Backcountry Escape

When she returned she didn’t look any less lost, but she was in dry sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt for Mammoth Cave National Park. She stood at the entrance to the kitchen taking in her surroundings like it was somewhere she’d never been before.

“Sit,” he ordered, uncomfortable with how fragile she seemed.

She nodded after a time and then took a seat at her tiny table. He set the mug of tea in front of her. “You’ll drink all of that,” he said, trying to sound as commanding as his grandmother did when she was forcing food on someone.

She didn’t drink, just stared at the mug. “They think I have something to do with it,” she said, her voice so quiet he almost couldn’t make out the words. “I can tell.”

“No. You’ve been through this before. You know how it goes.” He found a loaf of bread and dropped a slice in the toaster. “They have questions they have to ask just to make sure, but—”

“It’s the second time.” She lifted her gaze to meet his, and there was nothing timid or uncertain about her, as there had been in the past. No, she was in complete control, even lost and scared. “The questions were different. And they’re right. It does. It has something to do with me. I know it does.”

Chapter Two

Something about Gage’s large form taking up almost the entire space in her tiny kitchen made Felicity want to blurt out everything that was going on in her brain.

He was making her tea and toast. She wanted to lay down her head and cry. She expected her sisters to take care of her. She even expected Duke to take care of her—he’d had to step in as mother along with father when Eva had died. He’d done his best.

Her foster family had always done their best, just like their friends the Wyatts.

But this was Gage. Gage always made her feel edgy. Like she was on uneven ground. You never knew what Gage was going to do or say, and she preferred knowing exactly what was going to happen.

Sometimes she blamed his size for the discomfort she felt. He was so tall and broad and, Lord, he packed on the muscle. But Brady was the exact same size, just as strong and broad, and Brady only ever made her feel safe. Comfortable.

Gage set down a plate with a piece of buttered toast in front of her. Her cheap, cute floral dishes looked all wrong in his hands.

Today was all, all wrong.

“Why do you think it has something to do with you?” he asked as he took a seat across from her.

“You made me tea and toast.” She could only stare at the wisps of steam drifting up from the mug. Gage Wyatt…had made her tea and toast?

“You’re lucky. If Grandma Pauline was here, she would have made a five-course meal and insisted you eat every bite.”

It was true. His grandmother soothed with food—whether you wanted food as soothing or not. Tea and toast was a lighter option, and her stomach might actually be able to handle it. So she sipped the tea, took a bite of toast and avoided the topic of conversation at hand.

“Felicity.”

She winced at the gentleness in his tone. “Why did Brady send you?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. That sounds ungrateful.”

He shrugged again, just as he had outside when she’d made a point of telling him he wasn’t who she’d been expecting. There was something in his gaze when he gave those careless shrugs that made her heart feel weighted. Like she’d said something all wrong and hurt his feelings.

Which was ludicrous. Gage did not get hurt feelings, especially at her hands.

“Like I said outside, I was closest.” He tapped his fingers on the table, the only sign of agitation.

“You’ve been very…nice,” she said, not even sure why she wanted to try to make him feel better when any hurt or agitation had to be her imagination.

“I’m always nice.”

“No. That is not true. Not that you’re mean, but I’m not sure anyone would describe you as nice.” Gage was challenging. He was irreverent. He made her jumpy. Even when he was doing something nice.

“Felicity. Why do you think this crime connects to you?”

The toast turned to lead in her throat and she had to work to swallow it down. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she needed to. She needed help. From someone in law enforcement who would listen to her. “It was the same.”

“A woman this time,” he noted. “So, not exactly the same.”

“Maybe not the who, but it was my morning hike. My routine. I’ve changed it a little since last year, but I always have a routine.” Routine steadied her. Made her feel strong and in control, and now she wasn’t sure she’d be able to have one or feel that ever again. “The last time, it was my routine hike. My personal routine hike—not work related. Just like this time.”

He nodded and waited patiently for her to work up to say the rest of it.

