“No, thanks. My wife was here until just a few minutes ago. She’s hovered over me since I got here. Between her and the nurses, I’m good. Trust me.”

  Jax nodded. “You didn’t want to discuss the case by phone. I take it this is a dark one.” Some cases were listed as dark. These were generally the ones where the person or persons who wanted to hurt the witness had an abundance of resources, making the witness far more vulnerable. Sometimes a case was dark simply because of the priority tag associated with the investigation. The fewest people possible were involved with dark cases.

  There were bad guys in this world and then there were really bad guys.

  “Need-to-know basis only,” Holloway said. “We’re only days out from trial. Keeping this witness safe is essential. At this point, we pretty much need to keep her under surveillance twenty-four hours a day until trial. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

  “Understandable,” Jax agreed.

  “I’m sure you’re familiar with the Armone case. It’s been all over the news.”

  Jax’s eyebrows went up with a jolt of surprise. “That’s not a name I expected to hear. I knew the patriarch of the family was awaiting trial, but I haven’t kept up with the details.”

  “They’ve kept the details quiet on this one to the extent possible. Even with all those precautions and a media blackout, her first location was jeopardized.”

  Her? A bad, bad feeling began a slow creep through Jax.

  “Hell of a time for you to be out of commission,” he said instead of demanding who the hell the witness was. This could not happen. Maybe it was someone else.

  “Tell me about it,” Holloway grumbled.

  “Why don’t you bring me up to speed?” Jax suggested. “We’ll go from there.”

  “The file’s under my pillow.”

  Jax chuckled as he reached beneath the thin hospital pillow. “I have to say, this is going the distance for the job.”

  “We do what we have to, right?”

  “Yeah. Right.” Jax opened the file, his gaze landing on an eight-by-ten photo. He blinked. Looked again. She looked exactly as she had ten years ago.

  “You okay there?” Holloway asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “Full disclosure, Holloway, I know this woman.” Jax frowned. No. That was wrong. He didn’t just know this woman; he knew her intimately. Had been disappointed in and angry with her for years now.

  “Well, hell. If this is a problem, we should call someone else in as quickly as possible. I’ve got the local sheriff, a friend of mine, taking care of things now. But I can’t keep him tied up this way. No one wants this bastard to get away this time. We’ve got him. As long as she lives to testify, he’s not walking.”

  Holloway was right. The Armone family had escaped justice far too long. “I’ve got this.” Jax cleared his head. If Holloway thought he was not up to par, he would insist on calling in someone else. Jax was startled, no denying it. But he wanted to do this. He had to do this. For reasons that went beyond the job. Purely selfish reasons. “You can count on me. I just needed to be up front. We knew each other a long time ago.”

  “If you’re sure,” Holloway countered. “I’m confident I can count on you. I just don’t want to put you in an unnecessarily awkward situation. Sometimes the past can adversely affect the present.”

  Jax felt his gut tighten. Maybe he wasn’t as ready for this as he’d thought.

  No choice.

  If he didn’t do this, he would never fully extract her from his head.

  The what-ifs would haunt him forever.

  “I can handle it. Like I said, we haven’t seen each other in years,” he assured the other man. “No one wants this family to go down more than me.”

  That part was more true than he cared to admit.

  “If we’re lucky, that family will be history when this trial is done,” Holloway said. “The son is dead. Now all we need is for the father to be put away for the rest of his sorry life.” Holloway searched his face as if looking for any uncertainty. “I can ask Sheriff Tanner to show you the way to her location, if you’re sure we’re good to go.”

  “That works.”

  “Thanks, Stevens. I owe you one.”

  * * *

  The cabin was well out of town. Sheriff Colt Tanner had met Jax at the courthouse and led the way. Tanner had last checked on the witness an hour ago. At this stage, Jax wasn’t to simply check on her, he was to stick with her until she walked into that courtroom to testify. Protect, transport...whatever was necessary.

