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  Rosalie hated that he called her by a horse’s name, but she didn’t say anything. It was all she could do not to yell to the girl to fight, to get away, and unlock her stall door. If only “Lucky” could kick the bastard in his balls and nail the bigger man in his shins, then, while they were writhing and howling, somehow set her free, help her escape. They could make it to the car or the pickup or . . . or . . . Stop it! That’s not happening, Do you hear her? She’s crying and sobbing like a baby, She’s no help, Not now, Not until she realizes what she has to do, Bide your time, Rosalie, And hope God helps you and this girl is not a big wimp who will be more of a hindrance than a help, Oh, Jesus, that’s not what you need,

  Suddenly there was another noise—weird techno music that she realized was the ring of a cell phone.

  “Yeah?” her abductor nearly yelled into the phone. Then a pause while the girl who was headed to Lucky’s stall sobbed and Scraggly Hair grunted. “Yeah, I know. I get it. Soon!” He sounded angry. Frustrated.

  Rosalie kept her mouth shut, though it was nearly impossible. She wanted to yell and rage, to warn the girl not to let them shut and lock her door because then Rosalie would be in no better shape than she’d been before they had hauled the girl in. But she held her tongue because she’d already learned what her utter defiance had gotten her. At the thought of the bigger man’s belt she shuddered. She tried to hear the conversation, though the commotion going on with the new girl made it difficult to make out the words. Closing her eyes, Rosalie concentrated.

  “Yeah, I know what I promised . . . At least four, maybe five by next week.”

  Four or five what? Girls? Or was he talking about something else? Jesus, what was he planning?

  “No, no! Not yet. I need the weekend . . . what? Monday? Yeah, that should work.” Another pause. “Shit, I don’t know. Seven?” Another pause. “Okay, okay. But we might have to wait until the next operation—”

  And then the conversation was muffled as the new girl began to wail, and Rosalie thought maybe the call had ended.

  The new girl was making a horrid racket, crying and wailing and shrieking.

  “Jesus H. Christ, shut up!” Scraggly Hair yelled.

  The other man snapped, “Do not use the Lord’s name in vain!”

  “Hey, butt-wipe, you swear.”

  “Fuck, yes, I swear, but I never use profanity with the Lord’s name. We’ve been over this before.”

  He sounded royally pissed. Even the new girl’s screams became softer.

  “I just don’t see the difference.”

  “Because you’re a heathen. And a moron. And you damned well weren’t raised right. No moral fiber to you.”

  “Bullshit! And you need me,” Scraggly Hair argued angrily.

  “I need someone. Not necessarily you.”

  “You’d do that? Dump me? After all I’ve done? Shit, man. Then I’d go to the cops. You hear me? Cut a deal. Get off scot-free. Roll the fuck over on you!”

  “Would you?” The abductor’s voice was stone cold. “Then you’d be a dead man.”

  Tense seconds ticked by. No one said anything. No sound of rats’ claws scraped across the floor, no hint of bats stirring moved the air. Even the new captive was quiet. Rosalie prayed that the two bastards would go at each other. Maybe kill each other. Yes, definitely. Then the new girl, if the crier could get her damned wits about her, would be able to set Rosalie free from this god-awful stall and they could run out of here, take the truck, or that other car, and drive away. Escape! Finally.

  Rosalie hardly dared breathe. Please, please, please . . . kill each other.

  “Fuck, man,” Scraggly Hair finally said, “let’s just get the job done here and move on.”

  He was back to being the submissive one. His compatriot didn’t respond, but Rosalie knew that for now, their chance of getting free was nil. But there was a wedge between the two men, and that might work to her advantage. Somehow. Trouble was, from the sound of the conversation she’d pieced together, they were running out of time. Whatever was going to happen to her and “Lucky,” it was going down in a couple of days, and that scared her. It scared her to death.

