First You Run (17 page)

M
IRANDA STARED AT
the bunyip on the back of the man she’d made love to all night. Fletch was asleep on his stomach, his arm firmly around her waist, his face turned away so that all she could see was a mass of dark caramel hair, the muscular slopes of his arm and back, and the artwork that rolled over his shoulder blade.

The bunyip was a menacing thing, with wide-set yellow eyes, pointy black ears, and ferocious teeth. There was nothing gentle about this creature, nothing protective or proud like a falcon or an eagle. None of the authority and power of the classic Maya jaguar, none of the fertility and life force of mythical creatures that sprouted horns and exaggerated genitalia.

The bunyip was purely mean.

Why would a man who was so protective, so willing to help another person, and so deeply passionate that he could make her weep every time he entered her sport such a wicked, malevolent image on his body?

Miranda, don’t hate me
.

She lifted her hand toward him, the one with the tight bandage he’d made for her in the middle of the night. Her finger was less than an inch from the bunyip and the relaxed muscle under it. She could feel the heat of Fletch’s body, almost touch his back as it moved with each breath.

“Careful, luv.”

She jerked her finger back as he slowly turned his head to peer at her through sleep-narrowed eyes.

“He might bite ya.”

He grinned, deepening the dimples she’d explored with her tongue the night before, a strand of golden-brown hair falling over his eye and landing on the angle of his cheekbone. He kissed the finger still extended in his direction. “G’day, Miranda.”

“G’day, mate.”

He laughed at her Aussie accent and folded her against him. “So, what’s your professional opinion of my bunyip?”

“That he’s in an elite group of cultural symbols that exist solely to scare people. Like gargoyles. Why did you pick that particular image?”

“I got it at a time when I needed to scare people, because”—his grin faded, and he held her gaze with one so intent and honest it looked right into her heart—“so many had scared me.”

She caressed his cheek and the soft growth on his strong jawbone. “What happened to you?” she asked.

His erection was like steel against her stomach, their legs instantly intertwined. But he didn’t seem consumed with need, just resigned to talk.

“Here’s my life story, luv—all thirty-eight years of it. I had a shitty childhood, got the snot knocked out of me on a regular basis, ran away from home when I was sixteen and still pretty small, lived with natives in the bush, where I basically grew up physically and more, went back to Tassie to square with my dad, but he was too drunk to deal with me, so I joined the police, worked my way up the ranks, got my ass saved by a bloke who became my best mate, landed a job in the States with the Bullet Catchers, and just last night”—he to smiled that killer grin again—“I had the best sex of my life.”

She just stared at him.

“Not that this is just about sex or anything,” he added.

“Oh, no. I can tell.” She moved against his aroused body, not yet ready to slide from self-revelations to sex. “You told me when and how you got that monster on your back but not why.”

“Well, I guess the monster on my back is…the monster on my back.”

She frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a reminder of my weaknesses.”

“You have them?”

That made him laugh and kiss her. “As if you didn’t see evidence of my world-class impulsiveness when I threw you on this bed.”

“No,” she disagreed, sitting up to make her point. “You’ve shown nothing but restraint. If anyone has been impulsive these last few days, it’s me, diving into danger.”

He eased her back down, into his warmth. “We’re good for each other that way.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her cheek. “And it
was
the best of my life. Honest.” He leaned closer to kiss her, but she drew back.

“I want to believe you.”

He gave her an insulted look. “You
want
to believe me? Why don’t you?”

To be fair, he’d done a masterful job of erasing her doubts the night before. He’d kissed and nibbled and loved her into multiple orgasms, the kind that no man could give a woman unless his heart and soul were into the act.

“I didn’t tell you everything that Taliña said in the crypt the other night.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever it was, it was bullshit.”

“She said…” She hesitated, not wanting this to come off like a woman needing reassurance. “She didn’t trust you. She said you wanted my soul.”

