by J. S. Scott
“Nobody was yelling,” Kade replied, his voice laced with laughter. “Jesus Christ, you must have gotten pickled.”
“Coffee and aspirin,” Travis said calmly, turning and walking out of the room.
“You look like hell, buddy. What the hell happened? Where is Mia?” Kade questioned curiously.
Max closed his eyes, seeing only flashes of scenes from the night before. Were they real or imaginary? He had no fucking idea. All he knew was that he’d come to Montana like a raging maniac, to see a wife who had no desire to see him. “Is she gone?” He groaned as he tried to sit up, vaguely remembering getting into Mia’s bed, or being put to bed by his wife. She’d better be here somewhere. He was getting damn sick and tired of chasing a woman who kept running away from him. What the hell was he thinking?
Truth was, he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been running on anger and adrenaline. When he’d finally gotten to Mia’s place in Montana, he’d questioned himself and his sanity. He’d nearly turned around and left, but after he’d taken several shots of that shitty whiskey, he’d decided they needed to have a talk—the reason why they’d need to have a discussion escaping him at the moment.
“Well, she’s not here. And a truck that I assume is hers is still in the driveway.” Kade shot him a disgruntled look.
“She had a rental car. She must have picked it up at the airport.” Max remembered seeing the compact vehicle in the drive, parked next to an older truck.
“Then she’s gone,” Kade said remorsefully. “Damn it.”
“I’ll stay away from her. Maybe she’ll stop running.” Max was resigned. Mia couldn’t seem to do anything other than run from him, so he needed to stop chasing her. It was rather pointless anyway.
“She isn’t running from you, man. She’s scared,” Kade answered angrily.
“Of what?” Max asked, perplexed. He swung around and dropped his feet to the ground, shooting Kade a dubious glance.
“Long story that you need to hear. Take a shower, for God’s sake. You smell like a damn distillery. Since when do you get drunk?” Kade stepped back, waving his hand in the air to get rid of the odor to make his point.
“Since your sister decided to leave me again for another man,” Max shot back at Kade, irritation and what he assumed was a massive hangover trying his patience.
“We need to get one thing straight.” Kade was shouting now. “My sister loves you. I have no idea why. Personally, I think you’re a real asshole to wake up to, but she’s obviously blind to that. She didn’t leave you for another man. She left you because of one. There’s a big difference. If you would have stayed to hear Travis out instead of trying to kill him, you’d know the truth by now. Take a shower and meet us in the living room before you piss me off and I take a shot at the other side of your face.”
Max rarely saw Kade angry, so his brother-in-law’s outrage took him by surprise. He watched Kade turn and walk out of the bedroom, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his hangover.
He found the adjoining bathroom with a shower, cleaning himself up as he pondered Kade’s words. What the hell did it mean? Who or what was Mia afraid of…and why?
Feeling nearly human, he went to the living room, wearing the same jeans and t-shirt he’d worn the day before. He’d taken the time to cram a few things in a bag, but it was in the car.
Kade came out of the kitchen, carrying two mugs of coffee. Silently, he handed Max some aspirin, which he downed immediately, and then started on the coffee.
Travis was already sitting in one of the recliners, reading a newspaper with a cup of coffee in hand and Tucker sitting at his feet.
“Traitor,” Max mumbled to the canine, slightly satisfied when he noticed that Travis looked as beat-up as he did.
He sat on the couch, silently slugging as much coffee as he could. Tucker gave him an apologetic look and came to sit at his feet.
Travis put his paper aside and Kade flopped into the other recliner, both brothers drilling him with a hostile expression.
“I don’t know where she went. I did get drunk, and we…talked. She was here when I went to sleep,” he stated flatly. “I don’t know why she left and I don’t know where she went. She ran. Again. It’s something Mia seems to excel at doing. I assume there was no note this time?”
“Nothing. How much do you remember?” Kade asked, his expression relaxing to an only slightly contrary look.
