While You Were Dead (2 page)

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Was this to be his life? Apologies? Horrible regrets?

Miriam sniffed and tried to wipe away her tears. “We kept on with the pictures—all the pictures.” They both watched Lizzie.

Was the silence as awkward for his sister as it felt to him? If he looked at her now, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t cry, so he kept his eyes firmly on Lizzie, who’d reached the corner, executed an expert U-turn and was headed back toward them. “She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she is. Smart, too.” Pride and a bittersweet sadness sounded in her voice.

For Doug, he guessed, who didn’t get to watch his little girl grow up. “Good stock–you and Doug.” He gave her a grin, surprised when her tears streamed harder at his words.

“Great stock,” she agreed. They watched Lizzie skid to a halt at the far corner of the block. “Are you really home, Max?” Miriam’s voice cracked, filled with disbelief. “Because I know how it is, with the government. The secrets. The half-truths. Someone needs a favor–“

He cut her off, met her gaze. Hard steel edged his voice. “I’m through. And I’m home for good.” It was a solemn promise. “I’m starting a security business right here in downtown paradise.” He looked into his sister’s bright, honest blue eyes and saw the pain of his lies. The hurt reflected there was nearly unbearable.

Never, he swore, never, ever again would he allow his actions to hurt those he loved. “I’m hoping to pick up the pieces, Mim, and start over. I know you don’t understand, and it probably hurts more that I can’t even talk about it, but I did what I had to do.” Suddenly it wasn’t Miriam’s eyes he saw, but darker ones, the color of deep midnight in a storm. Their pain cut deeper. He would live with that pain for the rest of his life.

Kat! his heart cried. Useless, this regret, but he couldn’t help it. I’m so very sorry.

He blew out a soft breath and forcibly focused back in on his sister. “I’m going to rebuild my life, Mim. Start over. I know I hurt you. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Was it so terribly urgent, Max? Was it worth it?”

Urgent? He suddenly wanted to laugh, but only with cold bitterness.

Urgent? As in saving the world? A four-year search, a victory–but the horrible cost. He didn’t know, not then. He knew now, though. He’d pay on that one for the rest of his life.

Worth it? A very good question. One he couldn’t trust himself to answer. Not today, when one glimpse of his sister revealed so very clearly how much damage he’d inflicted. He’d stopped a great evil, but evil continued to thrive in the world. He’d given years of his life, but some had gave the rest of their lives.

Worth it?

“It had to be done,” he finally answered, grief ripping at his heart when his words brought a fresh wave of tears to Mim’s aching eyes. “I’ll make it up to you, Mim. I swear to God, I will.”

And Kat? Will you make it up to her, too?

Max swore softly, shoving thoughts of his love away. One day at a time, his grateful government told him. That’s how you put your life back together. Today belonged to Mim. He folded her hand inside his own. “I can’t erase the pain I’ve caused you. I know I can’t go back.”

Mim’s eyes suddenly shuttered. She looked at her daughter, her face reflecting a hard edge. A decision? Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to share. “No, there’s no going back.”

No going back. For seven years, that truth followed Max. Affirming his vow that never again would he hurt those he loved; he took his life back with both hands. His security company, started in Miriam’s garage, boomed–thanks in part to Hollywood ranchers discovering the peace and serenity of Wyoming’s beautiful landscape.

No going back. A fact.

Life was never easy.

Fact number three: nothing ever changed. Max still fought evil in the world. He’d just narrowed his world to Bluff River Falls. He shook his head and tried to shake off the bitterness as well. No, it wasn’t fair. Yes, the cost was too high. But it was done. He didn’t have time to get swept away in memories just because a woman named Katherine left him a message about a new security system for her home.

Katherine. He stared at his scrawl on the message pad and fought a sudden urge to pull Kat’s old picture out of the drawer. Katherine Simmons was not Kat. Katherine Simmons was forty, with a husband, three happy kids, and a house full of stuff she loved. Wanting to keep it that way, she’d called him. No reason to trot off down memory lane. Especially when it still hurt so damn much.

