Robert’s voice was hypnotic, but more compelling to her was the sensation of Marc’s hand totally limp in hers, the rhythm of his breathing, nearly like sleep, and the look of interest on his face. With his eyes closed, his head back against the high back of the chair but slightly tilted, she had no doubt whatsoever that Marc was under, and he’d gone deep. The movement of his pupils under his lids implied he was indeed looking for that one place he wanted to be.
“Did you find it, Marc?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you see.”
* * * *
It was the strangest sensation in the world. Marc knew he wasn’t in that room back in Afghanistan. But he could smell the dryness, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the faint scent of blood.
His blood.
He searched his mind, waiting to be poleaxed by the pain, but there was no pain. He sensed himself both strapped to that damned hard chair and floating above himself…yet he couldn’t see much more than when he’d actually been there.
A light came on but didn’t blind him this time. Movement by the door drew his attention. Two men entered, one taller than the other. Two men…and a third, hanging back. As if he either wasn’t welcome or didn’t want to step in.
“Did you find it?”
His brother’s voice anchored him. “Yes.”
“Tell me what you see.”
“I’m in the room where they interrogated me. I’m tied to the chair, and yet not. There’s a third man, just outside the room but sort of filling the doorway. I don’t know if I realized that before.”
“And the other two?”
“Arrogant. Like they’re looking at a rat in a cage.”
That was how he’d felt, like a rat, a less-than-nothing creature, beaten, starved, parched. As if he didn’t matter, and yet, he was the center of everything.
“As a sign of good will, I’m offering this boon. You can have his life. You’ll be a hero for bringing him home.”
Yes, he’d heard that voice, heard it and recognized it. Recognized it as he’d seen some video of the man, back on that first mission when he’d met Jeremy. Watched his movements, measured the way he spoke.
“No, you can do with him as you choose. He has no damn business being here, anyway. This is what I’ve always said. You can check the record.”
“Tell me what you see.”
“Assar offered me to the other man—an American.” He repeated the words he’d just heard, because Robert had asked him to.
Amazing, they don’t hear him talking. He tried to move closer…only moving closer proved to be impossible. He focused, looking for some sense of the other man, trying to recall why he felt familiar, somehow. He didn’t know him, but he’d seen him. That was the strongest sense of all.
Marc didn’t know the man, had never spoken to him, but he had seen him. Where?
“I’m going to count up, and with each number you’re going to ease away and come back. When I reach five, you’re going to open your eyes. One, you’ll remember everything you’ve seen, two, and everything we’ve said. Three, you’ll feel relaxed, four, less tense. Take a deep breath, and five, open your eyes, Marc.”
Marc opened his eyes, inhaled deeply, and let it all go. He did recall everything he’d just seen and everything they’d said. And he did feel more relaxed, less tense.
He just wished he could have seen the American’s face. That hadn’t happened this time, but one thing was certain.
Discovering who that unknown American was, the man who’d more or less signed Marc’s death sentence, had just become priority one.
Chapter Eighteen
“You do seem a lot more…” April paused. “I was going to say relaxed, but that’s not quite the word.” She used her right hand to cup his cheek. “At peace. You seem more at peace.” She laid her head on Marc’s shoulder.
April was glad they were back home, just the three of them. She’d never been a party animal, per se, but she enjoyed being social occasionally. These days, however, she much preferred just being with her men.
They’d settled in the living room on the love seat. Snuggled down with her butt in Marc’s lap and her knees draped over Jeremy’s lap, April began to relax and feel at peace herself. She’d been anxious for Marc, for the process of hypnotherapy, and now relief filled her.
She’d never really loved before Marc and Jeremy and had no real idea how being in love would be. But she’d always been a quick study. Love decreed that if something bothered Marc, or Jeremy, it bothered her. As she basked in this togetherness, April understood with a deep and true insight that there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect her men.
In a short time, they’d become her world.
Marc sighed. “I do feel more at peace. I know I’m going to remember what it is I feel so urgent about. Probably sooner, rather than later. We’re going to have another session, day after tomorrow. In the meantime, woman, I need to keep my mind off my own problems.”
April couldn’t hold back her grin. “Do you, now? And how do you propose to do that?” She was pretty sure what he had in mind had to do with water and getting naked and orgasms, but she’d asked the question in as innocent a tone as she could manage.
“By focusing on something else.” He looked over at Jeremy. When her lovers’ gazes met, April felt a tiny tingling of…something. Then Marc looked at her. “So, we invited your parents for a visit. They should be here in about a half-hour.”
“Oh. Um…okay.” Not at all what she’d expected. April loved her parents. They’d always been there for her when she’d needed them. In fact, she not only loved them, she liked them, too.
“We’ve wanted to meet them for some time,” Jeremy said. “But you seemed reluctant for that to happen.”
