11. The NTPs

CHAPTER 11

The NTPs

TORI

I paced the floor of the cabin, back and forth, the phone never leaving my hand, willing Cap to call us back. It’d been over an hour since his line went dead. With no caller ID to reach out to him, we remained stuck.

What now? This perpetual state of limbo we’d been in since everything got so messed up ate away at me. I just wanted doors to appear magically in front of us. One to close on the past and one to open on our future. Instead, we were stuck in the middle, suffering.

“Mom, sit down. You’re making me tired, watching you like this,” Porsche complained.

“Yeah, Mom.” Nate mocked. He was no better, though, leaning against the picture window, staring out as if he expected Bottesta any moment since Cap disconnected. His jaw remained clenched, and he didn’t hide the fact his gun was still on him, too. Cap’s call, although welcomed, clearly put us all on edge.

“I only wish we knew how long we had to stay here. A couple of days? Fine. A couple of weeks? Tolerable. But months of staying here in this cabin? I’ll go stir crazy,” I huffed.

“What do you mean? This is a great cabin. It’s got solid bones and nice furnishings,” he countered. “All tucked away, out of sight, and nobody around.”

“For a small town, I suppose it’s fine.” I rolled my shoulders, relieving the ache between my blades, trying to calm down.

“Okay, city girl. Excuse me for not taking you to the Ritz of Kissing Springs. Do you mind lowering your standards? Since we’re stuck together, hiding out, it might be the only way we get through this.”

Oof. This man’s cockiness reared up. I wrinkled my forehead at him. “And you could use a little ego check at the door. I didn’t always live in the city. When I was young, my parents had very little. It was only when my father went to work for Bottesta’s men that we finally had enough money to move.”

His hands shot up like I held him at gunpoint. “I was only kidding. It’s called sarcasm. Maybe you city girls don’t understand that kind of humor.”

My fists balled on my hips, and I squinted at him. “And here I always thought southern men were charming. I was wrong.”

“Stop it. Both of you.” Porsche launched upright from the couch. “Why can’t you just be friends and be nice and talk things out like normal husbands and wives?”

“Baby, we’re just frustrated?—”

She refused to listen to me, putting her hands on her ears as she ran out the front door. Only her feet didn’t stop at the porch; she kept going down the steps, sprinting across the common area between the cabins.

“Porsche, wait. You can’t go without me.” I followed, bared feet and all, not caring about the rocks scratching at my skin.

“God dammit. Neither of you should go anywhere without me. ” Nate barked behind us with what I presumed was his thoroughly pissed-off voice. When I finally caught up to her in a field behind the cabins, I swung her around by the arm.

“What are you doing? What if Bottesta was out here and grabbed you? Baby, you and I are together now. I won’t lose you again.” I huffed and puffed. The sting of anger burned my eyes, only relieved by a tear or two sliding down my cheek.

“You two were arguing. I don’t like it. When you used to fight with Ricardo long ago, he hurt you. I know he did. You’d always tried to hide it, but I heard your voices, and I hated what he did to you. I hated him. I wish he wasn’t my father. And I hated Grandpa for keeping us apart. He can just go to hell. ” She fell into my arms, crying, squeezing me tight.

I held her close, as if her tears were a river that threatened to carry her away from me. No way would I let that or anything bad happen to her, not if I could help it. As for the man behind us, catching his breath, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t either.

He circled around us, peering out at the surrounding field, empty save for a few grazing horses. Then he faced us, capturing my eyes—his filled with a look of worry and concern. He pointed and mouthed something without a sound, saying, “Is she okay?”

I nodded. “We’ll be fine. We’ll all get through this.”

“Hey, sweetheart, I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, and I never will. You just have to trust us as the adults here, that when things get tense, we’ll work things out. Now, that may involve raised voices or…even sarcasm to get through it.” He twitched his lips at me. “But I’d never lay a hand on your mother to hurt her.”

I curled up a corner of my lips, appreciating his efforts to calm my baby girl down. “Maybe try a little less sarcasm, but yes. Baby, he’s right. Together, we’ll make this work.”

“Like we’re a team?” She parted from me, sniffling, her tear-stained face somber. I reached up to brush the purply hairs stuck to her cheek.

“Exactly. We’re a team, and there’s no I in the word team.” Like a stern coach, Nate picked up the ball on that at first, giving us a pep talk. Then suddenly, he performed movements of his hands in the air and struck a pose like a cheerleader. “Go NTPs.”

“Go what?” She wrinkled her nose and cracked up. But at least she smiled again.

“NTP. Nate, Tori, Porsche.”

“I think we could come up with a better name.” I chuckled.

“No, Mom, I like it. We’re the NTPs and we’re here to say, ain’t nobody gonna get in our way. Not today.” She struck a sassy pose at the end of her rhyme, folding her arms over chest, cocking her head and nodding.

Nate and I took one look at each other and busted up, snorting and laughing. It certainly relieved any tension that remained.

As we recovered, it was too easy to get lost in his sparkling eyes with the laugh lines at the corners. We connected there for a few seconds, his gaze warm, reminding me of the reassuring hug he gave me at his mother’s house. Then we both looked away.