His expression changed so subtly and quickly that if she hadn’t been staring at him, she wouldn’t have seen it. “That’s probably a bit more of a commitment than I’m ready to make,” he said, going for lightness but not achieving it.

“She said,” Miranda continued. “that you aren’t here by chance or accident. And I kept thinking about that when we made love last night.”

His body tensed, and for the first time in about twelve hours, his erection didn’t seem quite so intent on being attended to. Slowly, deliberately, he made some space between them.

“Nothing happens by chance or accident,” he said. “The Aborigines taught me that.”

He inhaled the breath of a man about to jump off a cliff, then let out a soft groan that was somewhere between misery and dread.

A steel band circled her chest. “What’s the matter?”

“Miranda, I have to tell you something. I can’t delay it any longer.”

She tensed.

“This is going to be extremely difficult for you.”

“Oh, God, please don’t tell me you’re married.”

“No, I’m not married. I swear. Not married, not involved. Not committed, not anything.”

She closed her eyes. “You scared me for a second.”

“But you are going to ha—”

“Just tell me whatever it is. I’m not going to hate you for leaving or announcing that you don’t want a long-distance relationship with a woman who doesn’t fly. Just tell me.”

His phone buzzed on the nightstand behind him, and he frowned as he looked at the ID. “I’ll call him back. This is more important.”

It sure is
. “Why do you think I would hate you?”

“Because I knew who you were long before you knew who I was.”

She flipped through every possible reason in her head and came up with only one that would result in
hating
him. “You’re one of them? You’re with the Armageddon Movement?”

“No. It’s actually much worse than that.”

“Worse?” she croaked.

He rolled out of bed and grabbed the duffel bag he’d been traveling with. After rooting around the side pocket, he yanked out a piece of paper.

She sat up and pulled the sheet over her, watching as he perched on the edge of the bed and smoothed the paper in front of her.

The phone rang again, and he glanced at it for one second, then back at the paper.

“What is that?” she asked, skimming a list of women’s names. Oh, this couldn’t be good. Nothing about this could be good.

“These, Miranda…”

Miranda Lang
.
Daughter of Dee and Carl Lang, Marietta, Georgia
. What kind of list was this?

“Are the names of babies who were adopted.”

She stared at the paper, then at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The birth mother of a baby who was born in July 1977 and sold through black-market adoption is searching for her daughter. That’s why I’m here. I’m looking for her.”

She backed up slowly, drawing herself further from him, deeper into the bed. “You think…that’s me?”

“I know it’s you, because you were tattooed at birth.” He reached up and slid his hand around her neck, tapping her hairline gently. Her mark.

Hi?
She could hear her hairdresser laughing.
It says hi on your head, Miranda.

“When I met you, I was looking for that mark so I could be sure I had the right woman.”

Blood pounded in her head and she almost couldn’t hear him.

Adopted. You’re on this list. Black-market adoption. Birth mother looking for you.

“Then I found it, and I had to tell you.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

He closed his eyes. “Obviously, your parents didn’t want you to know. I felt I had no right…until I found it.”

No right?
She couldn’t even process that. A million thoughts raced through her head, none of them coherent.

Mom. Dad. Home. Life. Love. Security. Genes. Self.

Oh, Lord. Who
was
she?

She was
adopted
.

“This is a mistake,” she said, shoving the paper away. “A big, fat mistake.” Wasn’t it? It had to be.

“No, Miranda, it’s an accurate list.” He started to reach for her, then seemed to think better of it. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.”

Her head vibrated. No, that was his phone. Again.

She pressed her hands to her temples to organize her wild thoughts. “She’s my
mother
, Adrien. I don’t care if there’s even a remote possibility that she didn’t carry me for nine months. She’s my mother. He’s my father. They’re my parents, far better and more wonderful than most parents.”

The trueness of that washed over her, warm and comforting.

“You are so right about that, Miranda. I’m sure your parents love you unconditionally. And believe me, that is worth everything in the world.”

Taking the paper, she studied the names and dates, her hands shaking. “What is Sapphire Trail?”

