They’d had almost six months to build a case. Micah had only been in the area three weeks and he already felt time slipping away too quickly.
How long would it take before the men working the case burned out, grew tired, got sloppy? How long before something bigger or more exciting drew attention and resources away from the little town of Cold Plains?
And although he knew it was crazy, he felt more than a bit of responsibility for Samuel’s sins. He’d known what Samuel was when they were young. He’d seen the cruelty, the signs of severe narcissism and sociopathic tendencies.
He should have told somebody. He should have warned someone that Samuel was capable of doing terrible things. But who would he have told? The father who beat them relentlessly? The mother who was afraid of her own shadow?
Besides, as a young kid he’d believed that if he told anyone and word got back to his father, then his father would beat Micah to death.
As he entered the safe house he carried with him the weight of both guilt and frustration. The first person he saw was Darcy, seated at the table with a cup of coffee before her.
“Good morning,” he said. “You’re up early.”
“I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. I checked to see if you were in your room, but you were already gone.”
He turned to look at her as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “You wanted to talk to me?” He moved to the table and sat across from her.
She looked unusually pale, her eyes filled with obvious anxiety as she nodded. “I have the picture of Jane Doe. I want to see if you recognize her.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket, but seemed reluctant to push it across the table to him.
Micah knew the nervousness that had to be flooding through her. If he recognized the woman in the picture, then there was a strong possibility that it was Darcy’s mother and she was dead. With a definite name, Ford McCall could check out the background of the victim and determine for sure if she was Darcy’s mother.
If he didn’t recognize the woman, then she was left still wondering, still hoping for a reunion with a woman she didn’t remember, but desperately needed in her life.
She finally laid the folded paper in the center of the table and he couldn’t help but notice that her long, slender fingers trembled slightly.
He reached out and pulled it toward him, his heart hurting for the woman he now knew was his niece. Samuel was her father and that made it all the more important that she find out something good about her mother. She took a quick sip of her coffee as he unfolded the picture and stared down at it.
The blue eyes of the woman on the paper were definitely Darcy’s eyes and Micah knew he’d seen the woman before, although it had been many years before.
He frowned, remembering who Darcy had reminded him of in the first moment of seeing her. “I remember her. She wasn’t around town for long, but she was so pretty and I remember her being swept into Samuel’s sphere.” He looked at Darcy, hating the news he was about to deliver. “Catherine. That’s definitely Catherine George.”
He looked up from the picture to see tears welling up in Darcy’s eyes. “She’s my mother,” she said as she tried to swipe at the tears that trekked down her cheeks. “He killed my mother and now I’ll never have a chance to know her, to spend time with her. He stole her away from me and then he killed her.”
“Maybe I’m mistaken,” Micah offered, although he knew the odds of that were slim to none. “Maybe your mother is still alive and stashed someplace in Cold Plains.”
Darcy shook her head and offered him a sad smile. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Micah hesitated a moment and then shook his head. “No, but at least with her name, McCall will be able to determine if Catherine George is definitely your mother. Do you want me to contact him?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll take care of it.” She rose from the table and carried her coffee cup to the sink. “I think I’m going to head back to my room and rest for a little while.” With another achingly sad smile, she turned and left the kitchen.
Micah tightened his grip on his own cup, a deep ache in his chest. Jane Doe had now been identified, but would that move the investigation any farther along? He doubted it. He knew that Jane Doe’s body had been found four years ago, nearly a hundred miles away from Cold Plains.
The only thing that had tied the woman to Cold Plains and Samuel was the small D on her right hip. It had not been tattooed on, but rather carefully drawn with a Sharpie pen. They would probably never know why she had worn a fake mark, but the odds were good she was working against the cult and Samuel and for that she had paid with her life.
And it was entirely possible that she’d given birth to Darcy and in a completely unselfish act of sacrifice had given her away so that Samuel would never know of her existence.
As he thought of Darcy’s tears, a new burn started in the pit of his stomach. If the FBI thought he was just going to sit tight and hang around here for the remainder of the investigation, they were out of their mind.
He was tired of seeing Samuel’s survivors and the pain that had been left behind. This had all gone on long enough and the longer it lasted the more victims there would be.
He’d lie low for tonight, but after that all bets were off. It was time he moved this game forward to some sort of conclusion, and if he didn’t survive, at least he’d know he had died trying to destroy the scourge named Samuel.
CHAPTER 9
Olivia awakened alone in her bed, the scent of Micah lingering in the air, the warmth of him still deep in her heart. She’d slept without dreams, safe and secured by the weight of his arms around her, by the warmth of his bare legs against hers.
Micah.
Her body tingled with the sensations of their lovemaking. It had been wild and intense and had released some of the tension that had been knotted inside her since the moment she had fled Cold Plains.
