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  Jon didn’t say anything about what she’d said. Jamie was sure that they all knew what she’d done, and they were upset with her too. When he leaned back against the wall, she sat up more and put the bottle of water on the straw covered floor between them.

  “You’re going to have a child; did you know that?” Jamie looked at him sharply. “You’re carrying Hawkins’s child. I won’t tell him that either. But I thought that you should know.”

  “You’re only telling me that so I’ll eat. I told you, I’m not the least bit hungry.” He put his hand on hers and she felt the child there. He was so small that it took her a moment to see what Jon was showing her. Pulling her hand away, she cried harder, but told him it didn’t matter.

  “Doesn’t it? I’m sure that it would to Hawkins if he knew.” Jamie touched his hand this time and gave him the entire conversation that she’d had with Hawkins before he left her. “He was angry when he said those things. The child will make a difference.”

  “I’m sure that it would. He’s a McCullough, after all. And he’d think, or be made to think, it was the right thing to do and take me in, never letting me be with him, but just take me in so that I’d have his child.” She snorted at Jon. “Then what will he do? Toss me out again? Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather raise my son on my own than be subjected to loving someone so much and be treated like less than a person.”

  Jon nodded. She asked him if he was waiting on one of them to show up. “No. I told you no one knew I was here, and I didn’t tell them where you are. And I won’t, either, if you ask me not to. But I will keep an eye on you. Bring you food too, since you’re stubborn.”

  “He hurt me. I know that it was my fault, but he hurt me badly.” Jon nodded but said nothing. “I’m going now. Please don’t come for me again. You’re a sweet young man, but this is between him and me.”

  “You’re very wrong about that, Jamie. When you became a member of this family, your problems became all of theirs, including me.” She stood up and told him thanks. “I’ll see you tomorrow wherever you stop. I can’t let you suffer without food. Although I have to say, I didn’t expect you to be such a baby about this.”

  When he disappeared and a large falcon stood there on the railing around the stall, Jamie turned her back on him and started out of the barn. No matter what she did now, it was better than being unloved by Hawk.

  ~*~

  Hawk didn’t speak to any of them, not that he’d be able to insert a word anyway. They were beating him with their words, which he’d come to realize was more painful than a hit to the body. Jamie had left him.

  No, that wasn’t right. He’d kicked her to the curb and pissed on her. Not really, but he knew that she’d been hurt. For a moment or two when he’d become his cat, he felt her pain. But like a fool, he’d ignored it in favor of being pissed off at her. Now, not only could he not reach her, but he had no idea where she might have gone. Or how she’d gotten there, for that matter.

  “Are you listening to me?” He glanced at his dad and shook his head. “What are you going to do about this? Hawkins, she’s out there somewhere and all alone. What if someone with meanness in them comes up on her?”

  “I think she can handle herself.” His dad looked ready to explode. “I can’t find her. I can’t talk to her. She’s blocked me out. What do you want me to do, just go out and start running around shouting out her name? She was pissed when she left here. And I did it. I should have talked to her instead of what I did. I was a bastard.”

  “I know firsthand how mean you can be when you’re pissed off.” He didn’t need Mackenzie heaping more onto his head, and told her for the millionth time that he was sorry. “Yes, you say that to me, and I believe you mean it. But you still did it, and I’m betting whatever you said to her, you meant it as well. This won’t be fixed with an apology or a bunch of flowers or chocolates. You royally fucked up.”

  He looked at his mom when she simply sat on his couch. Hawk had no idea why he’d called them when he realized that she’d left him. He’d only gone into the house to get his keys and leave her some money when he felt the coldness of the house. Searching everywhere he could think of, there wasn’t any trace of her in the house.

  Hawk took the phone from Colin when he said it was for him.

  “Mr. Hawkins McCullough? This is Danny Platters at the bank. I have your cards here. The missus dropped them off nearly at closing time last night. I’ve only just found your phone number.” Hawk asked him what he meant, she’d dropped off the credit cards. “She came in here, as I said, and told me to give them to you or one of your family when they came in. I told her that I didn’t understand. Then she tossed them on my desk and left. I was in a tizzy trying to find a phone number for you. She was most upset when she left here.”

  “Did she say where she was going?” Danny said that she hadn’t, but he hadn’t had a chance to ask her either. “She’s left me, I’m afraid, and I’m to blame. I need to find her.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to say about that, I really don’t. But my wife left me the one time. It was the only time I was ever upset with her about something. She wasn’t to blame either. I had taken my mood out on her, you see. She didn’t care for that at all.” Hawkins asked him how he’d gotten her back. “Sadly, I wasn’t able to. My Caroline was killed. Hit by a car that was going much too fast for her to have gotten out of the way. I tell myself every minute of the day that she didn’t step in front of that car, but my heart knows better.”

  He hung up—Danny sobbed a little, then just closed the connection. Hawk sat there for several minutes, holding onto the handle of the phone, and thought about how he’d feel if anything happened to Jamie. He was a fool, a bastard. And he’d hurt her, hurt the only woman that had gotten through his pain and made him a better man. A happy man. Hawkins stood up and then shifted into his cat. First things first, he had to get her scent. Then he’d find her.

