To Honor and To Protect (7 page)

Her gaze turned hard as she glared at him again. “I know he escaped and I guarantee if he’d walked in that door—” she stabbed a finger in that direction “—if it had been anyone else but you, my aim would’ve been right on target.”

He believed her. He’d seen her in action on a shooting range. Years ago. “So you missed because it was me?”

“Yes.”

He accepted the admission as a small positive sign. “We can go our separate ways after I get you safely out of Ev—his reach.”

“How? Witness protection?”

“Possibly.” He didn’t know the details, but he trusted Casey with the task.

“No deal.”

“Addi, be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable. As well as responsible. You don’t have any idea just how connected Craig is. Witness protection won’t be enough and it isn’t fair to my son.”

“Thomas Casey can keep you both safe.”

“He’s in some branch of government?”

“He is.”

“No deal.”

Drew bit back another string of foul words. “You’re infuriating.”

“Same goes for you.” She crossed the room to the refrigerator, opened the door and bent to look inside. He tried to ignore the view as the soft fabric of her shorts hugged her backside.

“I think this is our first real fight,” he said.

“Hardly,” she muttered, handing him a bottle of water. “But it can be our last. Take this for the road.”

“I’m not leaving.” He twisted off the plastic cap and leaned back in his chair. “We never fought before...our wedding day.” He forced the last two words out and then took a long drink of water.

“We fought plenty in the days and months after. You just weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry, Addi. If I could change it...”

“It was our
wedding
day,” she whispered. “Why did they need
you
?”

His heart seized at the pain in her voice. Raw and fresh, she sounded exactly the way he felt every day. When he’d agreed to help Director Casey, he’d known her reaction would be volatile at best. He hadn’t been prepared to deal with how much his appearance would hurt her. As she’d moved on with her life, he hadn’t expected her to feel anything but initial shock at seeing him again.

But she didn’t look like a woman who’d moved on, despite the evidence he’d seen for himself. Top of her field, gorgeous home in the right neighborhood and a son. That was the piece that slid like a knife between his ribs, straight to his heart. During his time as a prisoner, he’d fantasized about making love with Addi, about the family they would build in years to come.

She’d done that. With some other man.

“Why, Drew?”

He’d often asked the same thing and never found a decent answer. “I had the misfortune of knowing the key players in the area. Command said they needed me.”

Her eyes went wide. “That’s not what I call an explanation.”

“It’s the best I can offer.”

With a derisive snort, she paced the small room, pausing near the front door. She pushed her hands into her hair. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

He wanted to take her in his arms and show her how alive he felt. How alive she made him feel now that he could hear her voice, smell the light citrus of her shampoo. He wrapped one palm around the other fist, massaging the tension in his hands. “For a time that’s what I wanted, too.”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to be dead.” She pushed loose strands of her golden hair behind her ears. “I heard the news from your dad. His face...” She gazed up at the slanted tin-roof ceiling. “He’s the one who told me you’d died.”

“You saw my dad?” He swallowed the swell of grief that came with every thought of his father.

“Sure.” She nodded. “We spoke frequently after the interrupted wedding. He apologized to me that it didn’t go as scheduled.” She leaned back against the big sink and propped one foot on the other.

The pose transported him back to the days when she’d stand just that way, waiting for the first cup of coffee to kick her into gear in the morning. He’d counted on a lifetime of moments like this one, but fate had dealt him a different hand.

“And I saw him again about two months after that,” she added.

Two months. It still bothered him the way the army had handled his capture. “They didn’t waste any time pronouncing me dead.”

“They being the army, I assume?”

He nodded.

“Are you surprised?”

“Not really.” What surprised him was how much he struggled not to touch her. He wanted a rewind button, a way to go back and say no to that cursed assignment, no matter the consequences. “That kind of risk, the emergency operation, went with the job.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Past tense?”

“Yes.” He looked away from the softer sympathy in her eyes.

“But they still tapped you to come find me.”

“Not in a military capacity. The army decided I wasn’t fit for duty anymore.”

