“I don’t know what baby I saw,” he said quietly, and Jesse didn’t feel he was lying to June. He couldn’t honestly say one way or the other whose baby he was remembering, and he also didn’t want to express his doubts about it to June because he didn’t want to chase her away.
“I need to go tell Rafe Black about Tyler and his son. Rafe’s going to be devastated.” She bagged the sandwiches and reached into the fridge for a bottle of water. She put it all into her pack.
“
We
need to go tell Rafe,” he said, getting up, the baby still in his arms.
June braced both hands on the counter and dropped her head. She was silent for several beats. Then she looked up, a strange determination in her eyes. “I need to go alone, Jesse.”
“June—”
She spun around and marched out of the kitchen, leaving her pack on the counter.
Jesse quickly went to find Lacy and he handed baby Aiden into her care.
When he came back into the living area, June was near the front door lacing up her hiking boots. Her face had been washed and her eyes were red-rimmed. Her mouth was set in a tight line.
“So you believe Tyler’s story, June?” he said.
“Yeah, I do. Rafe will want a DNA test for proof, of course, but I believe the baby is Tyler’s.”
“Do you think Rafe’s baby even exists?”
“He believes his son is out there somewhere.” She got up, swung her pack onto her shoulders.
“We had a deal, June.”
She stilled, hand on the door. “What deal was that?”
“I help you—you help me. We work as a team. I’m coming with you.”
“It hurts to be with you, Jesse.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” she said quietly. “And I think you’re lying to me. I think you have a baby, and that means a woman in your life.”
“It
doesn’t
mean a woman in my life. And, June, I’m not lying. I won’t do anything to hurt you. I promise you that.”
“How can you promise me anything?” she said crisply. “You don’t even know who you are.”
She stomped out of the house.
Jesse grabbed his gear and followed. The fact she didn’t try to stop him gave Jesse a small flare of hope.
* * *
It was late afternoon by the time Jesse and June were sitting with Dr. Rafe Black at his kitchen table watching his fiancée, Darcy, making coffee. The doctor was a dark-haired man with serious brown eyes and a kind demeanor. Darcy was a lot younger than him, blue eyes, thick dark hair. And the way she looked at her fiancé… What he’d give to have a woman look at him like that again.
Again?
His heart kicked.
He shot a glance at June, worried that something might have been revealed in his features, but her attention was on Darcy, who was setting mugs of coffee on the table. Jesse returned his attention to Darcy—there was something about her looks that made him uncomfortable.
Rafe cursed after hearing June out. He surged to his feet and began pacing the kitchen, anger, desperation powering his movements. Darcy watched him, concern growing in her eyes.
“To convince someone to give up their own child?” Rafe shook his head. “I can’t believe even Samuel and Fargo would stoop
so
low.” He spun round. “And to think I actually
thanked
Fargo and Samuel for their help!” He raked a hand through his thick black hair.
“That baby boy looked so much like the picture I had of Devin. Same hair color, same eyes—I believed in my heart it was my son. Why would they do this?”
“Maybe to shut you up, Rafe,” June said. “Maybe they felt you were getting too close to the truth, and whatever the truth is, it must be detrimental to them. Perhaps they figured if you believed Aiden was Devin, then you’d be quiet, leave town.”
“
If
what Tyler says is true,” Jesse cautioned.
Rafe nodded. “DNA will either prove or disprove his story.” He turned to June. “Have you informed the FBI? They’ve been involved in the kidnapping investigation from the get-go.”
“I’ll be speaking to Agent Hawk Bledsoe when he returns to Cold Plains tomorrow. I’m going to invite him to the safe house to speak to the occupants. I’ve sheltered them from law enforcement until now, but Tyler’s story is just unreal. This whole thing is getting way too dangerous.”
Both Darcy and Rafe stared at June in silence.
She rubbed her face. “I’m not giving up, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Darcy reached out and took June’s hand. “Hey, it’s okay. Samuel and his flock are getting real edgy.” She glanced at her fiancé. “Rafe and I are worried this place could turn into a Waco any day now.”
Rafe nodded, drew up a chair, reseated himself at the table.
