Page 94 of Defending Casey

Casey focused her eyes on him and spoke carefully. “I am, Brian. I am. I’m just worried about my dad. He’s probably really worried about us. You know him, right Brian? He welcomed you into his home for hundreds of meals. You sat with us. Were a part of our family.”

She almost cringed as the words formed on her lips. She had no way of knowing how he’d take them, but she couldn’t help herself. She was worried about her father, hoping that someone found him and got him help.

“Maybe you should think about that too, Casey. How he treated me? You don’t think that I’m the one for you. Maybe your dad did.” He shook his head. “Or was he just waiting for Hale to come home like you were?”

“Hale is Nora’s father, Brian. No matter what, he would have been family from that moment on. You were family too.” She felt Nora’s grip tighten around her fingers. “You still could be.”

It killed her to say that, but she wanted to give him hope for something between them. Not love. Not the way he wanted. There would never be that between them.

But some kind of familial connection that might ease some of the raw anger that coursed through his veins.

“What would that look like, Casey? Hmm? Me sitting at the dinner table watching you, knowing you’re in love with him?”

“Brian…” Casey didn’t know what else to say to him. He wasn’t wrong. Hiding how she felt about Hale had never been something she could do.

“What, Casey? What do I get if I let you go? You don’t understand. You haven’t heard the worst of it.”

“What now?” Hale’s father had never been the most hospitable man, but the look on his face was downright mutinous. “More lies?”

Brian had narrowed a look at Casey, but when Thomas’ taunt reached his ears, Brian turned a baleful look at him.

Casey was prepared for more words, more vitriol, but she couldn’t have predicted what happened next. Brian lunged forward and picked up one end of the coffee table between them and turned it on its side.

Thomas moved, a little faster than Brian had expected, just fast enough to pull Nora out of the way, but Brian had a hold on Casey and given the determined look on his face, he was going to keep her.

#

It’samazing what kind of memories pop up in your head at the oddest moments.

Hale and Brian playing soldier in the house while their mothers sat on the back porch with tea and their fathers… well, doing whatever they did when they rode their horses out without the boys for company.

Hale stopped his team just outside the fence. They were in a place that was hidden from the house by long shadows cast by tree limbs. A dead zone, that as young boys, they’d marked as a place to watch.

Bodie murmured a few choice words under his breath. “No way to see inside. No way to know who is where.”

Zeke shrugged a shoulder. “We’ll have to get closer.”

Hale felt Stone move up beside him. “How secure are the floorboards on the porch?”

“He’s hardly done any upkeep on the place. When I stopped by, I almost put my foot through a patch just inside of the post on the left of the stairs.”

“Dry rot?”

“Probably.” Hale sighed. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

Bodie nodded. “Huge stakes.”

Stone shrugged. “Low on intel.”

Zeke’s laugh was almost a snort. “We don’t do easy. If it was easy, they wouldn’t need us.”

“Then, let’s go get my girls.”

Hale quickly gave them the layout of the house and where they might find problems and maybe even a Hail Mary pass if his father hadn’t given up on all of his old curmudgeon ways.

#

Thomas Foster had never beenone to admit fault. The way he saw it, he didn’t have faults to admit to… until he came face to face with his granddaughter.

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