Runaway Heiress

by Jennifer Morey

  She walked in silence a few steps, the sidewalk winding through a grassy area fringed with flowers that would burst into color this summer.

  “You of all people should understand how hard it is to trust after someone you loved betrays you.” Just before they reached the parking area, she stopped walking. “When I asked you what happened between you and that woman you loved, you said ‘the usual.’ I don’t know what happened, but I do know that it wasn’t usual. We share that in common, Jasper. I picked up on it then and I feel it more than ever now. Your situation may have been much different. I ran from an abuser who lied to me about who he really was, and you...? What happened in your situation?”

  * * *

  Was that what drew him so inexorably to her? This inner sense that their hearts were linked because of past experiences? Injured souls didn’t trust again easily but maybe that abated with someone who’d been through something equally damaging.

  “There was one thing I left out on my list of things heroes do,” he finally said. “Heroes respect their family. But that’s one area I don’t own bragging rights.”

  “The woman you loved was part of your family? Was she married to your brother?”

  “My uncle. Didn’t Dwight tell you?”

  “Dwight knew?”

  “He knew part of the story. Not all of it.” People passed them in both directions along the path. Jasper put his hand on her back and guided her to another bench. When he sat, he leaned with his forearms on his legs and looked out across the park and the parking area. “My uncle is a lot like your father.” That was as good of a place as any to start this tale. Jasper sat up and looked at Sadie, whose beautiful dark eyes searched into him with heartfelt interest. “He made his fortune selling cars, opening several dealerships around the country. He liked me when I was a kid, I think because I was always such a daredevil. He took risks in business and respected others like him. But he was selfish, like your father, and treated those he considered beneath him with condescension. He embarrassed me at times, whether at family events or whenever he attended school functions. He wore his wealth like a badge, in a gluttonous way.” Jasper let a few of those memories pass through him. And then those led to other memories, filling him with a familiar ache, a familiar sorrow. And plenty of regret.

  “He married a woman much younger than him,” he said. “He was my father’s older brother. He wasn’t older by much but you do the math. Kaelyn was just a few years older than me.”

  “She was the woman you loved,” Sadie said without judgment.

  “I didn’t plan on anything happening, but the more I talked with her, the more I fell in love with her. At least I thought it was love. Sometimes I wonder if the wrongness of it gave me a thrill I couldn’t resist, and maybe I justified my actions based on my lack of respect for my uncle. One thing led to another and pretty soon we were sleeping together.”

  “Did she love you?” Sadie asked.

  No one had ever asked him that and it came with a piercing stab of regret. “Yes.” He’d always felt she loved him more than he loved her, something else that made him believe he hadn’t truly loved her, which only intensified his remorse.

  “I found out he was hitting her and wanted to kill him,” Jasper said. “She wouldn’t leave him because she was afraid. I told her I’d help her, but she was too concerned over his reaction, me being his nephew and all. He found out about us and came after me with a gun. I got the gun away from him and he kept coming after me, so I shot him in the leg. The chief didn’t release any information on it, but my uncle spread plenty of lies about what really happened, saying I came after him over a family dispute.” Jasper grunted a cynical laugh. “He said it was over money, not his wife. I resigned in the wake of all the publicity. I broke things off with Kaelyn when I went to work for DAI. Kadin doesn’t view those kinds of actions as wrong. He sees through a lot. He gave me a chance and I’ve worked hard to earn his respect.”

  “You didn’t mean to hurt your uncle.”

  “Didn’t I?” he countered.

  “Respect is important to you,” Sadie said.

  Why did she pick that part out? “Both ways. Yeah, I suppose it is, among other things.” Loyalty. Faithfulness. Honor. Integrity.

  “You loved that woman,” she said. “You didn’t use her to get under your uncle’s skin. You didn’t use her to punish him. You loved her.”

  “Maybe,” he had to concede. “It was hard to tell through all my guilt.”

  “Why did you feel guilty?”

  “Sleeping with my uncle’s wife? Any decent fool would feel that way. I should have backed off when things started to get intimate. After that first kiss, I should have stayed away. But I didn’t. I didn’t respect my uncle and even though he was a jerk, I still should have respected his marriage. Not for his sake, but for hers. I could have helped her get away from him. I could have.” This was the part he could never talk about, the part that ripped him in half and destroyed him.

  “You’re talking as though...” Sadie stopped as realization popped her eyes wider. “You aren’t saying she...that your uncle...did he kill her?”

  “No, but he may as well have. She hanged herself after he beat her one last time, this time for trying to leave. She had her suitcase packed and in the car. He dragged her back inside, according to neighbors. The next day she made it to the hospital and pressed charges. I went back to Toledo and gave him a dose of his own medicine. Told him if he ever went near her again I’d kill him. He stayed away from her and it looked like she’d finally be free of him. But the charges she filed didn’t result in jail time. When I came back after finding out she was in the hospital, Kaelyn begged me to take her with me. She begged me to start a new life with her in Wyoming where I had moved. I denied her. There was already too much drama. Everyone in my family was on me for having the affair in the first place. That only made the abuse worse. I told Kaelyn I’d get her somewhere safe and make sure my uncle never hurt her again. She agreed to meet me the next day. I had everything planned. But she never showed up. My dad called and told me she’d hanged herself. My uncle blames me.”

