Sophie Oak - Two to Love

Callie swung around quickly to try to see if Nate or Zane were running. They stood in the crowd, seemingly at ease, talking to the people around them. Zane laughed at something Jen said. Nate stood in a small group of the county’s ranchers, explaining something. Neither looked like they had been scared off by her friends and neighbors. Still. “Stella, you have to tell everyone to leave Nate and Zane alone. Couldn’t we let them settle in before we show them how crazy we are?”

Stella held a tureen of coffee in her hands. Callie helped her pour it out into the sink. “Not a chance. And don’t you worry. Those boys belong here. The big one knew it the minute he stuck his head outside of that cabin of theirs. And the sheriff is coming along nicely. It’s going to be okay, hon. They love you. They aren’t going to be run off easy.” She shook her head. “We’re out of coffee in here. Can you go to the storeroom for me? It doesn’t look like we’re breaking up any time soon.”

Callie nodded and walked out of the reception hall toward the small storage closet at the back of the town hall. It grew quiet as she moved away from the crowd. She breathed a little sigh of relief. It was great to be surrounded by friends, but she was really looking forward to the time when she could climb into the Bronco with Nate and Zane and head back to “Fort Naked” as Zane had started calling the naturist community. Tomorrow morning they were all going to the airport. They were going to the field office in El Paso, and once all the reports were filed, Nate had assured her that Zane would be safe. She felt her heart clench and a little smile cross her face. Nate would be coming home with them. Happy tears pricked her eyes. The three of them would come home to Bliss.

“Why wait? Why don’t we do this thing now?”

Callie stopped in her tracks. She could hear voices down the hall. There was only one strip of lighting on in this hallway at night to conserve energy. It made the entire place seem gloomy. She’d been in this building a hundred times before. There was nothing to be afraid of here, she told herself.

“You have to be patient. Wright is taking Hollister in tomorrow. That idiot will file a report with everything we need on it. The Agency has its head up its ass when it comes to stuff like this. They might have the numbers, but they don’t know where the account is. We just get a copy of the report and disappear. No one will ever even know what happened.”

Callie clasped a hand over her mouth to stop the gasp that almost came out. Worthington and Leander were dirty. She started to back down the hall. Her sneakers screeched against the slick floor, the sound resonating through the quiet hall. She winced and held herself still, hoping the agents wouldn’t notice. Please, please don’t let them come around the corner.

But suddenly metal flashed as Worthington rounded the corner, gun in hand. “Scream and I’ll shoot.”

Callie turned to run anyway, but Leander was on her.

He turned to his partner as he shoved his gun in the small of her back. “Shit. What do we do now?”

“Change of plans,” Worthington said as he pointed toward the door to the back parking lot.

Yep, it changed all of Callie’s plans.

* * *

Nate enjoyed a cup of coffee while he talked to a couple of the area ranchers. He looked up to see Zane in a discussion with Callie’s friend, Jennifer. He was shaking his head no, and Jen didn’t look like she was having it.

Nate nodded to James Glen and eased himself out of the conversation. He started to make his way across the room, intending to save Zane from Jen’s pleas. She’d been begging him to sit for her. She’d explained it as capturing Zane’s essence on canvas. Zane liked his essence just fine where it was. He was never going to be comfortable as an artist’s model. He was also not comfortable saying no to a woman. Even from across the room, Nate could see Zane’s eyes darting around, looking for someone to come and save him.

Rachel Harper stopped his forward progress. “Sheriff, have you seen Callie? I need to talk to her about the Winter Festival. We got volunteered by Marie. Considering her earlier speech, I’m not going to argue with her. Callie and I should talk about setting up a meeting.”

Nate looked around, his height providing him a view of the room. “I don’t see her.”

Rachel frowned. “I saw her walking out to the parking lot with those asshole agents you brought in. She hasn’t gotten back yet? I hope she was giving them directions on how to get out of town. Next time, Sheriff, just trust us to handle our own business.”

A little chill went through Nate. Leander and Worthington had left, and quickly, after the debacle of a town hall had happened. He hadn’t thought they would come back. What was Callie doing with them? The safety meeting had turned into a party, and Nate doubted that his former friends would have stayed for coffee and lemon pound cake.

“Zane!” Nate yelled across the room. He didn’t care that every head turned. “You seen Callie?”

Zane’s face went a little white as he looked around.

“Has anyone seen Callie?” God, Nate hoped the answer to that question was yes. He was getting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. A whole bunch of things were suddenly making sense. He thought back to Leander’s earlier words. He said there was a lot of money to be made by men in their position. They were government employees and, at this level, there wasn’t a big honking paycheck attached to the job. How did a law enforcement drone make real money? He sold out his fellow agents. He sold their covers for cold, hard cash.

His old “friends” had sold out Zane. There was no way Nate would allow them to hurt Callie.

Callie pushed out on the bonds that held her hands together. The SUV she’d been shoved into moved through the night. Every second took her further away from Nate and Zane. The metal from the handcuffs felt cold against her skin, and they weren’t budging at all. She tried to twist her wrists, but that jerk Leander had put the cuffs on tightly around them. They bit into her skin. He hadn’t been willing to take any chances.

“You send the text?” Leander was driving the car.

“Yeah.” As Worthington said the words, there was a ping from his phone that let him know he had a text. “Looks like old Nathan is anxious about the girl. He says he’ll meet us wherever we choose, and he’ll bring Hollister with him. Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.”

