He had a duty to take the guy down.
It had nothing to do with the overwhelming urge building inside him to protect her.
Not his job. The last person he was supposed to protect he ended up shooting. Accident or not, Paula had trusted him to keep her safe.
As soon as the storm passed and the roads cleared, Trigger would get the cops involved and ensure they took down the asshole who hurt Ashley.
She’d go back to her glam life.
He’d go back to . . . whatever the hell he was doing these days.
Ashley shifted again, bent over the bowl of soup she’d annihilated over the last few quiet minutes. His T-shirt engulfed her small frame. The neckline so big, it slipped off one of her shoulders, exposing her bony frame. She pulled it up, but it slipped down again. Her feet shifted under the table, bumping his sock-covered toes, reminding him that she wore nothing but his shirt and probably felt very exposed.
“I can get you some sweatpants and socks to wear.”
Her gaze left the near-empty bowl of soup and met his. She adjusted the shirt again. “I’m, um, not really used to wearing clothes, I guess.”
He eyed her. “What do you mean?”
Her gaze dropped to her lap. “Other than the costumes he made me wear, I wasn’t allowed anything else.” She plucked the T-shirt out from her chest and stared at it. “This is the most comfortable thing I’ve worn in—” Her gaze shot up to his. “What day is it?”
“Saturday. Well, Sunday at this point.”
She checked the clock on the microwave to verify that at two in the morning, it had indeed become a new day.
He didn’t want to overwhelm her, but thought some basic information might help her cope and assimilate to her new reality. “According to the news, the anniversary of your disappearance is next Friday.”
Her eyes glassed over. “Is that what people think? I disappeared?”
“According to the news, no one really knows what happened to you after you left the After Midnight party. Did someone kidnap you?”
Her head shook. “No. Turns out I’m stupid and no one will believe me.”
“Is that you talking, or the sick fuck who made you believe that?”
Her head snapped back like he’d slapped her. Good. He had her attention. Thanks to the food and glass of water she downed, he hoped she’d start thinking more clearly, too.
She propped her elbows on the table and held her head in her shaking hands. “His voice is in my head. Those damn lines from the movies he made me recite over and over like some robot. Always demanding I give him that perfect version of what he saw on-screen. They aren’t real. I’m real. I’m Ashley.” Her voice cracked on her name. “I’m not them. I don’t want to be them anymore.” Tears clogged her throat. She sat up and scrubbed her hands over her face and bright eyes, pulling herself together. “I’m done. Do you get that? I don’t care what it takes, where I have to go, how long I have to hide, I won’t do it again. I won’t play the part and be someone’s fantasy.” She slammed her hands on the table. “You got that?”
He couldn’t help the grin tugging at his lips. She might be down, but she wasn’t out. “Loud and clear.” In fact, he glanced past her at Adam. The little guy slept right through her shouting.
“Sorry. My mind is all over the place. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m the one who walked right into a trap. I didn’t see the bars around me until the cage door closed. Then it was too late.
“When a friend says, ‘Come over. Stay as long as you like. Ditch the spotlight for the big Montana sky and the freedom you’ve been without too long,’ all you want to do is get there as fast as you can. The first week is all about settling in to the vacation you’ve desperately wanted. You relish the quiet, the long days spent doing nothing more than sitting in the garden reading a book that came out last year but you never had time to read. The days fly by with easy conversation and good food. Then you realize the friendly jests are too close to being serious. The simple touch on your arm lingers a bit too long. You don’t expect it from a man you’d never consider a boyfriend, and he plays it off as admiration and warmth between you because he understands you like no one else. It feels that way because he’s manipulated you into believing it. Before you know it, two weeks have passed and the phone you promised yourself you wouldn’t answer until you were ready to face all those demands and obligations again is missing. You must have misplaced it.
“But you haven’t spoken to anyone but him. You haven’t seen the news because watching movies in the screening room is so much more relaxing and entertaining. It’s flattering he wants to watch your movies with you, hear the inside story about the filming, your thoughts on the characters, until you go to dress for dinner and he’s left you a copy of the dress you wore in his favorite film. You wear it to thank him for all he’s done, giving you this place to rest and find your head again. You come down to dinner and it’s the scene from your film. He speaks the lines and you give him back your character’s words because it seems like a silly joke.
“You ignore the warning ringing in your head that something isn’t right. When he tries to seduce you with words and actions from that same movie and you reject him instead of playing along, the slap across the face is so unexpected and jarring, you don’t know what to do. Your mind doesn’t figure out what to do until it’s too late and you’re locked in a room that’s been turned into a vault. No windows. No light. No escape.
“You’re trapped, and you quickly learn that if you don’t live up to the fantasy you created on-screen, you’ll pay dearly.” She slid her hand around her side and held her cracked ribs.
“I thought he was my friend. It’s still so hard to reconcile the man I knew and trusted hid the monster he unleashed on me. How could people look at him and not see it? I didn’t see it until it was too late.”
