Jack’s office was much more impressive than anything he could build in Arizona. It was on the top floor of the glass and steel building there in Memphis, the windows overlooking the training course they’d set up on the grounds at the back of the property. It was an impressive course, one that rivaled many law enforcement versions. I was looking forward to the moment Carson cleared me for strenuous exercise so I could go out there and give some of those younger guys a run for their money.

“We need to take out this Willis,” Brent was saying, his eyes on me. “We can’t let someone like that walk around free.”

“But we also need more information on the new Guardians’ leader,” Jack reminded him.

“How do we do both?”

It was six of us sitting around the office: Brent, Jack, me, Gentry, Aiden, and Bo. Gentry was leaning against the door, watching the rest of us, who were seated in chairs scattered in front of Jack’s desk. No one said anything for a long moment, then Aiden cleared his throat.

“We could let it slip where the recording of Crispin’s testimony is. Let this guy come and take it.”

“How would that help?” Brent asked.

“We could put a tracer on the zip drive.”

Jack shook his head. “We know where he’s probably going to take it.”

“Where’s that?”

“Donally’s lawyer. Who else would get the most use out of it?”

Everyone fell quiet again.

“Then we let it slip where the recording is and coerce him into a confession when he comes to take it,” Bo suggested. “Then we can have the local police department pick him up.”

“But then we wouldn’t get any information on the Guardians.”

“There are other ways to do that,” I reminded Jack.

“There are.” Jack leaned forward, his hands clasped between his legs. “But we have this guy now. The quicker we get the information, the quicker we can shut them down before someone gets hurt.”

He was looking at me as he said it. I knew he meant Alli.

I couldn’t help but agree.

The Guardians had reason to come after Jack Stone and everyone associated with him after he took down their leader and half their members three months ago. Alli was the most vulnerable of his associates. Lighting fires in her parking lot and knocking over her shelves were going to seem like child’s play if we didn’t stop this new leader from taking control and riling everyone up.

“If he were arrested, he might be willing to talk.”

Jack shook his head. “The others weren’t.”

“We don’t know Willis is one of the Guardians.”

Brent scoffed. “He stabbed you. It was dumb luck that he didn’t destroy your kidney.”

He was right, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that this man I had worked with for more than a decade would work with this group of fanatics. But maybe I hadn’t known him as well as I thought I did.

“I don’t see that we have many options, Jack,” Gentry said. “We know he wants the recordings, and he wants to stop Crispin from testifying. Our only choice is to use Crispin as bait.”

Everyone’s eyes came to rest on me. I shrugged.

“He’s right.”

Jack shook his head, standing as he crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s got to be a better way.”

“We have to draw him out. Using me is the best way to do that.”

“But we get him arrested, and then what? What if he doesn’t talk?”

“We don’t have him arrested,” Brent said.

“What do we do, then?”

Brent, the most mild-mannered of the Stone brothers, looked around the room with something like cold malice in his eyes. “We bring him here.”

Silence fell for a long moment as the implications of that suggestion settled. Gentry straightened a little, and Aiden sat up straighter in his chair. Bo didn’t react, and Jack…well, Jack seemed like he was always walking that thin line between justice and vigilantism. He didn’t flinch at the idea at all.

“We bring him here and do what?” I demanded. “We can’t take the law into our own hands!”

“He held a knife on your girl,” Brent reminded me. “You really want to give him a chance to do that again? To actually go through with what he was threatening?”

“We don’t let people threaten our brothers or their girls,” Aiden said.

I wasn’t sure if I should be frightened or touched by that statement.

“We bring him here and ask him what we need to know,” Bo said. “Then we hand him over to the cops.”

They all seemed to be in agreement, but they were waiting for my response. I was torn. I wanted Willis arrested. I wanted him to pay for what he’d done to me. I wanted him as far from Alli as it was possible to get. But I wasn’t so jaded that I didn’t still believe in the justice system. I’d dedicated my entire adult life to a system that worked—most of the time. I hadn’t left that system because I didn’t believe in it, but because I did. Because the sheriff had turned his back on the system I so believed in. I wasn’t about to become like him just because a former colleague had lost his mind.

“We just ask questions,” Jack assured me.

“You can’t coerce him.”

“We won’t.”

“I was a cop, too,” Brent reminded me. “We know what we’re doing.”

It wasn’t right. But we did have questions that had to be answered. We had to protect Alli.

I lowered my head. “Okay.”

 

 

She was staying with me in the bunker now, her stack of luggage shoved into one corner of the concrete room. We were lying in bed, her body spooned perfectly against mine. I ran my hand over her hip, my thoughts preoccupied.

“You have a plan.”

“We do.”

She was quiet for a long minute. “Is it dangerous?”

“Not to me. Jack and his brothers will be there.”

“They’re an interesting group, aren’t they? I’d love to meet their parents.”

I kissed her shoulder. “They’re going to get us through this nightmare.”

“Can we go home when this is done?”

“Are you ready to go home?”

She was quiet for a long time. “Tommy’s decided to go to school here in Tennessee. She got a scholarship to Vanderbilt.”

“That’s impressive.”

“Yeah. And Sue’s fallen for some guy who works here. Remy’s offered her a job as a nanny to her baby, so she’s going to stay, too.”

Icy fingers wrapped themselves around my heart. “And you?”

I was almost afraid of the answer. But then her hand moved up the length of my arm, and her fingers slipped between mine. “Ellaville has been my home longer than anywhere else. My shop is there. My house. I want to go back.”

“Even if the Guardians are back at their old tricks?”

“I’m not going to let them scare me away from my home.”

I kissed the side of her head lightly. “Good.”

“What about you? Are you going back to Ellaville?”

It hadn’t occurred to me to do anything else. But her question made me wonder, briefly, what it would be like to live somewhere else. I could go back to El Paso. My dad was gone now, and no one would know me there. I could join the local police department, go back to being a cop. Or I could move up to Illinois, be close to Conor.

But neither of those ideas seemed right.

“Ellaville is my home, too.”

She lifted my hand and pressed her lips against my palm. “The house will be pretty empty without the girls. They want me to pack up their stuff and send it to them, so I’ll have a couple of empty rooms. Good space to create a man cave, or a study.”

“Yeah?”

“And there’s all these things that need to be done. The roof leaks, and the sink in the kitchen doesn’t drain the way it should. It could really use a man’s touch.”

I chuckled. “Are you suggesting I move in with you?”

“Well, there’s no point in paying rent and a mortgage when we’ll likely spend most of our nights together.”

“You’re a little presumptuous. What about my other girlfriends?”

She shrugged softly. “You’ll have to tell them to move on.”

I laughed full out at that. “You trump them all, huh?”

“Definitely.”

I kissed her neck. “Yeah, you do.”

She rolled toward me, her lips brushing against my throat, my chest. “We’re old enough to know that life is short. Why play games when we know how we feel?”

“You’re right.” I kissed her gently. “We should make it all official and everything.”

She pulled back and looked at me. “Should we?”

“I don’t have any plans to go looking for anyone else. This…it’s too hard to go through it too many times. Twice in a lifetime is good enough for me.”

“Okay.”

Just like that. Not exactly the most romantic proposal in the world, but it worked for us. We weren’t exactly the roses and champagne type, anyway.