“I was a fool,” Olivia replied with a touch of anger. “I gave up my free will, took the job he offered me, lived where he told me to live and didn’t even think about doing anything to break one of his many rules. I was ready to get a tattoo to show my devotion to him when I saw him shoot that poor man. In that single moment, it was like I woke up from a dream and realized I’d given up everything I had to him. I gave my mind, my heart, my very soul, to a cold-blooded murderer.” She fought against a chilly shiver that threatened to run up her spine.
“And that’s when you ran,” Micah said.
She gave him a curt nod. “At first it was sheer panic. I needed to think. I needed to process what I’d just seen. I felt as if the world had suddenly shifted and I couldn’t hold my balance. I ran for the woods and hid.”
“Do you know the identity of the man he shot?”
She shook her head. “It was too dark for me to see who it was. There was just enough streetlight shining for me to see Samuel, but I couldn’t make out who was with him.”
“And you don’t know if Samuel saw you or not when he killed that man?”
“If I knew for sure he hadn’t seen me, then I would have gotten Ethan before I ran.” She couldn’t stop the emotion that welled up in her chest, pressing tight and making it nearly impossible for her to draw a breath.
Hot tears began to streak down her cheeks. “Once I’d run to the edge of town and into the woods, I was afraid to leave Ethan, but I was more afraid to go back into town. I figured if Samuel had seen me, then I’d put Sam at risk as well as Ethan if I went back.”
She was unable to stop the tears as her emotions careened further out of control as she thought of her little boy. Like the migraine that had brought Micah to his knees, the pain inside her nearly incapacitated her.
Shoving a hand to her mouth in an attempt to staunch the cry of pain that thoughts of Ethan brought, she looked at Micah helplessly.
She knew she was falling apart from the inside out and he seemed to sense it, too. He knelt and pulled her up to her knees, then wrapped his arms around her as she began to shiver with the fear she’d scarcely allowed herself to feel when she thought of her absent son.
If not for his arms around her, she’d shatter. If not for his strong thighs against her own, she’d explode into a million pieces, so great was her sense of loss at that moment.
She almost believed she was going to be able to regain control, she almost had herself convinced that she was strong enough to step away from the dark abyss that called to her, and then he gently caressed her back.
“Let it go,” he said softly in her ear. “Just let it all go.”
As he gave her permission, the grief that had ripped at her very soul since the moment she’d left Ethan behind overwhelmed her. Weakly she leaned into him, allowing her tears to fall in earnest as deep, gulping sobs began to escape her.
Flashes of memories shot off in her head. Ethan gazing up at her proudly as he completed one of his puzzles. His blond hair shining in the sunlight; his laughter riding the breeze as he tried to catch a ladybug; he’d been her heart since the moment of his birth.
Each memory only made her cry harder. Micah didn’t say another word, but he tightened his arms around her and continued to move his hand up and down her back in a soothing fashion.
He didn’t seem uncomfortable with her display of emotion, at least she didn’t sense any uneasiness. Instead there was simple acceptance and, in that acceptance, a comfort she knew she wouldn’t find anywhere else.
Finally her tears slowed and then stopped and still she remained in Micah’s embrace, slowly becoming aware of the faint scent of shaving cream that lingered on the underside of his jaw, the taut muscles of his shoulders beneath her fingertips and the slow, steady beat of his heart against her own fluttering heartbeat.
Within moments her heartbeat mirrored his, slow and steady as she felt the last of her sad emotion ebb away and a new one begin to take its place.
She couldn’t ever remember feeling so good in a man’s arms and as he reached up and stroked the length of her hair, she felt the quickened beat of his heart.
Suddenly she felt less safe than she had moments before. A faint sense of danger simmered through her, a danger that wasn’t all unpleasant, but rather whispered of delicious undertones.
She was leery of trusting anyone in her current situation and given her bad history, but Micah called to something inside her. But she couldn’t allow herself to let down her guard in a moment of an emotional outburst.
She pulled back from him enough that their bodies no longer touched. “Sorry about that,” she said as she swiped at her cheeks.
“No need to apologize,” he replied, his eyes dark and glittering in the faint light. “Sorry about this.”
She looked at him curiously just before he wrapped one of his hands around the back of her head and pulled her toward him. She had no time to process, no time to deny him as his mouth took possession of hers.
The kiss torched fire through her entire body and despite the fact that she hadn’t been prepared for it, that didn’t stop her from responding completely. She opened her mouth to welcome it, to welcome him, and his tongue tasted of hunger as it danced with hers.
When he finally released her, she stared at him, appalled that she wanted more, that something about Micah Grayson touched her like no man had ever before in her life.
“I’ll find your son,” he said, his eyes still glittering like a wild animal’s trapped in the faint illumination. “No matter what it takes, no matter who I have to go through to get him, I promise I’ll find your son for you and bring him home, no strings attached.” His voice rang with a conviction that made her believe him.
His gaze softened and she thought he was going to kiss her again but, at that moment, Sam hollered from the room next door, his cry of Mama echoing through the cave.
