ES_ebook_8.2.19 Page 17

  A life with Ken.

  With her breath held, Sam searched Ken’s eyes. She needed those three words… craved them. Not the three words most women wanted to hear—what he’d already said—but the other three words.

  “It’ll take some time to get rid of the hurt, but I love you and, corny as it is, love conquers all. We trust each other on the job. We may need to work on that trust on the home front. We won’t let what happened stop us from a future together.”

  Her eyes misted, and her vision blurred. He still loved her. How had she ever gotten so lucky?

  “All in all, I forgive you.”

  Those magical words lifted everything from her heart until passion for life and this man resided there.

  He dropped her hand and opened his arms. “Now come here. I need you in my arms. We’ll make it through this.”

  She snuggled in, careful of his injuries, committed to convincing him of her loyalty. She’d grab this forgiveness and absorb it into her soul. She’d do whatever it took to earn and keep it.

  Relaxed, from him running his hand through her hair, Sam leaned back and looked at him. No woman could ever be so lucky as she was.

  “What d’we do now?” Hoping not to push it, she mimicked his prior action by finger combing his disheveled hair. Damn, he looked handsome even with bruising and swelling on his face. She caressed her fingers over the roughness of his bruised, whiskered jaw and then his split lip where the thin line of blood had dried. It had to have bothered him when he’d kissed her. Yet it hadn’t stopped him.

  “We wait. We don’t know for certain it’s her, and you know we’ve been surprised as hell at times.”

  That was true. Crazy people didn’t always show themselves from the beginning. They checked out good then went off their rocker at the most inopportune time. Like there actually was an opportune moment for that transformation.

  “Whoever it is won’t have Jesse. He’ll come back, but he has to take care of getting Cody home.”

  Her heart lurched, and she dropped her hand. “What will he do with him?” Cody not being with people who loved him worried her to no end. They hadn’t planned to take him back to Bev’s so she didn’t have that worry at least.

  Ken shrugged, then grimaced. “Since you’re not there, he’ll probably leave the boy with his housekeeper since the women are in Montana. I imagine Jesse’s sent for them to return for Cody’s sake and ours. I won’t object to any of them at our six.”

  “Good.” Jesse’s housekeeper would take great care of Cody. Heck, he’d probably be too spoiled to come back with her. “If it’s Bev, maybe I can talk some sense into her,” she said with hope, but the reality of that probably not being the case sat heavy in her gut. “If they’re going all the way home, our backup dwindled in numbers.”

  “I imagine Jesse will find a way to make both happen. He always does.”

  A sudden thought stalled her. If it were Bev and she’d finally arrived—or come back to confuse HIS—then what would happen to Ken? Alejandro must’ve been playing with him until she arrived. Bev’s goal was death. Would she kill Ken today?

  Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed it down. No. She would not lose Ken. She’d almost made the mistake of losing faith in him. Never again.

  She had to stop Bev before that happened. She’d learned the folly of her ways. Maybe she could help Bev understand the same and release the hatred before she did something she’d regret.

  She swallowed hard. Bev had been too far-gone when she’d spoken to her last. She should’ve realized something when her friend finally agreed to HIS—especially Jesse and Ken—taking over the search for Cody. With frustration, she jumped to her feet, walked to the door and held onto the bars tight enough her knuckles turned white. How hadn’t she seen this?

  She shook her head. It was pointless dwelling on the what-ifs. She had to keep her teammates safe.

  Damn that woman!

  “Sam, come here.”

  She released a burdened sigh and turned back to the man who’d changed her. The man who’d always stood by her, even when she hadn’t deserved it. A man she didn’t deserve but refused to turn away. She’d been rendered powerless to do just that.

  After sitting by Ken once again, he reached over and clasped their hands together, resting them on their thighs. Some of her worries ebbed, or maybe he just instilled her with enough confidence in them to overcome anything.