He explained about a farmhouse in rural South Carolina, where babies of young, unwed mothers were given new birth certificates and sold to parents who weren’t able to get babies by any legal means.

Not just adopted.
Illegally
adopted. Black-market baby.

“They were forty,” she said when he finished. It was all she could think of. A defense of their indefensible actions. “My parents were too old to adopt legally.”

He nodded. “Thank God they found you, right?”

“Right.” She meant that, down to her soul. Didn’t she?
Oh, God.

“Miranda, I’m sorry you have to face your loving mum with this information.”

Face her with this information? “I have no intention of telling my mother.” Or maybe she did? She hadn’t decided yet. But this man, this damn near stranger who’d infiltrated her life and her bed and her heart, he had
no
right to tell her what she was going to do or not.

Another reality hit: he’d set this whole thing up from the beginning. He really was here to steal her soul. At least, her identity.

“She sent you, didn’t she? My…the woman who…is looking for her child. She put you up to this whole thing, didn’t she?” Nausea pulled at her.

The phone rang again, and he swore under his breath, seizing it. “Not now,” he growled into the phone. He paused for a minute, his face dark. “No. I can’t talk.”

“She sent you,” Miranda repeated when he threw the phone onto the bed.

“No. As a matter of fact”—he nodded toward the phone—“that bloke who’s been calling all morning did. Jack Culver.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s working for…he’s trying to help your…Eileen Stafford.”

Miranda put her hands on her ears to shut him out. “I don’t want to know her name. I don’t want to know anything.” Not yet. Not until she could understand this.

“She needs to meet you.”

“Oh.” The word was a sigh of abject misery. How had this happened? “I’m not going to meet…her. This woman. My—no, she isn’t my mother, and I have no desire to bring her into my life. I don’t want her to know who I am, understand? Because this is a huge mistake. Huge. Tell her or whoever the hell sent you that you didn’t find me. I can trust you to do that, can’t I? After this…” She gestured toward the bed and her naked body. “I can trust you to be on my side and not hers or your friend’s, right? I can trust you, can’t I, Adrien?”

Oh, please, please, please say yes
.

He just stared at her. “You can’t just ignore this woman or act like you were never found.”

“Who says I can’t?”

He let out a breath. “Because you don’t know everything yet.”

She didn’t want to know everything. She didn’t want to know
this
.

“Your birth mother is dying of leukemia and needs a bone-marrow donation from a child. That’s why she wants to find you.”

Her jaw dropped. Oh, this just kept getting better and better. “You’re lying.”

“Of course I’m not.” He reached for her, but she ripped her hand away.

“That’s
why she wants to find her child? Because she’s dying? Why wouldn’t she want to find me before she needed me? What a horrible woman!”

“It gets worse.”

How could it possibly?

“She’s in jail for murder.”

She absolutely couldn’t speak. She dropped her head back, closed her eyes, and told herself this was a bad dream. She hadn’t awakened yet. She hadn’t laid eyes on that bunyip, that…that monster who preyed on children.

“Miranda, I—”

She slowly stood and gathered the sheet around her. “I’m going to leave now. I’m going to pack my bag and walk downstairs and get a cab. I don’t want you to come after me. I don’t want you to call me. I don’t want you ever to seek me out again.” She finally looked at him, her throat so full that she could barely speak. “And you are not going to stop me.”

She stepped away from the bed, just as his phone rang again.

She turned and nodded to the phone. “I would appreciate it if you would tell that man I am not the woman Eileen Stafford is looking for. I am not her child.” She sought out his gaze and looked hard into his eyes. “If last night meant anything at all, if you have a heart in that chest, if you have any pity or warmth or affection or just plain common sense, then tell him that for me.”

She walked out of the room, and the phone kept ringing even after she’d closed the door.

In the other bedroom, she pulled on jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. She threw whatever she’d left in the bathroom into her bag, zippered it, and rolled it across the salon. Behind the closed door, she could hear his voice.