Page 39 of Lone Star Protector

He glanced at her. “I’m glad he’s dead. Glad he’s personally no longer a threat to you. But I’m still worried. Jordana needs to be found and questioned.” Nash opened his mouth as if about to give Oz a command about that. Then, he stopped. “Slade will take care of it.”

“Yes.” She had no doubts about that. “Will Slade and Jericho be relieved, too, about Bodie?”

“They will be,” Nash verified. “The three of us were never close to Bodie. The only one Bodie was close to our father.”

“The abusive asshole,” she muttered.

Nash nodded. “Yes, Bodie was his firstborn, and a son at that. Someone he could brag about to his asshole friends. I think he groomed Bodie to be the man he became.” He paused a moment. “And I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

And there it was. The guilt in his voice. Maybe the grief, too, for a sibling he hadn’t been able to save.

Caroline touched his arm, rubbed gently. “I didn’t save my father so I get what you’re saying.”

Nash frowned when he looked at her. “Your father died from cancer.”

“He did, but guilt is a greedy SOB, and I kept thinking I could have done more. Maybe I could have noticed sooner that he wasn’t his usual self. Maybe I could have insisted he go to the doctor right away. Part of me knows that isn’t logical, that he would have died from that form of cancer anyway. But, like you, I wish I’d done more to try to save him.”

“Done more,” he repeated under his breath. “Thinking like that is what creates emotional baggage. And guilt. And regret. So much regret that I didn’t stop Bodie from getting to you.”

“Well, he’s stopped now.” And Caroline used that as a launching pad to go over some other things.

Things that might help Nash put his regret and guilt on the backburner.

“Maybe Bodie was stopped by his bride. Or by someone that her father could have hired. A nice setup for Leland,” she added. “Get someone to kill the bane of his existence and make it look like a suicide.”

He stayed quiet a moment, probably considering that. “Yes, and this way, Jordana won’t disown her father for eliminating her beloved.”

“A bonus,” she decided. “So, that could mean Eddie wasn’t involved in the attacks or Bodie’s death.”

Nash shrugged. “I’m not ruling him out just yet. He could have motive for wanting Bodie dead if he wants Jordana for himself. That sounds like a long shot,” he tacked onto that. “But Eddie could be covering up his real feelings for Jordana, and he has plenty of ex-con friends who could have helped him.”

Helped him by actually firing those shots both at her place and at Nash’s. But now that Bodie was dead, did that mean Eddie would consider this vendetta to be over and done?

Caroline prayed so.

She tore her gaze from Nash when he slowed and took a turn. Not into some remote countryside either. This was the entrance to a gated subdivision, and beyond the gate and fence, she could see something that surprised her.

Houses.

Lots of them. Some cabin style, some more like mansions that’d been built on hills that surrounded the lake.

The large limestone sign announced that this was Pearl Bluff Estates, and there were indeed some pearly-colored bluffs in the distance. The view was definitely postcard-worthy.

“I guess I thought Slade would live somewhere more… secluded,” she commented.

“You’d think, especially after being raised in a survivalists’ compound. But unlike Jericho and me, Slade prefers living in a neighborhood. Though this doesn’t quite qualify as that since it’s mainly vacation homes. He splits time between here and his apartment on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.”

Nash punched in a code when he reached the gate and then drove past four houses before he pulled into the driveway of a log cabin. Well, an upgraded cabin that also hit that postcard-worthy mark. It was two-story and with lots of windows and balconies.

“How secure is this place?” she had to ask, but then Caroline immediately waved that off. “It’s very secure. Slade might prefer living around people, but he still works for Maverick Ops.”

“It has all the right bells and whistles,” Nash assured her, using another code to get into the garage.

She saw one of those bells and whistles right away. The door leading into the house had its own keypad, and Caroline thought it might be made of some kind of metal that’d been painted dark gray. If someone managed to break into the garage, they wouldn’t have an easy time getting inside.

As with the gate and garage door, Nash entered yet another code, and the door slid open, reminding her of an entrance to a hotel. They stepped inside, not into a usual mudroom or small entry but into a massive equipment room that had shelf after shelf of weapons and gear.

The house seemed to spring to life. Lights flared on and music, too. Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall began to pulse from…somewhere. Caroline couldn’t spot any speakers.

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