Had she given them that impression? “No…well, I don’t think so. The opportunity has just never actually come up.”
“Nancy Drew, you need to get a clue here.” Marc’s gentle smile took away any sting that might have been hiding in the words—her own words—that he’d tossed back at her. “You and Jeremy spent half a day in Austin, where your parents live, and you never suggested just dropping by to say hello and introduce him to them.”
She opened her mouth to deny that then snapped it shut again. Vivid in her memory were the few times Jeremy had asked, in the course of that day, what all they’d be doing in Austin and then, after loving, if there had been any other place else she wanted to go while they were in the state’s capital.
“Well, hell.” April exhaled heavily. Marc was right. She’d known they’d wanted to meet her parents, and she was all for that. At least, she thought she was. But they were right in their inference. She’d been avoiding the situation. “I wonder what that’s all about?”
“Maybe you’re nervous about introducing us to them?” Jeremy’s quiet question felt like a knife to her gut.
The implication stunned her. “I am not one bit ashamed of you or us, and my folks are not homophobes.” Knowing they thought that might have been the case hurt her. What the hell, April? She didn’t wonder that they could read her right then. She felt stricken and was certain her expression conveyed that.
“We believe you,” Marc said. “So, let’s have us a nice visit when they get here. We’re grilling steak, and my mom promised us a fresh pecan pie.”
April didn’t have much time to think about why she hadn’t taken action to make this meeting happen sooner because her father’s Jeep pulled into the driveway about twenty minutes later.
Marc had just arrived back from his mom’s, fresh pie in hand. He’d set it on the counter when the knock announced her parents’ arrival.
I had been nervous about this! That was a revelation to April, but she was able to let her nerves go as her parents, Roberta and Corbin Bixby, shook hands with her men and then hugged her.
“You look enough like both of your parents that the family connection is right there,” Jeremy said.
“We used to quibble,
when she was little, which of us April most resembled,” Corbin said. He shook his head, and his chuckle warmed April’s heart. “You know how being in a certain light or wearing certain colors can change the perception of eye color? Damned if it wasn’t like that with April and her resemblance to either Bobbi or myself.”
“This town is filled with family,” Marc said. “Benedicts, Kendalls, and Jessops, and each of the three main branches of the family has a distinct look.”
“Even those born up north or out west,” April said. “Once you get to know the families here, you can tell right off if the person you’re meeting is a Jessop or not.”
“We weren’t surprised when you told us you were staying here for a while,” her mom said. “We could tell you’d made a lot of friends here. It’s a pretty little town. I can see the attraction in that alone.”
“It is, and I have. Oh! I know you met Kat Lawson a couple of years ago when she was in Austin.”
“Your bounty hunter friend from California,” her dad said.
“Yes. Her name now is Kat Lawson Jessop.”
“Well, that is a small world, isn’t it?” Her mom looked at Marc.
“Yes, ma’am. Kat is married to my cousins, Paul, Lucas, and Wesley. They more or less split their time between here and Los Angeles.”
“Those names are familiar,” her dad said. He tilted his head in the way that told April he was looking for the answer in his mind. Then his eyes widened. “They’re screenwriters, aren’t they?”
“Oh! I know who you mean,” her mother said. “Why, we went to see Finesse when it came out last year. They’re very talented.”
“We’re all proud of them.” Marc smiled at her parents. The conversation continued, and when it was time to cook the steaks, the men—all three of them—trooped out to grill. It was clear to see her dad liked her men, and that liking was mutual.
Her mom offered to help her set the table after April gave her a tour of the house. She couldn’t hold back her chuckle when her mother’s eyes popped wide at the site of the master suite.
“I didn’t even know beds came that big,” she said.
“There’s a bigger size yet,” April told her. “This is meant for three.”
Her mother met her gaze and nodded. “Of course. Where there are four in the relationship, instead of three, you’d need a bigger bed.”
“Yes.”
They headed back down to the kitchen.
“You seem very happy.” Her mother touched her shoulder and gave it a tiny rub, something Roberta Bixby had always done.
“I am happy—I think for the first time, ever.”
Something flitted across her mother’s face, there and then gone in a heartbeat. April would have asked, but her mother headed to the cupboards, looking for dishes. After a moment’s thought, she couldn’t be sure she’d really seen anything there to ask her mother about.
“Maybe this is why you hadn’t found anyone until now,” her mother said. “You were looking for two, instead of one.”
April looked out through the glass patio door. Her men and her father seemed to be having an in-depth discussion as they sipped beer and cooked steak. “I’ve been thinking that very thing myself.” She had no doubt whatsoever.
April Bixby was meant to be with those two sexy bad boys.
