“He asked me to move in and gave me the ring to let me know that it didn’t matter when I said yes or we got married, but our being together was forever no matter what.”
“You don’t need a ring and a piece of paper to tell you that,” Ashley agreed.
“Which is why I didn’t care what anyone thought about how fast or slow we took things. As long as I have him, I have everything. After what I went through with him, almost dying, I didn’t want to waste a single day. Not when I knew in my heart I loved him, he loved me, and that’s all that mattered.”
Ashley felt that way, too. She’d lost so many days. She tried not to think of all Brice cost her. It wasn’t the movie roles she missed, the covers she didn’t grace. What if she missed meeting the love of her life? What if she died and never knew that kind of love, or never had a child of her own? She had that chance now.
She’d spent the last five years working nonstop. She had her own home, money saved up, a few good friends, her mother for the most part, and not much else going on in her life. She loved her work, but in the end was the legacy she wanted to leave behind her image on-screen or the family she wanted more than anything?
“You’re quiet.” Mia stood beside her.
Ashley hadn’t realized she’d stopped trudging through the deep snow and lost herself in thought in front of a winding creek. The water cascaded over rocks and swished around the next bend. Bare-limbed trees, heavy with snow, hung over the water and concealed them in this slice of pristine Montana paradise.
“It’s like we stepped into a photograph.”
“Beck found a great place to escape.”
“He’s hurting.” Just like me.
“He’s tired and disillusioned and sad and angry and feeling guilty for things that were out of his control and not his fault.” Mia sighed. “You know how he feels, don’t you?”
“More than you know.” She thought of how they’d played a part and forgotten who they were and what they wanted. “I feel like I’m still waking up from that nightmare. Part of me is still in it while the other part is struggling to come to terms with my new reality. I’m not the woman I used to be. I’m not the woman he made me be. I don’t know the woman I am right now, but I know I want him to pay, and I want something better for my future. I deserve that.”
“Yes, you do. So do the first, so you can have the second.”
Damn straight. “How did you get past it?”
“I was kidnapped and terrorized for one day. I have no idea how you survived for nearly a year. The second attack lasted about five minutes and felt empowering because I took the guy down with a pot and saved Caden.”
“Really?”
Mia nodded. “The threat is real, but I’m not giving up what I have with Caden for anything.”
Mia tilted her head. “It took great strength to overcome my fear. You’ll need that now. I had Caden to see me through the rough days.”
“Beck has been amazing,” she admitted. His steady presence and direct manner pushed her to move past the fear and face what came next. “I guess I’ll have to find some of that strength to face what comes next on my own.”
“Oh, you won’t be alone. Beck’s in this with you now. He won’t stop until the man who hurt you is dead or behind bars. You can count on that.”
“I can’t ask him to do that.”
Mia smiled. “You don’t have to ask him. But you already know that. Let me tell you the one thing I know for sure about the Cooke brothers. They don’t fall easy, but when they do it’s hard and fast. The way Beck looks at you”—Mia pressed her lips together and nodded—“it’s the same way Caden looks at me. He’s all in.”
Ashley didn’t know what to say to that. The thought both thrilled and scared her.
Mia stared at the vast landscape spread before them. “You found the perfect place to escape to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Beck named this place Hope Ranch. When all else is lost, hope endures, just like this land.”
Ashley didn’t know what to say, but the name fit.
“Come on—he’s probably prowling the house waiting for us.”
Ashley took one more look around the pretty creek, then sucked in a surprised gasp.
“What is it?” Mia pulled the gun and expertly held it in both hands sweeping the area, ready to face any threat.
“Nothing. No one is here. It’s me. I’m sorry to scare you. It’s just this place reminds me of something.” Her perfect escape by the river in her mind. Where her hope for survival and finding something better endured.
Mia let her hand fall to her side, the gun bouncing against her thigh. She let out a relieved sigh. “Oh. Sorry. I guess I’m a little jumpy.”
“All the more reason to stop stalling and do what needs to be done.” Ashley gave one last, forlorn look at the creek that looked so much like the special place she’d dreamed up in her head to escape to when things got really bad.
She walked back to the house with Mia in the lead. Fatigued by the hike through the snow, her thigh muscles ached, but it felt like progress. She needed to build her physical strength back. She hoped she had the mental strength to get through what came next.
A surge of relief, a flutter of awareness, the pull she fought but wanted to give in to, and a sense of determination swept through her all at once when they came into view of the house and there stood Beck on the porch waiting for them. Reassuring and scary at the same time.
Mia easily made it to the house and up the stairs, smiling at Beck as she passed him and went into the house, closing the door and leaving them alone as Ashley approached at a much-slower pace.
Beck walked down the steps and met her on the shoveled path. “Tired?”
“Sore. Tired. Frustrated. Ready to move on, but stuck in some ways. But I’m good.”
One side of his mouth cocked back in a half grin. “Sounds about right.” He got it.
She liked that she didn’t have to explain the complex and convoluted emotions she didn’t quite get herself but made sense nonetheless in a way.
She didn’t know what possessed her to say it, probably the way Beck looked at her with that intense stare that saw everything and didn’t judge, but she blurted out, “Caden really loves Mia.”
