Her Forgotten Betrayal

by Anna DeStefano

  Except now, he was once again playing the part of himself. And being back in the heart of Rabun County and Shaw’s messed-up life wasn’t sitting any better now than it had when he’d bolted from the mountain fifteen years ago.

  Curvy, leggy, drop-dead-gorgeous Shaw Cassidy.

  His shared childhood with her had helped land him a spot on Dawson’s team and this assignment, which he would carry out as flawlessly as he had all the others he’d taken on in his career. He certainly wasn’t going to let what he and Shaw had once been to each other get in his way. He’d convinced everyone who mattered that he felt no lingering attachment to the Cassidy family. He’d come damn close to convincing himself. Which had been easier to do months ago, when he’d thought this would remain a long-distance, hands-off exercise. That had all changed the moment he’d been ordered to Atlanta.

  Sure, he couldn’t stop staring at the mansion, but he was simply being thorough. No way was he angling for a reason to slip closer to a woman who was officially off-limits. She wasn’t supposed to know she was being watched or that a federal task force team had Cassidy Global under investigation. He might nap during the day so he could track Shaw’s slow progression through the Victorian each night. But only because it was his job to report if her routine or behavior patterns changed significantly, possibly indicating that she was remembering more than she was letting on. The task force and the U.S. Attorney needed to know who was selling top-secret government research developed at Cassidy Global, and Shaw’s shooting was the closest they’d come yet to a breakthrough in the case.

  Meanwhile, she continued to behave exactly as she had since regaining consciousness in the hospital. She was terrified. She was sleep-deprived. She was running on adrenaline and determination—and away from the memory of whatever had damaged her mind.

  Staring up the hill, Cole caught a hint of movement in the night. He squinted out the window, searching for the blip that had appeared at the edge of his vision. It had only been a blur, backlit by the Victorian’s homey glow. But for a second there’d been something out there.

  Something that was now gone.

  He flicked off the single lamp he’d left on in the cabin and reached for his infrared binoculars, blinking into the darkness, giving his vision time to adjust and refocus. Without looking at the gauge, he tweaked the scope’s range, then brought the device to his eyes. He scanned the dense forest between his house and the mansion, looking for whatever had caught his eye.

  Nothing.

  His laptop on the kitchen’s butcher-block table remained silent. The perimeter hadn’t been breached. Yet. But the razor-sharp instincts that had kept him alive during his years undercover knew differently.

  He retrained his focus onto the Victorian. The nocs’ sensors corrected for the light streaming across the backyard from the mansion’s kitchen, adjusting instantly. Through the open door to the storage room, he caught a glimpse inside. Nothing moving. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Sensors blared from his receiver across the room.

  Someone was out there, all right, the movement heading away from the mansion. Shaw? He was suddenly certain the blur he’d seen had been her fleeing into the night. He scanned the woods for long hair and a willowy athlete’s body. A graceful, strong woman any unsuspecting man would die to protect. A woman on the edge of losing her sanity for good.

  Where had she gone? What the hell was she doing? He caught another rush of movement and tightened his scope. There!

  Shaw stopped in a terrified rush on the path through the woods that led to his cabin, her frightened expression making Cole’s stomach clench. Then she stumbled and sprawled to the ground, her curling hair flying madly around her.

  Her scream split the winter night.

  …

  Shaw couldn’t shut out the sound of footsteps heading toward her through the dark forest. The faceless man who’d shot her was coming closer. He was no specter. He was real, he’d found out where she was, and he was coming to finish the job of killing her. She couldn’t just lie here and wait for that to happen!

  She scrambled to her hands and knees from the pile of dried leaves she’d landed in. She shoved her hair out of her face, but still couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Sick to death of the crippling fear that each nightmare brought, she could only careen deeper into the freezing night, away from the danger that no one else believed existed.

  Or was she running closer to it? Or maybe she was finally, completely losing her mind.

  Because it felt oddly as if she were racing toward something now. The same something a silent part of her had sensed had been out there all along. Or someone. A very obstinate someone she couldn’t remember. A dangerous someone who’d once made her want and need and believe—emotions she instinctively knew she’d fought her entire adult life to banish. Yet a part of her still wanted to trust in them, in him, as she once had.

  Lord, she’d completely lost it.

  Her hair caught, a man’s fingers clenching, grabbing her from behind. She wrenched away…from the branches of a tree. She swatted at the clinging limbs, disgusted with herself.

  “Stop it!” Off balance, she started to run again. “Whoever you are,” she yelled at the faceless man, feeling closer to giving up than she ever had before. “Stop screwing around with me. End this, or leave me the hell alone!”

  Only night creatures answered her. There were mysterious sounds to the left as she stumbled forward. To the right. In front of her. A sense of being stalked, watched, shivered up her spine. She checked behind her. Tripped again. Cried out. She closed her eyes, too tired to brace herself as the forest floor raced toward her.

