by J. D. Mason
“That’s the problem. You don’t seem to be doing shit.”
Again, the other man was silent.
“If I find out anything here that can help you to find her, I will let you know,” Jordan said, extending an olive branch of sorts.
“If you want her found alive, you’ll let me do my job. Whatever it is you think you know, what you do could put your woman’s life in jeopardy, Gatewood. This is the only warning you’ll get from me.”
“Noted,” he grunted, and abruptly ended the call.
A few minutes later, he placed a call to Phyl.
“Hey, boss,” she said, sounding like she was eating.
“I need background information on Sam Addison,” he explained. “He’s a senator.”
“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “Anything in particular I should be looking for?”
“Any and all connections to Variant.”
Phyl paused. “I’ll see what I can find.”
How’d they know she’d be there? Who knew that Abby was going home? Jordan didn’t even know until the morning she’d left. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t even planned it. Had she told someone? Skye, her best friend, maybe? Maybe she’d mentioned it to her father or one of her brothers, and if any of them knew, then they might have mentioned it to someone else.
If Jordan called them asking about Abby, he’d send up red flags to those people, which he certainly didn’t need. They’d insist on involving the police, in a sense signing her death warrant.
Exhaustion took over and Jordan eventually went to bed and started to drift off to sleep. Memories of Abby’s kisses grazing his lips aroused him, the sensation of her warmth pressed down on top of him.
“Pretend I’m not here,” she whispered between kisses.
“Impossible,” he groaned.
“Then pretend that you don’t mind the fact that I am.”
“I absolutely don’t mind.”
“I love how you taste.” She dipped her tongue into his mouth.
Jordan reached for the back of her head, wrapped one arm tightly around her waist, and pushed his tongue into her mouth. He would not let her be coy with her kisses. That just wasn’t fair.
A Honeycomb Tree
ANOTHER NIGHT IN THIS COLD and dark room. The blanket helped. She wrapped her mind around that small comfort the way she wrapped that blanket around her body, giving herself permission to be just a little grateful for it.
Tomorrow was a promise and another chance for her to get out of this place. Abby would’ve loved to close her eyes, even for a moment, rest, and let her guard down, but she couldn’t afford to do that. Not while the bitter taste of that asshole’s lips still lingered on her mouth.
She’d never felt so violated, so helpless. But then, that’s all she’d felt since they’d broken into her house and snatched her from it. Miss Independent, self-sufficient, and capable, Abby had never known what it was to not be in control of her own life, of her own body. And now here she was, sitting on this cold floor, wrapped in a dirty blanket feeling every bit a victim and victimized by some bastard who’d left her feeling grimy and weak.
No one who knew her would recognize this version of Abby. That man had stolen something from her and taken it with him when he left. He’d stolen some of her courage and her fight. If he’d wanted to do more to her, he could’ve and Abby would’ve been helpless to stop him. The realization had been gnawing at her gut since he’d left, but it was the truth.
She swallowed and drew her knees tighter to her chest. “Stop it, Abby,” she whispered. “Think of something else,” she quietly willed herself. “Something good.”
She couldn’t lose hope. Abby couldn’t let that fucker win—her body, mind, or soul. The longer she gave him space in her thoughts, the more power she gave him and the more he stole from her. She closed her eyes and took herself someplace else.
* * *
It was one thing for a woman’s family to meet the new love of her life for the first time. It was another thing for them to meet him for the second time after finding out the truth: that he was a Dallas billionaire who was almost as famous as Denzel Washington.
Low-key and normal. Just steaks, potatoes, and maybe a salad. Nothing fancy. They could even eat outside on the covered and heated patio, just to drive home the point that this gathering was really nothing elaborate. Abby wanted her people to feel at ease and Jordan to just be, well, Jordan. Not mogul Jordan, or CEO Jordan, or billionaire Jordan.
The fact that they were meeting here at his mansion big enough to hold every last one of their houses and still have open floor space left over didn’t have to be a big deal as it needed to be to her family if Jordan could just be the Jordan he was when he and Abby were alone.
Lucas Bedlam. Abby stood on the balcony above the patio watching Lucas Bedlam direct his staff in prepping the outdoor kitchen for dinner. Jordan sidled up behind her and planted his hands on either side of the railing, cocooning her between his arms, and then leaned in and kissed the side of her neck.
“I thought we were going to keep this simple?” she asked, watching Lucas Bedlam inspect freshly sliced vegetables.
“We are,” he assured her.
Without meaning to, she scowled. “Doesn’t he have a reality television show to film?”
Jordan sighed. “I guess not tonight.”
Lucas Bedlam was the head judge on one of those competitive-cooking shows that aired all around the country, maybe even the world. And Jordan had hired him to come here tonight to grill steaks for her family. This was not keeping it simple and low-key.
Abby turned in the tight confines of the space of his arms and stared into that handsome face. “He’s a television star, Jordan, who showed up here with an entourage. I thought you and I’d just throw some steaks on the grill, chop up a salad, and peel the plastic top off a container of grocery store potato salad and serve it all up on some nice paper plates.”
Jordan furrowed his thick brow as if he’d never heard of such a thing. “Nobody grills a steak better than Luke.”
