Isolated Threat

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.