The Tempted

by Amanda Stevens

  Jared.

  Emily.

  Her daughter was out there somewhere, with no one to save her but Tess.

  Struggling to her feet, she tried to remember where she’d told Emily to run.

  JARED STARED DOWN into Emily’s little face, his heart hammering like a piston inside him. He’d never seen his daughter before, but he would have known her anywhere. The urge to scoop her up and hold her tight was almost overwhelming, but the fear in her eyes stopped him.

  He’d seen Tess’s truck parked down the road, and he’d pulled his car in behind it. As he’d walked toward the house, he’d seen a tiny figure, hardly more than a blur, launch herself across the yard and disappear into the woods. And as he’d started toward her, he’d seen another figure, a woman running after her. He’d thought at first it was Tess, and had wanted to call out, but then, as moonlight had slanted over the woman’s features, he’d recognized Ariel.

  He hadn’t stopped to wonder why his brother’s wife was at Willa Banks’s house. Some long-buried instinct had told him what he needed to know. His daughter was in danger, and Jared had plunged into the woods after them.

  He knelt and put his finger to his lips. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He could see that she was trembling, but he didn’t dare touch her. She might scream, and Jared had seen something else in the moonlight before Ariel had entered the woods. She had a gun.

  It had something to do with the trust. Jared knew that, but he didn’t have time to worry about the details. He had to get Emily to safety. And then he had to find Tess. If he wasn’t too late.

  Emily was steadily inching away from him, and he knew at any moment she might bolt. Or call out. He had to do something quickly to win her trust, and there was only one thing Jared could think of that might work.

  “Emily,” he whispered. “I’m your father. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  Her dark little eyes widened. “You’re…my daddy?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you come to rescue me?” she asked in a whispery little voice.

  Jared’s throat tightened. “Yes.” He reached out a hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, she slipped her tiny one into his. And at that exact moment, Ariel came scrambling up an embankment behind them.

  Emily screamed, and Jared automatically pushed her behind him. Ariel’s clothing was filthy and torn, and her face and arms were scratched and bleeding. Panting hard, she looked like a wild woman, but her eyes were what sent a cold chill racing up Jared’s spine. Her eyes, even in the darkness, seemed to glow with a madness that was completely out of control.

  “Ariel,” he said softly. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “You always bested him in everything,” she said contemptuously. “You always had to make him look bad in your father’s eyes. I won’t let you take that trust away from him, Jared. I won’t.”

  “I don’t want the trust,” Jared said, trying to keep his voice calm. He reached behind him, and almost instantly, he felt Emily’s hand slip into his. He closed his fingers around hers, trying to reassure her.

  “It doesn’t matter whether you want it or not. Your father’s terms are clear. The trust goes to the first Spencer grandchild. Her.” She motioned with the gun behind Jared. “I knew the moment I saw her picture in your office that day that it would come to this.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way, Ariel. Think about your own children, what this will do to them.”

  “How dare you?” she said through clenched teeth. “I am thinking about my children. They’re why I’m doing this. I don’t want them to lose their father.”

  “You think Royce would leave you if he lost the trust?” Jared said incredulously. “He wouldn’t. He loves you.”

  “No,” Ariel said angrily. “He doesn’t. He never has. He loves her.” She nodded over her shoulder toward the house. “But I’ve taken care of that, too. This time, she won’t be coming back. Ever.”

  Jared’s heart dropped like a stone inside his chest. What did she mean, Tess wouldn’t be coming back? No, he thought. Please, no.

  He couldn’t allow himself to think about Tess now. He had to think of Emily. He had to get her out of this.

  “Ariel, please. Just put down the gun. You don’t want to do this.”

  “I may not want to, but it has to be done. I’ve come too far now.”

  “Ariel—”

  Something snapped in the woods to her right, and Ariel spun, firing wildly at the sound. Jared sprang toward her, and as she whipped the gun back around, he grabbed her wrist, jerking it skyward so that the second shot missed Emily by a mile. He heard her scream anyway, and the sound tore something lose inside him. Almost viciously, he wrested the gun from Ariel’s hand and flung her aside. She stumbled backward, losing her footing on the wet ground.

