Chapter Thirteen
The note had chilled Ivy to the bone. It still did even several hours later. But it had been the final straw needed to convince Theo and her brothers that the only way to end this was to draw out the killer.
Not just for their sakes but for the gunman’s family, too.
Ivy now knew that Morris Carlyn’s family had indeed been kidnapped, and the cops didn’t think it was a staged crime scene, either. The person who’d hired Morris had likely taken them to get him to cooperate. If he’d lived, that is. He hadn’t, and Ivy prayed that meant the family would be released soon. While she was praying, she added several for Nathan and the rest of them.
She dies tonight.
If that was true, then she only had five or six hours before this monster tried to come after her. Five or six hours to get everything in place so that at least Nathan would be safe.
“It’s time to go,” Gabriel said as he disarmed the security system.
That was Ivy’s cue to give Nathan one last hug and kiss before he went off with Jameson, Cameron and Jodi. Ivy trusted all three of them to keep her boy safe, but even though she seemed to be the target, there were no guarantees the culprit might not try to use Nathan the way he or she had used Morris’s family.
“It’ll be okay?” Nathan asked, but it took Ivy a moment to realize he’d aimed that question at Theo. “You’ll take care of my mom?”
Theo certainly wasn’t the ice man–lawman right now. His eyebrows were drawn together, and muscles in his shoulders looked stiff. “I will.”
Nathan seemed to accept that because he nodded, went to Theo and hugged him. Everyone in the room looked surprised. Especially Theo. He hesitated just a moment before his arms went around Nathan to return the hug.
Ivy had been near tears all day, and seeing that put some fresh ones in her eyes. Over the years she hadn’t allowed herself to consider how Theo would be with Nathan, but she could see how much he loved their son.
Theo brushed a kiss on top of Nathan’s head, and the boy pulled back, meeting his gaze. “Will you teach me to ride a bull? Because Aunt Jodi said you used to ride them and that you were good at it.”
Theo shot his sister a “thanks for nothing” glance. “Maybe when you’re a little older,” he answered.
Again, Nathan seemed to accept that because he smiled, gave Theo another hug and then hurried to the door next to Gabriel. “I know,” Nathan said to him. “We gotta run fast when we get outside.”
Since every one of them had mentioned that in some way or another, Ivy was glad it had sunk in. She went to the door, too, and from the side window, she saw that Cameron had pulled an unmarked police car next to the porch. Earlier, he’d gotten Nathan’s things and put them in the trunk, and he’d already opened the back passenger’s door.
Jodi and Jameson didn’t waste any time getting Nathan outside and into the vehicle. Cameron immediately sped away. A second car with two reserve deputies followed them for backup.
“The new safe house is about ten miles from here,” Gabriel said, “but it’ll be a while before they get there.”
Yes, because Cameron would have to drive around to make sure they weren’t being followed. Gabriel had already explained that to her along with the assurance that all the vehicles had been checked and double-checked for bugs and tracking devices. Gabriel and the others had made it as safe as they possibly could, considering that Nathan would essentially be out in the open.
“Now it’s our turn,” Gabriel instructed.
Another of the deputies, Edwin Clary, pulled a cruiser in front of the house. This one was definitely marked with Blue River Sheriff emblazoned on the side, as was the one behind them that Deputy Jace Morrelli was driving. Along with Gabriel and Theo, that meant there’d be four lawmen driving her back to the ranch.
As Nathan and the others had done, they hurried to get into the cruiser, and Edwin drove them away. Ivy ended up in the middle of the back seat between Gabriel and Theo, and she automatically sank lower since she figured one of them would soon tell her to do that. However, she kept her head just high enough to help them keep watch.
“We’re going straight to the ranch,” Gabriel continued, “even if someone follows us.”
Ivy had figured that’s how things would be, but it still sent a chill through her to hear it aloud.
“What’s the plan once we’re there?” Edwin asked. The deputy made eye contact in the mirror with Gabriel as he turned onto the road that would take them back to the ranch.
“The hands know we’re coming, and they’re all armed. Not out in the pastures, though. They’ve been setting up some sensors and cameras they got from the office to set up motion detectors and surveillance spots on the paths that lead to the house. Once they’re finished, I want them out of sight.”
