Montana Heat: Escape to You

by Jennifer Ryan

  Ashley would have no peace.

  He wanted that for her. Somehow, he’d find a way to give it to her.

  The paramedics went to help Brice. Another ambulance pulled in. Beck led Ashley to that one, wanting to get her checked out just in case. She’d gone quiet on him. After all she’d experienced and seen today, he didn’t blame her for retreating into her head and maybe that quiet spot by the river she’d used as a means to cope while in Brice’s house of hell.

  “Beck, really, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.” Ashley didn’t want to let go of him.

  To get her to let the paramedics check her out, he sat on the edge of the back of the ambulance and pulled up his shirt, showing off the bruises already spreading across his side. “If I let them check this out, will you let them check you out?”

  “Beck! Oh my God.” Ashley touched his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? You didn’t punch me. Sit next to me. Let these guys do their thing and take a minute to catch your breath.” He tugged her hand to get her to sit beside him. One of the paramedics started poking at his ribs, then strapped an ice pack to his side when Beck assured him he didn’t have any cracked or broken ribs. They just hurt like hell. Beck held another ice pack to the back of his head where he’d been cracked in the skull with the gun when they kidnapped them.

  Ashley allowed the other guy to take her blood pressure and listen to her heart. She settled her head on Beck’s shoulder and whispered, “Thank you for saving my life. I love you.”

  He tilted his head, kissed her softly, and looked her right in the eye. “You saved mine the second you walked into my life. I love you, too, and I swear, I’ll never let you go, and I will try every single day to make you happy.”

  Ashley brushed away the paramedic’s unwanted attention, turned to Beck, and kissed him, her tongue sliding along his. He lost himself in her taste and the overwhelming sense that he got damn lucky escaping Brice and Guzman, and he wouldn’t take a single day he had with her for granted. The kiss ended with them touching foreheads and looking into each other’s eyes. He lost himself in the depths of love he saw in hers and the promise that she wanted to be with him forever. He’d have to make that promise permanent soon.

  “How could you do this to me?” Brice bellowed from the gurney the paramedics wheeled him on toward the other ambulance, drawing their attention. “I love you. You’re mine, Aurora. You’re everything to me. Everything I did for you is because I love you. Don’t you see? I did it for you. Please, Aurora, don’t let them take me from you. I love you!”

  Special Agent Bennett slammed the ambulance door on Brice’s next words and slapped the back, letting the ambulance driver know he could leave.

  Ashley watched it go, letting out a heavy sigh of relief as Brice was finally taken away and out of her life. At least out of her sight for now.

  Special Agent Bennett joined them at the ambulance. Caden stood with his shoulder propped against the door, watching over him and Ashley.

  “Nice job taking down Guzman’s men, Bennett, but you let that white-haired fuck get away with all the drugs.” Beck shook his head, giving Bennett grief, but not really meaning it. “Thanks for saving my ass though.”

  “I really wanted to get the drugs instead,” Bennett razzed him.

  “Whatever.” Beck rolled his eyes, still holding Ashley close.

  “Miss Swan, I’m glad you’re okay. Lucky for you, Trigger and King are the best snipers we have. I’m sorry to lose Trigger as an undercover agent, but I hope we can convince him to stay on in another capacity.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Ashley said, no hesitation encouraging him in this way to stay with the DEA and in a job that would still be dangerous. She wanted him to be happy doing what he loved and trusted him to be careful and come back to her each and every day.

  It meant so much to him to have her support.

  “But Beck’s leave of absence isn’t quite over. I still need his help to make sure Brice gets what he deserves.”

  Bennett focused on her. “I think we can help each other.”

  Beck understood exactly where Bennett, King, and even Caden were going with this. He turned to Ashley and placed his hand on her shoulder and brushed her soft skin with his fingers. “We can use those files as leverage to get what you want and what we need to take down the rest of Guzman’s crew.”

  “Okay, but . . .”

  “Adam comes first.” Beck finished her sentence, letting her know that Adam was his priority, too.

  Bennett caught Ashley’s attention. “I think I have a way to get you what you want and get King close to one of our major targets. Iceman took you two today. He’s the one who took off in the truck. King went after him, but they had a hell of a head start. If King doesn’t apprehend him today, I’ll need your help to take him down.”

  “How?” Ashley asked.

  Bennett and Caden laid out their plan, but it hinged on using the blackmail files Ashley wanted to keep secret because she knew what it was like to be targeted and exposed in the tabloids. She knew what it was like to have someone take control of your life.

  In this case, Ashley would use the information to take down a very dangerous man and give a child a bright and happy life.

  Beck hoped she understood and could live with the consequences of what she was about to do.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Ashley sat across from Sheriff Willis with the navy blue folder she’d brought lying across her lap. She didn’t have to say what it contained. Sheriff Willis saw it, connected it to the folder she’d given him with all the pictures and SD cards containing the videos of what Brice did to her, and knew she’d come for a reason.

  “So Special Agent Cooke is staying out of this.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Beck standing outside the sheriff’s office glass door making sure no one disturbed them.