“The boot in the trail. Unlaced. That happened last time, too. I stumbled over the boot last time. This time I saw it in the nick of time—probably the pink laces.” Those laces would haunt her forever.

“Okay. So you saw the boot, and then what?”

She’d already told the Pennington County deputies and her boss the answer to that question. Over and over in a circle. But she hadn’t explained to them what she was about to explain to Gage. “I told them I looked on the sides of the trail to see if anyone had had an accident.”

“You told them…”

“I knew where the body would be. I looked on the left side first because that wasn’t where the body was last time. I looked to the left and there was no one there, but I had to check. It would be on the right side of the trail. I didn’t want there to be, but I just… I just knew the body would be where it had been last time. Only a few feet off the trail.” She shoved away the tea and the toast and got to her feet. “I can’t…”

There was nowhere to go in her tiny cabin. Stomp off to her room like a child? Tempting.

But Gage walked right over to her, putting his big hands on her shoulders and squeezing them enough to center her in the moment.

He was so dang tall, and it was unreasonable how broad-shouldered he was. When he was clean-shaven, he looked so much like Brady it got hard to tell them apart. But their eyes were different. Brady’s hazel edged toward brown, and Gage’s green. Gage’s nose was crooked, and he had a scar through his eyebrow.

Brady’s face was perfect. Gage’s was…

“You know, Brady told me I needed to be gentle with you.”

Those words felt like cold water being splashed in her face. “I’m not a shy little girl anymore,” she snapped, trying to shrug off his hands. When would they all see that? It wasn’t enough she’d helped save Cody and Nina from one of the Sons last month? Honestly.

“That’s what I told him,” Gage said, which had her looking up in confusion.

“You…”

“Anyone who’s paying attention can see you’ve changed, Felicity. You’re an adult. You’ve found yourself or whatever you want to call it.”

Did that mean Gage was paying attention? Impossible.

“Now. You’ve done this before. So, don’t say you can’t when we both know you can and you will.”

She sucked in a breath. He was right. It didn’t quite steady her, though. Why was Gage of all people right? And why were his big hands on her narrow shoulders?

As if he’d read her thoughts, his hands slid away and he stepped back, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Why couldn’t it be random? I mean, it looks like the killings connect. It’s not accidental and it’s not suicide. It’s murder—even I could see that no matter how much they tried to BS me. But just because it’s murder, doesn’t mean you’re the key. Maybe Badlands is the common denominator. Maybe you’re just…”

“Unlucky?”

“Sure. Why not? The bodies aren’t showing up on your doorstep.”

“Just on trails I walk as a matter of course,” she returned, wishing she could believe his coincidence theory. “That boot wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t placed there yesterday when anyone could have come across it. It was put there so I would come across it.”

“Okay.” He nodded, taking a few more steps away from her.

It seemed odd, the forced distance, but she could hardly think about anything going on with Gage when she had a dead body to worry about.

“If you’re being targeted…why?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t have a clue. Maybe she’d believe it was her connection to the Wyatts. She’d shot one of the Sons of the Badlands men to help Nina and Cody escape Ace Wyatt’s machinations. Except she’d never had a personal interaction with Ace Wyatt, the president of the gang and Gage’s father, who was now in jail.

But jail hadn’t stopped Ace from making things happen on the outside last month. Why would she think he couldn’t reach her now?

The problem was that last month was the first time she’d ever interfered with Sons business, which didn’t explain the first body from a year ago.

Unless that had been an accident and this was a copycat?

“You think it’s Ace.”

Felicity looked up at Gage because his voice was so flat. Even when Gage got angry he usually hid it under that natural irreverence. It was why she preferred Brady. Brady was rather stoic, but when he showed an emotion you knew what emotion you were getting. Gage was unpredictable.

Even now. She didn’t know what that cold, flat voice meant. She only knew it was possible this connected to his crime boss of a father, even if Ace was in jail and the Sons of the Badlands seemed to be getting weaker.

“I don’t know. I don’t know, but I interfered last month.”

