by Jaycee Clark
“Different worlds? Hell, Ella, this is the twenty-first century! No one cares about that crap. We’re married.”
She held up her hand. “I don’t want to be, Quin. I’m a free spirit, you even said.”
“You’re my free spirit. Do I . . .” He bit down. “Damn it, Ella. We’re married! Why won’t you give us a chance?”
“You’re a great guy. An amazing guy.”
He simply looked at her. “If this is where you say something stupid like ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ I’d advise you to keep those words to yourself.”
“Okay, then.” She paced away and then back.
He had no idea what to say. “Why? Is it because of this other guy?” A dark feeling crept into him. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Not in the way you mean. No. It’s just . . . He came from a family like yours and . . .” She swallowed. “I’m not going into it all. It just didn’t work, Quinlan.”
“So what? A marriage when you were younger didn’t work out,” he tried. “That’s not to say ours wouldn’t. It was a while ago, when you were younger?”
She merely looked at him. “Yes. Years ago, actually.”
“Okay then. I still don’t see the problem, Ella. We’re adults. I want this. I want you. I want—”
“Fine. You want this? You want me? If this marriage is so damned real, so important to you, then why haven’t you told your family about me?” she said on a rush, and he saw it then, a flash of hurt in her aquamarine eyes before they flashed angry. “Why haven’t you told them about us? About the marriage at all? It’s been over six weeks, Quin, since we did the deed. Two weeks apart and every weekend since. Why in all that time haven’t you told me what they thought of our little surprise?”
He could only stare at her.
And she only stared at him. “See. I was stupid to think . . .” She sighed. “Again. I don’t blame you, I don’t, not really or maybe I do. I don’t know. I just know I’m not the type of woman a man like you takes home to his mother. I was taught that the hard way once. Guess I needed another reminder.”
He slashed his hand through the air. “Stop it. Stop talking about yourself that way.”
“Evidence speaks, Quin.”
He’d fucked up. He hadn’t known what he’d wanted, he’d wallowed in self-pity and wondering what to do and now here he stood.
“I’ll tell them. We can call them now.”
She swallowed, then met his eyes, her chin jutting up. “Now?” She shook her head. “I took the job, I’ve already got a place to live. I’m going to New Mexico and I don’t want you to follow me.”
Quinlan could only stand there. He blinked then blinked again.
“This isn’t it. We are not over.”
She swallowed and her eyes, always so bright with life and laughter, dulled. “I get you were probably confused and I know you were working through what happened to you and what that woman did to you.”
He’d told her of Elianya one night.
“What does that have to do with us?”
“Quinlan, there’s not really an us. We were . . . we were a good time for each other. We were . . . we were sort of a weekend fling that went a little longer than either one of us anticipated.”
“A weekend fling?” He wanted this to work for them. “I was looking for houses back home for us, guess that was a mistake too.”
She blinked but didn’t say another word.
“I was thinking and planning on a future for us and you were already moving on,” he said softly. He walked back to the bedroom and grabbed his bag. “All you had to say was no, Ella. That one word and I would have respected it and left.”
He grabbed his jacket and walked to the door.
“And yet, you never once told anyone about us, did you? For someone planning for us to be a permanent us, that seems odd.”
He was pissed, angry at her for not seeing them as he did, and at himself for exactly what she was accusing him of.
“You can’t have it both ways, Quinlan.”
He turned back and looked at her standing there in leggings and one of his damned T-shirts that swallowed her.
“Did you tell anyone about us?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I told Shalon and Marie, who told me to go for it. Who wouldn’t want a handsome rich husband? I only said I didn’t need a rich husband, handsome was negotiable. I didn’t tell them that you had yet to tell your family about me.”
He swallowed and nodded. “We can make this work.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, waving her hands as she started to pace. “But I want time to think, to follow through with my own plans without you there telling me what we need or don’t need to be.”
There might still be a chance.
She held up her hand. “I leave at the end of the week and I already talked to a realtor.”
“Realtor?” The ground that had been so solid and real for the last month had shifted, quick as hot sand, and he couldn’t find even ground. Realtor?
“I need some time to think.” She leaned up slowly, her small hand on his shoulder, and kissed him when he leaned down. “I’m sorry.”
He only looked at her. “I am too, Ella. I believe in us, as stupid as that clearly is. I’m not filing. If you want free of us so damned badly, you file. Brody Kinncaid is my lawyer. He’s in New York, have yours contact him.” He opened the door, still angry, still . . . damn it.
“You didn’t have to run, Ella. You love it here. If I bother you that much—”
“It’s not all about you, Quinlan. I applied for this job and thought of moving before I met you. And then you showed up and things changed, and after you . . .”
“You mean after us?” Us, not us, who the hell knew?
“Quinlan, sometimes you don’t listen or you only hear what you want to. This won’t work, not in the long run, why won’t you see that?”