  “I thought you might like privacy for this meeting.”

  Sheriff Willis’s eyes narrowed and his lips pinched together with frustration and anger. “There is nothing in those pictures that shows me doing anything illegal.”

  She agreed with him. And just like she did for Danny Radford, she came here to make things right for the sheriff. “Because you didn’t do anything illegal. You simply found yourself caught in a situation you couldn’t get out of without taking down a lot of people higher up than you.”

  Though he was innocent of what the pictures showed, he’d looked the other way when others had crossed the line.

  “Senator Greer. Governor Ross. Judge Henry.” He confirmed some of the men Beck helped her identify who Brice had forced her to watch through the two-way mirrors.

  “Others who held high positions who couldn’t afford to get caught with their pants down, so to speak,” she added.

  “I didn’t sleep with that girl or do anything the others did,” he bit out.

  “But you didn’t stop the others like you should have. Sheriff.”

  His face reddened with anger.

  She leaned forward. “Did you know I was in that house?”

  “No.” His immediate and emphatic answer rang with the truth.

  She believed him. “Did you know what Brice was doing at that ranch?”

  “Other than gathering an arsenal of blackmail material, no. I also had no idea why he needed it. As far as I know, he never used it. At least not against me, until Sergeant Foster brought him in for questioning and he tried to force me to dismiss your claims and charge you instead.”

  “But you refused to do it.”

  “I finally decided I’d rather take the fall for being starstruck than allow him to hurt another person the way he hurt you. The boy. Those other women.” Sheriff Willis leaned forward and braced his arms on his desk. “What are you going to do with those pictures?”

  They showed him sitting on the side of a bed, fully clothed, with a young woman standing naked in front of him. She looked to be barely eighteen. Brice offered to show him around the house, led him
into the bedroom, and stood just out of frame of the hidden cameras he had in the bedrooms. He’d ordered the prostitute to give the sheriff anything he wanted. The sheriff had politely declined her offer and turned on Brice, furious for putting him in this position and threatening to arrest Brice for having prostitutes at his home in the first place. That’s when Brice had held up the tablet, showing the sheriff the images he’d captured and used against the sheriff to keep him quiet and in his pocket. Ashley had watched the whole thing on the video that showed much more of the room than the camera.

  “Nothing. In fact, now that I have my answers, I’ll give them to you, so you can destroy them.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “Your word that when it comes to those men, you will not look the other way again.”

  “I promise from this day, I will, but you know Brice pissed off some powerful people. They want him to pay. They usually get what they want, and I expect they will in this case, too, one way or another.”

  That was Brice’s problem, not hers. She was trying to do right by the innocent people caught up in his game.

  “You should know Deputy Kent has been fired. Guzman used him to contact you and lure you away from Beck’s place. He’s facing charges for that and a number of other instances where he fed Guzman and his crew intel on drug busts.”

  “I’m glad you’re tying up all the loose ends.”

  “To that end, I need your help.”

  She cocked up one eyebrow, completely disbelieving he’d ask her for something under the circumstances. “What do you want? Besides my turning over this folder to you.”

  “All but two of the women found on Brice’s property have been identified. Given his . . . admiration for you, I would like you to ask him to identify the two women.”

  Her stomach dropped. The thought of seeing Brice again made her heart race. “You want me to go see him in the hospital.”

  “I want you to give two families who are probably missing these women the closure they deserve,” the sheriff pleaded. “You’re here to do the right thing. So help me do right by them. He won’t speak to anyone without his lawyer present. I think he’ll talk to you.”

  She didn’t like giving Brice another moment of her time or a chance to hurt her more, but she’d do it for those women.

  She set the blue folder in front of him to show that she had faith in him to do the right thing and fulfill the promise he’d made to her to never look the other way when someone needed help. “Let’s go get those names from Brice.”

  Beck stopped Ashley outside Brice’s room and cupped her face in his warm hands. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  She went up on tiptoe and kissed him softly. They’d spent the last two days since they were kidnapped by Guzman’s men at home and mostly in Beck’s bed. “It’s not just for those women and their families. I want to close this chapter once and for all.” Despite the ache in her stomach and fear coursing through her.

  “It’s done. He’ll go to jail and die there.”

  “I know you don’t want me to, but I have to.”

  Beck hugged her close, released her, and didn’t stop her from going past the officer stationed outside Brice’s door and inside to face the devil who tried to destroy her despite how much Beck wanted to protect her.

  Ashley stared down at Brice’s pale face, his arm held against his chest in a sling to immobilize his shoulder due to the chest wound.

  She’d missed his heart.

  Then again, he didn’t have one.

  “I heard you weren’t talking to anyone without your lawyer.”

  “Aurora. I’d never refuse to talk to you, my love. I knew you’d come.” Brice’s breathless voice told her how much he’d wanted to see her again. His eyes shined bright with excitement.

  She used that against him. “You failed me,” she accused, letting her real anger infuse her words. “How could you just let me go after all we shared?”

