Wyatt's Stand (Colebrook Siblings Trilogy Book 2) (20 page)

“Morning. Easton just left.” He frowned slightly as his gaze lingered on her face. “You look tired. Long night?”

For just a second his words sent a shiver of alarm through her. Easton was gone. There’d always been something…off about Eddie, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. And he always watched her too intently. He’d suffered a bad head injury and was a bit on the slow side, but… Could he have been the one to send those texts to Wyatt? Had he been at the window wearing that mask last night?

She made sure to keep her face impassive and not betray her suspicion. “No, I’m good. Scott here with you?” Now she wished Easton had stayed. When Wyatt got here she’d pull him aside and ask him to make sure she wasn’t left alone on site with Eddie.

“Just pulling up.”

“Okay.” That made her feel a bit better, and Wyatt would be here as soon as he could. Hopefully with a lead, or some sort of good news about the investigation.

“Where’s Wyatt?”

Her gaze moved past Eddie and through the open front door as a car parked out front. Scott. “He’ll be here soon.”

The lie rolled off her tongue without a second thought. She didn’t want him or Scott to know she was alone here with them for long, and refused to feel bad about it, because they didn’t need to know why he was down at the police station.

“You gonna start prepping the walls upstairs?” she asked, determined to keep the conversation work-oriented.

“That’s the plan.”

Her heart beat faster when he kept staring at her, then reached one arm behind him. The trickle of alarm turned into a torrent as he drew something from his back pocket, but it was only a pair of goggles, and she inwardly berated herself for being so paranoid. Last night’s situation must have rattled her more than she’d realized. “Scott and me will get started in the master bedroom,” he said. “See you in a while.”

“Yeah.”

When he turned and jogged up the stairs, she blew out a breath and shook her head at herself. Creepy though Eddie might be at times, neither he nor any of the others had been anything but polite to her from day one. Maybe he was harmless. Maybe her gut was wrong.

She took the cabinet doors outside onto the back deck to work on them. In the midst of setting them on the sawhorses, she noticed some staining on a couple of them and bent to take a closer look.

Cursing softly, she ran her fingers over the wood grain marked with some sort of liquid. Maybe one of the guys had spilled something on them yesterday and she hadn’t noticed.

Lips pursed, she let out an irritated sigh. The only way to fix it was to sand the entire front down again, and hope to hell she could salvage the doors that way. She’d put too much work into them to have to start over again now.

She wasn’t alone with Eddie anymore so she went back inside to get her sander, then put on her tunes. The pop music Wyatt seemed to hate so much flooding out the kitchen doors, as she slipped on her goggles and mask. Turning on the sander, she got busy.

A few moments after she got to work, everything else fell away as it always did when she was working on a project. The beat of the music came through the loud whine of the sander as she moved it over the wood, a fine cloud of sawdust rising into the air.

After a few passes she stopped to check her progress, almost holding her breath.
Please let it work, please let it work…

Only half of the stain had come off. Her heart sank.

“Dammit,” she muttered, scowling as she turned the sander back on. She couldn’t take off much more of the wood’s surface without damaging all the detail she’d worked so hard on adding.

Carefully moving the sander over the stubborn part of the stain, all her focus was on the task at hand. When noises began penetrating her awareness, at first she thought it was just the music. But then something like a shout came from behind her.

She straightened and half-turned, and was just reaching down to shut off the sander when a flurry of movement in the house caught her attention. As she flicked the off switch, shock jolted through her when Eddie suddenly appeared at the far end of the kitchen.

His eyes were wide with panic, and blood soaked the front of his shirt as he gripped the edge of the doorframe with one blood-slicked hand.

Jesus! Had he impaled himself on something? She ripped off her goggles and mask, automatically took a step toward him, wanting to help. “Eddie, what—”

“Run,” he gasped, and sank to his knees.

She rushed toward him but he shook his head and clamped his hand to the wound in his chest, his expression terrified. And resigned. As if he knew it was too late for him, that he was going to die. “He’s…gonna kill you.
Run
.”

