Make Mine a Marine

by Julie Miller

  Emma stepped back at the sharp derision in his words. Guilt struck her like a punch in the gut. "I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you first."

  "Well, if you were a little less busy consorting with the enemy, maybe you could have."

  Emma pressed her hands to her temples and shook her head, trying to clear her mind of his words that made no sense. "What do you mean, consorting with the enemy? Drew's a friend. A good one."

  She added the latter in Drew's defense, and found herself tamping down the desire to defend him in more unequivocal terms.

  Jonathan laughed. The smug sound of superiority jangled her nerves and sparked shards of doubt in her mind.

  "You sure you want me to leave you alone with Gallagher?" He taunted them both. "That's not his real name, you know."

  "I know." She squared her shoulders, bracing herself for whatever bombshell Jonathan was toying with.

  "Drop it, Ramsey." Drew's low-pitched warning hovered in the air. "You're clouding the issue. The lady wants you to pack up and haul your ass out of here."

  "I'd call the police if I were you, Emma." Jonathan walked to the hall closet and pulled out his coat. He slid it onto his shoulders and buttoned it with painstakingly slow attention to detail.

  "I'll call them to remove you from the premises." This time, she issued the warning.

  The monster who was her husband pulled out a suitcase and unhooked a filled garment bag that hung from the rod. He slung the bag over his shoulder and grinned at her. "The private eye you're putting all your trust in is a fraud, sweetheart."

  "Are you sure you're not just catching your own reflection in the mirror?" She wanted this to be over. She wanted to wake up and find out this whole nightmare had ended.

  "Let's see who the villain is here, shall we?" His taunts nicked a hole in her dwindling resolve. "I'm the husband who's been missing for five years, wounded in the line of duty, held against my will. And you're the wife who's what? Sleeping with the hired help?"

  "That's it, Ramsey." Drew's clipped response overrode her shock. "Get out."

  Drew whipped around Emma, snatched the suitcase, and shoved it at Jonathan's chest, knocking him off balance. In the same swift movement, he pushed Jonathan into the wall and trapped him there. The suitcase wedged between them seemed to be the only thing keeping Drew from wrapping his hands around her husband's throat.

  "Drew." She stepped toward them, unsure of which man she wanted to protect.

  He shoved the suitcase up under Jonathan's chin. "Tell her anything you want about me, Ramsey. But you hurt her once more and I'll—"

  "Bad timing, hmm?" BJ asked the question from behind Emma.

  With the door standing open, there'd been no need to knock. Before Emma had a chance to explain, Brodie had picked up Drew and slung him against the opposite wall, pinning him there, straight-armed, with a hand at his throat.

  "What the hell's going on?" Brodie asked.

  Emma ran to Drew. "Let him go." She tugged on Brodie's arm, but he wouldn't budge. Inwardly cursing the overabundance of heroes all ready to protect her from perceived threats, she slipped between Drew and Brodie and forced his attention. "I said let him go."

  "Big guy, please." Brodie blinked at BJ's hushed warning. "Honey. Not with Kerry here."

  "Sweetie," Emma breathed. The blood in her head rushed to her feet. She'd been so caught up in averting the fight that she hadn't even noticed Kerry standing with BJ. Now she couldn't miss the wide-eyed shock in her daughter's eyes. "Everything's okay," she said.

  She heard the useless lie with the same disbelief reflected in her daughter's face. "Your father and I had an argument. Drew tried to help me, and Brodie misunderstood." Emma turned her plea to Brodie. "Please let him go."

  Only Drew and Jonathan remained impassive amidst the fear and confusion and concern.

  Emma felt Drew's even breathing behind her, shallow under Brodie's grip, yet calm. Calculating.

  "Don't do that pinch thing again." Emma heard a relenting rumble in Brodie's deep voice. She dared to hope. "I'll let you go."

  "I wouldn't be so quick," said Jonathan. "Remember all those months we spent tracking the Chameleon? Remember how we'd get a lead, track him, and then he'd disappear?"

