“The last clear memory I have is of you,” Tag said.

She looked up then, her soft gaze warm with care and optimism, and the words just burst out from the unguarded heart of him.

“I never stopped thinking about you, dreaming about you. Loving you,” he added.

For a moment she didn’t react and he experienced a terrible anguished panic. He was too late.

Then she rose from her cross-legged position and came to him without a word. He stood there, frozen in place, afraid to hope, afraid to breathe. Her palms skimmed up either side of his immobile face, cradling him in that gentle V while she spoke the answer that fed his soul.

“Neither did I.”

Warrior’s Second Chance
Nancy Gideon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NANCY GIDEON

Portage, Michigan, author Nancy Gideon has a writing career that is as versatile as the romance market itself. Her books include many genres such as historicals, Regency contemporary and paranormal. She has won a Romantic Times BOOKreviews Career Achievement in Historical Adventure award, is a Holt Medallion winner and a Top Ten Waldenbooks series bestseller. When not working on her latest plot twist at 4:00 a.m. or setting depositions at her full-time job as a legal assistant, she’s cheerleading her sons’ interests in filmmaking and R/C flying, traveling (for research purposes, of course!) and rediscovering the joys of single life. Visit her at: www.TLT.com.

For my friends at MMRWA as proof that perseverance pays off.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Prologue

“Don’t go.”

Her soft plea held the strength to still his breathing as he reached for his jeans.

“I have to. I have to report in tomorrow. I’ve got to pack. Besides,” he cast a quick glance over his shoulder, “we’ve already risked enough by you staying out here so long.”

Fingertips grazed his ribs, effectively stopping his heart, as well. Her voice became softer still. So sweet, but an enticement nonetheless.

“I meant, don’t leave me. Not tonight. Not tomorrow.”

He gulped for air to get his pulse and thought process going again while devouring her with a hungry gaze. The offer was unbelievably tempting. Canada was so close, as close as this, his heart’s desire. And just as impossible to reach. He stood, pulling up his pants in the same strong motion. Those determined movements didn’t give away the wealth of frantic emotions beating him up on the inside. He couldn’t let her know how weak he was when it came to her request. When it came to her, period.

She lay on the swing, his letter sweater hugged to her smooth, silky skin, skin still moist from his hurried kisses. She lifted up on one elbow to watch him readying to leave her. Not for just this night, but for countless nights to come. The tousled spill of her fair hair created an angelic frame for her even paler face. Light from the back porch gleamed along the trail of her tears. He reached out to soothe away one of those glittering tracks. His reply conveyed an unyielding regret.

“Sorry, Barbara. Same answer to both things.”

A heart-savaging smile tried to strengthen the tremble of her lips, making them all the more alluring. Then she spoke with all the honesty in her soul. “I know. But it doesn’t change how I feel. Not about you. Not about us. You can’t blame me for wanting to hold on to you just a little bit longer. What time does your bus leave?” Her words snagged at the end of that question.

“Six o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

It was no easier for him to say than it was for her to hear.

“I don’t want you to be.”

Hurt and confusion flooded her eyes, making them into great salty seas in which a man could drown if not careful. He was already treading dangerously deep waters and knew he should just go. To linger only prolonged the inevitable. And hurting her was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do. Especially not tonight.

“Let’s say our goodbyes here,” he urged, eager to restore the tenderness of moments before. “It’ll be better just between the two of us.”

Her smile took a bittersweet twist, catching his meaning with a maturity far beyond her almost seventeen years. “Better than in front of half the town. I don’t care about that.”

“Better than in front of your parents. And I do care.”

“People will think it’s strange if I’m not there to see the three of you off.”

“I don’t care what people think.”

As long as it wasn’t the truth. The truth that a McGee from the wrong side of the justice system and Judge Calvin’s pristine, not-yet-of-legal-age daughter were romantically…and physically involved. If that truth were known, he wouldn’t live long enough to get on that bus to shake off this town and the stigma his family hung around his neck like a heavy, damning albatross. A reputation he could only live down if he got away, now, right now, before this beautiful, innocent woman-child suffered for its stain. That made him a hero in her eyes, a coward in his own.

She didn’t argue the point. That always surprised him, her willingness to just let things go considering that arbitration and critical examination were part of her family tradition. The Calvins loved to sink their teeth into any situation…and bite down hard until they won that point, whether they were right in the first place or not. Blind justice and closed minds. A dangerous combination when it came to courting a rich man’s daughter. Courting in the shadows because the honorable front door had always been locked tight for security’s sake where he was concerned.

But then he’d gone and stolen their most valuable possession anyway, despite their precautions. Like a thief in the night. That’s how he felt at this fragile moment. And he hated it, along with the name that made him so unacceptable.

She sat up, letting the sweater drop, exposing her creamy, perfect breasts without a trace of guile or manipulative intent. Between them, on a slender sterling chain, where it should have warded him off like a virgin-corrupting vampire, was the religious medallion her father had given her upon her confirmation. She slipped it over her head and then reached for one of his hands, turning it palm upward to make a cup into which she poured that trickle of silver. She curled his fingers over the St. Christopher’s medal and pressed them tight with both her hands. Her touch was cool, her hands trembling.

“I want you to take this.”

“I’m not Catholic.”

“God won’t care. I don’t care. I just want you to have a piece of me with you wherever you go.”

Silly girl. Didn’t she know she had already carved out a permanent niche within his soul?

“Okay.” His tone sounded brusque despite the shaky state of his own emotions. He couldn’t afford to let her know how much the gift meant to him. How much she meant to him at this very moment when parting was only hours away.

She released him so he could loop the chain about his neck. The medallion fell against his chest, next to the agitation of his heartbeats, the metal still warm from her skin. Burning there with the heat of their desperate passion. He knew he’d never take it off, that sacred symbol of their love.

“You’ll write?” Her question quivered slightly with intensity.

“I’d like to but—”

“I’ve got a post office box in Roseville so no one will know. Please.”

He tried to ignore an angry jab of unfairness at that necessity. So no one would guess what the two of them had become to one another. Loves. Lovers.

“Whenever I can,” he promised a bit tersely.

“It won’t be like this forever,” was the promise she gave him in return.

He’d heard it before. An empty promise made from a pure and painfully innocent soul. One not yet scarred by the ugliness of the society denying them approval and legitimacy in their relationship. Things a girl like Barbara Calvin needed. Deserved.

“They’ll change their minds. I’ll start working on them the minute you leave and will have them worn down by the time you come home a hero.”

Didn’t she realize it would take more than a chestful of medals to outshine the blackness of his past? But because she looked so hopeful, so damned gorgeous in her conviction, he only nodded.

She leaned forward to kiss him. Passion tasted wild and fierce in that long, wet exchange. And when she sat back, her expression was set with a strength that almost convinced him.

“I will marry you, Taggert McGee. You keep that promise close to your heart, too, and you come back for me. I’ll be waiting.”

So he took that promise with him on the bus the next day, along with a PO box number. He pretended he didn’t see her standing at the edge of the curb trying to hide her tears.

He carried that promise through the rigors of basic training while he sent off letters and waited anxiously for a reply. A reply that never came.

And the next time he heard anything about her, just before he shipped out, was that she now carried his best friend’s last name.

Even after thirty years, the pain of that discovery was still close to unbearable. Even as he stood in the cemetery glaring down at the name carved into pale marble. A stone as hard as his heart had become.

“You son of a bitch. You were supposed to take care of her. You’re the one she should be depending on, not me.”