* * * *
“We went to one of your sister’s shows when we took a vacation in Seattle,” Roberta said. Supper had been eaten, the dishes put into the dishwasher, and they’d returned to the living room with coffee and pie. “It’s funny how there can be so many connections, isn’t it? Six degrees of separation.”
Connections. That was a good word for it. Marc nodded in response to the question. “The belief in destiny is strong in my family,” he said. “Grandma Kate is fond of saying that things generally turn out the way they’re meant to be.” Then he looked over at Jeremy. “I met Jeremy in Asia, and it turned out that his sister had recently moved here and married cousins of mine from Montana, who’d come back to Lusty. Then, a few years later, we decided to move back here, and we meet April—a woman with whom we have a lot in common.”
“We all three feel as if this—what we have here between us—was meant to be,” April said.
“That’s how I felt when I met your mother, sweetheart.” Corbin reached over and covered Roberta’s hand with his own. “Kind of a down-to-the-bone feeling of rightness.”
“That’s it exactly,” Marc said.
“Of course, we all have our own inner demons we’re fighting,” Jeremy said. “That’s one of the things we have in common.” He looked at their woman, and then he met Marc’s gaze.
“Because we all three love each other, we’ve vowed to help each other get over those things in our pasts that are, to one degree or another, shackling us from fully moving forward into the future.” Marc picked up April’s hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed it, rubbed his kiss in with his thumb, then looked squarely at her parents.
“But in order for us to help April, we need full disclosure. We need you to tell us what happened back in Pennsylvania, when April was kidnapped.” He felt April’s gaze on him, and he turned his head to meet it. He’d startled her. Jeremy laid his hand over her right one. Marc held her gaze, waiting, but she didn’t object. Her pulse had speeded up, and that was to be expected. But she held his gaze and never flinched.
If she’d strongly objected, he would have let it go. For now.
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze then turned his attention back to her parents. “She’s got gaps in her memory. We know how that can occur sometimes. Something can happen that is so shocking, so painful, that our subconscious gets right to work and covers over the incident. But a lot of time has passed, and April’s safe now. She has us to share this with. Hell, she has the entire town of Lusty if it comes to that. So we thought, if you could tell us everything you know that you haven’t told her, it would be a start.”
Corbin and Roberta looked from him to their daughter. Marc mentally crossed his fingers that they’d tell them what they needed to know. He and Jeremy could, of course, get the information another way. Hacking into past police records would be a simple thing for Jeremy to do.
Marc really hoped that was a course they wouldn’t have to take.
Corbin sighed. “That was the worst time of our lives. We didn’t even know she’d been taken until we got the ransom note. And then—nothing. For days, not a word after that one note. We were out of our minds with fear.”
“There was a ransom note? I didn’t know that!”
“Dr. Mahoney said we shouldn’t try to force your memory or tell you anything about what had happened that you hadn’t already mentioned first. She was very concerned because you’d been so agitated after you’d been found. They’d had to sedate you. You dreamed of monsters at night, baby,” Roberta said. “We didn’t know a lot at the time that we could have told you, but we agreed with the psychologist’s instructions.”
“Even though we had you back safe and sound, however, that didn’t stop the police investigation,” Corbin said. “We do have a little more information now. There were two men involved, the police found evidence of that. But the person—or rather, the persons—who took you have never been found.”
“Oh. I thought…” April stopped and looked at Marc. He met her gaze and nodded. He and Jeremy would never forget every word she’d told them, and what she hadn’t said. She’d said that she recalled there’d been a knife in her hand and lot of blood.
She likely believed that she’d murdered her abductor. But her father’s words just put paid to that.
“You thought you’d killed him,” Marc said.
April nodded.
“Oh, no, sweetheart.” Corbin looked pained, and Roberta had tears in her eyes. “The police found the place you’d been taken to, a small room in an abandoned warehouse.” Her father leaned forward. “It looked like there’d been a lot of blood, but when it was tested, they discovered it wasn’t hum
an blood at all. It was cow blood.”
“I don’t understand.”
“For some reason, someone wanted you to believe…well, something. But you escaped, and the police didn’t think you were meant to. There was a bit of human blood and hair on the corner of a table, which, with a chair, was the only furniture in the small room.”
“They never found a trace of the kidnappers.”
“There really was more than one? How do they know? I only saw one.”
Her parents looked at each other for a long moment. “Yes,” her father said at last. “There was more than one. There were three distinct sets of footprints in the blood on the floor” He sighed and looked at Marc.
He didn’t know exactly what her father was about to say, but he nodded. Whatever it was, he and Jeremy would protect his daughter.
“You were seeing someone at the time. A young man who was working as a teaching assistant at the university. When they were questioning people on campus during the investigation, they couldn’t find this one person. The name he’d used was an alias. He was gone, and they had no idea who he really was or how to find him.”
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