Aftershocks (2 page)

Maybe Jordie’s brother would come. What was his name? She closed her eyes, remembering how he’d cried in her arms after they’d cut him and thrown him into her room. She’d helped him stop the bleeding and hugged him, rocking him the way her mom used to rock her when she had a nightmare. They hadn’t talked much, but she’d asked his name.
Grant
. That was it. She’d resented him for a long time, because Jordie had been able to sneak him out. Pat hadn’t cared. He didn’t need Grant for anything. He’d just been a tool to get Jordie to do what Pat wanted. But that wasn’t Grant’s fault. Zoe hoped she’d get to see him again. She had to tell him…well, not what had happened, but that Jordie had loved him. Yeah, that was all she had to say.
Jordie loved you.
Grant would get it.

The train whistle sounded, faint, and the clacking slowed. Zoe pushed herself to her feet and leaned out the door, looking to see what was ahead. Bright lights reflected off the clouds, and a red glow suddenly flashed to green. Her heart rate picked up again. This was it. This was where she would get off. Find some help. Try to explain who she was and where she’d been.

The thought made her want to cry. She could just stay on the train. Go miles and miles, hundreds of miles, where Pat and Freddie could never find her.

But then no one would find Pat and Freddie. Jordie needed justice. So did Grant. And Zoe needed them to be in jail, so there was no chance they’d come after her again. If she went too far away, the police would never find them. And she’d never be safe.

The brakes squealed, piercing Zoe’s eardrums and burying the reassuring rhythm of the wheels on the rails. The whistle sounded again. She watched the ground, and when the train slowed enough that she could make out individual ties, she braced herself, said a quick prayer, and jumped.

Chapter One

Sixteen Years Later

Zoe Ardmore was about to step into the grand ballroom when her purse buzzed. She hesitated, the faint chamber music and low murmur of voices calling to her, but she knew Kell wasn’t here yet, so she moved aside to check the call. It could be the office, or one of the charity’s committee members needing her somewhere behind the scenes.

But when she slipped the phone out of the clutch enough to check the screen, she frowned. The number wasn’t in her contacts, coming up as “unknown.” But it had an Ohio area code.

She shivered and dropped the phone back beside her tiny wallet and hairbrush. Ignoring the call wouldn’t hurt anything. They’d leave a message if they were legit.

Laughter drew her to the main room’s entrance again, and she smiled. Not too many years ago, she would have been one of the tuxedo-uniformed wait staff offering around trays of champagne. She wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of arriving here as a guest.

“Kellen Stone!” a voice boomed behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Kell shaking hands with a state senator. He stood tall and graceful in his tux, his curly dark hair tamed and gleaming under the chandelier. The image of sleek success. But anyone really looking would see the interest in his eyes as he listened to the senator’s story, take notice of the sincere friendliness with which he greeted the senator’s wife as she emerged from the anteroom. People mattered to Kell, and it was one of the things Zoe loved most about him.

He said a few more words and then strode across the plush carpet to her side.

Zoe smiled up at him. “Looks gorgeous, doesn’t it?” She doubted he cared about the light shimmering on the silky ribbons adorning the tables, or the lace cloths and curtains draped everywhere. He’d grown up in this world, and he was a guy. But she’d earned her way here, had worked hard to make the money that had paid for her ticket to this benefit. She reveled in every detail.

“The committee did a nice job,” he acknowledged, his gaze sweeping the room in a second but resting longer on her face. “But this is the real beauty.” He bent and kissed her softly.

Zoe leaned into the kiss, as happy to be with him as she was to be here at all.

Her purse vibrated again.
Ohio
.

She broke away, goose bumps rising over every inch of exposed skin. Urgency prodded her forward, though it had nothing to do with taking their places inside the ballroom. She hid her confusion by looking around, pretending to seek their table.

“This way, Zoe!” Olivia, Kell’s younger sister, bounced up to Zoe and grabbed her hand. “We’re at table ten. You’re with us!”

“Hey, squirt. You look nice.”

Olivia made a face at her brother, then beamed. “Right? Mom didn’t want me to get this dress, but I talked her into it.” She swirled the long, flowing skirt, the action more typical of a five-year-old than a thirteen-year-old. But the dress’s snug but unrevealing bodice and her dyed-to-match heels were just right for her age and the occasion. Zoe suspected Elise, Olivia’s mother, had played her daughter into selecting the dress.

“Anyway, come on. We’re all together.” She tugged Zoe along. Zoe reached back with her free hand to snag Kell, forming a chain.

“Perfect,” Kell murmured.

Zoe looked up as they crossed the room. He hadn’t sounded sarcastic, though given his relationship with his parents, there was an even chance he was pleased or annoyed. His expression was smooth, open, so she couldn’t tell.

Kell’s mother held out her hands to Zoe, her polite smile spreading when she realized what Zoe was wearing.

“You got the Valentino.”

They exchanged cheek kisses. “I did. The purple seemed like a good choice for this event.” She backed up a step, and they spent a moment admiring each other. Elise wore an ivory lace dress with a cobalt jacket that showed off her fit curviness without being inappropriate for her age. Zoe had decided on a more dramatic dress, a dark purple flat satin that crisscrossed around her waist and left her shoulders bare. It had been a hard decision, spending that amount of money on something she might not wear again. But it was another symbol of how far she’d come, and she allowed herself just a touch more pride.

A mellow tone signaled that dinner was about to be served, and they took their seats, Kell’s father, Robert, breaking briefly from his conversation with the man next to him to greet Zoe. She smiled at the man to her left, someone she didn’t know.

