“We are engaged,” she said, turning back to them. “I was just waiting until Mikka was further along in his treatment. He’s in remission, but we’re starting stage two, and I just think we need to wait longer…”
“For life to get easier?” Gerri said. “Less complicated? There will always be something that demands your attention. You and Wyatt have waited five years to be together—with heaven’s blessing. How much longer do you want to wait?” She turned to York. “You can bunk in Tate and Ford’s room. Wyatt is in Knox’s room. I’ll put Knox and Kelsey on the pullout in the den. Reuben and Gilly have taken his old room.”
York looked confused with all the shuffling.
“I’ll show him, Ma.” RJ went to reach for her bag, but York picked it up. She led the way upstairs and walked by Knox’s room, the one he once shared with Wyatt. When Wyatt had moved out, Knox had turned it into a single room. Wyatt’s gear was dropped near the bed.
“This is mine.” She noticed Coco’s belongings were already piled on her twin bed. York dropped her suitcase on the other one. “Yours is the next one down.”
He nodded.
“York?”
He turned back.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded, but something in his expression…
“What?”
He sighed. “It’s just…you’ve got a great family, RJ. And it makes me wonder what kind of family I had.”
“You don’t remember?”
His mouth tightened around the edges.
Right. “Okay, so you lived with your grandparents in Wisconsin after your parents were…after they died. And I know you had an uncle who was in the Marines. That’s what made you go into the Marines, so it must have been good.”
York nodded. “I have some patchwork memories of a small yellow house, a woman with white hair…but frankly, I’m afraid to try too hard. I feel as if I got all the bad memories and none of the good. I don’t know if I can take remembering anything else.”
She walked over to him, touched his chest, his heart a steady, warm beat. He hadn’t shaved and his whiskers had come in golden, returning him to the rough-edged lumberjack look. “You have good memories, York. But maybe yes, you’ve remembered enough. Now it’s time to make new ones.”
He touched her face, something sweet, maybe hungry in his blue eyes. “Thanks, RJ.”
Her phone buzzed on her bed and he went down the hallway.
She picked it up and closed the door as she answered. Pitched her voice low. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“How is he?” Crowley said. “Are his memories resurfacing?”
“Not all of them.” She walked to the window. “He has these memories of his parents being murdered. And the crazy sense that he’s somehow to blame. I was wondering if you had anything on that, maybe, from when you vetted him?”
“I can look into it, if you’d like.”
“Please, yes.” She watched out the window as an SUV drove up. “Did you find out any connection between Sloan and Slava?”
“No. But we did discover something else concerning.”
“Yes?” The SUV pulled up by the barn. The door opened and Knox got out. It warmed her heart to see Reuben pull his brother into a hug.
“We got the forensic reports on the three bodies from the crash. One was a twenty-year-old named Jason MacDonald.”
Aw. She was hoping, despite Vicktor’s investigations, that Mack would have shown up, maybe just lost in the woods.
“The other two bodies were inconclusive. We pulled DNA, but there was no match with anyone in our system.”
She stilled. “So, what about Martin?”
“He’s still in our database, but according to the DNA taken, there is no match.”
She watched as Kelsey and Knox came up the walk holding hands. Sweet. Knox deserved his happy ending after he’d done so much to hold the family together.
“So Martin could still be out there.”
“Does York remember anything about why Martin wants him? Anything that would incriminate Martin?
She heard York’s voice from another time, another place. I have a feeling that if the CIA knew I was here, I might be in trouble. I have too many secrets.
“No. I don’t think so.”
The greetings of the newlyweds rose from the room below.
“Then you have to help him remember, RJ. Because if Martin is still alive, he is probably looking for York. And then you’re both in danger.”
She closed her eyes.
No. Her entire family was in danger.
According to Tate, they’d found their shooter.
Problem was, it just didn’t sit right in York’s gut.
Tate and Glo had shown up, with their small entourage—her bandmate Dixie, their drummer, Elijah Blue, and Cher, her maid of honor—about an hour after Kelsey and Knox.
The guy needed to work on his tact, however, because after he’d congratulated Kelsey and Knox, Tate broke the news that he wanted to get married too.
This weekend. As in two days.
But apparently Glo’s friend Cher and Coco, Glo, and Gerri had it under control. Like a well-oiled operative team.
Which left Tate available to pull York aside and give him an update. The ballistics report on Slava had come in—and it matched the bullet that took out Kobie, the shooter in Seattle.
From a Remington 700 SPS tactical rifle.
The same kind of gun Tate had apparently seen Sloan holding in some picture hanging in Glo’s mother’s house.
Means, motive, and opportunity, and Tate had the case sewn up and had moved on to solving the problem of the broken tractor.
Nope, it just felt all kinds of wrong. Maybe it was simply because York was miles and miles out of his element.
The Marshall brothers, minus Fast-Fists Ford, who York now remembered from their altercation in a Russian alleyway three months ago, were congregated in the barn, gathered in concerned conversation around a very ancient green tractor, the name Oliver 2255 written on the side. The seat was ripped, the chassis rusty, and the paint was chipping off like leaves in autumn.
York stood a little back from the group, not saying anything, watching the brothers assess it like it might be a wounded animal. Reuben had the side hood open, had taken out a spark plug, and was cleaning it with a rag.
Knox was on his knees, looking at the tires. “It has a hydraulic leak on the left-side brake.”
Tate had walked around the machine and kicked the tires. “When did the floorboard fall off?”
“About a year ago,” Knox said. “It needs to be welded back on.” He got up and dusted off his hands.
York didn’t remember Knox from when they’d met a month ago, but Knox seemed familiar. He had a sturdy, solemn get-’er-done aura about him, and the first thing he’d done after filling in the family on his elopement was to go outside and check the stock with Reuben.
Reuben, too, felt like someone he’d met before, although according to RJ, he hadn’t met the former smokejumper. Reuben had a military-esque bearing about him, a big guy with big shoulders and a big smile. It didn’t surprise York to hear that he’d been a sawyer on a firefighting crew.
Wyatt was leaning against a stall, drinking a soda, watching. “I always hated that thing,” he said. “We’d be out in the middle of the field, and it’d die on us, and Dad would make me walk all the way back to the barn for some stupid tool. And then when I got back, he already had it fixed. Stupid. I say junk it.”