“The sheriff’s office?”
Aaron shrugged. “We can’t trust anyone.” He had learned that the hard way. He couldn’t even trust the woman who carried his baby. He still felt as though she had secrets, things she’d remembered but hadn’t shared with him.
*
GUNSHOTS ECHOED INSIDE her head and blood spattered everything, blinding her with red. She shifted against the bed, fighting to awaken from the nightmare.
But it hadn’t been just a dream. It was real. All of it had happened. All the death. The destruction. The senseless murders.
She could see Whit again, taking the bullet—getting knocked to the floor as blood spurted from his shoulder. But then it wasn’t Whit she was seeing. It wasn’t a blond man with dark eyes. Instead it was a dark-haired man with eerie light blue eyes that were wide, staring up at her in confusion as the life seeped away with the blood that pooled around him.
“Aaron!” she screamed his name, jolting awake with her heart pounding frantically with terror.
“It’s okay,” a deep voice murmured. And strong arms wrapped around her in the dark. “I’m here.”
She clutched him close, realizing quickly that he wore no shirt. His skin was bare and damp beneath her fingers. And water trailed from his wet hair down his neck and chest. “Are you…”
Naked?
“I’m here,” he assured her. He pulled her closer, so that her body pressed tightly against his. Rough denim covered his lower body. He must have only had time to pull on his jeans when he’d heard her scream.
“I thought it was you,” she said, “who got shot. I thought you were dead.”
“I’m fine,” he said, skimming his hand over her hair—probably trying to tame the tangled mess. “How are you?”
Still trembling in reaction to her awful dream and filled with shame that she had let so many people believe their loved ones were dead. Maybe that was why she’d been so compelled to quit after Josie’s case.
“Charlotte?” He eased back and tipped up her chin, his blue-eyed gaze intent on her face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’m just not quite awake yet. And it seemed so real…”
“It was real,” he said. “The shooting was real. It just wasn’t me.”
“It was Whit,” she said, remembering. “Is he okay?”
Aaron chuckled. “Sleeping off the painkillers the doctor gave him. But he’ll be fine. We were lucky,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion, “that we all survived.”
“You told Mr. Jessup about the reporter?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.” She pressed a kiss to the rough stubble on his cheek. “I know how hard that can be…”
Even if the people she’d told hadn’t always lost their loved ones to death, they had lost them all the same. Her lips were still on his face, but he turned his head until they brushed across his mouth.
And he kissed her.
He knew Josie was alive, but he kissed her. Dare she hope that he cared? But then he pulled back.
“We need to talk,” he said, “about the baby. About us…”
“Us?” She couldn’t give in to the hope lifting the pressure from her chest. “When you learned how many things I’d kept from you—” Josie “—I didn’t think you’d be able to forgive me.”
“I don’t know that I have,” he admitted.
And he didn’t even know that she still kept one secret from him.
“I feel like you’re holding something back yet,” he said.
Maybe he did know.
“Aaron…”
“But I know this isn’t the right time for us to talk,” he said. “We still don’t know what happened to Princess Gabby. Or who kidnapped you. Or who shot all those people and had us shot at…”
She had leads. Thoughts. Suspicions. But when she opened her mouth, he pressed his fingers across her lips.
“So I don’t want to talk,” he said. “I want to celebrate that we’re alive.” And he replaced his fingers with his mouth, kissing her deeply.
She moaned.
And he pulled away. “I’m such an idiot. You’re exhausted. You’ve been through hell…”
“But none of that stops me from wanting you.” She was surprised, though, that he wanted her since he knew that the real love of his life was still alive. But maybe he’d accepted that he couldn’t be part of Josie Jessup’s life without putting her in danger, so he’d decided to make do with the mother of his child.
“Charlotte…” he murmured her name with such regret.
He couldn’t love her. She had to remind herself of that—so that she wouldn’t fall even deeper for him than she already had.
“I shouldn’t take advantage of you,” he said, “like I did back at that cabin—”
She pressed her fingers over his lips now. “If anything I took advantage of you back there.”
“You didn’t even know who you were then.”
“But I knew who you were.” Strong and loyal and trustworthy. He would be a wonderful father—a far better father than she had ever known.
“I wish I knew who you are,” he murmured wistfully.
“I told you—”
“I know your name,” he said, “but I don’t think I’ve ever really known you. And I’m not sure if you’ll ever let me know the real you.”
She didn’t want him to just know her. She wanted him to love her. So she made herself vulnerable to him in a way that she never had for any other man. She didn’t trust him enough to give him the words of love, but she showed him her love. With her lips and her tongue.
He lay back on the bed and groaned. He let her bring him to the brink before he turned on her. Pulling off her clothes, he kissed every inch of skin he exposed. And he pressed her back into the pillows and used his mouth to bring her beyond the brink—until pleasure tore through and she moaned his name again.
