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  Leah couldn’t think any more. Reason left her completely as she moved, pumping her legs like Satan himself was right on her ass. She reached the guy just as he hit the floor. Jeff Dale. Whimpering and crying like the coward he was.

  “Where is he, you sick fuck?” Leah dropped to her knees and crammed her SIG into Dale’s left eye. “Where’s Kevin?”

  She didn’t have to tell Dale she’d kill him. He was wheezing from the stinger balls, his unobstructed eye wide and crazed with terror. Spit dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

  “Tell me where Kevin is,” Leah yelled in case the bastard still couldn’t hear from the flashbang. “Tell me right now or so help me I’ll make you hurt – and I’ll make you hurt for ever.”

  Something was pounding. Was it her heart? Her brain? The noise sed against her eardrums. Sounded like helicopters, swooping in close. She half-expected to hear strafing fire or explosions.

  You’re not in Iraq.

  Keep it together.

  The noise and her gun were freaking out the stupid ass on the floor beneath her. He was babbling about a barn in the next county. “But they’re gone by now. In transit. The sale’s over. The sale – an hour ago. It’s over!”

  Footsteps pounded up the porch. Leah heard men’s voices, a few women. The living room. Friendlies? Foes? She didn’t care if she took a bullet in the back. No way was Dale telling her it was too late to get to Kevin. She couldn’t accept that, not for a single second.

  Carson was talking to somebody. Sounded like he was giving orders.

  Leah couldn’t make sense of any of it. She wanted to kill Dale but knew she couldn’t. She had gone too far, way past the point of no return, but she couldn’t go the rest of the way. Fuck, she wanted to. Needed to.

  A gentle hand gripped her shoulder. “It’s OK.” Carson’s deep voice barely penetrated the battle fog shrouding Leah’s senses. Lights came on everywhere. Two men in black body armour approached from the kitchen. Leah glanced up to see their chest protectors marked with three white letters: ATF. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officers were on the scene.

  How was that possible?

  “I turned on my phone and they followed the signal to us,” Carson said, like he’d heard her thoughts. “We’ve got cars on the road and choppers in the air.”

  “Let us take him, ma’am,” the nearest ATF officer said as he knelt to let her see his face, his earnest eyes and, more importantly, his weapon. “Let us have him so we can get routes and possible vehicles. It’ll make retrieval easier.”

  Carson’s hand stayed on her shoulder and, when Leah started to get up, he helped her to her feet. Dale didn’t try to move as the ATF officers cuffed him and pulled him up, then shoved him through the kitchen, firing questions at him as they moved.

  Leah tried to swallow as Carson steadied her, hands on her forearms, his dark eyes boring into her like he was trying to give her all his strength and magic, all his hope and certainty. She felt hot and miserable and lost, and like she had failed at the one thing that really mattered.

  “Kevin.” It was all she could say. She didn’t cry even though she wanted to. Years on the battlefield had robbed her of that. No tears allowed, not for soldiers.

  “We’ll get him,” Carson whispered, and his sureness made her hands shake. Carson gently took the SIG he’d given her and holstered it in his belt. Then he took her hands in his and held them.

  She stared at him, confused and so twisted inside she thought she’d split at the middle. She opened her mouth to say something – thanks, or fuck you, or we’re too late, or do you really think your guys can get to Kevin in time – but what came out was, “Why did you kill your father?”

  The centres of Carson’s eyes seemed to go twice as dark, and he suddenly looked as sad and spent as she felt. “He tried to rape my sister. I took him down then cut a deal to serve and train in the army, then work with the ATF undercover in Walker Valley. In exchange, Chelsea got protective custody to keep her safe from the lowlifes my father knew.”

  Leah took this in, more amazed than surprised after everything they had been through since she drove up Grace Mountain. “The perfect cover. Nobody else could have gotten in like you did, not here. Not in Walker Valley.”

  Carson nodded. “Everybody assumed I went to prison and served my time until I got sprung. Nobody blinked when I came home and seemed to take up where good old Pops lt off.”

