In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite) (3 page)

Taking the flashlight from Cole, she picked up the phone and hit redial. It didn’t ring. She hung up and tried again. Not even a dial tone.

Headlights flashed across the living room windows.

One of the deputies? Or a volunteer from Search and Rescue? It had to be. Sam said they’d be checking on folks. No one else would be out on a night like this.

Thank God
. They could call for an ambulance. She rushed to the door. Then, hand on the knob, she halted abruptly.

Wait. How would she explain the mysterious stranger with his multiple names? Especially with the possibility that he held the key to learning the truth about what had happened to Wade. She couldn’t say anything or they’d take him away and she’d never get her answers.

What if the deputy was someone she knew? He’d expect to come in out of the rain. Before anyone else saw the stranger, she had to find out who he really was.

Reassured by his steady breathing, she made up her mind.

“Cole,” she said, sounding more sure of herself than she actually was, “we’re going to play make-believe.” Thankfully, it was one of Cole’s favorite games.

He smiled. “’Kay.”

“We’re going to make believe this man isn’t here.” She grabbed the flashlight from the coffee table. “Okay?”

“Why?”

“Because…he doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“Why?”

The car outside stopped. She had to go now and stop whoever was out there. “Because—it’s a secret.”

“A big secret?”

“Mm-hm. It’s our big secret, okay?” She smiled, desperate for his agreement.

Cole looked back at the man still stretched out on the floor. “Is he my daddy?”

Shocked, Abby’s heart skipped a beat. “No, he’s not.” Her voice shook. “This is the man who helped us. Remember? That’s why he’s so tired.”

“You said my daddy is big and strong and that he takes care of people.” Cole used all her usual descriptions of Wade. Tears welled in her eyes. He’d been just under three years old the last time Wade had been home. He didn’t remember his father.

“Yes, that’s right. But this man isn’t your daddy.”

Cole continued to stare solemnly at the stranger.

Abby heard the car door slam. She needed time, time to talk to Cole, to explain again. But there was no time. She took a deep breath and blinked away the tears.

“Our secret, remember?” She held her breath, praying for Cole’s acquiescence.

The boy nodded.

She lifted Cole with her good arm, determined to look like everything was fine, and opened the front door. The candles flickered as the wind blew in. She closed the door behind her and pointed the flashlight at the car.

It wasn’t a deputy, or a volunteer.

Stunned, she stared at the man who was walking toward the porch.

“Abby,” Brooks Andrews said, his bureaucrat’s voice easy and deep.

She stood rooted in front of her door, unable to utter a word. Caught between his parking lights and her flashlight beam, Brooks seemed thinner, older, than the last time she’d seen him. She’d always thought he was in his fifties. Now he appeared ten years older. Perfectly dressed in a business suit he looked nothing like what he was, what she’d learned he was only last year—a master of CIA covert operations.

He came up her porch steps, the wind pulling at his clothes. Lightning flashed behind him in the distance. “How are you?”

She had to take another deep breath to get the words out. “Why are you here?”

“Cole has grown.” He stepped closer, looking at her son.

She turned sideways, effectively moving Cole away from him, and immediately felt foolish. Brooks wasn’t here to hurt Cole, or her. Wade always said there were no coincidences. There was no doubt in her mind that Brooks was here to get the man lying on her floor—his agent. To take away her last chance for answers. To ensure she never knew the truth about her late husband.

Not this time
. She’d had enough of Brooks, his lies, and his manipulative innuendo.

“Hi, Cole,” he said, reaching a hand toward her son.

It took every ounce of her self-control not to bat his hand away. But that would make Brooks curious. She couldn’t afford that, not when she was so close to finding out what Wade had hidden from her.

Cole shied away as he always did when Brooks came by, and held on tighter.

“You’re both wet,” Brooks continued, carefully looking over her son.

“We got caught in the rain.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Stuck in the mud, down that way.” With a nod of her head, she indicated the back road that led the half mile through the woods to the barn. “You came in off the highway, so you wouldn’t have seen it. Why are you here, Brooks?”

