Forever Mine Read online

  She shrugged and blushed. “And I might have helped her with another one from time to time.” She was an enabler. Holy shit. “But I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed every single day that I’ve had with her. She’s been like a mom to me for so long, and it was more than because I was in love with you. It’s because she is who she is.”

  “She does like to have the nest full, even when we’re all driving her nuts. I didn’t know she was there for you, though. She never once mentioned anything about you when we talked each week. Likely best, though, since that would have made my work all the harder if I was thinking about your sexy self the entire time. Definitely would have made some of those long nights even longer.”

  “She probably knew that, which was why she never said anything to you about it. She knew that you needed to come to your own conclusions, make up your own mind about me and about the life that we could have together. Besides, you were off saving the world and she knew that, honey.”

  “Just not the way everyone assumed I was.” He had a point there. Shrugging, he finished off another potato skin and wiped his fingers off. “The first couple of years, I had to resist the urge to ask about you. I didn’t want Mama to get her hopes up, or the wrong idea, or hell, I don’t know. Then the time passed, and I didn’t know how to bring you up in a conversation without making a mess of things. But don’t think for one minute I wasn’t thinking about you, Athena. I was, way too much probably.”

  “I know.” She reached out for his hand and squeezed it. “I know that you had things to do, honey. You needed to follow your calling and grow up, and I did as well. We both had to grow up.” She was actually glad for the time that they had apart. They were able to become the people that they needed to be.

  He lifted her hand up and kissed her fingers. “I’m both glad we had the time to grow up, and annoyed at myself that I stayed away so long. Which, given my phobia about this town at the time, makes absolutely no sense. But hey, no one ever said I didn’t have my neurosis, right?”

  “I know, honey, but seriously, I understood it. I just wish that I had known that you felt as much for me as I feel for you.” She squeezed his hand one more time and then pulled back. “For now, though, we need to eat. We need to finish our food and then go home. I think we have some celebrating to do, don’t we?”

  “Damn right we do. We should hit up the liquor store. I think it’s a night for champagne.” Grinning, he sat back, but not before snagging some of her chips.

  Chapter Twelve

  The week had passed in a blur. Between starting to plan the wedding, the congratulations of the various townsfolks on their engagement, and her practice, it was hectic to say the least. Adding to the stress was the fact no one had made a move on either her or Martin. The stress of not knowing was starting to wear on her. On the plus side, though, they were planning on holing up at the house for the weekend with only one trip out to the Carver Ranch for Sunday dinner.

  Martin would be arriving any minute to pick her up. He’d sent her a text right before her last client of the day to let her know he was going to hit the store first before coming to collect her, so he wouldn’t be calling until he was there. When the phone rang, she thought absolutely nothing of picking it up.

  “Hey, honey.” She put the phone to her ear. “I’m just putting away my last file and then I will be ready. I should be out front and waiting for you in five minutes.” She was smiling as she spoke. “I’ve missed you today.”

  “Isn’t that sweet,” said a voice that most definitely was not Martin’s. It was the voice from before, the one that sent chills down her spine. “You didn’t listen to us, Doctor Rhodes, and now you’re going to pay for that. We have your man here, and if you do not do exactly what we tell you to do, I’ll start to send him back to you piece by piece. Do you understand?”

  A soft knock came on her door before it was pushed open, and Frank Carver stepped into her office. Behind him she could see the wide eyes of her receptionist, as well as several men all packing guns and wearing bulletproof vests.

  Frank moved straight to her. “Put it on speaker,” he said in a soft tone.

  Athena put the phone on speaker and was shaking. “Don’t you dare hurt him,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t hurt him.” Martin was her everything. For him, she would do anything, anything at all. “Tell me what you want.”

  “You are going to call in the orders to the numbers we gave you. All of them, before closing of business tonight. You will receive a confirmation number for each order. When you’ve completed this, you will call me back with those confirmations.”

