Professional and serious was the image she’d spent years honing. Today, that image was more important than ever. The last time Seth had seen her, she’d acted like a weak, brokenhearted imbecile—an embarrassment to generations of stoic, unemotional Stones. With the exception of losing her father, that had been the last time she’d shed tears over anyone or anything. Emotional outbursts, wearing her heart on her sleeve—all in the past.
Pulling in every reserved and stony image of generations of men and women in her family, Honor opened the door and walked in. Seth sat across from Noah. Aidan and another LCR operative, Jared Livingston, sat farther away. All eyes were on McCall, listening to a conversation he was having on his cellphone. As unobtrusively as possible, Honor sat down beside Aidan. He gave her a quick wink and then turned his attention back to their boss.
Though Seth never moved his gaze from Noah, Honor knew the instant he realized that she was there. His expression didn’t change, but a small, subtle difference in the set of his broad shoulders told her he knew.
She could see only his profile, but from what she could tell, he looked older, harder. His skin was bronzed, as if he’d spent months in the sun. His hair was longer than it had been before, several inches below his ears. He was dressed in a light blue chambray shirt and jeans. She’d never seen Seth wear anything other than a suit or dress slacks. This new, casual Seth surprised her.
Another subtle shift in his shoulders alerted her that he knew she was looking at him. Not ready to meet his direct gaze yet, she moved her attention to McCall, who seemed to be arguing with someone about getting access to some records. His hand moved rapidly across a sheet of paper as he jotted notes. Without looking up, he put his hand over the phone and growled, “I need you to get on the phone and call some of your contacts. I’m getting the runaround here.”
Thankful to have her total focus somewhere else, she asked, “What do you need?”
“Not you, Stone,” Noah said. “Cavanaugh.”
She jerked her gaze to Seth, who was already pulling his cellphone from the front pocket of his jeans. What kind of contacts did Seth have? Was he back in the good graces of law enforcement, or was this some sort of underground connection McCall thought might be helpful?
Shamelessly eavesdropping—he could have gotten up and left the room if he didn’t want anyone to hear—Honor tried her best to see the expression on his face as she listened.
“Yeah, it’s Cavanaugh. Let me speak to Larry.”
Seconds later, Larry must have answered because Seth said, “We’re getting no help from your guys in the Bureau. What’s up?”
The Bureau? Seth was talking to Lawrence Atmore, the supervisory special agent in charge of the Houston FBI branch? How did Seth know him?
“Yeah, well, tell them we’re all on the same page. Everyone wants to find these girls alive.” Several seconds later, Seth closed his phone and looked at McCall. “They’re emailing the information to you.”
McCall nodded, seemingly not one bit surprised by the help Seth had been able to get with one small phone call. She had thought Seth was the only one who would be blindsided by this meeting, but she was beginning to feel quite differently. Somehow Seth had either turned his life around so completely that he had Bureau heads taking his calls without delay, or she’d tumbled down a rabbit hole and nothing was making sense. What the hell was going on?
Regulating his breathing, Seth did what he’d done for years: pretend. If he allowed any of his thoughts to show, he figured everything would blow up. Flying across the massive cherry desk and knocking the shit out of McCall was a temptation. But since Livingston and Thorne might have a few issues with him attacking their boss, they’d gang up and he’d get the shit beaten out of him. Besides, hard to jump up and fight when you weren’t sure your legs would hold you to stand. Just what the hell was Honor doing here?
Stupid question. She was, of course, apparently now working for LCR. No doubt this was a test. For both of them or just him? Didn’t matter. He’d passed more difficult tests. You gritted your teeth, stiffened your spine, and persevered.
“Okay, here’s what we know.” McCall clicked a button on his desk and a wide-screen television appeared on the wall behind him. Then the photographs of five young women were there, one of them Kelli.
“As you can see, all are around the same age. All attending college when they went missing. Those are the only similarities anyone has been able to discover so far.”
“Friends, boyfriends, relatives … they have no clue?” Honor asked.
“No,” Seth answered before McCall could. Might as well jump into the thick of things and show how little it mattered that he’d soon be working with a woman he’d once had sex with numerous times. And really, wasn’t that all they’d done? Sex, damned good sex, but that’s all it’d been.
“Were you going to add something to that sentence?” McCall asked.
Shit. So much for acting like he had a lick of sense in his head. “Sorry. No boyfriends for any of the women … at least none steady. The friends of each of the girls gave no clues. The relatives were even more clueless.” He nodded at the folders stacked on McCall’s desk. “Everything we have is in those folders.”
He tensed when Honor stood and went to pick one up. It was the first time he’d seen more than just her profile since she’d entered. Damn, had she always been so beautiful, so sexy? So coolly untouchable?
She passed a folder to Livingston and Thorne and then sat down again.
McCall’s voice drew him back in focus. “Stone is taking the lead on this case. Livingston and Thorne will assist. Cavanaugh, you claimed you have the experience to work this case. I spoke with your former captain; he agrees.”
Seth nodded. He hadn’t expected McCall to just take his word. However, he could feel the surprise radiate from the woman to his right. Stupid really, but Seth couldn’t deny a huge let-down feeling in his gut. She hadn’t followed what had happened to him after they broke up.
