Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Shiloh Walker

  “I MISS YOU.”

  Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Don’t.”

  His lips brushed across the side of her brow. “Don’t what? Tell you that I miss you? Miss us?”

  “Us?” She laughed hollowly as she turned to face him. “There is no us, remember? You said that. There’s me … and there’s you … and sometimes we’re together, but there’s no us.”

  His gaze held hers. “I never wanted it to be that way. And maybe there was more of an us than I realized. Seeing you …” He paused, took a deep breath. “Seeing you just drives that home.”

  Those intense, hypnotic eyes held hers. Her heart kicked up a few beats, stealing her breath away. As he started to dip his head, Shay stood there, frozen. Shit. What now …

  His mouth, so warm, brushed against hers. She gasped and then almost wished she hadn’t as he used that opportunity to tease the inside of her lips with his tongue, moving deeper and deeper. His hands came around her waist, tugging her closer.

  This is a bad idea …

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2012 by Shiloh Walker

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-53191-9

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover illustration: Chris Cocozza

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  MyDiary.net/slayingmydragons

  I had another dream.

  I’m in the closet. Again, hiding like always. I hear a baby.

  And he is here. I can hear him shouting. Yelling. Swearing. He’s angry … but he’s always angry.

  I hear somebody giggling this time—this is new … I don’t remember this. She’s giggling, and I hear her talking about a princess.

  I’m hungry.

  I’m cold.

  I wait until it’s quiet, because I need to get some food. I think the baby is hungry, too.

  Then there are sirens. And I think there’s blood. I hear the baby again, but these screams are different.…

  LEANING BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER, SHAY Morgan closed her eyes and sighed. The dream was already fading away, the threads of it escaping her grasp even as she tried to hold on.

  Even as she tried to put the terror into words. The pain.

  Moments passed and the dream lost some of that vivid, powerful punch. But still, she was shaken. Sickness gripped her and in the back of her mind, she could hear a pitiful, broken scream.

  Shifting her attention to the screen, she started to read back over what she’d written.

  “You’re going to hold down the fort, right?”

  The man bent over the desk didn’t look up at first.

  Lorna Winter sighed and leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb.

  “Elliot!”

  Her brother looked up, eyes a little clouded. Lack of sleep, lack of caffeine, or just general crankiness could account for the dark scowl he sent her way. He hadn’t exactly been a ray of sunshine the past few months.

  “What?” he asked, reaching for the cup of coffee sitting in front of him.

  It must have been empty because he gave it a look of such disgust, one might think it had kicked him in the face.

  “You’re going to take care of things here, right?”

  He frowned. “I am? Why?”

  “Because … I told you yesterday I needed the day off,” she reminded him.

  His frown deepened, then abruptly, his face went as smooth as glass. “Right. The hospital.” He bent back over the computer as though it had him hypnotized. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that catalog for Baker and Taylor held the secrets to the entire universe, the way he stared at the screen.

  “You know, if you want, you can go pick Shay up,” she offered.

  Elliot just grunted.

  “Is that a yes or a no?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t move. Neither did she. She knew her brother. She knew his moods, she knew his quirks … and she knew when he was hurting. Right now, he was hurting, even if he never admitted it. Finally, he slid her a look from under his lashes. “Shay doesn’t need me to pick her up, Lorna. We broke up months ago, remember?”

  She just watched him and waited.

  He stared back at her. “It’s over, sis. Deal with it. I have.”

  Then he focused his attention back on the monitor and started making notes. Knowing she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him, she sighed and turned around.

  Dealt with it, my ass, she thought darkly.

  The man hadn’t dated since he’d broken things off with Shay and she’d seen the look on his face when they heard about Shay’s accident. She’d been completely shocked that he hadn’t gone tearing down to Anchorage to be with her.

  Hell, every damn time the phone rang, he’d practically attacked it. Yeah. He had dealt with it just fine.

  But she couldn’t make him see reality until he was ready to see it, she knew.

  Of course, it might help if Shay would open her eyes and see what she was missing. The two of them were giving her a headache, damn it.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  AREN’T YOU HAPPY, PRINCESS—

  A mad little giggle brought Shay gasping into wakefulness and pain splintered through her abused body as she rolled up to a sitting position.

  Three days after her discharge from the hospital and she still felt like she’d been run over by a freight train, although she’d take the pain over the nightmares any day.

  Sick at heart, her belly twisting with nausea, she sat on the edge of the bed and tried to banish the echo of that maniacal laughter, the rasping, ragged breaths of a brutal monster.

