2 1
D E X
IT KILLED me to walk away from her. Maybe because everything in me screamed she was in trouble. Maybe because it was clear she was too damn used to people bailing on her—whether by choice or not.
Each step I took toward my cabin hurt, like muscle ripping away from bone with each stride. But I forced myself to do it anyway. Just like I forced myself not to look back.
Because if I did, I’d go to her. Nothing could stop me.
Unlocking my front door, I stepped inside and pulled out my phone. Half a dozen text threads flashed on the screen, and I had to take a second and breathe. Closing my eyes, I went through a list of priorities in my mind.
Running the recording through sound-recognition software. Getting Nova’s phone number plugged into my backdoor triangulation software no phone company wanted me to have. Cameras and an alarm system for Brae— something I was sure she’d fight me on. Talking to my brothers.
Sometimes, my brain felt like a computer overloaded with too many files, and I had to do a hard reboot, choosing only the most important things to focus on. With one last deep breath, I opened my eyes and instantly went for my texts as I strode into my makeshift office. I opened a new message to Blaze and started typing.
ME
How do you feel about a free alarm installation at Creekside Cabins, including cameras?
Three dots appeared and then disappeared, then appeared again.
BLAZE
Little Dude, working for The Man has really changed you.
ME
It’s a safety precaution. I’m not trying to spy on whatever crystal light show you put on here when the cabins aren’t in use.
BLAZE
Maybe I’m entertaining female company. Someone would pay big money to put that on the interstellar highway.
My whole face screwed up.
ME
There’s a kink for everyone, but I’m not putting cameras INSIDE the cabins, just outside.
BLAZE
Oh. Why didn’t you say so? Run with it, Little Dude.
Then maybe I’ll catch those jerks who like to have keggers back there but don’t invite me.
I just shook my head and eased into the desk chair.
ME
I’ll get you justice.
Blaze just sent apower to the people raised-fist emoji in response that definitely was not intended for righteous indignation about being left out of a party.
Pulling up the recording I’d taken of the call, I air-dropped the video to my desktop and uploaded it to the sound- identification software. It might not give me more than my ear had, but it was worth a shot.
One thing was clear: Someone was messing with Brae. In
a way that meant they got joy out of causing pain. And I knew just what sort of dark roads that could lead you down.
As the software got to work, my phone let out another ding.
My brothers’ chat flashed on the screen, and I realized I’d missed more than a few texts from them.
WYLDER
Let us know how Brae’s doing once you get her home.
MAVERICK
Brae’s a badass, and I have no doubt she’s totally fine.
A hot badass. D, want to take my place on the ranch?
I’ll move into your cabin. I can play bodyguard.
I scowled at the screen.
KOL
Someone tell me what the hell is going on.
MAVERICK
You meet the little badass yet? You’ll like her. She cut Miller down in three blows, then kicked him to the curb.
Thing of beauty.
KOL
Why the hell were you having a run-in with Miller?
WYLDER
I think Dex should explain.
My fingers flew across the screen.
ME Mav, don’t call Brae hot, or I’ll make your phone say, “I have a defective sphincter” every time you get a text.
MAVERICK Harsh, dude. She okay?
ME Cora and Holly are with her. They brought dinner.
KOL Family meeting. At the ranch. Now.
MAVERICK Shit. He used the f-word.
Family meetings were reserved for emergencies. Like when we found out a journalist was sniffing around town trying to write the dozenth tell-all book about our father’s reign of terror. Or when Waylon told us he had cancer. Or when Kol found out he had a daughter.
No one rejected a family meeting. Not even Orion, who was noticeably absent in our back-and-forth.
ME I don’t have my car.
MAVERICK I got you. Be there in ten.
It took him more like fifteen, but he finally showed. And that was Mav. He might do things in his own time and way, but he always came through.
As I climbed into his truck, I glanced at Cabin Two. I swore I caught the flash of blond hair through the window, but maybe it was just my imagination. She’d be okay. I told myself that over and over. Cora and Holly were with her. Yeti was there. It was broad daylight. It would be fine.
