They’ll stop at nothing to protect a child.

Ever since he escaped his father’s biker gang, sheriff’s deputy Brady Wyatt has never looked back. Then Cecilia Mills asks Brady to help her hide a child from the delinquent crew. But when threats impact the safety of the makeshift family, will they find a way to protect themselves…or will the Sons of the Badlands take the child back into its dangerous grip?

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

Also by Nicole Helm

South Dakota Showdown

Covert Complication

Backcountry Escape

Wyoming Cowboy Marine

Wyoming Cowboy Sniper

Wyoming Cowboy Ranger

Wyoming Cowboy Bodyguard

Wyoming Cowboy Justice

Wyoming Cowboy Protection

Wyoming Christmas Ransom

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Isolated Threat

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90533-0

ISOLATED THREAT

© 2020 Nicole Helm

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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For those who’ve learned to ask for help.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One

In the dark of his apartment, Brady Wyatt considered getting drunk.

It wasn’t something he typically considered doing. He stayed away from extremes. If he drank alcohol, it was usually two beers tops. He’d never smoked a cigarette or taken a drug that wasn’t expressly legal.

He was a good man. He believed in right and wrong. He believed wholeheartedly that he was smarter, better and stronger than his father, who was currently being transferred to a maximum-security federal prison, thanks to a number of charges, including attempted murder.

When Brady thought of his twin brother nearly dying at Ace’s hands, it made him want to get all the more drunk.

Brady wished he could believe Ace Wyatt would no longer be a threat. His father wasn’t superhuman or supernatural, but sometimes…no matter what Brady told himself was possible, it felt like Ace Wyatt would always have a choke hold around his neck.

Once he could go back to work, things would be fine. Dark thoughts and this sense of impending doom would go away once he could get out there and do his job again.

The fact he’d been shot was a setback, but he’d taken his role as sheriff’s deputy for Valiant County, South Dakota, seriously enough to know being hurt, or even killed, in the line of duty was more than possible.

He’d been shot helping save his soon-to-be sister-in-law. There was no shame or regret in that.

But the fact the wound had gotten infected, didn’t seem to want to heal in any of the normal ways no matter what doctors he saw, left him frustrated and often spiraling into dark corners of his mind he had no business going.

When someone knocked on his apartment door, relief swept through him. A relief that made him realize how much the darkness had isolated him.

Maybe he should go stay out at his grandmother’s ranch. Let Grandma Pauline shove food at him and let his brother Dev grouse at him. Being alone wasn’t doing him any favors, and he was not a man who indulged in weakness.

He looked through the peephole, and was more than a little shocked to see Cecilia Mills standing there.

Any relief he’d felt at having company evaporated. Cecilia was not a welcome presence in his life right now, and hadn’t been since New Year’s Eve when she’d decided to kiss him, full on the mouth.

Cecilia had grown up with the Knights, on the neighboring ranch to his grandmother’s. Duke and Eva Knight’s niece had been part of the fabric of Brady’s life since he’d come to live with Grandma Pauline at the age of eleven—after his oldest brother had helped him escape their father’s gang, the Sons of the Badlands.

While Brady had been friends with all the Knight girls, Cecilia was the one who’d always done her level best to irritate him. Not always on purpose either. They were just…diametrically opposed. Despite her job as a tribal police officer on the nearby reservation, Cecilia bent rules all the time. She saw gray when he saw black, and even darker gray when he saw white. She was complicated and they didn’t agree on much of anything.

Except that their fundamental function in life was to help people. Which, he supposed, was what had made them good friends despite all their arguments.

Until she’d kissed him and ruined it all. She hadn’t even tried to pass it off as a joke when he’d expressed his horror.

Still, he opened the door to her, even if he couldn’t muster a polite smile.

She was soaked to the bone, carrying a bundle of blankets. The blankets let out a little mewling cry and Cecilia shoved her way inside.

Not just blankets. A baby.

“Close the door,” she ordered roughly.

He raised an eyebrow but did as he was told, if only because there was panic underneath that stern order.

Her long black hair was pulled back in the braid she usually wore for work, but she wasn’t wearing her tribal police officer uniform. Her jeans and T-shirt hung loose and wet and her tennis shoes were muddy and battered. Even with the panic on her face, and the casual clothes, there was an air about her that screamed cop.

He should know.

“What’s all this?”

Goose bumps pricked visibly along her arms and she quickly began unbundling the baby. It was warm outside, even with the all-day rain, so he had the air conditioner running. He moved to turn it off.

“You got anything dry for him?” she asked.

Brady wanted explanations, but he could see just how wet they both were. So, he walked into his room and rummaged around for dry clothes for Cecilia, and a few things to wrap around a small infant. He grabbed some towels from the bathroom and headed back to his living room.

He handed the towel to her first. She knelt on the floor, placing the baby gently on the rug. She spoke softly to the child, unwrapping the wet layers, and even the diaper. Brady winced a little as she wrapped the baby’s bare butt in the towel he’d given her, rather than a new, dry diaper, though she didn’t appear to have any baby supplies.

“You need to get out of your wet clothes too,” he insisted once the baby was taken care of.

She looked up at him, an arch look as if he was coming on to her.

Heat infused him, an embarrassment he didn’t know what to do with. He did not blush, being a grown man. He was probably just feverish from this damn infection he couldn’t kick. Again.

“I’m not going to jump you,” Cecilia said in that flippant way of hers that always set his teeth on edge. “That ship has sailed. So unclench.”

He had never appreciated Cecilia’s irreverence for the rules of life. Or at least, his rules of life. One of which was nothing romantic between him and any of the Knight girls. Maybe some of his brothers had crossed that line, somehow made it work, but Brady had his rules. If there’d been a brief, confusing second on New Year’s Eve when Cecilia’s surprise kiss had made him wonder why, it was a moment of weakness he wouldn’t indulge.

Cecilia didn’t follow the letter of the law. She often advocated for wrong as much as right. She had kissed him. On the mouth. Very much against his will.

Then had had the nerve to laugh when he’d lectured her.

“Just go to my room and change,” he grumbled. “I’ll watch…” He gestured at the baby.

She looked back at the wriggling infant she was crouching over. Pain clouded her eyes, and fear was etched into her face.

“This is Mak.” She stroked his cheek with the gentleness of a mother, but Brady knew Cecilia had not secretly been pregnant or given birth to a child. He saw her too often for that to be possible.

He sighed, sympathy warring with irritation. “What’s going on, Cecilia?”