Pride wouldn’t allow him to rejoice in his chance to take Robert D’Angelo’s place. That place promised to him one sultry evening a lifetime ago, and now offered again only because it was a matter of need, not love.

He crumpled the note that had pulled him back into the painful hell that was his past, letting it drop on a true hero’s grave. Walking away, because he wasn’t now, as he hadn’t been then, worthy of the woman they’d all loved.

Chapter 1

Death hung suspended at arm’s length.

She stared with hypnotic horror down the barrel of the gun, seeing no light at the end of that long black tunnel. Only darkness and death.

Hers and her daughter’s.

Lifting her gaze from the empty hole that held her demise, she looked into the eyes of her killer. What had she expected to find there? Sympathy? Regret? There was nothing, a flat void of expression as deadly and cold as the bore of the gun.

Was this what her husband had seen, this empty, soulless stare, in the last seconds of his life?

Would this be the last intimacy exchanged between man and wife, this shared precursor to their own end at the same indifferent, yet well-known, hand?

Robert D’Angelo was dead already, his life taken in this same room some months before by this same man. By this man who’d been his friend, his betrayer.

Her heart beat fast and frantically, pounding in her chest, hammering inside her head, the sound amplifying, intensifying like a desperate, unvoiced scream.

Please! I don’t want to die!

Tessa sat beside her, calm, fierce, her father’s daughter. Instead of begging for mercy, she argued with, even taunted, the man who held their futures in cruel hands. So brave, so confident. So precious. In the twenty-eight years they’d shared, had she told her how precious she was?

An anguished plea burned in her throat, twisting, tearing for release.

Don’t take my daughter.

If she jumped forward, if she grabbed the gun, using her body for a shield, perhaps Tessa could get away. There was a chance one of them might survive. Tessa. It should be Tessa, who had so much to live for.

Her breathing caught as an awful realization slammed through her. These could be the last moments of her life.

And then his words, with their terrible finality.

“Sorry, Babs. Nothing personal.”

Something moved in his fixed stare. Something so dark and unbelievably terrifying, her plan to save her daughter by sacrificing herself froze in timeless terror.

Pleasure. He was going to enjoy killing them.

An explosion of movement coincided with a shrill of sound. Her dream shattered like that remembered glass as Barbara D’Angelo woke to the ringing of her phone.

It took her a long moment to separate nightmare from reality.

She sat up on the leather love seat, drenched in a sweat of panic. Afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows of the enclosed porch where, after another restless night, she’d fallen, exhausted, to sleep. She forced a constricted breath. Then another. The threat was gone, now behind bars awaiting justice. She was here, safe in her home, not at her husband’s office at the mercy of his killer.

The only thing that didn’t change upon waking was the fact that her husband was dead.

Vestiges of fear beaded coldly upon her skin. She scrubbed her hands over her face. Only then did she reach for the insistent phone. In another few weeks it would be turned off, the number disconnected as she removed herself forever from this place, from this life. She would be moving on, leaving the past and its ugly scars behind. None too soon.

She lifted the receiver and spoke with what she hoped was coherent civility.

“D’Angelo residence.”

An amiable greeting sounded on the other end of the line. It wasn’t a solicitor trying to coerce her into opening her checkbook for some worthy cause. It wasn’t a friend requesting a long overdue lunch. It wasn’t her realtor wondering if the house was ready for the market. It was a voice from the past. One that still echoed, horribly, impossibly, from her nightmare of moments before.

The voice of her husband’s murderer.

“Hello, Barbie. Did you think I’d forgotten you?”

For a moment she couldn’t respond. Her entire system shriveled into a tiny knot of disbelieving panic. How could it be? How could it be him?

“Babs? You still there? Cat got your tongue?” His chuckle was warm and jovial, making it all the more terrifying. “Nothing to say to me after all we’ve shared? That’s okay. You can just listen. Guess where I am?”

Finally, her shocked stupor ended upon a snap of outrage. “You should be burning in hell, but a life behind bars will have to do.”

“I’ve been to hell, Babs. It was hot and green. But no, I’m not going back there, not for a long while. And right now, there’s nothing between me and a fine view of Lake Michigan. Nothing but two lovely young ladies.”

He was out. That knowledge stabbed through the protective bubble of her supposed safety, leaving her exposed and alone. She gripped the receiver in sweat-slicked palms, clinging to it in desperate denial. Another more awful notion began to germinate like a toxic virus in her brain. She wanted to hang up, to sever the link, to halt the horrible truth she feared was coming. But she couldn’t. She had to know.

“Why are you calling me?” It was little more than a whisper.

“It’s a beautiful day. It’s great to be alive. At least I’m sure that’s what your daughter is thinking. I’m watching her right now.”

Barbara’s eyes squeezed shut. Panic and helplessness tightened within her chest. Tessa…

“We’ve been having a wonderful time here on the Navy Pier,” Chet Allen continued cheerfully as if he were a part of the outing of school children her daughter was chaperoning in Chicago for the long weekend. “Your Tess particularly enjoyed the display of stained glass inside, but the girls are dragging her down to the Ferris wheel. She’s not afraid of heights, is she? I didn’t think so. Your scrappy little girl isn’t afraid of anything. That’s because she doesn’t know what you and I know. She doesn’t know that her life could be over before she finishes paying for those ice cream cones.”

“What do you want?” she all but screamed into the phone.

She could almost see him smiling on the other end of the line, a cold, smug smile of control.

“I want you to do me a favor. But first, a few ground rules just in case you get confused about who’s in charge here.”

She could hear carnival music in the background and the innocence of happy girlish chatter. She could hardly breathe as she heard him say, “Excuse me, young lady. I think you dropped this.”

And then Barbara trembled at the sweetly familiar sound of her adopted grandchild’s voice with its delicate Spanish accent.

“Thank you, señor.”

Rose. Sweet Rose.

After a brief pause, Chet Allen spoke crisply, clearly, so there would be no mistaking the danger.

“You see how close I am? I could have just as easily given her a blade between the ribs as returned her bag of cotton candy. Do we understand each other, Barbara? Do you get the picture?”

“Yes,” she whispered. She got the picture in Technicolor.

“Good.” He was all pleasant humor once again. “Make no mistake. There is nothing, no one, that can come between them and me if you don’t do exactly what I tell you. Before you can call your commando son-in-law, before you can scream for help to the Windy City police, I’ll have them. They’ll be dead. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes.” Clear as her Waterford crystal.

“Excellent. Now, back to that favor. You’re flying to D.C. this afternoon. I’ve expressed a ticket to your office. It should be there in about an hour. That doesn’t give you much time to pack your party dresses. You’ve got reservations for two at the Wardman under your maiden name.”

“For two?”

“I’ve arranged for a traveling companion for you, seats 12A and B. Someone who’s capable of handling the behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done while you dazzle and distract. The two of you will have a common goal when it comes to saving your daughter’s life. Whether you want to tell him why he’s got so much at stake is up to you. Just make sure he’s motivated to help you. And to help himself.”

Surely he couldn’t mean…

She couldn’t even bring his name into focus for fear of remembering all. She tried to take a breath through the complex emotions wadding in her throat. The effort nearly strangled her. She forced herself to get behind the paralysis of surprise. Not now. Not yet. She could deal with that later. Right now, she had to think of Tessa. She made her mind move forward. Think. “How did you get out?” Suddenly, that mattered, knowing who was pulling the strings. “They said you couldn’t make bail. The evidence—”

“Is gone. No more damning paper trail. No more greedy Councilwoman Martinez.” She heard his fingers snap. “No more solid case against me. I’m free as a bird with clipped wings. The only ones who can try to put me back in that cage are you and your daughter. But before you get the chance to testify, one of two things will have happened, either you’ll join Martinez and disappear or I will.”