  He gave her a phone number. Not that she could write it down given how badly she was shaking, but Frank was doing that anyway. Frank also put a note underneath the phone number that said, “Let me talk to Martin.” Looking to her, Frank pointed at the phone.

  “I want to talk to Martin. I need to know that he’s okay, that you haven’t harmed him. Put him on the phone.” She looked to Frank and nodded. God, she hoped that these men had figured out a way to communicate to each other about where they were holding Martin.

  “You don’t get to make demands, doctor. But I’m feeling generous right now, so I’ll allow you to hear your boyfriend’s voice.” The phone was silent for a time. Then she heard a yell and a pained sound come through the phone. “That’s all you get until I get those numbers. If you do what I say, I might let you actually speak to him. You have until closing, get busy.” The line went dead.

  That had been Martin’s voice she had heard. She was crying, her heart hurting because he was hurting. “Please tell me that you know where he is,” she whispered in deep sorrow. “Frank, tell me what to do.” She wanted to call in the prescriptions and to hell with her business practice and what would happen when those pills got into their hands.

  “He’s tagged, so we know his general location. Unfortunately, they are out in the ranchlands, so it’s really hard to pinpoint. Brant’s out there with a team right now narrowing down the area. With that phone call, we’ll have narrowed the field even more. When is closing of business today for prescriptions to be called in to the pharmacies?”

  “The ones in question are twenty-four-hour pharmacies. I am able to call them in at any time at all. That’s why they chose the ones that they have. They have learned how to work the system and that’s bad. Very bad.” She took another deep breath. “I have to call them in. I need him safe, Frank.”

  “You can’t, Athena. I know you want to do this, but you cannot. It’s more than your license, more than your business. If you give them what you want, they’ll hang onto Martin, move him around, and make it damn hard for us to find him. They can keep up the shell game for a long time. Once you get tired of doing their dirty work, they’ll do things to him you really don’t want to know about. So no, you’re not calling in anything. Even if I have to handcuff you, I’m not letting you. We clear? Now, why the fuck would he say by closing if these are twenty-four-hour places? What the hell is our time frame, Athena?”

  “I stop calling in pharmaceuticals at six p.m., but how would they know that?” She frowned. “That’s something the general public doesn’t know. Only myself and my receptionist. You don’t think she’s got something to do with this, do you?” God, she hoped she was just jumping to conclusions.

  Frank’s face tightened up and he moved for the door. Yanking it open, he looked into the other room. “Where the fuck is the receptionist?”

  “Bathroom.”

  “Find her. She’s been feeding these assholes information. Find her and drag her ass back in here. Ensure she’s got nothing on her, secure her phone, and any other electronic device she might have. Now!”

  She just looked at Frank. “She’s been with me since my dad was in practice. She’s been in this from the start, hasn’t she?” Oh God, she felt ill. “Bonita started with Daddy five years before I took over.” And her father had been under the influence of the mob for about that same amount of time.

 
“She was a plant,” he said, shutting the door again. “Put in to ease the way. She’d be privy to everything he was doing, and you as well. She’d know the schedules, when to call you so you’d actually pick up, and what time frames you worked within. The only ace we currently hold is the fact they have no clue who Martin actually is. Or the fact he’s faking. That boy seriously needs to take some acting classes.”

  “Take them? He needs to teach them,” Athena said with a frown, and rubbed her hand to the back of her neck. “We will get him back and then enroll him in the county’s theater or something like that.”

  “Are you kidding me? That cry of pain was pure crap. He can do better, I know he can. Hell, we taught him how to act better than that when he was like six. Course it wasn’t always acting,” Frank said with a smirk. The first she’d ever seen on his face. The man really didn’t smile, like ever. “But he was our kid brother. We had to make due until Josh came into the picture.”

