Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (best free ebook reader .txt) 📕

boy Knight was due on Christmas Day, and Sarah liked the idea of it. He’d always have a birthday full of family, no matter how far-flung they may all be.

She still hadn’t figured out a name. She could name him Evan after her late adopted mother, Eva. Evan Knight. It might work.

There was always DJ. She couldn’t help but laughing at the image of telling Dev she was going to name the baby Devin Junior. His horror would be epic. But it could also be an homage to her father. Duke Knight.

There were so many options. She pulled her scarf up over her mouth as she walked from her truck to the barn where she knew Dev would be mucking out the stalls. It was a frigid cold winter already, and every day seemed to dig deeper into the subzero temperatures. Inside, Sarah was an overheated mess of giant pregnant belly, so the cold felt good.

She walked into the stables, knowing Dev would kick her right back out. She’d needed the walk, the fresh air. A few moments alone, and then spending some time with someone who wouldn’t fuss.

He’d tell her to go away, or to sit down, but he wouldn’t flutter about like her father and sisters did. She stepped into the building, immediately smiling at the smell of hay and manure. Home.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Dev said without turning around.

“Why not?”

“No mucking. No overexerting yourself. Isn’t that what your doctor said after your last checkup?”

Sarah wrinkled her nose. Her blood pressure had been a little high and she’d been having some mild on-and-off contractions. She was supposed to “take it easy” and it was driving her insane.

“I’m bored to death. Women on the prairie—”

“Spare me a lecture about women on the prairie and sit your butt down,” Dev muttered irritably, never breaking his mucking stride. “There’s plenty of paperwork to do.”

“God help me.”

Still, she sat down. Because the baby had begun to kick. She could feel the press of either his heel or knee against her belly. She loved feeling the shape of him through her stomach, the roll and kicks. Even the hiccups.

She looked up to find Dev watching her. He did that more and more as her body bloomed. She hadn’t pressed him on becoming more involved. That wouldn’t work with Dev. She just held on to that hope.

She pushed herself back up to her feet and waved him over. “Come here.”

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“Because I’m fat and miserable. Come over here.”

Reluctantly, he moved to her. She grabbed his hand and placed it over her stomach, under her coat but over her sweater.

He made a pained face, like she was forcing him to pet a snake. But what he could hide on his face, he couldn’t hide in his voice. “That feels like a foot,” he said, full of awe.

“Doesn’t it?” She kept pressing his hand right there, following the rolling movement of the foot across her side. “He can kick like the devil, right up here in my ribs. He’s going to be a hell of a rider. I can tell.”

Dev shook his head. “You can’t tell,” he muttered, but he didn’t take his hand away.

She let the moment stretch out, and even knowing what his reaction could be, she felt like she had to offer it again. “Dev... Just so you know. If you ever want—”

“I don’t.”

Well, she supposed that was that.

“Let’s go get some breakfast.”

She forced a smile. “It’s almost like you knew I came over here to have Grandma Pauline ply me with biscuits and gravy.”

He made a noncommittal noise as he limped for the door. Winter made his limp worse, which meant his pain was worse. Sarah wished there was some way to help him. Usually she took over chores this time of year—snuck in before he could get to them. One week last December she’d had to get up at three in the morning every day to beat him, but she’d done it.

None of that this winter, only sympathy and a weird twist of guilt that was totally out of place.

She followed him outside and toward the house. Dev’s truck was parked in front of it, at an odd angle.

“You lose a tire?”

Dev stopped short, studied his truck and shook his head at the way it listed to one side. “Not that I knew of.”

She followed him closer to the truck, but her heart started beating hard in her ears as she realized the cause of the flat tire.

A knife was sticking out of the rubber, a note attached.

It’s Not Over was written in big thick black letters. Underneath were two letters. AW. Ace Wyatt.

Sarah could scarcely catch her breath. It couldn’t be. Ace Wyatt was dead. It had to be a mistake. She looked to Dev for some kind of reassurance, but he stood so preternaturally still, there was no comfort to be found.

DEV STARED AT the words. The letters. He’d forgotten Sarah behind him. Forgotten the world around him entirely. For a few awful seconds he was back in the Badlands with his father.

It’ll never be over, Devin.

“It can’t be Ace.” Sarah’s voice was shrill behind him. “He’s dead. You all made sure. He’s dead.”

Dev came back to the present, to the reality. “We identified his body,” he said, his voice an awful rasp even to his own ears.

“And Jamison had those tests done. He made sure it was Ace.”

Dev sucked in a breath. Sarah was right. Even though he’d seen Ace’s lifeless body in the morgue himself, it was so easy to believe he was some kind of...evil spirit. But Sarah’s reminder grounded him to reality. They’d seen him. They’d tested the body to make sure.

Ace was dead. The father who’d tortured them as children in his dangerous biker gang, then made their adulthoods as much hell as he could, was gone.

But there was an AW from his past who wasn’t.

“You have to—”

Before Sarah could tell him what he had to do, the sound