  “It won’t work.” He looked over at Jon, who was sitting at the table where he’d been. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, but the ice cream in Hawk’s bowl was nearly gone and melted a little more than just being put in the bowl. “You won’t be able to get her scent, because unlike you and I, she has none.”

  Everyone has a scent. I know what she smells like. Hawkins thought about what Jon had said before shifting back to himself and sitting at the table again. He thought about her scent and realized that was what he’d been smelling—nothing, except whatever was around her. “She doesn’t smell like anything. I need to find her.”

  “I’m sure that you do. She’s a great person. A nice woman. I think that being with you is just what she needed.” Jon looked at him. “Then you fucked that up, didn’t you?”

  Nodding, he didn’t even say anything about the boy cursing. When he got up and rinsed out his bowl in the sink, Hawkins waited for him to continue. But Jon started out of the room and Hawkins called him back.

  “You’ve talked to her, haven’t you? You and her, you have a connection because of what the two of you are.” Jon told him that when they gave him the drugs they gave them to her first. He got a bit of her from the lab. They would bring the drugs directly to him after she was injected, and her blood would still be on the used needle. He’d been able to find her from the very beginning.

  “I tasted it once. They had turned their back on me and I touched her blood to my finger. I could feel her, feel her power. And every time they came to my cell to inject me, I would taste her blood again. She grew more powerful daily but kept it quiet so as no one would lock her up as they had me.” Jon sat down as he continued. “The connection we have, I can find her. And tell when she’s ill or other things.”

  “Where is she?” He didn’t think Jon would tell him but was still disappointed when he shook his head. “I need to find her. To tell her that I’m sorry and that I love her.”

  “As the others said, you will not be able to just tell her that. You have hurt her more than this one time. You h
ave shoved her away too many times to have her think you won’t continue to do so.” He’d broken her trust in him. Hawkins had no idea how he was going to fix this. “I would say, and this would just be me, but I’d leave her be if you’re never going to give her what she needs most from you.”

  “I can’t leave her alone. She’s all I wanted in the world.” Jon snapped his fingers and one of his journals appeared in front of him. When the pages began to flip, he waited to read what she’d read. When it stopped moving, he looked at the stark words he’d written there when he’d been all alone. Jon told him to read it. “‘I would rather kill myself than have a mate. And I will kill the babe too should I find out that she carries my child.’”

  “Harsh words, don’t you think? Yet she tried to talk to you about it. Even going so far as to tell you that she wanted to help.”

  Hawkins sat there after Jon left him. If he said more to him, then he’d not heard it. All he could think about was the words that he’d written there, words that wounded someone.

  His family had left him at some point while he’d been in the kitchen. Hawkins went up to their bedroom and laid down on the bed. The words there, they were pounding in his head hard enough that he could actually feel it. Closing his eyes, he reached out for her again.

  The wall that she had erected was solid. And even though he was powerful, much more so than his family, he couldn’t break through it. It wasn’t like him to feel sorry for himself, but he did so now. Lying on the bed that had no scent because someone had decided that she didn’t need it.

  Getting up, knowing that lying there wasn’t going to get him answers, he went to his office and used the web to find out where she might be staying, hoping against hope that she had elected to stay somewhere safe rather than out in the open, where anyone could come upon her. Nothing. She had either changed her name around so that he’d not find her, or she had done what he feared most and was out where she was exposed to anyone and everyone.

  Using the Internet again, he called in favors that he had, begging for help to find her. And to tell him where she was. Everyone that he knew was willing to help him even after he told them what he’d done.

  It was almost dawn when he finally gave up his search for the night and laid on the sofa in his office rather than go to the lonely bed in their room. But all he did was toss and turn, his body feeling more beat up than before he’d laid down. Getting up, he made his way to the kitchen to get something to drink.

  Pouring himself a large glass of tea, he was drinking it down when he turned around. The glass flew out of his hand and hit him in the head, then he was punched in the face. The abuse didn’t stop there. Every time he moved, tried to defend himself, he was hit again. His mouth was bleeding, as was his head, when he finally curled into a ball and let her beat him as much as she wanted. When she paused, he looked up at her and told her he loved her. It was the last thing he remembered before he was banged in the head again.

  Chapter 8

  Jamie just barely got him in the chair and tied up before she had to take a break. Christ, he was heavy and big. But she was going to talk, and he was fucking going to listen to her. Or else. She had no idea what the or else was going to be, but she’d cross that bridge when it came up.

  Checking the rope that she’d used, it had been his bracelet that she noticed she’d taken apart to tie him up with. And the furnace tape over his mouth made her think she was going to win in this round. Maybe. With him, it was difficult to know.

  Sitting in the only other chair that wasn’t broken when she’d come at him with her fists, she looked at her bruised and battered knuckles. She might have gone a little overboard when she’d arrived. But to see him standing there looking like he had not a care in the world had pissed her off again. And she figured the only way to get his attention was to knock him into submission.

