Return to Me (7 page)

By the time Noah was thirteen, he was big enough to defend himself against his father. One night, after a drunken binge, his father attacked him while he was asleep. Noah opened his eyes just in time to see a meaty fist headed to his face. Noah sprang out of bed and then beat the literal shit out of his father.

After that, it became mostly verbal abuse. Noah usually ignored him. … His opinion mattered nothing. Sometimes, just for the fun of it, Noah would give him a look and Farrell would slam his mouth shut.

Mitchell continued to be Farrell’s favorite. They would leave for days, hunting, fishing, and camping. Noah learned to fend for himself. He’d never seen the sport in killing an innocent animal. He understood it was an adventure for some, but it never appealed to him.

Mitchell, the favored, good son was the one who received gifts, special treatment, or leftover money. Noah took what was left or what he could steal.

The first time he stole, it had been out of hunger. Stupidly, he’d been caught. His father picked him up at the sheriff’s office. Noah hadn’t been scared of him. He knew he could whip his father. He hadn’t counted on his brother helping out with his beating.

They’d tied him to bed and taken turns. He hadn’t been surprised Mitchell had helped. The brother he once knew, had shared a womb with, was no more. He was mean, possibly meaner than his father.

They eventually let him go, but Noah had learned an important lesson. He could only count on himself. After that, when he stole, he was more careful. But he had a reputation now. A police record. Store owners were told to look out for him. Suspicion followed him and if something happened and no one was immediately caught, he was often hauled in to talk with the sheriff. He’d had few friends at school. Soon, he had none.

That had been fine with Noah. Depending only on himself felt right. But he continued to break the law and thumb his nose at any authority he chose. He hadn’t cared what happened to him. He’d been wild, untamable, and angry as hell.

Farrell Stoddard somehow continued to maintain his reputation, despite his drunken ways and violent habits with women. Mitchell followed in his footsteps and hid his evil ways under a charming smile. He fooled everyone but Noah.

Noah tried to stay out of his way, his line of fire. Mitchell, for whatever reason, hated his brother. Before their mother left, anything Noah received, Mitchell had coveted. After she left, Noah had nothing, but the jealously continued.

His brother’s envy had amused him for the most part. What the hell did he have that Mitchell could want? He stayed out of his way and did his own thing.

Until Rebecca. Rebecca Stanley had been the most beautiful, fresh, and innocent thing Noah had ever seen. She moved to Monarch, Mississippi, in the middle of the school year. Noah and all of his sixteen-year-old hormones had fallen instantly in love.

He’d never seen anything as pretty and delicate as Rebecca. With honey-blond hair, soft brown eyes, and a sweet personality, Rebecca had become instantly popular. She could have had any guy in the school as her boyfriend, so it was a complete shock that she actually flirted with and seemed to like Noah.

Before he knew it, he was doing all the stupid, idiotic things teen boys did to attract a girl’s attention. He offered to carry her books if they looked even remotely heavy. He made sure he left a seat open at the lunch table in case she wanted to sit by him. He’d even gotten into a fistfight when one of the guys cursed in front of her. He had known she was too good for him, too pure, but that didn’t stop his adoration.

It’d been stupid for him to show his fascination for her. He should have known what would happen. Should have known that Mitchell wouldn’t allow someone as wonderful as Rebecca to show any attention to Noah.

Noah had been diligently working on his homework at the kitchen table when the sheriff showed up, gun in one hand, handcuffs in the other, and arrested him for the rape of Rebecca Stanley.

Sickened and outraged, Noah had proclaimed his innocence. No one believed him. Why would they? He was the bad Stoddard. The one who was always in trouble, always stealing, breaking the law, causing problems. The one destined to come to a bad end. Mitchell was the good son, the righteous one.

He tried not to think what Rebecca had gone through, but couldn’t stop. What had once been pure, fresh, and innocent had been destroyed by his brother’s hand and Noah felt responsible. He had known his brother coveted what Noah had and he hadn’t thought to protect Rebecca.