“Dude, are you having a stroke or something?” Mav asked. “Or are you trying to move that house with your mind?”
I shot him a dirty look as he peeled out of the drive. “I need to be back before dark.”
He grinned. “So you can watch over the hot, little
badass?”
“Stop calling her that,” I ground out.
Mav’s grin only widened. “You like her.”
“I’m not ten, asshole.”
“You sure act like it. She makes you grumpy. It pisses you the hell off that you like her.”
I scowled at the road in front of us. “Drop me by the station. That’s where my car is. I don’t want you driving me home.”
“That hurts, D-man. But I know it’s only because I see the truth.”
The pisser of it all was that he was right. But I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Mav pulled up behind my car, and I hopped out, but as I did, he rolled down the passenger window. “Why does this feel like I’m dropping you off walk-of-shame style?”
I turned to scowl at my brother but didn’t get a word out before a new voice cut through the air.
“Probably because anyone you’re dropping offis doing a walk of shame.”
I looked over toward the sidewalk, a genuine smile rising to my lips. “Aster Carrington, as I live and breathe.”
Her glower aimed at my brother melted into something much warmer as she turned to me. “So good to see you, Dex.”
I strode toward Aster, taking her in. She wore jeans paired with cowboy boots I knew saw some actual use on her grandfather’s ranch. A white, billowy blouse revealed a turquoise necklace at her throat. Everything about her was designed to put her clients at ease. The boots said she was
one of them. The rest said she was professional but not pretentious.
I pulled her into a quick hug. “How are you?”
“She’s jealous she’s not the one climbing out of my truck,”
Mav called.
Aster released me and flipped him off without even looking in his direction. “I’m good.”
I had no idea what the hell had happened between them.
Mav wouldn’t say. But just before they went off to college, they’d had a falling out. Before then, they’d been thick as thieves, practically attached at the hip after we moved here.
There were times I thought Aster was the only one who could truly get Mav to open up. But that wasn’t the case anymore.
“How’s Brae?” Aster cut into my thoughts. “Cora texted.
I’m heading over there now. I just had to finish up with a client.”
“How do you and Holly know her?” I asked the question I hadn’t at the cabins.
“Compass,” Aster said in a one-word answer. “It’s a support group for those with missing loved ones. I volunteer time as a facilitator.”
An ache settled in my gut. So many went without answers.
Those my brothers and I could help. And those we couldn’t, not without working locally and exposing exactly what we were doing in the shadows.
“It’s really nice that you do that,” I said softly.
She shrugged. “I know what it’s like. Camilla might’ve only been gone for a month, but it felt like a lifetime. I want to help if I can.”
Aster’s twin sister had taken off in high school, scaring her family half to death. As it turned out, she’d taken off to LA and got caught up in the rougher side of things. Thanks to a private investigator, her parents found her and got her into
rehab.
“Well, they’re lucky to have you.”
Aster’s smile widened, making her pale-blue eyes shimmer. “Thanks. It’s good to see you. Let’s have a proper catch-up. Maybe we can get dinner with Brae or something.
I’ll text.”
“What about me, Ice Queen?” Mav called.
“You’re not invited, Satan,” she shot back, taking off down the block.
I shook my head, turning back to Mav. “What the hell happened between you two?”
Hurt flashed across Maverick’s expression so fast I almost missed it. But he covered it with a grin. “You know, fancy-ass family. Probably just got too cool for me.”
But that wasn’t Aster.Something had happened. I just wasn’t sure what.
Mav didn’t give me a chance to ask a follow-up. He peeled out, heading for the ranch. I scowled after him but got behind the wheel and followed.
I kept an eye on my speedometer, knowing I’d be on the radar after today. Miller would love nothing more than to give me a speeding ticket. It made the trip out to Twisted Oak Ranch seem even longer, but I finally hit the Bigfoot gate and then the tree house. Vehicles for everyone but Orion were already there.
Steeling myself, I shut off my engine and climbed out. As I walked up the front walkway, I went over my argument, every point I had for us to help Brae. Because she deserved it.
