That was the moment Tad knew she’d placed her trust in him.
Chantel suggested they hole up in a safe but off-the-grid hotel for the night. And call her back in the morning.
“She said they’re watching your dad,” Tad relayed to her as they looked for a place. “He drove around like a maniac for hours, she said, checking every place you’ve been in the past week.”
“He was there all that time, watching me.”
He thought so, too.
“And then he bought a bottle of whiskey and is holed up at your place. He has to realize you aren’t going back to the cottage with him there.”
“I’ve given up trying to figure out what he knows. My guess is he’s planning. And has to have somewhere to sleep. He believes he owns us, so he owns my house, too. Believes he has a right to be there. Could be he’s searching through all my things, looking for whatever he can use to get to me.”
“He did that a lot, didn’t he? Find out what hurt you, what you cared about, what made you vulnerable, and then used it against you.”
“He used it to get me to go along with him.”
It would be best if the chief caught a plane to North Carolina and then hoped that Tad never had cause to return to the state.
“I’m going to put my house in Charlotte on the market,” he told her. It was something he’d thought about doing. “Have everything packed up and shipped out here.”
She stared at him in the half light. “This marriage. It was just to get me away from him. You don’t have to go through with it.”
He’d spotted a motel and pulled in. Turned to her. “I want to go through with it,” he said. “If you do.”
She touched his face, studied his eyes. “I do, Tad. But I’m scared. I’m just so scared.”
He nodded. Started to tell her he was afraid, too, but went inside to get them a room instead.
* * *
The sun was shining when Miranda woke up the next morning. She didn’t know where she was at first, and then felt a leg brush up against hers.
She was in her jeans. On top of a bed with a blanket over her. Tad was lying there next to her, watching her.
Turning her head, she saw Ethan, still in his clothes, asleep under the covers of the other bed.
“Guess we didn’t have to worry about shocking him,” Tad said, glancing over at the boy, who was so zonked his mouth hung open and drool trailed from his mouth down to his pillow.
She wanted to say that she was there, in that hotel room, married, for Ethan’s sake. That she was doing it all for him.
“I want a life,” she said softly, looking back at Tad. “I love him so much, I’d give my life for him, but I want a life, too. I want a partner, someone I can talk to when I’m scared or worried or so proud of Ethan I could burst. I want to make love on a regular basis. To not sleep alone. I want to be able to open my heart and love. Really love. Without fear.”
He traced her lips with his finger. Ran his hand along her neck.
“I want all that, too,” he told her. “But only if I can have it with you.”
She could feel a tear drip from her eye down to the pillow. She was crying so much lately, as though all the emotion she’d bottled up for so long couldn’t be contained anymore. There was no room for it.
She’d taken on as much as she could.
Clasping his hand, she brought it to her lips. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he said. “And Ethan, too, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.”
His love for Ethan wasn’t anything she’d worried about. Strange how she could accept it for her son, but was struggling so hard to allow it for herself.
“I suspect the fear’s become a part of you,” Tad said. “It’s like you said, when you grow up with it...”
She nodded.
“But it’s a part of you that makes you who you are,” he told her. “You’re more aware, more compassionate. You don’t take things for granted.”
She took a deep breath, and then took a huge leap. “You don’t think it makes me crazy?”
He didn’t gush. Or exclaim. Either would have been hard to take.
“Do you think I’m crazy for diving through that door and saving that little girl?” he asked.
“Of course not! You saved her life.”
“I acted, at least in part, because of what had happened to my sister. In the process, I put others’ lives at risk.”
“That’s understandable, Tad. Not crazy.”
“Exactly.”
* * *
“We should probably wake him up and get going.” As much as Tad wanted to lie in bed talking with Miranda, his wife, he couldn’t do that easily until he knew they were settled. That Brian O’Connor was either on a plane or in jail. Miranda could request a restraining order against the man, that would probably be granted on a temporary basis, until she could get proof that her father had obtained papers to have her evaluated without her actually having been examined in the last ten years. At that point she’d probably be granted a full restraining order. For a period of time.
She couldn’t prove prior abuse, but she could testify about it to a judge for a restraining order.
He’d talked to her about it the night before, and it was already on their agenda for that day.
They had breakfast at a diner up the road and then Ethan was settled in the back. He’d chosen the third seat this time, and he was watching another movie as they headed back across the desert.