  Leah let Carson keep hold of her hands even though she wanted to pull away. “All the times you sent me away, all the times I drove out to the prison to see you, you weren’t even there.”

  His sadness seemed to multiply. “I wasn’t, but I knew you’d try. I knew it would break your heart when the calls and visits got refused. I thought you’d move on and be a lot better off. I’m sorry, Leah. For all the pain. For all the lies. For everything.”

  After that, they just stood in silence, looking at each other. Leah had no understanding of time, no sense that she could do anything more than what she had done – about anything. Neither of them moved until a man in a suit with a cell phone came striding into the hallway.

  Leah barely noticed him as she kept right on staring at Carson, trying to absorb everything, working to believe the words and accept the realities he had just presented.

  “You’re damned lucky you didn’t fuck everything up, Taylor. We’re putting out drug raid cover stories. We’ll march you out of here in handcuffs – the valley will eat it up. A few weeks and you can be right back in action.” To Leah, the man said, “We’ve got the boy. He’s on route – five minutes. I don’t need to tell you that none of this – and I mean none of it – can leak. Not ever. We’ll figure some way to clean up the mess with Simpson and that prick Bennett.”

  Suit-man kept talking, but Leah stopped listening. At some point, the guy left the hallway, and Leah was glad.

  Kevin was safe.

  Kevin was on his way to her.

  Leah knew she needed to go outside to wait for Kevin and take him home. That’s what she’d set out to do, no matter the risks, no matter the cost. Desperate times called for desperate choices.

  And this man holding her hands – Carson Taylor – had just proceeded to rock her world all over again. To find out the truth like this, about what and who he really was … to realize he’d laid his career on the line for her with no hesitation … to see the compassion and concern on his handsome face – she had no words. She had gone numb all over.

  The man of my dreams really is … well, the man of my dreams.

  Except for lying to her, abandoning her and leaving her totally in the dark.

  She pulled her hands out of his grip and muttered, “You son of a bitch.”

  Then she hit him so hard she thought her fist had cracked at the knuckles. His head snapped to the side, and agony ricocheted from her hand to her elbow to her shoulder, then straight through her heart.

  Carson didn’t move to stop her when she raised her aching fist for a second blow. The tears got her first. Actual tears, hot and wet and real, coursed down her cheeks.

  “Stay the hell away from me,” she said, stronger than she felt, louder than she thought she could talk. “I mean it, Carson.”

  He still didn’t move.

  He just stood there like some figment of her imagination, like some handsome prince who forgot how to take the princess to live happily ever after.

  A fantasy. That’s all he ever was. That’s all we ever were.

  Leah wiped away her tears, then got herself away from Carson Taylor just like she knew she should.

  Less than half an hour later, she had Kevin in her arms, in her lap, kissing his soft blond hair as an ATF helicopter whisked them towards the county hospital and Alicia and David, and something that might one day pretend to be a return to normal life.

  Ten

  Leah stood at the front window of her family home, in a living room that hadn’t changed since she was five years old. Two recliner, a sofa, a loveseat a te
levision, and three bookcases. Oak and leather, worn but functional. Even the order of the books on the shelves had stayed the same. She was gazing through gauzy curtains at the street where she’d skinned her knee for the first time, where she’d learned to roller-skate and skateboard and ride a bicycle. The slow summer sunset painted everything pink and yellow and orange, even the old oak in the long-vacant lot across the street.

  I had my first kiss behind that tree.

  It hadn’t been Carson. Second grade. The boy’s name was Simon Flynn, and his lips were huge and wet, and best Leah remembered, he had really needed to wipe his nose.

  Carson had been her first real kiss though. His touch had kindled the first passion she had ever known. He hadn’t been her first physically, but he’d been her first emotionally.

  My first love.

  And if she told herself the truth, her last.

  Alicia bustled into the living room, humming and dusting the nearest bookcase. For a few seconds, she didn’t even notice Leah. Alicia had colour in her cheeks now, and she seemed to be putting on a little weight. Leah thought her sister had more energy, as illustrated by her frantic dusting binge.

