Unstoppable Force (Force of Nature Series) (9 page)

He was hurt badly. His fur bloodied and
matted with it. His leg broken and hurt. She saw her standing over him, a gun
in her hand and a look of determination on her face. Others were behind her and
him, pack. Some of them shifted into wolf, others in human form, but all of
them ready to stand behind them, behind her. When she felt the final connection,
she felt the room spin and darken. She was slipping away just as she heard him
say her name.

“I can trust you,” she said as she
slipped away into the dark void.

Opening her eyes slowly, she was aware
of two things immediately. One, she wasn’t alone in the big bed, and two, there
were two vampires in the room with them. One of them was Phil; the other man
she didn’t know.

“He’s with me,” Phil spoke softly. “Myles
Kramer, I’d like for you to meet Ginger Cavanaugh. She goes by Lou. Myles is my
child and a very good friend of mine.”

“What are you doing here?” She sat up
only to be pulled back down next to the man in the bed beside her. Every time
she tried to get up, he pulled her back to him.

“He’s been doing that for two days.
Every time you move, he pulls you to him. Annoying, I suppose, but with mates,
it’s hard not to have your loved ones close.” She glared at him and he laughed.
“I felt your pain and when I lost the connection to you I came to see what had
happened. The power coming off you was…well, slightly terrifying. You’re more
than people think you are, aren’t you?”

She ignored his question and put a
pillow under her head to see them better. “What do you mean you felt the loss
of connection? I don’t have anything…” She looked up at him sharply. “That’s
right, you gave me your blood.”

“Very good. I had to. The second time
you went into surgery, you were dying. The infection from your wound had
entered your heart and was causing you to have small heart attacks. And Clint
was sure that the next one or two was going to kill you.” He leaned back in his
chair. “I couldn’t let that happen. You’re Connor’s mate and he’s my friend.”

She looked at the man sleeping beside
her. “You said two days. Is that how long he’s been out too? I didn’t mean to
hurt him.”

“No, you didn’t, but you did give him
what he needed. You’ve no idea what trust can do for someone in his position.” She
looked over at Myles when he spoke. “I don’t trust either very well. Never
have. I think that’s why I’ve made such a great cop. But Connor needed you to
give you his. And you did.”

She flushed at what she’d seen in her
touch of him. “He’s not going to be happy with me when he wakes. I told him
that it would be painful.”

“It wasn’t painful.” She looked down at
Connor when he spoke. “It wasn’t painful, but draining. Why? Why does if feel
as if you drained me like the vamp over there might do?”

She looked at the two men in the chairs
as she answered him. “Because I’m not just what you’ve been told. I also have
the ability to change things, heal things so long as it’s tiny, as well as a
few things I’m not sure they have names for.”

“I would say that’s a fair assessment.” She
glared at Phil and he laughed. “You’re not stupid so I can only assume no one
has trained you. Can you control it at all?”

“I didn’t kill him, did I?” She flushed
when Connor burst out laughing. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I meant
that I can pull it in, but sometimes it gets too strong. It’s why I don’t touch
anyone if I don’t have to.”

“And your foster father? What is it he wants
you to touch for him? I’m assuming it’s someone he thinks you can control. And I
don’t know him, but you I do. I can assume that it’s something to make him
rich.”

Phil and Myles left the room as Connor
was asking her. She turned away from him and felt him stretch his body along
hers.

“Lou? I know it was him. I shared your
memories along with you taking mine.”

She closed her eyes. “The first time
that I knew what a monster was, I was four. My parents liked to show me off. I
was there prodigy. Or something akin to it. I could speak several languages by
then and was reading at a college level. I don’t know how they expected
anything less from me. They’d been making me study and read things since birth.
The night of the dinner party that was to get me into the best college in the
country was the night I saw him.”

Connor pulled her to his body closer and
held her. Lou closed her eyes, not wanting him to see into her. Nor her into
him. She continued with her tale.

“Mr. Dublin was sitting next to me. He
had been talking to me all night. Strange things, almost…almost sexual. I
didn’t understand them as sex education wasn’t in my curriculum. I was
uncomfortable, but was unable to make my mother understand. No, that’s not
right, she didn’t want to understand. She wanted me to be what she wanted and
damn the consequences.”

She saw it now. The table laden with
food and flowers. Her mother was an expert entertainer. She and the decorator
had spent hours on this room alone for this event. She could almost smell the food
that had been prepared. Asparagus and hollandaise sauce, rare roast beef, and
small potatoes. There were even tiny loaves of bread on each plate with small
pats of butter with the letter C embossed on them.

“Lou? What happened that night? What did
the man do to you?” She turned in his arms and looked at the ceiling. “Lou?”

“He wrapped his hand around mine. Sounds
so innocent, but it wasn’t. He wanted me to…touch him, and this was the best he
could do without drawing suspicion to himself.” She felt Connor’s fingers curl
around hers and she let him. “The memories were horrific. He’d been raping
young children for years and killing them when they served what he supposed was
their purpose. He taped them with him. Them and each other. Hundreds of
children lost all they had because he was a monster. There was a room off from
his, deep into the school where he managed. He called it his gym.”

“And he wanted to take you there. That’s
why he wanted you to come to his school so that you could be a part of his
collection.” She heard the anger in Connor’s voice, but ignored it for now.

“He had taken me there, or at least he
did in my dreams. When he touched me, I could see it as if it were real. He had
me strapped to a table and he was using things on me that I had no understanding
of. But the blood I did. All that blood was pouring from me. And he laughed. He
was laughing so hard as he hurt me.”

She realized she was crying when Connor
brushed the tears away with his thumb. She didn’t want to show weakness to him,
but he was giving her no choice. She finished her story so that he’d go away
and leave her alone.

