Ashley ran to Beck the second he stepped into the house. She launched herself into his open arms and hugged him tight, her body vibrating with fear and relief. He kissed the top of her head. Adam rushed over and wrapped his arms around one of Beck’s legs.

“We watched on the monitor. You shot at him.” Ashley’s words got muffled in Beck’s thick coat. Her heart stopped the second she saw Beck fire, thinking Brice would pull out a gun and kill Beck. She held him tighter, wishing she could keep him safe forever.

“Just a warning. We have a big problem. That call he took, I think it came from the sergeant I spoke to earlier. Brice knows you’ve been found. He claims you kidnapped Adam from him. He says he’s Adam’s legal guardian.”

Ashley stepped back, outrage curling her fingers into a fist. “No he’s not. That can’t be.”

“He’ll have to prove it, but he’s done exactly as you predicted. He’s made you the bad guy.”

“Call the sergeant. Tell him it’s not true.”

“I have a feeling he already knows what’s going on. He’ll have to play it by the book. Brice is about to use his trump cards.”

“Just like I told you. I can’t fight him and win when he’s got politicians and people in authority who will cover up what he did to save themselves.” Ashley turned and raked her fingers through her hair, feeling every bit as inadequate to stop Brice as she had all those months as his prisoner.

“We have all the evidence we need to prove he hurt you,” Beck reminded her.

But was it enough? Brice thought he could use his celebrity, his money, to get out of this. But she had both, too. And she knew how to use them when it suited her. She didn’t want to be a spectacle, but if it kept Adam safe and put Brice behind bars, she’d do whatever was necessary to accomplish both those things.

She’d do what had to be done to keep Beck safe and out of the spotlight, too, even though the thought of leaving him made her heart ache.

She turned back to Beck, resigned to the reality of her life and the inevitability of what came next. “We can’t wait and see what happens next. We need to stop him before he muddies the waters so much that the real story is buried.”

“What do you have in mind?” Mia asked.

“I need a phone.” She glanced around the room.

Beck pulled out his cell and handed it to her. “Who are you calling?”

“Someone who can make sure everyone sees exactly what Brice did.”

“Ashley, we need to control the situation as much as possible.”

She gave him a sad smile. “It’s too late for that. I wanted to run. You told me I needed to fight if I wanted my life back. You were right.” She dialed her old friend and put the phone to her ear. She tried to organize her thoughts and find the strength to tell her story even as she wanted to forget it ever happened.

“Hello.” The familiar voice brought tears to her eyes and made her think of happier times.

“Stuart, I need your help.” She blinked away tears.

“Ashley.” Her name came out choked with emotion.

“Yes, it’s Ashley.”

“Where are you? Are you okay?” Stuart wound up to ask a dozen more questions, but she cut him off.

“Listen, I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I need to do that thing I hate more than anything.” She closed her eyes and sighed.

“You’ve been gone without a word for months and now you want me to call the paps for some photo op?” The absurdity of it came out with his words.

She felt crazy for doing it. “Yes, call the press and let them know I’m being taken to—” She put her hand over the phone and asked Beck, “What hospital are you taking me to for the exam and X-rays?”

“There’s a clinic in Crystal Creek.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s got to be a hospital emergency room. Somewhere we can make a big circus out of this.”

“Ashley . . .”

“We either play the game against him or we’ll lose because the only story anyone will hear is his whether it’s true or not.” She sighed. “A picture is worth a thousand words and can be interpreted a hundred different ways, but live video will show the truth.”

“Bozeman it is. It’ll take more than an hour to get there, maybe more depending on the roads.”

“We’ll need that time for Stuart to get everything set up.” She put the phone back to her ear. “Sorry, Stuart. I’ll be taken to the hospital in Bozeman. I won’t make a verbal statement. My appearance will be statement enough. Leak to the press that rumor has it I was found near death in the middle of a snowstorm, beaten and starved.”

“What!” Stuart gasped.

She went on, unable to explain anything more right now. She wanted to get this done and over with as soon as possible. “I barely survived and am being taken to the emergency room for medical attention.”

“Christ.” Stuart swore.

“The information came directly from the Crystal Creek Sheriff’s Department from an unnamed source. The more photographers the better.”

She listened while Stuart, ever the professional under fire, outlined his plan to make a spectacle of the trauma and cruelty Ashley suffered. She made these plans with a calculating mind, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart wanted to hide and heal and stay here with Beck.

She hoped they could control what came next, but feared now that they’d opened Pandora’s box this would take on a life of its own.

Ashley’s trembling hand went to her forehead. Her voice shook with her next words. “No matter what, no matter how hard he’ll deny it, the headline needs to remain that Brice Mooney kidnapped, tortured, and starved Ashley Swan, holding her in a windowless room at his Montana ranch home for nearly a year.”

