“Elaine is dead,” Hope said in a dry monotone.
Fuck, what was Hope involved in? How much danger was she in? Was this man willing to kill her? There was no way his Hope had hurt anyone. If this Elaine had died, it was more than likely Christian Grady’s fault.
“So he’s covering up his crimes?” Cam asked as he walked in, echoing James’s thoughts. He tossed his hat on his desk. “Zane brought me up to speed.”
“He’s in the wind,” Rafe confirmed.
“I want you to take her back to the ranch. It’s the safest place for her. You have everyone watching out for her. Don’t let her leave.” Nate walked up to Hope and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked down at her, his eyes holding hers. “I told Laura and Rafe and Cam the whole story.”
She nodded, tears pooling in her eyes.
“They reacted the same way I did when you told it to me.”
“Honey, we’re going to stand by you. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Laura said.
“Of course she didn’t,” Noah said, reaching for her hand. “She’s the victim.”
“You might not think so when I tell you the whole story,” Hope said.
“I will,” James promised. “I won’t be going anywhere after you tell me the tale so you should get used to the ranch. I know you don’t think much of ranch life, but it’s going to be yours. I promise you that I will try to take you places that don’t involve cows or bulls, but I—we’ll want you with us wherever we go because that’s what marriage is about. Being together. Sharing this life and whatever the hell comes after it. I’m not good with words, baby, that’s Noah’s thing, but I’ll show you.”
Hope’s eyes were wide and filled with tears, and for a moment, he was afraid he’d completely fucked up. “I think you did really well with words, James. Really well.”
“I didn’t get all the brains, brother,” Noah said, a smile of deep approval on his face.
“Take me home.” Hope put her hand in his. “I’ll tell you everything.”
James nodded, emotion threatening to take over. Once he had her home, he would never let her go. Once he had her back on the ranch, he and Noah would show her that she was theirs.
* * * *
Hope felt sick as the truck rolled up to the main house. Noah and James had been quiet on the trip home.
Home. She shouldn’t think that way, but already the rambling ranch house that had seen better days felt like home. She’d lived in her small apartment for over a year, and not once had it felt like home. She’d never seen the stairs to her apartment and felt tears well at the thought of being inside, safe and warm and happy. But the Circle G felt that way after the briefest of times.
The thought of losing them churned her gut, but it was past time to pay the piper.
She had to hope that one of them would be kind enough to drive her back into Bliss when all of this was over. She knew she really should have done this back at the sheriff’s office, but she’d wanted to be alone. She’d wanted to be here one more time.
“I love this place,” she said, her voice wooden because if she gave way to the emotion inside her, she would never get through the next hour. “No matter what I said to Serena, I love this ranch. I love this life. I wandered for years and never found anything as amazing as this. I would have been happy here.”
Noah groaned. “God, did you know she was this overdramatic?”
James’s lips curved up. “Never. Up until now, she’s been a deeply practical sort of woman. We’re going to have to work on it.”
“You don’t get it.” Frustration was beginning to well. They weren’t listening to her. “You seem to think that I’m going to tell you I was innocent in all of this.”
James opened the truck door and looked back at her, his face so heartbreakingly handsome she caught her breath. “No, I think you’re going to tell me this overwrought story about how you screwed everything up and it’s all your fault.”
“And you’re wrong,” Noah interjected. He slid out of the passenger seat and held out a hand. His green eyes pierced through her. “I don’t care what you did. You must have had good reason.”
“You’re just not going to see it until I tell you.” Why did they have to make this harder? She knew what the outcome was, but they insisted on playing it out to the end.
Noah didn’t let her feet hit the ground. He put an arm under her knees and hauled her close. They seemed to like to carry her around. She gave in and put her arms around his neck, inhaling his clean, masculine scent. She wanted to kiss him, to feel his tongue against hers until he turned her toward his brother and it was James’s mouth on hers. She wanted that one moment when she was trapped between them, surrounded and coveted. Beloved.
One moment.
“Make love to me,” she said to Noah. She could have them together once before it was all over and she was alone again. She could make it last. She could hold on to it for as long as she needed to. Tomorrow she would go back to Atlanta and begin to make things right again.
“Oh, baby,” James said as Noah walked them up the porch steps. “We’re going to make love to you. All night long. I told Nate that unless it was an emergency, I better not see another goddamn Bronco coming up my drive. The Circle G is closed for the night to anyone who doesn’t live here.”
She relaxed slightly. She was safe here. No one could sneak up or in. She’d have one perfect night.
Butch walked in from the porch, his tail wagging. Hope looked down at the dog. She would miss the mutt.
Noah sat her on her feet and kissed her long and hard. When he pulled away, there was a soft smile on his face. “We’re going to show you what it means to be our woman tonight, darlin’.”
“Yes.” She wanted to experience it once.
“After you talk,” James said flatly, sitting down on the overstuffed sofa in the living room. He sat back and crossed one booted foot over his knee. “So talk.”
Noah joined him, their solidarity evident. Even Butch sat, thumping his tail as though waiting for something to begin.