“Not a lot,” Max answered honestly. “I remember her being here when I went to sleep. I have a few empty spaces in my memory of last night. I’m not sure what was real and what I imagined.” And he hated it. No wonder he’d never gotten completely plastered.
“Welcome to ‘the morning after,’ Mr. Perfect,” Kade said evilly. “I just wish I could have been here to see it. The ‘always in control Max Hamilton’ three sheets to the wind? I would have paid good money for that show.”
“No reruns. It was an exclusive showing,” Max grumbled, swearing he’d never get that drunk again. The next morning wasn’t worth it. He felt like he been chewed up and spit out by some kind of mythological monster with razor-sharp teeth. “Tell me about Mia.” His mind was on only one thing at the moment, and that was his wayward wife. “Is she safe?”
“I have a team of investigators tracking her as we speak. I should have a location on her shortly. She’s obviously headed back to the airport. She hired the rental she got from there and there aren’t many other means of transport away from here.” Travis spoke for the first time. His voice was well modulated and restrained, speaking as though he were in a business meeting. The only telling thing was his eyes, his usually glacial look expressing untamed emotion. “To make a long story short, she got involved in a bad relationship back when she was in college. The asshole finally got put in jail and we thought it was over. He got out of prison right before Mia disappeared the first time, threatening to kill you, Kade, and me if she didn’t come back to him. She was afraid…and I helped her. She’s my sister. Her safety was my main concern.”
“She was my goddamn wife. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have protected her,” Max answered angrily, ready to pound Travis all over again.
“You were unavailable. In fact, Danny had Mia in his grasp when your plane took off, your head in the sight of a rifle and ready to blow your head off. Your wife saved your life,” Travis answered casually. “Danny Harvey was a career criminal, completely insane, and ready to do whatever it took to get Mia back. He was also a sharpshooter who could pick off a target at long distances. He won a lot of competitions when he was young. He rarely missed a target.”
“Why was Mia even with him? She couldn’t have loved someone like that,” Max asked harshly.
Kade answered. “She was twenty-one years old, had an old man who was a raging alcoholic and completely insane. He beat his wife and children often and repeatedly. Mia suffered under my father’s hand. We all did. Do you really think she even knew what love was? Do you think she knew what normal was?” Kade leaned forward in the chair, his fists clenched. “I was gone, you were gone, and Travis was the only thing standing between her and him. I was pissed off, too, Max, when I found out he’d been responsible for hiding her. But I might have done the same damn thing if it meant keeping Mia safe.”
“You should have told me. I thought she was dead.” Max still wasn’t convinced. She was his wife, dammit. “All those years, I fucking grieved for her.”
“It wasn’t a picnic for her either. Do you think she wanted to go? She was terrified he’d kill you. She ran to keep you safe. She didn’t give a shit about what happened to her. I can testify to that because I saw the way he messed her up.” Travis’ voice was heated. “Back in college and before she disappeared.”
“You knew when she was in college?” Max questioned resentfully.
“Not immediately. She went to Virginia to go to college. My father wanted her to go to b
usiness school in Florida and get involved in the business, but that wasn’t what Mia wanted. Gran made jewelry when she was alive, and that’s what Mia wanted to do. Mia had this house and her trust as an inheritance, but she didn’t have control of anything yet. She had to bury herself in student loans that she could pay back later to attend the college in Virginia that had the BFA and MFA that she wanted to become a jewelry designer.” Travis released an audible breath, pausing for a moment before continuing, “Kade and I were both in school too, but once I finished my business degree and was working, I decided to go to Virginia to surprise Mia. I ended up more surprised than she was when I saw what was happening to her.” Travis’ voice cracked, a slight dent in his emotional shield.
“What happened?” Max asked stoically, not at all sure he wanted to know. But he needed to hear it. “Did he hurt her?”
“Yeah,” Travis confessed. “Pretty badly right about the time I went to visit. But even through all that bullshit, she was working part-time and pulling excellent grades. She was about ready to enter her master’s program. And he was trying to convince her not to—with his fists. He didn’t want her accumulating more loans. The bastard wanted plenty of that trust fund left when she was able to get to it.”
