“I’ve got a better idea, Sheriff,” Browning told his superior, his voice as grim as the look etched on his face. “Why don’t you go ahead and raise those hands where I can see ’em, at least until we get all this sorted out.”
Then and only then did Ian finally release the breath he had been holding.
Chapter 18
Two months later...
A hard lump formed in Andrea’s throat as she hung up the phone in the small reception-area niche she’d claimed as her temporary headquarters. Fighting back tears of frustration, she wished she had a door to close so she could pull herself together—with deep breathing, loud cursing or perhaps a headlong dive into the stash of delicious European chocolates some anonymous angel kept adding to her bottom desk drawer when she wasn’t looking.
After “Julian’s” office had been restored to order by contractors from the insurance company, she had made what she believed to be the sensible decision to use that more private space as she’d worked to undo the damage done by all the negative publicity, but it was hopeless. Every time she walked through the door, she was overwhelmed with nausea as the events of that horrific night replayed in her mind.
The irony hit hard that she was experiencing so many of the same symptoms as those she sought to help, from nightmares and hyperreactivity to loud noises to extreme watchfulness. Certain she ought to know better, she’d forced herself to focus on the needs of others, refusing to take time to talk to the new counselor Warriors-4-Life’s umbrella organization had sent to help with what the national director was now calling “the transition.”
A transition he had just confirmed would end with the Marston center’s permanent closure, in spite of all the endless meetings and phone calls she’d put in trying to forestall it.
She heard the footsteps before she saw them, her stomach tensing as she recognized the sound of Ian’s boots against the tile. “Hey, Andrea.”
“Hi, Ian.” She turned her head just enough to glance and nod at him. Any more, and she feared he would see her face and ask her what the matter was. Then she’d fall apart for certain, before she’d had the chance to speak with the staff or anyone. “Here for your appointment?”
A few days after Cassidy’s memorial service, Ian had blurted an awkward proposal, begging her to join him at the ranch and put the tragedy and all of Warriors-4-Life’s headaches behind her. Feeling overwhelmed and fragile, she had turned him down—on three separate occasions—before finally insisting that he needed to work on learning the difference between real love and a fixation.
If that’s what it takes to convince you, then sign me up, he’d told her, and since then, he’d been coming to the center three times a week to meet with Connor. He’d stopped proposing, too, though she wasn’t certain whether he’d lost interest or was simply biding his time, waiting for her to come around.
Her stomach fluttered at the thought, though she told herself it was a good thing she’d found a way to put distance between them. All too soon, that distance would be physical—and permanent, as she looked for another way to continue working with the veterans whose welfare meant so much to her.
“Just finished up my session,” he told her, “and I was hoping I could lure you away from your desk for a little walk.”
“I’m— I really don’t have the time now.”
“C’mon, Andie. Come celebrate with me. It’s a gorgeous day and—”
“What exactly are we celebrating?” asked Andrea, who felt less like celebrating and more like drowning herself in the chocolate drawer with every passing moment.
“Connor thinks I’m ready to move from individual to group sessions.” Ian flashed the open smile that reminded her so much of the man she’d first fallen for. Only now, there was a gravity behind it, a steadiness and patience that had convinced his brother to let him take over the management of the family’s increasingly complicated finances. According to Jessie, who had stopped by a couple of times after visiting her obstetrician, he’d made amends with his mother, too, both he and his brother forgiving her for covering up the circumstances of their father’s death. And she was so thrilled about the prospect of becoming a grandmother to Jessie’s twins that she had made peace with her daughter-in-law, too.
Moved by accounts of Nancy Rayford’s abuse, a Trencher County grand jury had refused to indict either her or former-sheriff George Canter on charges related to John Rayford’s death. But that hadn’t prevented the panel from indicting Canter on multiple counts of attempted homicide against both Andrea and Ian, along with additional charges of public corruption for extorting “campaign contributions” from Nancy Rayford and other citizens and using much of the money for his own personal gain.
“That’s excellent news,” Andrea said, coming out of her chair to give Ian a spontaneous hug. “I’m so glad to hear you’re making such great progress.”
He lifted her jacket from the back of her chair and held it out for her. When she hesitated, he asked, “Then why are you standing there looking at me like the saddest, most stressed-out person on the planet?”
She jammed her arms into the jacket’s sleeves and started walking quickly. If she was going to lose it—and the tears were coming now, unstoppable—better she should do it outside, away from where any client, staff member or visitor might walk past and see her. For his part, Ian didn’t try to stop her; nor did he call after her demanding answers to explain the emotional tsunami...
A tsunami spawned not only by the loss of the center that meant so much to her, but another reality she hadn’t even begun to wrap her head around.
