Finding Me Page 4

  Continuing to stare at him dumbly, she opened her mouth as confusion filled her gaze. “I don’t understand…this is my…my rental. I mean, I…”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you rented this cabin?” Mac looked at her disbelievingly, taking quick peeks every few seconds to her breasts, slightly hidden by the water. Hannah was too frightened to cover them and hell, he was only human after all.

  ~~~~~

  Sneak preview of:

  Book II in the

  Captive Hearts Series:

  Intimate Strangers

  With evil lurking on every corner, can two veritable strangers survive on love alone?

  Chelsea Reid shares one sinful night with a delicious stranger and she winds up pregnant. Disowned by her parents and forced to leave university, she accepts an offer from her boss, Hannah Magnus-Dunlop, to stay with her and her family.

  Christiaan ‘Tiaan’ Carstens had everything going for him. In the blink of an eye, he lost it all, including most of his mind, tortured in an American run facility because he didn’t die when a rogue politician wanted him to. His former colleague Mackenzie Dunlop extended an open invitation to come back and visit him in Vancouver. The very last thing Tiaan expects to see up north is sweet Chelsea - and his infant son.

  The memories of that one magical night they spent together acting as the glue that holds him together, Tiaan attempts to string the rest of the pieces of his life into some form of semblance, while trying to figure out if Chelsea even wants him in her life.

  Excerpt:

  Using her hand as a visor from the sun, Chelsea continued searching for a man who matched the description Mackenzie gave her. A tall guy was approaching her and for a moment, panic filled her. No, it couldn’t be. That man looked an awful lot like–

  “I take it you are here to pick me up?”

  Son of a…gun…

  Swallowing down the urge to heave up her lunch, Chelsea gripped the fabric of her floral tunic, clutching it to her stomach. Of all the people she could have been picking up from the airport today, it had to be him. ‘South African elevator guy’, as she had come to call him. At least now he had a name.

  “Erm, I haven’t gotten it wrong, have I? Or, are you waiting for someone else with the name Carstens?” His dark eyes searched hers through her sunglasses.

  He doesn’t even recognize me. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Of course he wouldn’t, why would he? She was probably just another girl he had a one-time thing with. A long list of countless sexual partners. Chelsea felt sick to her stomach.

  “Hello?”

  Sweet Mother. She’d just been standing there while he asked her questions. “Uh, n-no, you’re Christiaan, right?”

  The corners of his mouth pulled back, a mouth that had been on parts of her body that were covered with clothing at the moment. “I am, but I go by Tiaan. Looks like we’ve settled that mystery. Now, where are you parked?”

  She couldn’t look at him anymore. Too many emotions tore through her and she had to think of alternate living arrangements now. If Tiaan, as he finally announced, was staying with Mac and Hannah for an undisclosed amount of time, no way in hell could Chelsea continue living there too.

  “This way.” She didn’t check to see if he followed as she crossed the street and entered the parking structure.

  When they reached her car, Chelsea’s stomach turned over, realizing there was a car seat in the back. Surely he’d notice it and wonder? No, she scolded herself, he doesn’t even remember so stop worrying. Besides, Mac and Hannah had Erik so he would probably think the car seat belonged to them. She popped the trunk and he stowed his luggage away, then they both climbed into her small and old, yet reliable vehicle.

  “Why do I get the strange feeling that you and I have met before?”

  Because you and I spent the most incredible two hours in an elevator, and then the night in your hotel room, her mind screamed to announce. Those precious hours meant everything to her and Chelsea drew on her memories of that magical night during the past year. Now they were ruined, a beautiful painting on a canvas that someone vandalized with splattered random blobs of colour. She decided then and there never to dwell on that night ever again, no matter how much her heart wished it.

  “I uh, I guess I have one of those faces,” Chelsea replied with a shrug, pulling onto the highway.

  The drive back to Mac and Hannah’s felt like it took days instead of just half an hour. As soon as she pulled into the driveway, Chelsea popped the trunk and ran inside, leaving Tiaan to his own devices. She fled past a stunned Mac holding Erik, rushing up the stairs of the newer part of the house to her bedroom. It was dark and silent when she entered, save for the gentle hum of her two month old son’s breathing.

  How many times had she dreamed of finding the man from the elevator and telling him about his child? Their child.

  If only he had called her…

  No dwelling on it!

  Thanks to Hannah, she had a lot of stuff to pack. The suitcase from her closet would carry most of her own stuff which she started shoving into it, but all of Ruan’s things, that meant another trip or two. At least. Then there was the crib, and she had to find a place to go.

  A deluge of hot, stinging tears dripped down her face. Everything had been going so well for her here. She had an amazing job where she could bring Ruan every day, a place to live and a great support system. With the arrival of one man, everything came crashing down around her.

  “Chelsea, is everything okay? Hey, what’s up with the suitcase?”

  She froze at the sound of Mac’s voice, a deep and soft growl from the doorway. Ruan woke, sending a piercing cry through the room and she welcomed the distraction so as not to have to answer his question.

  “Jesus, man! Did you and Hannah have a second child already?” the South African man chuckled as he stepped through the doorway. “Come to Uncle Tiaan then.”

  Chelsea held Ruan to her chest, backing up to the wall behind her.

  “He’s not ours,” Mac offered with a laugh. “Ruan belongs to Chelsea.”

  “Chelsea…Chelsea…” Tiaan spoke her name as if testing it on his tongue. “Chelsea?” The third time he said it, he sounded confused and she watched his eyes furiously snap from her, to Ruan and back again. “Son of a…”

  At least they were on the same page now.

