Protected (Deadly Secrets Book 3)

by Elisabeth Naughton

  Silence, then he said, “I thought . . .”

  She braced herself for the rest. To hear him say he’d thought she was immature or flighty or just plain stupid for dating someone like Julian Benedict.

  “I thought you were amazing. Not at all what I remembered. And I was pretty damn mesmerized by you.”

  Mesmerized? She blinked into the darkness. “You were?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. I, uh, had a little bit of a crush on you then, I’m afraid.”

  A smile pulled at her lips as she lifted her head and looked toward the sound of his voice, wishing she could see him. “You did?”

  Okay, now she sounded like she was fifteen. Dial it down a notch, Kels.

  “Yeah.” He laughed again, only this time it sounded a tiny bit nervous, and knowing he was nervous made her stomach flop like a fish out of water. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I was about to ask you out that day. Which, in retrospect, probably wouldn’t have gone over well with your brothers or your folks, but I didn’t care at the time. Only then your, uh, boyfriend showed up, and I realized you were already seeing someone, and . . . well, the rest is kind of history.”

  No, it wasn’t history. It wasn’t history at all because she was no longer with Julian.

  Her heart pounded hard. She told herself not to get her hopes up, but part of her just couldn’t stop from hoping.

  For the last eight months since she’d left Julian, she’d sworn off men. She didn’t need a guy to be happy, didn’t need a relationship to be successful, didn’t want a man messing up her life—a life that was finally back on track after a disastrous relationship that never should have happened. And only a couple of hours ago, if Hunt had admitted he’d been interested in her all that time ago, she probably would have been flattered but still walked away.

  Now everything was different, though. Now she was facing her own mortality. Now she was in the middle of a life-threatening disaster she might not survive. And all this time alone in the dark, staring into an abyss of her greatest fears, had led her to one truth.

  There was only one thing in life that truly mattered, and it wasn’t her career or money or her status, because in the end, all those things were worthless. It was the people who touched her that mattered most. The ones who made her feel alive. The ones she knew she didn’t want to live without.

  Her parents were at the top of that list, the two people who’d taken a chance on her when she’d been an orphaned kid, who’d given her a home and a family and a future. And her brothers, of course, who—even at their most obnoxious—were her biggest fans and strongest supporters. But, lying here in the dark, she’d realized that her list also included Hunt. He’d been part of her life almost as long as her brothers. A silent, steady, resilient part she’d taken for granted because she’d just assumed he’d always be there.

  Nerves rattled around in her belly, and she licked her lips, thought about staying quiet, then told herself if she did, she’d always regret not asking. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

  For a heartbeat, he didn’t answer, then quietly, he said, “Because it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  “It might have.”

  “I doubt it. You were already with Benedict. If you hadn’t been in love with him, you wouldn’t have stayed with him, right? Definitely wouldn’t have married him.”

  Her chest deflated. Yes, she had been with Julian, but their relationship had been new then. She’d been unsure whether he was the guy for her. She knew now, in retrospect, that Julian most definitely had not been good for her, but back then she’d naively thought that was the way things were supposed to work: fall for someone in college, graduate, get married, have kids.

  Clearly not. Look how great that plan turned out.

  Sickness rolled through her belly. Thankfully, she’d wised up shortly after she and Julian were married. Once she’d seen his violent mood swings, she hadn’t wanted to discuss the topic of kids. Not until he chilled out. But that had been her biggest mistake, hadn’t it? Thinking she could change him. People didn’t really change. She’d wasted three years figuring that out.

  “I don’t know.” Hunt sighed. “Maybe things are only supposed to happen at a certain time. In the long run, it’s good we didn’t go there because relationships never work out. I never planned to tell you any of this—never wanted things to be weird between us, you know? I hope they won’t be weird now. I value you as a friend, Kelsey.”

  As a friend.

  The three worst words in the English language. Her disappointment was swift and all-consuming, but in the end . . . did she really have anyone to blame for that disappointment but herself?

  She shoved aside the feeling and tried like hell to keep her voice steady when she said, “No. They’re not weird. I’m glad you told me.”

  And she was. Because in the last fifteen minutes, when they’d been talking, she hadn’t thought about how tightly she was confined or how dark it was around her or what had happened to the others caught in the rubble. His little “confession” had completely distracted her from their current situation. Which could very well have been his intention all along.

  Panic threatened to overwhelm her again, but she repeated her little pep talk—Keep it together. Stay strong. Help is coming—and laid her cheek back on the cement. Only as the cold seeped into her skin, that feeling hit her again. The one she’d felt just before the lights had gone out. The one that sent a shiver down her back and made her feel as if impending doom was just waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Hunt tried to shift to his side to take some weight off his arms, but his pinned legs made it impossible to move.

  He had no idea how much time had passed, but it felt like ages. A shiver racked his spine, and he rubbed his hands across the parts of his arms he could reach, hoping to ease the chill.

  “Kels? Are you still awake?”

