South Dakota Showdown (Badlands Cops Series Book 1) Read online

  “I’ll take your car back. Take your place till shift change. If something goes down, it’ll be both our butts in a sling, but I’ll do it.”

  Jamison only nodded. Brady gave her one last enigmatic look, kissed his grandmother on the cheek, then left the kitchen.

  Still, Jamison didn’t say anything. No one offered to help. They maintained their silence and Liza tried to ignore panic. She had to eat, that much was for sure. Too many days trying to keep out of reach of the Sons, while also trying to find Gigi, had left her with almost no supplies and far, far too long between meals.

  But it was hard to eat when your stomach was twisted in awful knots. When every move felt like one that might end Gigi’s life, or her own.

  She swallowed some broth, doing everything she could not to cry.

  “You boys go make up two rooms,” Pauline ordered.

  Dev and Jamison looked like they wanted to argue, but Liza knew they wouldn’t. Not with Grandma Pauline.

  They turned and left the kitchen, leaving Liza alone with her food and the woman she’d looked up to as a teenager.

  “You eat that all up before I let you out of my sight, you hear?”

  Liza nodded, her vision wavering. This time not from exhaustion or losing consciousness, she didn’t think, but because her eyes were full of tears.

  “None of that now, girl. You’ve got a life to save. How are you going to do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Liza whispered. “If Jamison won’t help me, I don’t know what I’ll do.” She wouldn’t have said that aloud to anyone else, but she knew Pauline would keep her shameful weakness a secret.

  In her no-fuss way Pauline used a dish towel to wipe the tears off Liza’s cheeks. She picked up the sandwich herself and held it out to Liza until she accepted it and took a bite.

  “Jamison will help you. Stomp around a bit and put on the manly act, but he’ll help. Won’t be able to stop himself.” Pauline studied her. “But you can’t let that stubborn pride of yours get in the way, girl. And he can’t let his.”

  All Liza could think was: good luck with that.

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t like it.” Dev leaned more to the right than the left, because his left leg was bad. A gift from Ace when Dev had been a young cop determined to take their father down.

  Each of the Wyatt boys had learned, in their own way, that you didn’t take the Sons down without getting hurt.

  None of them had let their past experiences sway them completely, but each of their obsessions had been stilted by Dev’s near-death encounter ten years ago. Jamison had found it necessary to give up on revenge in the face of his brother almost dying.

  Jamison sighed. “What do you like, Dev?”

  He didn’t answer that question. “She can’t be here.”

  “And yet, here she is.” Jamison hadn’t thought it through, bringing her here, but there was no other option. He knew what it meant for himself, for his brothers. It was getting pulled back in when they’d all silently agreed to stay out.

  No matter all those old feelings and promises, this felt something like inevitable.

  They’d escaped the Sons of the Badlands, but their father still existed, still ran a group full of criminals, no matter how many of his biological sons had gone into law enforcement.

  “You’re not just bringing trouble home, you’re bringing it to the Knights’ doorstep, as well.”

  That poked at Jamison, but he had to believe he could handle it. “She seems fine. We’ll get out of here in the morning.”

  “We?”

  Jamison stood from where he’d made up the bed for Liza—perfectly because he knew Grandma would still box his ears if he didn’t do the chore correctly.

  “Do you remember what it was like to be four years old in that place?”

  Dev was quiet for a moment, then shrugged and didn’t meet Jamison’s gaze. “I didn’t know any better.”

  “You know you did. And if that little girl saw something—”

  “And if that not-so-little girl is BS-ing you, then what? You wind up dead?”

  “I can see through Liza’s BS.” God, he hoped he was older and wiser than he’d been at twenty-two.

  Dev laughed coldly. “Since when? You thought you two were going to get married and be the example for any kid stuck in that hellhole. A fairy tale told to dirty faces so they could believe they’d escape someday. Then she ditched you. For them.”

  It stung, because the truth could, but Jamison was too old to get riled up about his brother’s barbs.

  “I’ve got too many what-ifs, brother. I can’t take on another. I’ll be careful, but I’ve got to help her find this little girl.”

  Which was enough of an emotional truth for Dev not to say another word. They moved to the room across the hall, which had been the room Jamison and Dev had shared years and years ago. Now, Dev slept downstairs in the mudroom converted to bedroom.

  Taking the stairs every day was too hard on his leg. Especially in the morning, when it was stiff from sleep.

  “You’ll have to be careful. You can’t trust her. No matter what memories she stirs up.”

  “I don’t trust her,” Jamison said, maybe a pinch too loudly. Because his instincts when it came to Liza were a mess, that was for sure. But he knew it. If you could identify a problem, you could address it. So, there’d be no trust. He’d follow his own instincts and beliefs and—

  “Good to know.”

  They both looked up to find Liza in the doorway. Jamison didn’t feel particularly guilty—it was something he would have said to her face. But something about how pale she was and the sleeve of saltines in her hand poked at him.

  He stood stiffly. “Your room is across the hall.”

  She glanced behind her, then smirked. “Lucky me.”

  She walked over to her room, favoring the leg that hadn’t been shot.

