Echo: A Linear Tactical Romantic Suspense Standalone Read online

  “Basically nothing! My body just thinks I’m drunk. That’ll make getting my buzz on a lot easier.” Riley, laughed, rubbing her fingers. “Damn fingers are numb. They’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Riley scoffed with a wink. “My hair currently matches our drinks. Of course I’m okay.”

  “I don’t understand why I have to get all dressy and made up just to drink here at home,” Peyton finally said when Wavy, Charlie, and Riley decreed her a finished masterpiece.

  She could feel every eye in the place on her at her question.

  “What?” Peyton asked.

  “You do understand what pre-game means, right?” Riley shook her head. “It means you start at home before you go out. We’re going to the Eagle’s Nest. It’s time for some dancing.”

  Oh no. “I don’t really dance.”

  “I didn’t dance either when they first suited me up.” Annie smiled. “Don’t worry, the Electric Smurfs will help your sense of rhythm.”

  Somehow, Peyton doubted it.

  “Okay, so are we ready to go?” Peyton asked, about to stand up. Maybe they could get it over with early.

  “No.” All the women said in unison.

  “Not until nearly midnight.” Wavy grabbed some of the blue concoction for herself.

  Midnight? Peyton had honestly hoped to be back home and in bed before then. She had to work at Linear tomorrow.

  “By the way, both Zac and Finn said if you come in tomorrow, you’re fired.” Riley gave her a big grin. “They said there wasn’t anything that needed to be done there that couldn’t wait until next week. So whatever is going through that head of yours, you can just forget it. Geez, Peyton, you’re the oldest twenty-three-year-old in the history of the world. Go out and have fun for once.”

  Everyone cheered and someone cranked up the music. Peyton looked around. These women were here for her. They didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they knew she needed a pick-me-up, so they were willing to support her.

  The least she could do was enjoy the effort.

  She wandered back into her room to get a better view of what Wavy and Riley had done to her. She studied herself in the full-length mirror behind her door.

  They hadn’t gone all-out crazy like she’d been afraid. She looked young. Pretty. Like someone twenty-three years old should look before going out to a bar. Tight jeans and heels and a pretty plum blouse that hung off one shoulder.

  They’d curled parts of her long hair so it fell strategically down her back in soft waves. The long-debated eye shadow made her brown eyes seem massive in her face.

  This was what she would’ve looked like had her life gone the way she’d originally thought it would. Not always in khaki pants and a t-shirt rushing from one job to the next.

  She sat on the bed and stared at the mirror.

  Someone knocked and the door creaked open. Riley stuck her head in. “You doing okay?”

  “Just admiring your handiwork.”

  She grinned. “You look good if I do say so myself.”

  “I’m afraid, Ri.”

  Riley closed the door behind her. “Of going out tonight? We can stay here. It’s already halfway to a rave in your living room anyways.”

  “Not only about tonight. About my life in general. About telling Cade it’s okay for him to get to know Jess. I’m afraid he’ll want to be near me too. And I’m afraid he won’t want to be near me.”

  Riley gave her a soft smile. “And you don’t know which you want more.”

  “Would I be a complete idiot for even thinking about being close to him again?”

  “No, not at all.” Riley sat next to her.

  “Cade isn’t the only guy I’ve been with, but I sort of shut down after I had Jess. There hasn’t been time or energy to look for someone else.”

  And if she admitted it to herself, she hadn’t wanted to be with anyone who wasn’t Cade.

  “I haven’t even thought that way in a long time,” Peyton continued. “But then I saw him a couple of weeks ago, and it was like a switch was turned back on in my body. For all the kissy and sex stuff. How stupid is that?”

  “Not stupid at all. You’re a young, healthy woman. You have needs and desires. How they got woken back up doesn’t matter. The way I see it, you really only have one question you need to answer now that your switch has been flipped back on.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “Who do you want to be your electrician—Cade or someone else?”

  Chapter 17

  Cade once more looked like he’d been on a three-day bender, but this time it was because he’d actually been on a three-day bender.

  The DJ at the Eagle’s Nest was playing a song about getting drunk on a plane. It was a rowdy Friday night at the bar, half the town country line dancing in the middle of the floor, and the other half mulling around the bar and tables.

  Cade sat in a darkened booth in the far corner, watching the revelry going on around him. He may have been pretty consistently drunk for the past seventy-two hours—although not on a plane—but he definitely wasn’t going to be laughing and carrying on like everyone else.

  He wasn’t even sure exactly why he was here at all except for Baby sitting across from him. Cade had been quite content being miserable in his own house, drinking and barking at everyone.

  Baby had showed up tonight, dumped Cade’s ass in the shower, then dragged him out here.

  “Remember when we had to drive all the way into Reddington City to find a bar to use our fake IDs?” Baby sipped on a beer; Cade nursed a scotch as they looked around them.

  “They never would’ve let us in here, that’s for sure.” That was the thing about a small town. It was a small town.