  “Make due? What in the hell do you mean? Besides, while you guys might have given him a hard time, all of you would kill for each other.” She took a deep breath. “He’s hurting, though, isn’t he? You say that it was a false cry of pain, but he is hurting and that is killing me.”

  “He’s likely got a few aches and pains, but he’ll be fine. We’ll get to him before he’s in any real pain. Besides that, if you hadn’t noticed, he’s pretty much built like a tank. He’s taken more than his fair share of beatings in his life. Not all from his kin, I should point out. We may have picked on him a little, but we never really hurt one of our own. You’ll likely have to coddle him for a couple of days. Any longer than that, and you’re being played. Word to the wise, sweetheart.”

  “Right, well, I think that he’s going to have to coddle me after this.” If she survived it, Athena was going to be a hot-fired mess and she knew it. “Just please get him home? Bring him home so that I can coddle him and be played?”

  “We will,” he said. He watched her for a moment and then sighed. “Come here, you look like you need a hug. I’m definitely not Martin, but I figure I can be a stand-in for the moment if you’re all right with that.”

  She sniffed and walked into Frank’s arms. She gave in to the moment and cried. She couldn’t help herself. She sobbed, and then when she finally pulled back, she nodded. “Thank you.” She had given in to the moment, given in to the need to feel sorrow and situate her emotions, and then pulled back into herself. “Okay, I’m good.” She had just needed that moment to fall apart, but she was back together—for now.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said softly. He handed her a tissue. Then his phone rang. “Shit, I have to take this,” he told her when he pulled it from his pocket. “Why don’t you go and wash your face? This won’t take long, but it should be news, so be quick.”

  “I will be back in like two minutes.” She took a deep breath and turned to walk out of the room. “Wait, did your guys find Bonita?” Jesus, she couldn’t believe that she had forgotten that already. “Please tell me that your guys found her.”

  “Not yet. This is our other matter. One of the guys will go with you, stand right next to you the entire time you’re out of my sight. You’re safe, Athena.” He put the phone to his ear. “Tell me good news,” he said in a hard tone.

  She stepped into her office bathroom and cleaned herself up. She didn’t take very long and then stepped back out into the office. She nodded at the man that was waiting there at her door and said, “Thank you.” There were men all around the office, and she still didn’t feel as safe as she did when Martin was with her.

  Nodding, he waved her back into her main office. Frank was pacing around her space slowly, and looked to her when she came back in. “Right, keep me updated.” He hung up the phone. Sticking it into his pocket, he rolled his head around on his neck. “Brant’s team has gotten everything narrowed down to a farm. It’s derelict, no one’s lived out there for three years at least, but there’s a lot of activity suddenly. Given the land was rented out for crops, there shouldn’t be anyone on the property at this time of year. He’ll call with updates as soon as they are in close enough to know something. Now, how are you doing?” His phone rang again, and he held up a finger to stall her. “Carver,” he said into it. “What? When? Son of a bitch, that’s good news. If you grab her, make sure that she’s able to talk or you get her phone. We need anything you can get on her operation. If you think you can get to her data before any damage is done, you do it. You’re in the field, you’re eyes on, it’s your call to make. Just ensure we have enough to nail this bitch to the cross for what she’s been doing. Good, keep me in the loop.” He hung up again. “Sorry about that. How are you doing, Athena?”

  “I am nervous, afraid, worried, you know the typical things that one would feel if their loved one had been taken from them,” she muttered. “I will be much better once we’ve got him home. I will be happy then, I promise.” She just needed to have her fiancé home with her, needed to know that he was okay.

  “I know, it seriously sucks. Listen, though, you’re doing fine, Athena. We’re going to get him back, safe and sound, and you two will be having that wedding soon enough. How are the plans coming for all that, by the way? Mama’s been in a dither every time I’ve seen her at the ranch, racing around like a mad woman muttering to herself. If I didn’t know she was helping with this, I’d be thinking of calling you in for a more professional reason.”