I was so caught up in planning my presentation that I nearly missed it. Only the sound of a bell jangling saved me.
Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of black-and-white fur barreled toward me. At the last second, I dodged, jumping up onto the porch. “Jesus, Pepper.”
The goat made a quick one-eighty, running back toward me and headbutting my thigh.
“Ow, hell. That’s gonna leave a mark, Pep.”
“It’s her love language,” Uncle Waylon called from the screen door.
“Her love language is violence? Leaving bruises?
Breaking bones?”
He let out a sound of derision, then opened the door and let Lucy the Irish wolfhound out. “When’d you get such a tender sensibility? DC changed you.”
Lucy headed straight for me, rounding Pepper up and off the porch.
“Not wanting to get beat up just trying to get to the door
makes me tender?” I clipped.
Waylon shrugged. “You said it, not me.”
I shook my head, giving Lucy a good scratch. “You’ve got
my back, my sweet girl.”
She leaned into me for more affection.
As I straightened, it was to find Waylon watching me.
Concern swirled in his brown eyes. He might not show it in typical ways, but he was always there for us. When we came to live here, traumatized and scared out of our minds, he’d moved at our speed. And he’d done everything he could to build a sense of safety. It had worked for most of us.
It wasn’t that we didn’t carry scars. We did. But the
injuries had healed.
For everyone except Orion.
“Come on in. I got chicken tacos in the slow cooker,”
Waylon said, giving me a slap on the back.
“How many salsas and hot sauces?” I asked, knowing that, for him, the tacos were just a facilitator for the “good stuff.”
He opened the screen door and held it for me. “Didn’t have proper time to prepare. Only a dozen.”
I chuckled, heading inside just as the clocks started going off. I passed one on the wall that shot a Bigfoot out like a cuckoo bird. The jerky motion nearly had me stumbling back a step. “Your clocks are violent, just like your damn goat,” I muttered.
Waylon only laughed.
“Took you long enough,” Mav called from the kitchen, where he was dishing up a plate of tacos.
“Some of us prefer not to give the law enforcement in this town another reason to hate us,” I shot back.
Kol glowered at me from his spot at the kitchen table.
“You’re the only one flaring that up.”
If it hadn’t already been clear, I now knew I had a battle on my hands. “Sorry. I thought we were trying to help people. My mistake.”
“Hold it,” Waylon said. “Dex, get food. Kol, hold off on the full assault until Orion is here. Don’t want to have to listen to this shit twice.”
Wylder pinched the bridge of his nose in true eldest- brother fatigue. “Me either.”
I snagged a plate, filling it with tortillas, chicken that had been slow-cooking for hours, and some lettuce, beans, and sour cream.
“Sour cream’s for suckers who can’t handle the heat,”
Mav jibed as he took a seat.
I just scowled at him as I pulled out a chair, catching sight of Skylar playing in the yard with Tink. The mini-Highland cow wore a feather boa and a tiara while Skylar wore a tutu with ski goggles and had a Nerf gun strapped to her back.
“Not everyone needs a meal to be a gut-rotting competition.”
“Told you DC turned him soft,” Waylon grumbled.
Wylder chuckled. “You know there’s only one way to solve this.”
I groaned, my stomach already regretting what I was about to do. “Hit me.”
“Tier three, two, or one?” Wylder’s hand hovered over the array of hot sauces in the center of the table like he was Vanna White.
Mav let out a hoot. “He’s gonna be feeling this one, ladies and gents.”
“I’d do anything to get you all to shut up,” I shot back.
Wylder’s fingers slowed over the hot sauces on one end of the grouping. “He’s never gone above a level one in tier one.
What will he attempt today?”
I met my brother’s gaze. “Give me a level two.”
A grin spread across Wylder’s face. “Might I suggest Hellfire hot sauce, made with reaper peppers and black garlic?”
My stomach churned, but I held out my plate, not losing Wylder’s gaze.
He just grinned wider, uncapped the bottle, and shook some out over one of my tacos. Mav’s hand shot out, tipping Wylder’s elbow and spilling more hot sauce over my food.