Two different worlds. Sometimes, the line was mercifully blurred so that she hardly even noticed that he was oysters Rockefeller and she was hamburgers and fries. And then there were times like this.
A car horn honking alerted them that their visitors had arrived. Jordan smiled. Abby suddenly lost her appetite. When she’d first introduced Jordan to her family, she introduced him as Jordan Tunson because that’s the name he’d given her when the two of them first met. It wasn’t until later on that she found out what his real name was, but the last thing she wanted or needed, or rather, the last thing he needed, was for her nosy family to know who he really was, so she just ran with Tunson.
Recently, though, they’d seen Abby on the cover of Texas Society magazine, wearing an expensive European-made evening gown, with her hair and face all done up, and coming out of the governor’s mansion with Jordan, so she figured it was probably past time to have this gathering.
“That’s them,” she murmured and swallowed.
He straightened his stance and took hold of her hand. “Then let’s not leave them waiting.”
It wasn’t a question of if she was going to be embarrassed this evening. It was more a question of who would be the one to embarrass her the most: any member of her family, or her man.
Jordan stood in the expansive foyer, wearing jeans and a casual pullover sweater. He looked like he should’ve been the cover model for GQ. He was beautiful, but in this case, she sort of wished he could tone down some of that gorgeousness to look more regular.
Abby hugged her stepmother and then her father. “Hey, Birdy. Hey, Daddy.”
“Hey, Peanut.”
She’d asked him not to call her that.
Birdy’s rich brown eyes locked on to Jordan, her chin dropped slightly, and she stopped right in front of him and stared at him like he was Idris Elba or somebody.
“Hello,” he said to Birdy gawking at him.
Of cou
rse she didn’t say anything.
Abby nervously cleared her throat. “Daddy, you remember Jordan.”
Her father raised his chin, and not just because Jordan was taller than him. It was his commanding chin raise establishing him as head of something or other. He held out his hand for Jordan to shake.
“It’s Gatewood,” he stated for clarification, staring Jordan in the eyes. “Not Tunson.”
Jordan smiled slightly. “Correct,” he said, shaking her father’s hand.
For what felt like a good twenty minutes to Abby, but was probably actually closer to twenty seconds, the two men silently shook hands. It appeared to be some kind of man standoff whose meaning she really couldn’t decipher.
“Hey, Eva. Hey, Wes,” Abby said, hugging her older brother’s wife and then him.
“Peanut,” Wes said, and winked.
Rau, her other brother, standing behind Wes, sang that song from the Jeffersons television show about moving on up under his breath. Abby glared at him and rolled her eyes, then reintroduced Wes and Eva, and finally her best friend, Skye, and her man, David, to Jordan.
“You didn’t bring the boys?” Abby asked Skye.
She had two sons from her first marriage whom Abby adored.
Skye looked appalled. “Hell, no,” she whispered to Abby. “They’d terrorize this poor rich man. He ain’t ready, Abby.”
“Peanuuuut!” David wrapped his arms around her, picked her up off the floor, and laughed.
“Don’t call me that,” she whispered in his ear.
He laughed even harder.
A polite Rhodes clan was a thing of beauty and awe to behold. For the first hour, everyone was on his or her best behavior. And then they sat down to eat.
“I have to say,” her father began in that tone that made her feel like she was ten years old again. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then leaned back in his seat and looked at Jordan. “I find it quite unsettling to have been lied to about who you really are.” His glance bounced back and forth between Jordan and Abby. It kind of weighed heavier on Abby for some reason, though. At least, it felt like it. “Not a good way to make a first impression.” He looked back to Jordan for a response.
Jordan nodded slowly and thoughtfully. Abby swallowed the food in her mouth, but it kind of hung up in her throat for a moment. Jordan Gatewood was not accustomed to being challenged in any way. He said what he wanted. He got what he wanted. And over the last six months, Abby’d learned that he pretty much didn’t take too well to having to explain himself.
“I had my reasons for not being forthcoming, Walter.”
Abby looked at her brothers, who both looked back at her. Walter. Rau’s eyebrows shot up as if to say, Wow.
“I didn’t want to draw attention to myself because I hadn’t planned on staying in town and”—he looked at Abby—“and I had no idea that I was there to even make an impression on my woman’s father.”
“Oh, my God,” she heard Skye mutter.
Jordan turned back to her father. “But you’re absolutely right. It wasn’t the best way to begin a relationship.”
From that point on those people hurled questions at Jordan like rocks.
“How many acres you got here?”
“Do you own more than one house?”
“How many cars you got? What kind?”
“Did you raise the meat we’re eating now on this ranch, or did you buy it at the store?”
“Is that the guy from the cooking show throwing down on that grill?”
“Do you really have as much money as they say you have?”
And then a statement came through that made everybody shut up. And it came from Walter Rhodes.
“She’s my baby, Jordan. And if she ever comes to me crying because of something you did, you’ll never see her again.”
Abby didn’t know whether to pass out or jump across the table into her father’s lap and hold on to him for dear life. All eyes then fell on Jordan. But his fell on her.
“Understood.”