“Thank you,” Olivia said as she got off the bed, her head still reeling from the kiss they’d shared. As she left the room, she tried to prepare herself for another day in hiding, another day without her beloved Ethan and attempted not to think about what might have happened if Sam hadn’t awakened at that very moment.
CHAPTER 5
Micah sat in the kitchen alone, half-irritated by his promise to Olivia. He didn’t make promises—to anyone, ever—and yet he’d made one to a blond-haired, green-eyed woman who had somehow managed to get under his skin. Not just with the haunting sadness in her eyes, not just with the sobs she’d been unable to control, but also with the story she’d told him about who she was and where she’d come from.
She’d never had a chance in hell against a man like Samuel. She’d been a victim ripe for the picking, already kicked around by life. He was only surprised that Samuel hadn’t tried to take things further with her, make her one of his very special girlfriends. Of course, that probably wouldn’t have happened until Samuel personally tattooed the D on her hip, marking her as his forever.
Micah wrapped his hands around the coffee mug, the thought of his brother touching Olivia making him half-sick. Thank God Olivia had gotten out when she had. It was just unfortunate that she’d had to run before grabbing her son.
It was midafternoon. Breakfast had come and gone and everyone in the house was busy with duties or whatever.
After Sam woke up, Micah had left Olivia’s room and gone to his own quiet small space where all he’d been able to think about was the kiss he’d shared with Olivia. He was shocked to realize he somehow wanted to be the hero she’d never had in her life, the man she could depend on to get her son back, to make her world right.
If Sam hadn’t awakened when he did, Micah had a feeling the sexual attraction between him and Olivia might have spiraled completely out of control. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, an even longer time that he�
�d been with a woman whose name he’d remembered after having meaningless sex with her. He wasn’t proud of that, it was simply a part of his life he hadn’t thought much about.
Once he’d lost Johanna to Samuel something had broken inside him, the part of his heart that allowed people in, the part that allowed him to trust. He’d decided at that time that he would live his life alone, and up until now he’d never regretted that decision.
His sole goal when he’d arrived here was to pay back his brother for the bullet to his head, for the migraines that sometimes brought him to his knees and for the death of the woman he’d believed he’d once loved.
Now he’d made a promise to a woman he couldn’t seem to get out of his head, a woman whose kiss had fired a flame inside the pit of his stomach that still hadn’t stopped burning.
Despite all the reasons he shouldn’t, he trusted her. He believed her story and he also believed her newfound horror of Samuel. Samuel might have been able to “turn” her at one time, but Micah knew there was no way she could be corrupted by Samuel again.
She wanted her kid back and then they’d figure out a place for her to go where she could start a new life and this time learn to stand on her own two feet. He sensed a deep core of strength inside her. All she had to do was tap into it and she and her kids would be just fine.
He’d finally fallen asleep and had awakened just a few minutes before, long enough to pour himself a cup of coffee and sit at the table to think about options for finding Ethan and Rafe’s little boy, Devin.
He looked up as Darcy Craven entered the kitchen. She paused at the sight of him, as if considering running out of the room. Since the moment he’d met her, she seemed to be avoiding him and that, coupled with a strange sense of familiarity about her, intrigued him.
“Darcy, why don’t you sit and have a cup of coffee with me?”
“Okay,” she said with a faint touch of reluctance.
He watched as she got a cup and filled it with the brew. Darcy was young, probably no older than twenty-two or twenty-three, but she gave the aura of an older, more mature woman.
She sat across from him at the table and he noted her long, dark hair and bright blue eyes. Was it her eyes that made him feel the odd sense of familiarity? Or the shape of her face? She definitely reminded him of a woman he’d known years ago, but if he thought about it, she could remind him of lots of women he’d known through the years.
“I met your fiancé. He’s asked me to look for his son,” Micah said.
“He’s frantic to find him.” Her blue eyes flashed with the fire of anger. “It was wicked for somebody to give him a little boy and tell him the child was Devin and then have the baby ripped away from him by the true biological father.”
Micah nodded. “So, what’s your story? I’m still trying to figure out who is who and all the connections between Samuel, Cold Plains and everything else.”
Darcy looked down into her coffee cup, as if considering how much or how little to share with him. “A few months ago I discovered that the woman who raised me, Louise Craven, wasn’t my real mother. As Louise was dying, she told me that I’d been left with her by my biological mother who feared for my life. Louise told me she was haunted by my mother who seemed to vanish into thin air and now that I was an adult it was time I searched for her and become the family we were meant to be.”
“No leads at all?” Micah asked, still studying her features intently.
“Ford McCall, he’s one of the local cops and one of the good guys, showed me a picture of one of the dead women, one who is a Jane Doe. He seemed to think I looked like her, but really the only resemblance was that we both have blue eyes. I don’t know if she’s my mother or not.”
“Do you have the picture?” Micah was aware that one of the five murder victims was listed as an unidentified Jane Doe, but he hadn’t had any contact with Ford McCall, one of the few law enforcement officers in town who was working on their side, or seen whatever picture the man might possess.
