by Maya Banks
it to remain unchanged. The parts along the lake owned by a paper company had been sold off years ago, and now, where it had mostly been untouched forest, it would be developed, trees gone, the landscape irrevocably changed by housing subdivisions.
His vision blurred, eyes stung, and the two initials acting as the artist’s signature wobbled into view. A simple A.G.
Anna-Grace. His Gracie. Dear God, she was alive?
But if she was alive. Well. Painting, even. Then why the hell had she disappeared and why had she never made an effort to contact him?
The painting meant something to the artist. It was evident in every brushstroke. Emotion jumped off the canvas and grabbed the person viewing it by the throat. He was besieged by nostalgia, knowledge of a time when everything was new, innocent, the world a vast opportunity in the making, life not to be survived but to be lived to the fullest, with every day savored.
But if he drew the conclusion that the painting—the place depicted—held value to the artist, then wouldn’t it follow that he meant something to her? Because someone who cared about another person in that fashion didn’t simply vanish, never to be heard from again, unless some great tragedy had occurred. And if he did in fact hold any memory or feeling to her, then why the fuck wouldn’t she have made a minimal effort to alleviate the nightmares he’d been victim to for more than a decade?
Then his gaze fell on the title of the painting and his heart began to pound even harder.
Lost Dreams.
It was certainly a depiction of that. For him. But what would have caused her to give it such a title?
There was an inherent sadness to the drawing, as if the memory indeed was painful, a depiction of lost hope, and as the painting was titled, lost dreams.
Even the silhouette of the girl facing the lake seemed lonely and barren somehow.
Unwanted tears burned the edges of his eyes and he was besieged by a sense of sorrow. The painting didn’t suggest that she had willingly parted ways with him and instead suggested regret . . . grief over the past.
“Zack?”
His name registered sharply and he shook himself to awareness to see the entire group staring at him, an array of expressions on their faces.
Sterling and his assistant stood to the side, also staring at Zack. Sterling wore a slight frown, his eyes intently studying Zack’s reaction.
“What artist is the exhibit for?” Zack asked casually.
But there was no disguising the betraying tremor and hoarseness to his voice, despite his best effort to contain his reaction.
“The artist isn’t what matters,” Sterling said neutrally. “The security in no way involves the artist. It involves the art.”
Eliza’s head snapped up, her eyes flashing fire. “Wait a minute. You want to hire a security firm for the exhibit, but you don’t give a fuck about the actual artist?”
Zack saw red, his thoughts so jumbled and chaotic he couldn’t even give voice to the thousand what-the-fucks going through his mind.
“The artist prefers anonymity,” Sterling said in a biting tone. “It’s not even decided as to whether the artist will attend. The exhibit isn’t about the artist, but rather the art.”
Eliza snorted. “And this helps us do our job how?”
“Who is she?” Zack asked quietly.
Sterling immediately stiffened, his entire stance becoming both wary and menacing.
“I don’t recall specifying the artist’s gender.”
At the same time Cheryl quickly turned the painting around, obscuring it from view with her body.
“The initials A.G. Do they stand for ‘Anna-Grace’?” Zack asked hoarsely, no longer even attempting to disguise the demand in his voice.
“I specifically said the artist in question prefers anonymity,” Sterling said, his jaw tight.
Frustration simmered in Zack. He was perilously close to losing his shit right here and now. And it was not going to be a pretty sight. For twelve fucking years—more than a third of his life—he’d worried and agonized over Gracie’s fate and now this fuckhead was playing goddamn mind games when Zack was on the cusp of the impossible?
Oh hell no. That untouchable “I’m wealthy and powerful” act might work on others, but not on Zack. He worked for extremely wealthy but down-to-earth people. He himself was wealthy and he didn’t act like an arrogant douche bag, smug and confident that his words and actions were law. Or above the law.
“Just answer the question,” Zack said through a tightly clenched jaw. “The initials. A.G. Do they stand for ‘Anna-Grace’?” His tone was frigid, suggesting without actually stating that he wouldn’t ask again.
At that Sterling’s expression became absolutely glacial. Frost formed in his gaze. His eyes hardened, his jaw ticking as he continued to size Zack up. For whatever reason, as soon as Zack had said her name, Sterling had gotten pissed, where before he’d just been a smug, arrogant asshole. Anger vibrated from him in waves. His eyes became shuttered, masking any hint or clue as to what he was thinking. Zack wanted to put his fist right through the bastard’s jaw.
The sudden tension between the two men was palpable. Eliza threw Dane an uneasy glance and took another step closer to Zack’s side, almost as if she knew the shit was about to hit the fan.