  Cade looked over where Aiden Teague was having a drink with Gabriel Collingwood, the former Navy SEAL who now lived in the area, soon to be Aiden’s brother-in-law.

  “I hear Aiden bought a ring and plans to propose to Violet soon. And of course, Jordan and Gabe are all but attached at the hip.” Baby shook his head.

  Cade nodded. “Linear guys are falling like flies.”

  “Tell me about it. First my brother and Charlie. Dorian’s married too. Zac and Annie have a date picked out. Now Aiden. There’s something in the water around here, I’m telling you.” Baby tipped back his beer.

  Cade studied Aiden and Gabe. Both men looked happy. Just like at the picnic, everyone had been content.

  Why? Because they hadn’t fucked everything up.

  “Those guys aren’t stupid.” Cade pinched the bridge of his nose. “They found the right women and did the right thing. They didn’t blow their chance by having their heads up their asses and only being concerned about their career and their own life in Nashville.”

  Baby laughed and leaned back in the booth. “Whoa there, drunk boy, I somehow get the feeling we’re not talking about the Linear guys anymore.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He folded his arms over his chest.

  Talking about it wasn’t going to change anything.

  Stay out of my life and as far away from me and my daughter as possible.

  Peyton’s words were all he’d been able to hear in his mind for the past three days.

  Cade wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t notice when Baby signaled the bartender and traded out Cade’s scotch for water. He didn’t argue. That was probably better anyway.

  Drinking wasn’t helping. Could sober be any worse?

  Baby spent the next couple hours talking to him about nothing in particular, letting Cade sober up a little. Cade really wasn’t prone to drinking the way he had been over the past couple of days. He’d tried writing, but there was absolutely no music or lyrics in his head.

  Alone in silence with only the realization of how badly he’d wronged Peyton with no way to make it right.

  The bottle had seemed like the best option.

  But sobering now, he realized the drinking was nothing but a tiny, ill-fitting bandage for a gaping wound.

  Baby was a good friend, distracting Cade with Oak Creek stories while deftly, as only Baby Bollinger could, deflecting the multiple women who came their way. Some of them were looking to see if they could get a little intimate time with the local celebrity, but just as many checking to see if Baby was available. Somehow, he turned them all away while leaving them feeling better about themselves than when they’d walked over.

  “You have a skill, you know that?” Cade took another sip of his water, feeling almost human for the first time in three days.

  Baby sat back down from hugging a girl who’d come over, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and sending her on her way with a smile on her face. “I assume we’re not talking about mechanics right now?”

  “With women. They respond to you. They love you.”

  Baby shrugged. “And I love them. What’s not to love?”

  Cade smiled, a little surprised his body remembered how. That was Baby in a nutshell. From anybody else, Baby’s actions would be those of a player, someone using his good looks and charm to manipulate women into giving him what he wanted.

  But Baby had always been authentic in his love for women. He genuinely cared about them and wanted to spend time with them. Actually, he was sort of like that with men too. People responded to Baby.

  Cade almost pointed out that Baby could get a job in Hollywood or Nashville and make a lot of money doing exactly what came so naturally to him—influencing other people. But his friend would never be happy manipulating others no matter how much it might pay.

  Cade leaned his head back against the top of the booth. “You ever think about getting out of this town, Baby?”

  “Naw. High school dropout? Mechanic? Where am I going to go that’s better than here?”

  Cade shook his head. “We both know you got your GED a few years ago. You’re a damn fine mechanic but could be a shit ton more than that.” Like a NASA engineer more than that.

  “How about we talk about what’s put you on this massive bender rather than my boring career trajectory? It’s been a long time since I’ve had to talk you down from the ledge.”

  Maybe talking about this would help. It couldn’t possibly make matters worse.

  “I screwed something up.” Cade wrapped both hands around his water glass. “Something important.”

  Baby stretched his arm out across the back of the seat. “Then unscrew it up. You’ve got money, connections, fame. It’s hard to think of a situation that you couldn’t unscrew-up.”

  “How about one where I find out I’m a father and in essence have made the mother of my child’s life a living hell for the past five years? Unknowingly, but still at fault.”

  Baby’s eyebrows raised so high, Cade thought they might find a permanent place in his hairline. “So a literal screw up.”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  “Did this woman contact you? Does she want money? Is she threatening to go to the press?”

  “All she wants is for me to stay out of her life.”

  Baby shrugged. “Are you sure that’s a bad thing? Obviously, you don’t really know this woman if you didn’t know about your child for five years. What kind of person keeps that a secret?”

  “Peyton Ward.”

  Baby went completely still. “You’re Jess’s dad. Holy shit.” His hands balled into fists. “I think I’m going to kick your ass right now.”

  “I wouldn’t stop you. I deserve it.”

  “You have more money than freaking God, and Peyton has been working her ass off for years cleaning houses. Hell, she’s the freaking janitor for Linear.”

  Every word was like a slice across Cade’s skin. He wanted to order another drink, but that wasn’t going to change anything.

