by Pamela Clare
Oh, but she didn’t want to tell him! She liked this version of herself better, the version she saw reflected in his eyes—a good mother, a woman he respected, a woman without a criminal record, without blood on her hands. The moment she told him the truth, that woman would cease to exist. His attraction to her would vanish. He would draw his hand away, quit touching her. And although she didn’t know him well, he was a good man. She cared what he thought of her. To lose his respect…
“What is it?” There was concern in his voice, his fingers tightening reassuringly around hers. “What’s wrong?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to make some excuse, but the words wouldn’t come. If she let this go any further, he would feel misled.
This is the price you pay. It’s the price you’ll always pay.
There really was no such thing as starting over.
She drew her hand away, her mouth suddenly dry. “Nate, I… I’m not the woman you think I am.”
Oh, God! How was she going to do this?
She willed herself to meet his gaze. “When I was younger, I did things I shouldn’t have done. I’ve served time in prison for using drugs, and I… I killed a man.”
Nate reached out, stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I know, Megan. I know.”
Megan stared at him, his words and his actions making no sense to her. “What…?”
“I know you spent time in juvenile detention for shoplifting, and I know what happened to you there. I know about the man you shot and killed, and I know why you did it. I know your brother took the fall and spent six years of a life sentence in prison, while you struggled with heroin addiction on the streets. I know you were sent to prison on drug charges when you were two months pregnant with Emily, and I know what happened that set matters straight—why you disappeared with Emily, how your brother escaped and came after you, how the courts finally gave you both your freedom.
“I know it all, Megan, and I think no less of you for it.”
Megan saw Nate’s mouth moving, but couldn’t hear him, her heart pounding so hard that it drowned out everything else. “Reverend Marshall told you.”
“No, Megan. I read about it in the articles that ran in the Denver Independent. There was that series—”
She found herself on her feet, her face burning with rage and humiliation. “You googled me! You pried—”
“No, I didn’t.” He stood, took a step toward her.
“Oh, God!” She turned her back on him, stared down unseeing at the fire. “You went behind my back and—”
“That’s not what happened.” Nate was standing behind her now, his big hands coming to rest on her shoulders. “My dad is a news geek. He kept a folder from when your brother escaped from prison. He clipped all the articles—the ones about Marc, the ones about you. He recognized Marc’s name and showed me the folder a few hours before you called yesterday.”
“Jack knows, too?” Something inside her seemed to wither at this news, and she pulled away from Nate, tears pricking her eyes, her stomach in knots.
“He wrote letters to the governor asking him to grant you a pardon.”
These last words broke through the adrenaline haze in Megan’s mind. She turned to face Nate. “He… he did?”
“Yeah.” Nate wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “Megan, we’ve both known the whole story since before you came up here.”
“You didn’t say anything.” They hadn’t treated her strangely, either, showing her only courtesy and kindness, as if her past didn’t matter to them, as if they didn’t hold it against her.
“Why should I? Asking you about it would only dredge up painful memories. You don’t owe me any explanations. Who you were then is not who you are now, and I’m interested in the woman you are today.”
Stunned by Nate’s response, Megan could do nothing but stare up at him.
*
Nate sat, empty tumbler in hand, listening while Megan spoke. He hadn’t asked her to explain anything, but she seemed to need to talk about it now that her past was out in the open. What she had to say wasn’t easy to hear.
“I was a virgin the first time. It hurt so bad. They came almost every night after that. There were four of them, and they took turns, using their radios to keep track of the other guards, covering for one another. One of them would come in, force me onto my back and rip down my pants. He would … rape me, and then the next one would come in and do the same. They gave us candy bars, as if chocolate could somehow make up for what they’d done. They always wore condoms. No babies, no evidence, they said.”
Rage thrummed inside Nate’s chest. He knew all of this, of course. He’d read it in the paper. Megan had run away from her adoptive parents, had been arrested for trying to steal a warm coat, and had been placed in juvenile detention, where she, like the other girls in her unit, had been raped almost every day for six months. It had been hard enough to stomach when he’d read the words on newsprint—adult men in a position of trust and authority taking advantage of young girls who were under their power, girls with nowhere to run and no one to turn to, girls whose lives were already a mess. But seeing the torment on Megan’s pretty face, watching the way she seemed to fold up right before his eyes, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle as if she feared her body might come apart…
He wanted to slam his fist through the wall. He wanted to hunt down the bastards who’d done this to her, ram their dicks down their throats, and put a bullet between their eyes. Too bad all but one of them were already dead, because they’d gotten off easy. The most he could do to them now was piss on their graves. As for the son of a bitch who was still alive—he was serving a life sentence for rape and murder and would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, impotent and incontinent, thanks to a bullet from Marc Hunter’s gun.
That, at least, felt like justice.
Nate fought to keep his voice calm. “You must have felt so alone and afraid.”
She nodded, her body trembling now. “I reported them. I got an infection and told the doctor everything. The rapes stopped, but no one believed us.”
