hand to halt the car. Her wounded shoulder had already been treated, so she’d been medically cleared to be booked. But he didn’t want them booking her yet, not before he knew all the charges against her.
“It’s not scabbed over yet,” the young woman persisted, as she continued to inspect the scratch on Brendan’s head.
“I’m fine. But maybe you should double check the suspect,” he suggested. After the paramedic left, he turned back toward the ambulance and found Josie staring at him.
She had lost that stunned look of shock. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes dark, and she looked mad. She had every right to be angry—furious, even. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Are you sorry that you saved my life?” she asked. “Or are you sorry that you lied to me?”
“I never lied.”
She nodded her head sharply in agreement. “You didn’t have to. You just let me make all my wrong assumptions and you never bothered to correct me. Is that why you’re sorry?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “because I never should have gotten involved with you—not when I had just started the most dangerous assignment of my career.” But he’d been sloppy and careless. He’d let his attraction to her overcome his common sense.
Special Agent Martinez had urged him to go for it, that having a girlfriend gave Brendan a better cover and made him look more like his dad. That it might have roused suspicions if he’d turned down such a beautiful woman. But Brendan couldn’t blame Martinez. It hadn’t been an order, more so a suggestion. Brendan hadn’t had to listen to him.
It was all his fault—everything Josie had been through, everything she’d lost. She hadn’t died, but she’d still lost her home, her family, her career. If only he’d stayed away from her...
If only he’d resisted his attraction to her...
But he’d never felt anything as powerful.
“You thought I was going to blow your cover,” she said. “That’s why you didn’t tell me what was going on. You didn’t trust that I wouldn’t go public with the story.”
“I know you, Josie. You can’t stop being a reporter,” he reminded her. “Even after they relocated you, you were ferreting out stories.”
“But if you had asked me not to print anything, I would have held off,” she said. “I wouldn’t have put your life in danger.”
No. He was the one who’d put her life in danger. And he understood that she would probably never be able to forgive him, especially if her father didn’t make it.
“But you didn’t trust me,” she said.
“You didn’t trust me, either,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have raced here to make sure I didn’t kill Margaret for vigilante justice. You still suspected that I might be a killer.”
“I didn’t know who you really are,” she said.
She hadn’t known what he really did for a living, but she should have known what kind of person he was. Since she hadn’t, there was no way that she could love him.
“How did you figure out where I had gone?” he asked. “You had all that information for years, but you never put it together. And then I took everything to present to the district attorney. So how did you realize it was Margaret?”
“CJ told me.”
He laughed at her ridiculous claim. “CJ? How did he figure it out?”
“You told him,” she said, “when you told him that you were going to get rid of the bad person so he’d be safe.”
He hadn’t even known if the little boy was truly awake when he’d told him goodbye. It was wanting to make sure that goodbye wasn’t permanent that had had Brendan going through the proper channels for the arrest warrant.
“You said bad person,” she said, “not bad man, like we’d been telling him the shooters and the bomber was. Since Margaret was the only female I’d talked to about your father’s murder, it had to be her.”
He glanced to that car where his stepmother sat and waited for him. He needed to question her. But he dreaded leaving Josie after he had nearly lost her. He couldn’t even blink without horrible images replaying in his mind—the burly man slapping her so hard her neck snapped and then the gun pressed to her temple...
Josie shivered as she followed his gaze. “I need to get home to CJ. I need to make sure he’s safe.”
“You don’t need to go home,” he said. “He should be here very soon.”
Her brow furrowed. “How? Is Charlotte bringing him?”
“Charlotte couldn’t come.” He wondered if the former U.S.