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Powerhouse
Rebecca York
Powerhouse
Rebecca York
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u0bc5dcf1-f9c2-5605-b5bf-1fd6ee6940e8)
Title Page (#u590f0505-8f5e-5326-bb31-8b44fbffec86)
About the Author (#uf6218374-9eaa-5bb7-a18e-0d2466fa382c)
Chapter One (#u488f3f3b-5483-57ab-80e4-5878cd85b829)
Chapter Two (#u59f6e89e-a680-5c79-8367-afb2c1fb9d18)
Chapter Three (#udb91fdfe-5dac-5271-a4d2-9df779efadef)
Chapter Four (#uac1aa120-606f-50fe-bdcd-85a2319baa9e)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
Award-winning, bestselling novelist RUTH GLICK, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of more than one hundred books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories; she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.
Chapter One
Desperation kept Shelley Young plowing through the blinding snow. Of course, she’d seen the weather forecast, but she’d left Boulder anyway, praying that she’d outrun the storm as she headed down Route 76 toward Yuma. In other words, the middle of nowhere. A part of Colorado she’d avoided since she’d broken up with Matt Whitlock five years ago. She’d been in love with him, but she’d finally figured out that he couldn’t give her the things she wanted most—marriage and children. Walking away from him had wrenched her heart, but she’d made a clean break, moving her accounting business a hundred and forty miles away to Boulder, where she’d been living ever since.
“It’s all for the best,” her mom would have said. For a while Shelley had believed it, but she’d been wrong. Because now she was back—to beg Matt Whitlock for help. Only she’d gotten caught in a storm that blanked out every recognizable feature of the flat eastern Colorado landscape.
This was an area of sudden, violent weather. Thunderstorms in the summer and snowstorms in the winter.
Like now. But what did she expect? In the time it took to read a couple of heart-stopping sentences, her life had fallen to pieces—and plowing through the blinding snow was just one more trial she had to get through to put it back together.
If she could put it back together.
Although the windshield wipers swept back and forth in front of her, they didn’t help much. If only she’d noted the odometer reading when she’d left Boulder, she’d have a better idea where she was, but she’d been too focused on getting here to check anything on the dashboard besides the gas gauge.
She almost missed the turn-off for the Silver Stallion Ranch, but from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the familiar metal archway above the stone gateposts.
Skidding as she applied the brakes, she peered up the narrow drive that led to the ranch complex. There were no tire tracks, which meant no one had been up or down the access road since the storm had started.
Her heart gave a painful lurch. After she’d come so far, was Matt away? Or was he just holed up in the ranch house, waiting out the bad weather?
Clamping her hands onto the wheel, she turned in between the gateposts and started up the lane. Once this had been familiar territory. Now she might as well be traveling through an arctic wasteland.
When the car skidded on hidden ice, she cautiously tapped the brake, wondering when Matt had last plowed the drive. It felt as if he hadn’t spread a fresh layer of gravel since she’d been here.
What did the lack of upkeep mean? Was he low on funds? Or had he withdrawn even more into the shell she’d watched him building around himself?
With a sick feeling, she looked back over her shoulder, questioning her decision to come here in the first place.
But she’d had nowhere else to turn, and retracing her path would be tricky.
She managed to drive perhaps another fifty yards before the car hit an obstruction hidden in the snow. When she tried to back up, she fishtailed into the ditch at the side of the road.
If she’d been a man, she would have responded with a string of curses, but she made do with one ladylike “damn.”
She was good at keeping her temper under control. Maybe that was part of her problem. She was too polite to make a fuss, which was one of the reasons she hadn’t contacted Matt five years ago when …
She took her bottom lip between her teeth, unwilling to finish the thought. She’d have to get to that soon enough.
Her cell phone was in her purse, but when she pulled it out, she got another nasty surprise. Usually she charged it overnight, but that was one more detail she’d neglected in the past few days. Now the battery was dead as a tree stump.
“Damn!”
She’d just have to walk the rest of the way to the ranch house.
With a sigh, she looked in the back seat. Her overnight bag was there, but carrying it through the snow was out of the question. After slinging the strap of her purse across her chest, she yanked her wool hat down more firmly over her dark hair, pulled her scarf up over her nose and climbed out of the car.
Immediately, the wind whipped against her slender frame, making her grab the car door to brace herself. When she felt steady on her feet, she raised her arm to shield her eyes from the stinging flakes and started plodding up the drive, glad that at least the snow wasn’t higher than the top of her boots.
UP AT THE ranch house, Matt Whitlock shut off the alarm that had warned him that someone was on the road to the main complex. Someone he obviously wasn’t expecting.
Now who would be out in a storm like this?
A traveler who needed to take shelter from the driving snow? Or someone using the weather as an excuse to sneak up on him?
He made a snorting sound. There was a time in his life when he would have considered that last thought over-the-top paranoid. From bitter experience, he’d learned that paranoia could be entirely justified.
He turned toward the window, looking out at the sea of white. From here, he couldn’t even see the bunkhouse where his one remaining hand, Ed Janey, lived. It was tempting to stay inside and let the trespasser make the next move. Still, whoever was out there could be in trouble if he hadn’t figured on a sudden storm. If Matt didn’t want to find a frozen body in the road tomorrow morning, he’d better go out and have a look.
Or maybe he’d encounter a deer looking for shelter.
With a sense of resignation, he made his way to the mudroom that he used more than the front entrance of the ranch house.
Along one wall was a bench where he sat down to lace up sturdy boots. Next, he strapped on a holster and pulled his Sig Sauer from the gun cabinet. Not the weapon of choice for most ranchers, but it seemed more useful than a rifle under the circumstances. After clicking in a magazine, he holstered the weapon, then took a down coat and a broad-brimmed hat from pegs on the wall. Prepared for the storm—and for trouble—he stepped out of the house into the storm.
A stinging blast of snow hit him in the face, and he shook his head. The smart thing would be to go back inside, but he was out here now, and he might as well find out who the devil was stupid enough to be traveling on a February day like this.
“OH, WHEN the saints come marching in,” Shelley sang as she struggled up the road toward the ranch.
Belting out the lively hymn helped keep her mind off her precarious situation, but she gave up when she realized she needed all her energy just to keep plowing through the snow. In the distance, she thought she saw a light, but it might simply be a mirage.
Born and bred in Colorado, she was used to extremes of weather, but it had been a long time since she’d gone out in a storm like this. If she’d been thinking about her own safety, she would have waited a couple of days before heading for Matt’s ranch, but her problem had been too urgent to put off. And it hadn’t been something she could talk about over the phone.
Now she was wondering if she had a chance of making it to the house.
Her foot collided with yet another hidden obstruction, and she almost went down—but managed to stay on her feet by windmilling her arms.
After taking a moment to catch her breath, she started forward again. As the light faded, the temperature dropped, and numbing cold began to penetrate her coat.
Tears blurred her vision, but she blinked them away. If she let herself get worked up, she was going to start screaming—or sobbing, and that wasn’t going to do her any good.
Instead, she kept putting one foot in front of the other as she lowered her head against the wind and followed the road as best she could toward the ranch complex.
The wind kicked up, blowing the snow into drifts that blocked her way. She judged that she had covered about half the distance between the car and the house when she blundered off the driveway and into the ditch—which was piled with snow.
For a long moment, she lay where she was—panting. Then she forced herself up because she knew that if she stayed where she was, she’d end up freezing to death. Lips set in a grim line, she scrambled back onto the road, but now her steps were slower, and she knew she was in serious danger of going down again.