Clemmons’s arrest and trial had been a big news story. Not that Seth had been a part of any of it. By the time it was done, he’d wanted nothing to do with the case and certainly none of the publicity. But the governor had known about his involvement, and his superiors had known. With Honor’s contacts, if she’d asked the right people, she could have known, too. She apparently hadn’t asked; hadn’t cared to ask.
Seth had kept up with Honor’s career for a few years and then forced himself to stop. Knowing where she was, what she was doing, had been a form of torture. He hadn’t stopped cold turkey—it had been a process of not checking for several days, then for several weeks, and so on. Finally, one day, he had stopped.
Too bad, since if he had continued, at least he might not have been so caught off guard.
Seth had no issues with Honor being in charge of the case. He knew what a professional she was, and before he’d stopped following her career, he’d seen what an asset she’d been to the Bureau. Finding Kelli and the other young women was his number one priority, no matter who gave the orders.
Giving a nod to McCall to show he had no problems with that decision, he looked to Honor and said, “How do we proceed?”
A slightly startled gasp from Honor had an unwelcome response in Seth’s body. He remembered her little gasps. Right before she climaxed, one tiny gasp from those beautiful lips had given him warning about what was to come. And now the memory of that gasp had given him a boner hard enough to hammer nails. Just what he didn’t need.
Glowering his displeasure, he said, “Do you even know anything about the case?”
Myriad expressions crossed her face, irritation the most prominent. “Since I was just given the case, I think you know the answer to that.”
So what if everyone was looking at him strangely? Better they think he was just an ass than a man who had a hard-on from hell. “What do you need to know?”
“I’d like to take a look at the information and then reconvene in”—she glanced at her w
atch—“about three hours. Does that sound okay to everyone?” He watched her meet everyone’s eyes. When she came to his, her gaze dropped to his mouth. Was it because she couldn’t meet his eyes or was she perhaps remembering some of the same things he was?
“Works for me,” McCall said and stood. “Cavanaugh, would you stay a few minutes? Everyone else, be back here at eight this evening.”
Strangely silent, the group of three walked out the door. Seth waited till he heard it close before he turned to McCall, ready to blast him for the dirty trick he’d played. Before he could open his mouth, the LCR leader said quietly, “If you can’t handle working with her, we’ll still take the case.”
Attempting bravado never entered his head. This wasn’t about him and his sex-starved libido. This was about finding Kelli and four other young women.
“I’ll be able to work the case fine. I’m assuming the surprise with Honor was your way of testing me?”
His gaze coolly calculating, McCall nodded. “If you’re not able to deal with seeing an old girlfriend, you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to handle working this case. I needed to see your reaction.”
Though he didn’t like the man’s method, he couldn’t argue with him. Thankfully Seth was the only one who knew he’d failed McCall’s test.
“Finding my niece and the other girls is the only thing I care about.”
McCall led him to the door. “With Honor in charge of the mission, I have no doubt that will happen. If you didn’t know it already, she’s one of the smartest and most professional people I’ve ever met. I’m just glad she survived that attack.”
Before Seth could ask him what he meant, McCall closed the door in his face.
What the hell …? Honor had almost died?
Hidden away in a corner, the conference room was rarely used since it was so small, holding only a table large enough to seat five. Honor found herself working there frequently instead of going back to her apartment. Since she lived outside Paris, wasting time going home made no sense. Besides, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to drive.
How could she have forgotten how incredibly gorgeous Seth Cavanaugh was? And not just his looks made her weak in the knees—the powerful effect of his presence was a phenomenon on its own. Within seconds of entering the room, she’d been sweating. The instant she’d heard his voice, she’d become aroused.
Dropping the file on the desk, Honor pulled off her jacket and took a healthy swallow from the bottle of water she’d grabbed from the small refrigerator in the gym. Lusting after a man who’d crushed her under his foot like a bug was one thing; she was the only one who stood to be hurt and humiliated again. Lusting after a man while on a case was completely different. She was a professional and had a job to do; these missing girls needed her full concentration.
Body temperature lowered and her composure finally returning, she opened the file in front of her and became lost in the world of five young women who were either dead or going through hell. Either way, she was determined to find them.
Immersed in her reading, she didn’t realize he was in the room until his deep voice grumbled across the room: “McCall said you almost died.”
Honor’s head jerked up. How the hell could a man so large move so quietly? The heart that had just calmed down returned to its thundering pace. Ignoring her body’s reaction, she said, “I think we need to establish some ground rules.”
“Like what?”
“The past is in the past. We’re both here to do a job.” She glanced down at the folder. “This case is our only priority.”
He began to move slowly toward her, and Honor had to grasp the edge of her chair to keep from jumping up and running away. Damned if she would let him see the effect he had on her.
“Agreed. But I need to know what happened.”
Arching a brow, she said helpfully, “What happened …?”
“You were attacked … almost died.”
She wanted to ask why he even cared. The intensity of those deep blues eyes stopped her. If she asked, she had a feeling he would give her an explanation she wouldn’t want to hear.