He joined their bodies, thrusting gently inside her—as if afraid that he might harm their unborn child. His slow and easy strokes drove her up again, with tension winding tight inside her. She clutched at his back, then slid her hands lower, grasping his tightly muscled butt. But he refused to rush. And each slow stroke drove her a little crazier—until she just dissolved with pleasure and emotion.
Then he groaned and filled her. “Charlotte…”
She was the woman whose name he uttered when pleasure overwhelmed him. She wanted to hope it meant something—that it might indicate they could have a future. But she had had her hopes dashed too many times to entertain any now. He flopped onto his back beside her and curled her against his side. But she couldn’t look at him—couldn’t let him see how much she cared. So she gazed around the room. The curtains were still drawn tight over the blinds—shutting out whatever light might be outside. “How long did I sleep?”
“Probably not long enough,” he said. “You were exhausted. I should have let you go back to sleep instead of…”
“I must have spent months in that bed in Serenity House,” she reminded him. “I shouldn’t ever be tired again.”
“But, even before what we just did, we had quite a night,” he pointed out. “A night we were damn lucky to have survived.”
And that was the only reason they had made love—in celebration of that survival, and for a wonderful while, she had been able to replace the pain and fear with pleasure. But now it all came rushing back along with her nightmarish memories of the night.
Her breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh as she remembered it all. “That was just one night? You got caught in my room and then came back to break me out all in the same night?”
“Yes.”
Now she remembered something else—the guard’s phone call. “Mr. Centerenian’s boss is coming here tonight—to some private airfield. The guy who kidnapped and tried to impregnate me is going to be here.”
“The guy who thought he was kidnapping and impregnating Princess Gabriella,” Aaron pointed out. “This has nothing to do
with you.”
“She’s my sister,” Charlotte said with pride. “It has everything to do with me.” It was her responsibility to keep the real princess safe.
Aaron shook his head. “I’ll take it from here. I’ll figure out which airfield they’ll be using, and I’ll meet him there.”
“You’re not going alone.”
She didn’t want to risk the baby’s safety again, but she didn’t want the baby’s father putting his life at risk without backup he could trust, either.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I will not let you put yourself and my baby in danger again.”
Chapter Twelve
Aaron momentarily took his gaze from the airfield to glance at the woman sitting in the passenger seat. She had come along. While he had admitted to himself and to Whit that he didn’t know her as well as he should, he was already intimately familiar with her stubbornness.
If he had forbidden her to join him, she would have stolen another car from the garage and tracked down the airfield on her own. At least now, going together, it would be easier for him to protect her.
But she hadn’t come along thinking that he would keep her safe. If anything she might think she needed to protect him…
But more likely she didn’t trust him to tell her what he discovered on his own. And she wanted to know who’d locked her up in a psychiatric hospital. But what were all her motives? To keep Gabriella safe? They didn’t even know where she was. Or so that Charlotte could take revenge on the person who had stolen nearly six months of her life?
Studying the dark airfield through the car windows, Aaron wasn’t certain they would discover anything. They had been parked outside it since night had first begun to fall, and there were no lights illuminating the single runway or the steel hangar beside it. There was no vehicle parked near the hangar, either. They had parked Stanley Jessup’s car on a farmer’s access road to his fields that surrounded the small, private airport.
“This place looks deserted,” he mused aloud.
He had no more than uttered the words when lights flashed on—bright beams of light pointing up into the night sky—to guide a plane to ground.
“He was here—that guard from the hospital—he’s been here the whole time,” Aaron said with a glance at Charlotte. “You knew it?”
She nodded.
“But there’s no car anywhere around here…” So they’d shut off the Camaro’s lights and waited in the dark for him to drive up.
“You said it’s the only private airfield in the area,” she reminded him. “He’s here…”
Aaron nodded with sudden realization of how they’d missed him. “He must have parked his car inside the hangar.”
Charlotte reached for the door handle. “We need to get inside there, too.”
Aaron grabbed her arm, stopping her from stepping out. “No. We don’t.”
“We can’t let him get on that plane and just fly away,” she said. “He’s the only lead we have left.”
The reporter was dead. The nurse. The administrator. And if any of the armed men from the office had survived, they weren’t talking yet. Stanley Jessup had developed a source in the sheriff’s office. The small town was overwhelmed and bringing in state and federal authorities to take over the investigation. While that would be better for him and Whit and Charlotte, it would take too long for the investigation to yield any results.
“I will go,” he clarified. “You will stay here.”
“So he can sneak up on me, grab me and force me onto the plane?” She shuddered at the thought.
“You’re armed,” he reminded her. “I doubt he could force you to do anything.” And that was part of the reason he’d agreed to let her come along with him. She really could take care of herself.
So was she more worried about him? That he’d take a bullet without her being there to protect him? Maybe she had feelings for him, too. Or was she just trying to keep alive the father of her baby?
“We decided to stick together,” she reminded him. “That’s what kept us alive in the administrator’s office—sticking together.”