  The only good news was now she had another person on her side, one who presumably could help her and had a family or friends on the outside who could aid her mom or the cops or whoever in locating them. Maybe. If the girl didn’t completely wuss out. Also, as far as she could tell, this old barn wasn’t equipped with surveillance cameras or microphones, so once she and “Lucky” were alone, they could shout at the top of their lungs to communicate and make a plan to fight the bastards. Crossing her fingers, she waited, hoping to hear something from her new compatriot, but the girl didn’t say a word, her sobs muffled.

  Oh, God, please don’t let her be a wimp.

  That wouldn’t work.

  Not at all.

  Maybe she was just traumatized or had been drugged or stunned with a stun gun so she couldn’t communicate. Probably gagged too. Rosalie cringed as she thought of what they might have done to her, but she attempted to remain as positive as possible. At least now, she wouldn’t be alone.

  So she waited, her stall nearly dark.

  Footsteps finally approached, just as she knew they would.

  She slid backward and dropped soundlessly onto her cot. Quickly she flipped the top of the sleeping bag over her body and squeezed her eyes closed. Her fingers held the pieces of the clippers in a death grip, hidden beneath the musty cover.

  The lock clicked.

  She wanted to bolt.

  Forced herself to stay where she was.

  She heard the stall door swing open and even through her closed eyelids noticed a brightening. Still she remained motionless even though she heard his footsteps and knew he’d entered.

  Touch me, freak, and I’ll gouge your eyes out,

  “I know you’re not asleep, Star.”

  She didn’t move, barely breathed.

  “It’s good you know your place, that you shouldn’t fight.”

  God, she hated him. She itched to leap at him and kick and bite and claw at him, but she forced herself not to move.

  “Yeah, that’s a good girl,” he whispered, as if she were an obedient puppy or a damned horse.

  She heard him rustling around. “Got you some fresh water and a sandwich,” he said, and she heard him exchange her used bucket for an empty one.

  Sick bastard!

  Finally the noise stopped, and she lifted her lids a fraction to see him standing in the doorway, his tall silhouette backlit.

  He was staring right at her. “Cat got your tongue?”

  She held her silence.

  “Good. You were too mouthy as it was. You’ll do much better knowing your place.”

  Dickhead!

  Clamping her jaw shut, she didn’t respond, wouldn’t let him goad her.

  “So now you’re passive-aggressive?”

  She was surprised he knew the term, but she made sure no emotion registered on her face.

  “It won’t work, you know. Your true colors are gonna show sooner or later, and that’s a good thing. We want you to know your place, and you seem to be learning, but it’s good that you’ve got that little bit of fire in you. You know what I’m talkin’ about. That temper? Who you really are? That’s gonna help too. He’s gonna want to see that you’ll give him a bit of a fight.”

  Who? Who was he talking about?

  She felt sick inside as the wheels turned in her mind. They were giving her to someone. Or maybe selling her to him. A man who wanted “fire.” Oh, that sounded bad. Real bad.

  Still, she kept her thoughts to herself. It seemed that her not speaking caused him to open up a little. “Hey,” he called to his partner, “look who’s decided to give us the silent treatment.”

  “Beats all that screamin’ and swearin’,” the other guy said, and she heard some rustling and clanking of plastic and metal as, it seemed, they set the other girl up in her cell. Lovely. Rosalie wanted to r
ip both their faces off and then trample on them. All the while she heard the soft mewling of the other girl. Rosalie hoped to God that once she’d gotten over the shock of being captured, “Lucky” would show some backbone.

  The bigger man said, “Come on, let’s get a move on.”

  Should she take a chance? Leap on him? Cut him with the clipper? If he turned his back . . . But he didn’t. Almost as if he’d read her mind, he backed out of the stall and shut the door, cutting off the bright source of light and her slim chance at freedom.

  Be patient, she told herself. There’s still time,

  However, she didn’t kid herself as she lay in the darkness, the smell of musty hay and horses an underlying odor in this dilapidated shell of a barn. No way did her captors plan to keep her in the old barn forever. No. They had a plan for her and for “Lucky” as well. She thought of the stories she’d heard of human trafficking, and prostitution rings with girls who’d been coerced into the life.

