Infinite Possibilities (6 page)

Tightening my grip on the armrests, I block out the loud rush of engines and wicked shudders of the plane as we lift off, squeezing my eyes shut. I replay moments with this man as I have so many times before. The first time our eyes met in the airport. The moment in my apartment when he’d trapped my hands and I’d instinctively trusted him when I had trusted no one but some invisible handler for six long years. 

Trusted him.

Just as my gut had told me to trust my handler that day in the hospital, it told me to trust Liam. And he’s done nothing to hurt me and everything to help me. My lashes lift and he’s still staring at me, watching me. I do not like the hardness in his face I didn’t see before we sat down. He is angry and...hurt? Yes. I think he’s hurt. 

“I’m just trying to survive, Liam,” I confess. “You gave me reasons not to trust you. I just...I need answers.”

“That’s what I was trying to find out when you got spooked and ran off.”

“Well I’m here now. Who are you in all of this?”

 “Just a man who cares.” 

It’s a perfect answer, if it comes from the right place with the right motives. “Why?”

“Every time you ask that question, I’ll answer the same.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his powerful thighs. “I care. It’s that simple.” 

“
Nothing
in my life is that simple.”

“I am.”

“No.” I laugh without humor. “We’ve had this discussion before. You are anything but simple or normal.”

“Well then, let me make at least one thing simple for you, Amy. Anyone who wants to hurt you has to come through me first.”

His vow punches me in the chest, a bittersweet, tempting promise that could easily be a deadly poison that tears away caution I can’t afford to let fall. “You’re right. You keep answering my questions the same way and saying all the right things. I can’t just take your word. I need more. I need...more.” 

He scrubs his jaw and then sighs. “I wanted to wait to do this when we were alone and you felt safe, but I can see that to ever get to that point you need to know what I know. So here are the facts.” He runs both hands over his thighs to rest at his knees. “And when we get to New York, I’ll show you all the documentation.”

“I’m listening,” I whisper, unable to find my voice, hanging by a thread over what he might confess or where in my past he might lead me. 

“I knew you were running scared,” he continues, “and I didn’t trust your boss. I told you that.”

“Yes,” I agree. “You were clear on that and I was clear when I told you not to look into my background. You were clear when you said you wouldn’t. I trusted you at your word.”

“You were terrified out of your mind. What kind of man sits back and just watches that? Your boss doesn’t exist beyond a shell on paper, Amy.”

“I told you not to dig.” 

His eyes narrow on me. “So you knew he wasn’t real. It was a cover story.”

He’s too close to the real me, whoever she is, for comfort. “What matters is you broke a promise.”

“But you didn’t know about the camera,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken, adding things together far too quickly. “You couldn’t have or you wouldn’t have accused me of installing it. Interestingly, the fake boss is the person who set up the Amy Bensen identity.”

It’s not a question. It’s a sharp jab in my chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes narrow on mine. “Yes, you do. Amy Bensen has no school pictures, no connections of any sort, and no real life. She doesn’t even have fingerprints on file. But did you know that Jasmine Heights, Texas has an abduction prevention program that fingerprints kids? You were fingerprinted in kindergarten.” 

I go still inside but my hands are shaking as I curl my fingers into my palms. “What?” 

 “That’s right, Amy. You were fingerprinted, or rather, Lara was fingerprinted and supposedly died in a house fire six years ago. That’s what her death certificate says. That’s what your death certificate says.”

I can barely breathe just hearing my real name being spoken out loud for the first time since the fire, but even more so at the news he’s delivered with it.
I’m dead.
The real me didn’t just leave Jasmine Heights behind. Someone buried me alive. The finality of all that once was and can never be again. There is nothing left. Nothing. The shaking has turned to trembling all over. “I...no. I...no...” I squeeze my eyes shut, the flames flickering in my mind’s eye, hearing my brother’s shout. My mother’s screams. “No.” I press my hand to my face. 

Liam curses and then I don’t even remember him moving but he is kneeling in front of me, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. “I knew I should have waited until we were safe and dry.” He caresses hair from my face. “It’s going to be okay. You’re not alone anymore.”

 “Nothing is okay,” I rasp out, grabbing his shirt “Nothing has been okay for six years.”

