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  “I didn’t get him,” she said, her eyes wild with terror and frustration.

  He jerked her to him, and dragged her into his arms, shaking all over. “God, Elsie, are you all right?”

  She slid the gun down to her side, and nodded against his chest. “My head hurts, but I’m fine. I wish I’d wounded him so we could find out who he is.”

  Deke examined her head. A lump was forming, but she should be okay. Deke cupped his hands around her face and forced her to look at him. “What were you doing out here? I told you to stay inside with the doors locked.”

  A dozen emotions flickered in her eyes. Anger. Fear. Grief.

  “I…had to come out for a moment.”

  “Why? Do you have some kind of death wish, Elsie?”

  She stepped backward, away from him. “You’re angry with me?”

  “Angry?” he shouted. “Angry?” His head roared with emotions. “Hell, yes, I’m angry. If you’d stayed inside, he wouldn’t have gotten that close to you.”

  “I refuse to cower inside,” Elsie argued. “I won’t let anyone have that much control over me.”

  “Control?” his voice rose another decibel. He was completely out of control. “This has nothing to do with control. It has to do with keeping you alive.”

  She started to speak, but clamped her mouth shut, her eyes narrowing. “I have to find out who’s trying to kill me,” she said quietly.

  “And I want to see you live to go home to your mother.”

  She hesitated. “I…I…want that, too.”

  He averted his eyes, feeling naked and exposed. His emotions were so raw they had to be showing on his face. “I…do you know how I felt when I heard that gunshot, Elsie?” His hands shook as he reached for her and pulled her closer to him. “Do you have any idea?” He dropped his head forward, leaning it against her forehead. “I thought he had you, that you might be dead.”

  His voice cracked, and he couldn’t go on. Elsie’s breath bathed his hand as she leaned her face into his hand. “I’m sorry, Deke. But after finding those girls’ bodies today, I…had to go outside. The basement, the house, it smelled like death. I…could see the skeletons….”

  He hissed in response. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. But you scared the hell out of me.”

  Unable to stop himself, he slid his hands into her hair, tipped her sideways and pressed his mouth to hers. He had to taste her. To hold her. To feel her heart beating beneath his own.

  To know that she was alive.

  One minute the kiss was gentle, yet the next his primal instincts kicked in, and he deepened the kiss, delving inside her mouth with his tongue to taste her sweetness and innocence.

  Yes, he knew that part of Elsie wasn’t innocent. She’d obviously seen the worst of men and life. Yet a tender shyness overlaid her physical response, as if she had never been loved before by a man.

  From what he knew of her past, she probably hadn’t.

  But he would teach her about love. About yearning, touching and pleasuring.

  He stroked her back, the long slender column of her spine, the subtle curves that lay beneath the coat until his body was on fire, and he feared he might burn from the flame. He ached to take off their coats, lay her down in the midst of the forest where nature would serve as their bed, a perfect backdrop to the nature of man, of loving, of utilizing every physical sense.

  But slowly, he reeled in his hunger. Elsie had been attacked moments ago. Had nearly been killed. She didn’t need a man pushing her for sex. Especially outside on the cold ground.

  What kind of man was he? Her needs came first.

  “Deke—”

  “Shh. I’m sorry, I had to hold you.” His voice sounded gruff and strained to his own ears. Damn it, he was falling, hard, for Elsie Timmons. The lost little girl he had come to retrieve and take home. The woman he had vowed to protect.

  A woman with secrets and distrust attached to her name.

  Why the hell was he such a sucker?

  He stumbled backward, trying to make sense of it all. Deke was a loner. He belonged in the wild. He couldn’t be Elsie’s savior. And he couldn’t make love to her without committing his heart and soul.

  Because Elsie deserved to be loved completely.

  His foot hit a rock, and he jerked his head around, then noticed the flowers lying on the stone-cold ground. “What is this?” he asked. “Did you find another girl’s grave?”