“Glad Whit didn’t hear you say that.” They’d snuck out of the house while the other man had still been sleeping off his painkillers. Hopefully they would be back before he ever woke up.
Her lips curved into a faint smile. “He’s in no condition to be here with us.”
Aaron pressed his palm over her stomach. “Neither are you.”
“I’m pregnant,” she said. Then she dragged in a shaky breath and repeated, “I’m pregnant.” She expelled the breath and said, “I’m not sick or injured.”
Now he moved his hand to the bruise on her temple. “You were hurt,” he pointed out the yet to heal injury. Thinking of the pain she’d endured, the fear over her lost memory and months of imprisonment, his stomach clenched as if he’d been punched in the gut again. “And you’re lucky to be alive.”
“I am alive,” she said.
But what about Gabriella? Learning her fate was probably what compelled Charlotte to put herself at risk again.
“And now I remember who I am,” she added. “And I know what I know—how to take care of myself.”
“And others…” He patted her belly again and nodded. “Let’s get in there while the plane’s landing.” When the guard was distracted with the plane, they would be able to get the jump on him.
*
CHARLOTTE WINCED AT every snap of twig and rustle of grass beneath their feet as they moved stealthily toward the hangar. It was so damn quiet, and so damn black but for those lights beaming into the sky. She stumbled in the dark, would have tripped and gone down, but for Aaron catching her arm and steadying her.
She waited for him to use her clumsiness as a reason to insist on her returning to the car. But instead he kept his hand on her, keeping her close to his side.
Heat and attraction radiated between them. He may not trust her. Hell, he may not ever be able to forgive her, but he did want her. He’d proven that back at the house—proven it in a way that had her still feeling boneless and satiated.
The man was an amazing lover. If only he could really love her—deeply love her…
She shook off the wistful thought. It must have been the hormones—due to the pregnancy—that had her hoping for things she knew weren’t possible. She had never been the romantic type.
She had always been a pragmatic person. She knew how the world really worked—her mother had made certain of that.
Now she had to make certain that the threat against Princess Gabriella was gone. She clasped her weapon tightly in her hand.
Aaron reached for the handle to the back door of the steel hangar. He tested the lock and nodded.
The idiot guard wasn’t as careful here as he’d been at the hospital. Mr. Centerenian would have never left the door to her room unlocked.
Charlotte lifted her weapon and nodded that she was ready. Aaron opened the door and stepped inside first, keeping his body between her and whoever might be in the hangar. Like her, he probably doubted that there was only one man meeting the plane—after all the men who had stormed into the administrator’s office.
But the hangar was quiet and filled with light from the door open onto the field. One man stood there, staring up at the sky. A cigarette tip glowed between the fingers of his left hand. A white bandage swaddled his right hand.
“It’s him,” she whispered.
The man tensed and dropped his cigarette. Then he reached for the gun in the holster beneath his jacket. Before he could withdraw it, the drone of an engine broke the quiet. Mr. Centerenian turned his attention to the lights in the sky.
The plane was coming. The plane that Charlotte was supposed to leave on—to God knew where. A brief moment of panic clutched her heart. But she reminded herself that she wasn’t going to be leaving—at least not on anyone’s terms but hers.
As the guard stepped outside the hangar to watch the plane begin its descent, they moved through the shadow
s and edged closer to that wide-open door. But Charlotte clutched Aaron’s arm—holding him back from going any farther. They ducked down below the side of the black SUV parked inside the hangar—keeping it between them and the guard.
She held tightly to Aaron’s arm, making sure he stayed down. They couldn’t be detected before the plane landed, or the guard might wave it off. And then they might never learn who had orchestrated her kidnapping. She had to know…
Her heart beat with each second that passed before the tires touched down on the airstrip. Calling it such was generous. It was obviously used mostly for crop dusting—not private planes coming from foreign countries. That had to be where Mr. Centerenian’s boss came from. Was it someone working for her father? Dread welled up inside her at the thought. The plane bumped along the rough runway before finally coming to a stop.
The engine wasn’t killed though; it continued to drone on even as the door lifted on the side. “Get her!” a voice yelled from inside the plane. “We can’t stay here.”
“I—I can’t get her,” Mr. Centerenian yelled from the entrance to the hangar. Obviously he was afraid of being too close to his boss when he gave him the bad news. “She got away.”
“You lost her?”
He shook his head in denial of any culpability. “No. She got away from the hospital. She escaped.”
“You were there so that would not happen,” the boss reminded him—his voice terse with anger and frustration. “You need to find her! Now!”
“What are they saying?” Aaron asked, his breath warm as he whispered in her ear.
She shivered. “They’re talking about me.” And until he’d asked, she hadn’t even realized the men had been speaking another language. Charlotte had been multilingual since a very young age.
Her grandparents had been missionaries. Whenever Charlotte had gotten in the way of her mother’s latest scam, she’d been left with her grandparents—in whichever country they were working in—trying to take care of starving children and orphans.
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