Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

it on Christmas Eve, and she was a stickler for tradition.

Until, apparently, danger was in the equation.

Grandma Pauline spared her one cutting look. “Christmas will come one way or another, Sarah.”

Sarah felt chagrined, even though she shouldn’t. “Yes, whether we put a tree up or not.”

Grandma looked at the girls, happily browsing through bottles of sprinkles. “I suppose we should let this ne’er-do-well ruin their Christmas, hide in closets until the danger has passed...if it ever does. I suppose I should have never had a Christmas for those boys when Ace was always a threat.”

Sarah didn’t have anything to say to that, and she noted Rachel kept her head down over the counter.

“Those men are out doing chores, don’t know why they couldn’t cut a tree down all the same. You go on and sit yourself down.”

Sarah didn’t know what else to do but listen. In a few short minutes, Grandma had a lunch plate in front of her. A sandwich, a clementine and a handful of pretzels. Even worried about the men out chopping down Christmas trees, the gesture made her smile and feel ten years old again.

Sadly, she wasn’t ten. A ten-year-old didn’t need to worry about people’s lives or her baby being born. Sarah rubbed a hand over her stomach. She choked down a few bites of her lunch, though she wasn’t hungry at all.

She feigned interest in the Christmas decorations, but mostly she studied her phone, where she had pictures of all three notes. She read them over and over again, still sure there was a pattern just out of reach.

The men returned, all seven of them stomping and shedding their winter layers. They left the tree in the mudroom so they could scrounge up the stand and get that set up first.

Grandma had lunch plates put together in no time. Dev took a seat next to her and peered at her phone screen.

“Looking at it won’t change it.”

“No. It won’t. But there’s a pattern. There’s a...reason. I can feel it. I just can’t work out what it is.”

“Maybe you should have been a cop. Some kind of detective.”

“All those rules to follow?” She wrinkled her nose. “No thanks.”

He smiled at her. An actual smile. Like he enjoyed her company or liked looking at her or something. It had a warmth warring with an odd jittery feeling that this was all wrong, even though it was what she wanted. What she’d always wanted.

Now it was here and she didn’t quite know what to do with it. With him.

“Whichever two of you are done first go on downstairs and get the decorations,” Grandma Pauline said, still working on the cookie dough with Rachel. “They’re in tubs in the crawl space.”

Dev slid her phone away from her and she scowled at him. “Take a break. It’s almost Christmas.”

“Since when are you known for taking a break and enjoying Christmas cheer?”

“Well, I’m not, but I figure I’d start.”

She felt a bit like the Grinch with a heart swelling too many sizes to possibly be healthy. With all that amazement and heart growing came this ever evolving fear that...well, a million things would go wrong.

Cody and Gage got up and headed for the basement as Grandma Pauline had instructed earlier. Sarah was distracted enough to return to her previous thoughts. Because as great as it was to have Dev here, wanting to be a father, wanting...something...it didn’t matter until they were safe.

She wasn’t sure she knew how to believe it was real until the danger was gone. Maybe it was all an act, or some kind of hysteria brought on by worry.

“If we could work it out, the letters, the pattern—maybe we could catch him in the act. Whether it’s one of these attacks, or it’s in leaving one of the letters. I know there’s a connection.”

“Until we know what it is, I’m not sure what we can do about it. He keeps cutting through all Cody’s safety measures, and I took the dogs over to the Pullman Ranch until we know they won’t get hurt in the crossfire.”

“Brethren and North Star and caves,” Sarah muttered, repeating the info from the letters. “Brady’s standoff with the Sons was in the Badlands. So maybe—wait. Caves.” She grabbed Dev’s arm. “Crawl space. A crawl space is like a cave. Like Gage said. Anth could only hurt him if—”

Dev was already to the basement door. He yelled a sharp stop as he flew down the stairs. Sarah had to struggle to her feet. “I think there’s something in the crawl space. I think—”

“It’s a bomb,” Dev yelled from the basement. “Get everyone out.”

CODY BARKED ORDERS into his phone as they ran upstairs. Everyone who’d been in the kitchen was already filing out the door.

“Do we have everyone?” Cody asked.

“Yes. We made sure,” Sarah answered. She had a handful of coats in her arms. Grandma Pauline and the girls were already long gone, and the rest of the Wyatts were trailing out behind them.

Dev took Sarah by the arm as they got to the mudroom. He didn’t chastise her for still being inside, just pulled her with him as they hurried outside.

“Let’s get away from the house. None of us know enough about bombs to know how much power that one could have.”

“We need to get out of the elements,” Liza returned. “We grabbed what boots and coats we could, but not enough for everyone to be out in the cold like this.”

Liza was carrying Gigi. Brady had Brianna since she was too big for Nina to carry and Cody had been back with Dev. Felicity had Claire wrapped in someone else’s coat. Duke had his arm linked with Grandma—and Grandma didn’t even yell at him for treating her like an old lady.

“Head to the stables,” Dev said. “That’ll give us shelter.” And cover if the explosion was particularly violent. It hadn’t been a large device. Dev wasn’t even sure he’d have thought it was a bomb if Cody hadn’t been certain and