She walked beside the center’s pond, tears streaming as she made three circuits and then five of the same place where she’d watched Canter shove Ian’s face beneath the water. It was a moment she’d never forget, a memory that rose like muddy bubbles in her dreams every night. Only in her nightmares, the horror didn’t end with Gretel’s attack and the arrival of the deputies and special agent; instead, Andrea woke screaming at the sight of Ian’s body floating facedown, his dark hair matted with algae, his strong hands limp and swollen.
Finally, she stopped, then closed her eyes and listened to the sound of approaching footsteps. The dogged, determined footsteps of a man too foolish or too stubborn to ever give up, even if she walked as far as he had to return from the dead.
Turning around, she slipped into his strong arms, those arms that had been waiting so patiently for her to finally admit she needed his strength.
“They’re shutting the place down next month,” she said, “claiming they need to distance the organization from the Julian Ross legacy before the decline in donations forces them to close other centers, too. After all the work I’ve done, all the people I’ve met with—but who am I kidding? I’m no fund-raiser, no administrator. I’m just a broken-down shrink who can’t even fix herself.”
He looked into her eyes, his gaze reading far beneath the surface. “There’s nothing broken down at all about you. You’re just tired, that’s all. Exhausted from working your tail off to help everybody but yourself.”
“But what good have I done, Ian? The patients whose families didn’t pull them after the shooting will be split up and sent to other facilities, sure, but how far will some of them regress with the new location and new counselors?”
“You’ve done wonders, Andrea. Look at Ty. I know you’re still working with him personally. I saw him today. He was talking up a storm and laughing—really laughing—while he and a few of his buddies played basketball in the gym.”
She smiled, though she couldn’t help worrying over how hard it was going to be for him to leave the one place where he felt safe before he was fully ready.
“And look at me,” Ian said. “Thanks to your expert advice, I’ve got my memory back, I’m handling stress a whole lot better, and—this next part’s the most important—I even made my coun
selor sign a note to prove it to you.”
“To prove what?”
He dug into his pocket, and a plastic bag of chocolates, each piece wrapped in gold foil, fell out. As he scooped it up and stuffed it back inside, she laughed.
“Busted, Angel of the Bottom Desk Drawer. And thank you, from the bottom of my rapidly expanding bottom. Seriously, Ian, I’ve put on five pounds since you’ve started with that. Five.”
Dashing a hellion’s grin against the talk of angels, he took a step back and spun her around by the shoulders. Once he had her turned away from him, he leaned close to her ear. “I’d say they look good on you. Damned delectable, in fact.”
The warmth of his breath sent a tingle of pleasure through her, though she tried to hide the way he made her shiver. She had to focus, to remember she would soon be tucking her tail between her legs and heading off to work at whatever veteran’s program would have her. But one of his hands slipped to her waist, making her desperate for distraction.
“So what about this note from Connor?” she blurted, stepping away and turning to look at him from a safer distance. “What was so important?”
A smirk slanted across Ian’s handsome face, and he pulled out a sheet of paper, unfolded it with a flourish and presented it to her.
She squinted at the spiky print she recognized as Connor’s, her lip quivering as she read aloud:
“In my considered professional opinion, the client, Ian Rayford, now completely and accurately distinguishes between the concepts of ‘real love’ and ‘fixation.’”
Looking up at him, she asked, “And you honestly figured this was going to cut it?”
He shrugged and said, “Why not? I bribed him extra to throw in a couple of two-dollar words, you know, on account of you having your doctorate in head shrinking.”
She snorted and then broke out laughing at his good-old-boy act—especially because she knew darned well that Ian had a couple of degrees himself, in global politics and finance.
“I was hoping it might at least break the ice that’s built up the past couple of months between us.” His voice sobered as he explained, “Because I can honestly tell you, you were right. I was fixated on a mirage, just the way you said, an image of a perfect woman who never really existed anywhere except in my imagination.”
Andrea gave a shuddering sigh, pleased that he had made so much progress but aching with the realization of what stepping back as she had, letting him grow away from her, might have cost.
“But the thing is,” he went on, “these past two months, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the real you, the one who sees a need, realizes she can help and throws herself into it with a passion I can only envy...a passion I’m finally truly free to pursue, since serving my country in the covert operations is no longer an option for me.”
“I’m sorry that was taken from you, Ian.”
He hesitated for a long while before taking her hand. “I’m not, not anymore. Because that brand of passion, that kind of life left me no room for anyone else. No room for the family I need or the very real woman I want to walk the next part of my journey with.”
Her throat tightened and her vision blurred. “You understand I’m leaving, don’t you? That I’ll be hunting up a new position as soon as I make certain all the clients are placed and the members of this staff won’t be tainted by their association with this center.”