“It wouldn’t connect all the way back to last year.” He kept talking before she could offer her theory. “But it wouldn’t have to—it would just have to look like it. Sounds like Ace.”

She nodded. “I need you to help me figure out if it is, Gage. I can’t trust the local police to do it. I’m sure they’re fine at their jobs, but they don’t know Ace, and they’re afraid of the Sons. You aren’t.”

“Everyone is afraid of the Sons, Felicity. It’s stupid not to be.” He sighed, presumably at the horrified look on her face. “We’ll figure it out. Okay?”

SHE WAS STANDING still as a statue, looking at him like he’d slapped her across the face when he’d simply told her the truth.

Even if the Sons were weaker than they’d been, they were still dangerous. Too dangerous, and anyone with a connection to Ace Wyatt was definitely in the most danger.

They were working on getting more charges leveled against Ace, thanks to three of the men who had been arrested after trying to hurt Cody and Nina and their daughter last month. But it still wouldn’t add up to a life sentence, even if he was found guilty at his upcoming trial for the first round of charges.

Unfortunately, no matter how sure Jamison and Cody were that the law would keep Ace powerless—when Ace had already proved jail couldn’t—Gage had doubts.

Major doubts.

Felicity had been integral in the arrest of one of those men who was potentially going to take the stand against Ace. It made sense she’d be targeted.

Gage’s phone chimed and he looked down at the text from Brady.

I can relieve you if you want.

Felicity would want Brady. She deserved the Wyatt brother she preferred even if her crush was hopeless. Brady didn’t have a clue who Felicity really was. Gage wasn’t convinced his twin could ever look at the Knight fosters and not see a sister. Or at the least think, Hands off.

Brady would always toe the unofficial line. Gage never did.

No worries, he typed and hit Send before he could talk himself into doing the right thing.

Maybe Felicity wanted Brady, but Gage would be the better helper in this situation. He was willing to bend a few more rules than Brady. Besides, she’d said she needed his help. Maybe it was only because he was here, but hell, he was here.

“Once they ID her, we’ll want to see how she connects to the first victim.”

Felicity shook her head and took a seat. “I don’t think the victims matter. I mean, they matter. To their families. To me. But they’re not the point to whoever is doing this.”

“Maybe not, but we’ll research it all the same. We’ll go over things. Maybe you should stay at the ranch until this blows over.”

She was shaking her head. “I have a job to do. If I run away from that—”

“They’re going to put you on leave. They did last time, didn’t they?”

“They can’t. It’s summer this time. It’s busy season. I’m scheduled for programs and…” She trailed off as her phone buzzed. She swallowed and looked at the screen. “It’s my boss.”

Gage didn’t say I told you so. He didn’t need to. Didn’t want to after having to stand and listen to her desperate attempts to change her boss’s mind.

When she finally hung up, she stared at her phone. “I can’t work for at least a week.”

“That’s not such a bad thing.”

Her head whipped up, fury in her green eyes. “It’s a terrible thing. On every level. I can’t be here. It will haunt me—her body. Every night. You can’t get rid of something you never face. It puts my job, my dream job, in jeopardy. Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to get this position?”

The color had come back to her face, the faintest blush rising in her cheeks. She was breathing a little heavier after that tirade, and she had her fingers curled into fists.

She was possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and he knew that made him a jerk. “Yeah,” he finally managed. “You worked your butt off.”

His simple affirmative had her slumping in her seat. “I don’t want to go to the ranch. Duke will worry. Sarah and Rachel will worry and fuss. Your grandmother will make a feast for seventy and expect a handful of us to eat it all. Worst of all, you Wyatt boys will push me out of this when it is my fight.”

“It’s our fight.”

“And yet I’m the one with blood on my hands.” She held them up as if she’d been the one to do any kind of killing.

He knelt in front of her and, though he knew it would be a mistake, took both her raised hands in his. “There’s no blood here.”

“There might as well be,” she returned, her voice breaking on the last word. She blinked back tears. “I can’t sit idly by. If you take me back there, you’ll push me out. All of you.”

