she asked, her tone softer now.
“Never said I did.” He hated what it represented. He couldn’t stand Beaumont. As much as he loved the land, the ranch was Beaumont. A man who used the catchphrase, “If you can’t use ’em, shoot ’em.”
“Sure seems like you’re in a hurry to put it in the rearview mirror.” She had a point. Coming home on a plane while his best friend rode in a casket had made him ready to shake the dust of this town off his boots as fast as possible.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Kade needed to be alone. Alaska would give him time to get his head on straight.
Selling off his possessions had been easier than he’d imagined, not that he had much. Nothing came to Alaska that didn’t fit into a nineteen-by-thirty-inch suitcase. Kade wasn’t ready to “integrate” back into society after sixteen years of military service.
“I’m guessing you can’t re-enlist.” How many times had he heard Chloe’s speech that joining the military had been about him dropping out of society? Moving to Alaska fueled her stance even more.
Was he?
“Nope, and it wouldn’t be wise to go back in now that I have a defect.” He’d medically boarded. He’d taken the honorary discharge and was no longer property of the U.S. Navy. In short, he was a free man now despite wishing he’d been able to go back and take care of the bastards who’d killed Zeke. Free to go anywhere and do anything he wanted while his best friend had come home in a casket.
Alone sounded pretty damn good to Kade.
“You loved serving your country,” she said quietly.
“True. Now it’s time to love doing something else.” He picked up his cup and brought it to his mouth. This time he didn’t drink. Instead, he cocked an eyebrow. He set it down instead. “And now, I’m done.”
“Why not get a job around here then?” She put her hand up to stop him when he laughed. “You could have your pick of work once your ankle heals. Plus, you might need to stick around long enough to wage war against our new half-brother.”
“I already have a job.” Kade might need to deal with Beau. A fight of this magnitude could take years to resolve. “We need to do some digging into Beau’s background to see if there’s an amount of money that will make him go away.”
“It’s a shame how easily most people can be bought off,” she said, nodding in agreement.
“In this case, it might work to our advantage,” he said.
“What if he was being honest? What if he really does want to get to know us?” Chloe bit down on her bottom lip. “Are we being assholes for not being open to the idea?” She paused a beat. “I mean, he is our brother. Beaumont wouldn’t have invited him to the will reading or left anything to him if the claim wasn’t true.”
“From what I could tell so far, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it came to Beau.” Which meant they were in for a dogfight.
Grayson was standing up now, dancing. Out of nowhere, the kid took off running, zipped past, and tripped and fell on the hard kitchen floor.
Chloe was there soothing Grayson in a heartbeat.
In the next minute, the kiddo rebounded, dried his tears, and was off to the races again with an ear-piercing squeal. Kade loved the little tyke without a doubt; he just wished there was a mute button.
Chloe blew out a sharp breath as she pushed off her knees and straightened her legs to stand. “I just wish you’d stick around. You know. Grayson never gets to see you, but he does love you.”
“Are you stooping to using your kid as a weapon against me?” he teased.
“Would it work if I did?’
“No. Sorry.”
“Tell me what will, Kade. I don’t want my brother lea—”
The speed racer made another circle, chasing something…an imaginary animal? Hell if Kade knew what had captured the boy’s attention, but he sure looked like he was having fun chasing whatever he was after.
“I’ll visit.” He motioned toward the blur of blond hair and rapturous giggles blazing past. “Using Grayson is a low blow.” One he’d expected when she got desperate. He checked to see if the defensive guilt trip was working on her.
And that’s when he saw it. The one thing he had no armor for. Chloe trying to sniff back a tear. Her waterworks weren’t theatrics like some people who could just turn it on like they’d flipped a switch. Chloe never cried. She turned her back to him and walked over to the fridge, pretending to get a glass of water.
Hell on a stick.
“Hey, they have Wi-Fi in Alaska, and I’ll figure out this new phone I bought so we can use that Face app.”
“FaceTime?”
“Yes, that one,” he said.
“Why haven’t you used it so far?”
“Knowing and doing were two different things,” he teased. Had it been easier to block out his guilt when he couldn’t see the dark circles cradling his sister’s eyes?
“You brat.” Her tone was lighter, and Kade breathed a sigh of relief. Upsetting his baby sister wasn’t high on his list of things to do during his last stint in Texas for a while.
There was no structure or amount of distraction that could keep out his demons. Being home made them worse.
All of Kade’s life needed to fit into a suitcase—a suitcase he had every intention of unpacking in Alaska in a couple of weeks at most.
First, he needed to figure out what he was going to do about becoming a father.
Bree pulled over to the side of the road onto the shoulder as another cramp caused her to double over. These Braxton-Hicks contractions were a beast. She could only imagine what the real thing would feel like. An involuntary shiver rocked her body.
Wouldn’t you know it, her old truck picked that moment for the engine to gurgle, shimmy, and then give up. She was midway on her way back to let Kade know that she and the baby would be just fine without him when the pain struck. The vehicle that had been on her tail since she’d left downtown parked behind her.
A bad sign? Or a guardian angel?
She reached for the tire iron underneath her seat. As safe as Saddle Junction had always been, hormones had her protective instincts on full alert. Plus, being a woman meant always playing it cautious.
It was dark outside. High beams from the vehicle behind her made it impossible to see who was walking toward her.
And then she saw something that made her crawl over the bench seat and make a play for the passenger door to escape—a crowbar.
A quick glance at the crowbar-wielding man caused her to realize she wasn’t going to make it in time. The cramp intensified, but she could only breathe through it. Despite her due date looming, the baby hadn’t given any signs of being ready to make an appearance in the world. At this moment, she couldn’t blame it. Not all of humanity was worth seeing.
At this point, all she could do was lock the doors and then put up a fight.
The next thing she heard was the crack of the crowbar against her back window. It fractured. Crowbar was on the driver’s side, so she jumped out the passenger door, ready to fight. There was no way she could outrun the attacker. The high beams made it impossible to take note of the make and model of Crowbar’s car. It was a sedan based on the height of the high beams.
Feet apart in an athletic stance, Bree readied herself for a fight.
The world stilled. The whoosh sound in her ears drowned out everything else. The attacker was suddenly behind her. A hand covered her nose and mouth. No, wait, a cloth with a distinct and awful smell.
“Think you can fight me?” Crowbar mumbled. Bree tried to place the voice but couldn’t.
The words, Let me go, died on her lips as she succumbed to the overpowering scent that caused her eyes to close and her mind to drift. The bastard’s arms kept her from slamming into the gravel as she summoned the strength to jerk away.
Then, darkness.