by J. S. Scott
“You are different,” Harper observed. “But I’m grateful to both of you and Tate for what you’re doing.”
I didn’t want her gratitude. I wanted something completely different.
I opened the door. “Lock the door, and call the number you have for Marcus if you need anything. I have his phone. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
I left in a hurry, closing the door behind me, but hesitated as I waited for the lock to click behind me. It took a moment, but I finally heard the deadbolt fall into place.
Quickly moving to the elevator, I knew I needed to put some distance between myself and Harper before I completely lost my sanity.
Harper
Still feeling confused and worried, I’d grabbed my jacket and put on a pair of hiking boots not long after Blake left my room, needing to be somewhere that I didn’t feel confined with my own thoughts.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to escape my brain, and I was just as anxious several hours later, even after I felt like I’d walked for miles.
I was an experienced hiker, but I realized that I’d just thrown every rule of hiking and navigating out the proverbial window as I’d walked in a daze, paying no attention to anything except my internal thoughts.
Dammit!
I finally became aware of where I was, and eyed the snow that was still on the ground. Spring was coming, but it hadn’t arrived yet, and I was cold, following a path that seemed like it led nowhere.
Pines lined the concrete road, and I kept moving when I saw smoke in the distance, fairly certain it was somebody’s fireplace, so there had to be people ahead. I kept moving.
Even after hours of thought, I wasn’t any closer to understanding how I felt about the fact that Marcus was really Blake, and a completely different person than I’d always thought him to be.
For so long, I’d sucked up every bit of news I could get about Marcus, never realizing that it was Blake that I wanted to know about. Somehow, I thought I should have known that the man I’d been with, joked with, a guy who had intimate knowledge of my body wasn’t Marcus Colter. The elder twin was known for never having a girlfriend for more than a short amount of time, and Blake had never come across as a ladies’ man—even though he was hotter than an out-of-control wildfire. My mother had spoken fondly about him. Unfortunately, she’d never mentioned that Blake had been the one to come after me in that homeless shelter. Maybe she’d assumed I knew. On the few occasions I’d seen him speak on television, he’d caught my attention, and I’d stupidly been stunned by how much he reminded me of Marcus.
Probably because he was the man I’d slept with!
If I would have listened to my instincts, would I have realized the truth? I’d never know, since I’d been thinking with my broken heart.
One thing I did know: I’d never confuse the two of them again. After talking to Blake, and being close to him, my heart would always know him now.
I stopped as I looked up, admiring the beauty of the enormous log cabin in front of me. It was a mansion, but still managed to look cozy somehow. I stared for a long time, going over the complex architecture in my mind, wondering who had done the design. I finally decided it was more important to acknowledge it was a very large but single home in the middle of nowhere, and that I still needed to find my way back to the lodge.
I caught a shadow from the corner of my eye before I heard the excited bark of a dog. I tensed as I realized the enormous German Shepherd was headed in my direction fast, certainly at a pace that I couldn’t outrun. I loved dogs, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a very large German Shepherd running directly toward me.
“Shep! No! Get back here, you monster!” The female voice was calling from a distance, but the canine stopped in his tracks, and then turned with a disappointed whine back toward the house.
Moving forward, I waved at the beautiful blonde who had raced after the dog, wanting her to know I meant her no harm.
She jogged toward me, stopping just a few feet away. “I’m so sorry. He gets overexcited sometimes. You must be a guest from the lodge. You hiked pretty far.”
The woman smiled, and I laughed nervously. “I’m sorry. This is obviously private property. I guess I was lost in thought.”
The enormous canine sat at the side of the gorgeous woman, and then looked at me suspiciously.
I held out my hand to let the dog smell it, gratified when he licked my fingers, obviously accepting my presence as friendly.
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “We just don’t get people wandering out here often. I’m Lara Colter.”
“Tate’s wife?”
Lara looked at me sharply. “Yes. How did you know?”
I knew the ex-Special Forces Colter brother had married a former FBI agent. My brother, Jett, kept me up on Colter news since he’d been a teammate of Marcus’s for several years. He’d mentioned the unlikely pair of lovers once or twice. “I’m Harper Lawson. My sister is the reason your husband isn’t home right now.”
Lara nodded toward the cabin. “Come in, please. I’ll get you something warm to drink. You look like you’re freezing.”
She turned and motioned for the dog to go back to the house, and I followed her.
We were settled into the large but cozy cabin before she spoke again while she was making coffee. Not knowing what else to do, I sat at the table in the nook.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” Lara said kindly. “It sucks when an innocent person gets caught up in the craziness of the world.”
I sighed. “Your brother-in-law, Marcus, said that Dani knew what she was getting into, and she knew the risks. He was right. She did know. But it doesn’t make it any less hard to deal with when she disappears.”
“I knew the risks when I was an agent, too. I accepted them. But that didn’t mean I wanted some loser to kill me. She does an important job. I love her reporting. She does more than just report the worldwide news. Danica somehow manages to include the human element and toll it takes on the people.”