“You okay, June? You look tired.”
“Fine.” She said it a little too crisply.
“You should take a break, get some rest.”
“Listen to the doctor, June,” Darcy said with a kind smile.
Concern wormed into Jesse. June
did
look more drawn and pale than usual, and her hands were still shaking slightly, although she tried to hide it, as she was doing now, by clutching them both tightly around her mug as she sipped her coffee.
She ignored the concern, changing the subject. “Now we know why Bo Fargo called off his search for the kidnapper,” she said. “Without Tyler, there’s no one to prove Aiden was not your son.”
“Then where
is
my son?”
“All we can do is keep looking, Rafe,” Darcy said. “We can’t give up. Just like I’m never going to give up the search for my real mother.”
Rafe smiled, his affection tangible as he looked at his fiancée.
At least they had each other, thought Jesse as a pang of loneliness speared into his chest. And the sudden ache, the sense of aloneness was so sharp, so real, that Jesse thought he couldn’t possibly have a child or a wife in his life—or else he wouldn’t feel like this, would he?
“Have you found anything new in the search for your birth mother, Darcy?” June was saying.
“I took the digitally enhanced image of Jane Doe, murder victim number two, back to my adoptive mother’s town of Horn’s Gulf. I showed it to anyone who’d look, but no one could verify Jane Doe was Catherine George. I just wish I could confront Samuel, and ask if he is my father, and if Catherine is my mother, which of course is out of the question.” Darcy sipped her coffee. “I can’t help thinking that if I go and look at the area where they found Jane Doe’s body, I might learn something.”
“Her body was found four years ago, Darcy,” Rafe said. “There won’t be anything there now.”
“Maybe the killer goes back,” she said. “Maybe a dog like Eager could find evidence of him visiting the site.”
“I tell you what,” said June. “As soon as I can find some time, we’ll take my truck out there and search the site with Eager, look for human scent, any articles that might have been dropped by someone.”
“Are you serious?” said Darcy.
“Sure I am.” June glanced at Jesse. “Jesse will help.”
“Thank you so much. I can’t thank you enough.”
* * *
“You shouldn’t have promised Darcy you’d search the old crime scene with her—you’re just going to let her down,” Jesse said as he drove back to Hannah’s farm. The afternoon was segueing into evening, the sun lowering in the sky, the light growing balmy and gold. June was relieved to have Jesse behind the wheel. She’d developed a mother of a headache and it was making her vision blur.
“I don’t feel like discussing it,” she said quietly, drawing tactile comfort from the way Eager was pressed against her.
Jesse’s jaw tightened. The silence in the cab grew heavy.
“They have a good relationship. They make a nice couple,” he said abruptly.
June massaged her temples with her fingertips, trying to make the pain go away. “Yeah, they do. Why does it upset you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Sounds like it does.”
He said nothing. She glanced at him—his profile was strong, his hands tight on the wheel, his neck muscles tense. Then because it was irking her, she said, “Does
none
of this bring back anything, Jesse?”
“No.”
Jesse turned onto Hannah’s ranch road. Dust boiled behind the truck, red in the evening sun.
* * *
By the time they reached the cave house it was dark.
June shrugged out of her pack and dumped it in the hall. She bent down to untie her hiking boots.
“I still think it was ridiculous to offer your help in searching a four-year-old murder scene,” Jesse said, kicking off his own boots.
“What’s it to you, Jesse?” June snapped. “Why are you so damn uptight about me helping Darcy out? I felt bad for her, okay? That’s all.”
Jesse dropped his voice to a harsh whisper as he realized the house was quiet, its occupants likely sleeping already. “You volunteered
my
help, June.”
“Don’t help me, then.” June locked the front door and started down the hall for her bedroom. “I don’t need your help,” she called over her shoulder.
“You’re a bleeding heart, June,” he said, following her. “You can’t help every single person out there, you know. You’re going to het—”
“Oh, don’t start with me again.” She spun around in front of her bedroom door. “Why are you so angry with me all of a sudden?”
“I’m not angry at
you
.” He kept his voice low, but couldn’t keep the edge out of it.
