Loyalty. A smile trembled on Kensie’s lips as her body responded to his touch, arching forward. Of course. A man like Colter lived by those words. He was loyal to Rebel, loyal to the memory of his lost brothers, even loyal to the promise he’d made her.
And right now, she wanted to show him how much she appreciated it. She leaned back in.
“I’m so glad you’re not hurt,” he whispered against her lips.
She jerked back, a jolt of realization and horror slicing through her. She’d been so distracted by Colter—by his reinjuring his leg, by her feelings for him—that she’d forgotten to tell him what she’d discovered.
With tears pricking her eyes, she scrambled off him. “Colter, I found her.”
“What?”
“I think I found Alanna.”
Chapter Twelve
Kensie’s words filtered slowly through Colter’s haze of desire. “You what?”
“I think I found her, Colter.” She crossed her arms over her chest, pacing in front of him.
Rebel stood near the bottom of his recliner, her ears perked, head swiveling to follow Kensie’s frantic movements.
“Okay.” Colter leaned forward, then grimaced as pain jolted up his thigh. It had faded into the background with Kensie’s soft lips on his, her skin beneath his fingers. Now it was back, full force. Swallowing nausea, he studied her.
A minute ago, she’d been fire and energy in his lap. Now, she was all nervous agitation and desperate hope. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s that guy. The one I saw in the snowplow store.”
“Henry Rollings?”
“Yeah. I followed him toward the end of the shops and then he turned a corner and I lost him. I was trying to decide which way he’d gone when I saw Alanna heading into the area with the storage units.”
Colter absorbed her words more slowly than he would have liked, still a little distracted by the swollen pinkness of her lips, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. By the memory imprinted on his mind of her climbing on top of him, of the touch of her fingertips still searing his skin. “Why would she go back there? Was he dragging her?”
“No.” Kensie stopped moving, her shoulders slumping, lines knitting her forehead. “She just walked in. It was after I’d lost him. I was trying to decide his most likely route when I spotted her.”
Rebel moved as soon as Kensie stopped, hurrying over and shoving her nose under Kensie’s hand. Without seeming to realize it, Kensie started petting Rebel, who sat and made herself comfortable.
“So, you followed this woman you think is Alanna?” Colter clarified. “Not Henry?”
Her head jerked back slightly. “Well, yeah, I guess so. I just assumed he went that way, too, once I saw her.”
“And what about Danny? Was he with her?”
“No, Danny was following me.”
Colter held back the slew of questions that bubbled up. When had she spotted Danny following her? Why had she gone into a deserted location if she’d known Danny was on her trail?
Colter didn’t ask because he knew the answer. Her sister.
Kensie’s lips folded upward, contrition in her gaze as her hand went still on Rebel’s head. “I had to try and get to her, Colter.”
“I understand.” And he did. He didn’t blame her for it, either, no matter the state of his leg. “But what would you have done if you’d caught up to her? If she was really walking that way without being forced...”
The thought trailed off as he realized that the truck that had flown past him moments before he’d heard Kensie’s scream—the one he’d thought carried Kensie away from him—must have held Alanna. He’d been devastated, thinking it was Kensie being ripped out of his life. So how must Kensie feel, knowing it was the sister she’d been searching for since she was thirteen?
“Are you sure it was her?” He had to ask, even though he couldn’t deny the resemblance. But then, he’d only gotten a brief glimpse of the woman in the truck’s passenger seat. Dark hair, similar profile. He’d just assumed, because he knew Kensie had gone in that direction.
Maybe Kensie was just assuming, too, because she wanted so desperately for it to be Alanna.
The woman he’d seen hadn’t been tied down in the back, out of sight. She’d been sitting up in the passenger seat as if she was there of her own free will. None of that sounded like a woman who’d been kidnapped.
“I-it had to be her,” Kensie said. He must have looked unconvinced, because she started petting Rebel again, faster, as she rushed on. “I yelled her name. She turned toward me when she heard it, Colter. It was her. It was Alanna.”
“Are you sure? Then why did she keep going? Maybe she just turned because you startled her, Kensie.” He didn’t want to destroy her hope, but he had to ask.
“Long-term kidnapping victims bond to their captors,” Kensie told him haltingly, like she didn’t want to know about such things, let alone talk about them. “They do it just to survive. Someone like Alanna, grabbed when she was only five...” She broke off on a sob that she quickly stifled. “It’s possible she doesn’t even know she was kidnapped, that she doesn’t remember her family. That she doesn’t remember me.”
“I’m sorry.” He cursed himself for not thinking it through. It made sense. Long-term prisoners of war sometimes did the same thing.
Not wanting Kensie to dwell on what her sister might have endured over all those years, he turned the conversation in another direction. “Are you sure she was with Henry? Did you ever see them together?”
Kensie squinted up at the ceiling, like she was trying to recall, then finally shook her head. “No, I can’t be positive. I assume it was him driving the truck I saw her in, but I couldn’t actually see the driver. But what are the chances he led me that way and then Alanna just happened to be there? Especially after he ran from me at the snowplow store when I started asking questions?”
Unless