But it hadn’t been lovemaking, she reminded herself and she’d be a fool to think otherwise. It had been the release of sheer adrenaline, the rush of relief at being alive. It had been all kinds of things created by his wild dash for his life through the forest, but it hadn’t been lovemaking.
Not hearing any noise from the nursery yet, she slid out of the bed and threw on her clothes from the night before. She grabbed a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt and headed for the bathroom, hoping to get in a quick shower before Sam awoke.
As she stood under the tepid, faint spray of water she tried not to think about the night before and she also tried not to think about her missing child. Both created different but very strong emotions inside her.
She finished her shower and got dressed. She spritzed her favorite perfume and thought of the man who had, in the midst of a covert operation, thought to grab the floral spray that reminded her she was a woman in this place of danger and intrigue.
By that time she heard Sam’s good-morning cry coming from the nursery room. She greeted Sam with a forced happy smile as thoughts of Ethan slammed into her chest. As she changed Sam from his pajamas to his clothes for the day, her heart ached.
So many days and nights had now passed since she’d run terrified from the streets of Cold Plains. Did Ethan believe she’d abandoned him? Did he think his mommy had just given him away? Did he believe she’d forgotten all about him?
She shook her head as if to dispel the heartbreaking thoughts. She didn’t want to display the piercing sadness inside her for Sam’s sake. She didn’t want to traumatize him anymore than she thought he already was.
With him in her arms, she mentally prepared herself not only to face another day without Ethan, but also to face Micah again.
The worst thing she could do was read too much into what had happened between them the night before, but she couldn’t help that her heart h
ad been touched by him in a way no other man had touched her. She couldn’t help but wish for something more than a hot night of sex with him.
But falling in love with Micah Grayson would be just another mistake in a lifetime of bad judgment. He was a mercenary here on a job. Even though he had made a promise to her to help find Ethan, even though he’d come to her bed with fiery passion and need, that didn’t mean he felt anything real and lasting for her.
He’d needed somebody last night and she’d just happened to step out of her room at the right time. She had a feeling any woman could have served the purpose he’d needed at that moment.
She was determined not to make another mistake where a man was concerned and she had a feeling loving Micah would be just that. Still, she couldn’t help the way her heart jumped in her chest as she entered the kitchen and saw him seated at the table.
“Good morning,” she said as she placed Sam in the high chair. “Where is everyone else?”
“Jesse and June are in the garden, Darcy went to her room a while ago and I haven’t seen Lacy and her kids yet this morning. Why? Scared to be alone with me?”
She shot him a quick glance, relieved to see a teasing light in his eyes. “Not yet, but the day is still young,” she replied with a light tone.
“The day might be young, but I’ve already met with Hawk and broken Darcy’s heart.”
She gave Sam a cracker to hold him over until she could make him some breakfast and looked at Micah in surprise. “What did you do to break Darcy’s heart?”
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the table across from him as he told her what had transpired between him and Darcy earlier that morning.
As he told her about identifying the picture of Jane Doe and his suspicion that Catherine George was indeed Darcy’s mother, Olivia’s heart ached with the young woman’s pain. She knew how much Darcy had hoped for some sort of happy reunion with her mother.
“She’s contacting Ford to give him Catherine’s name and hopefully before too long she will have a definitive answer.”
“But you’re sure Jane Doe is Darcy’s mother.”
He nodded, a weariness in his eyes. “I just feel it in my gut. I’m not sure why Catherine returned here after giving up Darcy, but I have a feeling she was either trying to save Samuel from himself or save the other people in town from Samuel.”
“It’s just so sad,” Olivia said. She released a deep sigh. “I’m going to make some scrambled eggs and toast. You want some?” she asked.
“Are you eating?”
“Definitely. I seem to have worked up an appetite sometime during the night.” She turned her back on him to grab some eggs and start breakfast, but she felt the heat of his gaze in the center of her back.
“About last night…”
She turned to face him, not wanting to hear any apologies or explanations, not wanting him to somehow take away from what had been a moment of passion in a place least expected.
“Please don’t.” She held up a hand to stop whatever he was about to say. “Let’s not dissect, discuss or even talk about what’s already done. And we don’t have to get all touchy-feely about sharing emotions. Today is a new day with new challenges and we just need to get to them.”
She turned back around and cracked the eggs into a bowl, hoping he took her advice. The truth of the matter was, she didn’t want him to say anything that would take away the little bit of magic she’d found in his arms the night before.
Minutes later they sat at the table and laughed when Sam tried to share some of his toast with Micah, practically sticking it into his ear.
“Now that’s a sound we don’t hear often enough around here,” June said as she and Jesse came into the kitchen. June carried a small basket of mixed vegetables and set the basket on the countertop. “That’s about the last of the garden. It’s getting too cold at night. If we want vegetables, we’re going to have to depend on cans from now on.”
“I don’t want to even think about winter coming,” Micah replied. “It would be nice if all of us were gone from here by the time the first snow falls.”
