meetings with people who really mattered. I should have asked more questions, been more careful. I got cocky. When the world came crashing down around me, I had no idea who had the kind of power necessary to do the job so smoothly. I couldn’t go home…I couldn’t bring this kind of insanity into my parents’ lives. So I bolted. I cleared out my savings and took off.”
“Your parents wouldn’t have helped you?”
Annie’s throat tightened and she couldn’t breathe for a moment as she remembered the last conversation with her mom. “Yes, they would have. And it would have killed them. I knew I was the weak link. The patsy. I assumed Christian was behind everything, and if that were true, I didn’t stand a chance. He had me completely fooled from the beginning.”
“They couldn’t convict you with no evidence.”
She looked at him. “Seriously?”
Tucker waved away his comment. “Never mind.”
“Anyway, if it started looking too bad for Christian, who’s to say he wouldn’t have created a paper trail leading to me?” She expected more reaction from Tucker. That perhaps he would leap to his brother’s defense, but no. Nothing. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I was convicted or not. The key to successful fundraising is credibility and integrity. No one would hire me or work with me again after they discovered the money was taken under my watch. And frankly, I was mortified. For myself and my family. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing anyone I knew. I’d been just hungry enough that no one would ever believe I was innocent.”
“And what about your family? Any contact?”
“I left them a letter, and sent a few hard-to-trace postcards. I haven’t spoken to them since I walked away.”
Tucker’s fingers touched hers as she passed his chair, making her jump. Her face flamed again, her eyes filled with tears no amount of willpower could hold back any longer. “I screwed up everything,” she said. “Every part, except for one.”
Now it was her hand around his wrist. As tight as she could hold on. “No matter what happens to me, you need to promise that you won’t let Safe Haven suffer. I’ve got the rest of the twenty thousand to return to you, and I can cancel the tractor engine. But the animals, they really need this place. It’s terrible here in winter. You don’t know.”
“I’m not taking any money back,” he said, standing to face her. “Annie, I’m not here to bring you trouble. I want to help you. We can find a way to clear your name. Together. You’ve done wonders here. I meant what I said about the foundation. Which is real, by the way.”
She sat back down in her chair, pulling her hands away from him and into her lap. “I still don’t understand. Why would you want to clear my name? What about Christian? I haven’t heard a single word about him since I left.”
“He’s in Bali.”
“Bali?”
Tucker nodded. “He left the country after he discovered I’d found you.”
“What?”
“He used a fake passport.”
So he knew his brother was guilty. Yet he still wanted to help her? Her pulse raced out of control. “Has he been hiding the money all this time?”
Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know. The private detective has uncovered some issues with gambling. Up till the day the theft was reported, he’d done well with the investments. He would have made a number of great connections, considering your donors. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for a man who was trying to build a career to decide stealing would be a better plan. Especially when You consider the amount.”
Thinking back, Annie shook her head. “Wait. You said real danger. What did you mean?”
DESPITE THE REASONABLE TONE of Annie’s voice and the fact that she wasn’t shaking nearly so hard, Tucker found it physically painful not to comfort her. He wanted so much to pull her close, to kiss her, tell her not to be afraid. It killed him that he was causing her fear.
He returned to his chair, determined to tell her every detail. He explained about the bookies, repeating his conversation with George. Especially the part where nothing pointed at her complicity in the embezzlement.
“Then I should call the district attorney’s office now,” she said, no longer looking at him. Her gaze had lost its sharpness as she stared at the table. “No, tomorrow morning. They won’t be there now. The sooner I let them know where I am, the better.”
“What, no. I haven’t finished.”
That got her attention again. God, this had to be so difficult. She’d been living in a cave, for all intents and purposes. Making her life as small as she possibly could. He remembered every word her friends had said about her. How she dedicated herself exclusively to the sanctuary. Now he understood that every selfless act had been one of contrition. Atonement for sins she’d never committed.
He’d pulled her out into the spotlight, unprepared, lulled into feeling safe by his attention. He wished he’d done everything differently, although for the life of him, he couldn’t see what he could have done instead. “These men…These bookies have been known to go after family, after associates.”
“But if Christian took the money from the accounts, why didn’t he use it to pay them off?”
“For all I know, he did. He’s been borrowing a lot from my mother.”
“A lot.”
Tucker nodded. “I can’t be sure, but I think it’s in the hundreds of thousands. Maybe I’m wrong. God, I don’t want to be right because, as it is, he’s broken my mother’s heart by leaving the country. She thinks he’s on vacation.”
“Could he be?”
Tucker’s gut tightened as he stared at her. Still so trusting, so ready to believe better of Christian. “I doubt it, considering his timing and the fact that he used a fake passport. I never knew he had a gambling problem until yesterday. I didn’t understand the severity of the situation until the conversation you partially overheard.”
She sat with that for a while, the quiet only broken by a nicker from outside, the chirping of birds still out at the end of the day. “Even if he’s still in trouble with the bookies, why would they think I would be useful to them? I’ve been gone for years.”
“That’s the point. You need to stay gone. Until we can figure out how to take care of this mess. I know for a fact the New York police have tried and failed to get at these bastards. No one will testify. They have people terrified. Until we know what made Christian run, I can’t risk you like that.”
“You can’t risk me.”
He hadn’t meant to say it like that, but he wasn’t about to take it back. “You’re too important to me, Annie. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to protect you.”
Her sigh wasn’t one of affection or comfort. She sounded frustrated and the look she gave him was one he never hoped to see again. “You’ve already helped me enough.”
“I never would have—”
Annie