It took a long moment for her to digest that. What if he was telling the truth? “Martinez…”

“Had an unfortunate accident in her cell. I’d just as soon neither of us have to keep her company. She was really quite unpleasant.”

Barbara’s mind spun like that dizzying Ferris wheel, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. Martinez was dead. Allen was out on bail. “Who killed her? Why?”

“Let’s just say my particular talents were needed to finish up some long overdue business and certain parties were eager to have me on the streets. So I want you to play a game with me. You remember how much I like to play games. This isn’t hide-and-seek or spin the bottle. It’s a survival game.”

“Why should I care if you survive? You killed Robert. You killed my husband.”

“That’s what I do. And I do it better than anyone else. Don’t hold that against me. It was just a job. And now I have another job to do.”

“Keeping Tessa and me from going to court,” she all but whispered.

Allen laughed off her greatest fear. “Babs, you’re not that important in the giant scheme of things. Neither am I. They wouldn’t have gotten me out just to tie up my loose ends.”

“Who?”

“Them that makes the rules. Rules I have to follow. Rules they’ve always made me follow even when I didn’t want to. It’s not about what I want. I can’t break those rules. But you can.”

“Rules? What are you talking about, Chet?”

“Ask Mac. Those rules used to apply to him, too. He broke them and now they want me to punish him for it. That’s my new job, Barbie. That’s why I thought you might be interested in playing.”

“I don’t understand.”

The voice on the phone grew harsh and cold as gun metal. “Then let me spell it out for you, Barbara. In fourteen days, I have to appear in court to stand trial for Robert’s murder. You and your daughter are the only witnesses who can testify against me. I’m motivated to see that doesn’t happen. I have a choice. Either I can silence the both of you or I can disappear. I need help to disappear. In that fourteen days, I have another job to do if I want to live long enough to make that choice, to get that help. I have to silence the only other friend I’ve ever had. Those are the rules to the game I’m playing. But I’m no fool, Barbie. I know once that job is done, my usefulness will have expired. They may decide not to follow their own rules. Either I’ll be buried so far undercover no one will ever know I existed or I’ll be buried next to Robby. I’m not ready for that hot, green hell yet.”

“So what do you expect me to do?”

“You don’t have to follow rules. You can break them for me. You and Mac. He knows how to play. You have thirteen days to break the rules so Tag doesn’t have to die. Then we’ll discuss that other choice. The one that involves you and your daughter. You’re safe, she’s safe for now, as long as you play the game.”

“Who makes the rules?”

“Ticktock, Barbie. Better get packing.”

“Wait! What is it you want me to do?”

“I’ll call you when you get to the Wardman. And Babs, they are lovely girls. You should be proud.”

The line went dead.

She sat for long, tense minutes staring at the receiver as if it would yet speak some answer to her. Silence. The only sounds were the tortured gasps of her breathing.

Then, the mellow bongs of the grandfather clock in the living room sounded, tolling out the time and how quickly it was passing. Ticktock.

Without thinking, Barbara dialed. A moment passed. Then, at last, a connection.

“Hi, Mom. You should be here to rescue me from this unruly mob of twelve-year-olds. I’d rather be facing a box of angry jurors.”

Tessa’s voice, cheerful and alive. Barbara clutched the phone, struggling against a maternal demand that she scream an alarm across the miles that separated them. But Allen was there, watching. She inhaled and let it out in a slow controlled stream before speaking.

“Things going that well. No one said motherhood was a cakewalk.”

“It’s not for sissies. You could have warned me what I was getting myself into. The other moms have had a dozen years to get used to the idea and I’ve only had a few months. But you know what? I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

Emotion thickened in Barbara’s throat as she pictured her toughly independent daughter over-wrought by the pleasures of parenting. Pleasures that had slipped quietly and almost unnoticed away from the two of them during Tessa’s growing-up years. She blinked back the burn of tears as she phrased her words, knowing someone was nearby, watching Tessa’s reactions to whatever she said. “Enjoy yourself, but be careful. Chicago can be a dangerous place. You need to be ready to protect those little girls against anything. And yourself, too.”

“Are you suggesting I should have packed my piece to go on a school field trip?” She laughed. Then the ever practical side of her personality took over. “Don’t worry, Mom. Jack trusted me to make sure nothing ever happens to Rose and I take that very seriously. I’d never let him down.”

“I love you, Tessa.”

The impulsive statement was met with the silence of surprise. There was still too much healing to do between them for Barbara to have expected a reply. So instead, she filled the uncomfortable void with lighthearted small talk. It wouldn’t do for Tessa to guess the truth about the danger she was in. Not when she was vulnerable, unprepared and unarmed and caring for a group of children. Because Barbara knew her daughter, knew she would rush headlong into a confrontation that could cost her her life and the life of the child she loved. Those were the risks she, herself, would take to keep them safe and unsuspecting.

“Tell Rose I said hello and not to eat too much junk food.”

“Ha! You tell her. Twelve-year-olds think sugar is a primary food group. How are things holding together at the office?”

“Fine,” she lied. “Everything’s under control here. You just concentrate on having a good time.”

“On keeping my sanity, you mean. Gotta go. See ya later this week.”

Sitting there, listening to dead air as her inner spirit wept, Barbara made a promise to do anything necessary to see her daughter safely home.

Even if that meant making a deal with a devil.

“Are you sure you can handle everything until Jack gets back?”

From the front-row seat of his wheelchair, Michael Chaney watched his son’s mother-in-law pace the length of the office as if it were a fashion runway. She was the most sophisticated creature the ex-cop had ever known. All class, all the time. Not intentional, just instinctual. That classiness had been passed down to the woman his son married, along with a not-so-delicate grit. Despite the polish, despite the poise, that sandpapery grit was showing on Barbara D’Angelo like the ragged edge of a crooked slip hanging below her stylish hemline. Something was wrong. Something that had to do with the suitcase and matching overnight bag she dragged into the office behind her. Something to do with the airline ticket she held clenched in one white-knuckled hand. But because he was an ex-cop, as well as her friend, he approached the situation carefully.

Michael snorted at her question. “I’ve handled worse than eight badass bodyguards-in-training. Stan’s working with them this week, probably beating them over the head with his cane to keep their attention focused on surveillance equipment instead of that hot little pilot with her long, long legs.”

That won a rueful smile. “Sounds like you’ve been doing some surveillance yourself.”

“I’m crippled, not dead. I’ll handle the phones and the interviews, and Stan will keep the probbies in line. Hey, no worries.”

But he could sense worries aplenty behind her artfully made-up surface. Barbara knew it. And she couldn’t afford to rouse his suspicions.

He’d know if she made one tiny slip. Family was the only thing that would wear concern into her flawless face. Nothing was wrong there that he knew of and she had to see that he continued to believe that. As far as he knew, Barbara was loving her stint behind the desk of Personal Protection Professionals. Who would have guessed? Less than a year ago, she’d been a regular on the society page, hosting elaborate fundraisers for charities and her husband’s political aspirations. Her biggest worries then had been whether the hired kitchen staff could keep up with the demand for shrimp puffs. Then a gunshot ended that superficial existence.

All Michael Chaney knew, from what she’d told him, was that at fifty, she was a widow whose résumé was as trophy wife. She had no skills, no passions, no purpose. Her sons lived on different sides of the country and her daughter might as well live on another planet for the distance that separated them. She was alone for the first time in her life, though she’d been lonely for years. Hard to believe, but she’d made him into a believer.

