When she nodded, he stepped back, grabbed her duffle bag, and slid it over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
She reached back to the dresser, her hand brushing against the butt of the gun when his arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her away. “Wait.”
“No.” He tugged her toward the door and when she fought him, he pushed her up against the wall. “Can you guarantee me that gun isn’t stolen? That it hasn’t been used in a crime? Damn it, Syd, I know what Jay’s been doing all these years. Tim…your dad…do you want to end up like them? Getting caught with a stolen gun…using the fucking thing…what the hell are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about staying alive. Just because they’ve done those things doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong.”
“Still so naïve.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and shook his head. “The police know you. They know you’re connected to Jay. With him out of the picture, they’re going to be wondering if you’re picking up where he left off. Just like Jay took over from your dad. In the twenty minutes I’ve been here, I’ve seen two police cruisers. Do you think that’s a coincidence? Every single officer who knows your family is wondering if you’re in on it, too. They don’t have any proof, but you’re the last one left and look where you’re living. They’ll be watching you.”
“But I’ve never…” She tried to argue but he was right. Three months earlier, Jay was dropping her off at work and they were pulled over for speeding. The car was searched and Jay had drugs on him. He was arrested and she was questioned as if she was guilty by association. That was when she started putting money aside, with the intent on getting the hell out of town. Everyone who knew her family thought she was no good, just like them. “Why come back if you think I’m just like them? Surely you don’t want to tarnish your perfect appearance. Mr. Millionaire with it all together, what are you doing here? Slumming?”
The sound of glass shattering stopped him from giving an answer. Instead, he took her hand and pulled her down the stairs, toward the front door. “Stay behind me.”
“You don’t go toward the noise. That’s how everyone ends up dead in a scary movie. Shouldn’t we go back upstairs?” Upstairs they’d find them, but there, she had the gun. They could protect themselves. “I can’t run forever. Maybe I should just face them.”
“Bullshit.” At the bottom of the stairs, he glanced out the window next to the door before opening it. “Let’s go.” He pushed her out the front door, keeping her close to him, as a figure came out of the kitchen.
“Don’t fucking move!” the figure in black hollered at them as Coal slammed the front door behind them.
“Move!” He pulled her down the deserted street as bullets rang out behind them. They ran toward the car he pointed to, clicking the universal remote “Get in.”
As she climbed into the passenger side, she chanced a look back at the house in time to see a man lumbering off the porch, his weapon pointed in their direction. Coal got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Moments later, gunshots echoed through the stillness of the night. Terror filled her, stealing her breath from her lungs.
“Coal!”
Preview: A Marine’s Second Chance
Married life hadn’t been everything that Wyoming Dorset dreamed of. She thought she knew what she was getting into when she fell in love with a Marine. Training and deployments were the least of their problems. What she couldn’t deal with was the distance that Jeffrey put between them. Only a shell of the man she fell in love with stood before her.
Five years—that’s how long they’d been married. As Jeffrey prepared for another deployment, he thought of Wyoming and wondered how much of their marriage he’d been there for. How much had he been gone for? The divide between them seemed to appear overnight and now he wasn’t sure how to fix it.
When unexpected news arrived hours before his deployment, somehow he convinced her to give him a second chance. She doesn’t know why, but he believes that even with miles separating them, he can convince her that they haven’t lost their chance. She’s not sure if she believes him, but he’ll be back in six months. That isn’t too long to wait for her husband.
Chapter One
Pregnant? Wyoming Dorset sat there staring at her husband, waiting for him to say something. Saying anything would be better than silence. This would have been happy news if it was earlier in their marriage, but now…now she didn’t know. Their marriage was on shaky ground, and the wall he threw up between them became thicker with every deployment. How did this happen? They had taken precautions. She was on the pill, never missing a day even when he was gone, because she never knew when he’d return.
“Damn it, Jeffrey, say something.” She couldn’t take the silence any longer. If he was angry, then she wanted him to rage. If he was happy about the pregnancy, she needed to hear it. Whatever was going through his mind, she needed to know because the silence was torture.