In the aftermath of it all, we fell quiet. Only the breeze brushing by the tops of the grass in the surrounding field made any sound. It was then I took a good look around and realized it was just us, like we were on our own island, apart from the world we once knew. How pristine the ranch was in this solitude. There were probably other working parts here, but this patch of ground was rather untouched, save for the cabins and us.

“I must admit, this is a pretty place. Porsche, do you see those horses over yonder?” I pointed her in the direction where to look.

“Oh, can we pet them? Please?” She begged.

I deferred to Nate, who nodded in agreement. “Sure. It’d do us all some good to go for a stroll.”

She walked on a few yards ahead of us as we meandered and navigated across the field. Nate hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, chuckling again.

“What?” I asked, dodging what I thought was a cow patty, not that I’d ever seen one in person. The flies and brown color were good clues.

“You said over yonder, sounding rather Southern, ma’am. Maybe Kissing Springs is rubbin’ off on you.” He chided, thickening his twang more than usual with words sounding more like flirting than sarcasm.

Then he took a breath and cleared his throat, turning serious once more. “Unless Cap contacts us again, we’re out here on our own. He said he’s tracking where we are, so keep that phone on you at all times.”

“Yes, sir.” I saluted him. Maybe sarcasm was catching. His lips twerked at me.

“I’m sure if he believes Bottesta is on his way here, he’ll send word and reinforcements. As for how long we stay put, and I think for all our sanity, we should plan to be here for the longest amount of time. Two or three months. Not that I think we’ll be here that long, but just in case.”

Porsche must have heard every word. She walked backwards to eyeball us. “But what do we do with ourselves for that whole time? It’ll get boring watching TV in the cabin every single day.”

I shared the same whining concerns my daughter had voiced. Nate paused in thought and scrubbed the stubble on his chin. After only one day, it’d grown in nice and thick. I took a moment to enjoy how sexy the look was on him, then I forced my eyes to focus on anything else around us.

“There’s a concept in military warfare about hiding in plain sight. And, well, when in Kissing Springs, you do what people do here.”

“Which is what?” I balked.

“We act like all the other families around here, like it’s just our normal lives. Work. Have hobbies. We hang with our friends and family. Go to school.”

Porsche lit up at that, her eyes big and wide. “Can I really go? They started today, you know. I’d be a freshman, just like Opal.”

“But who would watch over her at school? I’m not at all comfortable letting her out of my sight.”

My girl’s shoulders drooped. Too bad. School may sound fun to her, but safety first.

“I’ll talk things over with Robbie and see what we can do about that. In the meantime, we probably need to head to town and pick up some food and clothes. I arrived with what’s on my back, and I’m not sure what all you two packed.”

“A few days’ worth was all. And I could use some shoes. Something tells me my designer heels won’t be very comfortable around here.”

He eyed my feet where the scratches were already reddening there.

“Of course, I’ll need clothes for school. A sundress and boots like Opal’s would be nice.” Porsche twirled away, back to her happy self.

One day in Kissing Springs was an unexpected detour in our lives. Now we were talking about two months? Too many details swirled in my head.

“Why are you looking doubtful? Talk to me.” He stopped and faced me, too close.

“You said we’d work? I was pregnant at sixteen, Nate, and never held a job. Unless you count motherhood. The Bottestas wouldn’t let their women work a day in their lives.”

“Did you want to work?”

“Of course. I tried to go to school for design, but Ricardo forced me to quit, so I never finished.”

“Okay. We’ll figure that part out later. As for me, I assume Cap is still paying my salary. But to keep up appearances, I can get a job with Andrew and his Knights security team.”

Doubts multiplied in my head about the entire ordeal. “What about your family, Nate? Your mother and sisters? I’ll bet they’d be even more pissed if you act like everything is normal, then they find out later it wasn’t.”

“Leave them to me. I’ll deal with the aftermath. They’ll understand, I’m sure, when I tell them I was just doing my job to protect the two of you.”

Doing his job. That struck a nerve with me, when it had no right to.

“I don’t know about this. But I don’t have any other ideas, either.” I rubbed my arms and shifted my bare feet for warmth as the breeze kicked up around us. But my toes sunk into something cold and wet and gooey. Ew. I didn’t dare look down to see what it was, and I froze to the spot.

“Are you okay?” He must have noticed my squeamish face.

“What did I just step in? Please don’t say a cow patty.”

He glanced down and snickered. “Um. Okay. I won’t then.”

“Oh, God.”

“Consider yourself initiated, city girl. Once you’ve stepped foot into manure, there’s no going back.” He got a good chuckle at my expense.

“You’re getting a good laugh at this, aren’t you? Ha Ha.”

“Maybe just a little.” He winked.

“Yuck, Mom.” Porsche gasped, eyeing the ground.

“Come on. We’ll visit the horses another day. Let’s get you back to the cabin and cleaned up. I can’t take you to town today smelling like dung.” All of a sudden, he hoisted me into the air over his shoulder. I yelped, protesting at first, then gave up, letting my arms and head hang loose. His nice ass became my view, and I liked it way too much.