  “What are you doing staring out that window again?” Alicia stopped dusting, her bright blue eyes going wide as she took in Leah’s rumpled appearance. “It’s been almost a month. Are you wanting Carson to come after you or something? He’s bad news, Leah. He always was. Bad blood, that whole family.”

  Leah tried to smile and nod, but barely twitched her head forwards. She hated that she couldn’t tell Alicia the truth about Carson, about what he was – and what he wasn’t.

  Do I even know? All I have are memories and one very dangerous, very intense night.

  Alicia came around the living room coffee table and pointed her dust rag at Leah’s nose. “You need to go back to work. I know they’re paying you while you’re on leave, but I think the boredom’s getting to you.”

  “Boredom’s not so bad.” This time Leah succeeded in faking her smile. Boredom’s fine with me, like cupcakes, and chocolate chip cookies, and this damned ratty blue bathrobe. OK, yeah, she really needed to get back to her regular workout schedule. A few good runs would wake up her mind. As for her body … well, she’d just have to control that on a day-to-day basis. It was possible if she didn’t let herself think about Carson.

  Alicia lowered the dust rag, but she wasn’t finished. “Have you been reading the paper? A hold-up down at Second National. An assault on Main and Commerce with fifteen witnesses, all suffering from the same didn’t-see-a-thing syndrome. Town Grocery is covering its windows with bars, for God’s sake. We need every officer we can get in Walker Valley, and we need them on the streets.”

  Leah let out a breath and took another look at the sunset across the valley. She had been craving light and colour since that dark, rainy night with Carson. The bust-up of the child trafficking ring had made national headlines for a few days, but Alicia was right. Things in Walker Valley had gone slouching back towards normal the moment the out-of-town news vans had driven away.

  “It’s gorgeous out there.” Alicia joined her, looking at the valley. “So perfect and beautiful, and so completely deceptive. It’s like the town itself got cancer years ago, only it never got treated. Why is that, do you think?”

  Old question, with no new answers. Leah sighed. “Sooner or later I’ll escape Walker Valley again, and this time I’m taking all of you with me.”

  It would be a bitch to come up with the money, the opportunities, but she would find a way.

  Her gaze wandered to the tree-lined base of Grace Mountain. Mist wreathed the slopes, hiding so many secrets, and somewhere in the grey, wet depths, Carson. His boss Robert Jenkins had been right. Walker Valley had swallowed the story of Carson’s latest arrest without so much as a cough, and he was already “bailed out”, waiting for a sham trial that would clear him, and right back in business. He could be infiltrating another meth operation, or breaking up an illegal weapons deal, or stalking some local prostitution and trafficking ring. Leah didn’t know.

  But, she had to admit, she worried.

  She also had to admit she was a little jealous.

  He was doing what she wanted to do – making a real difference in the troubled valley. Setting a few things to rights. Maybe treating some of the strange “cancer” Alicia had mentioned, or getting to the bottom of what made the place seem so dark and wrong and cursed.

  He’s doing the right thing, no matter what it cost him.

  Leah closed her eyes and sighed again.

  Carson and his life, they were fantasies. Dreams that used to be.

  She opened her eyes, and there was Grace Mountain, glowing like a beacon in the distance. She had a crazy thought that the old rock and all those trees wouldn’t let go of the sun and let the last light run away from Walker Valley.

  Something settled inside her then, and she finally stopped fighting what she knew she needed to do. It was a relief, really. And as scary as hell. She glanced at her sister to see if Alicia was watching, to see if Alicia had already guessed, but Alicia was gazing out at the horizon like she might be imagining some fantasy life of her own.

  For now, Leah couldn’t help her sister with those dreams. She gave Alicia a hug and kissed her on the cheek. Then she went to her room and got dressed, got her keys, and gave her sister another kiss. When she told Alicia she’d be back soon, she had no idea she was lying.

