by Bella Andre
With the only access road newly blocked by fallen trees, it was another two-day hike into town. It wasn’t an easy journey, but April liked knowing that she had the skills to take care of herself, that she didn’t need to rely on Kevin or anyone else to get where she needed to go. Besides, Kevin had split the Farm a few weeks after they’d arrived. He hadn’t expected the workload to be so high or the drugs to be nonexistent. She hadn’t been particularly sad to see him go.
Dianna had been waiting for her in the café on Vail’s main street, and for a split second, April had been so happy to see her sister that she’d almost hugged her. Excitedly, she tried to tell Dianna about the Farm, about what a good experience it was. But before she could figure out how to best explain her new living situation, Dianna had started pushing all her buttons.
“Tell me why you want to stay in Colorado,” Dianna had asked. “Why you won’t come back and enroll in junior college? I’m willing to give you another chance to get back on your feet. We need a part-time research assistant on the show. I’m sure Ellen would take a chance on you.”
April was proud of her new skills and hoped Dianna would be too. “I’ve already got a job.”
“Doing what?”
“Cooking.”
It wasn’t hard to see how shocked Dianna was. And that she wasn’t the least bit impressed.
“Cooking? You’ve never even wanted to watch the cooking channel with me. Tell me where the restaurant is, what it’s called. I’ll have a word with the chef. He’ll understand that you need to come home with me.”
“I’m not working in a restaurant,” April explained. “I’m cooking for everyone on the Farm.”
Before she could explain things more clearly, Dianna said, “The Farm? What in God’s name is the Farm?” Her expression suddenly grew even more anxious than it already was. “Oh God, April, you’re not mixed up in some kind of cult, are you?”
April had made a face, tried to tamp down the sudden rush of anger, tried to recover the sense of peace she’d felt for the past couple of months.
“No, of course it’s not a cult. A commune is totally different from a cult. We’re an intentional community.”
“No way,” Dianna had said in a hard voice that April had never heard her use. Even when she’d done something bad, her sister had always been gentle with her. “I’m not letting you live on a commune or a Farm or whatever you’re calling it. I didn’t work this hard to get us out of a trailer park so that you could turn around and live in mud huts with a bunch of hippies.”She grabbed April’s arm. “We’re going to get your things and then we’re going to leave.”
April yanked her arm out of Dianna’s grasp. How could she have thought that Dianna would understand?
“I already told you, Dianna. I’m staying here. In Colorado.” April let her mouth twist into a satisfied smirk. “On the commune.”
“Jesus, April. You haven’t always made the best choices, but I didn’t think you were stupid.”
That was when April finally snapped. “It must hurt to have a pole rammed so far up your perfect ass.”
She’d gotten the hell out of the café before Dianna saw her tears.
All she wanted was to be back at the Farm with her new friends, but it was raining way too hard, so she spent fifteen dollars to stay at the nearby youth hostel that she and Kevin had slept in their first night in Vail. Curling up on the hard bed, she tried to sleep, but a group of teenage girls was blaring the TV in the main room.
Suddenly, she heard someone say her sister’s name and she sat up in bed, hitting her head on the top bunk. A sick premonition rushed over her as she ran out of the room in her underwear and heard the news report about Dianna’s crash.
On the floor of the closet, her stomach churned with a sick mixture of guilt and remorse. Dianna wouldn’t have been on that winding road in that storm if it hadn’t been for her. And now, if she couldn’t get out of here, she might never get the chance to say she was sorry.
Abruptly, her train of thought was broken by the sound of loud footsteps.
Oh shit, he was back!
The door opened, and before she could so much as make a sound, he was coming at her with a needle. She tried to get away from him, tried to scream behind her muzzle, but there was nowhere to go, no way to escape.
The man watched the girl go limp and waited for the satisfaction of how easy it was to keep her hostage.
Instead, he felt numb. From top to bottom, inside and out. He barely even saw the girl, his mind clouded with visions of his brother lying cold and stiff beneath a white sheet.
“What do you want me to do with her?”
He turned to Mickey, a brawny but simple man he’d hired a handful of times when he felt that he was entering a potentially dangerous situation. Early on in the business, he’d learned that for the right amount of money, Mickey would do whatever needed to be done, no questions asked.
But he needed sleep in order to think straight. He’d simply keep the girl locked up until he fleshed out his plan.
“Just watch her. Make sure she stays put.”
Mickey stepped closer, looked in the closet. He smiled, revealing a lack of good dentistry. “She’s pretty.”
“Don’t touch her.” The man’s round face fell with disappointment and he amended, “Not yet.”
He didn’t want Mickey to be too rough with the girl before Dianna was here to witness it. He almost smiled at the image of the rich, blond TV star bitch being forced to watch the brute sodomize her sister.
Fortunately, he thought as he went to get some sleep, it wouldn’t be long before both he and Mickey got exactly what they wanted. Mickey could have the girl.
