by Melody Anne
She didn’t trust the cops, and she barely trusted the FBI. She’d rather this entire mess were behind her, that she was on the other side of it, finally living a somewhat normal life.
“Then what happens if I sign the document?”
“We get you set up in a new location. You use an alias, get a job, go on living your life. We will check in on you, make sure you’re fine, and that’s where you’ll stay until the hearing. When it’s over, you can either keep the name, stay in the location, and resume your life as the new person, or you can go back to who you were,” Axel said.
“I don’t get any time to think about this?”
“I’m sorry, but you need to decide now.” They’d already told her this several times.
If she didn’t do what they wanted, they were well within their rights to lock her up, and she’d be locked up in a county jail, a place where Jesse would have much easier access to her.
Looking at the two options before her, she decided that testifying was the lesser of evils. Still, speaking to the attorney seemed a really good idea, even if that frightened her, too.
She was so sick and tired of being afraid. How dare Jesse do this to her, make her into such a weak woman? It wasn’t okay, not okay at all. She was sick of the men in her life having such power over her. It had been that way since she was a small child.
None of it was her fault, but that’s just the fate she’d been handed.
“Fine. I’ll sign your piece of paper,” she finally said.
“I’m really glad to hear that, Misty,” Bryson replied, and their eyes connected for just a moment, a moment that had her stomach tightening.
It wasn’t attraction. She couldn’t possibly feel that toward him. It was fear. That had to be what it was. She lowered her eyes quickly, unwilling to look too deep.
There was a knock on the door, and then an intern stepped in with their lunch and set it on the table. Misty’s stomach rumbled, surprising her. She hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours, but her nerves had been tied in knots, making it impossible.
Now that she’d made a solid decision, even if it wasn’t an ideal solution, her stress levels were actually going down and the thought of food was heavenly.
“I’m going to get the paperwork,” Bryson said. He stood and followed the intern out, leaving her sitting there with Axel, who made her much more nervous than Bryson did.
She didn’t know why, as he was the one always cracking jokes, but the guy seemed more lethal to her. Maybe it was the almost cold look in his eyes. She just didn’t know.
But as he passed her a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake, she made sure not to brush his fingers with hers. After several minutes passed, and her hunger pangs eased, she grew more curious, and she found herself wanting to talk.
“How long have you and Agent Winchester worked together?” Nerves shot through her as he looked over her way. Damn, this guy was intimidating.
Axel stuffed a few fries in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, and then answered her question. “Five years.”
Taking a deep breath, she asked him the question of the hour, one she should have already asked.
“Why am I so important in all of this? I don’t understand. There must be a hundred — a thousand — other women who would love to testify against Jesse. I just want to live my life, put all of this behind me. I just want to be free of these stupid mistakes I’ve made.” Her voice gained force and clarity during her impassioned speech.
One look from his cold hazel eyes and she backed down. Damn, this man’s interrogation tactics must be out of this world.
“Not all cases are so black and white, Misty. The more evidence we obtain on this piece of scum, the more likely we are to lock him up and throw away the key. If he stays on the street wearing a badge — carrying a gun — then no one is safe. Don’t you understand that?”
He seemed genuinely perplexed that she wasn’t taking this more seriously. It wasn’t that she thought it was a joke; it was just that she didn’t want to face the giant, and that’s what Jesse was to her — a giant man with a giant fist, and an even bigger temper.
It would take Jesse only seconds to kill her. He could have her neck snapped before she ever got the chance to call out for help. He could leap across a table and strangle her before anyone even thought about stopping him. If Jesse knew he was going to jail anyway, what would it matter to him if he killed her? The man was that crazy — crazy enough to get in one last victim before being locked up for good. A courtroom full of witnesses would be neither here nor there to him.
“I don’t trust people,” she said as she sipped on her vanilla shake. Her stomach was feeling much better now.
“I figured that out when you Tased my partner,” he said with a chuckle.
“You didn’t seem in a hurry to help him,” she countered, feeling only a bit guilty over the whole Taser incident. Bryson had grabbed her, after all…
“Nah, Bryson’s a tough guy. We’ve been Tasered before.”
Her eyes widened at his words. He’d said them so casually. “You have? Why?” Maybe it was another crazy witness, she thought.
“It’s all part of the training,” he said casually, as if getting thousands of volts of electricity shot into your body happened all the time.
She shook her head, then continued with the questions.
“Does Bryson ever give up?” She knew the answer before Axel spoke.
“Not once since I’ve known him, and that’s been a lot of years. He will win this case. He doesn’t know the meaning of losing. We have a powerful attorney who wants Jesse’s head on a platter. None of us will stop until that happens.”
The victory in his eyes seemed to say the case was already won, though Misty knew that was far from true. For the moment, at least, Jesse was very much free — free to come after her any time he wanted.
The conversation must have been over, because Axel stood and took their garbage to the wastebasket. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
With that, she found herself alone in the interrogation room.