  On the drive to her location, he had decided he really didn’t have a problem with doing the job. He couldn’t deny that he had spent a great deal of time trying to find Allison James, aka Alice Stewart, the widow of Harrison Armone Junior, illegal drugs and weapons kingpin of the southeast. In fact, he wanted to do this. He wanted to learn what had happened to the sweet young woman he had known during his training. How had the shy, soft-spoken girl become the wife of one of the most wanted bastards on the minds of FBI, ATF and DEA agents alike? Maybe it was sheer curiosity, but he needed to understand how the hell that happened.

  The actual problem, in his opinion, was how she would feel about him being the one charged with her safety. She no doubt would understand that he was well aware of who she had gotten involved with and would be disgusted by it. Members of law enforcement from Atlanta to DC had wished for a way to eradicate this problem.

  He guessed he would find out soon enough.

  Jax parked his SUV next to hers and got out. She was likely watching out the window. Tanner had updated her on Holloway’s condition and told her that a new marshal would be arriving shortly. Jax had no idea whether the sheriff had given her his name. If he had, she might be waiting behind that door with her weapon drawn. Not that she had any reason to be holding a grudge. He’d asked her to go with him to Seattle, but she had turned him down. No matter that he shouldn’t—didn’t want to—he wondered if she had attempted to track him down at any time during those early years after he left and before she made the mistake of her life.

  Had she even thought of him?

  He hadn’t asked her to marry him, but they had talked about marriage. They had talked about the future and what they each wanted. She’d had expectations. He had recognized this. But that hadn’t stopped him from leaving when an opportunity he couldn’t turn down came his way. She wouldn’t go. Her father was still alive and alone. She didn’t want to move so far away from him. What was he supposed to do? Ignore the offer he had hoped for from the day he decided to join the marshals service?

  That little voice that warned when he had crossed the line shouted at him now. He had been selfish. No question. But he’d had family, too, and they had been on the West Coast. An unwinnable situation.

  He walked up to the porch. Climbed the steps and crossed to the door. Aware she was certainly watching, he raised his fist and knocked.

  She didn’t say a word or make a sound, but he felt her on the other side of the door. Only inches from him. He closed his eyes and recalled her scent. Soft, subtle. She always smelled like lemons. Never wore makeup. She had the most beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen.

  The door opened and she stood there, looking exactly the way she had ten years ago—no makeup, no fussy hairdo, just Ali. The big black Lab the sheriff had told him about stood next to her.

  For one long moment, she stared at him and he stared at her.

  He inhaled a breath, acknowledged the scent of her—the scent he would have recognized anywhere.

  “Say it.”

  For a moment he felt confused at her statement.

  “Say it,” she repeated. “I’m not letting you inside until you do.”

  He understood then. “Superhero.”

  She stepped back and he walked in. The door closed behind him, locks tumbled into place. The dog sniffed him, eyeing him suspiciously.

  She scratched the Lab’s head and the dog settled down. “No one told me you were the one coming.”

  She stood close to the wall on his left, beyond arm’s reach. She looked thinner than before. Fear glittered in her eyes. Beyond the fear was something else. A weariness. Sadness, too, he concluded.

  “I didn’t know it was you until I arrived in Winchester.” He held her gaze, refused to let her off the hook. He didn’t want this to be easy. Appreciating her discomfort was low. He knew this, and still, he couldn’t help it. “I’m glad I’m the one Holloway called. I want to help. If that’s okay with you.”

  “I’m certain Marshal Holloway wouldn’t have called you if you weren’t up to the task.” She shrugged. “As for the past, it was a long time ago. It’s hardly relevant now.”

  She was right. It had been a long time. Still, the idea that she played it off so nonchalantly didn’t sit so well. No need for her to know the resentment or whatever the hell it was he harbored related to her decisions or the whirlwind of emotions she had reeling inside him now. This was work. Business. The job. It wasn’t personal.

  He hitched a thumb toward the door. “I picked up a pizza. It’s a little early for lunch, but I was on the road at the crack of dawn this morning.”

  “Make yourself at home. You don’t need my permission to eat.”

  No, he did not. “I’ll grab my bag and the pizza.”

  He walked out to his SUV. He took a breath. Struggled to slow his heart rate. He had an assignment to complete and it was essential he pulled his head out of the past and focused on the present. What happened ten years ago or five years ago was irrelevant. What mattered was now. Keeping her safe. Getting her in that courtroom to put a scumbag away.