  Dragon’s breath.

  Some people had inner demons.

  Shay had always called hers an inner dragon.

  A diary had been her first way of slaying it, and the dreams it brought.

  She’d actually managed to go a few days without the dreams—this had been the first one since her release from the hospital. This had been a bad one, though. The price she had to pay for a few quiet nights, she guessed.

  Her hands were still shaking as she clambered off the bed and her knees felt like wet spaghetti. It was a minor miracle that she didn’t collapse as she made her way down the hall.

  She hit the light in her office a
nd stumbled over to the desk she hadn’t used much since her return home from the hospital a few days earlier. There was so much work she needed to catch up on, such as emails to answer and a book to be written, but she couldn’t even think about that.

  Right now, she had a dragon to slay.

  MyDiary.net/slayingmydragons

  It was a bad one this time … an ugly monster, although it shouldn’t seem all that bad. I just felt more scared than normal. I don’t know why. I didn’t really see anything different, and I don’t remember much more. A little, but not a lot.

  I’m just more scared. More shaken. I almost feel sick, I’m so scared.

  I closed my eyes to sleep, and I wake up in the closet. I’m covered in blood and something isn’t right. I’ve got blood on me and I know that closet. I dream of it all the time.

  None of this seems right. I’ve dreamt of it so many times, but this was … different.

  I can’t hear the baby.

  I can’t hear the yelling.

  I just hear … breathing.

  Almost like somebody is watching me.

  I reached up to touch my face and it was my face. As it is now, and I realized it’s the me from now. It was so weird. I could think so clearly. I could feel my scars and I could think that this wasn’t normal.

  And then I heard that laughter. A kid laughing. It’s not him. It’s somebody else. I’ve heard her before, but it’s never been quite this intense.

  I heard her laugh and then everything changed.

  I wasn’t me anymore. I was the little girl, and I was trapped and I heard the baby screaming … and that giggling. Why was she giggling?

  Sometimes I think the pain medicine they have me on has screwed up my head until I can’t think straight. Then I think maybe the car wreck knocked something loose—not that car wrecks can really do that, but ever since then, it’s like I’m trying to remember more.

  But I don’t want to. I don’t want to remember anything about then.

  Shit, I’m such a baby.

  Better go. I’m supposed to have lunch with a friend. I need to try to get my life back to something resembling normal so I can focus again. After lunch, I see the doctor. Yay.

  Not.

  Staring up at the bookstore, Shay closed her eyes.

  Next to her, one of her few friends stood with a bright smile on her face. “Come on. I’ll buy you a couple of books.” Lorna Winter went to open the door.

  Shay sighed. She wasn’t up to this; she was still so damn tired. Yeah, she had to go into town for the follow-up visit with her doctor, but hitting the bookstore?

  This bookstore? Although this one was the only one around, unless she wanted to drive another thirty minutes.

  Coward. It’s not the exhaustion that has you down. You just don’t want to see Elliot.

  That wasn’t it at all, she insisted. She would love to see Elliot. The problem was Elliot didn’t want to see her. He’d dumped her. Months ago. Seeing him now … that was what she wasn’t up to. Seeing him, thinking about what she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t have …

  “Shay? Sweetie?”

  Grimacing, she eased her way out of the car and met Lorna on the sidewalk.

  “Are you not up for this? I mean … well.” She looked down, plucking at a loose thread on her shirt. “Never mind. This was a stupid idea. I promised you lunch before your checkup, not a shopping spree.”

  The guilt in Lorna’s voice pricked at Shay’s conscience.

  “It’s okay,” she said tiredly. “I’m fine. It’s been a few days since I left the hospital, you know. I’m not a complete invalid. I even get myself dressed now.”

  “I know. You just …” Lorna blew out a breath. “I shouldn’t have dumped this on you. You look worn out. Come on, we’ll go eat.”

  “No.” Shay made herself smile. And damn her heart … she realized she did want to see Elliot, even if it would hurt. “You promised me books. You can’t back out now.”

  Lorna meant well, Shay knew. Meant all sorts of well. It wasn’t her fault Shay avoided the bookstore like a plague, just as she had for the past six months. Ever since the problems with Elliot …

  Don’t think about that right now. Turning her head, she stared at the brightly lit windows of Winter’s End. Earth’s End was a small town; the town’s sole bookstore was a popular place. People came to grab a hot drink from the little coffee shop in the back of the store. They’d sit for a while, enjoy their drink and chat … read. Several different book clubs met here once a month.