  Silence met his ears, amping up his stress level. She’d gone quiet after their chat about the past. He’d mentally kicked himself for confessing any of that, then decided it wasn’t a big deal. Aside from that one afternoon, she hadn’t shown any romantic interest in him over the years. And according to Alec, since her divorce, she’d announced she was done with men in general. The fact he’d admitted he’d kinda had a crush on her a bazillion years ago shouldn’t be an issue. Yet she still wasn’t talking . . .

  “Come on, Kels. You’re starting to make me worry here. Say something so I know you’re still there. Otherwise I’m gonna think you got your ass rescued while I’m still stuck here in the dark.”

  Silence met his ears again, then softly he heard her say, “It’s still dark here too.”

  His chest warmed with relief. But something in her tone worried him.

  Something like . . . being terrified she might never get out of this freakin’ rubble?

  “You need to stay awake,” he said, not wanting to think like that. They had to stay positive. Someone was coming for them. He was sure of it. “Tell me about Fashion Week. When Alec called me from New York, he said your designs were a huge hit.”

  More than a hit. Alec had told him she’d been inundated with orders since the show. So many that her small company, operating out of a warehouse in North Portland, couldn’t keep up. The interview this morning was only part of the reason she’d flown back early. The other reason was because her employees had been working overtime since the show and were desperate for production help. Which meant Kelsey’d had to come back here and miss out on a relaxing trip to Disney World with the rest of the McClane clan.

  He nearly snorted because he couldn’t imagine anything relaxing about being surrounded by ten million kids at Disney World. He did, however, get a sick sort of pleasure imagining Alec’s five-year-old daughter, Emma, forcing her dad to take her on It’s a Small World for the hundredth time.

  “There’s not much to tell. It was just a lot of models and clothes and cameras.”

  “There had to be parties, right?
I bet there were some great parties. How many celebrities did you see?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sure you saw some European royalty too, right? I heard they always go to those shows.” He could give a rip about celebrities and stuffy parties and “royal” anything, but he was desperate to distract her.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. A few, I guess.”

  “Like who? Give me some names.”

  “God, you’re irritating, you know that?”

  He grinned because “irritating” was good. “Irritating” kept her mind occupied. “I know. Start talking.”

  She sighed again. “Um . . . Alaina Pierce.”

  His smile faded as he racked his brain. He’d heard that name but couldn’t remember whether she was a singer, actor, or just some rich billionaire’s kid. He was pretty sure she wasn’t European royalty, but he couldn’t be a hundred percent certain.

  “Alaina Pierce, the award-winning actress,” she said before he could come up with the answer on his own, drawing the last word out in a way that made him think she was on to him.

  “Alaina Pierce, the actress. Right. I knew that.”

  She snorted, telling him loud and clear she knew he was full of shit.

  He cleared his throat. “Isn’t she married to one of those famous sextuplet guys who own that big hotel here in wine country?”

  “Evan Archer. Yes, they own the Alex Hotel.”

  “Have you ever been to the hotel?”

  “No. Alaina invited me to come down sometime and check out their new spa, but . . .”

  “You should go.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of time for the spa. Besides which, we may never get out of this nightmare, so what’s the point in even thinking about it?”

  Damn. She’d steered the conversation right back where he didn’t want it to go.

  “We’re going to get out of here, Kelsey. You have to think positive.”

  “I’m trying to, I just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  He didn’t like the way she was shutting down. He wanted to comfort her but couldn’t reach out to her. The best he could do was remind her she wasn’t alone. “Did Alec ever tell you about my mom?”

  “No,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t think so.”

  He knew she had to be wondering about his abrupt change in topic, but he kept going. “She was a nurse. She died when I was twelve.”

  “Oh . . . I had no idea. I’m so sorry. Alec never said anything.”

  No, he probably wouldn’t have. Hunt had asked him never to talk about it.

  An ache filled his chest, one that was always there but which he kept locked down tight. One he was only letting himself feel right now in the hopes it helped Kelsey here in the dark. “It happened a long time ago, and I’ve dealt with it. Anyway, she was one of those people who was always the first to come running if someone was hurt. At events if someone fell down, at church if one of the elderly collapsed, even at my sporting events when kids twisted their ankles, which used to embarrass the hell out of me.”

  “Sounds like a great woman.”

  She was. His mom had been the best, but he wasn’t going to let himself think about her because it would just open up old wounds he’d let close long ago.

  “We were coming home from one of my baseball tournaments. It was the middle of the summer, hotter than hell. Right about dusk, this huge thunderstorm rolled through. Slashing rain, hail—it was insane. We were on the freeway, and my dad was driving. I was snoozing in the back seat because I’d played three games that day and was exhausted. I remember feeling the car slow down and hearing my parents talking quietly about an accident ahead. It must have just happened because cops weren’t even on the scene yet. When my mom popped the door and said she was going to see if anyone needed help, my dad tried to stop her. She told him not to worry. They argued for a few seconds. He said he should be the one to go help, but she wouldn’t let him. She had the medical training, he didn’t. She asked him to stay in the car with me to keep me distracted in case I woke up, then she left.”