Max reached for the phone to return Mrs. Simmons’ call, then replaced it when the outer door of his reception area slammed hard. He grinned. No one could slam a door like his ten-year-old niece. “Hi, Lizard,” he called. “I’m in here.”

“Like you’d be anywhere else? And don’t call me that.” The scowl in her voice was painted across her pert nose when she trounced into the room a second later. “Life sucks, Uncle Max.”

He hid his smile and frowned at her. “So what else is new? No school today?”

“Nope. Teacher’s inservice. And nothing is new.” She sighed way-too-dramatically and flung her lanky frame onto his sofa. “Nothing is ever new in my life.”

Max folded his hands on his desk and waited. “Well?” he prompted when Lizzie just continued to sulk in silence. “Is that all you wanted?”

Lizzie sighed again, even more distraught. “Mom won’t let me get my belly button pierced and I have to spend all day Saturday at the clinic with her, instead of at the mall.”

“Why’s she going to the clinic?” He disguised his worry under a cheerful tone. Mim was diabetic, the disease diagnosed just months after his return. She was careful with her diet, exercised and watched her weight, but the illness continued to spiral out of control.

“Puffy ankles,” Lizzie complained. “She could go on Friday, or even Monday, but no, it’s gotta be Saturday. And I can’t stay with you because you’re too busy.” She shot him a glance, trying to look nonchalant and failing badly. Lizzie couldn’t do nonchalant if her life depended upon it.

“Well, I’m sorry, but your mom’s right. Can’t you go to the mall on Sunday?”

“Pat’s Piercing isn’t open on Sundays.”

“I thought she said you couldn’t–”

“Too late for that when it’s done, right?” Her grin was one hundred percent conspiratorial now. “You can sign for me.”

Max didn’t bite. “Don’t put me in that position, Liz. Did you ever think that maybe she wants you to go to the clinic with her? That maybe she’d enjoy your company?”

Lizzie snorted. “Not Mom. She’s a rock.” Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. “A mean, stubborn rock.” She glared at Max.

He shrugged. “It’s her duty to make her daughter’s life miserable, Lizard. I’ve told you that for years. Your mom’s just one of the best. She knows you’re here, doesn’t she? Where is she? Home?”

Lizzie shrugged. “At the doctor’s. I’m s’posed to take the bus home, but I’m out of money.”

“What happened to your money?” No way Mim turned Lizzie loose without bus fare home.

“I was hungry.” Obviously, his intelligence quotient was falling like a brick in her eyes.

“Of course.” Max nodded dutifully. “So you bought–”

“Just a candy bar. And a cappuccino.” Her glance assessed his reaction. “Don’t scowl, Uncle Max. It’s very unbecoming.”

“So are caffeinated little girls.”

“I am not a little girl. I’m nearly eleven and I’m getting boobs.” She swiveled her legs off the couch and faced him to catch the full impact of her little bomb.

Max dropped his gaze to his desk, knowing that didn’t hide the heat slowly climbing his neck. Boobs, indeed!

The phone rang. He sighed his relief and hoped it was something that required his immediate attention so he could tell his troublemaker niece to hightail it home.

“Max, it’s Miriam.” He could hardly hear her whisper.

“I’ve got her, Mim. She didn’t have enough for food and bus fare. I’ll bring—”

“No. I need you.”

Miriam never asked for help. “Where?” Max grabbed his keys. It was bad, whatever it was.

Lizzie’s unusual silence didn’t register while Max raced his truck toward the clinic, but as they crossed the parking lot side by side, Lizzie’s hand crept into his. That registered. Max slowed his steps. His fingers tightened reassuringly around her smaller ones. “It’ll be okay, Lizard.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t object to the nickname. “Did Mom tell you what’s wrong?”

“Nope. But we’ll find out. You’re gonna be fine, honey. If she needs to stay awhile, then you’ll come home with me. You know I’ll always take care of you, don’t you?” The wide automatic doors to the clinic swooshed open and Lizzie tugged back on his hand. Max stopped obediently, crouching to sweep her shaking frame into a massive hug.

