The Perfect Outsider (22 page)

“Why’d you come to Cold Plains, Jesse? What was the promise you said you made to Annie?”

He scrubbed his brow, then winced slightly as he connected with the stitches along his temple.

“I sat with Annie at her hospital bed, until the end. She was in a lot of pain, badly burned. She pleaded again for my forgiveness, and I told her she had it, that I understood.”

“Do you…understand?”

“I’m old-school, June. I try to get it, to see myself in her shoes if the situation had been reversed—I can’t.”

“So you lied. You can’t feel bad about that, Jesse. You told her what she needed to hear so she could pass peacefully.”

He lurched to his feet, began to pace the room. He reminded June of a caged mountain lion. At first he had been caged by his amnesia. Now that he remembered, the bars were his guilt. She understood guilt. She knew how it could pervade and darken one’s life—even if logic told you it was irrational. You might try to push the guilt down into the basement of your subconscious, but it was always there, lurking, coloring everything else, no matter what you did in an effort to assuage it…no matter how many people you rescued from cults. And June realized with a start she was thinking of her own guilt, of Matt and Aiden. And her own relentless drive to set right the wrongs of her past.

“On her deathbed,” Jesse said, “Annie told me her younger brother, Michael, had been sucked in by a cult in Cold Plains. She said the cult was run by a man named Samuel Grayson and that his followers were called Devotees. I didn’t know until that day that it existed, or that Michael was even in Wyoming. Annie hadn’t mentioned it to me, or asked for my help up until then, because we were dealing with the problems between us, and she hadn’t wanted to impose her own family issues on me. But as she was dying, she begged me to try and get Michael out. Annie explained it would be difficult, and she was the one who told me about the
D
tattoos.”

June frowned. “What’s Michael’s surname?”

“Millwood.”

Her pulse kicked. “Mickey Millwood? Early twenties, sweet, gentle guy, dark hair, big blue eyes?”

“You know him?”

“It’s a small town, Jesse, and I’ve made it my business to try and know the Devotees. Michael works at Samuel’s water warehouse where Hannah does the bookkeeping three times a week.”

He stared at her, neck muscles, jaw, tight.

“So Hannah has access to him?”

“Yes, she does. She’s been looking out for Michael—she calls him Mickey. Hannah feels he’s…vulnerable.”

“He’s dyslexic. And a little slow, yeah, I know. Annie told me he’d come to Wyoming because she was here, but before he could make it up to Wind River he came through Cold Plains, and he got sucked in by Samuel. Then he stopped all communication. She was worried sick about him, especially because of his disabilities.”

Hatred for Samuel washed afresh through June and her blood began to pound hard, her old energy, her fire, returning, burning into her veins. “Samuel takes advantage of whatever he can,” she said bitterly. “A kid like Michael is especially defenseless—it makes me sick to the gut what Samuel’s doing.”

“I came to get him out, June. I vowed to Annie I would, if it’s the last thing I did. That’s why I had such a sense of mission and a feeling that my presence here was somehow connected to the name Samuel Grayson. That’s why the words
Devotee
and
cult
felt somehow familiar to me. My plan was to hike in with nothing but my backpack, posing as a down-and-out ranch hand looking for work. I figured I’d let drop that I had a bit of a gambling problem, which I hoped might provide an opening for Samuel, make him sympathetic to me. I thought I’d attend his seminars, make it look like I was a potential Devotee. I had the
D
tattoo done, like Annie had described, in case I needed it as a way to get in—I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived.”

He slumped back down onto the bed beside June and rubbed his hands over his face.

“It took me three months after I buried Annie and Cameron to get my act together to come here. I had to hire someone to take care of the ranch and I had to sort out my finances. I packed up everything and resigned my warden’s position—I didn’t know how long it might take to get Michael out, or how long I’d have to be here. It didn’t matter. I had nothing else.”

He paused.

“And I didn’t expect to find you.”

“Hey, it was
me
who found
you
down that ravine, remember?”

A sad smile toyed with the corners of his beautiful mouth. “Good thing I picked the side of the mountain with a search-and-rescue expert and her K9, huh?”

