Cold Case Protection
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Nicole Helm
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Chapter One
Carlyle Daniels had grown up in a tight-knit family. Dysfunctional, trauma-bonded—no doubt—but close. She supposed that’s why she loved being absorbed into the Hudson clan. Their tight-knit was familiar, but bigger—because there were so many more of them.
So, yeah, a few more overprotective males in the mix, but she had sisters now—both honorary and in-law, because her oldest brother, Walker, had married Mary Hudson last fall.
Carlyle liked to talk a big game. She really liked to tease her oldest brother about how lame it was he’d gotten old and settled down, but deep down she could not have been happier for him. After spending most of his adult life trying to keep her safe while they tried to figure out who killed their mother, he now got to settle into just...normal. He worked as a cold case investigator for Hudson Sibling Solutions and helped out on the Hudson Ranch and was going to be a dad in a few months.
Her heart nearly burst from all the happy. Not that she admitted that to anyone.
She’d been working as Cash Hudson’s assistant at his dog-training business on the ranch for almost a year now. She’d settled into life on the Hudson Ranch and in Sunrise, Wyoming. It was still weird to stay put, to not always have to look over her shoulder, to know she just got to...make a life, but she was handling it.
What she was not handling so well was a very inappropriate crush on her boss—who was also her sister-in-law’s brother, which meant she probably shouldn’t ever fantasize about kissing him.
But she did. Far too often. And normally she was an act-first-and-think-later type of woman, but there were two problems with that. First, she no longer got to bail if she didn’t like her circumstances. She was building a life and all that, and bailing would bum Walker out which just felt mean and ungrateful.
Second, Cash had a daughter, who Carlyle adored. Izzy Hudson was twelve, smart as a whip, sweet and funny. She also had a little flash of something Carlyle recognized. Carlyle didn’t know how to explain it, but she knew Cash didn’t see it. She didn’t think any of Izzy’s family saw it, because the girl didn’t want them to see it.
Carlyle saw through Izzy’s masks all too well. She’d been the same all those years ago, keeping secrets so big and so well, her brothers hadn’t found out until last year. So, she felt honor bound to keep an eye on the girl, because no doubt one of these days she was going to run headfirst into trouble.
Carlyle knew the lifelong bruises that could come from that, so she wanted to be...well, if not the thing that stopped the girl, the cushion to any catastrophic falls. She considered herself something of a been-there-done-that guardian angel.
Carlyle looked up from the obstacle course she’d been setting up for the level-one dogs and surveyed her work. She was satisfied and knew Cash would be too. He hadn’t been super excited about hiring her. The fact he’d even done it had been because Mary had insisted or persuaded him to—but Carlyle knew that was more about him being a control freak than anything against her.
She liked to think she’d proved herself the past year—as a hard worker, as someone he could trust. She glanced over at the cabin that was Cash and Izzy’s residence, while everyone else lived up in the main house. Palmer and Louisa were just a few weeks out from a wedding and finishing up their house on the other end of the property, but everyone else seemed content to stay in the main house. It was certainly big enough.
Carlyle sometimes felt like the odd man out. She wanted to be like Zeke, her other brother, and have her own place in town, but staying on the property made a lot more sense for what her work schedule was like.
And for keeping an eye on Izzy.
Who, speak of the devil, stepped out of the front door of her cabin, followed by her father and then Copper, one of the dogs retired from cold case and search and rescue work.
Carlyle sighed, in spite of herself. There was something really detrimental to a woman’s sense when watching a man be good with animals and a really good dad whose top priority, always, was his daughter’s safety.
Or maybe that was just her daddy issues. Considering her fathers—both the one she’d thought was hers, and the one who’d actually been hers—had tried to kill her. More than once.
But Don, the fake dad, was dead. Connor, the real dad, was in jail for the rest of his life. So, no dads. Just brothers who’d acted like fathers.
And now, for the first time in her life, safety. A place to stay. A place to put down roots. She had not just her brothers, but a whole network of people to belong to.
Copper pranced up to her and she crouched to pet his soft, silky face. “There’s a boy,” she murmured.
She glanced up as Cash and Izzy approached. Cash was a tall, dark mountain of a guy. All broad shoulders and cowboy swagger—down to the cowboy hat on his head and the boots on his feet. His dark eyes studied her in a way she had yet to figure out. Not assessing, exactly, but certainly not with the ease or warmth with which he looked at his family.
And still, it made silly little butterflies camp out in her stomach. She felt the heat of a blush warming her cheeks like she was some giggly, virginal teenager when she decidedly was not.
She was a hard-hearted, whirling dervish of a woman who’d grown up fast and hard and had somehow survived. Survival had led her here.
Things were good. She was happy. She wouldn’t ruin that by throwing herself at Cash, and she wouldn’t ruin it by failing at this job or messing up being part of this family network.
No, for the first time in her life, Carlyle was going to do things right.
CARLYLE DANIELS WAS a problem. Worse, Cash Hudson couldn’t even admit that to anyone in his life. She was a good worker, Izzy loved her, the animals loved her and she was an even better assistant than he’d imagined she’d be.
But he found himself thinking about her way too much, long before he’d stepped out of the cabin this morning to see her across the yard getting work for the day set up.
He too often found himself trying to make her laugh, because she didn’t do it often enough and the sound made him smile...which he also knew he didn’t do enough. As his siblings and daughter routinely told him so.
But if anyone had any clue he smiled more around Carlyle than he did around anyone other than Izzy, he’d be flayed alive.
