Bound by Danger (The Alliance #6) - Brenda K. Davies Page 0,85

the photos were taken, and when she looked back now, the memory of that perfect day no longer angered or saddened her. She was glad she had the opportunity to have the memory of her mother. It was the only good one she had as most of her time with the woman was a blur lost to her younger years.

She was also glad her father had realized that one day his angry, six-year-old daughter would want pictures of her mother and saved them for her. It had taken her years to understand her mother hadn’t abandoned her because she didn’t love her. She did love her.

She recalled those hands cupping her cheeks as kisses rained down across her face and words of love poured from the woman. There had been something desperate and hopeful in her mom that night, but she’d been too young to see it.

She’d meant to keep her promises, but, in the end, her addictions and demons won.

Callie set the picture down and blinked away the tears in her eyes when Lucien returned with some more of the containers. His gaze traveled from her to the photo and back again.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“She was beautiful.”

“She was.”

“You look like her.”

Callie smiled at him. “Thank you.”

He cupped her cheek in his palm, and she turned her face into it to kiss him before pulling away.

“Tell me about her,” he said.

Callie wrapped the photo in a turtleneck as she told him the story of her one perfect day with the woman and her father’s foresight to save the pictures. When she finished, he hugged her as he cursed himself for not bringing her here sooner.

Yes, these were just things, and her life was far more important than them, but they were all she had left of her former life and her parents. No wonder she was so impatient to return for them.

“I should have brought you here sooner,” he said.

“It’s better we waited. I needed to have these things back, but I do not want to fall into the hands of the Savages again.”

Lucien rubbed her neck as they stood together for a long while.

“We should get going,” she said.

He reluctantly released her. “Maybe on the ride home, you can tell me more about your dad.”

She grinned at him. “I’d like that.”

He couldn’t help but grin back at her. “Good.”

When she started packing the next container, he lifted a full one from the bed. “I’ll bring the rest of the empties up and take some of these down to the SUV.”

“Okay, thank you.”

He left the room, and Callie listened as the door clicked before turning her attention back to packing. She finished encasing the picture of her and her friends at Burning Man. She wanted to call them and tell them she was safe, but she couldn’t answer the influx of questions that would follow.

She planned to write to all of them. She had no idea what she would say, but she couldn’t leave them hanging. If something happened to one of them, and she never knew what became of them, it would eat at her for the rest of her days.

They deserved better than a letter, but she didn’t know how to give it to them. She traced the contours of their faces in the picture; she was going to miss them all so much.

A creak caught her attention, and her head lifted. The hair on her nape rose as the unsettling feeling she was not alone came over her. Except, she didn’t sense Lucien out there. A Savage?

But no, that wasn’t possible. She would have had to invite them in. Callie stepped away from the bed and glanced around for something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing nearby.

Her gaze returned to the bedroom door as a shadow fell across the threshold. Callie’s mouth went dry, and her heart doubled in speed. It wasn’t Lucien; she’d developed a kind of sixth sense when it came to his presence. She always knew when he was nearby; his presence was a balm to her soul, but there was no comfort right now.

Instead, her instincts were telling her to run and run fast.

Her eyes darted to her office doorway as a hand fell against the door and slowly pushed it open. Callie’s apprehension turned into full-blown panic when she spotted Carter looming in the doorway.

His brown hair was longer than the last time she saw him, and it curled at the collar of his shirt.