“I know, baby, and I’m going to try to change that for you now.” 

“Were you involved? Tell me if you were involved. Good or bad or right or wrong, I have to know.”

“No. God no, Amy.” His hands go to the sides of my face. “I would never hurt you.”

“Then tell me, who is making my life hell?”

He looks stunned and his hands go to my shoulders, almost as if he’s steadying me.  “
You
don’t know?”

“Do you?”

“No. But I’m trying to find out. I’m going to find out.” 

A confusing mix of relief and disappointment fills me. “You really don’t know?”

His lips thin into a grim line and he shakes his head. “No. I wish I did.” 

“You tried to find out?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“So even with all your money and power, you have no answers.” 

“Not yet. I will.”

Blood rushes in my ears and my hands go to his shoulders. “No. No, if you are what you seem to be--”

“
If
I am what I seem to be? What do I seem to be?”

“Good. Right.”  

He grabs my hand and holds them between us. “I am right, Amy. Right for you. Right for us.” 

“Then you need out of this. You don’t know what you’re involved in.”  

“Do you even know, Amy? Do you have any idea what you’re running from?” 

“Death, Liam. I’m running from death, which is exactly why I tried to keep you out of it. That’s why I told you not to dig around. So you don’t end up dead too, but what did you do? You dug around. You think no one knows what you’re doing? You think they won’t be watching you for me?”

“I’m not going to end up dead and neither are you.” 

“My family’s dead. People have died. You could die. I can’t let that happen.”

“You ran to protect me?” 

Ashamed, I look away, fighting the burn in my eyes. “I was too weak to run to protect you.” 

“Amy,” Liam prods gently, his finger sliding under my chin, turning my face to his. 

The instant my eyes meet his, I confess, “I kept telling myself to leave but you were...we were...I just couldn’t.”

“You are not weak. You’ve been through hell and survived and you’re going to keep surviving. We are not going to die.” 

“You don’t--”

“I do. We will get through this.” He unhooks my belt and stands, pulling me to my feet with him. “I won’t have it any other way.” And the conviction in his voice, deep in his eyes, vibrates through me, intense but somehow soothing.

“I want you to be right.”

His lips quirk in that arrogant, confident way of his. “I am.” He sits down and pulls me into his lap, draping me over his legs as I had been in the car. “And we are.” 

I inhale his familiar scent with a deep breath, and it is sweet honey pouring into the emptiness that has become my life. Slowly, my body melts into his, my lashes lower. I just don’t have it in me to fight him, let alone distrust him. I don’t want to be alone when I can be with Liam. But as I snuggle closer to him, I cannot help but wonder if my story was a book and someone was reading it, would they call me naive and stupid? The very idea makes me angry, defensive even, and I do not know why when it’s nothing but an invisible critic. But then, everything and everyone who has attacked me has been invisible and I find myself mentally making my own case.  I was eighteen when I heard my mother being burned alive, suddenly left without money and resources, barely breathing from the pain of loss myself. Maybe I should have tried harder to find answers, but most days just waking up felt like climbing mountains. Except now. In this man’s arms. Would those who would judge me truly pick hitchhiking, and collapsing in flashbacks while digging uselessly for answers on their own over gambling on this man’s arms? 

If they would, then they are not me. I am staying with Liam Stone...live, die, or whatever that means. 

***

I’m having the dream again. The one where Liam is with me, holding me, making me feel safe and cared about. There is warmth and happiness when life has taught me to expect ice and pain. I like this dream, and wanting it to last, I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, savoring a sense of being warm and safe I do not remember feeling much in my adult life. Inhaling, I draw in the rustic, spicy male scent that tells me I am with Liam.
I am with Liam.
My eyes pop open and the night’s events flood my mind. The diner. The car and the driver who took us to the airport. Liam pulling me onto his lap on the plane. The plane. The hum of the engine is still present, just as I am still on Liam’s lap, curled into his body, his head resting on mine, his breathing slow and steady. I’m on top of him and he’s asleep. And because I was with him, I was able to sleep, too. 

Trust.

