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  After all these years, Leah had knocked on his door again and, monster or not, Carson didn’t plan to let her down.

  “Wait here.” He gestured to the living room and hated making her stay in the seedy mess. “I need to get a few things.”

  And make a call.

  She nodded.

  Carson tore his gaze from her, walked to his bedroom, and gave himself three seconds to stand there with his eyes closed to get his shit together.

  Then he yanked his cell out of his pocket and hit the speed dial. The signal, boosted by a high-tech mini-tower concealed in the loft of his barn, went through without the usual rural hassles. Robert answered on the first ring.

  “I’m taking down Preston,” Carson said. “Right now. Tonight.”

  Silence on the other end. Carson almost hung up, but then Robert exploded with, “What the hell – no way! We’ve been working this angle for two fucking years. You absolutely will not—”

  “I’m not asking permission, Robert. I’m telling you to send backup and body bags.”

  Carson punched off, shut down the phone, jammed it in his pocket, and grabbed his go-bag from his closet. After a second’s consideration, he pulled a second bagbeneath his bed and double-checked the contents: two MP5s with under-barrel grenade launchers, three flashbangs, two sting grenades and a shitload of flex-cuffs. Yeah. Those might come in handy. He had body armour in a hidden compartment in his pickup toolbox, for himself and for Leah, too.

  They were damned sure going to need it.

  Three

  Leah couldn’t stop shaking.

  Seeing Carson had pushed her straight to the edge, and the trembling finally came. Leah tried not to catalogue the bottles and guns and cards and dice, or the bookies’ notes, or the little balance scales used to weigh God only knew what. She tried not to think about the perfectly carved arms, the broad-muscled chest, the deep, spine-tingling drawl, or the way Carson’s black eyes never left her after he opened his door.

  She had always had his full attention, from the moment she met him in sixth grade until the night she saw him dragged away, cuffed and smeared with his father’s blood.

  He hasn’t changed.

  Leah closed her eyes.

  That was stupid. Prison always changed men. He’d only served a handful of years for manslaughter before the case got tossed on some technicality. Carson had needed reform and reshaping, but from everything Leah had heard since she left Walker Valley and since she came back, too, all of Carson’s changes had been for the worse. She opened her eyes.

  The old Taylor house hadn’t been transformed, either. From the rotting walls to the dust in the living room’s dark corners, the place looked just like it did when Carson’s father held court over Walker Valley’s criminal element. The Jack Daniel’s bottles gave her the creeps because they reminded her of Judd Taylor. That craggy-faced shithead never spared her a leer, and he’d made a few drunken grabs for her late at night, when he thought nobody was watching. Heavy-handed with his wife, with Carson’s older sister – Leah realized she didn’t know what had become of Chelsea Taylor. The girl had left town, but nobody could say where she wound up or what she might be doing. As for Carson’s mother, she had died about a year after Judd got killed.

  Murdered by Carson. Murdered while he slept, if the gossip and news reports were accurate.

  While the nasty old bastard was passed out, more likely. Leah didn’t really know because she hadn’t talked to Carson since his arrest. At first her parents hadn’t allowed it. Then Carson had refused to see her when she showed up at the prison after his transfer. She had tried writing letters, but those got returned unanswered. Silence had killed whatever they’d had, if two stupid kids could have anything real.

  But if it wasn’t real, why did it still hurt so damned much to see him?

  I’m here for Kevin. That’s the only reason.

  Leah focused on the nearest Jack Daniel’s bottle. Carson had never liked whiskey. When had he started drinking that stuff? When had he started drinking at all? It didn’t feel right.

  “Prison changes men,” she muttered aloud, but the words sounded thick and flat in the dusty room.

  Leah narrowed her eyes. The Jack Daniel’s bottle had as much dust on it as everything else. She eased towards it. Touched the dry, warm glass. Yeah, that was a lot of dust. Curiosity drove her across the living room, examining the other bottles as she went. They were all dusty.

