All for You

by Christi Barth

  “Hungry? We don’t have to dive into the feast I brought, but we could start on the snacks.”

  “Are you hinting that you need to refuel?” she asked in a suggestive tone.

  “More that I don’t want you passing out. Tonight’s a sexual marathon, not a sprint.”

  She hesitated for an oddly long amount of time before laughing. “Sure. Load me up.”

  Zane pulled out a container with circles of prosciutto wrapped around basil leaves and provolone. Next to it he set a bowl of marinated mushrooms, and another pale green linen napkin with the burgundy double MM of Mayhew Manor stitched at the corner. Classy and delicious for this special occasion. “Don’t get too used to this gourmet level of food,” he warned. “It’ll be more difficult to finesse these spontaneous romantic meals once I move out of the hotel.”

  Stacking their clothes in a neat pile on the second layer of blankets, Casey wrapped the top one around her. “When do you give up daily maid service?”

  “In August. When my summer seminar ends, so do the free digs. Guess I need to add apartment hunting to my to-do list.” That was a time-suck Zane didn’t want. Not with the Frank Diggle visit on the horizon, squaring things with Hobart according to his publisher’s plan, and, oh yeah, tracking down the Lone Survivor.

  “You might not have to look very far. Ward’s about to start renting out his pig barn.”

  “You’re sentencing me to wallow with pigs?” He looked down, grabbed his dick and scowled. “How badly did this thing just screw up?”

  Casey nudged his hand aside to stroke him from his balls up to his belly. “Nope. The A plus stands, I promise. It used to be a pig barn, years ago, when his dad had a crazy idea that pigs would turn around their family farm. Like all of Mr. Cantrell’s ideas, it didn’t work. Or he just did it wrong. Probably both. Anyway, it’s been empty for a long time. Ward cleared it out. Turned it into a cozy little apartment to bring in an income stream separate from his distillery.”

  “Smart.” It would sure make his life easier in the short-term. But then a thought occurred to Zane. “Are you sure it doesn’t stink of pig?”

  “We all helped him paint it just before you came. The only thing it smells of is the three coats of Adobe White on the walls and the fresh layer of stain on the hardwood floor. The furniture isn’t in yet, but by the time you’re ready to move, it should be good to go.”

  “Sounds great, then. I’ll call him tomorrow. I appreciate the tip. Very helpful girlfriend-y of you.”

  “Really? ’Cause I guess I thought of it as more being a good friend to Ward, to get some spare change in his pocket.” She took a prosciutto and cheese disc and just turned it over and over in her hand. “Sorry. I suck at this.”

  “At what? Lying here naked, enticing me with your beauty?”

  “No.” She took an infinitesimal bite. “At being a girlfriend.” Another nibble. “I don’t have the mindset for it. Or the experience.” Then she slowly unwound the rest of the bite before popping it in her mouth. “I’m a great date. I’ve never thought long-term before.”

  “Not even with Pierce?” Shit. None of his business. Plus, Zane knew better than to ask a question if you didn’t actually want to hear the answer.

  “Nope. I’d call Pierce more of a friend on casual repeat.”

  “Well, you know, if you want to learn how to be a girlfriend, I happen to be a pretty terrific teacher. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “I know. I mean, I agree. I mean, that’s why I’m taking this big leap with you.”

  This was the twenty-first century. Casey had alluded to hooking up with other guys. How was sex suddenly a big leap? Or was it just sex with him?

  Zane speared a mushroom with a toothpick and offered it to her. “Any chance I can bribe you with succulent antipasti to clarify that big-leap remark? Because I’m a decent guy. Not just one, but two successful careers under my belt. Can’t protect you from a bear, but my black belt should keep you safe from a mugger if we take a trip down to Manhattan. Doesn’t feel like I should be categorized as that big a risk.”

  Casey took a hefty swallow of her champagne. Then she patted the blanket. “Come closer.”