  ~~~

  Mind reeling, Tiaan stumbled backwards while the memory and this rather unexpected news assaulted him. That same memory was the one he called on during each interrogation to deliver him from the agony of torture. Now it was tainted, ruined.

  “Uh… Am I missing something?” Mac shifted his weight and moved Erik to his other hip.

  “Hmm. I believe I need a moment alone with Chelsea, if you don’t mind.”

  After a moment’s silence, Mac acquiesced. “Call if you need anything.”

  Once they were alone, his anger exploded. “Why did you not tell me that I had a bloody child?”

  Her expression matched his, viciously irate. “Tell you? Tell you? I didn’t even know your damned name until I picked got you from the airport today! And don’t you dare chastise me here. I left you my number and you never called!” She backed into the far corner to sit on the bed, bouncing Ruan – his son for Christ’s sakes – in a gentle motion. “I went through all of this alone, with Hannah and Mac’s help.”

  She left her number? Tiaan thought back to the morning after, when he’d reached for that voluptuous woman he spent the night with, only to find a cold and empty space in the hotel room bed. Seconds later his phone rang and he had to leave on a mission straight away. If she did leave her phone number for him, he mustn’t have seen it in his haste to pack and get on the next flight out to San Diego.

  Too late to make amends on that note now, he crossed the distance between them and dropped onto her single bed. He could have sworn he’d told her his name, but then again, they hadn’t done much talking that night. Then a thought crossed his mind.
If she was so quick to jump into a man’s bed, one whose name she did not even know, this baby could belong to someone else. There was one way to find out.

  “I want a paternity test done.”

  Recoiling as if struck, Chelsea moved to the changing table, making sure to keep an eye on Ruan. Bloody hell, she’d even gone as far as to find an Afrikaans name for the baby. He observed her as she gently removed the soiled diaper – a cloth one, ne noted – and cleaned the baby up before putting a fresh one on.

  “I have no need or want of anything from you. I certainly don’t want your money. And no one is sticking a needle in my son. So whatever reason you have for demanding such a ridiculous thing, it’s unjustified and unwanted.” Her voice carried a hard edge to it, as if she had just this minute constructed an impenetrable wall around herself.

  Tiaan opened his mouth to reply, though he didn’t quite know what to say, and was saved by Mac slipping into the room. Thank God for the man. Hopefully he would have a bit of advice on this particularly distressing situation. Just before he met Hannah, Mackenzie found out that he’d had a daughter for years and years. Kayla turned fifteen a few months ago.