  A thousand emotions he didn’t want to feel rolled in, but he forced them away, not wanting to acknowledge any because this wasn’t about him. It was about Kelsey. “I remember coming fully awake then, sitting up and seeing the mangled metal out the front windshield. There were like six cars in the wreck. The hail had caused the visibility to drop, and the driver of the first car had slammed on his brakes, which set off a chain reaction. I remember a layer of white dusting the ground and the twisted vehicles, but everything was distorted because of the rain and the windshield wipers going back and forth at the highest setting. I couldn’t be sure what I was seeing, so I asked my dad what was going on, and he kind of mumbled that there was an accident, but he was only half paying attention to me. He was focused on my mom, rushing up to the scene, talking to the other people who’d seen the accident and gotten out to help, then moving to the crumpled vehicles to check on passengers.”

  The images hit him hard and fast, filling his vision with the same things he’d seen that day: watching his mom rush up to the busted-out window of a white SUV upside down on the pavement. Seeing her speak to whoever was inside. Registering the flames even before he heard the explosion.

  “What happened then?”

  Her soft voice pulled him back, and he blinked hard to rid the pictures from his mind. “Then the SUV she was checking exploded. It happened so fast she didn’t have time to move back or even react. The crash had ruptured the fuel line.”

  “Oh my God. I am so sorry.”

  He blinked back tears that still stung his eyes, even twenty years later, and cleared his throat. There was no sense even responding to her comment. He’d heard the same over the years too many times to count, and while he knew people meant well, it never really did help. Not in any way that mattered. “My dad lost it then. He bolted right out of the car, only there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. The coroner said she was dead within seconds. That, at least, is a comfort, I guess.”

  “Oh, Hunt.”

  He kept going as if she hadn’t even spoken, thankful she couldn’t see him and that he could get all this out where she could hear him but not touch him. He didn’t like people trying to comfort him when they heard his sob story. Probably why he never talked about it anymore.

  “It is what it is,” he said. “I didn’t bring it up to be a downer or to imply something like that is going to happen here—it isn’t. If this place were at risk of going up, it would have happened already. I mentioned it only because my dad gave up that day. He stopped living. He burned his arm, trying to get to my mom. He had to have a couple skin grafts over the years to fix it, and I know his arm still causes him pain, but he won’t talk about it. Won’t even acknowledge he was ever hurt. The only thing he’s ever been able to focus on is his grief. He gave up on life, because according to him, life gave up on him.”

  “I think that’s understandable,” Kelsey said softly. “He lost his wife.”

  Hunt huffed, any pain he’d felt before replaced by a familiar resentment he’d never been quite as good at keeping locked down. “Yeah, he lost his wife, but he still had me. I lost her too, only he never thought about that. Instead of being the dad I needed, he turned into this shell of a person I don’t even recognize some days. I had to become the adult that day. I spent most of my teen years taking care of him. Making sure he was okay. I’m still doing it, even now when he’s in his sixties. I do it because I love him and because he’s my father, but it’s not a way to live. It’s not a way to be.”

  He took a breath, hoping she heard what he was trying to say. “Yeah, life sucks. It sucks in a thousand different ways for a billion different people, but you don’t just give up. Bad things happen, and you can’t predict them. All you can do is keep living. Because the reality is, it can always get worse. Always. He could have lost me that day, but he didn’t.
My dad never wanted to see that, but it’s true. There’s always something to be thankful for in every tragedy if you just look hard enough.”

  Silence met his ears. He had no idea what she was thinking, and as the silence stretched, he wondered if he’d just crossed a line he shouldn’t have gotten near. Yes, he considered her family in a weird sort of way, and yes, at one point he’d even had a crush on her that he’d kept to himself, but at the end of the day, they’d never been more than friendly acquaintances. And he had no idea if she’d take what he’d just said as encouragement or as a reprimand.

  “You’re right,” she said softly. “We can’t stop bad things from happening. Worrying about when they’ll happen doesn’t help either.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that. But before he could ask, she said, “And I can easily see why Emma tells everyone she meets that she’s going to marry you someday, Hunter O’Donnell.”

  A laugh he didn’t expect pushed up his throat. “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re a very special man.”

  “Not that special. I’m a pain in the ass most days. Ask Alec.”

  “I don’t have to. I already know the truth. So does anyone who really gets to know you, I’m sure. Thank you for being here with me. There’s no one else I’d rather be stuck in the dark with than you.”

  A strange feeling twisted in his belly. One he wasn’t used to. “There’s no one I’d rather be with right now either, Kelsey.”

  Silence stretched between them. One that made his heart beat even faster because he’d meant those words. Every one. And he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that knowledge.

  She finally sighed. “Let’s talk about something normal. What are you doing for vacation this ye—”

  A rumble sounded.

  “Did you hear that?” she gasped.

  “Yeah.” Senses alert, he looked up even though he couldn’t see anything and strained to listen. “It could just be more debris settling abo—”

  The rumble turned to a roar, which kicked his adrenaline sky high. “Kelsey!” Every muscle in his body contracted. “Cover your head!”