Brady would lead that charge, but Gage didn’t tell her that. He held her hands in his, irritated that both were so cold. She should have drunk the tea. He should have made her.

“No, you can’t sit idly by,” he agreed, if irritably. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go to the ranches and work through it. Let the police do their jobs here. Let your boss do his job for the park. Back home, we’ll work together to figure out what this really is. Together. I promise. No one will push you out.”

She stared at him, eyebrows drawn together, frown digging lines around her mouth. Her eyes were suspicious, but she sat there and let him hold her hands. She sat there and stared at him. Thinking.

While she was thinking, he was feeling quite a bit too much.

She tugged her hands out of his grasp and stood abruptly. She stalked away from him, though it ended up being only a few steps because the cabin was so small. She whirled and pointed at him. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he replied solemnly.

Because Gage Wyatt would break rules and didn’t mind lying when it suited, but he wouldn’t break a promise to Felicity. Not even if it killed him.

Chapter Three

Felicity sat in the passenger seat of Gage’s truck, brooding over the lack of her own vehicle. The lack of her job for at least a week. The lack of her little cabin that wasn’t her home exactly. It wasn’t hers to own—it was the park’s.

But neither were the ranches hers, though they made up the tapestry of her childhood and adolescence. The Wyatt boys and the foster girls of Duke and Eva Knight had run wild over both ranches. They were a piece of her, yes, but she didn’t own them.

She’d gotten into the wrong business if she was worried about owning things, though. Apparently, the wrong business if she didn’t want to find dead bodies.

She closed her eyes, but that only made said bodies pop up in her head, so she opened them and leaned her forehead against the window. She watched the scenery pass, from the stark browns, tans and whites of the Badlands to the verdant green and rolling hills with only the occasional ridge of rock formations that would lead them to the ranches they’d grown up on.

“Brady said for us to meet at my grandma’s.”

Felicity sighed. “I don’t want a fuss.” She didn’t want all the attention or the attempts at soothing. Right now she wanted to be alone.

Except then her company would be the images of the dead bodies she’d found, and that didn’t exactly appeal, either.

“Maybe it’d be a good time to tell them about our Ace connection theory,” Gage offered as if he was trying to make her feel better. Which was odd coming from Gage, who was known more for making a joke out of serious things. Still, if she really thought about it, he often did that in a way that made people feel better, even if only momentarily.

“So it’s our theory now?”

Gage lifted a negligent shoulder. “We can call it yours, but I agree with it.”

“Will they?”

“Not sure. Don’t see why they wouldn’t. It makes sense. We’ll look into it one way or another.”

“We or you guys?”

He spared her a look as he pulled through the gate to the Reaves Ranch. Pauline Reaves had run this ranch since she’d been younger than Felicity, and though she’d married, she’d kept the ranch in her name and never let anyone believe her husband ran things.

As the story went, her late husband had been in love with her enough not to care. Felicity had never met the Wyatt boys’ grandfather, who had died before Felicity had come to live with the Knights.

Felicity loved Grandma Pauline like her own. Not such a strange thing for a girl who’d grown up with the care and love of foster parents to love nonfamily like family. Pauline had always represented a strong, independent feminine ideal to Felicity. One she’d thought she’d never live up to.

But the older she got, the more Felicity felt that if she worked hard enough at it, she could be as strong and determined as Grandma Pauline. She could forge her own path.

Thoughts of Pauline’s strength disappeared as the line of cars in front of Pauline’s old ranch house came into view. Despite its sprawling size, piecemeal additions and modernizations over the years, and the fact only two people lived full-time in it, the house was well cared for. The boys always made sure repairs were done quickly, and Grandma kept it spick-and-span.

Still, it showed its age and wear. There was something comforting in that—or there would be if there wasn’t this line of cars in front of it.

“Everyone’s here.”

“I mean, not…everyone,” Gage said, trying for what she assumed was a cheerful tone.