  “Watch yourself, J. She is nothing but trouble. I can guarantee it.” Then Dev did his own limping out of the room.

  Jamison let himself breathe in and then out a few calming times. Liza was no doubt trouble, always had been, but that didn’t mean he could ignore a four-year-old stuck in a bad situation.

  She was hardly the only little girl in a bad situation associated with the Sons, or the world at large, for that matter. As a cop Jamison had come to accept that he couldn’t help everyone, but that he should certainly try to help whoever he could.

  He opened the dresser drawers in his old room until he found what he wanted. He walked across the hall, knocked perfunctorily before opening the door.

  She swore at him, then stood there glaring.

  She’d taken off the ripped jeans, which had messed with the bandage. Now she stood only in a long-sleeved T-shirt and her underwear. Her legs were as long and mesmerizing as he remembered, and he stared a beat too long.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to recover. He gestured at the bandage. “Need help?”

  “Yeah. Why don’t you put your hands on me while I’m half-naked?”

  He raised his gaze to meet hers. “Worried you can’t control yourself around me, darling?”

  She scoffed, but the corner of her mouth kicked up with some humor. “Fine. Help.”

  He placed the map on the bed and then crouched down by her leg, refitting the bandage and smoothing the tape over. It required touching warm skin and a copious amount of control not to remember all the times he’d touched her for completely romantic reasons.

  They’d been different people way back then—smooth skin or not.

  He stood and didn’t dare look at her face. “Let’s talk logistics.”

  “God, that’s so hot,” she said dryly.

  He sent her a look, saw her pulling her jeans back on and shook his head. “Wait.”

  She frowned, good leg in
one leg of the jeans. “Huh?”

  He strode out of the room again, went rummaging through his old drawers, found an old pair of gym shorts and returned to her room. “Here.” He tossed them at her.

  She caught them and studied them, then shrugged and dropped the jeans. She slipped the shorts on, tying the drawstring tight. They landed below her knees, although she was a tall woman herself. But it was hardly a good idea to be wearing shorts on a cold early-spring night in a rickety old farmhouse.

  “Now, it’s not near warm enough up here for that, so why don’t you crawl under the covers?”

  “You’re really going to have to stop coming on to me, Jamison.”

  “Ha ha. Get in bed.”

  She fluttered her eyelashes at him as she slid under the covers, trying—and failing—to cover up the wince of pain as she presumably laid her weight a little too hard on her wound.

  He picked up the map he’d brought in and smoothed it out over her lap. “Where?”

  Her hesitation spoke volumes and reminded him of all the ways she’d once fooled him.

  And never would again.

  “You and your cop buddies can’t go in there guns blazing. Gigi won’t be the only one hurt.”

  “Do you see a slew of my ‘cop buddies’ crowding in here, Liza? Or is it just you and me?”

  “It’s complicated. Surely you understand that.”

  “Either you can tell me where the main camp is and I see what I can do to help Gigi, or you sleep off your gunshot wound and fend for yourself tomorrow in the morning.”

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes too direct and assessing. As if she still knew him, understood him. “You’d love to believe you’re that tough, wouldn’t you?”

  “Try me.”

  * * *

  LIZA LOOKED AT the paper map—of all things—of South Dakota spread out on her lap. She knew exactly what he wanted to know, and that she had all the information he desired. Except she didn’t hesitate for the reasons he thought.

  Jamison saw dealings with the Sons as black-and-white. He believed you were with them or against them—he’d had too many years winning against them as an officer of the law. He was a man after all, and it was so easy to see the world as with you or against you when you held the power.

  But Liza had lost in that world, and losers had a much more complicated view of things.

  She was worried about Gigi, about how to get to her. She was worried about anyone who risked their life to help her—because lives were on the line.

  But specifically she worried about involving Jamison.

  She knew Ace Wyatt would someday decide to exact revenge against his sons. He had plans, but he was a patient man. He’d go after them when they least expected it, when Ace most needed it. She knew Ace was always looking for that perfect moment to make it poetic justice or divine revenge or whatever went on in his head.

  She didn’t want to send Jamison riding into Sons territory knowing it could be the shot that started a war.

  You know he’s your only chance or you wouldn’t have come here. Besides, you think Ace Wyatt doesn’t know exactly where you are?

  She looked up at Jamison—now in immediate danger because of her. She’d been shot. Of course Ace, or even her own father, had sent someone to do that. If either had pulled the trigger, she knew damn well she’d be dead.

  The shot was meant to be a warning. Furthermore, whoever had shot her would have followed her. Jamison was involved now, whether he chose to be or not.

  Guilt swamped her. She looked down at the map, surprised to find tears clouding her vision. She didn’t think she had tears left anymore. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “There are a lot of things you could be sorry for, Liza. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

  She would never be sorry for leaving the Knights to go back to the Sons all those years ago, but she didn’t think telling him that in the moment would do any good for either of them. “I’m sorry for this, because they’ll know you’re involved, even if you decide not to be. Whatever happens, this will be the start of something. I didn’t think that through.”