Ashley held the phone away from her ear as Stuart yelled a string of obscenities and death threats that ended with hanging Brice from his tiny pecker.

She might have laughed and enjoyed the imaginative insults any other time, but she didn’t have it in her when her life was about to explode.

She yelled into the phone. “Get it done. I’ll call tomorrow.” She hung up, let a single tear slip down her cheek, sucked in a deep breath, and dialed another number. She put the phone to her ear and held her breath, thinking how many times she wished to hear this person’s voice one more time. “Mom, it’s me.”

“Ashley,” her mother gasped.

Just her name and she lost it, letting the tears come in a torrent.

Beck came to her, pulled her into his chest, took the phone from her trembling hand, put it on speaker, and explained for her. “Mrs. Swan, this is Special Agent Beck Cooke with the DEA.”

“Oh my God, has my daughter been arrested for drugs?”

“No, Mrs. Swan, your daughter was kidnapped and held hostage for nearly a year.” He didn’t provide the horrible details.

Grateful, Ashley didn’t want to frighten or worry her mother more than she’d been this past year not knowing what happened to her daughter. They may not have a close relationship, but Ashley loved her mom even when they disagreed or her mother did things Ashley didn’t like.

“What? No. She couldn’t handle the pressure. She ran away. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not what happened. I found her after she escaped. She’s hurt and too thin, but her injuries aren’t severe enough that she won’t make a full recovery. As you can imagine after all this time, she’s scared and traumatized. It’s difficult for her to talk about what happened to her. I’m taking her to the hospital shortly. The press will find out what happened. She wanted you to know she’s alive and okay.”

“Can I talk to her?”

Beck looked down into Ashley’s upturned face. She’d regained her composure and strength once again.

“Here she is.”

Ashley found her voice again. “Hi, Mom.”

“Is what he said true?”

“Yes.”

“Are you really okay?” Her mother’s voice cracked.

“I will be.”

“Where are you?”

“Montana.” Ashley didn’t want to give too many details about Beck and his place.

“You said you were going to stay with that talk show host. Brice, right? We all thought you’d run away to escape the pressure.”

“I thought Brice was my friend. He wasn’t. He did terrible things, Mom.” The memories flooded her mind, but she fought them back and held on to Beck.

“Okay, honey, you’ll get through this. You always do.”

“It’s so hard,” Ashley admitted. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Are you going back to L.A.? Do you want me to meet you there?”

As much as she wanted to see her mother, she didn’t want to drag her into this mess. “No. I’m not sure where I’m going to end up.”

A bolt of fear shot through her. Going through with this meant letting Beck go. For now. As hard as she’d fight to take Brice down and regain her freedom, she’d fight even harder to get back to Beck.

“I appreciate that you want to come, but this is going to turn into a media circus in a few hours. I just wanted to tell you myself, so you didn’t find out on the news.”

“I’m sorry, Ashley. I should have known something was wrong. I felt it, but dismissed it, thinking you’d run away from that life and me because you felt you had no support. We’re two very different people and that means we sometimes have trouble understanding each other, but, honey, I love you. No matter what, you can always come to me. I’m sorry if it seems that the only time I come to you is when I need something and all we do is argue our differing opinions. I want you to be happy, honey, and I am so sorry this happened to you,” her mother choked out.

Ashley’s tears ran nonstop down her face. It had taken this terrible thing to bridge the gap between them and bring them back together. A silver lining that touched her deeply. She’d really missed her mother. “I love you, Mom. I hope Matthew has been taking care of you while I’ve been gone.”

She’d always wanted to be able to take care of her mother. But even from the beginning when things were good but not yet great financially, her mother had made demands and laid on the guilt. Angry and sad, the resentment built until they barely spoke. To change the tone of their few phone calls from money to simply catching up, she’d instructed her accountant Matthew to pay her mother an allowance. She hoped they could put all of it aside now.

“The payments never stopped, which is why I assumed you instructed him to keep making them.”

“I’m glad. How have you been, Mom?”

“Aside from worried about you, you know how things are—nothing much changes here.”

“It’s actually comforting to know that.” Ashley sniffled back the last of her tears and sighed. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, honey.”

“I’m going to send you a photograph. When the tabloids start calling you, and they will soon, take the highest bid—”

“No, I promised you I’d never do that again.”

She appreciated more than words could convey the conviction in her mother’s voice.

“This time, I’m asking you to do it. I need the photo to go out with your assurance that you’ve talked to me, you believe that Brice Mooney is responsible for my kidnapping and torture, and you have proof. You want him arrested and sent to jail for the rest of his life for hurting me.”

“I do, honey. I want him to pay for what he’s done. Come home,” her mother added, her voice pleading.

“I will soon. I promise.”

“Will you be okay? Are you safe now?”

