Finding Redemption

by Desiree Holt

  We’re coming, Jamie. Just hold on.

  When she’d first thought Charles might be the one who’d taken him, she was afraid she’d lost her mind. But now, with everything Ethan had learned from Tonio, he agreed with her. It was the only logical answer. If Charles was dead, there would be no reason for a revenge kidnapping. If it was for money, they would have released Jamie when the ransom was paid.

  Her head was beginning to hurt from thinking, and she closed her eyes, rubbing her temples.

  “Don’t go to sleep. You might not wake up.”

  Lisa jerked at the sound of Ethan’s voice. “I didn’t hear you come back. My God, you’re like a ghost.”

  “That’s good. If you can’t hear me, neither can anyone else.” He dropped down to the ground beside her.

  “So what did you find out?”

  “In a minute.” He reached into his backpack and removed one of the bottles of water, taking slow sips to conserve the liquid. “You should drink some, too,” he ordered. “It’s easy to get dehydrated out here, even if you’re not doing anything.”

  Lisa did as he ordered, barely containing her impatience. “Now can you tell me what you found?”

  “I found the place, right where Tonio said it would be. I didn’t get as close to the house itself as I’d like. I’m still not sure if they have sensors or cameras outside the perimeter, although I have to assume they do. But I did find out the place is surrounded by a concrete wall ten feet high that must have cost a fortune to build.”

  “And the house? Did you see it?”

  “Only from a distance. After it gets dark, we’ll get up in the trees and take a better look. But I can tell you this. Whoever lives there must have a shitload of money.”

  “Charles.” She spat the word. “My god, Ethan. He stole my son, got the money, and tried to kill me.”

  “And again before we even left town,” he reminded her.

  “At Manny’s.”

  “Yes. People like Charles have a long reach and can pay people for anything.” He stared off into space for a moment “I’ve seen too many people like him.”

  “And did you capture them?” She hated the note of anxiety in her voice.

  He took a moment before answering. When he turned to look at her, she saw that same haunted look in his eyes but his face was set in lines of determination.

  “Let’s just say they got exactly what they deserved.” He rubbed a hand over his face and let out a breath. “I agree that nothing else makes sense. It’s been four years since Charles’s so-called death. Enough time for him to get himself established again and plot something like this. It gives him your son and the ten mil.”

  “But I saw his body,” she reminded him. “And they compared dental records.”

  “When you have as much money as Charles, you can arrange anything.”

  “Now the shooting at the ransom drop makes sense. He’d want me out of the way.”

  He nodded. “And the one at Manny’s Diner. He probably didn’t want you taken out at your house. Too specific. The cops would start digging.”

  She hitched a breath. “Does that mean he knows about you?”

  He was quiet for a minute. “No. Charles would have no way of knowing me or anything about me. If we accept this whole premise, then it was just dumb luck we were together when they tried the hit at Manny’s. I’d say whoever the shooters were might have gone back and told Charles about the men you were with, but I don’t think they’d be too detailed. If they were stupid enough to miss you, they’re too stupid to collect information.”

  “Let’s hope.” She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled. “God. This is like finding out the devil has come back to live with you.”

  “Lisa.” He touched her shoulder. “We’re going to take care of this and get Jamie. That’s a promise.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “I hope you’re right.”

  He pulled out a power bar, unwrapped it and bit into it. “But the whole thing makes sense. Remember all those trips to the Yucatan you told me about? Charles picked a location he was familiar with and where he had already established connections. Do you have any idea at all why he traveled here so often?”

  “No. He never told me anything. Just said it had to do with his import business.”

  Ethan snorted. “I’ll bet. Dope import. Well, I’d say it’s safe to assume he’s back in business and manipulating this whole thing.”

  “Finding out that’s where his money came from was one of the biggest shocks in my life.” She rubbed her forehead. “He had me so buffaloed, with his smooth manner and impeccable behavior. Until after we had Jamie.”

  “He wanted a son and heir. Most people like him do.” He shifted to a more comfortable position. “Based on what came out after his so-called death, I’d say he was deep into it with narcoguerilla groups like Las Tormentas, who mix kidnapping with drug-running with a little political upheaval. Money laundering. Arms dealing. You name it. A smorgasbord of illegal activities and Charles was a kingpin.”

  Lisa rubbed her face as if scrubbing something away. “I’m angry at Charles for what he did to my life, but I’m angrier at myself for being such an idiot.”

  “Hey. We all do stupid things. The trick is to get past them and not do them again.”

  He had taken another bite of the bar, and a tiny piece of it clung to his lip. She had to clench her fists to keep from reaching over and brushing it away. She remembered how his lips felt pressed against hers, the taste of him, the scent of him.

  Get a grip here.

  She stood abruptly and went to lean against a tree, needing to put distance between them.

  “Something wrong?” His knowing eyes looked at her.

  “No.” She hoped she didn’t blush. “I just wanted to stand up for a minute.”

  “You’d better sit down and get all the rest you can. We’ll be doing more walking later.”