MATT WAS several hundred yards from the house when he saw something through a curtain of falling snow. A person, struggling up the driveway that led to the ranch yard. “This way,” he called out.
There was no response, and he knew the wind had drowned out the sound of his voice. As he watched, the guy pitched over into a snowdrift and lay still.
Matt picked up his pace. The damn fool was in trouble—whoever it was.
“Just stay there. I’m coming,” he called out, then laughed harshly at himself. It didn’t look like the interloper was going anywhere under his own power.
Matt tramped onward through the blizzard, finally reaching the guy, who had fallen in the snow and didn’t have the strength to get up.
Squatting down, he turned the man over and pulled down the scarf that covered his face.
When large green eyes blinked open, he made a strangled sound.
“Shelley?”
“Matt …” she gasped out as she focused on his face. “Thank God.”
“What are you doing here?”
She blinked, and her lips moved, but she apparently didn’t have the strength to answer.
“Come on.” He helped her to her feet and slung his arm around her waist, holding her erect.
“Can you walk?”
“I … think so.”
He was cursing himself for not bringing a four-wheeler down the road, but he’d been too intent on sneaking up on the intruder. Now he was stuck walking Shelley back to the house.
Holding her firmly against his side, he turned and retraced his steps, following his own trail through the snow.
It was still falling like a son of a bitch, and it was hard to see where he was going. But he pushed his surprise guest onward as fast as he could make her walk because he knew he had to get her out of the cold and wind as soon as possible.
As he held her upright, images from the past assaulted him—starting with a very nervous Shelley Young, just out of college, interviewing for the job of his accountant. She’d worn her brown hair longer then. He skipped a few months and saw himself and Shelley in his office, going over the computer files. The two of them at the breakfast table. Walking hand and hand along the creek. Down by the corral—feeding carrots to the horses.
He tried to keep one more vivid picture out of his mind—him and Shelley naked in bed, in each other’s arms, clinging desperately together because they both sensed that the relationship was never going to work out, and neither of them was willing to admit it.
He squeezed his eyes closed, struggling against that last image and against his own reaction. If he was smart, he would put her into a four-wheel SUV and drive her back to Boulder, where she was living now.
But he couldn’t do it. She must have come here for a reason, and he needed to find out what it was. Still, he knew he had his own reasons for bringing her inside.
If he could have her here for just a little while, maybe that would be enough to last him another five lonely years.
When they finally reached the house, he muttered a prayer of thanks as he helped her through the door. Once they were in the warmth of the house, he sat her down on the bench in the mudroom and pulled off her boots, coat and purse.
“Matt?”
“It’s okay. What are you doing here?” She shook her head, and he could tell she wasn’t exactly with it.
After tossing his own coat on the floor and pulling off his boots, he picked Shelley up in his arms and carried her through the kitchen, then down the hall to the room where he had slept when he was a kid.
He’d long ago moved into the master bedroom where he had more space to spread out, but he’d kept this room in case he needed it. Yeah, sure. For what?
Well, at least he didn’t have to put Shelley in his bed. That was something.
He propped her against his hip then pulled the covers aside and eased her onto the bed. When she was lying down, he reached for her feet. They were cold and wet, so he pulled her socks off and inspected her toes, which were red but not frostbitten. When he found that the hems of her jeans were wet, he opened the snap at her waist, pulled down her zipper and dragged the pants down her legs.
“You’re undressing me,” she murmured, her lips curving in a silly grin.
“We need to get you warm and dry,” he answered, peeling down her thermal underwear and discarding it along with her jeans, struggling to ignore his reaction to her slim legs, feminine thighs and the triangle of dark hair he could see through the thin fabric of her panties.
Luckily, her shirt was still dry, so he dragged the sheet and blanket over her, covering the tempting image of her lying in bed.
“You need to sleep.” “I need you.”
Her arms whipped out and circled his neck, pulling him down so that he flopped on top of her. “Shelley.”
“I need you, Matt,” she whispered, her voice quavery. “For what? Why did you come here?” She made a muffled sound.
When he lifted his head to gaze down at her, she still looked dazed and confused, and he knew he should climb off the bed and beat a retreat into the other room.
As he hesitated, she cupped the back of his head and brought his mouth to hers, and he couldn’t make himself pull away. When his lips touched down on hers, a jolt of sensation shot through him.
Somewhere in his mind, he knew none of this should be happening. He shouldn’t be in a bed with her—holding her—for so many reasons.
Yet at this moment in time, none of the reasons mattered. The only thing his brain had room for was that she was lying in his embrace.
He broke the kiss and lifted his head. Her lips were parted now, her breath shallow, her eyes full of hope—and, he thought, pain.
“What is it?”
“Just be with me.”
Unable to deny the invitation, he maneuvered to the side, gathering her close, and it was the most natural thing in the world to bring his mouth back to hers, nibbling, sliding, taking her lower lip into his mouth the way he’d always liked to do.
She tasted wonderful, as sweet as he remembered, but the best part was her response to him. The returned pressure of her lips against his and the way she moved restlessly on the bed fueled a hot, frantic burst of sensation inside him.
Not just him. He could feel needs zinging back and forth between them.
He was on top of the covers. She was underneath. He knew he should keep her warm, so he slipped off the bed—just long enough to pull the blanket and sheet aside and slide in next to her, so he could gather her close.
When she made a small sound of approval, he ran his hands up and down her back, then cupped her bottom, pulling her against the erection straining at the front of his jeans.
He had missed her so much. Needed her so much, and now here she was, right where he wanted her—warm and cozy with him in bed. He heard a sound well up in her throat. Or perhaps it was from his throat. He couldn’t even be sure.
Her hands began to move too, roving restlessly over his back, his shoulders, pulling him closer.
They clung together, rocking slightly in the bed, as the kiss turned more urgent—more hungry—driving every thought from his mind but one. Against all reason, she had come back to him, and he must make love to her before she slipped away from him again.
Was this reality or a fantasy? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. The taste and feel of Shelley Young was the only reality in his universe.
His mouth moved over hers, feasting on her, his tongue sliding along the rigid line of her teeth, then beyond.
It was all so familiar. So precious. It was as though they had never been apart, as though the past five years had never happened.
As he kissed her, he eased far enough away to slide one hand between them so that he could cup her breast and stroke his fingers over the tip. He remembered how sweetly she responded to him, how she gave him as much as he took. And when he reached under her sweater to unhook her bra, she made a small sound of approval, then sighed in pleasure as he took her nipples between his thumbs and fingers, twisting and pulling, doing the things he remembered that she liked.
“Shelley.”
She answered with his name, and somehow that brought a dose of reality into the fantasy world he had created in the warmth of the bed.
“Oh, Shelley.”
When he put some space between them, her eyes snapped open, questioning his.
“We can’t do this,” he said in a gritty voice. “Why not?”
“Because I just brought you in out of the snow, and you’re not in any condition to be making sexual decisions.”
“Sexual decisions,” she repeated.
“Get some rest. When you’re ready, we’ll talk about why you drove through a snowstorm to come here.”
A look that was part desperation, part regret, part passion passed over her face, reflecting his own feelings with an aching intensity. He could take what he wanted. Right now.
And then what? He’d hate himself for a long time afterward.
Unwilling to prolong the moment, he climbed out of the bed and stood looking down at her.
“Matt?”
“Shelley, go to sleep,” he said softly. Her green eyes looked confused. “I … don’t want to sleep. I have to talk to you.”
“Not now. Go to sleep,” he repeated. “For me.”
She blinked. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“All … right,” she said in a barely audible voice.