“People are very good at presenting that part of themselves they want you to see. Look at me.” He held up his tattooed arms and pointed to his long hair. “I work undercover. I want people to believe I’m the guy who will cut them down if I don’t get what I want. I’m the guy who sells drugs and doesn’t care about anything but the money. I’m part of their deviant crowd.
“You saw the badge. It tells you I’m the good guy, but one look at me and you dismissed that I’m a cop, fighting to take that shit off the streets and put thugs behind bars where they belong.”
Beck locked eyes with her. “Never believe what people show you, only the things they do.”
He glanced over at Adam. “For a second there, you saw me with Adam and couldn’t resolve my kindness to the boy with the way I look. I get that. My people skills are lacking these days. I don’t trust anyone. I’m always looking for their angle, waiting to see if they’re going to shoot me in the back.”
Ashley sighed, her mouth dipping into a soft frown. “I’m sorry I thought the worst. You brought us here, took care of Adam and me. He’s been taught to hide, yet he saw a protector in you. It took me a minute to see it, but I don’t trust myself anymore, so if I hold on to my suspicions and paranoia, it’s not you—it’s survival. I guess you get that, too.”
“More than you know.” He’d been living in survival mode so long he’d alienated his family, lost friends, and isolated himself to protect himself and others.
Another tether connected him to Ashley. It started with him simply wanting to protect her and the child, but now he felt a real connection to her and their shared experience of having to play a part to survive. They’d done so for different reasons. Him for a righteous cause. Her to save her life. But they both ended up in the same place, unable to go back to who they used to be, forever changed by their experiences and longing to feel connected again, but too wary of others to reach out.
For all she’d told him, some big questions still needed answers. For him, one thing mattered more than all the rest. “Who did this to you, Ashley?”
Her gaze held his for a long moment that stretched with nothing but the crackle and p
op of the fire breaking the silence. The indecision in her eyes told him she didn’t think he’d believe her.
She leaned forward with her folded arms on the table, continued to look him right in the eye, and gave him a name he never expected. “Brice Mooney.”
Images of her smiling at the late-night talk show host from the clips the news outlets hadn’t stopped playing over the last few days ran through his head. He’d focused on her—beautiful and captivating, she held every man’s attention—but now he thought of Brice in those clips. The way he stared at her, all adoration and devotion in his eyes. The flirting that seemed fun but held a wealth of meaning and intent for Brice. Knowing what he knew now, Trigger reevaluated the covetous look in Brice’s eyes. What everyone else saw as idolization, he now saw as possessive. An unhealthy worship that went too far. It wasn’t enough to be a part of her very public world. He wanted to keep her all to himself. Brice actually believed all those smiles she flashed for the camera were truly meant only for him.
“If you don’t believe me, someone who can read people and see right through them, how am I supposed to convince anyone else?”
“I believe you. Where did he hold you? Did he move you around from one place to another?”
“I’ve been at his ranch the whole time.”
Trigger thought about the ranches and properties around him. Spread out over vast amounts of open land, he knew two of his five neighbors. Chance meetings really, because he hadn’t been inclined to announce his presence here or let it be known a DEA agent lived right next door. His undercover work necessitated that he keep a low profile when off duty. You never knew when a neighbor might recognize you because they had a friend or relative who liked to get their hands dirty in the drug world and would out you inadvertently or on purpose.
He stood to get his phone so he could pull up a map of the area. Even if Ashley couldn’t pinpoint where she’d been held, maybe she could narrow it down before he called the office and got some computer geek to do some property record digging.
Ashley startled and slid down the bench when he stood, putting more distance between them. She sucked in a ragged breath and held her arm to her hurt ribs.
“Easy. I’m just getting my phone.” He bypassed the counter where his phone sat charging and went to the other side to retrieve his bottle of pain meds by the sink. He brought them, another glass of water, and his phone back to the table. He set the pills in front of Ashley’s bowl along with the water. “Pain meds. Take one. You’ll feel better.”
She still sat three feet down the table. “As much as I’d like to check out and numb—everything, I’d like to keep some semblance of a clear head.”
It stung she didn’t trust him, but he got her need to stay in control and aware.
“Do you have some ibuprofen instead?”
He passed the phone with the map app opened to her. “Think you can find where you were being held?”
She reached out and took the phone, sliding down and back to her spot in front of him as he stood and went to the cupboard to find the medicine. By the time he sat back down, she’d fiddled with the map and turned the phone to face him. He handed her the bottle of pills and took the phone, studying it.
“This is pretty damn far from here.”
“By road, yes. But I must have walked a fairly direct route right to you.”
He checked the map key and calculated how far she’d come. “That’s about ten miles, give or take a couple.”
“Give a few, if you ask me. I carried Adam most of the way.”
“In heels and that cinched dress? Are you kidding me?”
“I didn’t say it was easy, but I knew it was my one and only chance to escape. All my other attempts failed.” He read the nightmare in her eyes about what happened after those failed tries. “I had to keep going, get as far away as fast as I could and find help. Though to tell you the truth, I’m not sure anyone can really help me. He’ll spin this his way. It’s my word against his.”
“Adam will back up your story. There must have been others working on the ranch. Staff to cook and clean.”
