Honor Unraveled (7 page)

Max unrolled the bedroll, taking inventory of the supplies Owen had set him up with. A sawed-off was hidden in the folds of the blanket, along with several boxes of shells. Max spilled the contents of the saddlebags on the workbench. Beef jerky and coffee fixings for the trip. A pot bowl and some weed. A roll of toilet paper. A change of clothes. A towel. Kit saw a few toiletries—not that he’d likely be using them where he was going. Greer pointed out the hidden pocket where the RFID tags were stored that Max was to slip into the drug packets, if he could. Max repacked the bags, then put them on the bike and resettled the bedroll.

“Do a comm check. And make sure we got a visual through his sunglasses,” Kit ordered, looking at Greer.
 

Max’s helmet looked straight out of WWII, black and dull with wear. The mic and speaker in it connected via Bluetooth to his cell phone. Any transmissions were filtered through a sound system that canceled background noise, like wind and the growl of the Harley, allowing Greer to capture anything Max said while on his bike, as long as he activated the sensors in his helmet and had his cell phone with him. It also allowed the team to communicate with him.

Max pocketed the phone, drew his gloves on, then went over to the bike. He pumped the choke, twisted the throttle, then kicked down on the starter once, twice. The engine roared to life, rumbling in the garage like a growling dragon.

Max looked up, caught Greer’s eye, then grinned. Kit brought his helmet over. Max pulled up the black bandanna with the skull print, covering his mouth and nose. He slipped his glasses on, then took the helmet from Kit. Activating the communication system, he pulled the helmet on and snapped the strap.

Kit couldn’t tell whether he was still smiling, but one thing was for sure. He looked like the ruthless motherfucker he was. Greer headed down to the control room in the bunker while Max took off on the dirt road behind Blade’s property.
 

* * *

Ivy set a stack of empty boxes by Casey’s bedroom door. The guys had brought over their clothing and personal effects from the house Ivy had been renting in town. She was glad to have her things with her, but settling in here at Ty’s house underscored their changed circumstances.

Casey was happily moving about her room, organizing her clothes, setting her things out on the nightstands and dresser. Her room at the other house was a third the size of this one. Kelan had thoughtfully gathered up her big spotted comforter and pink fuzzy throw rug. The colors clashed with the earth tones and textures of the room, but to Casey it was the perfect finishing touch.

When all of her daughter’s things had been put away, Ivy realized how easily they could become accustomed to the comfort and luxury of their temporary living quarters. No housework to do. No cooking unless she wanted to. There was a major difference between an adult’s and a child’s perspective; she knew it wouldn’t last, but to Casey, the change was a forevermore situation.
 

Ivy sat on the foot of her bed. Casey went around the room one final time, making minor adjustments to her things. “Do you like it?” she asked as she settled next to Ivy.

She smiled at her daughter and pulled her hair back over her shoulder. “I do. You have plenty of room for everything.”

“Seriously, it’s like a palace. Do you think I could have some kids over sometime? No one in town has ever been in this house. They used to have dares to see who would be brave enough to come up here.”

Wow. That was an echo from the past. Obviously, the rumors going around when she, Kit, and Ty were young had continued to circulate. “Why would they do that?” she asked, curious if the tall tales she’d heard as a kid were the same as those circulated by the new generation.

“They think a murderer lives up here.”

“Do they? Well, that’s certainly not the case. Dad wouldn’t have brought us here if this place was dangerous.”

“I know.” Casey looked around her room. “Are you happy to be here?”

Ivy was slow to answer. She clasped her hands in her lap. She didn’t want to douse Casey’s enjoyment in their new circumstances, but she also didn’t want her daughter to be heartbroken when life returned to how it was before Kit swept them up in the whirlwind of his existence. “You know this is a temporary situation, right? We’ll go back to our house when things settle down.”

“What is it that’s happening, Mom?”

“Your dad and his friends are looking for some bad guys. They blew up Aunt Mandy’s riding center and had the shoot-out in town. And then the home invasion that happened when we were down below. The people they’re looking for aren’t good people.”

“Dad’s pretty brave, huh?”

“About the bravest man I know.”

“Do you still love him?”

“It’s complicated, Case.”

“That’s what he said.”

Ivy studied her daughter. She’d been Ivy’s rock for more than a decade. She was the reason Ivy had grown up, the reason she’d gotten her GED, the reason she’d put herself through college, the reason she’d dialed back her pride and reached out to contact Kit. She was the reason for everything. It would crush her to see Casey unhappy. And yet she knew that was coming.
 

“I’ll ask your dad about your having friends over. That might not work out with everything else that’s going on.” She didn’t mention that summer camp had been nixed. She’d cross that bridge when she had to. One day, one hour at a time, she reminded herself. That approach to life had gotten her this far. She’d learned the hard way that looking too far into the future was never a good thing.

* * *

Ivy spread the diner applications out in front of her on the bed later that night. True to his word, Kit had a desk armoire delivered to her room. She had her laptop now, and Greer had set up a server with her diner’s software so she could manage the business from her room here in Ty’s house.

She looked over the applications. Wolf Creek Bend wasn’t a big town, though it supported a large ranching community. Jobs for those who lived in town were limited. She’d received many more applications for her open management spots than she’d expected.

A movement by her open door caught her attention. Kit was there, leaning against the corner of the bathroom. Her eyes did a walk down his bare torso, to his lean waist, to the cotton pajama bottoms he wore low on his hips.

“Hey,” he said in a quiet voice so he wouldn’t wake Casey. “Your door was open. I saw your light.”

“Hi.”

