“But you were so angry with me....”
“I was,” he agreed. “You were lying to me and tricking me.”
“But I didn’t steal from you.” She defended herself from what he’d told their son earlier.
She had stolen from him; she just didn’t know it. She’d stolen his heart.
But he just shrugged. “My trust...”
“I guess that went both ways,” she said.
“You never trusted me,” he pointed out. “Or you would have known you wouldn’t find the story you were after, that I’m not the man my father was.”
She leaned wearily against the door, as if she were much older than she was. “I never found the story,” she agreed. “And I gave up so much for it.”
She had given up the only life she’d known. Her home. Her family. Brendan could relate to that loss.
Then a small smile curved her lips and she added, “But I got the most important thing in my life.”
“Our son?”
She nodded. “That’s why I have to be careful who I trust. It’s why I have to leave here.”
“You’re safe here,” he assured her. Only people who knew what he really was knew about this place. Until tonight, when he’d taken her here.
She shook her head. “Not here. CJ and I need to go home. We’ve been safe there. I know I can keep him safe.”
He appreciated that she was a protective mother. “You don’t have to do that alone anymore.”
“I haven’t,” she said. “I had Charlotte. She was even in the delivery room with me.”
That was why Josie had named their son after the U.S. marshal.
“She’s too far away to help you now,” he pointed out. “That’s why she told you to—” he stepped closer and touched her face, tipping her chin up so she would meet his gaze “—let me.”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide as if she were searching. For what?
Goodness? Honor?
He wasn’t certain she would find them no matter how hard she looked. In his quest for justice for his father, he had had to bury deep any signs of human decency—at least when he was handling business. When he’d been with her, he’d let down his guard. He’d been himself even though he hadn’t told her who he was.
“What would I have to say to you,” he asked, “to make you trust me?”
“Whatever you told Charlotte,” she said. “Tell me what you told her.”
He shook his head. “I can’t trust you with that information.”
She jerked her chin from his hand as if unable to bear his touch any longer. “But you expect me to trust
you
—not with just my life, but CJ’s, too.”
She had a point. But he’d worked so long, given up so much.
If only she hadn’t lied to him...
He flinched over her disdainful tone. “Why would I be more untrustworthy than anyone else?”
“Like you don’t know why,” she said.
“Because of who I am?”
“Because of
what
you are.”
Charlotte had definitely not told her anything that he had shared with the former U.S. marshal.
“What am I?”
“I never got my story about you,” she said, “because you never answered my questions. But I need you to answer at least one if you expect me to stay here.”
He nodded in agreement. “I’ll answer one,” he replied. “But how do you know I’ll tell you the truth?”
“Swear on your mother’s grave.”
He wouldn’t need to tell her the truth then, because his mother wasn’t dead. Like everyone else, he had believed she’d been murdered when he was just a kid. But she was actually the first person he’d known who’d entered witness protection. The marshals hadn’t let her take him along, forcing her to leave a child behind with a man many had considered a psychopath as well as her killer.
If Brendan hadn’t run away when he was fifteen, he might have never learned the truth about either of his parents.
“Do you swear?” she prodded him. “Will you answer me honestly?”
“Yes,” he agreed, and hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to lie to her. But no matter what he’d promised her, he couldn’t tell her what he really was. “What do you want to know?”
“Before tonight, before those men on the roof—” she shuddered as though remembering the blood and the gunshots “—have you killed anyone else?”
He had promised her the truth, so he answered truthfully. “Yes.”
Chapter Ten
He was a killer. Maybe she should have believed everything she had heard and read about him—even the unsubstantiated stories.
“But just like tonight, it was in self-defense,” he explained, his deep voice vibrating with earnestness and regret, as though killing hadn’t been easy for him. “I have only killed when there’s been no other option, when it’s been that person’s life or mine, or the life of an innocent person.” He flinched as if reliving some of those moments. “Like you or our son.”
“You’ve been in these life-and-death situations before tonight,” she said.