As her eyes fluttered closed, he stood looking down at her, thankful that he could influence her decision, yet wondering how he was going to cope with having her in the house again. As soon as he’d taken her in his arms, all the need and longing he’d repressed for years had flared up. It was as though the two of them had never been apart.
He cursed softly under his breath, angry at his own weakness. He wanted to be angry with her, too. She’d come here unannounced and tempted him beyond endurance.
Why hadn’t she just called him on the phone?
A shiver went through him. A phone call was a perfectly logical means of communication. Instead she’d driven here through a dangerous storm. Which led to the conclusion that she was afraid someone might be monitoring her calls. Or that she had some news that could only be said face-to-face. What could that be?
He took a step toward the bed and reached out, then stopped himself before he could grab her arm and shake her awake again.
He had to talk to her, but his previous judgment had been correct. She needed to sleep—so she’d be in good enough shape to tell him the bad news straight up. Because he sensed that whatever she was going to say would be like a punch in the gut.
Chapter Two
Shelley moved restlessly on the bed. She didn’t want to wake up, but she couldn’t stay hiding here forever. Hiding from what?
Deliberately, she opened her eyes and looked around the unfamiliar room.
Panic gripped her as she struggled to remember where she was. Then the past few terrible days came zinging back to her. And the past few hours—when she’d gotten into her car and started driving east—to Matt’s ranch. Because she simply didn’t know what else to do.
She’d turned in at the gate and gotten stuck in the snow and started walking to the ranch house. She’d still be out there if Matt hadn’t come down the road and found her.
How had he even known she was on the ranch property?
She wasn’t sure, but it was lucky for her that he had. He’d brought her back … and, oh Lord. They had ended up in a passionate clinch—under the covers. In this bed, and if he hadn’t gotten up and walked away, they would have made love—just like that.
Which meant she’d been kidding herself for the past five years. She’d had the strength to walk away from Matt Whitlock because that was the only way to cut off the pain of their relationship, but she’d never gotten over him. And in a few minutes, she was going to have to tell him something that might make him hate her.
And after that she was going to beg for his help.
Would he understand her decision five years ago? Would he help her? Or would he order her out of the house? She hoped not until she could get her car out of the snowbank. And then what? She’d be right back where she’d started. In desperate trouble.
That thought made her swing her legs over the side of the bed. She had to get this over with. Now. Standing, she looked around. Her jeans and long johns were gone, and she remembered that Matt had pulled them off. Probably because they were wet from her falls into snowbanks.
In place of her discarded clothing were a pair of sweatpants and some thick socks enveloped by his familiar scent. The pants were too big for her slender five-foot-nine-inch frame, and the socks flopped around on her feet. His, she presumed. She pulled on the pants, then the socks. When she didn’t see her purse, she had a moment of panic. Then she figured it was with her coat and boots in the mudroom. In the bathroom, she finger-combed her hair and splashed water on her face, then inspected her visage, wishing she had some lipstick. She didn’t look great, but it would have to do. And she knew she was only stalling for time. Despite her earlier resolve, she was having a failure of nerve again.
She bought herself a few more moments by turning to the window. The storm had blown over, and the moon had risen, making a path of light along the snow-covered ground. Looking at her watch, she saw that she’d been asleep for a couple of hours.
Through the window she could see the familiar outline of the bunkhouse. Only one dim light burned over there. When she’d been here five years ago, the place had been blazing at night.
No more.
Where were the men who worked for Matt?
Well, that wasn’t her concern, really.
Before she could think of some other excuse to stay in here, she pulled open the door and walked down the hall. Past the office where she and Matt had worked on his accounts together. Past the comfortable den where they’d watched DVDs and eaten popcorn in the evenings.
Sometimes they’d get a popular TV series and start watching the first season. Not once a week but two or three episodes a night if they were really hooked. She smiled at the memory as she continued through the empty dining room—and finally into the kitchen.
Matt was standing at the stove, his shoulders rigid, and she saw that every nerve in his body was crackling with tension. Obviously, he’d heard her coming, and he was wondering what the two of them were going to say to each other.
She’d set him on edge, and she wanted to whisper “sorry.” But that wasn’t a very good way to start off this confrontation.
Of course, there was no good way.
As she stopped in the doorway, he turned quickly, and she gave him a long look. She’d been too out of it to really see him earlier. Now she took in his dark, sun-streaked hair, the worried look in his blue eyes, and the tension around his strong jaw.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Okay. Thanks to you. How did you know I was out there?” “I have an alarm system.” “You do?”
“Yeah. I knew somebody was on the road.”
She nodded, wondering when he’d put that in. Her head jerked toward the bunkhouse. “Do your men bed down early?”
He kept his gaze fixed on her. “I’m not working the ranch. Only Ed Janey is over there.”
“Why?”
“Ed’s been here a long time. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
She swallowed, trying to take it all in. It seemed a lot had changed in five years, and nobody had told her. But why would they?
“I mean—why aren’t you working the ranch?”
“I made some good investments, and I pulled my money out before the stock market crashed. I’m living on that.”
MATT WATCHED Shelley’s reaction. She was probably trying to wrap her head around all the changes that had taken place since they’d seen each other last.
He didn’t particularly want to explain his reasoning to her. It would be easier simply to send her away. Not in so many words—but to plant the idea in her head. The way he’d planted the idea of her going to sleep.
But she looked strung out, and not just from getting half frozen. She’d come here because something was badly wrong, and he had to find out what it was—and if there was some way he could help her.
The teakettle whistled, giving him an excuse to turn back to the stove. After lifting the kettle off the burner, he opened the cabinet and took down two packets of hot chocolate.
Still with his back to her, he poured the contents into two mugs, then stirred, stirring up memories as the scent of chocolate wafted toward him.
He and Shelley had sat in the evenings in front of the fire sipping hot chocolate. They’d talked about all sorts of things, and he’d felt so close to her. Well, as close as he could feel to anyone when he had a secret that he had to guard at all costs.
“That smells good.”
“You always liked hot chocolate,” he answered.
When she sat down at the table, he set the mugs between them, careful not to touch her. Then he pulled out the chair opposite her and sat.
Neither one of them spoke.
For something to do, he took a sip of the hot liquid. She did the same, her hands wrapped around the crockery. It looked as though she was holding on for dear life.
He could barely taste the drink as he waited for her to tell him why she was here. She looked so alone and vulnerable that he wanted to reach across the table and grab her hand. But he hung on to his own mug because that was a lot safer than touching her.
Finally, when she didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. “It’s been a long time.” “Yes.”
While she’d been sleeping, he’d let his imagination run wild. She was in trouble. He knew that much. And he’d turned over all the possibilities in his mind. Had her business crashed in the recession, and she needed money? Had a client asked her to do something illegal? Had she discovered someone was cooking the books at a company, and she didn’t know what to do about it? Or was it something personal? He didn’t even want to speculate on what that might be.
Forcing the issue, he finally asked, “What brings you here?”
Suddenly she looked as if she wanted to cry—and as if she wasn’t going to give in to tears.
“You’ll feel better when you tell me.”
“I doubt it.” She swallowed hard, then raised her head and met his gaze. “My son, Trevor, has been kidnapped,” she blurted. “I think you’re the only one who can help me find him.”
Although the words reached his ears, they didn’t really make sense. Maybe because, in a million years, he never would have expected them.
“Did I hear that right? You have a son, and he’s been kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“Good Lord. I didn’t know … I mean. You have a son?” he said again, totally confounded by the revelation. The obvious thought leaped into his mind, and he felt his stomach clench. “I didn’t know you’d gotten married.”
She continued to meet his gaze. “I’m not married. He’s four years old, Matt. He’s your son, too.”
