by Amber Lynn
He could tell she had the weight of the world on her shoulders in the moment, and they couldn’t take the weight. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t have to deal with it alone.
“I can’t go to the police.”
“But-”
She cut him off before he could get more than the single word out. She hadn’t looked in his direction, but she glared over at him. The look sent a chill down his spine.
“There are no buts. If I go to the police, they’ll take Connor away from me. I’m sure it’s no surprise that my life hasn’t been easy, but the only thing good about it has been that little boy in there. And I’ll die before someone takes him away from me.”
He felt the same way on the last point. No one would take her child away from her.
“His dad is either going to be in the ground or in jail. He can’t exactly fight for custody in either of those places.”
She shook her head and stared down at her hands on top of the counter. He couldn’t believe she thought someone would give Connor to his father. The asshole didn’t deserve that title.
“Theoretically, that’s true. The problem is that I’m not sure what will happen to Connor’s mother. There hasn’t been in day in his life when that woman cared for him, but if they don’t charge her too, I’m sure she’ll take him just to spite me.”
Brayden knew his jaw dropped open as she went on. His brain scrolled through everything he could think of happening since he’d seen her eyes in a photo of a little girl on the television. There was so much to remember. Not a lot had been said, but the reactions and nuggets he picked up seemed to be jumbled out of place.
“You said them. You told Connor that you would keep him safe from them.”
He didn’t know why he’d assumed it had just been a guy holding her captive. That seemed to be how most of the stories went. Creepy guy who had an obsession for little girls usually fit the bill. Throwing a woman in the mix? He had no clue if that meant things were better or worse for Willow.
She nodded. “His parents.”
He gulped in a breath and tried to figure out how to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. Bringing up what they’d done to her could only hurt her more, so he really didn’t want to ask. But he had to know.
“Did they both…”
Brayden let it trail off. He didn’t know if she’d understand, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“No,” she said shaking her head. “I know what you’re asking, and it was never like that.”
Furrowing his brow, Brayden thought about what that meant. Relief warred with confusion as he tried to figure it out.
“Don’t hurt yourself. I know why most kids are kidnapped. It just so happens I wasn’t like most kids.”
Her words seemed to be a riddle. He didn’t understand what point she was trying to get across, if there was even one there. The confusion addled his brain. He wasn’t even sure how to ask for an explanation. He really should’ve convinced his brain to shut down, so he got a few hours of sleep last night.
“I was twelve when it happened,” he supplied. She didn’t jump to fill in what she meant, so he figured he’d give her a minute or two to work it out. “Suzy was your age. It was all over the news and our mom freaked out. We couldn’t go out after dark and walking home from school immediately came to a stop.”
Since most of the other moms had the same reaction, it wasn’t completely embarrassing, but every kid in town basically had their life thrown into chaos. No one could compete with Willow’s uprooting, but he remembered things changing.
“I imagine Suzy wasn’t a junior in high school at the time.”
Was she purposefully trying to confuse him? His brain was already there. It didn’t need any more pushing.
“I don’t know of any ten-year-olds in high school.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. She didn’t look away from the countertop that continued to hold her interest. Brayden wished she would. He thought maybe if he could see her face, things would magically make sense. He didn’t dare move from his spot. She was poised to run, and he couldn’t do anything to tip her in that direction. There was no hope of him being a functioning human if he didn’t know where she was and whether or not her past had caught up with her.
“You’re looking at one. Or at least I was. The man who kidnapped me was one of my teachers. His wife had cancer, and he wanted me to develop a cure for it.”
She said the words like they made perfect sense. She was talking about a ten-year-old curing cancer. Unless he’d completely gone off the deep end, which at that point was perfectly logical.
“I don’t understand.”
It was the only thing he could say. He’d tried to let her tell the story at whatever speed and with whatever snippets she wanted, but from the point of her not being Connor’s mom, he was completely lost.
“I know. When I was a kid, I basically absorbed everything around me. They tested my IQ when I was nine and my score was around two-fifty. They called me a child prodigy.”
Something about that made her laugh. It was a sad laugh, and oddly enough, he could understand that. He wasn’t a genius, but he’d been good at hockey when he was a kid. It made him different than the kids who were into the more popular sports like football and basketball. It also meant he spent more time at the rink than just hanging out and playing with other kids.
“I wanted to go straight to college and on to changing the world. But my mom thought I needed more life experiences. When he first took me, I blamed her for a little while. I told myself that if she would’ve just let me take my college classes, he would have never noticed me.”
She turned over to look at Brayden. Her face was blank. He had no idea what that meant, or what to say to her story.
“It was my own fault. The other kids made fun of me and I thought I needed to stand out. So, on the first day of AP biology, when the teacher told us to write a short essay about what we expected to get out of the class, I told the truth. I wrote that I planned on revolutionizing the drug industry. I would make new compounds that not only worked better to cure the diseases we already had solutions for, they would cure even the deadliest cancers. The joke was on me, because, surprise, I’ve done just that.”