“We’re done here,” Sterling said in a rigid tone. “I no longer require your services. I’m more than happy to pay a consult fee if you leave your billing information with my assistant on your way out.”
His response enraged Zack and Eliza quickly stepped between the two men, turning her back to Sterling and placing her hand on Zack’s chest.
“Let’s go, Zack,” she said in a low voice. “This asshole’s taken up enough of our time.” She tossed a pissed-off look over her shoulder at Sterling and said in a tone as icy as his had been, “And you can bet you’ll get that bill before we leave.”
“Lizzie,” Dane said, carefully enunciating each word so she got the message, “get the fuck away from him.”
The threat in Dane’s tone, and his body language, was clearly evident. Eliza turned but pulled Zack with her, trying to herd him toward the door.
“Eliza, stop,” Zack said quietly, not wanting to vent his seething emotions on the other woman. But he planted his feet all the same, making it impossible for her to budge his much larger frame. “This is important. The most important thing in my goddamn life. I can’t leave here. Not until I get the info I’m looking for. I’ll kick the motherfucker’s ass if it gets me the intel I want—that I need.”
“Sir, should I call the police?” Cheryl inquired anxiously of Sterling.
Before Zack could follow up and make another demand, the glass entryway swung open and a woman hurried through, her gaze immediately focused on Sterling and his assistant.
As she took in the other DSS members, her face reddened in embarrassment. Several things happened simultaneously. Wade rushed toward her and she hastily babbled an apology for interrupting.
Zack went completely still, not so much a single breath escaping his lungs as he drank in the sight before him. His throat closed in and he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. All he could do was stare.
“I’m so sorry, Wade,” she said in a rush. “But I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to display the last painting. I just . . . can’t.”
The pain on her beautiful features was clearly evident. Her eyes were haunted by ghosts of the past. Ghosts that mirrored Zack’s own. Because he was staring at one right this very moment.
He finally managed to rip himself from the stupor enveloping him and force the single, choked word from his mouth, his entire mind quaking with disbelief.
“Gracie?”
FIVE
GRACIE’S head snapped up, obviously seeing Zack for the first time after she’d burst through the doors in her haste to recant the agreement to hang the painting Cheryl was still clutching nervously.
Her gaze was horror-stricken and her face was deathly pale. Utter terror was
reflected in her wide brown eyes.
She immediately started backstepping, turning as if to flee, and she would have if Sterling hadn’t made a grab for her arm to prevent her from falling. As it was, she slipped from Sterling’s grasp, sprawling onto her backside on the marble floor, and still, she pushed herself backward, her body language signaling horrific fear as she frantically tried to escape.
Zack stepped forward, unbelieving. God. This was his dream come to life and she was running from him? Looking at him like he was a goddamn monster? What the fuck was going on?
“Gracie,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “My God, Gracie, I thought you were dead! All these years. You can’t imagine . . .”
He never got to finish his statement because her expression grew even more horror stricken—if such a thing were possible. Tears filled her eyes and devastation bathed her entire face. Gut-wrenching, terrible grief, betrayal and heartbreak. All the things he himself was feeling and had felt for more than a decade.
“You meant for them to kill me too?” she choked out, her words so garbled and panic-stricken that he nearly didn’t comprehend them. But he heard every one and it only increased his bewilderment a hundred times more. Kill her? This was his dream turned worst nightmare of his entire life.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “Who are you talking about? Who tried to kill you?” Didn’t she know that he’d take apart anyone who ever tried to harm her? That there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect her? Had she had no faith in him at all? Had their time together meant nothing at all?
He was about to explode with the need for answers. A million questions were in his mind demanding to burst free. But his primary desire was simply to touch her. Hold her. Confirm to himself that he wasn’t dreaming. That this wasn’t some morbid fantasy, a manifestation of years of wishful thinking taunting him so soon after his vow to put it all behind him.
Wade gently picked her up but then forcefully put her behind him. He wrapped his arm behind him to secure her solidly to his back, a barrier between her and everyone else in the room and especially Zack, whom he had pinned with a murderous glare that promised violence and retribution.
“Get the hell away from her,” Zack barked. “Now.”
He didn’t want this man so much as touching her. Thinking to protect her from Zack? This guy had shady written all over him. What the ever-loving hell was Gracie’s association with Sterling and why was there possessiveness written all over the other man’s face? As if Gracie belonged to him, was his to protect when she’d always been Zack’s. But then maybe . . . God, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—go there. His sanity was already hanging by the barest thread and he was precariously close to losing all semblance of control, he who was always in control, his emotions always tightly in check.
