Claimed

Kelsey stood and turned wordlessly to Michael. He held out his arms and she stepped into them. Leaning her cheek against his chest, she closed her eyes as he held her close.

“He finally let me go,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “I’m free.”

Epilogue

Michael Johansen thought he had seen it all in the nine years he’d been working, first as a cop and then as a private investigator specializing in missing persons. When Patrick and Katherine Rowan had enlisted his services and sent him up north to find their missing daughter, the local cops had been reasonably forthcoming with their files, though they hadn’t managed to turn up much. When he’d interviewed her coworkers, one conversation in particular had stood out for him about James’ apparently obsessive interest in Kelsey. Michael had learned to trust his gut, and his gut told him to follow that lead, in spite of the fact that James was supposedly off somewhere getting treatment for cancer.

His suspicions had been further stoked by Bennett’s agitated and even hostile behavior during the interview. The timing had been too neat between Kelsey’s disappearance and James’ abrupt departure from the bank. And he remained the last person seen with Kelsey the night of her disappearance. Even so, Michael had known the odds were good that, with so many months behind them, Kelsey was probably long dead and buried. Still he’d hoped at least to discover what had happened and give her parents some closure.

The shock of finding Kelsey as quickly as he had, half-starved and terrified, had blinded him at first to her courage and inner strength. During the first couple of days when she’d been interviewed endlessly by the cops from her hospital bed, he had tried to keep his distance, at least emotionally, though in truth, he’d barely left her side. She had stabilized quickly and been released within a few days to return with her parents to their Florida home.

Even on that first day in the hospital before her parents had swooped in, he could see she’d begun to rally, refusing to be cast as the victim. Michael had admired that in her, aware the wounds she’d suffered went deeper than just the welts and marks that monster had left on her body. Michael had further admired her compassion in the face of what the police ruled as James’ suicide. Even after what the man had put her through, she was sad for the way he’d ended his life.

Try as he might to resist it, Michael’s attraction to Kelsey had been immediate and fierce, though he’d kept that firmly to himself. He knew she faced a long uphill battle to full recovery, and he certainly didn’t intend to make things more complicated for her by coming on to her.

Yet once back in Florida, he couldn’t seem to get the lovely young woman out of his head. He nearly called her a dozen times, but held himself back. He did check in with her parents after the first week, and had been gratified to learn she was doing well, all things considered. He’d told himself to let it go. He’d done his job and that was that. He was a professional. He would forget about her in time. He would throw himself into his work, as he always did, and forget the way she had felt in his arms, or the trusting look in her lovely green eyes.

He almost managed it.

Until the day she called him, and the sound of her sultry voice sent a jolt of pure joy right down to his toes.

~*~

Kelsey watched the waves rolling toward her and then falling back, their white caplets bubbling over the sand as the waves retreated. The sun was warm, the breeze softly scented with salt and suntan oil. She leaned back on her elbows and stared up at the wide blue sky. Closing her eyes, she became that soaring white bird she had metamorphosed into during the worst of her captivity, when to remain in her human form was just too painful.

She still had nightmares, waking in a cold sweat, shivering and sobbing, but they came less often now, and she was better able to shake off the shackles of the lingering dreams more quickly. The bruises and welts had all long since healed, save for the scar left from the bullet graze.

She thought sometimes of how James had called the marks left from the beatings “badges of courage,” and how angrily she’d recoiled from that description at the time. Now, though, as she fingered the jagged scar left by the bullet, she wasn’t so quick to dismiss the characterization. She had been alone and defenseless against someone much bigger and stronger than herself, but she had managed to get that gun, and would have shot him, too, if she’d had the chance. She’d slashed him with a kitchen knife, and she’d fully intended to kill him when she got the gun the second time, even though she’d been shaking like a leaf. She’d nearly been beaten down, but in the end she’d come alive again, ready to fight, never giving up.