  “That wasn’t your fault! He was abusive and she felt she had no way out.”

  “She did, though. I was her way out.” But he’d abandoned her by refusing to take her with him, citing that the two of them staying together would cause too much tension in the family. He had to do the right thing. He knew his uncle didn’t deserve her, but long-term if Jasper had stayed with her it would have torn the family apart. Jasper ending their relationship had nothing to do with how he felt about his uncle. It had everything to do with honor. Honor for himself and for Kaelyn.

  “She didn’t hang herself because you let her go, Jasper. You can’t think that.”

  He met her imploring eyes and knew she meant it with all her heart. She was a woman who’d survived an abusive man. She must know how desperate a woman would feel in that situation, how helpless and stuck, unable to see a way out.

  “That was at least part of it. She loved me. I know she did. And I abandoned her at her lowest. She needed me and I wasn’t there for her.”

  “But you were. You would have gotten her somewhere safe. She must have known that. Her husband had her beaten down so much that she couldn’t reason her way out of her despair.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “What matters is she’s dead.”

  “You didn’t kill her.”

  “No. But she’s dead.” He could tell her he missed the woman but he wasn’t sure he’d be completely honest. What they’d had was wrong. Any regrets or sadness he felt stemmed from that more than his love for her. The wrongness. He still couldn’t believe he’d allowed something like that to happen. Him. A man who valued heroism.

  Sadie put her hand along his face and moved toward him. Before he could stop her, she pressed a soft kiss
to his lips, nothing sexual, just supportive. She couldn’t know how much more powerful that was. He almost took it to the next level. Except she cooled everything when she drew back and said, “Let’s go get chocolate.”

  Chapter 9

  Sadie couldn’t stop thinking about everything she and Jasper had talked about yesterday. She finally gave in to them and reclined on the sofa, facing the darkened window and listening to the rain patter.

  She never talked about Darien with anyone. Not only did that bring up too many bad memories, it was dangerous talking about him. Talking about him could lead down a slippery path. But what stayed with her long after they had left the park was all he’d revealed about the woman he’d once loved. He’d wanted to save her and couldn’t. That touched a soft spot inside her and made her think of Steven.

  She’d never told anyone, but he had feelings for her and that’s what made him help her. She’d told him she wasn’t interested, though. At the time she hadn’t thought she would be interested in any man for a very long time, and she hadn’t been, not until Jasper came along. He’d awakened something in her, something she couldn’t shake, and now she felt drawn to him more than ever.

  He felt responsible for Kaelyn killing herself. Sadie had thought about that all night. That poor woman had lived in an abusive marriage and then had met a man like Jasper, a chivalrous man, a strong man with a righteous mind. She must have been in awe, maybe full of disbelief that a man like him would love her. And then when he’d turned her down she must have been crushed. She must have envisioned a life doomed to never being free of her horrible husband. Sadie had felt that way with Darien.

  Sadie could well understand why Jasper felt guilty. But Kaelyn taking her own life was not his fault. He’d cared about her and would have helped her. He just couldn’t give her his heart. What would it take to capture his heart? The adventurer, the thrill seeker. The lawman. The Good Samaritan.

  When her core tickled with imagination, Sadie forced herself to stop.

  Hearing a phone ring, she twisted on the sofa to see Jasper still sitting at the kitchen island where he’d been working on his laptop. He answered and after a few seconds he turned sharply to Sadie.

  “When?” he asked the caller, and then listened for a longer period of time. “We’re on our way.”

  She stood as he did, alarmed and full of apprehension. “What is it?”

  “Eddy Anderson has been kidnapped. A ransom note was left in his apartment.”

  Sadie sucked in a breath. “He was taken from his apartment?”

  “It appears that way.”

  Wouldn’t that mean he knew whoever had taken him? Or had he been accosted outside and forced at gunpoint from then on.

  “The ransom letter demands one million and the abductor will call the Revive Center one hour from now with instructions on where to make the drop.”

  “Ransom?” That made no sense. First murder, then the attack and now this?

  “The letter contained a threat not to involve police.”

  “Or the kidnapper will kill Eddy?”

  Jasper nodded soberly.

  Sadie put her hand to her mouth. She could not endure another loss like that.

  * * *

  Jasper walked with Sadie to the front entrance of the Revive Center, carrying his laptop case and hurrying to get them out of the steady rain. He didn’t like seeing Sadie so stressed. His desire to make her happy redoubled, to keep the sadness out of her eyes. Their intimate talk must be to blame. He had no other explanation for this inner rise of protectiveness he felt for her. Talking about Kaelyn had never been easy for him, but with Sadie the words hadn’t been as difficult as he’d expected. Maybe that was due to the similarities they shared. Life had a way of making sense in retrospect. Some things seemed to happen for a reason. Had fate put him outside DAI when Sadie drove up in her Ferrari? He wasn’t sure he was ready for that kind of fate.