“I’m as safe as I can be.” She hugged Beck close. “I’ll call you soon. Love you, Mom.”

“Love you.”

Ashley hung up, handed Beck back the phone, grabbed the front of his coat and pressed her forehead to his chest for a long moment. She soaked up his warmth and strength and the sense of ease that ran through her when he was with her. She wanted to hold on to him forever, but had to take the next step on her own.

She stepped back and looked up at him. “Call the sheriff or police department and tell them to come pick me up and take me to the hospital.”

“I’ll take you.”

She shook her head. “You’ve done so much. I can’t ask you to risk your life and put your face out there for the world to see and know who you are. I won’t be the reason those drug dealers come after you.”

Caden stepped forward. “She’s right, Beck. You go with her, your face will be all over the news. People will want to know who you are and how you got involved. It won’t take long for them to have your name and that you’re DEA. Guzman will know exactly who you are and he’ll come for you.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. With the press and police around, he’ll have a hard time getting to me.”

“You’ll put Ashley and Adam at greater risk.” Caden didn’t need to state the obvious, but maybe Beck needed to hear it.

“We need to keep Adam out of this.” Ashley brushed her hand over the boy’s head, then turned to Mia. “Will you take him someplace safe?”

Beck touched her shoulder, sending that familiar electricity through her system. “Ashley, the police will put him in protective custody. I don’t like it, but we have to follow procedure.”

“They’ll put him in foster care with strangers. If they don’t arrest Brice right away, he’ll use his contacts and find Adam.” She left off saying that Brice would kill the boy to silence him from talking about what Brice did to Ashley. And what about Adam’s mother?

“Please, Caden,” Ashley begged. “I can’t keep him with me during all of this, but I can’t lose him either. I promised I’d keep him safe. You can protect him. Please,” she said again.

Caden exchanged a look and a silent conversation with Mia, who gave Caden a firm nod. “I’ll make some calls. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best. I’ll also try to make sure his location is kept secret and off the books.”

Caden pulled out his phone and stepped out onto the porch to get the ball rolling.

Mia took Adam’s hand. “Come on, sweetheart. Looks like you get to have a sleepover with me and Uncle Caden.”

Ashley liked the sound of Uncle Caden. She caught Beck’s eye and saw her thoughts reflected back. Before they thought about that kind of future together, they needed to stay focused on the here and now and what happened next.

“Send one of the pictures you took of me to my mother’s phone.”

“Ashley, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She appreciated the concern and how much he wanted to protect her from any kind of harm, but this needed to be done. “They’ll leak anyway. This way, my mother adds to her retirement nest egg and we control the narrative.”

“I hate the way this is turning into a means for people to make money off of and talk about you, missing the fact that you were hurt and deserve justice. They’re going to take what happened and use it to hurt you more.”

“I told you, Beck, this is out of my control. The best I can do is steer things to go my way and not let Brice turn things so he looks like the victim. Which he will if I don’t get ahead of this.”

“Look at you. No one will believe he’s the victim.”

“You’d be surprised what people will believe if they see it on the internet or TV. I’ve been pregnant like ten different times a year and been engaged to five or six guys I never even dated. Shall I go on?”

“No.” He got the point.

Mia held Adam’s hand; his things were packed into two plastic bags in her other hand. Adam held a paper in his free hand and held it up to Ashley.

She kneeled in front of him and took the drawing. “Is this me and you?” Ashley pointed to the yellow-haired boy standing next to a taller brown-haired woman.

Ashley held back a laugh that they appeared to be wearing Beck’s clothes. Adam had a talent for capturing reality in his way. The figures stood in front of a grassy hill with large boulders and flowers. A big orange sun and bright blue sky completed the picture.

“It’s all of us,” Adam confirmed.

He may be good at creating a picture, but he still spoke like a four-year-old.

She hoped one day the picture included Beck, too.

“I love it.” Ashley held it to her heart. “I know you’re going to have so much fun with Mia and Caden. I will miss you so much.”

“I want to stay with you and Beck.”

“I know you do, honey. I want you here, but I’m afraid for you. I want you safe. I know you’ll be safe with Mia and Caden.”

“He’s coming.” Adam’s bottom lip trembled.

“I’m going to make sure he gets what’s coming to him.”

Adam nodded just as Caden came back into the house with a blast of cold air through the front door.

“Good news. Since the phones started ringing off the hook with reporters wanting confirmation that Ashley Swan had indeed escaped her kidnapper, they feel it’s in Adam’s best interest to be kept out of sight and in protective custody while they investigate Brice’s claim that he has legal guardianship, whether or not Ashley kidnapped him, or if she saved him.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “We’ll clear that up with the hospital visit and my giving a formal statement to the police.”

