by Karen Rose
‘How?’ Taylor asked. ‘How would anyone know if it’s not in the police report?’
‘Because Janie was there when Lilah found Jazzie hiding.’
‘Oh God. That’s why Jazzie sticks by her so closely. She can’t let Janie tell.’ That explained the misery in Jazzie’s eyes as she watched her sister. ‘She wants Janie to get better, but is afraid to let her speak freely.’
‘That’s my take.’
Shit. Taylor wanted to run away. She hadn’t signed up for this. She’d come here to get the truth about Clay Maynard. ‘But what if Jazzie didn’t see anything? Lilah will be a nervous wreck forever because no one can definitely prove that Jazzie knows nothing.’
Maggie just looked at her, not saying a word.
Taylor sighed. ‘You believe she did see something. Why?’
Maggie shrugged. ‘My gut. I’ve been dealing with child victims for a long, long time. Jazzie knows something that she’s not telling. Look, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. It’s not part of your job description.’
Taylor thought of poor Jazzie and the nightmare the child had endured. A real nightmare, not the manufactured one Taylor had been put through. The effect was the same, though. A child with fear in her eyes.
And Lilah’s in the same place Dad was all those years. Never taking her eyes off her child, never allowing Jazzie to go to a sleepover, fearing the day a predator would come and snatch her away. Changing her whole life around to protect Jazzie. Exactly as Frederick Dawson had done. For me.
Taylor owed her father so much. But the real tragedy was that neither Taylor nor Frederick Dawson had needed to endure any of it. The threat had been a total fabrication. Thanks, Mom.
Jazzie’s trauma, though, was very real, the risk to her life a tangible one.
Taylor sucked in a deep breath. ‘I’ll do it. Just tell me where and when.’
Maggie smiled at her. ‘Thank you. Fitzpatrick wants to do this at an Italian restaurant whose owner is a friend of Joseph’s.’
Taylor frowned, confused. ‘I thought we were going for ice cream.’
‘The restaurant has ice cream on its menu. More importantly, it has a private room with only one door. Fitzpatrick can’t protect you at the ice cream place, but at the restaurant you’ll have protection at all times. He will be guarding the door, of course. And I’ll have one of our people there too.’ Maggie hesitated a single heartbeat. ‘Clay Maynard, our security manager. I don’t think you’ve met him yet.’
Taylor’s heart sank. Maggie’s hesitation shouted volumes. She knows who I am. Why I’m here. Taylor’s gut was pretty good, too, and everything within her said that her jig was now up. But how did Maggie know?
Luckily Taylor knew how to maintain a poker face. ‘No, I haven’t, but I’ve heard nice things about him from Dillon.’
The tension in Maggie’s body visibly eased, and Taylor understood. Because I told the truth. She knew I talked to Dillon. She knew I asked about Clay.
Taylor let out a long, quiet breath. Busted. ‘Were you spying on me, Maggie?’
‘Yes.’ The answer was direct. Unapologetic. ‘The barn is wired for both audio and video. I see and hear all.’ She pointed to the monitor on her desk. ‘My own eye in the sky.’
Dammit. Taylor had forgotten all about the fucking cameras. Just . . . goddammit. She lifted her chin. ‘I never lied to you about anything. Taylor Dawson is my name.’
Maggie’s head tilted slightly to one side, studying her. ‘You have his eyes, Taylor. I saw it the first time I looked at the photo you attached to your application. I knew before I had Joseph interview you. I expected Joseph’s background check to turn up something . . . inconsistent.’
Maggie had brought her here knowing? Or at least suspecting? That blew Taylor’s mind. ‘But it didn’t turn up anything inconsistent. Because I am Taylor Dawson.’
Maggie swallowed hard. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t either,’ Taylor admitted. ‘Not fully.’
Maggie sighed quietly. ‘Just . . . don’t hurt him. I don’t know why you’re here, but please don’t hurt him. He’s been through enough.’