They chatted pleasantly throughout the meal, shifting topics and participants among the others at the table. Zoe enjoyed her chicken, portobello polenta, and baby asparagus. She enjoyed even more the sense that she belonged here. It wasn’t just that she was with people who accepted her for who she was now rather than looking down on her for where she’d come from. All the people at the table, from Kell’s family to the southern gentleman and his wife and the young lawyers across from them, treated the wait staff with grace and respect. This wasn’t the world she’d read about as a kid.

They were halfway through dessert and a few minutes from the introduction of the guest speaker when Kell cleared his throat and the rest of the table fell silent. He lifted his glass of champagne, and Zoe realized everyone at their table now had one.

“I have something to say.” Kell cleared his throat again. Zoe gave him her attention, and he seemed to expand to fill her world. They’d been together two years, and it still overwhelmed her whenever she thought of him as hers. His dark hair was slightly rumpled over his blue eyes, but his tux was impeccable. He gave off an energy that compelled people to look at him, but in a way that never cried arrogance or self-centeredness. The words “I love you” welled in her throat, but he was already speaking.

“I really wanted to do this differently,” he began, his eyes on the bubbling liquid in his glass. “I considered and discarded a dozen different plans. I wanted your family here, Zoe.”

She frowned a little. Why would he want that?

“I wanted to be a little more private, and I apologize to those of you who don’t know us.”

The others at the table smiled Mona Lisa or cat-canary smiles, and Zoe began to feel left out of the joke.

“But my parents are about to embark on a three-week business trip to Europe, and Zoe herself is heading for a conference tomorrow. When she returns, I’ll be embroiled in a merger that will take sixteen hours of every day, and frankly, I can’t wait until all of that is over. I can’t wait another minute.” He turned to Zoe. His mother placed her fingers over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes, and suddenly, Zoe knew. She pressed her own lips together so they wouldn’t tremble.

“For two years, you’ve been my light and my foundation. You’ve shown me what it is to love with my entire being, to not only share all of my life, but to
want
to share it. You make me see the world differently, and that’s a much better thing than I ever would have imagined possible. No one will ever fit me like you do.”

“Kell,” she breathed as he reached into his pocket with his free hand. When he pulled it out, a beautifully proportioned, clear white diamond ring held between his finger and thumb, his hand shook.

“Zoe Ardmore, will you marry me?”

She almost ran.

For a few seconds, she stopped being Zoe Ardmore and reverted to Zoe Smith, kidnap victim. A terrified, lost, angry girl forever trying to escape her past.

A past Kell knew nothing about.

What had she done? How could she be Kell’s foundation when her own had so many holes? His light, when she was full of darkness? She couldn’t marry him without telling him the truth, and that would forever change the way he saw her. The way he saw them.

Bullshit
.

She blinked, shocked at her own voice barking at her inside her head.

You earned this. You
made
it. It’s real and strong and beautiful, and you don’t have to destroy it with pain and sorrow.

Calm seeped into her, creeping down from head to toe. Calm borne of certainty. She’d had no idea he was thinking about this, had barely even considered it herself, so engrossed was she, always, in the
now
. But it was right. Nothing had to be ruined.

“Kell, please put down your glass.”

She could hear him swallow as he complied. As soon as the glass touched the lace tablecloth, she launched herself into his arms.

“Yes!” It was a whisper and a scream at the same time. Kell’s arms wrapped around her and he buried his face in her neck, his relief palpable. Zoe was dimly aware of the applause around them. A few nearby tables had caught wind of what was happening and joined in. “I love you,” she whispered, and he murmured it back.

“Here.” Kell leaned away a little. “Before I drop it.” He slipped the ring onto her finger, and of course it fit perfectly. “Man, that was the scariest five minutes of my life,” he muttered.

Regret soured in her mouth. That she’d hesitated, and hurt him even for just a few seconds.
If you tell him the truth, it will hurt him forever.

She shoved that aside. The soul-searching would wait. “How could you not know I’d say yes?” She laid her hand on his cheek and tilted his head up so she could see his eyes. “I love you so much.” It filled her chest, swelled her throat, made her eyes burn with the sheer intensity of it.

“That’s not always the point,” he answered, and then his parents and Olivia were crowding them, wanting hugs, and the charity spokesperson was at the podium to introduce the evening’s speaker. Zoe had to content herself with sitting close to Kell and holding his hand while they listened, when a million other things crowded her mind.

He’d wanted her parents to be here, but she was so glad they weren’t. She’d deliberately kept them away over the two years she and Kell had been together. He’d met them, of course, but they lived in Kentucky now, and the distance between them and Zoe was further than those nine hundred miles. As independent as she was of her past, they were driven by it.

They’d promised never to mention it to Kell, eagerly on board with whatever they thought would help her. But the possibility of an offhand reference was another good reason for her to tell him about her abduction.

She watched him watching the speaker, a half smile on his clear, open, guileless face. He always treated her as if she were something to cherish, but never something fragile. He’d mentioned more than once how attracted he’d been to her strength of purpose, her determination and sheer will. Would that change? Would he now be awed at what she’d overcome, put her on a pedestal she’d topple off of repeatedly? Or worse, see her as damaged? Something to be fixed.

Two relationships in college had been enough to cure her of baring her soul. It changed
everything
, in ways it shouldn’t. And the more she’d tried to convince them to stop thinking about it, the more it seemed to matter. No relationship was so strong it couldn’t be broken. But would this break her and Kell?

You’d have to tell him about Grant, too
. This time the voice in her head was her younger self. The eighteen-year-old who’d mapped out the rest of her life and was ready to launch it when she’d made the most difficult choice she’d ever faced. Most difficult until this one.

Her eyes stung. She leaned over and whispered, “I’ll be right back.” Kell nodded and kissed her hand as she grabbed her purse and wove between tables, making her way to the blessedly empty restroom.