by Lisa Childs
Fear gripped her again. Dalton was here—with her. Who was with Lizzie?
Dalton had kept his promise to protect her. But had she failed in her promise to protect the little girl?
“Lizzie isn’t crying,” she pointed out. “She’s been crying since Gregory shot Tom. Why would she stop now? Is there someone else in the house?”
“Yes,” Dalton replied. “Blaine Campbell and Trooper Littlefield came with me from the hospital. One of them must be with her now.”
She needed to be with her—to make sure that the little girl was really all right. But she couldn’t leave Dalton—and not just because he was wounded. She couldn’t leave Dalton because she loved him, and she was so grateful that he was alive. She had been so worried about him.
That fear must have been on her face yet, because Dalton assured her, “She’s safe now. It’s all over.”
But just as her fears eased, she heard something else that had her tensing with fear. Someone groaned, and there was a flurry of movement on the floor.
She had thought that Dalton had killed Gregory—that it was his blood that had struck her face when she’d had eyes closed as she’d waited for death. But what if Dalton had only wounded the madman?
What if he was reaching for his gun again?
Dalton reached for his, drawing it from his holster. But would he be able to save her or himself?
Or would Gregory finish what he’d started so many months ago with Kenneth’s and Patricia’s murders?
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You’re a fool,” Ash Stryker called Dalton.
He glared at his happy friend. While Stryker and Claire had returned from their honeymoon, it was obviously far from over—if the guy’s smiling face was anything to go by.
“Just a few short weeks ago you were begging me to be your best man,” Dalton reminded him with just a slight exaggeration. “And now you’re calling me a fool?”
“Because you are one,” Blaine Campbell said from where he leaned against the brick wall of the living room of Dalton’s condo.
They had invited themselves over to his place. He had thought to check up on him and make sure he was completely recovered from the gunshot wound—minimal though it had been. But now he felt as if they were staging some kind of intervention.
“Two against one?” he scoffed at their pitiful attempt to gang up on him. “These are my kind of odds, you know.” Hell, he’d always taken on more than two at a time.
“They would have been,” Blaine agreed. “If you’d had the guts to go for it.”
Now they were talking over his head. “What do you mean?” Nobody had ever accused him of being a coward. A fool—well, that wasn’t the first time.
“Elizabeth Schroeder and the little girl,” Blaine clarified. “If you’d had the guts to go for the two of them, you could be happy right now.”
“Who says I’m not?” he challenged them.
He had a great place in the city with a view of the lake, a fast car. The single lifestyle most married men would envy—most. Not these guys, but most. Maybe...
Ash laughed at him. “I know happy. And you’re not it, my friend. You’re miserable.”
He couldn’t argue with him. The new husband radiated happiness like a neon sign—making Dalton want to hurl...something. But they were at his condo, and he liked to keep the place neat, the way his grandmother had taught him.
“You guys don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.
He had seen Elizabeth’s face when she’d realized it was her fiancé moving around on the floor—that he wasn’t dead. She had been more than relieved; she had been elated. And since the nanny had arrived to care for Lizzie, she had ridden along in the ambulance with him and Jared Bell to the hospital.
“I never had a chance with Elizabeth,” he told them.
“If you think that, you really are a damn fool,” Blaine said. “That woman’s in love with you.”
“That woman was grateful,” he said. “I found her in the trunk of that car when she was barely clinging to life, when she didn’t even know who she was.”
But she knew now. She was Tom Wilson’s fiancée.
“Her memory didn’t affect her feelings,” Blaine said.
No. Seeing Tom Wilson nearly die had affected her, though. She loved the man. She wouldn’t have been wearing his ring if she hadn’t.
He shrugged. “I’m not going to argue this with you guys. The case is over.”
Gregory Cunningham was dead. Kenneth and Patricia Cunningham’s deaths had been ruled homicides. Just homicides. Their names were cleared because of Elizabeth, because she had been so determined that their memories be untainted for their daughter.
“The case is over,” Blaine agreed.
“But you two don’t have to be,” Ash added.
Of course the happily married men would think that. Who were the fools? They had just been damn lucky that the women for whom they’d fallen had loved them back.
Dalton had never been that lucky. “She’s going to marry Tom Wilson.” He was certain of that.
“Not if you stop the wedding,” Blaine suggested.
Could he? Could he put his heart on the line without knowing if she even returned his feelings?
He’d already been accused of being a fool. What did it matter if he made one of himself? He would rather regret making a scene than never telling her how much he loved her. He should have told her before. He should have told her when they’d made love how much she meant to him. How he had never cared for anyone the way he cared for her.
“I really hate you guys,” he muttered, even as he dug his car keys from the pocket of his jeans. They had goaded him into embarrassing himself. “You’re enjoying this—enjoying that I’m going to make a fool of myself.”
Why would Elizabeth choose him—an FBI agent with a penchant for danger—over the conservative lawyer she had already agreed to marry?
Blaine chuckled. “You’ve got it bad, Reyes. You’re not your usual cocky self.”