“That’s what I told the sheriff, who agreed to let me keep Adam. He’s the only one in the department who will know where Adam is, so it can’t be leaked. He agrees that keeping your kidnapping case separate from Adam’s and handling his quietly will ensure Adam’s case doesn’t muddy the waters.”

Ashley asked the obvious question. “What if the sheriff is working with Brice?”

“He seemed genuine and appears to be doing what I’d expect on a case, but I will operate under the assumption that we can’t trust him. If Brice comes after Adam, we’ll know it’s because of the sheriff.”

Ashley pressed her lips together, but nodded, knowing they had few choices right now. “It’ll be tricky to keep Adam’s name out of things. Brice will go to the press to try to push back on me.” Ashley held Adam to her side.

“He’s already doing it with the sheriff’s office. He’s filed his report. They’re questioning him about your kidnapping. This is going to start moving really fast now.”

“Then we better get moving.” Ashley leaned down and kissed Adam’s cheek. “Be good. Eat lots. I want to see you grow an inch by the time I see you next. Which will be very soon.”

“Promise?” Adam’s huge round eyes filled with tears.

“Yes. I swear.” Ashley hugged him close and stared up at Caden. “Keep him safe.”

“I will. Mia will fill him full of sweets,” Caden added to reassure Adam that although things seemed dire, he’d be spoiled and taken care of well.

Adam ran over to Beck and wrapped his arms around Beck’s leg. Beck picked him up and held him close. He turned and whispered into Adam’s ear, “I will keep her safe for you. We’ll be together again real soon.” Beck squeezed Adam tight again, his heart already missing the boy that wasn’t his but felt like it.

He handed Adam off to Mia and gave Caden a look that said everything. Be safe. Be smart. We got this. Just like old times. Beck was back in the game. Though the game may be different, it still came down to truth and lies, justice, life and death.

Mia and Ashley took Adam and his things out to Caden’s truck.

Beck handed Caden back his gun. “You might need this.”

“I hope I don’t. You know that by doing this you’ll never go undercover again. Your face will be known not only in this state but across the country. Hell, everyone in the world is about to know who you are.”

“I know.”

“You’ll give it all up for her.”

“I gave it up after what happened to you and Mia—I was just letting it settle. But you already knew that.”

“I did, but I wanted to know it really is your choice.”

Beck nodded that it was the choice he made. He needed to make it to save what was left of his soul. “For her”—he nodded out the door at the beautiful woman fawning over Adam—“I’d lay down my life.”

“You hardly know her.”

“What if I said that to you the day after that bastard took you and Mia and held a gun to her head? What would you say?”

Caden scrunched his mouth, then admitted, “That the only thing that matters is being with her.”

“She matters.” That’s as close as he’d come to talking about his feelings. Where Ashley was concerned, he had no words to adequately describe how she made him feel, or how important she was to him.

“Have you warned her about Guzman and the very real threat he’ll be to her? Is she willing to face that with you and possibly be put in harm’s way again the way Mia has been not once, but twice?”

“She knows. Maybe I don’t deserve her trust, but I’m going to work damn hard to earn it and keep her safe.”

Caden nodded, understanding that while Beck didn’t like putting Ashley in more danger, she’d accepted it and him—the same way Mia had with Caden.

“She and Mia get along. Wait until Alina finds out you’re in love with Ashley Swan.”

Beck didn’t confirm or deny. “She won’t believe you.”

“Only because we can’t believe any woman would want your sorry ass,” Caden teased.

“I hope she does. After all she’s been through . . .”

“She looks at you like she wants you. It’s muddled with all the pain and trauma, but those will fade with time and allow her to feel happy again. She trusts you. That’s a good place to start.” Caden clamped his hand on Beck’s shoulder and squeezed. “Take it slow. Keep in touch.”

Beck grabbed Ashley’s coat and walked out the door behind Caden. The goodbyes went fast and Caden drove away with Adam and Mia. Ashley pulled her jacket on and stared at the back end of Caden’s truck until it disappeared around the bend in the driveway.

“You’ll see him again,” Beck assured her because she looked like she was about to face a firing squad.

“I will see him again. He’s going to be mine. If he has to grow up without his mother, I’ll make sure he knows he’s loved the rest of his life.”

“Brice said she was an addict and liked to sleep around.”

Ashley shook her head before he even finished his sentence. “I’ve seen people strung out on drugs and thinking no one notices. It’s rampant in Hollywood. She wasn’t like that. As for sleeping around, she wouldn’t have jeopardized her ticket to Easy Street and a place like Brice’s ranch for her son to grow up in by screwing other men. Brice wouldn’t put up with that.”

“No, he wants to be a woman’s everything and thinks he is.” Beck stared down the driveway, thinking about Adam. “Do you know what happened to her?”

“No. I didn’t see anything, but I know he killed her. She wouldn’t leave Adam.”

Beck didn’t think so either.