  "Yeah?" Brodie angled his head toward Jonathan, clearly perplexed by the shift in topic.

  Jonathan picked up his suitcase, shouldered the garment bag, and smiled. "How does it feel to hold the bastard right in your hands?"

  * * *

  Emma attacked the next day at work with a fervor normally reserved for meeting deadlines on negotiations and contracts. Fortunately, no such deals were riding on the line, because, despite achieving the physical fatigue she strove for, she couldn't keep her mind focused on LadyTech.

  After Jonathan had dropped his bombshell last night, he smiled and left. Brodie had released Drew. Kerry had run through the crowd of stunned adults and barricaded herself in her room.

  Drew had simply straightened his jacket, offered his apologies without any defense, whispered a cool, "You know where to find me if you want to press charges," and left. The night swallowed him up, leaving Emma to face the stunned sympathy of her friends and discover a shockingly disloyal truth buried deep inside her heart.

  She loved Drew Gallagher.

  Good intentions and firm resolutions had become a moot point somewhere along the line. When Jonathan had maligned him, and Brodie had threatened him, she'd jumped to Drew's defense against her own husband.

  She'd fallen in love with the very man who had tried to kill Jonathan.

  And it felt right.

  No matter how uncharacteristic Jonathan's behavior had grown, she still owed him the respect of their marriage vow. She should believe his accusation. And yet she felt a more powerful pull toward that mysterious private detective who would not defend himself against the accusation that he was a murdering, gun-running terrorist.

  Drew felt more like her husband than the man she had married.

  Her computer screen flashed, startling her. She'd just turned the machine off, finishing her dictation for the day. She must have forgotten to turn off the monitor.

  But when she reached out to push the power button, the words scrolling across the screen caught her eye.

  See with your heart. Not your eyes.

  Believe with your heart.

  She leaned forward, puzzled. "Huh?"

  Maybe her fatigue was getting the better of her. Maybe she'd exhausted herself to the point of hallucination.

  "It’s as if someone's trying to tell me something."

  She shook her head at the illogical idea and hit the monitor button. The machine flashed on.

  Not off. It had been off.

  She'd just now turned it on.

  Emma glanced around the room, expecting to see some sort of prankster laughing at her expense. She saw no one. And she wasn't ready to believe in ghosts.

  But the creepy feeling of an impossible communication stayed with her. "Go home, Emma," she admonished herself for foolish thinking.

  She grabbed her coat, gloves and hat from the closet. Winter had not been left behind. The recent drop in temperature and light, and the steady snowfall outside attested to that. So much for hopes of an early spring.

  She bundled up and headed out the door to pick up Kerry from her after-school care program. Her love for her daughter was the only constant in this whole mess. The one future hope she could still cling to.

  "Believe with your heart." She repeated the message out loud as she descended the stairs to the parking lot. She saw little logic in the events that had transpired the past few weeks.

  A man without memories who said he remembered her. A husband who was not her husband back from the dead. A daughter who listened to invisible friends.

  Emma welcomed the cold blast of air that hit her when she left the building. She needed to return her world to rational order. Then maybe, just maybe, she could push aside that little part of her brain that actually thought the me
ssage on her computer made sense.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Faith and Kerry sat on the top floor, peeking through the balcony railing to watch the scene unfolding on the first floor below them.

  Emma threw up her hands on either side of her shoulders and tromped into the kitchen. "You need to discuss this through our lawyers, Jonathan."

  Faith seethed in frustration as that… man… followed her. He'd been messing up everything from the first day he’d set foot in their lives. "I think we can be civil. This is too important to leave to lawyers," he said.

  The voices faded, and Faith turned to the dark-haired girl sitting in such attentive silence beside her. She wrapped an arm around Kerry's shoulders and gave her a hug, concerned over the little gears spinning inside her mind that gave the dialogue between the two adults a seven-year-old interpretation. "What are you thinking, sweetie?"

  For a moment Kerry didn't answer. "He's the bad man."

  "From your dream. I know." Faith held her close.

  Kerry's gaze fixed on the archway into the kitchen, waiting to see her mother emerge. "He wants to take Mom away from me."

