by Elle James
Emily liked to control her destiny. She didn’t like surprises, and she didn’t like it when someone made her feel things she didn’t understand.
Over the years, she’d come to grips with her control issues and had learned to relax a little when her world spun out of her grasp. For the past two years, she’d lived in constant churn, wondering why Alex had become distant and was keeping secrets.
She’d never learn to relax with Colin holding her hand. Her nerves on edge, she slipped out of her seat, missed her footing on the running board and fell into Colin’s arms.
He held her until she could find her feet and stand on her own. Colin stared down into her eyes, the moonlight reflecting off his. “Are you all right?”
No, she was not all right. She’d spent the past ten years focusing on her marriage to Alex. With her husband dead, she shouldn’t be feeling anything like she was for Colin. It wasn’t right.
Emily pushed away from Colin and smoothed her hair behind her ears. “I’m fine.” She dug in her purse for her keys to the house and led the way up the front porch to the door. Her hand shook as she attempted to insert the key into the lock.
Colin took the keyring from her, unlocked the door and pushed it open.
When she started to step inside, he gripped her arm.
“Let me go first,” he said.
She nodded. Though she had been entering her house alone for the past three months, she wasn’t as eager to do so now. Not after nearly being killed in her own vehicle.
Colin stepped across the threshold. “I’ll be right back.”
Then, like the trained combative he was, he disappeared into the darkened hallway. A few minutes later, he reappeared and switched on the light. “All clear.”
Emily nodded and entered the home she’d shared with her dead husband. “Thanks. I can take it from here now. You don’t have to stay.” She wanted him to leave. At the same time, she wanted him to stay.
Colin shook his head. “I want to know what’s on that SD card, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone. Not after what happened tonight. You could have been killed, or at the least, hurt badly. You can’t stay alone.”
“I’ve been alone since Alex’s death.”
“Have you?” He cocked an eyebrow. “What about the vehicles following you? Is that the kind of company you want hanging around?”
She shivered at the image of her car crushed beneath the weight of the tavern wall. “No.”
“Then let me help you. I guarantee Alex would have wanted me to.” Colin’s voice deepened and he looked away. “He loved you.”
Emily snorted. “Did he?”
Colin nodded. “He pulled me aside before your wedding and told me he’d do anything for you. That he loved you so very much. He promised he would never hurt you.”
Emily’s heart contracted. “Yeah. And where did that get me? He hurt me when he started lying about what he was up to. He hurt me when he refused to trust me with the truth. For the past year, I thought he was having an affair with another woman.” Emily threw up her hand. “For all I know, the man who shot him could have done so out of jealous rage. It could have been Alex’s lover’s husband.”
Colin shot a glance her way. “Do you really think he would have cheated on you? The Alex I knew loved you more than life itself.”
She snorted. “Then why did he shut me out of his life?”
“How did he do that?” Colin asked, standing in the living room of her home, filling it with his broad shoulders and concerned frown. He’d used that look on her when she’d been mad or sad about something when they were teens.
It always made her want to spill her guts. Now was no different.
“Over a year ago, he quit talking to me. He would leave the house at five in the morning and not return until well after ten at night.” Emily shoved a hand through her thick blond hair. “I really thought he was having an affair. I thought if we had a baby, we might save our marriage.” She stared at a darkened window. “I accused him of it that night…the night he died. We were arguing, or he might have seen that vehicle coming up beside him sooner. He might have had time to duck…”
“Sweet Jesus, Emily.” Colin shook his head. “Had he ducked, that bullet would have hit you. You would be dead.”
Her gaze dropped to her feet. “I might as well be.” She’d blamed herself for distracting Alex while he’d been driving, second-guessing her role in the crash.
If she hadn’t distracted him, he might have performed some evasive maneuvers and escaped the bullet, the crash and his death.
And she might not have lost their baby.
She pressed a hand to her empty belly, the pain of her loss, still as physical now as it had been when she’d woken in the hospital to the news.
The pain in Emily’s face nearly undid Colin. He wanted to pull her into his arms and take away all her sorrow. For a long moment he fought that urge.
He drew in a deep breath. “Where’s your laptop?”
Emily glanced around as if in a daze, then grimaced. “I forgot, the state crime lab has it, as well as Alex’s computer.”
“Okay, then. I have my laptop in my truck. We can use it to look at that card.” He started for the door.
When Emily followed, he turned. “Stay inside and don’t stand in front of windows.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Someone shot Alex. If they think you have something they don’t want to get out…” He swallowed. “Just don’t make a silhouette in the window. It makes too easy a target.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed hard. “I’ve never done anything in my life that would make someone want to shoot me. How does this happen?”
Colin shook his head. “I can’t say. I hope that SD card will give us a clue.” He raised his eyebrows. “Now, are you going to stay out of the line of fire?”
She nodded.
It took exactly thirty seconds for him to retrieve his laptop case from the truck and return to the house.
Emily opened the door, careful to stand aside, out of view of the yard and anyone who might be aiming for her.
