Trees surrounded the property from every side, cutting them off from civilization. Ana climbed the short set of stairs leading up to a covered porch, old wood protesting under her boots. Nobody would be able to find them out here, and with the Smokey Mountains interfering with cell signals and transmitters, she, Benning and Olivia would be completely on their own.
Using the key she’d been given by Director Pembrook before leaving Knoxville, she pushed her way inside. Met with a spacious living room, pale stone and open ceilings, she dropped her duffel at her feet. The alarm panel to her right screamed for attention. She keyed in the code, also provided by the director, and moved to shed her coat. Pain registered as she pulled the heavy fabric from her shoulders, her T-shirt crusted to the wound. Securing the property—that was all that mattered right now. Then she could worry about digging the bullet from her side and recovering the evidence Benning had removed off that construction site. Heat brushed across her arms and neck as Benning carried his still-sedated daughter and her IV through the door. “You can put Olivia in one of the bedrooms over here. The fridge is fully stocked if you’re hungry. I’ll have someone on my team check in with her doctor about the head trauma protocol.”
The girl had lost a lot of color in her face, her elvish features more gray now. Abducted, hospitalized, shot at. Ana could only imagine the nightmares coming when Olivia drifted off to sleep, and her heart lurched in her chest. To go through so much pain, at such a young age… It’d stay with her the rest of her life. Just as it’d stayed with Ana since she was that age.
But she had the chance to make sure that pain didn’t tear Benning’s family apart as it had her own.
“Thanks.” He moved past her, the muscles along his neck and back flexing with every step as he headed around the short wall separating the entryway from the hallway. Smells of cinnamon and apples filled the space, but it would take a lot more than a few air fresheners to clear Benning’s naturally intoxicating scent from her lungs. She’d been wrapped in a protective bubble with him for the past two hours inside the SUV. She wasn’t sure if she could ever get him out from under her skin, but she’d keep her distance. His son’s life depended on it.
Infierno. She forced herself to focus on the injury, peeling back the thin fabric of her T-shirt. To prove he didn’t have this gripping hold over her. The bleeding had slowed, but the risk of infection out here was high. They were miles from any hospital, and with the bullet still inside, every move on her part only caused more damage. She had to secure the perimeter before arming the alarm system, then she could worry about the hole in her side. Sliding one arm back into her coat, she hissed as the pain increased.
“Where are you going?” That voice. His voice. Even after all these years, it hiked her pulse higher and heated her insides. How was that possible? She’d buried her feelings for him a long time ago. She’d moved on, healed. Four words out of his mouth shouldn’t leave her wanting more.
“I need to make sure the security measures are up and running.” A wide expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows revealed miles of wilderness, mountains and snow. If anyone had tracked them here, those trees would be the perfect cover, but safeguards had been put in place once the FBI had seized the cabin from its last owner. Cameras, motion-activated lights, heat sensors. All of it could’ve been compromised over the past few weeks of heavy snowfall. She’d check every single one of them before leaving Benning and Olivia on their own. They would be safe here, but the tension tightening the tendons between her neck and shoulders hadn’t lessened. It was one thing to come back to Sevierville to find a missing boy. It was another to hole up in a safe house with a former fling for as long as it took to find that boy. More than that, she needed distance, needed to clear her head—of him. Dropping the magazine from her weapon, she counted her remaining rounds and slammed it back into place. She holstered her gun. “Shouldn’t take too long. I’ll brief my boss while I’m out. I should be able to get a team to the scene at your house in the next hour or so.”
“Ana, wait.” Her name whispered from his mouth, but she couldn’t look up at him, couldn’t allow him to see the battle she forged to keep her expression smooth. “I need you to understand something.”
Six words. That was all it took for that small glimmer of hope she’d held on to to burn through her, but she couldn’t afford to give it oxygen. It infiltrated the invisible barrier she’d built over the course of the past seven years, uninvited, and threatened to break through her control. Their relationship—however powerful it’d been—was over. She’d made sure of that when she’d transferred back to Washington, DC, without telling him.
“My kids are all I have, and I will do whatever it takes to protect them and to get my son back.” One step. Two. He shortened the space between them until that hint of pine teased her senses again. “Even if that means throwing a wrench in the FBI’s investigation.”
What the hell did that mean?
