since the Farelly brothers messed up our cell tower, I have to do this
all without using wireless. God, I long for a day when they can’t get
hold of me from that bunker. Maybe I can somehow prove to Mel that
aliens can get to him through his dial-up connection.”
Rafe promised the men he would be there. If he could get the
whole town looking out for Laura, it might make things easier. They
could look for someone who shouldn’t be there—only Rafe was
starting to believe that maybe the killer was already in Bliss.
He wanted to get Cam on the Edward angle right away. Rafe’s
brain raced as he moved toward the parking lot. Laura and Edward
had some sort of beef Rafe hadn’t known anything about. Brad was
acting like an ass. He’d been around the Bureau for a long time before
he joined the BAU. And Joe. God, was he actually wondering if his
mentor was a serial killer?
He wouldn’t let it stop him. He would investigate every single one
of them until he figured it out. This was what he should have done
five years before.
Rafe slammed out of the double doors, practically running to keep
up. He stopped in his tracks at what he saw. Standing right there in
front of his SUV—crap, it was really the Bureau’s SUV—stood Jana
Evans, microphone at the ready. Cam had put Laura on her feet, and
they both faced the tiny ball of spite.
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“Would you like to tell our viewers about your experience with
the Marquis de Sade?” Jana asked in a brisk, professional voice. She
wore what had to be a thousand dollar suit and killer stilettos, but
there was a gauntness to her frame that utterly turned Rafe off. “We
would all love to know just how you managed to escape a killer who
never makes a mistake.”
Cam got in front of Laura, his big body a barrier between her and
the world. “You get the hell out of here. Move that van out of the
way.”
“Not until I get my story, I won’t.” Jana shoved her microphone
toward Laura’s face. “This is the one that puts me over the edge. I’ll
get on at one of the cable giants after this.”
“Are you live?” Laura asked.
“No. The time difference wouldn’t work, but if you want to do a
live shot, I can be back here for the eleven o’clock news at nine
o’clock. We would have to broadcast then.” Jana practically vibrated
with energy. “I would need to meet you a little earlier to get you
ready.”
Rafe was just about to forbid it when Laura nodded at Jana.
“Come out to the town hall. We can do it there.”
She walked around the news van toward the SUV Rafe had driven
out here. Rafe stopped in front of the reporter. “She’s not doing this.”
Jana gave him a tight-lipped smiled that came nowhere close to
her eyes. Her icy blonde hair was in a tight, professional bun. It was
so different from Laura’s natural honey color. “Laura always does
what she wants to, Rafe. You should know that. She won’t listen to
you now. See you tonight. Don’t think you’re getting on camera. I
already have an FBI source.”
Rafe just bet she did.
Rafe hopped into the SUV just as Cam took off. Laura had taken
the passenger seat, leaving him in the back. He leaned forward, trying
to force his way into her space. “What was that about? You can’t go
on television.”
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Her stony face stared back at him. “Sure I can. It’s what they
want. It puts a huge target on me.”
“You already have a target on your back,” Cam pointed out, his
voice tight with tension.
“It will be a beacon when I’m done with that interview,” Laura
replied.
Rafe could just guess what she was going to do. She was going to
get on TV and taunt the Marquis de Sade. She would know exactly
what to say to get his rage going. By the time she was done, there
would be no question about him coming after her. It was everything
those fuckers would want. “I forbid it.”
“You can’t forbid anything, Rafe.”
He chose to ignore her. “How fast can we be in Vegas, Cam?”
Laura turned, her face marred by a nasty frown. “We are not
going to Vegas.”
“If I break speed limits, I can get us there in ten hours,” Cam said.
He paused at the street as though trying to make the decision.
Laura stared at Cam. “If you want me to run again, this is the way
to do it.”
Cam turned toward her cabin. Pussy. As if he could hear Rafe’s
thoughts, his eyes pleaded through the rearview mirror. “What am I
supposed to do? We can’t make her marry us.”
Rafe didn’t see why not. “I can think of several ways.”
“It’s not happening, Rafe,” Laura said, a stubborn set to her chin.
“You’re going to drop me off at my place, and then you can leave.
Both of you.”
Cam turned to her. “I’m not going anywhere, I told you that. I told
you that you couldn’t get rid of me. For god’s sake, Laura, we made
love not an hour ago.”
“We had sex,” she shot back.
“You told me you loved me.”
Rafe sat, wishing he’d had the chance to pull her in back with
him. He could see plainly what she was doing. He dearly wished he’d
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done more than ruined Brad Conrad’s face. By showing her those
photos and playing on her guilt, Brad had undone all the progress he
and Cam had made with Laura. Brad had shoved her back into that
place where she was alone and helpless.
