wished she had. She wanted his arms around her like they were around his nephews and niece.
“They’re so many of you,” he murmured. “You have your own Brady Bunch, Buster.”
“There are only four—five counting Carl,” she said. “But he had to go to work.”
“Is that why you came home?”
She bit her lip and shook her head.
“It’s because of what you heard on the radio?” He glanced at his niece. “About the castle tea?”
Buster nodded.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I had no idea you would have heard...” He stopped himself. “That’s right—there was a trooper along for backup.”
“Since you’re fine, us troopers must be good for something, huh, Mr. Special Agent?” Her green eyes twinkled as she teased him.
He shrugged. “I had a couple other special agents along,” he said. “That’s why I’m fine.”
She gently punched his shoulder. Then she turned to where Maggie sat on the kitchen chair, watching them and wishing she was part of their loving family. Buster must have seen that longing because she reached out for Maggie’s hand and tugged her up from the chair. Buster sighed and remarked, “You are so beautiful pregnant. If I’d looked like you, instead of a beached whale, I might have had a couple more.”
“God help us,” Blaine muttered.
He already had as far as Maggie was concerned, since he’d brought Blaine safely back to his family. And her...
But he wasn’t hers. He had yet to even look at her. Maybe he was mad that she was at his sister’s home—endangering his sister’s beautiful family.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you didn’t want me here. We can leave now.”
Buster stared at her with wide eyes, urging her to tell Blaine her feelings. But Maggie shook her head. It was obvious to her that he didn’t want her love. Why couldn’t his sister see the emotional distance he’d put between himself and Maggie?
“We’ll leave in a little while,” he said, finally speaking directly to her. But still, he wouldn’t look at her. Instead he turned back to Buster. “Can we have a few minutes alone? Maybe in the sunroom?”
Buster nodded. “Of course.”
He took Maggie’s arm and drew her from the kitchen through a set of French doors off the family room. He pulled the doors closed behind him, shutting them alone in a solarium of windows. But the sun had already dropped, so the room was growing dark and cold.
Maggie shivered.
“If you’re cold—”
“No, I’m fine,” she said. “Why do you want to talk to me privately?” Did he want to yell at her for endangering his family? “I told Buster it was a bad idea to bring me back here.”
“Buster rarely listens to anyone but herself,” he replied. “Poor Carl...”
She suspected that Carl was a very lucky man, and that he was smart enough to know it. No matter how much she joked about her husband, it was obvious that Buster loved him very much.
The way Maggie loved Blaine...
“Why did you want me alone?” she asked again. She tamped down the hope that threatened to burgeon—the hope that he wanted to tell her his feelings.
But that hope deflated when he finally replied, “I have to show you something.”
Instinctively she knew it wasn’t something she would want to see. He didn’t even want to show it to her. He had to...and even without his choice of words, she would have picked up on his reluctance from the gruffness of his voice.
“Did you find the letters?” she asked. If they’d been at the cabin and if it had been used as a hideout, then the robberies were her fault. She shouldn’t have talked so much about the bank. Her mother was right; she had always talked too much. Even though she hadn’t given out security passwords or anything, she’d talked too much about her duties as the assistant manager. And it wasn’t as if Andy had actually been interested; she’d just rambled.
“Yes, I found your letters,” he replied. But he didn’t hold them out for her to look at; he held out a photograph instead.
She didn’t look at it. First she had to know, “What’s this?”
“You tell me,” he said as he lifted it toward her face. “Is it Andy?”
Her heart leaped again. Was it possible that Andy was alive? But then she looked at the picture. The man in it wasn’t alive. And he wasn’t Andy, either.
“Why would you think that was Andy?” She’d thought he had realized that Mr. Doremire had been drunk and delusional when he’d made those wild claims about Andy faking his death and the Marines covering it up.
“He had on Andy’s dog tags.”
The dog tags that his father claimed had never been found. No wonder Blaine had thought it was Andy. She shook her head.
“He must have been mistaken,” she said. And with as much as he drank, it would be understandable.
“The dog tags must have been in his personal effects along with the letters,” she explained. “His brother must have taken them when he took the letters.”
“Now you think Mark took the dog tags?” he asked.
She pointed at the photo. “That’s Mark, so he must have, since he was wearing them when he died.”
“You’re sure that’s Mark?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him from the security footage.” But he did look different dead. He didn’t look like the smiling man on the television monitor.
Blaine released a ragged breath as if he had been holding it for a while, maybe since he’d found the body and had thought it was Andy. “I think he’s the robber I shot at the bank.”
Shock and regret had her gasping. She remembered that horrific moment—remembered Blaine firing back at the man who’d shot the security guard. “You think he’s the one who killed Sarge?”
Mark had been like her big brother, too. He had always seemed as sweet and easygoing as Andy had been, and he had adored his younger brother. How could he have killed a man that Andy had loved? A man she had loved, as well?
Sarge had been so kind and supportive after Andy’s death. He had kept checking on her. Maybe he had made a promise to Andy. Mark must not have. Or, if he had, it was a promise he’d broken.
Blaine nodded. “He was wearing a vest that was too small for him. I got a shot into his side. He bled out from the wound.”
“Nobody got him help?” she asked, horrified that his coconspirators
