Out of the Storm (Buckhorn, Montana #1) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,90

few minutes. He sounded sad and unbelievably naive.

“What did you think was going to happen?” she asked, regretting the accusation in her tone when she saw him bristle.

“Well, I certainly didn’t think you were going to fall in love with someone else.”

She looked away, thinking of the kisses, the caresses, the lovemaking and the passion. She’d made love with Jon. She hadn’t cared if he was Danny or not. She swallowed the lump in her throat at even the thought that she’d now lost him. Her need for him was even stronger after what they’d shared. She ached inside at the thought that the odds were good that neither of them would get a chance to see each other again—let alone survive this.

“I didn’t think you’d brought me to Montana for a drug deal,” she said.

“Like I could have told you the truth about the financial trouble I was in. You would have run like hell.”

“You don’t know that.”

He flashed her a look. “Don’t kid yourself. You can hardly stand to look at me now.”

Kate shook her head, staring at him with disbelief. “You’ve blackmailed me, kidnapped me and my daughter, involved me in drug smuggling. Of course I’m furious with you.” It was more than that, and he knew it. She couldn’t stand the sight of him because she knew that once they left that house those men back there weren’t going to let Jon go—no matter what they’d said. She held Collin responsible for some of it and herself for the rest.

He drove in silence for the next hour. Kate was fine with that. She preferred the quiet. She needed to think. Maybe the paring knife hadn’t been her best plan. It had been her only plan. Now she had to decide what to do at the border. If she did what she wanted to, she would be signing Jon Harper’s death warrant. But she suspected nothing she did could save him now, anyway.

If she played the role of Collin’s fiancée and they managed to get through customs without being arrested, then she knew what would happen. He couldn’t let her go. If he did, how could she not go to the authorities? How could she live with herself helping bring that much poison into the country?

She had few options, and ultimately none of them would save her or Jon. Gerald had proven that he had friends in law enforcement. She didn’t even know his last name or Phil’s, either. What were the chances that they would be arrested? By the time the law got to that house, all sign of them would be gone. She’d be looking over her shoulder the rest of her life because she didn’t trust that one of them wouldn’t come after her or her girls. She was trapped in this mess because she’d believed Collin and his lies.

“What has he got that I don’t?” Collin asked, dragging her from her thoughts. Kate looked over at him, confused for a moment. “Jon Harper,” he said. “What did you see in him that very first day? I don’t think it was just the likeness to your husband. Whatever it was, you couldn’t stay away from him.”

She heard the truth in his words. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “There was something about him, and once I looked into his eyes... I think it was the pain that I recognized. It was something we shared.”

Collin made a rude noise. “You’ve looked into my eyes, and you didn’t even know that I lied about my age. I’m only thirty-two.”

Did he really think that mattered now? she wondered.

“What about my pain? My suffering? You never saw it in my eyes, did you? I’m terrified of cold, dark, damp places,” he continued without looking at her. “This one nanny...” He stopped to clear his voice. “She used to lock me in the wine cellar when my parents had left me alone with her. It was just a part of the basement in the house that was small and cramped. She would lock the door and turn out the lights. I could hear her outside the door breathing hard. She would get so angry with me I thought that one day she might leave me there and forget about me and that my parents would never find me.”

For a moment, Kate didn’t know what to say, let alone what to believe. Was this true? If so, why was he telling her this now? Because he thought they were both