“We’ll track down your reporter and find out who put him on the trail,” Ryland said. “And then we’ll meet you at the other house. And Kadan?” He waited until Kadan met his steely gaze. “You’d better be there.”

Kadan sent him a faint grin and saluted. “I understand. And I’m grateful for the company.”

Gator dug into his pocket as Nico opened the door. “Want an Altoid, Kadan? They’re cinnamon.” He tossed a tin of the mints onto the front seat.

Kadan choked. If it was possible for him to blush, he might have done it. He didn’t dare look at Tansy as his friends got out of the car. He just started the engine, put the vehicle in gear, and drove away, flipping them off through the open window as he pulled onto the street.

Tansy laid her head back against the seat as she picked up the little tin and turned it over and over before dropping it back on the seat. “I take it they have an enhanced sense of smell. Have they been giving you a bad time?”

He could have sworn there was amusement in her voice, but when he glanced down at her sharply, she looked sober and innocent, which raised his suspicion more. He put the tin in his pocket, not wanting it out in the open as a reminder of his friends and their highly developed sense of smell, or their bad taste in humor.

“I’ll get them back. Why don’t you go back to sleep? I’ll put some music on.”

He turned on the CD player. Tucker and Ian’s voice came over the speakers, singing off-key. “I wanna live with a cinnamon girl . . .”

“Bastards.” He turned the player off immediately.

Tansy burst out laughing. “I don’t think they’re going to win any contests.”

“I’m sorry if they embarrassed you.”

She leaned over and nuzzled his arm with her chin. “Why would I be embarrassed? Are you?”

“Hell no. I wouldn’t give a damn if they walked in on us, but I don’t want you uncomfortable.” He was adamant.

She shrugged. “I’m not going to be embarrassed because I have sex with you, Kadan. I like ha**ng s*x with you. I like how you make me feel and I especially like how I make you feel. So let them say anything they want. It doesn’t bother me.”

She meant it. He felt a surge of pride, of awe, that she could belong to him. He wasn’t even certain how it had happened, but damn, he was grateful.

“You left the room tonight.”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew. I like having you curled around me, and the moment you left, I felt alone. You went to see my father, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“You weren’t satisfied with his answers. He knew about Whitney’s experiments, didn’t he? You would have told me right away if he hadn’t.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” He laced his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his heart. “I really am. I wanted it to be different for you.”

She was silent, staring out the window for a few minutes before she took a deep breath and looked at him. “My mother?”

“She has no idea. She despised Whitney. I could read her mind, but I can’t read his. I made certain she slept through our talk. I didn’t want to cause her any more distress than she already has been through.”

“What was his explanation?”

“If I tell you, Tansy, I’m going to tell you the entire story. Be very, very certain you want to know,” he warned.

“That bad?”

“Yes.” He kept possession of her hand when she tugged at it to pull away from him. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Her father had hurt her, not him.

“Was he going to give me to Whitney?”

“Damn it, that’s not fair.”

“They hit my mother. He would do anything for my mother. If he thought they’d hurt her, he’d give me up and never look back.” She turned toward Kadan. Lights from oncoming cars played over her face and then left her in shadow. “I know he loves me, Kadan, but it’s always been about my mother.”

“And that’s all right with you?”

“I grew up knowing that. It was normal. I don’t know what it’s like for a child that isn’t adopted, but . . .” She trailed off. He was so still. His mind was still, even when she touched it. She turned the pieces of the puzzle over and over in her brain. She was good at solving puzzles. Things clicked into place for her. And the click wasn’t what she’d expected. She shook her head in denial. “I remember being in Whitney’s laboratory. It was horrible. There was so much pain. There were other girls there and nurses. He had this little soundproof room he’d take us into. Some of the girls would have seizures and we’d all get nosebleeds. He’d just record everything, with this strange little remote smile on his face. If he frowned, you were in trouble. I even remember the day he brought me to see my parents for the first time.”

“Both of them together?” Kadan asked.

“No. Just my father. I remember the way he stared at me. He reached out to touch me and I flinched away. I was wearing gloves, but it was so hard to control impressions and they hurt my head, so I didn’t want him touching me.”

“How was he looking at you?”

There it was again, that note. A piece of the puzzle. He wanted her to see for herself, but she kept turning away from the truth. She tightened her fingers in his, wanting strength. She was asking for the truth. She was causing him distress by insisting he tell her, yet she didn’t want to see. She pulled up the memory.

She’d been so frightened. All the girls were frightened. A couple of the nurses tried to comfort them, but never around Whitney. He looked at them as if they were insects, and he didn’t want the nurses “coddling” them. A couple of the girls were outwardly defiant, and that made him harsh and cruel. Even as a child she recognized the taint of madness, even though she couldn’t really read him.