CECILIA COULD FEEL the shivering start to spread. It had been hot outside in the rainstorm, but Brady’s apartment was cold. Pretty soon her teeth would chatter, no matter how hard she fought against it.

And she would fight against it. Showing weakness in front of Brady Wyatt wasn’t something she could afford right now. She had to be in charge if this was ever going to work. If she was ever going to convince by-the-book Brady to go along with it.

“I’ll go change. You can leave him there or pick him up. He can roll over though, so keep an eye on him.”

She grabbed the stuff he’d brought out, helped herself to his room, and then once the door was closed, slumped against it.

She’d been a tribal police officer for seven years. She’d been afraid, truly afraid for her life. She had struggled to understand the right thing to do in the face of laws that weren’t always fair. It was hard, stressful, at times painful work, and she intimately knew fear.

But this was new. Bigger and different.

She didn’t want to die, so she feared for her own life when she had to at work. But she’d also accepted that she would die to save someone. That was why she’d gone into law enforcement, or at least something she’d accepted as she’d taken on a badge.

Now she had a specific someone. A tiny, defenseless baby. Poor little Mak. He didn’t deserve the stress and panic of being on the run, and yet she didn’t know what else to do. If Elijah got a hold of him…

Cecilia shook her head.

She needed help. She needed…

God, she did not need Brady Wyatt, but she didn’t have any other viable options in the moment. And the moment was all there was.

It was that lack of options that forced her to move. She stripped off her wet clothes, then put on the dry, too-big ones that were Brady’s. She paused at that. Brady had worn these clothes on his body.

And washed them, you moron.

She couldn’t help the fact she had the hots for Brady. Couldn’t help that the New Year’s Eve kiss hadn’t helped dissipate them any. Luckily the memory of his stern lecture afterward always made her laugh.

He was just so uptight. He drove her crazy. Yet, there was this physical thing that also drove her a different kind of crazy. She believed deep down it was just her dualistic nature. Of course she’d be attracted to someone whose personality made her want to pull her hair out.

That was her lot in life.

But that lot was way in the background now. Her only concern was finding a way to protect Mak. Cecilia had been trying to help her friend Layla through postpartum depression for the better part of six months, but a suicide attempt had landed Layla in the hospital with the state preparing to take Mak away.

Layla had begged Cecilia to hide him. The state would only take him to his father, who was rising in the ranks with the Sons of the Badlands.

The fact Ace Wyatt’s gang had begun to infiltrate the reservation Cecilia worked and lived on, the place she’d been born, filled her with a fury that scared her.

So, she’d focus on this. Keeping Mak safe until Layla was given a clean bill of mental health.

Elijah had already threatened to take Mak, maybe more than once. Layla wasn’t always forthcoming with what went down with Elijah, since there was still a part of Layla who believed she could save the man she loved from the wrong he was doing.

Cecilia didn’t believe. She knew the world was gray—that black and white were illusions made by people who had the privilege to see the world that way—but anyone who moved up the ranks in the Sons was too far gone to change for the better.

She would save the innocent baby who’d had the misfortune of a terrible father and an emotionally abused mother.

She’d been that baby, more or less, and her aunt and uncle had saved her. Showed her love and kindness and taken her in when her mother had died. She’d been six years old. Aunt Eva was gone too now, but she still had Uncle Duke, and the four other women he’d raised who were her sisters regardless of biological ties.

Cecilia tied the sweatpants tight around her waist. They were too long by far, but she cuffed the ends, then did the same with the sleeves of the sweatshirt. She took the bundle of wet clothes with her as she stepped back into the living room.

She stopped short. Brady held Mak, cradled easily in his good arm. Brady wore a T-shirt, so she could see a hint of the bandage that was on his opposite shoulder.

Recovery from the gunshot wound he’d received when saving Felicity had been complicated.

There were six Wyatt brothers, any of whom she could get help from. Easier help. All of them understood, to a point, you had to bend some rules to save people from the Sons.

Brady was the one who didn’t, or wouldn’t, accept that. He was also the one who currently couldn’t work. Who lived alone. Who could hide a baby.

Elijah might think to look at the Wyatt Ranch for Mak, but he wouldn’t think to look into Brady individually. Not at first anyway. Not while she came up with a plan.

“Can I throw these in your dryer?”

Brady inclined his head, gently swaying Mak’s body back and forth as if Brady had any practice with calming babies.

She’d spent some time in Brady’s apartment. Not much. They’d all helped him out here over the past two months, trying to give a hand with chores that might hurt his shoulder. She’d come over with Felicity and Gage one night and made him dinner. She’d delivered some food courtesy of Grandma Pauline a few weeks ago when he’d been doing laundry, and despite how little she wanted to be alone with him when everything about him made her body react, she’d insisted on helping him move the clothes from the washer to the dryer.

She did so now, tossing her own clothes in the dryer. She wouldn’t have time for them to get completely dry, but it would help. Hopefully the rain would stop so it wouldn’t be a completely futile gesture.

She hesitated going back into the living room. Much as she wanted Mak in her own arms where his warm weight gave her a settled purpose, she knew she couldn’t go back to Brady without a clear sense of what she was going to say.

She’d practiced on the way here. She’d just go with that. Brady. I need your help. I know you won’t approve, but you’re the only one who can keep this innocent child safe and away from the Sons. I know you’ll do the right thing.

Simple. To the point.

But as Cecilia stood on the threshold of his small, stark living room, watching a big man holding a tiny baby, she could only say one thing.

“His father is a member of the Sons.”

Brady’s expression did that thing that had always fascinated her. It didn’t chill. It didn’t heat. It was like something inside of him clicked off and he went perfectly blank.

She envied that ability.

“His mother is in the hospital,” she continued. “The state is going to award him to his father. I can’t let that happen.”

“It’s not up to you, Cecilia.”

He said it so coolly, so calm. She wanted to scream, maybe give him a good punch like he’d once taught her to do when she’d been thirteen and a boy at school was bothering her.

But rage and punching never got through to Brady Wyatt. So, she had to be harsh. As uncompromising as he always was. “Would you send this baby to survive your childhood?” Because Brady had spent eleven years stuck with the Sons, surviving his father—the leader of that terrible gang.

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, but his words and the delivery didn’t change. “He isn’t Ace’s son.”

“He could be,” Cecilia returned, trying to match his lack of emotion and failing. “Ace is gone. Elijah is trying to move up, take over. He’s recruiting people at the rez at a rapid rate.”

“Elijah Jones,” Brady said flatly.

