Chapter 9

Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.

-T-shirt

Freya

I was going to vomit all over my brother’s gun.

Seriously.

I’d be lucky as hell if I made it through this without puking.

I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t. Not now. I couldn’t be sitting here, where my brother usually sat, and do this.

I didn’t deserve to be here.

But they’d let me in on a technicality.

All that was listed on the roster was the first initial and the last name.

Meaning I could pass for C. Capone, even though it was technically meant to be my brother.

“Colette Freya Capone, age twenty-eight, is last year’s winner’s sister. Officer Corey Capone died earlier this year in a car accident. He’s won the competition nine years running. It would be wonderful if his sister could take up the mantle here at Texas’s largest shooting competition.”

I ignored the announcer, sure he wouldn’t be talking behind my back if he knew I could hear him.

Most people wore ear protection when they did this.

I forgot mine.

I’d been offered some, but had only shook my head in the negative.

The things covering my ears were actually Bluetooth headphones that were made to look like ear protection. They’d been a gag gift from Corey last Christmas.

Little did he know I’d be wearing them and doing something incredibly stupid all at once.

My eye steadied on the scope.

I breathed out. In. Out.

My finger caressed the trigger.

I’d done this hundreds of times.

Just not in a competition with the most elite long distance shooters in all of the world.

I’d probably shoot this and make a fool of myself.

Although I’d done it many times before and had been taught just as thoroughly as my brother had, I didn’t have the sheer number of hours behind the lens of the scope that my brother had.

These men that were in the lineup with me practiced this for hours a day.

I hadn’t picked up this gun in well over four months.

Not since my brother had taken me out to our property just off of Caddo Lake about a month before he’d died.

I prayed what I was doing was correct.

I didn’t hear any horrified whispers, so obviously all the calculations I’d run through in my head were correct.

My breathing slowed as I focused on the red in the target.

With one last breath, air left my lungs and I took the shot.

It was loud, and I instantly regretted my decision to act like my earphones were what they were supposed to be.

Ears ringing, I studied my target, completely and utterly surprised to find the bullet had gone right through the center of the bullseye.

Perfect shot at 903 yards.

Holy fucking shit.

It took me a few minutes to realize that the roar I was hearing was the crowd.

I blushed like a fucking fifteen-year-old being asked to prom and jacked the casing from the gun and stood up, finally looking behind me at the men at my back.

It was different from this side of the competition.

Normally, I was the one in the seats at the back of the large seating area.

Now I was getting pictures taken of me.

Great, now I was blind and deaf.

I felt a hand on my arm, causing me to turn.

I smiled.

“Hey!” I said excitedly, throwing my arms around my brother’s friend whom I hadn’t seen in ages.

They’d met long ago in the army, and had stayed in touch. Or tried to, at least. Though my brother was in Uncertain, and James was in Kilgore, a mere forty-five minutes apart, they didn’t get to see each other anywhere near as much as they would’ve liked.

“I’m good,” James laughed. “You know you beat me, right?”

My mouth dropped open.

“You’re shitting me,” I gasped. “How?”

He pointed at the target that one of the runners had gone to fetch. “That’s how.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “You’re the bomb. You should’ve won,” I said. “But your eye’s swollen shut.”

He touched the skin underneath lightly.

“I got punched in the face last night by a meth head,” he explained.

“So I won on a technicality?” I asked.

He smiled.

“We’ll never know. I should’ve known not to come. She made me, though,” James said, pointing.

I followed his finger, then waved at his wife.

She waved back, giving me a thumb’s up.

“Hoes before bros,” I teased when James sighed in exasperation.

He snorted.

“She’s not a hoe,” he countered.

I shrugged, turning my face to look at the crowd once again.

Something had caused it to part.

Then I saw the beard…and the tattoo on the hand that was crossed over one giant arm.

And that shaggy, needed-to-be-cut-two-months-ago hair.

“Shit,” I said to no one in particular.

My eyes went down to the ground, and in the process, I caught my first look at James’ hand.

“Your hand’s in a cast,” I said to him.

James snorted.

