call her. Six days passed before I could get to a phone. She didn’t answer. I returned to the farm—and found her and my father inside their truck, deep in the heart of their land, smashed into a tree, their bodies slumped over in the seats.” He still wasn’t sure what had caused the accident. Not a faulty break line. Not gunshots.
They’d been there seven days.
After an autopsy, it was revealed that his father had had a heart attack and wrecked, and Mary Elizabeth had died on impact, her side of the vehicle taking the bulk of the damage.
“Oh, Solo. I’m so sorry,” Vika said again. She cupped his cheeks as he’d often done to her. “Such loss . . . it’s a terrible thing, something that hurts you on an indescribable level.”
Yes. “Do you have a best friend?” he asked, changing the subject before he broke down. He didn’t want her to see him that way.
“I . . . well . . . hmm.”
Surely she did. She was so lovely, so kind and perfect. People had to flock to her.
Although, she had grown up in an abusive home and such an upbringing could warp a person’s mind. It had John No Name’s. Solo had watched, helpless, as the happy, loving boy he’d met for the first time in Michael’s office all those years ago had quickly become quiet and withdrawn. And then the outbursts had begun. Anytime anyone had touched him, John had reacted with a cutting rage even Solo had not displayed.
Solo had no idea what had been done to the boy John had been, but, as many criminals as Solo had studied over the years, he could guess. And even after Michael had pulled John from the home and placed him somewhere safe, the boy hadn’t relaxed his guard. In fact, he’d become more determined to remain aloof.
John trusted no one, believed in no one, and believed the worst of everyone he encountered. That was no way to live.
Yet it was exactly how he had been living, Solo realized.
Solo wasn’t sure what was worse. His and John’s determination to remain alone, or Blue’s determination to have a partner, any partner. Over the years the male had plowed through women as if they were disposable tissues. He had lived with a woman for a year and was now engaged to another, but he had not been faithful to either one, choosing the job over romance, always doing what Michael told him to do.
They all had.
“You want the truth?” Vika asked, hesitant.
He pulled himself from his mind. “Always.”
Softly she admitted, “You’re the only friend I’ve got.”
The knowledge floored him. Humbled him. “I consider that a privilege, Vika.”
She patted around until she found his hand, and then she twined their fingers, shocking him, delighting him. He’d never held a woman’s hand, not even Abigail’s.
He brought her knuckles to his lips, kissed each one. “You would like John and Blue, I think. We’ve known each other since the age of five, and we’ve always looked out for each other. They’re big, like me, and they’re fierce, but they would protect you with their lives.” Just because he asked.
Her features softened, becoming wistful. “Once, I had friends like that. They were the animals I used to tend. The lions and apes and bears.”
This little fluff of nothing had handled dangerous predators? “Did they ever hurt you?”
“At first, they were quite leery of me. We soon got to know each other, however, and everything changed.” The wistfulness vanished, replaced by a dreamy haze that even saturated her voice, and he would not have been surprised to learn she had actually stepped from a storybook and the animals had followed, licking at her feet.
“You loved them?”
But even the dreamy haze vanished. “Yes,” she said flatly.
“What happened to them?”
“They died. The end.” The words, so sharply uttered, told him far more than she’d probably intended.
“Vika,” he said. For this, he would push. He had to know. “I’m willing to forgive you as easily as you forgave me, and you won’t even have to apologize.”
Her brows furrowed. “For what?”
“For . . .” Making my body ache and my mind crave an impossible future—
“. . . interesting me in your past, and then holding the stories hostage.”
Her lips curled in a sensual grin. “You want a story?”
“I do.”
“Give me one first. How were you captured?”
How much to tell her? “An explosion injured me. A man decided to sell me to Jecis, while I was too weak to