Twenty minutes later they were back in town. Desparre had a few old streetlamps casting dim light over the main road, but otherwise it had grown dark while they’d been inside the coffee shop. The place looked like a ghost town, except for the light and rock music spilling out of the bar.
Kensie got out of the truck first, moving quickly. Rebel trotted by her side, only a hint of her injury showing in the way she favored her back left leg.
Colter grasped the door hard and lowered himself out slowly. Sitting in the car and then the coffee shop had stiffened up his leg. Without giving it enough time elevated, the muscle above his knee felt knotted into an immobile mess.
He forced it to move, gritting his teeth as he tried not to limp, just in case Kensie looked back. The military had drilled into him that failure and weakness weren’t options. He’d already failed, but he had no intention of looking weak in front of her. Not again.
Ahead of him, Kensie reached for the door to the police station, then jumped back as it opened from inside. Next to her, Rebel looked back to him, as if debating whether he needed her more than Kensie did.
She’d never taken to another human the way she had to Kensie. Not since he and Rebel had bonded on the battlefield had she so readily accepted anyone. Then again, he hadn’t given her a lot of chances to spend time with civilians, outside his parents and the doctors at the various hospitals.
Apparently deciding he was fine, Rebel turned back to Kensie, who was now standing face-to-face with Chief Hernandez. She was bundled up, obviously heading out for the night, and she looked less than happy to see Kensie.
Colter picked up his pace, biting down against the pain. He’d be paying for this later, but he’d seen too many veterans get hooked on painkillers or booze after life-altering injuries. So he stayed away from all of it and just took the pain. Maybe it was his penance for living when everyone else had died.
“Miss Morgan, there’s not much more we can tell you about your sister.” Chief Hernandez nodded at him as he pushed his way up beside Kensie. “Colter.”
“Chief. What about the girl who came into the store the day the note was found?”
“What girl?”
“The one who looked kind of like Kensie. She was there at the same time as a family.”
The chief gave a tight smile. “You mean the one there with her family? We don’t know who that was, but we did talk to Jasper about what he remembered. And that was a family, not a scared girl trying to escape.”
She looked at Kensie, who’d shrunk low into her oversized parka. “I’m sorry. I wish we could help.”
When she started to walk away, Colter blocked her. “What’s the problem? Is the case still open?” He heard the confrontational note in his voice, but couldn’t stop it.
She frowned and shoved her hands in the pockets of her parka. “Technically, we let the FBI take over. We checked it out. There’s nothing more we can do.” She looked at Kensie. “I’m sorry. I understand this is hard to hear, but—”
“Hard to hear? What? That the police won’t do their job?” Colter tried to keep the words inside. But either he’d lost his social skills during his self-imposed hideout this past year or he was just in military mode, assuming everyone was an enemy until proven otherwise.
He swore internally, but before he could figure out how to backtrack, Chief Hernandez stepped toward him, getting in his space.
Rebel bared her teeth and even Kensie sidled closer to him in a silent show of support, but the chief sounded more tired than mad when she finally spoke.
“We did our job. I think you’re low on information, Colter. We worked closely with the FBI on this. It was their call in the end, but we agreed with them.”
She looked briefly at Kensie, then focused her attention on him again. “Kensie already knows this because the FBI told her, but let me share what they determined after running down all the leads: The note was a hoax.”
Chapter Five
He’d spent the entire day battling his re-injured leg and fighting the flashbacks of losing the people he’d loved most in the world. And the whole time, she’d been lying to him?
Colter bit back all the things he wanted to say to Kensie as Chief Hernandez walked away. Get control of your emotions, he ordered himself. But still, the anger and frustration bubbled up. He’d taken on a mission for her. All for a lead that had already been ruled a hoax.
“Colter, before you say anything...” Kensie put a hand on his bicep.
An hour ago, he would have leaned into her touch, however small. Now, his arm flexed instinctively, like a shove to push her away.
She must have felt it, because she withdrew her hand and used it to stroke Rebel’s fur instead. His dog tilted her head up, looking for more, and Colter couldn’t help his frown.
“I know why you feel like I misled you—”
“Because you did?”
She huffed out a breath. “Yes, I did. But I wouldn’t be here if I believed the FBI. I flew 3,500 miles for this. I know it’s real this time.”
His anger melted a little at the quiver in her voice. She was on a fool’s mission. She probably knew it, too, but couldn’t admit it to herself any more than she could to anyone else.
Maybe reason would help her get there. “Why does the FBI think it’s a hoax?” He’d intended the question to be conversational, but it came out confrontational.
He really did need to work on his social skills. Before his accident, he’d had no problem relating to people. Apparently a year without practice was all it took to reduce him to a Neanderthal.
“The note said, My name is Alanna Morgan, from Chicago. I’m still alive. I’m not the only one.”
She said the words as if she’d more than memorized them. As if she’d internalized them. As if they were a direct link to the sister she hadn’t seen in fourteen years.