Nate had read how the guards had sabotaged the investigation, claiming that the girls had seduced them to win favors and privileges. The investigators had bought into their bullshit. And when Megan had been released, she’d been left to deal with the aftermath alone because the Rawlingses, her adoptive parents, didn’t want her back.
Nate wouldn’t mind having a few minutes alone with the Rawlingses. They’d adopted Megan at the age of four after her mother was sent to prison for drunk driving and vehicular assault. They’d refused to adopt 10-year-old Marc, tearing brother and sister apart. They’d given Megan too little love and too many beatings with a belt. But Hunter hadn’t forgotten the little sister he’d lost, and after a few tours of duty in Iraq, he’d left the army and gone in search of her—only to find her strung out on heroin and living on the streets.
“I have to give your brother credit for tracking you down the way he did.” Nate stood, took a throw off a nearby chair, and wrapped it around Megan’s shoulders.
Megan’s lips curved into a hint of a smile. “When he found me, it was one of the happiest days of my life. He put me in rehab and moved me into his house. I got clean, got on my feet again. I went to work on my GED. I had plans to go to college. I felt so full of hope, so certain that I’d turned my life around. I was wrong.”
Her smiled faded. “Sometimes I wish he hadn’t found me—for his sake.”
Nate was certain she didn’t mean that, and so he let it pass. “Why didn’t you tell him what had happened to you? Why didn’t you tell him about the guards?”
Megan shrugged as if the answer was obvious. “No one believed me—the cops who investigated it, the people who were supposed to be my parents. Marc was all I had in this entire world. I didn’t want to lose him.”
When she put it like that, Nate could understand. “He was working with the DEA then, wasn’t he?”
Megan nod
ded. “He wanted to put men like the ones who’d sold heroin to me in prison.”
She looked down, squeezed her eyes shut, and Nate knew where her thoughts were taking her. What a sick twist of fate it was that John Cross, one of the guards who’d raped her and the other girls, had landed himself a sweet post as an agent with the DEA when he ought to have been serving time in prison. Nate couldn’t imagine how Megan must have felt when that son of a bitch showed up on her brother’s doorstep.
“I didn’t mean to kill anyone.” Tears welled up in Megan’s eyes. “Marc answered the door, and he came inside. I was so afraid! I panicked, just lost it. I ran and hid. Marc came after me. He asked me what was wrong, and it just spilled out of me—what Cross and the others had done to me and the other girls.”
“And your brother believed you.”
Megan nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He went back to the living room and confronted Cross. I heard them yelling. I heard Cross say that it hadn’t been rape, that I had wanted it. He was laughing as if what he’d done to me and the other girls were nothing.”
Cross’s words, as remembered by Hunter, were part of the court record and had been reported in the paper. Nate remembered them because they’d made him sick.
You know how chick inmates are—bored and horny, dreaming of dick. Every time you walk by their cells, you know they’re hoping you’ll give it to them.
“I walked out to them. It was like I was sleepwalking. I… I saw Marc’s gun on the table, and then it was in my hands. It went off. And then Cross was lying on the floor, and Marc was telling me to run, to go, and I… I ran.” Megan covered her face with her hands.
Her quiet weeping tugged at Nate’s chest. He knew what it was to kill. He’d taken his share of lives in Afghanistan, had pulled the trigger and watched men die. Ending another person’s life was never easy, not even when you’d trained for it, prepared yourself mentally for it. Not even when it was self-defense.
But what Megan had endured …
Jesus Christ!
Nate would be lying if he’d said he wasn’t glad Cross was dead. The bastard had worked hard to earn every one of the three bullets that had ripped through his chest. But Nate wished it hadn’t been Megan who’d pulled that trigger—for her sake and her brother’s.
Hunter had tried to cover for his sister, taking the blame for Cross’s death, hoping his status as an agent and a decorated veteran would net him a plea bargain and short sentence. But the attempt had backfired, and he’d found himself serving life without parole, while Megan, traumatized and tortured by guilt, ended up on the streets once again using heroin to make herself forget. And then she’d ended up in prison, too, already pregnant.
Only after Cross’s accomplices had decided to hunt down their victims and silence them one by one had the truth come out. Megan, out on parole, had realized they’d be coming after her and had fled with her baby. Marc, knowing she was running for her life, had taken a woman reporter hostage and broken out of prison to protect Megan. They’d probably be in Mexico right now if it hadn’t been for Darcangelo, who’d put the pieces together and tracked them down.
The jury had found Megan not guilty by reason of self-defense, agreeing with her attorney that she had good reason in her state of mind to believe she was in mortal danger. But Hunter’s jury had found him guilty on all counts, holding him responsible for covering up the truth about Cross’s death—and for taking that reporter hostage.
Megan sniffed, wiped the tears from her face. “Marc was my hero. He did so much for me, but I almost ruined his life.”
Nate handed her a tissue, fighting the need to hold her, comfort her. “He was a grown man, a federal agent, a combat veteran. He knew what he was doing, Megan. You can’t blame yourself for his choices.”