After a while, Noah stopped asserting his innocence. He was responsible for what happened, if not by deed, then by sheer stupidity and carelessness. Noah was sentenced to two years—his lawyer told him that was the best he could hope for. Noah hadn’t cared.

A young girl was brutalized, her innocence destroyed, and his brother, his identical twin, remained free. And there hadn’t been a damned thing Noah could do.

Noah always wondered if he might have gotten out and gone on to lead a normal life if that had been all that had had happened to him.

Cursing himself for rehashing what couldn’t be changed, he took his half-eaten meal and threw it into the garbage disposal. Quickly cleaning up the kitchen, he headed back to the living room. There was no point in going back in time. No use crying over spilled blood. That wasn’t all that had happened and he and normal would never be acquainted again.

Normal to him would probably scare the shit out of most people.

At night, alone, angry, afraid, and then finally resigned, Noah had created in his mind an organization that did care. One that would do anything and everything, no matter what the cost, to protect innocents.

When he’d finally gotten out of prison, he only had one desire, and that was to see his dream fulfilled. With the help of the most decent man he’d ever known, along with much sweat and the occasional bloodletting, he’d created Last Chance Rescue. Rescuing innocents was his life, his reason for breathing. He hadn’t saved his mother, because he was too weak. He hadn’t saved Rebecca, because of his selfishness. Now he saved as many as he could.

And someday, very soon, he would finally repay a debt no one but Noah could pay.

The door clicking open alerted him that Samara was home. Sitting at the small desk in the living room, his body loosened from the tension he hadn’t been aware he had. Eyeing her, he hid his concern under an expression of cold rationality.

She looked calm, no longer hurt. Her eyes sparkled clear, but the telltale swollen eyelids revealed she’d been crying. Something tugged in his chest. He hadn’t come here to hurt her, but they’d been working together for one day and he’d already made her cry.

“You okay?”

Her animated face flickered with something, before she cocked her head slightly and said, “You’re a jerk, Noah McCall, but I’ve seen worse. You need my help for this job, so in the future, I would recommend that you don’t piss me off too much.”

He clenched his jaw to keep from grinning at her. “Deal.”

“Good. Now, I’ve been thinking.” Dropping her shopping bags on the floor, she threw herself on the couch and slipped out of her shoes. Bending her toes back and forth as if they needed exercise, she continued, “Since you’re going to be here working day and night, I need to let my friends think I’m out of town. The last thing I want to do is get them involved or hurt.”

“No one is going to get hurt.”

“It’ll still be easier if they believe I’m headed to my parents’ for a visit. I’ll take care of that.”

Noah nodded. He should have thought about that. Having her friends around would certainly put a wrench in their plans. “Samara, there’s something else.” Her
what now
expression had him biting back another smile. “You know not to mention my name or anything about me, right?”

“Yes, Jordan had this conversation with me when he was barely conscious in the hospital.”

“Good. Now, do you want a sloppy joe?”

A delicate shudder. “No thanks. I stopped for something before coming home.”

“I guess we’re ready to get started.”

Noah watched her pad barefoot into the kitchen, her enticing bottom twitching with a sexy femininity he swore he would ignore but didn’t keep himself from appreciating. He might never have a normal kind of life, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have a normal male appreciation for a fine female form. Samara’s form was most definitely in that category.

She returned with two bottles of water. Handing him one, she took a long swallow of hers and then sat down at the desk. “Okay, let’s get started.”

They began with going into each chat room and checking to see who might be there. After checking, Samara watched Noah type in a brief message.

Hi, my name is Carly. I live in Birmingham, Alabama. I’m sixteen. Like to swim, hang at the mall and write poetry. Anybody out there want to talk tonight?

After the fifth time without much more than a “Hi, nice to see you here,” Samara started to see that this was going to take more time than she’d originally thought. Not that she thought they’d go online for the first day and find the predator, but trolling through all the chat rooms one by one was beginning to look like the “needle in a haystack” analogy she’d always hated … mostly because she’d never heard it applied to anything good.

