by Amber Lynn
The man in front of her looked to be the opposite of great shape. He held a glass in his hand, filled with an amber-colored liquid. The room smelled of alcohol, so she assumed it wasn’t apple juice.
His face was gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes. While he did have clothes on, his light blue shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his chest and prominent ribs. It had only been about a month, so his calorie intake had to be under a thousand each day to lose that much weight.
It was easy to figure out when he realized Willow was in the room. The hard look in his eyes softened and his shoulders straightened.
“Willow,” he said in a deep voice.
While his eyes did soften, she didn’t get the creepy vibe she’d grown to associate with jerks wanting something more than she was willing to give. It wasn’t the borderline disgust she always associated with him, but it wasn’t unbidden lust either.
“I told you I’d bring her back. Now, do you want to do it here or take her home? I’m not sure you can get it up with that much alcohol in you, but the sooner you two have sex, the sooner you’ll realize we don’t have to get divorced for you to have your play thing.”
“Willow is not a play thing,” he barked out.
That was not a contradiction to the idea he wanted to have sex with her. Willow had to wonder how she’d missed those signs. She couldn’t read people if her life depended on it, which was clearly proven.
“And I am?” Gayle asked. “You didn’t exactly ask me when you impregnated me with her child. Are you planning on asking her sweetly to do the same thing to her?”
Willow watched as the glass in his hand flew across the room, landing on the carpet in front of Gayle right after it hit her in the shoulder. A few inches to the right and it would’ve hit Willow. Since Greg’s eyes didn’t leave her, she was surprised it didn’t hit her. Gayle cursed and pulled the gun away from Willow’s side to point it at her husband.
“You cocksucker. I bring your precious Willow back to you and that’s how you’re going to repay me? I found her living with a guy twice your size. Do you honestly think she’s still the virginal flower you’ve been wanting to sink your dick into? The people back in that Podunk of a town said they’d been living together for probably two weeks if she’s still with him. What do you think about that? She might already have someone else’s seed in there making another little bastard of a kid.”
There was a short cracking and a pfft sound that caught Willow off guard. Her eyes didn’t leave Greg, but a black object appeared in his hand. It took Willow’s mind a second to realize it was a gun. What was up with these two and guns? In the time she’d known them, neither of them had threatened her with one until today.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Gayle asked.
Willow was still catching up to there not being one gun pointed at her but two. Gayle folding down to the ground next to her told her she was even further behind than she thought.
“You shot her?”
The evidence in front of her told her she didn’t have to ask, but the words came out anyway. The red stain spreading from around Gayle’s body on the cream carpet answered the question. There was no inclination in Willow to help, which she thought there should be. After spending time with people who weren’t as screwed up as her in the head, she found herself thinking more about what other people would do in situations. And she was pretty sure they would administer some kind of help.
Of course, Willow could see the shot hit Gayle in the chest and the eyes staring up from the carpet didn’t have much light left in them. Willow was great with biology and chemistry, but she wasn’t a surgeon.
“I needed to see how you’d react.” The response brought her eyes back to him and the smile on his face. “Nah,” he said, waving the gun with his hand before putting it on the bed next to him. “I didn’t like that she walked in here with a gun on you or that cut on your lip. I take it she did that and not the hockey player.”
Willow’s body wasn’t exactly in full motion at the time, but the mention of Brayden caused her to still. Even though it would’ve likely killed her, she was pretty sure her heart stopped.
“Yeah, I knew about him before she started rattling on about him. Gayle was a lot of things, but smart wasn’t one of them.”
The mention of his wife in the past tense told Willow how cold the man in front of her could be. He’d kidnapped her to cure the woman, and fifteen years later he shot her himself. Willow again wondered how she’d missed things, like the fact their happy marriage wasn’t happy.
“Was she right about Connor? Is he somehow mine?”
His smile widened. “I still can’t believe you never did any tests on his blood. But that isn’t important right now. You’ve been a bad girl running away from me. Things were about to fall in place for us, and then you were gone. Just poof.”
He made a gesture with his hand at the poof. She stared at him. She had done tests on Connor’s blood, much like the tests she’d done on Greg’s, to check for illness. She’d never had a reason to run them against her DNA.
“I don’t understand.”
She understood even less as she heard a raspy breath and gurgle at her feet. A short second later, the labored sounds of breathing from Gayle stopped. It left the room quiet while Willow waited for Greg to speak.
“I know, darling. That brilliant mind of yours has never been able to focus on anything other than a scientific problem in front of you and your son. I don’t know what Gayle told you, but she didn’t understand it either. She thought my desire to be with you was about base needs. Like I really wanted to spend my days rutting around with you.”
He laughed, but the smile disappeared from his face. His look turned dark, but it was one Willow had seen many times.
“I never thought when I took you that I could fall in love with you. As sick as people will say I was, I didn’t look at you that way. It was hard not to when you became a woman and filled out, but it was never about just wanting your body. Your mind is a mystery that I wanted to spend the rest of my life studying. I thought we’d have more children. You love Connor so much, I thought it would make you happy.”
