by Debra Webb
Reece had to be wrong.
A sharp, stabbing pain pierced her skull. Mia grabbed her head, squeezed her eyes shut. This was all wrong. She took deep, slow breaths. The headaches had been gone for years now, until the last few days.
Until he’d shown up.
The pain passed and she opened her eyes. Reece looked so far away. She put one foot in front of the other and forced her legs to cooperate.
She didn’t want to know any of this but somehow she couldn’t stop moving toward that end.
Reece drew her like the flame drew a moth.
She needed him…she just didn’t know why or how.
THE CABIN WAS RUSTIC but it would do. It had only one large room and no running water, as far as Linc could see. He pulled the coverings off two windows to let in some light. Dust particles floated in the air. An old tattered sofa, two equally ragged chairs and a wood table surrounded by rickety-looking straight-back chairs cluttered the space. He peeled off the backpack and let it drop to the floor. He’d forgotten the sleeping bag. Looked like they would need it. Walking back for it wouldn’t be a big deal except for having to drag Lori along.
He shook his head. He’d called her that. A mistake he couldn’t make again.
“What evidence do you have?”
She stood in the open doorway looking weary and fragile. He ached to hold her and to reassure her but that would only lead to him saying more. He’d already said too much. Far too much.
He reached into the backpack and pulled out a bottle of water and offered it to her. “Rest for a bit. We’ll talk about that later.”
She stamped across the creaky wood floor and stood toe-to-toe with him. “You said my uncle is a criminal. What evidence do you have?” She flung out her arms. “You’re a former cop. You surely understand the need for legitimate evidence.”
She was mad as hell. Her lips were tight with fury, her shoulders literally shook.
“He operated one of the largest drug cartels in the western part of the United States. The explosion I told you about was on his yacht.” Don’t go too far. “A competitor wanted him out of the business. The man you call your uncle was supposed to die that day.”
She drew in a startled breath. As if the ramifications of the information shook her a second time, her eyes rounded with realization. “The same explosion that killed your wife. That injured you.”
Reece had to turn away. He grabbed the backpack and crossed to the table. One by one, he placed the contents of the pack on the table, mentally inventorying each. Anything to distract his mind and his hands.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” She joined him at the table, her relentless gaze cutting through him.
He set the last bottle of water on the table. “Yes.” He met her insistent gaze, hated the pain that glimmered there at his answer.
“You want vengeance.” The words were scarcely a whisper. “That’s why you came. It wasn’t about the house you bought, it was about vengeance.”
He wanted to say no, that it was about her. But, in truth, vengeance played a part, too. He hadn’t known until he’d arrived in Blossom and learned the facts of how she came to be there. If it would stop her persistent questions for now, he would say whatever she wanted to hear. He could only take so much.
“Maybe. Mostly I’d like to see justice served.” He exhaled. His insides wouldn’t stop quaking. His gut was tied in knots. Years of feeling nothing at all were suddenly blitzing him with all those suppressed emotions.
She blinked, took another of those ragged breaths. “What kind of evidence do you have?”
“The photos in his house.” She was pushing and he couldn’t go there. “I recognized him.” Why didn’t she let it go?
She bit her bottom lip until it was red. His body lurched with the need to lean down and soothe that mistreated flesh with his mouth…with his tongue. He yearned to touch her.
“Then you weren’t sure he was there when you came to Blossom. Not until you saw the photos.”
She just kept pushing. “I had reason to believe he was there.”
“What reason?” She glared up at him, uncertainty shadowing her face.
Five, then ten trauma-filled seconds elapsed. “I have to make a call.”
He didn’t give her time to react. Linc walked out. He couldn’t breathe until he was a dozen yards from the cabin. He dragged his cell from his pocket and checked the screen. “Damn.” No service. He should have expected that. Came with the territory when lying low in remote locations.
The way the SUV was hidden in that gulley, it wasn’t likely that any passersby would spot it and report it. That was good and bad. Good that the cops wouldn’t be snooping around but bad that he and Mia had no transportation. He had a feeling there wouldn’t be much traffic out here, in any event. Wasn’t the worst-case scenario. They weren’t that many miles from town.
“It’s me, isn’t it? That’s why he tried to protect me from you.”
Linc hesitated before turning around. She stood on the porch. A memory of Lori, standing on the porch of that old house they’d eventually bought and yelling at him because he wasn’t as excited about it as she was, rolled through his mind. She had thrown her hands up and paced back and forth until he’d walked straight up to her and kissed her. Then he’d promised her they would do anything she wanted.
Making her happy was all that had mattered to him.
He slid the phone back into his pocket and racked his brain for an answer that would satisfy her and not take this too far. There was only one way to do that. “You were part of it.” He walked toward her, adopted a don’t-care attitude. “I knew getting close to you could work.” He stopped at the porch, didn’t take the one step up since she stood directly in his path, and stared into her eyes. “Luring prey always requires bait.”
She slapped him hard. Just as quickly she held her hand with the other as if the slap hurt her as much or more than it did him.
