Emma sat across the table from me. Part of me wanted to dive right into my past. Another part feared what that meant. I hadn’t had nightmares for a while, but the guilt would always remain inside me. There was no way I’d be able to let that go – ever. I hadn’t shared this with anyone, so deciding at which point to start and how much exactly to tell her was a challenge.

“I… I haven’t told anyone about this.”

She reached forward and took my hand into both of hers. Her pale skin stood out against mine. The gesture startled me, but the calmness and understanding in her eyes seeped right into me, giving me that desperately sought courage.

“It’s all right, Eric.”

And so I went into the details – most of them – of what had happened to me and my sister when we were barely teens.

* * *

Gagged, I felt helpless as the bulky man put a cloth against Annabelle’s mouth. With my hands tied behind my back and feet bound with rope, I moved toward him along the carpet like a caterpillar. Max barked outside, but no one could hear our German shepherd. Tonight our parents had gone on a rare night out to the town dance. It looked like the bastard, whose face I couldn’t see, had timed his abduction perfectly.

I kicked my feet forward, getting him right in the shin. Letting go of my sister, he swore and swung back at me, hitting me over my head. The sound of oscillating metal echoed in my ears as I fell to the ground. The last thing I remembered seeing was Annabelle’s limp body on her bed.

When I woke up it was pitch black, and for a moment I wondered whether I’d actually opened my eyes. The smell of wet dirt permeated the air. With my feet and arms no longer bound, I sat up against an earthen wall, immediately wondering where I could be. I thought about wells, excavated dungeons, unfinished basements… never in the world would I have guessed the place where the bastard had taken me. And what had happened to my sister? Was she even here?

My wrists and ankles itched from the rope burns. Those had been removed and replaced with a tighter bind around my arms and torso. It made getting up and moving around a bit more difficult, but not impossible. The room was cold. If I could see anything, I’d be able to see my breath in front of my face. As I made my way around the misshapen room, trying to figure out its size, I bumped into something soft.

“Annabelle? Annabelle, are you all right?” I asked, but she didn’t respond. She wasn’t tied up but remained unconscious, probably from the chloroform he’d sedated her with. I sat back against the wall beside her and maneuvered myself close to her so that I could ease her head onto my lap. Her breathing was steady. Relieved she was alive, I leaned my head back.

* * *

“You didn’t tell me you were both kidnapped. The files…They had nothing on you.”

“I know. I wasn’t going to tell you this. I kept the other files at my ranch.” While this was partly true because I needed bait to lure Emma out of the city, as I’d been asked to, I couldn’t help but feel guilty for it now. I didn’t want her to get hurt. Not by me, and not by anyone else.

“Why?”

“Because I haven’t told the complete story before. Not to anyone who mattered, at least. I’m not looking for pity, and I’m not worried about myself. I just need to know where the asshole is, so that I can know Annabelle is safe.”

“How old were you?” Emma asked. “And before I continue, please tell me your sister is safe and alive.”

“I was fifteen. Annabelle was eleven. Yes, she’s alive - although I’ve been questioning to what extent. What we went through has severely affected her.”

Emma was still holding my hand in both of hers, rubbing her thumb over my knuckles. The caress of her fingers over my skin pulsed through me in waves. I’d never had such a feeling before. It was new, welcome, and confusing at the same time. I hadn’t expected that from her.

“I can almost guarantee you it did. Traumatic experiences like those aren’t easily forgotten.”

“What makes you say that? Have you been through anything like that?”

“Not exactly.” She paused for a moment, and I knew I’d hit on something there. Maybe Emma had never been kidnapped, but whatever had hurt her, had hurt her deep. “But my brothers have. It sort of comes with the job for them. That’s why they’ve been so overprotective.” She rolled her eyes.

I cocked my head to the side. “Don’t ro…”

“… okay, okay. It’s a habit. I’m sorry. I’ll try harder not to roll them. It’s just that my brothers don’t really let me experience life on my own, so I have the urge to do so without their knowledge. Otherwise they’ll butt in all the time. I find the need to prove myself drives me to crazy town more often than I’d like.”

“Like stripping at a bar?” The memory of her dancing nearly naked there worked like Viagra for my cock. It would be some time before I could think about the night I’d met Emma without all my blood rushing to my groin.

“Yes, among other things. They get in my business too much. I need to lead my life on my own. I can protect myself.”