  As she neared the back of the living room, she could hear Carson’s voice. It sounded like he was talking on a phone, but there was no line service this far from the valley. Leah pulled out her own cell and checked. Full signal. That was weird. None of the rural areas had a consistent grid. w the hell did Carson get such good service halfway up a giant granite slab like Grace Mountain?

  The few questions Carson had asked her when she showed up – those were pretty sharp. None of the swagger and attitude she had expected from a career criminal. She looked around the junky living room again. Yeah. Everything in the place screamed up-to-no-good and illegal, but …

  But it felt staged. Not real, like Carson was hiding something else. Something bigger. Maybe something worse.

  Christ, if this is his cover, how bad has he gone?

  Leah’s shaking got worse and she had to clench both fists to control herself. She might have made a terrible mistake coming here. If it hadn’t been for Kevin and the fact she had no other option, she would have bolted.

  Carson came back to the living room carrying two totes, both black, one small and one large enough to conceal assault rifles. His eyes, as black as the totes, studied her with an intensity that suffocated fear and doubt, instead kindling a fast, sizzling heat in her belly. Despite their history and his past, despite all the years and horrors separating them, in that moment, there was nothing but Carson and her – and Kevin, their common purpose.

  Leah couldn’t speak. She couldn’t do anything but stare at Carson and wonder what the hell she was feeling.

  He did the talking for both of them. “Let’s move.”

  When Leah didn’t head for the front door, his tone channelled desperados and drill sergeants. “We need to knock on a few doors and break a few jaws. You up for it, Marine?”

  Marine. Shit. There it is again. Leah felt her stare turn to a glare. All the emotion inside her balled in her chest, and she almost took a swing at Carson.

  He met her angry gaze without flinching. “Marine. Last time I checked, that word wasn’t an insult.”

  Damn him and his drawl. His voice had hypnotic powers – arousing, calming – Carson could turn it whichever way he chose. He’d always had that talent.

  “Simpson,” Leah muttered, standing down as fast as she had flared to full alert. “He never served. It cramps his balls that I did.”

  Carson nodded like he understood. Then he pointed towards the door. His dark eyes commanded her, direct and concise without being overbearing.

  Move out, soldier.

  This time, Leah moved.

  Four

  Having Leah so close to him in the pickup cab made it hard to watch the road, but Carson kept his head in the game. The right head – and the right game. For now. He guided the big black Ford down Grace Mountain without looking left or right.

  After a few miles of silence, he said, “You came back to Walker Valley because Alicia needed you.”

  Leah kept her eyes fixed on the windshield. Rain tapped against the tinted glass, and the evening sky bathed her pretty face in shades of grey. “David’s a good guy, but he’s not much in the care-taking department. With Mom and Dad gone, Alicia didn’t have anyone else to call.”

  Carson left that alone because he understood. Leah and Alicia had always been close as kids, just a few years apart, and it was a damned shame that both their parents died so young – heart attack for Mr Mays and diabetic stroke for Mrs Mays. Heart disease and diabetes were two of the biggest killers in Walker Valley, if you didn’t count drugs, running drugs,
lowbrow human trafficking, and all the other sick bullshit that seemed to gravitate towards the town.

  Leah didn’t ask where they were going. Did that mean she trusted him?

  Now you’re dreaming. Keep your eyes on the road.

  He knew Leah hadn’t turned to him out of trust. She did it out of desperation, and he had to keep that in mind.

  “All that crap in your living room – the bottles and scales and other stuff – it’s crap.” Her tone sounded strangely light and certain.

  Carson glanced at Leah in spite of himself. He saw the shrewd eyes of a practised investigator staring back at him.

  Well, shit. How did … Never mind. He tried to make his frown seem forbidding, to add a little menace and back-off to the silence now filling the truck cab. He would have liked to tell her everything, but that couldn’t happen.