Rafe wasn’t about to let her stay there. “Can I finish this
conversation for you, bella? I know precisely how it is going to go.
Now you’re going to tell Cam that you didn’t mean it. You’re going
to tell him that making love in the Sheriff’s Office meant nothing.
You were just telling him what he wanted to hear because he was
being unreasonable. Cam is going to get hurt and sit there in sullen
silence while you turn to me and tell me the same thing. You’re going
to lay down the law. You’re going to push us both out by telling us
you never really loved us and you like your life here without us.
You’re going to tell us to go home and forget about you. Am I close?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I was going to curse
more.”
Yes, she probably would have. Rafe shook his head. “You’re
being a self-sacrificing idiot.”
“Is this about the case?” Cam asked, clearly confused.
“No,” Rafe replied. “It’s far more than the case.” He couldn’t
forget the haunted look on Laura’s face as she’d told him they didn’t
need to use a condom. “She’s feeling guilty about a lot of things.
She’s feeling the weight of those women’s deaths. She’s also feeling
unworthy. She loves us. She just doesn’t know how to be with us.”
“That is such bullshit,” Laura shot back. “I think I know how to be
with you, Rafe. I just have to let you pin me to
the nearest flat surface.
That’s all you require.”
She wasn’t going to get to him that easily. “I don’t require a
surface at all, bella. When I want you, I’ll simply lift that skirt, pick you up, and impale you on my cock.”
Cam shook his head. “Yeah, baby, I can totally do it standing up.”
Rafe couldn’t miss the way her fists clenched in her lap as Laura
replied. “There’s more to a relationship than just sex.”
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He wanted to hold her, to touch her, but he held off. “Yes, there’s
far more. There’s also more to a marriage than giving birth to
children.”
She flushed, her delicate skin turning pink in a heartbeat.
Cam stopped the car in the middle of the road. “She thinks we
don’t want her because she can’t have kids?”
“I believe Laura is seeing herself as the noose that’s going to take
us both down.”
Cam turned back to the road and started driving again. “You’re
right—she’s being an idiot.”
“You’ve both quit your jobs for me,” Laura said, though a little of
the sass had left her voice.
“I never liked it much anyway,” Cam said flippantly. “I was only
there for the nookie, and when you walked away, that dried up.”
She slapped a hand on the dashboard. “This is serious, damn it.”
Cam shrugged as he sped up. “I am serious. I would have quit that
job a long time ago if it hadn’t been for you and Rafe. I’m not like
some of these guys. I don’t want to be knee-deep in bodies. It drags
on me. I like programming. I liked building the program that found
you. I’m going to stay here in Bliss and work my job and come home,
and after I fuck you into submission, I’ll work on my facial
recognition program.”
“You are not staying with me.”
“So, throw me out,” Cam challenged. “When you can pick me up
and toss me out, I’ll sit in your doorway until you let me back in.”
“I won’t,” Rafe vowed. “I’ll slip back in again and again.”
“Damn it, Rafe,” she hissed under her breath. “Be reasonable. Go
back to Joe and get your job back. You know he’ll take you back in a
heartbeat. Cam might not have loved the Bureau, but you’re a lifer,
and you know it. You relish that job. It’s everything you worked for.”
He had loved the job, but he loved Laura more. The job he’d spent
his whole life preparing for had just threatened to chew up and spit
out the only woman he’d ever loved. In the end, there was a choice to
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be made. He wouldn’t love the Bureau with his whole heart. He
wouldn’t cuddle the fucking Bureau at night. The Bureau wouldn’t
grow old with him. “I’m not going back, Laura. I don’t know what I’ll
do from here, but I can’t go back.”
“That is insane, Rafe,” Laura said.
“Why? Didn’t you walk away from a life that you thought didn’t
work for you anymore? That’s what I’m doing. I’m walking away.
The world is a big place. When one thing stops working, you walk out
and find something else. As long as I have you, I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head. “No. You don’t have me. I won’t do this. I
won’t be the reason you lose your job and your family. What would
your mother say? Or are you asking me to choose between you and
Cam again?”
He knew she was making a certain amount of sense, but his sense
had been tossed out a long time ago. There were a hundred things
wrong about this relationship, but only one thing mattered. He loved
her. “My mother can choose to accept me as I am, or she can stop
talking to me. I will still love her. I will still try to take care of her. I can’t force her to respond the way I want. I can only be responsible
for my own actions. I can’t fix the outside world, bella. I can only promise to make our little world as perfect as I can.”