MIA’S HEAD WAS SPINNING as she held her hand close to her chest. The stinging wasn’t the problem. It was that other indescribable sensation she felt every time she touched him. The insatiable need to be close to him. To touch more of him and learn the secret of that power he seemed to hold over her.
“You used me.” Her lips trembled. She hated herself for feeling weak. Hated him for what he made her feel. She was the reason her uncle was in trouble. After all he’d done for her.
“I did what I had to do.” With that, he stepped past her and went inside.
Mia stood there, reeling with indecision. How could she believe that her uncle was a drug lord without proof? No jury would convict a man without evidence. Certainly she would not. Why wouldn’t Reece tell her what proof he had, other than the fact her uncle looked like the man he sought? It wasn’t right.
Mia closed her eyes, steadied her mind. She needed answers. She had to be stronger than this. Inside the cabin, she found Linc downing a bottle of water. “You said you used to be a cop. Why is an ex-cop luring prey?” Renewed anger at how he’d used her blistered her senses.
Reece placed the empty bottle on the table. “Because he took something from me.”
Another shock radiated through her. Her gaze dropped to his injured leg, then traveled up the length of his muscled thighs and chest to his face. The scar. There was no need to ask. He’d named the number of surgeries required after the explosion he had survived. She’d seen the limp. His scars, physical and mental, were mementos from that awful tragedy.
And his wife. She had died in that explosion.
“You said a competitor was responsible for the explosion.” Even if her uncle was the man he spoke of, and he absolutely could not be, someone else had caused the explosion. The shaking started again, in her knees. It climbed up her thighs, spread over her chest, down her arms and to her fingers.
“You think that makes it any less his fault?”
Linc’s posture was so rigid he looked ready to snap. Mia swallowed, moistened her lips. She shook her head
. “You still don’t have tangible evidence that my uncle is the man you seek.” Reece was confused. He’d made a mistake. His grief had driven him to do these things. Mia was right. Lincoln Reece was a good man. He just needed help to see that the past couldn’t be changed. What was done was done. If he had evidence that Vincent Lopez was the monster that he spoke of, he should use it to make his case through legal channels.
Mia tried to garner strength from her own words but her heart pounded so hard the blood roared in her ears. She waited for his next move. She wanted to fix him…to fix this. It was unreasonable, completely illogical, but she couldn’t help it. He seemed so alone. So broken. “Looks can be deceiving,” she added when he said nothing. “It’s what’s beneath that makes the man.” She needed him to see that. To take her back home and straighten all this out. Her uncle would explain everything. Confusion elbowed its way back into her conclusions. Her uncle had told Teddy that Reece was dangerous. An old enemy of her father’s. Why would he lie? There was no reason for a man who had nothing to hide to be deceitful.
“I found the evidence I need.”
Mia’s attention flew back to Reece, but he refused to look at her. Her throat tightened, went painfully dry. “The photo isn’t—”
Reece turned toward her, the feral expression on his face making her truly afraid for the first time since she’d awakened to discover someone in her room.
“I found what he took from me.” His attention dropped to the floor. “No one else was there or had the means to take the one thing that mattered to me.”
His wife. The blood drained to Mia’s feet, leaving her as cold as death. “You said your wife is dead.” The thumping in her chest threatened to split open her sternum.
Her body was never found.
Reece said nothing. He walked out, left Mia alone with the unthinkable throbbing in her skull.
Seven years ago.
Explosion.
The car accident had been seven years ago.
She remembered nothing from that day or from her entire existence before.
Hundreds of memories she had made since flashed one after the other in her mind, making her sway. Her uncle bringing her to Blossom after rehab was over. Her aunt Gloria’s smile. Her hard work for months to help Mia fit in the real world again. Her first birthday celebration after the accident…first Christmas. Day after day of trying to remember. Night after night of dreaming things she couldn’t fully recall or make sense of the next morning. The moments of déjà vu after a certain scent or touch.
Lori! Are you hurt?
Reece had called her Lori back in the SUV. After the crash.
Numbness replaced the cold that had filled her. She was out the door before she realized she had moved, standing behind Reece on the porch.
She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Fear had a choke hold on her voice. After inhaling a deep breath, she tried again. “What was your wife’s name?”
He didn’t turn around. He continued staring at the trees, or something Mia couldn’t see.
“Tell me.” She dragged in a bolstering breath. “I need to know.”
Reece turned around slowly. Mia’s world seemed to turn upside down in unison with his movements. She told herself to brace but she didn’t possess the physical or mental ability.
“Lori.” His gaze locked with hers. “My wife’s name is Lori.”
Lori! Are you hurt?
Because he took something from me… I found what he took from me.
Air would not enter her lungs. The wood porch boards shifted and swayed beneath her though she hadn’t moved. Her vision narrowed until it encompassed nothing but his face…then his eyes.
“You think I’m Lori,” she whispered. The trees moved in a circle around her. “You believe I’m your wife.”
He said something but Mia couldn’t make out the words. The spinning had sucked her into a vortex that grew deeper and deeper until everything else vanished.
Chapter Twelve
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Municipal Airport, 6:28 a.m.
