by Elle James
“Please. Miss Hayes makes me sound old.”
He chuckled. “You don’t sound old to me.” He’d never been good at chit-chat, but he wanted to hear her voice. It made him feel connected. If she ended the call, he wouldn’t know where she was or how she was doing. If she ran off the road, he’d have no idea where to look. “How old are you? Or is that one of those questions a man’s not supposed to ask?”
“No. It’s okay. I’m twenty-seven,” she replied. “How old are you?”
“Old,” he said. “I’m thirty-four.”
“That’s not old.”
“Tell that to my body,” he said. “It’s seen better days.”
“How do you know Ryan?” she asked.
“He’s one of my teammates.” Rafe frowned. “Was one of my teammates.”
“Was?”
“I separated from the Army a week ago. Your brother and I worked together.”
“Delta Force,” she stated.
“That’s right.” He set his cruise control to keep from speeding up and slowing down.
“Ryan and his teammates are pretty tight,” Briana said in that soft, gravelly tone.
“It happens when you go through some of the shit we’ve gone through. Hayes—Ryan—saved my ass on several occasions.”
“And I’m sure you returned the favor,” Briana said. “My brother calls his teammates his brothers. They’re as much a part of his family as I am. Maybe more.”
“Don’t sell him short. He cares about you. He was on the phone with me right after he hung up with you and Hank. If he hadn’t been on a mission, he would’ve been there for you.”
“I know. I hated calling him, but I didn’t know what else to do.” Her words faded off.
“What happened?” Rafe asked.
“A m-man broke into our ap-partment…and k-killed…my roommate.” He could hear the tears in her garbled words.
“Do you need to pull over?” he asked.
For a long moment, she didn’t answer.
He worried that she would run off the road because she couldn’t see through the tears she must be shedding. “You must have loved your roommate very much,” he said in a soothing tone. “What was his name?”
“Her name was Sheila,” she answered. “He killed Sheila. And yes. I loved her like a sister.”
His gut knotted, and his fists tightened around the steering wheel. He’d lost close friends in battle. No amount of words made it better. He didn’t begin to think anything he could say to her would make the pain any easier to bear. “I’m sorry.”
“She did nothing to deserve what he did to her. Sheila wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Did the homicide detective have any clue as to why he did it?” Rafe asked.
“No. But I think I know why,” she whispered.
Not wanting to push her, he waited for her to continue in her own time.
“I helped a woman and her child find shelter. She was running from the child’s father. H-he sent the man who broke into our apartment and killed Sheila. He was looking for the woman and the child.”
“How do you know this?” Rafe asked.
“I didn’t know that I had the woman’s cellphone. Her baby’s father called it. I answered thinking it was for me. When he didn’t get his woman on the line, he demanded I tell him where she was and threatened to come after me.” She sniffed. “After what his man did to Sheila…”
“You did the right thing to ask for help.”
“I had nowhere else to go. I don’t know who works for him or how deep his contacts might be.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Someone followed me from my apartment. When I tried to lose him, he remained on my tail, until I ran a stoplight and he was blocked by traffic.”
He could hear the terror in her voice. “So, you’re the only one who knows where this woman and her child are hidden?”
“The only one who knows who and where she is. The people at the place she’s staying don’t know her name. I know.” She snorted softly. “Sometimes, I wish I didn’t. But she’s safe for now. I don’t know how she lived with the man or how she got away from him with her baby. He’s evil. I’m not scared easily, but he has me terrified.”
“Hang in there. I’m on my way.”
Several minutes passed in silence.
“Still awake?” he asked after a while.
“Barely,” she admitted.
“Do you want to pull over at the next hotel?”
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid to slow down. He might catch up to me.”
“Then talk to me. It might help to keep you awake,” he urged.
“About what?”
“Tell me about you,” he said. The interstate highway stretched in front of him as he sped across Missouri.
“There’s not much to tell.”
“From?” he prompted.
“Born in Germany. Dad was in the Army, always deployed. Mom raised us,” she said.
“How did you end up in Chicago?”
“My father retired to Bloomington, Illinois. I guess the military was in our blood. As soon as Ryan graduated high school, he joined the Army.”
Rafe smiled. “You didn’t want to?”
“My father and my mother encouraged me to go to college after Ryan joined the Army. I knew I wanted to work with children, so I studied social work.”
“You like children?”
“I do. I wanted a younger brother and sister, but Mom and Dad were happy with just the two of us. We were enough to handle when we had to move so often. I wrote a research paper on causes and the number of cases of child abuse in the state of Illinois. I was appalled by how many were from Chicago and how undermanned the Child Welfare Department was. When I graduated from the university, I applied to the Children and Family Services of Illinois based in Chicago. I’ve worked there for the past five years, trying to help as many children as I could.”
“How’s that worked out for you?” he asked.
After a long pause, she said, “I do the best I can to protect children in abusive situations.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there,” he said.
