He quickly reached up to squeeze Bethany’s hand before she could walk off. “You’re right. It’s going to be fine.”
Her expression softened again. “Of course it will.” She waddled back to the kitchen a little lighter on her feet.
When she returned a few minutes later, it was with his food. She groaned as she set the plate of burger and potatoes in front of him. The burger was small and the mound of potatoes was huge, but Sloan knew from experience that the starchy vegetable would be spicy and delicious. None of that mattered, though.
“You okay, honey?” He pushed the plate aside and looked up at her in concern.
Bethany placed a hand at the base of her spine and arched as much as her swollen, awkward body would allow. “I’ll be better when this baby’s out of me. You know,” she said, leaning against the booth seat across from him, “Reese told me a while back that in the city they have these machines that tell you what a baby’s sex is before you have it.”
“That sounds like some voodoo magic bullshit.” He grinned. “I can tell you exactly what you’re going to have.”
“Yeah?” she challenged. “What?”
“You’re having a pumpkin.”
“Just one? Because I look big enough to be having an entire field of them.” She rubbed a hand over her huge belly.
“I don’t know about an entire field. Maybe a small patch.”
“Whatever it is, I’m ready to give birth to it.” With a grin, she took one step toward the kitchen before turning back. “Reese loves you,” she said softly.
Sloan stiffened, but either Bethany didn’t notice or she didn’t care, because she kept talking.
“She might not ever be able to say it, but she’d be lost without you. That’s why you’re here. Not because she doesn’t want you, but because she wants you too much. We want the people we love the most to be the safest. It’s why Arch brought me here.”
The mention of his dead friend made Sloan wince. “He’d probably be rethinking that decision now.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Bethany shook her head emphatically. “He’s looking down and saying I made the right decision, because there’s no safer place for me to have his baby than right here, and you’re a big part of that.”
* * *
As two days went by and no word came from the teams, Sloan became unbearable. People around town stopped talking to him. A lot of the teenagers were actually crossing the street so that they wouldn’t accidentally come within speaking distance of him.
By the third day, Bethany grabbed him outside the restaurant and told him to leave.
“And go where?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Anywhere. You’re scaring the kids.”
Sloan looked at the bent head of Christine, who scurried by him without a word. Fuck. Bethany was right. He was scaring the kids.
“Fine. I’ll stop in on Scott and Anna,” he muttered, and he could swear Bethany almost keeled over with relief.
“That sounds like a fabulous idea,” she said cheerfully.
Scott and Anna were the older couple who’d been living on a farm about two miles outside of Fox-worth. They’d been there when Reese moved in, and she’d more or less adopted them. In exchange for meat and produce, Scott and Anna were protected by the deals Reese had made with the Enforcers. It was a good arrangement all the way around. Well, for everyone but the cows—the livestock hadn’t been able to keep up with the demand, and the herd was down to three.
Twenty minutes later, Sloan killed the engine of his motorcycle and went searching for Scott, finally finding him tilling one of the far fields. Although there was a barn full of machinery fifty yards away, fuel was too precious to use to farm, so Scott did most of the work with a shovel and his own two hands.
“How’s it going?” Sloan called out.
The older man pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped his hands before holding one out for a handshake. “It’s going well, brother. Any word?”
Reese had come out to warn the couple before the convoy headed out, so Sloan wasn’t surprised by the question. “None. I don’t know whether to be anxious or happy.”
“Hard not to be anxious.”
“You two doing okay out here?”
Scott plucked the hat off his head and swiped his forehead with a meaty arm. Years of hard work had kept the sixtysomething farmer trim and fit. “Yup. Anna made a pie the other day. I found some berries in the woods. Come in and have a bite.”
No matter what kind of dark mood was riding him, Sloan wasn’t dumb enough to turn down a piece of homemade pie. He followed Scott into the house, knocking his boots against a scraper at the door before entering. They both removed their light winter jackets and tossed them on the coat rack in the hall.
They found Anna in the kitchen, looking lovely as always.
Sloan bent down and placed a kiss against her forehead. “You look more beautiful every time I see you.”
It was the truth. Her face was lined from the sun, her once yellow hair had all turned gray, and her sturdy frame had thickened as the years wore on, but she never failed to take Sloan’s breath away. There was a serenity and contentment that surrounded her, and her home was filled with peace that Sloan couldn’t find anywhere else.
With a smile, Anna turned back to the counter. “Scott found berries in the woods. It’s still too early for them and they’re a little tart, but the honey we had stored from last year sweetened them up good.”
She plated a large slice and slid it in front of him. It smelled heavenly.
“When are you going to run away with me, Anna?” he asked as he watched the pastry flake apart under his fork.
“Oh, honey, you know I can’t do that. My man would kill you, and we only have so much space on this farm to bury dead bodies.”
Sloan choked on his first bite. He’d forgotten how dark her humor was.
“All right then.” He winked at her. “I’ll just eat this pie and shut up about our illicit plans.”
Scott heaved himself into a chair next to him, the pine creaking under his solid frame. His woman had a plate in front of him before his hat could even come off. She laid a weathered hand on his shoulder and Scott gave it a pat before she moved off again.
