Benjamin (2 page)

Ben’s face paled. “Your son?”

“Yes, my son. He was four. Just a baby, and he cried for me as they rode away. Dominic has him and I can’t find him without your help.” She lowered the rifle toward the ground. She ached for the small blonde boy she couldn’t find. Henry was everything she had left and without him, she was lost. “I need to know where the compound is. You’re the only person I know who’s been there that can help me.”

He blinked a few times. “I was ten when I left. I don’t know where it is.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs, a pain she knew too well. “You have to try. I can’t leave him there.”

Ben shook his head. “I can’t help you.”

“That’s a load of horse shit.” She was shouting into the quiet since the forest had become silent around them. Grace would not accept his refusal. “You
can
help me. You
have
to help me.”

“No.” He turned the horse to leave. That couldn’t happen.

“I saved your sister’s life and her herd of horses.” She had nothing left to throw at him. “Don’t make me ride to your family’s ranch and enlist her help.”

He paused, his fists clenching. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would do anything I had to.” She would do anything to save her son. No matter who stood in her way. “You leave me no choice.”

Grace took hold of her anger and desperation and squeezed as hard as she could in order to turn away. She’d pinned her hopes on this man, but she’d been wrong about Ben Graham. He wasn’t the person she thought he was, and Grace wasn’t the cold-blooded bitch she wanted to be.

The gelding must’ve sensed her mood because he shook his mane and sidestepped. He was a good horse and could ride for hours without faltering. He’d been her companion since she won him in a card game a year ago, not long after her journey for revenge had begun.

“What’s your horse’s name?” Ben’s voice startled her.

“Jesus, you scared me.” She pressed her palm to her racing heart. “Did you just ask me the horse’s name?” The question seemed ludicrous given their conversation a few moments earlier.

“I did.” He held his hand out for the animal to smell him with a gentleness she didn’t expect.

“I, uh, didn’t give him a name.” She had distanced herself as best she could from anyone and anything that would make her feel. Her emotions were a raw wound without surcease if she didn’t control them.

“That’s too bad. He’s a beauty.” Ben leaned down and spoke soft and low into the horse’s ear. The gelding laid his head against the man’s shoulder and Grace’s brows climbed toward her hairline.

“What the hell are you doing?” She didn’t like being off-balance, especially by a man who refused to help her.

“I think you should call him Swift. He looks like he can run like the wind.” Ben examined the horse as though he was fixing to buy it. He definitely knew what he was doing as he evaluated the gelding. The Grahams were known for their horse flesh and their stock was coveted. It was still the oddest damn thing for him to do.

“I’m not having a conversation with you about my horse.” She tried to push him away, but the man was like an oak tree. Immovable. “I’m leaving. I have to get to the Circle Eight.”

“I’ll help you, but I set the rules.” He kept his voice low and soft, which unnerved her.

“I don’t live by any man’s rules. My husband knew that. You should accept that up front. I might be female, but I refuse to be treated like one.” She bristled at the thought he would try to control her before they took one step in their journey.

“First rule, no questions. Second rule, if you break the first rule, we’re done.” His gaze locked on hers, the blue-green color hard as stone. Ben Graham had lost his soul and all that appeared to be left was a desolate place. She was familiar with the hell of a well of grief so deep, she nearly drowned.

She should be afraid. She should say no and go back home. The problem was she had no home to return to. There was no way to go but forward. And she couldn’t abandon Henry, no matter what it cost her.

Grace held out her hand. “I’ll agree to your rules if you agree to mine.”

“I set the rules,” he repeated.

“Here’s my rule. We don’t stop until we reach the compound.” She waited while he contemplated her hand.

“You’re sending me back to hell.”

She swallowed the scream that threatened to explode from deep inside her. “I’m already there.”

*

Ben regretted his
decision the moment they sat in his lean-to and started planning their journey. She had invaded by walking through the crooked doorway. The woman was tall, only about three inches shorter than him. She had bottle-green eyes that were wide and intense.

She was a human being in his solitude. An intruder he wanted to kick out and pretend he hadn’t met. The haunted look in her eyes when she spoke of her son had stopped him. Four years old and caught at the compound was enough to make him taste yesterday’s breakfast in the back of his throat.

Ben was torn between doing what was right and doing what he knew was best. The right choice was to help her. Grahams weren’t known from backing down from a challenge or for ignoring a wrong. Yet storming the compound wasn’t the best choice. There were probably people there who remembered him, who would raise the alarm the moment he was spotted.

The very thought of seeing the walled structure made goose flesh march across his skin. He’d escaped because of his brother Caleb, who had been a Texas Ranger at the time. The smart thing would be to enlist Caleb’s help again, even if the former lawman had returned to ranching and was busy raising a family.

But no, Ben wouldn’t reach out to any of his siblings. He was a wanted man and he wouldn’t put them in danger because of his crime. They would bend the law and put themselves, and their families, in danger. He was the only unmarried Graham and he couldn’t allow any of them to choose between him and their spouses and children.