“Why should they be tainted? They weren’t responsible for Parnell’s actions. None of you were. All of you do great work here. The kind that really matters.”
She shook her head. “Tell that to the donors and the Warriors-4-Life board.”
“They’re running scared, that’s all. Not seeing how this bad publicity can all be turned around.”
“Turned around how, Ian? I’ve done everything I can to convince people—and get reporters interested in covering the good we do.”
“You have done all you can, but I haven’t even started.” He beamed at her, his smile warmer than the autumn sunshine. “Trust me on this, Andie. Once the reporters show up for tomorrow’s press conference—”
“What press conference?”
“The one I’ve conned Jessie into setting up. That woman’s called in more favors—she swears she’ll have national network news on this, the big cable outlets, too, not to mention about a dozen influential papers.”
“For what? I don’t get it.”
“For Captain Ian Rayford’s first live press conference since his return.”
She gaped in amazement, her heart twisting at the thought of him giving up the privacy he’d insisted on all along. “But you—you’ve told everyone you weren’t going to be anybody’s show pony.”
“What I said was I wasn’t about to let the government trot me out to sell some pack of lies to cover up their cover-up. But what I will do is say thank you to an organization—and a woman—who’ve made all the difference in my life. And why not do it in a way—one that will come with a very large check from the newly established Rayford Foundation I’ll be running—that’ll raise awareness of the issues PTSD-affected veterans are facing...and with any luck touch off a landslide of donations?”
Bouncing on her feet, she threw her arms around him. “Oh, my gosh, Ian! Thank you! That’s incredibly generous of you.”
“Not entirely,” he admitted, slanting a look down at her that sent a shock of energy straight to her libido. “I do have ulterior motives...”
“What motives are those?” she asked, pretending that she couldn’t guess.
“I want to keep my wife close,” he said, “because the idea of a long-distance marriage doesn’t work for me.”
“So that’s what all this is for, then? The press conference and the big donation? Just to convince me we should get hitched?”
He shook his head. “The chocolate might’ve been a bribe, but not this. I meant what I said. Whether or not you ever say yes to my proposal, I’m making that donation—all seven figures’ worth—and doing the press conference, as long as Warriors-4-Life agrees to keep this center open.”
“I can’t imagine they’d do anything but jump at the opportunity.”
“What about you, Andie? What would you say to the opportunity to live together, love together, build a family together as we both work at something that changes people’s lives?”
“You’re talking about commuting to and from the ranch?” As much as she wanted to believe it was possible, that there was a way to make things work between them, the idea of the hour-long commute each way was less an issue than the thought of intruding on what felt like Zach and Jessie’s home and family.
He shook his head. “I mean building our own house in Marston, someplace where we can have the privacy we need to focus on our work...and each other.”
“And our own growing family,” she added, warmth flowing through her as she finally allowed herself to think about the doctor’s appointment she’d finally had the nerve to go to just this morning—and the confirmation that his test had provided.
“Growing... Wait. You don’t mean...?”
She nodded. “I figured there was probably a reason most of those five pounds I’ve gained seem to have gravitated to my breasts.”
“Oh, baby...” he murmured.
“Oh, yes,” she told him. “Yes to everything...because it seems as if the coming year’s going to offer a bumper crop of little Rayfords. And most of all because I love the man you always were and the man you’ve grown into.”
“I know you shrinks are really fond of talking,” he said with a wry smile, “but if you don’t mind, darling, I’m itching to put those lips of yours to better use right now.”
And so it was that a walk that had begun with tears ended with her laughter, followed by a kiss that tasted sweeter than the fine chocolates in his jacket...
> Chocolates that were crushed and melted by the time the two of them finally made it back inside.
* * * * *
If you loved Ian’s story, LONE STAR SURVIVOR,
check out his brother Zach’s story
LONE STAR REDEMPTION
Available now, from Colleen Thompson
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Chapter 1
“The National Weather Service has issued a severe winter storm warning for the DC metro and surrounding areas...”
“You should get going.”
Dr. Jillian Mahoney glanced up from the computer screen and blinked. Her friend Carla stood in front of her, wearing neon-green scrubs that were bright enough to land planes at Dulles airport. It was a color Jillian could never wear, thanks to her Casper-the-Ghost-like coloring, but it looked good against Carla’s café-au-lait complexion.
“You’re very green today,” she observed, turning back to the computer screen.
“I was feeling festive this morning,” Carla replied dryly.
“Christmas is still over a week away. Besides, I’m pretty sure neon is not a holiday color.”
Lone Star Survivor Page 24
