“Not your fault.” He snapped on his blinker and turned onto her street. “You didn’t ask those men to try and kidnap you.”
She turned away and looked out the window.
The clock on the dash read 11:37 when he pulled into her drive next to a van. “Is that your aunt’s car?”
“It’s supposed to give her the feeling of mobility by allowing her to get out on her own, but she doesn’t like to drive so I still have to take her everywhere.”
He didn’t hear any resentment in her voice, just fatigue. Which after the night she’d had, running through the forest and fighting for her life, didn’t surprise him. “Was she in an accident?”
Sienna nodded. “It was before I woke up with no memory. She doesn’t really talk about it, but I found a newspaper article online. A drunk driver hit her car late at night, and now she’s paralyzed from the waist down. She has a nurse come in every morning to help her shower and dress, but I help her the rest of the time.”
Parker didn’t know what to say, so he cracked the door and climbed out. A light over the porch flooded the front of the house with its fluorescent glare. Not a motion sensor. That would have been triggered by the vehicle pulling in. A heat sensor, then? Not many small-town residents had security like that. Parker wanted to meet this aunt of hers.
He waited for Sienna to circle the SUV and then took her hand. Because he wanted to. Because they were both tired, and they could have died tonight. It wasn’t about what he wished could have been, or what they might have had between them had she shown up in Atlanta. It was only about providing the comfort of friendship when they’d both had a bad day.
The front steps had been overlaid with a wood ramp. When Parker stepped his foot on it, a buzzer inside dinged—like a doorbell. They reached the front door just as it swung open to reveal a stout woman in a wheelchair.
With dark hair plastered on her head, she looked like a stern schoolmarm. A fact that was confirmed when she stuck her fingers on her hips and barked, “Took you long enough to get home. Did you get lost?”
Sienna grabbed a gray cardigan from a hook inside the door and pulled it on over the shirt she wore, like armor. “Sorry, Aunt Karen. We got here as soon as we could. Why don’t you head to bed? We’ve all had a long day.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
The woman chuckled, an awkward, rusty sound. “You look more than worse for wear. Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Like she didn’t know exactly who he was? Because he’d met her before under entirely different circumstances. And he knew she was CIA. Why was she acting like this was a cover story for a mission?
Karen glanced at Parker, and he lifted an eyebrow in question. Then “Aunt Karen” pinned him with a stare Sienna didn’t catch and shook her head. Did she think she was fooling anyone? Parker wasn’t sure why he was willing to go along with it, but if there was a chance it was for Sienna’s benefit, he would.
At least until he got an explanation as to why Sienna’s CIA handler was here, pretending to be her relative.
Karen glanced between them. “How about I make us some tea? Why don’t you take a hot shower, get warmed up? Your young man and I can get acquainted.”
Sienna glanced at him.
Parker wasn’t going anywhere right then.
She sighed. “Okay, that actually sounds good. I’ll be back down in a minute.”
“You take your time.” Karen wheeled herself into the kitchen.
The corner of Sienna’s mouth curled up. “She’s a little...abrasive, but her bark is worse than her bite.”
“That’s good to know.” Parker squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big tough guy who fights off kidnappers, remember?”
It was supposed to be a joke, but he knew she didn’t take it that way when her eyes darkened. “I remember.”
“Sorry.” He took a step of retreat toward the kitchen. “I’ll make small talk while you clean up.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Why are you staying? It’s late, and you’re more tired than I am.”
He couldn’t tell her that “Aunt Karen” had some explaining to do. So he said, “I don’t want to leave right away if there’s a chance they might come back. I’ll stick around for a little while and then head out. If that’s okay with you.”
She nodded. Honestly, she looked relieved. But Parker didn’t let that sink too far down. His heart didn’t need any more encouragement. Sienna turned to the hall and left him alone in the foyer.
Karen rolled to the doorway. “Kitchen. Now.”
Parker followed because it was the only way he was going to get answers.
The phone on the counter rang.
Karen grabbed the wheels of her chair.
“I’ll get it!” Sienna’s yell came from down the hall.
Karen shook her head and turned back to Parker.
“Seriously?” was all he said as he folded his arms and leaned his hips against the kitchen counter while he waited for Karen to give him some kind of answer for all of this. Sienna was out of earshot at least, on the phone by the sound of it. That meant he could talk freely with her “aunt.”
The older woman pinned him with a stare. It was no less effective, though he and Karen were no longer on the same eye level as when he’d last seen her two years ago. “I’m not going to tell Sienna who she really is. And you can’t, either.”
“What happened to you?”
“I was hit by a drunk driver. Sienna didn’t tell you? It happened while she was in a coma, so when she woke up, it was decided that I would stay with her.”
Parker said, “You’re lying about being her aunt so you can be here when she remembers whatever it is the CIA wants her to recall?”
“Yes.” There was no guilt in Karen’s expression, but then there never had been. Nor any pity when she’d found him in a sorry state just days after Sienna’s no-show. The day she’d stiffly told him to drop it, to let Sienna be and to go on with his life. To forget about her, like he could do that. Like there was no hope a CIA agent and a SEAL could find happiness together.
“What did Sienna forget that is so important?”
* * *
Sienna grabbed the phone off the desk. “Hello?”
The landline was down the hall in the office, where Aunt Karen holed up most of the day working on what she called her “correspondence.” Sienna figured she just read romance novels, given how many paperback books regularly showed up in the mail.
A sigh of relief was the first thing she heard. “Are you okay?”
“Uh...yes.”