Meanwhile, Sloan’s gaze tracked every small intimacy with barely disguised envy. Even if you didn’t know them, you could easily see that they were a couple. That they belonged to each other. They had their own language, all in unspoken gestures, tiny shifts of their bodies, nods of their heads.
It was what Sloan had always wanted.
He dug into his pie so that his attention didn’t make Scott and Anna uncomfortable. The three of them chatted about the farm, the town, and Reese’s plans, until Sloan had all but licked the plate clean. When he set down his fork, Scott clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“Come on out to the barn. I’ve got something to show you.”
He pushed back his chair and carried his plate over to the sink. “Thanks, Anna. That was delicious. Anytime you want to take me up on the offer to leave Scott, I’m a stone’s throw away.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said dryly before shooing him out of the kitchen.
“You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” Sloan told the older man on the way to the barn.
The corner of Scott’s mouth tipped up in a knowing grin. “Damn right I am.”
“How’d you convince that fine woman to stick by you?”
“You asking for bedroom tips, boy? You disappoint me.”
He shook his head. “Hell, if all it took was being able to give a good orgasm, I’d have a harem.”
Scott bent over at the waist and gave a hearty laugh. “You must not be good enough in that department or you wouldn’t be asking an old man for tips on how to keep a woman satisfied. You going down on her enough? You gotta take care of her befo
re asking her to take care of you.”
“Thanks for the input.” Sloan shook his head, not sure if he wanted to know any more details about Scott and Anna’s sex life.
Inside the barn, it took a moment to adjust to the dim interior. In the third stall, one of the cows was penned up. Her head was hanging low and she had a wild look in her eyes.
As the two men approached, the cow backed away.
Sloan frowned. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s got a calf.”
His breath caught. They were down to three cows and everyone had been resigned to running out of beef. A calf could change everything for them. Birth meant growth. Foxworth was growing, which only confirmed what Sloan had already known—everything Reese had done in the past, all her plans for the future . . . it meant something. All the deaths mattered if there was another generation to reap the rewards.
After a moment, he managed to work a few words past the lump in his throat. “That’s a good sign.”
“Yup.”
“You have a good life here,” he added roughly.
Scott nodded as he dumped a treat into the pregnant cow’s bucket before walking toward the door. “I know. And trust me, I don’t take a moment of it for granted.”
“You and Anna ever wish you had some little ones running around?”
“At one time? Maybe? But this is a harsh land. Babies die. Kids die. It’s kind of a miracle that Anna and I are still standing.” Scott shrugged. “I don’t need kids. As long as I’m with her, I don’t need nothing else.”
The words rang with a sincerity that no one would dare question, but Sloan did anyway. “Even if she didn’t feel the same about you?”
Scott slanted a look that pierced through Sloan’s careful nonchalance. “Every man’s got to decide what’s enough for him. For me? I’d be satisfied if I was just in Anna’s orbit. That’d be all I needed to keep going. If she climbed up into a tree and all I got from her were the crumbs from the bread she ate, I’d gobble ’em up because they would’ve touched her mouth. Even if she didn’t love me back, I couldn’t stop loving her. That’s what I reckon love is. Why it’s so painful and so goddamned good at the same time.”
“Yeah,” was the only dumb thing Sloan could manage to say.
Scott’s shoulders suddenly went rigid. “There’s someone coming.” He pointed to a cloud of dust on the horizon that rapidly turned into Randy on a motorcycle.
When he got within shouting distance, the teenage boy bellowed, “Enforcers headed our way!”
Sloan began to run. “How many?” he demanded when he caught up to the teen.
“One truck,” Randy gasped out. He hopped off the bike and held it while Sloan swung a leg over the seat. “Davis thinks it’s the ones who were here before.”
Sloan sped off without another word.
His mouth was full of dust when he arrived at the back gate five minutes later. Davis opened it immediately to let him in.
“They here yet?” Sloan called out, catching a cloth from Davis and wiping the sweat and dust off his face.
“Yeah, but Cole is with them.”
“Are the kids safe? Bethany?”
Davis nodded. “Sent them into the cellar as soon as we saw the dust trails.”
The two men raced down the sidewalk toward the opposite end of town. At the main gate, Cole stood with a rifle slung over his shoulder, facing off with six Enforcers.
Sloan gave an inward curse when he recognized Eric. Goddamn it. The senior guard was back.
“Finally,” Eric muttered when he spotted Sloan. “Where’s Reese?”
“She went to a camp south of here to trade for some spring crop seeds. What do you need?” Sloan asked tightly.
“I’m here to search again.”
Eric looked tired and unhappy. The mud splattered on the side of his armored truck looked like it had been baked on, and his men didn’t look much better. Their uniforms were wrinkled, as if they’d been left crumpled on the floor of a tent one too many nights in a row. The stench that rolled off their bodies confirmed that Eric and his men had been on the road for many days.
After a beat of reluctance, Sloan stretched out a hand. “Be my guest.”
The Enforcers purposefully charged forward, while Sloan trailed behind them.