  He grabbed his bag and the pizza and headed back to the cabin. She opened the door for him and then locked the four dead bolts. He placed the pizza on the table and dropped his bag by the sofa. He imagined that would be his bed for the foreseeable future. The place didn’t look large enough to have two bedrooms.

  “This is Bob, by the way,” she said of the dog, who stayed at her side.

  He nodded. “Nice to meet you, Bob.”

  Bob stared at him with a healthy dose of either skepticism or continued suspicion.

  “Would you like water or a cola?”

  Since beer was out of the question, he went for a cola. She walked to the fridge and grabbed two. On the way to the table she snagged the roll of paper towels from the counter and brought that along, as well. She sat down directly across the table. Apparently she had decided to join him. He passed her a slice, grabbed one of his own and then dug in. Eating would prevent the need for conversation. If he chewed slowly enough, he could drag this out for a while.

  She sipped her drink. “You married?”

  He was surprised she asked. Left her open for his questions. And he really wanted a number of answers from her. At the moment dealing with all the emotions and sensations related to just being in the room with her was all he could handle.

  “No. Never engaged. Never married.”

  Silence dragged on for another minute or so while they ate. Keeping his attention away from her lips as she ate proved more difficult than he’d expected. Frankly, he was grateful when she polished off the last bit.

  “Technically,” she pointed out as she reached for a second slice, “we were engaged—informally.”

  He went still, startled that his heart didn’t do the same. He hadn’t expected her to bring that up under the circumstances. “Technically,” he repeated. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “How long were you in Seattle?”

  “Until last year.” He wiped his hands on a napkin. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “It was a tough time.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it was.” He had come so close to attending the funeral, but he wasn’t sure he would have been welcome.

  He bit into his pizza to prevent asking if that was why she’d run into the arms of a criminal. Had she wanted someone to take care of her? A sugar daddy or whatever? Fury lit inside him. He forced the thoughts away. It didn’t matter that they had spent months passionately focused on each other, practically inseparable. That had been a long time ago. Whatever they had back then was long gone by the time she married Armone. All this emotion was unnecessary. Pointless. Frustrating as hell, actually.

  “What about your parents?” She dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Your sister?”

  “The parents are doing great. Retired to Florida. Is that cliché or what?” He managed a smile. Hoped to lighten the situation.

  She looked completely at ease. Calm. Maybe he was the only one having trouble.

  Her lips lifted into a small smile. “A little.”

  “My sister is married with three kids.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how she does it.”

  “She’s lucky.”

  “You have kids?” He knew the answer, but he didn’t know the reason.

  “No. He didn’t want children. He had two with his first wife.” She stared at the pizza box for a moment. “Looking back, I was very fortunate he didn’t.”

  For now, he guided the conversation away from the bastard she’d married. So he asked another question to which he also had the answer. “You were determined to finish school. Did you manage?”

  “I did. With taking care of my father, it took forever, but I finally got it done.”

  “That’s great.”

  More of that suffocating silence. He stared at the pizza, and suddenly had no appetite.

  “Your career is going well?” she asked.

  “It is. The work is challenging and fulfilling.”

  She stood. “Thank you for the pizza.”

  He watched as she carried her napkin and cola can to the trash. She stood at the sink and stared out the window.

  The urge to demand how she could have married a man like Harrison Armone burned on his tongue, but he swallowed it back.

  “I think maybe they should send someone else.”

  Her words surprised him. He stood, the legs of his chair scraping across the wood floor. “Why? I see no reason we can’t put the past behind us.”

  She turned to face him but stayed right where she was, her fingers gripping the edge of the countertop as if she feared gravity would fail her. “If he finds me, he will kill me. If you’re in the way, he’ll kill you, too.”

  Don’t miss Witness Protection Widow by Debra Webb, available February 2020 wherever Harlequin® books and ebooks are sold.

  www.Harlequin.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Debra Webb

  ISBN-13: 9781488085802

  The Lies We Tell

  Copyright © 2019 by Debra Webb

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  Debra Webb, The Lies We Tell

 

 

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