  “Gladly.” Zane slid into the pocket of warmth she’d created. Then grabbed her waist and rolled until the blanket was securely tucked beneath them. Cocooned together, they touched from toe to knee to groin to chest. “Now we’re in a good position for a talk.”

  “We’re so close you can count my eyelashes.”

  “That’s what makes it so good.”

  She blinked, slowly. “I hope you still feel that way in ten minutes.”

  “Ominous.” Seriously, what was up with Casey? Sure, there was that strained relationship with his dad. But it wasn’t a giant rift—just a normal lack of anything at all in common. And he got on great with his mom. All in all, Zane thought he made a damn good catch.

  “You’re wonderful.” Casey kissed each side of his mouth, then dropped a longer one smack dab in the middle of his lips. “This has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

  “Duly noted.” But he was getting more concerned with every sentence she uttered.

  “You are the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. So let me be clear—I don’t regret it, not for a second.”

  What the hell was the woman building up to? “You’re killing me here. Stop dragging your feet and spill.”

  “You’re a risk because...I’m the one you’re looking for.”

  Talk about anti-climactic. Zane stroked a hand down her back. “Yes. You’re the woman I’ve been unconsciously searching for my whole life. And I’m thrilled I found you.”

  “This isn’t working.” Casey scrunched her face up, eyes shut, kind of a reverse-stretch. “There’s no good way to lead into this. Or maybe there is and I’m too nervous to think of it.” Her eyelids popped open. “So here goes. I’m who you’ve been searching for. Professionally. I’m the Lone Survivor.”

  “Very funny. No, I take it back. Kind of a lame attempt at a joke. But I appreciate the effort. I must’ve scrambled a few extra of your brain cells with that orgasm.”

  “Zane, I need you to focus. Don’t think about what we just did, or that we’re naked. Listen to me. I’m revealing a secret I’ve only knowingly told three other people in my entire life.”

  “Okay.”

  “My name’s not Casey Hobbes. Casey’s just a nickname, and Hobbes was my mother’s maiden name. My real name is Acacia. Acacia Greenspring.”

  That focused him. That last name shouldn’t be known to a woman who didn’t seem to know or care anything about his research on cults. Because it was a name Zane knew very, very well. “As in Phoenix Greenspring?”

  “He’s my father.” She rolled her eyes. “And his legal name, when he’s not under the influence of a cult, is Peter, not Phoenix.”

  If Casey had just announced she was part octopus, Zane couldn’t be any more surprised. His mind splintered into ten different directions, a hundred different questions. But he started with the most obvious, the thing he had to hear her say out loud. “You were a Sunshine Seeker?”

  “Not by choice. Not by belief, either. But I did live with them for almost two years. My father was married to Dawn at the time. He spent a few months slipping into a spiral of depression and drugs—”

  Zane cut her off with a finger to her lips. “No. Start at the beginning. Leave nothing out.”

  “Need me to paint it in hieroglyphics on the cave wall?”

  He was in no mood for joking around. Confusion and excitement warred in him. Topped off by the utter absurdity of the person he’d been searching for across the world for his entire career coincidentally being naked next to him. His heart pounded faster than when he’d finished his leg of the race. How did Casey end up here? Why had she kept it a secret from h
im for so long? Did she still talk to the other former members?

  In a low voice, he ordered, “Tell it all.”

  Casey dropped flat onto the blankets and stared at the curve of the rocks above them. “My grandparents were the last of the original hippies. They raised my father in the commune that the Sunshine Seekers evolved from. A typical teenaged rebellion sent him sprinting off to college. That was a good thing, because Dad had major depression problems his whole life. The school health system got him on a medication plan and stabilized him for the first time. Dad got a degree, became a CPA, and still helped out the commune on the side. Oh, and he married the girl he’d loved since he was ten, who also grew up there. That’s how I ended up with such a crazy name.”

  “Acacia’s a beautiful name,” he murmured in automatic defense. It suited her. Suited her love of nature. And how the hell could she be taking a sidebar when Zane was literally holding his breath to hear the rest of the story?