Winter. Ethan loved wintertime. Last year during the first significant snowfall of the year, she’d bundled up the two boys in their snowsuits and they’d all gone outside to play. They’d built a snowman and she’d shown them how to make snow angels and then they’d gone back into the house with frozen fingers and toes to warm cocoa with marshmallows.
She could still remember Ethan telling her he was a snow bug as he’d rolled in a ball across the snowy yard. His laughter had accompanied each somersault and the memory caused a lump of emotion to rise up in Olivia’s throat.
“What’s new?” Jesse asked Micah as he poured himself a cup of coffee and joined them at the table.
As Micah told him about the flight through the forest the night before and the fact that Hawk had told him to stay out of things and let the FBI agents work the case, Olivia watched the play of emotions over Micah’s face.
She could tell by the set of his jaw that he had no intention of obeying the FBI’s order for him to sit tight. Even though she had no right to tell him what to do or what not to do, she wanted to tell him to listen to what the FBI had told him, to stay here, safe.
She desperately wanted her son back and she wanted Micah safe. Unfortunately, she wasn’t at all sure the two were synonymous.
* * *
Most days Micah spent much of his time in his quiet little room, lying in the dark and either resting or strategizing for the night to come. But tonight he wasn’t leaving the cave and there was no reason for him to isolate himself in his dark, lonely room.
Although there were plenty of people to talk to, to spend time with, he found himself drifting to wherever Olivia and Sam were located in the cave.
They were now seated in the living room area. Sam was on the floor playing with some toys that Jesse had picked up on his last trek into town for supplies.
Micah sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Olivia, but he could smell the floral scent of her perfume and liked the way her green T-shirt made her eyes appear as green as fresh spring grass.
She seemed at ease, but he knew the tumultuous emotions she had to be feeling and it frustrated him that he could do nothing about them.
“What are your plans when you leave here?” he asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had existed between them.
She tucked a strand of her pale blond hair behind her ear and looked at him. “It’s hard to see a future right now. I’m just getting through minute by minute, trying not to completely freak out.”
“I know.” He was surprised by the small stab in his heart for her, for her pain. He’d spent most of his life trying to remain emotionless, but he couldn’t succeed in that goal when it came to Olivia. “But eventually Samuel will fall, the children will be returned where they belong and life will go on. You need to be thinking about what happens when you get out of this cave.”
She leaned back against the rawhide couch and frowned thoughtfully. “I love this place. The minute I saw the mountains they called to something inside me. I loved the house where we lived that had come to feel like home. Within six months of living in Cold Plains, I was certain it was going to be our home forever. The whole landscape called to something deep in my soul. I love the mountains and streams, the achingly blue skies and the wooded surroundings.”
She shrugged. “But, I guess when this is over we’ll move on. I have a little money saved up, enough for a two-or three-month start in a new town. I know I won’t go back to Oklahoma. Maybe Colorado, where I’ll have the mountains again and sparkling streams. I’ll find a nice little town and start to rebuild.”
“A little town where there’s a local drunk and people gossip and bar fights happen on Friday nights?”
She laughed and th
e sound was like music. “Exactly. No more perfect towns for me. I want a place to live, blemishes and all.” Her laughter died and her smile drifted off her lips. “It won’t be easy. I’ll be the single mother of two small boys with little training or education.”
“You’ll be fine. You’re a strong woman, Olivia, and you’re smart, smart enough to make choices that will give you a wonderful life with your sons. I see it in you and you shouldn’t be afraid of whatever the future holds.”
“The biggest fear I have right now is if I’m ever going to get out of this cave with both my sons,” she replied drily. She snapped her mouth closed, as if she didn’t want to say anything else.
He was surprised to realize that he thought he knew what she was thinking, that she desperately wanted her son back and she thought he was the man who could accomplish that, but she also didn’t want him hurt or dead.
“You shouldn’t worry about me,” he said in a low voice.
“Why not?” Her gaze held his.
He frowned thoughtfully. “Because I’m not used to having anyone worry about me.”
“Then get used to it,” she countered. “Whether you like it or not, Micah, I’ve grown to care about you. You don’t have to do anything about it. I don’t expect anything in return. It’s just there and that’s that.”
She said it all lightly, and yet the impact it had on his heart was sharp and poignant. So this was what it felt like to know that somebody cared about you? It was like a gift that he wanted to reciprocate, but he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t.
“What about you? What are your plans when this is all over?” she asked, pulling him from his thoughts. “Are you going back to working for some covert government agency? Sneaking into foreign countries and doing mercenary kind of things?”
He started to answer flippantly, but halted himself and seriously considered her question. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what comes after this, but I do know it’s time to hang up my mercenary missions.”
Perfect Wyoming Complete Collection: Special Agent's Perfect Cover ; Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue ; A Daughter's Perfect Secret ; Lawman's Perfect Surrender ; The Perfect Outsider ; Mercenary's Perfect Mission Page 103