I glared at him.
He only shrugged. “Just gotta make sure you get the true flavor.”
“I’m gonna put hot sauce in your mouthwash, you asswipe.”
Maverick barked out a laugh. “You could try. Now, eat up, brother bear.”
I glared down at the tacos but wrapped up the one with the Hellfire on it.Jesus. What kind of a name was that?
The second I bit down, I knew. The fires of hell erupted in my mouth, making my eyes flare wide and then instantly fill with tears.
“Fuck, he’s already crying,” Mav said, laughter in his voice.
Wylder winced, shaking his head. “Should’ve eased back in.”
But I wasn’t about to give in. I kept right on chewing, swallowing, then taking another bite. I ate the taco in three.
But the fire did not subside. It got worse, in fact. “What the hell was that?” I croaked.
Waylon leaned back in his chair, his hand resting on his overalls-clad chest. “That’s my personal favorite. Though they’ve got one with ghost peppers that gets you good.”
“What do you think, Dex?” Wylder asked. “Want to go for ghost peppers next?”
I flipped him off, taking a bite of my hot sauce–free taco heaped with sour cream. The dairy helped take the edge off the worst of the burn. “You’re all trying to kill me.”
The screen door at the front of the house slammed, and I took a swig of the beer Wylder handed me from the fridge.
Good God, I was out of hot sauce shape.
Orion’s broad frame filled the entryway to the kitchen, and if I’d thought Kol’s welcome had been cold, it had nothing on Orion’s. He glared at me for a long beat.
“A little dramatic, even for you, Rion,” Mav chided.
That glare moved to Maverick, who remained unaffected.
“Get some grub,” Waylon ordered in a way that didn’t put too much weight behind it.
Our great-uncle was the only person Orion listened to, and even then, it wasn’t all the time. But now, Orion moved to plate a few tacos.
“Dex just downed some Hellfire,” Wylder said, lifting his root beer. “You want to challenge for the night’s supremacy?”
Orion jerked back his chair and simply shook his head in a rough decline.
“All right, Kol,” Waylon began. “You called this family meeting.”
Kol straightened in his chair. “I called it because Dex is putting us all at risk.”
I stiffened, the heat of the hot sauce and my anger swirling together. “You’re not involved. You made that clear.
And that’s fine, but you don’t get to control what I do.”
That was always Kol’s way. He thought that if he was in charge of everything we all did or didn’t do, he could make us safe. But his way wasn’t always our way. And he didn’t get that.
Kol’s jaw clenched, the muscle along it rippling. “I’m trying to keep you from being an idiot. This already got
dropped on our doorstep. The sheriff’s department flooded Wylder’s bar today.”
“Yeah, because some sick fuck is tormenting Brae. Called her from her missing friend’s phone or a cloned number and did some heavy-breathing shit. That’s why the cops were there,” I bit out.
Waylon muttered a curse. “They track it?”
I let out a breath, trying to calm my anger. “It was off before they could.”
Wylder took a swig of his root beer. “Means they know what they’re doing to a certain degree.”
“Maybe.” I hedged. “Anyone who’s seen a thriller movie probably knows that.”
“But I assume you tried to turn the phone back on
remotely,” Maverick added.
He knew me and my moves too well.
“I couldn’t, which means the SIM card or battery’s out of the device.”
Wylder scrubbed a hand over his face. “A lot of trouble just to mess with someone.”
It was. And that had my gut churning. Because someone who got pleasure from causing that sort of pain was not the kind of person I wanted aware of Brae’s existence.
“I’m sorry for her,” Kol said, his voice dropping. “I’ll help you put in a security system at her house. Talk to Roger about making sure she’s on the drive-by list. But we can’t get involved. It’s too risky.”
“Like I said,you don’t have to. But I make my own choices,” I clipped. “And Mav and Wylder want to help, too.”
Kol’s gaze jumped around the table. “Seriously?”
Wylder winced. “She’s a good person. Been through hell.
And she doesn’t have anyone.”
“You don’t know her,” Kol shot back. “This could all be a manipulation.”