  “Those men saw us talking to Eddy,” Sadie said.

  Jasper passed through the revolving door with her. “I don’t think they did. Remember their view of us was blocked. They didn’t see us on the bench.”

  He took her hand as they headed for the inner offices. Going through the door to the reception room, they ran into Dwight, who’d been the one to call him about the kidnapping. After they’d confronted the two men who’d staked out the Revive Center, he’d gone back there to watch the men who’d taken over the night shift. The room was empty of all but them.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Sadie said. “Why kill Bernie, attack my home, spy on me here and then kidnap another homeless person?”

  “I’d like an answer to that question myself,” Jasper said, taking his laptop case behind the counter. “It’s almost as if someone is toying with you.”

  “So far there’s been no contact,” Dwight said, following Jasper. “The message said the call would come here.”

  While Jasper took out his laptop, Sadie meandered through tables, passing vending machines and the two refrigerators in the kitchen area.

  “Boot this up for me, will you?” Jasper asked.

  “Yeah, sure.” He sat on the stool and went to work.

  Sadie went into an alcove where a few more tables offered a little more privacy, disappearing from view. Jasper left the front counter and headed toward the alcove. Reaching that, he saw she had stopped by the far windows, darkened since the sun had set hours ago. Hugging her arms, a shudder seemed to pass through her. Her shoulders rose and fell with a slight tremble.

  He went to her, glancing at Dwight, who’d sat down on the chair behind the counter, passing time with a magazine as he waited for the phone on the counter to ring. Standing behind Sadie, Jasper put his hand on her upper arm. She must have heard him because she didn’t flinch at his touch. He looked through the window. The reception area was dim, with after-hour lighting. Through the glittering reflection of rain droplets clinging to the glass, he could see lights from the adjacent building and part of the apartment building to the right. Some trees in the landscaping along the Revive Center blocked some of the view.

  “What if Eddy is killed?” she asked.

  “He won’t be.”

  She tipped her head up. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m not sure how, I’m just sure that whoever kidnapped him wants money and that’s not in line with Bernie’s murder.”

  “You don’t think they’re related?”

  “We’re going to find out.”

  “I can’t bear another of my clients being killed,” she said.

  “If I have my way that will never happen.”

  She faced the window again, looking at him through the dimly reflected light on the glass, freckled by droplets of rain. He met her gaze and a shot of warmth sizzled through him. Her face was so beautiful. He lifted his free hand and fingered strands of her hair between his fingers. That led to the desire to brush the rest of the strands away from her slender, soft neck. First he kissed the skin there.

  Hearing her increased breaths, he kissed her jawline. Then he tipped her chin up with his fingers and kissed her mouth. She turned and looped her arms around his neck, her fingers going into his hair. Her breasts pressed just below his chest. He held her to him, kissing her the way he longed to as soon as he’d seen her face in the reflection. When she began to make sounds that told him she was more than ready to take this somewhere with a door, he withdrew from the kiss. Breathing with her to calm their passion, he couldn’t resist touching her hair one more time. He put his hands on each side of her head and rested his forehead against hers.

  “Jasper?” She sounded breathless and aroused.

  “Yes?” he answered in a raspy voice that was equally aroused.

  “What are we going to do about this?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just
let it run its course?”

  She moved her head back and searched his eyes, a question in them. What if the course never ended?

  The phone rang in the silent reception room, abruptly ending that conversation.

  Sadie rushed to the front counter as Dwight picked up the phone.

  Jasper wrote down the number displayed in the caller ID filed of the phone.

  After Dwight listened awhile he said, “We need proof of life.”

  With that, Sadie moved a few slow steps closer, eyes wide with apprehension.

  Jasper resisted his urge to go to her and went to work on his computer.

  “Eddy? E—” Dwight must have been cut off. After a moment he said, “Yes.” And then hung up.

  “What is it?” Sadie asked.

  “We have twenty-four hours,” Dwight said.

  Sadie didn’t balk at the amount. “Is Eddy all right?”

  “He sounded scared but in one piece.” He looked at Jasper. “It was a woman.”

  Their enemy could have arranged for anyone to make that call. Or his instinct was dead-on and this had nothing to do with Bernie’s murder.

  He finished working with the triangulation software. It picked up on four towers with the strongest signals and outlined the area on a map. When he realized which neighborhood the call had come from, he went utterly still. No. It couldn’t be.

  * * *

  “What’s gotten into you?” Sadie asked as Jasper drove them to a private airport she never even knew about until then, the windshield wipers a monotonous rhythm.

  “We’re going to get Eddy back.”

  He’d been evasive when she and Dwight asked why he’d seemed so shocked looking at the results from the cell tower triangulation report. Then he’d told Dwight to stay at the Center in case another call came in and taken Sadie with him.