Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Canyon) (23 page)

“I guess you found the conversion kit,” Ben said above the engine roar.

Ty just grinned. He’d spotted the kit in Ben’s weapons cache, taken the rifle apart and reassembled it when he’d been back in his cabin. “Figured we might need a little extra firepower!”

Ben’s mouth edged up. Ty had begun to recognize the expression as the closest thing to a Ben Slocum smile.

They were getting near the entrance to the lake. Ben had pushed the boy down in the bottom of the boat and drawn his pistol. He fired a couple of shots behind him over the heads of the men in the boat, laying down cover as he increased the speed to full throttle.

The channel was wider here, but there were still obstacles in the way and if they missed a turn and went into a dead end, they were in serious trouble.

The lake appeared ahead. The boat shot into the open water and roared toward their destination. Of course at seven miles an hour, it still wasn’t a helluva lot of speed. Good thing the other boat wasn’t any faster.

Looking backward past Ben, Ty fixed his gaze on the mouth of the channel, expecting to see at least one boat, maybe two shoot into the lake. They’d decided if they were followed, they would head to shore south of the cabins and take a defensive position there instead of risking Claire and anyone else who might be at the fishing resort.

Nothing.

He motioned to Ben, who turned to look, both of them watching, waiting.

Nothing.

“Looks like they turned back!” Ty shouted.

Sam sat up from the bottom of the boat. “I don’t think they’ll come this far.”

“Why not?” Ben asked.

“I heard Mace talking. He said if there was ever any kind of trouble it was smarter to stay in the bayou. He said they knew it better than anyone else in the world and it was the best place to defend themselves.”

As the boat moved across the lake, all three of them kept watch for any sign they were being followed.

“Mace didn’t want me there anyway,” Sam said, his eyes still glued to the lake. “He’ll be glad I’m gone.”

Ty glanced over at Ben, whose face had turned to stone.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Ben said. “You got me. I want you. So does Claire.”

A look of hope filled eyes as pale as his father’s. “Is Claire really here?”

Ben nodded. “She’s the reason I knew about you. She loves you, Sam.” Ben didn’t say more, but Ty could read it in his face. He loved the kid, too.

Ty’s chest filled with warmth. Sam Slocum was going home. It always felt good when a mission like this succeeded and victims were returned to their families.

He glanced across the lake. The only question was, would the Bayou Patriots return to their mud hole in the swamp? Or would they want revenge and come after Ben and Sam?

Twenty-Five

S
tanding at the edge of the porch watching the moonlit lake, Claire spotted the silhouette of a boat coming toward her. She was sure it was Ben, but she could only see the outline of two people in the boat.

Her heart squeezed. Where was Sam? Had something gone wrong?

The boat sputtered to a stop at the dock, and she raced down the steps to where it bobbed in the water. Someone else was in the boat, she saw as she drew near. Her heart jerked then overflowed with love.
Sam.

Her eyes filled as Ben swept the boy up in his arms and stepped out onto the dock. He set Sam on his feet, and the boy raced toward her, Troy’s dog galloping at his heels.
Sam’s dog,
she corrected, for clearly animal and boy belonged together. Running now, her cheeks wet with tears, she opened her arms and Sam ran into them, his warm body burrowing into hers as she held him tightly against her.

“You came to get me,” he whispered, and began to shake as he struggled not to cry. “You’re really here.”

Her throat ached. He was wet head to toe, covered with algae and mud. She squeezed him tighter and fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m here, sweetheart, and you’re safe. Your dad’s here. Everything’s okay.”

As he looked up at her in the moonlight, his pale eyes glistened. “I shouldn’t have gone with Troy. I should have waited.”

“It’s all right. You’ve got your dad now. You don’t ever have to worry about where you’re going to live.”

Ben walked up just then, his face still streaked with black, his camouflage T-shirt and pants wet and plastered to his powerful body. Unconsciously, his hand came up and settled protectively on his son’s small shoulder.

“We have to go. I called the sheriff. He’ll be going in after Hutchins and Troy, but I don’t know how fast that’ll happen. We need to get out of here just in case.”

She nodded. In case the men came after them. They must have had trouble. She didn’t let go of Sam.

Ben’s voice gentled. “He’s okay, Claire. He’s going to be just fine.” She wanted to hold on to Ben as much as she wanted to keep holding Sam.

Ben’s hand stroked gently over the top of his son’s dark head. “He did great out there. He really can swim like a fish. I was proud of him.”

Sam looked up at his father. “Mom said you died in the war.”

Two pairs of ice-blue eyes met and held. “Your mother thought I wouldn’t want you. She was wrong.”

“Your mother was trying to protect you,” Claire explained. “Sometimes the people who love us make mistakes.”

Ben smoothed the boy’s wet hair one last time. “We need to move,” he said.

Claire nodded, more than ready to leave. “I packed up everything just in case. All we need to do is load the car.”

“I wish we had time for a hot shower,” Ben said to Sam, “but that’s going to have to wait.”