  Night never snuck up on Grace Mountain. Dusk seemed to fight with daylight, then pounce. Carson had lived near the highest slopes most of his life, and he’d never gotten used to how fast darkness fell on the mountain. Somehow, it always annoyed him when the sun finally slipped behind the granite and pines and oaks, leaving the big yard and the hilly, steep fields with only the stars for light.

  Tonight, though, he’d heard a car approaching on his way back from checking the cell tower behind the barn.

  It wasn’t an engine he recognized, and it made him hopeful.

  Carson didn’t want to hope. Hope hurt too badly. Until that night last month with Leah, he had managed to put concepts like hope and happiness behind him. Since that night … well …

  He’d had trouble going back to business as usual.

  Headlights swept up his long driveway, and a car parked in the shadows where Carson couldn’t see the make or model. He stood motionless, ready to go for the pistol in his shoulder holster if he didn’t recognize whoever stepped into the yellow glow of his porch lights.

  Leah came walking out of the darkness like the answer to a midnight prayer. She had on a white cotton skirt and a white blouse, and she looked clean and perfect and unspoiled. For a few seconds, Carson couldn’t move. If he took a step, he might shatter the dream. She’d vanish like some sweet, cruel fantasy, and he’d be back where he’d always been with nothing but a whole lot of emptiness on his horizon.

  When she got to the porch and headed for the door, Carson finally got himself in gear and called out to her. She stopped and turned. Tiny white moths ringed her head and flutteran>leavir shoulders. She had her hair down, and the golden blonde strands seemed to glitter as he got closer, closer – and still, she didn’t vanish. She waited, watching him as he came up the porch steps. Then she walked straight up to him and put her hands on his chest, and she looked him in the face as he put his arms around her.

  She felt soft and fragile in his grip, but he couldn’t deny the steel and fire in those gorgeous blue eyes. “If you ever hurt me again,” she said, so calm it would have terrified a sane man, “I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

  The smell of honeysuckle bathed Carson’s senses. Sanity was overrated. He was happy with crazy. Crazy was fine by him. “I’ll keep the SIG loaded for you. Just make it a merciful shot.”

  Leah moved closer, her body touching his, the swell of her full breasts pressing against his chest. Her fingers slid across the back of his neck, pulling him down, pulling him closer as she raised up to meet him.

&n
bsp; “I’m not good at mercy,” she whispered.

  Just like when they were younger, she closed her eyes first, just before their lips touched.

  Fire exploded in Carson’s veins as he connected with the wet silk of her mouth. Every muscle tightened. He felt nothing but her heat, her nearness. He heard himself growl, couldn’t stop the possessive tightening of his arms, didn’t want to stop the hard proof of his arousal pressing against her belly. When he teased her lips with his tongue, she opened, let him in, joined with him—

  But it wasn’t like it used to be.

  This was something new. Something like falling in love all over again.

  After that first kiss, and a second, and a third, he touched her hair, her face. “I dreamed about you for a lot of years. This is better.”

  “Make it more.” She ran her lips across his palm, then his thumb. “Make it everything.”

  Carson kissed her again, urgent, needing her as much as wanting her, and she moaned into the kiss. He lifted her off her feet and cradled her to him.

  Oh, yeah. This was new and better. And it was right, and it was right damned now. “Just one thing,” he murmured as he carried her through the dark, false part of the house to his bedroom, the only place neat, the only place orderly, the only place real in his life – tenfold now that she was there with him. “Don’t shoot me ’til morning. I want a chance to earn my reprieve.”

  She bit at his bottom lip as he stretched her across the bed.

  “Who knows –” he couldn’t stop staring at her as he pulled off his shirt “– if I try hard enough, I might get myself a full pardon.”

  Eleven

  Leah wondered if it was possible for two people to catch fire and burn to death without even caring.

  The years were gone now. And all the darkness. And all of their clothes. The barriers were down, swept away, totally destroyed, and she was glad. Her heart hadn’t pounded like this for anyone else. Her body hadn’t responded to any man’s touch like it did to Carson’s. Just the sight of him left her shaking inside, and ready, and waiting.