with desire when he challenged, “Do you?”
Her pupils darkened as she stared up at him and her voice was husky as she replied, “You know I do.”
Were those images of their entwined naked bodies running through her mind, too? Was she remembering how it felt when he was inside her, as close as two people could get?
She cleared her throat and emphatically added, “I know you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “If you did, you would have known I wasn’t the one who tried to kill you three years ago.”
“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