by Maya Banks
Beau held a finger to his lips. He hadn’t wanted this to come out, damn it. Hadn’t wanted to give Caleb even more reason to despise or disdain Ari. He raked a hand through his hair, wishing to hell that that particular piece of information hadn’t come through Ramie’s connection. A connection that evidently extended beyond Ari’s adopted parents. But it made sense if the stuffed animals were left with Ari, items her birth parents had provided for her.
Then Ramie hunched over, shaking violently, her lips actually blue as though she were exposed to freezing temperatures.
“It’s so cold,” she said in the feminine voice of the first person she’d transmitted from. “What if she freezes to death? We can’t leave her here! What if they don’t even want her?”
“They’ll want her.” There was certainty in the voice Ramie now spoke in. “Franklin told me Ginger Rochester has suffered countless miscarriages and all evidence points to her being unable to have a child. Our daughter will be the blessing to them that she deserves. She’ll never want for anything. And most importantly, she’ll be safe.”
Ari let out a choked cry, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. She slid to her knees, her legs no longer able to bear her weight. She buried her face in her hands as the implications of what Ramie was experiencing—saying—hit her hard, denial sharp and instant. She shook her head irrationally, shutting out the voices. It was a mistake. It couldn’t be true. Ramie was wrong.
Beau sank down beside her, and though his face was a wreath of regret, he didn’t seem surprised. Even amid her confusion and heartbreak, that fact registered. Just how much had he kept from her?
He tried to comfort her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her into his arms, but Ari fought him off, nearly hysterical. She didn’t want to be touched. Didn’t want to be comforted. There was no comfort, no salve, no bandage big enough to ever cover this wound.
“Goodbye, my love,” Ramie whispered. She mimicked holding an infant in her arms and kissing the air where a child’s head would be.
There was brief silence, though Ramie remained as if in a distant place, not here, lost in some other time, captive to the secrets the stuffed animals were relating.
“Oh dear God, Gavin! Someone left a baby out here to freeze?”
Ari went utterly motionless as Ramie’s voice changed once more to one that so eerily resembled her mother’s that it sent chill bumps racing over her entire body. Instant cold settled into her bones. Dread had invaded her heart as it was confirmed—through Ramie—that the unthinkable . . . was true. No. No! It couldn’t be. She was loved, not unwanted and abandoned by the people who’d given birth to her.
Ari’s entire life was a lie. She was well and truly alone. Adrift. Utterly lost.
She encased herself in an icy bubble, surrounding herself, hoping to shut out the truth. The reality. But she could still hear Ramie’s haunting voice, now her father’s.
“We’re leaving the country and we’ll be gone for a while.”
And then her mother’s again, only not her mother. “What are we going to do, Gavin?”
Ramie’s voice became gruff, just like when her father was serious, implacable. And decisive. “We’re going to do as we were asked and raise her as our daughter.”
Ramie went silent, her eyes flickering in rapid-fire succession as if processing at the speed of a computer. Her hands curled and uncurled in her lap as if in agitation. She was clearly not here, still firmly ensconced in the past. But what about the present?
Not matter that Ari’s entire world had been turned upside down in the space of a few minutes, she still loved her . . . parents. Or whoever they were. She wanted them safe now more than ever because she wanted answers. She wanted the truth! A truth she should have been given when she reached an age where she would be able to understand. And coming from her adoptive parents, the information wouldn’t have been so shocking because she could have been privy to their motives. Whether they truly wanted her or if they just couldn’t bear the thought of an orphan child being taken into child protective services and shuffled through the system, never truly having a stable home and people she could rely on.
She needed that reassurance and it could only come from them. No one else. If she’d been desperate to save them before, that desperation had multiplied tenfold. Because if they died before she could have answers to the questions that swirled in her mind at supersonic speed, making her dizzy and light-headed, her life would forever be incomplete. An important part of herself would always be out of reach. How could she expect Beau to accept her when even she didn’t know who she was anymore?