“Now?” She didn’t want to talk now. She wanted to make love, and afterwards she would find the courage to completely kill the relationship with the truth. “Let’s go to bed, and we can talk in the morning.”
“Not on your life, darlin’.” Despite their differences in physical appearance, the brothers looked very much like each other as they sat on the couch staring at her. They both sported identical frowns of disapproval.
“Why? I thought you wanted to make love.” They didn’t want her?
“Get over it, baby. You know we want you. We’ve been fighting like two dogs over you, but all that stops here and now. This is the way it works. No more lies. And don’t give me crap about how you didn’t lie. You withheld some deeply important truths. Now, who is this asshole?” James wasn’t going to be moved.
Tears welled again. She pulled her sweater around her as though she could block them out.
“It won’t work, Hope,” Noah said, his voice a bit of honey in the gloom. “We’re not going anywhere. Tell us everything, and then we’ll take you to bed and make love to you until you believe us. This is your home now, here with me and Jamie. Nothing you say is going to change that.”
“I didn’t think you were naïve, Noah.”
“And I didn’t think you had so little faith,” he shot back.
“I did.” She said it with a humorless laugh, thinking back to the idiot girl she’d been. “I had a lot of faith, and it got me in so much trouble.”
“When did you meet him?” James asked.
Hope began to pace, her feet shuffling along the hardwood floors. She felt caged. She should have done this back in Bliss. “I ran away when I was almost seventeen. My mother and I had a terrible fight, and she told me to get out.”
“I doubt she meant that,” Noah said.
Hope shrugged. “Her boyfriend had hit on me. He’d scared me, but she didn’t want to hear it. She threw a fit and ordered me gone.
I left that night with nothing but my backpack and a hundred and fifty dollars I had saved up from babysitting.”
“Did you go to your dad’s place?” Noah asked.
“My dad didn’t stick around after my mom told him she was pregnant.” Hope had a name, but not even a photo. She’d never tried to look him up. He wouldn’t welcome her, and she didn’t want to know if he’d ever settled down, if he had a couple of kids and was happy, if it was only her he hadn’t wanted. “Mom didn’t talk to her sisters, so I didn’t know them. I got on a bus and went to Atlanta. I was a dumb kid.”
She talked in a monotone about those first days. She’d found a motel and lied about her age. She’d tried to find work, but didn’t have the proper papers. She’d been alone and terrified and too stubborn to ask for help.
And then she’d met Elaine.
“Was she your age?” Noah asked.
“A little older.” She could still see Elaine with her henna-dyed hair and hippie clothes. Her laugh had been like a little wind blowing through Hope’s misery. When Elaine had walked in a room, everyone looked at her. “I met her right after I got kicked out of the motel. I had gone back to the bus station. I have no idea what I was thinking. I didn’t have the money for a ticket, but I was scared of everything. It seemed like a safer place to be than just walking the streets.”
“You were a child, baby. Of course you were scared.” James watched her, his eyes filled with compassion now that she’d started talking.
“Anyway, Elaine was meeting someone. Or she said she was. I know now that Christian recruited people at bus stops. I guess it makes sense. Desperate people take the bus. Not everyone, of course, but enough for him to get what he needed.”
“She recruited you?” Noah asked.
“Christian ran a small company called Nature’s Coalition. He had a small office in Atlanta that functioned as a charity, but he had bought a large tract of land outside Atlanta. There he had a farm that supposedly experimented with greener farming practices.”
“Con artist,” James said, shaking his head.
“Worse. He had about fifty people living on the farm. His family.” She winced because they were going to make the leap.
James laughed, the guffaw spitting out of his mouth. “You were in a cult?”
Noah smacked his brother. “This is serious.”
James held his hands out in an apologetic gesture. “I know. I know. I’m just trying to see Sister Hope. I mean, wow. I thought Mel was the only one who had been in a cult.”
Hope’s eyes widened.
Noah shrugged. “It was a long time ago. It was the Church of the Immaculate Abduction. Mel left when he found out they actually worshipped aliens. He thought they were a crack alien-fighting team. I’ve often wondered what the sixties were like for Mel.”
James slapped a hand on his knee. “We’re wrong. Teeny was a Hare Krishna for a while.”
Noah shook his head as though remembering a time. “Oh, and do you remember when Callie tried selling Amway? It was the same thing. And, hell, Nell is a cult in and of herself.”
“Don’t forget what Max used to call the Naturist Community,” James said with a laugh.
Both James and Noah spoke at the same time. “The Cult of the Overly Hairy Potbellied Penis.”
Hope took a deep breath, trying to find her patience. “I’m glad the two of you are having a nice trip down memory lane. It’s not the same.”
James stared at her, his laughter fleeing. “The point wasn’t that it was the same, but that we all try some crazy-ass stuff when we’re young. So this guy was all ‘save the earth, line my pockets,’ I take it?”
At least they understood that much. “Yes, but he was very believable.”
“He would have to be.” Noah settled back down. Butch put his head in his master’s lap as though he was watching the show, too.