He took a step backward, as if finally aware that she was keeping herself between him and Cole. “To see how you’re doing.”

Not in this weather, no.

“I’m fine, just like I was three months ago.” She hoped her voice didn’t quiver. “Is something wrong?”

He pushed his hair back from his face only to have the wind blow it around again. “No. Just thought it was time we talked again.” He paused. “Have you remembered anything Wade said, anything about work?”

“No.” She’d told him that a million times. The lie had taken on a life of its own during the past year. There were times she almost believed it herself. That she’d only imagined the nightmare.

“Some friends of Wade’s might come looking for him.”

She was sure the flashlight shook in her hand. “Friends?”

“Army buddies.”

Not Army buddies
, she wanted to correct. Not even friends. Brooks meant intelligence op buddies.
Army
was the term he used to keep their occupations a secret, occupations protected by the government. Hidden even from a wife.

“Did you hear me, Abby?”

She forced herself to take a breath. “Don’t they know?”

“A few of the men were overseas,” he said. “They wouldn’t know about Wade unless you told them.”

“I haven’t been in contact with anyone.” That much was true. She hadn’t known how.

Brooks looked at her oddly, as if assessing what she wasn’t saying.

She schooled her features into what she hoped was resignation. Brooks wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t divulge anything, under normal circumstances. The man inside proved circumstances weren’t normal. “Why are you telling me this?”

“We think they’ll try to get in touch with Wade.”

“Why?”

“I need to know if they do.”

“Why? Have you lost another man?” Her question seemed to echo around them, even as she mentally kicked herself for asking it. She couldn’t risk making Brooks suspicious enough to come inside.

His expression didn’t change. “Just call me, Abby,” he said.

“I’m hungry, Mommy.” Cole’s plaintive tone drew Brooks’s attention.

“We’ll eat dinner as soon as Mr. Andrews leaves.”

Brooks handed her his business card. When she grasped it, he held on long enough to make her look up at him. “Call me.”

She wanted to ask again—demand—to know exactly what had happened to her husband. How and why he’d died. Now she might get the answers from someone other than Brooks, someone Wade had trusted.

“Daddy went nighty-night,” Cole said.

Startled, she turned toward her son. Brooks frowned.

“Daddy went nighty-night,” Cole repeated.

“Abby?” Brooks prodded, his eyes still fastened to hers intently.

Heart pounding, she looked back at him, certain he’d notice how her legs were shaking. “Cole thinks his father is…asleep.”

Cole nodded solemnly. “Daddy is sleeping,” he said.

Brooks, his mouth a grim line, studied her, then turned and walked back to his car.

“Good boy,” she murmured to Cole.

Brooks turned back, surprising her. “You need me to call a tow truck?”

She stared at him, unable to think. “A tow truck?”

“For your car.”

“Oh. No.” She had to control herself, her tendency to babble. “I’ll call them.”

“Phone’s working, then?”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Brooks looked at Cole, then back to her. “Stay well, Abby.”

Afraid Brooks would say something, see something—anything—else, she watched him start his SUV and check the headlights to be sure they were still on. She didn’t move until the vehicle disappeared behind the trees. Then she leaned back against the door, lowered Cole with shaky arms, and waited endless moments for her heart to quit racing.

That’s when she saw the man’s lace-up boots, sitting next to her tennis shoes on the porch.

Oh, God!

Heart thundering again, she bent and picked them up. Brooks couldn’t have seen them.
Could he?
Surely, he would have said something.
Wouldn’t he?

Desperation bubbled up inside her.
What now?

She wasn’t a gambler or a risk taker. All she’d ever wanted from life was the simplicity of a family, a husband, children. But she had loved a man she never really knew, had questions no one could, or would, answer.

No one but the stranger inside.

And until she got those answers, she had to hide him from Brooks.

No matter what.

…

JP awoke startled, flat on his back, a burning ache in his right side. Candlelight flickered from a coffee table, thunder rumbled in the distance, and faint streaks of lightning lit the sky beyond the curtained windows. He was soaking wet, but he wasn’t bound; there was no one around, no palpable danger.

Automatically, he felt for his Glock.

Gone
.