“But sometimes my best isn’t good enough to save a child.”
“That’s got to be tough.” He couldn’t imagine coming face to face with an adult who repeatedly abused children. He’d put his fist in his or her face for every time they hit, kicked or punched a child.
After a pause, he asked, “Married?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Once I started work, I never had time. There was always one more child who needed my help.” She sighed. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Why the Army? Why did you get out?” she asked. “You’re not old enough to retire.”
He’d agonized over his decision to leave Delta Force. “I didn’t come from as stable a family environment as you.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My father left when I was only two. My mother raised me alone. No brothers or sisters. She drank. When I was a senior in high school, she got so drunk she wandered outside in the dead of night, in the middle of winter. They didn’t find her body until the next morning. She’d passed out in the snow and died where she lay. No one knew. I was asleep in my warm bed.” He remembered that morning when the police came to his house, banged on his door and told him his mother had been found.
“You blamed yourself, didn’t you?” Briana asked in her soft sexy tone.
Yes, he had. “If I hadn’t gone to bed that night, I might have gotten her to put down her whiskey and sleep. She wouldn’t have been out wandering around in the freezing temperatures.”
“You couldn’t have known she would do that,” Briana said.
“No, but I should have done more.” Rafe had agonized over what he should have done so many times in the years since. Nothing could undo what had happened. His mother was dead. She wouldn’t be coming back.
“So, you joined the Army?” Briana spoke softl
y, reminding Rafe he was in a truck, headed toward a woman he’d never met but spoke so easily with that he felt as if he’d known her for a lifetime.
“I was due to graduate high school at the end of the month when she died. I was already eighteen, so the child welfare people didn’t get all in my face about going to foster care. I ended up staying with a friend until school was out. During that time, I met with a recruiter, signed the papers and waited until I received my high school diploma. Then I shipped out to Basic Combat Training the following week. The rest is history.”
“Married?”
“For about a week,” he admitted.
She laughed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed, but a week?”
He liked the sound of her laughter and wished he could make her laugh more. “We met in Basic Training, married as soon as we graduated and realized it was a mistake when we were shipped to different locations for our advanced training.”
“You must have been in love.”
“We were in lust or in love with the idea of having someone permanent in our lives.” He snorted. “It didn’t work for us. We keep in touch through social media and are still friends. She since left the military, married an accountant and has three kids.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “She’s happy. I’m happy for her, and her husband seems to be a really nice guy and great father.” He shrugged though she couldn’t see him. “I realized when I joined Delta Force, I wouldn’t have much of a life. I accepted that and swore off long-term relationships. They just don’t work.”
“They do for some. If you find the right person. I really hope my brother finds the right one for him, someday. He deserves happiness. And he’d make a great father, like our dad.”
“You’re lucky you had him,” Rafe said.
“I know.” She sighed. “I wish he would’ve lived long enough to get to know his grandchildren.”
Rafe frowned. “What happened to him?”
“My father took my mother to Chicago for their anniversary. The weather turned cold and icy. They were killed in a twenty-car pileup on the way back. So, you see, Ryan really is all I have left, now that Sheila is gone.” Her voice faded out.
“I’m sorry.”
“I worry about my brother.”
She had every right to worry about him. “I won’t lie to you,” Rafe said. “Each mission could be his last.”
“I know,” she said. “But he loves what he does. He feels like he’s making a difference.”
“Do you?”
“I hope I make a difference in the lives of the children under my supervision,” Briana said. “I just wish I could do more to keep them from having to be under my care. So many of their parents didn’t have good examples to teach them how to be good parents. A lot of the women had babies in their teens. They were babies themselves.”
“You can’t save them all,” he reminded her.
“I have to remind myself that all the time,” she said. “I can’t save them all, but if I can save some, it’s better than saving none of them.”
Once again, silence stretched between them.
“Huh?” her voice came across slightly strained.
“What?”
“I’m just punchy.”
Rafe’s foot settled on the accelerator, pushing the speed up above the limit by ten miles per hour. “What do you mean? Did something spook you?”
“Yeah, that’s it. I’m spooked.”
“By what?”
She laughed, the sound tight and unconvincing. “I saw a set of headlights in my rearview mirror.”
His hands tightening around the steering wheel, Rafe leaned forward, inching the speedometer up another couple of notches. “Is he catching up?”
“Yes. But I’m sure it’s just another motorist trying to get somewhere. There are a few out here. Mostly big rigs.”
“Keep an eye on him. When do you stop for gas again?”
“Probably in the next thirty minutes. When I left Chicago, I didn’t have a full tank.” Her voice crackled.
“Are you hitting a dead zone?” Rafe asked. “You’re breaking up.”
“Must be. Down…one bar.”
“Keep talking,” he urged, his chest tight. “You might be able to hear me, even if I can’t hear you.”
