Firefight in Darkness (16 page)

“Awe, honey.” Loretta stopped chopping onions and stared at Blythe sadly. “That must have been hard on you.”

Blythe shrugged, then realized that if she had loved her parents in the first place and had then lost them in a horrific accident, she probably wouldn’t be shrugging. So she fought to bring tears to her eyes, at least a little bit, just to up the believability factor.

“It was hard, but having Lucian made life better again.” Thinking of him brought a poignant and very real ache to her heart, so she kneaded it with the palm of her hand, trying to will it away. Jax noticed the real pain on her face, and regretted that he hadn’t even given her a chance to call home. She obviously missed her family more than she had let on, and the fact that she had never once asked to use his phone humbled him. In fact, the only thing she had really ever asked him for was a gun so she could fight alongside him.

“Mama, you got any bacon?” He asked, hoping to give Blythe time to recover or recollect or whatever she needed to do.

“Why, I sure do.” Loretta replied as she bustled around the kitchen. About ten minutes later, she put out plates piled high with bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast onto the dining table. Blythe’s eyes watered with joy at the sight of all the food.

“Loretta, you are now my favorite person.” She declared as she began piling food onto her plate.

“Blythe thinks with her stomach most of the time. Don’t expect to be her favorite person forever.” Jax told his mother teasingly.

Loretta simply smiled. “I want you to finish every last bite now, you hear?”

“Don’t worry, mama. Blythe’s notorious for not leaving a single crumb behind.”

Amused, Loretta stared at her son as if seeing him for the first time. Had she ever heard her baby boy talk about a girl so fondly? And the way he watched her, so much warmth in his eyes…it was enough to make her speculate that there was much more to their ‘partnership’ then her son had let on.

“So you two are working on this case together?” Loretta asked politely, stirring more sugar into her coffee.

Blythe nodded as she swallowed. “The guy we’re hunting down is my uncle. My other uncle.” She added, grinning at the startled look in Loretta’s eyes. “My uncle Dante is a bad man who’s done some bad things. And he’s a bit obsessed with me, so cowboy here is using me as bait.”

“Good heavens, Jax, I hope you gave this girl a gun.” Loretta pressed her hand to her heart, looking aghast at the idea of any woman possibly being unarmed.

“I bought my own, semi-automatic .38 special. Haven’t gotten to use it yet, unfortunately.”

“I have some tin cans out back, we can target shoot if you’d like.” Loretta offered, perking up a bit at the prospect. “C’mon, honey, it’ll be a bit of girl bonding time.”

“That sounds fun.” Turning to look at Jax, she grinned. “Run along after breakfast, cowboy. Your mom and I are going shooting.”

About an hour later, Blythe was standing beside Loretta in her wide open field of a backyard, aiming her new gun at an old tin can on a fence some ten yards away.

The Texas sun was already high in the sky, despite it being mid-morning, and the heat was already sweltering. But since she was no stranger to heat, it didn’t bother Blythe one bit. In fact, she considered the welcoming heat a good omen for things to come. She would learn to shoot, and they would find Dante, and then they would kill him. Case closed, mission over, justice served. It was all just a matter of getting the shot down.

Which, she had to admit, wasn’t as easy as she had assumed it was. She’d gone out there, head cocked arrogantly and ready to go, only to discover there was much more of a kickback from her gun, and a lot more to it then just pointing at the target and pulling the trigger.

Loretta showed her how to hold the gun properly, with one hand cupped beneath her other to steady it, and how to look down the sight at her target. Standing was also something she hadn’t realized played such an important role. In the movies, it seemed like people just flung their guns out and shot at random, managing miraculously to hit something. But in reality, she discovered that it wasn’t like that at all, especially since she didn’t manage to hit a single can until she’d fired five times, and even then she just clipped it.

But after some practice, she found she was getting the hang of it.

“Good job, sugar!” Loretta gushed, clapping her hands together giddily as Blythe shot an old coffee can to the ground.

Pleased with herself, Blythe turned and hugged Loretta. “God, it feels good to finally hit something.” She laughed.

“I think you’re doin’ great, honey.” Beaming, Loretta pulled away and gestured out to the fence. “Why don’t you put the safety on that thing and come help me line up those cans again?”