Beck’s head tilted and his eyes softened and filled with understanding. “Yes, he does. He’s a lucky man. They’re lucky to have each other.” Those words told her so much more than what he said out loud.
“Are you ready?”
She meant a hell of a lot more than taking the next step to put Brice behind bars and letting everyone know she was alive and a survivor, not a runaway movie star. Beck had been through a lot, had spent the last many weeks hiding out here, trying to figure out his life. Neither of them were coming into this thing from a good place.
His sharp, intent gaze never left hers. “I don’t think anyone is ever ready for something like this.” He held his hand out to her.
She took it and walked into his arms. She stared up at him. With his face inches from hers, she saw the flecks of light and dark blue in the gray of his eyes and the redness in his cold cheeks, and smelled the coffee on his breath. Their bodies pressed together, heat and need rushing through her system.
“Despite the dangers we face, yes. I want this thing we both feel.”
They had a hell of a lot to overcome. Brice. The drug cartel after him that also put her in more danger. But like him, she felt it was worth it to have something good come out of all this bad.
“If you want me, Ashley, not the star, not some character I’ve played, I’m in.”
“None of that matters. I want you.”
With those heartfelt words, he lowered his mouth to hers. She lost herself in the sweet, soft kiss that didn’t demand, but lingered, warming her from the inside out, telling her he wanted her, but more, he wanted her to want him.
With her whole scarred and battered heart, she did.
Chapter Eighteen
&nb
sp; Beck tried to go slow, ease her into his arms, the kiss he desperately wanted, and his life, but one touch of her lips to his and he wanted to sink in and devour her. Her initial sense of testing the waters melted away with the heat neither of them expected. The tip of her tongue tasted his bottom lip and set him off. He dove in for more, sweeping his tongue along hers. Tempting and sweet, it left him wanting more, but a second before Caden opened the front door he heard the alarm blare.
He broke the kiss and held a dazed Ashley away from him. “We’re not done.” He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs behind him.
“Two men at the gate on snowmobiles,” Caden said the second Beck hit the porch.
Beck handed Ashley off to Caden, took the gun his brother held out to him, and ran for the snowmobile he’d left in the driveway.
“Beck, no, stay here.” Ashley’s worried voice pierced his racing heart. He hated hearing the fear in her plea. He wanted to stay with her, but no way would he let Brice on his property or anywhere close to Ashley ever again.
“Stay with Caden.” He pinned his brother with a sharp look. “You keep her safe.” Caden gave him a nod, letting him know he’d do whatever it took to do just that, and probably in understanding that he knew how much Ashley already meant to Beck.
He jumped on the snowmobile, started the engine with the key he left in the ignition just for this reason, and took off down the long driveway to the gate.
He’d hoped for more time, but knew the minute the storm broke Brice would come looking for his prize possession. The guy had brass balls for taking chances like this. Celebrity made him arrogant and led him to believe he’d get what he wanted without any consequences. Not this time. Beck would never let him get away with what he’d done to Ashley and Adam.
Whatever he’d collected to blackmail people in power made him bold. Why else would he still be here and not hiding overseas?
Only a very dangerous man with connections would disregard how stupid it was to stay here and risk getting exposed and caught. A man obsessed with his target and with a plan to get out of any trouble that threatened to stop him.
Men like him, willing to do anything to get what they wanted, needed to be stopped because all they did was hurt people without remorse.
Beck rounded the bend in the driveway and approached the gate down the long straightaway. They saw him coming. He meant for them, or anyone trying to get on his property, to see him coming. They couldn’t see the house or land beyond the curve. It gave him a place to scout those stupid enough to approach from the front.
The two men hopped the four-foot fence instead of trying to climb over the six-foot-tall metal gate, ignoring the No Trespassing signs posted on both. Beck pegged the pudgy shorter one as Brice. The taller, leaner one trailed after him, his gaze darting back and forth between Beck’s approach and Brice, the man he obviously followed like a puppy dog.
Beck stopped the snowmobile ten feet in front of them, cut the engine, stood, flipped his visor up, pulled the gun from his back, and aimed it straight at Brice’s head. “Turn around and get off my land. Since you can’t read, I’ll give you one verbal warning—you’re trespassing.”
Both men held their hands up in front of them.
Brice raised one to his helmet and pulled it off, smiling like an idiot. “Hey now, we don’t want trouble. We’re looking for some friends.”
“You don’t have one here.”
Brice raked his fingers through his helmet-head hair. “You probably recognize me. I’m Brice Mooney.”
“I don’t give a fuck who you are. Get off my land.”
Brice ignored the warning, showing how stupid he could be and walked a few more steps closer. Beck fired, kicking up snow an inch from Brice’s left big toe. The man stopped in his tracks and glared.
The other guy whipped off his helmet and let it fall to the ground as he ran forward, put his hands on Brice’s shoulder and chest and studied him to be sure he was okay. “Oh my God. You shot at him. What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you know who this is?”
“I don’t care.”
“Shooting at people is dangerous,” the guy warned.