“You won’t leave, will you?”

He would have pushed her back to see into her eyes, but she held his neck in a death-grip. “Leave? Of course I won’t leave. Why would you ask that?”

“Mom always says you might not stay. You left before.”

Damn! Max stood with the force of the emotion that ambushed him, lifting Lizzie with him. Would it never end? Miriam still didn’t trust him. Even all these years later. The pain of the lies he’d told were alive and well in his niece. For a long minute he just held on and let her cry, wishing he could cry himself.

“I’m ready to see her,” Lizzie whispered in his ear long seconds later.

He set her down, crouching when her arms tightened one last time. “I won’t leave you, Lizard. Not ever. That’s a promise.”

“Okay, ” she whispered back. “Then I’m really ready.”

“Right now,” he agreed, then closed his eyes as she wiped her cheeks against the rough nap of his jacket. The simple unconscious gesture—one she’d repeated often over the years—sent his mind flying back. . .back. . .to the first time. A scraped knee, such a terrible tragedy at almost-four. After his hug, she’d smeared his polo shirt with three-year-old tears and the remnants of her snuffly nose. Max kissed her streaked pink cheeks and doctored her knee with a colorful Band-Aid.

He didn’t have a Band-Aid big enough to cover the pain of her mother’s illness. Or the lies that still stood between his sister and him.

Lizzie led him up to the receptionist’s desk. “Miriam Clark, please. We were called.” Max smiled at the bold confidence in his niece’s voice and gave a nod to the receptionist. Lizzie obviously knew the place better than he did, because when the receptionist told them the room number, his niece bounded off. By the time Max reached the open door, she was snuggled in her mother’s arms up on the examining table, chattering away.

“I told him it wasn’t bad, Mama. And that you’d be okay. I think he’s kind of upset, though. But he said he wouldn’t leave.”

Miriam met his eyes over her daughter’s head and Max’s heart sank. It wasn’t all right. And it was going to get worse before it got better. He smiled, though, for Lizzie’s sake. A smile wasn’t about to fool Miriam. Nothing ever fooled Mim. “Hey, Sis.”

Miriam’s arms tightened around Lizzie and she tried to smile back at him. “Find Doctor Tomlinson, would you, Max?”

Max nodded, touched her foot where it stuck up under the blanket over her legs and left the room. Dr. Tomlinson would tell him the bad news, and then together, he and Mim would tell Lizzie.

Two hours later, Max fastened Lizzie’s seat belt next to him in his truck. Miriam’s ambulance was well on its way for the three hour trip to Denver. Lizzie wouldn’t meet his eyes and her lips were pursed in a thin line. Not a good sign. “Want to bring a friend?”

“To watch Mom get a new kidney?” The look she gave him clearly stated she’d met smarter rocks. She shifted the pillow wedged by her side, one of a few items she’d brought from home. “Just go, already. Don’t know why we have to live three hours away from decent medical care. What a stupid state!” Lizzie stuffed the earbuds into her ears and shut her eyes with a long, exaggerated sigh.

Thin, tinny country music spilled into the car and spoke volumes. Lizzie’d chosen one of Miriam’s favorite songs on her mp3 player instead of her usual alternative rock. He should yank the buds out of her ears and force her to talk about everything she had bottled up inside. But what would he say? In his book, emotions were just that. Meant to be felt, not discussed and picked apart like a crime scene.

By the time he and Lizzie settled into a hotel room near the Denver hospital, it was after ten. His niece’s temperament slid steadily downhill all afternoon. Lizzie flopped onto the closest bed, burrowing into the pillows until Max shook his head and nudged her. “Other bed, Lizard.”

She shot him a cross glare. “Why? Because I like this one?”

Tempted to agree, he shook his head instead. “It’s the closest to the door.”

She thought in grumpy silence for a moment and then her eyes widened. “Bad guys?”

Max smiled. “Yeah. Bad guys.” He tossed his duffel onto a low dresser. A shower would help. Lizzie asleep after his shower was probably too much to hope for.