Lisa Childs - Watching Over Her

So Blaine had gotten a lucky shot into the guy’s side. “There was a smaller robber—maybe their vests got mixed up...”

“I don’t care what happened,” Ash said. “I just care that you got him—for Sarge.”

But who was he? Blaine stepped closer to the body, intent on tipping back the guy’s head to get a better look. But then a glint of metal caught his eye, and he saw the dog tags dangling from the chain around the corpse’s neck.

He picked up the tags and read, “‘Sergeant Andrew Doremire...’”

“Who the hell is that?” Ash asked.

“A dead man,” Blaine replied. He tipped up the face—he looked like the man on the security footage from the bank. Maggie had said that Andy and Mark looked eerily similar.

Dalton snorted. “Obviously...”

“No, he’s Maggie’s dead fiancé.”

Dalton Reyes cursed. “Do you think she knows he didn’t really die in Afghanistan?” Of course he would ask that; he’d already said he didn’t trust anyone.

“No way,” Blaine said with absolute certainty. Maggie carried too much guilt over his death, probably because she hadn’t been able to talk him out of joining the Marines. But she hadn’t been to blame for Andy’s death.

Blaine was.

Apparently Dustin Doremire hadn’t just been a delusional drunk. He’d been right. Andy wasn’t dead—or, at least, he hadn’t been until Blaine had shot him.

“He was one of Sarge’s drills,” Ash said. “He must have been worried that Sarge had recognized him. That’s why he killed him.”

Or because Sarge had been trying to kill him ...

Blaine pushed a hand through his hair. “That must have been why they were trying to take Maggie along with them—they probably thought she recognized him, too.”

But she hadn’t. She had refused to accept that even the brother of her childhood sweetheart could have had anything to do with criminal activities. She would never believe that Andy had.

So who were the other robbers? Definitely Andy’s brother—unless the informant had mistaken Mark’s picture for his younger brother. But if his brother hadn’t been involved, where the hell was he?

Maybe even Andy’s father was involved. That could have been why he’d been drinking so heavily when they’d gone to see him—because he’d known that Andy wasn’t going to survive this time.

Blaine had killed him. Would Maggie be able to forgive him? Would she be able to forgive herself?

Chapter Nineteen

He was alive!

Blaine was alive.

Her heart leaped for joy the moment she saw him walk through the door of his sister’s sprawling ranch house. When he’d asked Buster to protect her, he hadn’t wanted her to take Maggie to her home—he hadn’t wanted her to put her family at risk. Neither had Maggie.

But when they had been waiting to hear about Blaine, Buster had insisted on bringing Maggie home with her. In case the news was bad, Buster had probably wanted to be close to her family.

Her kids had gathered around them. She had three boys and one little girl—the opposite of Buster and her siblings. The boys had lost interest in Maggie quickly and gone back to playing with trucks in the living room while Maggie and Buster waited in the big country kitchen. Although shy, the little blonde girl had crept close to Maggie and pressed pudgy little fingers against her belly.

“Baby?” she had asked, though she was little more than a baby herself.

“Yes,” Maggie had replied. And she had even managed a laugh when the baby kicked and the little girl had jumped away in surprise.

But fear for Blaine’s safety had pressed heavily on Maggie until he walked through the door. His bruises and scrapes were from the night before—from the fire. Otherwise he was unscathed from the shooting. Maggie had never been happier to see anyone in her life.

But she didn’t dare launch herself into his arms the way she wanted to. He had that wall around him—that wall he’d put up back at the hospital. Something was wrong. Maybe it was just that he’d realized he had lost perspective with her, and he was trying to be more professional.

Buster pulled Blaine into a tight hug. “Thank God, you’re all right. We were going crazy worrying about you.”

“Why?”

“We heard the call on the radio,” Buster said, “about the shooting and a possible casualty.”

The little girl tugged on her mama’s leg. “What’s a castle tea?”

Buster pulled back from her brother and picked up her daughter. “It’s nothing...”

But it wasn’t. Maggie saw the look of regret on Blaine’s face. Then he leaned forward and kissed his niece’s cheek. “Hey, beautiful girl...”

“Hey, Unca Bane...”

Buster chuckled.

The boys abandoned their trucks and rushed into the kitchen, launching themselves at Blaine the way Maggie wished she had. She wanted his arms around her like they were around his nephews and niece.

“They’re so many of you,” he murmured. “You have your own Brady Bunch, Buster.”

“There are only four—five counting Carl,” she said. “But he had to go to work.”

“Is that why you came home?”

She bit her lip and shook her head.

“It’s because of what you heard on the radio?” He glanced at his niece. “About the castle tea?”

Buster nodded.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I had no idea you would have heard...” He stopped himself. “That’s right—there was a trooper along for backup.”

“Since you’re fine, us troopers must be good for something, huh, Mr. Special Agent?” Her green eyes twinkled as she teased him.

He shrugged. “I had a couple other special agents along,” he said. “That’s why I’m fine.”

She gently punched his shoulder. Then she turned to where Maggie sat on the kitchen chair, watching them and wishing she was part of their loving family. Buster must have seen that longing because she reached out for Maggie’s hand and tugged her up from the chair. Buster sighed and remarked, “You are so beautiful pregnant. If I’d looked like you, instead of a beached whale, I might have had a couple more.”

“God help us,” Blaine muttered.

He already had as far as Maggie was concerned, since he’d brought Blaine safely back to his family. And her...

But he wasn’t hers. He had yet to even look at her. Maybe he was mad that she was at his sister’s home—endangering his sister’s beautiful family.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you didn’t want me here. We can leave now.”

Buster stared at her with wide eyes, urging her to tell Blaine her feelings. But Maggie shook her head. It was obvious to her that he didn’t want her love. Why couldn’t his sister see the emotional distance he’d put between himself and Maggie?

“We’ll leave in a little while,” he said, finally speaking directly to her. But still, he wouldn’t look at her. Instead he turned back to Buster. “Can we have a few minutes alone? Maybe in the sunroom?”

Buster nodded. “Of course.”

He took Maggie’s arm and drew her from the kitchen through a set of French doors off the family room. He pulled the doors closed behind him, shutting them alone in a solarium of windows. But the sun had already dropped, so the room was growing dark and cold.

Maggie shivered.

“If you’re cold—”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. “Why do you want to talk to me privately?” Did he want to yell at her for endangering his family? “I told Buster it was a bad idea to bring me back here.”

“Buster rarely listens to anyone but herself,” he replied. “Poor Carl...”

She suspected that Carl was a very lucky man, and that he was smart enough to know it. No matter how much she joked about her husband, it was obvious that Buster loved him very much.