He nodded.
“How many times?” she asked. “Twice? Three times?”
“I agreed to answer only one question,” he reminded her.
She swallowed hard, choking on the panic she felt just thinking of all the times he’d been in danger, all the times he could have died. “And you were trying to say I was responsible for what happened tonight. And for the attempts on my life years ago. You’re the one leading the dangerous life.”
He stepped back from her and sighed. “You’re right.”
She appealed to him. “So you need to let us leave, to let me go home.”
“I can’t do that.”
“How can you expect to keep me and CJ safe when you’re always fighting for your own life?” she asked.
He stripped off his suit jacket. Despite the crazy night they’d had, it was barely wrinkled, but he carelessly dropped it on the floor. And in doing so, he revealed the holsters strapped across his broad shoulders, a gun under each heavily muscled arm. She’d already known about the concealed weapons; she’d already seen all of his guns. Then he reached up and pulled one of those guns from its holster and pointed it toward her.
She gasped and stepped back, but she was already against the door and had no place else to go. Unless she opened the door, but then her son might see that the man he didn’t even realize yet was his father was holding a gun on his mother.
“What—what are you doing?” she stammered. “I—I thought you wanted me to trust you.”
“That’s why I’m giving you this gun,” he said. The handle, not the barrel, was pointed toward her. “Take it.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Don’t you know how to shoot one?”
“Charlotte taught me.” The marshal had taken her to the shooting range over and over again until Josie had gotten good at it. “She tried to give me one, too. But I didn’t want it.”
“You don’t like guns?”
Until tonight, when they’d been shooting at her, Josie hadn’t had any particular aversion to firearms. “I don’t want one in the same house with CJ.”
“You can lock it up,” Brendan said, “to make sure he doesn’t get to it.”
“So if I take this gun, you’ll let us leave?” she asked, reaching for it. The metal was cold to the touch and heavy across her palms. She identified the safety, grateful it was engaged.
He shook his head. “Until we find out who’s trying to kill you, I can’t let you or our son out of my sight.”
“Then why give me this?”
“So you’ll trust me,” he said. “If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t give you a gun to protect yourself.”
She expelled a ragged sigh, letting all her doubts and fears of Brendan go with the breath from her lungs. A bad man wouldn’t have given her the means to defend herself from him. Had she been wrong about him all these years?
Had she kept him from his son for no reason?
Guilt descended on her, bowing her shoulders with the heavy burden of it she already carried. For her student, and for that other young man’s death she’d inadvertently caused. She hadn’t needed Brendan to remind her that there were other people with reason to want to hurt her, as she’d hurt them. She hadn’t meant to.
She’d only been after the truth. But sometimes the truth caused more pain than letting secrets remain secret. If only she’d understood that sooner...
“Are you okay?” he asked, his deep voice full of concern.
How could he care about her—after everything she’d thought of him, everything she’d taken from him? He had been right that she’d stolen from him. She had taken away the first three years of his son’s life.
Her hands trembled so much that she quickly slid the gun into her purse so that she wouldn’t drop it. “I—I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just overwhelmed.”
“You’re exhausted,” he said.
And he was touching her again, his hands on her shoulders. He led her toward the couch. Like the one in the living room, it was wide and low, and as she sank onto the edge of it, it felt nearly as comfortable as a mattress.
Her purse dropped to the floor next to the couch, but she let it go. She didn’t need the gun. She didn’t need to protect herself from Brendan, at least not physically. But emotionally she was at risk of falling for him all over again.
“You can lie down here,” he said. “And I’ll keep an eye on CJ.”
“He’s out cold,” she said. Her son wouldn’t awaken again before morning. But regrettably that was only a few hours off.
Brendan shook his head. “I can’t sleep anyway.”
“I can’t sleep, either.” She reached up and grabbed his hand, tugging him down beside her.
He turned toward her, his eyes intense as he stared at her. The pupils dilated, and his chest—his massively muscled chest—heaved as he drew in an unsteady breath. “Josie...”
