Page 66 of Mountain Shadow

He hurt Joshua.

He’s traveled halfway across Europe to find you.

“Please,” she said, trying a different tack. “My friend is pregnant. She needs a doctor. Please let us go.”

The man’s eyes shifted to Kat, as if seeing her for the first time.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said slowly. And though his expression was mild, Sarah couldn’t help but stare at the skin around his knuckles, which showed signs of old scarring. Like he’d hit something again and again, never allowing the skin to heal.

“What do you want from me?” Sarah cried out. Fear and anger coursed through her body, warring with each other until, finally, anger won out. “You bastard! Let us go!” she screamed, scrambling to get to her knees.

The man frowned. “You ought to be nicer to me,” he said softly. He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Sarah heard the lock engage.

Sarah’s entire body shook.

What have I done?

She’d lost her cool and gotten them nowhere.

The opposite of what I should have done.

She should have been trying to build some kind of rapport with him, and instead she’d succeeded only in making him angry.

She turned her head as she heard Kat moan. The pilot was sitting in the same place as before, but her face was a shade paler. Sarah rushed to her, bringing her hands up to Kat’s clammy forehead. “Kat? What’s wrong?”

“My belly … it’s cramping.” Kat’s voice was calm, but there was no mistaking her agitation.

* * *

Jens

Jens paced his house, feeling like a tiger stuck in a cage.

He and Damien had arrived to find his front door wide open. He knew Sarah had done this on purpose.

She made sure to trigger the alarm.

Everywhere he looked, he saw her. The book she’d been reading was face-down on the dining table. It was a book he’d recommended to her, by one of his favorite travel writers. His finger grazed the tea bag hanging inside the mug, remembering her evident pleasure at finding Ceylon tea in the grocery store. She’d clearly been about to make herself a cup of afternoon tea.

There was no longer any doubt in his mind—Sarah had not left voluntarily.

He wondered what had happened to make her open the door to a stranger. Something told him it had something to do with Kat.

He wished he’d never had the driveway outside paved. At least then there might have been the possibility of finding some tire treads or something. This way, there was nothing for them to do except wait for Alex to come back to them.

Jens prayed as he hadn’t prayed in a long time. He remembered his prayers years earlier, when Lena lay dying on a hospital bed. Lena had been his best friend from the time they’d learned to ride a bike. He would have done anything to take away her pain, but all he’d been able to do was to hold her hand, reminding her that she was loved, as she faded away.

He’d felt then that his prayers hadn’t gotten him very far. He’d stayed strong until Lena took her last breath. Later, when it was all over, he’d broken down like the overwrought youth he’d been. He’d been furious—at God, at life—for taking Lena when he would have been willing to trade places with her in an instant. His father had been the one to finally pull him aside and tell him, in his quiet voice, that’s not how it works.

Jens was older now. He’d learned a lot about life in the last fifteen years. And he’d learned a lot about love in the last few weeks. He thought of his younger self and knew he hadn’t been praying for the right thing back then. This time, he was praying for a chance to make this right.

It ate him up that he hadn’t until now acknowledged that he loved Sarah. He’d been so afraid of scaring her, he’d told her he liked her, he’d told her he loved spending time with her, but he’d never told her that he loved her.

And he did. He loved her with all his heart—with everything he was and would ever be.

He had no doubt he and Lena would have been happy together, had she lived. But, where his love for Lena had been steady and gentle, what he felt for Sarah was a storm that tore down everything he’d ever thought he knew about life and rebuilt it from the ground up.

“Your phone, Jens,” Damien said urgently.