And then Jack Chaney proposed marriage to her daughter and a business arrangement to her.

She’d been surprised, doubtful and, more than that, genuinely excited. A job opportunity. A chance to be a part of something real and important and growing, like her relationship with her daughter now that the secrets between them had been torn wide open. Office manager for Personal Protection Professionals, or Lone Wolf’s Warriors, as Tessa liked to call it after Jack’s former black ops code name. They’d rented space in the center of a run-down strip mall, wedged between the hot pink vertical blinds of a hair salon and the flickering neons of an income tax service. The sign was still so new the paint looked wet. Her job was to coordinate between the training compound that housed Jack and his family, and the office; paying bills and spearheading the background checks with the elder Chaney and Stan Kovacs, his partner from their days on the streets before a criminal’s bullet put Michael in a wheelchair. And though this was the first paycheck-earning job she’d ever had, Barbara took it seriously. She wouldn’t let Jack’s unsubstantiated faith in her down for anything.

And one of the things she’s promised him was to take care of his new wife and their adopted daughter when he was away. And she wouldn’t break that promise.

Barbara finally gave up her aggressive travels and collapsed gracefully into a utilitarian office chair. She looked like a Saks Fifth Avenue marionette with the strings abruptly severed; inside, her emotions were just as tangled. “Where is Jack, anyway?”

“Someplace in Mexico doing a favor for his buddy Russell. He’s not very good at cards and letters when he’s in the field, but he’ll check in when he’s supposed to. Anything you want me to tell him?”

There it was. The opening Barbara had waited for. The chance to unload the tension and terror continuing to build behind her composed facade. But she kept it to herself, hugged it close, as tight as she would have held to those two unsuspecting girls had they stepped into the office at this moment. Because she knew what Chet Allen was and what he was capable of doing. She forced a smile. If Jack had been here, if she was able to get hold of him, he’d know just what to do. He knew the kind of man Allen was, too, and he’d know how to handle this dangerous situation. But Jack wasn’t here and she couldn’t ask his advice. So she’d have to trust her own instincts. And pray she was doing the right thing.

“Tell him Tessa and Rose send their love. And that I’m taking care of things.”

“What things, Barbara? What things are you taking care of?”

There was no escaping that blunt question. She stared down at the ticket crushed in her hand. A ticket leading toward troubles untold and a madman on the loose. And, apparently, a long overdue reunion. The significance was too enormous to consider on top of all else.

But one thing she did know. If Allen was following her to D.C., he wouldn’t be here threatening her family. That, alone, was worth the risk she was taking.

And then there was that other matter Allen had hinted at. The matter she’d squeezed out of her thoughts but had her heart beating a rapid tempo of anticipation.

Taggert McGee.

“Things I should have dealt with a long, long time ago,” was the answer that would have to satisfy him. The honk of her cab’s horn relieved her from further awkward evasion. She took a shaky breath and regarded Michael Chaney through misting eyes. “Behave. I’ll be back…in a few days.”

But would she be returning to the life she was learning to love and the new family she couldn’t live without?

That, she realized as she towed her luggage out the door, was now in her hands. Hands that were damp and trembling.

“Excuse me. Has the passenger in seat 12B checked in yet?”

The airline attendant who’d just given the last call for her flight regarded Barbara with a regretful smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Not that I’m aware of. You’ll have to board now.”

She scanned the empty rows of form-fitted seats in the gate area as if she’d find her traveling companion still there like an unattended bag. Panic twisted beneath her ribs. “Are you sure?”

The attendant’s smile never wavered. “Yes, ma’am. You’ll have to board now. There’s another flight if your friend arrives too late.”

Too late.

Too late for whom? For the daughter and grandchild at the mercy of a maniac? A deadly lunatic, government-trained to do only one thing and do it well. A man like that didn’t value life. Not even his own. And that made him the worst kind of threat.

She was right to be afraid.

The moment she recognized his voice on her home phone, Barbara had shifted into a numb sort of overdrive. She’d called no one after confirming Tessa’s safety. A tenuous condition. Whether she remained in that state of grace was up to Barbara, and that burden weighed like a Mack truck parked atop her heart. What could she do but follow Allen’s dictates? Who could she call for help? The police were no match for a man like Chet. Not after Robert’s murder and not now. Even after she, Tessa and Jack had snared him and the councilwoman he’d worked for, the justice system had somehow opened their doors to put him back into a society where he didn’t belong. If she reached out to the world around her for assistance, he would know. Somehow, he would know. And the consequences were too awful to consider.

So she’d locked the doors of her palatial home and driven off in her big luxury car. She went to the office of Personal Protection Professionals, where currently she was the entire office staff. And with all that expertise, all that well-honed skill surrounding her, available upon her single word, she hadn’t dared speak it.

If she did, somehow he would know. And the two she loved most in the world would die.

There were only two people who’d ever been able to handle Chet Allen. One, her husband, was dead. The other belonged to the unclaimed seat.

“Please, ma’am.” The attendant gestured down the tunnel where the sound of her jet whined impatiently.

Lifting her carry-on, Barbara gave the terminal hall one last glance, then committed to the rush down the gangway. A relieved attendant directed her to her seat in the full main cabin. Two empty seats together. Too late now to regret her decision to comply with Chet Allen’s plan. She’d just have to find a way to handle things in Washington on her own. Whatever those things might be.

The overhead compartment was already full. While those seated around her glared at the delay, Barbara wrestled with her bag, trying to force it into the narrow space remaining. The Fasten Seat Belts tone sounded twice, urging her to hurry. Frustration knotted in her throat and burned behind her eyes. Just as the need to weep nearly overpowered, a man reached up to clear the necessary space into which her bag fit snugly.

“Thank you.”

Taking a jerking breath, she looked over her shoulder to her rescuer, but any other words died on her lips. Her pathetically grateful smile froze there.

“Hello, Barbara.”

She couldn’t draw a breath. Her head grew light, her vision unreliable. But there was no confusing the man in the aisle beside her with any other.

How could one forget the man who had fathered a child and then left her and the baby for another man to raise as his own? The man she must now depend upon to save that precious child’s life.

Chapter 2

He’d stood behind the forest of racks at the gift shop for almost fifteen minutes staring, not at the line of passengers being herded onto the plane, but at the tattered papers in his hand. A sensational newspaper clipping, an airline ticket and a short note from a onetime friend he’d never expected to hear from again. But it wasn’t the sordid nature of the article dealing with a six-month-old murder case, or the tersely worded invitation that brought him to this place. It was one fact. That fact had beaten like a wild, hopeful heart every mile of the hard day’s drive to get to Detroit Metro.

Barbara Calvin D’Angelo was free again.

Just seeing her name in the article ripped into him with all the delicacy of a chest cutter, exposing emotions still raw and pulsing with desperate life. The years didn’t matter. He’d last seen her, last touched her, last heard her soft voice more than three decades ago, but the memories were as fresh as the strong aroma of coffee in a vacuum-packed jar. Tear back the protective cover and the immediacy of feelings long stored away overwhelmed him.

A fool’s errand. That’s what he was on.

He’d told himself that at every mile marker, too. But it was Barbara who drew him like a beacon. The memory of her was a light so bright it burned into the brain. Yet, he couldn’t look away, despite the pain. Remembering her throbbed with toothache intensity clear to his soul, an insistence that may have dulled but never quite went away. It was all he could do not to moan that anguish aloud. Instead, it wailed through his spirit, a mournful banshee of regret and loss. Chased with a sharp edge of anticipation.

