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definitely cause some psychological damage. You should talk to Nate
about it, when you’re back to talking.”
“Okay,” Cam said, knowing it was a bad idea to ask the question,
but he was so damn curious. Everything about this small town was
starting to intrigue him. It was nothing like the tiny town he’d been
born in. “Why won’t Nell talk? Have we offended her in some way?”
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It wouldn’t be the first time Cam had offended someone, though
usually the offended party yelled at him rather than refusing to speak.
Nell chose to start dancing.
Laura’s eyes lit up. It was so different from the tight expression
that had owned her face since the moment he’d laid eyes on her again.
Laura smiled, a light creasing of her lips that softened her whole face.
Her shoulders relaxed, and she just watched Nell with great affection.
She turned her head slightly as she spoke with a wry tongue. “She’s
taken a vow of silence, but she can communicate through interpretive
dance.”
“Seriously?” Cam asked.
“Oh, Nell is always serious about interpretive dance,” Holly
explained.
“She says she can’t talk in a world filled with lies,” Laura said as
Nell twirled around the room. “So many lies when only the truth
should be spoken. She says that lies never work and only get people
in trouble. She’s very judgmental.”
Nell stopped and stared.
Laura shrugged. “It’s called interpretive dance for a reason. I’m
interpreting judgment.”
“She’s got you there, Nell.” Holly nodded along with her friend.
Nell stuck her tongue out, turned, and walked away.
“And that’s my cue to change,” Holly said with a wave.
“I’ll come with you,” Laura said, moving forward.
“Hey, bella, we aren’t done here.” Rafe had his hands on his hips, a sure sign that he didn’t like the way things were going.
“Don’t call me that.” The words came out quickly, and Laura’s
mouth closed as if she wished she could call them back. She
smoothed the peach-colored dress over her curves. “I need to change.
Then we can all go back to my place where we can discuss this in a
private setting. But you two need to put on those T-shirts or a very
nice man is going to get tranquilized by the town doctor.”
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She turned on her heels, those superhot fuck-me shoes she’d
always worn, and left as though her words made a lick of sense.
“So, gentlemen, what should we talk about while we wait for my
bride-to-be?” Wolf grinned as he sat back in his chair.
“You better behave,” Teeny said, shaking her head as she walked
off.
Cam was left with a T-shirt and a bunch of questions. What was
happening with Laura? Why was this town filled with crazy people?
But there was one question that burned through his gut—why wasn’t
she wearing an engagement ring?
* * * *
Laura could barely breathe. She stumbled her way into the
dressing room after telling Brooke she had an emergency and needed
to leave.
“Calm down, sweetie.” Holly’s hands were on her back, tugging
the zipper of the tight dress down.
Twenty minutes before, Laura had loved the dress, but now it felt
like a cage hemming her in. She pushed the spaghetti straps off her
shoulders and started shoving the dress down her body until she was
only in her bra and panties. She let her back find the wall behind her
and slouched to the floor.
They were here. Rafe and Cam were here in Bliss.
Nell got on her knees while Holly closed the curtains. God, she’d
gotten naked in the middle of the Trading Post. Not that anyone
would care. Well, Nate might write her a ticket for public nudity.
Public nudity tickets had paid for the new park, but otherwise no one
would give a crap.
Nell’s big brown eyes stared down at her. “Are they the reason
you came to Bliss?”
Holly sat down beside Laura, leaning her head on Laura’s
shoulder while Nell stroked her hair. They were so affectionate. It had
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taken Laura awhile to get used to how Holly and Nell hugged her and
held her hand. Now she couldn’t imagine life without it.
“I thought you weren’t talking to me.” Laura hadn’t been
surprised by Nell’s sudden vow of silence. She’d known the instant
Teeny had left the room that she would go straight to Holly and Nell
to tell them the news of Laura’s “engagement.” And she’d known
Nell would disapprove. Nell was a woman who would rather say
nothing than allow a lie to pass her lips. But she would dance to show
her feelings.
“I thought it best to be silent around the people you’re lying to,”
Nell admitted. “I’m not very good at lying.”
“Unless you actually fell madly in love with Wolf in the twenty
minutes we were gone,” Holly added.
Laura sniffled. It was hard to be strong around Holly and Nell.
She didn’t have to. They didn’t care if she cried. They didn’t give a
crap if she wasn’t professional and tough. They loved her. “Nope. But
he did come in handy.”