Gracie let out an inarticulate sound of fear and even with her behind Wade it was apparent she was in full meltdown. Wade turned to his assistant, allowing Zack a brief glance at Gracie, whose face was red and swollen, tears streaking down her cheeks and so terrified that it broke Zack’s fucking heart.
Beau intercepted Zack, putting his hand on Zack’s shoulder.
“You need to back off, man,” he said in a low voice. “Look at her. Is that what you want to do to a woman ever?”
Eliza was at his other side, her arm curled around his arm, obviously in support, but so too was her sympathy for Gracie evident in her eyes, her features as stricken as Gracie’s own.
Gracie’s fear and distress was palpable in the room. No one was unaffected, least of all Zack. But why was she afraid of him? It made no goddamn sense! The world had gone crazy around him and he needed answers. The longer he went without them, the more insane it was driving at him, eating at his very soul until he was about to go mad with it.
“Back the fuck off,” Dane growled.
It pissed Zack off that members of his own team was putting themselves between him and Gracie, as if they feared him hurting her. Him. Jesus Christ. But then they’d never seen him so unhinged and out of control. They were likely having their own what-the-fuck moment and wondering just who the hell they’d hired when, until now, he’d always been cool and unflappable, even under the most extreme circumstances.
“She is—was—my goddamn life,” Zack choked out in a gut-wrenching tone.
Gracie was struggling against Wade’s hold on her, obviously in a bid to escape. To run. To get as far away from here—Zack—as possible. Wade’s hold only tightened on her. And that only served to piss Zack off even more. This man had no right to touch her, to hold her against her will, even if he thought he was protecting her.
“Call the police,” Sterling barked at his assistant.
Dane held his hands up. “Whoa. I think everyone needs to take a step back and calm the hell down. You called us here.”
“And I’ve asked you to leave,” Sterling said bitingly. “Which you’ve refused to do. So unless you get out in the next three seconds, the police will be called and you will be charged with harassment. One has only to look at her to believe that charge.”
He nodded again at Cheryl, who seemed frozen in place, eyes wide, still clutching the painting that had started it all.
“We’re leaving,” Dane said calmly.
“No, the hell we’re not!” Zack roared. “Not until someone gives me some goddamn answers!”
Eliza gently pulled him a short distance away from Beau and the others and said in a voice too low for the others to hear, “Hon, come on. You’re doing more harm than good. Look at her. Really look at her. She’s scared out of her mind. And this standoff isn’t doing her any good. I understand that this is important to you. But you know where she is now. You know who she is. I’ll help you. I swear I won’t rest until I help you get the information you need. But right now, you have to leave or this is going to get even uglier than it already is. And if this woman is important to you, which she obviously is, then you aren’t winning any points here. Don’t do or say something you can never take back. Take the high road. Not out of respect for that egotistical asshole, Sterling. But for Gracie. Do it for her.”
Dane and Beau both closed in on Zack, Dane gently nudging Eliza away with a soft directive to remove herself from the situation and then they both took Zack by the arms and hauled him toward the door.
It went against every fiber of Zack’s being to simply walk away, as Gracie had apparently once done. To just give up, without a fight, for the single most important person in his life. The only person who’d ever meant the entire goddamn world to him. The woman he would have done everything for. Sacrificed anything for, no matter how important. Would have protected with his life. And would have spent the rest of his life loving and cherishing her to the exclusion of all else.
But his team wasn’t giving him a choice. He struggled, but Isaac and Capshaw added their strength and they forced him past where Sterling stood, glaring them all down, his arm still tightly holding Gracie, who was firmly shielded behind his much larger body.
In the end, they simply subdued him, though it took them all, and with their combined strength they pushed him into the parking lot.
He wanted to hit someone. His fists were clenched and his body language was clearly defiant. The others knew it. Beau pushed him against his truck and got into his face.
“I don’t claim to know what the fuck just happened back there, but you need to pull it together and fast. This isn’t you, man. You don’t treat a terrified woman like you just did. You don’t push the issue when she’s out of her mind with fear. I get this is important, but there has to be another way than you ending up in jail on assault and harassment charges.”
Zack shoved him back and then closed in, going nose-to-nose with Beau.
“You tell me, if that was Ari. If someone got between you and Ari and then told you to back the fuck off. Would you just walk away? Take the fucking high road?” Zack roared, throwing the last two words out with the disdain they deserved.
Beau
paused, his eyes flickering with instant understanding. Then he closed his eyes a moment and sighed. “Jesus. So it’s like that.”
