always have low expectations, Harper. You’ll never be disappointed.”
Jessie found his shyness completely disarming. Innocent charisma came naturally for Harper. His physical beauty never ceased to amaze her, but he never seemed aware of his looks. And he never had to work at it. Harper was an original, always.
Driving from the airport, he had rambled about lots of stuff. He told her the latest on his dad. And he had funny stories about Tony Salvatore helping him find his new place. She’d never seen him so chatty, except when he talked about RAMs and gigabytes. In Harperworld, she usually needed subtitles, but not tonight.
His nonstop stream of consciousness meant only one thing. Harper was nervous.
When they got to his floor, Seth unlocked his front door. Still looking a little on edge, he let her walk in first. And her jaw dropped when she saw what he’d done.
“Oh, Seth. This is . . . beautiful,” she gasped.
Harper had his place lit with white candles, flickering romance wherever she looked. And she smelled fresh flowers. He’d placed bundles of colorful lilies and roses throughout his loft. Wine had been poured. Music was playing softly in the background. And a silver tray of appetizers was on a bar near the kitchen.
Seth had staged everything.
“That call you made at the airport. Your roommate lit all these candles, didn’t he? Either that, or you didn’t pay your light bill.”
“Someone else did it. My roommate isn’t much of a romantic.” He grinned. “So, you like it?”
“Like it? Harper, I love it.” Jessie walked into the loft with her mouth open. “You did all this . . . for me?”
Everywhere she looked, he’d done something special. He’d enlarged photos of them in New York and placed them on shelves. And he’d framed striking black-and-white images of her favorite spots in Chicago and hung them on the walls, places she’d told him about. Even the music he had playing was more to her taste than his.
“Why not?” He shrugged with a smile. “You came all this way to be with me. I wanted your visit to be special.”
The old Jessie would have beaten herself up with guilt. She hadn’t come back to Chicago for Seth alone, not exactly. Even though she had missed Harper terribly since his trip to New York, she had another personal reason for coming, and she dreaded having to tell him. But the new Jessie fought the sting of tears and the lump in her throat, accepting Seth’s beautiful gift.
No one had ever done something so thoughtful for her. And before she met Harper, she never thought she deserved to be happy. Her abused past had been a lifetime prison sentence, without the possibility of parole. But seeing herself through Seth’s eyes had allowed her to hope things could change. Maybe it was okay to let someone good like him into her life.
Maybe she had a chance at being normal if she let it happen. Harper was a heaping helping of normal compared to
“I want you to be happy.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck, as if he’d read her mind. “Actually . . . I was hoping that if you liked it, you might want to . . . move back to Chicago and live here with me. I’ve missed you, Jess.”
She turned and looked him in the eye. Now his nervousness made sense. Seth had more on his mind than spending a few days with her.
“I’ve missed you, too, Harper.” She heard the catch in her voice. “But I need to tell you—”
She wanted to explain the main reason why she’d come, but Harper stopped her. He touched a finger to her lips and pulled her close.
“You don’t need to tell me anything. Not tonight. I just want us to be together. Keep things simple, you know?” He kissed her forehead. “I’m not pressuring you. Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
“I will. I promise.” She nestled into his arms and breathed him in.
The truth was that she had thought a lot about moving back. She’d never gotten used to living in New York City. She was a Midwest girl, and Chicago felt more like home.
Until Harper came along, she’d never thought about putting down any real roots. Her old South Chicago apartment had been more of a self-inflicted wound. She never thought she deserved better, but Harper made her want . . .
“But if I move in, what will your roommate say?”
“Absolutely nothing. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“So where is he?” she asked.
“I banished him for tonight. I wanted you all to myself.” When he grinned, his cheeks colored pink. “You can meet him tomorrow.”
Jess didn’t have the heart to tell him she wanted to be on the road early. The trip to La Pointe, Wisconsin, would take most of the day. The police chief would be expecting her, but after seeing everything Seth had done, she kept that information to herself for a while longer. He’d asked to keep things simple, and she knew what he meant.
For one sweet night, no drama.
When morning came, she’d find a way to tell him. Harper would want to go with her, but this was one trip she had to take alone.
Last night, Ramon Guerrero had awakened fifteen-year-old Estella Calderone in the middle of the night, the way he usually did lately. He took what he wanted like an animal, without saying a word.
When he was done, he forced her to get dressed and come with him, ignoring her questions. When they got outside his hacienda near Juarez, two cars were waiting in front with headlights blazing. And his men were nothing more than dark silhouettes, without faces.
“You ride with them.” He waved a hand, barely looking at her. “Watch over the American in the back. He’s your responsibility.”
Guerrero gave his order and told her to ride in the van. That was the first time she had seen the wounded man.
“What’s happening? Who is he?” she asked, but no one answered, not even Guerrero.
Estella was shoved inside the van and did as she was told. She would not be traveling with Guerrero. His car would follow at a safe distance behind the van. And she would be alone with two men she didn’t know.
Now that it was hours later and nearly dusk, Estella had had plenty of time to think. She realized she was as much a prisoner as the American who lay unconscious at her feet in the back of the moving van. She stared down at the man with his hands tied behind his back, experiencing a strange envy.
One way or another, his incarceration would one day end. She could not say the same.
Her thoughts turned to Ramon Guerrero, the man who had owned her for the last two years. He’d traded drugs for her. And her mother had been too strung out to say no.
At first, she had been glad to have a roof over her head and food in her belly. Guerrero had her clean his house, do his laundry, and cook for him and his men at his hacienda near Juarez.
But all that changed two weeks ago.
One night, Guerrero had staggered into her room without putting on the lights. He’d been drinking. She’d smelled it on his breath. He forced her to take off her clothes, and he hurt her, covering her mouth as she cried. After that, he didn’t ask her to clean or cook for him.
She’d become his whore.
What she had done with him had been a sin. And now she was no more than a common criminal, too. If she got caught with the American, she’d spend the rest of her life in prison, blamed for what Guerrero had done. It would not matter to the authorities that she’d been ordered to take care of the wounded man and keep him quiet if he got delirious.
She’d been given a canteen of water and an old rag. Not knowing what else to do, she kept his lips moist and dabbed the wet rag on his forehead and neck to keep him cool in the sweltering heat. If the man died while in her care, she’d be accused of far worse than kidnapping.
Hot air swept into the open windows of the van and sucked in suffocating billows of dust, forcing her to squint and hold her breath. Every now and then, she gazed through the windshield and caught a glimpse of road signs, the only way she knew they were heading south, deeper into Mexico.