Sam just nodded. He seemed different to Claire, more stoic, more grown-up than before he’d disappeared. She turned as Ty approached, carrying the last gear bag out of the boat.

“Thank you,” Claire said to him. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done tonight.”

Ty just grinned. “Helluva lot more fun than sitting home watching TV.”

Claire managed to smile, but her heart was hurting. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she owed this man who had come here to help them. But there wasn’t time for that now, and even if there were, she wasn’t sure she could find the right words.

She settled her arm around Sam’s shoulders and they hurried back to the cabin. Ben and Ty loaded the bags and Ben’s gear into the back of the Denali. Ty tossed his duffel into the dark brown sedan he’d rented in Dallas. The bills were already paid. They pulled away from the cabins, started up the dirt track to the two-lane road that would lead them back to Egansville for the rendezvous Ben had arranged with the sheriff.

It was over. And yet Ben was still in battle mode, his weapons in easy reach. She wondered what had happened in the bayou. She wondered if they were truly safe.

* * *

The sheriff was waiting for them when they pulled into the parking lot in front of his Egansville office. Ben and Ty gave a statement of the evening’s events, and the sheriff spoke to Sam.

Claire had been worried social services might want to intervene, but Egansville was a small town, and once the sheriff had verified Ben’s identity and checked with the Texas police, he was happy to leave the boy with a social worker and his father. There would be plenty of paperwork once they got back to Houston, but all of that could wait.

As soon as the authorities had the information they needed, the deputies headed for the bayou, and Ben headed for home. On the way out of town, he stopped at a cheap motel so he, Sam and Ty could shower and put on dry clothes.

Claire had been carrying clothes for Sam since her shopping excursion in Houston—one of her better ideas, since Ben refused to stay overnight in the little town that was home to the Bayou Patriots. He wanted all of them safe.

The Denali led the way to Texas, Ty’s rental car following in case they ran into trouble. It wasn’t likely, but the internet was a powerful resource and the Patriots did have their own website. Sam slept in the backseat with Pepper as Ben drove the two-hundred-ninety-mile trip to Houston, pulling up in front of his garage at eight o’clock the next morning. Aside from a stop for an Egg McMuffin at a McDonald’s in Beaumont, Sam had slept straight through.

Ben turned off the security alarm and the guys carried the bags into the house. Everything was going smoothly until Pepper danced happily through the front door behind Sam, and Hercules came meandering out of the kitchen. Herc jumped into cat combat mode, arching his back and hissing viciously at the intruder in his domain. Pepper’s ears went up and a look of surprise came into his face.

“Leave him alone!” Sam demanded, coming to his dog’s defense, dropping to his knees and throwing his arms around the black Lab’s neck. Pepper just stood there, his head cocked to one side as he studied the big gray cat that fearlessly stood its ground just a few feet away.

“That’s Hercules,” Ben said. “Herc lives here. They need to get to know each other if they’re going to be sharing the same house.”

“I don’t think Pepper likes cats. What if Pep tries to eat him?”

Ben chuckled, reached down and scooped up the big gray ball of fur. “Herc’s a pretty tough old boy. I think he can take care of himself.” Ben rubbed beneath the cat’s chin until he was purring, then set him back down on his feet.

Herc eyed the dog, turned and walked haughtily back to the kitchen as if the animal didn’t exist.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Claire asked.

“We’ll keep an eye on them for a couple of days, just to be safe. In the meantime, I think we should all get some sleep.”

He cast Claire a glance that made her cheeks feel warm, but both of them knew they wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed now that Sam was in the house.

In the end, Claire slept in the guest room, Sam conked out beside her, still exhausted from his ordeal. Ben slept in his own room, and Ty stretched out on the sofa.

It was late afternoon when she and Sam wandered into the living room.

“Where’s Ty?” Sam asked, rubbing his eyes.

But there was no sign of the lanky dark-haired man who had helped when they needed him so badly, just a note on the kitchen table. Claire picked it up and read it out loud.

“‘Thanks for a great time. Ty.’” She smiled.

“I guess he isn’t much for goodbyes,” Ben said as he walked toward them down the hall.

Claire glanced at the alarm keypad next to the front door. The perimeter alarm was still set. “How did he get out without setting it off?”

Amusement curved the corners of Ben’s mouth. “Guy like that, better not to ask.”

“I liked him,” Sam said.

“Me, too,” said Ben.

Ty Brodie was on his way back to L.A. Ben would be busy making a home for Sam. There were things Claire needed to do, arrangements she had to complete, before she sprung her little surprise on Ben.

* * *

The Egansville sheriff, Lester Dumont, phoned Ben that afternoon.

“I wish I had better news,” he said. “Took us a while to find our way into the compound from the road. By the time our deputies got there, the men were gone. The whole damn place was empty.”

Ben flicked a glance at Claire, who was waiting impatiently for news. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “These guys have been preparing for trouble for months, maybe years.”