She’d been fully aware that her father hadn’t always been on the straight and narrow, that he had a murky, questionable past, but that when her mother swept into his life, his future had been irrevocably altered and he’d made a concerted effort to be the man she deserved.
But now, for the first time, she questioned whether he’d truly left his old life behind. Whether the “good” man she’d always considered her father to be was yet another lie in an ever growing list of lies and untruths. Lies of omission were even worse than outright lies in Ari’s opinion. Because lies of omission were blatant attempts to hide the truth. To keep a person from ever discovering the truth. It was sheer manipulation and it wasn’t honorable, nor did it speak to a person’s integrity.
It hurt to think that a man Ari had always looked up to, idolized and worshipped, was capable of such deception. Because now she was forced to question every other aspect of her past. What else had he kept from her? What else had he outright lied to her about? Was it all a lie? Every part of her existence?
Through the fog of her grief and utter despair, she saw Ramie suddenly sag, listing in the opposite direction from Caleb. He immediately made a grab for her though his hands were infinitely gentle. He guided her back toward him and then simply pulled her onto his lap, cradling her tenderly, his lips pressed against her brow.
There was profound relief in his eyes that she hadn’t endured the unthinkable. But Ari was sick with worry. What did it mean that she seemed to only see the past?
Ari couldn’t stand. Her legs were so rubbery and she was so utterly devastated that her strength was completely gone. So she half crawled, half dragged her numb extremities toward the couch where Ramie lay in Caleb’s arms, awake but drowsy and lethargic.
Apology was in Ari’s eyes and on her face as she met Caleb’s gaze. Once again he surprised her because she was met with tenderness and sympathy.
“I know she’s tired. I know what a toll this takes on her. But please. I need to talk to her before she goes under. I have to know.”
Ramie stirred and directed her cloudy gaze at Ari. “I’m okay, Ari. Much better than the other times. I’m only tired because of the mental strain of maintaining links, in this case, four separate entities. I’ll try to answer your questions if I know the answer. Just be patient with me. I’m a bit slow when I come out of a session and my thoughts are unfocused.”
“You trying is all I ask,” Ari murmured
She leaned her elbows on Caleb’s knees, hoping he didn’t mind the extra burden, but it was the only way Ari herself would be able to support herself and keep from sliding to the floor in a useless heap.
“Everything you talked about was in the past. A long time in the past,” Ari said hoarsely. “But what about now? Did you pick up on anything that would help us find them?”
Sorry and apology swamped Ramie’s eyes. She weakly reached for Ari’s hand and drew it into her grasp, squeezing in a show of comfort and support.
“Nothing,” Ramie admitted. “I’m so sorry, Ari. I would have gladly endured anything if it helped you. The impressions I did get were strong, despite the events being from years ago. There were flashes after the passages I related aloud. But they were random. You as a baby. Then as a toddler. A young girl. A preteen and then a teenager blossoming into a woman. The lovies, as you call them, were like silent observers of events that transpired over
the years. Almost like a history, the history of you and your family. They are very special items. I hope you can keep them for many years to come.”
Ari rocked back on her heels, wrenching her arms from Caleb’s legs, not wanting anyone to touch her, to see her, to witness the horrible, gut-wrenching agony that consumed her. It was all for nothing. Instead of being able to find her “parents” and bring them home safely, all she’d received was life-altering news that flayed her heart open, leaving it bleeding.
“No!” she cried out, shaking her head, refusing the truth that stared her right in the eye.
She stumbled upward, weaving, unsteady, again warding off Beau’s hands when he tried to help her. He backed off, at least giving her that. She couldn’t bear to be touched. She felt dirty. Rejected. Unworthy. When for her entire life she’d felt assured of her place in the world. Assured of her parents’ love. She felt . . . betrayed . . . in the worst possible manner. The kind that went soul deep and ripped her to shreds, leaving her with . . . nothing.
