Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Meredith is gone, Max.”

  He stared at the woman he’d kissed and then run out on. He hadn’t seen her again until she’d knocked on his door twenty minutes later and told him breakfast was ready.

  Her actions indicated that she was willing to respect his privacy. To accept his need to pretend that nothing had happened between them. At least until Steve was caught and Meri was safe.

  “She left where she’d been staying this morning. And you might as well know now, she was at a shelter for abused women.”

  Oh, God. Okay. Calm. Calm. Calm. “What about the unmarked cars watching the place?”

  “They were watching for Steve, for someone trying to break in, not someone leaving. Or she somehow slipped by them. I don’t know. At this point, we believe she was running from Smith all along....”

  “Wait, who’s we? And why? And how do you know she’s gone? A shelter, Chantel? And you didn’t tell me? Which shelter? I called the director of The Lighthouse. They hadn’t heard from her.”

  “They wouldn’t have told you at that point if they had.”

  “Sure they would. We all know each other. I help with the fund-raisers and...”

  “And everything changes the second your wife becomes a resident,” she said. She was leaning against the counter, her arms wrapped around her without a hint of softness anywhere.

  “So that’s where she’s been all this time? At The Lighthouse?”

  “No. She’s been somewhere else. A unique, private place. But where she was doesn’t really matter at this point. She’s gone. She left notes indicating that she wasn’t coming back.”

  “Notes?”

  “For the director and some of the residents.”

  That was so Meri. To care for those around her. And to leave them?

  “She’s never run from a shelter before.”

  “We don’t think she’s running anymore.”

  Max needed to sit down. He was a strong man with healthy muscles. They just weren’t holding him up well. He swayed a moment and found a counter with his backside, letting it bear his weight.

  “The Santa Raquel police force put out a missing person’s alert on her, though technically, she’s still considered to have left on her own.”

  “The entire police force is looking for her? That’s bad, isn’t it? They think she’s in danger. Serious danger.”

  “Don’t you?”

  He didn’t want to think. He wanted to get in his car, go find his wife, bring her home and lock her inside with him and Caleb. For the rest of their lives.

  “Maybe she’s on her way home,” he said. “Did anyone think of that? It’s not like Smith could waltz in here and get her. You said police have been watching the place and if she was at a shelter there’d be security and cameras and every cop in two states is aware of an arrest warrant out for him.” Why wasn’t she thinking of all of these things?

  “She left three hours ago. She’d have made it home by now. And if you want to know the truth, I’d been hoping, all the way here, that I’d walk in that door and find her sitting here with you two. I was going to give you hell for not calling to let me know she was home, and then enjoy your apology....”

  The scenario was a good one. He wanted it.

  She was telling him something else, too. She was ready to join him in welcoming Meredith back into his life if that was what he wanted. She wasn’t holding him to whatever promises she might have hoped for in his kiss. “Maybe she stopped someplace. A store. To pick something up. Meri liked to plan moments, you know like themed dinners to celebrate little things. So, yeah, she’s probably hard at work on some kind of homecoming thing. She’d do it up big, thinking she owed me an explanation or an apology....”

  Or was it him thinking that?

  Chantel’s brown eyes softened for the briefest moment and his stomach started to churn in earnest. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  The woman in his kitchen nodded. “I just didn’t want to have to consider it,” she said. “A team is processing her room now, Max, looking for anything that might help us understand what was going on with her, where she might be and why, but we’ve already got an idea.”

  “What?”

  She watched him. And he could hear the clock ticking down the seconds on Meri’s life. “Tell me.”

  “An older woman...the note she left her said something about the woman having become one of her only true friends...her name’s Renee...she said that Meredith had been doing this research...about the minds of abusers....”

  Chantel was struggling for words.

  And Max understood that she was trying to prepare him for the fact that Meredith was probably already dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  STEVE WAS DRIVING an older green economy car. The same one she’d seen him in the day she’d left Max and Caleb. She couldn’t make out the license plate number as they approached, and it wasn’t as though it was going to matter in any case.

  Either she’d succeed with her plan and the plate wouldn’t matter. Or she wouldn’t and wouldn’t be able to tell anyone the plate number anyway.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, playing her part.

  “I have a house not far from here.”

  “You rented it, you mean?”

  “No. I own it.”

  “You bought a house in Santa Raquel.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?” Talking helped pass the time and block out emotion.

  “Four years ago.”

  “When I married Max.”

  “Just before, actually, and we’re going to have to deal with that, you know,” he said, sending her a sideways glance as he shifted and pulled out into traffic. As soon as they were in a steady line of traffic, Steve’s hand slid from the gear shift to her knee.

  Staking possession. Stating ownership. Whatever.

  He might have her body. But he didn’t and never would own her. That was the difference between then and now.