  “When my mom died in childbirth, Dad fell apart. He blamed the commune. Her parents had talked her into giving birth there instead of at a hospital.”

  Interesting. A life trauma that put a wedge between him and the cult. How’d he get sucked back in after something that enormous? Zane’s fingers itched for a pen, a keyboard, even his phone. Anything he could use to start noting down these details. “Could she have been saved with modern medical intervention?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to read between the lines of my dad’s bitterness and anger to discern the true facts. I try not to think about it. Especially since, ultimately, I’m what caused her death.”

  Whoa. That one, guilt-laden sentence pulled him out of his spiraling excitement. As much as Zane wanted to get to the deets on the cult, he loved her too much to let that pass. Capturing her chin between his thumb and first finger, he said, “Buttercup, you can’t go there. Not for a single second.”

  “I know.” Casey swallowed hard, then gently twisted out of his grasp. “Dawn dragged me to therapy, and that got covered, believe me. My head’s clear on that point. Truly. Acceptance of my non-guilt works best, though, when I don’t sink too deeply into what-ifs.”

  Then he’d steer her away from those as fast as possible. “What happened next?”

  “Dad didn’t do well alone with a newborn. He started looking for another woman to fill his life almost immediately, and met Dawn. The way she tells the story, she fell in love with me as fast as she fell for Dad. She didn’t hesitate for a second to jump into the role of mother. She raised me, and all three of us were happy for ten years. Until Dad’s depression came back.”

  Now it sounded like a typical story. Typical for the troubled subset of people ripe to be sucked in by cults, that is. “Did he stop taking his meds?”

  “Yes. No idea why.”

  Cults attracted a large subset of people with mental problems. Zane was all too familiar with the vagaries of the illness. “Sometimes people just believe they’re better. Stable, even without the drugs that have kept them that way for years.”

  “Well, things got really bad, really fast. And then, late one night, he picked me up out of my canopy bed, put me in the back seat of the car and drove off. No discussion with Dawn. No note. She was frantic.”

  “I can’t even imagine.” The darkness around them was much thicker. But he could see that beneath her tan, the blood had drained from Casey’s face. A vein throbbed at her temple. After all these years, this was still a hard story for her to tell.

  “I woke up the next morning in the middle of the California desert.” Her nose crinkled. “In a yurt, to be precise. Not that I knew what it was called back then. All I knew was that it was horrible. Smelly. Hot. Surrounded by strangers in filthy robes.”

  “Right. Because the Sunshine Seekers saw sweat as a gift—a byproduct of the sun, not to be removed.” That particular trait of their religion made it a miracle they hadn’t all died from a viral outbreak. Despite his tolerance and attempts to understand cult members, Zane had often wondered just how crazy you had to be to voluntarily give up hot showers.

  Casey shifted in his arms, legs moving restlessly. “He’d gone back home. Dad was convinced that his unhappiness was a punishment for leaving that lifestyle in the first place. So he returned to the comfort and familiarity of the Sunshine Seekers—even though they’d amped up, away from a commune and into a full-bore, crazy-pants cult since he’d left. That was my life for almost two years. There weren’t many children, and the adults pretty much ignored us. I still don’t understand why my dad even bothered to take me along.”

  It was all fascinating. Nothing he’d expected. But it wasn’t the heart of the matter, the truth Zane had chased after his entire career. “How did you escape and become the Lone Survivor?”

  Casey licked her lips. Cleared her throat. Zane refilled her glass as she spoke. “The timing was sheer coincidence. Dawn had been searching for me non-stop. She also hired private investigators. Since she’d never formally adopted me, the police wouldn’t help. Dad had sole custody, in their eyes. So she turned the tables on him. Snuck in, middle of the night, and grabbed me.”

  “Ballsy. Fierce.” He’d liked Dawn from the start. Now he admired the hell out of her. Zane handed over the glass, and Casey sat up to guzzle the one hundred and fifty-dollar bubbly like it was water.

