Lola! I screamed in my mind as I shot out the side door or the church, but I didn’t get far. Someone grabbed me and my instinct took over. I elbowed my attacker in the gut, and she responded with a grunt.

“Ouch.”

“Lola? What are you doing here?”

“Shh! Don’t you know who’s in town?”

“Yes, but how do you know?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m a hairdresser. People talk. I listen.”

“Oh, Fath…” I paused. “Cam told me to find you.”

She rolled her eyes again, and I wondered where her annoyance was coming from.

“Yeah, he was supposed to do so quicker, not when they were already here.”

“What?”

She waved her hand. “Never mind. I would’ve been here quicker, but I was taking a shower.”

That’s when I noticed that her hair was still wet. “Wait, I thought you were working and people were talking?”

“They were. Ok, listen, Hope. I don’t have a lot of time to explain. See that sewer over there?” I followed her pointing finger to behind the church. “It leads to a tunnel Ben and Mateo Cortez once used. One of the passages will take us to behind the Bistro. We’ll climb over the hill so they won’t see us, and I have an escape car waiting there. We’ll need to go through the mountains and over risky terrain, but that’s what I trained for.”

“Trained for?” What the hell was she talking about? How did she know about Cortez? What was happening here?

“That’s the easy way.”

“I never told you my name is Hope,” I said.

She shook her head. “You’re not going to stop asking questions, now, are you? I guess hard way it is, then.”

She jabbed a needle into my arm, and the world faded away.

* * *

My arm cramped and I shifted in my bed, sinking into the pillow-top mattress. I stretched my legs along the soft sheet and pulled the cover up to my chin, grasping it tightly in my fists. It felt softer than I remembered, and it smelled a little different as well: more masculine. I twisted again, this time with a little uneasiness.

Wait – I don’t have a pillow-top mattress.

I shot up and sat back against a cold headboard. My eyes were wide open, but they may as well have been closed because I couldn’t see anything.

Where am I?

“Hello?”

A door opened and I jumped up. The bright light that came through blinded me, but I had enough time to see a dark silhouette walk inside.

“Get away from me!” I screamed, pushing at the sheets with my feet in a weak attempt to move.

“Hope, relax. It’s me.”

“Lola?”

“Yes. You’ve been out for a while.”

“Am I at your house?”

“No, you’re not. But you’re safe.” A switch clicked and the lamp by the bed turned on. Lola leaned back against the wall and formed a bubble with the gum she was chewing. It popped, echoing through the modern room with prominently black furniture, white and gray fabric, and clean cut lines. Yeah, this was definitely not the kind of apartment I’d imagined my frivolous friend lived in. I’d never been to her home above the salon, but I knew that this couldn’t be it. From the look and smell of it, I was definitely not at the Bistro, either. Yet the manly scent was slightly familiar and I breathed it in again.

“Where am I?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

I searched through my mind. I remembered being at the church with Father Cameron. Cortez was there…

Shit!

“You tranquilized me!”

“I prefer the word ‘sedated.’”

“What the hell?”

“I needed to be quick, and nothing says quick like a little jab in the arm. Well, chloroform, maybe.”

“Lola, you’re not making any sense.” My arm did hurt, though, and I did remember her sedating me, but my mind still felt fuzzy.

She let go of a reluctant sigh. “All right. Don’t freak out. The truth is that I knocked you out, and after a three-hour car ride, I packed your body on a private plane and kidnapped you to New York. Does that sound better?”

I wanted the other version.

“Ha!” I laughed. “Ha, ha!” My belly shook, and I even felt my shoulders join in the chuckles. “Ha! Nice one, Lola. Is this one of your pranks? You know, the way you set me up at a bar with a priest?”

She peeled her body away from the wall and approached me with a swagger I had never seen before. Lola sat down beside me on the bed and leaned in. I gasped at the gorgeous brown curls, which I would have never pictured as her hairdo.

“Honey, this is much better than a joke. It’s the truth. We’re done with the boring and moving on to the exciting.” She grinned, but she wasn’t laughing. Lola always laughed.

“Do you work for him?” I whispered.