  “She’s taking it to the nth degree of insane. Everything is planned, but she continues to check this and then change that. It’s hilarious, actually. She’s having a heart attack because I’ve not shown her my gown yet.” She snickered. “I don’t think she likes being in the dark about anything, does she?” It was killing Theresa Carver and Athena knew it, but she didn’t want to have Theresa going into meltdown mode when she saw the gown that Athena had chosen. It was custom made and was a blend of Theresa Carver’s and Athena’s mother’s gowns.

  “You’re just cluing into that fact? Where the hell have you been, lady?” Frank shook his head. “My mother is a drill sergeant of the highest order. Hell, she’s meaner than most of the drill sergeants I’ve known in my life. That is a woman who when she says jump, you damn well do it, and you don’t come down until she says otherwise. She’s also the most loving and giving person on the planet. But yeah, completely scary when she’s got a target locked in her sights.”

  “I think that’s part of why she’s having fits with me not showing her my gown. Every time she sees me, she asks about it. Every time she sees Martin, she asks about it. It’s hilarious.” She enjoyed the fact that she was able to keep something from Theresa Carver. Not many people could do that, actually.

  “I’m guessing Martin hasn’t seen it, since he usually just shrugs when she pesters him about it. She also keeps asking if you’re pregnant. She’s absolutely positive that is the reason you guys are getting married so fast. Not that she cares, but there’s a betting pool going around town on when the first one pops out.”

  She snorted at that. “No, I’m not pregnant, and no, Martin hasn’t seen my gown either.” Which she happened to like. “I love the fact that this gown is secret from everyone except the woman making it.” Which, considering that she was a friend of Theresa’s, it was a shock that she didn’t know how the gown looked already.

  “And you, of course. Which is cool, and as it should be really. Not that I buy into all the hokum about it being bad luck and all, but why test the waters when you don’t need to?” A knock on the door had him moving between her and the opening.

  “We got her. She was trying to sneak out a back door. Her cell phone.” The man handed it over to Frank.

  “Thanks, Jerry,” he murmured. Taking it, he turned it on, and his eyebrows went up. “Seriously? Don’t people know they should always have a password on their phones? Jesus. Well, lucky for us at least. Let’s see who she’s been calling, shall we?”

  She watched Frank as he scrolled through the phone numbers and
then switched to text messages. She watched his face and knew when he had hit upon something. “What is it?” she asked and stepped closer to the large Carver male. “Talk to us. What did you find?”

  “I just found out where our skin peddler’s headquarters are. And we have proof that Bonita was talking to our mob group. So the location Brant’s at with the team is correct. She sent him a message once your last client left for the day, and he sent her the location they were at for a personal meet, I’m betting.” Turning the phone off, he tucked it into a pocket and pulled out his. He stuck it to his ear and waited. “I know it’s a bad time, you moron. You’re at the right place. We have rock solid proof of that from a phone being used by an inside woman here at Athena’s office. We also have what we need to go after our other problem once you’re done there. I’ll call the other team to update them as well, but I think we may have just have gotten lucky, bro. Yeah, do it. Call me when you’re clear.”

  “That’s good, right?” Athena asked Frank. “That you have the address of the skin peddler and all that? You will be able to stop them from not only the drugs, but also from stealing those young women and selling them off?” Mrs. Carver had told her everything about the skin peddlers one day over tea before she and Martin had come together.

  “Definitely. It tells us where she’ll eventually be if we lose her for any reason. And where all her records are. Oh they’re probably in code, safely locked away behind some system or other that will destroy them if the wrong person attempts to get at them. But it’s a huge step in the right direction.” He took her arm and guided her to the large couch in her office. Sitting next to her, he kicked his booted feet out and rubbed his hands over his face. “I will be so damn happy when all this shit is done. I know there will always be others out there, stepping into the void, but with these two striking so close to home, it’s a personal affront. Hopefully, it also sends a message to others—don’t fucking mess with Texans.”