“So these agents are assholes.” Holly squeezed her hand. “What
are we going to do to them? There’s only one reason Laura would
announce her engagement to a man she’d just told she wasn’t that
into. One of those men broke her heart, and she couldn’t stand the
thought of him knowing she hasn’t moved on.”
“It has to be the gorgeous man of South American heritage,” Nell
said. “He’s very international.”
“He’s half-Cuban, Nell, and he was born in Miami. He speaks
very little Spanish.”
Holly leaned forward. “And I, personally, think that hot hunk of
all-American beef is better looking. He’s huge.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Laura said without thinking.
Holly grinned at Nell. “Told you it was the linebacker.”
She could be honest with her girlfriends. “The only man who
matched him was Rafe.”
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51
Nell’s whole face lit up. “And that was before you came to Bliss.
The universe led you here.”
No, a bus had led her to Alamosa and then a handsy trucker had
left her in Bliss when she wouldn’t crawl into his cab to pay for her
ride. But if Nell wanted to believe some hand of fate had led her here,
she would let it go. “But it was just a fling.”
“Not for you it wasn’t,” Holly said. “You were in love with
them.”
Laura shrugged. There wasn’t anything else to do. Holly knew her
way too well for Laura to lie. “It doesn’t matter. They’re just here to
update me on a case.”
If de Sade was back, then they probably wanted to grill her on
what had happened. God, she wasn’t ready for that. She’d spent five
years trying to forget. She’d given them everything she could
remember from the hospital b
with Joseph Stone going over the incident from the time she’d been
knocked out to the moment she’d managed to break free and run.
“Did they know you were in Bliss?” Nell asked.
Laura was a little surprised that they had found her. She’d been
using her granddad’s name. She’d tried to stay hidden. Maybe she’d
been fooling herself and they had known where she was all along.
“No, but they’re members of the BAU. They’re smart guys.”
“They track serial killers,” Holly said, obviously impressed. “I
guess I always thought you were like a secretary or something.”
Laura knew that was what Holly had thought, and she’d
encouraged the mistaken impression. She didn’t want Holly to think
she’d had a high-powered career. Holly had several insecurities,
mostly revolving around her lack of an education. Holly was
incredibly well-read, but she felt her lack of a higher degree.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t hide it anymore. Rafe and Cam had seen
to that.
“I was a profiler. I had just moved up into the BAU when I met
Rafe and Cam. They were partners before they joined the unit. They
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flirted with me. A lot. We got to be friends, and then we had a slight
disagreement over a case and we weren’t friends anymore. That’s
all.”
Holly’s eyebrows had crept up her forehead. “Is that how the
serial killer found you? Because you were hunting him?”
Laura had only mentioned her career a couple of times before.
Nate and Zane knew about it. Rye Harper knew. She’d always offered
her experience to law enforcement, but she’d only mentioned it to the
general population once during a town hall meeting. Still, it had made
the rounds. It was a testament to Holly’s and Nell’s patience that they
hadn’t asked her about it until now. “I wrote a profile of a serial killer the newspapers named the Marquis de Sade.”
“He doesn’t sound nice,” Nell said.
This wasn’t a world Nell could even conceive. Laura groped for
gentle words. “He wasn’t, Nell. He killed a lot of women. I was new
to the unit, and I had a radical theory. I thought the killer was a
member of law enforcement or maybe in the military. There were
things about the killer’s MO that led me to believe he was intensely
disciplined and knew some forensic procedures. Anyway, everyone in
the unit, including Rafe and Cam, thought I was wrong. There was
another profiler, a more senior profiler, who bought into the
stereotypical ‘highly intelligent, socially awkward, abused child’
profile. No one wanted to believe one of our own could do it.”
They had refused to believe her to such an extent that Laura had
been ridiculed. She’d felt so horrible about all of it that she’d made
the biggest mistake of her life. She’d talked to a reporter friend who
had written a story, and the next day she’d been fired for talking to the media. She’d topped off that wonderful day by nearly being
murdered. She’d been taken, right outside her own apartment.
He’d worn a mask. When she closed her eyes, she still saw that
dark, beaked mask, like doctors wore during the black plague. It had
covered his whole face, and he’d placed dark mirrored circles over the
eyes so she saw herself when he looked down at her. The nose of the
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mask had been elongated, making him look foreign and far from
human. Of course, he wasn’t really human at all. No human being
could have done what he’d done to her. The mask, he’d explained to
her, was because she was dirty and diseased. He had to protect
himself. He’d talked a lot about how smart he was. He’d talked as
he’d tortured her.
“Holly, could you please?” Nell asked.
