“Even if she’s abusive?”
“She never hit me,” she said, oddly defensive of this heartless wretch. “But, yes, abusive. In Florida, anyway, the kids are separated from the parent by the county and put into homes.”
“Like orphanages?”
“Not like pretty stone buildings with adorable children singing that the sun will come out tomorrow, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She let out a soft, mirthless laugh. “Hollywood’s version of orphanages is so…aspirational. They’re just homes. Regular houses on the streets, next to other houses, in modest neighborhoods. You would drive by one and never notice it, except you might think the landscaping looked beat-up or the place could use a coat of paint.”
He tried to imagine living in a place like that, but couldn’t. Not that the Tucker family had been wealthy or even one hundred percent happy, but his home was clean and safe and the family in it was his.
She was quiet for a while, thinking. He stroked the back of her hair, comforting her, coaxing out more.
“Every time she would sort of get her act together, they’d give me back to her, and then she’d screw up again, and I’d go to another home. Never the same one, of course. The point is that your abusive mother can’t find you.”
“Who was in these homes?”
“They’re usually about five, six, maybe seven kids, same gender, close in age. There are county workers who come and go, but someone is there twenty-four hours a day, and local volunteers from churches or just nice, caring people would bring dinner every night.” She pulled her legs up, wrapping the blanket all around her as she curled into a ball and rested her chin on her knees. “I was in and out of, oh, five or six of them by the time I was eleven. That’s when she went off the deep end.”
Sounded to him like that had happened when Jane was two, but he just listened.
“She started stripping, and all that entailed.”
He didn’t even want to imagine what that entailed.
“I was listening the last time the social worker was over. She thought I was asleep, but I was listening.” Her voice was barely a whisper, reed thin, stretched by pain. “They were really having it out over me, and then I heard her say…” She closed her eyes, and he saw the first tear fall.
“Jane.” Pulling her into him, he embraced her whole balled-up body. “Shhh. You don’t have to tell me.”
“But you want to know everything.” Her voice cracked, and his heart did the same thing.
“Not if it hurts you. Not if the memories are going to shred you.”
“All memories shred me, Adam,” she told him. “The houses, the volunteers, the changing faces and neighborhoods and schools, everything shreds me. I so desperately wanted to be normal, loved, and whole. But I wasn’t good enough.”
“Jane.” He turned her toward him. “Your mother wasn’t good enough. You were just perfect.”
“No, not perfect. Not…” She swiped her hand over her teary cheek. “She said I was so ugly she couldn’t even use me.”
He just stared at her, bile rising in his throat as he realized what that she-devil would have used her own daughter for.
“Yeah,” she said, reading his expression. “I wasn’t even pretty enough for that.”
“Oh God.”
“The social worker freaked, too, and she fought for me. She got me taken away from my mother, into a system so I could stay in the homes, moving every couple years when I aged up, sent to strange places around Dade County where my mother could never find me. That’s the most important thing about those homes—the parents are the enemy.”
His whole being felt sick. Helpless. Absolutely disgusted by humanity.
“How did you cope with that?” he asked, a little in awe that she’d turned out so normal and sane.
“I found I had a skill for making things beautiful. Starting with my face, then my room, then the living area, sometimes the backyard. Eventually, I aged out of the system and went to a community college, worked as a receptionist in an architect’s office in Coral Gables, then put myself through school. Then started my business.” She slid him a look. “Then I got Sergio Valverde as a client, and here I am.”
She sucked in a tiny breath as she realized her slip, but he was the one who had to try not to react.
For one crazy second, he almost told her that he’d shared her secret, that he knew Sergio Valverde was a Bolivian drug lord the FBI was after, but they’d lost their asset. It confirmed her story…unless she was the asset.
He shoved the thought away. If he told her, would she be furious that he’d betrayed her? Either way, he had to tell Noah. But not now. Not tonight, for God’s sake. Not while she was tender and broken and leaning on him and…looking like a woman who needed love.
Because that’s what Jane Anne McAllen needed more than anything. Not sex, love. A person to be her family. A man to protect her. A professional rescuer who wanted to do nothing more than save her, keep her, and never have her leave a home again.
“Jane,” he whispered. “Why don’t you leave all that behind? Why don’t you get away from Miami and move here? As far away as you can get, close to nature, close to…” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Close to me.”
He felt her swallow and try to breathe. “I can’t leave Miami.”
“Why not?”
She closed her eyes, more tears flowing now. “In case she wants to find me.” She sobbed, shaking her head. “I know it’s stupid. I know it’s wrong. But deep inside, I feel like she might…want me.”
“Why don’t you look her up?” he asked.
“I have no idea where she is. She disappeared long ago. She could be dead or…anything.”
“Hire someone and find out,” he suggested. “You should have closure, or a chance to talk to her.”
“That’s not what I want,” she said. “I want her to want me. But I know she never will.”
And, he suspected, that made her think no one ever would. And that’s where she’d be wrong.
“Oh, baby.” He pulled her into him, fighting to contain the crosscurrent of emotions rolling through him. “You don’t need her. You need…”
She looked up at him, biting her lip. “I know what you’re going to say. But can’t you understand how I can’t trust anyone, ever? You, of all people, who knows what it feels like to be betrayed by your mother.”
