The Perfect Outsider

by Loreth Anne White

  He swallowed. Then nodded.

  Her face went white as the sheet.

  “What’s her name?” Her voice came out hoarse.

  “Annie,” he said, bitterness filling his mouth, his eyes burning. “I…married her.”

  An almost imperceptible shock rippled through her body.

  “June—”

  She pulled back from his touch.

  “I don’t feel married. I have no ring.” He hesitated. “We had a baby. I can remember a baby in the house.”

  Her eyes filled with moisture. A single tear shimmered down her pale cheek.

  “Did you know any of this before…before—”

  “Before I slept with you? No. I had snippets, but they made no sense. They suddenly seem to be slotting together.”

  “Do you know who you are, your name?”

  “It is Jesse—the name on my belt. My surname still eludes me. I—I know things that I’ve done, June, not good things. They’re just disjointed pieces, sensations, floating around my brain, and I still can’t put them together in a whole picture. Which is why I’m going to ask the feds to help me.”

  “You were afraid of the FBI before. So why now?”

  “Now there’s you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Now I will take whatever knocks are coming, because I want to see if I can clear the way to be with you, June.”

  He reached for her hand, but June pulled away. She stared at him.

  The hurt on his face was visceral. It cut like a knife through her stomach. She felt herself starting to shake inside. “Wait for Agent Bledsoe, please. He’ll be here tomorrow. You can talk to him. You don’t have to go.”

  “I can’t be here with you. Not until I sort this out. I don’t want to hurt you, June. So I’m going to get help.”

  June’s world tilted on its axis. Maybe he was telling the truth—maybe he didn’t know he had a wife and child before sleeping with her.

  You need to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Which she hadn’t given Matt. And it had killed him.

  But it didn’t change what had happened, or the way she felt. Or how wretchedly she hurt. But this was her fault—she’d let it happen. She’d allowed him to open the cracks in her heart. She made the decision to sleep with him, too.

  You didn’t know him, and he didn’t know himself, yet you took the risk, anyway…

  She struggled to breathe, and it took a few more beats before she could speak again.

  “So you’re just going to cut yourself off from me? From Cold Plains? What if there is someone in Cold Plains you came to save?” She heard the plea in her own voice, and she hated it.

  “June, it’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like, then?”

  “I can’t save anyone until I know who it is I might have come here for.”

  A darker thought struck her.

  “You do remember, don’t you?” She stepped closer to him. “You recall exactly what terrible thing you did, and now you’re fleeing from the law, before Hawk gets here.” She inhaled shakily, going hot. “Is that what you were doing here in the first place, Jesse? Coming to hide from the law inside a cult? Is that why you had the D tattooed on your hip and carried no ID?”

  “No!” He ground the word out through clenched teeth, and anger, dark and hard, twisted into his features.

  A thin, cold fear trilled through her.

  Be careful, June. He really could be dangerous. To you and to everyone in here. Especially if he’s just remembered who he is and what he’s done.

  “Fine,” she said guardedly, trying to sound vaguely calm while her insides were jelly, while her chest was bursting with anxiety and pain.

  “I acknowledge this is my own fault, Jesse. I knew all along you might have a life that couldn’t include me. I knew you might need to leave the minute you remembered what was waiting for you. I rolled the dice.” Her voice quavered. “And I lost. I’m a big girl—I can handle it.”

  The anger on Jesse’s face dissipated. Raw concern filled his eyes. And he almost imperceptibly leaned toward her, as if reaching out to her, as if every part of him wanted to touch, comfort. Hold on to her.

  Tears pricked into her eyes and her throat ached with the effort of trying to keep it all bottled in. “Go,” she said, very quietly.

  He gathered his clothes, then stalled near the door. “I’ll be gone before dawn.”

  She said nothing.

  He opened the door, started to leave.

  “Jesse?”

  He spun around, anticipation—need—in his eyes.

  “If you do anything that will hurt these people, jeopardize the safety of this house—”

  “That’s not who I am, June. You’ve got that wrong.”

  He waited, as if there might be some answer, something she could say to him, or do, that would change his mind, change everything.