And no one.
The sudden feeling of being utterly alone in an unfamiliar, dark and cold world, where she had no safe harbor and nothing was as it seemed, filled her with despair to her very soul. In a single moment, she’d been stripped of everything. And she no longer even knew who she was.
TWENTY-SIX
BEAU watched helplessly as Ari fell apart right in front of his eyes. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her. No one could. Some hurts—betrayals—were simply too deep. Unable to be forgotten, forgiven or even understood.
“No,” Ari said again, the sound of a wounded animal.
She wrapped her arms protectively around herself as if somehow she could shield herself from the painful truth. She bent over, pain rippling across her face, the objects in the room reacting to the obvious devastation in her mind.
Objects, even large pieces of furniture, vibrated as though an earthquake were occurring. A lamp fell over, shattering, the sound cracking sharply in the otherwise silent room.
“I was not unloved,” she said brokenly. “I was not abandoned. I was not left to die in the cold, at the mercy of someone who may or may not find me on their doorstep.”
Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks, her eyes so utterly desolate that Beau’s throat swelled with emotion and his eyes stung with answering tears. Not a single person in the room was unaffected by Ari’s grief.
Eliza turned her face away, but not before Beau saw her wiping her own cheeks. Sympathy brimmed in Dane’s eyes and he shifted, shoving his hands in his pockets, clearly at a loss as to what to say or do, and just as uncomfortable witnessing Ari’s complete breakdown.
There was a bleak expression on Zack’s face, his eyes desolate and far away as if remembering something equally painful.
Tears slid down Ramie’s face and she shook off Caleb’s comforting hold, no doubt thinking that she wasn’t the one most in need.
Every time Beau tried to get near Ari, to touch her, simply hold her and be her rock, let her cry in his arms and on his shoulders, she reacted violently, almost as if she feared her taint would somehow spread to him.
He swore low and viciously, in that moment hating his father, Gavin Rochester and the bastards currently making Ari’s life hell. She’d been manipulated at birth. How could they have done it? From what he could glean from the bits of information, dialogue that Ramie had repeated in her stupor, it would seem that Ari was little more than a transaction.
A pacification offered to Gavin and Ginger Rochester to ease their devastating losses. A token baby, as if any child would do, and Ari had just happened to be a convenient solution for everyone.
Why were her birth parents so adamant that they couldn’t keep Ari? And what the ever-loving fuck did his father have to do with any of it? Was it possible that he’d truly “sent” Ari to Gavin? Did he owe Gavin in some way? And was it why Gavin had told Ari to seek out Caleb or Beau Devereaux if she was ever in need? Almost as if he’d been preparing for the eventuality.
The fact that Gavin had been the last person to see Franklin Devereaux alive, given the new information that had just come to light, made Beau more convinced than ever that Ari’s adopted father had something to do with his father’s death. Directly, indirectly. Who knew?
He doubted Gavin was the type of man to do the job himself. Not when he had plenty of hired muscle and bought loyalty. For the right price, one could have loyalty from damn near anyone.
Ramie rose from the couch, shaky, unsteady, Caleb’s hand flying out in case she fell, but she falteringly made her way over to where Ari was hunched over, arms solidly around her middle, her sobs heartbreaking to hear.
Ramie lightly touched Ari’s back and then when Ari didn’t protest the gesture, Ramie gently pulled her into a hug. Ari buried her face in the other woman’s shoulder, her entire body heaving with the force of her sobs.
“I’m so sorry, Ari,” Ramie said, regret lining every word. “But, honey, listen to me. Look at me, Ari,” she said in a firmer voice.
Ramie waited, patient, understanding, until finally Ari lifted tear-drenched eyes to meet the other woman’s gaze. Beau’s stomach clenched at the raw agony so very evident in Ari’s face and expressive eyes.