The fact Brady knew him didn’t soothe Cecilia’s nerves any. “Yes. You know him?”

“Of him,” Brady replied, still so blank and unreachable. “He has a record.” Brady’s gaze lifted from the baby to her. “The state wouldn’t put a child with someone who—”

“You know what? Forget it.” God, he infuriated her. After everything he’d seen as a police officer, everything he’d survived as a boy, he could believe the state would do the right thing. She marched toward him. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need you and your rigid, ignorant belief in a system that does not work. Hand him over.” She held out her arms.

But Brady simply angled his body, keeping Mak just out of her reach. “No,” he said firmly.

Chapter Two

Brady had seen Cecilia angry plenty of times. She was a woman of extremes. Completely calm and chill, or…this. Fury all but pumping off her in waves. If he hadn’t been holding a baby, he was certain she would have decked him. Possibly right in the gunshot wound.

“You brought him here for a reason,” he said in a tone of voice he’d learned and used over the years as a police officer. Calm, but not condescending. Authoritative without being demanding. It often soothed.

Not with Cecilia. “Yes, and boy was it a stupid reason,” she returned through gritted teeth. He could practically see the wheels in her head turning as she tried to figure out how to get the baby away from him without hurting Mak.

“Why don’t you calm down and—”

She bunched her fist and he winced because he’d made a serious tactical error in telling her to calm down.

“I swear to God I will—”

The baby in his arm began to cry. Brady blinked down at the little bundle wiggling against his arm. He’d dealt with babies before—not often, but he’d held them. Calmed a few after a traffic accident or during a domestic case. Babies weren’t new or strange to him.

But little Mak was so tiny. His face wrinkled in distress as he cried, clearly disturbed by the sound of raised voices. He had a patch of dark hair, and spindly little limbs that reminded Brady of a movie alien.

Cecilia held out her arms, gave Brady a warning look, but Brady simply bounced the baby until he calmed, nestled closer. There was something comforting about the weight of him. Something real and…heavy, even though the child was light. Brady had been adrift for weeks, and holding Mak felt like a weight tethering him to shore.

Cecilia frowned, her forehead wrinkling in much the same way Mak’s had. But she didn’t argue with him any more. There was a kind of anguish on her face that had his heart twisting.

Brady nodded to the couch. “Sit. Tell me the whole story,” he ordered quietly.

“I don’t want to sit,” she returned, petulantly if he had to describe it.

She would not have appreciated that characterization. She folded her arms across her chest and began to pace.

She was tall and slender and like a lot of the female cops he knew, played down everything that made her look too feminine. Her hair was simple—straight, black, braided. She wore no makeup, and the jeans and T-shirt she’d shown up in were on the baggy side, as if she might have to put her Kevlar on underneath.

Cecilia could flip the switch when she wanted to. Put on a dress, do up her face in that magical way women seemed to have—like she had on New Year’s Eve, all glitter and smoke and fun. She even seemed to enjoy it. Or maybe she’d just enjoyed knocking him off his axis.

With Cecilia, he’d bet on the latter.

“His mother’s in the hospital. She…” Cecilia hugged herself tighter, then finally sat on his couch. “She’s one of my oldest friends on the rez. She’s been wrapped up in Elijah Jones for years now. I couldn’t come out and say he was bad news, you know?” She looked up at him, an uncomfortable amount of imploring in her eyes. “If you say they’re bad, it only makes some people want to hold on even more. Fix them even more. Some people don’t understand that not everyone is fixable.”

Brady nodded. He’d worked enough domestic cases to know that people of both sexes were often blinded by what they thought was love. Enough to believe they could change the worst in someone else.

Cecilia seemed to find some relief in his understanding. “So, I tried to be subtle. I tried to make it more about her. What she should have. What she could have if she only gave up on holding herself back.” Cecilia shook her head. “Anyway, she was ecstatic when she got pregnant. Elijah stuck around more. He had plans. But they all involved the Sons.” Her tone turned to acid. “Layla had the baby, and Elijah told her he’d be back once the kid was out of diapers so he could take him. Make him.”

Cecilia popped back up onto her feet. “Take him. As if that boy was a peach that had to ripen before he ate it. Take him, as if he had any right.” She shook her head vigorously. “Layla had already been struggling a bit, but that really sent her over the edge. I helped out, but I urged her to talk to her doctor. Something wasn’t right. Finally I took her down to her doctor myself and wouldn’t leave until she told someone how she was feeling. They said it was postpartum depression.”

“Common enough.”

“Sure. Sure. Since then I’ve done my level best to help her out. To do what I could to help Mak. I took her to her appointments, but we had a hard time scheduling them. Her insurance is terrible and she was already struggling financially. She didn’t have any supportive family, and I tried to be that for her, but…”

“You’re only one person, Cecilia.” It came out gentler than he’d intended, and the look of anguish she sent him made his chest too tight.

She collapsed back onto the couch. “One person or ten, it doesn’t seem to matter. The night I came to the hospital to talk to Felicity and Gage, that night you were shot? She took a bunch of pills. She called me. Told me, so I called an ambulance and it got there in time, but—”

“You know better than to blame yourself.”

“Do I?” she snapped.

“You should,” he replied, keeping his voice gentle even though he wanted to snap right back. She should know better, and she shouldn’t be sitting here making him feel sorry for her. She didn’t want his pity any more than he wanted to give it.

“Yeah, well should can bite me. I do blame myself, and I will,” Cecilia replied with a sneer, though it quickly faded. “I also know if it weren’t for me, she would have had no one to call and she would have died. So, maybe it evens out. I don’t know. They let me see her and she begged me to take Mak. He was with a neighbor and Layla didn’t trust the woman not to hand him over to the state or Elijah.” Cecilia blew out a breath. “She just needs help. She needs to get through this. She won’t if Mak is with Elijah. Or gets shipped off into foster care.”

“Cecilia, there are laws and rules and—”

“I had to. I have to do this for her. I know you only care about your precious laws and rules, but—”

“Those precious laws and rules are the difference between people like us and people like Elijah.” And Ace. Though he didn’t say that aloud, he had the uncomfortable feeling she heard it anyway.

“Except when those laws are going to hurt an innocent baby,” Cecilia insisted. “If they give Mak to Elijah, being abused by the Sons is all that boy has to hope for. Is that what you want?”

Of course it wasn’t. He didn’t want that for anyone. It wasn’t that he thought the law was infallible, that people didn’t fall through the cracks of it. No rule could possibly apply to everyone in every situation, but this wasn’t so much about following the letter of the law as it was about consequences.