Shit! This wasn’t good. Okay, so maybe not being completely honest with her as to why I’d ended up at Cross Enterprises could be a problem in the future. But there was no way Emma would find out about our connection, was there? Yet the cautious side of me knew what a good investigator she had to be. There was no doubt in my mind she’d eventually find out, so it would be my goal over the time to come to tell her the truth before she did.

Knowing how protective Julian and Tristan Cross had been, I wished I could have been that kind of brother. Perhaps I wouldn’t have let my sister down. I wouldn’t had failed her.

“You’re lucky to have brothers who can take care of you and who love you so much.”

She narrowed her brows at me. “They shouldn’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

“Would you, if someone drugged you or put a chloroform cloth over your mouth?”

“I haven’t been in the situation, but yeah, I’ve been trained to get out of situations like those.”

“That’s good. That’s really good. But training is not the same as experience.” I couldn’t help but be wary of letting her help me. I’d need to re-evaluate this. However, if she could find John Huntz, I’d deal with him on my own, and I wouldn’t let the asshole come close to Emma – so technically, so long as she kept her end of the deal and stayed far away from him, maybe we could work together.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please continue your story.”

I inhaled deeply. This was the part of the kidnapping I’d need to adjust. There was no way I could tell her what a bad brother I’d been.

“Annabelle woke up a couple of hours later. She untied me and we scoured the small compartment we were in. You couldn’t even call it a room. It was a hole in the ground, no more than four feet high, and one we couldn’t stand up in. She didn’t remember who had caught us, and neither did I. Not until I was able to escape did I recognize the man who’d been trying to purchase our parents’ farm for years, all without success.”

“So, you’ve got a name?” Emma’s eyes grew wide open.

“Yes, I’ve got a name. John Huntz.”

She immediately opened her phone and typed it in. “Tell me more.”

“I can still remember my sister’s trembles as she shook from the cold. Our teeth clattered so hard, I was sure I’d lose a couple. We held onto each other trying to retain and share any warmth we could. After about an hour of dragging ourselves around the small cave on our knees, we heard a hinge squeak, and a little girl’s hand reached down. She threw a banana and an apple toward us. We pleaded with her to let us out, but it wasn’t until the third try that she finally spoke through the thin slit. Her green eyes were so bright they didn’t look real. We didn’t even get her name.” I lowered my head.

Emma squeezed my hand, asking, “What happened to her?”

“She helped us escape, but I don’t even want to think about what she must have gone through when Huntz found out. It wasn’t long before the cops were hunting him down. They’d found the little girl at her home, hidden amongst some clothes underneath a bed, all by herself. Huntz had left and never came back. There was no trace of a hole at the house – which we knew there wouldn’t be.”

“How did you know?”

“Because when we got out it was night time, and we were in the middle of a forest. We told the police and they searched the surrounding areas, but no one has ever found his hideout.

“Why dig up old wounds, Eric? Why not just let it go and move on with your life?”

“Because it seems that my parents haven’t been able to live in peace since that day. There’s a dark cloud hanging over their heads, and I’d like to find what that is. Call it a gut feeling, but I think Huntz may still be after their land. I need to find out why. I need for my parents to live in peace.”

“All right. Well, there’s no better place to start than your hometown. Plus you owe me those articles you didn’t bring with you. Even with today’s technology, they’re not all scanned into the system. I’d like to leave Friday. That will give me enough time to do some research at the office before we head out.”

“My ranch is ten miles south of Ogden. It’s a nine hour drive from here.”

Emma laughed. “Not when you fly.”

“I don’t fly.” I cringed.

“And I don’t make nine-hour drives that will tire me out.”

I crossed my arms, wondering how in the world I’d stumbled upon a woman who was so bossy. “How do you expect to book a flight on such short notice?”

“It’s not that difficult when you own a jet.” She shrugged.

She owns a frickin’ jet? I thought, before saying, “You’re not joking.”

“Do you see me laughing, Cowboy?”

“Is this a city thing? Where you have to fly when the destination’s just beyond city walls?”

“A nine-hour drive is not ‘just beyond city walls.’ Don’t worry, I’m not the one flying.”

“If you tell me you have a pilot’s license, I will strip naked and jump into Hudson River right now.”

“I don’t have one, but you have no idea how much I wish I did.”

Was she flirting? Fuck me, she was flirting. How in the world had I gotten so lost in my own story, one I hadn’t told in years, that I lost track of the fact that we were on a date, not a job interview? Emma made it so easy to mix business with pleasure.