When the two men came back in, everything seemed to move at warp speed. The documents were placed before her, and she was left alone again as she read through them. After an hour, she found there really wasn’t a good reason not to sign.
Once she’d turned the papers over, she was escorted outside, transferred to a jet and on her way to her new life with a new identify. Well, a new identity until this was all over.
And no longer than that, she vowed. Because as she sat down in her small home and looked at her new driver’s license, with the name Magnolia Linhart and a different date of birth, she knew she didn’t want this to be her.
Yes, her life had been anything but perfect, but Misty Elton was who she was; it was the name the children’s services department had given her, anyway. It was all she knew, and she didn’t want to start again.
This would only be temporary, right?
Misty was about to find out how slowly the wheels of justice turned.
Chapter Five
A sweet smile flitted across Misty’s lips as she lifted her face to the sky and enjoyed the sun beating down upon her. Yes, it was a bit too warm, and, yes, sweat was beading on her neck, but it didn’t matter.
This was her second month in her new home, and she finally felt as if she were secure again. She finally felt free to sit out on her front lawn and dig weeds from the flower beds. Up until the week before, she’d gone straight to her part-time job as a graveyard shelf stocker, and straight back home again, too afraid of being outside in the daylight hours.
Fear.
It was real; it made a person fight or flee; it shaped a person; it could mean living or dying. Fear was a constant with Misty, but she wasn’t going to let it rule her anymore. She wasn’t going to allow Jesse the satisfaction of knowing that even though he was free to do what he pleased, she was locked in a cage.
Bryson had been gone since he and Axel had dropped her off at he
r new home, working on finding other witnesses, on building the case. The agent who’d been checking on her was unfamiliar, and unbelievably rigid. The guy made her thoroughly uncomfortable. She just didn’t trust strangers — didn’t trust anyone, really. So why did she find herself missing Bryson? He was a stranger, too.
She had known him for only a day, and it appalled her to be upset that he was no longer her agent.
It was just that she was depending on him, counting on him. Then, she was suddenly thrust into the care of another agent. It was confusing.
Mystifying her even more had been the phone calls from Bryson to see how she was doing, to make sure she was adjusting. She didn’t think it was exactly protocol in these situations if he wasn’t her agent anymore, but she didn’t have friends, didn’t have family, so the shoulder he was offering, even if it was only over the phone, had been too nice for her to turn down.
It had been two weeks since the last time he’d phoned, though. She didn’t know if he was in a situation where he couldn’t call, or if it simply meant that he’d grown bored with their conversations.
Either way, though she hated to admit it, she missed the sound of his voice. When would she learn to not depend on anyone else but herself?
The lesson clearly hadn’t sunken in yet.
Still, something she had learned was how to control her fear. Being with Jesse had been forced upon her; she wasn’t the one in the wrong in that situation. Once she had accepted that, although the fear was still there, at the back of her senses, she was making a valiant effort to really live — well, live as much as she could while residing in a place that wasn’t hers for long.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, Misty’s skin turned pink, and she knew she should go back in, since she didn’t have sunblock on, but she couldn’t make herself do so. She was also strongly considering a haircut, but for some reason she wasn’t able to bring herself to have it done. She’d never felt beautiful, but the only compliment she could ever remember from her childhood had been when her fourth-grade teacher said she loved her hair.
From that moment on, Misty had taken pride in her long, dark tresses, brushing them more gently, from the bottom to the top, the way one foster mom had shown her, and braiding her hair loosely at night so it would have a pretty curl to it in the morning.
Still, with the sun beating down, she wouldn’t have minded having a little less hair at this particular moment. But she’d rather be too hot, enjoying the sun, than stuck back inside the small, lonely house.
Dumping water on her shoulders gave her instant relief. It cooled her down just enough that she could get at least another half hour in her front garden before she had to drag herself back in or risk heat stroke.
Digging her hand shovel happily into the ground, she pulled at another root, hoping she’d still be here to see the roses bloom next month. Lifting her hand, she ran her finger gently across one of the stems, feeling the sharpness of a thorn.
It made her smile. No matter how beautiful roses were, they could cause a lot of pain. That concept worked for people as well. Though Special Agent Bryson Winchester was a very beautiful male, he could certainly inflict a lot of damage.
She’d learned that from the conversations the two of them had shared. His voice over the phone was no less masculine, was no less sexy, than he was. The man had sensual energy seeping through his skin, and the phone line seemed only to accelerate the speed with which those waves reached her.
After grabbing her shears, she was cutting away dead debris when she heard a vehicle pull up to the curb alongside her house. Heart racing, Misty found herself frozen, though that reaction ticked her off, especially after she’d delivered that lecture to herself on bravery. Much as she struggled to relax her muscles, however, she couldn’t seem to turn her head, to reassure herself that it was just a neighbor, simply someone who lived next door and was returning home.
Her fear wasn’t quite as much under control as she’d hoped.