“Okay,” he said when she didn’t continue.
“We didn’t live in Chicago anymore. We lived in the suburbs. We’d moved there when Alanna was three, and Alanna knew her address. The FBI thinks someone just picked the details from a news story, because reporters usually simplified it to Chicago.”
“What makes you think that’s not what happened?”
“Who would do that, all these years later, so far away?” Her voice was plaintive, desperation seeping through, and he understood.
It wasn’t so much that she knew it wasn’t a hoax. She just couldn’t bear it.
“Kensie—”
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re right, okay? There have been so many false leads over the years. This can’t be another one. It just can’t. But there’s more to it than that. I feel it deep down in a way I can’t quite explain. There’s something here. I know there is. And the FBI had their chance; I thought they’d come up with something. When they didn’t, I knew I had to come myself.”
“The FBI has a lot of experience—”
Her hand stroked Rebel’s head more frantically. “The FBI didn’t know my sister.”
“So they can probably be more objective about this. Look.” He cut her off as she started to speak again. “Why would your sister say she wasn’t the only one? That sounds like someone looking for attention, not a real letter. If this were real, why wouldn’t your sister provide some detail to prove it was her?”
“She was five when she went missing, Colter. How much does she even remember about us? What would she say?”
Kensie sounded defeated, but then she took a deep breath and pressed on. “For years, my parents spent all their time doing everything they could to try and find Alanna. She was the baby. We couldn’t function properly as a family without her. And then my brother Flynn turned sixteen. I was twenty and Alanna had been gone for seven years, but my parents hadn’t given up. I tried to watch out for Flynn better than I’d done for Alanna, but he got into a lot of troub
le. He crashed the car, almost died. And it changed everything.”
Colter sighed, knowing what Kensie was doing. The same thing she’d done with Jasper by telling the store owner personal details about the day her sister went missing. Playing on his sympathies to get him to continue helping her.
But as much as he sympathized with what she’d been through, dragging herself through a pointless search and him through the hell of a new mission wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“I’m sorry for what you and your family have been through, Kensie, but—”
“We all worked so hard to stay close, to be good to each other, but sometimes I feel like we’re just playing roles. That none of us has really been the same since Alanna went missing and we’ll never be until we find her.”
“Maybe you need to look for a new normal.”
“Like you have?” Her hand lifted from Rebel’s head and she crossed both arms over her chest.
“Yeah,” he snapped back. “Maybe it’s not perfect, but it works for me.”
“It works for you? All alone up in that cabin, locking out the world?”
Rebel whimpered, nudging Kensie’s thigh with her head, but Kensie ignored her this time.
“You don’t know anything about my life, Kensie.”
“And you don’t know anything about mine! You don’t know what it’s like to lose your little sister, to watch her be taken right in front of you.”
He clamped his jaw shut, trying to keep his words at bay, but they poured out anyway. “I know more about loss and grief than you can possibly understand. You come here and insist I help you, but at the end of the day, you’re selfish. You’re hiding the truth from me, wasting my time as much as your own. Are you really thinking about your sister, or is this about you, about making up for a stupid mistake you made at thirteen years old?”
He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth and he tried to backtrack. “It wasn’t your fault. But this mission you’re on is about you.”
Her lips curled up. “Right, and everything you do is for someone else? I don’t know what happened to your leg, Colter, and I’m sorry that you can’t be a soldier anymore, but maybe you should get over it! All I’m asking is for you to do something you’re already good at. All I need is a little help. The FBI is wrong. I know they are.”
His leg twitched at her reminder. Rebel whined again and left Kensie’s side, pressing against him as if to hold him up. He could tell her what had happened to his unit, about just how well he understood not wanting to let someone go when deep down you knew you had to. But he held the words in. They’d only make her feel bad and they wouldn’t do him any good, either. He wasn’t even sure he could talk about it.
Instead, he shook his head sadly. “I hope you’re right, Kensie, but I don’t think you are. And I can’t follow you on a fool’s mission. I’m sorry. I think you should go home.”
Colter walked away.
Rebel followed more slowly. Every few steps, her head swung back toward Kensie, still standing outside the police station.
He was a jerk. He knew it. Yeah, some of his words had been true, probably even the part about her being selfish. She just assumed she understood him because she’d seen him limp. Instead of asking what he’d gone through, she’d been focused on her own pain.
Then again, hadn’t he done the same thing? Walking away right now was only partly because her mission was likely to end in heartbreak for her and he didn’t want to see it. The rest was because she was slowly pulling him back into the world.
He knew part of healing would require him to re-enter the world. And it wasn’t because his therapists had told him so, back when the military had tried to force him to get some help. He wasn’t blind to the fact that the way he was living wasn’t the healthiest choice. But it was a choice that had brought him some measure of peace. Certainly more peace than he’d had in the hospital or even back with his family and friends.