“We could both get fired for this. You far more than me, but it risks both of our badges. We are sworn to uphold and protect the law, even when we don’t agree with it.”

She closed her eyes, then buried her face in her hands. Brady was rendered speechless and frozen in place for a good minute as Cecilia began to cry.

He’d never seen her cry before. She’d broken her arm falling out of a tree when she’d been thirteen and she hadn’t cried. She’d yelled and cursed a blue streak, but she hadn’t actually cried. At least not while he’d stayed with her and Gage had run to get help.

“Stop that,” was all he could think to say.

She looked up at him dolefully, her face tearstained and blotchy. “You’re such a comforting soul, Brady,” she replied, her voice scratchy.

He didn’t know what to say to that, since usually he could comfort people. Usually he knew what to say, how to calm and soothe so the work could be done. If she was anyone else he would have sat next to her on the couch and patted her shoulder, or leg or something. He would have known what to do with her tears.

But when it came to Cecilia, all those options seemed dangerous, and he didn’t want to figure out why. He wanted to keep his distance.

“I’m sorry,” she said on a sigh.

“You don’t have to apologize for crying.”

She rolled her eyes, wiping her cheeks with her palms. “I’m not sorry for crying. I’m sorry because I shouldn’t have brought this to your doorstep. It’s just, I had to think of the place Elijah would be least likely to look for Mak. He’s going to suspect I had something to do with Mak’s disappearance—Layla’s neighbor will no doubt tell him who took him even though I bribed her not to. So, he’d know to look at the ranches, and I thought Nina and Liza made them too obvious,” she said, speaking of her foster sisters who each had a child in her care—Liza her young half sister and Nina her daughter. “But you’re just a bachelor in an apartment.”

“Just a bachelor in an apartment,” Brady repeated, surprised at how much that appraisal hurt.

“You know what I mean. Besides, you’re hurt. He’d think less of you because of it. He’d think I’d want Mak with someone…”

“Who could actually protect him.” That feeling of everything that had gone wrong since the gunshot wound settled deeper. He nodded toward his bad shoulder. “I can’t protect him.”

Cecilia stood again. Though the traces of tears were still on her face, there was something powerful about the way she stood, the way she angled him with a doleful look. “I’d take an injured Wyatt over just about anyone else. You’ll protect just fine.”

Brady didn’t want that kind of responsibility thrust upon him when he was so… Things weren’t right inside of him, and if he looked too closely at it, he had to believe it had begun even before the gunshot wound.

“Now, I have to get going. I don’t think Elijah would have tracked me, but the longer I stay here, the more chances there are. I have to get back to the rez.”

“You’re just going to leave the baby with me?”

Her expression went grim, but it softened when her gaze landed on Mak’s sleeping form cradled in Brady’s arm. “Unfortunately, I’m a liability to him right now. I have to leave him with someone I can trust.”

“They could track your car.”

She shook her head. “We walked.”

“You…walked. In this rain?”

“I had to. I had to.” She cradled her head in her hands again, though she didn’t cry, thank God. “I didn’t want to tell you this. I didn’t want to… It isn’t fair, but I can’t worry about that when Mak’s life is in my hands.”

She looked up at him—desolate, apologetic. His heart twisted, though he tried to harden himself against that. Against her.

“Elijah idolizes Ace. He worships him. He wants to be him, and not in that Sons way where they’ll do whatever Ace did just for power. In a real way. In a real, dangerous way. He wants to take Ace’s spot, and he’ll do anything to get there.”

Brady felt no surprise, no hurt. He should be feeling both of those things, but he couldn’t manage it with a soft baby curled up against him. He could only tell her the truth. “I know.”

“YOU KNOW?” CECILIA blinked at Brady, at that harsh, final way he said those two words. “How do you…”

His jaw was set, and that blankness he’d perfected enshrouded his whole being. But his eyes told a different story. There was anguish there. Had she ever seen anguish in Brady?

“I’ve had run-ins with Elijah for the past eight years,” he said, not offering any explanation as to what run-in might mean.

“Eight years,” Cecilia repeated, just barely keeping the shriek out of her voice, and only for Mak’s sake.

“It was happenstance. The first time.”

“The first… Brady. What is this?”

“I arrested him. My first arrest actually. When he realized I was a Wyatt…it became something of a game to him. To poke at me. To try and get arrested by me specifically. I assume to prove he could get away with things—and out of jail over and over again. Nothing serious, obviously, but he made it pretty clear he was the next iteration of my father and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

“How come none of you ever told me?”

He turned away from her, Mak still sleeping cradled in his arm like the baby belonged there. “I’m the only one who knows. I didn’t think it’d ever touch anyone else.”

“Brady.” She was utterly speechless. He had a secret from his brothers. She hadn’t thought it possible. Oh, there were emotional scars they all kept from each other, anyone who’d grown up in the midst of them knew that. But not actual…secrets.

She’d thought.

“What do you mean—”

“It isn’t the point right now. The point is if you really don’t want anyone to know you stole this baby—”

“I didn’t steal—”

“Then you can’t stay. Do you have anything for him? Diapers? Food?”

“Not yet, but there’s a plan in place.”

“A plan?”

She looked at him for a second, trying to wrap her brain around what was happening. What she was asking, and what he was saying. She’d known Brady would have to go along with some of this because he understood what it was to be a child in the Sons.

But she’d had no idea he had a connection to Elijah. That her life, which had just taken the most complicated turn, would be even more complicated by the man in front of her. She’d always considered him pretty uncomplicated.

“You can’t tell me there’s something you’ve never talked to your brothers about, that ties to this child, and then change the subject.”

“Except I just did.”

“Were you born this frustrating or did you have to work really hard at it?”

“Says the woman who brought me a stolen infant.”

“He is not stolen,” Cecilia replied through gritted teeth. She’d done the right thing, knew that with an absolute certainty that had no room for doubt, and yet he made her feel shame for not finding a legal way to do it. “What would you have done differently, Brady?” she asked, though she was half-afraid he’d have an answer, and a good one.

He looked down at the sleeping baby for the longest time, then finally sighed. “I don’t know.”

Thank God.

“What’s the plan for baby supplies?”

“Felicity and Gage are going to bring you dinner…but it won’t be food in the take-out bags.”

“And you didn’t take the baby to them because…?”

“Felicity has already had her Sons run-in. Besides, she…” Cecilia trailed off. She was usually an expert at keeping secrets, but that one had nearly slipped out.

