Finding Home (22 page)

“Baby?” he asked sleepily.  “Everything
OK?”

“Yes.  Go back to sleep.”

His hand found its way to her neck,
pulling her back down to him so he could wrap his arms around her. 

“Everything’s going to be all right,”
he assured her.

“I hope so,” she whispered.

“I promise.”

Sarah’s phone was ringing, startling
both her and Colt awake.  She glanced at the clock and saw it was already
almost nine in the morning.  Her hand fumbled around on the bed until she
found her phone and checked the missed call.  It was from Charlotte. 
Her stomach in knots, she hit return call and held the phone to her ear, her
eyes on Colt who was watching her.

“Charlotte?  It’s Sarah.”

“Hello, sweetheart.  I’m sorry
if I woke you.”

“It’s OK,” Sarah told her, smiling
when Colt began massaging her shoulders.  “What’s up?”

“Well, honey, I just wanted to tell
you that the press release is going out today.  Reporters will be all over
your doorstep at your house.  Fortunately, they don’t know about Colt
right now so you’re safe there, but they will be at your workplace and it’s
only a matter of time before they learn who your boyfriend is and where to find
him.”

“I understand.”

“We have our publicist working on
booking us onto several news talk shows starting tomorrow.  Are you going
to be up for that?”

“Not really,” Sarah admitted, on a
deep exhale when she realized she’d been holding her breath.  “but I’ll
have Colt with me.  That will help.”

“I know it will,” Charlotte
confirmed.  “And honey, we will be with you every step of the way as
well.”

“Will I need to come up there?”

“We’re going to do our initial press
conference from the Foundation.  If you’d rather stay home, we can just
make our announcement and then reveal you as we begin the show circuit. 
However you’d prefer to do it and be most comfortable with.”

Sarah half laughed.  “I’m
honestly not going to be comfortable with any of it, but I’ll do whatever you
think is best.  Again, I’ll have Colt with me.  I’ll be fine.”

“She’s all over the damn news now,”
Sammy growled.  “How do you expect me to grab her now?”

“You shouldn’t have screwed up your
first chance to get her, you moron,” Wayne snapped.  “As it is, we’ll have
to wait until her stupid media tour is over.  And did you see that
boyfriend of hers?  He’s like freakin’ Rambo.  What did your research
say about him, Lewis?  Former Army Ranger?  If you hadn’t blown your
opportunity, Sammy, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.”

“She called the cops!  What was
I supposed to do?”

“Knock it off!” Lewis snapped. 
“I’ve told you both several times.  It works in our favor that she’s now
reunited with her family.  Her identity has been verified.  We don’t
have to go through trying to prove to Buck who she is.  And now they’ve
been reunited with her, they are attached to her.  They’ll pay more to get
her back.  Our main concern is neutralizing the boyfriend.”

“What has your research uncovered on
him so far?” Wayne pressed.  “Anything we can use?”

“Actually, yes.  I say we wait
for her to finish her little media tour.  Wait until she’s back in Waco
and settled into a routine.  The boyfriend does contract work for
Orion.  We bide our time a little while longer, wait for him to relax his
guard and accept another contract, and then we take her when he’s
away…preferably when he is out-of-the-country and can’t get to her quickly.”

“You said he hadn’t been on an
assignment in a while, though,” Wayne reminded him. 

“He hasn’t.  But he will. 
Once they’ve been together a bit and things settle down for them, they’ll fall
back on a routine and then we’ll have her.  You just have to trust me on
this.  Rushing in and trying to take her now would be a huge mistake.”

“You’d better be right, Geek Man,”
Sammy snapped.  “I’m ready to get moving.”

“Patience, guys.  Just a little
while longer.  It will be all the sweeter when we nab her once she has
really dug her way into their lives and hearts.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us
all of this!” Bernice scolded her on her first day back to work after the
whirlwind press tour.  Colt did not want her to return to work but she insisted. 
After all those TV interviews, she had to get back to her normal routine, even
if it was only for a short time, since she was taking a leave of absence.

“I know, and I’m sorry.  I
just…all this happened so fast!  I didn’t mean to keep all of you in the
dark.”

“We know you didn’t, honey,” Ester
said in her soft-spoken manner.

“You have family again,” Terry
said.  “I’ve watched all the news pieces and just cried and cried. 
I’m so happy for you, but at the same time, my heart hurts for you.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said, squeezing
Terry’s hand.

“Your family, the Bainbridges, they
seem nice,” Ester said.

Sarah nodded.  “They are. 
They’ve been wonderful.  They haven’t been trying to force anything.”

“And does the FBI feel like now that
they know who had you that they may be able to get a line on the actual
kidnappers?”

She raked her hand through her
hair.  “Um, that I don’t know.  My brother, Tag…”

“Who is gorgeous, by the way,” Terry
cut in.

Sarah smiled, “Yes, Tag is
handsome.  Anyway, he is the main one who deals with the FBI.  And
now Colt handles a lot of it since he is friends with some former agents.”