  He held her gaze for a long time. “Every beginning has an end, Liza.” He pointed at the map. “Now. Where?”

  Knowing it couldn’t possibly end well, but that it was Gigi’s only chance to survive, Liza pointed. “Here. They’ve taken over Flynn.”

  Jamison’s expression hardened. “Flynn.”

  “You know it?”

  “That’s where dear old Dad was born, where his parents abandoned him. Where he took us out and taught us to be men. I don’t think that’s a coincidence he’s settled down there right now, Liza. Whatever war you’re worried about starting—Ace already beat you to it.”

  Chapter Four

  Jamison didn’t sleep much. Brady had finished off his shift without anything cropping up, and Jamison had done the unthinkable and called in to his superior officer, requesting to use all of his vacation time.

  He’d built up quite a lot. There’d been questions, hemming and hawing, but in the end, Sheriff Sneef couldn’t deny Jamison deserved a “vacation.”

  Yeah, some vacation.

  Grandma came into the kitchen through the back porch. He heard the squeak of the door, the whimper of the dogs left outside, then the stomp of her boots against the rug before she bustled into the kitchen, a basket with a few eggs cradled inside on her arm.

  “You’re up, then.”

  There was just a hint of disapproval in her tone, but it was hard to wake up early enough to suit Grandma.

  No doubt Dev was already out with the cows, grumbling over the fact his ranch hand was Sarah Pleasant, one of the Knights’ foster girls. Not a girl anymore, and splitting her time helping her guardian on his ranch and wounded Dev on his.

  Because life at the ranch went on no matter what was going on with Ace and the Sons. Whether you’d lost your wife to cancer like Duke had, or you’d lost full function of your body after a run-in with Ace like Dev had.

  “We’ll be out of your hair soon. I’d like Liza to get a good breakfast in first.”

  Grandma simply made a noise of assent as she pulled out a pan. She went about breakfast preparations as if everything was fine.

  Jamison wished he believed that could be true. Bringing Liza here last night had brought Grandma into the thick of things. It wasn’t the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last, but it was hard not to feel guilty about it.

  She’d never asked for this. It was hardly her fault her only child had been taken in by the likes of Ace Wyatt. Certainly not her lot in life to take care of their six rowdy, traumatized boys.

  But she’d done it. Now she was creeping up on eighty, and he could see the weight of the Wyatt world on her shoulders. It was a burden she’d taken on, and she’d done it without a complaint.

  “You’ll need to be on watch,” he said as blandly as he could manage. Because any true expression of worry would be offensive to her, any command would make her bristle and sure to do the opposite.

  “I’m always on watch.” She turned from the stove and studied him in that way of hers. “Don’t doubt yourself. Not on this.”

  It was no surprise Grandma Pauline could see right through him, but that didn’t ease his concern. “It’s complicated.”

  “The right thing usually is, Jamison,” she said, turning back to her meal preparation.

  Jamison had been attempting to do the right thing his whole life. Getting there—like Grandma said—was rarely simple.

  Liza walked into the kitchen. She looked like she’d had a rough night. Grandma immediately handed her a glass of water and some over-the-counter pills for pain.

  “Thanks, Pauline.”

  “Sit. Breakfast will be just a bit.”

  Liza slid into the chair farthest from him. W
hich would have been great if they weren’t about to embark on a dangerous mission together. Truth be told, he’d rather leave her behind, especially with her injuries.

  But she knew what they were looking for better than he did.

  Dev’s warning sat in his gut. He couldn’t ignore the possibility Liza had been sent. That this was an elaborate scheme to get him on his father’s territory.

  Jamison might have washed his hands of the Sons years ago, but he’d always known his father wasn’t the kind of man to let that stand. Maybe Jamison had gotten a little complacent when his father hadn’t instigated any attacks since Dev’s run-in ten years ago. Maybe Jamison had begun to hope escape was really enough.

  But that didn’t mean he was surprised at being drawn back in.

  Whatever parts of the truth Liza was telling him, Jamison did believe a little girl was in danger. Which meant he needed Liza if he was going to be able to find Gigi. Liza knew a lot more than she was telling him, he was sure, and she had far more insider knowledge of the Sons’ recent movements than he did.

  They’d have to work together.

  “I’m surprised there aren’t reinforcements,” Liza offered into the quiet kitchen.

  “Brady, Tucker and Gage all have jobs, Liza. Ones they can’t leave at a whim.”

  “So, I did come to the right brother.”

  “I had vacation time to take, so I took it. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “What about Cody? You didn’t include him in your laundry list of important men with important things to do.”

  Jamison’s entire adult life was dealing with people who questioned and sometimes even challenged his authority—starting with being saddled with five brothers who had smart mouths and no compunction trying to get under his skin. He should be quite adept at handling Liza’s little barbs.

  Or so he told himself.

  “Cody isn’t any of your concern.”

  “Don’t tell me one of the Wyatt brothers isn’t quite so chummy with the rest. What? The baby Wyatt run away?”

  “That’ll be enough,” Grandma said in that quiet way of hers that was scarier than when she was threatening a man with a wooden spoon to the head.