Infinite Possibilities

Chapter Four

I stand with my back to the curtain, while Liam’s back is to the front of the plane, his big body caging me…protecting me? It’s what I want to believe. It’s what some part of me needs to believe. We stare at each other, rain humming a song against the steel plane, wrapping us in a current of energy that pulses around us like a large charge. It’s power. His power. My lack of it. This is the what everything in my life has come down to. The control everyone else has that I don’t. The control Liam possesses as easily as he does his next breath. And staring into his piercing, aqua eyes, I think that no matter how I try to stop it from happening, I am possessed. He possesses me.

With that thought, a shiver races through me, one part chill from my wet clothes and hair, one part the impact of this man standing before me. What looks and feels like real concern seeps into Liam’s expression and he breaks the mesmerizing spell of questions that never seem to have answers as he begins rubbing my arms. “I’ll get you a blanket.” He starts to turn away and I grab his arm, silently willing him to wait. “I need to know where we’re going, Liam.” My lips tighten. “I need to know where you’re taking me.”

His head dips intimately lower, his hand caressing my head, cheek near mine.“You were right the first time, Amy. Where we’re going.”

I fight through the warmth his soft, velvety promise creates in me. “By your choice.”

“I want it to be yours.”

“Until I don’t choose what you want me to.”

A turbulent look flickers over his handsome face. “If you mean, will I let you choose to hitchhike across the country and end up dead? Then you’re right. No more and never again. I’ve made that decision for you.”

“Mr. Stone,” says the flight attendant, urgency in her tone.

Liam’s lips thin, reluctance etched in his face as he glances over his shoulder, and I hear her say, “Weather reports show another system moving through. If we leave now we have a path to bypass it.”

“Right,” Liam agrees. “We’ll sit down and buckle up.” He turns back to me. “We need to--”

“Where, Liam?” I bite out, fighting a rising sense of claustrophobia that has me ready to bolt for the door that is already shut. “Where are we going?”

His hands come back down on my shoulders, light but somehow heavy at the same time. “Where I can protect you.”

“Which is where?”

“My home.”

Adrenaline surges through me. Not Denver. His home is not in Denver, where, somewhere in the haze of a flashback and fear, I’d assumed we were going. “New York,” I choke out.

“Yes,” he confirms tightly. “New York.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No. I can’t go back there. I left for a reason.”

“No one will ever know you’re there.”

No one will ever know. His words make my stomach knot. I could disappear tomorrow and no one would miss me.

“Mr. Stone,” the attendant calls from behind him. “I must insist you sit.”

I need off this plane. I try to step around Liam, and talk to the attendant, though I have no clue what to say or if it will matter. Liam seems to anticipate the move, shackling my waist with one arm, and molding me to his hard, wet body.

“Let go,” I order tightly, willing away the heat stirring low in my belly at his nearness.

“We’re going to sit down now, Amy.”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

He yanks open the curtain, and using his larger size to bully me, walks us into the cabin behind us, then all but physically lifts me and sets me down in a chair. I have only a moment to assess the cabin area as identical to the one we just left when his hands go down on the arms of my seat, his arms caging me, and the engines churn roughly to life.

We glare at each other and I both loathe and revel in the way his heated, angry stare burns through me like a brand. It’s unsettling to be this drawn to him beyond reason when I’m this at his mercy. “There was a reason I left New York,” I grind out through my teeth. “Were you part of that reason, Liam?”

Emotion flashes in his eyes, something I cannot name but find I want to understand. And it’s that something else that jabs at my heart, like I hurt him. Did I hurt him? I don’t know how to react or how to handle any of this. “Liam--”

“I’m doing what I have to do to keep you safe. We’re going to New York. End of discussion.” He grabs my seat belt and hooks it into place. “Don’t make me tie you up because if that’s what it takes to keep you here, I will.”

Tie me up? I swallow hard against a lump forming in my throat, but not from the threat. From the emotion vibrating in his voice as he’s issued it. The plane starts to move. Liam pushes away from me and walks to the curtain, yanks it shut, then claims the seat directly in front of me instead of beside me. His eyes meet mine and I do not like what I find there. I do not like the distance that I’ve spent nearly two months putting between us. I do not like that I think...I think I hurt him.

We start taxiing and the plane is one big jerky nightmare with the obvious impact of high winds and a promise that I’m going where it’s going. Where Liam has decided I will go but the worry over control and even New York fade into one thing. This man. Who he is and what we are together makes all the rest irrelevant. Those things define what comes next.

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.

“Amy?” Liam says from the hallway and I squeeze my eyes shut, angry that his caring matters to me. Angry that I’ve convinced myself to trust him without knowing all the facts. I’m just this stupid young girl who isn’t young anymore. I can’t keep using that excuse.

“Amy. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I manage, noting the urgency in his voice and grabbing the sink to blink my ratty, horrible hair into view. I might not know who the girl in the mirror is anymore, but she sure looks like something the dog dragged in.

The door creaks and I turn as Liam appears in the tiny entryway, those intense eyes of his seeing too much. Despite the rain that has drenched us both, unlike me, he doesn’t look like hell. He looks like sex and sin and the temptation I can never say no to. “You’re sick to your stomach,” he says, stating the obvious.

“I...no.” Damn it, I hate the lies and yet they flow from my mouth like water from a faucet. “It passed. I haven’t eaten and...I’m okay.”

He doesn’t so much as blink, nor does he show any signs of budging and giving me a chance to collect myself. He just stands there, and every second he does, he is temptation turning to double temptation. He consumes the tiny space, and me with it, and he doesn’t even have to try. “Is this the first time you’ve been sick?” he finally asks.

I know where this is headed and I’m not ready for this conversation. Not here. Not now. “I got sick. It’s done.”

His lips tighten and I hold my breath, knowing he’s about to push, but unexpectedly, the wheels hit the ground and we tumble into each other, his strong arms wrapping around me, his big body collapsing around me to hold me steady. And I lean into him, wrapping my arms around him, holding on as if I am holding on for dear life. I think maybe I am. I think...maybe he’s my last hope. Or maybe, he’s my final destruction.

Too soon and not soon enough, the plane jerks to a stop and then begins a slower crawl. He frames my head and forces my eyes to his, searching my face. I don’t know what he sees. I don’t try to hide anything. He knows too much. I know too little.

His thumb strokes my jaw. My lip. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Desperately, I burn to simply live in this moment, drown in the tenderness I see in his eyes, but instead I hear his words to Derek in my head again. I can handle Amy. Instantly, I stiffen, flattening my hand on his chest, intending to push him away, but like always, I do not. “Yes, Liam. Yes, we do.” His heart pounds beneath my palm. Races. He is affected by me, by us, and by my reaction to what he has said. On some core level I believe that is because he cares about me and I need him to deserve the trust that comes with that and I add, “I have questions.”

“So do I.”

I lift my chin, making a decision in that moment I know is as right as he always feels. “I won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“Because you don’t fully trust me.”

“Because I can’t afford to fully trust anyone.”

He laces his fingers with mine. “I’m going to prove to you that I’m the exception, Amy.” He tugs me close, pressing his hand to the small of my back. “But right now, I just want to remind you how good we feel together. I want you naked and in my bed, where you belong.”

Heat swirls low in my belly and I can almost feel myself melt for this man at his perfect answer that is pure seduction. Almost too perfect in a world where everything has been a lie. I would know. I’m the queen of lies.