“Yeah, got that lovely little diddy last night, too,” he said. “I’ve never, not in my life, broken a bone. Then last night happens. It hurt like a bitch, too. Who’s that man coming towards you?”

I licked my lips.

“My brother’s coworker…and the man I have a major crush on,” I whispered.

I didn’t know why I was whispering.

But with the way Ridley was coming at me, I felt it was warranted.

I didn’t want him to hear what I had to say.

It seemed so juvenile of a thing to say, and I didn’t want him to know.

It was just a crush, and I was sure I’d grow out of it.

Several people stopped Ridley before he could actually get past the line that separated the crowd from the competitors, but he brushed past each one with a few words.

“He looks kind of rough,” James observed.

I took in Ridley’s attire.

He was rough.

Or at least he looked it.

He was wearing faded blue jeans that had holes in the pockets from where whatever he’d been carrying in them had worn through the denim.

I could see part of the red underwear that he was wearing beneath his jeans, making my mouth water.

Then there was the black shirt and his cut over the top of it.

To finish off the ensemble he had on a pair of black boots and a red ball cap that declared him a Texas Rangers’ fan.

“He’s had better days,” I agreed, knowing that to be a fact.

He would have had to have driven all the way from the prison, which was two hours past Kilgore. Then he’d had to drive all the way down to Houston, which added another five hours onto his drive.

Add into the fact that he’d just gotten out of prison the day before and that was the very definition of a long day.

I guess I should be lucky he’d at least taken the time to change.

“You did good, you know,” James continued as he watched Ridley prowl towards him like he’d taken his favorite bone straight out of his hands.

“Thank you,” I replied softly. “It was luck.”

“No,” James said. “It was skill. We’ve been telling you that for a very long time.”

I shrugged, not wanting to get into it with him.

“Do you think you can take my rifle to your place and store it for me for a couple of days?” I asked him.

He stared at me for a few long moments, then nodded abruptly.

“You’re ever in trouble and you need my help, you know where to find me,” he ordered.

And it was an order, not an offer.

Men like Ridley and James, they didn’t say the things they did for shits and giggles. They said them because they expected to be obeyed.

“Got it,” I nodded, walking to my gun and getting it unloaded and into its case.

My brother had a heavy-duty case for his sniper rifle.

He’d been shooting competitively for a very long time and had started when he was younger and had just joined the military.

The bug had struck him, and even though he’d left the military four short years after he’d gotten in, he’d kept up with the long distance shooting he’d grown to love.

He and James shared their love of long-distance shooting by competing, and that’s how I eventually met him.

James had shared quite a bit of knowledge with the both of us, and he’d been there just as much as my brother and I had.

I hadn’t shot with my brother because I enjoyed it like he had.

I shot with him because it gave me the chance to share in something my brother was passionate about with him.

When you love someone, you do what they like to do because you want to experience their joy, and that’s what I’d done with Corey.

I’d experienced joy after joy with him, and didn’t regret a single thing about all the hours I’d had to put in with him at the shooting range.

“You got my number, right?” James asked.

Ridley was only a scant few feet away when he asked, and I could tell Ridley had heard.

“Yes,” I said in exasperation. “You know I have it.”

And he did.

James had my number just as I had his.

I had his wife’s number.

And his daughter’s number.

It wasn’t out of the ordinary that we spent time with each other.

Hell, once a month I had a book club meeting with Shiloh and about ten other ladies at a coffee house in town.

James had said it because he wanted Ridley to know I had backup if I needed it.

And Ridley realized it, acknowledged it with a nod, and offered his hand.

“Ridley Walker,” he introduced himself.

James took his hand.

“James Allen,” he shook Ridley’s hand.

“Know who you are,” he replied, not blinking an eye at James’ battered face.

James smiled.

“I know who you are, too.”

Ridley shrugged and turned his eyes on me.

“That was amazing,” he informed me without preamble.

A blush started to climb up my face.

“Thank you,” I said.

His eyes took in the blush, and he grinned.

“Never expected that out of you,” he said. “You’re such a tiny little thing.”

I bared my teeth at him and James laughed.