“You requested me to work this case, Benning, to recover your son. That’s exactly what I’m going to do, but if you want the person who took him to pay for what they’ve done, you’re going to have to trust me.” Turning toward the front door, she huddled inside her coat to head back out into the cold. Where she belonged, an outsider looking in. Not with Benning. Not with his daughter. This was just another case. Once upon a time, they’d talked about having a family of their own, but this one wasn’t hers. They never would be. She’d meant every word during the drive out here. She’d dedicated her life and her career to finding the missing and that decision had ended their relationship. Attachment to each and every victim and their families was only a distraction to that cause. She’d learned that the hard way. Seven years ago she’d let those emotions get the best of her. She’d made a mistake, and a victim had paid the price. “You should get some rest. You and Olivia have been through a lot.”
A wave of dizziness directed her shoulder into the nearest wall.
“You’re not going anywhere.” A strong hand threaded between her arm and the uninjured side of her rib cage and spun her into a hardened wall of muscle. She pressed against his chest, but Benning’s massive body wouldn’t budge. He’d put on more muscle over the years, the ridges and valleys fighting to escape his long-sleeve T-shirt. She imagined it’d partly been due to the fact he lived on the outskirts of town, on the property he’d inherited after his parents passed away. Calluses on his palms spoke of working the land with his bare hands. He was so much bigger than she was at over six feet; stronger, too, but he’d never used that strength to intimidate her. It wasn’t part of his genetic makeup. He released his hold on her, giving her a chance to retreat, but she was paralyzed. Frozen in place with him so close. “You’re bleeding through your coat.”
“Comes with the territory of getting shot.” Pain lightened through her nerve endings as though reminding her she had yet to pull the slug from her side. Right. With the rush of adrenaline from the shootout and every cell she owned tuned to every cell in his, her body’s priority had been pushed to the back of her mind. Then again, she wouldn’t be able to do her job if she bled out in the middle of the safe house.
He maneuvered her toward the dining room table. “You got a first-aid kit somewhere in this place?”
“Should be under the kitchen sink.” She pulled one of the chairs away from the table and collapsed into the seat, hand clamped to her side. Sweat slid down her spine, her heart pounding at her temples. It’d been two hours since she’d been shot. Looked like her body had decided it wasn’t going to be ignored any longer.
In seconds Benning returned with the red-and-white box, set the case on the table and settled into the chair beside hers. “Get rid of the shirt.”
“I can stitch myself.” She reached for the needle and thread inside the kit.
“I know you can, but you took that bullet for me and Olivia.” He took the supplies from her hand. “The least I can do is help get it out of you before you lose consciousness.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” At this point she wasn’t sure she cared.
“Owen needed stitches last year after running headfirst into that old fireplace on our property I should’ve knocked down years ago. My sewing skills seemed good enough for him.” Cold worked across her skin as he cleaned away the excess blood with alcohol pads in efficient strokes.
“Do six-year-olds usually have strong opinions about head wounds?” she asked.
“He was more concerned about the fact the gash would leave a scar.” Silence descended between them, every move made, every brush of his fingers against her skin, every breath he took, pinging on her radar. Loose strands of hair hid his face, but she didn’t have to see him to know what was going through his head right now. She’d memorized his tells a long time ago. “Why did you come back here?”
“You don’t remember? You requested me to work this investigation.” She studied the deep lines set around his mouth. Not much had changed about him over the years. He was still handsome as ever, but there was a heaviness in the set of his eyes now. The same man she’d left behind sat mere inches away, but the past few years had left him weathered, battle torn. Rugged. He’d taken on the sole responsibility of raising his children and keeping his inspection business afloat. She couldn’t imagine the amount of pressure that’d been thrust onto his shoulders practically overnight when he’d lost Lilly and ended up with two small newborns to care for alone. But the way he was looking at her now, the way her body responded to his touch… It was just the two of them. The investigation, their shared past, it all fled to the back of her mind. “Or did the man who broke into your house hit you harder than you thought?”
“You could’ve handed it off to one of the other agents on your team. The FBI has an entire division dedicated to this kind of thing.” Benning discarded the bloodied wipes, then opened a fresh package and cleaned the oversize tweezers he’d set out a few minutes ago. Standing, he unbuckled his belt, bringing her attention to those powerful thighs wrapped in denim. “But you took this assignment anyway.” He handed her his belt. “Here, bite down on this.”
Ana clenched the leather between her teeth as he pried at the edges of the wound with the head of the tweezers. She forced herself to keep her body relaxed, but the pain got the best of her after a few seconds. Ana screamed against the fire scorching through her side as he fished the bullet out of her. In seconds Benning discarded the slug onto the kitchen table. She shut down the primal urge to lean just a bit closer, to touch him for some warped sense of comfort, and spit out the belt.