  “Chelsea,” Mac began as he gently pushed her aside to take over dressing little Ruan, “I know this is a delicate situation, and I also should probably mind my own business, but since Hannah came into my life…” he grinned, as if recalling a memory. “Let’s just say I like things sorted, nice and neat, wrapped up with a bow nowadays. It keeps me up at night when there’s unfinished business in my house.”

  Christ, but the baby looked a hell of a lot like the pictures of him at that age. A pang of something indefinable twisted in his chest. He had the urge to hold Ruan, to touch him, like it might make all the difference in the world. The fact that she managed to pull his grandfather’s name out of the thousands of Afrikaans male names out there also astonished him. Chelsea couldn’t have possibly known.

  “What is your blood type, Chelsea?”

  She was at Mac’s side to take Ruan who just started to cry, presumably for her since he ceased as soon as she held him. “O Rh negative, why?”

  “Hmm. And Ruan is…?”

  “The same as me.”

  Tiaan gripped his shirt and accidentally pressed too hard on a particularly tender area of his chest. If both mother and child were O type, that meant the father had to have O too, or at least O antigens in their system. He knew what was coming next, and answered without being asked. “Myself as well.”

  “I guess we have a fairly good idea now.” Mac raked his hand through his hair and, from the look on his face, Tiaan could tell his friend was attempting not to laugh.

  It’s not bloody well funny! he wanted to yell.

  “Chelsea, they can take a saliva swab so there wouldn’t be any needles, but for both of your sakes – and my sanity too – we should go ahead with this. I’ll pay–”

  “No, I will,” Tiaan interjected. “And if he’s not mine, she can reimburse me the cost.”

  As soon as he’d spoken the words, Chelsea shot him a look that could have killed him and all but ran from the room with Ruan in her arms. That little voice he shut off many times before emerged to the surface of his mind, telling him what a bastard he’d just been but he ignored it.

  Rather, he attempted to, yet it kept on hounding him. Begging that he do the right thing and run after her, comfort her. That, deep down, he knew Ruan was his son and they needed him.

  Persistent little bugger that his conscience was.

  Thankfully, Mac cleared his throat, distracting him from his integrity or profound lack thereof.

  “Try not to be too much of an asshole, Tiaan. Chelsea hasn’t exactly had it easy since she found out she was pregnant. If it wasn’t for Hannah, I honestly don’t know what would have happened to her. She spent a lot of her pregnancy in the hospital.”

  Self-defences raised, he turned to his friend, stunned. “So you are taking her side on this?”

  “Relax, I’m not taking anyone’s side. Jesus, Tiaan, I know you’ve been through hell, but just think about how it must have been for her. A single twenty-four year old girl living thousands of miles from her family who disowned her when they she told them she was expecting. She had to drop out of university and put herself in debt, just to keep a baby she didn’t even know she was having. Hell, she didn’t know the damned guy’s name that got her pregnant!”

  “And this is all my fault then, hmm? If she’s so damned promiscuous, she should learn to use some kind of protection!”

  Suddenly, he was backed against a wall with a thick forearm pressed to his neck. “It takes two people to make a baby, Christiaan. Obviously you did not offer to use a condom or go buy any. And who gives a damn if she was promiscuous? Grow the fuck up already, you’re only two years younger than I am so act your age! If we men can go around adding notch after notch to our bedposts, why can’t women do the same without getting a shitty name for themselves? Are we the only ones who are allowed to enjoy physical pleasure?”

  Mac released him and Tiaan greedily sucked a few breaths in while massaging his neck. Just being in a position where he was held down brought terrifying memories to the surface. Memories that he wished he could lock away forever, maybe even forget them altogether.

  Then it hit him, square in the solar plexus like a damned wrecking ball. Twenty-four years old. That made her twelve years his junior. Was she truly so young? Why hadn’t he noticed that back when he’d been in the hotel elevator with her?