“Breathe,” she whispered, then forced her head to inch upward. When she spotted the long, lean legs encased in a pair of fitted jeans, her breath whooshed out in relief, and then she tensed for a completely different reason.
As her eyes continued to travel upward, they rose over the light green polo, and she locked gazes with Bryson Winchester. Nope. Two months of not seeing him had done nothing to her libido. She was just as affected by him now as she was the first time they’d met. If not more.
Only this time, she wasn’t afraid.
Running a hand through the escaped tendrils of her damp hair, Misty was suddenly self-conscious about the way she was dressed. She looked down to see dirt-caked hands and grass stains on her clothes. It shouldn’t matter — but somehow it did.
Walking up to her, Bryson didn’t say a word, his eyes intense, a smile flitting across his lips. Misty wondered whether she would find her voice in the next few moments, before the situation became any more awkward.
“What are you doing here?” she finally asked, her voice a bit too breathy.
He seemed to be taking his sweet time answering, and Misty was feeling a whole new kind of heat creeping down her neck. Her stomach tensed. How it was that she felt any kind of attraction toward this man? Men weren’t trustworthy. Not even this special agent who’d saved her from Jesse — for now.
He wasn’t here on a social call. This would be business. That’s all the two of them had together. Even if he were making a social call, it wouldn’t matter. She wasn’t interested in a relationship — she just wanted to live her life without drama. Without men.
Someday, that might be possible.
“My supervisor sent me. We’ve gathered all the witnesses and I’ve now been reassigned to you,” he finally replied as he squatted down, putting himself at eye level with her, and making her feel at a huge disadvantage.
The surge of disappointment from his answer irritated her.
Of course he was here on business. She’d already known that. It changed nothing. She’d just been telling herself that they would never be anything to each other but casual acquaintances. When this was all over, she would never see him again.
The clothes he was wearing weren’t bought at a cheap department store, and so, even if she had been interested in dating, he was way beyond her league. This man wouldn’t be seen out socially with a woman like her. It just didn’t happen.
She stood up slowly, feeling uncomfortable remaining on her knees. “What happened to Agent Benson?”
“He’s been assigned to another case.”
“What if I don’t want to change agents?” she challenged him, her bravery rising as she faced him. She had managed to get the upper hand on him once, she remembered with some pleasure.
“Then I’d have to say, ‘Tough,’ Misty.” His smile turning up a notch, making her take a cautious step backward as her hand lifted again and she wiped the sweat from her brow.
Great! Now she was going to have a streak of mud on her forehead. This just kept getting better by the second.
“Well, I could say, ‘Tough,’ when you ask me questions.” Feeling at a disadvantage, she was consequently acting slightly immature.
His smile grew even bigger, and he winked. “I have ways of making a witness talk.”
“I guess that just makes you special,” she quipped, hating the way he was perfectly unaffected by her stubbornness. She could sense her own irritation growing by leaps and bounds.
He leaned forward, invading her personal bubble. “I could show you exactly how special I am,” he whispered.
Whoa! That was definitely not professional. What was he trying to do now? Seduce her into talking, giving him what he wanted, obviously. She just needed to remember that’s all this was about — her testimony.
She finally broke the long silence that followed. “Um…it’s getting pretty hot out here. I was just finishing up,” she said. Better just to let him win their verbal battle.
“Great. I’m a bit warm myself.” H
e stood up and invited himself to join her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to tell him to go away.
“I really have a lot to do…”
“How about we start this conversation again?” he asked with a killer smile. “I’m in town working, and thought I’d stop by. It’s been a long drive, and my throat is parched.”
Misty stood there for a moment, and then, unbidden, her lips twitched at his blatant hint. This man knew how to be charming, knew how to get his way. She’d bet he killed it on the stand when he testified as an expert witness.
“I made a fresh pot of iced tea a little while ago,” she told him, the idea of sitting with a cool drink with this man was too dang appealing for her liking.
“Perfect. I just so happen to love tea.” He held out his arm to escort her inside.
Misty looked at the arm for a moment, then looked down, pretending she hadn’t noticed his gesture. She bent down and gathered her gardening tools, placed them in the basket she was using, and began walking toward her front door.
She could swear she heard him chuckle, but when she turned her head, his mouth was closed, though there was a smile on his lips. Maybe she was just getting paranoid at this point.
When his hand brushed her back as they reached the front door, a chill slithered down her body, a tingling chasing that sensation. One small touch and she was heated and cooled all at once. Never before could she remember reacting this way to a guy — not her first lover, and certainly not Jesse.
Drawing away from him, she slipped inside the door while giving herself a stern lecture. You will not feel a response to this man. He is trying to manipulate you into doing what he wants. This is all pointless. He will disappear in a few minutes, and then you probably won’t ever see him again, so pull yourself together.
The mental lecture seemed to help…a little. The sooner she gave Bryson a drink and then ushered him back out her front door, the better for her racing heart and her suddenly reawakened libido.