One thing I did find out was who the Vandenbergs’ closest friends were. If worse came to worst – and it really didn’t get much worse – I could hit up one of them, maybe flirt with an acquaintance, to see if they could tell me anything about the mountainesque property. I wasn’t above flirting.
Speaking of which, I decided to do one more search. Even though it was almost eleven o’clock, I heard tinkering sounds coming from the kitchen. Reyes was still there. My heart had been racing ever since I saw him earlier. With each passing moment, knowing we were the only two in the place, it accelerated a little more.
I typed in the name Reyes Farrow and then sat for another hour, reading article after article, taking an emotional hit from each one.
He’d been in prison for ten years for a crime he didn’t commit. He’d aided in a prison riot, helping employees who would have lost their lives escape. He’d earned several degrees while inside, including a master’s in computer science. And he’d bought a bar and grill in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after he was finally released, because the man he’d been convicted of killing was found very much alive.
There were even a few pictures of him. Some when he was younger. One from the day he was found guilty for murder in the first degree. His face stone. His expression blank, as though he’d expected them to find him guilty, to think the very worst of someone like him, even though he had done nothing wrong.
I put a hand over my mouth, the sorrow I felt overwhelming. A lump formed in my throat as I kept searching. I quickly realized that he’d been something of a celebrity in prison and out. While he was incarcerated, men and women from all over the country, all over the world, created what could only be referred to as fan sites about him. One seemed to be more popular than the rest, however. The woman who’d created it, Elaine Oak, claimed to have done personal interviews with him. Her blog revealed that they slowly formed a relationship until, about a year before he got out, they were married.
I closed my eyes. This woman had professed her love almost to the point of worship and then, when he got out of prison, left him? Had she broken his heart? Maybe she wasn’t able to deal with the real thing. With him behind bars, their relationship was sporadic. Probably fun and exciting. But maybe having a full-time husband wasn’t what she’d signed up for, so she dumped him.
She’d abandoned him, just like the judicial system. She hadn’t done another post for over a year. One of her lasts posts included a copy of their marriage certificate. Even after all this time, he was still struggling to forget her.
My heart ached for him, but I fought it. I battled the sympathy threatening to overtake any misgivings I was still clutching. I had too many questions. Too many concerns. None of his history explained why he’d stopped that woman from telling me who I was in the storeroom. She’d known me. She was about to tell me exactly who I was. Exactly where I came from. Why would he stop her? What would he have to gain? And why had he called me Dutch when I fainted yesterday? Was that my name? Did he know me?
I cleared the history and turned off the computer. If Dixie wanted to know more about him, she’d have to do a search herself. So he’d been here, on earth, just like any other human. But he wasn’t just like any other human, and it was high time to find out why. I just needed a little chloroform and a few cable ties.
Since I couldn’t figure out where to get chloroform or cable ties this late at night, I decided to go another direction. He seemed fairly amenable to a physical relationship despite his hang-up over his ex. I simply had to seduce him. Or pretend to seduce him. Surely I could distract him long enough to incapacitate him.
I strode to the kitchen and stopped. He was on his back, halfway under the sink, his lean hips so inviting, his legs bent at the knees and slightly open.
Good and merciful Lord. The things He could do with a little clay and some spare time. And He’d done an exquisite job with this particular specimen. I could hardly look at Reyes anymore and not feel a sharp tug at my heartstrings.
He raised up, just barely, from underneath the sink. He stilled. Studied. I could feel curiosity radiate out of him. He let his gaze drop to my chest, but only for a moment.
“You’re still here,” I said, suddenly remembering what shirt I’d decided to wear. It was pretty much the only thing I had clean.
He rose to his feet, the movement effortless, a charming smile lighting his impossibly handsome face. “So are you.”
I moved to the side when he reached for a tool I was blocking. His heat enveloped me, and I bit down, tried to ignore my own heat gathering in places it had no right to gather, assembling unlawfully.
I decided to make myself useful and marry the ketchups, a term I found hilarious. “Why are you still here?” I asked when he turned to examine his handiwork. He wore a black T-shirt stretched taut to accommodate his wide shoulders, and jeans that fit snugly over his hips and the curvature of his sextastic ass. The bandages around his midsection left a soft line across his waist, and I wondered how badly he’d been hurt. I also wondered how he’d been hurt period.
“I’m still here because you are,” he said matter-of-factly.
Wonderful. Now I felt guilty. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“That’s good, because no babysitter alive should have the thoughts I have about you.”
His admission stirred something deep inside me. I was pretty sure it was a little-explored area just right of my spleen called stark raving lust.
“You were married,” I said, empathy and jealousy battling for world domination.
Surprised, he turned back. “I was, yes.”
Standing close to him was like standing next to a jaguar. Well, a jaguar made of fire. Every move he made was powerful. Exotic. Hypnotizing. Or I was ovulating. It was a toss-up.
“I’m so sorry it didn’t work out. She seemed so devoted to you. Almost like she worshiped you. And then she, what? Broke it off? It makes no sense.”
His lids narrowed to glittering slits, as though he had no idea who I was talking about. “Who are you talking about?”
Nailed it.
“Your ex-wife. Elaine Oak.” When he didn’t respond, I added, “And I’m sorry about… about everything else, too.”
He stepped closer. “Everything else?”
“Yeah, you know, like… prison.”
A scorching heat wave slammed into me, and he closed the distance between us. “Where are you getting your information?”
My defenses rose. “I know what a Google is. I can use a computer.”
He lowered his head, his jaw straining against the force of his bite.
I wanted to explain. I understood. “The articles said that you were there for a crime you didn’t commit. That your conviction had been overturned. They weren’t bad.”
The next expression he graced me with was disappointment. But I felt something else radiate out. Pain. Had I hurt him? Surely a man of his experience couldn’t be so easily wounded. “Then by all means,” he said, his voice dangerously low, “find out what you can about me via the Internet. Because everything on the Internet is real. Except alien abductions. They’re bullshit.”
He turned away from me and lowered himself to the ground to continue whatever it was men did under sinks.