Mixing Temptation

by Sara Jane Stone

  “We’re going to get you out of here,” Caroline murmured. “We’ll take you home.”

  And that was all she could promise. She squeezed her eyes shut. This is how Noah felt, she thought. Hamstrung and useless.

  “Helena, you’re going to get through this,” she added, running her hand over Helena’s disheveled hair. She couldn’t offer the weeping woman anything beyond survival. They could take her away from here. They could deliver her to her friends and family. But no one could change the past or guarantee that Helena wouldn’t spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, waiting for her past to tear her apart all over again.

  Maybe Helena will be stronger. Maybe she’ll break free from the past.

  Caroline felt her own tears hot against her cheeks as Helena’s fingers pressed into her skin.

  Or maybe we’re both out of second chances.

  CAROLINE WIPED AWAY one last tear as she leaned against Helena’s Mercedes-­Benz. She’d backed the car out of the garage while the woman they’d come to rescue spoke to the officers. Despite her initial rush onto the scene, Caroline was trying to stay in the background. But she couldn’t exactly jump in the pristine hedges and hide every time an officer walked by her. Cops now swarmed the yellow mansion.

  Standing on top of the redbrick stairs, just outside the front door, Helena nodded to the officers. She motioned for Caroline to join them. She walked over and placed her hand on Helena’s still-­trembling arm.

  “We’ll need to speak with you again in the morning, Mrs. Watterson,” an older man with a weathered face and grey-­green eyes said. He wore plain clothes, a black polo and khakis. He’d arrived after the first two officers in uniform—­the ones who’d caught hold of Mr. Ashford Watterson when he’d taken a swing at Josh—­had radioed for backup. With his gentle smile and tall build, the officer in charge reminded Caroline of Josie’s dad, Forever’s police chief.

  “If you change your mind about seeking medical attention,” the officer added. “Or a rape kit—­”

  “No,” Helena said firmly. “I want to leave, to get away from here.”

  The officer nodded. “I understand. I still need to ask you some questions in the morning.”

  “If it’s all right with you, sir,” Josh said, speaking directly to the Josie’s dad look-­alike, “my friend here will take Mrs. Watterson back to our hotel. We’re a five minute drive away. And we can bring her to the station in the morning—­or the hospital.”

  The officer nodded and held out a business card to Helena. “Call me if you need anything, ma’am.”

  She nodded and moved to Caroline’s side. Helena took her hand. Together, they headed for the Benz.

  “I’ll need her name for the report,” the lead cop said. “Your friend’s name.”

  Caroline stumbled on the brick path to the driveway. Her name. Oh hell, this was it. If they ran her identity, they’d find the warrant. She would be arrested—­maybe not tonight, but in the morning.

  She glanced at Helena. Even after all she’d been through, after what Caroline had heard through the open phone line, the other woman held her chin high.

  If I end up in a cell . . . it was worth it.

  The trip, the series of dates, and their crazy, poorly planned rescue—­if she lost her freedom in the morning, it would all have been worth it. She’d taken a chance. She’d made love to a man whom she loved. And she’d helped someone who needed her as much as she’d needed Noah. Maybe she hadn’t been able to save herself and find the number for the hotline while stationed in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan. But she’d saved Helena tonight.

  It’s worth it.

  Caroline glanced back at Josh.

  Even if I lose him.

  Her heart hiccupped. She’d fallen for Josh Summers and she didn’t want to walk away.

  “Caroline?” Helena murmured.

  She turned away from Josh. Love wasn’t enough. She took another step toward the parked Benz. As soon as Josh gave the officer her name, her second chance would crash and burn. Her happy-­ever-­after had been stripped away long before now, when she’d given in to fear and run away. Josh, their love, and their future—­it had been impossible from the start.

  Settled into the driver’s seat, Caroline took one last look at the redhead with the tempting smile chatting with the lead cop. She’d fallen for Josh. But what kind of future would they have if she stayed in hiding?

  She put the car in reverse, looked over her shoulder, and guided the Benz down the drive. Failure had been closing in on her from the beginning. And there was only one thing she could do to stop it.

  “When we get to the hotel,” Caroline said as she drove past the security gate, “I need to leave for a while. Before Josh gets back. You’ll be safe and I don’t think he’ll be much longer.”

  “You’re running away?” Helena said. “Now?”

  “No, I’m done running.”

  “HER NAME? MY friend’s name?”

  Josh searched for the right answer. He couldn’t give Officer Peters the truth. He glanced over at the driveway and watched as the Benz backed out with Caroline at the wheel.

  You can trust me to keep your secret safe.

  He turned his attention back to the police officer. Josh offered a faint smile. “My friend’s name is Josie Fair—­ No, sorry, she’s Josie Tager now.”

  He’d keep her secret all right. And he’d make an ass of himself while he spit out a simple little lie.

  “She’s recently married?” the officer asked as he scribbled in his notepad.

  “Yes. Josie just tied the knot. But not to me,” Josh explained with a laugh. “We’re just friends. I volunteered to drive her down here. To see her friend.”

  The police officer nodded.

  “So,” Josh said, clapping his hands together. “How much longer will you need me?”