  “I know. Believe me, if I had known about the baby, if I had known Peyton was still in the area at all, I would have done something about it long before now. I thought she moved to London to go to film school.”

  “Peyton went to film school?”

  “She would’ve. She never actually made it.” Thanks to him.

  Baby shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “How do you even know her at all?”

  “She actually went to Oak Creek, even though she lived in Sublette County. You’d already dropped out. It was my senior year. She lied about her address so she could do the special arts program. She’s incredibly gifted when it comes to film.”

  “I had no idea,” Baby murmured.

  “She kept it a secret. Had a full ride to the London Film Centre. I thought she’d gone and didn’t want to have any contact with me. Ends up she tried to contact me and was told to terminate the pregnancy and sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

  Baby stared.

  To his credit, he didn’t reach over the table and start pounding Cade’s face in. He stayed calm, only the tiniest twitch in his jaw giving away his tension. “You’re going to tell me right fucking now that you weren’t the one who sent her that. Please, Cade. I don’t want two decades of friendship to be over.”

  Cade wished he could be offended, but he had no right. “Aunt Cecelia sent it, not me.”

  Baby relaxed slightly. “Shitty thing to do.”

  “In her defense, she really was doing what she thought was best. A lot of stuff went down that summer, between my career, Dad’s death, and the changes in the company. She thought Peyton was a freeloader.”

  “Peyton is the least freeloading person I’ve ever known. She works damned hard to give Jess what she needs. And Jess. . .”

  Even hearing her named gutted him. Cade had no idea what he was going to do about his daughter if Peyton refused to have anything to do with him personally.

  “Jess is absolutely amazing,” Baby continued. “She and Ethan are inseparable. Ethan has already informed Finn that he plans to marry her when they get older. And the way he’s been so protective of her because she didn’t have a. . .” Baby trailed off.

  But what he was going to say was obvious. “Ethan’s protective of Jess because she hasn’t had a father around.”

  Baby shrugged. “Well, you know Charlie isn’t Ethan’s biological mom. He can still remember the time with his birth mother—and it wasn’t pretty; that bitch screwed him up pretty badly, even tried to sell him—before Finn found him. So not having a father around to protect you is a big thing to my nephew.”

  “So you’re saying an eight-year-old might kick my ass.”

  “I’m pretty sure Ethan might have to get in line behind a number of the Linear guys when they find out you’re Jess’s dad. Everyone assumed he was some deadbeat somewhere.”

  “It’s nothing more than I deserve. Believe me, if I could kick my own ass, I absolutely would. Peyton wants nothing to do with me. Wants me to stay completely out of her life.”

  “So that’s the reason for the drinking binge? Not because you found out you’re a dad?”

  “Hell no. I wish I had known about Jess from the very beginning. Believe me, things would’ve been much different.” Different like he would’ve married Peyton. Would’ve made sure every single day she and the baby were safe and secure and cared for. “But now she’s basically told me to get lost.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “What can I do about it? Nothing.”

  Baby folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Really, asshole? You’re just going to give up? That’s it—walk away?”

  “I can’t make Peyton include me in their lives.”

  “But you could show her you’re willing to fight for her. To woo her. To put it all out there on the line. To make yourself vulnerable for once rather than her. And if she still decides to tell you to fuck off, that’s her choice.”

  Baby was right. “But it won’t be because I haven’t tried everything in my power to get her to say yes.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know, for someone who decided to drop out of school, you’re pretty damned smart.”

  Baby shifted uncomfortably. “Listen, about school, I need to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “I decided a few months ago to. . .” He caught a look at something over Cade’s shoulder and shook his head. “Oh shit.”

  “What?”

  “Were you serious about fighting for Peyton? Showing her you want her?”

  Cade nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because she and her posse just walked through the door.”

  Chapter 18

  The women drew a lot of attention inside the bar. Cade wasn’t surprised when half the Linear team showed up thirty minutes later. Not that they needed to worry about anyone from town causing problems for their women. There was too much respect, and a healthy dose of fear, for the guys.

  Besides, these women didn’t need men to fight their battles for them. They were more than capable of holding their own ground.

  Some of them had lived through the worst the world had to offer—kidnapping, attacks, human trafficking—and had survived. They may be in high heels and drinking blue concoctions, but they were warriors. All of them mentally and emotionally, some of them physically as well.

  As soon as they came in, Cade gave up his back corner booth. He didn’t care now about anonymity and not being bothered.

  He wanted to be bothered by one person in particular who was currently dancing with her friends. He sat at the bar, facing the dance floor, along with the Linear guys. The chatter was lighthearted and jovial. The men knew their women might be cutting loose, but they were all safe and would be coming home to them when the night was all said and done.

  God, that’s exactly what Cade wanted.

  When Gavin Zimmerman, acting sheriff of Oak Creek, joined them at the bar, they made room for him.

  “Heard the ladies were out in full steam tonight, so thought I better stop by.”

  “Don’t worry.” Zac took a sip of his beer. “No fights with any of us, so they’re not on any man-hating-sisterhood rampage. Just having fun.”