And he’d have his revenge.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DIANNA HEARD someone say, “Take deep, slow breaths,” and realized Sam was counseling her in a gentle voice as she stood in the comforting circle of his arms.
It was the very last place she’d ever expected to find herself.
“You need to sit down.”
She wanted to race straight out of the hospital room to search for April, but he was right. She’d be no good to April until she calmed down and came up with a clearheaded plan.
Sam helped her back onto the bed and covered her legs with a blanket, then got her a cup of water and made her drink it.
Her mouth was dry despite the water. “I’m scared, Sam.”
In her early years at the TV station, she’d taken night classes in elocution, learning to keep her voice even and moderated. She barely recognized this squeaking anxious woman talking to Sam as herself.
“Where is she? What did she say?”
“Some guy grabbed her, but she got away and was calling from a gas station.”
“Did she tell you which one?”
Her hands began to shake. She might have created an amazing career and bank account for herself during the past ten years, but even as a broke eighteen-year-old overwhelmed by the crowded city streets of San Francisco, she’d never been this frightened. This freaked out.
“The line went dead before she gave me any other details. Oh God, who could have grabbed her? And what if he’s hurting her right now?”
“You can’t let yourself think like that. I promise you, we’re going to find her.”
Relief flooded through her, even though he was only trying to make her feel better.
“I’m going to need you to tell me everything you can about April, past and present, so that I can help you figure this out.”
Dianna was afraid that every additional second that ticked by could have terrible consequences for her sister. But at the same time she knew she had to think through the situation as calmly as possible. Thank God Sam was here to help her.
With everyone else, she’d always felt that she’d had to gloss over her problems with April. For so long, she’d been afraid of the press picking up the story and running with it and she hadn’t wanted to give away any potentially damaging information. Not to he
r various boyfriends over the years. Not even to her close girlfriends.
But Sam was different, wasn’t he? After all, he could have sold her story a long time ago, told everyone about her trailer park roots, about her drunk mother, but he hadn’t. It was safe to come clean with him.
“April and I have problems. She hates all of my rules. She says I’m too strict. I’m pretty sure she moved to Colorado to get away from me.” Her tongue felt like dry leather inside her mouth and she took another sip of water before continuing. “I saw her last night at a café in Vail for the first time in a couple of months, but I was too hard on her and she stormed out.”
Sam didn’t look surprised by anything she was saying.
Did he really know her that well? Did he still know her better than anyone else ever had—or ever would?
“What did she want when you saw her at the coffee shop? Money?”
“No. But I gave her some anyway.” She pressed her palms to her eyes. “She wants me to treat her like an adult, but how can I when all I ever see when I look at her is a four-year-old girl crying for me to save her?”
“Don’t blame yourself for doing whatever you need to do to take care of her,” he said softly. “She’s not the only one who was put through the wringer by your mother. You were, too.”
She pulled her hands away from her eyes, amazed all over again that Sam was sitting in front of her. And that he was helping her through another of the most difficult moments of her life.
He’d been there when she and her mother had almost gotten stuck in their trailer during the wildfire. He’d been there when she needed help with April’s case. And he was here now.
At least for the next few minutes, she wasn’t alone.
“How do you always manage to be here right when I need you?” she asked in a whisper.
His eyes darkened and her breath went as she waited for him to respond.
“What did you and April argue about?” he asked instead of answering her loaded question.
Disappointment flooded her. He obviously didn’t want to get any closer to her than he had to.
He was right to keep his distance. She knew she should be doing the same thing, and yet his smackdown still hurt. Like crazy.
Fortunately, it was also a good reminder that he hadn’t always been there for her. Like after she lost the baby, for instance, when he’d all but disappeared from her life.
In any case, what was she doing focusing on anything but April?
“She’s living on a commune,” she said in answer to his question about her argument with April. “I wanted her to come back to San Francisco with me and she refused.”
If Sam was shocked about April living in a commune, he didn’t show it. “Did she tell you where the commune is located?”
Fortunately, April had thrown a few details at her before storming out of the café. “No, but she did tell me that it’s very controlled. That they don’t let just anyone up there and visitors need to have special permission. She said there aren’t any roads and they don’t like trespassers. She seemed to think the isolation was a good thing.”
April had seemed utterly enraptured by her new home, almost as if she’d been brainwashed into believing that living like a wild animal was a good thing.
“She told me they get to live on their own terms. And that it’s really exclusive and an honor to be allowed to live there. I just know that place has something to do with what’s happened to her.”
Sam held up his hands as if to try to slow her down.
“I know you’re worried about your sister, but from everything you’ve told me she isn’t exactly Little Miss Perfect, is she? Could this phone call be just another bump in the road for her? A prank to see how high she can make you jump?”
She couldn’t stop herself from going to April’s defense. “She’s had a hard life. She’s still figuring things out.”
