Merline Lovelace - Military Heroes Bundle - A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

Then she had another thought. “What if...” This one really sickened her. So much so she wrenched away from him and jumped up from the couch. She backed away, wrapping her arms around herself, staring at him, feeling horror start to grow.

“What if I’m the one hunting you?” he asked. “Good question. Call the sheriff right now. Tell him to come get me. Tell him whatever you want.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’ll leave. I’ll be gone from this county as fast as I can pack my duffel.”

Did she want that? No...no... Not if he was who he was really supposed to be. “You know too much about me.”

“Lady, I know nothing about you. I’ve guessed some things, but you sure as hell haven’t told me anything.”

“What did you guess?”

He passed a hand over his face. “Will it scare you if I get up and pace? I’m not really good at holding still unless I have to.”

She waved a hand, indicating permission. God, when he stood he seemed to fill the entire room.

He started pacing, but slowly, taking care not to come too close to her. “You know I noticed how afraid you are.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I noticed some other things, too, and last night it just all kind of came together for me. The way when you talk about things from your past you hesitate and then skip anything that might actually give away where you lived before. I also noticed that when you got scared by the phone call you turned to the sheriff.”

“What does that tell you?”

He looked at her. “That you’re scared and on the run from some threat that still haunts you. But you’re not running from the law, or your first response wouldn’t have been to call Gage Dalton.”

She nodded stiffly. “Okay.”

“I noticed the security system. You can’t afford it.”

“No,” she admitted.

“I’ve been involved in WITSEC ops overseas.”

“WITSEC?”

“Witness security. Witness protection.”

“Oh...my...God...” She sank onto the rocking chair, arms still tightly wrapped around her.

“All the signs are there for someone who can read them. Which most people can’t. It took me more than a day to figure it out, so don’t worry that you’ve tipped off everyone in the county. I’m sure you haven’t. But it’s the only picture that fits. Am I wrong?”

She shook her head stiffly. “It was that easy?”

“Actually, you made it very hard. Like I said, I didn’t glom on to it immediately. But when I put a few things together, it was the only explanation I could think of. The alternative was to think you’re just crazy, and you’re not crazy, Cory.”

She felt numb, almost out of her own body, with shock. This man had figured her out so fast, and yet he said it had taken him too long. How did that add up?

But if he’d figured it out, how many others had? No one, he said. But could she safely believe it?

“Trust me,” he said, “it wouldn’t occur to anyone not familiar with the protocols. You don’t give anything away.”

“I...find that hard to believe, now.”

“Well, believe it. WITSEC is not the first thing that would occur to anyone about you. It would probably be the last.”

“Why?”

“Because no one would suspect you of being a criminal, even if they suspect you have some secrets.”

“I’m not a criminal!”

“I know that. It’s obvious. And since everyone thinks that only criminals get witness protection, you’re even more covered. Very well covered.”

Her eyes burned and she felt hollow as she looked at him. “What now?” she asked, a bare whisper.

“Well, all I have is a suspicion. But you can choose how to act on it. Call the sheriff, I’ll tell him everything I noticed about the guy. Call the Marshals and they’ll move you again. Or...I can try to protect you until we get something solid.”

She’d already made up her mind she didn’t want to move again. Once was enough. What few tenuous connections she had managed to make here were more than she wanted to sacrifice. She couldn’t face another blank slate in a blank town, couldn’t face having to start all over again, small though her start here had really been. After all, there was Emma, Marsha, Gage, Nate and Marge Tate. While she hadn’t exactly gotten close, she had come to know them a bit. And she discovered she wanted to know them even better.

She raised her eyes to his, resolve steadying her. “I’m not running again.”

He nodded. “I kind of decided the same thing this morning.”

She nodded slowly. “I guess you did.” Her decision made, her muscles began to uncoil slowly, one by one. “I guess I need to tell you the story.”

“Cory, you don’t have to tell me a damned thing. I can work this without knowing. Your secrets can remain your secrets. But I gather, since you didn’t recognize the guy at the store, that he’s not someone you’re afraid of.”

“No. Actually...I saw only one man. The man who killed my husband and shot me.”

“Shot you?” He stopped short.

She nodded, and for some reason she didn’t understand, she opened her robe and tugged her pajama top up enough to reveal the scar across her midriff. “He killed my baby, too.”

He swore, a word she wasn’t used to hearing, and the next thing she knew he’d gathered her up off the chair and was carrying her through the house toward her bedroom. There he laid her down on the queen-size bed, and stretched out beside her. Without another word, he drew her into a close embrace, as if he wanted to surround her with the shield of his body. As if he wanted to shelter her from it all.

But nothing could. She stared blindly at his chin as her head rested on his upper arm, feeling as if a wind had blown through her and left her empty in every way, empty of her past, empty of her hopes and dreams, empty of feeling.

Something in her had died all over again.

In the hollowness that seemed to engulf her, she heard her own voice. It sounded dreamy, disconnected, as if it belonged to someone else and she wasn’t in control. And maybe she wasn’t.

“I didn’t really grieve about the baby,” she heard herself say. “I’d just found out that morning. Not enough time for it to become real.”

“Mmm.” A sound to let her know he was listening, indicating no reaction whatever. She didn’t want a reaction. She couldn’t have handled one just then.

“What was real was that when I woke up from surgery they told me that the only part of Jim I had left was gone, too. I miscarried because of the trauma.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was...I was at the best and brightest point of my life that night. The happiest. I had Jim, we were going to have a baby. Maybe no one is entitled to that much happiness.”

“Everyone is entitled to that kind of happiness.”

“Really? Even you?”

He didn’t answer, his silence speaking volumes.

“We went out for dinner to celebrate the news, came home and...made love. I was so happy I couldn’t even sleep. And then some son of a bitch came through our door and took it all away with a gun.”

He murmured something, but she didn’t try to make it out. She didn’t care. Numbness still wrapped her like cotton wool.

“I saw the man. They couldn’t find him, though, couldn’t identify him. We think...they think...he was working for a drug gang that Jim was about to bring in indictments against. A hired gun, probably. They put me in protection from the instant I got to the hospital. They wouldn’t even let me go to Jim’s funeral.”

His arms tightened a bit, but he said nothing.

“Then, after three months in a safe house, they told me I had to relocate because the word on the street was there was a contract on me because I could identify Jim’s murderer.”