  She began to shiver.

  “Go,” she said again.

  He stepped into the passage and the door snicked shut behind him.

  Tears, silent, slid down her face.

  * * *

  June sank onto the bed and buried her face in her hands, and she allowed herself to sob like a small child. Every emotion she’d pent up for five years seemed to come out now in great big body-jerking spasms. She had not sobbed like this since she’d watched her little Aiden’s casket being lowered next to his daddy’s bigger one, since she’d heard the dark, damp sods of Washington earth thudding onto the lids, taking them away from her forever.

  And when June stopped crying, she had no fuel left in the tank, nothing to shore her up, to keep going with the fight. Jesse had been the last, soft straw that had broken the back of her resolve and dropped her to utter rock bottom. She curled up in a tight fetal ball on top of the bed, and felt empty. Nothing. Just blackness.

  * * *

  Jesse opened the door to one of the spare bedrooms, planning to change in there. He was surprised to feel Eager’s wet snout nuzzling against his leg as he did so. Flicking on the light he saw Eager was all body-wiggle excited to see him.

  Jesse ruffled the dog’s fur wondering why he’d been locked in here. To the best of his recollection Eager had come into the hallway after he and June had hiked back to the safe house. The dog had then headed straight for the kitchen, in search of his water bowl and food, while Jesse had followed June to her bedroom.

  Once he’d changed, Jesse checked his weapon and sheathed it back in his holster. He smoothed his hand over Eager’s square head. “You’d better stay in here, bud. I don’t want to be letting you out if this is where your handler wants you, big guy.”

  He closed Eager into the room, then went into the kitchen. It would be another long hike and he’d need to take water, some food. He should probably eat something now, too, although he had no appetite for anything. Focus, he told himself. He was on a mission for the whole truth of his life. It was an obstacle he needed to conquer if he wanted any chance in hell of finding his way back to June. But his heart grew even heavier at the thought.

  If he did have a wife and child, he had responsibility, and Jesse knew in his gut he was not a man to shirk that.

  Nor was June a woman who would take a man into her life under those circumstances, even if she loved him.

  * * *

  The kitchen was dark, but light from a waning moon outside painted the valley silver through the big living-room windows. Small clouds scudded across the moon, and a wind was making the trees sway. It looked like another storm front brewing—not an ideal time to set out into the backcountry.

  As Jesse reached for the light switch in the kitchen, a movement outside caught his eye. His hand stilled. The shadow moved again and his pulse quickened.

  Leaving the switch, he moved quietly across the dark kitchen and crossed the living room to the big window, staying carefully to the side. Outside, partially hidden by the shadows of a pine tree, was a human figure. Jesse’s blood began to thrum
with adrenaline.

  The figure stepped out from the shadows and into a puddle of moonlight. Jesse saw pale hair.

  Molly.

  She was talking into a radio.

  Quickly, he moved to the front door and opened it quietly. He heard a voice, male, deep, crackling over the radio: “How long is this tunnel? Over.”

  Molly keyed her radio. “If you’ve got radio reception again, you’re almost at the end,” she said quietly. “Once you exit the tunnel, you need to cross a wooden boardwalk and—” Molly froze like a deer in headlights as she caught sight of Jesse.

  He barreled out of the front door, and she screamed as he grabbed her arm.

  He snatched the radio from her hand, his fingers digging into her upper arm.

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Jesse growled.

  The male voice crackled over the radio now in Jesse’s hand. “Okay, we’re out of the tunnel now—can see the boardwalk ahead. Take cover, we’re coming in.”

  Jesse heard a click.

  Both he and Molly spun around.

  June stood at the safe-house door, shotgun stock to her shoulder. In this pale lunar light she looked ghostly, eyes dark holes.

  “Let her go, Jesse.” Her voice was strange.

  “June—this is—”

  Her finger curled around the trigger. “Give that radio to Molly and let her go.”

  He released Molly, but kept the radio.

  Molly ran to June’s side.