Shit. He hoped Eric wouldn’t notice that the ranks of the Foxworth community were much smaller.
He should’ve had more faith in his people, though. As he followed the troop of Enforcers through town, Foxworth’s thinned ranks streamed into the streets and created a hive of activity to disguise their lowered numbers.
Sloan hid a satisfied grin. Reese had taught everyone well.
Fortunately, Eric didn’t ask many questions. He moved quickly through each house, doing only a cursory onceover. Sloan could tell the soldier was exhausted and didn’t want to be doing this.
“Alright. Let’s go,” Eric announced after he and his men had cleared the last building.
“What about the camp leader?” one of the soldiers asked. “Should we be worried that she’s not here?”
Eric glanced over at Sloan, then rolled his eyes. “No. Her guard dog is here. She wouldn’t take a shit without him holding her hand.”
Snorting to himself, Eric took off walking in the direction of the main gates, while Sloan stood there on the sidewalk for a moment, valiantly working to hide his relief.
Son of a bitch. Reese had been right to order him to stay behind. Because if the Enforcers had come to find both Reese and Sloan gone? Fuck, they would’ve instantly suspected something was going down.
He let out a rueful sigh. Yeah. There was a reason Reese was the best possible leader for this town.
He just wished he’d told her that before she’d left.
16
Even with ten miles between Rylan and the Enforcer outpost they’d just destroyed, he could still smell the blood and smoke and gunpowder in the air. Especially the blood. It filled his nostrils and stuck to his throat, but he was in no rush to strip off his bloodstained sweater or throw a coat over it to mask the sharp, coppery scent.
There was no such thing as victory without blood.
And they’d spilled a lot of that tonight.
A feral smile twisted his lips as he glanced over his shoulder to peer at the back windshield. There was a second truck behind them, driven by a man named Trace and carrying the four other Foxworth fighters who’d assisted Rylan and Xander on the mission. But Rylan focused his gaze beyond the second vehicle, far in the distance. The thick black plume was hard to make out against the dark backdrop of the night sky, but spiraled wisps of smoke could be seen under the full moon. The acrid odor of soot and ash trailed the trucks as they sped down the cracked pavement away from the scene of their crime.
They’d launched four separate attacks tonight—two earlier in the evening, two in the later hours of the night. Beckett and Nash’s teams were already on their way back to Foxworth, their successful missions having left every Enforcer dead and both outposts in flames.
Rylan and Xan had seen the same success and were now speeding toward the rendezvous point where they were supposed to meet Reese’s team.
Which still hadn’t checked in.
Rylan couldn’t fight the worry gnawing on his gut, which only got worse the longer the radio clipped to his belt stayed silent. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He clicked the radio on and, using the code names they’d assigned, murmured, “Alpha One, come in.”
No answer.
Xander looked over from the driver’s seat. “It’s only been ten minutes. She’ll check in soon.”
Rylan wasn’t appeased. Ten minutes was a lifetime, damn it. Worst-case scenarios kept flashing through his mind, images of Reese lying in a pool of her own blood, her long red hair fanned around her head, a bullet hole in the
center of her proud forehead.
His hands were weaker than a newborn’s as he pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
“You’re falling in love with her.”
Xander’s flat remark startled Rylan into dropping his cigarette on the torn passenger seat. “Shit,” he swore, hastily fumbling for the smoke before it burned a hole in the leather. Then he shot Xan an aggravated look. “No, I’m not.”
“If you say so.”
His friend didn’t believe him. Well, Xan was wrong. He wasn’t falling in love. Falling deeper in lust, fine, he’d own up to that. But not love. There was no such thing.
He took a drag, then exhaled in a rush. “It’s just sex, man.”
Xander’s gaze stayed on the road. “The first time you fuck someone, sure, it’s just sex. Maybe even the second and third times. But like it or not, there always comes a point when the sex turns into something else.”
Xan’s voice was so bleak that Rylan had to wonder exactly who his friend was talking about. Reese . . . or Kade?
He’d never been able to figure out Xan’s relationship with their fallen comrade. Best friends, definitely. They’d shared women. Had each other’s backs. In fact, Xan had been as protective of Kade as Sloan was of Reese. And Rylan wasn’t stupid—he knew that Sloan loved Reese.
Maybe Xander had loved Kade.
Fuck, there it was again, that word—love. It had no meaning. It was just a damn word, and probably the most dangerous word there ever was, because it allowed people to use it as an excuse for unforgiveable actions. That was how his father justified what he’d done to Rylan’s mother, breaking her spirit one fuck at a time.
There was nothing wrong with being a whore. In this land, selling your body in exchange for supplies, protection, or a warm bed wasn’t any different than selling your gun for the same.
But his mother had been an unwilling whore. She’d had no say in who she spread her legs for, or for what purpose. There were times when it wasn’t even about necessities for survival. Rylan’s dad ran out of whiskey? He’d send his wife to a nearby outlaw camp where the liquor flowed free. The cigarette stash was whittling down? Rylan’s mom would be sucking off the first man who showed up with an extra pack of smokes.