Brady raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish that sentence.

“She has a job. They both do. I know you’d love to be back at yours, but you can’t. Trust me, if I could leave him with Liza or Nina, I would, but I think Elijah would expect that. He’s going to look at my sisters harder than he looks into the Wyatts, what with it being my friend’s baby and all.”

Brady’s face was impassive. “He’ll look at us too.”

“Maybe he will, but I don’t trust anyone else.” She hated being so baldly honest with him, hated the fact she’d cried in front of him. But she would do it over and over again if it kept Mak safe.

And Mak looked safe in Brady’s arm. Sleeping against Brady’s chest. Brady was too noble not to do everything in his power to keep Mak safe. She had to believe he’d bend some rules for this, if nothing else.

“I have to go. Gage and Felicity should be here soon. I’ll be in touch.” She moved for Brady and Mak. She looked down at the baby she loved and thought about Layla’s desperate pleas. All that responsibility weighed heavy.

This small, helpless life was in her hands, and the only way to ensure his safety was to leave him in someone else’s.

They were capable hands, though. She looked up at Brady, whose face was way too close for comfort. She’d had a few drinks that night she’d kissed him. Still, she remembered the kiss far more clearly than she remembered the rest of the night. The impulse, the need.

That split second where shock had melted into response before he’d firmly taken her by the shoulders and pushed her a step back. He’d looked furious.

But there had been that moment. It had scared the life out of her. Just like all the things jangling in her chest right now, looking up at his hazel eyes and knowing he’d take all of what she put on his shoulders.

She stepped back and then turned and headed for the door. She couldn’t let herself look back, or even go back to the dryer and get her damp clothes. She had to keep moving forward until Mak was safe. For good.

Chapter Three

Cecilia was right. Felicity and Gage showed up not too long after she left and disappeared into the night. Brady opened the door, keeping the sleeping baby in his arm out of sight.

Gage and his fiancée stood on the threshold. It was still weird. His twin brother and Felicity. Engaged.

It wasn’t all that long ago Felicity had had a crush on him. Brady had never seen Felicity as more than a little sister. He respected Duke Knight too much to look at any of his foster daughters and see… Whatever it was people saw in each other that made them want to get married, apparently.

Gage had no such qualms. It hadn’t taken more than a few months for him to settle into being with Felicity, to propose marriage.

“We brought you dinner,” Felicity said, smiling as she held up the bag. They both stepped inside, carefully closing the door behind them.

Without hesitation, Felicity moved across the room to the counter that ran between his kitchen and his living room. She pulled things out of the bags.

“Diapers. Formula. Bottles. We’ve got some more stuff in a bag in the car. We’ll go down and get that later when I leave.”

“You mean, when you both leave.”

“Nah. I’m bunking,” Gage said, settling himself onto the couch easily. “You don’t expect to care for an infant on your own, do you?”

“I’m not sure I expect the two of us to do it either.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Gage said, all smiles. Gage liked to lighten a situation with a joke, but this smile was more than just that. It was aimed at Felicity. It was love. “Go on now,” he said to her.

“You should,” she replied, clasping her hands together.

Gage patted the seat beside him and Felicity went and sat there. They both looked up at him expectantly like he had any idea what they were doing.

“What is with you two?” Brady grumbled.

Gage slung his arm across Felicity’s shoulders. “We’re going to have a baby,” he announced, grinning. Not Gage’s typical grin meant to hide everything going on inside his head. No, this was a true smile. True happiness.

Brady blinked. It took a while to realize his brother had not spoken in a foreign language, but had in fact delivered a clear, concise sentence in English. “A baby.”

“Real as the one you’re holding.”

“But… You aren’t married yet.”

Gage snorted out a laugh and Felicity smiled indulgently.

“Did you need a lesson about the birds and the bees?” Gage asked, with a smirk.

“No. I… A baby. Congratulations.”

“I hope you’ll be able to say that and mean it at some point,” Felicity said gently.

Brady stepped toward them. Irritated with himself for not handling this the right way. “I am happy for you. I’m just shocked. It’s been a day,” he said, looking down at the baby he held. Who wasn’t his, but was now his responsibility.

Mak began to squirm, fuss, then cry. Felicity popped off the couch, holding out her arms.

“Can I?”

He handed off the fussing baby and rolled his shoulders, trying not to wince at the pain in his injured one. Felicity rocked and crooned to Mak and Brady looked at his twin brother. They’d shared everything, or close to it. Not everything. Not the separate ways their father had tortured them.

Not Elijah Jones.

“You’re going to be a father,” Brady offered helplessly.

“Not a word I’ve ever cared for, but I’ll make it mean something different.”

“I know you will.” It was a strange thing, since Brady wasn’t this infant’s father, but Gage’s news and words crystalized what Brady had to do.

He’d grown up in the Sons. Thanks to his oldest brother’s belief in right and good, Brady had come out believing in right and good, as well. Jamison had sacrificed a lot to get Brady and Gage out of the Sons together. He’d given them the gift of hope, and the gift of each other.

So, Brady believed in laws and rules—the following of them, the enforcing them. Believed in good. In doing the right thing. Always. Because of Jamison’s example. Because of Grandma Pauline and the privilege he’d had to escape from the Sons and grow up in a real home, with real love.

But if he truly believed in Jamison’s example, it couldn’t be just about upholding the law. It had to be about keeping this innocent life out of the Sons. Which meant accepting that he’d bend some rules to do it.

“Gage. I’ve been keeping a secret,” Brady announced.

Gage’s eyebrows went up. “What kind?”

“The Sons kind,” Brady said grimly.

CECILIA WAS BEING WATCHED. She could feel it, and see the signs of it. Still, she went about her workday. Answering calls. Patrolling the rez. She kept her body on alert, ready to fight off whatever was watching.

But she didn’t stop doing what she loved to do. Being a tribal police officer was everything to Cecilia, and even being watched wouldn’t stop her from handling her responsibilities.

She didn’t remember her early years here with her mother. Vaguely, in a misty kind of way, she remembered her mother. Mostly, she thought, because Aunt Eva had made sure of it.

But Aunt Eva had moved Cecilia off the rez and onto the Knight ranch after Mom had died. Cecilia had been loved, she’d had sisters, and the kind of stability her mother had never been able to give her. Aunt Eva had died a few years later, and that had been hard, but she’d had Duke and her sisters.