“No, but I can get a copy from him.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I just want to find out who my mother is, whether she’s alive or dead and why she left me with Louise when I was a baby. Louise told me my mother grew up as a foster child in a small town. I found out she was from the small town of Horn’s Gulf and I went there and showed the photo around but nobody could tell me if she was the foster girl who lived in town for a short period of time.”
“Horn’s Gulf. That’s where I’m from,” Micah replied in surprise.
“I know.” She frowned and in that gesture a rivulet of shock shot through Micah.
The shape of her face, the dark hair…the frowning gesture that he’d seen not only in his own mirror on occasion but also on his brother’s face. Was he just imagining the resemblance?
“What about your father?” he asked with a forced nonchalance, although his heart suddenly beat an unsteady cadence.
Once again, Darcy looked down into her coffee mug, as if unwilling to meet his eyes. “What about him?” she countered in a faint whisper.
“He’s Samuel. Samuel is your father, isn’t he?” Micah felt as if his heart had stopped beating in his chest.
Darcy’s blue eyes looked miserable as she met his gaze. “There was a note pinned to my pajamas the night my mother left me with Louise. It said ‘keep my precious baby safe from Samuel. Never let her know the truth.’ But, before she died Louise told me the truth, that my father was a dangerous man named Samuel Grayson who was running a cult in Cold Plains. That’s what brought me here in search of my mother.”
She paused to take a sip of her coffee and he noticed her hand tremble slightly as she set the cup back down on the table. “I came here and forced myself to go to some of Samuel’s seminars. I made friends with some of the Devotees, all the while trying to find out any information about my mother that I could, but nobody was talking. I got a job working as a receptionist in Rafe’s office and I finally told him the truth about my father. Rafe knows, and June knows, and now you know, too, and I hate it. I hate that he’s my father,” she said fervently.
“But that makes you my niece,” Micah replied, the new information rolling around in his head.
A tentative smile curved her lips. “And I haven’t decided yet if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
An unexpected burst of laughter left Micah’s lips and he wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the spontaneous response, he or she. “I hope given some time we’ll both decide it’s a good thing.”
“Time will definitely tell,” she said, meeting his gaze boldly now.
A sense of respect swept through him for the young woman…his niece. She’d come into the lion’s den seeking answers about her mother, answers that so far hadn’t been forthcoming.
She would be a fool to trust him completely, knowing him for only a couple days and knowing that he was Samuel’s brother.
A surprising swell of emotion rose up in his chest. He had no family except for Samuel. There had been no aunts and uncles, no cousins, only a nervous mother who had escaped a brutal man five years before he’d met his own death in a drunk-driving accident.
Micah had never thought much about having a family. He’d certainly never felt any family love or support when growing up on the small ranch in Horn’s Gulf.
His mother had been distant, his father had inspired fear rather than love and he’d written off his sick brother when they’d been young kids.
When he’d arrived here at the safe house, he hadn’t expected to find a niece, nor had he expected to find a woman like Olivia. He wasn’t sure how to handle the whole thing.
He hated the fact that Olivia had seen him at his very weakest, so sick with his vicious headache the night before. When the two men standing beneath the streetlamp had finally parted, Micah’s head had reached full pound mode.
&n
bsp; He was both nauseous and weak as he’d made his way back to retrieve the rucksack and continued on to the safe house. He’d barely managed to make it to safety.
“Are you okay?” Darcy’s voice pulled him from the moment of the night before when he had feared his headache would ultimately be the death of him.
“I’m fine, just trying to digest everything that I’ve learned in the week that I’ve been here.”
“All you really have to remember is that when meeting people from Cold Plains, you can’t trust anyone other than the people Hawk introduces you to or the ones June has vetted.” She took another sip of her
coffee and then carefully set the cup on the table. “I just want to find my mother.”
Her blue eyes filled with emotion. “I’d hoped to find her alive, to be able to build a relationship with her, but I think she might be dead. I think she might be the Jane Doe that Ford has been trying to identify. Unfortunately, until he identifies her with her name, I won’t know if she’s my mother. Louise told me my mother’s name was Catherine, but that’s all I know.”
Micah frowned. “Catherine George. That’s who you reminded me of the night I first saw you in the woods. I think I called you that.”
Darcy leaned forward. “That must have been after I fainted at the sight of you.” When Micah had stumbled into Darcy and June in the forest the first time they’d met, Darcy had assumed he was Samuel and had dropped into a dead faint. “Catherine George? Was she in Horn’s Gulf?”
“Yes, but there were several Catherines in our school. To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to the girls who flocked around Samuel, but the moment I saw you I thought of her.” He shrugged. “And now I see myself and Samuel in your features, but your eyes still kind of remind me of Catherine George. Maybe it’s just because they’re so blue. I wouldn’t take that name to the bank. It’s possible Catherine George is alive and well and never had a daughter she gave up to protect. You get that picture from Ford and I’ll take a look at it and maybe I can make a definite identification.”
Perfect Wyoming Complete Collection: Special Agent's Perfect Cover ; Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue ; A Daughter's Perfect Secret ; Lawman's Perfect Surrender ; The Perfect Outsider ; Mercenary's Perfect Mission Page 98