She laughed. It felt good, and it hurt, too—both emotionally and physically. Her hand went to the bandage on her arm.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Really.”

I’m a widower, June.

Those few words had tipped her world onto a different axis. But caution whispered through her. His loss was fresh. And she felt as though she was balanced precariously at the edge of a precipice—both exhilarating and terrifying.

“The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you, June,” he said, his deep indigo gaze holding her. “And I never expected to fall so hard for you.”

She wanted to tell him she’d fallen for him, too. Much too hard and much too fast, but the words wouldn’t come.

“It’s why I tried to step away from what was happening between us when I recalled marrying Annie. But at the same time I didn’t
feel
married—I needed to figure out what it all meant, and I couldn’t do it here. I couldn’t hurt you. And I couldn’t be here without wanting to be with you.”

He paused, took her hands. “Can you understand that?”

She nodded. “I can,” she whispered. “It was my fault, Jesse—”

He touched his fingers to her lips and shook his head. “I shouldn’t have allowed myself to feel for you, June. But now I’m glad I did. And when I’ve got Michael out, I want you to come with me, back to the Wind River, where you can rest awhile.” His eyes were serious, sharp, his rugged features, resolute.

“Eager would love it there,” he said very quietly.

June swallowed. He was telling her that he was free to love her, possibly even make a life with her in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains, on his ranch, if she’d come home with him.

Suddenly it all felt too fast. June began to panic at the thought of leaving what she knew—her mission. She was compelled to keep working for EXIT, saving victims from cults like Samuel’s.

“How about it, June? Come back with me.”

He was asking her to jump off the edge of that mental precipice upon which she so precariously balanced, and she honestly didn’t know if she could risk loving so deeply and wholly again, and losing again. A second time would kill her—she knew this in her heart. A raw and irrational kind of terror swelled inside June’s chest. Her mouth turned dry and the walls of the cave room suddenly seemed to press in on her.

Worry crawled into Jesse’s eyes.

“It’s beautiful country up there, June. Rolling hills. And in the distance, the jagged range of snowcapped peaks. It’s free, wild, open. I have land, horses.” He paused, concern deepening in his features. “Do you ride?”

She fiddled with her wedding band, forcing herself not to glance toward the photo of Matt, Aiden and her on the dresser—to not think of the two ghosts that walked quietly and constantly at her side. But their presence was strong. They’d come to define who she was. They were the parameters of her life and she didn’t know how to separate herself from them, or how to live without the specter of them.

Abruptly, June swung her legs over the side of the bed. She waited for a nauseating wave of dizziness and pain to pass, then got to her feet, a little wobbly.

“What’re you doing, June?” Jesse said, standing up beside her, steadying her with a hand on her elbow. She moved out of his reach, walking over to the dresser where her firearm lay in its holster beside the framed photo—she stared at the image, the past swirling into the present and blurring the future.

“We need to go and get your brother-in-law out,” she said, reaching for the holster and strapping her weapon to her hips. “It’s time to pull Hannah out, too. It’s getting too dangerous for her—I’m worried that as soon as Samuel learns his henchmen aren’t coming back, and if Hawk arrests the mayor, this whole place is going to blow. Hannah is going to get hurt, or worse.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” His tone was brusque. “I promised Rafe I’d make you rest.”

She turned to face him, could see the pain in his features, and her chest hurt. “Jesse, you can’t make me do anything. You’re not in charge here.”

“You’re running, June. You’re running from yourself and you know it.”

“I am not! This is triage. This is urgent. This is what I do!”

“You’re afraid to let it go, aren’t you? You want to hold on to your past like a shield.”

“Jesus, Jesse—Hannah’s and Michael’s lives could be in danger.”

“So is yours. You’re going to kill yourself like this, June.”

“Oh, please.” She grabbed a rain jacket from her closet and realized her hands were shaking. He was right, and she didn’t want to—
couldn’t
—admit it. Her arm hurt like hell as she pulled on her jacket.

“June, I’m not asking you to give up your work for EXIT. Do you understand that?”

She hesitated, then zipped up her jacket.