Holly nodded. “They are sons of bitches. Assholes,
motherfuckers, and I hate them.”
Nell nodded solemnly. “What she said.”
Laura had to laugh. Nell didn’t curse, but she didn’t mind when
Holly did. “They’ll be gone in a day or two. Don’t worry about it.
They just want to see if I remember anything else. Please, don’t worry
about me. I’m fine. It’s over. Talking about it won’t hurt me.”
She wasn’t sure of that. And she wasn’t sure this would be over in
a day or two. Why was Cam here if he wasn’t in the FBI anymore?
She had a million questions, but she couldn’t ask them without
looking like an idiot.
“All right then, we’ll play along with the whole ‘you’re marrying
Wolf’ thing,” Holly said, getting to her feet.
“I’ll stay perfectly silent around them. Henry will want a vow of
silence in lieu of lying as well.”
Laura gave Nell a thumbs-up.
Her friends got dressed and promised to help in any way they
could, but both seemed to understand she needed a minute. The
curtain closed behind Holly as they left, and Laura was alone.
The only two men she’d ever loved had turned up in the only
place she’d ever really felt at home.
It was a recipe for disaster. Laura couldn’t help it. She closed her
eyes and thought about that night. The best night of her life, that led
to the worst day.
The world receded, and she was loved again.
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Chapter Four
Five years before
Laura Rosen pulled the cork out of the second bottle of wine of
the night and poured two glasses. Cam wasn’t a wine guy, but Rafe
liked it. After dinner, he would invariably switch to Scotch, but before they ate, Rafe always drank wine with her.
What a fucking day.
Her shoulders were bunched and knotted from twelve hours of
pure stress. Looking at pictures of dead girls was no way to make a
living. Why had she thought she could handle this?
If she thought today was rough, what was coming for her
tomorrow? When Edward Lock read her profile, he was going to flip.
Laura knew she was in for a fight, but she owed it to those girls.
Edward might have years of experience over her, but he was just flat
wrong this time. She could feel it. At least she could count on Rafe
and Cam to back her up. She hadn’t showed them her profile yet. She
didn’t want to ruin the night, but after a year of depending on those
guys, she was sure they would back her up.
“Hey, bella.” Rafe’s hands slid along the muscles of her neck.
Laura could feel the heat of his body behind her. “You’re so tense. It
got to you today.”
“Victim number five was barely nineteen,” Laura replied. And
Rafe was wrong. It hadn’t just gotten to her today. It got to her every
day. Despite herself, she shivered as Rafe’s skin pressed against hers.
It’s just friendly. Slow down, girl. This is not a place you should
even think about going to.
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The trouble was, she had thought about it far too much. She’d
started to think of Rafe Kincaid as way more than a friend and a
colleague. She hadn�
with his eyes, and it was killing her. She would have jumped into bed
with him in a heartbeat if it hadn’t been for one little thing—Cameron
Briggs.
How could she have been stupid enough to fall for two men?
“We’ll catch him, bella.” Rafe’s hands rubbed down her back,
soothing the muscles there. Every inch of skin he touched came alive.
“I’m not sure about that,” Laura murmured.
God, his hands felt good. How long had it been since she’d been
physically close to another human being? She hadn’t dated for a year
and a half. She’d been far too involved in her career, and then she’d
been far too involved with Rafe and Cam to think about other men.
She’d kept it friendly. She was the only woman in her unit. She
was playing with fire just by spending time outside of work with
them, but she couldn’t help it. They were funny and kind. Rafe was
her gentleman, constantly smoothing the way for her. He opened
doors and gave her his umbrella when it rained. They could talk about
gourmet food and wine and books.
Cameron. Cam was her protector. Cam was a huge hunk of granite
that got between her and anything that came her way. Cam was the
one who called her at night to make sure she’d locked the doors. He
was the one who insisted on installing a security system in her
apartment. Cam was the one who got pissed at her when she walked
to her car alone at night because she didn’t want to bother him.
She couldn’t help but remember a case they’d worked in Detroit
just a month after she’d joined the team. It was a serial rape case, and they’d been put up in a motel that was seedy to say the least. She’d
locked her doors, but when she’d emerged the next day, Cam had
been sitting outside, his back against the moldy wall, a cup of coffee
in his hand. His eyes had been so tired. He’d sat there all night
because she had fit the profile, and he wasn’t going to let that happen
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to her. The next night, both he and Rafe had slept on the floor of her
motel room.
How could she ever choose between them? It was easier to put her
hormones on hold and enjoy their company.