  “Take your earpiece and hide it in a gap between the bed and wall. If our assumption is correct, I think you’ll be pulled to visit with her. If it’s not her—”

  When he didn’t continue, she turned and saw him working his jaw. Knowing Ken as she did, he tossed around whether to fight them or not if they took her. It had to be hard on him since he wasn’t at full strength.

  “I’ll be fine. No matter what. If you fight with the guard, they could hurt you worse—maybe even shoot you again—and that won’t help us escape.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I can’t trust it’s her, Sam. I can’t.”

  Her eyes misted. “Here,” she said, changing the topic, “let me see your wound.”

  The chuckle that escaped him lifted the heaviness of their previous topic. “Which one?”

  Shaking her head, she stood. “Lie down and let me see what you’ve got going on.”

  As he maneuvered himself back on the cot, he waggled his eyebrows. “Do you want to see everything I’ve got going on?”

  His good humor told her he’d moved forward, and while they weren’t perfect, they were together. So, like a giddy schoolgirl, she tittered and blushed.

  After she poked and prodded Ken, she then tore strips from the bottom of her T-shirt to cover his bullet wound since it’d seeped during the night. Once finished, he stood and stretched to loosen up the kinks and tight limbs so he’d be ready for whatever came.

  Even though their stomachs rumbled, they didn’t discuss the lack of food.

  Heavy footfalls approached—she preferred that better to the silent guard—and Ken stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the door. And blocking the guard’s view of her.

  The air around her rattled with some noise. Ken actually growled at the guard. Just one more thing to like about the man.

  A key rattled in a lock and a heavily accented voice directed, “Girl.”

  It’d been a good thing she’d been hidden as somehow she didn’t think he’d have appreciated her rolling her eyes. Girl, indeed.

  “No,” Ken asserted, animosity dripping from him.

  Needing to at least see what transpired in their cell, Sam lifted herself on her toes, stretching her neck to peek over Ken’s shoulder. He must’ve sensed her movement because he shifted to block her view. What she’d seen made her blood run cold.

  The guard filled the entrance. No wonder Ken didn’t want her to go. She gulped, and her heart pounded loudly in her ears. If she’d misjudged the situation, going with this man would be wrong. Very wrong.

  Ken stiffened, and a trill voice interrupted the showdown between the two men. “Jose, you did great work on him,” Beverly Shodun said.

  Sam closed her eyes against the pain of witnessing the evilness of the woman she’d called her best friend.

  “Sam, quit hiding behind the man responsible for our husbands’ deaths.”

  Before stepping around Ken, she whispered near his ear, allowing her hand to press against the arch of his back a moment, “Trust me.” She’d lost that with him once, so she could only hope he’d give her the chance.

  Clearing Ken, she came face-to-face with a crazy woman. “Bev,” she said with feigned relief. “Thank God you’re here. They’ve kept me locked up. Had I known you’d be here, I’d have complained louder.”

  Bev studied her as if judging whether to trust Sam. Crazy people had some sane moments. Bev would too so she’d have to watch he
rself.

  With a broad smile, Bev waved her out of the room and she followed. “I’m sorry. I just arrived this morning and they didn’t know.”

  Widening her eyes, she asked, “I don’t understand? What about Cody? HIS rescued him. They were bringing him to you. Jesse and one of the other men left with him.”

  Bev stopped about midway down the long hallway. “You mean Jesse isn’t out there waiting to rescue you?”

  Furrowing her brow as if in confusion, Sam asked, “Bev, what’s going on? This doesn’t make sense. You hired us to rescue Cody from here. We did and he’s not here, but now you are.”

  She waved her hand as if to flick off the topic and began walking with Sam on her left side. “Oh, that.”

  Sam bit her lip waiting for Bev to expound, but she didn’t. The cell door slammed behind her, and she wanted to look back at Ken and assure him she was acting but didn’t risk anyone noticing. Instead, Bev led her into a large dining room with bold red colors.

  “Sit, Sam.” Bev kissed Alejandro on the cheek before taking a seat beside him. Sipping coffee, he appeared perfectly sane. Yet he seemed to still have a relationship with a crazy woman. And it looked as if he’d bought into her scheme. Finally, Bev had the means to make trouble for Jesse and Ken.