  And up until six months ago, this had been one of the few places in her life she actually loved. Outside of her house.

  Was she really going to let a bad breakup get to her like that?

  Was she actually going to spend the rest of her life avoiding this place just because she was too afraid to see Elliot?

  Why not? a sly voice in her head whispered. You’re afraid of everything else.

  Damn it. She hated that it was true.

  “Shay’s here.”

  Looking up from his desk, Elliot met his sister’s gaze.

  The look on her face held something of an impatient demand on it, but he didn’t pay much attention to demands anymore. Demands were too similar to commands, and he’d left those behind when he’d walked away from the army nine years earlier.

  He didn’t do demands. Didn’t do commands. If anybody didn’t like it, screw it and screw them.

  Actually, that was kind of his outlook on most things in life anyway these days. He was who he was and if people didn’t like it? Screw them.

  With the exception of his sister, Lorna. She was the one exception … the one person he still stopped to think of, for the most part.

  Liar …

  There was one other. Shay. The woman he loved. The woman who couldn’t trust him. The woman he still needed—the pain was a punch to the gut as he once more made himself accept the fact that she might be the woman he needed, but she was the woman he wouldn’t ever have.

  Damn it. It had been six fucking months. He ought to be used to this by now. Six months without her. Why wasn’t he over it? Over her? They’d only been together a year, and he’d spent more than half that time just trying to get it to where she wouldn’t bolt if he so much as came within two feet of her.

  And yet, here he was, in knots, because he’d heard her name.

  Shay …

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back in the chair. “Why in the hell are you telling me this?” He opened his eyes to meet her gaze. “You can … wait. You’re not working today.”

  “Nope.” She smiled at him serenely. “I told you I needed the day off to help out a friend … Shay.”

  “Yeah? Then what are you doing in here?” He tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him, but he couldn’t. Lorna kept staring at him and he knew she’d wait him out. Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest and studied her face. “What do you want, Lorna?”

  “I want you to go out there. Talk to her.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s done, Lorna. Over. Done.”

  “Liar.” Her golden eyes, so like his own, focused on his face. “You can’t hide in here forever.”

  Wanna bet? he thought sourly. No point in chasing after what he couldn’t have, he figured. He’d spent so much time doing just that. It had taken him a year just to get her to relax around him, months to get her to go out with him, and they’d had one year together … and now? Nothing. There was just nothing. He wasn’t getting his heart thrown back at him again.

  “I’m not hiding—I’m working,” he pointed out, gesturing to the mess of orders, invoices, and bills that littered his desk. “Becca can check her out. That’s why she’s here—to work with customers.”

  “Stubborn bastard,” Lorna muttered, staring at him through narrowed eyes. It reminded him, disturbingly, of the same look their mother had given them once upon a time. “You do realize she just got out of the hospital, right? That wreck of hers was worse
than I thought. I talked to Mike. He tracked down one of the county boys who worked the accident. She could have died.”

  A cold chill settled low in his gut and he looked away from the pile of work to stare at his sister. She could have died …

  Yeah. He knew about the wreck, all right. Of course, nobody here in Earth’s End had learned about the wreck until several days after it had happened. Shay hadn’t called anybody. Hadn’t told anybody. Hadn’t told him. Yet even after he’d heard about it, he’d waited by the phone, for hours, for days, hoping she’d call him. But she never did. It served as just one more reminder how little she wanted or needed him in her life.

  But …

  Swallowing, he glanced up at his sister. “It was really that bad?” he asked gruffly. If it had been that bad, how could she have called him? Maybe she had needed him and she just couldn’t call—aw, hell.

  “Yeah.” Lorna stared at him, her gaze intense. “I managed to get a little bit of information out of her on the drive into town today. She wouldn’t tell me anything when I went to see her in the hospital, but … yeah. It was bad. She spent days in a coma. Then she was laid up in ICU. Alone, because she didn’t have anybody down as next of kin and she didn’t call me until nearly two weeks later.”

  Alone …

  It hit him like a punch straight to his chest, and he groaned.

  Images flashed through his mind. Shay, alone and frightened in a hospital. Shay, hurt and alone.

  But that wasn’t enough torture … no, his brain just had to keep going. Shay’s lovely dark eyes, a shade between blue and purple, lifeless. Her face still. Shay … gone forever. Fuck. Just thinking about that was enough to turn his stomach to ice. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Why are you doing this? What do you want me to do, Lorna? We broke up, remember?”