  “You have cell signal,” she added. “Where’s the tower hidden?”

  Son of a …

  He calculated that a little truth would be better than a lie she could easily investigate. “Behind the barn in some tree cover.”

  “Standard equipment for rural drug runners these days?” Now she sounded triumphant and a little teasing. He didn’t think he could take teasing from her on any level.

  “The world’s gone high-tech.” Carson heard the rough edge in his own voice and hoped she took it for anger. “I had to keep up.”

  Fabric whispered as she turned to face him. “How did you get out of prison?”

  Carson’s frown got real in a hurry, and he gripped the wheel hard. How had he managed to forget this about Leah, how she wouldn’t leave a thing alone when she got hold of it? She had always been like that.

  I used to think it was attractive.

  Still was.

  It was part of what made her so strong and so determined. Hell, she’d made it out of Walker Valley once, survived the Citadel, survived Iraq – who knew what heights she could reach without their past and this God-awful town weighing her down?

  “My lawyer got my conviction tossed over an invalid warrant,” he said. “Fruit of the poisoned tree. You know the drill.” His muscles tightened, waiting for the rest of her questions and hoping his rehearsed answers didn’t sound like a total load of shit.

  How did it happen, Carson?

  Why did you kill your father?

  Why did you turn your back on me? Didn’t I mean anything to you at all?

  He knew she hadn’t been allowed to see him in jail. She was still a minor, and no way would her parents have gone for something like that. But after she turned eighteen and he cut her off – well. That was on him, wasn’t it?

  The questions never came, and Carson managed not to look at Leah. He sensed her studying him, felt her reading him and trying to understand. He knew if he so much as glanced in her direction, he’d pull the truck off the road, take her in his arms, and try to explain with his words, with his mouth, with his hands, with any type of communication she’d accept.

  No time for that, asshole, and she deserves way better than you.

  He turned off the main road without hitting the blinker and, a second or so later, she asked, “This is the Marsley farm, isn’t it?”

  “Used to be. Hank Preston bought it a few years back.” Carson steered the truck into tall grass, parking behind a small tree-covered hill. “He’s trash. Always has been, always will be, but now he’s trash with money. Get out and wait by the toolbox on your side.”

  Five

  Body armour. Military grade. Un-fucking-believable. Leah strapped on the chest protector, glad she couldn’t see Carson’s face in the growing darkness. He already had his body armour in place, and she could hear him checking clips on pistols and shoving them into holsters.

  She was stillin uniform and had her service Glock, and he held out a SIG. The barrel glittered in the emerging moonlight, and she took a deep breath of the hot, wet mountain air. No more rain, but the humidity lingered on, as stubborn as any bad memory. “Stow the SIG,” he said. “Use it if you have to. It’s not traceable, but I’ve got something else for you to carry.”

  Leah secured the SIG in her waistband, but her heart didn’t start pounding until Carson switched on a flashlight and pulled two MP5s – with grenade launchers, no less – out of his tote. He handed her one.

  She took it, feeling the familiar weight and pistol grips and automatically checking both safeties. She could tell by its weight that the clip was full and it was armed with a 40-millimetre grenade.

  “I’m assuming you’re friends with these,” Carson murmured, checking his own submachine gun.

  “Yeah.” Leah had carried one for years in the desert. Signature weapon of her unit. Carson couldn’t know that, right? “Now, will you tell me what the hell we’re doing?”

  He lowered his weapon.

  Even in the moonlight, she could see the rising worry and harsh determination on his handsome face. “I can’t go in alone and I can’t involve anybody else. You’re a soldier, so I’m going to respect that.”

  Leah’s nerves jangled so badly she nearly choked on her own spit, but she tried to sound casual when she spoke. “I’m capable.”

  “I have no doubt.” He left off the “Marine” this time, but Leah wouldn’t have minded it if he’d used it. He handed her night-vision goggles, making her feel even more like she was back in the desert.