And then the girls began disappearing. Whitney would never respond when they dared ask where one of the girls had gone. When he’d taken her out of the laboratory, she’d been terrified, her imagination running wild. She didn’t know what the outside world was like and it was so huge. Enormous. The sky was frightening; the noises overwhelmed her. He’d dragged her into a room and shoved her toward a man who had been sitting quietly in an office chair.

She stumbled and looked up at the man. He was tall and fit, with white gold hair, and he turned his eyes on her and she had been afraid to move. Shock. Absolute shock registered on his face. For a moment something fluttered in her mind. Recognition? But she’d never seen him before. She thought . . . I belong. She hadn’t known what a father was before then. Now she did. She moistened her lips and glanced up at Kadan’s stone-set features. “He’s my birth father.” She continued to look up at him. “Tell me how.”

He told her then, all of it, holding on to her hand, his voice a soft, compassionate caress, his thumb stroking back and forth across the back of her hand.

She kept her head down, long hair spilling around her face so he couldn’t see her expression, but he was in her mind, trying to surround her with warmth, with love, with everything protective in him. She remained very still, even in her mind, as if she was afraid that if she moved, she’d shatter.

Baby. He breathed the endearment, tempted to pull the car over to the side of the road and hold her tight. She didn’t want him to though, he read that much. She needed time to assimilate what he’d told her.

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“He told me himself.”

“Mom doesn’t know any of this?”

“No.” He brought her hand to his chin and rubbed his jaw back and forth in an effort to comfort her.

“Good. I don’t want her to ever find out.” She looked at him then and he saw raw pain in her eyes. “Can you find out if my birth mother really is dead?”

“Whitney keeps files, and Lily has access to them using some complicated back door to a computer I don’t understand. I’ll ask her to start looking. If he has records on you, and I’ll bet any amount of money that he does, she’ll find them.”

She gripped his hand tighter. He felt her in his mind. “Did you kill him? Is that why we had to leave so fast?”

“I wanted to,” he admitted quietly, wishing he could feel remorse or shame. The man was her father. “For a minute I thought I might. But I think he’s punished himself more than I ever could. And he does love you, Tansy. He certainly loves his wife.”

“Don’t tell me he loves me. He didn’t love me.”

“It feels that way right now, baby, but when you look back over the years you had with him, you’ll know he couldn’t fake the way he treated you. He loved you.”

“But he didn’t want to risk what he had to save the rest of the girls, or to find out if my birth mother was alive or dead or even murdered by Whitney.” Her fingers fisted in his shirt. “He would have had Fredrickson turn me over to Whitney if I’d gone back.”

“He wouldn’t have had a choice. Fredrickson would have been willing to kill everyone to take you back to Whitney.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to kill him if he had been trying to save my mother. You would have understood. It was more than that.”

He didn’t know what to say to ease her pain, and he cursed his lack of words when she needed . . . something. “I’m sorry, Tansy.”

He wished he could take her pain on himself. He would have done anything for her, but instead he could only feel helpless. “I put a pillow there between the seats so you could lie down if you wanted.” He willed her to close her eyes and rest. They had a long day ahead of them and she was worn out.

Tansy didn’t reply, but she did straighten the pillow and lie down, her head against his hip. He stroked little caresses over her hair while he drove through the night. She didn’t sleep for a long time. He had been afraid she’d cry, but when she didn’t, it felt worse to him.

In her mind, Tansy withdrew from him. Even connected as he was, he could feel her huddling in a corner as far from him as possible, too hurt to trust anything or anyone. And he couldn’t blame her. Don Meadows had been her hero, the man who rescued her from Whitney, and all along he’d been keeping Whitney’s dark secret.

Kadan drove through the night, keeping one hand on her, insisting on the one connection when she was so far away. It took her a couple of hours to drift into a fitful sleep. By the time he’d pulled up to the house, she was in a much deeper sleep, and he was able to carry her inside and put her on the bed. He stretched out beside her and finally closed his eyes, wrapping both arms around her to keep safe, even in her dreams.

Chapter 14

Kadan woke with his arms filled with warmth, and the scent of cinnamon and sin surrounding him. His body throbbed with a monster hard-on, his shaft full to the point of pain as he lay curved around Tansy. He kept very still, breathing through need, disgusted that he could be dripping like a rutting animal, hot and thick, pressed so tight against the soft, tempting curve of her bottom, when she was still reeling in shock from the devastating revelations of her father’s betrayal.

What was wrong with him that he couldn’t give her the comfort she needed? He pushed his forehead against the back of her silky head, for the first time in his life really wishing he was different. He’d never cared before. It had never mattered to him to articulate his thoughts and feelings to another human being. He had no family or home, and he’d never believed he would either. And now here she was, soft and warm and smelling of heaven, feeling like paradise against his body, and all he could think about was riding her for hours, instead of finding the right words to comfort her, the right way to hold her, without seeming like all he really wanted was a fast, hard ride.