What?
Had someone shot him? Austen recoiled a step, cast a frantic look around. She had to run but she couldn’t leave Eddie. “What are you talking about?
Who?
”

“Me.”

A scream trapped in her throat as she whirled around to face the silhouette outlined by the bright light flooding through the open doors leading to the deck. Her heart stuttered and she squinted, then the man shifted and she saw the gun in his hand.

Terror raked icy claws at her insides. Her gaze followed that gun as it pointed at her, then trailed up the man’s arm…and into a pair of icy blue eyes.

Scott.

Her face prickled as all the blood rushed out of it, and her muscles were taut as wires. “What—” she began, then stopped because her throat closed up.

“You’re coming with me,” he said in a low, deadly voice, his hand steady on the gun.

Austen stood frozen, too afraid to move, every muscle locked.

“Leave her…’lone,” Eddie wheezed behind her.

Scott ignored him, his hate-filled gaze boring into hers. “Come here, bitch,” he snarled, motioning impatiently with his free hand, “or I’ll shoot you right fucking here and now.”

She almost did as he said, almost took a step toward him, but something in her refused to obey. Spinning around, she grabbed the first weapon she could see, a nail gun, then whirled and fired it at him.

He staggered back and clapped a hand to his chest where the nail had driven into his flesh, his cry of pain and rage sent a chill down her spine.

Austen fired again and ran.

He roared in pain. “You’re dead, bitch!” He got off a wild shot that punched into the doorframe where her head had just been a split second before, sending up an explosion of splinters.

She veered left and raced for the front door, desperate to get out, to find cover. The extension cord on the nail gun was going to run out soon. She fired again and dropped it as she kept running. Her gaze locked on her truck through the open front door, parked right in front of the porch. She might be able to reach it before he shot her if she was fast enough.

Raw terror exploded through her when she heard his running footsteps on the old wooden floor behind her, almost as loud as the pounding of her heart. Her mind whirled, a thousand things flying through her head all at the same time.

There was no one around to hear her if she screamed for help. Scott was coming after her. He would shoot her, same as he had Eddie.

She had to save herself. Stay alive until help arrived.

She raced through the front door. Her right foot had just landed on the top step when a shot rang out behind her.

****

Wyatt was in a shitty-ass mood by the time he reached the worksite. All that time wasted, and for what? For the past three hours he’d talked to the cops who’d showed up to his place, then answered questions and spoken to detectives down at the police station, with nothing to show for it. He’d been prepared for it, but was still disappointed.

He’d handed over the mask and given them the pictures he’d taken of the footprints outside his back window, but it would be hours yet before they could analyze any of it. The cops said they’d call him if they found anything, but Wyatt had a feeling nothing would come of it.

With no leads and still no idea who had sent those texts, they were at a dead end. And right now, all he wanted was to get back to Austen.

It had only been a few hours since he’d last seen her, but he missed her already and that was a revelation in itself. The only reason he’d let her go into work by herself this morning was because she’d insisted on going, and she wouldn’t be alone on site.

After last night he couldn’t wait to see her again, wished he could throw her over his shoulder and hide away with her in the cabin for the next week. She was just so damn sweet and kind and sexy, he couldn’t help falling for her. If he had his way she’d check out of the motel and stay with him until her house was finished.

Scott’s and Eddie’s vehicles were parked out front with Austen’s when he arrived at the worksite. He picked up the tray of drinks he’d stopped to buy at the café for Austen and the guys, then lifted Grits down from the cab and set him on the ground. The dog turned and raced up the front steps into the house before Wyatt had even shut his door.

Three steps up the front porch, he stopped dead when a terrified female scream ripped through the air, coming from the rear of the house. He’d never heard Austen make that sound before, but he somehow knew it was her. Alarm slammed into him.

“Austen!” The quickest way out back was through the house. He dropped the drinks and charged up the front steps, through the foyer, headed for the kitchen.