“I was thinking... I’d like to go into private detective work,” he told Miranda as they drove, and it occurred to him that if their marriage was real, he wasn’t alone anymore. He should include her in life-changing decisions. “Not regular PI work, that’s not me, but working domestic violence cases, you know, for the High Risk Team. Maybe hire myself out to police departments. The Lemonade Stand. Individuals. As long as I’m licensed in the state, I could do any of it.”
The plan was fluid. But he was liking it so far.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Miranda told him. And then asked, “Would you want to move? Into a different place, I mean?”
He’d been thinking about that, too.
“All those things you said last night,” he began, “about what you wanted... You didn’t mention babies. Do you want any more?”
He hadn’t thought he did. Or ever would. But he’d been wrong about a lot of things.
“With you? I’d have one tomorrow if we could,” she told him. “I did it all alone, with Ethan.”
He took her hand. “Then yes, I’d want to move eventually. We’ll need a third bedroom, at least. But I’d like to stay in Santa Raquel, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She nodded.
And as he turned onto the highway that would lead them the rest of the way across the desert, he felt something he’d never expected to feel again.
Like he was going home.
* * *
They’d just stopped for lunch and were about an hour from home when Tad’s burner phone rang. He’d asked Miranda to wait to put her SIM card back into her phone, and he hadn’t put his in, either. Not until they knew more about her father’s plans.
Their plan, as determined mostly by Chantel, was for Tad to take Miranda and Ethan to The Lemonade Stand, where an attorney would meet her to fill out paperwork for a restraining order, while Chantel tried to talk to Brian and get him to leave town willingly.
She listened while Tad talked, surmising from the conversation that it was Chantel. And then realized, when he mentioned North Carolina, that it wasn’t. He was talking to a woman; she could hear enough of the voice to know that. And didn’t like how proprietary she felt.
Or how threatened.
“That was Gail,” he told her as he hung up. “Good news!”
She’d gathered that from hi
s tone of voice. “Chief Fire Marshal Brian O’Connor is back in North Carolina,” he said. “Apparently he chartered a plane, and just landed.”
Right. Her father was a millionaire now. He could charter planes. She didn’t care about his money.
“He left,” she said, hardly believing it. “Gail’s sure? Someone’s physically seen him?”
“He’s at his office right now.”
“Chantel told him we were married,” she guessed.
As she said that, his phone rang again. This time it was Chantel. She explained that she hadn’t wanted to call until she knew the chief had landed on North Carolina soil, but now it was confirmed, Tad relayed when he got off the phone.
“Apparently he saw reason in Chantel’s point that if he ever hoped to have a chance to talk you into seeing him again, and letting him see his grandson, he should go home and wait for you to contact him,” Tad said.
She couldn’t believe it.
She’d won?
“Maybe seeing me reminded him why it was best that he not spend a lot of time around me,” she said. “He’s happier without the constant reminder of my mom. Or maybe seeing his grandson really does matter more.” Loving Ethan like she did, she got that.
“And maybe seeing you again reminded him how much he loves you, and with the health scare giving him a new perspective, he doesn’t want to grow old alone.”
“He could get away with beating me up, manipulating and controlling me back then. He could do it without risk to his reputation. He’d never get away with kidnapping Ethan. I guess his need to do good in the community really is the stronger part of him.” She wanted to hope so.
“He wasn’t always an abuser,” Tad said, as though wanting to help her believe that her father could change.
Time would tell.
“If I ever see him again, or introduce him to Ethan as his grandfather, we aren’t going to do it alone,” she said. “You’re there or it doesn’t happen.”
His expression was serious as he looked over at her. “You love me.”
“Yes, I do. More than I ever thought I’d be able to love anyone but Ethan.”
“I love you, too. With all of me.”
They were words she trusted.
* * *
If you enjoyed this great romance,
keep an eye out for the next book in the
Where Secrets are Safe miniseries,
available in March 2020!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Colton on the Run by Anna J. Stewart.
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Colton on the Run
by Anna J. Stewart
Chapter 1
A thin beam of sunlight streamed against her aching, heavy lids.
She blinked. The simple, ordinary action sent blades of pain slicing through her head. Her stomach churned as bile rose in her throat. She cried out, but the sound barely reached her own ears, caught behind the taut tape stretched across her mouth. Her eyes widened before blurring against the dim light. She tried to tug her arms forward, but they wouldn’t move. Her wrists strained against the rough rope wrapped so tight she couldn’t feel her fingers.
Her mind cleared, but in stages, slowed by the pain and confusion coursing through her. Her ears buzzed. Her head throbbed. Gray tinged the edge of her vision as she tried to hold on to consciousness.
