by Lisa Childs
She gasped. “That’s crazy.” And she drew back from him. “Do you think that, too?”
“No.” He trusted her. He believed her.
But then he worried that maybe he was being a fool. Maybe she had manipulated him just as Tammy had warned. Maybe Maggie had manipulated Blaine into falling in love with her. Or maybe he was just scared that for the first time in his life he’d fallen in love and he worried that she would never be able to fully love him back. Not when her heart still belonged to her dead fiancé.
* * *
BLAINE WAS STANDING there right in front of her, right beside her hospital bed, but Maggie felt him pulling away from her. Whatever Tammy had said must have gotten to him—must have gotten him doubting her.
She felt like a suspect again.
“If I knew where he was, I would tell you,” she said. Not because she thought Mark was guilty of anything, but to prove his innocence. Then Blaine would be able to focus on who was really involved in the robberies.
“His wife thinks you know...”
“His wife is paranoid,” she said. Tammy had never been nice to her; she was the kind of woman who couldn’t be friends with other women. “She’s delusional, too, if she thinks I’m having an affair with her husband.”
“Maybe there’s another reason you might know where Mark is,” Blaine said. “Maybe he’s hiding someplace that Andy might have gone. Did he have an apartment or a house of his own?”
Everything kept coming back to Andy and those damn letters she’d written him. If only she’d had something to tell him about other than her job.
If only she’d had the guts to tell him about her feelings, her true feelings...
She shook her head. “No, it would have been crazy for him to have a house or apartment when he was hardly ever home. Andy stayed with his parents whenever he was home on leave—which hadn’t been that often since he joined the Marines after high school.”
“He wasn’t home much?”
After seeing how mean a drunk his father was, she understood why he hadn’t come home a lot. “No.”
Then she remembered that he hadn’t always come home. “He did sometimes stay somewhere else...” She should have thought of it earlier, but it was a place she’d wanted to forget.
That muscle twitched in Blaine’s soot-streaked cheek. “Your place?”
“No.” As much as she had missed her best friend when he’d been gone so long, she hadn’t wanted him to stay with her. She hadn’t wanted him to think they were more than they were. She should have said no when he asked her to marry him; she should have refused that ring.
“Then where else had he stayed?” Blaine asked.
“The Doremires have a cabin near Lake Michigan—at least, they had it before Andy died,” she said. “I’m not sure if they kept it after they divorced. I can call Mrs. Doremire and ask...”
He shook his head. “No. Let me check it out. I don’t want anyone tipping off Mark before I can track him down.”
“I’m not so sure his mother would call him.” Especially since she hadn’t seemed to want anything to do with her life before Andy’s death.
Janet Doremire was right—that life was too short to waste. The fire had proved that to Maggie. She was lucky that she hadn’t lost her baby and Blaine.
“I don’t want to take that risk. Where is the cabin?” he asked.
“It’s north of where they live,” she said. “Close to Pentwater. But I don’t know the name of the actual road. I would need to show you where it is.”
He shook his head. “I can’t take you along with me. I’ll be able to find it. I know that area.”
“But you sound like you’re from out East,” she said.
“New Hampshire,” he said. “But my sister lives near Pentwater.”
“Which sister?”
“Buster.”
She wanted to meet all of his sisters, but most of all Buster because he talked about her with the most affection and exasperation.
“It’s good you have family within a four-hour drive.” Her family was too far away to offer much support. “So maybe you will stay here even after you find these robbers?”
He shrugged. “I can’t think about that until I finish up this case.”
Probably because he would be moving on to the next case.
“I need to find that cabin,” he said.
“It’s really remote and hard to find,” she warned him. Even if she could talk Blaine into taking her along, she wasn’t certain that she would be able to find the cabin again. She had gone there only a couple of times with Andy—one summer during high school and most recently when he had proposed to her. She shouldn’t have gone then. She should have known what he was going to ask her.
“It sounds like the perfect place to hide,” Blaine murmured. “He has to be there.”
Maybe he was. “But just finding Mark won’t prove him guilty of the robberies.”
“I’m hoping to find more than Mark. I’m hoping to find the guns, the cash. Hell, if it’s so remote, it might be their hideout.”
And that meant that he might find not just Mark there, but the other robbers—if Mark really was involved.
“You can’t go alone,” she warned him. “Not if there’s any chance that it’s their hideout...”
Because they weren’t going to want to be found. Blaine hadn’t died in the fire, but that didn’t mean that he was safe—especially since he kept willingly risking his life.
* * *
BLAINE COULDN’T TAKE her along for so many reasons, but he missed Maggie when she wasn’t with him. He worried about her. The doctors had assured them that she was fine. They had even released her.
In his opinion, that had been too soon. But then, keeping her in the hospital wouldn’t have ensured her safety. Someone had nearly abducted her from an ER. Had nearly burned her up in the home of an FBI agent.
Maggie wasn’t safe anywhere.
Hell, he couldn’t even trust her safety to a friend like Ash. She’d gotten to him. So he’d left her in the protection of the one person he knew who could not be sweet-talked or manipulated.
Maggie would be safe.