  Her face paled to a white even more milky looking than the snow. Then tears overflowed and trickled down her cheeks. Her stare fell on the tiny mound of dirt, and his gut clenched. “Whose grave is it?” he asked, although some thing deep inside his soul whispered that he already knew the answer.

  Her chin trembled as she looked into his eyes. “My baby’s,” she said in a haunted voice. “Mr. Hodges buried my little girl out here, and she’s all alone.”

  AS SOON AS ELSIE muttered the confession, it struck her what she’d said. All along she’d tried so hard to keep her secret, yet when Deke had kissed her just now, she’d forgotten the pain. His touch had been so comforting, so passionate that her body still tingled with the yearning he’d evoked. She’d sunk into his arms and had an otherworldly moment where she’d sensed she’d come home. That Deke was her safe haven from the storm, that the two of them belonged together, that she was falling for him, and that he reciprocated the feelings.

  That he would understand.

  The wind whipped her hair around her face, and she dragged her gaze upward to meet his eyes, uncertainty plucking at her nerve endings like a harp player who didn’t know the chords. Would she see shame? Disappointment? Pity?

  “Your baby is buried here?” he asked as if he needed clarification that he’d understood her.

  She nodded, biting on her lip, the tension between them stretching into an eternity.

  Anger glittered in his eyes as he met her gaze. “How old were you?” he asked.

  Mortification stung her cheeks at his cold voice. “Fourteen.”

  “Who was the father, Elsie?” He started to reach for her, but fisted his hands by his sides, and the old familiar fear immobilized her. Disappointment and pain at his reaction followed.

  “Your father? Did he get you pregnant, or was it Hodges?”

  A chill rippled through her at the fury in his tone. “God, no, not them.”

  “Then who was he?”

  Her chest constricted. He was angry at her father and Hodges, but he was wrong. And once she told him the truth, he’d be mad at her. He’d probably walk away.

  A few moments earlier, she thought she’d found her soul mate. Now she realized what a fool she’d been. She might as well tell him the truth and let him leave before she became any more enamored with him.

  “Elsie?” His voice echoed so harshly in the wind that it sounded as if it were a million miles away. He had already slipped into the distance, the chasm separating them oceans apart.

  “Neither one,” she admitted, her face flaming hot. “I…my father left me alone all the time when I was a kid. He’d be gone for days.”

  If anything, his mouth quirked even tighter.

  “By the time I was twelve, I was alone for weeks at a time. I was starved for attention, for love,” she said in a self-deprecating tone. “I know that sounds pathetic, but it’s true.” She hesitated and tucked her hair behind one ear. “I met a guy on the streets one night when I was thirteen. He…was nice to me, promised me he’d show me a good time. He even asked me to run away with him.”

  Deke heaved a labored breath that rattled in the night air.

  “Anyway, I was so lonely, I believed him. I let him…we had sex.”

  “He didn’t force you?” Deke ground out.

  “Not physically,” she said in a haunted whisper. “But he was playing a game to entice me. Later that night, I found out that he was priming me for bigger prospects.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To go She couldn’t face him and admit the rest, s
o she turned away, looked down at her baby’s grave and remembered the consequences of that night. Although their baby hadn’t been conceived in true love, she would have loved her anyway.

  “He wanted to turn you into a prostitute,” Deke said between clenched teeth. “Didn’t he, Elsie? He made you think you owed him, then he was going to pimp you out?”

  She nodded, clenching her arms around her waist. “When I realized what he wanted, I ran away from him.”

  “You went back home?”

  “Not for a couple of days. Oddly, my father came home in the meantime. When he found out what happened, he kept me locked up. Then…when I discovered I was pregnant, he brought me here and left me.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  She turned to face him. “I was a bad girl, Deke. I shouldn’t have been so stupid. Shouldn’t have thought that some guy would love me.”

  Deke swallowed. “Your father told you that, and you believed him?”

  She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? Everyone I’d ever known had abandoned me. I had to be bad for everyone to leave.”