  He sat down on her bed to think, absorbing the information Mac just granted him. So, her parents disowned her. Big deal. His parents were deceased. At least hers were still alive somewhere. Eventually, they would realize their error and wish to reconnect with their daughter…right? Unless they were selfish bastards like his had been.

  “This is a bloody mess,” Tiaan sighed into his hands. “Here I finally thought I might be getting some semblance of my life back and now…now I might have the one damned thing I never wanted. A God damned kid.”

  “Well no one asked you to demand a paternity test! And I don’t want you in his life anyways!”

  Shit. Tiaan sat up just in time to see Chelsea swinging a bag over her shoulder and bolt from the room like it was on fire. A slew of curses slipped over his tongue. Mac laughed, he actually bloody well laughed.

  “Bastard.” Tiaan threw a pillow at him.

  That only made the other man grab his sides and howl even harder.

  ~~~~~

  Book III in the

  Captive Hearts Series:

  Reckless Passion

  With passion this strong and emotions running wild, anything is possible…

  Kayla Travers-Dunlop is all grown up and living on Vancouver Island. The past haunts her dreams, forcing her to keep her heart at arm’s length from the male population, with no room for exceptions. She’s got a very good reason for it and managed to last this long before breaking all her own rules.

  Nathan Callaghan has secrets of his own. Dark and damaging secrets. A chance encounter on a flight crossing the Atlantic with a sassy young thing from England has him throwing caution to the wind and he wants nothing less than all of Kayla.

  With a father like Mackenzie Dunlop taking stock of her every move and a man like Nathan intent on making her his, Kayla wonders if it’s possible to leave her demons behind and let love in.

  Excerpt:

  Men like him only existed in films or magazines and she hardly saw them in the flesh. His close-cropped hair and clean shaven jaw, coupled with the slight cleft in his chin easily made him sexy in a dangerous kind of way. Dangerous because he made her think of naughty things, the kind of activities that would undoubtedly be unbelievably gratifying. Dangerous because a girl could really lose her heart and have it smashed to bits by a man like him.

  “Hey there, sleepy girl,” he whispered, gently brushing a few wayward strands of her dark hair away from her forehead. He had an accent like Hannah’s.


  It took Kayla a second to compose herself after his unexpected touch. Since what she now referred to as ‘The Incident,’ she had tried her hardest to ignore men. Stupid, sexy, gorgeous men, with their chiseled abs and nice big biceps, like the one sitting next to her, with that wide jaw she wanted to hold onto while kissing him. This man incited almost every fantasy she’d ever imagined and suddenly the idea of joining the not-so-prestigious Mile High Club was at the top of her list. With him.

  She squeezed her thighs together in a vain attempt to tamp down on her arousal. Very vain attempt. He was licking his lips and it only served to further her raunchy imagination.

  “I was waiting for you to wake up before asking if you wanted to trade seats.” He motioned to his thighs, which certainly didn’t help.

  Kayla slammed her eyes shut to avoid inspecting his lap further. The effort expended too much energy. Dragging him to the restroom to shag sounded so much easier.

  “You okay?” Too much concern flooded his voice. A man who cared…

  She groaned, rubbing her temples. The action allowed rank-breath to get a better foothold on her shoulder. He actually snuggled into her like she was his pillow.

  “Hey, buddy.” Gorgeous guy reached over her chest, his firm forearm brushing against her already painfully hard nipples. Zings of need flashed down to the core. “Mind not sleeping on the lady?”

  Old guy mumbled. Gorgeous guy poked him again, this time a little harder.

  Oh boy, Kayla squirmed. If his arm pressed any harder, she might just come from the sensation.

  “D’you mind?”

  Gorgeous guy sharply raised a brow. “Yeah, I do. You’re sleeping on my girlfriend.”

  Eyes bugging out of his head, coffee-breath took in the man on her other side’s muscles, his youth, and snapped away from Kayla. He mumbled a swift and useless apology, and hunched into the aisle.