It was smart to set up the equipment. Because the road was highly visible from Gabriel’s house, but there were two paths that someone could use to get to them. In fact, the man who’d attacked Jodi ten years ago had used one of them. Maybe Travis had as well the night he’d murdered her parents. Those paths were lined with bushes and trees—the perfect place for a person to hide.
“Whoever comes after you,” Gabriel continued, “we need to take him or her alive. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to figure out who’s behind this.”
Yes, especially considering that Belinda and Morris were dead and Morris’s family was missing.
“That’s why I want the hands and all of us tucked away. I don’t want whoever’s coming to see too many guns and turn back.”
In other words, Gabriel was going to make it look like it would be an easy attack. Of course, the person behind this likely knew that it wouldn’t be and would probably bring lots of firepower.
Ivy looked up at Theo the moment he looked down at her, and she saw something in his eyes that she was certain was in her own. A parent’s worry. This was still a fairly new feeling for Theo, and she wished she could tell him that it would go away. It didn’t. Even when there wasn’t this kind of danger looming over them, she always worried about Nathan.
“Don’t worry,” Theo said. “I won’t teach him how to ride a bull. Not anytime soon, anyway.” The corner of his mouth lifted for just a moment.
Ivy was glad at his attempted humor. Glad, too, that it eased her racing heart just a little. She wanted to tell him she was glad he was there, but because he was there, with her, he was also at risk of being killed.
“How does Nathan do in school?” Theo asked. He glanced away from her to keep watch.
It seemed like such a, well, normal conversation. Definitely not the gloom and doom they’d been discussing since his return to Blue River.
“He gets As and Bs,” she answered. “He struggles some with math, but he’s way ahead in reading. In sports, too. He loves playing baseball.”
Ivy realized she, too, was smiling a little, and she understood that’s why Theo had talked about Nathan in the first place. That was probably the only thing that could help with the nerves. For a few seconds, anyway. And then Ivy felt the blasted tears threaten again.
On a heavy sigh, Theo slid his arm around her. She had on her seat belt, but Theo didn’t, and he eased across the seat toward her. As he’d done with Nathan, he brushed a kiss on the top of her head.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She automatically slid into the crook of his arm.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he whispered back, and she got the feeling they were talking about more than just the danger yet to come.
She looked up at him and got confirmation of that. The heat was still there. Simmering. And the kisses in Gabriel’s office hadn’t done a thing to cool it down. However, what did help was when Gabriel’s phone buzzed, because that quickly got her attention. Theo’s, too, since he moved back across the seat.
“It’s nothing to do with Nathan,” Gabriel said right off. “It’s one of the hands. They have everything in place, and they’re moving to their hidden positions now.”
Good. Because they weren’t far from the ranch now. Only a couple of minutes out.
“When we get there,” Gabriel went on, looking at her, “I’ll have Edwin pull up in front of the porch, and Theo, you and I will go inside. Edwin will leave and drive back toward town, but he’ll actually pull off on a trail not far from here so he can make a quick response if necessary.”
Ivy hoped it would be quick enough.
“I want you and Theo to go upstairs to the guest bathroom,” Gabriel continued. “The hands have put a laptop there so you can watch the security cameras.”
It took Ivy a moment to process that, and she didn’t like where this was going. “If an attack happens, it’ll likely be on the ground level of the house—where you’ll be.”
Gabriel nodded. “And I’ll know they’re coming before they even get here. I don’t want to make this easy for whoever’s after you by giving someone the opportunity to just start firing shots into the place. There’s also another cruiser parked out of sight in the barn, and if things get bad, I want Theo to get you there and drive the two of you off the ranch. Don’t worry, the hands and I will get out, too.”
That caused every muscle in Ivy’s body to tense. She didn’t want her brother or anyone else right in the line of fire, but that might happen no matter where they were on the grounds. The trick would be to spot a possible attacker and capture him before he could even pull the trigger.
“The hands have made sure someone’s not already on the grounds?” Theo asked.
“As much as humanly possible. They’ve been looking around since I called them a couple of hours ago.”
But the hands could have missed a gunman who was hiding. The ranch was huge, and there were a lot of places for someone to stay out of sight of the hands.
“Hell,” Gabriel grumbled.
Theo cursed, too, and Ivy lifted her head even higher to see what had caused their reactions. She soon saw the cause. There was a car parked just off the road where they were to take the final turn to the ranch.
And Wesley was there, leaning against the car as if waiting for them.