  “So.” She stared at Ethan. “Maybe we can get rid of Charles once and for all. That sounds good to me.”

  “It’s your lucky day, because we may have to do just that.” Ethan crumpled the wrapper, stuffed it in his backpack, and stood up. “Okay. Let’s get the tent pitched while it’s still light and get ready for our evening’s adventures.”

  His eyes were still locked on hers, watching her, something hot swirling in those melted chocolate irises.

  He knows. And what’s worse, he’s fighting the same feelings. Oh, God, we are in big trouble.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They made the tent secure, then sat down to wait for darkness. Nothing could happen before then. Neither of them had anything to say. The howler monkeys continued to screech, and birds of every size and color flew around them, their songs a variegated concerto. Ethan pretended to sleep, and Lisa fought off the continuous invasion of insects, wondering if he was having as much trouble tamping down the sexual tension as she was.

  No, wait. He was a Marine. A black ops specialist. A man who operated in the shadows. Superhuman control was a requirement, and sex would be the last thing on his mind right now.

  Lord, she certainly had misjudged hm. But that just went to show what a good actor he was, to fool so many people into thinking he was a bum and a slob. But that just showed how good he was at what he did. More and more, she was coming to believe that they’d succeed in this.

  By late afternoon, Lisa’s nerves were stretched as taut as guy-wires.

  “Why don’t we talk about something?” she asked, sitting down on a thick broken branch.

  “About what?” He was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, his hat tipped over his face as usual.

  “Something. Anything.” She waved her hands in the air. “Tell me about Ethan Caine.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “Tell you about Ethan Caine. What is it you want to know, Lisa? What I did as a Marine? With Guardian? After that? If I killed people? Were they good or bad? Did it bother me?”

  His voice was like
an axe chopping wood, and she recoiled from it. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. That was very rude of me. If you wanted to talk about yourself, you would.”

  Again, the silence stretched before he broke it. “Why don’t you tell me why a woman with as much to offer as you have would tie herself up with a loser like Charles Mallory?”

  She jerked as if he’d slapped her. “I had my reasons.”

  “Millions of them, I’d guess.”

  “It wasn’t money,” she snapped. “Not at all.”

  “No? Then why don’t you tell me what it was?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “Okay. I just thought if we were going to play Twenty Questions, you could offer up something first.” He settled his hat more firmly over his face.

  More silence.

  Lisa chewed on the thumbnail that she’d already bitten to the quick.

  “I hadn’t dated a lot,” she blurted out.

  “Excuse me?” The hat shifted, and Ethan turned his gaze on her.

  “You heard me. I was the proverbial prodigy. Graduated high school at sixteen, college at nineteen and law school at twenty-two. Social activities didn’t seem all that important to me. I was focused on what I wanted and working to get there.” She swallowed. “Anyway, most guys were either intimidated by me or turned off. Fighting them off wasn’t a problem.”

  “Josh never said anything about that.”

  “Josh and I don’t discuss each other with people, no matter how close they might be.” She brushed a fallen leaf off her leg. “Anyway, he was in the Marines, as you know, and then off doing his own thing. I don’t think my sex life would have been a priority topic for him.”

  “You had hardly started at that law firm before you were being fast-tracked for partnership,” he commented.

  She nodded. “Aaron Burke took me under his wing. He wanted a tough litigator, and I seemed to come by it naturally.”

  “So Mallory came in and swept you off your feet, right? He was a charmer from all that I found out about him.”

  “Yes,” she said bitterly. “A charmer.” She stood up and began her familiar habit of pacing. “We were married almost two years before the real Charles Mallory showed up.”

  “You could have left him any time,” he pointed out.

  “When you’re in a prison, it’s very hard to break out. The guards don’t give you any breathing room. And Charles was a maniac about Jamie. He’d never have let me take him if I left. I think he’d have killed me first.”

  Ethan was silent for so long it made her itchy.

  “What, no sarcastic comments? No digs? Where’s that famous arrogant Caine personality?”

  He sat up straighter, pushing his hat back off his forehead. “I just hate to see a woman with so much to offer throw it away on someone who could never appreciate her. And look at the mess he left you when he was killed. Just seems a damn shame.”

  “Well, not all of us have happily ever after.” She heard the edge in her own voice. “I don’t see you lugging home the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  “I’ll say this. You came out of it a lot stronger than most women would have. It took guts to stay in that situation to protect your son. And you didn’t run around afterwards crying and wringing your hands.”

  “Oh, good. I’m so glad I have your approval.” She couldn’t help the acid tone of her voice. This man got under her skin more easily than anyone she’d ever met. “Especially since you seem to have done so well with your own life.”

  “My life isn’t for people with your delicate sensibilities,” he told her in a flat voice. “Leave it at that.”

  “So will I ever get the real story of what happened?”

  He looked past her, staring at nothing. “Believe me, you wouldn’t want to hear it. It’s not a bedtime story.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

  He tossed down the plant leaf he’d been mangling. “I had ideals once, believe it or not. And a belief in noble causes. Then I learned what so-called civilized people can do to each other.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Not to mention those who are outright savages. What I had to do to deal with them. And what happens when the people you believe in turn out to be more evil than the bad guys. So, no, I don’t think we’ll be discussing my life.”