  Her body hit the ground with a jarring thud, and then she rolled down the embankment with surprising speed. Another thud, and then all was silent.

  Jared turned to Emily. “Wait here,” he said grimly. “Okay?”

  He scrambled down the embankment after Ariel, wanting to make certain that she would not pose a further threat. But he needn’t have worried. A boulder had stopped her progression down the hill, and he could tell from the odd angle of her head that her neck was broken.

  He struggled back up the incline to Emily. When he got to the top, she was kneeling on the ground, cradling Tess’s head in her lap. “Mama’s hurt,” she said, and then began to cry.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was three days later before Tess was wholly conscious of everything going on around her. She’d undergone surgery within an hour of arriving at the hospital, and then had spent the next twenty-four hours in recovery and intensive care before being moved to a private room on the fourth floor.

  During that time, she’d been aware only vaguely of people coming into her room. Doctors and nurses. Her mother. Melanie. Jared? Or had his presence been her imagination? She thought she’d seen him sitting by her bed once, talking to her in a low voice about the past and the future. Imploring her to wake up. Promising her that she and Emily were the only family that mattered to him.

  And the police had come, of course, but Tess couldn’t remember what she’d told them. She couldn’t remember much of anything. She’d been too hazy from the drugs and too exhausted from the surgery to distinguish between reality and her dreamworld.

  Today, however, she’d actually gotten out of bed with the help of two nurses and taken a walk down the hallway. The nurses had applauded her efforts even though her legs had shaken like Jell-O every step of the way, and they’d had to help her back to bed.

  She relaxed against her pillows now and tried to ignore the nagging pain in her shoulder as she glanced up at Abby and Naomi Cross.

  “So,” Abby was saying, “that’s where we stand right now. We’re running a full background check on Willa Banks, and, of course, we’ll search the hospital files from the night that Naomi gave birth. But as you might expect, the records are pretty chaotic. Over a hundred people were brought in to the hospital that night, and one of the fatalities was a doctor on staff. Two more were seriously injured. They were so short-handed that night that it’s easy to see how someone intent on stealing a baby could have gotten away with it.”

  Tess’s gaze met Naomi’s. “I’m so sorry I can’t tell you anything more.” And neither, unfortunately, could Willa Banks. She’d suffered a massive heart attack that night, and her body had been found in the woods by the police. Tess was convinced she’d been trying to get to Emily, maybe to save her, but pity, let alone gratitude, was still something Tess had a hard time mustering for Willa Banks.

  Naomi placed her hand over Tess’s. “Don’t be sorry. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have known about my baby. I’d never have known that one of my little girls is still out there somewhere.”

  “One?” Tess asked, glancing at Abby.

  Abby’s expression grew shuttered. “We sti
ll don’t know about the remains that were found in Grover County. The identification process could take a while.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again to Naomi.

  Naomi’s smile was the saddest thing Tess had ever seen. “If it is Sadie, then at least I’ll finally be able to bring her back home.”

  Tess’s eyes filled with tears. She wished with all her heart that Naomi’s story could have turned out the way hers had. She wished every missing child could have a happy ending, but in the real world, it didn’t always work out that way. She was lucky. Very, very lucky, and she would never stop giving thanks until the day she died.

  “In the meantime,” Naomi said, “I’m going to search for my other baby. And I won’t give up until I find her.”

  Worry flickered across Abby’s forehead as she took Naomi’s arm. “Let’s just take it one step at a time, okay? Right now, we’d better let Tess get some rest.”

  Naomi gave Tess a wry smile. “Her beau’s in town. That’s why she’s so anxious to leave.”

  A becoming blush tinged Abby’s cheeks. “Honestly, Naomi, my beau? You sound like you were born two centuries ago.”

  “Spoken like a true modern woman living in sin.”

  The blush on Abby’s cheeks deepened. “I am not living in sin. Sam and I are taking things nice and slow.”

  “Sam?” Tess asked.

  “Sam Burke. The profiler,” Naomi said, grinning. “He got Abby into the FBI Academy. She’s going to be leaving in two weeks.”

