would be somewhere with an ocean view. Somewhere she could bask in the sun and lick salt from the air and dig her toes into warm sand.
But how could she ask him to travel across the country for her on little more than a whim?
“I haven’t heard from Brenda in nearly a decade,” she said. “She might not even be in Florida anymore. Heavens, for all I know, the woman could be dead.”
“Then I’ll find out where she’s gone. Or at least where she’s buried.”
He said the words with complete confidence. She would have thought it an idle boast if he hadn’t been such an outstanding detective. But if Hunter Bradshaw put his mind and energy into finding someone, he would. He had been dogged about his job, completely focused on it.
She had so many unanswered questions. Since finding out she had been kidnapped, her mind seemed to be racing on an endless loop of them.
Why had she been taken? Not for ransom, certainly, since the McKinnons said no one ever contacted them. And why her? What about Kate had made her a target of the kidnapping?
If Brenda had taken her, why had she then just surrendered Kate to the foster-care system, keeping only enough contact to ensure that no one could adopt her?
Finding the answers to those pressing questions was tantalizing. But the idea of Hunter Bradshaw offering to help her baffled her.
She was nothing to him, only the roommate of his younger sister. She couldn’t even say she was a friend. Before his arrest and imprisonment, he had always been distantly polite to her but never more than that. She had even wondered if he disliked her because he seemed to go out of his way to avoid situations where they might be alone.
Yet here he was offering to chase after her past.
“Why would you do this for me?” she asked.
“Why not?” Hunter asked. In the dim light, his eyes wore an inscrutable expression. “You deserve to know the truth. I know how frustrating unanswered questions can be, just as I know what it’s like to be punished for someone else’s sins. I’d like to help you find out why.”
She wasn’t sure why—perhaps something in those shadows in his eyes—but she sensed another reason, something deeper. “What else?”
Hunter turned away from her to lean his forearms on the deck railing and gaze out at the shadowy mountains.
“Because I can.” His voice was low and without inflection but suddenly his offer of assistance made perfect sense. It had nothing to do with her at all, she realized, but with him and his new freedom.
He had spent nearly three years of his life behind bars, where his choices had been severely limited. Others told him what he could eat, where he could go, even how he could dress. What a heady sense of control he must find in the idea that he could pick up and drive across the country on a whim!
“I see,” she murmured.
He slanted a look at her. “Do you?”
“You know, you could take a trip wherever you want without having the burden of tracking down a drug addict and a prostitute who could be anywhere.”
“I’ve been at loose ends since my release. I could use a distraction. This is a good one.”
“It might take weeks, Hunter. I can’t ask you to give up so much of your time.”
His shrug rippled the fabric of his well-cut suit. He had always been a good dresser, she remembered. Back when he was a detective, he always took care with his clothing.
Before his arrest, he would sometimes stop by Taylor’s house after work for some reason or other. Even with his tie loose, a hint of dark shadow stubbling his jaw and his white shirt perhaps not as crisp and starched as it had likely been in the morning, he had been enough to make her mouth water. She had always thought Hunter Bradshaw was strong and masculine and gorgeous.
She wasn’t sure which she preferred, that slightly rumpled end-of-day Hunter or this elegant man in evening wear.
“You didn’t ask, I offered,” he said in answer to her earlier comment. “Anyway, my time is my own now.”
“So take a cruise around the world if you want to go somewhere!”
Kate knew that like his sister, Hunter didn’t need to work. He could spend the rest of his life traveling the world if he wanted to. Both of them had fathoms-deep trust funds that would support them forever if they wanted to live lives of luxury and ease.
Their parents had come from old money, although like Taylor, Hunter had always shunned the accoutrements of wealth. He had become an underpaid Utah public servant and lived quietly here in the family ski cabin.
“Let me do this, Kate. You’re looking for answers and I’m looking for something to fill all this free time I’ve suddenly got. Seems to me this is a good way for both of us to get something we want.”
She looked inside the house and caught a glimpse of her family. Wyatt danced with their mother now, Lynn small and delicate next to his lean rangy height. Gage stood in one corner talking to Sam, with a tired-looking Anna in his arms.
A gust of wind blew across the deck, sending the fairy lights dancing, and Kate shivered.
She should be inside with her family. They would be looking for her soon. But despite the cold out here and the snow that was swirling around a little harder, she dreaded returning to that happy, bright group inside. The joy that lit their eyes whenever they caught sight of her scraped along her spine like a chipped fingernail.
She couldn’t be the daughter and sister the McKinnons wanted and her own failure to be open and relaxed around them sat heavy and thick in her chest.
Brenda Golightly had stolen twenty-three years of her life. She had taken so much from Kate—didn’t the woman who had caused such horrible pain in so many lives deserve to pay for what she had done?
Perhaps if Kate could find answers to some of the questions that had haunted her for six weeks since learning her true identity, she might at last be free to accept the love and nurturing this family seemed painfully eager to shower on her.
Didn’t she owe it to the McKinnons and to herself to try and reclaim some of what had been taken from her?
She blew out a resigned breath. “It won’t be easy to find her,” she warned. “She could be anywhere. Brenda was always good at slipping under the radar.”
Hunter gazed at her for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he nodded, recognizing she had decided to let him help her.
“If you have a previous address for her, I can work with that. I can leave tomorrow and start digging. I should be able to call you with information by the end of next week.”
She looked at him standing in shadow, then shifted her gaze to that bright, gleaming window again. Laughter and music spilled out into the night. Would it always be this way? Would she always be on the outside looking in, separated from her family by the walls a stranger had erected between them by snatching her away so long ago? Would she always be unable to let herself partake of the love the McKinnons so wanted to give her because of her anger