Rage. Grief. Fury. Soul-deep sorrow. They engulfed Zack and despair slammed into him like a tidal wave. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes, leaning back against the vehicle and out of Beau’s—his friend’s—face.
Eliza’s cool hand covered his arm, squeezing just enough to get his attention and wrest him from the fog surrounding him.
He glanced her way and saw bright emotion in her eyes as she inserted herself between him and Beau. Almost like she knew his story. As though his dark, stormy thoughts were displayed in real time and she could see right into his shattered mind.
“I’ll help you, Zack,” she said softly. “You just tell me what I need to know so I have a starting point. You don’t have to tell me all of it. As little or as much as you’re comfortable sharing. I swear to you on my life that I won’t rest until this is resolved for you. I won’t give up. You have my word.” And left unspoken was the fact that Eliza’s word was solid. She didn’t offer her word lightly, and neither did she ever break it when given.
Before he could respond, Eliza pulled him into a hug, which was an impressive feat given her height and weight disadvantage. But her hug was fierce. Packed with emotion, solidarity. Loyalty. She was the sister he’d always wanted to have.
He’d grown up an only child, his mother ditching him and his father when Zack was still a baby. And Gracie had come from a broken home with an alcoholic mother who didn’t even know Gracie existed most of the time. Her father? Some random hookup of her mother’s. She didn’t even know who the father of her child was, never mind Gracie ever knowing her father.
He and Gracie had both wanted children. As many as they were blessed with. They wanted to fill their home with absolute love and a strong sense of family. All the things he and Gracie had been denied.
“How soon?” he asked in a barely audible voice, one that was so strained it cracked with just the two words.
He didn’t have to explain the two-word question. Eliza knew exactly what he meant.
“We can go into the office now,” she returned. “Or if you prefer, I’ll grab my laptop and meet you at your place. Or you can come to mine. It’s up to you.”
She was offering him a way out of further losing his shit in front of the others, something he was grateful for because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it together before he completely broke down.
It was like a ten-ton anvil had dropped from the sky and squashed him like a bug. He was still reeling from the shock of seeing Gracie in the flesh. No longer a ghost from his past, but a living, breathing woman—no longer a girl of sixteen—twelve years older but just as heart-achingly beautiful as ever.
“Your place,” he managed to get out. “If that’s okay.”
It was the only place where he felt comfortable enough to spill his guts. He damn sure didn’t want to have this conversation in front of all his coworkers at the office. He’d hidden his pain from the rest of the world for twelve years. Only since he’d gone to work for DSS had he formed any semblance of a friendship with others.
They’d just seen him at his lowest, but he knew it would only get worse, and he had no desire for the others to know the torment he’d lived with for so much of his life. He knew he was pathetic, but it didn’t mean he wanted more witnesses to his weakness than necessary. Furthermore, now that finding Gracie was no longer an impossible dream but a stark reality, he didn’t give two fucks how pathetic it made him that he refused to just let it go. As fucking if!
She gave his arm another reassuring squeeze. “Then run me back by the office so I can get my car. I’ll just need to go in and get my laptop and then you can follow me over to my place.”
“Thanks, Eliza,” he said softly.
“No thanks necessary,” she said just as softly.
SIX
GRACIE buried her face in Wade’s back, her entire body trembling. She couldn’t control the shaking. And the cold. God, she felt cold to her very bones. Shock wasn’t even an adequate word for what she had felt looking up into the eyes of an older but still devastatingly handsome Zack Covington. If anything, he was more handsome. Gone was the boyish charm and easy smile and in its stead was a much harder looking man, one that appeared as damaged as she was herself.
She’d thought she’d felt pain over the years. Grief. Regret. She didn’t think it could get any worse than what she’d already been dealt.
She was wrong.
Because never in that time had she faced Zack. Never since that night. No amount of imagining or mental preparation could have possibly prepared her for the reality of seeing him, when she’d made certain they would never again cross paths. Apparently fate wasn’t on her side. Also apparent was that fate evidently didn’t think she’d already suffered enough heartbreak for a lifetime.
Wade turned, sliding his arms around her in a comforting gesture. He gathered her to him tightly, hugging and soothing her with a low-pitched voice.
“He’s gone now, Anna-Grace. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let him hurt you ever again.”
His words seared through the chaotic tumble of her thoughts and through the numb that had settled over her body, paralyzing her. She shoved away from Wade sharply, catching her footing when she would have fallen again.
“I have to go,” she babbled, searching desperately for an escape route.
She couldn’t go out the front. What if he was out there waiting for her? What if he followed her? What if he found out where she lived? What if he already knew?