Slade Keaton waited for Jim Colby to debark the Colby Agency jet. Jim’s excuse for hanging back had been that he needed to instruct the pilot to remain standing by until additional orders were relayed. Slade suspected that Colby actually wanted to give Lucas Camp an update.
Even before Slade had passed along Lopez’s flight plan to Reece, he had called the Colby Agency for support. After all, that was what friends did, wasn’t it? Provided support in times of need? There were others Slade could have called, but phoning the Colby Agency had killed two birds with one stone, so to speak. Slade acquired the air transport he needed and he solidified his relationship with the Colbys on yet another level.
Jim Colby descended the steps from the plane. Blond, blue-eyed, he looked more like his father, James, than his esteemed mother, Victoria. Like Slade, he bore the unmistakable marks of a harrowing past. Kidnapped by an enemy of the Colbys at age seven, Jim had been physically abused and mentally tormented for nearly two decades. His return some six years ago had been accompanied by much drama and emotion. Now, however, that was all behind him. Jim was a golden one once more. Cherished by his mother, respected by his colleagues and doted on by his stepfather, Lucas Camp.
Slade relaxed his clenched fists. Jim and all those around him would know soon enough what kind of man Lucas Camp really was.
Jim approached Slade, his expression grim. “Our contact at the Bureau is going to attempt to locate a photo of Lopez for comparison with the file on Marcos. Increased drug activities originating in the central Tennessee area have been on DEA’s watch list for the past three years. This may be the break they need for pinpointing the source.” He gestured to a dark sedan parked near the hangar. “That’s our ground transportation.”
The drive to Blossom was less than an hour. They were mere minutes behind Lopez.
“I appreciate your help, Jim.” Slade followed him to the car. “This situation is quite precarious. I’m hoping to track down the right specialists for Reece’s wife’s condition. He’ll need all the backup I can provide, even when we bring his old enemy to justice.”
Jim hesitated at the driver’s door. “If her condition involves brainwashing, I know the right people for that. If it’s amnesia, the Colby Agency can assist with finding the right doctors. I’ll ask Victoria to conduct some preliminary inquiries.”
Slade nodded. “I know Reece will appreciate any help in the matter. He’s waited a long time for the truth.” As had Slade. But that was another matter for another time.
After settling behind the wheel, Jim asked, “Lopez has no security team on the ground in Blossom?”
Slade reached for his seat belt. “Reece was not aware of one. My contact indicated that two other passengers were traveling with Lopez. Bodyguards, if I had my guess. Reece mentioned a local who appeared to do Lopez’s bidding. Ted Stewart. Reece indicated Stewart was not a real threat, just a regular Joe looking for extra cash or brownie points with the man who owns the town.” Slade considered something else Reece had relayed. “That said, Stewart was armed when he attempted to intercept Reece.”
“Noted,” Jim acknowledged.
Slade would have preferred touching base with Reece when he and Jim had touched down at the airfield, but the call hadn’t gone through. It wasn’t unusual for cell service to be lacking in remote, mountainous areas. Reece could take care of himself as long as Slade and Jim handled things on this end.
The conversation lulled for long enough to become awkward. Slade was no fool. He recognized that the Colbys were suspicious of him. As they well should be. The position of power and prestige they had attained made the Colbys prime targets. Caution was necessary.
“How’s your caseload going at the shop?” Jim asked.
Ah, small talk. “The Equalizers are staying busy. I’m contemplating employing two additional investigators. I’ve already replaced two of my men. I suspect I’ll be losing Reece, as well. He’ll want to fo
cus solely on his personal life.” Jonathan Foley had made a similar decision. Dakota Garrett’s departure had been for very different reasons. He was not happy that Slade had opted not to be entirely open with the Colby Agency after Victoria’s recent abduction. Slade was braced for that to come back to haunt him.
“It’s difficult to find investigators for the kind of work the Equalizers do,” Jim agreed. “That level of commitment to deep cover is problematic once personal ties come into play. You generally lose staff.”
Slade had never understood that emasculating need to get tied down with marriage and kids. Life was complex enough without the unnecessary baggage.
“There are still men out there,” Slade said, “who value the mission above all else.”
Jim braked at an intersection and turned to Slade. “Speaking from personal experience, you have to wonder about a man who loves nothing else,” Jim said frankly. “Don’t you agree?”
The unspoken challenge hung in the air. Slade smiled. “Perhaps.” He faced forward as Jim resumed the journey.
Some truths were best left unrevealed until the time was right.
Chapter Thirteen
Linc carefully lowered Lori onto the sofa. Her respiration was steady. Surely she’d come around any second now. God, he hoped so. With no cell service and no transportation, his options for getting help were limited. What else could he do?
He grabbed a bottle of water from the table and peeled off his shirt. With a little water soaked into one corner of the material, he used the shirt like a cloth to pat her face. Her skin didn’t feel overly warm. The truth he’d revealed had simply overwhelmed her. He should have been more careful. He’d tried to hold back but she’d just kept pushing, demanding answers. Not that he could blame her. He’d invaded her life, then kidnapped her without any sort of explanation.