Still, she’d missed this feeling of community and belonging, of having a tie to her history. Maybe she spent an awful lot of time seeing the bad parts of the rez as a police officer, but she’d needed to figure herself out as an adult there. Right there.

She liked to think she had figured herself out, but this situation with Layla and Mak was testing everything she’d learned since joining the tribal police seven years ago.

No doubt she was being watched because Elijah knew she’d taken Mak. Which meant there was no hope of sneaking off to Brady’s tonight and visiting him.

She’d be able to call, though. Elijah wouldn’t be able to intercept that. So, she’d call and make sure Mak was okay and it would have to be enough for now.

It didn’t feel okay. She’d left that sweet little boy with a stranger, and no matter how she knew that stranger was one of the best men on earth, Mak didn’t.

Cecilia walked down the road toward her house. She waved at her elderly neighbor who liked to tell her stories about her mother. Cecilia wasn’t sure they were true, but she liked listening to them nonetheless.

But when she saw her front door open behind the screen door, Cecilia didn’t have time for neighborly chats. She hurried inside through the screen door, heart pounding in panic, hand on the butt of her weapon.

But it was no intruder. Cecilia’s hands fell to her sides. “Rach?”

Rachel was in the kitchen, puttering around with making tea. She flashed a smile. “Hi. You’re home early.”

“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t unusual for her cousin to visit, or to spend nights with her. Rachel was a teacher on the rez, and she split her time between here and the Knight ranch so she could keep an eye on her father when she wasn’t teaching.

Normally, Cecilia loved having Rachel underfoot. She liked having company in this house. She loved her cousin, who’d been like a sister growing up.

But Rachel had been visually impaired since she was a toddler. Normally Cecilia didn’t even think of it. Rachel knew how to get around. She’d dealt with the impairment since she was a child, and now she was an adult who could take care of herself.

Today, with someone watching Cecilia’s every step, the last thing she wanted was Rachel here. She’d be vulnerable to whatever Cecilia had gotten herself wrapped up in, and more so because she wouldn’t necessarily see an attack coming.

“Rach. I…” Rachel was Aunt Eva and Uncle Duke’s only biological daughter. In some ways, Rachel and Cecilia had a closer connection because of that biology—cousins. Not because they didn’t think of Eva and Duke’s foster daughters as their sisters, but because the foster girls had always felt a certain kind of jealousy toward the biological relations.

It had never impacted their friendship, their love for one another. Cecilia would lay down her life for any of them, just as she knew they’d do the same for her. The four other Knight girls were her sisters. Luckily adulthood had smoothed over a lot if not all of those old resentments, but it didn’t erase the special bond she had with Rachel.

Rachel was like her baby sister. She wanted to protect her. “You shouldn’t be here today.”

“Why not?”

Cecilia couldn’t tell Rachel, no matter how much she wanted to. She’d already involved Gage, Felicity and Brady. Adding more people would be dangerous. For them.

The Wyatts and Knights had been through enough danger in the past few months.

And every time a Knight goes to a Wyatt man for help—what happens?

She shook that thought away. Liza had asked for Jamison’s help, yes, and they were getting married and raising Liza’s half sister. But they’d been together as teenagers.

Which was the same as Cody and Nina, who’d already eloped and were living in Bonesteel with their daughter after a teenage romance that had been broken up by the Sons, then rekindled again.

As for Felicity and Gage, well, that was a bit of a shock, and an odd pairing, but they made each other happy.

It was a parade of coincidences that had nothing to do with Cecilia and Brady.

“Cee, what’s going on?” Rachel asked.

Cecilia forced herself to smile. “It’s been a rough day.” Rachel was already here, so sending her away wouldn’t do any good.

“And you were hoping to be alone?”

“Yes. No. It’s fine.” Rachel was here. Whoever was watching Cecilia had seen her be dropped off and come inside. Cecilia just had to figure out a way to mitigate the situation.

She wanted to go to her room and cry. Or better yet, go home to the Knight ranch and hide from all of this.

But she wasn’t weak—couldn’t be, for Layla as much as for herself. She hadn’t become a police officer because it was easy. She didn’t want to help people only when it was comfortable.

Still, this was the biggest challenge of her career, of her life. Which meant doubts and fears and wanting to cry was normal. She just couldn’t give in to those things. And she couldn’t let on to Rachel that she felt them.

“You going to cook me dinner?” Cecilia asked, trying to infuse some levity into her tone.

“That’s my lot in life,” Rachel returned. “Cooking for a passel of helpless Knights.”

“Helpless seems harsh. And not a word Sarah would appreciate.” Sarah was the only one of the Knight girls who’d taken an interest in ranching, keeping her at home full-time. She was everything a ranching woman should be—tough, hardworking, and hardheaded.

“But it fits when she refuses to even learn how to make spaghetti. I won’t be around forever.”

A blip of panic bloomed in Cecilia’s chest, but she kept her tone light. “Going somewhere?”

Rachel shrugged restlessly. “You got off the ranch. You have a life.”

“You do too. You’re here every summer and—”

“And driven by my daddy. Or my sister, which is fine. The rez isn’t for me like it is for you. But maybe the ranch isn’t either. Felicity is getting married and having a baby and I… Well, I’m never going to meet anyone the way my life currently is.”

“Just get yourself into a life-threatening situation like Felicity did. Brady will follow in Gage’s footsteps of falling for the damsel in distress and bang.”

Rachel wrinkled her nose. “Felicity was hardly a damsel. Besides, Brady is so…stuffy.”

“He’s not—” Cecilia clamped her mouth shut. Defending Brady’s stuffiness was not what she needed to be doing right now. Luckily, a knock on the door made the subject easy to change. It was probably Mrs. Eldridge wanting to share another story. “Be right back,” Cecilia said, heading for the front door.

She opened it, expecting her elderly neighbor’s face and finding no one. She looked around. No kids giggling in the bushes playing ding-dong-ditch. Just…quiet.

She began to close the door before she noticed the small lump of fur on the porch. Cecilia stopped short as her stomach heaved.

There was an arrow sticking out of it, though the prairie dog clearly hadn’t been killed by an arrow. Cecilia swallowed, forced herself to look, to pay attention.

Worse than the fact it was a tiny dead prairie dog, there was a note attached to the arrow with three simple words written on it in capital letters.

See you soon.

She stared at the scrawled words until her vision blurred. She was only shaken out of her frozen state by Rachel’s voice.

“Who is it?” Rachel called.

