his father’s son, despite his having his father’s eyes. The same eyes that her son had.
His stepmother had still demanded a DNA test before she had stopped fighting for control of her dead husband’s estate. She hadn’t stopped slinging the accusations though. She had obviously been the source of so many of the stories about him, such as the one that Brendan had killed his father for vengeance and money. She had even talked to Josie back then to warn her away from a dangerous man.
Given the battle with his stepmother and the constant media attention, Josie could understand that Brendan would need a quiet place to get away from it all. And it might have occurred to someone else that he would need such a place.
“But they can find out.” Somehow, someone had found out she was alive.
“They didn’t,” he assured her. “It’s safe.” And despite her nails digging into the back of his hand, he turned the key.
She held her breath, but nothing happened. Then he turned the knob. And still nothing happened, even as the door opened slightly. She expelled a shaky sigh, but she was still tense, still scared.
Perhaps to reassure her even more, he added, “My name’s not on the lease.”
Just as her name was not on the title of her vehicle or the deed to her house.
Did Brendan O’Hannigan have other identities as well? But why? What was he hiding?
All those years ago she had suspected plenty and she had dug deep, but had found nothing. She had never found this place. Back then she would have been elated if he’d brought her here, since he was more likely to keep his secrets in a clandestine location. But when he pushed the door all the way open and stepped back for her to enter, she hesitated.
There was no gas. No bomb. No fire. Nothing to stop her from stepping inside but her own instincts.
“You lost your can of mace,” he said. “You can’t spray me in the face like you intended.”
She gasped in surprise that he’d realized her intentions back at the mansion. “Why didn’t you take it from me?”
He shrugged. “By the time I noticed you held it, I was distracted.”
He must have smelled the gas, too.
“And then you were saving me instead of hurting me,” he reminded her with a smile. “If you were really afraid of me, if you really wanted me gone from your life, you could have just let me blow up.”
She glanced down at the child he held so tenderly in his arms. “I—I couldn’t do that.”
No matter how much she might fear him, she didn’t hate him. She didn’t want him dead.
“Why?” he asked, his eyes intense as he stared at her over the child in his arms.
“I—I …”
Her purse vibrated, the cell phone inside silently ringing.
“You lost the mace but you didn’t lose your phone,” he remarked. “You can answer it.”
She fumbled inside and pulled out the phone. That phone, so it had to be Charlotte. Earlier Josie had wanted desperately to talk to the former marshal. But now she hesitated, as she paused outside his secret place.
“You need to talk to your handler,” Brendan advised. “Tell him—”
“Her,” she automatically corrected him. But she didn’t add that technically she no longer had a handler. When the marshals had failed to find any evidence of his involvement in the attempts on her life, they’d determined they no longer needed to protect her. “Her name is Charlotte Green.” Despite neither of them really being associated with the marshals any longer, the woman continued to protect Josie—if only from afar.
“Tell her that you’re safe,” he said. And as if to give her privacy, he carried their son across the threshold and inside the apartment.
Josie followed him with her gaze but not her body. She hesitated just inside the doorway, but finally she clicked the talk button on the phone. “Charlotte?”
“JJ, I’ve been so worried about you!” the other woman exclaimed.
That made two of them. But Josie hadn’t been worried about just herself. She watched Brendan lay their child on a wide, low sofa. It was a darker shade of gray than the walls and cement floor. But the whole place was monochromatic, which was just different shades of drab to her.
Despite what he’d said, the space didn’t look much like an apartment and nothing like a home. As if worried that the boy would roll off the couch and strike the floor, Brendan laid down pillows next to him. He might have just discovered that he was a father, but he had good paternal instincts. He was a natural protector.
And no matter what she’d read or suspected about him, Josie had actually always felt safe with him. Protected. Despite thinking that she should have feared him or at least not trusted him, she’d struggled to come up with a specific reason why. She had no proof that he’d ever tried to hurt her.
Or anyone else.
Maybe all those stories about him had only been stories—told by a bitter woman who’d been disinherited by a heartless and unpitying man.
“JJ?” the female voice emanated from her phone as Charlotte prodded her for a reply.
“I’m okay,” she assured the former marshal and current friend.
“And CJ?” Charlotte asked after the boy who’d been named for her.
She had been in the delivery room, holding Josie’s hand, offering her support and encouragement. She hadn’t just relocated Josie and left her. Even after she’d left the U.S. Marshals, she had remained her friend.
But the past six months Charlotte hadn’t called or emailed, hadn’t checked in with Josie at all, almost as if she’d forgotten about her.
“Is CJ okay?” Charlotte asked again, her voice cracking with concern for her godson.
“He had a scare,” Josie replied, “but he’s safe.” While she wasn’t entirely sure how safe she really was with him, she had no doubt that Brendan would protect his son.
The other woman cursed. “They found you? That was part of the reason I haven’t been calling.”
Betrayal struck Josie with all the force of one of the bullets fired at her that evening. “You knew someone was looking for me?”
If Josie had had any idea, she wouldn’t have risked bringing CJ to meet his grandfather. Maybe Josie had trusted the wrong person all these years ….
“I only just found that out a few weeks ago,” Charlotte explained. “Before that I had been unreachable for six months.”
“Unreachable?” Her journalistic instincts told her there was more to the story, and Josie wanted to know all of it. “Why were you unreachable?”
“Because I was kidnapped.”
She