“I’m sorry, Emma. Tonight wasn’t supposed to be about the job. A job that it now feels weird hiring a woman for.”

“Why? This is the twenty-first century, you know. Plus, I’m much better at the job than any man could be.”

“You’re confident. That’s good. But this is different. And please try to understand – I come from a town where the women are meant to cook, clean, and bear children.”

“Otherwise known as the Neanderthal age.” She rolled her eyes.

“An age where a woman is respected for her hard work and expected to act a certain way.”

My phone buzzed with an incoming message. I felt my mouth curve up reading it. It appeared that tonight wasn’t the only night I’d spend with Emma.

“I could never be constrained that way. They must feel like there’s no way out. How can they even experience life? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. Please continue. Hasn’t your family expected you to act a certain way?”

“True, but that’s different.”

“Not all of us stick to the old ways, Emma. We’re not even close to the Amish. The younger generation has grown up with new views and dreams. My sister’s studying nursing in San Francisco, for instance.”

“Oh, well. That’s really good. Sometimes I wish I had gone into a different field. But Cross Enterprises is all I’ve ever known.”

“Do you not like your job?”

“I love the company. I love what my family does, and solving puzzles and mysteries and helping out others. But I don’t like breaking the news to women of their cheating husbands every single day.”

“So, from what I gather, I’m your guinea pig, then?”

She laughed. I loved that sound, and right then and there decided it was one of my favorite sounds in the world. “If I wanted you as my guinea pig, Cowboy, I can guarantee you we’d be doing something else.”

I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “What would we be doing, Emma?”

“You know.”

“Tell me.”

“You’d be on top of me, or I’d be on top of you, testing out my riding skills.”

“Have you been dared by Grace tonight?” I asked.

“No, but I have had a bit too much wine. It’s been a wonderful evening, Eric. Thank you. And please excuse my bluntness. I’m not a big drinker.”

Did she even know how polite she was? She was more of a country girl than she realized, but with a twist.

“Again, I’m sorry to bore you with my story. This was supposed to be a personal dinner, not business.”

“As much as my brothers would frown upon this, I believe that there’s nothing wrong with mixing a little bit of business with pleasure.”

“Emma, please tell me you weren’t the reason one of your clients found out about her cheating husband.”

“I can go for some extravagant dares and crazy stunts, but I would never break up a marriage or any kind of a relationship.”

“It looks like you’re the kind of a woman who needs an outlet because she hasn’t had a man who can give her exactly what she needs.”

“And what do you think it is that I need?”

“You need a man who will give you his soul, cherish you like you’re the only woman in the world, and pleasure you senseless.”

Her mouth opened by a fraction and her breaths grew shallow. “How would you pleasure me?” she asked, her confidence like that of a purring cat anticipating a petting. And just how much I wanted to pet her surged beyond my previous expectations.

“Some things are meant to be shown, Emma, not told. So unless you’re ready for me to show you right now, we should end this conversation.”

If she teased me or taunted me another minute, I wouldn’t be held responsible for taking her. I’d find a nook, a closet, a car, or even a bathroom just to have her.

She thought about what I’d said for a moment, and thankfully changed the topic. “So, does this dinner come with dessert?”

Not the kind I have in mind.

“Pick for me. I want to see if you can guess what I like.”

I thought about it for a moment before waving over the waitress and whispering in her ear.

“What did you choose?”

“You’ll see.”

The grin on her face was priceless. And when the crispy home-made apple pie with a scoop of coffee ice cream at its side was brought to our table, with two spoons, I knew I’d gotten it right. Emma dug into it within seconds.

“How did you know?” She said with her mouth half-full. “I mean, why not chocolate mousse or crème brûlée? And why coffee ice cream, and not vanilla?”

“Because you’d likely had those thousands of times. How often do you get to eat a home-baked pie? And coffee ice cream to bring that familiar taste you probably have each morning. The country and city blend perfectly together, don’t you think?”

“Yes, they certainly do.”

If I’d known that was the smile I’d get from Emma, I would have started our evening with dessert. Driving her home was excruciating. I didn’t want to leave her for a moment, but I knew that tomorrow afternoon she’d get a surprise she wasn’t expecting, so the anticipation would have to hold me over. I kissed her rosy cheek goodnight and waited until she got in the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, I heard a muffled “Yes!”, and I smiled.