“Fuck!” Max exploded, so enraged he wanted to kill the guy. How could any man hurt Mia? “How did she separate herself from him?”
“She didn’t have to. He went to jail. I think she’d been trying to get away from the relationship for a while, but he really did a number on her,” Travis answered, setting his coffee mug on the table, and leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of him.
“What were the charges?” Max asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Travis, reading something unsaid.
“Assault with a deadly weapon. Nasty ordeal,” Travis replied, deadpan.
“You set him up,” Max guessed, fairly certain Travis was the man who had put the asshole in jail.
“I went to have a discussion with him. Let’s just say I made sure there were witnesses.”
“Did Mia know?” Max was enraged, his mind flashing with scenarios of Mia hurting, Mia crying, Mia bleeding.
“No,” Travis answered calmly. “She had her studies and her job to worry about. All she ever knew was that he was going to jail, and she was safe. It was all she needed to know.”
Max barely noticed when Kade got up and took the empty mug from his hand. He let go, his hand shaking with pent-up rage as he released the handle. “And last time?” Max rasped, spearing Travis with a resentful stare.
“He took her by surprise when she was leaving her car in a parking lot. She had dismissed your security, telling them she was going to be with Kade and me, and had our security. She told them to take some time off because she didn’t want them following her around town on errands. Danny had her in his vehicle before she even realized what happened. It was the morning you left, and he took her to an area near your jet, forced her to watch while he showed her how easily he could kill you,” Travis explained, picking his coffee mug up from the table and taking a sip of his coffee, scowling as he realized it was now cold.
“She’s a smart woman. She told him she would go with him, gave him everything he wanted to hear, but she said she needed a day to take care of some things first. She finally convinced him to let her go by herself by telling him she needed to arrange things to get to her trust fund. Somehow, she convinced him to meet her the next morning, making him think she wanted to go with him. I don’t think she wanted to even tell me, but she asked for my help and I wasn’t going to refuse her. We set up the stuff at the beach, hoping she would be assumed dead, and I got her away from Tampa as fast as I could. I wanted to tell you, Max. And I wanted Kade to know she was alive. I just wasn’t entirely sure how either of you would react. I couldn’t risk leaving any trail to Mia. This man was psychotic, probably more deranged than my father and a hundred times more dangerous. I wanted her safe and needed time to track his ass down. I never realized that it would take over two years to find the bastard,” Travis grumbled.
“What about the police?” Max asked, already fairly certain he knew the answer. He’d dealt with the police himself on Mia’s case, and he was doubtful he would have wanted to give Danny that kind of time to take Mia away.
Kade walked back into the living room, handing Max a full mug of coffee as he answered, “Our father was a nut case. Do you have any idea how many times the police were at our house for a domestic dispute, usually reported by neighbors? The Harrison family was notorious, and not in a good way. Do you really think they would have taken her seriously? They would have done their job, but it would have alerted Danny, and it probably wouldn’t have stopped him. There isn’t a lot they can do with stalkers.”
“But he hurt her,” Max argued, having problems even speaking those words.
“No witnesses. No proof that he was to blame. They wouldn’t have had any evidence to immediately arrest him. Do you really think we could be totally certain that she was safe?” Travis drawled bitterly. “I’m sorry, Max. But I wasn’t taking that chance with my baby sister or Kade. She needed to disappear for a while until I could track him down. Had I known the bastard was getting out of prison early, I would have had him tailed.”
“For over two fucking years? You should have told me. She was my wife to protect.”
“She was my sister before she was your wife,” Travis pointed out gruffly.
“I didn’t know,” Max answered, his statement haunted and hollow. “She never told me. I should have known she was in danger. I should have known about him.”
Did I ever open myself up to her? Did she think she really had reason to trust me not to judge her? She was trying to be the perfect wife, trying to please me.
“You’re not psychic, buddy,” Kade replied. “She obviously didn’t want to talk about it. I never knew either. And he had been in jail for years. Nobody could predict what he was going to do when he got out.”