“No, I don’t. I work for someone else.”

Had my friend played me? Had I fallen for the oldest trick in the book, and my enemy had kept me closer than a friend would? Did Cortez hire her? If he did, then everything I ever believed in was a lie. My instinct and my detective skills had failed me. I’d failed me.

“I trusted you!”

“It was my job for you to trust me.”

“What is your job, exactly?”

“I work for Xavier Black.”

I gasped. “My father? My father’s dead.”

“Your father is missing. He gave me direct instructions to look out for you and your mother if he never returned.”

“He left for work over ten years ago. He was presumed dead.”

“Again – he’s missing. I wouldn’t assume otherwise unless you see the body. Even then, I’d check for a pulse. Now, I know all this makes me look a lot older than you, but I’m not. I promise.” She curled her hair around her finger and made another popping sound with her mouth. “A few years, maybe.”

“I don’t care how old you are,” I said.

“Yeah, but you should care about the experience I have, because if someone tells me to keep you safe, then that’s what I’ll do. Your father wanted to make sure that both you and your mother were taken care of. That’s why he hired us.”

“Us?”

“Yes, I work for an agency specializing in personal security: Cross Enterprises. That’s one crazy stunt you pulled off with the heart for your mom. Do you know how many people are looking for you?”

My head was spinning. What was happening here? Had my cover been blown this entire time, and I didn’t even know it?

Nice work, Hope.

Yes, of course I could imagine I was a target. That’s why I hid my mother and fled, but I never realized that I’d been located.

“Can I really trust you, Lola?” Because if I couldn’t, then I had no one left. “If you know about the heart, then you know how much trouble I’m in. Lola, you cannot tell anyone. They’ll come after you too.”

“Your secret is safe with me, but time has come to make some tough choices, Hope. I don’t like working with new people and not being in control, but Cameron here is not giving me much choice.”

Father Cameron? Lola knew my real name, and if she was telling me the truth, then I was sure she knew much more than that. As much as I wanted to get up and leave, I didn’t know where I’d go. Heck, I didn’t even know where I was, so for now, it was better to stick with Lola — at least that’s what my gut told me. As far as I knew, she hadn’t betrayed me. She knew my father; at least that’s what she’d said. I lowered my head down to my knees and grumbled. Having gone by my second name the past half year, it was odd to hear my real name. I felt like I’d changed so much that I was no longer Hope. I was Kate.

The sound of a wailing siren drew my attention to the charcoal curtains covering the window. I lifted my head.

“Is your name even Lola?”

“My full name is Lolita Lowes.”

Was she serious?

“My mother wasn’t the nicest kind of a mother. She thought the name would make her new husband happy. Except I almost chopped his dick off when he lowered his pants to the ground and asked me to lick him.”

Oh, my God!

“Don’t worry, I got out of that house when I was eight.”

“What do you mean, got out?”

“I packed a backpack and left.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that. That’s part of the reason why I go by Lola. It doesn’t sting as much.”

I let out a breath of relief as I realized that she was still the same Lola I knew. Hopefully I could still trust her.

“I’ll stick to Lola, then,” I whispered. “So, I’m guessing you’re not a hairdresser either.”

“Now we’re on the same page, detective.”

What?

She waved her hand. “Don’t worry. I know everything there is to know about you, your mother, your brother, and Xavier.”

“Is my father alive?”

“I don’t know. My company received his instruction to look out for you ten years ago, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”

“For ten years?”

She nodded. I’d spent the first five years after he left looking for my father as well, but he’d disappeared without a trace.

“We screwed up when your house burned down. You hid well, and by the time we found you, you pulled that stunt at the warehouse. There wasn’t much I could do at the time, but I had a feeling you’d end up in Pace.”

“Where am I now?”

“You’re back on Long Island in Cameron’s new condo.”

I stilled.

Father Cameron’s or just Cameron’s?

“I’m really having a difficult time trusting you.” I shook my head. “Or him.”

“Good. You shouldn’t trust anyone; but just to ease your mind, I checked on your mother as well and she’s fine. No one has connected her to the heist you pulled off at the warehouse. Cameron doesn’t know anything, and I’m not going to tell him, but I think you should.”