That is the word that comes to me. I trust him. Right or wrong, that is what he makes me feel. He has from the moment I met him. It could be instinct or stupidity. I’ve tried to think of it as the latter and make my own way. I went to sleep willing to live or die with Liam, and I am awake again, and I still feel that way. I have been alone so very long. Too long. And the truth is, there are answers to be found and he has the resources to find them. 

He shifts slightly and his grip tightens around me, as if he’s afraid I’ll escape. As if he’s afraid this is a dream also. He nuzzles my neck and I lean into his touch as he murmurs,  “You’re awake.” 

His voice, soft silk, and deep, male sex appeal, radiates through me, and tells me this is real. He is real. And maybe, just maybe, everything I’ve felt for him, and with him, is too. “Yes,” I whisper, lifting my head and blinking him into view, his dark hair now a dried, finger-rumpled mess that somehow only makes him sexier. I stroke my fingers over the dark stubble on his jaw. “And you’re really here.”

“Mr. Stone?”

We both look up to find the flight attendant in the doorway to the cabin. “Please. I need her in her seat. We’re preparing to land. We need everyone buckled up.”

“Oh yes,” I quickly agree, scooting off of Liam’s lap. Or I try. He holds on to me.

“Not just yet.” He glances at the flight attendant. “Consider it done.” 

Her lips purse but she takes his words for the dismissal that they are and departs. 

Liam’s fingers lace into my hair and he drags my mouth to his for a long, drugging kiss. The landing gear churns from the belly of the plane and his lips reluctantly leave mine. “Now you can get up.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes,” the flight attendant chides tartly, jerking my gaze to where she has poked her head back into the cabin. “In a seat, please.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks and I scramble off of Liam’s lap, into the seat beside him to buckle up. The flight attendant disappears and Tellar appears in the doorway. “You have to sit down,” the flight attendant scolds from behind him. 

Tellar lifts a hand. “I’m sitting. I’m sitting.” He claims the seat in front of me. “Jeez. Women. They really can be nags.”

My head prickles and an image of my brother saying the same thing flickers in my mind. I swallow hard and shove aside the image, but somehow I repeat what I’d said to Chad so long ago. “Men. They really can be pains in the backside.”

Tellar snorts and looks at Liam. “You’re right. She looks sweet, but she’s feisty. I think I should make friends before I get my ass kicked. We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Tellar. Tellar Phelps.”

I don’t even know how to introduce myself. Hi, I’m a dead girl named Lara? I’m the fake girl named Amy? “Tellar is an interesting name,” I say, doing the avoidance thing I do almost as well as I tell the lies I despise so much.

 “Interesting is one way of putting it. My father was military. He and my uncles loved the whole ‘Tell her you love her. Tell her she’s beautiful. Tell her--”

“What she wants to hear,” I supply without even meaning to. It just sort of happens and so does the ache in my gut that comes with the idea that he or Liam might be doing just that. 

Liam grabs my hand and his is strong and warm. He laces his fingers with mine, drawing my gaze to his, as he says, “I won’t keep the truth from you, no matter how brutal. You have my word.”

But he hadn’t told me everything in Denver and unbidden, a memory smashes into me.
I can handle Amy.
It had been those cold words that made me sound like a puppet he controlled and had made me feel that what I’d overheard had been more than Liam just snooping around. I try to jerk my hand from Liam’s. 

He held onto it, his eyes narrowing. “What just happened?”

“Nothing
just
happened.” But I don’t want to say more and I don’t want to go where these thoughts are taking me. I want to stay in the land of trust and temptation.

“Something just happened,” Liam counters. 

The plane jumps and shakes and out of nowhere a wave of nausea overcomes me. I lean forward, almost doubling over and unhook my belt. Liam’s hand comes down on my back. “Amy.” 

“I’m okay,” I whisper, unhooking my belt. “I just...I need a minute.” I’m on my feet, darting to my left before he can stop me. 

Somehow, I make it to the bathroom without heaving and shove inside the tiny room, shutting the door. The plane shudders again and I struggle with the lock, almost feeling myself turn green, and I give up on the door. Turning, I hang over the tiny toilet, knots balling in my gut.  A metal taste forms in my mouth and I gag, but there is nothing to come up. I can’t even remember the last time I ate.