“I…” He dropped his bag on the bed. “How far along are you?”
“Don’t you dare, Jeffrey! You might not give a shit about me or this child, but don’t you dare ask me to have—”
“Is that what you think? That I don’t care about you?” In a quick stride he came around the bed and touched the side of her face, caressing her cheek. “Damn it, Wyoming, that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” She fought against the instinct to press against his hand and enjoy the sweet caress. How long had it been since he’d touched her like that? How long had it been since the romance left their relationship? She could pinpoint the date and time she noticed the first change in him, but how had she let it get so bad?
“Wyoming, I—”
This time, she cut him off. She couldn’t take one more excuse, or another one of his halfhearted apologies. “It doesn’t matter. Things changed and we’re just too different now. It’s too late, but please don’t ask me to have an abortion. Let me hold on to some respect for you.” She took a deep breath because the moment she feared was there in front of her, and nothing could stop the outcome. “You don’t have to worry about it. We’ll be gone when you get back.”
“Fuck!” Dropping his hand away from her cheek, he took a step back.
The absence of his touch made her heart ache. Even after everything, she still loved him. Tears pricked behind her eyelids, and she blinked them away. There was plenty of time for tears later, but she refused to cry in front of him. She didn’t want him to stay out of pity, or because of the pregnancy. Love and romance, that’s what she wanted.
He stepped back farther until the back of his legs brushed along the edge of the bed and he sat down, letting out a deep sigh. “That’s not what I want. Abortion never crossed my mind.”
“Then why ask how far along I am?” Maybe she jumped to a conclusion without giving him a chance, but it was the first thing that popped into her thoughts.
“It’s September. If you conceived six weeks ago, that would be July.” He glanced up at her, the corners of his lips pulling into a smile. “Everyone in my family who got pregnant in July had a girl. But if you’re further along…”
“Nine weeks, but it will be a few weeks before we know the sex.”
“Stay.” He shot off the bed and came to stand in front of her. “Don’t leave. This mission shouldn’t take long, and I’ll be back soon.”
“I don’t know.” She wanted him to wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything would be fine. It wasn’t that simple, especially not between them. She had a stable career, and she could provide for her and the child if he wasn’t in the picture. Would she have considered leaving him if a child wasn’t involved? She wasn’t sure. Their relationship had been shaky for more than a year but she hadn’t thought of divorce until she found out she was pregnant. There was no way she wanted to raise a child in a house filled with the tension that surrounded them. I’m doing this for you, little one. But was it the right thing?
“Even if you don’t anymore, at one time you loved me,” he said. “We owe it to our child to find that love again.” He took her hand in his and dragged his thumb across her wedding band. “My feelings for you haven’t changed. They’re still the same as the day I put this on your finger. I know I haven’t been the best husband, but let me prove to you that I want you in my life. I can be the man you need me to be. I can be the father to our daughter that she deserves. Don’t give up on me.”
“We’ve got to go, you need to be at—”
“Screw it,” he snapped. “Damn it, Wyoming. I love you. I’m an asshole and I don’t deserve you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”
Tears filled her eyes and this time she couldn’t blink them away. She wanted things to be different, but wasn’t it too late for them? Did they have a chance to fix whatever was broken between them? Could they do it before the baby was born? She wanted her child to grow up surrounded by love.
“Don’t cry, baby.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. “I never wanted to be the reason you cry. If you don’t love me, I’ll support your decision but—”
“Damn it, Jeffrey.” Tears came faster and her chest tightened. “Loving you was never the problem. I’ve always loved you.”
“Then stay.” He loosened his embrace and leaned back so that she could look at him. “Give me time to prove to you that I can be the man you need, and a good father to our child. We’ll make this right. Give me a chance.”
“It’s not always that easy.” She took him in and tried to decide if he was willing to listen to her, or if he’d shut her out again and close off communication like he always did when she tried to talk to him about something like this. “There’s a wall between us now, and every time I try to breach it, you reinforce it. We never even talk anymore. You always made me laugh but now…” There’s only tears. She couldn’t bring herself to say the last part. It wasn’t only his fault. Maybe she could have done something different, something to get him to open up to her.
