Page 37 of Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team)

Staring at all of it, he felt…empty. Like his insides had been hollowed out.

Exhaustion pulled at him, a heavy, seductive weight waiting for the moment to pull him under. Sleep would help him escape this for a little while. Sooner or later he’d have to give into it. But right now he just couldn’t.

Gripping the counter, he looked up at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like hell. Eyes bloodshot, dark smudges underneath, lines of strain visible on either side of his mouth through the few days’ worth of growth on his face.

He looked grief-stricken, like a man mourning the loss of the woman he loved. Only he refused to acknowledge that Summer might be dead, or that she likely would be soon if they didn’t find her.

And suddenly the need to smash something was so strong he could barely control it. His muscles quivered with the strain of holding back, his breathing turning erratic. He gripped the counter tighter to quell the urge to smash his fist into the mirror and break it into a thousand pieces.

Staring into the mirror, he forced himself to breathe until the anger dissipated.

The waiting was killing him. Second by second, minute by minute, the hope he’d been clinging to was slowly fading. And now, standing here with her things laid out in front of him, things she’d touched the morning she’d been taken, he almost couldn’t bear it.

With a shaking hand he reached for the bottle of perfume she’d left beside the sink. He pulled off the cap, paused a moment to brace himself, then lifted it to his nose.

The warm, vanilla musk scent slammed into him, so familiar, piercing him like a red-hot blade. Hurriedly he put it down, fought the rise of tears at the back of his throat.

She’s still alive, he told himself sternly.She’s not gone yet.

In the mirror he saw behind him the desk set against the wall on the other side of the room. There were some bottles of water and a few snacks she’d left on it. He turned around and crossed over to it, his gaze landing on the bag of M&Ms sitting there.

His chest constricted. They were her favorite. She could never turn them down and she never saw a movie without them.

He picked up the little brown bag, the colorful candies inside the open end blurring together as tears flooded his eyes. He’d bought an economy-sized bag of them for her when he’d taken her to the drive-in on their last date, and packed them up with thermoses of hot chocolate and sleeping bags and pillows…

That night had been one of the best of his life.

As the memory rushed back, he lowered his head and let the tears fall.

Chapter Twelve

Three months ago

I never imagined it would come to this.

The thought kept hitting Summer over and over again as she entered the house for the final time to grab the last of the moving boxes, and paused to look around their kitchen. It felt surreal to be leaving, and guilt pricked at her conscience. No matter if she knew this was the right decision, on some level she still felt like she was abandoning Adam.

But she knew it was for the best. For both of them.

She had to leave, have her own space. For a while at least, maybe forever.

She couldn’t take being here anymore and Adam knew that. Every day she spent here brought back more painful memories, and every time she saw Adam was yet another reminder of what she’d been through and all she’d lost. A big part of her just wanted to make a clean break and start over, for her own sanity. Even if she knew it was selfish in a way, that didn’t change the facts.

Adam had made it clear that he didn’t want her to go. But if it’s what she needed, then he said he understood. That made it even harder to go.

She still loved Adam, would always love him, but she was too angry and hurt and sad to stay. For months now she’d been constantly torn, not knowing how or even if she could ever open herself back up to him again, while at the same time knowing it wasn’t fair to keep punishing him over and over by continually pushing him away.

No, this was the right move, for him as well as her.

It had taken her months to come to this decision, after she’d weighed it over endlessly in her own mind and sought counseling advice about it. Even though she was ready to take this next step, the thought of settling into the one-bedroom apartment she’d rented across town was both scary and exhilarating.

She’d needed to make a big change, do something drastic to jerk her out of the mental hole she’d fallen into and couldn’t seem to climb back out of. Moving out on her own was the only thing she hadn’t tried yet. It had to work, because nothing else had and she didn’t know what else to do.

Looking around the bright, tidy kitchen, she felt mostly relief that she was leaving, but there was sadness too. This had been her home for years now. She’d cooked countless meals in here, baked her grandmother’s banana bread recipe that Adam loved. They’d painted the place together right after they’d moved in. They’d made love on the rug in front of the fireplace and on the kitchen table.

So many memories were imprinted in these walls. For a long time, it had felt like those walls were closing in on her, squeezing and trapping, the once happy memories slowly crushing her under a weight of resentment and grief.

She blew out a breath. “Time to go,” she said to herself, stopping the negative train of thought in her head. It took constant effort to do it, to snap herself out of the line of thinking that had become as familiar as breathing over the past two years.

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