Colton Destiny Page 19

  “I didn’t mean on the job.”

  The Colton family grapevine was obviously in perfect working order, she thought wryly. And maybe other sources. Tate seemed to have them everywhere. She hadn’t thought she’d betrayed her tangled feelings, but Piper in particular had a sharp knack for reading people, and she’d honed it on her family.

  “Yeah. Well.”

  “Just be careful,” Tate warned. “And be sure, before you do anything...rash.”

  Rash, she thought as they disconnected. Yeah, that would be the word for it. And foolish, impossible and a few other adjectives.

  But calling it every name she could think of didn’t change the simple fact; in the short time she’d known him, Caleb Troyer had come to mean more to her than any man she’d ever met.

  Don’t worry about it, she told herself as she scrambled to get ready. You’re about to blow his life to bits. That should take care of it.

  She watched the video herself as it downloaded. Mindful of the spotty cell service, she saved it rather than trust on being able to stream it at Caleb’s. Besides, she wanted to know just how bad it was.

  She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it. Yes, it was Hannah, she was almost positive, but she was indeed alive and looked in good shape, except for appearing dazed, probably drugged. It appeared she, along with others, were being paraded for sale, advertised as fresh and “untouched.” A marketplace for virgins, for men with sick appetites.

  It could have been much, much worse. And Caleb’s words about her world shot through her mind again. What kind of world did she live in when something like this video could be a relief?

  There was nothing she wanted less than to show this to him. She didn’t want to see that look in his eyes, that condemning of the evils she dealt with, condemnation that she couldn’t help feeling extended to herself. Yes, Hannah was alive—at least at the time this had been recorded—but who knew where she was or what kind of shape she was in by now. She thought about it all the way as she drove to Caleb’s shop, where she guessed he would be by now.

  When she got there, the door was unlocked. At least she assumed it was unlocked; maybe he never locked it, although he had a lot of tools in there.

  She eased the door open. The main workroom appeared empty. Quietly, she made her way back to the corner that served him as an office.

  He was bent over the drafting table. But he was not working. His elbows were on a drawing that had a slashing mark across it, and his head was resting in his hands, his shoulders slumped. He looked exhausted.

  She felt a tightness in her chest, a sort of aching that startled her with its strength. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to be able to ease this man’s pain. And instead, she was here to add to it. True, she had proof his sister was alive—or at least had been two days ago—but seeing her like this wasn’t going to do much to relieve his mind.

  His head came up then, as if he’d somehow sensed her presence. He turned, and for an instant she saw something in his face that made her aching heart leap, something bright, welcoming, something that in another man in another place she would have been certain meant he was very happy to see her.

  “I am sorry,” he said almost hastily. As if he’d feared he would not have the chance to say the words to her. “I should not have said those things. It is not your fault—”

  “Caleb,” she began, feeling she had to halt the flow of words even though she was relishing what had made him speak them and the expression on his face that told her he indeed was most happy to see her.

  “—and I should not blame you,” he finished as if she hadn’t spoken. Not rudely, but in the manner of one who had thought long and hard about what he would say if he got the chance. “I am...very glad you came back. I should not have let you leave like that.”

  I don’t ever want to leave.

  In the instant the words slammed through her mind, she hated her world more than she ever had. Hated that she couldn’t just revel in Caleb’s warm welcome, hated that she couldn’t seize this moment, couldn’t seize him and beg him to figure out a way to make this work between them.

  But instead she had to add another harsh layer to his pain. And she couldn’t find the words to even begin.

  “Emma,” he said, his brows furrowing as he looked at her, as he realized something was wrong.

  “I must show you something,” she said.

  “Hannah?”

  “It is...proof she is alive.”

  For an instant his countenance brightened, but he kept his gaze on her face, and it faded. “You do not look happy about this.”

  She couldn’t answer. Instead, she set her tablet on the drafting table, cued up the video Tate had sent and silently tapped the play arrow.

  Emma didn’t watch it again. She didn’t need to. She remembered with grim vividness the sight of the young women being paraded before the camera in various states of undress. The voice-over, a man with more than a bit of a New York accent, was lurid and lewd, rife with suggestions of what could be done with and to these prime, pure and untouched young girls. For a price.

  A very steep price.

  She couldn’t bear to look at Caleb’s face as he watched, caught only the setting of his strong jaw in her peripheral vision.

  But she had to make sure.

  “This one is Hannah?” she finally asked, pausing the video as the most striking, a slender girl with a long tumble of red hair and wide eyes—drugged, Emma noted with a spurt of anger—and utterly angelic features came to the fore.

  “Yes.” Caleb said it flatly, and Emma realized he was angry. He had every right, but he was so even-keeled most of the time, it was...

  It was a relief, she thought with rueful self-knowledge. It meant he wasn’t perfect. It also meant he was capable of powerful emotions, even if he did, either by nature, culture or both, keep them strictly in check most of the time.