  Disbelief filled his eyes. He didn’t understand her turn in attitude. “No. I tried to find you.”

  “You left me out there in the cold,” she snapped. “I heard you calling for me.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “But you gave up. You went home and left me out there all alone.”

  “I begged you to come back. Why? Why did you run from me?”

  “I had finally become the woman I always knew I could be.”

  “Yes. My Aurora.”

  “The woman worthy of your undying love and devotion.” She filled her words with truth he believed beyond a doubt but made every cell in her body scream with denial.

  “You have both,” he assured her.

  “But you allowed Darren to interrupt our beautiful dinner. You let him come between us and the night we were supposed to share. A night we were finally going to be together. A night more special than any we had shared.”

  Brice slid his free hand over his hard length under the blanket, rattling the chain on his handcuffs but not even thinking about them or the situation that put him in that bed.

  Repulsed, she tried not to show it and held back the bile rising in her throat just speaking these words and putting on this act caused.

  Brice raised his head. “Yes, Aurora, oh, yes. You have no idea how much I want you.”

  “You told me I was special.” She forced tears to gather in her eyes and made her voice crack. “That I was your one true love. But I wasn’t.”

  He nodded vigorously. “Yes. You are.”

  “How many times did you show me your beautiful garden?” She clasped her hands together at her chest. “How many times did you make me look at the women you truly loved?”

  “No,” he shook his head rigorously. “They meant nothing. None of them were as worthy as you.”

  “I wanted to be worthy. I tried. I played your game. But you were always comparing me to them, weren’t you? I wasn’t enough.” Her voice cracked again.

  “You are. I love you. They meant nothing to me. They were just playmates. You are my one true love. You are the one I want to be my wife.”

  She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Who were these playmates?”

  He saw her jealousy and tried to make it right. “No one. They meant nothing.”

  “What were their names?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She let her fists fall to her sides and stood rigid. “Yes, it does. I want their names,” she demanded like a lover scorned.

  He rattled them off. All the names she knew and the two she’d been sent here to get. Rebecca Murphy and Angela Rodriguez. “That’s all of them at the ranch.”

  Her stomach dropped and her heart stopped with that “at the ranch.”

  She kept her focus, stayed in character, and did what she had to do. “Let me guess, you have another garden that you covet.”

  “There is nothing I love more than you.”

  She remembered the parties she attended at his home in Beverly Hills. “The after-party for After Midnight at your home—we danced under the moonlight in the courtyard surrounded by roses.”

  His mischievous smile told her she’d hit the mark.

  She jacked up the jealousy hoping it covered her shock and horror. “How many others?”

  “What does it matter? Young, eager women hoping for a break in the business are a dime a dozen in L.A. and no one misses them. You are special.”

  Easy prey. So many young women, including runaways who might not be missed, flooded into L.A. hoping to make their dreams of fame and fortune come true. Ashley had been one of them once upon a time.

  “Do you have any other gardens, Brice? Am I to discover more of your unworthy women?” She pouted out the words like he’d broken her heart and not made her sick with disgust and filled with sympathy for those poor souls.

  “No, my love. That is all of them. Well, except for Mother. But I made that look like an accident.”

  Oh God, he killed his own mother.

  “And Christ
y in college. They found her in the river, but never connected her to me. That was an experiment gone wrong. For years I got by with meaningless encounters with women who liked it rough, or just put up with it because they wanted to be seen with me. A trip to Vegas changed everything. Drunk, I took things too far with a couple of hookers. I left them in Dumpsters where they belonged.” He spoke like he’d just told her he’d taken out the trash, but these were people. Human beings who deserved better.

  “I learned my lesson. Disposing of them exposed me. I found a better way. A simpler way. But each time it got harder to find the kind of satisfaction I craved. I needed that rush.”

  Sex took a backseat to the pain he liked to cause to get off.

  She shook her head. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’ve been very bad. Blackmail. Kidnapping. Torture. Murder. You had everything. Money. Fame. A grand life. Women who wanted you. Friends who adored you. Colleagues who looked up to you. But none of that made you happy.”

  “You made me happy, Aurora.”

  “My name is Ashley. Remember it. I am the one who is responsible for what happens to you next.”

  Brice smiled indulgently. “There is nothing you can do to me. My lawyer will make a deal. I’ll be out sooner than you think. We will be together again.”

  “I will never see you again. You are going to pay for all you’ve done. Those women will be returned to their families.”

  “No. You can’t destroy my garden.”

  “I will. I’m also going to ensure that Adam gets what you owe him for taking his mother away from him.”

  “She shouldn’t have interfered. She didn’t want me to be happy with you.”

  “You pretend to feel. But nothing makes you happy. Nothing makes you laugh. Nothing makes you sad. Nothing makes you regret. All you know is pain.” She backed up toward the door. “Enjoy your stay here, Brice. Once they put you in a cell, this will look like the Ritz.”

  “I’ll be out on bail soon and we can be together again.”

  She laughed. “Delusional much? You will never get bail. We will never be together.”