  “The infamous sweat lodge deaths happened the very next day. When Dawn found me, I hadn’t had a bath in over a month. Well, longer than that. Our baths were just standing outside when it rained. I wasn’t in good shape. I had a skin infection, needed several teeth pulled, malnourished, dehydrated. So when the news broke, Dawn and I watched it from my hospital room. The police raided the compound. People fled, were arrested. And as soon as I was released, we started a circuitous drive across country to make sure that nobody could ever find us. We’ve been hiding ever since.”

  For a minute, he let it all sink in. Zane closed his eyes. The thunder of the waterfall filled the silence. He wanted to tweet the news to his associates who also tracked cults. He wanted to run to his laptop and start writing about the scared little girl who’d not only survived the cult, but come out twice as strong for the experience. Most of all, he wanted to jump up and down and holler for about ten minutes straight with the balls-deep thrill of discovery.

  He tracked back through her story to where it intersected with what he already knew. “So Dawn is the one who wrote in the mailbox journal? She thanked the town for taking you in and keeping your secret?”

  “Yes. I don’t even know who’s in on it. Just that a whole bunch of people in Seneca Lake knew the truth. They voted to help her keep the store running while she searched, gave her money for the investigator, and helped her when she came home. The only people I’ve told are Ella, Piper and Ward.” Casey rolled her lips into a tight line. Then pursed them. Used a single finger to tap right over his heart. “And now you.”

  It was an enormous gift. An equally huge symbol of trust. Any other time, Zane would be honored by this show of love from her. But right now? He had question upon question burning in his brain, needing answers. The fact that his girlfriend was the one who could supply them was just the cherry on top of the nine-scoop hot fudge sundae.

  “Do you know where your father is today?”

  “Not exactly.”

  That wasn’t a no. Which meant Zane’s book was about to practically write itself. “Are you in contact with him? Could you get me in contact with him? Does he have any of the missing money? Or all of it? If not, does he know who has it?”

  Casey put the rest of her hand on his chest and pushed him back, creating a noticeable gulf between them. “Hold on. Did you hear what I just said? Dawn illegally took me away from my custodial parent, across multiple state lines. If any of my story gets out, she could go to jail. All the people who funded our trip could be held as accessories. The whole town
is at risk.”

  They’d been living in a holding pattern of fear for too long. Now it was nothing more than a habit, rather than a necessity. Zane shook his head. “After all this time? You’re an adult. You won’t press charges. So nobody would care.”

  “That’s not what her lawyer says.”

  Dealing with Casey’s paranoia would just take a little time. In his most reassuring tone, Zane said, “We’ll find a work-around. Use a fake name.”

  “It’s not worth the risk.” The stubborn tone matched the sudden set of her jaw. “And, although way down the priority scale from my stepmother being potentially incarcerated, there is the fact that I don’t want this Pandora’s Box opened.”

  Okay, he’d try another tack. “You’d be famous.”

  “Exactly.” She punctuated the word with a full-body shudder.

  “You could make a hefty chunk of change off of doing interviews once the book comes out.”

  “You mean tell the world how my father neglected me?” Casey got up onto her knees, blanket clutched to her chest. “How I had to work with tutors and do summer school just to catch up? Or maybe share the night terrors I’d wake up from, screaming and sweating, worried that my dad would find me and take me away again? You want me to make money off of that? To share my embarrassment? My hurt that he didn’t love me enough to take care of me, or to even take care of himself?”

  Clearly he’d hit a nerve. Which was yet another viable reason for going public. “It’ll be cathartic.” Since she’d left him totally exposed, Zane pulled on his shorts. The way things were going with this conversation, a second round of sex was off the table for now, anyway.

  “Zane, listen to me. You can’t write this book. Not now that you know who I am. You...you just can’t.”

  How could she even suggest such a thing? Casey knew how long he’d searched. She knew he had a freaking book deal all but signed, sealed and delivered. It would be the crowning achievement of his entire career. “I have to write it. The world deserves to know.”