“I got over it.”
“Did you?”
The volley hit its mark. “I could,” he said softly. “With the right person.” He looked into her eyes, at the stars reflected there, and the glimmer of…hope. He’d seen that look on a hundred drowning faces, that flash of Can you really do this? Can you save me?
“Do you think that’s me?” she asked on a raspy whisper.
“Yes, I do.” He kissed her gently, tunneling fingers into her hair, pushing the blanket back so it fell behind her. He kissed her throat and chest, pulling her closer. “You’re not that little girl anymore.”
She looked up at him, uncertain. “She’s still in there.”
“Let’s love her out of there.”
A fragile smile tugged at her lips. “You think you can do that?”
“Watch me.” Slowly, gently, he began to undress her, letting the night chill and his loving hands create a cascade of chill bumps on every inch of exposed skin. He warmed her with his touch, his mouth, and whispered promises. As their clothes hit the stone, so did that last wall between them.
He unzipped the sleeping bag and cocooned their naked bodies in the envelope of warmth, kissing, touching, exploring the whole time.
“You know everything now,” she whispered as he dropped down to taste one sweet breast and fondle the other. “Everything.”
He lifted his head to look at her, every last shred of doubt he had falling away. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Thank you for trusting me.” She stroked his hair. “And for being patient.”
As heat rolled through him, making him ache for her
, he felt anything but patient. But this was different. Making love on this mountain, under his stars, with his girl, was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, so he took it slow.
Every touch mattered, every kiss meant something. He inhaled the smell of her mixed with mountain air, dizzy with the effect. She tasted like his favorite place in the world and whispered in his ear like the wind on a breezy day. There was nothing but the two of them, getting closer to heaven with each desperate breath.
“Jane.” He said her name for the sheer pleasure of it as he sheathed himself and looked down at her. “My sweet Jane.”
“I told you, I’ve never been anyone’s before.”
“You’re mine now.” He lowered himself on her, using his hands to spread her thighs and lift her hips to him. “Will you be mine, Jane?”
As he slid inside her, she held his gaze, her eyes as dark as the sky above with just a little bit of glitter. And tears. The sight of those twisted him and made him stop midstroke.
“No more crying,” he said, touching her face and thumbing away the teardrop. “This is good. This is perfect. This is…” Love. “Real.”
“I’m falling,” she whispered. “I feel myself falling.”
“I promise I’ll catch you, Jane Anne McAllen. I promise I won’t let you fall.”
“I’m falling in love.”
He smiled slowly and moved into her, and out, finding an easy, sexy, perfect rhythm. “So am I,” he admitted as they both got closer to the edge. “So am I.”
They held on and fell together until they were spent, satisfied, and asleep under the stars.
Chapter Eighteen
“Up. Now. Hurry.” Adam woke Jane with desperation in his voice that had nothing to do with a desire for more sex. Wiping sleep away, she frowned at the rapid, purposeful moves of a man who was awake, dressed, and furiously stuffing things into his backpack.
“What’s the matter?” Jane asked, blinking sleep—the best sleep she’d ever had in her life—from her eyes.
“Cold front’s coming.” He half gestured to the sky, barely looking at her. “Fast, too. Did not see this one on the weather reports yesterday and, trust me, you do not want to be up here in a thunderstorm.”
She looked up, seeing nothing but blue and some gray clouds way in the distance. “How long until it starts?”
“We have some time to get down the mountain and into the kayak. I’d like to be well past the Middle Finger in a downpour. Plus, Holly had a sunrise tour scheduled, and she could need backup if they don’t beat this storm home.”
“Oh.” She wanted to stretch, beg for a morning kiss, and will the rain away, but she could sense he was serious and focused. “Okay.”
He turned away, toward the clouds—or was that just away from her? She tried to shake off the insecurity, be sensible, and remember all the loving, tender endearments, and promises of the night before.
Silent, she found underwear and a bra and put them on while still under the sleeping bag. Then she reached around for her jeans, grabbing the leg, but a belt loop snagged on a rock. When he didn’t help, she yanked as hard as she could and freed them, sliding into the cold denim before getting out of the bag. She spied her sweatshirt and pulled it on, then looked for the all-weather boots he’d borrowed from A To Z before they left.
But she was still cold. Icy, in fact, as she watched him pack up their campsite with silent determination and speed. Because people might need to be rescued and he was still worried how he’d handle that.
She wanted to reassure him that she knew he’d be great, but sensed this was not the time, especially when he glanced out to the horizon again with worry etched on every handsome feature.
“Help me finish and let’s go.”
“Of course.” She followed instructions all the way down the mountain, in the kayak, and throughout the whole row home. She tried to find the landmarks she’d remembered seeing on the way up, but this was a slightly different route.
And a slightly different man.
Was he scared of what transpired last night? Having second thoughts of falling so hard and so fast for a virtual stranger? Or just in crisis-aversion mode? She couldn’t tell and didn’t want to ask.
