Helen Brenna - Along Came a Husband

Lot of good it would do.

“Why Mirabelle?” she asked. “Why now?”

The cat proceeded to weave itself between his legs. Damned thing didn’t have an ounce of sense. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Missy how she’d ended up with the animal, but the question would imply an interest in her life and he couldn’t afford to open that door. He was here to heal and think. That was all. He backed away and the cat, as if it’d had enough of him, crossed the room and hopped outside through a kitty door. Jonas might as well do the same thing and get this over with.

“I’ve been in Chicago undercover for the last four years,” he said. “We were only a couple of weeks from making a huge bust when something went wrong. I haven’t figured it out yet, but somehow my cover was blown and all hell broke loose. They jumped me in an alley. It all happened so fast I’m not even sure who they were. One thing led to another and somehow I got shot. I need time to put the pieces together.”

“Why here? Why me?”

“I needed a place to hide. Somewhere I wouldn’t be found. And no one knows where you are. You did a damned good job of getting lost.”

Shortly after he’d died, she’d changed her name several times and her attorneys had made the paper trail extremely difficult to follow. She didn’t want her family to find her, and Jonas understood. While they’d been together, Missy had shared in great depth her family issues, mostly her problems with her overly controlling father. His own father might be a loser, but Missy’s was an outright asshole.

Jonas would never forget the shot to his pride when her dad took him aside on their wedding day. “She met you in a bar, Abel,” he’d said. “You might as well give it up right now. If your father’s track record is any indication, you will never be able to provide the lifestyle my daughter deserves.”

While it’d pissed Jonas off to no end that Missy’s father had run a background check on Jonas, the man had called it all right. Jonas had worked his ass off. No matter what he did or didn’t do, it was never enough. He would never earn her father’s respect. In the end, he’d only ended up regretting putting a bigger wedge between Missy and her family. It was another reason why his death had seemed like the right thing to do. With him out of the way, he’d hoped she might reconcile with her family. So much for that.

“Obviously, I didn’t get lost enough,” Missy said, bringing his thoughts back to the present. “You found me.”

Only because he’d kept track of her since day one, following her name changes and moves from town to town for the first couple of years. She’d done a helluva job covering her tracks, and just when her trail had finally gone cold to the rest of the world, she’d upped and moved once more for good measure, settling on Mirabelle. What had surprised him more than anything was that she’d settled on using Missy, the nickname he’d given her within the first few weeks of meeting.

“How?” she asked. “How did you find me?”

He shrugged again.

“You’ve been following me all this time.”

“Following? Don’t flatter yourself.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“Morbid curiosity?” Or the need to make sure she was at least at peace, if not happy, that he hadn’t completely ruined her life.

“I don’t buy it,” she said. “You could hide anywhere.”

Time to suck it up. “Okay. The truth.” As hard as it was, he held her gaze. “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but you’re the only person I can trust.” He might not be able to trust her with his heart, but with his life? She could no sooner turn him in than gnaw on a T-bone. “You’re all I got, Missy.”

THE ONLY PERSON HE COULD TRUST?

To anyone who didn’t know Jonas that might’ve sounded like quite the stretch, but he’d always been a loner. And she’d always been a sucker for lost causes, especially where Jonas was concerned.

Oh, for God’s sake, the man broke your heart. Twice. First by proving over and over again he’d preferred his job to her and then again when he’d faked his death.

Her memories tracked to the deep despair and loneliness that had set in not long after they’d returned from their honeymoon. One day Missy and Jonas were lying together in each other’s arms making plans for the future, and the next she was lying alone, night after night, weekend after weekend while some invisible demon pushed Jonas in his job. Trying to talk about it had only seemed to push him farther away.

Then, just when she’d begun contemplating divorce, she’d gotten pregnant. Hope had bloomed inside her. A child is what they’d needed to bind them more closely together, but she’d held off telling Jonas. What if things didn’t change? What if he remained lost in his job?

Maybe somewhere deep inside she’d known something was wrong with the pregnancy. She’d miscarried at ten weeks. In the blink of an eye, it was all over. She’d curled up in that hospital bed alone, unable to reach Jonas, cramping, bleeding, losing not only their baby, but all hope for their marriage. She’d been completely unprepared for the pain that had set in after she’d thought Jonas had died.

“Missy,” he said, pulling her back to her kitchen, to this reality that seemed so unreal. “I need—”

“No,” she said. “You can’t stay here. I can’t—”

“Missy—”

“There must be another agent. What about Brent Matthews?”

“Dead. This time for real.” Jonas paused, swallowed. “They nailed him in the alley. He took two bullets directly in the chest before the shooter turned on me.”

She felt herself wavering. Brent had seemed like a good man. Years ago, just after she’d married Jonas, she’d met him once or twice at various Bureau functions along with a few other agents and their wives and girlfriends. She’d always wondered whether or not getting a chance to connect with those other women would have helped her weather the—mostly—downs of Jonas’s job.

She gave a brisk shake of her head. “You must have someone else—”

“Some things aren’t adding up. Someone at the Bureau might be involved, and I don’t know who I can trust.”

“What kind of assignment were you on?”

“Undercover in a Colombian drug-trafficking ring.”

Drugs. Something about that raised the fine hair on the back of her neck. Oh, God. “Does my father know you’re alive?”

Missy’s father, Arthur Camden, had been a United States senator, ultraconservative and extremely powerful, for as long as anyone could remember. Although he was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had FBI oversight, he had a reputation for putting his fingers in any governmental pie that struck his fancy. He’d been as controlling and manipulative at home with his family as he was on Capitol Hill.

“No,” Jonas answered. “The Judiciary Committee wasn’t getting briefed on the status of our mission.”

“Are you sure? The war against drugs was one of his pet projects for years.”

“This was a covert op,” Jonas said. “These days Congress is concerning itself more with national security. You know damned well your father is at the front of that line.”

He was probably right, but Missy had a bad feeling about this whole deal. “You have to leave.”

“Why?” He studied her with a gaze that left no stone unturned, promised to ferret out every secret.

Damned FBI agents. “Because I said so.”

He shook his head. “It’s good to know some things never change. You’re still as irrational as ever.”

She spun toward him. “I’m irrational? Just because I follow my instincts rather than analyze every decision?”