She cut her eyes over to Noah. He looked exhausted. His normally swarthy darkness now paler, shadows made half-circle sweeps under his eyes. The lines around his mouth made him seem older, grimmer. It was seven hours later in Paris. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Typing another message into yet another chat room, he grunted out an unintelligible sound.

“Excuse me, didn’t quite get that.”

Noah pulled his eyes from the screen, blinking rapidly as if to clear them. His too-perfect mouth lifted into a slight smile. “What day is it?”

Ignoring the heart flip his smile always evoked, she concentrated on his words. “So, basically days?”

He shrugged and returned his gazed to the screen. “At least two.”

That did it. Samara stood and stretched. “Then let’s call it a night.”

His eyes back on the screen, he shook his head. “You go on. I can—”

“We’re not getting anywhere.” She squinted a look at her wall clock. “It’s after two in the morning. If he were on tonight, he would’ve already replied.”

Noah blew out a long sigh, his face grim. She knew he would have liked to make contact the first night, but making a hit the first time out wasn’t reasonable … even she knew that. Noah was so determined though, he probably thought he could have made it happen by will alone.

For the first time since she’d seen him again, Samara’s heart softened for this man. He might be a jerk of the first order and arrogant to boot, but what he did, saving victims all over the world, was phenomenal. What had brought him to create Last Chance Rescue?

As he shut down his computer, she suddenly found herself wishing there was something she could say or do to make him look less grim. Stupid? Absolutely. The man had done little since she’d seen him again but insult her and piss her off. Why the hell she should want to see him smile wasn’t something she wanted to contemplate.

Samara showed him where the guest room was, the towels and other things he might need. Whispering good night, she closed the door to her bedroom, ignoring the dangerous notion of following him into the guest room and finding out exactly what those dark looks he’d flashed her today really meant. Noah had made it more than clear he wanted nothing to happen between them. Samara’s mind was totally convinced and on board with that concept. Now she just needed to persuade the rest of her body to cooperate.

  Darkness swirled around him. Like bubbling black tar, it coated his entire being, pulling him deeper into a thick black abyss. A small part of his subconscious knew he was dreaming, but refused to release him from the vicious claws. Helpless to escape, the nightmare flooded his senses, choking, smothering.

Farrell Stoddard stood before him. Belt in hand, he flicked it against his own leg and barely made a grimace each time it hit. The anticipatory gleam in his evil, dark eyes told Noah exactly what to expect. Noah tensed, his mind screaming for him to wake up, even as he heard the whoosh of the first strike.

Pain seared his skin. Squealing, excited giggles sounded beside him. Noah twisted his head. Mitchell stood on the other side of the bed, knife in one hand, his other hand covering his crotch. He wore Noah’s clothes … the light blue shirt he’d worked for a month at the gas station to be able to afford. The shirt Noah wore the first time he’d flirted with Rebecca.

Another sound … a sob. Noah turned. His mother stood at the door. Her dress torn, hanging in shreds from her thin body, welt marks on her face, chest, and stomach. Her eyes were hollowed out, defeated, empty.

A young girl stood beside her.
Rebecca
. Long blond hair, dirty and tousled, hung down over her thin shoulders. Her sallow complexion made her look years older than fifteen. Her eyes accused, reproached, destroyed. She was nude; semen and blood dripped down her legs.

He had failed them. His mother and Rebecca. Failed to protect them, failed to keep them safe. Noah twisted the sheets, willing himself to wake up, telling himself it was all a dream.

Samara stood beside the bed. Her pretty face marred with tears and bruises. Her expression hurt, reproachful. “Why?” she whispered.

Noah woke on a stifled shout. He threw the sheet off and slammed his feet down on the solid, carpeted floor. Hell and damnation, he’d not had a dream like that in years. Why now? Because he was so close? Or for another reason? Was he putting Samara in jeopardy? No, she would be safe. He would make sure she was safe. She was his chance, perhaps his only chance, to catch these bastards. He was accustomed to using people, so why should this be any different?

Knowing he wouldn’t sleep any more tonight, Noah pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and headed back to his laptop in the living room. He switched on the lamp and checked his watch. Five-thirty. He’d slept about three hours … enough to get him through another day.