Taylor’s simmering temper blew. ‘Well, goddammit, so have I!’ she snapped, and Maggie flinched. ‘I’m sorry,’ Taylor said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to shout. I don’t plan to hurt him. I don’t plan to hurt anyone. I only wanted to meet him.’
‘Why now?’
Taylor shook her head, unwilling to go there. Not until she’d seen him. ‘I came here to meet him,’ she repeated firmly. ‘With no expectations. No risks. Can you respect that?’
Maggie said nothing for a long, long moment. ‘For now. Please don’t put this off, though. I can bring him over here tonight.’
‘Jumping into a cold pool,’ Taylor whispered.
‘Usually the best way,’ Maggie said wisely.
‘All right.’ Taylor nodded hard once. ‘Fine. Bring him over. But please, don’t tell him why. I don’t want him to be disappointed.’
Maggie’s brow bunched in bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand, Taylor. How could he possibly be disappointed? He’s looked for you for your whole life.’
Taylor shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone about this. Not until I’ve met him. I wanted to observe him. Safely. But I can’t do that now.’
Comprehension dawned in Maggie’s eyes. ‘You wanted to be able to walk away. To disappear from his life with no trace. Again.’
Taylor ignored the pointed accusation in the older woman’s voice. ‘I still want that. And I will disappear if I feel I must.’ But not without a trace. Not this time. Dammit. Her father had been right. Coming here had been foolish. Unless Clay really is a good man. ‘However, I feel compelled to point out that your use of “again” is unfair. I didn’t make myself disappear the first time. I was just a child. My mother “disappeared” me.’
A curt nod. ‘True. I apologize for that.’
‘Accepted.’ Taylor drew a breath, let it out. ‘I will talk to Jazzie before I disappear, if and when I decide to do so. I promise. And I don’t break my promises.’
‘Then I’ll arrange for you to meet with her tomorrow afternoon, after all the therapy sessions are complete.’
Effectively dismissed, Taylor stood up. ‘Are there cameras in my bedroom?’
Maggie’s eyes flashed in annoyance. ‘Certainly not.’
‘Thank you. I’m going to call my father in California. I promised to check in with him, and I’m overdue. I’d like privacy.’
‘Your room is private. Does that satisfy you, or should I bring in a sniffer to check for bugs to prove it to you?’
She let Maggie’s sarcasm roll off her back, keeping a firm hold on her dignity. ‘No, your word is sufficient. I’ll see you at dinner.’ Then, head high, she left the office without another word.
As soon as she was alone in the barn, her knees buckled. She grabbed a barn post and held on, willing her legs to hold her up. Her stomach was roiling, her head pounding.
This is what you came for. You came to meet him. But not like this. Not just . . . thrust together. She’d wanted to do it safely. So you could tuck and run if you got scared.
Yeah, that was pretty much it. But from everything she’d heard, Clay deserved better. Maybe I do, too. In the meantime, she needed to shore up her courage. And to update her dad.
Steeling her spine, she marched herself toward the farmhouse so that she could call the only father she’d ever known.
Hunt Valley, Maryland,
Saturday 22 August, 4.20 P.M.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Ford closed his laptop when Taylor came through the door, hiding the browser window with the barn’s camera feeds. He’d watched her as she’d emerged from talking to Maggie, wanting to see her expression after their co
nversation.
He’d gone into the office earlier to confess to having told too much of Jazzie’s story to Taylor, only to find that he’d misread the situation. The woman who’d been like a grandmother to him his whole life had quickly set his assumptions straight, telling him that JD believed Jazzie was afraid of men because she may have witnessed her mother’s killer leaving their apartment, although she hadn’t admitted to seeing a thing. Poor kid. That was a helluva burden for anyone to carry, much less an eleven-year-old.
Ford figured Maggie had wanted to see Taylor so that she could share the same information, but after hearing Taylor’s conversation with Dillon, he wasn’t sure she could be trusted with it. But there hadn’t been time to tell Maggie about that, nor did he want to admit to having lurked in the shadows to eavesdrop. That made him sound like a creeper.