Colin resisted the urge to say good girl.
Emily closed the door behind him. “You can set your laptop on the kitchen table.”
Colin carried it to the table, unwound the charging cable and plugged it into an electrical socket, and then into the computer. He pulled up a chair and booted the laptop. Moments later, the screen blinked to life. He held out his hand.
Emily laid the SD card onto his palm.
A ripple of awareness blasted through him where her fingers touched his skin.
Forcing himself to focus, Colin slipped the SD card into the computer and watched as a couple of files popped up. One was a video file labeled Watch Me First.
Colin looked up at Emily. “Ready?”
Emily pulled a chair up beside Colin’s and nodded.
He clicked the video file icon and turned up the sound.
Alex appeared on the monitor, looking much older than his thirty-one years. His face appeared haggard, his eyes bloodshot.
Emily let out a soft gasp and pressed her fingers to her lips, tears filling her eyes.
“Hi, Emily. Since you’re viewing this video, I can only assume that I’m dead. I didn’t want to leave you without telling you how much I love you and how sorry I am for letting you down.”
Emily sobbed quietly beside Colin.
He reached for her hand and held it while Alex continued on the computer. He wanted to reach through the screen and wring Alex’s neck for making Emily cry.
“I made mistakes. Perhaps the biggest one of all was marrying you. Not because I didn’t want it, but because you deserved better. By marrying me, you gave up the chance of finding true love.”
“But—”
Alex held up a hand in the video. “Don’t lie to yourself. I know you loved me as a friend, and for that I’m grateful. And you did your best to be a good wife to me. You never complained. I t
ried everything I could to make you love me more than a friend. When you said you wanted a baby, I was willing to do anything to make that happen.” He glanced away and then down at his hands.
“And by anything, I mean anything. You didn’t know it, but I had a low sperm count. It wasn’t your fault we weren’t getting pregnant.” His mouth curled up in a self-deprecating smirk. “It might have been God’s way of telling me I wasn’t worthy of having children.”
Tears slipped from Emily’s eyes.
Every tear hit Colin like a bullet in the chest.
“You were worthy, Alex,” Emily said, speaking to the man on the screen as though he was really there. “You would have been a good father.”
“I like to think I’d have made a good father,” Alex said. “But since you’re watching this now, I assume I never made it to the birth of my child, or I would have redone this video. I never thought we’d get pregnant.”
Emily’s hand squeezed Colin’s, her nails digging into his palm. “Neither did I.”
“Those fertility treatments weren’t cheap. I knew how much you wanted a child. My accounting business wasn’t making enough money to keep trying. With each visit costing us thousands of dollars, I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t tell you I didn’t have the money to keep going.”
“You should have told me,” Emily whispered.
The Alex on the screen shoved a hand through his hair. “In retrospect, I should have told you. Then I wouldn’t be in as much trouble as I am. God, I hope that trouble doesn’t impact you and the baby.”
“Oh, Alex.” Emily pressed her knuckles to her lips. “It did.”
“Inside the packet the attorney gave you is a key to my safe deposit box at the First National Bank in Bozeman. In that box is the ledger I used to record my transactions with some pretty unsavory people. I skimmed money out of their accounts when they refused to pay me for my work.”
Alex winced. “I might have skimmed more than they would have paid me, but I needed the money and they weren’t paying on time, which meant I had to take out loans and pay interest in the meantime.”
Emily’s jaw tightened. “Oh, Alex. You should have told me.”
“You won’t find any of this information in my company files or my computer. I tracked it all by hand and on paper. If something’s happened to me, you can bet one of them was involved. Take the ledger to the police. Let them handle it. And you might want to get out of the state until it all blows over.”
“Son of a bitch,” Colin murmured, anger surging through him.
Alex shook his head. “Emily, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man who won your heart. I’m sorry for getting into this mess and leaving you and the baby behind. Just know, I loved you with all my heart, and wish you only love and happiness as you move forward in your life.” He pressed two fingers to his lips and touched the camera lens. “Take care, sweetheart.”
The video clicked off, and the computer screen reverted to the file.
Emily sat in stunned silence, her heart hammering so hard in her chest she feared it would pound its way out. The sorrow and regret she’d felt when she’d first seen Alex’s face had quickly been replaced by fear and anger.
Alex hadn’t trusted her enough to let her know what had been going on. She would have told him that having a baby wasn’t that important. They had each other, that was all that counted.
Instead, he’d made unilateral decisions that had impacted all of them. Alex had paid with his life and that of his unborn child. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming out in anger and frustration. She hadn’t been given the opportunity to help.
Damn him.
Colin slipped an arm around Emily’s shoulders. “Alex is gone,” he said. “But you’re still alive. You have to keep on living. Alex would have wanted you to.” He drew her into his embrace.
Emily laid her cheek against his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt. It felt like it had been forever since she’d been this close to a man. Even when Alex had been alive, he’d been too distant, if not physically…then emotionally.