“You were loved. Absolutely. Unwaveringly. Unconditionally. That is the truth. You were loved from the very moment Gavin and Ginger Rochester found you on their doorstep. They took great precautions to ensure that you would never be taken from them. That you would be able to lead a normal life. Of course that changed with the discovery of your abilities, but that only made them more determined to give you everything that was within their power.”
Tears slid faster down Ari’s face, glimmering brightly in her eyes, making them even more vibrant than usual. Electric. Nearly neon.
“And here is another truth, Ari,” Ramie said softly. “One I want you to listen to and pay heed to. Because it is the truth. I would not lie about something so important, nor would I offer you token words just to comfort you when you’re clearly devastated. You were dearly loved by your birth parents as well.”
Ari automatically shook her head in denial, her eyes going cloudy with hurt once more.
Ramie sent her a fierce look. “I was there, Ari. I felt everything they felt. I knew everything they knew. Do you doubt my powers? Do you think that somehow this would be the only instance in my entire life where I’m wrong?”
“Then why?” Ari choked out. “I don’t understand why.”
“Because the same people who are after you now were after you even then. And your parents were terrified. Always on the run. With your mother pregnant, it wasn’t as easy for them to hide. To disguise themselves. They were constantly looking over their shoulder, fearing the worst. And then you were born, and they loved you so very much. Thought you were a miracle. Something good and special in the midst of evil. They tried to keep you—wanted to keep you. But the people after you caught up to them. They escaped through sheer dumb luck and someone being in the right place at the right time. And that was when they knew they couldn’t continue like this. That it was no way to raise a child. That your life would be hell. You’d never have the things children need the most. Stability. A home. Security. To be able to go to school, have friends, play sports or take up ballet.”
Ramie paused, clearly exhausted by her ordeal, but she seemed determined to get through to Ari before she succumbed to the mental—and physical—toll it took on her.
“They wanted you to have all that. So they went to someone they thought would help them. Perhaps even take you in themselves. Caleb and Beau’s parents, Franklin and Missy Devereaux.”
Caleb and Beau flinched and Beau curled his hands into tight balls wondering at the staggering coincidence that he was tied to Ari and her family in more ways than just his love for her. Any doubt that the call from her “birth father” had been a hoax fell away as Ramie’s words hit him squarely in the chest.
Ramie sent Caleb and Beau a grimaci
ng look of sorrow. “You may not want to hear this. Ari and I can continue in private.”
Beau surged forward, as did Caleb, standing from the couch. Whether intentional or not, the two brothers stood a mere foot apart, in solidarity.
Caleb spoke before Beau could muster a reply.
“There is nothing you can say about my father—or mother—that will shock either of us. We’re well acquainted with exactly who and what they are—and what they weren’t,” he said in an icy voice.
Beau merely nodded, unable to add anything more that Caleb hadn’t succinctly stated himself.
Ramie sighed and turned back to Ari. “Franklin complained to your birth father that he already had three brats and his stupid wife had gotten herself knocked up again—that they’d just discovered that fact a mere week earlier, and he couldn’t possibly take on another child when he could barely tolerate the three he had with a fourth now on the way.”
Even knowing what a complete bastard his father was, Beau couldn’t control the flinch of hearing his father’s words spoken baldly.
“It was then that he recommended Gavin Rochester, saying he was a business associate and as luck would have it, he and his wife were desperate to have a baby, but had thus far been unsuccessful. He even provided money and the use of his private jet so their movements wouldn’t be traceable.”
Ramie cupped Ari’s damp face in her palms, forcing Ari to look at her.
“Ari, I want you to listen to me. I need you to hear this.”
Ari blinked and then trained her unfocused stare at Ramie, blinking to clear away some of the obvious confusion.
“Your mother and father—your real mother and father—and by that I mean the people who raised you as your daughter, who loved you and protected you your entire life, didn’t know about any of what transpired between your birth parents and their pursuers nor did they have any idea of Franklin Devereaux’s involvement and the fact that he in effect sent you to them until two years after they adopted you.