“Colt handles a lot of your stuff
now, doesn’t he?” Bernice asked, wagging her eyebrows.

“He does.  He’s been very good
to me through all of this.  I probably wouldn’t have started looking into
my birth family just now without him, but I don’t think I would have been able
to get through all that’s happened without him.  He’s been amazing.” 
While she was speaking, she was looking down at her food, but when she finished
she looked up to see all three women looking at her with huge smiles on their
faces.  “What?”

“We’re just so happy for you, honey,”
Ester said.

“Yes, we are,” Bernice confirmed.

“You deserve this happiness,” Terry
said, “you deserve someone great like Colt and you deserve to have a good
family like the Bainbridges.”

She smiled but didn’t say
anything.  She was still struggling with the fact that yeah, her birth
family was great, but right or wrong, she still missed her parents and wished
they were here for her to discuss things with.  Her phone rang and she saw
that it was her brother.  Taking a deep breath, she excused herself from
the table and walked outside to answer.

“Hey, Tag,” she greeted, “what’s up?”

“We got a call from Katie Couric. 
She wants to do a big feature interview with all of us.”

“Oh…wow, OK.  When?”

“This weekend.  She wants to do
it at the Ranch.”

“Tag, I don’t…”

“I told them you haven’t even come up
to Wyoming yet for a visit and we really didn’t want your first time up to be
on camera.”

“Thanks for that…I’m not sure I’m
ready to head up there just yet, Tag.  And Colt has pretty much put his
life on hold for all of this.  He’s been getting calls from Orion about
contracts they want him to take and he’s been turning them down.  I know
he’s not hurting for money, but I also know he needs to take some contracts to
keep money coming in.”

“Do you want me to talk to him? 
Maybe I can come stay with you while he takes a job or two.”

“Oh, Tag, I don’t want you putting
your life on hold just to babysit me, either.”

“You could always come up here and
stay with Mom and Dad.  The people at the Foundation would really like to
meet you, too.  But if you aren’t ready for that, I don’t have a problem
coming down there to stay with you.”

“Let me talk to Colt and see where
his thoughts are and I’ll get back to you.  Can you tell me, though, do
you really think that someone will try to come after me?”

She heard Tag sigh.  “Honestly,
I don’t know.  Apparently, after Sherry disappeared with you, the
kidnappers just disappeared, too.”

“If the theory is that Sherry’s
boyfriend was the kidnapper and he killed her, maybe she killed him, too? 
I mean, they disappeared at the same time, right?”

“Well, he stopped making demands
after you were taken to the Sauters.  But since no one knows who Sherry’s
boyfriend was, we don’t know if he disappeared the way she did or if after he
killed her, he just backed off.  If that is what happened.”

“OK.  I will talk to Colt when I
get home tonight and let you know what he says.”

“Sounds good…listen, Sarah, even if
you don’t want to do the interview right now, think about coming up here. 
Mom really wants to have you around.  She enjoyed spending time with you
in New York.  I know that was hard on you, but it meant the world to
her.  She has printed out a ton of the pictures we’ve taken of you since
meeting you and added you all around the house.  Dad caught her holding
one of your pictures and crying the other day.  She said they were mainly
happy tears because now she knows what happened to her baby, but she aches for
you, too.  She loved spending time with you and now she misses you.”

“I understand,” she replied, her
voice small.

“OK…call me when you talk to Colt.”

“I will.  Bye, Tag.”

On her way home from work that day,
she let her mind wander over her time in New York with Colt and her
family.  She’d been nervous about the interviews and being on camera with
the Bainbridges and at the same time, really excited to be going to New
York.  She’d gone shopping with Claire with Colt’s credit card and gotten
a whole new wardrobe to take with her, and when they arrived in New York,
Charlotte and Vivian took her to a really fancy salon where they got facials
and she was given a new flattering haircut.  She felt like Julia Roberts
in Pretty Woman when they were done with her.  Charlotte and Vivian had
been so much fun to be with and when they met the men for dinner and Colt saw
her, the look he gave her made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the
world.  After dinner, they’d gone to the Gershwin Theater to see a
performance of
Wicked
, and that night Colt had made love to her so
tenderly it had brought tears to her eyes.  While they were in bed, he
handed her a long, aqua colored jewelry box tied with a white bow, with the
logo of Tiffany & Co on the top.

She’d taken it from him with
trembling hands and carefully opened it.  Inside was the most exquisite
diamond bracelet she’d ever seen.  It was alternating round diamonds with
marquise shaped diamonds in a flower pattern and it was sparkling with a pure
brilliance like she’d never seen.  She’d been overwhelmed by the
magnificence of it.  She’d never seen a piece of jewelry so
stunning.  He’d taken it out and fastened it around her left wrist where
it still was.  She resolved to never take it off.  In all her
interviews, she’d twist it on her arm when she got nervous, eyes on him off
camera, drawing on his strength to help her past the jitters.

