“I’m sorry this happened to you.”
His voice was gentle. Almost a whisper. And even though Rosalie figured that being in his arms was a very bad idea, she just didn’t have the strength to push him away.
Austin made a soft shushing sound and eased her deeper into his arms. Until she was pressed against him. Even with the tears and her heart shattering, she felt his body. Heard the quick rhythm of his breath.
Just as when she had spotted him at the table with his bedroom hair and eye-catching jeans, the trickle of heat went through her. A bad kind of heat that she didn’t want to feel for him. But felt anyway.
Rosalie pulled in her breath, taking in his scent with it, and suddenly everything that happened couldn’t compete with what she knew they were both feeling right at this moment.
Kidnapping in Kendall County
Delores Fossen
USA TODAY bestselling author DELORES FOSSEN has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and was a finalist for a prestigious RITA® Award. In addition, she’s had nearly a hundred short stories and articles published in national magazines. You can contact the author through her webpage at www.dfossen.net.
Contents
Rosalie McKinnon tightened her grip on the Beretta that she’d stolen and stepped out of the house and onto the narrow back porch. She stayed in the shadows, away from the milky kitchen light that was stabbing through the darkness.
There was only a thin lip of an overhang on the roof, so after just a few steps, the December rain spat at her. Not sleet exactly, but close enough. Rosalie didn’t know if she was shivering from the fear or the cold. It didn’t matter. Shivering wasn’t going to stop her.
Nothing would.
Tonight, she would get answers. Even if she had to shoot him.
She made it down the slick, uneven limestone steps and into the sprawling backyard. She paused just a couple of seconds to make sure no one in the house had noticed that she’d left. With all the decongestants and antihistamines she had managed to slip into the guard’s coffee, maybe he’d be out long enough so he wouldn’t realize that she was missing.
If not...
Well, best not to go there.
Even though she had stolen the guard’s gun after he’d passed out, there were other armed guards on the grounds. If they discovered her, she’d be dead within seconds. Especially if they figured out what she was doing. They were no doubt capable of killing.
That also applied to the man she had to see.
Maybe, just maybe, he’d be sleeping, too, so she could get the jump on him. It was the only chance she had of making this plan work.
Hurrying now, Rosalie crossed the bare winter grass to a much smaller house at the back of the barn. Once, it’d probably been a guest cottage when the ranch was a real working operation. Now there was no livestock around, no hint of the life that’d once gone on here other than a tractor and hay baler that had been left to rust away. These days, the place was a glorified prison for the babies being processed for black market adoptions.
Since it made her sick to her stomach to think of that, Rosalie pushed the thought aside and tested the doorknob on the cottage.
Unlocked.
A big mistake on his part.
Rosalie opened the door and stepped inside. All dark and toasty warm. It smelled of too-strong coffee and the fast-food burgers that’d been brought in for their dinner.
The only light in the room of the cottage came from the kitchen in the main house, where she’d just been. It cut like slivers down the tiny front windows that were streaked with rain.
It took a couple of moments for Rosalie’s eyes to adjust, and in the shadowy silhouettes, she saw a desk, a sofa and the small bed against the wall. There were two interior doors, both closed, and from what she’d learned from the guard’s idle chatter, one was a bathroom. The other, a