Christian had been spectacular. And Hope had been dazzled. “Elaine offered me a place to stay. I went with her because I didn’t have any place to go. I worked on the farm for two weeks for room and board and a small salary. I liked it. I liked the fresh air and the work. I liked the people. I had lived in the city all my life. I had no siblings. I had spent my whole life coming home to an empty, colorless apartment, and suddenly I had space and people who were interested in me. And then I met Christian. He was beautiful, and listening to him talk was a revelation. He talked about the work we were doing and how it was helping all these people.”
“You were idealistic, and he was a combination of attractive man and authority figure. It’s easy to see why you would fall, Hope. You were alone and looking for a father figure.” Noah summed it all up in a neat bundle.
Hope continued. “He gave this speech, and afterward, he invited me to have dinner at the main house. He kissed me that night. I hadn’t been kissed before. I had been very studious. All A’s. I wasn’t exactly a beauty queen, and I was easy to ignore.”
“Never,” Noah said.
But he hadn’t known her then. “So I was completely innocent. I was shocked when he tried to put his hand on my breast. I was scared. And then I was terrified that I had pulled away because I was certain he would throw me out.”
James’s tone went hard, his quiet words cutting through the room. “He didn’t throw you out. He liked the fact that you were innocent.”
“Oh, yes.” She turned away, unable to look at them. She stared out the window at the dying day. “He became a perfect gentleman. He walked me back to the cottage I shared with three other girls, and then he showed up for dinner the next night and every night after that. He barely kissed me again, but after a month, he asked me to marry him. He told me I was everything he’d wanted in a woman.”
“He wanted a little girl, the bastard,” Noah stated.
“He wanted someone pure,” Hope corrected. “Don’t we all want that? Someone without baggage? Someone whose mistakes don’t follow them around?”
James shook his head. “Our momma told us mistakes were how a person knew they’d lived. And cleaning up after them proved what kind of a person they were.”
Yes. She’d failed at both. “I married him. Toward the end, I was unhappy because he didn’t seem to want me for who I was. He didn’t want me to change and grow. He wanted the innocent girl to be that way forever. But then I didn’t see him for what he was either. I was his wife for almost two years and not once did I suspect that my husband was a con artist, a thief, and finally, a killer.”
She stared into the burgeoning darkness as she told her tale, but her mind saw something different.
* * * *
Outside of Atlanta, eight years before
Hope walked through the double doors quietly, not wishing to alert Christian to her presence. She needed a few minutes alone before she started performing for her husband. That was how she had started to think about the time she spent with him. A performance.
The two times she’d argued with him, tried to stand up for what she’d wanted, he’d scared her. Once she’d been sure he was going to hit her, but he’d stopped himself and taken her into his arms, murmuring that everything was fine, that she was still his angel.
She didn’t want to be Christian’s angel anymore.
How was she going to tell him that she didn’t want to be married anymore? Her stomach churned. She didn’t love him, but she also had no idea where she would go, what she would do. She had a GED, but no college because Christian didn’t think she needed it. He’d said he would educate her, but he seemed to like to keep her in the dark.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Elaine.”
She heard Christian speaking, his low tone prowling down the hallway. The main house was a lush temple to nature. There was green along the walls and a small fountain in the foyer. The fountain bubbled, but she could still hear him. There was a thin line of light from where his office door stood barely cracked open.
“I think it’s a brilliant idea, Christian. I’m sick of this shit. I’m goi
ng to tell her, and then we’ll see where your perfect little princess’s loyalty lies.”
Elaine’s voice was shrill, on the edge of something manic. Hope walked cautiously down the hallway, careful not to make a sound. She had slipped out of her shoes on entering the house so she could feel the coolness of the floor beneath her feet. Someone had left a window open. A slightly chilly breeze rode through the house, carrying the words to her.
“She will always side with me. Hope is my wife. She’s not a little slut like you. She’s a true lady. She came to me as a virgin and will remain by my side no matter what. I haven’t allowed her feminine weaknesses to have sway.”
Hope felt sick. Once Christian had found her reading a romance novel. He’d tossed it in the fireplace and chastised her for reading anything so idiotic. He’d said her mind was too good to waste on such drivel and handed her a treatise on communal living.
What if he just didn’t want her to know what she was missing?
“And what about your masculine weakness? Does the perfect princess know you fuck me every chance you get?”
Hope stood stock-still outside the door, Elaine’s words cutting her in ways she couldn’t have imagined. She could see them standing there through the opening in the door. They were close, intimate even. After all the lectures on marital fidelity, Christian was sleeping with her best friend?
“Well, I’m certainly not going to fuck my wife’s ass, and I’m not going to ask her to blow me. She’s not a whore. Let’s stop the bullshit, dear. Neither one of us believes in any of the crap we push, but Hope is different. Hope is innocent.”
Her hands shook. Innocent. It was a word he used a lot. He treated her like a child half the time, like an idiot child who couldn’t be trusted with anything like responsibility. She’d tried to become more involved in the organization, but the most he let her do was talk to potential investors.
And what did he mean he didn’t believe?
“I need Hope.” Christian’s voice softened, cajoling. Through the crack she could see him put a hand out, touching Elaine’s hair. “You have to see that. I love her. I really do. She’s perfect, but you know as well as I do that men are imperfect. I have needs that I could never ask her to meet. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”