He wasn’t—because he wasn’t sure of Elizabeth’s feelings. He was sure of his, though, and he would regret never sharing those feelings with her.
Even if she rejected him...
Ash just laughed and patted his back, urging him, “Go get your bride!”
* * *
REGRET PULLED THE fake smile from Elizabeth’s face. She shouldn’t have stopped by Tom’s hospital room. But she had already been at the hospital visiting Agent Jared Bell. So she had stopped in out of courtesy.
Nothing more.
“As soon as I’m released, we should move in together,” Tom was saying. He had already reached out for her hand and tugged her down onto the hospital bed next to him.
“What?” she asked. Clearly he must have sustained some brain damage from the gunshot wound to his head.
“You and the little girl can move into my condo in Chicago,” he said as if extending a magnanimous offer.
She shook her head.
“It makes the most sense,” he said. “It’s bigger than your place. And really, you can’t stay here.”
“I can’t?”
He chuckled. “Your job is in Chicago. Your life is in Chicago.”
The love of her life was in Chicago. He must have been because she hadn’t seen him since she had ridden away in the ambulance. She’d expected to see him at the hospital. That night. And maybe today.
That was one of the reasons she had come by to visit Jared Bell. She had been worried about him, too, though. It hadn’t been all about Dalton.
“Lizzie’s home is here.”
“Lizzie is a child,” he said. “She’ll adjust.”
“She only recently lost her parents.” She sighed. “And now her uncle...” Gregory Cunningham had always been part of the child’s life. The boogeyman. But she might miss him, too. “She’s had a lot of adjustments to make.”
“Exactly,” he said. “She’ll be fine. She has you.”
“What about you?” she asked, wondering why he had stopped suggesting that she give up the child.
“I understand why you want to keep her.”
He made Lizzie sound like a stray to whom she’d gotten attached.
“Why do you?” she asked. Did he have any feelings for the little girl? He had never paid any attention to her.
“To keep you,” he said. “I would do anything to make you happy, Elizabeth.”
Something cold and hard slid over her finger.
Her skin chilled and she shivered with revulsion. He’d put that damn ring back on her finger. “Tom...”
“Sorry,” a deep voice murmured from the doorway. “I didn’t mean to interrupt...”
She jerked away from Tom and turned toward the door—just in time to see Dalton’s broad back as he walked away.
“Wait!” she called out to him, her heart beating quickly. “Dalton!”
Tom sighed. “I guess I have my answer.”
“I didn’t realize you’d asked me a question,” she said as she tugged off the diamond. “You just assumed.”
“You rode in the ambulance with me,” he reminded her. “You acted like you cared—like you still have feelings for me.”
“We were together a long time,” she said. “I have feelings for you. But I don’t love you.”
“No,” he agreed. “I see that now. I see who you love.”
She hoped it wasn’t too late to make Dalton see that she loved him. Would he care? Did he return her feelings? Her pulse raced.
“I’m sorry.” As she passed his ring back to him, he caught her hand and held on to her.
“I feel sorry for you,” he said, “because he’s going to break your heart. He’s not looking to be a husband or a father.”
Maybe Tom was right. But that didn’t stop Elizabeth. She tugged her hand free of his grasp and hurried into the hall. But Dalton was gone. She should have run faster.
She sucked in a sharp breath along with her disappointment.
“So when’s the wedding?” a deep voice asked.
She glanced up and found him standing across the hall, in the doorway of an empty room. She shook her head and lifted her bare hand. “I’m not getting married.”
Because Tom was probably right about Dalton. He had made his feelings clear about marriage and fatherhood before. He had no interest in them. The only thing he hadn’t made clear to her was his feelings for her.
“Really?” he asked with a dark brow arched in skepticism. He leaned closer and studied her hand. “I swear I saw a ring on there just a second ago.”
“Tom got the wrong idea,” she said.
Dalton shrugged. “Can’t say I blame him. You were awfully worried about him back at the house.”
“I thought he was dead,” she said. “I was relieved that he wasn’t. Enough people had already died because of me.”
“Because of Gregory Cunningham,” he corrected her. “Not because of you. Nothing was your fault.”
Guilt weighed so heavily on her as she admitted, “I told Kenneth to cut off Gregory.”
“And you don’t think he would have done that without your advice?” he asked. “From everything you told me about the guy, Kenneth Cunningham was smart. He wouldn’t have kept giving his brother money.”
She released a shaky breath and along with it, a lot of the guilt she’d been feeling. “No, he wouldn’t have.”
“But giving Wilson the wrong idea, that is your fault,” he said. “If you hang out in his hospital room, he’s going to think he has a chance.”
“I didn’t come here to see him,” she said.
“Who did you come to see?” Dalton asked.
“Agent Bell,” she replied. “I was relieved to see that he’s doing well.” So well that the profiler was being released later that afternoon—or so he’d told her.
“Jared said you’d been by his room.”
She drew in a deep breath, swallowed her pride and admitted, “I was hoping that you would be here visiting him. I was really hoping to run into you.”