“The police came to take me away. I
had…I guess I had stabbed him with my fork. I don’t remember that, but they
took me away. While I was being driven away I told them what I had seen, what
he had planned for me, and one of the officers turned to look at me. He looked
not at me, it seemed, but into me. He had his partner turn back to the school
and they went inside.”

Connor laid his head on her chest and
she wanted more than anything to hold him too. But she didn’t, and it wasn’t
until he spoke that she realized that this man above all others might come to
understand her.

“He was like you, wasn’t he? The cop, he
was an empath just like you, and he knew that what you had seen was real.”

“Yes, he was.”

Chapter 8

Dean watched the house and could see a
lot of comings and goings, but nothing that would lead him to believe that
Ginger was here. He was about to turn away when he heard someone say the name “Lou.”
It was a long shot, but he turned back to listen.

“I guess she’s forever going to be
called that name, isn’t she?” The older man laughed. “I suppose it’s okay if
you like the butch type names. Me? I want a woman who has a name that befits
her.”

“You mean like ‘Bambi,’ or better yet
‘Bimbo?’ For you, I’d probably look for a girl named ‘Boobs.’ That’s all you
seem to think about.” The older man cuffed the younger one in the head as he
continued. “Get yourself back to work afore I kick your ass to the other side
of the room. Kids. They’ve no respect for love.”

Dean walked up to the younger man when
he wandered off. He was just picking up a large bag of something heavy-looking
when he turned and saw him. Dean smiled his best smile at him and put out his
hand. “I’m Dean Herman. I’ve been looking for my stepdaughter for a few weeks
now. I hope you can help me.” The man hefted the bag up on his shoulder more
and didn’t answer. “Her name is Ginger Louise. Cavanaugh, Ginger Louise
Cavanaugh. Have you heard of her?”

“Nope.” He looked behind him and Dean
turned to find the older man there behind him. “He’s looking for someone name
of Cavanaugh. I told him I ain’t never heard of her.”

“You a part of this crew that’s coming
in?”

Dean smiled at the older man; Karl it
said on his shirt.

“You don’t be looking like you can
handle this kinda work. I think it would do you a world of goodness if’n you
moved on.” Karl took a stance that Dean had seen on bigger men all his life. As
if he didn’t mean piss to him. He wanted to take a stand, but he couldn’t. He
was still hurting from the beating he’d given Ginger a week ago.

He backed away and held up his hands in
surrender. “I meant no harm. Just looking for a runaway.” Dean knew as well as
they did that she was here and he meant to find her. “I was just moving along
anyway and I’ll just be looking elsewhere.”

“You do that. And If’n I see you here
again, you’ll be sitting to piss for a month. If you even could when I finish
with you.” Karl followed him all the way to the end of the site. When Dean was
safely across the street, he bowed at the man and then flipped him off. He had
what he wanted now. An address.

Dean went back to his car. Well, it
wasn’t his, but the one he’d stolen a few days ago. It had expired plates on it
and it was hell on gas, but the back seat was big enough that he could sleep in
it. And he had the perfect place to keep the sucker. In the parking garage at
the closed down mall he’d found.

Dean pulled out his wallet. He had
nothing in it as he’d gone to the race tracks three days ago and lost it all. He
knew that he was stupid for putting all his money on the horse, but damned if
it didn’t make him feel good to have a horse named after him in the finals. Dean’s
Boy had big odds and Dean was going to make it rich. He’d been had.

The horse was as stupid as he’d seen. Didn’t
even come out of the stall until nearly ten seconds after the other horses on
the track. And when he’d been starting to catch up with the tail end, the
dumbass horse nearly threw his rider. Dean had torn up his ticket in disgust. He
was nearly out of the park when he heard someone say something about the horse
being drugged up. That everyone was being given a refund.

Dean waited in line for nearly forty
minutes when he got to talk to the clerk. He’d asked for his ticket and Dean
told him that he no longer had it. The man simply said, “Next,” as if Dean
hadn’t been standing there. When he’d been shoved out of the way, he’d tried to
get back to the counter when a stupid mall-like cop pulled him aside.

“You have your ticket?”

Dean shook his head.

“Then move on. That’s the way it’s done.
See?”

Dean looked up at the sign above the
clerk’s head and read it. “No refunds without proof of purchase.” Dean looked
at the security guard. He didn’t look like he gave a shit about him or the
fucking ticket. Dean moved on. He was out to his car when he realized that the
racetrack people planned it that way. They made you so frustrated that you’d
tear up your ticket and they didn’t have to pay. Dean was convinced that they hung
that sign after the race.

“Damn it, why can’t a working man catch
a fucking break? I just need to make a few dollars so I can get Ginger and take
her back home with me.” He tried to remember how long it had been since she’d
lived with him and his wife and realized it had been a number of years. Ten or
so, as a matter of fact. “Don’t matter. She owes me. She ate at our table and
took up space in our house. She owes me.”

Dean found the main address for the
company. Force Construction was in the phone book and it was nearby. He decided
to wait until tonight to go and see if he could find something on her, and
smiled to himself as he walked by one of those open air markets. He would have
thought it too cold to have one this time of year, but it was fortuitous for
him.

He snatched himself two apples and a bag
of carrots. He nearly had himself a bag of oranges when someone yelled at him
to stop. He was nearly around the corner when he spied what looked to him like
a display of tuna. He normally didn’t like canned tuna, but he was hungry and
didn’t even have ten cents to his name. Running full tilt into the tall tower,
he knocked it over and grabbed up as many cans as he could stuff in his
pockets.

Eighteen cans, a slightly bruised bag of
carrots, and two smashed apples later, he was limping to his car. Not bad, not
bad at all. He was set to have dinner when he realized he didn’t have a can
opener. Dean threw all the cans at the building next to him and went to his
car.