“Just a prank,” Cecilia replied, swallowing down the bile in her throat as her fingers closed over the butt of her holstered gun. “I’ll be right back.” She stepped outside, closing the door behind her. She scanned the area—houses, a quiet street, no one skulking around.

Anymore.

She let her hand fall off her weapon. She’d dispose of the dead animal, and then get Rachel the hell back to the Knight ranch.

Then she’d play Elijah’s game, she decided grimly. It was the only way to keep him off Mak’s trail.

Chapter Four

Brady was bleary-eyed the next day. Since Mak had slept so much before Felicity had left, he’d spent most of the night up and fussy. Brady and Gage had a list of instructions on baby care, but it had still taken three tries and watching a how-to video online to get the diaper on right. Making bottles and feeding them to the kid was pretty easy, and Mak was mostly a happy baby. Still, Brady was glad Gage was here with him. He wouldn’t have survived the night without help—at least not with his sanity intact.

Brady had filled Gage in about Elijah…to an extent. There were things he hadn’t told his brothers. The reasons he’d had for keeping Elijah a secret still existed, so keeping some parts of his story to himself made sense. Giving them the truth didn’t mean giving them all the truths.

It bothered him that he hadn’t heard from Cecilia. Not even a text. Shouldn’t she want to check in on the baby? What was he supposed to do all day? Gage would go in to work, and Brady couldn’t keep having visitors. If someone was watching or looking into him, the trail of people would be suspect.

Not as suspect as it might be at another time in his life. People had been traipsing in and out of his apartment to help out for too long now. Maybe it wouldn’t send up any red flags, but there was no reason to chance it.

Gage had smuggled up a foldable, portable crib thing in his duffel bag. Mak was currently sleeping peacefully, and Brady knew he should try to catch a few hours too. Maybe even wake the baby up in an effort to keep him on a correct day/night schedule.

But he couldn’t bring himself to wake up the boy when he looked so peaceful, and Brady’s shoulder was currently throbbing too much to sleep through.

He went to the kitchen and made coffee, took some ibuprofen and the last of his antibiotics—praying they worked this time. He was tired of hospitals and doctors and being poked at and hmmed over.

Gage came out of the spare bedroom dressed in his uniform. It was the last week he’d be putting that particular uniform on. He was transferring from Valiant County to Rapid City PD to be closer to Felicity’s job at the National Park, and Brady still hadn’t fully grasped the reality of not working with his twin brother anymore.

“I know you miss it,” Gage said, either not understanding the pain Brady felt, or purposefully changing the topic to another painful one.

Brady gestured at his bum shoulder, tried to sound nonchalant. “Not much I can do with this.”

“It’s not permanent.”

“No.” It felt it, though. He was supposed to be back at work by now, not sidelined by an infection. He was supposed to go back to work knowing Gage would be there, but Gage only had three shifts left before his life changed.

He’d marry Felicity, have a kid, be a cop somewhere else.

If Brady looked too closely at all that, he might find the source of the low feelings he’d been having before he’d been shot.

So he decided not to look closely. “Coffee?”

“I’ll just grab some at the station. I want to check on Felicity before my shift starts. She’s feeling a little off in the mornings.”

“It fits, you know, you two. I wouldn’t have predicted it. But it works.” Brady didn’t know what possessed him to say it, but there it was.

Gage grinned. “Yeah, I know.” His smile dimmed. “This Elijah…” Gage sighed. “What do I tell the others?”

Brady loved all of his brothers—would fight next to, protect and die for every single one of them. But he and Gage had escaped the Sons together, thanks to Jamison. They’d been together from the very beginning, and no matter how old they got, there was a deeper bond or connection between them. They were twins.

The fact Gage was willing to keep part of the story a secret from their brothers only made Brady feel guilty that there were still things Gage didn’t know.

Brady didn’t like to deal in guilt—he refused to wallow in it. If a man was guilty, he needed to change his actions to not feel guilty anymore. Maybe there’d been reasons to keep Elijah a secret, but the reasons had lost their weight.

“I think I should tell them. Everything. Together. I don’t think Mak and I should stay here. I think we should hide. I just have to figure out how I can get him somewhere without being seen—and making sure Cecilia is okay.”

“Heard from her?”

Brady shook his head.

“I don’t like it. I know she can take care of herself, but I don’t like it.”

“Same, but I also know there’s no getting through to that hardheaded woman.” Brady didn’t know why she had to be contrary for the sake of being contrary, but he knew she would be. No matter what he said.

“Let’s set up a family dinner. Cecilia comes and you come. We find a way to hide Mak. If everyone descends on the ranch and there’s no baby—it’ll throw anyone off the sent.”

“But how do we completely hide the presence of a six-month-old?”

Brady looked down at the baby in the portable crib. Mak was still fast asleep, little fist bunched and tucked under his chin, knees bent but spread wide-open. Felicity had brought some clothes so he was wearing dinosaur footie pajamas.

Though he didn’t say anything, Brady could tell Gage was thinking about his future as a father.

“I hate to bring anyone else into it…”

Gage fixed him with a stern look. “I think you know everyone else would be more than happy to help keep that or any child out of the Sons’ clutches.”

Brady nodded. He knew it was true, but it was still against that moral compass he’d always listened to. Don’t bring more people than necessary into Sons danger. Especially innocent ones.

“Gigi has that doll she carries around. She was even pushing it around in a stroller last time she was at the ranch.” Brady shrugged away the guilt that was already poking at him. Gigi was four, and though she’d spent most of those four years in the Sons’ camps before Liza and Jamison had saved her, she didn’t deserve to be dragged back into it.

“Mak’s a bit bigger than a doll, but it’s not the worst plan,” Gage said thoughtfully. “Especially if it’s just between apartment door and truck. I bet Cody could find us a truck with tinted windows.” Gage rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

“I can—”

“You got a baby to take care of. You take care of him. I’ll take care of getting him to the ranch.”

Brady looked at Mak’s sleeping form. Completely and utterly defenseless. Brady might want to protect him all on his own, but this child deserved everyone he had in his arsenal.

“Let’s do it as soon as possible.”

THE NICE THING about Rachel staying with her was that Cecilia was so worried about Rachel, she didn’t have much worry left for herself. She spent a sleepless night checking and rechecking the doors and windows in her house to make sure they were locked.

Bleary-eyed the next morning, she subsisted off coffee—which she normally didn’t drink—and as much sugar as one human could possibly stand. She did a quick walk around the house looking for any more dead animals or threatening notes.