Something harsh and scratchy scraped against the side of her face as she rolled from her side onto her back. The smell of rotting, moldy hay and old dirt made her choke and lose her breath. Above the ringing in her ears, she heard the chill-inducing scrapings of tiny paws and claws skittering as creatures darted back to their hiding places.
Other than that... She took a deep breath and held it. The world pounded in silence.
Her heart vibrated like a jackhammer against her chest, competing with the earsplitting thudding in her head. Long tendrils of hair caught across her sweaty face and obscured her vision as she winced up at the gaping, worn holes of what must have once been a shed.
She turned her head, scanning the room in the dimming light. Old, warped slats of wood sagged against one another as if about to surrender. Rough, uneven, knotted planks gouged splinters into the sides of her hands, through the fabric of her shirt and deep into the skin on her back as she shifted position. The more she moved, the more every inch of her body ached and burned. Angry, frightened tears she couldn’t hold back trailed down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, desperately searching her memory for how she’d gotten here. What had happened? Where was she? Who had done this to her?
A new tendril of fear curled up from her toes, twining through her body, choking the air from her lungs.
She didn’t know. She had no answers for any of those questions. She had...nothing. A sob escaped her control. Her mind was empty.
Don’t cry. She squeezed her eyes tighter until all she could feel was the pain in her head. Can’t cry. Crying won’t help. Nothing would help except getting out of wherever she was and maybe, hopefully, finding someone to help her.
Help. There was no help to be found here. She had only herself to rely on.
Stop panicking! Giving in to hysteria would only muddle her brain and make it even more difficult to breathe. Breathe. In. Out. In...out.
It took minutes, each passing second echoing in her skull like a sledgehammer against her brain, but she was able to force herself to relax. Muscle by muscle, extremity by extremity. She took a long, shaky breath and turned her head one way, then the other, attempting to get her bearings. A small, square, grime-covered window was situated above a forlorn rider mower with a deflated tire. A table saw, tools and equipment that looked to have been stashed there back at the turn of the century sat against the wall. Ropes, twine and tools hung suspended from rotting cords and blackened or rusted nails. She pushed herself up, dragged her sore legs under her, her bare feet scraping against the raw wood.
Bare feet. She didn’t even have on shoes. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to think where they might be.
Breath heavy in her chest, she pushed forward onto her knees. Her legs trembled as she stood, pulling first one foot, then the other, under her. She swayed. Her head spun and her stomach churned as nausea rolled deep and strong. She braced her feet apart, took long, deliberate breaths. She couldn’t afford to vomit. She’d suffocate for sure.
Turning in slow, determined circles, she squinted into the growing darkness to scope out her surroundings. To memorize every detail.
The sun was dipping fast, tak
ing with it her only chance at visibility. She needed to escape before whoever had left her here came back. And they were coming back. They knew she was still alive; why else would they have tied her up and gagged her? They didn’t want her making noise, didn’t want her bringing attention to herself. Which meant she couldn’t be too far from civilization. Right?
Curling her bare, polish-chipped toes into the dirt-caked floorboards, she took a step forward and focused on walking. One step, two. Her legs burned. Another step and then another. The thin thread of light caught against a metal circle with rusted, razor-sharp edges. A quick survey of the shovels, spades and trowels gave her little hope by comparison. She tugged at her arms again, hoping the rope digging into her wrists had given way, but they remained as tight as before.
She arched her back, shook her head to whip her hair behind her shoulders and took a cautious step, angling her bound hands toward the exposed blade of the table saw. Slowly, even as her fear screamed at her to hurry, she attempted to stretch out her numb fingers until she felt the blade against her skin. Her shoulders strained and her thighs burned as she stooped to press the rope solidly against the jagged edges of the saw blade.
Forward, back, up, down. She kept a steady rhythm, increasing her speed when she heard the rope begin to rip. Her hands slipped and the blade sliced against the newly exposed skin. Ouch! She sucked in a breath, choked, but kept cutting. The dizziness was getting worse. Her stomach hurt as it clenched around the rising nausea and panicked pressure.
When her hands finally broke free, she nearly face-planted on the floor. She caught herself on the wall with one hand, digging her broken nails into the soft wood, then tugged at the corner of the tape across her mouth.
She whimpered as the adhesive clung to her cheeks and lips, then, irritated with herself, she ripped it off in one violent yank. This time she surrendered to the urge to bend over, retching even as she gripped the splintering stud of the wall and dragged in lung-expanding air.
Her Detective's Secret Intent Page 24