  She wanted to press Bev for her plans and their release, but she knew better than to let her cards show. Besides, her stomach rumbled, and they knew she’d had nothing since she’d been brought into their custody. She needed fuel to keep her strength up.

  As she eased into a high-back chair, she thought her words through before she said them and what her possible rebuttal would be. “Are you going to feed Ken?”

  She held her breath for the answer. The depths of Bev’s sanity remained unknown.

  Looking at her as if she were crazy, Bev halted before drinking her coffee and asked calmly as if starving a man was normal. “Why would I?”

  Sadly, she’d expected that question. “What do you want with him?”

  Bev set her rose-themed china coffee cup back on a matching saucer. “He’ll pay. So will Jesse.”

  Sam’s eyes flitted back and forth between the two. Disgust swamped her when Alejandro reached for Bev’s hand, entwined them and kissed the back of hers.

  Good God. Since Bev apparently had Alejandro’s full support, she also had the men employed at the compound.

  “Okay, you’ll have to explain everything to me. But I think, if you want to have him beat up more later, you’d want him aware of it instead of out of his mind with hunger and thirst. Or if you’re waiting for Jesse to join us, you’d want to keep him alive. So unless you plan to kill him right now”—Please, God don’t let her say yes—“then feeding him makes sense. It doesn’t need to be extravagant. Some tortillas and some water would even do.”

  Again she held her breath. Something told her she’d end up doing that quite a bit more with Bev in her state.

  “That makes sense,” Bev agreed. She turned to Alejandro. “Would you see to that, honey?”

  Didn’t they have a ton of servants and guards? Oh, Bev must want her alone. Perfect. Time to play her role and thank goodness Ken wouldn’t see it.

  Watching Alejandro leave, Sam turned back to Bev and put on an excited look. “Bev, you’ve done it.”

  The woman lifted a shoulder as if it meant nothing. “When you didn’t make it happen, I had to do something.”

  Stuffing a piece of tortilla in her mouth to keep from spouting something that would blow her true feelings, Sam waited. After swallowing and taking a drink of bottled water, she sighed dramatically. “I know. I just never got in a situation where I could make it happen without getting caught. I mean, I wanted them to pay, not me. I’ve paid long enough. Just like you.” Time to pick up your feet with how deep you’re shoveling it there, Sam.

  Having Bev scrutinize her every word and facial expression made the ruse challenging since she didn’t want her to know that Sam couldn’t have gone through any plan.

  “I want Ken and Jesse to die, side by side, like Lance and Adam,” Bev stated with a calm as if that were a normal statement that didn’t involve murder.

  She closed her eyes against the loss of her husband, but she’d moved forward, and Ken had her heart now. She’d protect him with every fiber of her being.

  “Well, then,” Sam said. “We’d best get Jesse back here. Had I known your plan, I’d have made sure he hadn’t been the one who took responsibility for Cody.”

  Bev didn’t even wince at the mention of her son, and pain for Cody trickled through Sam’s heart.

  “Okay, tell me how many men are out there and who they are.”

  Sam almost snorted aloud at Bev’s request. Like she’d rat out men who had risked their lives for this woman’s son.

  “Well, one man stayed behind, but the others left with Cody to return him home to you.”

  The click of Bev’s perfectly manicured nails on the table grated on her nerves. “Will they come back for you?”

  Walking a tightrope, she nodded. “Someone will. It might not be them, but someone will.”

  Alejandro walked up behind Bev’s chair. “Where do we find this Jesse?” Returning to the seat he’d vacated, he offered, “We could send someone to his home and collect him.”

  Water almost snorted out Sam’s nose at that. They could barely get on the grounds of Jesse’s homestead if they had a passcode. Devon’s system would catch them in a heartbeat.

  “That could work,” Bev agreed. “We’ll keep Ken alive until then.” She turned back to Sam. “Where does he live?”