  Deke shook his head, and Elsie spun away. “I understand that you’re angry, that you hate me now, Deke. But now you know the truth, the reasons I can’t go back to see my mother. How would she feel if she knew I killed a man, that I was a teenage unwed mother, that I had a baby who hadn’t survived, that I left my daughter here in the ground without a proper burial?”

  The pain and grief that had dogged her forever rose in her throat, and she decided to give Deke the easy way out. “I’ll stay in my room while you pack.” Not bothering to wait for an answer, she ran toward the house, battling the bitter elements.

  Now that Deke knew everything, he’d run from her just as she had been running from herself all these years.

  A TANGLE OF EMOTIONS swirled inside Deke. Rage for all the people who’d made Elsie think she didn’t deserve love, that she was a bad child because others were too selfish to care for her. Anger at Hodges for his abuse, at her father for isolating her so much that she’d sought comfort from a stranger on the street, bitterness that he’d deserted her and her child. And poor Deanna…it would kill her to know how her daughter had suffered.

  But she’d never turn Elsie away.

  He scanned the woods again, wondering if he should have gone after the man who’d attacked Elsie. But at the time, he hadn’t been able to tear himself from her.

  And he couldn’t now.

  He had to figure out who he wanted to hurt. Sheriff Bush was definitely suspect, along with the doctor who’d treated the girls, and that lawyer in town. He’d probably arranged the adoptions. He’d beat the answers out of them if he had to.

  Now you know the truth, the reasons I can’t go back to see my mother…. I left my daughter here in the without a proper burial….

  The agony in her voice had been so intense it had ripped at his gut.

  Determined to prove to her that she was wrong, that he didn’t think she was bad, that her mother wouldn’t, either, he strode inside, kicking at the ice and dirt, venting his rage from his own childhood. His rage toward everyone who’d hurt her by promising to bring them all down. He wished Hodges was alive so he could kill him with his bare hands. And when Brack found Elsie’s father…

  God help him, he didn’t know what he would do to the man.

  The door screeched as he pushed it open. He walked into the kitchen, then the den, searching for Elsie, and found her by the fire, staring into it as if she was reliving the nightmare when Hodges had died. Or maybe she was thinking about her child.

  He approached her slowly, his pulse pounding like a jackhammer.

  “Elsie, I want you to listen,” he said in a gruff tone.

  Her quiet breath shook in the darkness. “I don’t blame you. Just go, Deke.”

  He strode toward her, then turned her so she had to face him. “Listen to me. I’m not angry at you, I’m angry for you. In fact, I’m furious at all the people who hurt you in the past. That young boy who took advantage of you, your father for ripping you away from Deanna, then deserting you when you needed him most. And Hodges for all that he put you through.” She dropped her chin forward and shook her head, but he forced her chin back up, made her look into his eyes.

  “Don’t you get it? I care about you. And I’m not walking away.” Emotions reverberated in his voice, but he didn’t hold back. He’d put his heart on the line if it would help her. “You were only a kid, Elsie. You looked for love wherever you could find it, just like any child would. You’re not to blame.”

  “But—”

  “No, buts. When my dad was arrested, I was mad, too. I rebelled and got into all kinds of trouble with the law. If it hadn’t been for my brothers and my mother…I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

  “But you’re strong and they love you—”

  “That’s it, Elsie. I still acted out, got into trouble, and I had other people who loved me. You had no one.”

  She quivered beneath his touch, and he dragged her toward him. “Sweetheart, I’d do anything if I could go back and change the past for you, take away the pain.”

  “I was so lonely,” Elsie admitted in a tearstained voice. “But I shouldn’t have slept with that boy.”

  “He should have used protection. But he was a sick little bastard. You were innocent. He knew exactly what he was doing. That makes him the bad guy, Elsie.”