  Thirty minutes later, Josh pulled into the hotel garage, put his truck in park, and glanced down at his phone. Midnight. He should call Big Buck’s and fill Noah, Dominic, and whoever else was at the bar in on what had happened tonight. But instead, he climbed out of his truck and pocketed his phone.

  Later, he decided. First, he needed to see Caroline, hold her, and make damn sure she was all right. He bypassed the hotel’s elevator bank in favor of the stairs. He took them two at a time until he reached the door to the fourth floor. It had been hard to get away from the cops and their questions or he would have been here before now to reassure her that he hadn’t shared her name or her secret.

  He’d lied for her. And he would maintain the charade, here and at home, whatever she needed to feel safe and stay in his life. He wouldn’t lose her. Not to her past or anything else. They could pretend and lie to the rest of the world—­in his heart he knew the truth.

  He slipped his card key into the door and opened it to the room. “It’s Josh,” he announced as he stepped inside. He spotted Helena in the black desk chair. She held a tiny bottle of wine that looked as if it had come from the room’s mini-­fridge. Another bottle sat on the desk, empty.

  “Celebrating?” he asked as he glanced to the bathroom door. It was open. But there was no sign of Caroline.

  “She left,” Helena said.

  “Caroline went out?” He turned back to the woman they’d helped. He wouldn’t say ‘rescued’ because Caroline had been right, Helena had saved herself. “If I’d known you ladies were hungry, I would have stopped and picked something up on my way back.”

  Helena pressed her lips together. She’d scrubbed off the makeup and looked years younger and a lot more vulnerable. “No, she called a cab. But she wrote you a note.”

  Numbness descended. His body felt as if he’d been plunged into the Pacific’s icy waters without a wet suit. But he managed to walk across the hotel room, past the spot where Caroline had . . .

  Fuck, he c
ouldn’t picture her on her knees. He couldn’t go backward through the memories, searching for a clue until he knew what the hell was going on. He took the folded piece of paper from the tipsy Helena and turned his back to her.

  Flipping it open, he started to read. And shit, one sentence in and he needed a shot of something—­whiskey, vodka, or liquid rage—­anything to dull the damn pain of his heart shattering.

  Dear Josh,

  By the time you get this, I will be at the police station.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . He’d been dodging failure, trying to navigate their complicated relationship like it was a damn minefield from the beginning. He’d worried her problems were too big and he’d been right.

  He looked down at the paper and forced himself to keep reading.

  It’s time that I turned myself in and faced the consequences for running away from my duty to serve. Until I do, I will never have a chance at getting my life back on track. I can’t ask you to love me and lie for me without dooming our relationship. You said something always happens next. And this is what’s next for me.

  I’m ready now to face my punishment. I will return to my unit if I have to, accept a demotion or serve my time in prison. But I will not let anyone make me feel like I need to be less ever again. I know now what happens when I push past ‘impossible.’

  I fall in love.

  I love you, Josh Summers. But don’t you dare wait for me. Go back to Oregon and build your house. Take another chance on finding happiness. I’d hate to think we’re limited to two shots. If we are, then I’ve used mine up. And that, more than anything, feels impossible.

  Love,

  Caroline

  PS: Take care of Helena. Try to talk her into the rape kit. The police need all the evidence they can get. Then bring her back to Forever. And when you get there, tell Noah I said thank you, but this time I needed to break free from my past on my own.

  Josh stared at the note and read it through a second time, then a third. And the silence in the room, the lack of laughter and of Caroline’s wry humor, the too-­serious tone of the letter—­it all added up to one sad truth. She was really gone.

  He’d let a woman walk out of his life once before. Sure, he’d been a kid then. But he’d never tried to find his mom. He’d given up, accepted the hit, and moved on.

  Not this time.

  “When did she leave?” he demanded, turning to Helena.

  “One bottle of wine before you returned?” Helena held up the empty minibar bottle that he’d spotted on the desk.

  Shit.

  “Can you stay here?” he asked. “Will you stay right here and wait for me to go get her?”

  She nodded. “I might pass out.”

  “The bed’s all yours. Just whatever you do, don’t run.” After this, after he found Caroline, he was done chasing women.

  JOSH PULLED INTO the police station parking lot. He’d tried the one closest to the hotel first, but she wasn’t there. He’d run into Officer Peters, the lead detective from their earlier adventure at Helena’s house. He’d lied to the man earlier, but he didn’t stop to explain that now. He’d begged the officer, who looked a helluva lot like Josie’s dad, to find out if an AWOL Marine had turned herself in tonight.

  The minutes had ticked by, but Officer Peters had made a few calls and learned that another station had contacted the military police. A fugitive was being transferred from civilian to military custody tonight.

  Josh hugged the man and bolted from the station. He’d sped across town, hanging on his phone’s every instruction, and hoping like hell he got there in time. The one-­story station house had a small, mostly empty parking lot. A black, unmarked sedan idled out front, but he didn’t see signs of a Humvee. And that’s what the military drove, not unmarked black cars sent out in the middle of the night . . .