“They answered a doorbell on a snowy Christmas night and found . . . you. A beautiful little angel girl. And a note. Begging them to take you in and raise you as their own. That they were unable to provide for you and that you would always be in danger. Gavin and Ginger loved you instantly. And so Gavin took you and his wife out of the country where he began a systematic paper trail that documented a pregnancy, your delivery in a foreign country and your subsequent return to the United States.
“He sold off everything he owned prior to you, except one oil company, here in Houston. And they moved here, to begin their lives with you. That is the truth and the only one that matters. You were loved. You were wanted. You matter.”
Ari slipped her arms around Ramie this time and fiercely hugged the other woman. “Thank you,” Ari whispered. “You can’t know what that means to me.”
“I can well imagine,” Ramie said softly.
Ramie cast Beau a look, her eyes softening as she took Ari’s hand in hers, twining their fingers tightly. Then she held out Ari’s hand in Beau’s direction before looking back at Ari.
“I think there is someone who would very much like to hold you right now. This has been hard on him too, Ari. He found out some very difficult information as well. You should lean on each other.”
Beau watched the myriad of emotions flash across Ari’s face as she looked up at Beau. Then with an inarticulate cry, she ran across the room and threw herself into his outstretched arms, wrapping her own around his waist and hugging him for dear life.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry, Beau. You didn’t deserve how I treated you. You’re the last person who deserved it. Please forgive me. You are the only one true thing in my life right now. The only person I have complete faith in. The only person I trust. Please, please don’t be angry with me.”
He gathered her to him, crushing her, holding as tightly as he dared without breaking her bones. He buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair and simply held her in silence, his chest heaving with unshed emotion.
He wouldn’t break down. Not here. Not in front of the others. Not when Ari desperately needed him to be strong for her.
When he finally pulled back, he framed her beautiful face and stared intently into her eyes, drowning, losing his very soul in her. He never wanted to be found. He was lost in her and he planned to stay lost for the rest of his life.
He kissed her. Just a gentle brush, the tenderest of kisses. Meant to comfort, soothe and reassure her that he was here. He was real. Solid. And he wasn’t going anywhere.
She leaned her forehead in, resting it against the hollow of his throat so that his chin rested atop her silky hair. He could feel the fatigue emanating from her in waves. Knew she’d reached her absolute breaking point.
He reached down and gathered her hands in his. “Let’s go to bed, honey. Tomorrow we’ll launch a full-scale attack. We’ll draw the fuckers to us and then we’ll extract the information we need no matter what it takes.”
She shivered against him, and he knew that she was imagining the implications of his words. But she didn’t react in horror or disgust. She simply drew her head away and looked up at him as if he was her entire world. And damn it, he wanted to be. When all of this was over, he was going to pour out his entire goddamn heart. He was going to cut it out of his chest and lay it before her. Make himself completely vulnerable to her and bare his very soul.
He could only hope that when he did that she wouldn’t reject the only gifts he had to give her. His heart. His soul. His body.
His love.
TWENTY-SEVEN
BEAU sat straight up in bed, Ari literally falling from his arms back onto the mattress below. She murmured a sleepy protest but promptly snuggled into the pillow, never once opening her eyes.
“What the fuck?” Beau demanded, blinking his eyes as the room was suddenly flooded with light.
When he could see, Zack was standing there, rifle over one shoulder, two pistols in a shoulder holster, several flash bangs as well as grenades circling his waist. Another gun was strapped to the inside of his thigh, while the other leg had one strapped on the outside of his thigh so the pistols didn’t bang against each other when he walked. If that weren’t enough, he had at least three knives strapped at convenient, easily accessible areas on his body and yet another, smaller pistol secured around his ankle. He looked like he was fucking going to war.
Beau was instantly alert, out of bed before Zack could even open his mouth.