“I was busy running away from how I felt about her, and she was trying to make herself into a perfect wife. It wasn’t all her fault. I wasn’t exactly accessible. I wasn’t really ‘seeing’ her,” Max admitted, knowing it was true. Mia was his one and only, but they’d spent two years dancing around each other, both trying to be what the other expected them to be. In some ways, they had been close, shared a lot of things, but none of the important stuff. Neither one of them had been ready to share the gut-wrenching, emotional things that they really should have talked about, helped each other through.
“And if you had seen her?” Kade asked grimly.
Max shrugged. “I would have loved her the same way. But I might have been able to allow her to be who she was and not try to please me. Maybe I would have pulled my head out of my ass long enough to realize that she needed me too.”
The heavy silence between the three men was suddenly broken as music started pounding from the general vicinity of Travis’ hip. Max looked up in surprise as Travis dug into the front pocket of his pants to silence the upbeat, trendy song.
“Damn secretary has been playing with my phone again,” he mumbled, punching the button on the smartphone to answer it as he stood and walked toward the kitchen to take the call.
“Don’t blame Travis,” Kade requested quietly. “Growing up with my father wasn’t easy, and he was trying to protect Mia. We grew up trying to protect her from my father. Travis might have been a bit misguided, but Mia begged him not to tell anyone. She was afraid for all of us.”
“I don’t. Much,” Max admitted, both to Kade and to himself. “I should have known more about her past, protected her myself. But that bastard is mine. He’s dead,” he warned Kade, his eyes lethal.
“He’s already dead,” Kade replied flatly. “That’s why we’ve been trying to talk to Mia. When she lost her memory, obviously Travis couldn’t say anything. But he needed her to know that Danny’s dead
. She’s on the run because she doesn’t know. She’s still trying to protect us. I know she left that note and ran again to try to protect you. She loves you, Max. If you don’t understand anything else, you have to know that.”
“The guy is dead. Was it Travis?” Max questioned, really pissed now that he’d never have the chance to make the bastard breathe his last.
Kade shrugged nonchalantly, like his brother killed people every day. “He won’t admit it. He says he finally tracked Danny down in Colorado and went to have a talk with him.” He quirked an eyebrow at Max as he continued, “We know exactly what kind of ‘talks’ Travis would have when someone threatens his family. He says Danny fled before he could even get his hands on him. Travis got in his car and chased him down some winding mountain road and Danny made a fatal driving error. Danny’s car went over the side of the mountain. Travis confirmed he was dead before he sent his guys to escort Mia back home.”
Fatal driving error? Hell, Travis had been a professional racecar driver before he’d focused his attention on his father’s business. The asshole had never had a chance. Travis could make maneuvers that would make other guys piss themselves in fear. “Travis outmaneuvered him,” Max stated aloud.
Kade smirked. “You think?”
“I’m glad the bastard is dead. I just regret not having a chance at him myself. I’d tear his fucking head off for hurting Mia.”
Kade’s smile grew broader. “You know, you get less and less like Mr. Perfect every day. You’re starting to sound pretty brutal. What happened to the calm, smooth, and completely controlled Max Hamilton?”
“Never had any control when it comes to Mia. She makes me crazy,” Max rumbled, slamming his empty coffee mug on the table in front of him a lot harder than necessary. “Why didn’t Travis contact her once Danny was dead and tell her?”
“He had agents keeping an eye on her. He tried to call a few times after Danny died, but she didn’t answer. They hadn’t had any contact since she left. He sent her money in a convoluted way so nobody could track it, money that she barely touched the whole time she was here. Travis didn’t want anyone to link the two of them together in any way. This house was left to Mia by Gran, along with her funds in trust, but I know I didn’t even think about it. Did you?” When Max shook his head reluctantly, Kade continued, “Travis sent his guys in to pick Mia up when he couldn’t reach her by phone and bring her home. He wanted to meet her at the jet to tell her, but he had some critical meeting that he couldn’t get out of. When he got home, she wasn’t there. She must have got to his place and left for the park almost immediately.”