  But as he climbed down from his truck, the door to the station swung open. Two men in uniform—­one short, maybe five-­six in his boots, and another tall and built like a tank that refueled on fried food and sugar—­marched through the door. They each had one hand on a petite woman with long dark hair. Even with her hands behind her back and her head down, she looked like she had that first night in the Oregon woods—­a little wild and very fierce.

  “Caroline,” he called. He spotted a third driver now, ready and waiting to take her away. He broke into an all-­out run. “Caroline, please!”

  “Let me go, Josh,” she called as the soldiers flanking her sides hustled her down to the waiting car. “I’m sorry, but I need to do this. I can’t keep hiding.”

  “I’m going to find a way out,” he said as he moved closer. “Trust me, Caroline.”

  The man on her right, the smaller of the two, opened the door to the backseat. And for that second, while she stood still, her gaze met his. And he saw her uncertainty. She trusted him in the bedroom. Now he needed her to have faith that he wouldn’t let her go without a fight.

  The shorter soldier held the car door open. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Josh saw a flash of metal as they turned her and guided her into the vehicle. Handcuffs. After everything she’d been through and endured while serving her country, they had the woman he loved, the woman he wanted to build a life with, in cuffs.

  The injustice ripped at him.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the larger of the two men said as he closed the car door to the backseat of the sedan and turned to face Josh. “We’re only doing our jobs. And we don’t want trouble.”

  Between the man’s broad shoulders, square jaw, and military buzz cut, he looked like the poster boy for the Marines. Josh drew back a fist, ready to take a hit at the only target he had. But the Marine’s poster boy simply raised his hands in a sign of surrender.

  “Just doing our jobs,” he repeated.

  “She was raped,” Josh bit out, letting his rage fill his words. “Did she tell you that? And the officer who attacked her, the asshole who drove her into hiding, the one who sent her running from her life so that she wouldn’t have to deploy alongside the men who’d taken his side, her rapist’s side, he’s free. And you’re taking her away in handcuffs.”

  The poster boy’s lips parted and for a second he thought the Marine would pull open the door and set her free. But he just shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  The soldier took a step back and opened the passenger side door. And Josh felt his stomach turn over. They were taking her away. And hell, she was going with them. She wasn’t fighting back or demanding release. She’d handed herself over.

  For him.

  So he wouldn’t have to lie for her.

  He just wished she’d waited and talked to him before she’d surrendered to the police.

  “I love you, Caroline,” he screamed into the night. The sedan picked up speed around the turn at the end of the parking lot, but paused at the exit to the road. And he could have sworn he saw the Marine in front crack his window.

  “I love you,” Josh called again. And then in a lower voice, “Please believe me . . . have faith in me, and in us . . . I won’t let you down.”

  The car pulled onto the quiet two-­lane road lined with street lamps. He watched until the sedan disappeared from sight. Then he turned and headed back to his truck. And he raised his fist, bringing it down hard against the driver’s side window.

  Watching the woman he loved be led away in handcuffs, he’d never felt so damn impotent. Like such a fucking failure. What the hell had gone wrong? Of all the time bombs waiting to blow up their relationship, he’d never imagined this. Why couldn’t she have waited for him to come back? Talked to him? Trusted him with her fears? Believed that he’d stand by her and help her? Why did she have to make up her mind all on her own that this was the only way forward?

  Slowly, he raised his head. He couldn’t stay here. There was a terrified woman who’d been hurt badly waiti
ng for him back at the hotel. And there was his life—­and his family—­back in Oregon.

  He took one last look at the empty road.

  And there was Caroline . . .

  He pulled open the driver’s side door and reached for his cell. It was two in the morning, but he knew someone would pick up.

  “Big Buck’s,” Noah answered in a calm, collected tone that suggested the night’s rush had come and gone.

  Damn good thing because Josh needed the former Marine to jump into action.

  “Caroline’s in custody,” he snapped. “I’m at the station now. The police just handed her off to the military. Marines, army police, I don’t know who the hell they were, but they led her away in handcuffs.” And yeah, his voice broke at the end. But dammit, the image was still too raw in his mind.

  “You—­”

  “No, I didn’t turn her in,” Josh said, running a hand through his hair. “But you bet your ass I’m going to get her out.”

  He’d been right all along. Her problems were too big for him to tackle on his own. “Noah, I need you to do me a favor and call my brothers. I’m going to pick up Helena back at the hotel—­”

  “She agreed to come with you?” Noah said.

  “She broke herself out,” Josh said. “I’ll give you the full story—­or she will—­when we get back. But Mr. Ashford Watterson is in custody and while Helena will probably still have to come back here to sort things out, I think you can go ahead and call Ryan. Tell him not to worry about her.”

  “I will,” Noah said.

  “We’re heading back. Tonight,” Josh continued as he climbed into his truck and put it in gear. “We’ll be there in about nine hours. Can you have everyone at the bar?”

  “You have a plan,” Noah said.

  “Not yet. But I’m not leaving Caroline to face this on her own. She doesn’t believe me. Hell, I don’t think she trusts that I can pull it off”—­and she might be right to doubt me—­“but I’m going to get her back. What’s happening to her, it’s not right.”

  “No, it’s not,” Noah said. “And Josh? You don’t have to do this alone.”