“You won’t be happy.” She turned and stared out the window.
“Don’t tell me how I’ll feel,” Rafe shot back. “I know how I have
felt for the last five years. Broken and useless.”
He’d been missing a piece of his soul since the day she’d walked
away. His badge, his job, his family meant nothing if he couldn’t get
her back. He loved his mother, but Laura was his soul. If there was a
choice to be made, he’d made it the minute he quit the Bureau.
Frustration welled up inside Rafe. Just a few hours ago, he’d been
deep inside her. Now he felt her pulling away.
She turned from him, her eyes shifting to the road ahead. “You get
over it, you know. That broken, useless feeling won’t last forever.
You find something else to love, and you move on. You make a better
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life.”
Every word from her mouth made his heart ache. “And you found
a better life.”
“I found this place. I love my friends. Do you know how long it
took me to let one in? It was years. Nell was such a little flake. She
was one of the first people I met here. She made me zucchini bread. I
took one look at her and decided that little idiot was safe. She wasn’t
smart enough to hurt me.” Rafe could hear the tears in Laura’s voice.
“I love her. God, I love her. I wouldn’t have given her the time of day
when I was in DC. She would have been an amusing airhead, but I
have learned more about truly loving the people around me from Nell
than I could have imagined. She believes in so much more than I can.
And Holly. Holly will do anything for a friend, but I rebuffed her for
years because I wasn’t going to let another Jana get her hooks in me. I
broke my foot one winter. Holly ran out of her cabin, and she got me
to the hospital in Del Norte, and she brought me home and fed me.
She worked my shift for a week so I didn’t lose my job. I hadn’t done
anything for her. I had been nothing but cold.”
“She saw the real you,” Cam said quietly.
“I don’t know that I knew the real me until I came here. I don’t
know that I would be this me if I went someplace else. Maybe part of
figuring out who we are is finding a place to call home. What I’m
trying to say is that it was hard, but I got over it. I’m happy here.
You’ll be happy one day, Rafe. One day you’ll wake up, and your
kids will jump all over you, and you’ll go to work as the special agent
in charge, and your mom will be so proud. You’ll look back, and I’ll
just be this memory. You’ll thank me.”
His hands were shaking. He had the sudden realization that this
wasn’t going to go the way he had planned. She wasn’t going to give
in because he kissed her senseless. “I won’t. If you really won’t take
me, I won’t thank you, bella. I could handle it if I thought I wasn’t the best man for you. Hell, I’m willing to share you because I know you
need Cam, too. If you won’t accept me, my life won’t be filled with
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kids and this great career. It’ll be filled with regret because I know
why you’re really rejecti
ng me. You can’t forgive me. You can’t put
what happened behind you.”
Her blonde hair shook, but she didn’t bother to turn around. “This
isn’t about what happened to me. This is about you and Cam. Neither
one of you can be happy here. It isn’t in you.”
“Really?” Cam asked, his bitterness dripping. “I’m such a city
boy. I’ve never lived in the country.”
“You hated it,” Laura pointed out.
“No, I hated the small-minded attitudes that put my mother at the
bottom of the social feeding order. I love the country. I love the peace and quiet, and if you think you can force me to leave, you’re wrong.
You might not want me, but by god, you’ll see me. I’m not leaving. If
I find this magical, mystical woman who can complete me by spitting
out my kids and proving her womb works, then you’ll have to watch.
You’ll have to watch me make a life for myself here and know that it
could have been yours. Baby, I can’t tell you how much I wish I could
change what happened. If I could give my fucking life to have spared
you that, I would. I made a horrible mistake and you paid for it, but
I’m here now. I’ve gotten on my knees and begged forgiveness. I
can’t do any more than tell you that I love you, and I’ll try my
damndest to never fail you again. If you can’t forgive me, then you’ll
watch me. You’ll watch me live my life here, without you.”
Cam pulled in front of Laura’s small cabin. It was tiny and far
from Rafe’s traditional level of comfort, yet he’d been happy here
briefly. He’d woken up this morning knowing where he belonged—
beside her. Now she was pulling away, and he had the distinct
impression that his caveman act wasn’t going to work this time. He
could force her to Vegas, but he couldn’t make her marry him. He
couldn’t make her accept him. Fuck, he couldn’t force her to forgive
him.
Maybe he didn’t deserve forgiveness.
Laura slammed out of the car the instant it stopped. She walked to
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her door and disappeared behind it. Rafe felt like someone had
shredded his insides. He threw open the car door and got out, utterly
unsure of what to do next. He couldn’t leave. He thought briefly about
walking in after her, throwing her down, and fucking her until she