The shock and confusion was like a body blow, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Shaking his head, he tried to clear his brain. He couldn’t be hearing her correctly—could he? “I don’t think I’m getting all of this quite right.”
In a high, strained voice, she said, “I know I’ve shocked you. I didn’t know how else to say it. Five years ago, I left you because you told me you didn’t want to get married. And you didn’t want children. Then I found out I was pregnant, and I wasn’t going to come back and beg you to marry me. So I just….” She let go of the mug and flapped one arm. “I just went it alone.”
He tried to imagine what she’d been through, what she was going through now.
“You’re saying he’s been kidnapped?” Matt said, his own voice turning rough. This was like a nightmare. An old nightmare coming back. Only she didn’t know it yet.
“Yes.”
He asked the next obvious question. “And the police and the FBI are looking for him?”
The scared, determined look on her face tore at his heart. “No! I can’t go to them.”
“You have to!”
“I can’t!” she shouted, then lowered her voice. “Somebody picked him up at day care two days ago. A man, apparently. He made the teacher think he had my permission. But he left a note for me with her. It said that if I contacted the police or the FBI, they’d kill Trevor.”
The revelation tipped her over the edge. It looked as if she’d been holding herself together with strapping tape. Suddenly, all pretense of composure evaporated. She began to cry in great gulping gasps, her shoulders shaking as the sobs racked her body.
Matt shot out of his chair, came around the table and hauled her up. When he wrapped his arms around her, she leaned into him. As he folded her close, he knew he needed to hold on to her as much as she needed to cling to him.
While he rocked her gently in his arms, he tried to process everything she’d just told him. It was too much to take in all at once, but he had to because the past was rushing back to body-slam him.
Shelley gulped, and he could feel her trying to pull herself together.
Now he was the one who was hanging on to composure by a thread.
“You have no idea who took him?” he asked.
“No,” she whispered.
“And you have no idea what they want?”
“No.”
“They didn’t ask for money?”
“I’m telling you everything I know.”
He stroked her back. “Okay. I believe you.” Sucking in a breath, he let it out in a rush, knowing he was going to make this worse for her. For both of them.
“A long time ago, I was kidnapped,” he said.
Her head jerked up, and she stared at him through brimming eyes. “What?”
He had turned the tables on her. Now she had to process what she was hearing. “You were kidnapped?” “Yes.”
“You never told me about it!”
“It’s not something I was prepared to talk about—with anyone.” But now that he’d opened the subject, he knew she had a thousand questions, and he would do his best to answer them. He’d told her she’d feel better when she explained why she’d come. Strangely, he was discovering the truth of his own words. Despite the circumstances, it was a relief to stop lying. Well, lying by omission.
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.” Before she could ask another question, he pressed ahead. “A couple of friends and I had gotten off the school bus. A white van stopped and somebody pulled me inside.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember!”
“But you got away!” she whispered, and he knew she was grasping onto that fact. He was here. Somehow he’d escaped from his captors.
“I came back three months later. I don’t have any memories of what happened to me while I was gone. The next thing I remember is wandering along the stream on the ranch.”
“You were safe!”
“Yeah. But I made the decision never to have children. Never to put a child of my own in danger. Now I know I was right.”
“Matt, what are you saying?” she gasped, obviously trying to put it all together.
“Shelley, it can’t be a coincidence that I was kidnapped, and then Trevor. It’s got to be related.”
When she stared at him, stunned, he said, “I understand your confusion. Let’s sit down where we’ll be comfortable.”
He led her down the hall to the den where they’d sat on so many evenings long ago. After seating her on the sofa, he crossed to the fireplace and removed the screen. Kneeling down, he struck a long match and lit the kindling under the dry logs in the grate, watching them flame up.
When she turned, he saw Shelley huddled on the cushions, staring at the fire as though the flames held the answer to their problems.
“I tried,” he said. “I tried to keep it from happening again.”
She nodded, and he knew he had to tell her the rest of it.
Still standing with his back to the fire, he said, “I may not remember what happened to me, but I know it changed me.”
Lifting her gaze, she asked, “How?”
He swallowed, because as bad as the first part of his revelation had been, he was just getting to the worst part.
BIG BOYS don’t cry. Trevor Young knew that, but it was hard to keep tears from leaking down his cheeks.
He was cold and hungry, and he wanted to go home. He wanted his mommy.
With a trembling hand, he swiped the tears away.
“Mommy,” he whispered so that the man named Blue wouldn’t hear him. “Mommy, please come get me out of here.” He didn’t think that she could hear him. But he couldn’t stop himself from talking to her because it made him feel a little better.
He was in a cabin in the middle of a field—with trees all around the edges, except where the road cut through. He could look out the window, but he couldn’t see any other houses. Maybe there were some behind the trees. Or maybe not.
He wanted to get away. But the window was locked. And so was the door. And sometimes Blue put a handcuff on Trevor like the police did on TV when they were taking the bad guys to the police station. The cuff was attached to a chain. And the chain was attached to the bed frame. So he couldn’t move very far.
Only it was all backward now. The bad guy had the handcuffs. Not the police.
He lay curled on the bed, hugging his knees. When he heard the doorknob turn, he burrowed under the covers, wishing he could hide.
Footsteps crossed the wooden floor, and he knew Blue was looking down at him. If he pretended to be sleeping, would the man go away?
Instead, he pulled down the blanket, and Trevor couldn’t stop himself from whimpering. “Please, let me go back to my mommy.”
“Don’t give me a hard time, kid.”
“Why are you so mean?”
“It’s my job.”
“What kind of job is that?” “Stop asking questions.”
The hard look in the man’s eyes made Trevor clamp his lips together.
Blue pulled his hand from behind his back, and Trevor saw that he was holding a hypodermic needle.
Trevor cringed away. The man had already given him some shots that hurt a lot. In his back. “Please, please don’t do that to me again.”
“Shut up. The sooner we do this, the sooner it will be over.” As the man grabbed his arm, Trevor started to cry.
SHELLEY STARED at the harsh lines of Matt’s face. The way he said that being kidnapped had changed him scared her.
“You have to tell me what you mean.”
He looked as though he didn’t want to speak.
“You’re the one who brought it up!” she threw at him.
“Yeah. Because of the reason you came here.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then said, “Shelley, I’ve never told this to anyone. Well, I mean, my mom figured it out. But I never admitted anything—even to her. Especially to her.”
She kept her gaze steady. “I’m still not following you.”
“When I was kidnapped, I was just an ordinary kid. When I came back, I was different.”
She wanted to scream at him. Whatever he was planning to say, he was dancing around it. “Spell it out,”
“Okay. I can make people do things.”
“That’s your terrible secret?” she shot back. “Well, what’s the big deal? I can make people do things, too. I can make Trevor go to bed at bedtime. I can make his nursery school teacher be more sensitive to his needs.” She bit her lip. “Well, I could do those things—before he disappeared. So what exactly do you mean?”
He thrust his hands into his pockets. “I mean that I can suggest a course of action—and the person will follow it. I don’t mean I say or do anything. I just think about it—and they do it.”
“That’s … nonsense.”
His stance turned aggressive. “Oh, yeah? So you think it was all your idea to leave me?” “Of course it was!”
“Not true. I put the idea in your mind—and you did it.” “How?”
“I don’t exactly know. I came back from those three missing months with the power to influence people.”
She stared at him, trying to take that in, and trying to figure out what it meant to him. She’d driven here through a raging storm because she needed his help. Now it seemed as though he’d come unhinged. From the news that he had a son and that Trevor was missing? Or had it started earlier—when he’d walled himself off from the world?