Rain was pelting by the time they reached A To Z, cold, fat drops that spit on them like the precursor to something much worse. As he climbed out of the kayak and held it steady for her, she thought she saw a glimmer of warmth in his eyes, but Zane came barreling out of the building, calling to Adam.
“We have trouble.” He ran faster, his nearly identical features formed in the same hard lines as Adam’s. “Holly was on her way back with plenty of time, but one of the rafters hit the southern rapids too hard. Passenger has a gash in his leg and his wife freaked out and now they’re caught in the storm.”
Adam didn’t hesitate, pulling Jane out of the kayak. “You stay in the boathouse.”
“Get gear,” Zane shouted. “I’ll ready up a zodiac.”
Adam started running toward the building, throwing off his backpack as he did. She followed, picking it up, more as a way to help than anything else. But something didn’t feel right. Something felt light. In the bag? On her?
Her jeans. She patted her pockets, a sudden panic rising. The phone! The phone from Lydia was gone. She’d put it in a watertight case and stuffed it in her jeans pocket, but it was gone.
It must have fallen out when her belt loop had snagged on that rock.
“Adam!” she called as he ran out, carrying gear. “My phone! My phone is on the ridge!”
“Not now, Jane. Not now!” He whooshed by her, hopping into a rubber raft that Zane had already fired up. With a rooster tail of white spray, they blew out, straight under the bridge toward the rapids, leaving her standing in the rain with his backpack, saying a silent prayer for the people in the raft as these two men were literally flying to help them.
Which, of course, only made her care more for him.
Heaving a sigh, she hoisted the backpack, marveling that he could hike with that much weight, and headed into the boathouse, sick about the phone. At least they’d both put their phones in waterproof cases. As soon as the storm was over, they’d hike back up there and find it.
Unless the rain washed it away.
“Oooh.” She groaned with disgust and disappointment, digging in the front pocket of his backpack for the boathouse keys. As she did, she felt a vibration inside the bag. Was that her phone? Had he seen it and picked it up while he was packing?
She ripped open the top zipper and spied a waterproof case, which could be hers or his. The case covered most of the phone, so she couldn’t tell as she smashed the green flashing button frantically in case it was Lydia.
“Dude, listen to me. Fast and furious ’cause I’m less than a minute from buggin’ out for parts unknown.” She blinked at the male voice, low and muffled by the case.
“This isn’t—”
“Not a good time for me, either, bro, but I had to call you myself after I talked to Kenny. Listen up. That Jane McAllen is up to her ass in trouble.”
She felt her jaw drop. Hard.
“She’s double-crossing the whole Sergio Valverde operation for one of her own, and the feds want her. Bad. Can you hang on to her until they can get an agent out there and make an arrest?”
She just stared at the phone, her heart clobbering her ribs. Double-crossing… “What?” She croaked the word trapped in her strangled throat.
“Sorry if this breaks your heart, Romeo, but your babe is armed and dangerous and has some piece of information that could get her a lot of money. Do not trust her, you hear me? Do not trust her as far as you can throw her.”
An icy cold wave of horror rolled through her. She was wanted by the feds? Armed and dangerous? Had valuable information? But all those screaming questions paled in comparison to one single thought: Adam betrayed her. He never trusted her.
“Adam? For God’s sake, are you there? Did you hear any of that?”
With
shaking hands, she managed to unsnap the phone case, able to see the screen now. Noah Coleman. She’d heard the name. He was one of Adam’s childhood friends. One of his detention buddies. Someone with connections—faulty ones—to the feds.
Panic rising with bile in her throat, she stabbed the phone with an unsteady finger, the world shifting under her feet. Go away. Go away. Go away.
Dizzy and stunned, she disconnected the call and fought for balance, control, and clear thinking. It took a few seconds, but she caught her breath.
Okay, Adam had screwed her, royally and in every way. Her phone was gone, and the FBI was on the way here because they believed she was double-crossing Valverde’s drug ring. She’d never mentioned Valverde…until last night.
Had Adam rolled out of their sleeping bag and texted the info to his friend?
How could he do that to her?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that she get out of here. She spun in a circle, trying to think, to plan, to run fast and far, when her gaze landed on Adam’s truck. She held the keys in her hand. Should she run up to his apartment and get her bag? Her purse? Her fake ID and the little cash she had?
What if someone else was in the office? Bailey or Sam? If anyone saw her, she’d have to lie and lie and lie again.
Except, she hadn’t lied to Adam. She’d shared her heart, her fears, and her secrets. And he stomped all over them.
Why should he be any different from anyone else? Wiping a mix of tears and heavy rain from her face as she ran, she tried to tamp down the thought. No time for emotion. No time for regrets. No time for wishing Jane Anne McAllen was worthy of love.
Darting toward the truck and getting in, she glanced at the cup holder that still held her room key.
Thank you, Lord! The shadow of a plan started to take shape as she drove toward the Hideaway Hotel. The keys to her rental car were in her makeup bag, she was certain of it.
She’d leave Adam’s truck there, because the last thing she needed to be accused of was auto theft. She’d go to the closest FBI office, in Portland. Then she’d “turn herself in”—for nothing—and clear this up with one phone call to Lydia Swann.