“Does it matter?” Deep down she knew the answer. Why she’d taken the case when she could’ve pushed it off onto another agent. It had nothing to do with redemption. “Finding victims is what I’ve been trained for, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get your son back.”
He nodded, threading the needle from the kit. After stitching the edges of her injury together in quick rows, he taped a fresh piece of gauze to her side and cleaned up the bloody mess she’d left behind. He stood over her. Bigger, more intimidating than he’d been a minute ago. “I know you will. Because if you can’t, the bastard who took Owen is going to wish he’d killed me last night.”
HE SMOOTHED THE backs of his knuckles across Olivia’s forehead. The swelling where she’d hit her head—presumably when she’d jumped or been pushed from the kidnapper’s SUV—had gone down, but she was still fighting against the sedatives the doctor had given her. Red flannel and pale bedding surrounded her small form on the queen-size bed. The saline bag attached to her IV had been emptied within the last hour, and he carefully unscrewed the connection, then wrapped her hand—needle and all—with gauze at the direction of her doctor’s message. With only two beds in the massive cabin, he and Olivia would be bunking together, but he couldn’t sleep. Not with Owen still out there. Alone. Afraid. His eyes burned as thoughts of how this investigation could end filled his head. If Benning handed over the skull he’d found in that building, what were the chances his son’s kidnapper would let Owen go free? What would stop them from ripping Olivia’s brother from her life?
“Can’t sleep?” Her voice slid through him, stretching into the deepest parts of his mind to chase back the uncertainty clawing at him from inside. Ana’s boots echoed off the hardwood floor as she closed the distance between her and the end of the bed. She’d gotten rid of the stained clothing, her shoulder holster and weapon stark against her white T-shirt, and in an instant, he had his answer. Ana. Ana would stop them from tearing his family apart. Just as she stopped so many others. She studied Olivia in the bed, then handed him a steaming mug of dark liquid.
“She’s hogging the bed.” The ceramic burned the oversensitized skin of his palms, but he only held the mug tighter. To keep him in the moment, to feel the pain. To remind himself that no matter how she still might affect his biological reactions, Ana was here to work this case and nothing more. He took a sip of his coffee. Decaf. “Unless you’re willing to share?”
The idea drilled down through his core, eliciting too many tempting visuals.
“I think you felt me up enough getting the bullet out of my side.” Her smile—the one he hadn’t been able to forget after all these years—flashed wide, and his nerve endings caught fire. This right here. This was one of the reasons he’d fallen for her in the first place. The quick banter, her jokes. No matter how dark the situation, she’d always had the ability to lighten the mood, and the hollowness that’d carved straight through him the moment he’d learned she’d left him ebbed for the first time in years. Maneuvering around to his side of the bed, she pulled up a chair. The lamp beside his daughter’s bed reflected the natural sheen of Ana’s long, dark hair as she rested her heels on the edge of the mattress beside his. Would it still be as soft as he remembered? “I briefed TCD on the latest developments of the case. The director is sending two agents to your property to oversee processing the crime scene. Good agents, who know what they’re doing. With any luck, they’ll have something we can use to identify the man who took your son and where he’s keeping Owen.”
He didn’t have to look at his wrist to see how many hours were left until the deadline the kidnappers had given him. It was as though the countdown clock had become part of his consciousness. Always there. Always ticking off the seconds one by one. Owen had been taken close to nine hours ago. The man who’d broken into his house had given him twenty-four to hand over the skull and any other evidence he’d uncovered before his son paid the price for his mistake. Would the agents sent by Tactical Crime Division be able to process the scene at his house before time ran out?
That all-too-familiar sense of instability rocked through him.
“I need to hand over the evidence.” Benning shoved to his feet, his entire body buzzing with the need to take action. He should be out there looking for his son, doing whatever it took. Not holed up in some safe house imagining all the ways this investigation could go wrong. Placing the coffee mug on a side table, he scraped his fingernails across his scalp, shoulder-length hair caught between his fingers. Long stretches of trees and mountains on the other side of the massive floor-to-ceiling wall of windows increased the isolation growing inside. The sun had started dipping behind the Smokey Mountains. They were running out of time. Everything—the kidnapping, the shooting—it was all on him. “None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t started looking into Britland Construction. I should’ve left it alone. I’m the one who’s supposed to be responsible for him. I promised him I would always keep him safe, and now Owen’s out there in the hands of a possible killer because I wanted to play detective.”
