Angela Ruth Strong - Presumed Dead

She had to be dreaming. She pinched her leg to wake herself up.

Ouch. Her thigh stung where she’d squeezed.

The man wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her toward the Jet Ski. “This is real.”

Real what? A real kidnapping?

“Who are you?” Her voice rose in panic.

She couldn’t just climb on behind a stranger. If he didn’t look so much like Preston, she would have pushed him off the watercraft by now.

“It’s me, Holly.”

Her mind whirled, almost pulling her head back with the weight of her thoughts. Preston was alive. He was on Lake Tahoe in front of her.

She covered her mouth with her free hand. This was impossible. Unless the corpse in the coffin had belonged to someone else and Preston had recently been released from some kind of POW camp.

She scanned his body, looking for injuries. If she climbed onto the Jet Ski too fast, would she hurt him? This was so unbelievable.

He tugged her arm. “Hurry, doll.”

Her heart reeled at the old nickname. This was Preston all right. In a daze, she slid behind him and clutched both arms around his middle. He was more solid than she remembered. At least he hadn’t been malnourished.

He gunned the engine. The Jet Ski tipped backward as it took off. Just like old times—

Except for the loud blast that erupted behind her. Hot air warmed her skin. Pushed against her. She craned her neck around to see fire shoot into the sky from her family cabin.

Her throat went dry. She clutched Preston tighter. If he hadn’t just picked her up, she would be dead. But why? And how had he known?

* * *

Preston exhaled. He’d picked her up just in time. Though the sooner he dropped her off, the better.

He hadn’t wanted to be right about the time bomb, but at least she was safe. He’d just have to make sure she was out of harm’s way before handing her over to police. Because she had a life to rebuild, and he couldn’t be part of it.

He slowed at his parents’ old, weathered dock. He wouldn’t have brought her here if they had been safe staying out in the open. But apparently someone wanted to kill her.

Her trembling fingers slid from around his waist to his sides as she twisted to look behind them. Her fingernails bit through his T-shirt. “What? What happened? What’s going on? I...I don’t understand.” She looked at his cabin then at him, her eyes still too glazed to be afraid. “Why are we here?”

Preston viewed the dilapidated A-frame from her perspective. How would she react when she found out he’d been living there the whole time she thought he’d been dead? How much should he tell her? Had he just saved her life, or had he put her in even more danger?

She blinked. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. What do I do?”

Since someone was after her, he’d get her out of the open. Later, he’d worry more about finding the criminal. “Let’s go in.”

She climbed onto the dock, causing it to sink halfway underwater.

He eyed her ten pink toenails. So feminine. So sweet. So off-limits. He forced himself to focus on hooking the towrope to the dock.

“I can’t believe it’s really you.”

She gripped his biceps when he stood, and maybe she just saw him as her old friend whose shoulders she used to sit on when playing chicken in the lake, but her proximity wasn’t as comfortable as it used to be. In fact, it was almost painful. It should be avoided because she wasn’t even supposed to see him, let alone touch him. He stepped around her.

She turned, her arms flailing now that she wasn’t hanging on to him like an anchor. “My cabin exploded. I could have been dead like you’re supposed to be.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “I can’t believe I said that.”

“It’s okay.” Though, was it? How was she going to explain surviving the explosion without revealing his existence? Was she even capable of keeping secrets?

She stepped forward. He stepped back.

“I didn’t want to believe you died, but we had a funeral for you. They played taps and gave your parents a flag.”

Preston looked away. He already knew about his funeral. He’d been there in the distance, watching, as his family mourned their loss.

Soon he would have to disappear again. No use giving Holly more to mourn. He’d put distance between them and a perimeter of defense around his heart. He wouldn’t think about the first time he’d kissed her, at the age of sixteen under this very dock during a game of hide-and-seek. Or about how she smelled of coconut, the same way she had as a teen. He held his breath and stepped away, toward the cabin.

He had to concentrate on the danger of their situation. He’d trained for that. He looked back at the fireball that had once been her family cabin to make sure nobody had followed them across the lake.

She grabbed his hand.

Even though they’d grown up holding hands, his pulse reacted violently as an adult. The whole fight-or-flight syndrome. He’d be better off if he chose flight rather than to fight for a relationship that could never last. Dead men didn’t date.

He led her along the uneven planks, up onto the deck and through the sliding glass door. His parents hadn’t used the place since his “passing” either. Apparently both families had too many memories at the lake for them to be able to enjoy vacations there without him.

“How did you escape? Can I be there when you tell your parents you’re alive?”

Uh...no. He took another step away and held up his hands so she couldn’t follow.

She scanned him up and down. “Are you hurt? Were you held hostage? Who is after you?”

He lifted his eyebrows. She thought he was the target of the bomb? This was going to be worse than he’d expected.

“Holly.” What a softer man he would be if he’d spent the last four years with her. Unfortunately, his current circumstances didn’t allow for softness. “The bomb was meant for you.”

Her spine shot straight. Her eyes snapped wide. She stumbled backward.

He stepped forward to stabilize her before she lost her balance.

She scampered away. “If the bomb was for me, how did you know about it?”

He held his ground. Tilted his head toward the deck. “I saw it being delivered.”

Her gaze ricocheted back and forth between his eyes. “How? Why are you here? Why does nobody know you’re alive?”

He pressed his lips together. The truth was going to hurt. Just not as bad as the explosion would have. “I’ve been in the US for the past four years. I wasn’t in the helicopter crash. I’d seen someone tampering with the engines and went to ask my sergeant to delay the op, but before he could halt takeoff, my team headed out. They didn’t make it far before crashing into a fuel tanker. Someone else’s body came home in my coffin.”

She rocked onto her heels, gripping the back of the couch for balance. “You’ve been pretending to be dead?”

Was that all she’d heard? “Yes, because—”

“I am so tired of hearing men’s excuses.” Her hand covered her heart. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I thought you were different, Preston. You used to be.”

He held out his hands and blinked. What just happened? “You’d rather I be dead?”

“No.” She took a couple deep breaths. Her eyes grew shiny, like she was about to cry—to mourn his death a second time. “I’d rather you tell the truth.”

This was what he got for saving her life? A guilt trip? Of course, Holly didn’t know he already had enough guilt to keep him from being able to return home. Probably forever.

But as for telling the truth, Preston had tried, and his sergeant had been killed because of it. SOAR Commander Robert Long had found Sergeant Beatty’s body hanging in his bunk the morning after Beatty told Preston he’d look into possible sabotage. The death had been ruled a suicide.