“Or maybe I’m the only one who actually hears. I always thought of you as courageous, Ella. At least be honest with yourself. You’re the one running. You’re the one that doesn’t really want this. I don’t blame you for being pissed at me for not telling my family. I should have dragged you to meet them the first week. I messed up.” He stepped toward her, but then shook his head. Damned if he’d beg for something she didn’t want. This time, she could damned well come to him. He reached again for the door, and without turning back to her, he said, “If you need anything, you know my number.”
With that, he walked out, having forgotten his stupid cane. He wasn’t going back for it.
At the hotel, no one asked what he was doing there. The next morning, he flew home and tried to forget her.
Chapter 12
Albuquerque, October
Noises mumbled down a long tunnel.
Wake up. Have to wake up! There was something she needed to do. Something.
Her eyes wouldn’t stay open, it was so hard to focus. So hard. She quit fighting it and finally let her eyes shut. Sounds rocketed through her eardrums but didn’t make any sense. In and out, loud then nothing.
“Ella!”
She opened her eyes to bright lights shining.
Panic iced through her. They were back, back, and they’d take her baby.
She jerked.
“Whoa. Whoa. Settle down. You’re in the hospital. Ella, can you understand? You need surgery.”
She blinked up at the man above her. Doctor.
Doctor.
Couldn’t trust the doctors. Couldn’t trust them at all.
She tried again to twist away. “My baby. I want my baby. Where’s my baby?” she tried to ask, not sure if she did, if they heard her. She screamed the words again, and yet barely a sound came out. Her hands shook as she tried to lift them, tried to . . . to . . .
“Ella. You need surgery. The police want to talk to you, can you do that?”
She barely heard as someone mentioned something about a few minutes, but that was all.
“Ella. El
la, I’m Detective Hudson. We need your help to find your baby.”
Baby. Baby. Her baby girl. “She has red hair,” she whispered.
“Who has red hair?”
“Baby,” she whispered, trying to keep her eyes open. Chills danced over her skin, again and again. “Like her father. Red.”
“Okay. Ella, do you know who took your baby? And it was a girl? Did you have a girl?”
The question echoed to her. She nodded.
She tried to swallow and realized her throat hurt. She blinked up at the policeman. Brillo pad, rusted Brillo pad flashed through her brain. The man’s fuzzy hair stood up. She focused on his face and realized he was older; his dark flat eyes bore into her.
“Who took your baby, Ella? Do you know?”
She nodded. “They did. The Nursery. Just like the others.”
He frowned and she shut her eyes. “I don’t want to be here.” Doctors couldn’t be trusted, nor the nurses. They lied. They all lied.
Tears welled up and she tried to sit up, but the cop’s hand on her shoulder held her down. “Be still, Mrs. Kinncaid. It is Kinncaid, isn’t it?”
She nodded. Too tired to explain it all. Did Quinlan know? “Please, please, tell my husband.”
Her voice was barely more than a whisper. Not that it mattered. She tried to sit up again, tried to roll to the side so she could sit up, but again the policeman held her down.
“The officer said your husband is Quinton? Kinncaid from D.C.?” the cop asked.
She shook her head. “No, Quinlan. Please tell him.”
So stupid, how could she be so damned stupid? She’d trusted the wrong people, believed the lies. She whispered Quinlan’s name again.
“He’s on his way. Someone’s already contacted him. He reported you missing earlier today. Can you tell me, Mrs. Kinncaid, who took your baby? Do you know?”
She tried to focus on his words, the question, her answer. Did she know?
“I want my baby. I want my daughter,” she tried again. There was too much to explain. She had to go. Had to leave. Had to get out and find her daughter.
“Please. Please help me,” she begged him. “Please. Help me. I have to find her. Lisa took her.”
His eyes, something in the dark depths shifted. “I’ll help you, Mrs. Kinncaid. You have to help me though. Who did this?”
“Help me get out of here. Please,” she whispered brokenly, feeling her eyes tear up. “Please . . . have to stop them.”
“You need help too. Let us look,” the cop told her. “That’s what we do.”
She tried to get up, tried to push his hands away.
“Lisa?”
“Hammerstein,” she mumbled. “My baby. Please . . . I have . . . to . . .”
More voices asked her to calm down.
The doctor was back. She shook her head. “No. No. Please. Let me go. Let me go,” she yelled, or tried to. Only broken fragments of her words whispered out.
Tears slid down her cheeks. “I have to find her. I have to find her.” Tears choked her, her chest tightened. Her daughter could be anywhere. They would lie. Lie and keep her daughter from her. She had to . . .
She saw the syringe. She knocked it out of the nurse’s hand. “No. No, I have to leave. I have to find her.” Again she tried to sit up, gripping the cop’s jacket in her fist, straining to sit up.
Someone knocked him aside and stood in front of her. She realized they were moving her, the lights along the ceiling blinking, flashing. Bright. Dark. Bright. Dark.
Still she tried to get away. Crying and begging in broken whispers that no one heard, she reached over and jerked out the IV she felt in the back of her hand.
“Damn it.”
The lights grew blurrier.
“We need to get her into surgery,” a voice said.