As she stepped back inside, Rachel was shuffling into the kitchen with a big, loud yawn. Rach had never been a morning person. Cecilia didn’t know why she’d taken a teaching job that required her to do most of her work in the morning, but she could only assume Rachel loved it.

When Rachel stayed with her, she usually walked to and from the school with her probing cane. Cecilia would feel better if she had a support dog, but Rachel had lost hers last year to old age and hadn’t had the heart to go through the process of trying to get a new one.

“I’m going to drive you in today.”

Rachel frowned as she deftly poured herself some coffee. “Why would you do that?”

Cecilia had prepared for that question, and still she winced. She hated to lie to Rachel. So she didn’t lie…exactly. “There’s been some stuff going on. Pranks most likely, but the kind that can escalate if given the opportunity.”

Rachel’s frown deepened. “That’s vague.”

“It’s a vague kind of thing. You’d probably be fine walking, but it’d make me feel better if I drove you.”

Rachel sighed a little, and Cecilia half expected her to press the matter.

“It’s too early to argue,” she said around another yawn. “But I’m walking back after my classes are done.”

Cecilia tried not to snap that it wasn’t an option. Compromise was the best bet when talking to a stubborn Knight woman—she should know. “Can you walk with someone? Maybe one of your older students?”

“If you really think it’s necessary.”

“I do.”

Rachel shrugged and sipped her coffee. “I’ll be ready in about twenty.”

While she waited, Cecilia rechecked the house to make sure it was all locked up. She called in on her radio to start her shift, and drove Rachel to the school.

The morning was warm but with a hint of a chill. Fall was starting its slow unfurling, usually Cecilia’s favorite time of year.

It wouldn’t be this year with Layla in the hospital and trying to keep Mak from Elijah and the state.

Cecilia pulled to a stop in front of the school, tried to bite her tongue and failed. “Don’t forget to have someone walk with you back to the house. Someone you trust,” she said as Rachel got out of the car.

Rachel paused. “You’re going to have to tell me what this is all about.”

“When I’ve got more information, I will,” Cecilia lied.

Rachel made a disbelieving sound, then closed the car door and walked toward the school. Cecilia watched until she disappeared inside.

Once she was sure Rachel was inside, she did her normal rounds. It didn’t appear she was being followed today, which was only a minor relief. Someone could start at any moment.

After her first call of the day, a minor vandalism situation that had been solved by involving the mother of the teenage perpetrator, she almost felt relaxed.

Of course, that was when she noticed her tail. She tried to act nonchalant, to keep doing her job, but every hour it was harder to pretend to be unaffected. If they were watching her, was Rachel safe? If they were following her, would Rachel be left alone?

If they were following her in particular, what would they do if they found her isolated and alone?

Nothing, because you’re a trained police officer carrying many weapons with which to defend yourself.

She wanted to believe that voice in her head, to feel sure of it, but she also knew she was one police officer. She didn’t know how many people were following her.

She got another call, this time a disturbance, and had to put her stalkers out of her mind while she tried to make peace between two neighbors fighting about property lines. It was an annoying, pointless screaming match—but it was her job to smooth it over.

It took a full hour, and her head pounded by the time she was walking back to her patrol car. People who couldn’t—wouldn’t—compromise always gave her a headache.

She glanced at her watch. Rachel would have walked to the house by now. Maybe Cecilia could drive by the house, just check in on her. Pretend like she’d forgotten her lunch and was grabbing a sandwich so Rachel didn’t get unduly worried.

The pounding in her head stopped, as did her breath and perhaps even her heart when she saw a piece of paper tucked under her windshield wiper. It fluttered in the breeze.

It could be anything, but Cecilia knew what it would be. Another note—sans dead animal this time.

Or so she thought, until she stepped closer to her patrol car. Under the wheel was a dead raccoon. As if she’d run it over.

But she hadn’t.

No, it was another sign. Another warning.

Steeling herself for another threatening note, Cecilia pulled a rubber glove out of the glove pouch on her gun belt. She picked up the note and read it.

She’s pretty.

Cecilia didn’t let herself react outwardly. Inside she was ice, her heart a shivering mass of fear and panic. But outside, her hands were steady and her gaze was cool. She slid into the patrol car and set the note carefully on the passenger seat, pulling off the glove as she did so.

She turned the ignition, calmly eased on the gas. Keeping her attention evenly split between phone and road, she clicked Rachel’s name on her phone screen and called.

The phone rang. And rang.

“Pick up,” Cecilia muttered, swearing when it went to voice mail.

She was tempted to increase her speed, fly through the rez to her house on the eastern edge.

The only she the note could refer to was Rachel. It was a threat against Rachel, and Rachel was alone. Cecilia should have predicted this. Should have insisted Rachel…

What? Not teach her class? Hide away? It wouldn’t have been a fair demand, but Cecilia still knew she should have done something.

Cecilia drove within the speed limit, watching her surroundings in case it was a trap. An ambush. Because threatening Rachel was only about getting to her. Rachel didn’t know anything.

Or would Elijah think she did?

Cecilia swore again, increasing her speed, though not enough to draw attention. She came to a screeching halt in front of her house. If anyone was watching or following, she’d broken her calm facade.

Since she already had, she raced inside, hand on the butt of her weapon. But Rachel was safe as could be, curled up on the couch, earbuds in.

She pulled one out and looked at Cecilia’s form with raised eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

Cecilia let out a ragged breath. This couldn’t go on. She knew Elijah was purposefully trying to scare her, and giving in to threats and scare tactics would give him what he wanted, but…

She couldn’t risk Rachel.

“I have to take you back to the ranch.”

“Cee, you’re being super weird this week.” Rachel’s expression wasn’t confused so much as concerned. “You’re going to have to tell me what’s going on.”

“I know. I know. Look… I’ll explain everything when we’re home. With everyone.” She had to fill everyone in on what was happening. It was the only way to keep Rachel and Mak safe. To make sure none of them were brought unwittingly into this.

Because Elijah was clearly ready and willing to threaten everything she loved. She didn’t have to live with threats. She should act.

“Let’s get to the ranch,” Cecilia said. “I just have to call someone to take the last two hours of my shift.”

“I can have Dad—”

“No. No, I’m taking you.”

“This is really bad, isn’t it?” Rachel asked, twisting her fingers together.

Cecilia didn’t mind lying to the people she loved if it saved them from worry, but she wasn’t sure she had that luxury anymore. “It could be, if I’m not very careful.”

Rachel slid off the couch, crossed the room and took Cecilia’s hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “Then let’s be very, very careful.”

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