A low grumble came from Leander’s throat. “I don’t like it. I still think we should have taken Hollister out from a distance.”

“We don’t have that option now. That nosy bitch back there ruined everything. We can’t be sure Wright wouldn’t go ahead and call the agency to give them the account number. I’m sure he wrote the numbers down. He normally wouldn’t give them to the boss over the phone, but he might if he thought someone would get there first. Idiot. I thought Wright would be easy to turn. He lost everything. He needs the fucking money.”

“He needs Zane more,” Callie said. They had thought to turn Nathan Wright? They didn’t know him at all.

There was an irritated huff from the front seat. Even in the gloom of the car, she could see Leander’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Yeah, well, I never suspected those two were queer.”

“They certainly are not, though there would be absolutely nothing wrong with it.” The intolerance of some people constantly shocked her. “Both Zane and Nathan have a relationship with me. They are just very close friends.”

“I’ll say. Look, sweetheart, I don’t care about your perverted sex life.”

Callie heard an offended squeak come out of her mouth. She wasn’t sure why she arguing the point with them. Maybe because it was easier than thinking about how they would kill her. “It is not perverted. It is beautiful and loving. Maybe the reason you think everything is perverted is that you haven’t dealt with your own sexuality. A good therapist could help with that.”

Worthington leaned over. “Do you have anything we could use as a gag?”

Callie closed her mouth.

“Better,” Worthington muttered.

He pulled out a gun and checked the chamber. Callie wished she’d paid more attention when Rye, Max and Stef had taken her shooting. She knew her way around a rifle but not a handgun. If she’d paid them half a mind, she’d know what kind of gun was going to kill her.

Callie was surprised at how much she genuinely hated the two men sitting in front of her. They had ruined what could have been a perfect day. Nate loved her. Zane loved her. They were willing to give this crazy life a go. Callie felt her heart clench. She could be pregnant. She could have the life she always wanted, but she’d been an idiot. She should never have been alone when she knew people were after her men. She’d thought the only danger came from the bikers, but now she could see that these men had been the real snakes all along. Zane hadn’t screwed up. Zane had been betrayed.

“You outed Zane.”

“And you’re just Nancy Drew,” Leander replied. “Yeah, we gave up Zane. Nate was supposed to be gone that day. He’d told his handler he was working a deal out of Laredo, but he stayed in El Paso that day and fucked up everything. Ellis was going to pay us a million dollars for giving up the narc.”

Worthington’s laugh was like the cackle of a hyena. “Maybe we should thank Wright for screwing up that deal. Now we’re getting twenty million instead of a measly one, and we don’t have to worry about Ellis double-crossing us. What’s he going to do from his prison cell?”

The car swerved suddenly, and Callie was tossed to the side. She narrowly avoided hitting her head on the side of the door. She twisted her body up and tried to look out the window. She attempted to orient herself. Her eyes adjusted to the low light, and she could see aspens and evergreens. The car was moving at an angle. They were going up the mountain. Given the amount of time they had been travelling, there was exactly one mountain they could be scaling. She knew it well. Max and Rye lived on this mountain. Mel lived on this mountain. She knew this mountain like the back of her hand.

Callie’s chest hurt. She’d been so close to what she wanted. She’d almost had a life with both of them. When Nate had stood up in the middle of town hall tonight and declared himself, Callie thought her heart would burst. He’d stood up for her in front of everyone who mattered to her. Everyone in town knew that Callie Sheppard was loved and loved well. She’d sat by Zane in that meeting and watched Nate on the stage, and for the first time in her adult life, she hadn’t felt alone. She’d been a part of something. She had a little family.

God, she couldn’t die now.

“This better work.” Leander’s voice was slightly shaky. He twisted the steering wheel, trying to adjust to the winding road. “If he calls it in and we don’t get that fucking cash, we’re screwed.”

“I have the password.” Worthington bit the words out of his mouth. The two were starting to snap at each other like irritated alligators. “All we need is the actual account number, and we’re golden.”

“If the Barbarians don’t catch us. I really wish we’d done this before Ellis ordered the hit on Hollister.” Leander’s voice was tense and tight. He seemed more on the edge than his partner in crime.

“Yeah, well if he hadn’t, we still wouldn’t know where the damn account number was. We would still be working like idiots. I’m glad the bastard got anxious.”

“Yeah, it’s great that every asshole with a twelve gauge will be on the lookout for us. Once they find out Hollister is dead and the money is gone, they’ll be gunning for us.”

Callie had known that these men intended to kill Zane if they got their hands on him, but her heart skipped a couple of beats at the verbal acknowledgment of their plan. She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that Zane might die. A vision of his big, beautiful body lying still on the ground swamped her senses, and she couldn’t stop the small sob that choked out of her throat. The men in the front seat didn’t seem to notice her distress.

“We’ll be on a plane to Shanghai before anyone knows what happened. No one even knows Sonny is dead yet. The last I heard, Ellis thinks he’s the turncoat. He put out a hit on him. Ellis thinks his own right-hand man turned on him and is planning this heist.”

Leander’s hand came out, and they shared an obnoxious high five. “Damn straight he thinks that. It’s what we told him. We didn’t mention that we killed the asshole ourselves, but only after he gave up the password. It’s too bad Ellis is such a paranoid bastard. If he’d just given Sonny the account number, we’d be free and clear by now, but no, he has to hide the account number in a tat. Who thinks to do that?”