Finally, he had his excuse. His reason for seeking out that one wonderful spark from his past that had kept him alive. And he couldn’t pass it up.

A smart man would have left well enough alone. He would have crumpled up the unwelcome news and used it to flame the evening’s fire. But the spark had taken hold. And once it began to burn, it would not be contained or denied.

He had to see her again. If for no other reason than to put the memories to rest.

He knew time had preserved and sugarcoated his treasured recollections. He remembered the sweetness of those moments with a heart-piercing pleasure so pure, so right, he knew they couldn’t be real. The passing of years and the bitter roads he’d traveled only made them seem perfect. Still, he couldn’t let them go. Barbara had been the one good thing he looked back upon, the one slice of recall he didn’t doubt was real. He shouldn’t risk tarnishing that by opening those memories to the harshness that had transpired between that fragile then and this bleak now. He’d be snuffing out his one faint flicker of contentment.

Maybe that’s why he was here. To grind out that relentless ember beneath his heel so he could move on.

Move on to what?

The only direction he’d ever wanted to take was the one Barbara D’Angelo was heading. She was his North Star and home was wherever she resided.

Sheer foolishness, of course. But the poet’s soul that used to dwell inside him was as hard to crush as that poignant flame of hope.

Last chance. Last chance to just walk away and head north, preserving his memories in vacuum-sealed museum quality and his emotions in their static state. The first he could continue to take out, to dust off and admire with a dreamy wistfulness, and the other he could simply continue to endure. But if he stayed and made Barbara D’Angelo’s business his own, all that would drastically alter.

Go. Don’t be a fool. Nothing has changed.

But then that poet’s heart and a fool’s footsteps carried him onto the plane and back into her life.

She said something. He couldn’t hear the words over the sudden loud humming in his head that rivaled the drone of the turbine engines. The surroundings faded out into soft focus until only she existed in a sharp field of vision.

She hadn’t changed at all.

She was still slender, stylishly dressed in charcoal-gray slacks and a two-piece sweater of sparkly silver thread. Blond hair framed her face in a youthful cut that just brushed her shoulders. And that face…mind-stunningly beautiful. A face that launched a thousand dreams, though none of them came true.

But of course, when she turned toward him, standing so close he could hear her sudden inhalation, he noticed the patina of age that settled over her with grace and protective care. Her eyes were a soft gray, malleable yet enduring like pewter. Her mouth was all sweet curves and wistful angles. High cheekbones and a delicate jaw lent her a classic loveliness, but all those attributes that made her gorgeous didn’t make her glow. That came from the inner beauty of Barbara D’Angelo. Her goodness shone through, transforming mere breathtaking to an ethereal perfection.

Those gray eyes widened. Those tender lips parted in shock. She didn’t move. He didn’t think she even breathed.

“Hello, Barbara.”

It took her a moment to say his name. She looked so startled, he doubted she remembered her own. Then she said it in a quavery whisper and his heart rolled over.

“Hello, Tag.”

Her surprise bled away into a palette of emotions, all of them as bittersweet as the moment. Delight, guilt, relief, remembrance, and finally, pain. Each dawned with stunning intensity, like a spectacular new sunrise or sunset. He stood and simply marveled.

How had he ever thought he could confront the past with a stoic demeanor? He was shaking inside like a schoolboy. She still had that effect on him. Reducing him, while at the same time making him want to be more.

Get a grip, man.

Thirty years had passed. This was not the same girl who’d sent him off to war with promises she couldn’t keep. This woman had been another man’s wife, the mother to his children. And he was suddenly, brutally, aware that he couldn’t reverse time, that he couldn’t return them to that golden slice of innocence where she would rush into his arms and return to him his happily-ever-after dream. That dream had died when Robert D’Angelo returned from leave wearing a grin and a wedding ring.

He’d been a fool to come. What had he been thinking?

His jaw tightened. Disillusionment lent a saving detachment to his outward appearance. Get tough, get through it and get out alive. His motto from Southeast Asia still served him in a crisis. He’d survived worse. He’d survive this moment with grace under fire and escape before his heart was a repeat casualty.

“I didn’t think… I wasn’t sure… I mean, I didn’t know if you’d—” She broke off the uncharacteristic stammer to demand, “What are you doing here? Why did you come?”

He read shades of meaning in her bewildered questions. After all these years. After abandoning our friendship. After no word for so long. Then her gaze toughened to, How dare you just show up now? Her confrontational glare helped him reinforce a wary stance.

“I heard about Robert.”

Anguish cut across her stare, crushing the momentary rebellion. Her right hand moved to cover her left, where she still wore a ring. She wet her lips, the gesture achingly vulnerable. Then the edge was back, a tight, honed look he’d never seen from her before.

But then a lot had happened since the last time they were together.

“That was over six months ago.” The accusation was unmistakable.

“I’ve been kind of isolated.”

“For the last thirty years?” Her gaze narrowed into an impressive demand for atonement. One he couldn’t make.

One he shouldn’t have to make. One he sure as hell couldn’t tell her about. Even if he knew. His own gaze chilled.

“You might say that.”

His mild answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Her response crackled with raw feeling.

“It was a nice funeral. You should have been there.”

“I would have been there, had I known. For Robert. For you.” That last was said more softly than he’d intended.

Anger and hurt built like thunderheads. Her glacial stare flashed lightning. Her voice rumbled thunder.

“Thank you for the sentiment. I’ll let my family know that my husband’s best friend who fell off the face of the earth for thirty years sends his condolences. And in person, at that.”

“Your friend, too, Barbara.”

“My friend,” she mused as if trying to fit that concept together with the disparity of his absence.

“I’m—”

“Sorry?” Her voice notched up an octave. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Not about anything. You don’t have the right to be sorry.”

“I was going to say I’m here now. Or would you rather I not be?” His cool tone had her reining in her anger.

“Yes…no.” Clearly flustered, she stabbed her fingers back through her baby-fine hair and then fisted them. “I don’t know. It’s so…unexpected you being here. I don’t know what to think or feel.”

“I didn’t mean to crowd you, Barb. Maybe I should go.”

“No.”

She took an involuntary step forward, her expression sharp with alarm.

“Please take your seats,” the stewardess urged with a smiling forcefulness.

Without another word, Barbara abandoned her aggressive stance to slide into the window seat and fasten her seat belt. McGee settled beside her and did likewise. But what held them tighter, more constrictively, were the questions, the confusion over why they’d been brought back together.

Chet Allen.

Chet had arranged this meeting. Barbara fought back a surge of renewed despair. He’d brought Taggert McGee back into her life. Why? After so many years, why now? Why now, when she was just starting to get a new routine on track, would he derail it so abruptly with this ghost from her past? What kind of sadistic revenge was he manipulating her into, first by threatening her daughter and granddaughter and now by forcing her to deal with what she’d been trying to deny?

The fact was that Tag McGee was her daughter’s father, and despite the pain, the betrayal, the emptiness of loss, she’d never loved another the way she had loved him. Perhaps Chet had no idea what he was stirring up with his cryptic invitations.

Or perhaps he did.

Chet’s motives would have to wait. For the moment, it took all her energy just to maintain a shred of composure.

They began to taxi toward an unplanned destination, toward a purpose unknown to her. Much like this awkward and emotionally explosive meeting. She sat stiffly as the plane left the ground, staring out the window with a concentrated lack of focus as the plane parted the clouds in a climb toward cruising altitude. If only her thoughts would level out as easily.

Taggert McGee. The unexpected blast from her past Chet alluded to sent her heart for a loop.