As she regarded him, she started putting a bunch of things together, a bunch of things that added up to very odd behavior. He’d given up raising horses. He had an alarm system to warn him if someone was sneaking up on him. He was holed up here in this house like a hermit. He had a bunch of guns, not just normal rancher’s hardware. And she was locked in here with him.
Suddenly, she was wondering what Matt Whitlock might do if he thought he was cornered.
When he started toward her, she cringed—giving away her fears.
He stopped short, staring at her. “You’re afraid of me,” he said in a flat voice. “No.”
He shook his head. “It’s written all over your face, but I don’t blame you.”
“You say you have this talent—and you never told anyone about it,” she challenged.
“That’s right.” He sighed.
“Why not?”
His expression turned glacial. “For starters, my mother tried to beat it out of me. I’ve told you what she was like. Strict. Absolutely certain of what was right and what was wrong. She used to talk about the neighbors. The people in town. She’d make judgments about them—and nobody ever came up to her standards. She even drove an extra fifty miles to a dry goods store because she didn’t like Mr. Mason, the guy who owned the mercantile in Yuma.” He took a breath.
“When she realized what I could do, she was sure it was the work of the devil. None of that made for an idyllic childhood.”
Her heart squeezed, and she tried to imagine what it must have been like for him—if he was telling the truth.
He sighed. “I see you’re having a little trouble with the concept. Do you want me to prove it?”
“How?”
“We’ll call Ed Janey over from the bunkhouse, and I’ll get him to do something.”
“Maybe it will be something he was going to do anyway.”
He laughed. “I mean, you can choose what you want him to do.”
“Like what?” “Anything.”
She thought for a minute, trying to come up with something Matt wouldn’t think of. Something that wasn’t obvious. “You used to keep cans of vegetable beef soup in the pantry. Do you still?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him to get a can from the shelf—and take it home,” she tossed out, sure that would be the end of the experiment.
To her surprise, Matt said, “Okay. Come back to the kitchen and we’ll call him.”
He walked past her, and she could have refused to go along with this crazy plan. Instead she climbed off the couch and followed him down the hall.
When she stepped through the door, he was holding the receiver of the wall phone and dialing.
“Ed?” he said.
She couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but she made sure Matt wasn’t giving his foreman any clues.
“There’s somebody over here who wants to say hello to you. Would you mind coming over?”
“Yeah. In this weather.”
He hung up and turned to her. “He’ll be here as soon as he can get his coat and boots on.” “Okay.”
She walked to the table and picked up the mug of chocolate. It wasn’t very hot anymore, but sipping it gave her something to do while she waited in the kitchen with a man who might be insane. She didn’t want to think about it that way, but she couldn’t stop herself from studying Matt’s blue eyes, his mouth, his big rugged hands. He’d left his gun in the mudroom. Did he have another one in a kitchen drawer?
The clock on the wall ticked off the minutes, and she wondered if Ed was really coming. Or had Matt even spoken to Ed? Maybe this was all a sham. Like in a horror movie. She fought to get that notion out of her head.
When Matt saw her watching him, he went to the window and looked out at the wide expanse of white. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the back door. She heard someone stamping snow off his boots. Then Ed Janey came into the kitchen. He’d hung his coat up and was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. His shoulders were a little stooped, his hair had gone completely gray, and his weathered face was more lined. But he had the same lean body that she remembered from when she’d lived at the ranch. They’d been friends back then.
“Shelley?” he said as soon as he saw her. “Is it really you?”
“Yes.”
He crossed the kitchen and wrapped her in his arms. “It’s so good to see you.”
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “And you, too.”
“What brings you here?”
She glanced at Matt, then away. “I needed Matt’s help with something,” she said in a low voice.
Ed stepped back and studied her. “You got troubles, honey?”
“Nothing too bad,” she managed to say.
He looked from her to the window and back again. “Heck of a day for a visit.”
“I was passing by,” she murmured, wondering if he believed her.
They chatted about old times for a few more minutes, and she heard regret in Ed’s voice. Obviously he wished that Matt was working the ranch. Did the foreman feel useless? Probably, and that was a shame, because he’d been such an important part of the work life of the spread. Now he probably felt that he was living here on Matt’s charity.
She wanted to ask him what he did all day now, but she understood that was a topic better left untouched.
When they came to the end of the conversation, he said, “Well, it’s good seeing you, but I’d better be getting back.”
As she watched him take a step toward the door, she wondered what kind of farce they’d been acting out. Did Matt really think he was going to get away with this insane tactic?
Maybe she’d be safer if she went back to the bunkhouse with Ed.
Chapter Three
Shelley’s breath turned shallow as she watched Ed hesitate where he stood in the middle of the kitchen. For a moment, he looked totally confused. Then he made a little burbling sound in his throat and walked past her and into the pantry. When he emerged again, he was clutching a can of vegetable beef soup.
He stopped short, holding the can and looking at it as though it was a foreign object. “What am I doing?” he muttered. His expression changed to one of embarrassment as he glanced from the can to Matt. “This is yours. I should put this back.”
“No. That’s fine,” Matt said. “I know you always liked it. Take it home and have it for dinner.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course.”
Still clutching the can, Ed hurried into the mudroom, and Shelley could hear his coat rustling.
Moments later, the back door slammed, and she was left alone with Matt who was gazing at her with what she could only call a smug expression on his face.
Her pulse was pounding as she looked back at him. She’d thought he was spinning a story—for some reason that she couldn’t figure out. She’d thought maybe he was coming unglued. But he’d told her to pick something to have Ed do—and the man had done it. It had been entirely her choice.
Ed had hesitated at first, like he didn’t know why he was getting the soup, but in the end, he’d followed what must have been Matt’s silent directions.
All at once she was unsteady on her feet. Weak-kneed, she dropped into the nearest chair and grasped the edge of the table in front of her.
Matt stood across from her, his face turned to a mask of tension. “You still think I’m crazy?” “I didn’t say that.”
“I don’t have to be a mind reader to know what was dancing through your head.”
She felt her cheeks flush. “I’m sorry. You’ve got to admit, it sounded … off the wall when you told me about it.”
“Yeah. It takes some getting used to, all right. I sort of came to the realization gradually when I was a kid. At first I couldn’t believe it myself.”
“How did you discover something like that?”
He laughed. “I guess the first time was when I wanted to watch a TV program, and my mom wanted to make sure I’d done my homework first. It was a really important program. At least for a twelve-year old. A Bonanza rerun, I think. I silently asked her to let me watch instead, and she amazed me by doing it.
“Remember, I told you she was pretty strict. So her changing her mind was … unusual. The next time I tried it, I wanted chili for dinner. And I told her to make it—without saying anything out loud. She did.”
“That must have given you a feeling of power.”
“Yeah, but not for long. My mom was the kind of mother who watches for you to do something wrong so she can punish you.”
Shelley winced, wondering what it would be like to grow up like that. Her own parents had always been warm and loving and supportive. They’d raised her to believe in herself and to take responsibility for her own decisions. They’d died before she knew she was going to have a baby, but their confidence in her had given her the courage to raise a child on her own. Sometimes it made her sad that Trevor would never know his grandparents. He’d never make cookies with her mom the way she had, or go fishing with her dad. And every holiday had had its traditions—like fun stocking stuffers at Christmas. She’d made sure to do all those things with her own son. Matt was still speaking.
“Mom was smart. She caught on pretty fast—and started beating the crap out of me when she thought I was—she called it �pushing’ her. I guess that’s as good a name as any for what I can do.”
She nodded.