Wyatt sucked in a breath and jerked to a halt when he saw Eddie lying facedown in a pool of blood in the kitchen doorway, unmoving. Grits was sniffing at him.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, and drew his weapon from his waistband.
Austen!
Raw terror flooded him as he jumped over Eddie’s body and raced for the deck doors.

She screamed again, from somewhere out in the backyard. The sound was high-pitched, petrified, and it blasted through Wyatt like a frag grenade.

Grits started barking and snarling as he raced through out onto the deck. Wyatt ran after him, noticing the trail of blood staining the drop cloths, leading straight out the doors. Oh, fuck, was she wounded? Outside, Grits was going nuts, snarling and barking hysterically. What the hell was—

His breath caught when he reached the back deck and took in the scene before him.

Off to his left Austen was partially hidden from view in some bushes lining the west side of the yard, and she was trying to fend off someone with a garbage can lid. The man’s back was turned to him as he lunged for Austen, a gun in his hand.

She screamed and lashed out with the garbage can lid, striking the assailant in the shoulder and head. Grits was at their feet, snarling and nipping at the man’s leg.

The man growled and slashed out a hand at Austen, knocking her weapon away. She whirled to flee but the man shot his arm out and clamped it around her throat, and Wyatt caught a glimpse of his face.

Shock and rage detonated inside him.

Scott
. He suppressed the urge to roar in rage and anguish. That bastard. That fucking
bastard
. Wyatt would kill him for daring to go after Austen.

Everything slowed as he raised his weapon.

His pulse thudded in his ears as he took aim, locking on his target just as Scott spun and fired at him.

“
Noooo!
” Austen screamed as the shot exploded from Scott’s gun. Heart in her throat, her eyes stayed locked on Wyatt as he dove to the deck and disappeared behind a stack of lumber. She couldn’t tell if he’d been hit or not.

Pure rage slammed into her. Baring her teeth, she rammed backward against Scott with all the force she could muster. He grunted and tipped slightly. She seized the opportunity and drove the point of her elbow at his head, intending to smash him in the middle of his lying fucking face.

He dodged the worst of it, her elbow skimming the edge of his cheek. The shift in momentum threw her off balance. She threw out a hand to grab for the nearest branch to keep from falling, and it cost her dearly.

An expression of lethal rage contorting his face, Scott lunged forward to grab her around the throat with his forearm and locked it tight. Grits was barking ferociously just feet from them, charging forward every so often to nip at Scott’s legs.

The arm around her throat tightened. Austen choked and struggled, clawing at his skin. Then something hard and cold pressed against her temple and she went dead still as she realized he had the gun to her head.

She was panting, her entire body shaking under a lash of adrenaline and fear. Her eyes darted over to the deck but there was no sign of Wyatt and her heart shattered to think he’d been shot. She needed to get to him, to stop the bleeding—

Grits let out a ferocious snarl and lunged at Scott, sinking sharp teeth into his lower leg.

Scott yelled and kicked the dog off him. Grits cowered. “Get the fuck outta here,” Scott growled, and jerked the gun away from her head.

Austen realized his intention and struggled in his hold, tried to ruin his shot. “
No
—”

He fired.

Grits let out a bloodcurdling scream as the bullet hit him, then disappeared into the underbrush.

The tears she’d been holding at bay flooded her eyes as once again Scott shoved the muzzle of the gun against her temple. “Let me go,” she choked out, her eyes feeling like they were going to burst from the pressure around her throat.

“Not a fucking chance,” he snarled back, dragging her deeper into the bushes. “I’m gonna kill you while Wyatt watches.”

“He’ll kill you first.”

“I don’t care if I die, so long as he sees me kill you first.”

He was a monster. She could smell blood, could hear Grits’s pained cries coming from somewhere nearby. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she focused on the deck, searching for Wyatt.

Scott dragged her to a spot beside an opening in the bushes and she had no choice but to follow. “Why?” she demanded in a strangled voice. Her throat felt raw and bruised from the pressure around it, and her insides were quivering. The will to fight burned bright inside her, fueled by the rage and need for vengeance. She wasn’t going to let him kill her, let alone hurt Wyatt by making him watch her die.