In the back of her mind, she’d considered that Nate had been thinking about his late wife. That would have been, well, natural even though it was painful for her to consider. But it’d been Darcy’s name on his lips. And he’d certainly made love to her as if she was the woman he wanted.
But did he?
Had this been a primal reaction to the danger?
She couldn’t dismiss it, but she so wanted it to be real. She wanted Nate and not just his body—though Darcy wanted that, too.
And speaking of his body, she looked over at him. He was still naked, of course, and thanks to a jagged flash of lightning, she got a good look at him.
Oh, mercy.
Yes, she wanted to feel more of those toned muscles on his chest and stomach. More of his clever mouth and the kisses that could make her burn to ash. She wanted to be wrapped in his strong arms again. She wanted it all.
Darcy groaned and hoped the rumbling thunder concealed the sound that had escaped.
It didn’t.
Nate tilted his head and looked at her. “Well?” he asked.
Sheesh. Where should she go with a question like that? Anything she said could make him regret what had just happened and might send him running for cover.
“Well,” she repeated, giving herself some time to think, “the sex was amazing.”
He stared at her. “Then why did you groan?”
That required another pause—and a deep breath. “Because this might have been easier for both of us if it hadn’t been amazing.”
Nate stayed quiet a moment and then made a sound of agreement. He brushed a kiss on her cheek, got up and started to dress.
Darcy wanted to smack herself for that stupid groan. It had reminded Nate of the trouble a possible relationship could stir up. That groan had broken the spell and caused him to move away from her.
Nate’s phone buzzed, and he rifled through his clothes on the floor to find it. He glanced at the caller ID before he answered it.
“Kade,” Nate answered.
Darcy prayed this was good news, but since Nate didn’t put the call on speaker, she couldn’t tell.
She got up, as well, and began to gather her clothes. Suddenly, Darcy felt awkward and uncomfortable about being stark naked in front of Nate. She dressed as quickly as she could. Not easy to do since her clothes were scattered everywhere.
“Did he have a suitcase or anything with him?” Nate asked his brother.
Again, she couldn’t hear Kade’s answer.
“A lot of people are watching the place,” Nate responded. “If he shows up, we’ll see him.” And he hung up.
Darcy waited, her breath stalled in her lungs.
“It’s Dent,” Nate told her. “He left his house about a half hour ago, and he had a suitcase with him. He managed to lose the tail we had on him.”
Darcy leaned against the wall and let it support her. She also put her hand over her breasts since she was still braless. Where was the darn thing?
“This doesn’t mean Dent is a killer,” Nate pointed out. He looked at her but then just as quickly turned away. “He could just be running scared.”
True. But Darcy wasn’t ready to trust Dent or any of the other suspects.
Nate finished dressing before her and went straight for his laptop, which he’d left on the table near the door. When he lifted the screen, it created a nightlight of sorts, and she was able to find her bra. It was dangling on the bedpost.
“No sign of Ramirez,” he relayed to her, and he slipped his shoulder holster back on.
Ramirez. Just the thought of him chilled the remaining heat she felt after making love with Nate. How could she have forgotten, even for a few minutes, that a killer wanted them dead?
Sex with Nate wasn’t just amazing.
It apparently caused temporary amnesia.
And stupidity.
Darcy finished dressing and saw that Nate was still staring at his laptop screen. “Is there a problem?” she said, praying there wasn’t.
“No. I’m just reading an email from Grayson.”
“Grayson?” She hurried across the room to see what the message said. “It’s about the children?”
Of course, she immediately thought the worst, but what she saw on the screen wasn’t the worst at all. There was a picture of both Kimmie and Noah. They were asleep side by side in a crib.
“Grayson snapped it with his cell phone and emailed it,” Nate explained. “He thought it would make us feel better.”
It did.
Darcy couldn’t help herself. She touched the screen, running her fingers over those precious little faces. “I miss them so much.”
“Them,” Nate mumbled.
It hit her then that he might think she was trying to push her way into his life by using his daughter. Darcy frantically shook her head. “What I feel for Kimmie doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
He lifted his eyebrow and paused for what seemed an eternity, then nodded. “I know. You love kids.” Nate added a shrug. “I love kids.”
Darcy waited, but he offered nothing else. Especially nothing else about what he might be feeling for her. Or feelings about what had happened in that bed just minutes earlier. But because she was watching him so closely, she saw his expression change from that of a loving father to that of a very sad widower. He, too, touched the image on the screen, and Darcy suspected he was wishing that Ellie were alive.
“You miss your wife,” Darcy said before she could stop herself.
“Yeah.” No hesitation. Nate kept his gaze fixed on the screen for several seconds before he pulled back his hand and switched to the feed from the security system. He split the screen so that it showed six different camera angles at once.
She considered pushing a little and asking Nate to talk about his feelings. He’d no doubt rather eat razor blades than do that, so Darcy decided to give him the time and space to work out whatever was going on in his head. Heck, she needed that space, too.
But one look at the screen, and she realized her attention was going to be otherwise occupied. She saw movement in the top-left screen.
“Ramirez?” she managed to ask.
Unlike before, Nate didn’t give her an immediate answer, but he did draw his gun from his shoulder holster. “I don’t think so.”
Whoever it was, the person wasn’t on foot. Nor was he coming across the fence. This was a car, and the headlights were on, slicing through the thick rain. The vehicle was traveling on the ranch road.
Toward the house.
Oh, mercy.
Darcy had thought she was ready for this. Well, as ready as anyone could be. But just the sight of that car made her heart spin out of control.
“I doubt Ramirez would drive right up to the front door,” Nate added.