“Sure.” Turning the safety on and slipping the gun into her holster, Blythe followed Loretta out towards the fence, feeling accomplished. She’d never realized just how good a release it was to fire a weapon, to feel the power and the punch behind it as it fired, and then the thrill of hearing the clink of metal on metal and seeing the can fly into the air. She’d have to set up her own target shooting area back home once this was all over. Then she could teach Liam, and maybe even Capri if she’d be open to it.

Thinking of them brought the ache back into her heart, so she tried to push it aside. But the fact was that she missed them all, so much. Even though it had only been four days since she had had her encounter with Dante in the nightclub, and three days since she had last seen her family, she still missed them.

Yet, for reasons she couldn’t quite identify, being here on Jax’s mother’s ranch with its acres of land dotted with grazing horses and stables and its big white house shaded by dozens of trees felt safe and comforting. Almost like home itself, even though her home was so different than this place.

Loretta’s house, while charming and beautiful, was nothing compared to the castle back home. And the land here, while so expansive and flat to the point where you could see for miles to the horizon, had nothing on the lush gardens of Euphora. And yet, this place felt right to her, just like Los Angeles had felt right to her, at least before. She wondered how she would react to the bustling city streets when she had now experienced the vastness and freedom of the southwest.

And the woman beside her, Jax’s mother, was so warm and inviting, unlike any mother she had ever known. Probably because she had never really had a mother, at least not one who cared to be one for her. But Loretta was absolutely everything that Nyxa was not. She fretted, cooked, laughed, and loved. Blythe realized that she would have given anything to have a mother like that.

And the moment she realized that, she also had another sharp and disappointing realization. She could never, ever share who she truly was with Loretta Murphy. Even if somehow Jax let her correspond and come visit, she could never let Loretta know the truth about her. Knowing it broke her heart.

“Somethin’ wrong, sugar?” Loretta asked as they replaced the cans on the fence, spacing them out every foot or so. Her warm green eyes found Blythe’s and held, polite but worried.

“Nope, I’m fine.” Blythe smiled, determined to push aside any negative thoughts for now. “So how long have you lived here?”

“Oh, about twenty four years or so.” Loretta led the way back towards their earlier spot, her blonde hair glowing in the sunlight. “I don’t know if Jax told you much about me, but I was a dancer back in the early eighties here in El Paso. I made the mistake of fooling around with a married man, and I got pregnant. Though, in retrospect, it was the best thing to ever happen to me.” She smiled then, pausing to place her hand on Blythe’s shoulder.

“Because you had Jax.” Blythe reached up to cover Loretta’s hand with her own, understanding in her eyes.

“Yes, because I had Jax. And Larry, that was Jax’s daddy’s name, he was a big shot CEO of some company up in Dallas, and so he gave me a settlement to make sure I never bothered him again. I suppose I should have insisted on him being a father to my son, but I was young, and scared, and so I took the money and bought this ranch. I’ve lived here ever since, raising horses. After Jax was born I never danced again.”

“So Jax has never met his father?”

Loretta sighed, sadness clouding her eyes. “No, he hasn’t. When he was fifteen he had it in his head that he was gonna go on up to Dallas and hunt him down, make him pay for abandoning us. But by the time he got up there Larry had already passed away a couple years earlier from a heart attack. So he came on back home and never once mentioned it again.”

“God, that’s horrible.” All of the times she had complained about her father, and Jax had never once mentioned his own, even though his situation was by far worse. But, then again, he had barely told her anything about himself in their time together. Maybe it was time she changed that.

“Why don’t you take another shot, sugar?” Loretta said suddenly, nodding towards the fence and smiling. “I bet you take one down this time.”

“Let’s hope so.” All concentration, Blythe took her stance, feet slightly apart, elbows locked straight ahead, her eye on the sight as she took aim. Biting her lip, she pulled the trigger, used to the kickback by now, and watched as the can shot into the air and onto the ground.

“Hot damn, I got it!” Blythe cheered, fist pumping the air with her free hand. She turned when she heard clapping behind her, and saw Jax watching, his head covered by his black Stetson. Without even thinking about it, her face automatically lit with a smile. “You see that, cowboy? I’m gonna be a better shot than you.”

