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When they were out of earshot, Nina explained their trouble on the road. She looked at James. “Never make an unkeepable promise to them. You can’tswearthose girls won’t lose me…”
Grabbing her in his arms, he growled, “Watch me.”
Gage said quietly from where he stood with his arm around Rowan, “All the bullets were in the driver’s side window and in a tight circle in the windshield. You were the target, Nina.”
Closing her eyes, she opened them and stared at James. “I knew they’d come one day. I can’t stay here. You know I can’t. It isn’t safe for Rowan or…”
“The hell you say!” her friend shouted. “You’re not goinganywhereso stop with that bullshit right now.”
Looking into Rowan’s big blue eyes, Nina whispered, “You need to know everything. Once you do, you might just pack my shit yourself.”
James’ arms tightened. “Nina…”
“No. All the cards on the table. They could have killed my little girls. Ourchildren, James. Those girls would have been acceptable collateral damage to those people...or worse. This is big country out here. Lots of ways for people to approach and plenty of open land to sight a target at long distance.”
She sighed. “Rowan can’t stay here. She spends so much time outside with Benji, and Gage is always on his horse.” She shook her head. “You need to stop thinking about me, about how much Rowan loves it here, and think as herbodyguard, James. You know I’m right...you know it.”
He held her face to his chest. “These motherfucking monsters. As if they didn’t take enough from you.” To Rowan, he said, “You need to return to the estate temporarily. I’ll pull in additional security. I’m going to need some time off…”
Nina grabbed the front of his shirt. “You’re not going after them! You can’t!”
“I’ll hunt them and kill them all, Nina.” She started to speak and he cut her off. “Listen to me, sweetheart. You and Rowan were tied together from the very beginning. In ways you don’t understand. The threat toheris the same. It isn’t just you. It’sbothof you.”
“James…”
“It took more than a year to find the first breadcrumb based on what you told me. Ayear, Nina. Rowan was ten when she was found wandering the streets of Dallas. There was no record of her birth. She never attended a normal school.”
Rowan walked to stand beside them. Softly, she asked, “What are you talking about James?”
Nina closed her eyes. “I met you once...before I came here. You didn’t remember me. You didn’t remember anything.”
“N-Nina…?”
She pulled from James’ arms. “When we were ten, two years before I got out of the car at Miss Jeffries’ house, we met. We knew each other for four minutes. You didn’t tell me your name.” In stilted stops and starts, Nina told Rowan the story of that day in Dallas nineteen years before. “You didn’t remember and I-I hated myself but...I kept the secret.”
Clearing her throat, she stared at the floor. “I knew you were safer here, with Miss Jeffries, than with the person you were running from. The man you said was your father.”
Rowan swayed and Gage held her shoulders. “There’s never even been a flicker…”
“The guy - one of the ones who held me - he hit yousohard, Rowan. For two years, I thought you were dead.” Lifting her eyes, she stared into her best friend’s. “You weren’t.”
“I’m so confused,” Rowan murmured.
James told her, “When Nina told me, I started trying to trace where you’d run from. She was so young at the time; she didn’t remember street names or the neighborhood where they attempted to take you. I took what she did remember and finally pieced together the general area. I got copies of the police report and your medical records. I needed to know everything to protect you.”
Frowning, she asked, “You know who I am?”
“No, Rowan. I’m sorry. It was an incredible coincidence that the people with Nina chose you as their next target on a whim.” He took a deep breath. “The man I believe was your father was the long-time lover of the woman whoranthe sex trafficking ring that held Nina.”
“He knew there were ch-children…?”
“I suspect he took a liking to one of the older girls and...claimed her. She would have been gone by the time Nina was brought in. She gave birth to you and - based on what you said to Nina - was killed when you were young. I can’t find a trace of her. Not even her name.”
Rowan put her hand over her mouth. “M-my mother went through wh-what Nina went through?”
James nodded. “Based on the habits of the monsters who held them, I think your mother would have only been thirteen or fourteen when you were born. Two weeks ago, I tracked down the midwife who delivered you in secret.”
He looked at Nina. “I think that’s why you were targeted today, sweetheart. I put the woman in a safe house. She’s been horribly disfigured, threatened repeatedly, to keep her silence about the children she’s brought into the world for Rowan’s biological father.”