But as his SUV bounced over the ruts of the two-lane road leading to the cabin, he wondered about his own safety. The place wasn’t just remote. It was isolated. He had seen nothing but trees for a long while. This was the kind of place where serial killers would bring their victims, so nobody could hear their screams for help.
Blaine shuddered with foreboding. But maybe he was just overreacting, as Maggie kept insisting. Maybe Mark wasn’t involved. Maybe he was just taking a time-out from his jealous wife and his drunken father and the loss of his brother...
Maybe the guy really had nothing to do with the robberies, and Dalton Reyes’s informant had identified the wrong guy. As Maggie had pointed out, a lot of guys looked like Mark Doremire. Andy had. Hell, even Ash did.
Even though he would have to start all over looking for suspects, Blaine almost hoped Mark had nothing to do with the robberies. If he didn’t, Blaine could just check in with him and make sure that everything was all right with the man.
Then he could return to Maggie and ease her worries about her letters to Andy inspiring the robberies. She already took on too much responsibility for everything that had happened. Maybe that was his fault, too—for being so suspicious of her. Maybe he should have told her that he trusted her.
Instead he had pulled away from her. Physically and emotionally. He needed distance. He needed perspective. Hell, maybe if Mark wasn’t at the cabin, Blaine would hang out for a while. He would try to regain his lost perspective.
But he worried that time and distance wouldn’t change his feelings for Maggie. He would probably always love her. And she would probably always love Andy.
Finally some of the trees gave way on one side of the two-track road, making a small space for a little log cabin. Blaine couldn’t see any vehicles. Only a small space of the dense woods had bee
n cleared for the cabin, so he doubted there were any vehicles parked around the back.
Maybe Maggie had been right. Mark wasn’t here. Coming here had probably been a waste of Blaine’s time. Because no matter how much distance he gained, he was unlikely to gain any new insights.
Still, he shut off the SUV and stepped out of it. He would take some more time to enjoy the silence.
To clear his head.
But the silence shattered as gunfire erupted. And Blaine worried that he was more likely to lose his head than clear it.
Chapter Eighteen
Maggie had wanted to meet Buster, but not like this—not riding along in the Michigan state trooper’s police cruiser. At least Buster had let her ride in the passenger’s seat and not the back.
The woman had pulled off into a parking lot, and now she studied Maggie through narrowed eyes that were the same bright green as her brother’s. She was blonde, too, but most of her hair was tucked up under a brown, broad-brimmed trooper hat, so it wasn’t possible to tell if it was golden, like his, or lighter.
She was older than he was but not more than a few years. And she was even less approachable. Maggie, who usually had no problem making conversation, had no idea what to say to the woman, so an awkward silence had fallen between them—broken only by an occasional squawk of the police radio.
Finally Buster cleared her throat and remarked, “Blaine has never asked me to guard anybody for him.”
“I’m sorry for being such an inconvenience,” Maggie said. “I know you’re too busy for babysitting.”
“I have four hyper kids and an idiot husband,” Buster shared, “so I’m used to babysitting.”
The heat of embarrassment rushed to Maggie’s face. She hated feeling so helpless and dependent.
But then Buster continued, “This isn’t babysitting. Nobody is trying to kill my kids or my husband—except for me when they piss me off too much. You’re in real danger.”
Maggie felt safe, though, with Blaine’s older sister. She had an authority about her—the same authority that had Blaine easily taking over the bank investigation and her protection duty.
“Blaine is the one in danger now,” Maggie said, as nerves fluttered in her belly with the baby’s kicks. “He’s trying so hard to track down those robbers.”
“That’s his job,” Buster said. “He’s been doing it for a while. And he’s been doing it well.”
Maybe he was right about Mark, then. Maggie hadn’t wanted to believe Andy’s brother capable of violence, but she was on edge and it had less to do with how Buster was studying her and more to do with the danger she felt Blaine was facing. “I’m still worried about him.”
“I see that...”
With the way she had been staring at Maggie, she had probably seen a lot. More than Maggie was comfortable with her seeing.
Buster continued, “I see that you love him.”
Maggie’s breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh. She could have lied—although she sucked at it—and said Buster was mistaken. But she wasn’t a liar. And maybe it would relieve some of the pressure on her chest—and her heart—if she admitted to her feelings. “Yes...”
“You could have denied it,” Buster said.
“Why?”
“Because you haven’t told him yet,” his sister replied. “And he’s the one you should have told first.”
Maggie shook her head. “I can’t tell him at all.” Ever.
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t have the same feelings for me that I do for him,” Maggie said. “And I would just embarrass him.” The way she had at the hospital when she’d clung to him, refusing to let him leave without her.
“Blaine doesn’t embarrass easily,” Buster said. “Trust me. I’ve tried.” She chuckled. “He has three older sisters. He may not get embarrassed at all anymore.”
Maggie laughed, too, as she imagined a young Blaine enduring his siblings’ teasing and tormenting. He had probably handled it as stoically then as he handled everything now. Her laughter faded. “It may not embarrass him, but it would make it awkward for him. He’s only doing his job—”
“He has never asked me to protect anyone for him before,” Buster repeated as if that was monumental.
