But their search garnered no answers.
“What happens now?” she asked, setting her suitcase on the bed.
“Now, we go home.”
“And these?” She gestured to their rings. “And this?” she added, holding up the marriage certificate Bud had given them.
He wrapped his hands around her waist and gazed into her eyes. “We tell everybody we’re married.”
“Just like that?”
A heavy feeling settled in his chest. “I do wish I could have talked to your dad and asked him for your hand and all that.”
“They adore you, Sam. They’re going to be over the moon. Plus, I love my parents, but I don’t need anyone’s permission to get married. I could have married a goat named Chuck. And it would be all my call.”
He grinned. “So, it was between me and a goat named Chuck?”
Her gray-blue eyes twinkled. “Yeah, but you have opposable thumbs. That’s what gave you the edge.”
He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. “I can show you what I can do with these opposable thumbs,” he said, sliding his hand between her thighs.
She leaned in and kissed him, sighing into his lips as he stroked her.
He’d lost count of how many times they’d made love over the last three days. After basically living like a monk for the last several years, his cock was hell-bent on making up for lost time, and Zoe’s body was on the same page. A brush of their fingertips. A look from across the room. It took barely anything to make him rock-hard and ready for her.
She looked around the room. “Do we have time?”
He kissed her earlobe. “We have all the time now, Z.”
She was wearing a trim little sweater dress with boots and no leggings.
Jackpot.
With one hand he undid his fly, and within seconds, he’d pushed aside her panties and was inside her.
She gasped. “How did we wait so long for this?”
“You were always worth the wait,” he growled.
He carried her into the adjoining bathroom and settled her ass on the counter.
Zoe glanced at the mirror. “You like watching.”
“I like watching you,” he answered, pulling out of her and turning her around to take her from behind.
Zoe gripped the edge of the sink as he thrust into her, their eyes meeting in the mirror. He massaged her most sensitive place and within seconds, she met her release. Her eyes fluttered shut as a sweet, dirty moan escaped her lips. He wasn’t far behind. Watching her come in his hands had become like a drug. The more he had her, the more he wanted. She gasped, and her tight, wet center gripped his hard length. He came hard, his orgasm crashing through his body.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “Now I get it.”
“Get what?” he asked, brushing her hair to the side and kissing her neck.
“Our friends. Every one of them always looks so…”
He gave her a wry grin. “Freshly fucked?”
She giggled, but then her expression grew serious. “I always knew it would be good between us. Those two days…”
He smiled. Just the mention of that time stirred emotions deep inside him. “I know, Z. I can remember every single second of that time.”
She bit her lip. “It sounds corny, but when I woke up that first morning and you were in bed with me, I knew I hadn’t imagined that there was something between us. I knew you were my soulmate.” She cringed. “I know, that’s a stupid word.”
He pressed another kiss to her neck and eased out of her. “It’s not a stupid word, Z. That’s exactly what we are. You’re my forever. You’re my wife.”
She smiled. “Say it again.”
“You’re.”
He kissed her earlobe.
“My.”
He kissed along her jawline.
“Bundt cake!” came Harmony’s voice from the hallway.
Zoe pressed her hand to her mouth, and he bit back a laugh.
A knock echoed through the room. “Zoe and Sam, I’ve got a sweet treat on the table. Everyone’s saying goodbye, and we’ve got the cleaning people coming.”
“We’ll be right out. Thank you, Harmony,” Zoe called.
“Looks like it’s closing time. You don’t have to go home…”
“But you can’t stay here,” she finished.
“Take your time,” he said, giving her some privacy in the bathroom.
He collected their bags and set them in the hall.
“Sam,” she called to him.
“Yeah,” he answered, finding her in the room holding the stone and the map.
“I don’t want to leave the area quite yet.”
“What are you thinking, Z?”
She pointed to a spot on the map. “The farm borders the detention center on the west side. I want to see if there was a way to get a look at it from the east. It looks like there may be an old country road that runs parallel.”
“Sure, it’s worth a shot.”
She put the stone and the map into her purse, and they joined the other couples outside in the front drive. Harmony wasn’t kidding about closing shop. She had little to-go bags with two slices of Bundt cake sitting on a bench ready to hand out to the couples as they departed. Zoe left his side to say goodbye to the women, and he walked over to the men.
He shook John Payne’s hand. “I guess this is it.”
“Sam, your vow renewal with Zoe changed everything for Marta and me.”
“Yeah,” Lee Morehead agreed. “Singing reminded Leanne of why she fell in love with me.”
“Us, too,” Stu Cobbledick added. “Last night in the cottage, shackling Candy to the wall helped us remember why we fell in love.”
Sam nodded, secretly so glad he and Zoe got the cottage before the Cobbledicks. “I think we’re all leaving here in a better place with our wives. I couldn’t have gotten her back without you guys. If you’re ever in Langley Park, look us up.”
“Couples, let’s gather for one last cleansing breath before you leave,” Harmony called.
He glanced around. Bud wasn’t there.
Zoe joined him and took his hand. “Candy Cobbledick invited us to Emporia to visit. Can you imagine a weekend at the Cobbledicks?”