  Then her world was tilting, lifting, her body mashing against something solid that was far warmer than the cold, hard ground. Her hands flattened against a wall of muscle. She was being held, she realized, her feet floating above the earth. Her cheek rested against a massive male shoulder. His breath rushed over her as if he’d been running, too.

  The man with the gun had caught her. Oh, God. It was finally over.

  She struggled within his grip, kicking and hitting and fighting—no matter that she’d thought of quitting just a few moments ago. She was determined to get away now, though she was exhausted and no longer certain if she was awake or dreaming. As she fought him, she forced her eyes to open and peer into the face above her.

  She froze, at an instant, instinctive loss.

  His features were both familiar and foreign. Tempting and terrifying. The man who’d caught her was a total stranger. And yet, her soul seemed to recognize his as she stared into his cool blue eyes.

  She took in the rugged lines of his too-handsome face and the surprising softness of sinfully curved lips that made her long for his kiss. She found herself wanting to hold on instead of fighting harder for freedom. Every instinct told her to trust this intimidating stranger. It was the most terrifying moment she’d experienced since waking in the hospital and realizing her memory was a complete blank.

  “Stay with me,” he said, blowing her reality apart.

  Stay with me…, something in her broken memory echoed. Something she couldn’t grasp.

  Shaking her head, struggling once more against his hold, she felt her mind shredding itself all over again.

  “No,” she whispered. Then her world dissolved into images of flames and gunshots and certain death.

  …

  Cole lifted Shaw’s slight weight and slipped his arm beneath her knees.

  “Please,” she whispered, semiconscious. “We have to get out of here. Please don’t leave me again…”

  He cradled her head into the crook of his neck. Those were the same words she’d kept repeating at the hospital. Frowning, he struck off toward the Cassidy mansion.

  Her terror before she’d fainted had tunneled deep, laying claim t
o places inside Cole that he’d turned his back on long ago. There was the memory of when they’d been kids and had become lost together in these same woods, caught in a freak snowstorm. And when, as a teenager, he’d stubbornly lingered in the Cassidys’ barn amidst the growling flames that he’d later been accused of igniting. He’d refused to leave without her then, too. He’d ignored the fire scorching his skin until he’d made sure Shaw was clear. Now, after he’d intended to stay away forever, she was in his arms once more.

  He was exactly where he’d promised himself he hadn’t wanted to be. Holding her, his body instinctively craving hers, his arms pulling her just a touch closer, then closer still.

  He’d always been reckless where Shaw was concerned. Too reckless. From the start, she’d been a forbidden addiction he hadn’t been smart enough to resist. She’d insisted on seeing the good in him. She’d believed that they could make it together, ignoring whatever her controlling father and entitled, abusive brother tried to do to end their relationship. Right up until Cole had needed her faith in him the most. Then in his darkest moment, she had destroyed him.

  He swallowed at the memory. What would getting too close to Shaw cost him this time?

  He closed his eyes and stopped walking. He let the night’s biting chill clear his mind of everything but the parameters of his assignment—to secure the calm environment her doctors said she needed to regain her memory. He’d catch hell when he reported that he’d broken protocol, even if it had been to get her safely back to the mansion. If he ruined the government’s chances to harvest the information the U.S. Attorney needed from Shaw, his professional ass was grass.

  Still, maybe seeing him again had done the trick. Had everything come rushing back to her as she’d stared, dazed, into his unshaven, unsmiling face? Would she wake and accuse him of the same unthinkable crime she had when they were teenagers?

  God, he hoped so.

  He’d agreed to be exactly where he was, on an assignment he was now certain he shouldn’t have accepted. If Shaw still hating him was what it took to get her off the federal prosecutor’s radar so Cole could get the hell away from High Lake Mountain, then bring it on.

  …

  Damn it.

  In the forest’s dense darkness, a lone man stood watching the disgustingly poignant scene unfold. He pulled off his night-vision goggles and ran a hand over his grotesquely scarred face.

  He was so close to having what he wanted. Closer with every passing night. His sources from the hospital said Shaw’s amnesia was most likely temporary, as long as additional shock and trauma didn’t increase her dissociation from reality. But encountering more upheaval before she was better, they said, might make her condition permanent. It was a delightfully ominous possibility that he was more than happy to orchestrate into reality. Except now the interfering fed who’d been assigned to watch over her had exceeded his orders and intervened. Hell, Marinos was carrying the woman back to the house, where he’d no doubt comfort her and investigate her latest panic attack with his legendary thoroughness.

  The son of a bitch. He was even more obstinate now than he’d been as a teenager. Defiant. Inexhaustible. And he was already personally involved beyond the strict professionalism that had secured his role in Shaw’s exile. It wasn’t an entirely unexpected complication. But what to do about it? The man repositioned his goggles so he could better observe the result of his latest efforts to unhinge Shaw’s mind.

  Marinos’s interference didn’t necessarily spell disaster for his carefully laid plans. The idiot had let himself be pulled back into the bitch’s life. Mr. Strictly Professional was on his way to becoming a loose cannon his supervisors wouldn’t leave unchecked for long.