Voices drifted in from outside. A man’s deep bass, a woman’s, melodious but soft. He strained to hear the words, but they were indistinct. She sounded nervous. More than nervous. The hair on the back of his neck bristled.

He had a sudden flash of a pretty face, unusual light brown eyes. Hair in a ponytail. And it all came rushing back. The accident. The woman. The sudden dizziness.

Well, hell
, he thought, disgusted with himself. He’d fainted. Blood loss had finally gotten to him.

He unzipped his jacket and looked at his side. He’d bled through the T-shirt pad. Not good. He adjusted it, then ran his hand over his forehead. Something was stuck to it.
A
Band-Aid?
He wanted to laugh. If only she knew. The woman must have put it on him, though he couldn’t remember a cut, only the bump he’d gotten the day before when he’d evaded the kill shot. Gingerly, he flexed his legs and arms. Everything worked. Rolling to his left, he sat up, shivering from his wet clothes. His side hurt like hell, but at least the room didn’t tilt.

The voices outside had stopped.

Heaving himself to his feet, holding on to the couch just in case, he swiftly checked the end table drawers for his pistol. No luck. Careful to stay behind the candlelight, he made his way around the couch to the front windows. He needed to see what was going on, but the angle was all wrong. He couldn’t see a damn thing.

A car door had slammed, and now headlights were backing away from the house.

A framed picture on one end table glinted in the beam of light. He looked closer. The brown-haired woman in a wedding dress, and the side of a man’s face. A face almost as familiar as his own.

Like an idiot, he hadn’t asked her name. That would have told him he’d found what he’d come for.

The man he had once considered a friend and a mentor.

The man who now wanted him dead
.

…

Abby ushered Cole inside, and turned to close the door. Suddenly, someone grasped her wrists from behind, pressing them unrelentingly against her chest.
Oh, God! The stranger!
She dropped the boots she was carrying, and fought, twisting and kicking with all her strength. He grunted in pain. Her momentary satisfaction quickly gave way to fear as he transferred her wrists to one hand and pulled her against his chest, his free hand at her throat.

“Mommy!”

“It’s okay, son,” the stranger said. “I’m not going to hurt your mom.”

“Let me go!”

“Take it easy. I’m not—”

“What do you want?” God help her, she’d made a horrible, stupid mistake! She should have taken Cole and run like hell the moment she’d seen that gun. She should have told Brooks about him. Wade hadn’t trusted Brooks, but she had no one else to turn to.

“The Glock.” The word rumbled through her body.

She twisted and stomped at his feet, but he lifted her off the ground. Breathing hard and cursing herself for a fool, she kicked at his legs again.

“Calm down,” he said, sounding more exasperated than angry. “All I want is my weapon.”

“So you can use it on us?” she spit out.

“Damn it, woman! I’m
not
going to hurt you!”

“You’re hurting me now!”

His body relaxed against her. The hand he held at her throat gentled, and his grip on her wrists eased a bit. Still, she knew that despite whatever injuries he might have, she didn’t stand a chance against him.

“I said let me go!”

His arms dropped from around her and suddenly she was free, stumbling forward. She spun around, her heart racing. Even in the flickering candlelight, she could tell his eyes were a deep brown. Just as Wade had said.

“Where’s Wade?” he asked.

Her pulse leapt, her thoughts racing ahead. She’d been right to hide him. He did know her husband. But surely he knew Wade was dead.

“Daddy’s sleeping,” Cole said.

The stranger frowned down at her son. “Sleeping?”

“Cole—” she began, wondering why she had to tell this man—

“You said we can eat now,” Cole interrupted, whining.

“Where the hell—”

“Watch your language!” she admonished.

“I need to know where—”

“Unca Steve uses bad words. Mommy gets mad at him, too.”

The stranger took a deep breath. A really deep one. A frisson of fear chased down her spine, and she braced herself for his next move.

But he just said, “I’m sorry,” looking first at Cole, then at her.

Confused, her anger rising, she bit out, “I don’t want your apology. I want to know who you are and what you’re doing here.”
And if I’m right, why it took you so long to get here
.