“What the hell?” Her eyes raked him from head to toe. “Who made that decision?”

“Addi, the details aren’t relevant right now.”

“Of course they are,” she insisted. “If you’re not fit for service, why would this Casey person call you?”

“My kind of luck. The sooner I get you to him, the sooner we can get back to our lives.” Separate lives, if that was what she wanted.

“You seem eager,” she said. She came over and took the chair across from his at the table. “What kind of life do you have to get back to?”

Not the kind he wanted, that was for damn sure. In the weak light he caught another glimpse of the thin gold chain she wore, but whatever charms were on it were hidden by the T-shirt. Early in their relationship, he’d given her a heart charm inscribed with their initials and the date they’d met. He was a sap for hoping she still wore it.

“Drew?”

He didn’t want to talk about himself. His life was vacant, nothing but loss and heartache. Hers mattered more. “What kind of life did you leave?”

Her lip curled. “I left an illusion,” she said. “And I won’t let myself fall into the same trap again.”

What the hell did that mean? “You can’t stay out here forever.”

“I could,” she argued. “But I don’t need forever. And I sure don’t need the certain failure of federal protection if they can’t keep a traitor behind bars.”

“All right. What’s the plan?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“I’m making it my concern.”

She laughed, a bitter edge in the soft sound, as she propped her foot on the seat of the chair. He watched her run her fingertips over a small scar near her kneecap.

The blast of worry over an obvious sign of surgery was just one more irrational reaction added to the rest, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking her what had happened.

“Nothing major. I tweaked it on a ski trip in Tahoe.”

“When?”

“A couple years ago.”

He should’ve been there. For everything. “I didn’t know you liked to ski.”

“Neither did I. It was a girls’ weekend kind of thing.”

Why did that flood him with so much relief? “I was in the middle of a rec league basketball game when Casey picked me up.”

“Oh?”

“Since I, um, got back, I got involved a bit with the old neighborhood.”

“Following in your dad’s footsteps?”

Drew shrugged. “It was a starting point.”

She bit her lip and pressed the back of her hand to the corner of her eye. “He was a good man, Drew.” She cleared her throat. “The news of your death just tore him up.”

“It tore me up when I heard about his heart attack,” he confessed. “Long after the fact.”

She shifted in her chair once more, her hand reaching across the small table, but she caught herself before making contact.

Smart
, he thought. And he was grateful one of them had been. He couldn’t be sure how he’d react to her touch. “You need to get some rest before we set out tomorrow,” he said, standing.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Staying here is certain suicide.”

“How do you figure that? Unless you were followed, I’ll be fine.”

She had him there. Why couldn’t he come up with a logical, convincing argument? Oh, yeah. He was distracted and overwhelmed by everything from her voice to her fierce determination. Watching her that day in the park had been bad, but this...this was a thousand times worse.

“I wasn’t followed.” His skills weren’t that rusty. That strange sensation of being in two places at once, the phenomenon he’d first encountered in that damned prison cell, crept up on him now. It was something the shrinks discovered and referred to as a critical risk. Losing it here and now wasn’t an option. He couldn’t let his weakness put her and the kid in jeopardy.

With a deep, slow breath, he met her gaze once more. “I wasn’t followed,” he repeated when she continued to stare at him. “But I’d rather not deal with the swamp again tonight. I’ll sleep down by the boat and we can discuss this in the morning.”

* * *

A
DDISON COULDN’T STOP
staring at him, cataloging the differences between then and now. He’d always been fit, but now he looked as though he could afford to pack a few more pounds on that wide-shouldered frame. Plenty of definition in his arms and rippling under the snug dark T-shirt, but it wasn’t quite
him
. She found the biggest changes in his face. Deep lines framed his eyes and mouth, and the tension in his jaw made her think he never quit clenching his teeth. What had he been through that had turned a strong, confident man into someone so haunted, hard and grim? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Dreamlike
didn’t begin to cover this. Her heart was stuck on “how” and “why” with frequent trips over questions about his new personal life. None of that mattered in the middle of the night in the bayou. She couldn’t afford to let it matter come morning, either, but she could only win one battle at a time. It took all her willpower to push the right words past her lips. “You can’t stay here.”