  “Caleb—”

  “How can this be God’s will?” he said softly. She knew much more of his culture now, enough to know questioning was frowned upon. Then he looked at her, and his eyes were fierce.

  “Men like this...who do this evil...this is who you hunt.”

  “Yes.”

  He turned back to the frozen image. Stared for a moment before saying, in the tone of throwing caution to the wind, “Then as much as I dislike it, I am glad there are such as you to do it. May God forgive me, I want them...”

  Punished? Even dead? It’s what she would have wanted, in his place. But she’d learned a bit more about the ways of the Amish since she’d been here. She chose her words carefully.

  “It’s a dilemma, isn’t it? Free will and God’s will? But who’s to say He wouldn’t use people to do His will? In this case, to capture and punish those who violate those most basic laws?”

  His gaze shifted back to her face. “You...are wise, Emma.”

  She held her breath. Made herself meet his gaze levelly. Something shifted, changed, grew between them.

  “And you are beautiful. And in your heart...good.”

  “I think,” she said, almost hesitantly, “you have your pronouns tangled. All of that applies, yes. But to you.”

  She thought she saw the faintest trace of color rise to his cheeks. But he didn’t look away. Instead, slowly, he lifted a hand. It seemed to her to take an agonizingly long time, but finally he cupped her cheek. She hadn’t realized how much she’d longed for the touch of his work-roughened hand until it was there. She turned her head just enough and pressed her lips to his palm. And had the satisfaction of seeing him shiver, even as a ripple of needy sensation went through her from head to toe.

  “What can we do?” she asked, hating the helpless sound of her voice. “Is this impossible? Is there any way?”

  “I...” He stopped. He flicked a glance at her tablet, at the image frozen there like a billboard advertising the depravity of her world.

  “I know,” she whispered, lowering her eyes. “My world...I don’t bla
me you for wanting to stay apart from it. Right now, I wish I could.”

  “But could you? Could you leave it?”

  Her gaze shot back to his face. He meant it rhetorically; that was all, wasn’t it? Still, she answered as honestly as she could.

  “For the first time in my life, I think I could.”

  She heard a sound from him, as if his breath had caught in his throat. She knew the feeling.

  She made herself restart the video, setting the image of the dazed, beautiful Hannah back in motion. She had apparently been saved for last, as the most striking offering. In the last instant before she was led away, Hannah glanced back toward the camera. She said something or at least tried to.

  It looked like Help me.

  The fear that filled her eyes stabbed at Emma like one of Caleb’s wood chisels. It echoed through her, wild, consuming, the memory of that kind of soul-deep fear.

  She had lived that once. She had sworn she would spend her life seeing that no one else had to. Obviously, she had failed. Perhaps it was a battle that couldn’t be won.

  Fury boiled up in her at that thought. Maybe the bigger battle, against perverts like this everywhere, couldn’t be won.

  But this one could. And she was going to do it.

  She was going to bring Caleb’s little sister home.

  Chapter 29

  Caleb wasn’t used to being angry.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anger. He was human, so of course he did. But he had been raised to control it, to submit as the church taught. So he had learned, over the years. And it had served him well, especially with the girls. They needed the example he could provide, especially since their ever-patient mother was gone.

  But he was angry now. The pure evil before him and the fear in his little sister’s eyes were enough to push him swiftly to the edge of even his considerable control.

  It was the anger he could see in Emma’s eyes that cooled his own. Her reaction was fierce, almost violent, and in the face of such rage his own began to fade.

  “I will never give up,” she said, each word driven and sharp like a nail digging into hardwood. “I will find Hannah and I will bring her home.”

  “And what will be left of you then?”

  His own words surprised him. But he could not forget that night she had spent trembling in his arms, reliving her own hideous nightmare. It explained the ferocity of her reaction. She had to be remembering her own feelings of helplessness, the pain and terror she’d endured during her own horrible captivity.

  How could she do this? How could she go on? Surely she deserved some peace, after what she had been through? She had fought the good fight for years; surely she had earned some rest?

  He realized with a little jolt of self-awareness that, as bad as this gnawing fear and worry about Hannah was, he was nearly as concerned for Emma.

  “Your demons drive you,” he whispered.

  She whirled on him as if the words had been accusation instead of observation. “Shouldn’t you be glad of that? It will keep me going until I bring Hannah home.”

  It was a moment before he could answer, a moment before he admitted to himself he could not stop the words that were going to come.

  “I believe that you will. But at what cost? You must face those demons, Emma. You cannot hide them, or hide from them, forever. They will not stay neatly in the box you have built for them.”

  She didn’t speak, just stared at him, pale, her eyes wide, as if she were desperately trying to do just that, push those demons back into their box.

  “You must learn how to be peaceful again, Emma. And that must happen from the inside.”

  As if it were a physical thing, a boiling, churning flow of hot emotion, he saw the anger drain from her. And when she spoke, her voice was so small it broke his heart, coming from this brave, confident woman.