Before I had a chance to ask her how she knew where my mother was, a low knock sounded on the door.

“One sec. She’s changing,” Lola called out, then threw me a brand-new shirt, panties, and shorts. “There’s a washroom behind that door. I’m pretty sure you want to freshen up before you come out. I’ll be here if you need anything.”

I nodded and went into the bathroom for a quick shower. Once changed, I came back to the empty bedroom. The door was closed. I took a deep breath and pulled on the doorknob before entering a living area. Father Cameron was sitting by a table in front of a computer. He was dressed in a gray v-neck and a pair of jeans with no socks. I liked him in jeans. They made him look normal and not too holy; though maybe he should have put on his clerical outfit, and then maybe I’d stop ogling him so much. He looked up from the screen as soon as I entered. We held an uncomfortable stare and I finally cleared my throat.

“Where’s Lola?” I asked.

“She’s just outside the front door making calls. I assumed you’d have questions for me.”

“I do have questions,” I said.

“All right. Go ahead.”

As much as I didn’t trust him at this moment, my body reacted to his mouth-watering masculinity on its own, and that tingling sensation returned to my stomach instantly. He must have recently showered as well because his dark hair hadn’t fully dried and formed into sexy clumps and waves.

I approached warily. “You need to be honest with me.”

“I promise to answer all the questions I can.”

“Is your name even Cameron?” I asked.

“Yes, but most people call me Cam.”

“You asked me to call you Cam back at the church, not Father Cameron. Why?”

“Kate, I’m sure you can figure it out on your own.”

He leaned his head to the side, waiting for me. I waited for me too. I shut my eyes and searched through my mind, trying to piece the truths and lies of the past eight months together, sifting through all our conversations. My facts overlapped as I tried to reach that detective instinct I once had. What the hell had happened to it? Nothing made sense.

“You’re not a priest,” I said, taking a cautious step to the side.

“Took you long enough to figure that out.” He shook his head. “For Pete’s sake, Kate. I thought you were a detective.”

His brows scrunched. Cameron looked frustrated. I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to hate him for lying to me, but I couldn’t deny that the level of attraction I felt toward him since confirming that he was an ordinary man and not a priest had multiplied by a million. That anger I held inside was quickly turning into something different, and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t control it.

“I work with the child services department investigating foster families, you dumbass. I don’t solve crimes.”

I caught a sly smirk on his face, as if he were enjoying this conversation.

“Why were you pretending to be a priest?”

He stilled. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You just said you’d answer my questions, so unless you have a different answer, I’m out of here.” I looked around the room for the exit, and when I found one, I headed straight for it.

“Kate, wait.” He pushed his chair pack and rushed toward me, grabbing hold of my wrist. I tried to yank my arm away, but he didn’t let go, and the momentum twisted me around right into his chest. I looked up to meet his amused gaze. Did he think this was funny?

“Who are you? Answer me now!”

“Kate, I need you to know that I never meant to hurt you.”

His lowered voice curled off his tongue and teased my ears as if he himself licked me there. I felt goosebumps pepper my arms. Why was it he making it so difficult to remain upset with him?

“Hurt me? Jesus Fath… Cameron, I told you my sins! I trusted you with my deepest thoughts. I trusted you with my life.”

“And you still can.”

“You gotta do better than that, Cam.”

I finally managed to peel myself away from him and crossed my arms over my chest.

“All right. Just have a seat, please.”

I followed his gaze to a stool by the kitchen counter and took my seat. Leaving without answers wasn’t an option anyway, so I was glad he’d stopped me. I rested my folded arms on the kitchen counter. The pristine space was decorated in predominantly gray and white, just like the bedroom. Sharp lines cut the edges of the furniture in the open living and dining areas. Each space complemented another as the sun shone through the floor to ceiling windows. We were near the ocean on one of the lower floors, though looking out at the park across the street didn’t give me the feeling of being high up.

Cameron poured me a cup of coffee and passed it to me before taking a seat across the counter. “I came to Pace to find Aaron Cortez before he found me. I knew it was his home town, and I was hoping that searching through the parish documents would give me some clues.”