  And why she might just pull this off.

  When they stopped at a light, Meredith watched as a police car pulled up two lanes over. The officer was looking around him, but didn’t glance their way. Which was fine. It wasn’t as if she was going to ask for help. Or wanted it.

  “So you’ve been living here?”

  “No. I’ve got a place in Nevada. And one in Colorado, too, actually. I just come here when I need a Meredith fix.”

  When he was feeling like less than a man. And then what did he do? Spy on her?

  She prayed to God that was all it was, not something involving unknown innocent women who’d be taken in by his dark good looks and lithe physique.

  “So why contact me after all this time?”

  “Believe it or not, because I love you.”

  His tone had changed and she glanced over once more, catching a glimpse of the man she’d once known in his eyes. The man who’d stolen her young heart and taught her what loving was all about.

  Before he taught her what it wasn’t.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve got enough money for us to do whatever we want to do,” he said. And she wondered from whence it had come. Had wondered when he’d mentioned the home in Colorado. “You have to understand, Meredith....” His tone reminded her of long ago Steve.

  She wondered if something had happened to change him. If maybe this really was just about moving on. About apologizing and letting go.

  “You married a doctor. I knew I was going to have to up my ante if I was going to continue to have any hold on you....”

  He was not changed enough.

  “I’ve spent the past four years taking whatever job had the highest pay, doing some things I’d rather not have done. But I’m the best at what
I do, a lot of people know that, and now I can offer you more than your doctor will ever be able to.”

  He couldn’t. But she didn’t bother trying to explain that it wasn’t about the money. Or that he’d never have enough of anything else to suit her.

  “So that’s it? You think I’m just going to leave Max and our son and get back with you?”

  She’d be flabbergasted if she hadn’t done so much reading over the past couple of weeks.

  “I know you will. Because you know what I will do if you don’t. And you know I’ll get away with it, too.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Not like he thought. Not at all like he thought. She had to keep reminding herself to stay one step ahead of his domineering personality.

  “And you want me that way? Knowing that you had to threaten me to get me here?”

  “I only have to threaten because you have your own issues, sweet Meredith. You needed the family that I wouldn’t give you. I understand that now. So I’m prepared to give it to you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m going to impregnate you,” he said as though the answer was obvious. “Then your Max won’t want you. You’ll divorce him. And you’ll have to marry me again. Because you want a family more than anything. And you can’t stand to be alone.”

  He knew her so well.

  And not well enough anymore.

  A flash of Lynn Bishop’s startled face when Maddie blurted out that she was pregnant sprang to her mind. Meredith would like to have told Steve that he couldn’t impregnate her because she was already pregnant.

  But even if she had been, she wouldn’t have told him. He’d just do whatever it took to get rid of Max’s baby inside of her and replace it with his own.

  And if she was pregnant, she wouldn’t be there. She’d have had to protect that baby. She’d probably be in another state. Another country. Still on the run.

  And God knows, part of her wished she was.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS Chantel left, Max called the woman he knew at The Lighthouse and arranged to bring Caleb to their day care. All of the staff knew and adored Meri and would keep Caleb safe for as long as it took to get Meri back home.

  “We’ll be praying for you, Max,” they told him in triplicate as he dropped off his son and a diaper bag with, he hoped, anything Caleb might need, and raced out the door.

  The police thought Meri had gone after Steve Smith. That she’d known he was there and that she’d gone to take him on, all by herself. That woman Meri had befriended at the shelter, Renee, certainly thought so. And Meri had confided in her more than she had in Max. Apparently she’d given Renee details about the day her family had been killed.

  He’d always assumed Meri, a twelve-year-old girl at the time, hadn’t remembered much from that day. He was a pediatrician. He knew how doctors took care of traumatized kids. And had imagined the normal kinds of injuries, physical and mental, that she’d probably suffered.

  Never once had it occurred to him, or had she let on, that she’d been completely conscious and aware as she’d fought to get into the mangled car and save her family.

  Sitting under a tree on the edge of the beach across the street from the little house that Smith owned, Max chomped on a blade of grass and tried to pretend that he was strong.

  That he didn’t feel like crying.

  How he and Meri were going to get through this, he didn’t know. They had a lot to work through. But first, he needed her safe. Home. In his bed. In his arms. Or even just...safe.

  A car he didn’t recognize pulled up and he sat up straighter.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” He identified Chantel’s voice before he saw her get out of the passenger side of the car. Another woman, also dressed in jeans and a black leather vest was behind the wheel. He recognized the holster on her belt as a department issue.

  “It’s about time you showed up. Do you have any idea what he could be doing to my wife in there?” There’d been no sign of life. But that didn’t mean anything. The shades were drawn.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Max.”

  “Did you get the search warrant?”