“One warning is all you get.” Beck kept the gun trained on Brice, their eyes locked. Beck recognized a sociopath when he saw one. The gun, even death, didn’t mean much to a man who liked causing pain and torturing people. The threat Beck posed appealed to Brice, where anyone else, the man standing beside him for instance, would be scared shitless.
Brice eyed him back, then cocked his head, put on a grin that fooled most people. Not Beck. “Do you know Ashley Swan?”
“Should I?” Beck wanted to know where he was going with this.
“Oh come on,” the other guy scoffed. “She won an Oscar for Flame in the Night.”
“The girl in the new Bourne movie?”
“That’s Alicia Vikander.”
Beck tilted his head, still baiting the guy. “The one in that vampire series?”
“No, not Kristen Stewart.”
Beck shook his head. “Not her, the other one who sees the future.”
“Ashley Greene?” the guy asked, falling into Beck’s trap of making them, or at least him, believe Beck had no clue.
“She’s gorgeous.” Beck only irritated the guy more by not getting it right again.
“She played an assassin in Anarchy,” the guy suggested, trying to get Beck to figure out who they were talking about but missing the point completely that if he had her on his property he’d know who they were talking about.
Brice’s patience snapped. “Long dark hair, green eyes, about five-eight. She left the other night—”
“I suggest you check the roads to see if she got in an accident.”
“She was on foot,” the guy blurted out.
Brice’s gaze narrowed on the guy for giving away that information.
“Then she’s dead. I suggest you contact the authorities and send out a search team for her body.”
Brice eyed Beck again. “She’s a resourceful woman. Strong. Remarkable.”
“She’d have to be to survive the freezing temps.”
“Or she’d have had to find shelter before the worst of it hit.”
“Out here?” Beck looked around at the expanse of open land.
“Maybe in one of your outbuildings,” Brice suggested.
“Not likely.” Beck nodded to the security camera overhead, pointed straight at the gate. Another warning to keep off his land.
Brice followed his gaze, looked back at the formidable gate, and then at Beck again. “That’s a lot of security.”
“Which is how I knew you were here and she’s not. So be on your way.”
“Why all the security?” Brice asked, even more suspicious.
Beck didn’t like questions or giving this guy a reason to look too closely at him. “Privacy.”
An answer Brice could relate to. He’d come out here to the middle of nowhere so no prying eyes saw what he liked to do when he was alone and in control. Or so he thought. Because no one likes to be under someone’s thumb. They fight back. They find a way to leave. Brice found that out when Ashley escaped.
He didn’t just want her back. Beck read in his eyes what Brice could hide from most—he needed her back. Bad.
Brice understood the threat he’d put into that single word and the glare Beck sent his way. Brice backed away, but stopped short when his phone rang.
Chapter Nineteen
Brice dug his cell phone out of his pocket and frowned. “What is it?” He’d left instructions for the cleaning woman to contact him if anyone came to the house, hoping Ashley and Adam found their way home on their own. His heart pounded waiting for her to answer him.
“The police are here to talk to you.”
His heart stopped. Had they found Ashley? Did she betray him? “About what?” Please God, don’t let her be dead.
“Mr. Mooney, this is Sergeant Mark Foster with the sheriff’s department. Where are you?”
He dismissed the sergeant’s question and asked his own. “What can I do for you?”
“One of your neighbors called in that you’d stopped by his home earlier and reported that a woman and child left your home on foot during the storm and are missing.”
Damn nosy neighbors. Brice tried to think fast. He went with the most logical escape.
“Have you found him?” Brice put all the desperation he felt missing Ashley into those words. “I’ve been out most of the night and early this morning looking for him. Please tell me you found him and he’s okay.”
“I have reason to believe they are alive and safe.” The sergeant’s words eased his mind. Now all he had to do was get them back.
The guy with the gun and the deadly stare cocked his head, eyeing Brice even more for saying he was looking for “him” and not her like he’d told the man.
“I’ve been frantic wondering what happened to him. She didn’t hurt him, did she?”
If Brice hadn’t been watching the man as close as he watched him, he’d have missed the near-imperceptible twitch in his eyes of understanding exactly what Brice was doing. Damn, he knew about Ashley and Adam.
“Let’s discuss this in person,” the sergeant said.
“I’m on my way. Seems she was able to find help in the storm after all. I can’t wait to have Adam back, safe and sound, where he belongs.”
The guy had closed up even tighter than before, but he might not be so indifferent. His finger ever so slightly squeezed the gun trigger even though he kept the gun pointed at the ground.
“Please wait for me. You have no idea how happy I am.” He hung up and turned to Darren. “They’ve been found.”
“Thank God.”
His neighbor cocked his head. “I thought you said you were looking for a woman.”
“Yes. She kidnapped my boy.”
“You have a son?”
“Well, it’s not public knowledge, but I’m his legal guardian. His mother used drugs and ran around with some disreputable men. She worked for me. I did all I could to help her out and put her on the straight and narrow.” Not exactly true, but Jackie had a thing for dangerous men and the finer things in life. She’d found both in him. But you play with fire, you get burned.
Montana Heat: Escape to You Page 15