The Missing

hand on the doorknob and holding her right hand against her belly and studying the floor.

    He turned to stare at her. From under her lashes, she watched as his shoulders rose and fell, his chest moving as he blew out a harsh breath, almost like he’d been holding his breath the same way she had.

    “God, Taige . . .”

    His voice sounded almost exactly like it had in her dreams—no, exactly. In the dim light, she couldn’t see his face very well, but she had a bad, bad feeling that her dreams had been pretty damn accurate in that aspect, too. Shoving away from the door, she kept her head down as she moved around him and headed into the living room. He followed behind her slowly. She heard a click, and light flooded the room. She shot him a look over her shoulder, just a quick glance, enough to tell her just how dead-on her dreams had been.

    It was almost too spooky; even his hair looked right. It was shorter than it had been when he was younger, almost brutally short. His shoulders strained the seams of his shirt, and she had a flashback to her last dream, when he had crowded her up against the couch, demanding she tell him how she’d gotten hurt. She’d shoved him, pushing one hand against one wide, rock-hard shoulder, and she imagined if she reached out and touched him, he’d feel exactly like he had in her dreams.

    “So, are you going to look at me or just let me stare at the back of your head all night?” he asked softly.

    She shot him another quick, almost nervous glance over her shoulder, and Cullen blew out a breath.

    When he spoke again, his voice was closer. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”

    Aren’t you going to speak to me at all? Cullen wanted to ask. Instead, he waited until she finally turned around and faced him. In the brightly lit room, he noticed two things. The first was that she had her arm, her right arm, in a cast that went halfway up to her elbow. A chill raced down his spine. The second was that her left eye was puffy and nearly swollen shut, a dark, ugly bruise that Cullen suspected was every bit as painful as it looked.

    Those dreams—shit.

    She spoke, and her voice sounded just as it had in all those dreams. “I already know why you’re here. You need my help.” A bitter smile curved her lips as she stared at him. “Why would else would you be here?” She glanced at the file in his hand and held out her hand.

    Cullen swallowed and lifted it, staring at it with the metallic taste of fear thick in his mouth. “You don’t owe me a damn thing, Taige. I know that. I’ve got no right being here, and I know that, too.”

    She sighed and dropped her head, covering her eyes with her uninjured hand. “Cullen, stop. You want something. Out with it. I’ve got better things to do than stand here and have you brooding all over me. So just spill it.”

    “I . . . look, if I didn’t have to have your help, I wouldn’t be here. But it’s not me that needs you—just . . . just don’t—”

    Taige cocked a brow. “You don’t have much of an opinion of me, do you, Cullen? Whatever brought you here in the middle of the night twelve years after kicking me out of your life has to be pretty damn important, and considering the kind of help you probably need, I’m going to assume there’s somebody else involved.” She stared at him, her gaze shuttered. “You think so little of me that I’d refuse to help whoever this is just to make you suffer because you and me got some history?”

    History . . . Is that what we had? That seemed such a simplified statement. Still, said like that, Cullen felt very much the fool. He looked back down at the file and then at her, watching as she once more held out her hand. Careful not to touch her, he held it out. She took it and moved to sit behind the big iron and glass coffee table before she opened it. She settled down on the overstuffed black couch. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he never would have seen it as she took a deep breath and set her shoulders, almost like she was bracing herself.

    Her eyes, her expression, they were carefully blank as she opened the file. But as she stared down at Jilly’s picture, something changed. Her smooth, caramel-colored skin went pale. She looked up at him, and he watched as her eyes darkened to the color of thunderheads. The tension in the room mounted until it seemed too thick to even breathe.

    Taige tore her eyes away from the picture and stared up at him.