Brayden let silence fill the air for a few minutes. He thought they both needed that time. When she looked to him, he could see the silent tears streaming down her face. She’d had a few out in the living room, but they were nothing compared to the pair of rivers he saw.
They made him want to run to her and hold her tight. The urge to tell her that everything would be okay was hard to resist. He didn’t know if it would be, though. She was right about her dilemma with Connor. If she wasn’t his mother, they might take him away.
Chapter 17
Somewhere, Willow once read that telling someone your secrets made you feel better. Whoever came up with that pile of crap was an idiot.
Explaining the details of her world to Brayden didn’t make her feel like the world was all of a sudden sunnier. It made her feel like her life depended on how he reacted to the story. So far, he’d barely moved or reacted at all. Of course, she’d barely looked in his direction.
It was hard enough to say the words. Watching someone else react to them exceeded her abilities. The gazes she allowed confused her more than anything.
She knew her story sounded unrealistic. If she hadn’t lived it, she’d laugh at the absurdity of it. Chances were he wouldn’t understand if she spelled out the compounds she’d spent years working on, which was the only part of the story she thought she could back up. Obviously, the fact that she’d been kidnapped wasn’t at question. He’d seen the news. He didn’t even have to be told it was her.
But most kids weren’t kidnapped to find cures for cancer. There were days she couldn’t believe she’d actually accomplished at least a small part in saving people’s lives. Her initial work was the hardest, as it involved the brain and two tumors that couldn’t be
operated on and didn’t respond to radiation or chemo.
The brain is sometimes funny that way. There’s this little blood-brain barrier thing that doesn’t like letting chemicals get anywhere near the brain. Not that explaining that and how she’d worked tirelessly to find a mixture of drugs that worked through it would get her anywhere. No one would believe her.
As far as she knew, that particular compound only had one user. Her access to the outside had always been limited, but her kidnapper liked to brag about the money he made because of her. Those taunts waited until after she’d moved to her third in vitro testing phase for a drug to treat hepatitis C.
Willow only saw things through the preclinical testing. What happened after left her little lab. She got updates when it was deemed important, which rarely happened other than the bragging.
“So,” Brayden said, dragging the word out. “What do we do?”
She’d been so caught up on her past that she lost sight of the now. More importantly, she forgot she needed to grab a bag of her and Connor’s things and run as fast as she could.
“There isn’t a ‘we’ here. At least not if you’re trying to include yourself. I’m all Connor’s ever had, and I won’t let them find us.”
Sliding off the chair, which she was a little surprised to find she sat in, Willow took a deep breath. They’d been on the run for weeks, and it wasn’t like she’d expected to ever stop. But something Hedgesville had felt right to her since they landed here. She couldn’t put her finger on it, other than most of the people seemed genuinely nice.
The guy across the room, who she hazarded to glance up at and caught the dark clouds spreading across the face. Well, she had been ready to think about how he’d let strangers move into his house and made her feel odd sensations, but the look made her breath catch in her throat. It also sent a warm feeling pooling in her stomach that she had no idea how to classify. He always seemed to leave her wondering what in the world her body was thinking.
“I already told you I’m not letting you walk out that door alone.” His words were rough, matching his look. “Now that you’ve explained it, I understand what’s at stake. It’s not just getting back the life that’s been stolen from you. You need to protect him.”
Willow found her head bobbing up and down. There was no other life for her. Keeping Connor from the evils in the world was it for her. He’d seen so much and had no reference to how things could really be. She didn’t have much reference on that front, but she’d give her life to make sure he got to feel the sun hitting his face every day.
“Let me talk to my lawyer.” When Willow started to shake her head, Brayden quickly pushed on. “There’s this little thing called attorney-client privilege. We can have him come here, so we can both talk to him and make sure he understands the conversation fully falls under that privilege. He’ll be able to tell us whether there’s legal action we can take to protect Connor.”
What was it with him and the non-stop “we” stuff? He had a life. She had no idea what that life included other than business trips and a huge house. But it wasn’t about to include running around the country with her and Connor, which she knew was all her life would be.
“The only way I can protect him is to stay two steps ahead. I’m already losing traction standing around talking about it.”
While the words came out of her mouth, her body did nothing to jump into action. Her legs felt frozen in place, even though they appeared to be made of pudding or something. They didn’t feel real. After spending so much time studying diseases and cures for them, her brain ran through what could be wrong with them.
There were tons of options, but she knew anxiety could cause it, so she didn’t have to go any further than it to have a diagnosis. Anxiety and she went hand in hand and had for as long as she could remember. It didn’t often make her legs weak, but there were too many added pressures.
“I’m not letting you go.”
The words said with no room for argument were part of the new pressures driving her anxiety. She didn’t understand where his words and actions were coming from. He didn’t know her. There was no reason for him to help her, and yet, that seemed to be all he wanted to do.