* * *
In and out of a restless sleep, Jordan lay with his forearm covering his eyes, trying to keep his worst fears at bay, trying not to think of what she must be going through right now this very moment.
It had taken him a lifetime to find her. Jordan still wrestled with the truth that a man like him did not deserve her, but by some ridiculous twist of fate, she was his. Jordan had dismissed the man he’d been before he’d met Abby. He had been given a brand-new chance at something he’d never had, at something he never even realized he’d needed. She was his soul mate, the pulse of his soul. Abby Rhodes with all her quirky little ways balanced him, and losing her was not an option.
As he lay there, a random thought came to mind, one he’d never given much time to before, but now it came to him as clearly as if it were happening all over again. It was a conversation.
“I’d imagine that a man like you would have his choice of women,” Walter Rhodes lazily stated while Jordan lined up his next shot on the pool table.
Abby’s family had come to his ranch for dinner for the first time and Jordan was being grilled about his intentions toward the man’s daughter like he was a teenager.
“I checked you out on the Internet, man,” Rau added. “You’ve been with some hotties.”
“Seven in the corner,” Jordan said before taking the shot.
Even the father of his first wife, Claire, hadn’t interrogated him the way Abby’s clan was doing now. Jordan wasn’t quite sure what it was they expected him to say, but he found it amusing that they were setting up questions the way all of them tried setting up pool shots.
“She’s not very…” her father started and then stopped.
“Experienced,” Wes continued. “Abby’s always been into the books and math and shit like that.”
“She’s had boyfriends,” her father continued. “Just not many.”
“Four in the side,” Jordan said.
“Look, man,” Rau said. “Just don’t play no games with her,” he blurted out. “Abby tries to act tough. She acts like shit don’t bother her, but it does. She’s sensitive.”
Jordan made his shot and looked at each of them. “What are you expecting me to tell you?”
They looked at each other, then back at him. Wes took the lead. “Tell us that she’s not just—”
“Do you intend to marry her?” her father asked abruptly.
“Yes,” he said without hesitating. “Eight, right corner.”
* * *
Abby’s whole family had that accent. And they all had so much to say, with no qualms about talking over one another, shouting to the point that Jordan would think they were arguing, until boisterous laughter broke through, indicating that though the discussion may have been heated, it was also amusing. His family had never been so animated, with so many personalities clashing like wrecks on a highway and yet blending together and sounding like a chorus in perfect harmony.
She wore a simple pink knit maxidress, padding around the house in her bare feet. Jordan watched in awe as she effortlessly engaged with each and every family member, slipping into her role as Peanut, baby girl, little sister, and best friend. Jordan felt a bit resentful that he had to share her. Abby seemed to sense it, because she made her way over to him almost at the exact moment when he was beginning to miss her warmth.
“Hey, baby,” she murmured, planting a sweet kiss on his lips and then taking her seat in his lap and staring deep into his eyes. “You holding up okay?”
“I’m tougher than I look, Peanut.”
She rolled her eyes. “They can call me that because they can’t help themselves. But I don’t want you to call me that.”
“But it suits you,” he teased.
She sighed. “Thank you for doing this.”
“I had to. I need to ensure that Walter has a better impression of me and that he trusts me with his little girl.”
Sudden tears appeared in her eyes. “I trust you,” she whi
spered.
“With all of you?”
Not just her body. Not just her mind, but her soul. Did she trust him with her life?
She nodded. “Every part.”
Day 3
All This Cold Despair
SLEEP HAD COME IN SMALL packets off and on through the night. Abby couldn’t allow herself the luxury of rest. The one time she’d probably slept the longest, she’d awakened startled, kicking and screaming at that man who’d assaulted her yesterday. Knowing that he had a key and could come into this room anytime he wanted was terrifying. They were on a schedule, showing up twice a day with food and water. Her biggest fear would be that he’d be the one showing up this morning.
“You know how to fight, Abby,” she reminded herself out loud.
Her two older brothers, who didn’t exactly pick on her, had taught her a thing or two about defending herself.
“One thing you got to remember,” her brother Rau had told her, “eyes is eyes. Eyes are vulnerable and soft. Go for the eyes if you can, and if you do decide to kick him in the nuts, make sure you kick good and hard, hard enough to damn near kill him, because if you don’t, you’re just gonna piss him off.”
She shuddered at the thought of that man touching her again. She didn’t want to think about what he could do, what could happen. But damn! How could she not think about it? She sat with her back against the wall and dared to ask herself the obvious. If they wanted money from Jordan, why was she still here? Abby had been here going on three days now. If all they wanted was money, why hadn’t they let her go? Unless—
“Don’t,” she commanded herself, inhaling her frustration. “Don’t even think that.”
Jordan would’ve given them money if they’d demanded it from him for her safe return. Abby was not going to give in to a lie. He loved her and the police were looking for her, she surmised. They probably wouldn’t want him to pay right away. Jordan would have to stall them for a while to give the police a chance to find her and to catch these bastards. She imagined an army of cops out there searching for her, questioning any- and everybody in the county, while Jordan was worried sick over where she could be. He’d be angry, pissed that some asshole had had the nerve to put their hands on her.