Colin’s thickly muscled chest was solid, reassuring…needed. She curled her fingers into his shirt and breathed in the earthy, musky scent of his aftershave and let herself lean on him.
As a kind of punishment, Emily had shouldered the aftermath of Alex’s death on her own, refusing help from anyone, even her sister. She’d blamed herself for what had happened.
Even though she hadn’t shot the bullet that had killed him, she hadn’t given him the support he’d needed. “I should have forced him to talk to me.”
“Alex could be stubborn,” Colin said, his breath stirring the tendrils of hair near her ear.
Emily shivered, far too aware of the man holding her than she should be as a widow. Seeing Colin, having his arms wrapped around her, felt so right. She couldn’t let herself regret the decision she’d made or worry about the fact Colin’s embrace was exactly what she needed at that moment. She’d worry about what that meant later.
Chapter 3
Colin’s body reacted immediately to Emily’s pressed against it. He tried to squelch his rising desire, but he couldn’t. He’d always loved her and had been heartbroken that she’d chosen Alex to spend her life with.
When they’d married, he couldn’t be unhappy for the couple. He’d loved Alex like one of his brothers and had wished him and Emily contentment in their union.
Now, as he held Emily in his arms, he couldn’t stop himself from taking in every second. No woman had ever measured up to this one. Oh, he’d dated and slept with a few, but none of them had ever touched him like Emily. She’d been his best friend before he’d discovered he was madly in love with her. If he hadn’t joined the military, she might have been his, instead of Alex’s wife.
He closed his eyes and pushed back that thought. For years, he’d kicked himself for not fighting harder for her. But how could he, when Alex had meant almost as much to him as Emily had?
“Emily…” he started, not really knowing where he would go with his words, but he had to say something.
A phone rang somewhere in another room.
Emily stiffened, her fingernails digging into his chest. On the second ring, she pushed against him. “I’d better get that.” On the third ring, she’d moved free of his embrace and left him in the hallway, moving toward the kitchen.
“Hello?” Her voice carried through the house to where he stood, trying to get a grip on his raging libido.
“You already heard about that?” Emily laughed, although the sound was a little strained. “For such a large state, the grapevine is working just fine.”
She was quiet while she listened to the voice on the other end of the line.
“Why were you with Sheriff Barron?”
More silence.
“I guess, since they’re friends, it makes sense for the two sheriffs to share information,” Emily said. “No, I wasn’t hurt. Yes, I’m home. No, you don’t need to come over.” Another pause. “I’m okay. Really. Besides—”
Colin moved toward the sound of Emily’s voice and found her pacing in the kitchen with a cordless phone pressed to her ear.
She was walking away from him. When she turned, her steps faltered. Her gaze met his, the irises darkening. “I’m not alone. I’ll be okay.”
Colin could hear the sound of someone talking.
“Brenna, really, I’m not being held hostage. If you must know, Colin’s here. He drove me home from Bozeman since my car was totaled.”
More talking from the phone.
Colin knew Emily’s younger sister, Brenna, from when she used to follow them around on their adventures. She was as dark as Emily was light. Her black hair and brown eyes had been so different from Emily’s blond and blue. If he hadn’t known their parents, he’d have wondered if Brenna had been adopted. Emily took after her fair mother and Brenna after her dark-haired father. Though younger, Brenna had been fiercely protective of her older
sister.
When they’d been teens, Colin had found that trait both endearing and irritating. At this moment, he was glad she was concerned about Emily’s wellbeing.
“I’ll let you know whatever I find out.” Emily drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I will. I love you, too.” She set the phone in its charger and stared across the room at Colin. “Thank you for giving me a ride home.”
He nodded. “It was my pleasure.” Before she could continue, he went on. “Now, if you’ve got an extra blanket, I’ll take the couch.”
Emily was shaking her head before he finished talking. “No, Colin. You’re not responsible for me. I can—”
“—take care of yourself. Like you did in Bozeman.”
“I managed,” she said, her voice weak. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I drove to the most populated place that I could.”
“You were lucky to make it to the tavern.”
“Yeah, maybe so, but I made it.” Her chin tipped a bit higher.
Colin’s forehead pinched. “I’m not leaving you alone.” He tilted his head toward the door. “If you ask me to leave, I will. But I’ll sleep in my truck outside your house. I repeat…I’m not leaving you alone.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed, and she chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before turning and walking away. “I’ll get that blanket. You can stay tonight.”
Colin let go of the breath he’d been holding. He’d expected Emily to put up more of a fight. Her near miss must have shaken her more than she was willing to admit aloud.
Hell, it had shaken him more. Had she been a moment or two slower... He turned for the front door. “I’ll get my go bag out of my truck.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “You brought your go bag?”
He shrugged. “As Marine Force Recon, we had to travel with a go bag of essential items at all times, in case we were called to deploy on a moment’s notice.”
Her brows knit. “That made it hard to have any kind of life outside the military, didn’t it?”
“I suppose.” He nodded. “There were a lot of divorces among my teammates.”