  “He did no such thing! I got in on my own merits,” Abby insisted, but Tess could tell the argument on both sides was good-natured. She could see the glow of pride in Naomi’s eyes when she looked at her sister. And the glow of newfound love in Abby’s eyes when she spoke of Sam Burke. Tess envied her. She wished that she and Jared were embarking on a new relationship, a new beginning, but after all the secrets, after all the lies, Tess was very much afraid a future for them still wasn’t in the cards.

  After Abby and Naomi left, Tess dozed for a while, awakening in the middle of the afternoon to a strange, tingling sensation along her arm. And the wonderful sound of little-girl laughter. She opened her eyes and saw Emily perched on the edge of the bed, both hands clapped to her mouth as she tried to suppress her giggles. Beside Tess’s arm lay a feather. And behind Emily stood Jared.

  Tess blinked, trying to bring them both into focus more clearly. Emily had been staying with Tess’s mother while Tess was in the hospital. So what was she doing here with Jared? Not that Tess would ever try to keep them apart now that the danger had passed. Ariel was dead, and during one of Tess’s more lucid moments after surgery, her mother had told her that she’d heard Royce was taking his children away for a long vacation after the funeral in order to protect them from all the publicity.

  Hard to think of Royce in the role of protector, Tess thought. Hard to imagine Jared here with Emily. It was all just so…strange.

  “You awake, Mama?”

  “I am now,” she murmured. She opened her arms and Emily snuggled down against her, hugging her tight. It felt so wonderful to hold her daughter again. Emily didn’t understand why she’d been kidnapped by Willa Banks. Why Ariel Spencer, a woman she’d never seen before, had wanted to hurt her. She had no idea that someday, as the first Spencer grandchild, she would be a very rich young woman. For now she was content to snuggle in her mother’s arms, safe, protected, loved.

  And Tess never wanted to let her go.

  Emily wiggled a bit and Tess winced from the contact. Jared said, “Careful now.”

  Emily started to pull away, but Tess held on to her. “That’s okay, sweetie,” she said, burying her face in Emily’s hair, reveling in the sweet feel of her daughter in her arms. “You just keep right on hugging me. As tight as you want.”

  But Emily broke loose and sat back up. “This is Jared, Mama.”

  Tess looked at Jared, then glanced away. So much had happened. So many emotions. She cleared her throat. “Yes, I know.”

  “Did you know he’s my daddy?” Emily asked innocently.

  Tess felt her heart leaped wildly inside her chest. “Wh-what makes you think that?”

  “He told me.”

  Tess’s gaze flew to Jared. He had no right. It should have been her decision. They should have told her together.

  “I had to,” he said softly. “I wanted her to trust me.”

  “Yes,” Emily agreed. “He had to so I wouldn’t scream, and so the lady wouldn’t shoot me.”

  Her casual words made Tess want to cry. She blinked back her tears, but Emily noticed and she leaned down to hug Tess again.

  “Mama, don’t cry. Having a daddy is a good thing. I prayed and prayed for one to come and rescue me when I was locked in that room, and he did.” She turned and beamed at Jared.

  He had to blink back his own tears, Tess noticed.

  Emily put her lips against Tess’s ear and whispered, “He’s strong, Mama. Very, very strong. If you let him come and live with us, we wouldn’t ever have to be afraid again.”

  Tess couldn’t keep the tears from flowing then. She hugged Emily to her, wishing that life could be as simple as her daughter made it sound. But Jared might not want to come and live with them. He might want to be Emily’s daddy without being Tess’s husband. After everything that had happened between them, he still might not think her worth the trouble.

  And there would be trouble. They came from two different worlds, she and Jared. They were never meant to be together. Maybe Jared realized that now.

  She looked up, finally, and met his gaze. The answer to all her questions, to all her prayers, was there in his deep, dark eyes.

  He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “You and Emily are my family, Tess. Do you understand what I mean?”

  She nodded, her throat tight.

  “Good,” he said. “Because now that I’ve found you, I don’t ever intend to let you go.”

  He bent and kissed her, and Emily’s giggle was the sweetest sound Tess had ever heard.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5071-3

  THE TEMPTED

  Copyright © 2001 by Marilyn Medlock Amann

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