“You and I both know once you hand over that evidence, the person responsible for taking your son won’t let you or your family walk away. You’re too much of a risk.” Her voice dipped to soothe the rough edges of anxiety tearing him apart from the inside. Movement registered from behind, and he turned to find her setting her own mug on the end table beside the bed. She closed the empty space between them without a single sound, taking special care not to wake Olivia. She motioned toward the bed with the crown of her head, but he couldn’t look away from her, couldn’t ignore the sudden shift in her expression. “Do you see that beautiful little girl there? She’s alive because of you, Benning. You protected her from getting shot in that parking lot, and you tackled me to the floor in her room before the shooter could take me out. Neither of us would be here if it weren’t for you.”
She was right. Turning over the evidence wouldn’t guarantee Owen’s release, but his insecurity—the need for action—pricked at the back of his neck. “I want to be the one out there, looking for him.”
“I know, and I know it doesn’t feel like you’re doing much, but I promise you, you are exactly where you need to be.” Raising her hand, she settled it on his forearm. Heat and electricity coiled together in a dangerous combination that traveled down his spine. Tantalizing hints of her perfume nudged at the raw memories he’d tried to forget, and it took everything inside him not to give in. “We’re going to get your son back. Together.”
Her confidence, combined with her hand still on his arm, slowed his racing heart rate, and suddenly he was more aware of her than ever. Aware of the way her bangs settled along the curve of her cheeks, the way the swell of her lower lip was slightly fuller than the top and how the brown in her eyes had seemingly deepened over the past few minutes. She was a strong, intelligent, confident woman who’d committed herself to saving the lives of strangers on a daily basis, not to mention she was one of the most intense people he’d ever met. Admirable. Honest. Observant. Everything he thought he’d wanted in a life partner. Gravity pulled his gaze to her dark red fingertips resting against his skin. Until she’d left without a word. “Tell me why I had to find out you’d requested a transfer to Washington after you’d already left.”
She let her hand slip away, the burn of her touch chased back by the cold penetrating through the wall of windows on his right. Diverting that mesmerizing gaze of hers toward his daughter in the bed, she took a step back. “Benning, we don’t have to do this now.”
“I was afraid you were dead.” The admission tore from him. The hollowness he’d struggled to fill had been increasing every second since the moment she’d walked into that hospital room, and he couldn’t take it anymore. “I called the police, the hospitals, the FBI, anyone who might’ve been able to tell me where you were or what’d happened to you. I looked for you for three days, Ana, with no phone calls, no messages, no emails or texts.” He forced himself to take a deep breath before their conversation woke Olivia. “I woke up, and you were just…gone. I want to know—”
“Because my partner found her body.” A hardness etched into her expression, her voice dropping into level territory. No emotion. No infliction. In an instant, the woman who’d joked with him a few minutes ago disappeared. Nothing but the cold, distant, detached federal agent he’d believed her capable of being all these years.
Confusion gripped him hard. “Whose body?”
“Samantha Perry,” she said.
He’d heard that name before. Why did it sound so familiar? Somberness overcame him, his hands relaxing at his sides. Recognition flared as snippets of memory of his and Ana’s first meeting rushed to the front of his mind. The first time he’d set eyes on her, she’d been partnered with another agent, but while Benning couldn’t remember her partner’s name, he could never forget Samantha Perry. Hell. “The teenage girl you’d come to Sevierville to find.”
“They found her in the corner of an alley between two restaurants in Knoxville, discarded like a piece of trash three months after she disappeared.” Her eyes remained steady on his, but almost absent, distant in the way she never blinked. “I was assigned to find her. I promised her family I would find her. She was an innocent fifteen-year-old girl who’d been taken from school by a janitor named Harold Wood who worked there, but we couldn’t prove it. We searched his house, his car, the entire school. There was no sign of her, of her clothing, DNA, nothing, but her best friend swore she’d seen him on campus the day she went missing. The only proof that could’ve nailed that bastard to the wall was if her body turned up, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I needed to find her alive, but I was too late. I failed her.” Ana unfolded her arms, her gaze suddenly alive, the muscles across her shoulders hard. “She died because I let myself get distracted. With you.”
His stomach dropped. A distraction?
“The minute I got that call from my partner, I swore to myself I would never let my emotions cloud my judgment again. So yes, I requested the transfer, and as soon as I got it, I left.” She took a single step toward him. “Because every minute I wasn’t focused on finding Samantha Perry was another minute she’d been tortured, violated and alone.” Her expression smoothed as though she couldn’t hold back the exhaustion and effects of blood loss anymore. Defeated. “I can’t live with the weight of another life on my shoulders, Benning. Even for you.”