I nodded. “That’s the stories she cares about the most. She wants people around the world to know the fallout of any bad situation.”
“You’re close to your sister?” Lara asked sympathetically as she sat a mug in front of me, and then sat down across from me with her own cup in front of her.
I watched as she doctored her coffee, and then passed the cream and sugar across the table in case I wanted some.
“We’re really close,” I answered honestly, shaking my head at the offer of anything for my coffee. “She’s always been my best friend, even when we were kids.”
“I’m sorry,” Lara repeated. “I hope the guys can bring her home safely. How are you holding up?”
I realized how nice it was to have somebody who asked about me. I was so used to traveling around that I rarely made good friends. Dani had always been the one I called when I was upset. Now she was gone.
“As well as can be expected, I guess. But I want so badly to hear some kind of news.”
Lara took a sip of her coffee before she answered. “I haven’t heard anything from Tate or I’d tell you. Honestly, I don’t think they’ll make contact until they hear something just so they don’t draw attention to themselves in any way.”
I was slightly relieved that she hadn’t heard anything bad. “I feel horrible that I’ve put your family in danger. I was just…scared. I couldn’t get the government to act because she was probably guilty of entering the country despite their warnings.”
“That’s just it. I don’t understand why she did it,” Lara mused. “She’s an experienced journalist, even though she’s young.”
I shrugged. “I don’t understand, either. I wish I did. Dani’s always been fearless, but she’s not suicidal. She does exercise some caution and common sense.”
“Do you think she was snatche
d out of Turkey? It’s kind of unlikely.”
I nodded. “I agree. I don’t think she was captured there. Nobody else was taken, as far as I know. And there’s a humanitarian mission where she was last seen. She was with them right before she came up missing.”
Her phone call from that area before she’d been kidnapped had been the last time I had heard my sister’s voice.
“If it makes you feel any better, Marcus didn’t have to twist Tate’s arm to get him to go. In fact, I think my husband was more than a little ticked at Marcus for not telling Tate about what he was doing earlier with PRO and including him,” Lara said with a small smile.
“Why didn’t he?”
“I’m sure it was because Marcus wouldn’t be able to concentrate if he was worried about his little brother,” Lara contemplated. “But Tate would have been pretty enthusiastic if he could fly missions again.”
“He’s that good?” I asked curiously.
“One of the best, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my husband.”
“I’m sure you weren’t happy about him leaving with Marcus.”
Lara shrugged. “I’ll worry, but I agreed that he should go. They need to get your sister out of there.”
“My brother Jett, was Marcus’s tech guy on assignments until the last rescue fell apart. He was wounded pretty badly. I didn’t even know PRO existed until that happened. They were pretty secretive because it gave them an advantage.”
“Yeah. I think that’s why Tate’s nose was out of joint. He thought Marcus should have told him.”
“I think Jett should have told me and our siblings, too. But he didn’t want the word to get out, even if it wasn’t intentional.”
“Is he looking for your sister?”
“Not physically. He can’t. He never completely recovered. He limps now from getting his leg shattered, but he’s trying to get any intel he can find.”
“Does the rest of your family know?” Lara asked curiously.
“My parents died in a car accident years ago, so there’s just me, Dani, and my three brothers. They all know. Jett told them. Since he got injured on the last mission, he didn’t have much of a choice. I think they’re all trying to get information from different sources. I couldn’t wait any longer. I came to ask Marcus to help when we kept hitting brick walls from conventional methods. I didn’t realize he’d never told anyone but Blake about PRO. Pretty much all of their covers were blown.”
“Only to some of the governments,” Lara responded. “Pretty much the very people they didn’t want to know about them. Our government didn’t leak the information to the general public, so Marcus didn’t have to tell Aileen or the rest of the family.”
I thought about how worried this woman probably was about her husband, and I felt guilty. “I’m sorry. Really, none of the Colters should have had to get involved.”
“I don’t blame you,” Lara replied softly. “If I had a sibling, I would have asked anyone I knew to try to help. If Tate wasn’t perfectly capable, I would probably be more terrified. But he flew dangerous missions for Special Forces. He knows what he’s doing. He’ll come home safe.”
“Thanks. But I don’t want to see any of them get hurt.”
“So you know the deal with Blake, right?”
“That he’s pretending to be Marcus as a decoy?” I questioned, pretty sure that’s what she was asking.
“Yeah.”
“I know. I saw him this morning. He explained.”
After he kissed me senseless in an elevator!
“Do you know Blake and Marcus pretty well?” Lara asked innocently.
I could hardly tell her that Blake took my virginity and I couldn’t get near him without wanting to tear his clothes off and experience the pleasure that I already knew he could give my body again. I simply said, “I don’t know either one of them very well. I was desperate. Blake and I have some history, but I hardly know Marcus at all.”