As if it meant something.
Could he return her feelings?
Maggie shook her head. “That’s because I’m in a lot of danger,” she said. “People have been trying to kidnap and kill me.”
“People?”
“He thinks the brother of my...” She didn’t know what to call Andy. While she had accepted his proposal, she’d done it only to avoid hurting him, not because she’d ever intended to actually marry him.
“Baby daddy?” Buster supplied the title for her.
Maggie laughed again. But Andy would have been appalled at that title, especially since he’d been trying so long to get her to marry him. He’d wanted to marry right out of high school, but she’d told him she wanted to go to college first. And then when she’d graduated, he had suggested they get married. But she’d put him off, saying that she wanted to get her career established first.
Poor Andy...
Buster reached across the console and squeezed her hand. “You cared about him.”
“We were friends since sixth grade, when my family and I moved to town. He was the first person who was nice to the new girl in class.” Because he had been nice to her, she had latched on to him, declaring them best friends. But Andy hadn’t wanted to be just a friend.
Buster nodded as if Maggie’s words had given her sudden understanding. “So he’s the only boy you ever dated?”
“Yes,” Maggie replied.
“It must have been hard losing him and finding yourself alone,” Buster said, “with a baby on the way.”
Did Buster think that Maggie was afraid to be alone? That that was why she’d fallen in love with Blaine? Because he’d been nice to her? Maggie knew that he was only doing his job, though. He didn’t want more than friendship from her; he probably didn’t even want friendship.
“But that’s not why I...” she began defensively, “...why I have feelings for your brother.” She couldn’t say it—couldn’t express those feelings.
“That’s not why you’ve fallen for my brother,” Buster said, as if she didn’t doubt her.
“He might not believe that, though,” Maggie said. “Or he might think I’m just grateful for all the times he has saved my life and the baby’s.”
“May I?” Buster asked, as she moved her hand from Maggie’s arm to her stomach. She smiled as the baby kicked beneath her palm. “You should tell Blaine how you feel about him. That’s the only way you’re going to know what he thinks and how he feels about you.”
Was it possible that he could return her feelings? He had made love with her. He’d wanted her...
“My brother has never been an easy man to read,” Buster said. “Hell, he wasn’t even easy to read when he was a little boy. It’s always been hard to tell what Blaine is thinking or feeling. So don’t assume that you know.”
Maggie had been making assumptions. But it wasn’t based so much on what she thought of Blaine but more on what she thought of herself. She didn’t believe that she, especially pregnant, could ever attract a man like Blaine Campbell. The gorgeous FBI special agent was more of a superhero than a regular man. “But—”
“Do you want any more regrets?” Buster interrupted. “It seems like you already have a few.”
About Andy. About never telling him the truth...
“I don’t regret my baby,” Maggie said, anger rushing over her.
“I know,” Buster said. “And I am a firm believer in everything happening for a reason. So stop beating yourself up about the baby’s daddy.”
Apparently Maggie wasn’t very hard to read at all.
Buster patted Maggie’s belly. “Remember—everything happens for a reason.”
Because she carried his child, Maggie would always have a pi
ece of Andy with her. She hadn’t completely lost her best friend.
“You’re right,” Maggie agreed.
But she didn’t have a chance to tell Buster exactly what she was right about because the police radio squawked again—interrupting them. “Shots fired during FBI raid on cabin. Possible casualties...”
She grabbed Buster’s hand and clutched it. Possible casualties? Was one of them Blaine? Had he been shot?
* * *
“WE DIDN’T FIND the shooters,” Trooper Littlefield reported to Blaine. He was one of Buster’s coworkers. He had provided backup—along with a couple of FBI agents—in case the cabin had been the robbers’ hideout. But they had arrived early and hidden in the woods so that it would look as though Blaine had come alone.
Blaine had even felt alone in the middle of the woods. These law-enforcement officers were so good that he hadn’t seen a single one of them—until the gunfire had erupted. Then they’d stepped out of their hiding spots and returned fire—giving him cover so that none of the shots had actually struck him.
“They had a vehicle parked on a two-track gravel road that led to another cabin, and before we could block them in, they’d gotten away,” the trooper said regretfully.
Blaine sighed. They had eluded him so many times that he wasn’t surprised. “In a van?”
The trooper nodded.
Dalton Reyes stepped up to him. “Another stolen one,” he confirmed with a curse. “The guy who ordered this one isn’t the one that my informant ID’d, though. She claims she hasn’t seen him again.”
Blaine had a bad feeling that Mark Doremire was already gone. But still he held out hope. “You sure you can trust your informant?” he asked. Mark was a flirt; maybe he’d turned the woman to his side.
“I don’t really trust anyone.” Reyes shrugged. “Maybe she’s been lying to me.”
“Do you think any of the guys you’re after could be involved in the robberies?” Blaine asked. “There were five guys at the bank.” But more could have been involved.
He had no idea how many had been shooting at him in the woods.
Dalton shrugged again. “I’m not sure. I didn’t get a look at any of the shooters.”