“We talked to the brothers who live down the road, but they say they weren’t out there last night. Same with the local members. No way to prove it one way or another.”

“I don’t suppose anyone mentioned where the group might have gone.”

“We’ve got arrest warrants out for Troy Bragg and Dennis Hutchins. The people we talked to say they haven’t seen either one of them.”

“According to what Sam said, Mace, Pete, Luke and Aggie Bragg were among those in the camp. He gave you names of some of the other members. They ought to be good for aiding and abetting.”

“This is a small town, Slocum. Half the people in the area have kin who belong to the Patriots. I’m not stirring up unnecessary trouble.”

It seemed damn necessary to Ben. On the other hand, he had his son back. And it was probably better for Sam just to move forward.

“I’ll be in touch if anything turns up.” The sheriff ended the call, and Ben turned to Claire, anxiously waiting a few feet away.

“They didn’t catch Troy and Duke?”

“Whole bunch vanished like ghosts.” He ran a hand through his hair, realized he needed a cut and so did Sam. “I’m not really surprised. Those survivalist groups all have bug-out locations. A place to head in an emergency if their home base goes down.”

“It has to be in the swamp.”

“Or some other swamp.” And there were thousands of square miles of bayous and swamplands in Louisiana, not to mention other parts of the South.

“So what do we do, just let them get away with it?”

“I’ve got my son back. As long as the bastards leave us alone, I don’t care where they go.”

Claire looked as though she wanted to argue. Then she sighed. “Maybe you’re right. It’s probably better for Sam if all of this just goes away.”

“The cops’ll keep looking. I can’t see Hutchins spending the rest of his life in the bayou. He may still turn up somewhere.”

“You don’t think they’ll come here, do you? You don’t think they’ll come after Sam?”

Ben thought of his son, the fear and loneliness he had suffered, the bruises on his arms and the blisters on his hands. “These guys are extremely territorial. Their life is in the bayou. They didn’t even follow us into the lake.” His jaw hardened. “If they know what’s good for them, they’ll stay in whatever mud hole they’re now calling home.”

* * *

The week slid past, busy days for Claire. So far Ben hadn’t mentioned anything about her moving out of his house. Maybe he’d been too busy dealing with social services, speaking to lawyers, filling out forms, talking to people in Los Angeles, taking Sam to the mandatory counseling sessions social services required after his ordeal.

Ben accepted the dictate more readily than she had expected, actually seemed glad for the help. He had never been a dad before. He was finding his way, but it wasn’t that easy.

Claire had been using the time to complete the plans she had made before she’d come to Houston to find Ben in the first place.

Arrangements that had included the possibility of staying in the city if it looked as if Sam would be living there with his dad. She had betrayed Laura and Sam once. It wasn’t going to happen again.

Since Sam had missed so many weeks of school and seemed anxious to return to a part of his life that offered a routine and familiar setting, on Monday of the following week, he would be attending his first day of fourth grade at University District Elementary School.

That morning, Claire made breakfast for her men—that was how she thought of them, both so much alike. Eggs and bacon, toast, juice and coffee. Milk for Sam.

She knew he must be nervous though he hadn’t said anything. Sam had been unusually quiet since Ben had brought him home. It worried Claire more than she wanted Ben to know. But the counselor, and the pediatrician who had examined him, both felt certain Sam had suffered no sexual abuse.

She smiled down at the child as he ate his meal. “Big day, huh, kiddo. You ready for this?”

She’d expected him to smile back, show a little excitement. The old Sam would have.

“The kids are gonna ask me stuff. I won’t know what to say.”

She flicked a glance at Ben, who had stopped eating at the note of worry in his young son’s voice.

He set his fork down carefully beside his plate. “If they ask, you say your name is Sam Slocum. Your mom died and now you’re living with your dad in Houston.”

“What about Claire?”

Ben’s eyes met hers across the table. There was something there she couldn’t quite read. “Claire lives in Los Angeles, son. She has a job there. She can’t stay with us. Houston isn’t her home.”

Sam’s face went pale and his attention swung to her. He almost never cried but his eyes were glistening, and she knew he was fighting to hold back tears. “You’re not staying? You’re just gonna leave me here?”

Her heart squeezed. Dear God, she should have talked to Ben sooner. Told him her plans, figured things out. Now it was too late.

She tried for a bright, cheery smile. “Actually, I...umm...I’m not going back—at least not right away.”
Probably never.
“I’ve rented an apartment close by. That way we’ll be able to see each other, spend time together, just like before.”

Ben’s icy eyes bored into her. “What about your job?”

“I was going to tell you. I just... I wanted to get everything in order. I...umm...found a position here.”

Ben came up from his chair. “Finish your breakfast,” he said to Sam. “Claire and I need to talk.” He caught her arm, hauled her to her feet.

Sam was out of his chair in an instant. “Don’t hurt her! She didn’t do anything!”

Ben froze. Claire’s heart was pounding. Clearly Sam had seen Troy hit Laura. Or maybe it was the way Troy had treated him on the road.