  “Yes.” She held up an envelope. “But Bailey and I go in without you.”

  “I didn’t expect to go with you. But when you bring her out, I will be here.”

  Or they could arrest him. He stared her down.

  “Fine, but you’re staying over here, across the street.”

  He nodded, not wanting to waste another second arguing over a moot point. He’d stay put until he didn’t.

  Period.

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU want to name our kid?” Steve didn’t seem to be in a hurry as he took side streets and then drove along the ocean, outside of Santa Raquel.

  “I...Steve...you...we haven’t seen each other in four years. Don’t you think we should talk?”

  “What’s there to talk about? You had your fling to get back at me for having mine and now it’s done. You pledged your life to me forever and I’m holding you to it. I already know your favorite color is purple, that you don’t like squash, but love peas and that your lucky number is eight. What’s there to talk about?”

  She and Max never seemed to stop talking. They’d see a house and be off discussing something they liked or didn’t like about it. Or drive by a family and discuss the pros and cons of their mode of transportation.

  They talked about his work.

  And hers.

  Even hampered by having to preserve patient confidentiality privileges.

  “I got my degree. I’m a speech pathologist now.” She couldn’t just sit here. She’d go nuts. And ruin her plan before she’d had a chance to fully implement it. She’d play right into his plan, get frightened and give in, become his hunted possession again.

  “So?” he said, not taking his eyes off the road. “You won’t have to work anymore. You always said you wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and that’s just what you’re going to be.”

  “Are you going to be working?” She was just curious. He hadn’t changed much in the four years since she’d seen him. Still in his late thirties, he wasn’t going gray yet. Hadn’t gained any weight.

  Yet he looked...smaller.

  Or maybe she’d just set her sights higher.

  “I’ll work as I please,” he said easily enough. “It’s the beauty of going private. You don’t answer to anyone but yourself.”

  “And your clients.” She was beginning to wonder what his client base looked like. There were a lot of high-rolling hoodlums in Las Vegas. And Steve had rubbed arms with a lot of them when he’d been on the force.

  “I take the jobs I want and leave the rest,” he said.

  So maybe he was on the up and up. From what she understood, when you worked for the big boys, you did what they wanted when they wanted or you didn’t do anything for anybody ever again.

  Not that she cared one way or the other.

  She wasn’t going to be having his baby. Or living his life.

  It would be her life, or none.

  That point was nonnegotiable.

  Steve just didn’t know it yet.

  * * *

  PACING THE SMALL grassy area between the beach and the road, Max had barely worked up a sweat on his first level of panic when Chantel reappeared.

  Alone.

  Oh, God. The blood drained from him and he braced himself.

  They’d been too late. His throat closed up.

  “She’s not there,” his friend called from the other side of the street and for a couple of seconds all Max could hear was the roaring of the waves in his ears. And then, from a distance, the faint sound of her b
oot heels clicking on pavement as she crossed toward him. “No one’s there. But someone’s been there recently, Max. There’s fresh milk in the fridge.”

  “Do you think she’s been there?”

  “There’s no sign that a woman’s been there. And nothing that would identify the male. Just men’s clothing, a disposable razor, a can of cheap shaving cream.”

  “Let me in there and I’ll tell you if Meri’s been there,” he said. “I can smell her.”

  Animalistic, maybe. But also true.

  Chantel must have believed him, or just took pity on him, but she walked him through the house. And with a heart that felt like lead, and was thankful, too, he shook his head. “You’re right, she hasn’t been here.”

  The place was small, two rooms, plus a bath. Old wood floors that were splintered from lack of care. Cracked Formica cupboards. It seemed fitting for a detective turned private eye on the lam. But not for Meri.

  Not at all for Meri.

  He followed Chantel out and asked his friend, “So what now? If he didn’t bring her here is it feasible to believe that he doesn’t have her?”

  “It’s possible that he doesn’t,” she said. “Anything’s possible.” Her glance was pointed.

  Meri could be dead in the woods, Max. He read the message in her eyes.

  “He could be headed to Mexico with her,” he said. Because it was preferable to the other vision he’d just had.

  “He’ll never get across the border.”

  Nodding, he stood, hands in the pockets of the jeans he’d thrown on before leaving the house.

  The man was history. It was just a matter of time.

  “So now what?” He repeated his earlier question.

  “We’ll have someone on this place and keep scouring the area. Mostly, we wait for him to turn up someplace. A bus station, a gas station, doesn’t much matter, we’ve got the area covered.”

  And if he took Meri out of the area? The other officer, Bailey, exited the house and climbed back into her car.

  “It doesn’t do any good to ask what-ifs,” Chantel said gently, her face turned up to Max’s. “You have to think positive and let us do our job.”

  “I am thinking positive. You’re going to get him.”