The smoke from the small fire hung in a haze in the small structure. The door he’d made from branches let some of it out but Ben found himself stifled by the air. He got up from the log he used as a seat and opened the door, breathing in deep of the fresh forest air. The scent of pine filled his lungs.

“You don’t want me here.” Her voice was subdued.

“I don’t have to respond to that, do I?” He didn’t talk much, ever, and this woman was pushing his limits. He’s spoken more in the last half an hour to her than he had in a year probably. Relentless female.

“Thank you for agreeing to help me.”

He hadn’t agreed; he’d been blackmailed into doing it. “Remember my rules.”

“And remember my rule.” She poked at the fire with a stick, sending a few sparks into the shadowed interior.

The woman was stubborn and bossy. Two things he didn’t like in a female. He didn’t want her there. She wasn’t stupid so she was sure to notice. Hell, she’d managed to find him when no one else had and he was sure they were looking.

“This is a bad idea.” An understatement of epic proportions. It was the worst idea in the history of the world.

“It’s the only thing left. I’ve tried every other way to find out where the compound is. I’m not even sure Dominic is a Cunningham but he’s definitely the third man in this triangle of monsters.” She stared into the flames, her face bathed in the orange flickers. “Will you talk about what they did—”

He left the lean-to before she could finish her sentence. No one had ever asked him what happened when he was held captive. The only person who knew part of it was Cat, and she wouldn’t tell a soul what he’d said. Now this rifle-toting female pretending to be a man thought he was going to spill the poison that ate at his soul with a single question? She was crazy and had balls of steel.

Goddamn it.

Ben ran without realizing he was running until his side screamed in pain from the stitch that had formed. He stopped and bent over, pressing his palm to the painful spot while he gulped air, desperately trying to jam the memories back in their toxic box deep within.

An animal noise threatened to erupt and he closed his eyes. He thought of his family, their smiling faces, their rambunctious children, the Circle Eight house and its big table built for ten. Soon his anguish had morphed into sadness for all he’d lost and would never regain with the people who existed in what was left of his heart.

It was the woman Grace’s fault. She dared to throw a “you owe me” story at him. She might be lying about Cat, about her missing son, hell, about everything. Ben needed to get to the bottom of her story and figure out for himself if she was a charlatan or a grieving widow and desperate mother.

He strode back to the lean-to at a fast walk, his righteous anger growing by the second until it bordered on fury. Ben thought of a thousand things to say to her, to tell her to get the fuck out of his life. He was six feet from the door when he heard the singing.

It was a lullaby, one his mother must’ve sung to him. The beautiful words floated on the air, haunting and sweet. Grief and memory of being squeezed in his mother’s arms surrounded him. He dropped to his knees and put his head in his hands. The notes hung in the air, raining over him. He’d never be free of what he lost.

The Cunninghams had stolen his life, even if his heart still beat.

‡

G
race was a
planner. She made lists in her head and was meticulous in keeping track of everything she was responsible for. Now that Ben had agreed to help her, she couldn’t help but start making more lists.

After he ran out like his ass was on fire, she couldn’t help but give in to the urge to plan. If she hadn’t, her mind would drift to all she’d lost. Grace did everything she could to prevent that. She’d spent a solid month in a haze, trying to remember when the last time she’d bathed or cleaned her clothes was.

Planning saved her life. It was the focus she needed to drag herself out of a pit of grief and find a new reason to live.

Revenge.

It put ice in her veins and forced her to become patient. She had pretended to be Duffy for a year, lived as a man and listened to what men said when they thought they were safe. She was a predator, stalking her prey, waiting to pounce until the moment was just right. Gathering information and storing it away as she moved closer to what she needed.

Then Ben had slammed into her scheme with his hard fists and his uncontrollable rage. Now he would make it right. He had to. There wasn’t any other option, and she refused to abandon Henry. She’d had to dig deep and let her pain bubble to the surface to convince him to help her find the compound.

To find the last Cunningham. To find her son.

In her heart, she was afraid he was dead, but she held onto a very slim thread of hope. It was what drove her to keep going on the darkest days when all she wanted to do was hide. No matter what she found, she would know what happened to Henry. Her soul would not be at peace until she did.

Thoughts of his soft, warm hugs and his little boy body snuggled against hers made a flood of memories assault her. She wrapped her arms around her torso and began to hum his favorite lullaby.

Soon the words danced from her tongue, hovering on the air as tears slid down her cheeks. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself the luxury of crying. In the first month after Alfred’s death and Henry’s kidnapping, she’d wept a river. Her eyes were always swollen and scratchy. She’d washed a mountain of handkerchiefs.

Then she’d turned off the tears, unwilling to allow herself to cry anymore. She’d kept that promise to herself for so long. After a year of blocking her emotions except for the darkest of them, she opened herself back up. Just a little.

As the notes faded into the small structure’s air, she heard a noise. Grace wiped the moisture from her cheeks and got to her feet. She needed to find Ben and start those plans to find the compound.

She found him on his knees, shoulders slumped, silent, unmoving. She didn’t know if she should walk away or interrupt this strange scene.

“Can we, uh, pack your things? We’re burning daylight.”

He didn’t move. She wasn’t known for her patience.