“I can’t leave.”

She crossed her arms, fingernails digging into her biceps so she wouldn’t reach for him again. Too tempting and far too risky. She suspected any physical contact would have her craving more, exactly as it had been between them from the moment they’d met. “You have to.” If he stayed, she would lean on him. Worse, she would collapse or cling. Neither option was acceptable.

“Addi, sweetheart. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Again her heart tripped over the nickname, the sensation compounded by the familiar endearment and the sincerity shining in his brown eyes. “You have to go, Drew.”

“Not in the dark.”

“You made it here in the dark,” she said ungraciously.

“Bad timing,” he admitted. “And I did it for you. The same reason applies now. I’m not leaving until we reach an understanding.”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, remembering his mile-wide stubborn streak. Not unlike his son, when the man dug in, he wouldn’t be budged.

Another worrisome thought chased the others through her mind. He didn’t seem to know much about her and her son. Their son. Was it an act to throw her off? The obligations—personal and legal—niggled at her. Drew had a right to know Andy was his. “Fine. Take the hammock outside. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

“The hammock,” he repeated.

She cocked an eyebrow and stared him down in the same way she managed Andy when he was in a belligerent mood. “Screened porch. You found me. I trust you can find it.”

“You won’t try and sneak away?”

“Not unless you’ve suddenly become a sound sleeper.” When they’d been together, it seemed he’d always slept with one eye open and his body ready to leap into action. She suppressed a needy shiver. Any kind of action.

“I wish,” he muttered.

“So go on. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

With obvious reluctance, he walked out of the tiny cabin. She waited, listening to his soft footfalls as he walked across the rough planking to the other side of the cabin. When she heard the squeak of the hammock ropes, she turned out the lights.

Then she picked up the shotgun and moved her sleeping bag to Andy’s side of the bedroom door. It was an immense relief to hear her son’s soft, even breaths, confirming he hadn’t been listening at the door the whole time.

Drew was alive. Her heart soared while her mind raced. What the hell was she supposed to do now? Drew was set on helping her, but she didn’t see how his presence changed anything.

It infuriated her that her first instinct was to trust him. It was practically second nature to trust him, yet he’d been stateside all this time and had never reached out to her. That was the piece that cut so deeply and made her wary.

She knew the kind of friends Craig had on his side, knew he’d be scouring the country for any sign of her. If Craig’s contacts—the ones who’d surely helped him escape—had any link to this Thomas Casey, she was screwed.

She heard a noise and held her breath, praying fervently it wasn’t more trouble. Tonight had given her one surprise too many. Whatever she’d heard didn’t repeat itself, but she listened closely just in case.

Drew was
alive
. Her heart rejoiced even as she resented him for staying away.

She couldn’t tell illusion from reality, didn’t trust her intuition when it came to men anymore. Had the love and affection she remembered so fondly with Drew been real? She pulled the necklace from under her shirt and ran the two charms along the fine gold chain. Why would a man who loved her the way he’d once claimed stay away?

On top of that, a woman didn’t get more wrong about a man than she’d been about Craig. The floor creaked as she shifted, trying to get comfortable.

“Mama?”

“I’m here,” she answered her son’s sleepy voice. “You’re safe.”

“’Kay.”

As she stared in the direction of the ceiling, she vowed—again—to keep him safe. Physically and emotionally.

From the near-miss nasty stepfather and the unexpected arrival of his real dad, Addison knew keeping that vow would be a serious challenge.

Chapter Six

A few hours later, Drew came fully awake in an instant when he heard voices and movement inside the small shack. Calm voices, no sounds of struggle or distress. Sitting up, he scrubbed at his face. The hammock wasn’t to blame for his bleary eyes and lousy mood. He’d survived far worse in years past. No, his current frustration, physically and with the mission, had everything to do with the woman on the other side of a very thin wall.