Forgotten Son. Linda Warren

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.”

      “Caroline Witten’s kidnapping?”

      Eli rubbed his day-old beard. “Yep. I’ve waited a long time to get Amos Buford.”

      “Have you told the FBI the whole story?”

      Eli sent him a look that would have made other men back off. “They asked for my help because I’d investigated Buford before. I told them everything they wanted to know, even the fact that he killed someone I cared about.”

      “Eli…”

      “What? You think I can’t do this?”

      “Hell, Eli. I’ve known you most of my life and there ain’t nothing you can’t do. I don’t think you’re even afraid of the devil.”

      “Buford is the devil.”

      “That’s what I’m saying. Don’t make this about Ginny.”

      When Tuck said her name, Eli turned away and picked up his gun and badge, trying not to think, trying not to remember. But his control weakened and the image of her limp dead body, thrown into a ditch on a Texas country road, flashed through his mind like summer lightning, quick and sharp. He felt the pain for a moment, then it was gone.

      But other memories lingered. Jess and Amalie Tucker were Eli and Tuck’s foster parents, good people who took in kids that were in trouble and needed guidance. Tuck had been left with them when he was a baby, Eli at thirteen. It was Eli’s mother, Vera who’d taken him to her uncle Jess, and ex-Texas Ranger. Even though Eli had several encounters with the law, it didn’t take Jess long to adjust Eli’s attitude.

      Eli grew up not knowing what a real home or love was about. Vera was a waitress in a bar and worked nights and slept during the day. She’d had assistance from the state for Eli’s day care, but at night he’d been shuffled from neighbor to neighbor or anyone who’d keep him. When he was four, Vera had started taking Eli to work with her and he’d slept in a back room. The smells of cigarettes and booze had filled his lungs, and stale smoke had clung to his clothes. He’d hated those smells. He still did.

      But at twelve and thirteen Eli was guzzling down beer like an adult, doing anything to rebel, to get his mother’s attention. He knew she cared about him, but he also knew, even at a young age, that his mother had made some bad choices.

      When Eli was a little older his uncle Jess told him a bit more about Vera’s life. Her mother, Adell, was Jess’s sister. She’d married an abusive man who beat her and Vera. In an obvious attempt to escape her home life Vera had dropped out of school at sixteen and married a boy two years older. He’d turned out to be as abusive as her father.

      After several trips to the hospital, a counselor got her out of that relationship, and Vera started a new life in Waco, Texas. She didn’t have any job skills, but with the help of several state agencies she’d started working at a day care. The pay was minimal and she could barely