He squeezed her hand and glanced into her purse where the glass dildo sat among her wallet and hand cream. “Probably wouldn’t need to pack that.”
She grinned up at him, a naughty twinkle in her eyes.
Harmony glanced at her watch. “Everybody, inhale. Everybody, exhale. And let’s get you back your phones,” she added, giving each couple the bag with their devices.
Zoe took their bag and dumped its contents into her purse. “I guess that’s it. I know this place was pretty out there, but without it…”
He opened the passenger door for her. “I agree. I don’t even want to think of where we’d be without it.”
They waited for the other couples to leave before starting down the long drive. After a few minutes of driving in silence, he patted her leg.
“Everything okay?”
She shook her head. “It almost doesn’t seem real.”
He glanced at her. “It’s real. As real as the snake that bit my ass, and as real as the rings on our fingers.”
She smiled. “Do you know how happy this is going to make Kate?”
“She’s my niece, now, too,” he said, thinking of their days taking a pint-sized Kate to play in the park.
“Oh, crap!” Zoe said, pulling a ton of stuff out of her purse. “The bracelet! I left Kate’s bracelet. I’d put it in the desk drawer for safekeeping and totally forgot to pack it.”
“We could call and ask Harmony to mail it to us when we get back to Langley Park,” he offered.
Zoe blew out a frustrated breath. “No, Harmony said the cleaning people would be there any minute. It’s a string bracelet, Sam. They’ll probably just toss it. And you know Kate. She’ll give me that Ben stare except hers really cuts.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah, that little girl can throw one hell of a stink eye.” He pulled a U-turn, and they headed back toward the farm.
“We get the bracelet, and then we drive by the east side of the facility,” she said, ticking off a to-do list on her fingers. “And I need to learn more about this area.”
“I can help you out with that a bit. Years and years ago, I’m pretty sure all this used to be the Anderson Farm. Like back in the early eighteen hundreds when they did everything with horses and stored their perishables in root cellars underground.”
She nodded. “I also need to get more background on the people running the detention facility. So far, it’s been one shell company after another. And I need to figure out a way in. A way where they don’t know I’m a reporter.”
“One thing at a time, Z,” he said, pulling into the circle drive of the Intimacy Now retreat. The minivans were gone, but a small white van sat parked near the house’s entrance.
“Garrett Grove Rehabilitation Center,” Zoe said, reading the words printed on the side of the vehicle.
He frowned. “Why would a van from the detention center be here?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going in,” she answered.
They didn’t even have to knock. The farmhouse’s front door was wide open. They walked right in but were met with silence.
Zoe headed up the steps. “Somebody has to be here.”
He followed her. “Let’s go to our room first. Get the bracelet and then take a look around. There’s nothing suspicious about coming back for a lost item.”
She nodded as they hit the top of the steps and headed for their room when the sound of a vacuum clicking on broke through the silence.
Zoe turned the doorknob and entered their room. He was a step behind her, but nearly fell over when he saw the young woman running the vacuum.
The girl looked up and met his gaze. “Sam? What are you doing here?”
Zoe turned to him. “You know her?”
“Yeah, she worked at Park Tavern.” He went to the girl and placed his hand on her shoulder. “TJ it’s been months. We were all worried about you. Addison said you might have gotten into some trouble.”
The girl blinked back tears and rubbed her rounded belly. “If you call being knocked up with a dead junkie’s baby and getting locked up for violating probation trouble, then I’d say you’re right.”
“Jesus, TJ!”
Zoe stared at the girl’s cheek. “TJ? Are you Tessa Jackson?”
The teen met Zoe’s gaze and covered the heart-shaped birthmark on her face. “Nobody calls me Tessa anymore. Who the hell are you?”
Zoe took a step closer. “Your sister is Brooke, right?”
“You knew my sister?” TJ asked in a tight whisper.
“I’ve met you before, Tessa, but you were very young. I volunteered at the hospital in Langley Park where your sister was being treated for leukemia. We became quite close.”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “You’re that Zoe?”
Zoe held TJ’s hand. “Yes! Where’s your family? Where’s your sister? Do they know you’re here?”
Sam sighed. “TJ’s in the foster care system.”
“Foster care?” Zoe repeated.
TJ lifted her chin. “We were in a car accident. I was eleven years old. My sister had just graduated from medical school when a drunk driver hit us. Brooke was going to become a pediatric oncologist. She’d beaten leukemia. Whenever she talked about that time, she’d always mention that it was your support that got her through it. But she never got the chance. They didn’t make it. My parents died on impact, and Brooke died a few days later.”
Zoe wrapped the girl in her arms. “Tessa, I’m so sorry. I had no idea she’d passed away. Brooke and I wrote to each other a few times after she finished her treatments, but we lost touch over the years.”
Sam released a tight breath. He’d known TJ as a mouthy, street-smart kid during the short time she’d worked at Park Tavern. Now, the tough girl façade was gone, and she crumbled in Zoe’s arms.
“TJ, have you spoken to your caseworker?” he asked.