  "No, he doesn't," Faith said. She knew that much was true. He had no interest in separating Emma from her daughter. He did, however, have an increasing interest in separating her from her company. And, to Faith's chagrin, he'd already done a thorough job of separating Emma from her trust in the endurance of love.

  "It's not mine to give you." Emma crossed from the kitchen into the study, her shoulders squared. "I told you. The fifty-one percent of stock we kept off the market is split three ways. You're only entitled to half of seventeen percent."

  "That's a foolish way to run a business." Jonathan's voice carried from the kitchen. Kerry huddled tight around her doll, retreating from the anger in her father's voice. She sank even further when he appeared in the hallway. "What if you and Jas and B J have a falling out? You lose control of your company. You lose Kerry's inheritance."

  "That's not why you want LadyTech."

  The dialogue became muffled as they moved beyond earshot.

  Faith had done her best to communicate with Jonathan Ramsey, but thus far she'd had no success. Heck. She hadn't had any success with this mission since… She looked up before the lights could blink. "I know. I've never had any success."

  "He makes you sad, doesn't he?" Kerry tilted up her long face. "He makes Mom sad, too."

  "I thought I was doing the right thing." Faith apologized to Kerry for the umpteenth insufficient time.

  "I know. My dad was gonna die, but you figured out a way to save him. Only your plan isn't working out the way you wanted it to." Kerry climbed up on Faith's knees and gave her a hug, then sat back on her haunches and spoke with the voice of experience. "Daddy says we have to try real hard."

  Faith scrunched her face, worried about what Kerry was leading up to. "Which daddy is that?"

  Kerry rolled her eyes and shook her head. "My real daddy, of course. Don't worry, Faith. I have a plan, too."

  Faith's concern bumped up a notch to alarm. "You do?"

  Her pint-sized companion nodded, and a conspiratorial gleam filled her eyes. She reached beneath the hem of Angelica's dress and pulled out a business card. Faith recognized the name on the card at once. Drew Gallagher.

  "You're going to hire a private investigator?" joked Faith.

  "No, silly. Mom doesn't want to leave me, right?"

  "Right." Faith dragged out the word, and wished desperately that the girl had an adult to talk to instead of herself—a well-meaning but definitely misguided angel.

  This time, the hallway light did blink. No wonder she could communicate with Kerry. Despite the difference in their ages and their planes of existence, they thought and acted alike. "Tell me this plan of yours."

  "I'm going to leave, and then she'll have to come stay with me." Such incredible logic. Such a dangerous thing to do.

  "Are you telling your mom where you're going?"

  "No. 'Cause she’ll tell me I need to stay home, and then she won't leave."

  Kerry hurried into her room and pulled out a little suitcase from her closet. She opened it and turned it over on the bed, dumping out a complete wardrobe of doll clothes. Faith prayed that Emma would come upstairs right about now.

  No such luck.

  She watched the methodical efficiency of Kerry’s childish hands stuffing the doll clothes under the bed, out of sight. Faith knew that the lack of hesitation in the little girl's movements indicated she'd already given some thought to this plan. Kerry went to her dresser and closet and selected an assortment of necessary travel items. Her piggy bank, her lavender blanket, a toothbrush, a book of fairy tales, her new snow boots, and Angelica.

  She closed the suitcase and latched it, then pulled her mother's cell phone from beneath her pillow. "Kerry?"

  The girl punched in Drew's number and waited. Faith was chilled with foreboding, and wished she could turn into flesh and blood and shake some sense into her. After a minute, Kerry sighed and turned off the phone.

  "I guess I'll just have to walk."

  "Kerry." Faith had never been anything but kind to her little charge, but she pulled out every last bit of authority she had ever possessed in this life or the previous one. "This is not a good idea. It's dangerous. Your mom will be scared."

  Kerry put on her coat and stuck the phone in her pocket. "Mom's scared already."

  Damn. Oh, damn, Oh, damn.