He’d failed. Miserably. Everyone or almost everyone’s vehicle being here meant something…something big at that. It was more than her stumbling across a dead body.

Felicity frowned as Gage parked in line. Based on the vehicles she recognized, Tucker and Brady were here, as was Duke and potentially Rachel and Sarah if they’d driven over with him. Dev and Grandma Pauline lived on the property, but it was Cody’s truck that really bothered her. Why would he come all the way out from Bonesteel? The only vehicle missing was one belonging to Jamison and Liza. Hopefully they were at home in Bonesteel, safe and sound, taking care of Gigi, Liza’s young half sister. “What is all this? Why is everyone here?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, sounding confused enough that she believed him. He got out of the truck and she followed. Dev’s ranch dogs pranced at their feet, whimpering excitedly as they’d been trained not to bark at Wyatts or Knights.

Felicity wanted to dawdle or trudge, spend some time playing with the dogs, or maybe make a run for it to the Knight Ranch, where she knew she still had a bed waiting for her.

But that was cowardly, and it wouldn’t change whatever this was. It would only avoid it for a while.

She followed Gage’s brisk pace to the back door, which led to a mudroom. The dogs wouldn’t follow inside at this entrance since you had to go through the kitchen to get to the rest of the house—and Grandma Pauline did not allow dogs in her kitchen.

Felicity stepped into the kitchen behind Gage. A very full room.

Duke and Rachel were there, sitting at the table. When Felicity had been younger, she’d been jealous of Rachel. She was Duke and Eva’s only biological child, and she looked like she belonged in the Knight family. Even though with the fosters they’d been a conglomeration of black, Lakota and white—no one looking too much like anyone else—Felicity had always felt the odd man out with her particularly pale skin and bright red hair.

But she was older now, and today she was glad to see the people who were her family.

It was a little harder to be grateful for the presence of the Wyatt brothers. All of them being here in this moment only meant trouble. They brought it with them, and though they fought it as much as they could, it was always there.

Tucker stood next to Cody and Jamison—so they must have driven together from Bonesteel. Dev and Brady sat at the table while Grandma Pauline bustled around the kitchen.

They all looked at Felicity with smiles that were in turn sad, sympathetic or pitying. Felicity’s chest got tight and panic beat through her, its own insistent drum of a heartbeat. “What’s going on?”

Grandma Pauline all but pushed her into a chair and set a plate with a brownie on it in front of her. Duke took her hand and patted it.

All the eyes in the room except Gage’s turned to Tucker.

His smile was the most pitying and apologetic of all. “When Brady told me what happened I asked a buddy over in Pennington County to let me know if they found anything out.”

Felicity had to pause before she spoke. Getting upset often made her stutter return, but if she kept herself from rushing, she could handle it. “And they did?”

“The victim’s name is Melody Harrison.”

Everyone was quiet. So quiet and this was usually a noisy group.

“It’s a common enough last name,” Felicity forced herself to say slowly and calmly. “It might be a coincidence.” She didn’t know anyone named Melody, even if they shared a last name. Of course she’d been taken away from her abusive father at four. She hardly knew her biological family.

“It is common. Unfortunately, the next of kin who identified her…” If it was possible, the pitying expression grew worse. “He was her father. Michael Harrison.”

“M-my father. B-but that’s common, too, and—”

Tucker nodded grimly. “I confirmed it, Felicity. Your father. Melody was twenty-two, so she was born after you were placed with the Knights.”

“Y-you’re s-saying that…” She winced at how badly the stutter sounded in the quiet room. She made sure to take breaths between each word as she spoke. “The dead body I found is my sister.”

“At least by half. Which means…” Tucker scraped a hand over his jaw.

She didn’t let him say it. She might have before last year. Let him say it. Let the Wyatt boys take care of it. But no one could really take care of what was going on in her head. Even when she was weary enough to wish someone else could.

“The cops will try to connect me to it even more now.”

GAGE SWORE AND felt a stab of guilt when Felicity flinched as if she’d received some kind of blow.