  She gripped his arms as if to steady herself. “I don’t want my mother to know. I can’t see the look on her face—”

  “Deanna won’t be angry or disappointed in you. She loves you and has waited too lon to see you again to let anything interfere.”

  Knowing he had to make her believe him, he lowered his mouth and kissed her one more time. Her lips felt supple, sweet, tasted like fear and desire all twisted together, and he gentled the kiss, determined not to push her.

  He had to prove to her that he cared, that he would stand beside her.

  “We’re going to find out who’s trying to hurt you here,” Deke said. “And when things are settled, once you go back and see your mother, we’ll give your little girl a proper burial.”

  “With a monument and everything?” Elsie asked. “She deserves that, Deke. She needs to have her name carved in gold and a special Bible verse.”

  “Anything you want, Elsie.” He kissed her again, this time deeper and more passionate. “Anything at all.”

  HE STARED AT Doc Mires’s dead body, a mixture of regret and relief flowing through his veins.

  It was better this way. The old coot would probably have given in and talked sooner or later. Mires was such a damn sap, he was surprised he hadn’t already spilled his guts.

  And then where would he be?

  His instincts kicking in, he removed the key to the doctor’s medicine cabinet, then hurried and unlocked it, removing the supplies he needed. For the first time ever, he wondered if he would be able to survive without the doctor. Over the years, Mires had continued to treat him. Had done so in private, offering him painkillers when he needed them.

  What would he do now if his stash ran low?

  He stuffed his pockets full, then closed the cabinet door, wiped off the key and placed it back in Mires’s pocket. No one would know he’d stolen the drugs.

  Hell, no one would know he had even been here. He was a ghost in this town, the devil some called him.

  A chuckle rumbled from his belly.

  It was true. And he’d haunt the people here forever.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Elsie almost believed that Deke really cared for her. Yet a part of her still held out. Her uncertainties and fears had kept her prisoner for years. Unchaining herself from the guilt and feelings of betrayal would take more time.

  But his words chipped away at her bindings slightly.

  “Elsie?” Deke traced a finger along her jaw, slowly, tenderly

  “Yes?”

  “I want to go into town and question Dr. Mires.” />
  “Why?”

  “He lied and said that he never lost any babies here. But you lost your child.”

  A wave of pain engulfed Elsie. “He liedthe abuse, too. I know he treated a few of the girls for injuries.”

  Again, that spark of anger flared in Deke’s eyes, but this time she understood it was targeted toward Hodges and Mires, not her.

  “He might even know the identities of the girls buried here.”

  Elsie nodded. “Why do you think he protected Hodges?” Elsie slid her hand along Deke’s arm, savoring the warmth of his body. “I don’t remember him being cruel. In fact, he was always nice to the girls. And he seemed sincere about giving us prenatal care, and delivering healthy infants.”

  Deke shrugged. “Maybe he got kickbacks on the adoptions. Hodges was probably selling the babies.”

  A sick knot clenched in Elsie’s stomach. But Deke’s theory made sense.

  “Feel up to paying him a visit?” Deke asked.

  Elsie nodded. “Yes, it’s time I face him.”

  Deke took her hand, and they hurried to his car. The warmth of the cab enveloped them as Deke drove down the mountain. The ironclad grip he had on the steering wheel mirrored the mask of control he kept on his emotions. But she’d glimpsed more of him the past few days, a deep raw need that had spiked her own.

  She wanted this man. And she was going to let him make love to her. Eventually. The thought of touching him so intimately stirred her senses and sent mind-numbing sensations to her belly. As if he sensed the change in her, he covered her hand with one of his, the silent implication that he didn’t intend to leave her side, hacking away at the defensive wall she’d built around herself.

  A few minutes later, he parked in front of Dr. Mires’s office.

  “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  “Absolutely.” She squeezed his hand. “The sooner we get answers, the sooner I can open the teen center.”

  He climbed out and walked around to the passenger side, but she met him in front of the Range Rover. Together they entered the doctor’s office, the feel of his hand on her back comforting.