It wasn’t an ideal spot for an ambush since there were no trees nearby, but that didn’t mean Wesley didn’t have something up his sleeve.
“What the heck does he want?” Theo added under his breath. His gun was already drawn, but he turned it in Wesley’s direction.
“Should I stop?” Edwin asked.
The muscles in Theo’s face tightened. “Yeah. Stop right here.”
They were still a good twenty yards from Wesley, and Theo took out his phone. Since Ivy was sitting right next to him, she saw when he pressed Wesley’s number, and when the man answered.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” Wesley snarled. “You can come closer.”
“This is close enough,” Theo snarled right back, and he put the call on speaker. “Why are you here?”
She had no idea how long Wesley had been there, and since he was a good half mile from the ranch, the hands probably had no idea he was there. Still, for someone who’d come out this way to see them, he didn’t jump to answer Theo’s question.
However, Wesley did mutter some profanity that she could still hear from the other end of the phone line. “I came to apologize. I was wrong to accuse you of anything criminal.”
“You were wrong, but you didn’t have to come out here to tell me that. How’d you even know I’d be here?”
Wesley lifted his shoulder. “I went by the sheriff’s office, but no one would tell me where you were. I wanted to talk to you face-to-face, and figured sooner or later Ivy would want to come home. And that you’d be the one to bring her.”
To most people that probably wouldn’t have sounded like a threat, but it did coming from this man. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that he was still a suspect.
“I didn’t have anything to do with what went wrong with that raid,” Wesley went on. “It’s important you know that.”
“Why?” Theo didn’t ease up on the intensity in his voice. Nor his expression, either.
Wesley cursed again, and looked away. “I don’t want anybody watching my every move. I don’t want people to think I’m a dirty agent.”
“Too late. They already think that.” Theo paused a heartbeat while he kept watch around them. Edwin and Gabriel did the same. “Let me guess—Dwight Emory has started some kind of internal affairs investigation on you?”
Bingo. Even though Wesley didn’t confirm that, Ivy could see enough of his face to know that it was not only true but that Wesley was riled about it. He certainly wasn’t looking apologetic now.
“I won’t let this ruin my career,” Wesley spat out. “Or my life,” he corrected. “Just know that I expect you to stop it. You need to tell Emory I did nothing wrong.”
Ivy figured there was little or no chance of that happening, which made her wonder why Wesley had really come. Was it to find out if they were at the ranch? If so, he now knew they were, and if he was the person after them, they might not have to wait long for this to all come to a head.
“Drive,” Theo instructed Edwin. “We’ve wasted enough time here.” And with that, he hit the end call button but not before Ivy heard Wesley curse some more. The man continued to curse, too, when Edwin sped past him.
Ivy braced herself in case Wesley took out his gun and fired at them. But he didn’t. She watched as he got back in his car, and he drove away—in the opposite direction of the ranch. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t just double back.
“What the hell was that all about?” Gabriel grumbled.
Theo shook his head. “I figure Emory put him on suspension, pending an internal affairs investigation.”
An investigation that could be connected to the attacks against them if Wesley was indeed trying to silence Theo. Maybe Emory could find something against Wesley before things went from bad to worse.
Edwin took the turn to the ranch and drove through the cattle gate. She didn’t see any hands, cameras or sensors, but Ivy figured they were all there. Another thing that wasn’t in sight was the wedding decorations that had been on the fences. Someone had taken down the blue bows, a reminder that Gabriel’s and Jodi’s lives had been thrown into chaos, as well. They should be on their honeymoon by now, and here Gabriel was, preparing to face down a killer.
A ranch hand stood in the opened doorway of Gabriel’s house, and the moment Edwin stopped the cruiser, Gabriel, Theo and she rushed inside. Gabriel set the security system.
“It won’t be dark for a while,” Gabriel reminded them, “but I don’t want you two out of the bathroom. If you need something, call me, and I’ll bring it to you,” he added. “Oh, and you can use the laptops to monitor the security cameras. The motion detectors shouldn’t pick up slight movement like a small animal or such, but if you hear a beep, it means we’ve got someone where they shouldn’t be.”
Someone who would almost certainly be there to kill them.
Theo and she didn’t waste even a second. They went upstairs to the guest bath suite, and they locked the door just in case someone managed to break in.