“And then she would go around talking to teachers and other people I knew, finding out if I’d �pushed’ them. So I had to be careful if I wanted to use it.” He laughed. “Like once when I should have gotten detention, and I persuaded the teacher to let me off. Mom found out about it and made sure it never happened again.”
Shelley’s chest was so tight she could barely breathe. “I’m sorry. I had no idea about any of that.”
“Of course not, because I never let on. It got stronger the older I got, but I used it less and less.” He made a dismissive sound. “I think it’s one of the reasons I’m good at training horses. I can get into their minds, too.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I decided it was weird.”
Shelley was still taking everything in. Now that Matt was talking to her so openly, it seemed that she had missed so many opportunities to connect with him on a meaningful level when they’d been together.
“What did your mom think of your being kidnapped—and showing up again?” she asked.
“She never could explain it. And she acted like she thought I was lying about not remembering what had happened to me.” “She sounds … like a real gem.”
He shrugged. “She died ten years ago.” He grimaced. “I was sad, but I was relieved, too. Relieved to be free of the pressure of not antagonizing her.”
Shelley winced. “When you were kidnapped, she told the authorities?”
“No. She thought I’d run away.”
“A twelve-year-old?”
He shrugged again. “And she was determined not to have anyone think ill of her because of it. So she told folks I was visiting my uncle.”
“That’s child abuse.”
He shrugged again.
“I don’t dwell on my relationship with her.” Switching back to the previous topic, he said, “I don’t know how I got the talent. But I thought it had something to do with those missing months. I figured they’d done something to me. Something that—” he swallowed “—something that changed my DNA.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Maybe because I read a lot of science fiction novels. Then, when I got older, I read scientific literature on the subject. Anyway, I didn’t want to pass it on to any child of mine. That was why I vowed never to marry and never to have children.”
Shelley looked out into the darkness, then back at Matt. “That’s why you walled yourself off here?”
“Yeah. And … because I could never stop thinking that since I’d been taken away once, it could happen again. Now it has happened—but not to me.”
“Oh, Matt.”
He sounded so lost and defeated that she sprang out of the chair, crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him.
As he stood rigidly in her embrace, she started speaking quickly. “It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. It’s just something that happened to you.”
“And to my son.”
“But you came back.”
“I was twelve. He’s only … four.”
When she pressed her face against his chest to muffle a sob, his arms came up to clasp her to him. “Shelley, I’m so sorry that I brought this on you—and Trevor.”
“I’m sorry too,” she whispered. “I should have told you about your son. I should have made you part of his life. He missed knowing my parents, and he missed knowing you.”
“And you worked hard to make up for that.”
“Yes. We could have had more money, if I’d taken more clients. But I spent time with him instead.” She flapped her arm. “I felt guilty about that, too. I kept thinking that if I could have afforded a more expensive nursery school, he wouldn’t have gotten stolen.”
“Don’t! They would have gotten to him some other way.”
She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “I thought I was doing the right thing, but I know now that I was fooling myself. I was being selfish. I didn’t want to get into a fight with you about my getting pregnant. So I just avoided the issue and kept Trevor all to myself.”
He squeezed her tightly, then eased away. “Will you tell me about him?”
“Yes. I’ve got pictures in my wallet. Is my purse in the mudroom?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I should have given it to you.”
“I didn’t need it,” she answered on the way to retrieve her purse. Opening her wallet, she got out a handful of pictures of a dark-haired little boy with blue eyes. The earliest one showed him in a high chair banging a plastic cup against the tray. Then there were two pictures of him at a playground. A school picture where he was posed against a blue background and a picture of him on a horse. “He rides?”
“I figured he’d like horses. That was at a rodeo that came through Boulder.”
“He looks like me,” Matt marveled.
“Yes. I’ve got a lot more pictures at home. Not just pictures. I’ve got videos. And I try to write down the interesting or the funny things he does. I guess in the back of my mind I was keeping a record for you. But I couldn’t admit that to myself.”
“Tell me more about him.”
“He’s … sweet. And smart. He’s memorized all the songs they sing at school. He loves to paint. He’s already learning to read.”
Matt looked impressed.
She laughed. “He likes chili. I guess he gets that from you. But it’s hard to get him to drink his milk.” She glanced at the mugs still sitting on the table. “I have to put chocolate in it.”
Eagerly she went on to tell him so many of the things she hadn’t been able to share with him. They made her feel closer to Matt—and to Trevor, too.
“It sounds like you’re a good mother.”
“I let somebody take him,” she whispered, because she knew that if she tried to speak louder, she’d break down again.
“You couldn’t guard him every minute. You had to work—to support him. Sending him to nursery school was a good option. And you had no idea that anyone was after him,” he finished.
“Now it feels like I was living in a fool’s paradise.” “I’m the one who would have been on guard.” “But you couldn’t be. Because I didn’t tell you.” He sighed deeply. “We’d better stop assigning blame. You came here so I could help you get him back. We’ll do it.” She nodded, hope blooming inside her. She hadn’t known any of Matt’s history, but knowing it made her feel as though they could find their son.
“You need to eat something. Then we’ll get to work looking for him.”
“Not the best conditions for traveling.”
“We’ll start with the computer. With abductions. The way the world is wired today, it’s hard to keep anything in isolation—even when they told you not to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
He had just gotten up when a buzzer sounded, and she jumped.
“What’s that?”
“The alarm. That’s how I knew you were coming up the road.”
Fear zinged through her. “You think somebody’s watching the ranch? That they know I’m here?”
“I don’t know, but better safe than sorry.” He walked rapidly to the back entryway and took down a holster and a gun. Then he began getting into his cold-weather gear.
“What are you doing?”
“Going out to have a look. Like I did for you.”
As she watched his preparations, she was thinking that in the normal course of events, he’d be considered paranoid for going out in the snow to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him. But it wasn’t paranoia when you’d been kidnapped as a child, and when there had just been another kidnapping.
Still, she grabbed his arm before he could step out the door, and he turned to face her. “What?”
Her lips trembled. “If the kidnapper knows I’m here, they could hurt Trevor.”
He stood looking at her, considering. “I think we have to assume that they want him for something, and they’re not going to hurt him. They told you not to go to the authorities so they wouldn’t have any interference.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she murmured.
“Just like they wanted me for something,” he added.
“What?”
He swallowed. “To experiment on me, I guess.” Fear clutched at her insides again. “Do you think they’ll do the same thing to Trevor that they did to you?” “I don’t know.” “I’m scared.” He nodded tightly.
“Are you thinking we should call the FBI?”
“Not yet. I’m thinking we should handle this by ourselves, under the radar—and use the FBI as a last resort. But I’d like to make sure we are under the radar.”
“Yes,” she agreed. She’d been on her own for so long, it was a relief to have someone else to share the decisions—and the worry. But she was going to carry her weight. Following him to the mudroom, she reached for her coat. “I’m coming with you.”
“No. Stay here where it’s safe.” “You could get Ed.”
“I don’t want to put him in danger—or anyone else.”
Her heart started to pound as she peered into the darkness. “You think it’s dangerous out there?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve had a lot more experience with protecting myself than you have.”
She wanted to ask what he meant—exactly. Had someone threatened him since the boyhood kidnapping? But she knew that this wasn’t the time for questions, not when he needed to focus on whatever was out there. So she watched as he slipped out the door and into the frigid night.
Still, as he disappeared around the side of the house, she had to force herself not to follow him as another scenario zinged into her mind. What if they both had it wrong? What if someone was returning Trevor to them—at the ranch?
Her heart started pounding harder. Maybe that was it! Maybe all her fear and terror would be over soon.
