by Sybil Bartel
I hated her nickname. “So?”
“So, guess where she grew up?”
“No fucking clue.”
“Kansas.”
So she grew up in the same state as Audrina, so fucking what? “You going somewhere with this?”
“No siblings, she was raised by her grandparents.”
Frowning, I sat up straighter. “Okay.”
“They died a year apart.”
“Shit,” I said quietly. That was Audrina’s bio. Word for word.
“And guess what her middle name was?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “MacKenzie.”
“Jesus fuck.” Who the hell had I been chasing for nine goddamn days? “Then who the hell is she?”
“I don’t know. I’ve searched name changes using her screen name, and I can’t find anything. Usually those are public record, but you can request they be sealed for safety purposes. Or?” He paused. “For minors.”
Fuck me. “So how do we find out who the hell she is?” And where she went?
“I have a few ideas, but I need to be back at base and on my machine there. I’ve been with a client for two days, but I’m wrapping it up.”
“Have someone else do the search.”
Luna snorted. “It’d take me longer to explain how to do it than if I did it myself. Give me an hour to get back in the office and run a search. I’ll call you then.”
A fucking hour? This was the first lead I’d had in nine days. I didn’t want to wait an hour. “Tell me what to search for.” I pulled back on the road and headed for a hotel I saw earlier. “I’ve got my laptop.”
“Give me an hour,” he repeated.
“Fine.” Fuck.
“Later.” Luna hung up.
I drove to the hotel parking lot then sat in the SUV and stupidly did a search on my phone for Audrina’s first manager. The first shit that popped up was the South Beach video. My dumb ass watched it five times, fluctuating between a jealous rage at Tyler carrying her naked and remembering every inch of her body I’d tasted.
For nine days I’d replayed the shit I’d said to her in anger, and I was fucking pissed at myself. I remembered what I’d said to her about not being her next viral video. I should’ve cut her some slack for trying to keep another video out of the media.
Luna had told me he’d gotten it out of her lawyer that there was in fact a video. A neighbor had filmed the shit by the pool and sold it to someone on Miami Morning’s staff. The lawyer had been able to get the footage destroyed with threats of lawsuits, but it didn’t make me feel any fucking better.
She was still out there somewhere.
Fifty-seven minutes later my cell rang and I answered.
Luna cut right to the chase. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this nine days ago.”
I was out of patience. “Think of what?”
“To look into her previous agent. Before you left nine days ago, when I called her agent and her publicist to tell them she’d split, the publicist gave me a bullshit line about respecting her privacy, but her agent was livid. I asked if he knew where she’d go, or what friends she might turn to. He’d told me she didn’t have friends unless you counted her useless previous agent. When I asked him for the contact information, he’d told me she was dead, so I’d let it slide.
“But two days ago when I was reviewing my notes to close out the case, I remembered his comment about the dead agent. I ran a background check on the woman, and that’s when I found out what I told you.”
Goddamn it. “And now?” What the fuck did he have now?
“And now, we hit pay dirt,” he said proudly.
“Tell me what the fuck you found,” I ground out.
“At first, nothing. But then I found an old court filing. She’d become the legal guardian of a thirteen-year-old female minor ten years ago. The name of the minor on the paperwork was sealed, but the parent who signed the papers wasn’t. Lorna Jensen, aged forty-three.”
My heart was fucking pounding. “Goddamn it, Luna.”
Ignoring me, he went on. “But I couldn’t find a Lorna Jensen that age anywhere. Not in California, not in Nevada, Arizona, or Oregon. Nothing. No birth certificates, no driver’s records, no legal documents, nothing. So on a hunch, I checked Kansas.”
I held my fucking breath.
“Nothing. So as one last ditch attempt, I checked the neighboring states.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “And?”
I could practically hear him smile. “I found her. Inadvertently. Twenty-three years ago, listed as the mother, Lorna Daisy Jensen gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Magnolia Audrina Jensen. Town? Drinaville, Iowa. Address?” He paused for effect. “Nineteen eighty-nine Oak Road.”
I quickly plugged the address into my phone’s GPS. “Motherfucker, that’s twelve hours from where I’m at.”
“You’re welcome.”
I ignored his sarcastic ass. “Her parents are alive?” Besides the obvious greedy reason, why the fuck had her mother signed over guardianship to an agent?
“And kicking apparently,” Luna answered. “Because the address on the property records is a farm with thousands of acres.”
“I’m heading there now.”
“Copy that.”
“I’ll report in tomorrow.”
Luna chuckled dryly. “Just get your woman and come the fuck home. I’ve been short a man for nine days.”
“She’s not my woman. I’m going after her because—”
“Gunther,” Luna snapped, interrupting me.
“What?”
“Shut the fuck up and admit you got it bad for this chica.”
My back teeth ground. “I don’t get it bad.”
Luna laughed loudly. “Right, Marine. Keep telling yourself that.” He hung up.
I drove to fucking Iowa.
OAK ROAD.
Dirt, dust and one street sign with the road letters so faded you could barely see them.