His dark eyes brightened. “Seriously?”
She glanced uneasily back at Tom’s room. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted her ex-fiancé to overhear; she wasn’t cruel.
“Do you want to come back to the house?” she asked. “And see Lizzie?”
His eyes brightened even more and a smile curved his sensuous mouth. “I would love to see Lizzie.”
As they headed down the hospital hall, he took her hand in his—the way he had so many times before. And as they stepped inside the empty elevator, he said, “But I really came here to see you.”
Hope fluttered in her heart, lifting it.
* * *
ELIZABETH’S FACE FLUSHED with color at her embarrassment over finding the nursery empty. Dalton barely held back a chuckle at her reaction.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said as she read the note the nanny had left for her. “I didn’t know Marta was taking Lizzie to a playdate with her grandchildren.”
“I did,” Dalton admitted.
Her eyes widened in surprised. “How?”
“I suggested it when I came here earlier.”
“You were here earlier?” she asked, her beautiful eyes widened in surprise. “Why?”
“I played with Lizzie,” he said, and his grin slipped out now with the memory of how happy the little girl had been to see him. She’d clung to him. And he’d been so happy to hold her and play with her. “I missed her.”
She nodded. “She’s such a special little girl.”
“Yes, she is,” he wholeheartedly agreed. “You’re lucky to have her.”
She blinked her thick lashes as if fighting back tears. “Yes, I am.”
“And she’s lucky to have you,” he said. “You’re very special, too, Elizabeth.”
She smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness to it. And she continued to blink furiously, as if she was about to cry.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He hoped she didn’t still feel guilty about becoming little Lizzie’s guardian.
“I just realized what this is,” she said with a quick gesture at his chest.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Goodbye.”
When he’d found her in Tom Wilson’s room—in what had looked like an intimate moment—he’d thought he might have been too late. But then she had called out to him. And she’d come out of that room without the ring on her finger. Hope warmed his heart—along with all the love and passion he felt for her.
He slid his arms around her and pulled her close. Then he covered her mouth with his. He’d missed the sweet sigh of her breath as she kissed him back. He’d missed her lips and the way she ran her fingers into his hair and clutched him closer. When he could lift his mouth from hers, he asked, “Does that feel like goodbye?”
She shook her head.
He swung her up in his arms and carried her down the hall to that sunshine-filled master bedroom. He undressed her slowly, kissing every inch of silky skin as he exposed it to his sight and his touch.
She moaned and sighed, reacting to his every caress—his every kiss. He made love to her thoroughly and, most of all, lovingly—making sure that she had no doubt about his feelings.
But yet he didn’t utter the words that burned in his throat. He wasn’t sure how to say something he’d never said before. So, after shouting his release, he collapsed back on the bed, and he fell silent.
She lay on his chest, panting for breath. Once she’d regained it, she pulled away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You probably need to go back to the hospital.”
He pressed a hand over his madly beating heart. “I’m fine,” he said. “I don’t need medical attention.” He needed her attention, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“I meant that you probably have to pick up Agent Bell,” she said. “I know he’s being released this afternoon.”
He nodded. “Yeah, he is,” he said, “probably against medical order
s.”
“Why would he leave, then?”
“A young woman recently disappeared,” he said with a shudder as he remembered how Elizabeth had nearly disappeared forever.
If he hadn’t stopped that car...
“That’s awful,” she murmured with a shiver of her own.
He wrapped his arms around her for comfort and warmth and to pull her closer. “Yes,” he agreed. “Jared thinks it could be related to his case.”
“Do you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He actually thought Jared Bell was a lot like Captain Ahab, and that he was going to kill himself trying to catch the elusive serial killer.
“I guess it’s a good thing that I’m not getting married, then,” she said.
“Why would you say that?” he asked. He was glad she wasn’t marrying Tom Wilson. But did she have no intention of ever getting married?
“I don’t have to worry about that serial killer.”
“No, you don’t,” Dalton said, “because you have me to protect you.”
“I do?” she asked. And finally she looked at him again, staring up at him with her silvery-gray eyes wide and hopeful.
“This isn’t goodbye.” He reached for the bedside table where he’d left his holster and gun. But that wasn’t all he’d left there. Beneath the holster, he’d hidden a small jewelry case. It wasn’t as big a diamond as Tom Wilson had put on her hand.
But she gasped when he opened the case. And tears shimmered in her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Proposing,” he said. “I know I’m not doing a very good job of it, though. But I’ve never done this before. I’ve never even told anyone that I loved them.”
“You haven’t told me,” she said. “But I haven’t told you, either.”
He tensed in anticipation of humiliation. Had he just made the fool of himself that he’d worried he would?
“But I do,” she said. “I love you very much.”
And finally the words poured from his lips. “I love you, Elizabeth Schroeder. I love your strength and your courage and your loyalty. I love everything about you.”
“Even when I didn’t know who I was,” she said, “it was like you knew me.”