Please, Lord, let that be true. Whoever had Trevor was returning him, just like they’d returned Matt. The same people? She didn’t care at the moment. She just wanted to hold her son in her arms again and smother him with kisses. She wanted to make him laugh. And she wanted to run her fingers through his silky hair. So much. But she ordered herself not to clutch at straws. Why would someone kidnap Trevor—then bring him back?
It didn’t make sense, but it was exactly what had happened to Matt. After three months, she reminded herself.
Feeling as if she’d caught the paranoia bug, she turned off the lights before walking to the window and staring out. When a shadow flitted by, she stiffened. Then she recognized Matt’s tall form, checking out the ranch yard.
At least it was easy to do in this weather, she realized. If someone had come up to the house, he’d see tracks in the snow.
Her stomach clenched again as she remembered struggling up the road toward the house. But nobody would be foolish enough to leave a little boy out in the snow like that—would they?
She opened and closed her fists, forcing herself not to run outside. Trevor probably wasn’t even here. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from clinging to that hope because the thing she wanted most in the world was to get her little boy back.
Please, Lord, please. Let Matt come back with our son.
Every few moments, she glanced at the clock, keeping track of the time Matt had been gone. After five minutes, she started pacing the kitchen, returning to the window periodically to stare outside.
After ten minutes, she wanted to scream.
Why hadn’t she insisted on going out there? It was all she could do to stay in the house—while she listened for the sound of gunshots.
But the only sound she heard was the pounding of blood in her ears. Until the back door opened, and Matt stepped back into the mudroom.
“Did you find Trevor?” she blurted as she turned the lights back on.
He tipped his head to the side, looking confused. “Trevor?”
She flushed, knowing that his mind hadn’t taken the same leap as hers. “I … I was hoping that whoever took him returned him to us. Here.”
Understanding bloomed on his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t find him.”
“Okay,” she answered, defeated.
He pulled off his coat and stamped snow off his boots.
“What did you find?”
“I think the only tracks leading up and down the road are yours and mine, although I can’t be absolutely sure in the dark. Someone could have stepped in my footprints to disguise their trail.”
“Okay.”
“But I did see deer tracks down there. Maybe they set off the alarm.”
She nodded. “I guess it was stupid of me to think someone would bring Trevor back—just like that.”
“It could have been true—given what happened with me.”
“But you don’t remember anything from while you were gone.”
“No!”
The way he said it made her throat tighten. “I’m sorry.” “If I remember anything, you’ll be the first to know,” he snapped, then looked apologetic. “Sorry, I’m on edge.” “We both are.”
“There’s a café in town that makes pretty decent chili.”
“You’re not suggesting that we go out, are you?”
Matt shook his head. “No. I bring it home in plastic containers. I thawed out a batch and stuck it in the refrigerator this morning.” He laughed. “That sounds pathetic doesn’t it?”
“Of course not. Cooking is a chore,” she answered.
MATT COULD HAVE told her that he had plenty of time for chores. Instead, he opened the refrigerator and took out the carton.
“I’m not very hungry,” she murmured. “Neither am I. But we have to eat. We can each take a bowl of chili into the office while we do a computer search.” “Of what?”
“Missing children. I can’t believe we’re not going to find some cases that match Trevor’s disappearance.”
When he saw hope bloom on her face, he felt his chest tighten. So that she wouldn’t see anything revealing in his eyes, he got out a glass bowl from a lower cabinet. After dumping the chili inside, he covered it with wax paper and set it in the microwave.
She’d come here because she had been at the end of her rope. Not like his mother who had pretended everything was fine and dandy while he was gone.
That told him something. She was a good mother to their son. And he was glad she had turned to him.
Could they find Trevor, then settle down together? His heart leaped at the thought. But was there any way to live as a normal family, or would there always be a threat hanging over him? Over them?
He struggled not to shudder, but she must have been watching him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Your shoulders are so rigid.”
He made himself turn and face her. “This is a difficult situation, but we’re going to get through it.”
She gulped. “Are we going to find Trevor?”
“If it’s humanly possible.” He laughed. “And maybe my inhuman talent will help us.”
“It’s not inhuman.”
“What would you call it.”
“Extraordinary. Something that gives you an advantage over other people. In this case, over the bad guys—whoever they are.”
He nodded. Although he hadn’t thought of it that way, she was right.
Turning practical again, he asked, “What do you want to drink with dinner?”
She shrugged. “Coffee—if we’re going to be up searching the Web.”
He got a bag of coffee beans out of the freezer. While he ground the beans, she took down two bowls and spoons. They’d prepared a lot of meals together five years ago. It felt good getting back into that routine, but he reminded himself not to get too comfortable. She was only here to get his help in finding her son. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from hoping for more.
They both carried their food and drinks to his study, where he cleared off a space on the desk. Then he pulled over the extra chair.
As he did, his hands tightened on the back. He’d bought the chair for her when she’d been doing his accounts, and the two of them had sat where they could both look at the computer screen.
They were going to do it again, but this time the mission was a lot more important than making sure the Silver Stallion Ranch wasn’t spending more than it was taking in. They were going to find out what had happened to their son.
His son! He was still trying to wrap his head around that concept, but the reality had taken hold as soon as she’d told him about Trevor.
He booted the computer, then took a spoonful of chili while he waited for the machine to go through its opening routine.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said as she watched his opening program bring up the news.
“Google,” he said with confidence. He began by typing in a search field, then started cruising Web sites with information on missing children.
There was one site that listed children who had disappeared recently, but Trevor wasn’t on it—because he had never been reported missing.
There was a site of “cold cases,” but that, too, led to a dead end.
He checked law-enforcement sites in Colorado and surrounding states, then widened the search to the whole U.S.
When that didn’t pan out, he went to private web pages of parents who were trying to find their children, but none of them seemed to have any relevance.
Beside him, he could feel Shelley willing him to find something—anything—that would help them.
A FEW HUNDRED FEET from the ranch road, in a patch of snow-covered pine trees, Bobby Savage and Don Campbell sat in a darkened sedan. Savage was blond with blue eyes. Campbell was dark.
Savage had a scar on his lip from an old knife fight. Campbell had a broken nose. He was a big guy with broad shoulders. Savage was smaller and quicker. But external appearances aside, they were very much alike. Either of them could kill a person as easily as they could run over a cat crossing the road.
They’d once enjoyed plenty of contract work in the New York/New Jersey area, doing whatever they were asked as long as the job paid well. Intimidation and murder were their specialties.
But after a job where they’d left some unfortunate evidence, the east coast had become a little hot for them. Since neither of them had enough money to retire comfortably, they’d accepted a gig out of Denver. After completing that assignment successfully, more jobs had rolled their way. The former city boys had adapted to working in the wide-open spaces of the west.
Too bad it was cold as a witch’s lips out here.
“Turn up the heat again,” Campbell said.
Savage reached for the control and cranked up the blower. As warm air flooded the car, Campbell sighed.
“This is a bitch of an assignment.”
“The pay is good.”
“But I don’t like the way we’re communicating with the guy who hired us.”
“Advanced technology.” Savage pulled out his BlackBerry and looked at the screen. There was nothing new. There had been nothing new for the past few hours.
“Does he think we’re going to sit here all night?”
“I expect so.”
Savage reached into the back seat and retrieved the bag of food they’d picked up at a fast-food restaurant in Yuma. Turning on a small flashlight, he directed the beam into the bag, then pulled out a wrapped hamburger that had gone cold hours ago. With a grimace he set it on his lap, then reached for the thermos of coffee that he’d stuffed into the door pocket.
“You’re gonna have to get out and pee,” Campbell cautioned, the idea of unzipping his fly in this weather making him shiver.