For the next five minutes, he didn’t hear anything. He kept talking for the first minute, until his cellphone disengaged from hers. He tried to call her. No answer. Again, he tried.
No answer.
The more time that passed, the more nervous he got. Had she really run into a cellphone dead zone? Or did the headlights following her belong to someone who was after her?
His foot pressed harder on the accelerator. Speed limit be damned. At his best guess, he was still four hours away from her. Not nearly close enough to help if she got in trouble.
Fifteen minutes turned to twenty, and then thirty.
He called repeatedly, praying for an answer, wishing he’d gotten her last location before she’d faded out.
About the time he was ready to give up hope, she answered.
“Briana?”
“It’s me,” she said, her voice pure music to his ears.
“Thank God.”
She laughed. “At first, I realized I was in a short dead zone. Then my battery died on my cellphone, and I didn’t have a charger in my car. I had to pull into a truck stop for gas. While I was there, I bought a charging cable.”
Rafe eased his foot off the accelerator, dropping from ninety miles per hour to seventy. “Good to hear your voice again. I was worried.”
“Sorry. I thought you might be, but I couldn’t do anything else.”
“Any trouble at the truck stop?” he asked.
“No. I stayed in the well-lit areas, got out to put the pump handle into the car and got back in, locking the door. When it was done, I pulled up to the building before getting out. There were enough people inside to help, if I needed it. Anyway, I’m back on the road and should be in Springfield in an hour and a half.”
“I should be there about the same time, maybe a little later.”
“I’ll continue through to find Interstate 72 and meet you on your side when you get there.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” he said.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” she said. “I know it’s silly, but I feel safer when I’m talking with you.”
“And I feel better about you when I can hear you.”
She laughed. “It’s strange, isn’t it? I feel like I know you already. Like we’ve known each other for a long time.”
“We have. For at least a couple hours,” he said, smiling.
“How often do people really take the time to listen to each other? We’re all so busy with our own lives, we don’t have time to really get to know each other.”
Rafe chuckled. “And here we are…strangers…getting to know each other.”
“Thanks for taking the time to talk to me when you really didn’t have to,” she said. “Or is this part of your job, to protect me by keeping in touch?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “For the record, I’m glad we’re talking. It’ll make it easier when we meet in person.”
“None of that awkward getting-to-know-you stuff, right?” she said. “Tell me a little more about you.”
“You know my life history. What more is there?”
“A lot. Like, do you prefer mountains or beaches? What’s your favorite color? Dogs or cats?”
“You first,” he countered. “Mountains or beaches?”
“Mountains,” she said. “I like beaches, but there’s something so serene and peaceful about the mountains. I always dreamed of going back to the Rockies. We vacationed there as a family when I was a teen. Now, you.”
“Mountains. You can get lost in the mountains and find yourself there. I did that once. Spring break one year, I drove out to Colorado with a friend. We hiked so many trails and never saw another s
oul. The air was so crisp and clean, unlike the pollution and light noise of Minneapolis where I lived with my mother.”
“Minneapolis, huh? And you’re going to work for Hank Patterson? He’s based out of Montana, from what my brother told me. He’s told me he wants to work for Hank when he leaves the military.”
“It’s a good choice, from what I hear from other men I know who’ve gone to work there. He hires former Special Forces soldiers, SEALs and marines. Gives them work that suits the skills they learned on active duty.”
“Sounds like a good gig,” she said.
“I’ll let you know after my first assignment,” he said, his lips quirking upward.
“Me.” She sighed, the sigh sounding more like a yawn at the end.
“Are you getting sleepy?” he asked. “You can pull over. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“No. I don’t want to stop. I can stay awake, if we keep talking. My favorite color is blue. The blue of the sky after a summer rain. And though I like all cats and dogs, I prefer dogs, though it’s been a long time since I’ve had one. And they like me for whatever reason. What about you?”
He smiled at her words. “I like blue for the same reason. The blue of the skies I saw in Colorado make me want to head back to the mountains.”
“Cats or dogs?”
“I had a cat and a dog growing up. I like the independence of cats but prefer the pure affection and loyalty of a dog.”
They talked for the next hour, learning more about the places they’d been—Briana as a military brat, Rafe during his assignments with the military. They shared items on their bucket lists. They both wanted to see Devil’s Tower Monument, the Tetons and Yellowstone.
As they neared Springfield, Rafe could tell Briana was getting sleepier. He looked at the hotels on the east side of the city then, put Briana on hold for a few minutes, called ahead and reserved a room with two beds. When he got there, he’d insist on them sleeping for a few hours before they decided where to go next.
“I’ve sent you a map pin of the place we’ll meet. You should be there in twenty minutes. I’ll be there about the same time, give or take a few minutes. Wait for me there. Stay in your car until I arrive. I’m in a black four-wheel-drive pickup.”
“I’m in a small, silver four-door Nissan,” she said. “I’m looking forward to meeting you in person.”