He was too old for her—in years and experience. He was a father, and he had one disastrous marriage under his belt. He could look back and give himself a break—he’d been sixteen, reckless enough to get his high school girlfriend pregnant, and foolish enough to think marriage would make everything okay.
Maybe he was older, wiser, more mature these days, but that didn’t mean he could ever be good for anyone. Didn’t mean he’d ever risk Izzy’s feelings again when she already had oceans of hurt over the mother she hadn’t gotten to choose.
He wasn’t even interested in Carlyle. He just thought she was hot and all the settling down going on around the Hudson Ranch was getting to him. Grant and Mary were fine enough. They were calm, settle-down-type people. Mary might be younger than him, but he’d always figured her for the marriage-and-kids type—and even if he liked to play disapproving older brother, Walker Daniels was about as besotted with Mary as a brother could want for his sister.
Grant was older, far more serious, and he and Dahlia had taken what felt like forever to finally even get engaged, so that was all well and good. Cash could take all those little blows that reminded him time marched on.
But it was Palmer and Anna who really got to him. Younger than him. The reckless ones. The wild ones. He’d never have pinned Palmer for marriage, and he’d never thought anyone would want to put up with the tornado that was Anna.
But Palmer was getting married in a few weeks, and by all accounts Louisa was the answer to any wildness inside of him. Anna was a mother now, and a damn good one, and somehow she’d found a man who thought all her sharp edges were just the thing to shackle him down forever.
Someday, sooner than he’d ever want, Izzy would be an adult. Making her own choices like his siblings were doing. Izzy would go off into that dangerous world and then what?
Cash pushed out an irritated breath. Well, there was always Jack. Single forever, likely, being that he was the oldest and Cash couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date, or even gone out for a night of fun.
They could be two old men bemoaning the future and the world together.
And no one would ever know he had an uncomfortable thing for Carlyle. He blew out a breath before they finally approached the obstacle course. “Morning,” he offered gruffly.
“Good morning,” she said brightly, grinning at Izzy as she stood up from petting Copper.
“I’m going to walk Izzy over to the main house, then we’ll get started.”
“Dad,” Izzy groaned, making the simple word about ten syllables long. “I can walk to the house by myself. It’s right there.” She pointed at the house in question. Yes, within his sight, but...
Too much had happened. Too much could happen. As long as his ex-wife was out there, Izzy wouldn’t leave his side, unless she was with one of his family members.
“I’ll be right back,” he said to Carlyle.
Izzy didn’t groan or grumble any more. He supposed she was too used to it. Or knew he wasn’t going to bend. He wished he could. He wished he could give her everything she wanted, but there’d been too many close calls.
They climbed up the porch to the main house in silence and he opened the back door that led into a mudroom.
“I’m not a baby,” Izzy grumbled. Probably since she knew he would follow her right into the house until he found someone to keep an eye on her.
He didn’t say what he wanted to. You’re my baby. “I know, and I’m sorry.” They walked into the dining room, and Mary was already situated at the table with her big agenda book and a couple different colored pens.
She looked up as they entered and smiled at Izzy.
Cash would never not feel guilty that Izzy ended up with such a terrible mom, but Mary as an aunt was the next best thing, he knew.
“I’m craving cookies. What do you think? Should we make chocolate chip or peanut butter?”
Izzy didn’t smile at her aunt, she just gave Cash a kind of killing look and then sighed. “What do you think the baby wants?” She went over and took the seat next to Mary at the table.
Mary slung an arm around Izzy’s shoulders, and Izzy leaned in, putting a hand over Mary’s little bump.
Izzy didn’t want to be treated like a baby, she didn’t want him being so overprotective, but she also loved her family. She was excited about cousins after being the only kid on the ranch for so long, and she liked spending time with her aunts and uncles.
So this wasn’t a punishment. He tried to remind himself of that as he retraced his steps back to where Carlyle was waiting. She’d brought out the level-one dogs, and they were lined up waiting for their orders.
Because they were level one, there was still some tail wagging, some whining, some irregular lining up, but they were good dogs getting close to moving to level two. They all kept their gazes trained on Carlyle, and she stood there looking like some kind of queen of dogs. Her long, dark ponytail dancing in the wind, chin slightly raised, gray-blue eyes surveying her kingdom of furry subjects.
He came to stand next to her and didn’t say anything at first. Ignored the way his chest got a little tight when she glanced his way, like he was part of that array of subjects she ruled.
She could, he had no doubt. If he was someone else in a totally different situation, she no doubt would.
“She’s tough,” Carlyle said, not bothering to explain she was talking about Izzy.
As if he didn’t know that about his daughter. As if he hadn’t raised her to be tough. As if life hadn’t forced her to be. “Yeah, and the world is mean.”
“Take it from someone who’s been there and done that, it doesn’t matter how well-intentioned the protection is, at a certain point, it just chafes.”
Cash knew she wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t matter. “I’d rather a little chafing than any of the other alternatives.”
Carlyle sighed, but she didn’t argue with him. She surveyed the lineup of dogs. “Well, you want to start or should I?”
Carlyle was good at this. A natural. “Take them through the whole thing.”
She raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t let her do that before all on her own, but...it was time. He couldn’t give his daughter the space she needed to breathe, so he might as well unclench here where it didn’t matter so much. “You can do it.”
She grinned at him, eyes dancing with a mischief that was far too inviting, and completely not allowed in his life.
“I know,” she said, then turned to the dogs and took them through the training course. Perfectly. A natural.
A problem.