“Well, you’re doing a damn fine job pretending—” And it hit her suddenly. “Oh, wait, I get it. You’re mad because I said I’m bringing in Agent Hawk Bledsoe tomorrow.”
“You could have mentioned it to me.”
“Why? So you can run away quickly?”
“Maybe I’m not ready to meet him.”
She glared at him. “Yeah, maybe you’ll never be
ready,
Jesse.”
She turned her back on him and entered her room. But he blocked her from closing the door.
“June—”
Anger fired inside her. “Jesse, please, leave me alone. Leave the safe house. I don’t care where you go. Just—”
He grabbed her shoulders suddenly and yanked her hard up against his body, crushing his mouth down onto hers. Desperation, pent-up frustration, everything that had been simmering in June unleashed in his arms with explosive and blinding passion.
She opened her lips under his, moving her mouth against his, feeling his rough stubble against her cheek, and suddenly nothing but the present mattered—no past, no future, just this moment. She fumbled urgently to pull his shirt out from his jeans.
Edging her into the room, kissing her deeply, his tongue tangling with hers, slick, hot, wet, urgent, Jesse kicked the door shut behind them and backed her toward the bed. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest, and she felt the bulge in his jeans pressing against her pelvis. Her world tilted, began to spin. Liquid heat speared between her thighs, and she wanted him, all of him, deep inside, as she’d never wanted a man before. She began to breathe so fast she thought she might faint. Buttons pinged and bounced on the stone floor as she ripped his shirt open. She angled her mouth, kissing him deeper, moaning softly as her hands explored the hard, muscled lines of his torso.
His skin was hot, smooth, supple. She felt the ridges of his scars under her fingertips, and June was unable to articulate a single thought as a wild and furious urgency mounted inside her. She needed to grasp onto what she could before the past intruded on the present, before it shattered the future. Before Jesse knew who he was.
He slid her shirt back over her shoulders, exposing her bra, her belly, and she quickly began to unbuckle his belt. She felt the backs of her knees bump against the side of the bed as he lowered her down onto it.
Chapter 9
J
une peeled Jesse’s jeans off his hips, her world narrowed to nothing but this moment. The light from the fire in the cast-iron stove danced copper over Jesse’s naked, bronzed body. He stilled as he stood above her, his chest rising and falling, his eyes dark with passion and just a little wild, his hair mussed from her hands. And in that moment June knew with her whole being she could love this man. A raw ache swelled in her to have him, hold him, know him. Keep him.
His gaze holding hers, he reached out and removed the hair tie from the end of her braid. He loosened her curls around her bare shoulders.
“I thought you were an angel when I came around in your bed, you know that?” he whispered. She undid her bra as he spoke, and her breasts swelled free, nipples tight.
He placed his large, calloused hands on her shoulders and guided her onto her back as he lowered himself over her. He cupped her breast, rasped a rough thumb over her nipple. Something tightened low in her belly.
She reached up and placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t talk,” she said. She didn’t want to think, and talk made caution whisper darkly around the edges of her consciousness. She wanted to stay only in the present.
He undid her jeans, slid them down her hips. Then he kissed her mouth and June felt his hand exploring the curves of her breasts, sliding down her stomach, cupping her hard between her legs as his kiss deepened.
June’s vision spiraled as he slid a finger up inside her. Then another. He massaged parts of her that made every nerve in her body scream. It made her shake. Her vision turned red, then black as a low moan built in her throat. He moved his fingers deeper into her. She couldn’t go slow like this. She wanted him fast, wild, furious. Hard. She hooked her hand around the back of his neck, yanked him down, and she kissed him almost angrily, moving her tongue inside his mouth, arching her back, opening her legs wider, rotating her hips, needing to deepen the sensation. She could feel the roughness of fingers inside her, the pad of his thumb rubbing on her swollen, sensitive nub, and she grew searing-hot, wet, delirious with physical pleasure.
Jesse groaned with pleasure at her urgency, thrusting his hand deeper, as his hips moved against her body and his erection pressed hot and hard against her thigh. It drove her wild, past a point of no return, and June could not hold back a moment longer.