“Gotta go,” he patted my shoulder with his uninjured hand, then picked up my rifle and carried it off without another word.

Ridley didn’t say another thing until James had made it back to his wife, but his eyes said more than his words could ever convey.

“What?” I asked softly.

“How’d you get here?” he asked.

I raised a brow at him.

“I rode with someone,” I lied.

I rode on the bus.

But he didn’t need to know that.

Luckily, I’d been able to get a hold of Shiloh before I’d left, knowing that she would be getting here later in the day with James once he got off shift.

She’d taken the rifle for me so I didn’t have to do some clever explaining to the bus driver.

“You rode the bus,” he challenged.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“If you already knew,” I wondered, “then why’d you ask?”

“Because I wanted to know why the hell a woman would take a bus all the way here if she had a car,” he growled by way of explanation.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes with my hands.

I didn’t really want to get into that right then.

In fact, I just wanted to go home.

“Speaking of buses,” I said, picking up my purse, “I have to go take a few pictures, and my bus leaves within an hour.”

I tried to skirt around Ridley, but he grabbed me by the shoulders before I could even get a step past him.

“Why are you running?” he asked.

Because I made a fool of myself, I thought.

What I said, however, wasn’t anywhere close to the truth.

“I’ve got to go home and work,” I told him.

And in truth, I did.

I’d called in sick today, citing a headache.

I hadn’t really thought it all the way through at the time, otherwise I would’ve realized that calling in sick then going to a nationally publicized competition that was the biggest in the state wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

But whatever, that was neither here nor there.

I had a lot bigger fish to fry at this moment in time, than my boss.

“You don’t work until tomorrow,” he said. “You called in sick, remember?”

I ground my teeth together.

“Is there anything else you would like to answer for me?” I asked him. “How about what color my underwear is? Or whether or not I’m hungry?”

Ridley narrowed his eyes.

“Check the attitude,” he said. “You scared me.”

“Why?” I asked.

He pulled me forward until my body was almost pressed up against his.

Our mouths were less than six inches apart, and if either one of us put forth the least bit of effort, our mouths would be touching.

“Because your house was a freakin’ mess. You threw a wall-eyed fit to see me yesterday. I tell you to go home and wait for me, and when I get there you’re gone. Your house has been tossed. Your gun safe was emptied. What else was I supposed to think?” he growled.

I absentmindedly started stroking my hand up and down his bicep, staring at him apologetically.

“My house was tossed by me,” I said. “I was looking for a check that I’d meant to deposit last week, and couldn’t find it.”

Not completely true, but close.

I’d actually been looking for the flyer about the competition.

The invitation that was extended to my brother.

This event was one of the elite. Only the best of the best came, and I was still on cloud nine that they even allowed me to enter.

Whatever the reason, I was grateful.

With the check that I’d be getting in less than ten minutes, it’d be enough to pay off my mortgage and Corey’s mortgage with ease.

Except my hopes were dashed moments later when that huge fake—the real one to be coming in the mail in a few short weeks according to the officials—check, the size of a small house, was presented to me, and pictures started to flash in front of my face.

“Well congratulations, Colette Capone,” the host of the event, Mark Suchha, said with enthusiasm. “This is the first for us to have a female winner, and I can’t say that I’ve ever been more pleased.”

I tried not to grimace at the use of my name.

I hated it.

I hated even more that my father had given me that name because he was so saddened by life’s outcome.

The coordinator gave me the huge check as we all posed for pictures.

My eyes darted to the side where Ridley was staring at me from behind the photographer.

His eyes were blank as they studied the commotion.

My gaze snapped back to the coordinator as he started talking about my brother, and how he’d won the competition last year.

That was when I realized I was on TV.

Fucking wonderful.

“Was that why you decided to come to this event, Ms. Capone?” the reporter asked.

She had really big hair, almost as if she were stuck in the 80’s.

“Yes,” I lied. “That’s exactly why I came. In my brother’s memory.”

In all actuality, I came because Craddock had somehow slipped his dirty fingers into my pies, trying to ruin everything that I held dear.

And I would do anything to make it so that would never happen.

Craddock could kiss my ass.