She met Nate’s gaze, her green eyes red from crying. “I killed a man, and I let my brother go to prison for it. I could’ve come forward at any time during the six years he was behind bars, but I didn’t. Instead, I lived on the streets doing drugs. I got pregnant by a drug dealer for God’s sake—and I barely remember when it happened! How can you look at me with anything but contempt?”
That answered Nate’s questions about Donny.
Nate reached out, brushed a strand of auburn hair from her face. “When I look at you, Megan, I see a woman who suffered so much so young. I see a survivor who has fought hard to make a new beginning for herself and her little girl. I see a person who volunteers to help the poor and the homeless because she knows what it’s like to live on the streets, a mother who is doing one hell of a job of raising a child alone, a good parent who loves her daughter.”
“How can I be a good mother when I was in prison for the first year of Emily’s life?” Megan shook her head, tears filling her eyes once more, anguish on her face. “There’s no such thing as new beginnings. No matter what I do, it always comes back. Always. There are some things the world just doesn’t forgive.”
Nate quit fighting his instincts. He drew her into his arms, held her, let her cry, her slender body shaking violently. “It’s not so much that the world won’t forgive you, Megan, honey. It seems to me that you won’t forgive yourself.”
Chapter Nine
“Be careful. It’s hot.”
“Thanks.” Megan took the mug of steaming chamomile tea from Nate, a part of her craving something much stronger.
While he put more wood on the fire, she sipped, struggling to pull the pieces of herself together. She felt drained, weak, ragged. It seemed unreal to her that she’d just bared the darkest side of her soul to a man she’d known only for a week, but she had.
She’d told him everything.
More than that, she’d buried her face in his shirt and sobbed while he’d held her. The only other men she’d let touch her like that were Marc and Julian, but that was different. Marc was her brother, and Julian… Well, he was like a brother.
What she felt for Nate was very different.
She couldn’t deny that she was attracted to him. Usually that meant she’d want to run as far away from him as she could. But she wasn’t running. And, even stranger, neither was he.
He poured himself another drink and sat on the sofa. “Are you warm?”
She nodded, grateful for the blanket he’d wrapped around her shoulders.
He leaned back into the cushions, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure. Why not?” She no longer had any secrets where he was concerned.
“That reporter your brother took hostage when he broke out of prison—he got her pregnant while he was on the run, and she married him, didn’t she?”
Nate’s question, as blunt as it was, wasn’t what Megan had been expecting.
She laughed. “He and Sophie have been married for almost four years now, and they have two kids—Chase and Addison.”
Nate shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. “That’s … interesting.”
Megan smiled. “Believe it or not, Marc can be very sweet. You haven’t exactly seen his soft side.”
“No, I suppose I haven’t.” Nate gave a wry grin. “I don’t blame him for watching over you the way he does. If I were in his shoes and spotted some strange guy walking up to my little sister’s front door after she’d been attacked, I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
“Marc knows I get … uncomfortable around men, and I guess he does his best to make certain I feel safe.” Megan looked away, took a sip of tea.
“Do you feel uncomfortable around me?” It was a sincere question, no defensiveness in his voice, no hint that she needed to lie to protect his ego.
Megan found herself studying him, from his short sandy brown hair, to his deep-set blue eyes, to the tanned skin on the left side of his face to the scars on the right. “No—which is kind of strange.”
It was both fascinating—and frightening.
“Well, that’s good—I think.” The smile lines around his eyes crinkled, a
hint of humor in his voice.
And she knew she would never get a better time than now to let him know where she stood. “I’m never going to be with a man, Nate. I’m telling you this now because … because I don’t want to mislead you. I don’t like being touched. I don’t like sex. I’ve never enjoyed it.”
“Never?” His brows bent in a frown.
“Never.” She glanced away for a moment, unable to bear the scrutiny of his gaze. “When a man touches me, I feel … revulsion. I instantly feel sick to my stomach. It’s all I can do not to shove him away. What those men did to me—it’s a part of me. I can’t shake it.”
Even years of therapy hadn’t changed that. A hug from a male acquaintance, a man’s arm around her shoulders, an overly long handshake—they all made her want to pull away and run. She couldn’t even go to a male doctor.
“I’m sorry. If I’d known…” Nate’s frown deepened. “Did I make you feel that way just now when I held you?”
“N-no.” Warmth rushed to Megan’s cheeks.
“I’m glad to hear that.” He seemed to think about this for a moment as if it were a puzzle he needed to solve. “How about when I caught you when you fell getting off the horse?”
“No.” Her cheeks burned hotter.
“What about the times I’ve held your hand?”
Could he see that she was blushing? God, she hoped not! “No, not then either.”
His gaze locked with hers. “And last night—when I kissed you?”
“No.” She rushed to explain. “But we were interrupted, and I… I think maybe there just wasn’t time for me to react.”
Nate set his drink down on the coffee table. “Do you want to test that theory?”
Megan’s heart took off at a sprint. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“I could kiss you again just like I did last night—soft and easy—and since we’re not going to be interrupted this time, you’ll be able to see whether that sense of revulsion kicks in. If it does, we stop.”