He nodded to the papers in front of her. “What’re you doin’?”

“Going over the manager apps. There’s so many of them.”

“Want help?”

“Sure.” She watched him straighten and walk toward her with that loose-hipped, rangy stride of his. For no reason at all, she flashed back to the first time they’d convened for the tutoring he’d talked her into doing. Social studies had been the topic of the day. She wasn’t sure he could read at first, because he’d spent the whole time looking at her. He absorbed everything she said and was even able to converse with her about the topic once she’d given him a data dump on it.
 

He was the first person she’d ever tutored. And the last. He was cramming for a midterm in a class he’d barely attended the first semester. No way he’d be able to pass the test, she remembered thinking. But she’d looked into his blue eyes, felt everything inside of her quicken, and knew his potential failure wouldn’t be because she hadn’t tried hard enough to bring him up to speed.

Over the next days and weeks, they’d met in the school library every day, sitting close to each other as she opened his textbook and various other reference materials. He’d touched his knee to hers, leaned his arm beside hers, bumped into her in dozens of small, innocuous ways, every one of which she’d savored and stored away for later reflection. Had he done that on purpose? Did he like her? Did he think about her when they weren’t together as she did him?

He became her everything. Every waking thought. The warmth behind every smile. The dreams that filled her nights. She dressed for him. Ate for him. Lived for those moments when she’d pass him in the halls between classes. He was her beginning and end and everything in between.

Losing him had damn near killed her. No one since had come close to that same magic. Or that devastating level of power over her. She would never again put herself in a position where her very existence was dependent on someone or something other than herself.
 

And to think that all of that had been the effect Kit had when he was only a boy. The adult version of him was a million times more potent. And right now, he was climbing on to the bed next to her, sitting back against the headboard. He crossed his feet at the ankles. His legs were long, his knees big, his thighs lean. Her heartbeat was rumbling in her throat, her ears, her head, drowning out every sensible thought.
 

There was only him. Only now.

He ran his hand down her forearm and caught her hand. She startled at the contact. The very real, very warm contact.

“You okay?” he asked, smiling as he looked down at her.

 
They weren’t the kids they’d been, she reminded herself. They were adults. She was strong enough to resist his lethal attraction. And when he left this time, she wouldn’t shatter.

She pulled free of his hand. “Fine.”

“Anyone you want to interview?” he asked, nodding toward the papers in front of her.

She leaned forward and gathered them up. “Yeah. It’ll be hard to make a choice.” She flipped through the stack and pulled out one of the applications. “This guy has night shift manager experience at a McDonald’s.” She handed his application to Kit. “And this one has managed a restaurant in Denver.” She handed that one to him. “This gal’s been a waitress for more than a dozen years and wants to move into management.”

He scanned the applications she gave him. “You’ve got some good choices here.” He looked at her and she made the mistake of meeting his eyes. She should have looked away, busied herself with the papers. But she didn’t. And he didn’t. And the moment stretched across long seconds, as if their eyes could communicate on a level their mouths never would.

He broke the contact by handing her back the apps. “Pick the ones you’re interested in, then let me check them out before you set up interviews, ’kay?”

“It’s a diner management position. What kind of dangerous person is going to take that job?”

“A smart one. It’s an opening, a way to get close to you and use you to get to us.”
 

“Did you do this with my other employees?”

“Yes.” He looked at her again, this time in an assessing way. “Because I do what I do, I have a responsibility to keep you and Casey and my entire team safe.”

“What is it that you do, Kit? I’ve never fully understood it.” She looked at him as she asked that question.

“I fight bad guys.”

“Within the law, though, right?”

He grinned. “Sure.”

“Have you and Ty been together all this time?”

“Yep. He was with me in Afghanistan.”

“I’m glad. He needed you.”

“He did. But he’s got Eden now.”

Ivy looked away from him as she gathered up the applications. “Do you want to interview the ones I pick? You’re my partner, after all.”

“Nope. The diner’s your thing, Iv.” She let his nickname roll through her. He was the only one who shortened her already short name. “I want to stay as a silent partner. I’m happy to have you run ideas off me, but I don’t know anything about running a restaurant and don’t really want to learn.”

Ivy held the papers between her body and her folded arms. “What if I can’t do it? What if I screw up and the diner fails?”

He shrugged. “Then you screw up. You figure out what went wrong. You fix it. And you move on to the next challenge.” Kit tilted his head as he studied her. She resisted the urge to meet his eyes.

“Look at what you’ve already come through. Six years on your own with a baby. You survived, and our daughter thrived. Iv, you put yourself through college. If you could do that, you can do the diner. You can do anything. But if you don’t want to do the diner, we’ll sell it. Then you can find something else to do.”

“No.” She did look at him then. “I want the diner. In this town. I want to be a part of a community. I like the people here. I like the work. It’s a good place for Casey to grow up.”

Kit nodded. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy. The rest will come together.”

It was strange talking to Kit about the diner when so much else was left unsaid between them. She wondered if his words had other meanings. She got up and took the papers over to her desk.
 

“I sent you letters. In the beginning,” he told her.

She kept her eyes glued to the desk, leaving the distance between them as an invisible barrier, a safety buffer. “I didn’t get them.”

“By the time I got through boot camp and could make a call, you’d moved away, but I didn’t know that. I hopped a bus and came back here. Mandy didn’t know where you’d gone. The sheriff wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone. Mrs. McNelly, the social studies teacher, finally gave me your contact information. I called the minute I got your number. A hundred times, I phoned you. Finally, your dad answered. He said you miscarried. He told me you needed privacy and time to heal.”