It made absolutely no sense.
“You said you’re going back to the city. Are you planning on locking me up?”
Willow didn’t think his gaze could get any darker, but it did. She swore even ten feet away his teeth ground together loudly enough for her to hear.
“No,” he said evenly. “I’m not holding you hostage. I’m not letting you walk away, though.”
That made no sense. He couldn’t have it both ways. Not if she wasn’t willing to stay.
The small part of her that wished someone would look out for them niggled inside of her. It had always been there. From the first day she found herself in an unfamiliar home, bound by whatever the madman who took her wanted, she’d hoped someone would rescue her. It took about six months before that hope all vanished.
Fifteen years later, she learned only she could save herself. She was the only person she could depend on.
“You don’t get to decide that. We need to leave before he finds us.”
The repeated sentiment didn’t seem to be getting through. He had to realize they weren’t safe there. She didn’t know if the danger extended to him, but he had to at least consider that his life was threatened with her anywhere near.
“Do you honestly think he’s going to get in here? If you don’t think my security is enough, I’ll higher a team to be here around the clock.”
He had to be joking. First the lawyer and now a security team. He didn’t know her. There was absolutely no reason for him to try to protect her.
“Why are you doing this?”
Any words could have come out of her mouth. The confusion in her voice relayed everything going on in her head. At least she thought it did. The look on his face made her think she’d spoken a different language. Since she knew four, it was a possibility, but she was pretty sure English escaped her lips.
“Because as far as I can see, you’ve never had someone in your corner.”
The simple sentence boiled that warmth in her stomach and spread it lower down body. The stomach sensation had been weird enough, but something made her want to squeeze her thighs together. She had no idea what the reaction meant, and she wasn’t about to ask if he did.
He stepped into the room and came slowly towards her. Stretching out his arm hesitantly, he ran his big, calloused hand against her cheek before gripping gently. She’d been too busy remembering to breath to step away from him. The urge to clench her legs together overpowered her, and she shivered.
“Please don’t run, Willow. Let me help you.”
His hot breath brushed across her face. It smelled minty, but the masculine smell of him in general overwhelmed the scent.
All of it combined had her head trying to sit still on her neck. She was sure it didn’t move at all, but it felt like it spun clear around.
“Okay.”
A word getting out was downright astonishing. The fact that it was in agreement should have scared her. And, it probably would. Right after she figured out why she wanted to kiss the lips her eyes dropped to.
Chapter 18
Brayden couldn’t hold back his sigh of relief. He understood completely that Willow didn’t trust anyone. Everything about her instantly made more sense.
Well, almost everything. He had no idea why lust powered through him every time he thought about her. Before, when he thought she’d just been hurt, he couldn’t deny the attraction. He still couldn’t deny it, but it felt wrong.
The fact that holding her close, staring into her eyes felt right was what made it absolutely wrong. He’d listened as she described the basics of her life. Stolen away at ten. Kept in a basement somewhere curing cancer. He still found that part hard to believe. Even though he didn’t doubt her words. She either had an amazing imagination, or she was a genius.
&nb
sp; He hadn’t been around many people who could claim to be as smart as her, but he believed that book smarts didn’t make you smart about everything. If she really hadn’t seen the light of day since she was ten, she wouldn’t understand the concept of lust and what it made him want to do with her.
It didn’t help when he saw her gaze dart to his mouth. A small pink tongue slipped out to lick her lips. God, he wanted to chase that tongue back in her mouth.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. He let the word repeat in his head.
“Why does my body respond to your touch?”
The question was soft, and her eyes didn’t move away from his lips as she asked. She was a few inches shorter than him, but as she looked up and he down, there was no mistake what her focus was.
And that made him groan. Somehow, they’d gone from him hellbent on making her stay and her wanting to leave to him explaining why apparently the attraction wasn’t only on his side. That knowledge did nothing to help the warring going on in his head.
“Maybe we should discuss that later. I’d really like to call my friend Chris. He’s been my lawyer for years, and I’ve known him since we were kids. He won’t tell anyone else. There’s got to be a way for you to see your family again and keep Connor.”
He had no clue when it came to the law, but he couldn’t see anyone taking Connor from her. His real parents would hopefully be in jail if she came forward. Suzy had to fight tooth and nail to get custody of Noah, even with proof that his dad was an ass. That made it clear to him the courts didn’t always make it easy.
“You’re sure you trust him.”
Her eyes lifted to his for just a second. She never left them there long, even with his attempts to look like someone with eyes she could get lost in. It was for the best. He now knew that those amethyst eyes of hers were all natural and getting lost in them was high on his priority list.
Opening his mouth to answer, he cursed under his breath as his phone started ringing. The ring tone was Rachel’s. He knew she only called for emergencies, but he was dealing with his own emergency.