  When he lifted his head and stared at her, she nearly went to him to tell him she was sorry. His left eye was swollen shut—his lips were bleeding. Even his ear had a bit of blood on it. But she didn’t move, and when he said something behind the tape, she slapped him hard in the face.

  “You deserve that and more. To think that I thought that I loved you. You’re a moron of the highest degree, did you know that? You told me to leave you. Told me as if we’d not shared a bed, not had this mind-blowing sex, and you told me that you didn’t want me around. How the fuck could you do that?” Jamie started crying and wiped at the tears with a furious wipe. “I should make you sit here for hours for the way you made me feel. And for what? Because you had written something down that I read. Well, how the hell else am I supposed to know what’s wrong with you if I don’t read about it? You certainly haven’t been that forthcoming. And these people that you killed, did they deserve it? Or did you go out and murder random people willy nilly like the idiot I know that you are?”

  He mumbled something and she ripped the tape off without any thought to how much it would hurt him. Tears were in his eyes, the sting of the tape evident on his mouth. He stretched his mouth and looked at her.

  “I’m sorry.” She tried to put the tape back on his mouth, but he was good at dodging her attempts. “I’m very sorry that I did that to you. I’m a fool.”

  “If you’re looking for me to tell you that you’re not, then you’re fucking stupider than I thought you were. And let me tell you, that’s not a fair assessment of you. You are a fucking asshole, and a stupid man too.” She sat down on the floor in front of him, her anger getting the better of her. “You do know that I can kill you, don’t you? I mean, I’d only have to heat myself up, and poof, you’d be out of my hair and not insulting me again. You’re mean.”

  “Yes, I am. And all those other names that you called me. I’ve never been better than since I met you. I haven’t had to write in the books since you came into my life. I should have gotten rid of them.” He looked like he was considering that and shook his head. “No, your reading them is the best thing that could have happened.”

  “So you could toss me aside, you mean.” She doubled up her fist and drew back, not at all sure if she wanted to hit him again. “I’m not a violent person, but you’ve driven me to be one. Are you happy about that? I’m not. And here you sit without a care in the world, and I was alone.”

  “I’m sorrier than I could ever tell you about that. And I don’t want you to be alone.” She snorted at him and got up from the floor. “Are you going to leave me here? It’s what I deserve.”

  She thought about what she’d read about his days in the service, the pain that he had had, and wanted to comfort him. But he didn’t need that; he needed a good kick in the ass. And she was going to give it to him.

  “You don’t get to tell me what you deserve or not. I’ll decide.” She thought that it sounded lame and pulled out the chair; to sit on the floor was unforgiving. “I’ve been here for you every step of the way. I’ve been at your side when you needed it, as well as in your heart. But it meant nothing to you, did it? You didn’t care what you cost me, or how I felt when you told me to get out of here.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She told him to shut up. “Jamie, I need you in my life. I want you to come back to me for good.”

  “I’m not a rug nor a door mat. I will not, not ever, take this shit from you again. If I stay that is. And you will think about whatever spews from your mouth, and about others’ feelings, instead of whining all the time about how you’ve been hurt or your mind is all messed up. You think that you’re the only person in the world that has dreams like you do? Or that there are people out there that don’t have the support group you have? Some of them even going so far as to kill themselves, because that’s all they can think to do.” She thought of the one page that he’d written. “You thought about it, just ending your life. And any child that you might create with a mate. Kill a life that hasn’t even begun to change whatever sad sack feelings you have for yourself.”

  “I was in a bad place. You don’t understand.” He told her a
gain how sorry he was. “You have no idea what sort of horrors I saw and created over there.”

  “I don’t understand, huh? I couldn’t possibly have had it worse than you did, could I? You were serving your country because at one time it was something that you wanted to do. To make a difference in the world. Then you found out the reality of it and got your panties in a twist.” She laughed, and it hurt her to do so. “I wasn’t asked if I wanted to have this shit put in me. I was kidnapped at the age of five to become a testing ground for a kid that I didn’t know. I had to steal my every meal. Sleep on the cold concrete, praying that I could make it another day, to be safe from anything that they might put in me. But you had it so much worse, didn’t you? Poor little Hawkins wasn’t happy with the way his pampered life turned out. Well, boo fucking hoo for you.”

  “I didn’t mean that you had it better than me. I only meant to tell you how messed up I was.”

  She just stared at him. And when he said nothing more, she let her heat go and stood there in front of him. “Yes, I can see where you might think that I wasn’t as messed up as you were. What with you being a whole person and me a monster.” He begged her to let him go when she put the flame out that surrounded her body. “I don’t think so. I came here with the hopes of making you see reason. To show you what you might miss if I was really to leave you. But there isn’t any hope for us. Not anymore.”

  She turned toward the door and stood there in front of it before leaving him. Jamie wouldn’t return. Not to him or anyone else.

  Jamie did the only thing that she could think to do, and reached out for Lauren and told her what she’d done to Hawkins. When she explained to her that he was tied up in the chair, she told her to come and get him. Lauren asked her where she was going. Not answering her, she left him there, screaming for her to return for them.