It was the exact same as in the picture.
Crops on either side, I drove down the single lane until it widened in front of an old farmhouse and barn. Not a soul in sight, nothing but the sound of wind, I got out of the SUV.
Land as far as the eye could see, there were acres and acres of it. It was remote and isolated and so fucking quiet, the place made my skin crawl.
The crunch of gravel sounded behind me a split second before he spoke.
“Figured there had to be something that drove her back here.”
I turned around.
An old man with a shotgun casually held in one hand eyed me. Bright blue eyes, blond hair gone gray, he looked too old to be her father, but she sure as hell resembled him.
“Figured that something was a man,” he added.
I glanced at the twelve gauge. “You got a problem with wildlife here, or just strangers?”
He ignored my question. “I don’t know whether I should shoot you or shake your hand.”
I took a calculated risk and held my hand out. “Tank Gunther.”
He eyed me skeptically but took my hand. “That a name or a statement?”
I didn’t bullshit him. “Both.”
He glanced at my height. “Don’t suppose I can argue with that.”
“Not sure you’d want to.” I wasn’t being an asshole, I was just letting him know I wasn’t gonna sit here and waste my time shooting the shit.
He nodded slowly. “She back for good?”
So she was here. “Ask her yourself.”
He scratched the gray stubble on his chin and looked out over his fields. “Made a lot of mistakes in my day.” His shrewd gaze made its way back to me. “You probably know what I’m talking about.”
Fuck. He was going to do exactly what I hated. Crossing my arms, I leaned back against the SUV. “If you’re implying I’ve made mistakes in life, you’d be right. Doesn’t mean I don’t learn from them.”
He nodded again, then looked back out at the farmland that stretched for miles. “My daughter
one of them mistakes?”
“I’m here in a professional capacity, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Bedding my daughter is a professional capacity?”
Jesus Christ. “I’m not sure what your daughter told you, but whatever it was, it was one-sided.”
His eyes narrowed as he frowned. “She didn’t tell me anything.” He looked at me like he could see right the fuck through any bullshit I could dish out. “She never does.”
I merely tipped my chin because I didn’t know what the fuck went on between them. “She around?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“Why you’re here.”
Fuck it. I told him the truth. “She needs to do something for me.”
He eyed me again. “You don’t look like you need any woman to do your bidding.”
“You’re right.” I didn’t. “I want her to do something for my boss.”
“Something for you, or something for your boss, which is it?”
I scanned the old house in the distance and the barn off to our right. “Does it matter?” Where the fuck was she?
“Not to me,” he admitted.
“You gonna tell me where she is?” This was a big fucking property. It’d take me a day to search it.
“Still deciding.”
“Can’t fault a father for protecting his daughter.” Not that I knew shit about being a dad.
He let out a grunt. “I protected her too much.” His gaze met mine. “Lost her ten years ago because of it.”
Ten days ago, I was so fucking mad, I would’ve told the old man to fuck off and get his daughter’s ass out here. But I had to admit, the shit I went through to find her had me curious about how she’d gotten from point A to B. A thirteen-year-old farm girl didn’t often break into Hollywood.
“She never told me about that,” I admitted.
The old man looked pensive. “I’m sure there’s a whole lot she never told you. Women are like that.”
I smirked. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“Well.” He inhaled deeply. “Not my place to tell it.”
I didn’t say shit. I waited him out because the second someone told you they shouldn’t say something, it meant they were looking for any excuse to tell you. And nothing made people talk like keeping your mouth shut. They’d rush to fill the void. Me? I lived in that fucking void. But apparently the old man didn’t.
Thirty seconds later, he was opening his mouth and dumping his regrets.
“I didn’t send my kids to school. Had no use for it myself. Nothing beats learning how to do an honest day’s work.” He nodded at his fields. “Been farming this land since I could walk. Figured my kids would have the same life. It didn’t matter one of ’em was a girl. You ask me, girls got two good hands and two good legs same as boys. Both can learn to farm. Figured my boy and girl would learn how to work the land together and it’d give ’em an easier time of it than I had after my daddy died.” He kicked the dirt. “Ain’t a one-person job. Not even with a heap of farmhands.”
I didn’t know shit about farming. “I imagine not.” Give me a gun over a shovel anyday.
“Well, I didn’t account for a girl growin’ into a woman.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “No idiot box, no proper schoolin’, no time wasted sittin’ in front of a computer that tells you about the world instead of you seeing what’s right in front of you. I kept them kids honest. Step off your front porch and you got life. That’s how I always saw it, and that’s what I taught ’em.” He looked past me toward the house. “Didn’t realize it was all for naught.” He paused, scratching the back of his neck.
I kept my mouth shut.
He abruptly changed the subject. “You ever tried to hold on to a spooked horse?”
I shook my head.
“It’s impossible. A man’s strength ain’t no match for a horse when he’s behaving, let alone when he’s got the fear of God in him.” He nodded slow, like he was agreeing with himself. “Never was good at taming those wild beasts. You can’t do nothin’ but get outta their way when they get like that.”