“Give me another chance.” He cupped the side of her face, brushing his thumb along her cheek, wiping away the tears. “The man who made you laugh is still there, just buried, but I can find him again. This deployment is short. I’ll be back before you know it and I’ll prove it to you. Stay, baby.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted the man she fell in love with back again. Was it possible? She didn’t know, but she was willing to give it a chance. Maybe she was clinging to her dream of the perfect family, but she believed their son or daughter deserved to have both parents. She wanted the happy family home she’d envied as a child. A mother and father who actually got along, the two and a half kids, and the white picket fence. “I’ll be here when you get back.” She could give him that long and see how things went.
“Promise?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze and nodded. After five years of marriage, they deserved this chance. She wasn’t willing to throw away all their time together, their memories, and the love she had for him if he was willing to try. “Now, we should get on the road.”
“I promise you’re not going to regret this decision.” He pulled her back against him. “I love you, Wyoming. Things are going to be different, I promise.”
She wrapped her arms around him, returning his embrace. How long had it been since they shared an embrace like that? In her gut, she knew the answer—just before he’d deployed a year ago. Just before the change in him. Since then, any time they held each other, it was short and his body felt stiff. He closed her out. Maybe he’d do it again, but she had to give him the benefit of the doubt that this time would be different. “I love you, too.”
About the Author
Born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, Marissa Dobson now resides about an hour from Washington, D.C. She’s a lady who likes to keep busy, and is always busy doing something. With two different college degrees, she believes you’re never done learning.
Being the first daughter to an avid reader, this gave her the advantage of learning to read at a young age. Since learning to read she has always had her nose in a book. It wasn't until she was a teenager that she started writing down the stories she came up with.
Marissa is blessed with a wonderful supportive husband, Thomas. He’s her other half and allows her to stay home and pursue her writing. He puts up with all her quirks and listens to her brainstorm in the middle of the night.
Her writing buddy Pup Cameron, a cocker spaniel, who is always around to listen to her bounce ideas off him. He might not be able to answer, but he’s helpful in his own way.
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Also by Marissa Dobson
Alaskan Tigers:
Tiger Time
The Tiger’s Heart
Tigress for Two
Night with a Tiger
Trusting a Tiger
Alaskan Tigers Box Set Volume One
Jinx’s Mate
Two for Protection
Bearing Secrets
Tiger Tracks
Healing the Clan
Alaskan Tigers Box Set Volume Two
Her Black Tiger
Tiger Trouble
Alpha Claimed
Forever Creek Shifters:
Forever’s Fight
Protecting Forever
Crimson Hollow:
Romancing the Fox
Loving the Bears
A Lion’s Chance
Swift Move
Purrable Lion
Bearly Alive
Saved by a Lion
Furever Mated Box Set
Stormkin:
Storm Queen
Reaper:
A Touch of Death
Beyond Monogamy:
Theirs to Treasure
SEALed for You:
Ace in the Hole
Explosive Passion
Operation Family
Marine for You:
Lucky Chance
Back from Hell
A Marines Second Chance
United Homefront Ranch:
Destination Heaven
Tanner Cycles:
Until Sydney
Phantom Security:
Different Sides
Undercover Agent
Takeover Agent
Cedar Grove Medical:
Hope’s Toy Chest
Destiny’s Wish
Leena’s Dream
Cedar Grove Medical Box Set
Fate Series:
Snowy Fate
Sarah’s Fate
Mason’s Fate
As Fate Would Have It
Half Moon Harbor Resort:
Learning to Live
Learning What Love Is
Her Cowboy’s Heart
Half Moon Harbor Resort Volume One
Clearwater:
Winterbloom
Unexpected Forever
Losing to Win
Christmas Countdown
The Surrogate
Clearwater Romance Volume One
Small Town Doctor
Stand Alone:
Irish Nights
SEALed Rescue
SEALed in Texas
Through Smoke
Starting Over
Secret Valentine
Restoring Love
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