“Doubtful.” He drawled, walking towards her and his mother.

Loretta had begun to fire with her own pistol, knocking the cans off like they were nothing before she heard the click that meant no more rounds. She put down her weapon to reload and glanced over just as her son approached Blythe. Her eyebrows raised at the casual way he touched Blythe’s shoulder, slipped the gun from her hands, and brushed against her softly to take her place in line of the target. Oh yeah, there was definitely something going on between them. And seeing it, knowing it, made her ridiculously happy. She really liked the girl. She had fire and spit to her, something she admired in a woman. A girl like that would be good for her son, who seemed to always date the cool, reserved types with their noses in the air. About damn time he found someone with some sense.

“I must congratulate you on doing so well your first time out.” Jax told her as he took aim at the target, his eyes shaded by the rim of his hat. Blythe watched curiously as he shot off three rounds in quick succession, and three cans flew off the fence and into the air, one right after another. He flipped the safety on the gun and handed it back to her, his lips curving in a cocky grin as he spoke. “But I am still better than you.”

Pursing her lips, Blythe eyed him in challenge. “That’s just that lucky streak of yours again. I bet I can hit three cans in a row by dinner.”

“If you can, maybe I’ll give you a congratulatory kiss.” He murmured as he leaned in close to her, his voice low enough for only her to hear. She tilted her head and smiled coolly.

“Maybe that’s not what I want.” She replied, noting the easy way he shrugged and stepped back from her.

“Too bad.” He smirked before loping off towards his mother, who Blythe suddenly realized had been watching the whole thing. Fighting back the surge of embarrassment she felt, she took aim with her gun once again and fired.

♦ ♦ ♦

By the time they were ready to call it a day, Blythe had, much to her pleasure, managed to hit four cans in a row, beating Jax’s earlier attempt. She wasted no time boasting to him about it as they packed their things to head over to his own house. In response, he simply slipped his white Stetson onto her head and patted it down.

“There you go. Now you’re officially a cowgirl.” He smirked, turning away to say goodbye to his mother.

Since he was out of the room before she could even respond, Blythe grumbled to herself about how she thought she was supposed to get a kiss. And even though she’d teased him about not wanting one, the truth was that she did. Quite desperately, actually, a fact which bothered the hell out of her.

If Capri could only see her now, she mused as she slipped her duffle bag onto her shoulder, holding the hat to try and keep it on her head. Fawning over some guy, just like how she had said she would never do. Best to keep that on the down low for now, she decided. Not like anything could ever come of this little crush she’d suddenly developed for him, they were just too different. And once they caught Dante, they would probably never even speak again. So it was definitely in her best interest to ride this one out and keep it on the light and fun side, just for her own protection.

She walked down the hallway and paused just before the kitchen. She found Jax hugging his mother, and seeing it had her heart quite simply fluttering. What a guy, she thought with a sigh, only to catch herself and curse inwardly. No, she wasn’t going to fall for him. Nope, nope, nope.

“Ready to go, cowboy?” She burst into the room, a cheerful smile on her face as she watched Loretta and Jax part and turn to her.

“Sure am, cowgirl.” He chuckled, enjoying the way her fiery curls spilled out from under his hat paired with the cocky grin she always wore and the gun holstered on her belt. She looked like a fiery pixie who’d decided to try her hand at gun battles in the wild west. It suited her more than he’d ever thought it could. But then again, she was often surprising him by being more than he expected her to be.

“You make sure you come back and visit now.” Loretta approached and hugged Blythe, smelling like lilacs in spring. When she pulled away, she smiled warmly. “I know you will, but take good care of my baby boy.”

“I’ll protect him.” Nodding her head, Blythe shifted her bag on her shoulder to redistribute the weight, and as she did so, the picture of Bristol slipped out and drifted to the floor.

“Oops. I’ll get that.” Loretta chimed, reaching down to pick up the photo. She paused then as she stared at it, her eyes widening. “Why, that’s Miss Bristol.” She murmured, her brow creasing as she lifted her eyes to Blythe’s. “Why do you have a picture of her?”