“You had it rough, too. But you always knew what you wanted. Always kept yourself on track and found a way to achieve your goals.”
Sorrow came at her. Did he even realize that she’d gone completely off track ten years ago? Didn’t he realize that apart from her sister and mother, he was the only person whose love she really wanted? And that losing him was a big enough failure to trump all of her later successes?
“You’re absolutely positive that April isn’t just messing with you? Trying to get your attention. Trying to get you to prove your love.”
“No.”
She shook her head hard and immediately felt dizzy. Sam was at her side in an instant, his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back into the pillows.
“You need to take it easy.”
But they both knew she couldn’t. Not when her baby sister needed her.
He was sitting so close that she could breathe in the fresh scent of his bath soap, reminiscent of dry pine needles in a warm and sunny forest. It would be so easy to fall into his arms, to press her lips against the pulse beating strong and steady on his neck.
Despite her intense longing, she still couldn’t forget how badly he’d hurt her. Those painful memories gave her enough self-control to shift away from him on the bed.
“April wouldn’t do something that horrible to me,” she told him again, knowing that even though April wasn’t the easiest person to love, she wasn’t evil.
“That may be the case,” Sam replied, “but I’m not going to let you go rushing off to find her. You need to continue resting and getting better.”
Why was she so shocked by the fact that he’d already made up his mind about what was best for her? He might not look exactly like the twenty-year-old boy she’d loved, but he sure acted the same.
On the verge of telling him to mind his own business, she realized she’d forgotten a very important detail.
“She was here. At the hospital, to visit me. But I was sedated and didn’t see her. The nurses said she fell asleep in the waiting room.”
Not wanting to wait another second to file a missing person report with the police, she reached for her phone, but before she could finish dialing 911, Sam reached out and took it from her.
“There’s no point in calling the police.”
She glared at him. “Give me back my phone.”
Ignoring her demand, he laid out his reasons in a nauseatingly calm voice. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours and she doesn’t exactly have the world’s best track record.”
Her rising indignation swiftly plummeted when she realized he was making sense.
All she’d ever wanted was a real family. Once upon a time, she’d actually thought it was possible to have that big happy family, to be Sam’s wife, to watch their children play together. Seeing Sam again only made the gaping hole in her heart feel bigger.
For the past ten years, she’d been just fine, but in only one hour he’d clouded her brain and heart and body with foolish desires and dreams. She couldn’t think straight around him. And she was going to need every last one of her mental resources to find April and bring her home again.
She had to be strong and send him away.
“Thanks for coming to see me, Sam. But I don’t want to take up any more of your time. You’ve been a great help, but I can take it from here.”
Like hell he was leaving her to head off on some wild-goose chase after her flighty sister. A woman like Dianna wouldn’t last a minute in the Colorado Rockies.
The trees and rivers and mountains looked beautiful, but looks were deceiving. You couldn’t make your way through miles of rough terrain if you were worried about breaking a nail or messing up your hair. Not if you wanted to come out of it alive.
Sam moved away from the bed and walked over to the window to get a grip on his frustration—and his lust. Being this close to Dianna was driving him insane. He could barely control himself around her. He felt like an animal about to bust out of its cage.
No question, it was long past time to leave. He’d simply come to the hospital to make sure she was all right. Ins
tead, he’d walked into an episode of Without a Trace.
On top of everything else, Dianna had no business leaving the hospital yet. Even though she’d miraculously escaped injury in the car crash, she had to be exhausted by the entire ordeal.
At the same time, he understood exactly why she was so frantic. He’d be going just as crazy if he thought Connor was in trouble. Hell, he’d barely kept his shit together when his brother had ended up in the burn ward the previous summer.
When he’d first walked into Dianna’s room, she’d looked so strong, utterly impenetrable despite her harrowing accident. Now, he could see all of the cracks in her glossy veneer, everything from knuckle-cracking to the way she bit her lower lip when she was nervous.
Viewing her as a shiny celebrity had been so much easier than seeing her as a vulnerable woman who desperately needed his help and protection.
Yet again, just like that afternoon so many years ago when she’d told him she was pregnant, he was left with only one choice.
“I’m going to help you find her.”
Dianna looked at him in obvious confusion. “Why would you want to help me?”
Her question was a painful reminder of how he’d failed her ten years ago. He hadn’t been there when she’d miscarried. He hadn’t protected her or the baby well enough, and he’d never be able to make it up to her completely, but perhaps if he could be here for her now, he’d find a small measure of peace down the road.
Drawing a parallel to his relationship with his brother, he said, “If anyone ever threatened Connor, I’d do whatever it took to hunt that person down and make him pay. I know you feel the same way about April.”
She looked wary about working together and, truthfully, he didn’t know if he could make it through even one night in close quarters without ripping her clothes off. His balls were going to be bright blue by the time they found her sister.