“Don’t turn on the lights.” Theo put his hand over hers when she automatically reached for the switch. Both his touch and the warning caused her to look at him. The warning because it was a reminder that they could still be targets here. The touch, well, because even something that simple could cause a swirl of heat to go through her body.
Of course, the timing sucked for that, so Ivy stepped away. It wasn’t a tiny space, not with the private toilet area, bathtub and massive walk-in closet all in separate rooms. But she suspected it wasn’t the large space that had caused her brother to want them there. It was the natural stone walls in the shower. Like the cruisers, it would be bullet-resistant.
Ivy had been using this bathroom and adjacent bedroom during her stay at the ranch, but someone had added a few things. There was bottled water, a gun with extra ammo, some snacks and a laptop—which Theo went to right away. He sank down on the floor with the computer and booted it up.
“Stay away from the window,” Theo added.
She did, though it was impossible to see in or out of it since it was made of glass blocks. Still, it wouldn’t stop bullets like the stone.
Ivy watched the laptop, and it didn’t take long for the images from the security cameras to appear on the screen. Six total. And while the cameras covered the ranch grounds, that still didn’t mean someone couldn’t snake their way through the trees and shrubs, staying out of sight of both the cameras and the hands. Though if that happened, maybe the motion sensors would detect them.
“I used to sneak to your old house this way,” Theo said. He tapped the screen to the right of her parents’ house. No one lived there now, but once there’d been a trail of sorts that led from the road and then coiled around to the back of the place where Ivy met him at the back door and let him in.
“Sneaked him in” was closer to the truth. Her parents had never been keen on her seeing Theo, so to avoid the arguments with them, it was just easier to let them believe she wasn’t seeing him.
“I remember. My bedroom was on that side of the house, and sometimes I’d sit in the window and watch for you when you were coming over.”
Actually, she’d done that even when he hadn’t said he would be over. Theo had pretty much dominated her thoughts in those days.
In some ways, he still did.
Like now, for instance.
His attention was on the laptop, but in profile she could still see enough of his face to bring back the old memories. Of their first kiss. The first time they’d made love. Ivy had been a virgin—Theo hadn’t been—but it had felt incredibly special. Like something that’d never happened between two people before.
She silently cursed just how naive she’d been in those days. Because many couples probably felt that way. Couples who had managed to stay together and not be ripped apart by something as tragic as murder.
Theo went to another screen, this one on the trail that led from the old house to Gabriel’s. Something caught her eye, and it must have caught Theo’s as well because he zoomed in on a spot on the ground. She sank down on the floor next to him, their backs against the vanity while he made the necessary keystrokes to get the right angle.
Ivy hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she got a closer look and then relaxed. “It’s one of the blue bows that’d been on the fences. A wedding decoration,” she added. “It must have blown off and landed there.”
Theo made a sound of agreement but zoomed in even more. Maybe to make sure the bow wasn’t covering something like a weapon. But it wasn’t. They were able to determine that when the wind blew it again and it skittered against one of the shrubs.
“Blue, Jodi’s favorite color,” Theo remarked. “She used to plan her wedding to Gabriel when she was just a kid. She had a notebook with pictures she’d cut out of magazines.”
Ivy nodded. “I remember. I also remember Gabriel always saying he was too old for her.”
“At the time, he was. Five years is a big gap when she was just thirteen, and he was already legally an adult.”
Yes. But that hadn’t stopped Jodi from making those plans or her feelings for Gabriel. Now, here all this time later, she would finally get to marry the man she’d dreamed about, the man she loved.
“I used to plan our wedding,” Ivy mumbled. Oh, mercy. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud, so she quickly added, “You know, when I was a kid.”
Actually, she’d been a teenager and was still planning it right up to the time of the big blowup and murders.
Theo turned to her, and she got a much better look at his face now that it wasn’t just his profile. And she felt that old punch of heat. Definitely not a good time for it, so she looked away.
Theo didn’t, though.
From the corner of her eye she could see he was still watching her. Probably because he was stunned by what she’d just said. As a teenage boy, he certainly wouldn’t have been into wedding planning and such.
“Did you ever hate me for leaving?” he asked.
Now she was the one who was stunned. “No.” It probably would have been a good time for her to at least pause and pretend to think about that. A good time, too, for there not to be so much heat in her voice. It was probably in her eyes, too. They’d been skirting this attraction since they’d come back to Blue River, but the skirting stopped suddenly.
Theo slid his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her.
