Forgotten Son. Linda Warren

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      Would the guilt ever leave her?

      She swung around and her inner skirmish stopped, replaced by a frisson of fear. Two men stood in her doorway, two men with long hair and full beards and brown robes. She’d seen them before…when she’d taken photos of the wildflowers. They belonged to a cult hidden away in the hills, and she’d accidentally trespassed close to the high fence that surrounded their property. She’d been afraid of them then and was afraid of them now.

      “What do you want?” she asked as authoritatively as she could.

      “You have been chosen,” one man answered.

      “Excuse me?”

      “You have found favor with the prophet.”

      That’s what they called their leader. Caroline had met him briefly while she’d tried to explain why she was there. He’d looked at her in a way that made her skin crawl, and she’d been glad to get away. What were his men doing here? How did they know where she lived? And what did they want?

      “If you don’t leave, I’ll call…”

      Her words trailed off as one man grabbed her and the other clamped a foul-smelling cloth over her face. She lashed out with her arms and legs, then everything went black.

      CAROLINE WOKE UP in darkness. Total darkness. Fear ran along her skin and spread through her body like a virus. It was chilling. Debilitating.

      All-encompassing.

      Take deep breaths. Take deep breaths, she kept repeating to herself. After a moment, her fear eased and she realized she was on a mattress. She felt its softness, then her hands touched dirt. Cold dirt.

      The makeshift bed was on the ground. Getting to her feet, she groped around her with hands outstretched. She was in a small room with wooden walls, she discovered. There was nothing in the space but the mattress…and her. Oh, God. Where was she?

      Nausea churned in her stomach and she could feel a scream rising in her throat. Then one of the walls opened and she blinked, the stream of light dazzling after the total darkness. When her eyes had adjusted, Caroline saw a woman with blondish-gray hair pulled back in a knot standing in the opening. She wore a tan, monklike robe and held a pitcher in her hand.

      “I brought you water,” she said.

      Caroline’s eyes focused on the shadowy yellow light. The woman was older, and all Caroline had to do was overpower her and run. But run where?

      Caroline stepped forward. “Why have you brought me here?”

      “You have been chosen to be the prophet’s next wife. It is a great honor. You will be the seventh wife, the one to bear the messiah.”

      “What? I think that’s already been done.”

      “Blasphemy,” the woman shouted.

      This was Caroline’s chance and she made a dive for the opening. The woman grabbed her around the neck and flung her back on the mattress as if she were a rag doll.

      Gasping for breath, she said, “You can’t keep me here.”

      “You will get no water or food. Then you’ll learn to be submissive.”

      “Never,” Caroline screamed. “Tell your prophet he has chosen the wrong woman. I will never be his wife.”

      “You’ll change your mind,” the woman muttered. In an instant she was gone.

      And so was the light.

      Caroline jumped up and beat on the wall and screamed until her throat was sore. Then she sank down to the dirt. “Please, somebody. Please help me.”

      Please.

      ELIJAH COLTRANE, Texas Ranger, found the oldest clothes in his closet and slipped them on—worn jeans with holes in both knees and a long-sleeved cotton shirt that had paint stains from when he and Tuck had painted the old house where they’d grown up. Then he found a pair of tennis shoes that had seen better days.

      He stared at himself in the mirror. Dark hair curled at his collar, not too long and not too short, just right for the mission ahead of him. His blue eyes looked back at him with veiled excitement and he could feel the energy pumping through his body.

      Today would be the start of an undercover operation to nail polygamist and murderer Amos Buford, alias the prophet. This time Buford would not slip through the cracks of the system. Eli would see to that.

      A knock brought him out of his reverie. Eli opened the door and Jeremiah Tucker walked in. Tuck was also a Texas Ranger, and Eli’s foster brother and best friend.

      Tuck handed him some letters. “I picked up your mail because it was bulging out of your mailbox. Don’t you ever bring it in?”

      “Whenever I think about it.”

      Tuck thumbed through the letters. “There are three from Jake McCain.”

      “Throw them in the trash.”

      Tuck shook his head. “What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you talk to him? He’s your half brother.”

      “Let it go.” There was a warning in every word.

      Tuck was never good at heeding warnings. “I don’t understand what you have against Jake and your other half brothers. They seem like nice people.”

      Eli couldn’t explain it to himself, never mind to Tuck. There was just something in him that wouldn’t accept these men as his blood relations. The McCain brothers, especially Jake, had made several attempts to establish a connection. But Eli had spent the first thirteen years of his life being called a bastard, because Joe McCain had denied being his father. Eli wouldn’t acknowledge the name now, no matter how hard his half brothers tried to make him. He realized he had a stubborn streak, but he’d rather keep his life separate from them. That was how he wanted it.

      When Eli didn’t speak, Tuck asked, “Do you mind if I open them?”

      “Suit yourself.”

      Tuck’s forefinger ripped through a flap and a photo fluttered to the floor. He picked it up. It was a picture of a little boy and girl. “Look, Eli,” he said. “It’s of Ben, Jake’s son, who we rescued from Rusty Fobbs. And Ben’s sister. Let’s see.” He glanced at the back. “Her name is Katie and she’s two years old and a beauty.” Tuck held out the snapshot to Eli, but he turned away.

      It was Ben’s kidnapping, about three years ago, that had brought Eli back into the McCains’ world. He wished the family would understand that he’d only been doing his job, and would stop trying to make his role in the rescue personal.

      “Put it on the coffee table,” he mumbled.

      “You’re going to have to let go of the past at some point,” Tuck told him, gingerly setting down the mail with the photo of Ben and Katie on top.

      “I have other things on my mind at the moment.”

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