And maybe he was a creeper, because he’d watched Taylor again, this time with the camera that he’d told Clay was ‘wonky’. He’d hoped her expression would be sad, even devastated, for what poor Jazzie had endured. He hoped he wouldn’t see the gleam of a reporter who’d latched on to a choice story.
But he hadn’t been prepared for the expression he’d actually seen on her face as she’d come through the office door. She’d looked stoic, her chin held high, until the door was closed, but then she’d crumpled, going glassy-eyed and pale. Holding on to one of the posts like it was the only thing keeping her vertical. Shaking like a leaf, she looked like she was about to throw up.
Christ, he hoped Maggie hadn’t fired her. He couldn’t think why, unless his slip of the tongue about Jazzie’s fear of men had made Taylor a risk because she knew too much. He hadn’t mentioned the punch Taylor had thrown in the lounge. Maggie might have seen it on one of the cameras, but she hadn’t mentioned it.
Shit. He didn’t want Taylor to be fired. For far too many reasons.
He didn’t entirely trust her, but she intrigued him.
And then he’d watched her compose herself, her spine going straight, her expression smoothing to one of casual indifference. If he hadn’t just seen her quaking with fear, he might have never suspected she was even capable of the emotion.
‘Hi, Taylor,’ he said as she carefully shut the door behind her.
She jumped, pressing her hand to her heart. ‘I didn’t know you were there.’
‘Are you okay? You look a little green around the gills.’ Hell, she looked whiter than bone china. ‘Sometimes the heat can kick you in the ass if you’re not used to it.’ He got a bottle of cold water from the fridge and put it in her hand, curling her fingers around it when she didn’t immediately take it. ‘You need to sit down. You’re scaring me.’
That was no lie.
She nodded numbly, not even protesting when he led her to a chair and gently pushed her into it. She sat staring at the bottle in her hand like it was some alien drink, so he wet a paper towel with cold water, wrung it out, and draped it over the back of her neck.
‘Just sit for a minute,’ he said. ‘It’ll pass.’
A slow, quiet sigh. ‘No. It won’t. But thank you.’
Ford said nothing for a long minute. ‘Look, you don’t know me from Adam, but I’m a good listener. I promise I won’t judge like I did before.’ When he’d assumed her reluctance to attend Dillon and Holly’s wedding was because of their disability. ‘I’m sorry for that.’
‘It’s okay,’ she murmured. ‘I might have thought the same thing under the circumstances. You were protecting the people you love. I get that.’
She said nothing more and, too full of nervous energy, Ford found he had to fill the silence. ‘I heard you were from California,’ he said sociably as he rummaged in the pantry for some saltine crackers.
‘Who told you that?’ she asked, her voice still too quiet. He wished she’d yell at him like she had that morning. He wanted to see the fire back in those dark eyes of hers.
He put a few crackers on a plate and slid them in front of her. ‘My mom. You still look green. Putting something in your stomach might help. What part of California? LA?’
Taylor took a cracker and nibbled on the corner. ‘No. The northern part. We’re east of Eureka. Up towards Oregon.’
‘You must know horses to have gotten the intern position. Do you ride at home?’
A glimmer of a smile. ‘Yes. We have a ranch, a small one. About a thousand head of cattle. We all ride.’
‘Even your sister Julie?’
‘You remembered.’ She held her cracker up in a mock salute. ‘Points for that. Yes, Julie rides too, but with special equipment.’ Some of the color had returned to her cheeks and her breathing was less shallow, so Ford squashed his million questions and let her talk. ‘I was interested in the Healing Hearts program for a lot of reasons, but one of them was to start a similar program at home. Julie learned to ride as part of her physical therapy, but I hadn’t thought about the emotional therapeutic benefits of riding.’
Ford took a risk. ‘I always loved to ride before . . . well, before I was . . .’
Her eyes lifted, meeting his for the first time since she’d come into the kitchen, and it was like a kick to the gut. There was understanding there. And compassion. And possibly something more. Maybe respect? He hoped so.