She shook her head at every guess he made to help her build her story.
“He kept me locked up. He only let me out when we were alone. The first few weeks I was there and everything seemed normal, Adam’s mother cooked and cleaned. I didn’t interact with her much, but she and Brice seemed close. I had the feeling she’d worked for him awhile. He seemed fine with Adam at his mother’s side while she worked. In the past year . . .” Her words fell away. The disbelief that she’d been held for almost a year showed in her eyes. “I haven’t seen her. I’ve only seen Adam a handful of times, mostly because he peeked out of one hiding spot or another when he spied on Brice and me.”
“So you don’t know if his mother is still there or not?”
“I don’t think so. Adam wanted to leave with me.”
And didn’t that just say everything. He wouldn’t leave his mother.
“Is he Brice’s son?”
“No. Brice caught Adam sneaking into the kitchen while we were at the dining table acting out Brice’s favorite scene.” She closed her eyes, too overcome to speak for a moment.
“What did he do to Adam when he caught him?”
“He kicked him again and again, calling him a mangy dog who didn’t know his place.” Ashley held her arm like a baby.
Trigger notched his chin toward Ashley’s telltale gesture. “You stepped in and saved the boy, but Brice paid you back for being disloyal to him.”
“Adam escaped the rest of the beating, but I didn’t. He broke my arm, stripped me of the pretty gown he so generously allowed me to wear, dragged me up the stairs by my hair, and dumped me back in that dark box to wallow in my pain and starve for God knows how many days.”
Trigger swore, imaging the hell she’d been through.
He wanted her to stop. Shut the hell up. He couldn’t take any more. But then she spoke again and his already-battered heart took yet another beating.
“In the dark, time is measured in endurance and the strength of your will. Mine didn’t always last as long as I needed it to between that door closing and opening. There comes a point where you run out of tears. You forget who you are and used to be. You understand on an elemental level that it doesn’t matter how famous you are, how much money you’ve made, the countless fans who cheered your name, the awards you’ve won, the admiration you received, and that in the end you are as vulnerable as everyone else. And when you run out of hope and know deep down that no one is coming to save you, you don’t even blink an eye or shout for the injustice of it all. You give up and give in because you know doing so will finally be the end.”
Trigger had known some truly sadistic people and understood exactly what she hadn’t said. “Your not giving in to him saved you all those months. It kept the potential for his fantasy of you being his loving partner alive for him. Once you gave him what he wanted, what he thought he wanted but would never be real enough for him, you knew he’d kill you.” She’d truly reached the end of her endurance and lost her will to live.
“If not for someone coming to the door and Brice making one tiny mistake, I’d be dead right now. Of course, if you hadn’t found me passed out, I’d be dead right now, too.”
“I don’t know how Adam found me, but he led me to you.”
“In my prison box I wished for a spark of light. In the dead of night, with a million stars overhead, a storm and Brice closing in, your light guided me to you.”
His insomnia saved her life. Who knows how long she might have been wandering outside before someone, if anyone, found her? The storm would have killed her and Adam.
Trigger stared out the huge windows and thought about last night and the never-ending dark thoughts about what he’d done that kept him up, his attempts to resolve events that were out of his control and turned out so bad, and the one thing he wanted but felt he didn’t deserve. A small piece of the happiness his brother foun
d with Mia. A partner who understood him and wanted the same things he wanted: a quiet, safe life. Family. An unbreakable bond with a connection rooted in love.
That was something he’d never had with a woman, but seeing it between Caden and Mia, he couldn’t help but want it for himself.
He wanted more than a life filled with work and other people’s problems.
“You found exactly where you needed to be. I can help you.” Surprisingly, he didn’t have a single reservation about getting involved. For all his declarations that he wanted to be left alone out here to wallow in his misery, he actually wanted to make a difference in Ashley’s and Adam’s lives. Maybe if he helped them, he’d find some sort of redemption for his mistakes and the shady deeds he’d done in the name of good but which left a black mark on him anyway.
“While I appreciate your help tonight, calling the cops in the morning and getting them involved won’t help the way you think it will. Brice knows I’m gone and that I took Adam with me. If the cops get involved, he’ll kill me to shut me up. If he can’t do that, he’ll flee the country and never face justice, but I’ll live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, knowing he’s coming after me again. If that’s not bad enough, I’ll be hunted by the media and paparazzi, all of them wanting to get the story and all the dirty details. When they don’t, they’ll make it up and turn my life into an exhibit for everyone to judge and blame me.”
“Who the hell would blame you for what happened?”
She rolled her eyes. “Brice’s fans. My critics. Anyone with an internet connection who wants to spout off about things they know nothing about and have even less care for how their words affect others. People like to put stars on a pedestal, but what they really love to do is watch them fall.
“You said the perception is that I disappeared to escape the Hollywood stress. Seriously?” She shook her head.
“People closest to you believe something happened to you, but yes, the media is speculating you ran off with a lover, or—”
“Great. The media has already supplied the narrative for Brice to use against me.”
Montana Heat: Escape to You Page 7