Cowboy's Redemption. B.J. Daniels

from the bar to the men’s room. Lola had saved him from getting stinking drunk that night. Also from driving to Gilt Edge to confront his ex-fiancée and his ex-friend.

      “I hate to admit that I thought about taking your money,” she said. “I could have used it.”

      “You should have taken it then.”

      She smiled at him and shook her head. “You were so kind to me, so tender...” Her cheeks heated as she held his gaze and remembered being naked in his arms. “I’m sure I gave you the wrong impression of me that night. It wasn’t like me to...with a complete stranger.” She bit her lower lip and felt tears well in her eyes again.

      “There is nothing wrong with the impression you left with me. As a matter of fact, I’ve thought of you often.” He smiled. It was a great smile. “Every time I heard one of those songs that we’d danced to in my hotel room that night—” his gaze warmed to a Caribbean blue “—I thought of you.”

      She looked away to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat before she could speak again. “It wasn’t an old boyfriend I was running from that night. I let you believe that because I doubted you’d have believed the truth. I did need your help, though, because right before I collided with you in that hallway, I’d seen one of them in the hotel. I knew it was just a matter of time before they found me and took me back.”

      “Took you back?”

      “I wasn’t a fugitive from the law or some mental institution,” she said quickly. “It’s worse than that.”

      He narrowed his gaze with concern. “What could be worse than that?”

      “The Society of Lasting Serenity.”

       Chapter Three

      “The fringe religious cult that relocated to the mountains about five years ago?” Colt asked, unable to keep the shock from his voice.

      She nodded.

      He couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d said she had escaped from prison. “When did you join that?”

      “I didn’t. My parents were some of the founding members when the group began in California. I was in Europe at university when they joined. I’d heard from my father that SLS had relocated to Montana. A few years after that, I received word that the leader, Jonas Emanuel, needed to see me. My mother was ill.” Her voice broke. “Before I could get back here, my mother and father both died, within hours of each other, and had been buried on the compound. According to Jonas, they had one dying wish.” Her laugh could have cut glass. “They wanted to see me married. Once I was on the SLS compound, I learned that, according to Jonas, they had promised me to him.”

      “That’s crazy.” He still couldn’t get his head around this.

      “Jonas is delusional but also dangerous.”

      “So you were running from him that night I met you?”

      She nodded. “But, unfortunately, when I left the hotel the next morning, two of the ‘sisters’ were waiting for me and forced me to go back to the compound.”

      “And tonight?” he asked as he pushed his plate away.

      Lola met his gaze. “I escaped. I’d been locked up there since I last saw you within miles of here at the Montana SLS compound.”

      Colt let out a curse. “You’ve been held there all this time against your will? Why didn’t you—”

      “Escape sooner?” She sounded near tears as she held his gaze.

      He saw something in those beautiful eyes that made his stomach drop.

      Her voice caught as she said, “I had originally gone there to get my parents’ remains because I don’t believe they died of natural causes. I’d gotten a letter from my father right before I heard from Jonas. He wanted out of SLS, but my mother refused. My father said he feared the hold Jonas had on her and needed my help because she wasn’t well.”

      “What are you saying?”

      “I think they were murdered, but I can’t prove it without their bodies, and Jonas has refused to release them. Legally, there isn’t much I can do since my parents had signed over everything to him—even their daughter.”

      Murder? He’d heard about the fifty-two-year-old charismatic leader of the cult living in the mountains outside of town, but he couldn’t imagine the things Lola was telling him. “He can’t expect you to marry him.”

      “Jonas was convinced that I would fall for him if I spent enough time at the compound, so he kept me there. At first, he told me it would take time to have my parents’ remains exhumed and moved. Later I realized there was no way he was letting their remains go anywhere even if he could convince me to marry him, which was never going to happen.”

      Maybe it was the late hour, but he was having trouble making sense of this. “So after you met me...”

      “I was more determined to free both my parents and myself from Jonas forever. I wasn’t back at the compound long though, when I realized I was pregnant. Jonas realized it, too. I became a prisoner of SLS until the birth. Then Jonas had the baby taken away and had me locked up. I had to escape to get help for my daughter.”

      “Your daughter?”

      She met his gaze. “That’s why I’m here... She’s our daughter,” she said, her voice suddenly choked with tears. “Jonas took the baby girl that you and I made the first night we met.”

      * * *

      COLT STARED AT HER, too shocked to speak for a moment. What the hell? “Are you trying to tell me—”

      “I had your child but I couldn’t contact you. Jonas kept me under guard, locked away. I had no way to get a message out. If any of the sisters tried to help me, they were severely punished.”

      He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Wait. You had the baby at the compound?”

      She nodded. “One of the members is a midwife. She delivered a healthy girl, but then Jonas had the child taken away almost at once. I got to hold her only for a few moments and only because Sister Amelia let me. She was harshly reprimanded for it. I got to look into her precious face. She has this adorable tiny heart-shaped birthmark on her left thigh and my blond hair. Just fuzz really.” Tears filled her eyes again.

      Colt ran a hand over his face before he looked at her again. “I’m having a hard time believing any of this.”

      “I know. If Jonas had let me leave with my daughter, I wouldn’t have ever troubled you with any of this,” she said.

      “You would never have told me about the baby?” He hadn’t meant to make it sound like an accusation. He’d expected her to be offended.

      Instead, when she spoke, he saw only sympathy in her gaze. “When I met you, you were on leave and going back the next day. You were talking about staying in the Army. Your fiancée had just broken up with you.”

      “You don’t have to remind me.”

      “What you and I shared that night...” She met his gaze. “I’ll never forget it, but I wasn’t fool enough to think that it might lead to anything. The only reason I’m here now is that I need help to get our daughter away from that...man.”

      “Don’t I have a right to know if I have a child?”

      “Of course. But I wouldn’t be asking anything of you—if Jonas hadn’t taken our daughter. I’m more than capable of taking care of her and myself.”

      “What I don’t understand is why Jonas wants to keep a baby that isn’t his.”

      She didn’t seem surprised by his skepticism, but when he looked into her eyes,