And that’s exactly what the driver appeared to be doing. Darcy clung to that hope, that it wasn’t Ramirez, but then she had to wonder, if it wasn’t the killer, who was it? It was hardly the hour for guests, and all of Nate’s brothers were occupied with either the children or setting the trap for Ramirez.
Nate’s phone buzzed, and he answered it without taking his focus off the car. He clicked the speaker function.
“Nate,” she heard Dade say. “Adam should be arriving at the ranch any minute now. I was tailing him, but I got…distracted. I spotted someone in the woods on the back side of the ranch, and I stopped. I think it might be our watcher from the roof. Can you deal with Adam on your own?”
“Sure,” Nate answered. “What does Adam want?”
“Who knows. He checked into a hotel in Silver Creek, but about forty-five minutes ago, he came barreling out of the driveway like a man on fire. I guess he must have gone out to the parking lot through the emergency exit at the back of the hotel.”
“Is he armed?” Nate wanted to know.
“Couldn’t tell. I barely got a glimpse of him before he sped away from the hotel. I stayed back so he wouldn’t spot me, but he didn’t make it easy. He stopped on the side of the road twice, changed directions a couple of times, but then he finally headed out to the ranch.”
“Any sign of Edwin, Dent or Marlene?” Nate asked.
“No. And I’ve been keeping my eye out for all of them in case they head out this way.” In the background, Darcy could hear the storm winds howling. “You’re positive you can handle Adam?”
“Don’t worry about us. Just watch your back.” Nate ended the call, picked up the laptop and started out of the room.
Darcy caught his arm. “You’re not planning to let Adam in?”
“No. But I do want to talk to him. And I want to be closer to the door in case he decides to break in.”
Darcy’s grip melted off his arm. “Break in?” But she knew what Nate meant. Adam could have killed his mother, and the lie they’d planted about the diary could have sent him spinning out of control. With everything going on with Ramirez, she’d forgotten that someone had originally hired that monster to kidnap the children.
Was it Adam who’d done that?
And was he there to finish what he’d paid Ramirez to start?
Darcy followed Nate down the hall and toward the foyer, but he didn’t go into the open area. Instead, he placed the laptop on the floor, and they crouched down where they could both still see it.
On the screen Darcy saw the car and then heard it come to a screeching halt. Adam certainly wasn’t trying to conceal his arrival. Nate and she waited, watching, but Adam didn’t get out. However, Nate’s phone buzzed again, and when he flipped it open, it was Adam’s name on the screen.
“What are you doing here?” Nate demanded when he answered the call. Darcy whispered for him to put it on speaker, and he did.
“I’m trying to stay alive, and you have to let me in. I need to be in protective custody.” Adam sounded scared out of his mind. Of course, Darcy knew it could all be an act.
“And you thought the way to stay alive was to come here?” Nate tossed right back.
Adam mumbled something she didn’t catch. “Dent is trying to kill me. He murdered my mother, and now he’s trying to kill me so he can inherit her entire estate and my trust fund. I want him arrested
now.
”
“There’s still no proof to arrest him. Or you, for that matter,” Nate added. “But we might soon have proof with the diary.”
“Yes,” Adam mumbled. “The diary.” He said it in the same tone as he would profanity. “Dent doctored that diary, and I’m betting he did that to make either me or my father look guilty of murder. When your lab people check those so-called indentations, they’ll be fake, added by the real killer. And that real killer is Dent.”
Darcy certainly couldn’t discard that theory. But Dent had been the one to find the diary, and if her former client thought for one minute that it could have implicated him in his wife’s murder, then he wouldn’t have brought it to Grayson and Nate.
So, Dent was either innocent or stupid.
“If you really believe someone is trying to kill you,” Nate said to Adam, “then go the sheriff’s office or SAPD headquarters. Dent won’t come after you there.”
“No. But his hired gun would, and I’d rather have you protecting me than the deputy at the sheriff’s office.” Adam cursed. “I know Dent hired that psycho, Ramirez. He took the money from my mother’s safe to pay him. And now he’s hired Ramirez to come after me. And Darcy and you, too.”
Nate glanced at her, and Darcy saw some doubt, but Nate wasn’t totally dismissing what Adam had accused Dent of doing.
“What makes you think Ramirez is after you?” Nate demanded.
“I
know
he’s after me. He came to my hotel room.” Adam’s voice cracked on the last word. “I’m sorry. He gave me no choice.”
Darcy felt the icy chill go through her. “What do you mean?”
Adam took his time answering. “I mean Ramirez came here in the trunk of my car, and he got out just a few minutes ago—before we got to the security camera at the end of the road.
“I’m sorry,” Adam repeated. “But Ramirez is on the grounds.”
Chapter Sixteen
Nate prayed that Adam was lying. Or playing some kind of sick joke.
Yes, Nate was fully aware that Ramirez was after Darcy and him, but if Adam had hand-delivered a killer to their doorstep, then there would be a bad price to pay.
“I don’t see Ramirez,” Darcy said, her voice filled with nerves, her breath racing. She dropped to the floor, grabbed the laptop screen and moved closer, frantically studying it.
Nate looked, as well, and saw the same six screens he had earlier. All showed different parts of the ranch, including the front of the house, where Adam was parked. He didn’t see Ramirez, either, but the thought had no sooner crossed his mind when white static filled the screen.
Hell.
“Ramirez,” Darcy mumbled. “He did this?”
“Maybe.” Nate sandwiched his cell between his shoulder and ear and sat next to Darcy. He took the laptop and typed in the security codes again to adjust the cameras.
Nothing.
“Ramirez jammed your security system, didn’t he?” Adam asked. The man didn’t sound smug. He sounded as concerned as Nate felt. “He said he would. Said he had the equipment to do it. Now he can come after you, and you can’t even see where he is.”