  Continuing to dig deeper into her acting skills, she shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to his home.” Lies, lies, lies.

  Several ideas spun through her mind. If she showed her agreement with Bev, she wouldn’t be returned to the cell. If she didn’t show her agreement, she had no idea what they would do to her.

  Acting as if a light bulb had gone off in her brain and her path became clear, she excitedly said, “Wait, I know how we can get it.”

  “How?”

  She smiled brightly. “An idea is formulating in my head to get that information, but tell me everything that’s going on and your full plans, and I’ll make sure we can make it work. Together.” She nodded as if agreeing with herself and pasted on what she hoped displayed as a sinister smile. “Oh yes, I think we can make this work for both of us.”

  19

  With great effort that occasionally wavered, Ken bit back the aches in his body. Weak from blood loss, dehydration, and hunger, he wouldn’t allow it to topple him. Putting light weight on his leg and limping around the room had been successful. It hurt like hell, but he could manage. For how long at a time, he could only guess.

  Full of fear for Sam, he stood at the door. Even with the warmth from inside the eight-by-ten space of his prison, the steel bars felt like ice in his hands. His gut twisted with worry and how her meeting progressed. She’d asked him to trust her and, in their predicament, he had no choice but to do so, even when his heart lurched at the way she’d greeted Beverly.

  He didn’t trust Beverly. If she’d convinced Sam of the validity of that damn intel report, would the crazy woman believe Sam still believed it and stood with her?

  Calling himself all kinds of stupid, he should’ve been smarter and more stubborn about their sleeping arrangements. Anyone could’ve looked in on them and fed Beverly their cuddling position which Sam would’ve had to talk fast to justify.

  Concern on whether Beverly would go nuts—more than when they’d left her—and hurt Sam had him shaking with a terror that emanated from deep within his heart. Although not wanting to admit it, a pang of outright fright tried to bubble up within him that Beverly might bring Sam around to wanting him and Jesse dead. The passing of their husbands had strengthened the bond between them, surely.

  Closin
g his weary eyes, he leaned his forehead against the inescapable cell door and wanted to slap himself for thinking such thoughts about Sam. She’d admitted how she’d fallen for Bev’s faulty info and couldn’t get aboard the crazy train. She may’ve had a moment or two of weakness, losing her focus, but it’d only been a few days that she’d been fooled. He believed her, heart and soul.

  In the months since she’d moved to Baltimore and they worked together, they’d tightened up their friendship and become closer day after day. That growing bond helped soothe his bruised heart, as he knew the woman she was. The Sam he’d fallen in love with. The woman who’d smiled and a glow of happiness and contentment surrounded her. This is the woman he’d given his heart to, even though she hadn’t been aware of his love. Until now.

  As for her heart, she may not love him—and he’d been prepared for that—but she did deeply care for him. In fact, he’d seen a raw, true desire in her gorgeous blue eyes—as well as he could see in the near dark. The small window, sitting up high with square bars, allowed very little light to spill into the room. She wouldn’t’ve been able to kiss him with so much passion or relax in his arms if he hadn’t stirred something deep within her. And he would continue to stir up her emotions until she either made him the happiest man on earth or finally crushed his heart.

  No matter her ultimate decision, he’d never stop loving her.

  When HIS hired her, his body had hummed at the thought of being close to her on a daily basis, and he enjoyed every minute of it. Granted, seeing her in danger still didn’t sit well with him, but even though he worried, they worked well together, and it only strengthened what was between them. He just needed to get them out of here so they could go home and crawl into bed—together.

  Lifting his head from the bars, he stopped himself from turning and pacing. He’d already figured out the mistake in trying that. Walking was fine, twisting not so fine.

  Although Sam had searched the barren room, he’d checked every nook and cranny and came to the same conclusion. The room and sparse contents offered nothing useful. Any type of metal springs on the uncomfortable cot would’ve been a bonus, but instead, it’d been made of wood and bolted to the floor with concrete screws he expected to be embedded very deep.