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“We’re not going to hurt you, sweetheart. I promise,” his wife said softly ashetook over the driver’s seat and just drove away with her. “We just…need a little help. We’re trying to fix things. To make every thing right. For everyone.”
She reached for Dusty’s hand. Dusty jerked back. “Please don’t touch me. If you really are my mother, then you really don’t have that right. Please just don’t. I don’t want you to touch me.”
“No. I don’t suppose you do.” There were tears in the woman’s voice. The voice that sounded almost like Daisy’s. “I am so sorry. For then. And now. Maybe one day, you girls will be able to forgive us. All of you. We had to leave, baby. We just had to. I am so sorry.”
“I don’t care what you are doing here, what you are up to, or what you need. I want to go home to the people who love me and care what happens to me. Who won’t exactly leave me on a doorstep in the middle of a thunderstorm. In fact, just drive me right back to that cowboy on the tractor. He’s my best friend’s brother. His name is Fletcher. He’ll see I get homejustfine. He’ll even walk me inside—won’t leave me on the doorstep or anything like that.”
“We can’t do that.”
He parked. Told her andher motherto stay there. No matter what. Five minutes later he was back.
Then her father was reaching into the van for her. He wrapped one hand around her wrist. Dusty had no choice but to go exactly where he wanted her to go.
He was strong. Very strong. No. Dusty wouldn’t ever be able to overpower him physically. She’d just have to outsmart him. Somehow.
He led her into an old camping trailer. It was cold, and musty, but it had power.
“We’re in luck. I found propane in the tank, ladies. There’s going to be heat. It might just take a while to build up. I don’t want to have to go buy more.” He guided Dusty toward the kitchen area. It was a really small travel trailer. With just a fold-down bed, and a two-seater dinette. A tiny kitchenette. A small bath. That was it. “I need you to just sew me up. That’s all.”
“I have the first aid kit,” her mother said. But she was almost ringing her hands right there. There was panic in the big blue eyes. Eyes shaped just like Daisy’s. Daisy looked the most like this woman. But Daisy looked more like their cousin Meyra, really. Just a little bit of resemblance to their mother. But there were bits and pieces of Dusty’s sisters in both of her parents. And of herself. That hurt. It really hurt.
“We’ll get to it,” her father said. He was definitely the one in charge. “I need…to think. Plan what to do next. Talk to…our contact here in town and...see what’s going on. Someone knew we were in the van and on that road. I want to know how they did.”
Dusty just got to work.
Dusty leaned over the man who had her uncle’s face, her hands steady over the blood. She’d never been squeamish. But this…
Her father stared back at her, his eyes combing over her face as if he was trying to figure out who she was.
Maybe he was.
It wasn’t like he’d seen her in almost twenty-three damned years or anything like that.
She’d been two-and-a-half years old when he’d left her, her two older sisters, and not quite fifteen-month-old Daisy on her grandmother’s front porch. Poor babies left on the doorstep, she’d heard far too many times to count.
By people looking at them with pity.
Didn’t people get it? They’d been better off with their grandmother than with this man and his wife. Dusty had always known that. Always.
“I don’t think it did any lasting damage. The bullet passed through the fatty tissue on the arm.” She leveled a look at him. Looking into eyes the same color as her own. “You’ll need to be on antibiotics for about ten days. Then, see your primary care physician, and have a nice life, you asshole.”
Probably not something she should say to a man holding her hostage, but surely the fact that herparentshad abducted her meant something?
Like maybe they wouldn’t kill her right away?
Her father's eyes hardened. His hand on her elbow tightened. Okay, maybe he would. This could be a very dangerous man when crossed. Just like her uncle could.
It would probably be smart not to forget that.
Dusty tried not to wince. “Let me go, Daddy dearest. You’re hurting me.”
His hand eased up. He didn’t say another word as Dusty just sewed him up. Trying not to hurl from what she was doing. It was different, sewing up herfather,than helping Matt sew up a laceration on a kitten. When she was finished and washing her hands with rubbing alcohol, that was when he spoke.
“I know you're angry with your mother and me.”
Nokidding.“I'm good. I mean, I've had a long time to get over you. Not like I ever knew you to begin with. Not like I’d even know who I was missing, right?” She balled up the trash from the gauze and tossed it toward the trashcan in the corner. “Now, the fact that my parents kidnapped me and are keeping me hostage in a snowstorm—that might take a bit longer to get over. But, I've done my duty to the human race here, kept one of our kind from dying from blood loss...when can I go home? I have a life to get back to—one you aren’t a part of. One I’m really struggling to figure out right now, as it is. Thelastthing I needed in my life was you two coming back just to confuse me even more.”
His expression darkened, and he looked just like his identical twin brother when her uncle had gotten angry. But whereas Uncle Gerald was putty where his daughters and nieces were concerned, she had no clue how the stranger in front of her would react.