She tried to tell them no, tell them to wait. A face floated above hers. “You are safe, Mrs. Kinncaid. We’re going to help you.”
Quinlan, she needed Quinlan. He’d find their baby.
Their baby.
A jagged memory of holding the small body against her knifed through her just before everything went dark.
• • •
En route to Albuquerque, October
Quinlan tapped his fingers on the armrest of the unmarked police car. Some detective with the state police—Quin didn’t remember his name—was driving with his partner.
They’d found her. The call had come in just a few minutes after he and the Richardsons had left. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson had decided to stop off at the store, but he headed back to their place. No idea what to do.
He should call his brother. Ian had called him earlier letting him know that they were on their way. Ian, Rori, Brody and Aiden.
Whatever.
He didn’t care.
“Do we not know anything else?” he asked them yet again. “You know, we could have just flown out there in half the time.” The jet was still at the airport, but the cops who delivered the news offered to take him. He’d tried to talk them into letting him fly out there, but they argued. He hadn’t had time to argue. Should have just ditched their asses and flown out to Albuquerque anyway.
The driver looked in the rearview mirror and met Quin’s eyes. “Only what we told you, Mr. Kinncaid. We’ll be there soon.”
Soon.
Not fucking soon enough. He hadn’t been fucking soon enough.
They’d found her in Albuquerque, traumatized and bleeding.
No baby.
No one knew where the baby was. An Amber Alert had been released for his infant daughter.
What the hell had happened?
“You have someone you want us to call for you, Mr. Kinncaid?” the other detective asked from the front seat.
He shook his head, and held out his phone. “I’ll call them. They’re on their way to Taos anyway.”
Quinlan had called the Albuquerque police department and had spoken briefly to a Detective Hudson, who hadn’t really told him a damned thing.
All he knew was that his wife was now in surgery. Still, no one knew who had the baby, who took the baby. At least he knew it was a girl. A baby girl.
He swallowed and sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. “How much longer?” It felt like they had been on the road for hours. He couldn’t get there fast enough.
“About an hour. Perhaps you’d like to call whomever you mentioned before?”
Part II: Decisions
Chapter 13
Taos, early March
He filed the paper away and leaned back. Great job done. The transfer went wonderfully smooth, but then they generally did.
Only a few times had any issues arisen, and when issues arose they were handled quickly and efficiently.
Transfers were a way of life. A service provided, a needed product supplied.
That’s what he did. That’s what he’d built. The fact his products were squalling bundles of joy to those who could not have them, well, so be it.
He wouldn’t be where he was today if he had let emotion rule all along. Emotion often drove, but should never, ever rule. Logic and sense should rule—and his did.
He turned to his partner.
“How many do we have lined up?”
“Two more, due later this summer and fall. Why?”
He turned his plush leather chair around to stare out the window overlooking the courtyard and the mountains beyond. “I want another bigger incentive. Something . . . special. Something a bit different from our norm.”
His partner stared at him for a moment with one brow arched. “Different how? It’s not like the buyers know anything other than what we tell them.”
True. New parents, once faced with that perfect newborn, did not ask questions. They never wondered if the papers, the information given on the child’s birth parents’ medical history, was fact or fiction. Assumptions were easier to believe when given a dream come true.
He did that, he provided dreams to those who’d forgotten how to b
elieve, for whatever reasons—emotional, psychological, biological. He gave couples the presents of all presents.
That is what he wanted.
“Yes, I know, but I want an angel that has it all, looks, history, a well-placed family, intelligence, the promised perfect child.” He turned back and leveled a look at her, this woman who went along with whatever he wanted, with whatever he asked.
She walked around the corner of his desk, rested her hips against the edge and leaned back, smiling at him. He knew that smile, she wanted him.
“There’s only one small problem with that, dear.” She slowly untied the side of her scrub.
He rather liked these knew wraparound scrubs. Looked great on her and they were even easier to get her out of than the traditional ones. He should know, God knows he’d taken enough scrubs, and everything else, off the woman.
“If such a perfect woman is in a situation to provide us with a little bundle, she probably won’t want to give it up.”
He shifted in his chair, resting one elbow on the arm and rubbing his lips with his finger as he watched her.
“And that is a problem why? We’ll work on her, talk her into our philosophy of helping others, recommend what would be best for the baby.”
She snorted. “Yeah, and if she still doesn’t want to give up a baby?”
“Well, then we do what we always do and simply take it.”
She grinned and laughed. “And you always say I’m greedy.”
He gripped her hips and tugged her closer to him, kissing her now bare, smooth stomach.
“Can you imagine what such a perfect bundle of joy would go for? The buzz of that auction alone?” he asked her, looking up and seeing the greed in her own eyes.
Her fingers slid through his hair. “A boy or a girl?”
He shrugged. “With the right prospective parents, the right spin, it won’t matter. The history, the blood is all that would matter.”
She chuckled. “The blood and the money.”
Now all they had to do was find her. Surely, somewhere there would be a perfect supplier. They’d just have to look.