She had imagined what she’d say to him if they ever met again. She’d imagined it a thousand times over the course of thirty years, even as the unlikelihood of that happening dimmed with the passage of time. She’d dreamed of the cathartic things she’d hurl at him, words of hurt and blame and retribution, demanding an accounting for his actions when no excuse, no reason could come close to justifying the agony he’d put her through. She’d planned the moment—what she’d wear, how she’d toss her head with indignant disdain, how she’d reduce him to shamed attrition. Her chance had come and gone with a whimper instead of a roar.

And now she had to decide how to treat this return of the prodigal lover under less than ideal circumstances. The scripted meeting was unfolding without a hitch, but it wasn’t at her direction. This time, she had more at stake than bruised pride and shattered dreams. Lives were at stake, if a madman’s words could be believed. That was just the wake-up slap back to reality she needed to look at Taggert McGee and really see him as he was, instead of through the eyes of a needy teenager.

He wasn’t that lean, wiry boy surrounded by shyness and a natural, easy grace. He wasn’t the all-star running back or the all-city catcher who dreamed of going to college on a sports scholarship. He wasn’t the boy with the engaging gentleness to his manner that belied his aggressive pursuits of sports, hunting and boxing. He wasn’t the same person who wooed her with his love of poetry and solitude rather than the acid rock and radical causes of the era. This wasn’t the Taggert McGee who, at eighteen, had stood with duffel bag in hand, his fair hair buzzed down to the scalp, his handsome features gaunt, his mild, deep-set blue eyes fierce with turmoil as the bus pulled in behind him. She hadn’t known then that that emotional image would have to last her for more than thirty years.

He’d been eighteen, her first love, and he’d broken her heart like none before or after.

This was no boy going off to war come to say his last farewells. This specter from the past, wearing loose cargo jeans and a battered brown leather bomber jacket over plaid flannel, had none of that lost look of innocence. He was all contained authority, intense confidence and unapologetic masculinity with his thinning hair and ice-blue, vise-grip gaze that told her nothing. He’d aged well, like Scotch whiskey, acquiring a mellow depth and complexity she found confusingly enticing. And beneath the controlled veneer, the casual attire, the nonthreatening receding hairline, he positively sparked with an electrifying sex appeal.

Or was that just her hormones inappropriately indulging in one last riotous adrenaline-induced hurrah?

What frustrated her, what made her testy, was his total imperviousness to his effect on her.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

She glanced up, surprised to see the beverage cart in the aisle. “Coffee, please.” With a chaser of that fine Scotch would be nice.

She started to reach for her cup, then balked when Tag reached for it at the same time. She eased back to let him perform the perfunctory courtesy of passing the hot coffee over to her.

Lord, he smelled delicious. Like cedar chips and spruce boughs. She forced herself not to inhale, to look straight ahead as she sipped the welcome heat that burned and calmed all at the same time.

For heaven’s sake, she was no kid to be swept away by a sinewy smile and great bone structure. She’d been married to the same man for more than thirty years, had borne three children and was a grandmother.

And even if she was feeling suddenly as randy as a debutante, she wouldn’t choose this man to indulge her late-life passions with. He was poison to her system, a danger to her emotional health. It took her thirty years to recover from the unsettling lurch in which he’d left her. She wouldn’t risk that loss of equilibrium again.

And next to her, Tag was thinking much the same thing.

Get a grip, McGee. She’s not that little pep-club president anymore. She’s a woman who’s known her share of love and loss, and she’s definitely written you off in the latter category.

He’d sit back and enjoy the ride. He’d listen to Chet’s spiel, whatever it might be, thank him, but no thanks, wish Barbara well and be on his way by nightfall. He didn’t know what Chet was up to and didn’t want to find out. With the twisted way his friend’s mind worked, it could be anything from a simple reunion to a plunge into deadly intrigue. And he wanted no part of it. Not anymore. And not with Barbara at his side. He had the return ticket in his jacket. He could get as far as the bridge before exhaustion claimed him. He could disappear back into that safety zone of anonymity he’d made for himself. And maybe he’d sleep without dreams.

There was nothing for him here. Like the old saying went, he couldn’t go home again.

And he definitely couldn’t imagine going home to the palace where Barbara and Robert D’Angelo had lived.

He took the envelope from Chet Allen out of his coat pocket and carefully unfolded it so he could remove the single clipping. It was a sparse teaser of a story concerning the suspected suicide of a popular district attorney that turned out to be murder. A complex scheme of drug trafficking involving the equally high visibility of a councilwoman running for the same political seat. The story to follow on page three had not been included. Purposefully, Tag assumed, to pique his curiosity and bring him here, to these economy class seats.

The photo accompanying the story was of Robert and Barbara meeting and greeting in front of their home. Grimly, Tag assessed the outward trappings of the life Barbara had led. The stately elegance of the Tudor suited her. He could imagine her socializing at the door with her genuine smile and gracious manner. He could picture Rob beside her, everyone’s favorite host. The perfect couple living the all-American dream.

So why was Rob D’Angelo dead and Barbara here beside him?

He never would have believed suicide. Robert D’Angelo was the most focused and determined individual he’d ever known. Upper middle class striving for millionaire and all the perks that went with it. That was Rob. He’d always known exactly what he wanted and he got it all, everything…and everyone. He’d been a top student, a model citizen, a good friend, and Tag didn’t begrudge him any of it, not even Barbara. He was the one fathers wanted their daughters to date, the one people were eager to trust, the one most likely to succeed. But he hadn’t gotten to keep his fame and fortune for long.

“Who killed him?”

Barbara didn’t seem surprised by the sudden question. She apparently had been waiting for it, preparing for it, if her deadpan answer was any indication.

“Chet Allen.”

Tag couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d named the pope as the perpetrator.

“Chet? Chet killed Rob?” His mind couldn’t contain that knowledge. There had to be some mistake.

The three of them, the Three Musketeers Barbara had called them. All so different, yet held so tightly together by bonds of friendship since grade school. Since before social status mattered. He could envision them together on any number of teen escapades, from scoring illegal alcohol for a party to harmless pranks conceived by Rob and executed to perfection by Chet. The planner, the doer and the dreamer. That had been the three of them. The three of them, all in love with the same girl.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. Your friend Allen is one sick, dangerous man. Robert underestimated him and now he’s dead. He would have gotten away with it, too, except for one thing. He underestimated my daughter. And her new husband. They caught him and they brought him to justice, but justice let them down.”

“He walked.”

“Like a ghost. Or at least, that’s what he plans. You don’t sound surprised.”

“Let me guess who did the paperwork with a federal seal of approval.”

They both were silent for a moment, sharing their unspoken opinion of the various agencies that had employed Allen. And McGee.

“Where is he now?”

“Not as far away as I’d hoped he’d be. You know Chet. You know how he thinks, how he reacts.”

She glanced at him and then away, the gesture furtive, compelling. Needy. Expectant. His instincts quivered on alert. His tone grew as thin and deadly as a trip wire.

“And you want me to do what, exactly? Catch him? Kill him? I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s Chet. It’s the game he’s playing.” She looked back at Tag then, her stare direct and intense. “How did he get you here?”

Tag squirmed inwardly but kept his reply curt and concise. “He sent this clipping, and he said you needed me.”

That was all. Barbara needed him. And it would have brought him back from hell without the necessity of explanation.

“So,” he continued, “here I am. What do you need me to do?”

For all the turmoil and terror within her heart and mind, Barbara’s answer was amazingly calm.