  Whatever the two sickos had up their sleeves, it wasn’t good; she was certain of that. Somehow, she and “Lucky” had to find a way to escape.

  Soon.

  While it was still an option.

  CHAPTER 22

  When Sarah hesitated, Clint had to tamp down his growing anger. “You had no right to leave me in the dark,” he ground out, still struggling to process. He knew what it meant to raise a child, to have your life turned inside out for this little person, to love unconditionally. And then to lose the very object of your love and adoration.

  His words seemed to snap her out of her frozen state. “I never told you because I didn’t want to tie you down, to force you into doing something you didn’t want out of some ridiculous sense of duty.” She held up one hand, almost in surrender. Almost. “I should have told you and Jade long ago. I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t. She just found out half an hour ago.”

  His gaze traveled to the seventeen-year-old huddled by the fire. Jade looked scared to death, and his heart twisted. “I didn’t know,” he told her, even though it was patently obvious.

  She nodded jerkily, fighting emotion.

  “I have no excuse,” Sarah said in a nearly inaudible voice. “I thought it was the right decision at the time.”

  “You were selfish,” Jade said.

  Sarah nodded. “Afraid I’d lose you. And you,” she said to Clint, her voice unsteady. “You were already with Andrea when you came home and . . . and we got together.”

  Jade squinched her eyes closed. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “I can’t do any more than explain and say I’m sorry,” Sarah said, ignoring Jade’s attempt to derail her. “If that’s not good enough, okay, I even understand.” She fastened Clint with that gaze that had singularly always made his breath catch in his throat. Then she began to tell her story in fits and starts. It took all his power of self-restraint to remain silent when emotions were waging a war inside him, but he managed . . . just . . . as Sarah rambled on about how she’d ended up pregnant after the one night they’d gotten back together, a rogue weekend after he and Andrea had split up for the third—or was it fourth?—time. Sarah assured him that she hadn’t planned on getting pregnant. It had just happened, but when she found out she was with child, she’d been scared but excited for the baby growing inside her. Not having Jade or giving her up had been out of the question. Having Jade and being responsible for another human being had been a turning point in her life. Sarah, herself, had grown up quickly as she’d become a mother and understood unconditional love.

  Clint listened over the thump of his heart and his crazily circling thoughts. The realization that he was a father, that he’d been a father for seventeen years and that he’d been denied the same responsibilities, joys, and heartaches that Sarah was extolling made him half crazy. Dear God, he’d been a father long before Brandon was even conceived.

  “Why?” he asked when she wound down. “Why?”

  She gazed at him helplessly. “Fear. Maybe because it seemed like the easier way out?” A moment later she shook her head and inched her chin up a fraction, almost daring him to set in on her, to tell her how angry he was. He nearly jumped at the chance. How could she have kept his daughter from him? What right did she have to lie with her silence? What if something had happened to this girl, the daughter he hadn’t had the chance to know? A lock of hair fell over her face, and she pushed it away as if it were a bothersome insect, unaware how the brown strands showed red in the fire’s glow, not knowing the battle that waged deep within him. Was he angry? Absolutely! Did he want to shake some sense into her? No doubt. And did he have the urge to pull her to him, kiss her, and make love to her until they were both breathless. Hell, yes.

  Then he saw the girl, his daughter, Jade, staring at him.

  “Don’t you want to do some kind of paternity test?” she asked, a little attitude lacing the misery in her gaze.

  “No,” he said clearly. “Do you?”

  She was startled, but almost smiled, showing off the hint of a dimple that was just like his mother’s. He didn’t doubt this girl was his for a second. He wondered now why he’d missed those dimples, or the shape of her eyes, or the barest hint of a bump in her nose, so like his, when he’d first seen her. How was it that he hadn’t put two and two together before? How many times had he remembered that last night with Sarah, the magic of it, the guilt it involved? Warm, enticing sex that was somehow taboo as he’d been dating Andrea off and on for more than a year. It hadn’t really mattered that they were “off” when he’d hooked up with Sarah again, because he’d suspected even then that they would get back together. “If you’re not sure I’m your father, then I suppose I could get one,” he said to Jade.