  Faith knew she'd pay for each of those curses, but right now she didn't know what else to do. She swept down into the study and shouted Emma's name. No response. She blew on the flames in the fireplace, hoping the swift surge of heat and light would catch the woman's attention. Emma turned, but quickly dismissed the odd flare-up.

  Kerry sneaked past the study door, and Faith darted after her. Kerry opened and closed the front door with a perfect silence that thundered in Faith's ears.

  Faith made one last effort to send a message to Emma. She was growing adept at manipulating those man-made computers, so she flew across the keyboard and booted a message onto the screen. She didn't wait to see if Emma would read it. Right now Emma sounded like she was in the middle of throwing Jonathan out.

  Again.

  Faith couldn't stay to help her this time. A little girl alone in the twilight in a big city when temperatures were dropping was a bigger priority. She floated along like the snowflakes, keeping Kerry company as she trekked down the sidewalk.

  Faith prayed Emma would be observant enough to read the message she had left in time.

  * * *

  Drew traipsed up the stairs to his apartment. He rolled his shoulders beneath his jacket, trying to dispel the chill that had been with him long before he'd stepped out into this last stand of winter.

  He'd spent the day in the district attorney's office, going through virtually every shred of evidence that might prove he wasn't the Chameleon. And failing. Known appearances of the Chameleon corresponded with Drew's hazy memories of the accident and recovery in Tenebrosa and Mexico. There were no fingerprints on file to disprove Jonathan Ramsey's accusation.

  He'd had little success trying to prove who he was. He was having even less success trying to prove who he wasn't.

  He hated to disappoint Hawk Echohawk. He wanted to believe the Indian's instincts. But the truth all seemed to point to the fact that he'd been in the jungle that day with Jonathan Ramsey. Like him, Drew had suffered the burns and shrapnel wounds of a grenade. There weren't many such injuries on that tiny jungle island. For two men to be so wounded during the same time period pointed to one devastating truth.

  He, alias Drew Gallagher, once known as Cam, was an international terrorist with ties to all parts of the world, wanted by governments on three continents.

  He was the Chameleon.

  "Amnesia's not a bad way to go into hiding. A little extreme, but all the profiles say I'm incredibly clever, and willing to do anything to elude the authorities." He tried the joke on
himself, but the humor fell flat.

  On the drive home from the D.A.'s office, he'd debated whether to turn himself in at a police station or check himself into a mental ward. In the end, he opted for neither. He had one final option to check into. Clayton Roylott. The man didn't claim to know much about ‘Cam,’ but more than likely, with a little persuasion, he could introduce Drew to some other connections who might be able to tell him more about his past.

  The likely truth shamed him. But more importantly, he knew the truth would devastate Emma. Not that she wanted to have anything to do with him, anyway. But at least he’d hoped to clear his name and make a graceful departure from her life.

  Now it seemed the only honorable option left him was to build the case that Jonathan Ramsey hadn't been able to. A case that would hold up in court, and put him behind bars where he belonged.

  He pulled off his gloves as he reached his floor, and took out the keys to his apartment. As he neared his door, he noticed a package sitting beside it. As a matter of caution, he unzipped his jacket and reached inside to unsnap his holster.

  A few steps further, the package moved. A length of dark hair tumbled out from beneath a stocking cap. Drew quickened his pace as recognition kicked in. "Kerry? What the heck?"

  "Daddy!"

  Drew braced himself and caught the flying bundle. She clung to his neck like a second skin, and he shifted her weight to his left arm. With his right he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number he now knew by heart.

  It was answered before the end of the first ring. "Kerry?"

  The barely disguised fear in Emma's frantic voice turned his blood to ice. He didn't bother with greetings or reassurances, or even ask why.

  "It's Drew. I think I found something you're missing."

  * * *

  Drew leaned his shoulder against the doorway to his kitchen and watched Emma tuck the blanket around Kerry's sleeping form. She kissed her little girl and hovered over her a minute longer, straightening her hair and positioning her doll in the crook of her arm. Drew thought he'd never seen anything so beautiful as the tender interaction between the dark-haired beauty and her daughter.