  “You bastard.” June spat the words at him. “You played me. You, Samuel, Fargo, Kittridge—you set me up and I fell for your stranger story, your charisma, just like they all fall for Samuel’s stories. Your amnesia was a ploy to get me to bring you to the safe house, wasn’t it? So you could figure out what we were doing. You absolute sick bastard.” Her voice caught. “What’s worse, I slept with you. Was sex a good bonus?”

  Jesse knew exactly what June was feeling right now—he could taste the bitterness of betrayal in his own mouth. An overwhelming remorse filled his body…and it hit him, square between the eyes.

  Annie had betrayed him. She’d slept with another man.

  “It’s not what it looks like, June. I saw—”

  Molly grabbed June’s arm. “He was telling two henchmen on the radio how to find the safe house! You heard it yourself, June. You saw the radio in his hand,” Molly said urgently. “They’re almost here! It’s his fault. He’s a mole.”

  Jesse set the radio down on the ground and held his hands out to his sides, tension thrumming through him.

  “Molly’s lying. She’s the traitor. You’ve got to get inside, get to safety. Now.”

  Her mouth flattened. “I’m not going to fall for you again. Once a mistake—twice makes me a fool.”

  But as she spoke, a thudding of boots sounded along the boardwalk.

  “June—get inside!” Jesse yelled. “They’re here!”

  Molly darted off into the dark bushes.

  June swung her weapon to the source of the sound. Gunfire cracked through the air. Then everything seemed to continue in slow, sick motion. Jesse saw June stumble backward against the doorjamb. The shotgun fell to her feet. Her hand went to her chest. She seemed frozen in time for a moment, then slowly she slid down the doorjamb and crumpled into a heap on the threshold.

  Chapter 10

  Jesse raced toward June just as the two henchmen emerged from the shadows. One of the men fired and a bullet buzzed like a hot hornet past his ear.

  He flung himself to the ground, rolling off the edge of the patio into the creek bed as another bullet thwocked into the trunk of a tree beside him, shooting out shards of wood.

  Jesse reached for his sidearm. His heart was hammering, every sense and reflex heightened by adrenaline. He could scent moss, loam. Creek water was cold on his leg. He inched carefully up and peered over the edge of the patio.

  A bullet zinged off rock and an image burst sharply into his mind; of another time when he’d been cornered and shot at. In an instant Jesse knew what that time was—he’d come across signs of poachers in the Wind River Mountains. They’d killed and field-dressed an elk and packed out the meat, leaving flies buzzing around the carcass in a field of wildflowers. He’d tracked them for two days, finally coming upon their camp near evening. But the father and son had ambushed him.

  They’d killed his horses, taken his weapons. He’d escaped, badly injured. But he’d survived in the Wind River Mountains for three weeks before hiking his way out.

  And with that memory came a whole tumbling series of others—and Jesse knew what he was. A warden for the Wyoming Department of Fish and Game—a wilderness cop who owned a ranch in the Wind River foothills. The knowledge fired his resolve. It fed a sense of righteousness and dogged determination, of duty into his blood.

  As he edged up to see over the patio again, more images, fueled by intense adrenaline, burned into his brain.

  He’d taken the warden job after Annie had cheated on him and become pregnant. After she’d given birth to a son, Jesse had left her and the infant on his ranch and gone into the mountains, searching for a way to deal with the possibility that Annie’s baby belonged to another man, searching for a way to handle the pain of betrayal, a way to move forward with his wife.

  Another bullet zinged past him and he saw the two men running in a crouch toward the safe-house door.

  What are they going to do? Kill all the sleeping occupants of the safe house, including the children?

  Jesse took careful aim, fired on the first henchman.

  The man stalled, stumbled sideways, then hit the ground hard. The second man made it to the door. Jesse fired on him, hitting the doorjamb and splintering wood as the man clambered over June’s body and ducked inside.

  Jesse scrambled onto the patio and raced in a crouch to June’s side, gun in hand. Relief punched through him when he saw her eyes flicker.

  She’s alive.

  But terror climbed onto the back of his relief as he saw a pool of blood, black in the silver moonlight, glistening on the floor beside her shoulder.