The use of the name she’d given Connor surprised her. Yes, she’d said it, but she never heard either of them use it. Gayle preferred brat and bastard, and Greg really didn’t talk about Connor before now. Willow had assumed he hated his son. His words didn’t sound like hate to her. There was an underlying feeling she didn’t want to put a name to. If she did, her perception of her entire life would have to change.
“Is he okay? I was so happy to see you that I forgot to ask about him. Gayle despised him, but you don’t seem grief stricken. I assume that means he’s still out there somewhere.”
Willow had never considered Greg a rambler, but he certainly made a case for being one. His brain had never been as focused as her, but he kept things to himself almost as well as she did. She supposed since carrying a conversation wasn’t her strong suit, someone had to do it. The room would be rather uncomfortable if they just stared at each other.
“Brayden will take care of him.”
Greg nodded. “The hockey player. I’ve seen you with him.”
Willow’s brow furrowed. She didn’t like the thought of being followed. Gayle clearly had been tailing her, but she’d made it sound like Greg barely left his bed. While he looked frail, Willow didn’t think it confined him to bed. Maybe he had pretended for his wife.
“I saw the way he looks at you. The way you don’t cringe away from his touch. I was close enough to hear our son speak.” His voice took on what Willow assumed was a wistful tone and then broke when he mentioned Connor speaking. “I wish I didn’t have to be so cruel to the two of you. Gayle would’ve killed you instead of letting you go if she knew how much I truly care. But that’s in the past. This Brayden will be good for you. He’s strong and can protect you. You’ll need that, because the road ahead won’t be easy for you, but I think he’ll keep the vultures away.”
“You should be going, Willow. The police will be here soon, and I don’t want you see what happens. I really do love you, even if you don’t understand that now. I think someday you will.”
“What are you talking about?” This time she couldn’t keep the question to herself.
Being kidnapped wasn’t her idea of a good time, but he had her. He had a gun to her knife, which she’d basically forgotten about as her brain worked to process the chaos around her. It could do two things at once, but every nerve cell in her brain currently had other things to do.
“Gayle’s an idiot, who never thought things through. I don’t know how she got you, but I bet there are witnesses, and she’s been driving a rental car that can be tracked. I don’t want you to get hurt in the melee of police coming to rescue you, so leave.”
Even if her brain hadn’t fully caught up, Willow didn’t want him to change his mind about letting her go. Since he’d put the gun down and seemed resigned, she didn’t think it would. But she learned not to take chances.
With one last confused look at the man who’d been her captor for so many years, she turned, stepped over Gayle’s lifeless body and walked out the door. She let it close behind her without looking back. She’d taken a few steps before movement stopped her. As if summoned by Greg, the elevator doors opened, and men dressed in tactical gear poured out. One rushed to her.
“Ma’am, I need you to clear the hallway. I suggest you take the stairs.”
They were there to rescue her, unless some other crime was in the process of being committed on that floor. She thought about trying to calculate the odds, but she knew they were too far-fetched to even bother. The man didn’t seem to realize who she was, so Willow shrugged and headed for the stairs.
More men stood at the door, guarding the escape route. She thought about telling them who she was, but a loud crash and the sounds of bullets firing off in rapid succession stopped her. Weird sensations touched her body as she heard each shot, like they were nicking her skin.
“Target down,” a man’s voice said over a radio. “We’ve got one already deceased in the room, but it’s not Jamison.”
“Shit,” one of the men next to Willow said.
She’d barely gotten through the door when the shots started. The men saw her but were busy listening to what was happening behind her. She knew her presence didn’t compete with gunfire.
“You think they did her before they came back here?” another man asked.
One of them cleared his throat and nodded in Willow’s direction. “Excuse us, ma’am. As you can see, we have a situation here. It’s best if you head down to the lobby and keep out of the way.”
They didn’t know who she was either. It made her wonder how the people in the room knew she wasn’t Gayle. At least five of the men sent to rescue her had seen her and apparently didn’t know what she looked like. They’d probably been given the security camera footage of a woman with long blonde hair and been told she had purple eyes. That made no sense with Brayden being involved, but that was the only explanation she could think of.
“I’m Willow Jamison, and as you can see, I’m not dead.”
The men stared at her, some with their mouths open, for a few seconds. Then an avalanche of actions ensued, sweeping Willow up with it.
Chapter 30
Brayden threw his keys across his kitchen counter and cursed.
“Fuck.”
“Sorry, man,” Trevor said as he put a hand on his shoulder.
Shrugging away from the touch, Brayden walked around his friend out to the living room. He’d gone to the kitchen first because there weren’t piles of toys reminding him of the two people who seemed to be out of his life now. Staring at the toys they hadn’t gotten around to opening, he cursed again. This time a litany of every word he could think of, and he’d learned a lot over the years, not all in English.