“She got a new job somewhere else, and I was assigned to some new guy. I don’t even remember his name, and then I got picked up for shoplifting and ended up here in GiGi.”
“GiGi?” Sam asked.
Zoe nodded. “It’s what some of the girls call the detention facility. GiGi is short for Garrett Grove. Maggie told me that.”
TJ gasped. “You’re the Zoe Maggie’s talked to? The reporter?”
“Yes, Maggie told me how things are at the detention center—how girls are being hurt. I want to help.”
Just then, he heard something. Zoe and TJ must have heard it, too, because they each stepped back just as the door opened.
Harmony stood in the doorway, hand clutching the knob. “Zoe, Sam, what are you doing back?”
TJ turned away and pulled the sheets off the bed.
Zoe went to the desk. “I left a bracelet here.” With her back to Harmony, she opened the drawer and removed the bit of braided string, but before turning around, she covertly reached into her purse and left the burner phone in the drawer. She glanced at TJ who quickly met her gaze then continued with the bed.
Demurely, Zoe held up the bracelet. “It was a gift from my niece. I’m sorry to have disturbed your cleaning crew.”
Harmony glanced from Zoe to TJ. “Yes, the girls from the rehabilitation center are just doing some community service here. I’m glad you found your bracelet. I’ll walk you out.”
Sam followed Zoe to the door and gestured for her and Harmony to go ahead of him. Harmony glanced at TJ before giving him a warm smile and setting off down the hall behind Zoe. He looked back and saw TJ grab the phone and tuck it under her sweatshirt, and his heart sank. He’d learned a decent amount about pregnancy with Em and Lindsey recently giving birth. TJ’s sweatshirt hid it pretty well, but if he had to guess, he’d put her at seven months pregnant—maybe eight. And Jesus! What was Zoe thinking? If a detention center guard found a phone with her info on it, she’d be screwed. Why risk it?
They got to the car and started the departure drill again. Harmony stood in the middle of the drive, arms crossed as he fired up the ignition and drove away from the farm. Seconds after they’d left the property, the iron gate swung shut.
Zoe grabbed a notepad out of her bag.
“Did you see them, Sam? I counted at least four other girls cleaning as we walked down the hall.”
“Harmony said they were doing community service.”
She shook her head and flipped through the notebook. “Here it is. I asked Harmony about the detention center. She told me that she and Bud had nothing to do with it. Her exact words were, ‘They stay on their side of the fence and we stay on ours.’”
He stared at the road. “Maybe something changed, Z. Maybe this is a new thing. Maybe Harmony was embarrassed you caught her using prison labor to clean her eight thousand dollars per person retreat. But the phone, Z? Why did you leave it? It’s a huge risk for you and for TJ.”
Zoe lifted her chin. “Sam, I met Tessa when she was a toddler. I sat with her sister through multiple rounds of chemo the summer before I went to college. If this girl needs help, I want her to have a way to contact me. She’s lost her family. She’s in foster care. That means she doesn’t have anyone. These are the kinds of girls who get preyed upon. And she’s pregnant. Did you notice that?”
He nodded. “But the phone has your information on it.”
A wry grin pulled at the corner of her mouth. “I can say I lost it. I can say that when we went back to get the bracelet, I must have dropped it. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think a girl locked up in a detention center would pocket an abandoned cellphone. And now we know how that girl who tried to escape must have gotten the number for Kansas Public Radio. Maggie must have shared it somehow. You know what that means?”
“Something bad is really going on inside,” he said.
She releas
ed a long breath. “I need to help these girls, Sam.”
“You will.”
Zoe drummed her fingers on her knee. “I need a way in.”
He stopped the car as they came to a dusty intersection. “Do you still want to check out the east side of the property?”
“Yeah,” she said, pulling out the map.
He glanced at it and found their location. “It looks like we’re here.”
“Look! There!” Zoe said, gesturing toward an old dirt road with a single chain hanging from two posts, blocking the way.
“I don’t know, Z? It could be private property.”
“There’s no sign. Nothing’s posted. Somebody comes, we feign ignorance. Two city slickers lost in the sticks.”
“Let me go check the chain and make sure there aren’t any spikes hidden in the dirt.”
Zoe reared back. “Spikes?”
“You never know out here, Z. We’re in shoot first, and ask questions later territory. Sit tight. I’ll go check it out.”
He got out of the car and glanced down at the rusted chain. It slipped easily off the metal post. It wasn’t meant to keep people out, only deter them.
She leaned out of the open window. “What do you think?”
He looked around. No spikes. This road probably used to lead to a farm once upon a time. He unhooked the chain and started carrying it to the other side when a police cruiser came ambling toward them.
Of all the fucking country roads.
The car came to a stop, and Conrad Henshaw exited the vehicle. “I thought I warned you to stay off private property.”
“This isn’t your land,” he answered.
“It’s not yours either.”
Sam put up his hands. “We were just going for a drive, Conrad. We didn’t mean any harm.”
“You left the big city to come all the way down to Garrett County to take a drive down this country road?”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 124