  “June!”

  “Go…” she whispered hoarsely, grabbing his shirt. “Please, Jesse, go save them!”

  He hooked his hands under her arms, pulling her to cover.

  “Leave me, dammit! It’s a flesh wound. I—I’ll apply pressure. Just don’t let me lose them, Jesse. Please.” Tears gleamed on her cheeks. “Get the children first, Jesse.”

  Conflict warred inside him. In his memory he heard Annie’s baby screaming, and he heard the fire coming.

  “Don’t make it all worth nothing, Jesse.”

  He removed her handgun, placed it in her hand. She clutched her other hand over the wound in her shoulder.

  “Hang in,” he whispered. “I’m coming right back for you.”

  He ran along the outside of the cave house to a window on the far side. He broke it, kicked glass free, climbed through and rushed first to the nursery where Lacy, the twins and Tyler’s baby were still sleeping. Tyler was in another room with Brad. Davis was in yet another. Sonya, he knew, shared a room with Molly and Brad’s mom, Tiffany. Jesse couldn’t reach them all in time.

  Get the children first, Jesse.

  As he entered the nursery, Jesse could hear Eager barking madly. Then he heard a woman’s scream.

  Panic stabbed into his heart.

  Lacy was sitting up in bed, roused by the noise.

  “What’s happening?” she said.

  “Henchmen.”

  “They found us?”

  “Get your kids and Tyler’s baby, Lacy. Take them and go out the window in the games room. It’s broken. Keep the children quiet. Stay hidden in the woods until I come find you.”

  He raced down the passageway. Davis was coming out of his room. He was carrying a shotgun and he’d already met up with Brad and Tyler, who had freed Eager. Brad was holding him by the collar.

  “Henchman got inside,” Jesse whispered.

  “My
baby—”

  “It’s okay, Tyler. Lacy has him. She’s hiding with him in the woods. You’ve got to stay here and help me get this guy, understand?”

  The sound of a woman’s scream reached them again.

  “That way,” he whispered. “Sonya’s room.”

  Brad pressed himself against the wall on one side of Sonya’s door. Tyler stood on the other.

  “Davis, you stay right behind me.”

  Jesse kicked the door open.

  Sonya screamed again. She was trying to fight off the henchman with a baseball bat. The henchman swung around as he heard Jesse enter, and Sonya took the gap, crashing the bat down hard across his shoulders. The man grunted, stumbled, then buckled to the ground in pain. Eager burst past Jesse and attacked the man, biting into his leg.

  The man tried to kick Eager off. Jesse grabbed the man as Davis got hold of Eager’s collar and pulled him off.

  The man’s pant leg was torn and there was blood. His face was white with pain.

  “I know him,” said Tyler, staring at the fallen henchman. “He’s Lumpy, Jason’s friend, who came to make me give up my son. You bastard!” Tyler lunged for the man.

  “Hold him back, Brad. This guy is not going anywhere.”

  Lumpy glowered at Jesse. “You’re him, aren’t you?” His voice was hoarse with pain. “You’re the guy from the woods who killed Jason Barnes.”

  “Tyler, Brad, get him up,” Jesse said, holstering his Beretta. “Lock him in the utility room, watch him until I get back. Davis, you take the shotgun, go look for Molly outside.”

  Lumpy swore and then groaned in pain as they tried to lift him.

  “I think she broke my ribs with the bat, man. I—I can’t breathe.”

  Jesse raced back to where he’d left June.

  He found her passed out against the wall, gathered her up into his arms and carried her quickly into her bedroom, which was warm from the fire. He lay her on the bed and flicked on the light. Memories, everything he knew about himself and his past, rushed like a wild stream through his head. The life-and-death situation, the kick of adrenaline, must have shocked it all back, and Jesse now knew exactly who he was—Jesse Grainger.

  He knew what had happened to Annie and the baby. He also knew why he no longer wore a wedding band. And it was a promise he’d made to Annie on her deathbed that had brought him here to Cold Plains. Above all, Jesse was now certain there was room for June in his life, and here she was, slipping away from him.