“Chet Allen has threatened my daughter and her child unless I do exactly as he tells me. A sort of demented Simon Says. I want you to help me keep them alive. That’s my agenda. I don’t know what Chet has planned. All I know is I’m willing to play along if it means keeping them safe.”

She paused, then added the twist Chet had provided for his amusement.

“And he wants you to play the game with me.”

Chapter 3

He listened as she filled him in on most of what Chet had told her, leaving out only one thing. The danger to him. She couldn’t afford to spook him, not with all she had at stake. She wouldn’t have doubted the Tag she’d known. But that was a long time ago, and he’d let her down then. So why would she risk so much in hopes that his tenuous integrity remained? She didn’t want him to run, and she didn’t want to be alone. So she omitted that one important fact. Trying to excuse the gnawing guilt that grew each time she avoided the opportunity to tell him.

She wouldn’t consider his life in the balance. She would only think of Tessa and Rose. And of herself. As Tag McGee had thought only of himself.

He sat still and attentive, absorbing and assimilating like a good soldier, the way Robert had after he’d come back to discuss their future, emotionlessly, expressionlessly. As if he were being briefed for combat. But wasn’t that really the case? Wasn’t she preparing him to confront Allen upon the battlefield his twisted brain had created?

As she laid out the reasons for her willingness to be Chet’s pawn, to take the risk that Allen’s game wouldn’t end with her demise, she waited to see a flicker of that same parental concern in Tag’s unwavering stare. And was disappointed.

If he felt any panic over the fate of their child, if he experienced any sympathy for the emotions crushing within her, he kept them isolated behind an expression so stoic it tore through her heart. Didn’t he care that his daughter was in danger? Didn’t the thought of their peril touch upon any fond chord in his memory?

Apparently not.

But she didn’t need Tag McGee to console her. She didn’t need his platitudes and professions of concern. Not after all this time. What she needed from him was what she saw. A close-lipped stranger. A tough-minded former marine. A hero who would step in to eliminate the threat Chet Allen brought into their lives. And she’d be a fool to expect anything more.

She finished the briefing and took a stabilizing breath.

“So, what do you think it means?”

It took him a moment to respond to her question with one of his own.

“What does what mean?”

“Them that makes the rules. That’s what Chet said. Who are they? What is he talking about? What does he want from us?”

His answer crippled her confidence.

“I have no idea.”

Perhaps he felt some slight regret when her features fell in despair for he was quick to continue.

“I haven’t seen or heard from Chet since I left the service. I don’t know what he’s been involved in. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of this.” He lifted the clipping, then crumpled it in one savage spasm of his hand. “I don’t have any answers, Barbara. Only questions, just like you. I guess we’ll just have to see what Chet has in mind when we get to D.C.”

He was going to help her.

Relief shivered along her limbs, weakening the paralysis of fear. McGee was going to help them.

He looked away from the blatant gratitude in her gaze and partially stood to slip out of his jacket. He folded it and then draped the worn leather along the armrest between them, creating a symbolic barrier. Then, he settled into his seat and closed his eyes, building a stockade against further conversation, as well.

Barbara’s disillusionment escaped on a soft breath.

So much for their reunion.

Apparently he had no questions regarding her life over the past thirty years, no desire to catch up on what occurred between the time that bus had pulled out, leaving a young girl alone, and now, when his shuttered mood left the woman she’d become feeling just as isolated. He hadn’t even asked to see a picture of Tessa. Which meant he had no interest. Fine. No problem. If he didn’t want to bring up that mutual piece of their past, neither would she. He’d made no effort to make Tessa part of his life and she wouldn’t push it now. Barbara swallowed down the huge knot of hope that had built inside her and let angry disappointment burn in its place. She could put her head and heart on hold. After all, it was the one skill she’d perfected over those long, lonely years.

As she squirmed in her seat to find a comfortable position, her elbow nudged his coat. It slid toward her and as she pushed it back into its previous position, a narrow folder slipped from an inside pocket to land at her feet. She recognized the ticket portfolio as she bent to pick it up. Seat 12B. And beneath it, another card. One glance told her everything.

A return dated for this evening.

Her insides froze at the significance. His quick exit plan was already in motion.

She was on her own.

The notion that she’d be able to find sleep in her economy class seat never occurred to Barbara. Too many things swirled through her mind. Things too horrible to bring into focus, like her daughter’s safety. Things too tenuous to wish for, like Tag’s continued support. She’d meant only to close her eyes for an instant to relieve the ache building behind them and seemingly in the next second, she heard the pilot’s droning voice announcing their arrival.

Surprised and almost guilty, she straightened in her seat. The subtle squaring motion beside her hinted that McGee had been watching her sleep. An odd, discomforting quiver went through her. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of him observing her in such a relaxed and vulnerable state. Vulnerable was the last impression she wanted him to have of her. Six months ago, yes, it would be true. If not vulnerable, then simply naive in her own security. Burying a husband and staring down the barrel of a gun had gone a long way toward changing that blissful existence.

She couldn’t afford to let her guard down for an instant. Not with Chet Allen casting a cold shadow over her. Not with Taggert McGee refusing to commit to her cause.

Toughness wasn’t something inbred in her. She’d been raised a hothouse flower, dependent upon exacting care, not as a self-sufficient cactus, using spines and self-deprivation as a means to survive. Her daughter was like that. And so, apparently, was the father Tessa had never met. It was either grow and thrive where you’re planted, or wither up and die. Until now, Barbara hadn’t considered herself as the prickly type. But she would learn. She would learn if it meant keeping her daughter and granddaughter alive. If, to be totally honest with herself, it meant keeping the man beside her from Allen’s crosshairs.

Fortified by rest and by the image of her new thorny self, Barbara released her seat belt at the flight attendant’s prompting and waited for Tag to step out into the aisle so she could retrieve her bag. They stood together like strangers who happened to travel on the same plane, ignoring each other until the line began to move slowly toward the exit. As they started forward, the light touch of Tag’s hand on her elbow had her looking back at him. Dark glasses hid his gaze. His attention moved about the cabin as he spoke with a quiet intensity.

“Go to the Wardman. I’ll meet you there.”

Her alarm must have telegraphed in her expression for he was quick to reassure her.

“Check in and I’ll meet you in the room. For now, I think it’s best if we’re not seen together.”

Best for whom? Why the secrecy? But her demand would have to wait as they were jostled ahead down the narrow aisle. By the time she had elbow room on the gangway, Tag was no longer behind her. A quick glance revealed him near the cabin door where he’d stepped aside to let others go before him. Putting distance between them.

Shouldering her carry-on, Barbara turned and strode purposefully into the terminal. She refused to think of it as being abandoned all over again as she claimed her luggage and hailed a cab. As the busy network of highways carried her toward the outskirts of the nation’s capital, she blocked everything from her mind except the sound of Rose’s innocent laughter on the phone. An ache gathered in her soul. How she loved that little girl who had been all too briefly in her life. How she loved the daughter who only recently would allow her to show it. Nothing else mattered. Not her personal jeopardy. Not her uneasy alliance with a ghost from her past.

The cab climbed up the flower-lined residential streets toward the stately hotel. She’d stayed at the Wardman a long time ago, when she’d come to meet her returning war hero husband on the eve of his receipt of his Purple Heart. Robert had insisted she leave the then three-year-old Tessa behind with her parents, claiming this would be the honeymoon they’d never had. They had no practice at playing man and wife, just hasty vows said in a judge’s chambers before he returned to his unit to be shipped overseas. They’d never even been intimate. Just some hasty groping at a drive-in before she’d fallen head over heart for his best friend and a quick kiss at the judge’s urging. He’d been looking forward to this reunion for three long years, he’d told her. Just as she’d been dreading it.

