“Hey.” Andrew stepped forward, cupped her chin, and raised her head so he could look straight into her eyes. “Where’d you go, love?”
Chloe blinked, and pushed unhappy thoughts aside. She really hoped Beck would meet someone someday who would give him the love he deserved. “It doesn’t matter.” Chloe blinked again because she felt like having a good cry, something she hadn’t done in a lot of years.
Not since Children’s Services separated her from her baby sister, and then wouldn’t tell Chloe where Carrie was.
She searched her mind for an argument that would convince these two well-meaning firefighters that they didn’t need to play guard dog. And then because thinking was one of the things she usually did best, she landed on a question of her own.
“Why now?”
“Why now what?” Grant’s face appeared devoid of emotion, but she caught a definite flash of guilt cross Andrew’s.
“Why now, after two weeks of ‘implementation’ of the protection plan for my sister, are you here? And don’t tell me that y’all only just figured out that this is where that bastard would strike if he came to town. You had to have known it all along.”
The two men looked at each other for a long moment, and Chloe wished she could read their minds.
Andrew raised one eyebrow, and Grant shrugged.
“Adam pulled every string he had so that the state would monitor Carrie’s DMV file,” Andrew said. “If there was a hit from anywhere in the system, they’d know it.”
“He got a call late this afternoon,” Grant said. “Someone accessed the file a couple of days ago, and then tried to erase their incursion.”
“A couple of days ago?”
Grant nodded. “You don’t want to know how pissed Adam was that he hadn’t been informed right away.”
Chloe could guess how angry Lusty’s sheriff was. The man took his job seriously. She’d had her faith in law enforcement restored, thanks to the professionalism of Adam Kendall and Matthew Benedict. She nodded and said, “So that means Lockwood knows she’s here, in Lusty.”
“Which is why you’ve earned yourself a couple of guard dogs.” Andrew nodded as he said that. Then he gave Chloe what had to be the sliest smile of all time. “So tell me, love, how do you feel about sleeping between us?”
* * * *
“Well I, for one, am glad they barged in the way they did.” Carrie kept her voice down, because she didn’t particularly want the entire restaurant to hear her conversation with her sister. “The solution is simple, and I don’t know why the men didn’t just think of it first off. You’ll come to the ranch to stay.”
“I didn’t want to mess things up for you there.” Chloe stopped stirring her coffee and set the spoon down. “The three of you haven’t been together long. The last thing you need is
me
crowding your space.”
Carrie reached out and covered Chloe’s hand with her own. As close as they’d been all these years, Carrie was very much aware there was a bit of a wall between them. That was her fault. She hadn’t let Chloe reach out to her when she’d first gone to live with her. She’d closed herself up for so long, and she hadn’t understood that she’d needed what her big sister could have given her. Instead, she’d kept her at arm’s length.
Funny how she’d never understood that until now.
“I’d be very happy if you’d come out and stay with us. Not only because I for sure don’t want you anywhere near that bastard. But because…I want us to be close. The way we would have been if—well, if things hadn’t turned out the way they had.”
“You fight dirty.” Chloe huffed out a breath and sat back.
“I know.” Carrie sat back and folded her hands. “Listening to the tales the women here have told me about their various adventures—or maybe I should say misadventures—almost makes me want to stand my ground, lie in wait for that bastard and…”
“Shoot his nuts off?”
Carrie smiled at her sister’s suggestion. “Exactly.”
Chloe tilted her head to one side. “You know, hearing you say that, my first reaction is to say no way in hell, little sister, are you going anywhere near that SOB, even when that was what I had actually planned to do myself.”
“I know.”
“You said almost. What’s holding you back?”
Carrie shrugged. “You have to figure—so many different women just barely managing to come out on top. What are the odds of that happening one more time?”
Chloe shook her head slowly. “I’m not sure that I’d look at it that way.”
“And, as well, a part of me is scared. I’m ashamed to admit that, but it’s true. The idea of being anywhere near that bastard scares the hell out of me.”
“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” Chloe leaned forward and gripped her hands. “Damn it, Carrie, you were thirteen years old when that pervert attacked you for the first time. On top of losing mom and dad and us being torn away from each other…give yourself a break. You’re not superwoman. I’d be completely terrified if I’d been through all that and then had to face the possibility of that monster coming back.”
“I don’t like being scared.” Carrie turned her hands so that she and Chloe were holding on to each other. “When I feel scared, I feel powerless, and that’s how I felt every minute of every day from the time I was taken in by the state until you found me and rescued me.”
“No one likes feeling scared or powerless, baby sister. But we all do, sometimes. Try and look at it this way. You went your three rounds with the devil already. Now it’s your turn to sit back and let someone else fight the good fight.” Chloe exhaled. “And I guess I should listen to myself, and just say, thank you. I’ll get my stuff and move in with y’all this afternoon.”
“I’m glad. What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
Chloe laughed. “Besides moving? I thought I’d drive into Waco and scout out the employment possibilities. There’re a couple of day spas I’ve heard of, so I thought I’d check them out.”
“Let me walk you out to your car.”
Carrie was conscious of being under scrutiny—at the moment Henry Kendall and Ryder Magee were sitting at a table, sipping on coffee, nibbling on some of Tracy’s pastries—well, Ryder was nibbling. Henry had already devoured his and was eyeing Ryder’s with a look of avarice. She nodded toward the sidewalk, and Ryder nodded in turn.
Carrie hugged her sister, told her to drive carefully, and watched as she pulled away from the curb. Then she returned to the kitchen, wrinkled her nose at Adam Kendall, and headed over to the fridge.
“Is Chloe feeling any better about our, um, interference of last night?”