* * *
THIS KISS HAD mistake written all over it. And worse, Theo had known he was going to kiss Ivy from the moment she sat on the floor next to him. He also had known it would be good.
It was.
But that still didn’t mean they should be doing this. For one thing, it was the quickest way for him to lose focus. Of course, Theo’s body had a comeback for that—at the moment, there was no danger, and if that changed, the sensors would alert them to it. Still, this wasn’t the right time or the right place. Too bad the thing that overrode that solid argument was that while everything else about it was wrong, Ivy was the right woman.
She always had been, and even though it’d been ten years since they’d been together, it was as if all those years vanished. All the old baggage, too. A good kiss could do that.
Along with making him stupid.
Theo should just end the kiss, move away from her and go back to watching the computer screen. But he didn’t. Not only did he keep things at the stupid level by continuing the making out, he upped the ante by deepening the kiss and pulling Ivy even closer to him.
Ivy didn’t exactly shy away from this, either. In fact, she was the one who moved the laptop to the counter so that there was nothing in between them. No reason for them not to position themselves so that his chest ended up against her breasts.
Theo kept kissing her, too. Kept moving her until she was practically in his lap. All in all, it was a good place for her to be if they were going to have sex, but he was pretty sure that shouldn’t happen. Of course, he felt the same way about the kiss, but that hadn’t stopped him.
Ivy finally stopped, though. She took her mouth from his, eased back and met him eye to eye. He figured she was about to apologize or say something else before she moved back to the floor.
She didn’t.
“Don’t overthink this,” she said.
Since that’s exactly what he was doing, Theo hesitated and stared at her. Along with the old baggage vanishing, so did the years. Suddenly, he was nineteen again and wanting Ivy more than his next breath. He hadn’t had much willpower, but that ate up the rest of it.
Theo pulled her back to him and kissed her.
This time there was definitely no overthinking. Hell, no thinking at all. He just kept kissing her until the fire was burning so hot inside him that he knew sex was going to happen even if it shouldn’t.
Thankfully, Ivy was on the same page. Without breaking the kiss, she lowered her hands to his shirt and started to unbutton it. It was not a graceful effort. For one thing, Theo was trying to get her clothes off, too, and their hands kept bumping against each other. Still, he was finally successful at pulling off her top. He flung it to the side, and in the same motion, he turned Ivy and laid her back on the floor.
Because they’d been teenage lovers, they’d rarely had the luxury of a bed for sex. And Theo hated that they didn’t have it now. Ivy darn sure deserved better than this, but there was no way he could risk taking her into the bedroom.
“Don’t overthink this,” she repeated.
She went after his shirt again, succeeded in getting it off him, and then she went after his jeans’ zipper. Since things were moving fast, Theo got in some foreplay before the heat built to a point that they’d be beyond that. He took the kiss from her mouth to her neck. Then to her breasts. That brought back some sweet memories, and they got even sweeter when he unhooked her bra, bared her breasts and kissed her the way he wanted.
Ivy made a sound of pleasure and pulled him on top of her. Not a bad place to be, but he wasn’t done yet. Theo went lower, dropping some kisses on her stomach while he unzipped her jeans and shimmied them off her.
Her panties went next.
And Theo probably would have kept kissing her for a few more seconds, but Ivy had a different notion about that. She latched onto him, hauling him back up to her so that she could kiss his mouth. And unzip him.
Theo didn’t have much of a mind left. Not with his body burning to ash. But he did remember to take the condom from his wallet before Ivy got him out of his jeans. He also remembered how to put it on. No easy feat with Ivy still kissing him and trying to pull him into her.
The moment he had on the condom, he stopped resisting her attempts, and he slipped into her. Hell. He got another slam of memories. Of the first time they’d been together like this, and that slam only fired up his body even more. Definitely not something he needed, because this was already going to end much too fast. The pleasure was always too fast with Ivy, and like those other times, Theo tried to hold on to it.
She lifted her hips, bringing him even deeper into her, and Theo had no choice. There was no holding back, no more trying to draw this out to savor the pleasure. So he took control of the pace. As much as he could, anyway. He kept moving inside her. Kept holding her. Kept kissing her.
Until it was impossible to hold out any longer.
Especially when Ivy came in a flash. She made that sound of pleasure again. Gathered him in her arms. And she gave Theo no choice. He let Ivy take him right along with her.