‘Before your abduction,’ she supplied without pity. ‘I read about it. Pieces, anyway.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He forced himself to continue, because she was waiting patiently. ‘Before my abduction I was a competitive rider. A jumper.’
The glimmer of a smile broadened, finally reaching her eyes. ‘I do barrel racing. Never mastered jumping, though.’
Something within him stirred. The slim body with the subtle curves did barrel racing? That he’d like to see. He’d like to see a lot more, but he couldn’t let himself think about that or he’d wind up with an embarrassing bulge in his jeans, and he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.
What, that you think she’s hot? Well, she is. And she has to know it.
But Ford wasn’t entirely sure that last part was true. Taylor had never been away from home without a family member. She’d been scared to come here. Yet she had.
Because she has questions about Clay. Ford needed to keep that front and center of his mind until he knew exactly why she was here. And because he hoped she’d ‘quid pro quo’ him with info about herself, he continued with the sharing.
‘Well, after the abduction I stopped competing. My heart just wasn’t in it. But I still ride. Just now . . . well, now, it’s different. I always loved my horse before, but after the abduction he became . . .’ He trailed off, losing his train of thought because her eyes had grown soft and he couldn’t look away if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to.
‘A haven,’ she finished softly.
‘Yes. You too?’
Her head dipped in a single nod. ‘How did you know?’
‘The way you talked about Jazzie being afraid that her mother’s killer was lurking behind a tree, waiting to jump out. It sounded like you spoke from experience.’
‘I did. But if it’s okay, I really don’t want to talk about it.’
He spread his palms on the table, fingers flexed wide. ‘Up to you. Just remember that I am a good listener.’
Another smile, this one grateful. ‘I’ll bet you are. Maybe someday I’ll take you—’
She was interrupted by the door opening. Maggie kicked off her boots, then gave the plate of saltine crackers an appraising look. ‘You okay, honey?’ she asked Taylor kindly.
Taylor nodded, her throat working hard. No words came out, even though she looked like she was trying to speak. Her skin had lost a little of the color she’d just gotten back, but she didn’t look away, keeping her chin high.
‘Good.’ Maggie looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘He’ll be here in half an hour.’
> Taylor’s face went bone white once again. Carefully she pushed herself to her feet, trembling from head to toe. ‘I’ll be back down in thirty minutes, then.’
Ford wanted to rush to her side, to help her up the stairs, but she had a desperation about her, like an animal caught in a trap. He didn’t think she’d welcome his help, so he stayed where he was and felt miserable about it.
He and Maggie waited silently until they heard a door close upstairs. Then Maggie leaned against the fridge, resting her forehead against the freezer door. ‘God almighty.’
‘Who’s coming, Maggie?’ Ford asked, even though he already knew.
She turned to look at him, studying his face. ‘Clay.’ She tilted her head. ‘You knew.’
‘I guessed. She’s Sienna, isn’t she?’
‘I don’t know, Ford. She insists her name is Taylor Dawson. What I do know is that she has been through some kind of hell. I don’t know what, though.’
‘She was afraid, as a kid.’ He told her what she’d said about Jazzie. ‘She just confirmed it with me, but said she didn’t want to talk about it, which I get. I don’t like to talk about what happened to me, either.’
Maggie sat in the chair beside him, concern lining her face. ‘Are you okay, Ford? I don’t ask you that often enough.’
He covered her hand and squeezed gently. ‘You ask me that plenty. And I am fine. I’m not the same and probably never will be.’ Not since he’d been kidnapped and held, not for ransom, but to lure his mother into a trap. His kidnapper had planned to kill her. Ford would be forever grateful to Joseph Carter for stopping that from happening. ‘I wonder what Taylor’s mother told her about Clay.’
Maggie’s sigh was weary. ‘I’ve been wondering the same thing. I hated putting that look in her eyes. But I also hate the look in Clay’s eyes every time he thinks about her.’
‘And every time he comes back from California without having found her,’ Ford added. ‘Did you tell him why he was coming out here?’
‘No. I didn’t know how.’
‘Me either. I tried to get him here by making up a lie about the camera in the barn being broken.’