Her forehead crinkled near the darkening bruise she’d gotten in her fall. Her nose was red from crying, and her hair was a riot of tangles.
She was magnificent.
Something of what he was feeling must have slipped into his expression, because Shaw softened against him. She managed a smile that was a wobbly mess. It almost had him dragging her back to bed. Instead, he kissed her petal pink lips and begged whatever angels were still fighting on his side for just a little more help.
“I’m yours, Shaw. Once we get you out of here, once we know everything, whatever you need me to be, that’s what I’ll be. I’ll take care of you and whoever’s messing with you. All you have to do is trust me a little longer and try to remember who’s hurting you in your nightmare. Can you do that for me?”
She stiffened. Then she relented, kissed him back, and stepped away, her hand finding his. “Promise me I’m not going to regret this.”
“You have my word.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m going to take this call, see what happened with the stairs, and make sure the place is still secure after we slept for so long. Don’t unlock this door until you hear my voice, okay?”
She nodded, her courage impressing the hell out of him all over again. Her next breath was more of a gulp. But she stepped back, her fingers sliding free.
She closed the door behind him and locked up.
Fifteen minutes, he told himself. He’d fill in Dawson, recon the stairs, and search the place for any new clues as to what this bastard might be up to next. He’d do his damn job. But in fifteen minutes, his ass was going to be back with Shaw. And somehow, he’d find a way to keep her believing in him, in them, after he confessed everything. Then together, the two of them would find a way to get her out of this, including clearing her from federal prosecution.
He speed-dialed on his way to the stairs.
“Code,” the voice on the other end said.
“Get Dawson,” he said, shitting all over operation protocol. “This is Marinos. We’ve had a change in plans.”
“Authorization code?” the voice calmly said.
Cole harnessed his temper as he eyed the smooth edges of the weakened spots in the top boards of the step—a freshly installed bit of scrap wood he’d handled earlier. Which meant his fingerprints would be all over it.
The damage had been meticulously executed. Someone was going out of his way to make Cole look dirty as hell. Someone with sophisticated technology at his disposal, but who’d been packing a simple wheel gun when he’d tried to shoot Shaw in Atlanta.
“Fuck authorization,” he growled. “Get Dawson on the phone. Now.”
Chapter Fifteen
Shaw found her clothes. She slipped her sweats on over Cole’s shirt, not wanting to lose her physical tie to him. She didn’t want to be away from him at all, not for a minute.
Her nightmare was still too close. And someone was definitely messing with her in the mansion. But she wasn’t running this time. Whatever Cole needed to tell her when he came back, she’d find a way to deal with the rest of their past. She wouldn’t let either herself or him down again. Nothing else was coming between them. She recalled his scars, living proof of what he’d already sacrificed for her. She could trust him with her life. He’d given her his word. The rest, they would figure out as they went.
She was remembering more and more, almost all of it horrible. But she felt so close to the answers she needed, the ones that would free her to move on to the life she wanted with Cole. The thought of it made her downright giddy.
Maybe the lonely life she’d had to go back to before he’d shown up hadn’t been enough to tempt her to really fight for it. Maybe her mind was getting stronger by the second because someone was finally there who believed her about the misfiring images she kept seeing. Not Dawson or his endless stream of federal officers and agents and psychologists. Their impatience with her nightmare had never given what little she’d remembered a chance to blossom into more. The progress she was making in her recovery now was happening for only one reason.
Because of Cole.
After everything she’d put him through, he’d promised to stay by her side. She was fighting with him, not alone. She’d be fighting for them from now on, the way she should have before.
But against whom?
Who was standing in the way of Cole and her getting back what they shouldn’t have lost as teenagers? She tried to see her shooter’s face and remember more of her dream beyond a scarred man with an old-fashioned gun. But the other details were gone again. She studied the walls and furniture around her while she attempted to force his identity to return, as if her guest bedroom held whatever elusive clues she needed. It didn’t, of course, any more than the rest of the mansion had triggered a single useful recollection.