“You gave me a gun,” she murmured, unbelievably moved by his gesture.
“Most women would prefer flowers or jewelry.”
The woman she’d once been would have, but that woman had died nearly four years ago. The woman she was now preferred the gun, preferred that he’d given her the means to protect herself...even from him.
“I’m not most women,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “Most women I would have been able to put from my mind. But I never stopped thinking about you—” he reached for her now, touching her chin and then sliding his fingers up her cheek “—never stopped wanting you.”
Then his mouth was on hers as he kissed her deeply, his tongue sliding between her lips. She moaned as passion consumed her, heating her skin and her blood.
Her fingers trembled, and she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. She needed him. After tonight she needed to feel the way he had always made her feel—
alive
.
He caught her fingers as if to stop her. Josie opened her eyes and gasped in protest. But then he replaced her hands with his. He stripped off his holsters and then his shirt, baring his chest for her greedy gaze.
He was beautiful, the kind of masculine perfection that defied reality. That weakened a woman’s knees and her resolve. Josie leaned forward and kissed his chest, skimming her lips across the muscles.
Soft hair tickled her skin.
His fingers clenched in her hair, and he gently pulled her back. Then his hands were on her, pulling her sweater over her head and stripping off her bra.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice gruff.
She wasn’t the woman she’d once been, emotionally or physically. She’d worried that he wouldn’t look at her as he once had—his face flushed with desire, his nostrils flaring as he breathed hard and fast. But he was looking at her that way now.
“You’re even more beautiful,” he murmured, “than you once were.”
She didn’t know whether to be offended, so she laughed. “Then the marshals didn’t get their money’s worth from the plastic surgeon.”
“It’s not an external thing,” he said. “You have a beauty that comes from within now.”
“It’s happiness,” she admitted.
“Despite all you had to give up?” His hands skimmed along her jaw again. “Even your face?”
“I have my son,” she said, “our son...”
“Our son,” he said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was pregnant,” she said, “that I didn’t tell you when he was born.”
“You didn’t trust me,” he said. “You thought I wanted to kill you.”
“I was wrong.” She knew that now. She didn’t know everything. He was keeping other things from her—things that he’d shared with Charlotte but wouldn’t tell her. But maybe it was better that she didn’t know. Maybe the secrets kept her safer than the gun.
He kissed her again, as he had before. Deeply. Passionately. His chest rubbed against her breasts, drawing her nipples to tight points.
She moaned again and skimmed her hands over his back, pressing him closer to her. As she ran her palms down his spine, she hit something hard near his waistband. Something cold and hard.
Another gun.
How many did he have on him?
He stood up and took off that weapon, as well as another on his ankle. Then his belt and pants came off next.
And Josie gasped as desire rushed over her. She had never wanted anyone the way she’d wanted Brendan. Because she’d known she never would, she hadn’t gotten involved with anyone else the past four years. She’d focused on being a mother and a teacher and had tried to forget she was a woman.
She remembered now. Her hands trembling, she unclasped her jeans and skimmed them off along with her simple cotton panties. Brendan reached between them and stroked his fingers over her red curls.
Her breath caught. And she clutched his shoulders as her legs trembled.
“You haven’t changed completely,” he murmured.
He continued to stroke her until she came, holding tight to him so that she didn’t crumple to the floor. But then he laid her down on the couch. And he made love to her with his mouth, too, his fingers stroking over her breasts, teasing her nipples until she completely shattered, overcome with ecstasy. But there was more.
She pulled him up her body, stroking her hands and mouth over all his hard, rippling muscles...until his control snapped. And he thrust inside her, filling the emptiness with which she’d lived the past four years.
Their mouths made love like their bodies, tongues tangling, lips skimming, as he thrust deep and deeper. She arched to take all of him. A pressure wound tightly inside her, stretching her, making her ache. She gasped for breath as her heart pounded and her pulse raced.