His partner gave him a knowing look. “Yeah. And eventually so will you—if we’re gonna be here all night.”
Savage craned his neck toward the ranch road. “I say they’re not going anywhere until at least the morning.”
“And your point is?”
“We could get a room in that town we passed and come back in the morning.”
“You want to take a chance on losing them?”
Savage considered the question. He didn’t know much about the man who had hired them, but he suspected that failure would be bad for their health.
With a sigh, he settled down in his seat for a long night in the cold.
BESIDE Matt, Shelley made a low sound. “This isn’t doing any good.”
He glanced over at her and saw that her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. It looked as though she was trying desperately to hold herself together, and he didn’t blame her.
“Give me a little more time,” he muttered.
“Okay.”
Shelley leaned back and closed her eyes, and he knew she must be exhausted. She’d left Boulder early, then gotten caught in the storm, then come staggering up the road in snow up to her knees. He wanted to reach out and wrap her in his arms, but the rigid line of her jaw told him she didn’t want comfort. She wanted results, although she didn’t need to sit here while he tried to get them.
“Do you want to go to bed?”
Her eyes snapped open again. “No! I want to stay here in case you find something.”
He didn’t try to send her away again, because he knew that as long as he was sitting here, she was going to stay. She’d come to him for help, and he’d thought he could at least give them a start on the Web. He’d gone down a long list of sites, but he was losing faith in his ability to find anything. At least on this particular topic.
Still, he wasn’t going to give up. Not while Shelley was sitting next to him, counting on him.
The Google entries were getting repetitive. He’d seen a lot of them before, but as he scrolled down, he spotted a new one that looked interesting. It wasn’t from any organization. Instead it belonged to a man named Jack Maddox who was trying to find his missing brother, Jared.
Could this be the break he’d been looking for?
Matt clicked on the URL and waited with a sense of anticipation while the site loaded. Scrolling down, he saw something that made him gasp—a picture of an eight-pointed star.
Chapter Four
“What is it?” Shelley asked, her voice urgent.
Matt couldn’t speak. As he stared at the image of the star on the screen, dark visions swam in his mind, memories that had never been accessible to him. Seeing that eight-pointed symbol had been like a mental door opening. Suddenly he knew where he had been when he’d been kidnapped all those years ago.
Beside him, Shelley turned in her seat and clamped slender fingers onto his arm. “Matt, what is it?”
With a hand he couldn’t quite hold steady, he pointed to the strange-looking star.
“That.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. A symbol. As soon as I saw it, something leaped into my mind.”
“Something like what?” she demanded.
The memory had been sharp and painful—and disturbing. If he told her, was she going to freak out like she had when he’d admitted his secret talent?
She wasn’t giving him a choice. Tightening her hold on him, she demanded, “You have to tell me! You can’t hold anything back because you think it’s going to frighten me—or disturb me.”
“I’m the one who’s freaking out,” he managed. “I told you that the time when I was kidnapped was a total blank. It was, but when I saw that star, I remembered … things.”
“Bad things?” she asked in a strained voice.
“Yeah.” He swallowed hard, wondering how he was going to say the next part. “A holding cell. There were bright lights over my head. They kept me awake. I’m sure there was a camera high up on the wall. I was alone. And scared.”
She made a low sound. “That’s when you were twelve?”
“Yes.” Now that he’d told her that much, he found he needed to say the rest of it aloud—to make sure he wasn’t making it up. “There was a narrow bed in the cell. Men would come in and take me down the hall to a … I don’t know. It was like a doctor’s office, I guess. They gave me all kinds of physical exams.”
He gulped. “And they strapped me down and stuck needles into my back. Then into my arm.”
She gasped. “Oh Lord. That must have been so awful. Do … do you think the same people have Trevor?”
“I don’t know.” I hope not, he silently added, knowing that she was probably thinking the same thing.
It was all he could do to stop himself from shaking. He wanted to be alone, to deal with this in private, but Shelley was sitting beside him, and he couldn’t duck away from her. Not now.
“Why did they let you go?”
“I … I think I used my power to … give them a push. I mean, I put the suggestion into their minds, and they took me home.”
“And you didn’t have the power to do that—before they captured you?”
“Not hardly.”
“So what they did to you—with those shots and all—caused it?”
“I think that must be true.”
She ran a shaky hand through her hair as she took that in, then made a strangled exclamation. “Will … Trevor … be able to do that?” “I don’t know!”
“If he could, they’d let him go.” “We hope.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and he forced himself not to look away. Finally, she turned back to the computer screen.
“Don’t you think that guy, Jack Maddox, was probably captured by the same people? I mean if he has that star on his Web site—and it made you remember what happened to you.”
He nodded. The memories had excited him at first. Now they dug painful claws into the cells of his brain.
Shelley scrolled through the Web site. “Look. There’s a phone number. We can call him and find out what he knows.”
Matt felt desperation warring with hope. Maybe this man had some information that would lead them to Trevor, but he knew that they had to be cautious. “We can’t call,” he said.
Her instant disappointment tore at him. “Why not?”
“For starters, my phone might be tapped.”
“Even your cell phone?”
“Yeah. And if they’re listening in on me, they’ll go right to Jack Maddox’s house. Or—it could be a trap. Suppose it’s not really a guy looking for his brother. Suppose the bad guys put up this site to find people they’d kidnapped when they were kids.”
She winced. “Why would they do that?”
“Hell, I don’t know. To get us back. Or to find out who remembers what. Maybe when somebody remembers they wipe out his memory again.”
She gave a little nod. “I didn’t think of that. It sounds so diabolical.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve rolled it around in my mind for years.”
“That’s what you were doing when I’d wake up and find you lying there, and I’d know you hadn’t been sleeping?” “Yes.”
“I wish I’d known what you were going through.” “I was hiding it from you—and everybody else. I wanted to seem normal.” “Oh, Matt.” “Don’t pity me.”
“I …” she stopped and started again. “You think someone is listening to your phone calls?”
“I don’t know!” he answered, managing not to shout but knowing that he was going to lose control if he wasn’t careful. He turned back to the screen. “Look at how this Web site is set up. Let’s assume Maddox is for real. He’s being cautious, too. He’s not saying a lot. If I hadn’t seen that star, I wouldn’t have remembered anything. I wouldn’t have thought about contacting the guy.”
She scrolled through the material again and turned back to him. “I … guess you’re right. We can’t call, but what are we going to do?”
“Tomorrow, we go see the guy.”
She looked from him to the screen and back again. “But he’s in Rapid City, South Dakota.”
Matt checked the mileage on Google. It’s about 365 miles. We can be there in two hours.”
She gave him a questioning look. “How?”
“We’ll fly.”
“But if we’re trying to—” she stopped and gestured with her hand “—trying to hide our plans, won’t there be a record of our reservations?”
“We’re not making reservations. I have a Cessna at the Yuma Municipal Airport.”
“A Colorado town of three thousand has an airport?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. And why do you have a plane there?”
He turned his hand palm up, thinking that they’d cut through a lot of his barriers in the short time she’d been here. He’d never discussed his feelings with anyone, but he was doing it now. “The ranch is my home. But sometimes I feel the place closing in on me, and I need to get away. When I do, I take off and fly somewhere I haven’t been before—where I can lose myself for a while.”
“It’s because of that holding cell,” she whispered. “I guess so.”
Because he was too restless to sit, he stood and walked to the window, where he stared out into the darkness, wishing he could blot out the scenes playing through his head.
He knew why he had wiped away the memories of his time in captivity. They were too awful for a twelve-year-old boy to remember and too awful for him now.
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