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “You can learn,” Caleb said, taking her by the shoulders, willing her his strength in this moment when her own seemed to be failing her.

  She looked up at him, and everything she worked so hard to keep hidden, the haunted woman, the weary battler, the pursuer of too much evil, was there in her face.

  “Will you teach me?” she whispered.

  His breath caught at what he read in her expression then. For that moment, she let down the mask completely, let him see the vulnerability, the uncertainty, the...love.

  The emotion he’d worked so hard to tamp down rose up inside him, blossoming, meeting and embracing what she was letting him see. He could still see fear in her eyes, but he knew instinctively it wasn’t haunted memories or the ugliness she fought that caused it; it was simply that she’d been afraid to offer him this.

  “I cannot,” he said, but regretted the words when she stiffened and started to pull back. He realized she thought he was rejecting her. And as soon as he realized that, he realized that he never could. She had brought him back to life, had shown him his heart still beat, still yearned, had shown him that perhaps he was not finished with love as he had assumed since Annie’s death.

  “I cannot,” he said again, tightening his grip on her shoulders, pulling her close. “No one person can teach such a huge lesson.” He smiled at her before adding softly, “But my people can.”

  He saw her face change as she looked up at him. As if he were somehow a sun that warmed her, the fear left her. He knew in that moment he could not be a coward in the face of her courage.

  “And if my love will help you, you have it,” he said, his voice rough but steady.

  “Caleb.” She breathed his name almost prayerfully.

  “Is it just me, Emma?”

  She looked startled for an instant, then smiled, and he had the feeling she had run the words spoken when she had asked the same through her mind as often as he had.

  “No,” she answered simply.

  And then she smiled, as if for the first time she believed, believed that there was another path for her to walk, a path where not everything reminded her, where she could regain her faith in the goodness of people. He engulfed her in his arms then, aching inside as he held her, as she nestled against him willingly, eagerly.

  * * *

  It was impossible. Emma knew everyone would say it, but they didn’t know her, didn’t know her strength, her determination and her need for what these people and their way of life—and this man—could offer.

  “There must be a way,” he said.

  “We’ll find it,” Emma said.

  “Your work—”

  “There need to be people who do what I do. I just can’t be one of them anymore. I will find Hannah, Caleb. I will find her and bring her home. But after that—”

  “It will be a very long task. There is much you would have to learn.” He said it reluctantly, as if he feared scaring her off but wanted to be fair. She was under no illusions about the size of the task before her.

  “I know. In more ways than one.”

  “You are certain? This is not a decision to be taken lightly.”

  “I’m not taking it lightly. But I must get off this path, where every case reminds me and destroys another piece of what little faith I have left in humanity.”

  She was coming back to herself now. And with every passing moment her certainty grew. She was done. She would finish this case, because it was so crucially important to her, but after that... She nodded once, sharply, confirming her own thoughts.

  “I would leave anyway. The battle will continue without me. I’ve given it enough.”

  “The girls,” he began.

  “I adore them. Each in their own way.”

  “And they already like you a great deal. But it is asking a lot, for someone not used to our ways.”

  “I can learn. And I would like them to meet my family. Soon.”

  This seemed to please Caleb immensely, for his smile widened despite his worry over Hannah. She looked at him steadily, letting her suddenly lighter, happier expression tak
e on a touch of mischief.

  “I’m not a submissive woman, Caleb Troyer,” she said with a bit of her old fierceness.

  He laughed. “You think I do not know this?” Then, seriously, he added, “What agreements we reach behind closed doors are our business.”

  And when she reached up to cup his cheek, when she felt the sudden tension in him, heard the catch in his breath, she began to long for the nights when those agreements would be negotiated.

  Hannah would come home.

  She would turn from this grim path she walked.

  She would have three very different, charming little girls in her life.

  And in the simple surroundings that were so wonderfully steady, unchanging, perhaps she really could find peace.

  And with Caleb by her side, she would find so much more.

  With an eagerness she’d not felt in a long time, she kissed him, flinging herself headlong into her destiny.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss next month’s continuation of

  THE COLTONS OF EDEN FALLS

  with Beth Cornelison’s COLTON’S RANCH REFUGE.

  Available October 2012

  from Harlequin Romantic Suspense.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of Mercenary's Perfect Mission by Carla Cassidy!

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Romantic Suspense title.

  You want sparks to fly! Harlequin Romantic Suspense stories deliver, with strong and adventurous women, brave and powerful men and the life-and-death situations that bring them together.

  Visit Harlequin.com to find your next great read.

  We like you—why not like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

  Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

  Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books: HarlequinBlog.com

  Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!

  Harlequin.com/newsletters

  Harlequin and Mills & Boon are joining forces in a global search for new authors.

  In September 2012 we’re launching our biggest contest yet—with the prize of being published by the world’s leader in romance fiction!