She didn’t want to do another
interview.  She didn’t want to get on another plane.  All she wanted
was for things to go back to some semblance of normal, but then, she supposed
her life would never be the old normal again.  Not with Colt in her life
and not now that her birth family was a part of her life. 

When she pulled into Colt’s driveway,
she saw AnnaKate and Olivia playing in the front yard, doing cartwheels and
flips.  They both waved excitedly when they saw her.  She smiled and
waved to them before she pulled into his garage.  His truck was in its
spot so she knew he was home.  Smiling, she went inside and headed toward
his office to find him.  As she got close, however, she stopped, hearing
him on the phone.

“I don’t give a damn what the excuse
is!” he growled into the phone, “This should have been taken care of weeks ago. 
What the hell am I paying you for?”

She felt sorry for whoever was on the
other end of the line.  He was livid.  She’d never heard him that
upset.  Deciding to give him his privacy, she went upstairs to change out
of her work clothes then went into the kitchen to start dinner.  She could
still hear him barking out orders as she looked through the fridge for
something to cook.  She decided on steaks and began working on seasoning
them.  Comfort foods always helped her in stressful times and she figured
steaks were a guy’s ultimate comfort food. 

She felt him before he actually got
to her; just the way the vibe in the room changed when he walked in.  He
came up behind her while she was seasoning the steaks and wrapped his arms
around her middle, placing a kiss to her neck.

“I didn’t realize you were home,” he
said, his lips against her ear. 

She looked up at him over her
shoulder and gave him a quick kiss. 

“You were on the phone.  Pretty
intense conversation.”

He stepped away from her, rubbing his
hands over the top of his head, messing his curls up in that haphazard way he
did.

“My guys have hit some problems with
Presley Preston’s security system.”

She turned to face him, giving him a
pointed look.

“Honey, if you need to go out there
and oversee the job, it’s OK.  I was actually going to talk to you about
that.  Tag called at lunch and said Katie Couric wants to do a big piece
with all of us at the ranch.  I could go up there with them and you could go
take care of that system.  He also said he could stay with me if you
needed to take one of those contracts Tessa and Melissa keep calling you
about.”

He shook his head.  “I’m not
worried about the contracts,” he dismissed.

“You can’t keep putting your life on
hold for me, Colt.  I’m a big girl; I will be all right.  And Tag
said he doesn’t mind coming to stay with me when you’re gone.  Plus,
Claire and Coop are right next door and Janine and Grant are a phone call
away.  You have a business to run, right?”

“Yeah, but it can wait.  I’m not
comfortable leaving you right now.”

She crossed to him and stood on her
toes to press a kiss to his lips.

“Thank you for worrying about me, but
really…if Tag can be here, and Coop is right next door, don’t you think I will
be all right?  I heard part of your conversation in there earlier. 
It sounds like they really need you to be on site.”

He groaned, rubbing the back of his
neck.  “Yeah, they really do. And I know exactly what the problem is, but
for whatever reason, when I tell them what to do, they can’t get it right.”

“Then you need to go, Colt. 
You’d already be there if not for me.  Go make your calls and set it up
while I fix dinner, OK?”

“Yeah, OK, baby, thank you,” he said,
kissing her gently. 

She watched him walk away, seeing how
tense he was in the set of his shoulders.  It occurred to her that she had
been so preoccupied with all that was going on with her that she hadn’t
realized that he may be having troubles, too.  She knew he’d been turning
down contracts but she hadn’t thought much about what he might be neglecting
while he took care of her.  Guilt flooded her at the thought of all he was
sacrificing for her.

While everything was cooking, she
went into the living room and turned on his stereo, tuning it to a soft rock
station and turning the volume up just enough to fill the house but not
overpower thought or conversation.  Going back to the kitchen, she raided
her supply of candles she’d brought from her house and began lighting them and
placing them on various surfaces throughout the kitchen, living and dining
areas.

After pouring herself a glass of
wine, she sat at the kitchen island and picked up her phone to text Tag.

Colt is making plans to fly out to
L.A. to oversee a job that has run into some problems.  Will let you know
his itinerary as soon as he has it. 

It wasn’t long before he responded,
On
the phone with him now.  Call you in a bit.

She sighed and put her phone
down.  She should have known he would already be talking to Tag, arranging
her protection.  Protection she wondered if she really did need.  It
wasn’t like any threats had been made against her…that she knew of. 

Tag, have you or your parents
received any threats against me?
 
She sent to him.  She wondered if he would answer truthfully, or at
all.  The text box indicated he was in the process of typing and she held
her breath until his reply came.

Nothing specific.

She let out the breath she’d been
holding.  Nothing specific.  What the heck did that mean?

What does that mean?  You
have received threats?

You have to remember you are
somewhat of a celebrity now.  People in the public eye attract all kinds
of attention, good and bad.  Nothing for you to worry about, though.

“Bullshit,” she muttered.

“What’s that, babe?” Colt asked,
coming into the kitchen.

“Nothing,” she said, turning the
screen on her phone off.  “Did you get everything set up?”