  She got the picture. Ethan wasn’t about to share any details with her. Or anyone.

  Finally, he got up and opened his knapsack, motioning for her to do the same. “Supper time. Better eat something. You’ll need your energy. Eat a piece of the fruit and one of the power bars.”

  She sat down on the deadwood again, wiped a peach against her T-shirt, and took a bite of it. By the time they’d eaten and Ethan had wrapped their trash and buried it, the sun had set and the first edges of darkness were creeping over the jungle.

  “We’ll wait another fifteen minutes before getting started,” he told her, checking his watch. “I want as much night as we can get to cover us without waiting too late.”

  “All right. Just tell me whatever you want me to do.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You know, you’re not at all what I thought you were. Not a bit.”

  “Is that good or bad?” She rubbed her hands nervously against the sides of her jeans.

  “Good, I guess. You’re plenty gutsy, nothing’s made you run screaming for shelter yet, and you don’t seem afraid of every bug crawling over us here.”

  “I intellectualize them,” she said.

  He stared. “Excuse me?”

  “I was always scared to death of anything creepy crawly. Then I read a book about intellectualizing things you were afraid of. You know, reducing them down to what they really are and if they can really hurt you. So while I don’t like them any better, they don’t send me shrieking under the covers anymore.”

  “I’ll be damned. Maybe I could try that with a few things myself.”

  They both stood at the same time, and when Lisa turned, she bumped into Ethan’s hard, muscular chest.

  “Oh.” She looked up at him and saw that same heat burning she’d seen before.

  With no warning, he grabbed her arms, pulled her tight to his body, and gave her the most intense kiss she’d ever had. There was nothing tentative about it. It was hard and passionate and giving and taking, all at the same time. His tongue was a flame scorching the inside if her mouth and igniting her own heat.

  When he broke the kiss at last, they just stared at each other.

  “This can’t happen,” he stated in that flat voice. “Just forget about it.”

  Anger rippled through her. “No, I will not forget about it. If I’m going to die tonight, I want at least one real orgasm before that happens.”

  Ethan chuffed a laugh. “That’s a strange way to put it. I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

  “The old me wouldn’t have said it. This is the new me, who will go to desperate lengths to get what she wants.”

  His gaze burned into her. “And you want me.”

  She nodded.

  “Fine.”

  The next kiss might have been lacking in romance but made up for it in erotic flavor and intensity. He scoured the inside of her mouth with his tongue, then dragged his lips away and sprinkled kisses along the line of her chin.

  Lisa clutched his shoulders, pressing her body against his and outing every bit of the hunger she was feeling into the kiss. It seemed only seconds before they both had their clothes off, frantically tossing them to the side. Then he lifted her, and carried her into the tent, setting her down on the sleeping bags he had placed there earlier.

  “If you think this is a bad idea, now’s the time to tell me.”

  She shook her head. “Not bad, but please no more talking.”

  She didn’t want excuses or promises or anything else about why they shouldn’t be doing this and how she should forget about it when it was over. She just wanted to do this with him now.


  Lying beneath him, she ran her hands over his hard, muscular back, arching up to him as he took first one nipple then the other in his mouth, teasing them with his lips and his teeth. Heat streaked to her pussy where her inner walls were already fluttering with tiny spasms.

  Cupping one breast with his hand, he licked a feathery line down to her navel, swirling his tongue in the indentation before moving even lower. Shivers skated over her skin, and the hunger in her body grew more intense. When she tried to lift her pelvis up to him, his rough chuckle vibrated against her overheated skin.

  “Anxious, are you?” He nipped gently at the top of one thigh. “That’s good, because I’m about to explode myself.”

  He nudged her thighs apart, spread the lips of her sex, and stroked his tongue the length of her slick flesh.

  “Oh, god!” She threw her legs over his shoulders, doing her best to climb right up into his hungry mouth, but he held her in place while he teased and tormented with his tongue and teeth.

  Shifting to his knees, he nudged her legs farther apart, ran the tips of his fingers along her wet slit before thrusting two of them inside her.

  Oh, god!

  “Jesus,” he swore, “you’re hotter than a pistol.”

  And about ready to fire.

  It felt as if her entire body clamped down on his hand, squeezing as he worked his fingers in and out in a smooth rhythm. Little moans bubbled up from her throat as she arched up, her body demanding that orgasm that hovered just out of reach.

  When he slipped his fingers from her grasp, she shook her head. “No, no, no. More.”

  That rusty laugh was an erotic sound, rumbling through her.

  “Just hold on.” He reached to the side for his pack he’d tossed down, unzipped a pocket, and pulled out a condom.

  His lips turned up in a small grin when her eyes popped at what he held in his hand.

  “Condoms make the best coverings for gun barrels, believe it or not. Keeps out moisture and dust.” His eyes held hers. “I didn’t plan to use them for this, Lisa, but I’m damn glad I have them.”