  When he passed her a bunch of flex-cuffs, then rattled off their likely targets and his attack plan like a high-level field officer outlining an urban assault, she wondered when and how a convicted felon had managed to get himself in the service. Not marines, no. Army. Carson definitely sounded army.

  When all of this was over, they had a lot to discuss.

  Six

  The world had gone phosphor green.

  Carson lined up his shot using the night-vision goggles, squeezed his launch trigger, and blew Preston’s outbuilding and weapons cache to smithereens. He heard Leah swear at the size of the explosion and the white-hot light no doubt searing her brain through the goggles. Smoke billowed like clouds straight out of hell, giving them cover as six big bastards with their own automatic firepower rolled out of Preston’s main house and two more goons with rifles thundered out of the barn.

  No body armour. No goggles.

  Battle heat surged through Carson, narrowing his focus as he studied all the faces.

  “Clear,” he shouted over the roar of the nearby fire, so Leah would know none of these targets were Hank Preston. The fact that he’d talked to these men, shared six-packs with them when he had to, didn’t matter. It was all a game. Everything was a game designed to lead up to a moment like this.

  From the edge of the tool shed, Carson fired at the men in front of the house while Leah went to ground behind him and laid down two quick bursts to slow the barn guys. Dirt and rock kicked into the darkness. The barn guys howled from the shrapnel and fell hard.

  Carson took his turn swearing. “I told you not to wound them – take them out or they’ll come back swinging.”

  Leah put rounds in their legs and shooting arms. Their rifles went flying.

  “Or not,” Carson said through his teeth. Unbelievable she had that much control over aim with an MP5.

  Guns chattered and bullets pelted against the tool shed. Carson rehe for Leah, but he didn’t have to. She had already rolled up from her firing position and taken shelter beside him. The shed’s ancient wood was damn near petrified. It would shatter before it let through a slug. Fighting his instincts to protect Leah, Carson broke cover long enough to cut a wide path with his MP5, taking down half of Preston’s thugs.

  The other three hammered at the tool shed with steady, rapid fire. Chunks of wood and earth spewed in every direction. Leah edged along the back of the shed until she had position opposite Carson.

  He gave her hand signals and, on three, they both opened up on the men still standing.

  Leah didn’t shoot to wound this time, and Carson never did. The three hit the ground
and stayed down, just like the three Carson had taken down by himself. He signalled Leah to head for their next positions of strength – two oaks closer to the house, one on either side of the porch. She moved without question or hesitation.

  “Preston,” Carson bellowed as he ran. “Get out here.”

  His answer came in rifle shots, shattering window glass and thudding into his oak.

  “Preston!” Carson taunted again, and more shots blasted from the house. Good sign. Just one shooter – Preston didn’t have any assholes left to do his dirty work.

  He glanced at Leah’s tree. She was gone.

  Carson’s heart squeezed and he had to remind himself that this was his plan.

  If anything happens to her, it’s on my head.

  He bolted from his oak, dropped, and rolled fast towards her tree as bullets cut into the ground right behind him.

  Deploy. Distract.

  On his feet. Behind the oak. Safe.

  Leah isn’t safe.

  Fuck, he’d been an idiot to play it out this way. Why didn’t he leave her out here behind the trees?

  I’m taking the fire. Better this way.

  He yanked a second grenade canister from his weapons belt, pushed it into the loader, and fired at the barn. When the explosive made contact with the meth lab inside, another unholy explosion rocked the dark side of Grace Mountain. Carson turned his face away from the blazing white glow. Waited. Waited another second.

  His guts started to churn just as the rifle fire from inside the house stopped.

  Carson threw himself towards the house’s door, charging harder than he’d done since he shipped stateside. One kick and the half-rotten wood splintered and gave.

  Carson ripped off the night-vision goggles, squinting through the bright indoor lights.

  The first thing he saw was Preston’s rifle lying near the far wall.