Carrie wondered if Adam was being snarky, but one look at his face and she knew he wasn’t.
“Maybe a little. Apparently she’d been burning to do something ever since she figured out what had happened all those years ago.”
“It can’t have been easy for her,” Adam said.
Carrie looked at him, not certain what he meant. “In what way?”
He shrugged. “I’m not the oldest, but I always had a sense of looking out for my brothers—Jake and Jordan, in particular. A few of my cousins, the ones who were the oldest in their families—Rick and Matt and Robert—they were always the ones their siblings would turn to when they needed help, or were having a hard time.”
Ginny came into the kitchen, swooped in for a kiss from her husband, and then set about putting in her orders.
“Kind of quiet, pre-lunch crowd today,” she said. “I don’t know as I really like this new computer system, or not.”
Kelsey looked up from where she was reading what Ginny had just entered. “It does take the coziness out of things,” she agreed. “But I don’t have to worry about losing a slip of paper or forgetting what I’m supposed to make.”
Ginny grabbed a tray and headed out to the drink station, which was in the dining room. Carrie read over Kelsey’s shoulder and helped to get the two orders ready.
A few minutes later she returned to the task of carving the chickens that had just come out of the oven. These would be used for most of the chicken items on the menu.
Carrie looked over at Adam. “Before mom and dad died, Chloe looked after me—sometimes not all that willingly, as I recall.” In fact a time or two she’d had to cancel plans to stay home and babysit. “That’s only natural. She was a teenage girl with a social life of her own. But she was always there for me whenever I needed her.”
Adam nodded. “Think of how hard it must have been for her, then, when you were taken away and she didn’t even know where you were.”
Carrie felt just a little bit ashamed of herself, because she’d never really given a lot of thought as to what their family tragedy had meant to
Chloe
.
For the rest of the afternoon, she focused on the food that had to be prepped and then cooked, and the other myriad tasks involved in helping
Lusty Appetites
function.
Matt arrived to replace Adam. They had a bit of a whispered conversation, and for once, Carrie didn’t try to overhear them. Her thoughts were on her sister.
She recalled how jubilant Chloe had been, that day she’d come to the high school and hugged her for the first time in years.
Chloe had cried, and that was a detail Carrie had forgotten, until now. When their parents had died, Chloe had only been seventeen—not much more than a kid, herself.
Carrie began to watch the clock—not something she did usually—because she wanted to go to her sister and tell her how very much she loved her, and appreciated her.
With just a half hour until the end of her shift, the cell phone in her pocket belted out “Breakaway.” Carrie grinned and grabbed the device.
There was no need to wait until she saw her face-to-face
. “Hey, big sister. I love you.”
“Now isn’t that touching? I’ll be sure to tell her that—if she ever opens her eyes. Right now, it’s looking doubtful, Carolyn.”
Carrie could have sworn she turned to ice right then and there. She didn’t have to ask who was on the other end of the phone call. Her gaze sought Matt’s. He’d already surged to his feet and taken a step toward her.
Carrie clutched the phone, amazed when a kind of numbness descended on her. “What have you done with my sister, you prick?”
“Brian, you don’t understand. I have to
go
.”
“I do understand, but you’re not going anywhere, darlin’.”
Carrie looked from Brian to Matt. Matt had told her to stay put, but she’d made a run for it—and had ended up colliding with Brian just as he was entering the kitchen.
He’d come to give her a ride home from work.
Matt had called Adam, and then he’d called Chase, who had headed over to the pharmacy when he and his brother had hit town. Both were on their way—as were most of the men in Lusty, she imagined.
Carrie’s eyes shot to the clock on the wall over the sink.
Six minutes since Lockwood had called
.
He had given her forty-five minutes to get home, thinking she worked in Waco. He had no idea that she was right here in town, and she hadn’t enlightened him to that fact.
She’d been smart enough to keep her mouth shut, buying time, but not smart enough to get free and go to her sister.
Ginny and Kelsey flanked her, and Brian stood in front of her, his hands on her shoulders.
“There’s time, darlin’. We can’t go off half cocked. Adam will be here any moment. Then we can figure this thing out.”
The door to the kitchen swung open, and Adam Kendall all but burst into the room.
“We have the building surrounded—don’t worry, Carrie, even if he sees the folks we’re using he’ll never make them as a threat to him.”
“I’ve only got thirty-five minutes, now. He has Chloe, Adam, and he’s going to kill her if I don’t go to him.”
“You’re
not
going there,” Brian said.
“Damn straight she’s not.” Chase came into the room looking like he wanted to beat someone, and Carrie knew she wasn’t going to be allowed to do anything at all to save her sister.
“How do you know he has her?” Adam asked. “Did you talk to her?”
Carrie shook her head. She
hadn’t
talked to Chloe, and that was what had her so tied up in knots. “No. He called me on her cell phone. Here, you can see the call log.” She handed him her phone and felt her bottom lip quiver. “I thought it was her calling me. I’d been thinking about her all day, you know, thinking about what you said. So I answered the phone and I said—” She had to stop because she was on the verge of tears and needed to get them under control. She couldn’t fall apart. Maybe that would be the only thing she’d be allowed to do for her sister—keep it together until they had her back. “I said, ‘Hey, big sister. I love you.’ And that b–bastard s–said he’d b–be sure to t–tell her if she…if she ever opened her eyes.” She swallowed and forced the tears and the shakes away. “He said it was looking doubtful.”
“Jesus Christ.” Brian had stepped to the side when Chase and Adam had arrived, but he’d taken hold of her hand. He used her hand to pull her into his arms.
“Son of a bitch.” Chase closed in on her other side. She felt totally surrounded by their love and their caring, but it really didn’t take away the fear or the panic.