  “That’s not the way it works,” she answered, staring at him. Before he could ask what she meant, she said, “You’re supposed to rant and rage and yell at Mom, calling her a bitch and . . .”

  “Jade,” Sarah cut in.

  He ignored her. “And?” he urged Jade as Sarah folded her arms across her chest.

  “. . . accusing her of being a gold digger and passing off someone else’s kid as theirs . . . or . . . something?”

  “Wow,” Sarah whispered, clearly stung.

  Clint said, “I think Sarah’s telling the truth.”

  “And you’re mad at her,” Jade realized.

  Clint didn’t respond, but he knew his feelings were obvious. He didn’t want to meet Sarah’s eyes, knowing she would get to him without even trying, so he held Jade’s gaze . . . his daughter’s gaze . . .

  “You never guessed?” Jade asked.

  “Everyone thought you were Noel’s,” Sarah answered for him.

  “Dad adopted me,” Jade pointed out. “Everyone in the family knew that. Why would he adopt his own child?”

  “Did he know?” Clint cut in, his gaze centered on Sarah. “Your husband, did he know that Jade was mine?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No one knew but me. My mom guessed, of course, but she didn’t tell anyone else about it, or at least not that I know of, and I’m sure Dee Linn would have confronted me if she’d found out.”

  “Your ex didn’t ask?” Clint questioned.

  “We, uh, we had an arrangement.”

  “God, what does that mean?” Jade asked under her breath.

  “Whatever happened before we got together was just the past. Noel and I didn’t keep secrets that would harm each other, but we let all the other stuff go.”

  “Very civilized,” Clint stated flatly.

  “At least Dad, er, Noel—God, what do I call him now? At least he was around,” Jade declared. “Or he was until . . .” She looked to her mother.

  “Until I started talking about returning here,” Sarah continued. “He wasn’t interested. We’d . . . oh, it sounds so trite, but we really had grown apart. We split, and the irony of it was that I didn’t return here right away. I had to work things out with my siblings, and so I stuck it out in Vancouver.”

  “But
he left the girls?” He tried to keep the censure out of his voice, but it came through anyway.

  “That was the hard part,” Sarah said. “For both of us. He was—is—a good father.”

  “Do you see him much?” Clint turned to Jade.

  “He’s in Savannah,” Jade responded. “Clear across the country.”

  “Distance shouldn’t matter,” Clint swept that aside. He would have traveled the earth and back to see Brandon again, and now, he knew, he would do the same for Jade, and if given the chance, for the little girl, Gracie, as well. That’s just the way it was.

  Sarah said to Jade, “Maybe you two should talk while I go to the kitchen with Grace.”

  “No, Mom!” Jade was stricken.

  “You don’t have to go,” Clint said to Sarah.

  “I won’t be far. Just around the corner.” She visibly softened as she looked at her daughter. “You’ve been begging for this for years, right?” One side of her mouth lifted a bit, and he was reminded of the innocent girl she’d once been. Then, with a last, lingering look—a warning to be kind to her daughter—she walked out of the room, her jeans hugging her butt as she left him with his daughter.

  For the love of Mike, he was a fool. Even with everything he now knew, she stirred his senses.

  Turning to Jade, he opened his mouth to say something . . . what, he was not really sure. But she stopped him cold by staring at him in horror.

  “Oh, my God,” she said in disbelief. “You’re still in love with her.”

  “Hey!” Rosalie shouted. She figured they were finally alone, the kidnappers having left a good five minutes earlier, the purr of the engine growing fainter and fainter before finally dying altogether. From the other side of the barn she heard the quiet sobs of the other girl. “Can you hear me?”

  The sobs stopped suddenly. Then there was nothing, no noise over the sound of her own heartbeat.