“Why is he looking for you?”

“We were in the middle of a deal, and it didn’t go well. Aaron Cortez thinks I double-crossed him. Not only that, he thinks I’m responsible for blowing up millions of dollars worth of narcotics.”

I lowered my head to the counter with despair, and a memory my blowing up a truck full of narcotics flashed through my mind. It looked like we had a common enemy.

“I’m still the same man you know, Kate, and I do care about you – a lot.”

I lifted my head. “Care about me? You fucked me while pretending to be a priest!”

He cringed. “Look, I’m not going to argue with you. I made a mistake that night. I took advantage of you, and I’m sorry.”

“Stop that!”

“What?”

“Stop talking like that night was just a night in the past and meant nothing because to me… Argh… I can’t even think right now. If you’re not a priest, then who are you?”

“I get paid to find people. Different kinds of people. At least, that’s what I used to do. They used to refer to me as a bounty hunter, but that part of my life is over now. As long as Cortez is out to get me and my family, I won’t be able to do that job well again.”

“Why not?”

“Just like you, I’m on the run, Kate. I can’t do my job while hiding out, and the past six months just proved to me that working as a bounty hunter might not be my dream job anyway.”

As hypocritical as it might have sounded, the past eight months of my life were beginning to feel like one big lie. “What are you going to do if you find Aaron?” I said in frustration. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. There’s no way you can win against him. And if you know the Cortez family, you know you’re not dealing with just one asshole, you’re dealing with them all: his father, his sons, uncle, and cousins. There’s just no way.”

“I know that. You think I wanted to double-cross them? I didn’t. I wasn’t making the deal for myself. I was doing it to protect my family. And I sure as hell am not one to take a back seat and wait for inevitable death. I had to do something. Going back to the beginning, which was Pace, was the best option.”

“And who gave you the brilliant idea to be a priest?”

“Kate, I’m warning you.”

“What are you going to do, Father? Ask me to confess how much I hate you?”

He winced, the pain of my words striking him right in the chest.

“Father John would have given you access to those documents if you had only asked.”

“I didn’t know that when I came to Pace, Kate, and I sure as hell couldn’t take the chance of having no access to the information.”

A knock sounded, and both our gazes flew to the front door. Cameron let out a frustrated breath.

“It’s my parents. My father’s dealt with Cortez before, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to help us make sense of all this. Beware, Brook’s coming too. And so are Dean and Jax. It won’t be easy to get a word in.”

He sighed, then stood up and walked to open the door. A man in a wheelchair appeared first, followed by a raven-haired woman. He was handsome and she was stunning, and I realized that Cameron must have inherited his good looks from his parents. His mother froze when she saw me. I watched her face lose all its color as she let go of the wheelchair.

“Anna?” she whispered.

“No, Mom. This is Kate. She’s Anna’s daughter.”

“I know exactly who she is.” The woman covered her mouth and in a few quick steps was standing in front of me. Her arms flew around me and she squeezed me so tight I had a difficult time breathing.

“Hope, I never thought I’d see you again.” She finally let me out of her embrace but held me by my shoulders. “You look just like your mother.”

“You know my mother? I’m sorry, but I don’t recall when or where we would have met.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. My name is Mary. You were just a little baby when Anna and Xavier had to go into hiding. We were forced to break our friendship and cut off all ties so that our families wouldn’t be connected. Mateo Cortez was a vengeful man after his brother was killed”

She then reached for the necklace of St. Michael around my neck, took it gently between her fingers, and smiled. “Hope, you’re our goddaughter”

Cameron appeared as dumbfounded as I was. He stood with his mouth wide open, looking from his mother to me and then back. The man in the wheelchair, whom I assumed was Cameron’s father, rolled forward. He stood up with some effort, shuffled toward me, and took me into his arms as well. Though I didn’t know these people, they felt safe. They felt like family.

“It’s so good to see you, Hope. How is Anna? How is Xavier? And what are you doing here?”

I looked to Cameron for answers, but I could see on his face that he didn’t have any.

“Kate, this is my father, Jack Madden.”