My eyes narrowed on Kol. “You can’t fake a missing person case like this. You know that.”
Orion’s hands lifted, finally giving in to the signing that was his last resort.“We don’t trust anyone outside the family.”
“You don’t,” I shot back, being harsher with him than I had been since we were kids. “I don’t want to live like that anymore.”
And for the first time, I realized that was true. I was so tired of looking at everyone with suspicion. It made life so damn depressing. And it kept us from helping people who needed it. People like Brae.
Waylon cleared his throat. “We can help without letting her know about the side project.”
The side project being the Hourglass Network: our volunteer missing persons assistance. The website no one knew was attached to us. The network we’d put together in the shadows because time was slipping through fingers for so many.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kol gritted out. “It still gets us on Miller’s radar. We need that like a hole in the head. He’s made life hard enough for us just because of who our father was.”
Orion bristled at the wordfather, his fingers fisting so tightly I worried he’d dislocate a knuckle. The muscles in his forearms rippled as tension radiated through him in waves.
Miller had made his opinion of the Archer brothers crystal-clear a number of times, but it was the touchiest for Kol. When he applied to be a Forest Service investigator, Miller had made sure his superiors knew every twisted detail about what we’d come from. Thankfully, Kol’s bosses hadn’t been supreme assholes and still gave him the job. But it exposed Kol in a way he hated.
“She doesn’t haveanyone,” I said quietly. “Imagine if we didn’t have each other to get through what we have.”
Sympathy swept across Wylder’s face, and he gripped his root beer tighter.
“Her parents kicked her out when she wouldn’t put her baby up for adoption. The kid’s dad isn’t in the picture. Nova was the only person who was there for her, and then she disappeared almost in front of Brae’s eyes. That should turn someone dark. Make them look at every single person with suspicion.”
“But it didn’t,” Mav surmised. “I could see that much.
She’s like sunshine.”
No, it was more than that. She wasn’t just the sun. She was the sunrise. Even though darkness had claimed her for a time, she still rose. Every damn day.
My fingers flexed and clenched. “She does everything humanly possible to give her son an amazing life. She trained a dog to help search for lost people. She uprooted her whole life to look for her missing friend. She’s fighting with everything she’s got but doing it alone. I’m not going to let her.”
“Me either,” Wylder said quietly. “I get why you don’t want to be involved, Kol. But I don’t have the same risks as you.”
A muscle fluttered in Kol’s cheek. “I’m all Skylar has.”
I knew he felt that weight like a hundred-ton stone on his shoulders. He had no room for missteps or fuckups. He felt like he was already failing as a father and didn’t have room for any other mistakes. It was a toxic mix of him blaming himself for not being there when everything went down with our dad and the bullshit Sky’s mom had filled his head with.
His fingers gripped the edge of the table. “But Brae shouldn’t have to do this alone. No one should.”
Everyone was quiet for a long moment, but I could feel Orion stewing from across the table, his anger and annoyance mounting. I did my best to ignore it. Instead, I focused on the concession from Kol. It was as much of a win
as I figured we’d get from him.
“We keep it aboveboard,” Wylder said.
“You mean we keep him on the boring shit,” Mav cut in.
I jabbed him with an elbow. “If there are risks on this one, I’ll take them. I’m the one who brought her in. I carry the liabilities.”
Because there were always risks. My less-than-legal walks through firewalls and security software to start. But there was more on the rare occasion we were on the scene.
Potential trespassing, breaking and entering, theft. All of them were sometimes necessary to figure out what had happened to someone who’d vanished.
Orion shoved back his chair and stood, glowering at me.
His hands lifted in quick, staccato beats.“I hope you aren’t putting your entire family at risk because you want to fuck her.”
And with that, he stormed out, the screen door slamming in his wake.
My fingers fisted, and I was glad my brother had left.
Because if he hadn’t, I likely would’ve decked him.
Waylon cleared his throat. “I want to meet her. Bring her for dinner. Think she likes three-pepper chili?”
Jesus.
I hoped Brae was as strong as I thought because she’d need it to get through a dinner with my family.