“What kind of history?” Lara pressed.
“We…” I wasn’t sure what to say.
“You had sex with him,” Lara accused excitedly. “You’re actually blushing. Blake is usually a loner. I’ve never met a woman he’s actually interested in.”
I cursed my sense of embarrassment as she laughed. “It was a long time ago, Lara.”
“How long?”
“Twelve years,” I confessed grudgingly.
“I need to hear this story,” Lara pleaded.
With a small sigh, I related what had happened all those years ago. There were no sexual details, but I told her how I’d run away from home, what a bitch I’d always been, and how living for a few days homeless had changed me.
“Why didn’t you and Blake stay in touch? You obviously connected, and if anybody needs a woman in his life, it’s Blake.”
My head jerked up to look at her. I quickly explained the part about the mistaken identity, and then asked Lara, “Why do you think he needs a woman?”
She shrugged. “Because he never seems to be emotionally involved with anybody, he never has a woman at the ranch, and he seems…lonely.”
“He’s a senator. He’s a politician. I’d think he gets plenty of company.”
“That’s not what I mean. He’s an amazing politician, and he doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve. In that way, he’s like Marcus. But I can sense that he isn’t completely happy.”
“You should be a shrink,” I told her jokingly, teasing about the way she seemed to analyze people.
Lara winked. “I’m working on it. One more year of college.”
We chatted awhile about her schooling to become a counselor, and the work she wanted to do with domestic abuse.
“That’s incredible,” I said with some awe in my voice.
“No more fantastic than what you’re doing with the homeless,” she countered.
I talked enthusiastically about my work for charity, and Lara listened intently.
When I stopped to breathe, Lara commented, with a thoughtful look on her face, “You know, our two causes aren’t so different. It’s all about people who need a hand up. When all this is over and they find your sister, maybe we can talk about working together.”
I was relieved that she sounded so confident that Danica would be found. And I loved the thought of working with her charity. Honestly, there were plenty of women and children who found themselves homeless by trying to get away from domestic abuse.
However, there were logistical problems. “I’d like that. But I live in California…well, for at least part of the year. The rest of the time, I’m traveling.”
“We work all over the US,” she argued.
I smiled at her. “Then I’d love to try.”
I left a little later, feeling like I had gotten to know a new friend, and feeling guilty that I’d sent her husband into danger because of my own selfish need, the desperation to get my sister back home alive.
As I headed back down her driveway, following the easy directions Lara had given me after I’d refused a ride back to the lodge, I felt slightly encouraged by her trust in her husband’s and Marcus’s abilities. She seemed to think Marcus and Tate were up to the task of pulling Dani out of hot water, and since Lara was related to them, I was going to take her word on that.
Harper
It took me until the following afternoon to completely straighten out my thoughts about Marcus and Blake.
Really, I didn’t know Marcus. I’d spoken to him once about Dani, and had seen him a handful of times when I was a kid.
Blake…I knew intimately. Quite literally. And I was getting used to the fact that the guy I’d been with twelve years ago was really Blake.
I sighed as I pulled on a pair of hiking boots. I still hadn’t heard a word about my sister, and I was ready to lose it.
Even if the news was
bad, something would be better than the limbo I was in right now.
I startled as there was a sudden pounding on the door of my lodge room.
“Harper.” It was Blake’s voice I heard booming through the thick wood.
Quickly tying off my second boot, I had both feet on the floor in seconds, rushing toward the door to see what Blake had discovered.
I opened the door, panting with worry. “What? What happened?”
Blake stormed into my accommodations without explanation, closing the door behind him. “We need to relocate you,” he said without prelude.
I grabbed his arm, clenching at the gorgeous, heavy sweater he was wearing with a pair of jeans. “Why? What’s happening? Did you find Dani? Is she alive?”
“She’s alive. The government got word of what actually happened, and the press will be swarming this place shortly. Get what you need. I’ll have my mom send the rest.”
His voice was so urgent that I immediately obeyed his command. He didn’t seem worried about anything except me, so I was assuming he had good news. However, my heart was slamming against my sternum as I gathered a few things, stuffed them into my suitcase, then forced it closed. I wanted desperately to know what he’d heard.
Without words, Blake took the small suitcase from me, and then took my hand after I’d grabbed my purse.
“Let’s go,” he muttered urgently.
I followed him without asking any more questions until we were settled into his vehicle, practically running to keep up with him while he’d strode quickly into the parking lot of the lodge to reach his luxury SUV.
He drove like a maniac, but I soon realized that he knew where he was going and he was a skilled driver, so I was safe.
“Tell me,” I begged him as he drove away from the lodge. “Please.” I couldn’t stand another minute of not knowing what had happened to Dani.
“Your sister’s kidnappers sent a video as proof of life. They’re demanding the release of some of the members of their organization that we’ve caught and imprisoned to get her back, along with a boatload of cash.”
