baby. Jack flailed his tiny fists, his face red, his nose scrunched as he continued to bellow.
“Shh, little man,” Dylan said, jiggling him on his shoulder as he paced the room. The poor little fellow must miss his mother terribly. In the first few weeks of his life, he’d been in a car accident with Aspen, abandoned and left with Emma.
He patted the baby’s back, cradling him closer. The scent of baby powder and formula suffused him.
If Aspen was alive, why hadn’t she come back for her son?
The Aspen he’d known loved children more than anything. During their short affair—the best sex of his whole damn life—she’d told him her plans to return to the Ute reservation and teach.
Baby Jack kicked and screamed louder, a shrill sound that added to the tension thickening the room, his dark skin beet-red, contrasting to his thick black hair. He had Aspen’s high-sculpted cheekbones, her hair, her heritage. It made Dylan long to see her again, to reconnect and hold her. To see if they could pick up where they’d left off and possibly have more than just a week of mind-boggling sex.
But she had a son now.
Everything had changed.
He rocked Jack back and forth, lowering his voice again to calm him. “Shh, it’s all right. We’ll find your mommy. I promise, little man.”
Jack quieted to a soft whimper and Dylan turned him to his back, cradled him in his arms and gazed into his eyes. Eyes so blue that for a moment he felt as if he was looking in the mirror.
Suddenly a wave of emotion washed over him, sending his mind into a tailspin. He studied Jack’s features more closely while he mentally calculated the baby’s age, and the time lapse since he’d last seen Aspen. A little over a year ago, they’d met and fallen into bed. A week later he’d left and hadn’t heard from her again.
Aspen had been missing now for nine weeks.
Jack was fifteen weeks old.
Dear God, could Jack possibly be his son?
The baby suddenly cooed up at him, his chubby cheeks puffing up as he gripped one of Dylan’s fingers in his tiny fist.
Dylan’s chest swelled. “Is it true, Jack? Are you my little mijo?”
And if he was, why in the hell hadn’t Aspen told him?
THE NIGHTMARES TAUNTED HER.
Every night they came like dark shadowy demons with claws reaching for her and trying to drown her in the madness.
If only she could remember her name, what had happened to her, how she had wound up near death and here in this women’s shelter in Mexican Hat.
But the past was like an empty vacuum sucking at her, imprisoning her in the darkness. Only at night in her dreams, memories plucked at the deepest recesses of her mind, trying to break through the barrier her subconscious had erected.
Terrifying memories that she wasn’t sure she wanted to recall.
She forced herself to look into the mirror, to probe her mind for bits of her past. She knew she was Ute—her high cheekbones, long black hair and brown eyes screamed Native American heritage.
But those eyes were haunted by something she’d seen, something that lay on the fringes of her conscience.
Her head throbbed, tension knotting her stomach. She rolled her shoulders to stretch out her achy muscles, but exhaustion was wearing on her. In the weeks since she’d come to the shelter, she’d recovered from her physical injuries, the hypothermia and bruises, but she still hadn’t regained her strength.
The other women and children had gathered after dinner for a support group session in the common room. Sometimes she gathered the children into a circle on the floor for storytime, but tonight one of the mothers was teaching them how to string Indian beads to make necklaces.
Grateful to have some time alone, she gave in to fatigue and crawled onto her cot by the far wall. Dusk was setting, the hot sun melting in the sky, gray streaks of night darkening the room. She closed her eyes, pulled the thin sheet over her legs and turned on her side. But a hollow emptiness settled inside her. She had felt it the moment she’d awakened in the shelter, freezing and delirious. She’d known then that she’d lost something. Something precious.
A loved one maybe.
Tears trickled down her cheek, but she angrily wiped them away. Remembering what had happened could help her return home. But what if she was right?
What if she’d blocked out the memory because someone she loved had died and she couldn’t bear it?
Finally, exhaustion claimed her, but the nightmares returned to dog her, dragging her under a rushing wave of darkness, smothering and terrifying.
Someone was chasing her across the unforgiving land, toward the deep pockets and boulders. She tried to run but her legs felt heavy, her body weighted, and she skidded on the embankment, rocks tumbling downward and pinging off the canyon below. She tumbled and rolled, the sharp edges of the stones jabbing her skin and scraping her flesh raw.
Then his hands were on her, fingernails piercing as they bit into her shoulders. She fought back, swinging her hands up to deflect his blow, but he hit her so hard her head snapped back and stars danced in front of her eyes. Another blow followed, slamming into her skull and pain knifed behind her eyes, her breath gushing out as she tasted blood. She tried desperately to focus, to crawl away, but he yanked her by the ankles and dragged her across the rugged ground, the stones and bristly shrubs tearing at her hands and knees and face as she struggled to grasp something to hold on to.
God help her—he was going to kill her…
Somewhere close by, the river roared, water slashing over jagged rocks, icy cold water that would viciously suck her under and carry her away from everyone she loved.
No, she had to fight.
But the hands were on her again, this time around her throat, punishing fingers digging into her skin, gripping, squeezing, pressing into her larynx, cutting off her oxygen. She gulped and tried to fight back, swung her arms and kicked at him, but her body felt like putty, limp and helpless, as the world swirled into darkness.
Her heart pounding with terror, she jerked awake, disoriented and trembling. She’d only been dreaming; it had been the nightmares again…
She was safe.
But as she exhaled and her breathing steadied, a deadly stillness engulfed the pitch-dark room, the kind of eerie quiet before a storm that sent a frisson of alarm through her.
Then a breath broke the quiet.
A wheezing, whispery low sound. Someone was in the room.
Praying it was one of the sisters coming to check on her, she clenched the sheets and glanced across the space. The tall silhouette of a man stood in front of the open window in the shadows, the scent of sweat and cigarette smoke rolling off of him in sickening waves.
Pure panic ripped through her. Was it the man who’d tried to kill her in her dreams? One of the male abusers the