From the chain of events he’d been able to piece together, Willow had been rescued, brought to the station, reunited with her family and swept away about an hour before anyone thought to let Brayden know.
After her mom had flat out told him she knew he was in love with Willow, and his resulting silence did nothing to change her opinion, he knew her mom would want to protect her from him. He still didn’t understand that whole conversation, but she was on the verge of getting her little girl back, and he probably looked like an obstacle.
He wasn’t. At least he didn’t see it that way. Whether Willow had a regular upbringing or not, she was a woman capable of making her own decisions. With the need to run and hide gone, he didn’t think for a second her choice would be to stay with him. He hoped, but he wasn’t optimistic about them staying. They’d only known each other for a few weeks. While he didn’t deny he started falling in love with her the second he saw her, he wasn’t sure how she felt, or if she could feel those kinds of emotions.
She clearly loved Connor, but that was a devotion to a little boy she saw as a son that developed over years. She’d relied on Brayden to help keep them safe, and seemed attracted to him, but any strong emotions on her side didn’t make it to the surface.
“Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but this is for the best.” Trevor stopped his words for a second when he saw the death glare Brayden thought those words deserved. “Seriously, dude? I know you have a thing for her, but it’s not like you two make a lot of sense. I still stand by my sociopath diagnosis, even if they claim she’s some kind of genius. You’re smart enough, but you can’t compete with someone like her.”
Brayden wanted to tell Trevor what an idiot he was, but a knock at the door stopped him. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, not that he could stop his heart from skipping a beat. The soft, almost tentative knock sounded like something Willow would do. He could picture her there and didn’t kid himself about setting himself up for disappointment. A girl from down the hall probably only wanted to sell him some cookies or something.
That didn’t change the fact that he ran to the door and threw it open. A growl to scare away whoever dared bother him was on his lips. It died quickly when he saw it was in fact Willow standing there, looking up at him. Her violet eyes almost showing a hint of relief.
He didn’t bother with words. He swept her into his arms and picked her up. He registered the stitches in her lip and the dark bruise on her cheek; he even heard her startled gasp, but that didn’t stop him from pulling her close to him and holding on to her for dear life.
She was okay. No one had bothered mentioning the injuries, and he hadn’t let himself think about her getting hurt. He hoped the damage to her face was the only injuries.
“You’re here,” he whispered in her ear.
“And you’re really strong,” she replied, her breath sounding a little labored.
The idiot that he was, Brayden was crushing her. He quickly loosened his hold and let her slide down his body to get back to her feet. Having had a few seconds to let some of his anxiety out, he looked in the hall behind her and found it empty.
“Where’s Connor?”
He could’ve asked where the new entourage that should be following her was, but Connor’s whereabouts was more important. He’d heard both of her kidnappers were dead, so that should’ve relieved the new anxiety burbling up, but it didn’t.
“He’s with my parents. They’re kind of like you as far as wanting to buy him presents. We were at a toy store when I slipped away.”
“You slipped away?” Brayden didn’t think he could get more jumbled.
She was with her family, who had to be watching her like hawks, and she just slipped away from them? Why?
“Umm, I think I’m going to let you two catch up,” Trevor said, tapping Brayden on the shoulder.
The path out of the apartment was blocked, but Brayden quickly pulled Willow in to make a route for his friend to lea
ve. With Willow there in front of him, it wasn’t like Brayden had time to entertain anyone else, so he was happy to see the backside of his friend heading down the hall. Closing the door, he looked back to Willow.
If he hadn’t noticed the stitches already, he would’ve kissed her. As impractical as that was, he felt the urge to do it anyway.
“I needed to see you,” she said, dragging his thoughts away from her lips.
He’d briefly forgotten what they’d been talking about. She had left her parents, with Connor to come see him. Thinking of Connor again, that reminded him of what her mom had said.
“They think Connor is their grandson.”
With his real parents dead, Brayden supposed Willow could just adopt him and make that true. But it was odd how sure Pauline had been about it.
Willow nodded. “He is.”
Brayden had expected about any other answer than that. He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he repeated her words and made them sound like a question.
“He is?”
“I wasn’t the only one doing experiments. Evidently it was my egg used, so biologically, he is their grandson. He just developed in another woman.”
She lost him in the explanation. Her matter-of-fact voice didn’t help matters. He was pretty sure she’d just confirmed Connor was her son and not a hint of emotion touched her voice. She loved that little boy, and even for him, she could sound robotic.
“So he is your son. Shouldn’t you be with him?”
Not that Brayden was upset about her showing up on his doorstep, but she’d been kidnapped only hours ago. Again. Connor had been a wreck, and she should really be with him.
“I told him I was coming to see you, and he liked the idea. He wanted to come, but I told him I needed to see you alone.”
“Do your parents know you left? Because I met your mom. She’s likely to kill me if she thinks I had anything to do with you running away.”