car seat, knowing how foolish she must look to him. It wasn’t until he joined her in the car that she finally got the sobs to stop.
Alex started the engine and drove away from the house without a word.
Samantha didn’t look back. Couldn’t. She was afraid she would see the girl watching them, longing to go with them.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked over at her, aghast. “What do you have to be sorry about?”
“For…for falling apart on you like that.” She took a ragged breath. “I…I…”
“You don’t have to explain,” he said, glancing at her again as he drove.
ALEX WAS MENTALLY kicking himself for bringing her to Tennessee, to this place. He’d seen her reaction back there before she fell, before she broke down. Damn. He wanted to stop the car and pull her into his arms. But he feared that would be the worst thing he could do right now.
“That was me.”
She’d spoken so softly he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
“You?”
“That was my childhood back there,” she said.
She couldn’t be serious. But then he looked over at her and finally understood. “You’re the Presley in your family, aren’t you?”
She nodded and turned her face away.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “I thought I’d gotten over my childhood, the poverty, the bleakness of that life, but seeing Mrs. Wells and her children…” She brushed a hand over her cheek, her eyes red and shiny from her tears.
Alex said nothing as he drove and tried to imagine what it would be like growing up back at that house.
SHE WATCHED THE TREES rush past, feeling foolish. She’d worked so hard to hide who she was from Alex and to break down like that…
Alex reached across, took her hand and squeezed it. “You must think I’m a real jackass complaining about my family.”
Her throat hurt from trying not to cry again. “I’ve never thought you were a jackass.”
He smiled then, those wonderful eyes of his brightening as he glanced at her. “You’re just letting me off easy and we both know it.” His gaze caressed her face. “You are one remarkable woman, you know that?”
She felt anything but remarkable right now.
He turned back to his driving and she watched the thick dark leaves of the trees brush over the SUV and thought about Presley Wells. Where was he? She couldn’t shake the feeling that his mother was right and that not only was Presley in trouble, but so was Caroline.
“I don’t want to be wrong about Presley,” she said.
He looked over at her. “I don’t want you to be wrong, either. You never suspected where he’d come from when you met him?”
“Just like you never suspected when you met me.”
He smiled sheepishly. “No. But you made something out of yourself.”
“Maybe Presley did, too.”
“You didn’t change your name.”
“No,” she admitted. “But I changed everything else.” And yet she was still that poor, scared little girl inside.
Samantha saw a flash as something shiny caught in the sun on the side of the mountain ahead.
The back window of the SUV exploded. An instant later, the windshield turned into a spiderweb of white.
Chapter Fourteen
“What the—” Alex hit the brakes, at first not sure what was going on. The SUV went into a skid on the narrow road. He brought it back under control as his side window exploded.
“Keep your head down,” he yelled as he hurriedly knocked out the windshield so he could see where he was going. The glass slid down the hood. He heard it crunch under the tires and cranked the wheel to make the next turn, almost too late.
Then he looked over at Samantha and saw what she had in her hand. A gun. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. Hell, hadn’t it crossed his mind that she had one in her purse back when he thought she was nothing more than a wedding planner? Nor did it seem he had to tell her someone was shooting at them.
“There!” she cried and pointed to a road that dropped almost straight off the mountain through a thicket of trees, the branches a canopy over the top. “Take it!”
“Hang on!” He jerked the wheel. The front tires dropped over the side and he felt as if he was hanging by his seat belt as the SUV careened downward through the trees. He tried to brake but the back tires hadn’t touched down yet. He swore again as he sideswiped a stand of young maples, the saplings snapping off like toothpicks.
The