“All I want is for you to rest, heal, and for us to spend some time together, get to know each other better. I thought you’d love it out there. It’s who you are—that wilderness. It’s who I am. We could make it work.”

“It can’t work, Jesse—I don’t see how it can. My work keeps me mobile. And I won’t give it up.”

“June.” His voice softened. “You can do this. You do live somewhere now, right?”

June stilled. Perspiration beaded on her lip in spite of the chill she felt in her bones.

“I have a small apartment in Portland,” she said quietly. “It’s my base at the moment, but I’m never there, Jesse—”

“Let my ranch be your base, temporarily. Baby steps.”

She felt blood draining from her head. She felt hot. Anxiety, she thought. She was having a panic attack.

“I need to go.”

“Sit down, June,” he said firmly, taking her hands and leading her back to the bed. He seated himself beside her.

“Listen to me, and don’t take this the wrong way. Don’t say anything, either. I just want you to think about what I’m going to say.” He inhaled deeply.

“You’re trapped, June, not so much by your fight against cults, but by your notion that fighting them can change something about the past—that it can make right what happened to your husband and son.”

“They’re part of me,” she said quietly. “Fighting the evil of cults is part of me, too, now.”

“And it always will be. All of us are composites of our past experience. Our pasts shape us, make us who we are. But you can’t change the past.”

“I can give it meaning.”

“You have.”

“And where I wasn’t able to save Matt and Aiden, I’m saving others. They didn’t die in vain.”

“I know. But you’re not living, either, June. You’re like an addict, obsessed with this fight, needing more and more, and if you don’t stop, it’s going to kill you. Even Rafe said so.”

Anger mushroomed in her chest. “This is ridiculous,” she said, trying to get up, but he held her back.

“Let me go, Jesse,” she warned.

“You need balance,” he countered, features stern, eyes unyielding. “And you need rest. Now.”

“Who in hell are you to talk, anyway! Look at
you
—haunted by your own demons for something you never even did, for closure you can’t have.”

Hurt flashed through his face and she hated herself even as the words came out of her mouth, but she was unable to stop.

“You couldn’t even get that DNA test because then you’d have to face the truth.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I learned something from losing my memory, June,” he said very quietly, his voice thick. “For a short while I was forced to live entirely in the moment, and in that moment, I allowed myself to fall in love with you.” He paused, his gaze tunneling into hers, intense. “I think you allowed yourself to drop into that moment with me. I think you do care. And I’m not going to let you throw this away now.”

Her throat closed in on itself. Panic flared afresh. With it came a kind of pounding thrill, an undertow of exhilaration. He’d said he loved her.

Could she do it?

She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and tensed.

“Time is running out, Jesse. I can’t think about the future now. I need to think about how to get Hannah and Michael out. I’m also due for a paramedic shift this afternoon. If I don’t show, Samuel and Fargo are going to tie me with the missing henchmen. They’re going to take a deeper look at Hannah. Something’s going to give.”

He swore softly. “You’re like a pit bull on adrenaline, June. You
can’t
even think anymore, can you? This is going to kill you, and you don’t care, do you?”

June sucked in a chestful of air, and it hit her—Jesse was right, she hadn’t cared. She knew she was on a one-way track until the end, and deep down in her subconscious maybe she wanted it to kill her. Because she had nothing else.

Now there was Jesse.

Now she
did
care.

She glanced slowly up into his eyes, and her heart wrenched at what she saw there. June bit her lip, struggling to hold down the huge painful and sudden surge of emotion burning in her chest. She reached down, felt Eager’s velvet head, thought of wilderness and mountains and endless land. Tears pooled in her eyes. It was all she and Matt had ever dreamed of.

And now Jesse was offering it to her. He was offering her a second chance. He was trying to pull her back from the brink. And she was too scared to let him. He was right there, too. Because she was afraid to stop.

She was holding on to her guilt and her past as a way of escaping pain, as a way of fending off emotion, love. It was fear that was trapping her, not cults. Fear to feel—
really feel
—again. And she could see it now, through his eyes. Fear was at the root of it all—June Farrow, SAR worker, paramedic, so brave in the woods, so capable, so independent…and all she was, truly, deep down, was weak, alone. Afraid.