“I’ve never ridden,” I admitted.
“I reckon you’d enjoy it, so long as you got yourself a horse that wasn’t stubborn enough to throw you the second you told him to do something he don’t wanna do.” He shook his head. “Women ain’t no different than a stubborn horse.”
“Stubborn I can handle.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
I didn’t have time to answer.
She walked out of the barn with a horse.
HOLDING PEONY’S REINS, I WALKED out of the barn only to abruptly stop in my tracks.
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
He was here.
On the farm.
Larger than life, Tank looked even bigger than I remembered, and worse, emotions I’d been fighting to keep down just so I could breathe through the day came rushing back at the sight of him. He literally took my breath away.
Peony whinnied and kicked the dirt.
“Easy, girl,” I murmured. “Easy.”
His gaze cutting through me, Tank took in every inch of my body without his eyes ever leaving mine. “I need to talk to you.”
My stomach lurched, and my knees almost buckled at the sound of his deep, unforgiving voice. A dozen thoughts flew through my head with a dozen more responses I wanted to say. I miss you. I want to talk to you too. I’m sorry. I can’t breathe. I want your arms around me. I need you. I fucked up. I never meant to hurt you. Please, please kiss me.
But I didn’t say any of it. “I’m busy.”
Daddy looked between us, and for a second I thought he’d come to my rescue. But we weren’t that family. We never were. If there was anything I’d learned from my father, it was that the Jensens fended for themselves.
“Audrina,” Tank warned.
My father grunted and stepped forward, taking Peony’s reins.
Tank glanced at him before looking back to me. “You can take five minutes to talk to me.” He tipped his chin toward the path that led around the side of the barn before heading toward it without even looking to see if I followed.
I glanced at my dad, but he was already leading Peony in the opposite direction.
Shit.
Nerves licking up my spine, my stomach flipping, I was trying to breathe through my pounding heartbeat when a breeze kicked up and I got a lungful of his scent. Man, soap, musk, laundry detergent, it all blended together and smelled about a thousand times better than I remembered.
Fighting a groan, I was thinking about making a run for the house and locking myself inside when my mom came out on the front porch, glared at me, then went right back inside. She still hadn’t asked why I’d come home. Neither had Dad. In fact, they hadn’t asked me anything, not about my career or what I was doing here, or if I planned on staying. They hadn’t asked a thing. They’d just put me to work.
I’d walked in the house at dinnertime over a week ago, had insults thrown at me, then we’d all sat down and eaten off the same plates with the same silverware that I’d grown up with, as we discussed the same issues with the farm. It was as if time had stopped.
But it hadn’t.
Nothing was different, except everything had changed.
In seven days I’d learned my brother was divorced and living in a trailer on the other side of the apple orchard. He and a few hired farmhands tended to the cornfields, and Dad took care of the apple orchard, which was opposite of how it worked before I left. My brother and I had always taken care of the apple trees. Those trees, the ones Tank was walking toward, had been the best part of my childhood.
I was trying to decide if I wanted to taint those precious childhood memories with a giant beast of a man who was no doubt still angry with me, when he turned around and gave me a warning look.
My first instinct was to rush toward him and all of his alpha bossy bullshit and beg for forgiveness. Tha
nkfully it was immediately followed by the stubborn streak that’d motivated me my entire life.
My hand went to my hip. “How did you find me?” My mother had given me over to a D-list casting agent all those years ago, complete with a legal name change and guardianship papers. She’d buried my identity, and my family had kept their mouths shut for ten years. It’d worked. No one had figured out who I really was. Until now.
Predator slow, Tank walked back toward me. Looming over me, expression impenetrable, he stared at me for two heartbeats. Then he reached in his cargo pocket and pulled out a photo. Using his first two fingers to hold it up, fingers that had been inside me, he flipped it to face me.
I dropped my gaze to the picture.
It was me, on Peony’s mother, Daisy. Gripping two handfuls of her mane, riding bareback, a smile wider than I remembered how to make, I was holding on for dear life as she ran full tilt. My long hair behind me, the sun setting, I remembered the day like it was yesterday.
I cleared my throat against the memory. “My brother took that picture. So what?”
We’d snuck my parents’ new camera the night before after they’d gone to bed. Daddy had bought it to take pictures of the horses because he was going to sell them. It was the only piece of technology in the house, and my brother and I had been forbidden to use it, but we were kids and we were curious. My brother had taken pictures all day, and we’d used the small screen to look at them until the battery ran out.
It’d been the best day ever until Daddy caught us. Then we’d both gotten a beating and were sent to bed without dinner. That was the first night my brother had come into my room. A week later I’d caught Momma looking at a pile of printed copies of the pictures before breakfast, before anyone had been up. She’d shoved the pictures in a drawer, and I’d stupidly not thought more of it.
“Look closer,” Tank commanded.
I peered at the picture my mother had sent to the casting agent all those years ago. It was one of the only mementos I had of my childhood. “Where did you get this?” I thought I’d gotten all the pictures when I’d left.