Their platitudes and insistence they knew what he was going through hadn’t made him feel loved. It had made him angry. Because no one who hadn’t lived through a war and lost people could understand.
Maybe that had been part of the appeal of helping Kensie. She didn’t know about his past. And he’d thrown that fact in her face.
He squeezed his eyes shut, slowing to a stop. He sensed Rebel pause beside him, always his loyal companion.
Holding in a curse, he glanced back. Just like he knew it would, guilt flooded him at seeing Kensie standing there.
She looked lost and alone. But she also looked unbeaten. Her head was still held high, her shoulders stiff. She wasn’t going to give up on Alanna, no matter the odds.
He understood her loyalty. He admired it.
Semper Fi. It was the Marines’ battle call, their motto. It was one of his own core beliefs.
Opening his eyes, he turned slowly. Rebel spun with more glee, her tail batting back and forth, slapping against his thigh.
With every step back toward Kensie, his heart pounded harder, warning him this was a mistake. Already, she was making him feel things that were dangerous. Connection to a mission, connection to another person.
He didn’t want to care. He didn’t want to re-enter the world, because eventually that would make him face the things he’d lost, face the grief over the people he’d lost.
He wanted to stay up in his cabin with Rebel. He wanted to let the peace of the mountains soothe his soul. He’d planned to stay there the rest of his life. He knew it would be lonely, especially after Rebel was gone. But that seemed like the safest choice, the happiest choice for him.
As he approached, Kensie watched him warily, probably with no idea what she was doing to his life.
“I’m sorry.” His voice creaked with emotion and embarrassment heated his cheeks.
Rebel shoved her head under Kensie’s hand, tail wagging enthusiastically.
A surprised laugh burst from Kensie at Rebel’s antics and in that moment, Colter wanted to move forward. He wanted to laugh like that, unconstrained and free. He wanted to spend time with a woman like Kensie. If this had been a year ago, not only would he have done everything in his power to help her, no matter the odds, but he would also have pursued her. Hard.
She still looked wary, as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to accept his apology. As though she wasn’t sure she wanted his help. “Colter...”
The idea of venturing back into the world, even this tiny bit with her, scared him. Terrified him might be more accurate. But he’d made the decision now, and he shouldn’t have turned away just because she hadn’t been totally up-front with him.
He’d accepted a mission. And whether or not it was one that could be accomplished, he owed it to her to try.
He owed it to himself, too. To see if he could really do it.
He cut off whatever response she had to his apology by stepping forward into her personal space. Close, so she wouldn’t misunderstand.
She froze, her mouth still open.
He didn’t hesitate. He wrapped an arm around her waist and yanked her to him before he could think better of it.
Kensie stumbled, but his bad leg didn’t protest much as he caught her weight against his body. Then he captured her lips with his.
She tasted like coffee and peppermint. She tasted like every dream he’d ever had for himself, before his world was torn apart.
His other arm wrapped around her, pulling her even tighter against him, and then he lost himself. For a moment, everything else disappeared. The past, his brothers, her sister, even the inevitable end of knowing her when she returned to Chicago. For a moment, he was living again. Truly living.
Every inch of his body seemed to come alive as her hands slid slowly over his chest and hooked around his neck. She was tall for a woman, but still a good five inches shorter than he was, so when she went up
on tiptoes to give him better access, his knees almost buckled. And not because of his injury.
He might have thought it was the fact that he hadn’t kissed a woman in over a year. But it wasn’t. It was Kensie. The smell of her, some faintly spicy perfume filling his nostrils. The feel of her, little more than an outline through her thick coat. The soft sounds she was making in the back of her throat as she started to kiss him back.
It was less than twenty degrees out here, but he was fast becoming as overheated as he’d been those first days serving in the desert. The thought sent his heart into overdrive, memories of his friends in happier times mingling with Kensie, with the way she was clinging to him.
It was all too much.
Colter let himself have one more taste of her and then he pulled back, breathing hard. Staring down into her dazed eyes, he tried to get hold of himself.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, barely able to speak.
Confusion knitted her forehead and then she tipped her chin up. “I’m not.”
She tapped the side of her leg like she’d probably seen him do to get Rebel to follow, then headed toward his truck. When he didn’t immediately move, she glanced back, her hair flipping over her shoulder, full of sass. “You coming?”
Rebel was staring up at him, too, her expression plaintive, her tail sweeping slowly, clearing snow from the road.
After that kiss, she thought he might not follow? Still feeling as though his heart might pound its way right out of his chest, Colter hurried after her.
He barely even felt his leg.
Chapter Six
Kensie had hardly slept last night as thoughts of the kiss she’d shared with Colter played over and over in her mind. Instead, she’d tossed and turned in her surprisingly plush, comfortable hotel bed a few miles outside of Desparre. The outside looked like an enormous log cabin, but the inside was as opulent as anywhere she’d been in Chicago.
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