Not much had changed, she thought, entering the lobby. Only the man involved. Another stranger whom fate had thrust into her life to irrevocably change it. Not this time. This time, she’d remain in control of her own destiny rather than place it in the sometimes crushing, sometimes uncaring grip of another. She’d learned that lesson, too.

“The room’s already been prepaid, Ms. Calvin,” the chipper desk clerk advised as she reached for her purse. “Enjoy your stay.”

She smiled. Not likely. Not with Tag hoarding secrets and Chet indulging in games. Not when she was checking into a hotel under a fake identity for purposes unknown. If it was covert playtime between the two men, she resented having to play along. But she would; she had to, for now.

She followed the bellhop, not to the elevators for the highrise conference tower but down a glassed hall to the older portion of the hotel. He accepted her tip with another optimistic wish that she enjoy herself before she closed the door to the room, shutting off the need to pretend that she was just another guest in D.C. there to partake of the energetic nightlife and tourist sights. Throwing the dead bolt, she let her rigid shoulders relax a notch. Okay, first step completed. I’m here, Chet. Now what?

“He left flowers and an envelope on the table by the window.”

The sudden intrusion of a man’s voice had her nearly clearing the hug of her Italian leather shoes as Tag McGee stepped from the dressing area. She didn’t bother to ask how he’d gotten in the room. She was too busy trying to get her heartbeat under control.

“I haven’t opened it yet,” he continued. “Shall we see what he has to say?”

“As long as it’s not, ‘Have a nice stay.’”

Barbara waved off the questioning look and focused on the antique drop leaf positioned decoratively in front of the privacy sheers. A beautiful arrangement of spring flowers in shades of pink and blue was displayed in a crystal vase. With a chill of recall, she remembered a similar spray at her husband’s funeral because it was the only one that had come with no card.

Had those come from Chet, as well?

Regarding the blooms with a frown, Barbara reached for the plain envelope propped up against the vase. It contained a single typewritten sheet.

“Mac and Barbie. My two favorite people together again. You have reservations on the twilight monument tour. Don’t be late.”

Tag didn’t respond to her flat reading of the note. His expression was uncommunicative. And suddenly she was furious. At his indifference. At her own drowning sense of being in over her head. Barbara returned the paper to the envelope, the burn of betrayal rising in a bitter tide. Her words were tainted by the acidic taste.

“Too bad you’ll miss it, McGee. You won’t have enough time to catch your flight.”

He didn’t react with what would have been a satisfying degree of guilt or shame. If he wondered how she’d gotten that bit of information, he didn’t express it. His response was a continued unflappable cool. “I’ll get another one. Chet wants us both to play follow the leader with him, for whatever reason, so I guess I’ll play along. For now.”

Not exactly the reassurance she’d hoped for, but it was enough. She wasn’t facing Allen alone, at least not yet.

To cover her relief and her uneasiness with McGee, she made a show of checking over their accommodations. It was a large, impressive room designed with a comfortable dignity and filled with originals, from the furniture to the art and knickknacks. Foremost, of course, was the dominating king-size bed. The sight of Tag’s duffel bag upon the jacquard coverlet made her feel like that awkward honeymooner all over again. And suddenly the room wasn’t large enough.

“The monument tour,” she mused to hide her nervousness. “Do you think he’ll try to contact us then?”

“Maybe,” was Tag’s noncommittal reply.

“Why Washington? Why couldn’t he just tell us what was going on without all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense?” Her tone grew testy with frustration and an undercurrent of fear. She had no talent for cloak-and-dagger games. That was McGee’s area, his and Allen’s. So why include her in the play? Her cheerleading days had passed a long, long time ago. Why pull her in from the spectating sidelines now?

“Because them that makes the rules are here.”

His quiet summation caught her off guard and had her swiveling to level a demanding stare. “I thought you said you didn’t know what he meant by that or who they were?”

“I said I didn’t know what he meant by it.” That’s all he would volunteer.

He stood there, so maddeningly inscrutable, the man who’d evolved from the boy she’d known and loved. The boy who had abandoned his obligations to her and the child they’d made between them. A stranger to her now. Spare of frame and expression. Making her walk a tightrope of emotions while he was firm-footed on the ground. What did she owe him? What reason could she name to put his welfare above those she cared for? Then she heard herself speak.

“They’re the ones who want you dead.”

He never even blinked. Perhaps he hadn’t understood her.

So she elaborated.

“They’re the ones who want Chet to kill you.”

Then came his jaw-dropping answer.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I figured as much when I got the note from Chet. He used you to draw me out.”

“You knew that. You knew that and still you came?” She couldn’t get her thoughts around the magnitude of that. “Why? Why would you walk right into what could be a trap?”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later. Just a matter of time.” His brief hesitation before speaking that bland explanation told her it wasn’t the entire truth.

Because of her? Was that why? She crushed that fleeting wish. After not contacting her for thirty years, he was willing to walk into a bullet for her now? Then his even softer question threw everything else out the window.

“If you knew Chet was planning to kill me, why didn’t you mention that little fact before we got here?”

This time, it was Barbara who chose to take the Fifth. He stared right through her for a long second, long enough to x-ray her soul with those penetrating blue eyes. Because she’d been afraid he’d back out, that he wouldn’t help her. He knew without her saying it. The guilt that she refused to feel rose to bring a flush to her cheeks, but her fiercer maternal instincts gave a firm tip to her jaw. She wouldn’t apologize. He sighed and shrugged it off.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m here now, and it’s time Chet and I got things settled between us.”

“He said we had thirteen days,” she blurted out, as if that was reason enough to risk his life.

“And you believed him? After he killed Rob, you’d just take his word on that?” he asked matter-of-factly, without malice. Still, his question cut to the bone.

“I didn’t have any choice.”

“There are always choices, Barbara. It’s the decisions that are up for grabs. You made yours. Just see that you can live up to it.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got a bus to catch.”

Ticktock.

An entertaining tour guide filled them in on all sorts of titillating bits of gossip as he deftly maneuvered the big bus down the confusing connection of streets. The seats were only half-filled by a group of high schoolers on an educational field trip, weary parents trying to direct bored youngsters, attentive older couples and several somber-faced veterans. Instead of taking the spot next to her in the plush touring coach, Tag opted for the other side of the aisle, several rows back. He’d forgone the dark glasses, replacing them with a ball cap tipped low enough to shield his features. A man who wasn’t terribly interested in taking Chet Allen’s word that an assassin’s bullet wasn’t in store for him. Barbara applauded his caution.

Their first stop was the World War II Iwo Jima Memorial. As their group circled it, Barbara realized she hadn’t expected it to be so large…or to feel so moved by the heroic depiction. As their guide identified the soldiers involved in planting the flag, her attention slipped away, toward trying to identify another in their group who had cause to harm them. Then they were back on the bus and headed for the Jefferson Memorial.

She wandered there beneath the glorious dome, impressed by the gleaming, almost eerily glowing pillars that revealed peekaboo glimpses of the cherry-blossom-lined Potomac and a distant Monticello. While others drifted down to the air-conditioned gift shop, she remained on the pristine marble steps, anxious and obvious in her search of the surroundings.

“You won’t see him unless he wants you to,” came McGee’s quiet comment. He stood on the opposite side of one of the pillars, just a tourist absorbed by the view. Or at least that’s what any casual observer would think. “This is too wide-open for him to make a move. Relax.”

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