  Which meant time was running shorter than anticipated. On the other hand, several interesting new options were presenting themselves.

  If things were handled properly, the damage Marinos’s intervention could do to Shaw’s fragile mental state would allow for any number of useful possibilities. The witless agent could become the catalyst for even greater destruction.

  And much more pain.

  Chapter Four

  Flames.

  Flames didn’t belong in Shaw’s dream.

  But she could feel their heat on the other side of the closet door, the sound of deadly fire roaring over the angry voices in the conference room. An orange glow flickered, an unholy illumination. Tendrils of acrid smoke surrounded her.

  Flames had once nearly killed her, she suddenly recalled, her mind burning with the terrifying memories. She’d been a child and believed she could call for help and someone would actually come. The same someone to whom she’d run in the woods tonight, who’d once been her whole world and promised never to leave her. If only she could remember who he was…

  “I’m here,” she whispered.

  Breaking her silence meant certain death, but he wouldn’t let the dangerous men hurt her. He’d make the killer and the gun and the deadly fire go away. She pressed her palms to the door. She forced her mind to focus. What did the new dream images mean?

  The door was yanked open. An inferno engulfed the room beyond.

  “We have to get out of here!” she exclaimed. Strong arms enfolded her. “We have to run.” She struggled in the man’s grasp. “We can’t stay.”

  “Stay with me,” he murmured. “Trust me, Shaw.”

  From her past, she saw his hard body silhouetted against fire. The image and his voice were so familiar she clung to them and to his embrace, stunned by her first taste since the shooting of anything that felt completely real.

  “Trust me,” he said again, his touch becoming a lifeline. “Let me help you process what’s happening, and then get you out of this place.”

  Let him help her? She didn’t want help processing anything. She just wanted her life back.

  Suddenly the hands restraining her were no longer his. A cruel fist closed in her hair.

  “Sorry, Shaw…” It was the killer’s damaged voice, not her protector’s.

  “I won’t let you do this!” she shouted. “I won’t let you destroy everything!”

  She struggled against the faceless man as flames licked at her skin. And this time, he let her go. He let her crawl away…

  Until her back was pressed to…dainty chintz cushions, the details of her dream once more slipping beyond her grasp…

  Shaw woke with a start, her hand wrapped around her throat, trapping the soundless denial within. She was outside the nightmare, she realized. She wasn’t in her bedroom. This time, she was in her grandmother’s parlor, staring at a stranger seated across the couch from her. He wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black boots. Gazing into the brilliant blue of his emotionless eyes, she found herself wondering how many layers of darkness a man like that might be hiding beneath his calm, non-threatening demeanor.

  “Stay with me this time,” he said. “Don’t faint again. It’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

  Her breath caught. His words, his calming tone, were straight from what little of her nightmare she could recall.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked. His deep voice was a perfect match for the rough angles and plains of his unshaven face. He was starkly, frankly male, striking in both size and in the intense way he was studying her.

  “No…,” she said. “I don’t know who anyone is anymore.”

  What was he doing there? How had she gotten to the parlor? She grappled for the truth, but her thoughts were chaos, the same as every other time she woke with her dreams still too close. Once more, she didn’t know what or whom to believe, including her own instincts or anything she saw with her own eyes. And now someone was watching while she battled for her sanity.

  “What happened?” she asked, feeling the thrum of fresh panic race through her bloodstream.

  “You were running in the woods. Yo
u were pretty out of it. I found you and brought you here.”

  The woods? Just three weeks out from her being shot, her doctors still didn’t believe she was well enough to leave the house. Not on her own. Her mind wasn’t ready for her to interact with anything or anyone beyond the controlled environment she’d agreed to remain in when she’d been released to the manor. She wasn’t ready for it. What on earth had she been doing in the woods?

  Then it flooded back—her terrified dash through the night. Why had she been running away? What had spooked her this time?

  The stranger was holding her hand. She wrenched free of his grasp. A confusing shock surged through her at the loss of contact, an overwhelming sense of regret. He’d said he’d carried her. She could remember being held in the forest, feeling…terrified by the sight of him. Now it was almost a relief, waking to find him sitting beside her. That couldn’t be right. How could that be right?

  She scooted farther away, deeper into the cushions. He let her go, his hard features more soothing to her nerves, less threatening, the longer she stared at him. Or maybe it was the shaggy, dark hair that lovingly framed his face. It softened him, if that were even possible for someone with such a forceful presence. It made her want to run her fingers through the thickness of it and feel it brush against her skin.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” Compassion filled his cool blue gaze, tempting her to believe him. “You can trust me.”

  His eyes. There was something so familiar about his eyes. Something that convinced her he wasn’t the killer who still haunted her sleeping mind.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, reminding herself that she could still very much be in danger. She shoved away her body’s reaction to him as more snippets from her last disjointed nightmare rolled from his lips. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay. What were you doing, running around in the dark this time of night?”

  She looked up to the stained glass chandelier that glowed a cheery rainbow of color down on them.