“I took down a sleaze a few months back. He sliced my neck … came a little too close to the jugular vein.”
He was standing in front of her before she knew it. “Let me see.”
“Wh … what?” Heat washed over her body. She shook her head, her eyes skittering away from that penetrating deep blue gaze. “No, you don’t need to see.”
“Yes, I do.”
She forced herself to look at him. Eyes usually intensely blue now seemed almost black, they were so dark. A thought came to her: He cares. And not in a curious, “I want to see your scar” kind of way … or even a sexual way. The look on his face was one of deep concern, almost fear.
Her fingers were at her neck, unwrapping the scarf, before she even realized it. Pulling the material away, she tilted her head back. Callused fingertips gently caressed the slightly raised scar that ran across the base of her throat. Honor shivered as every erogenous zone in her body stood to attention, ready to shout hallelujah. With one touch of his finger, Seth has managed to unfreeze five years of denial.
“I’m sorry.”
Sweet shards of heat spread from her nipples to her groin. Oh, that sexy, rough-edged voice … Then the words registered. “Sorry for what?”
Naked emotion so fleeting she almost thought she had imagined it crossed his face. Then a blank stare replaced the look, making him seem hard and emotionless. But dammit, there’d been something there; she was sure of it.
He dropped his hand and backed away. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I hope you taught the prick a lesson.”
Shaken by the odd exchange, she nodded vaguely, her head feeling much too loose on her head. “Yes, he’s in prison.”
“Good.” He glanced down at the folder. “I’ll leave you to your review. See you at eight.”
Before she could react or respond, he was gone, leaving Honor with unanswered questions, a body temperature well over the norm, and a throbbing arousal that she knew had only one cure.
six
Tranquillity, Wyoming
Alden Pike stood at the top of his mountain and surveyed his kingdom below. What had once been only a dream had become a reality—his fantasy come true. In the midst of a vast wilderness of nothingness, he had created paradise.
No, it hadn’t been easy, but he was at last reaping the rewards of all his years of hard work and sacrifice. And because of him, his people were happy and thriving. What had begun twenty years ago with a ragtag group of three men and two women inhabiting a two-room shack a few miles outside Carson City, Nevada, had become a community of over one hundred devout members living a utopian dream.
His people had followed him wherever he led. Fifteen years ago, his dreams had brought him to this piece of land—one hundred and fifty acres of nothing but privacy, beauty, and tranquillity. Lois, his first wife, had chosen the name. And because he’d loved her and indulged her whims, he had gone along with it. Now he couldn’t imagine his kingdom being called anything else.
Lois was long gone. Taken by a sadness that swept over her mind and turned her from a beautiful, eager-to-please young woman into a middle-aged shrew with a stubborn streak and a sour disposition. Saying goodbye had been hard for both of them. He’d seen the glaze of tears in her eyes seconds before she took her last breath, but he’d also seen the gratitude. In life, he’d given her the gift of spending her good years with him; in death, he’d given her the gift of peace. What more could a woman ask of her man?
He had tried to replace Lois from time to time, with little success. Each time he’d thought he’d found his queen, she’d turned into just another shrew who grew older and less agreeable, and he’d had to say goodbye. Incredibly frustrating, yes, but settling for anything less than absolute perfection wouldn’t be fair to him or his people. They needed his leadership to thrive, and he needed a woman worthy of him to keep him satisfied.
A satisfied leader created happy followers. So far, that perfect woman had eluded him. He wanted the very best—that’s what his people would want for him, too.
Heavy responsibility weighed on his broad shoulders—the kind few in the world could manage. Like kings of old, if people obeyed his rules, relinquished their worldly goods, and gave him their blind faith, he saw to their needs. Certain people needed to be taken care of and told what to do. Alden had been a young man when the realization had come that he was called to lead.
Caring for his people meant taking care of all their needs and desires, even the most basic. That’s why new blood had to be brought in each year, revitalizing and energizing the entire community. Older men who’d come to Tranquillity seeking direction and peace needed companionship. Young boys who’d once played with toy guns and blocks of wood had grown into hot-blooded men who required mates.
When daughters were born in Tranquillity, they were promised immediately. But as the community grew, outside women had to be obtained. It was the only way to sustain his people and provide for their needs. Alden knew all about the urges of men. Cravings as natural as a rising tide could be soothed only by the right woman. Alden took immense care in making sure he selected the best.
“May I approach?”
Alden turned at the lilting tone of Tabitha’s voice. So much like her mother, but so much more obedient and joyful. From the moment he’d held her in his arms, he had known what true happiness was. He had nurtured her and taught her all the things she needed to know. And she had become exactly what he’d dreamed.
Holding out his hand, he gestured that it was appropriate to come to him. White-blond hair flowed down her back, her skin a light peach and her expression the sweet one of perfect submission. Lovely beyond reason, she glided toward him, her hand outstretched, a smile of pure radiance on her beautiful face. His angel.
Alden opened his arms wide and she went into his welcoming embrace, cuddling close. He whispered against her silky hair, “I missed you last night.”
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