The Return of Connor Mansfield

by Beth Cornelison

  Connor battled down a spurt of morning lust as Darby raked hair back from her face and fixed the strap of her pajamas, which had slipped off her shoulder. She caught his stare and grimaced as she jammed her arms in a summer bathrobe. “Don’t laugh. I know I look scary in the morning.”

  He strolled into the room and wrapped her in a hug. “Honey, scary is not the word I was thinking. Quite the opposite.”

  “Wow,” she deadpanned as she wiggled free. “You men will say anything for sex.”

  He barked a laugh and headed down the hall to the kitchen, which was a beehive of activity. His mother was at the stove cooking breakfast, and the scent of bacon and biscuits filled the air. His father was thumbing through the newspaper. Tracy was trying to feed her fussy baby a bottle. Grant had his blond-haired daughter climbing on him while he tried to pour a mug of coffee. Toby had made his way down the hall and sat in the middle of the floor, tail twitching, ready to trip someone if they didn’t feed him. Now.

  Marshals Jones and Raleigh sat at the kitchen table with steaming mugs, clearly trying to stay on the periphery of the family chaos.

  Tracy spotted Connor first and sent him a cheerful smile. “There’s the sleepyhead. Good morning, Connor.” Her grin turned wry. “We didn’t wake you, did we?”

  He chuckled as he stepped into the fray. “Naw! Why would you think that?” He tugged on the blond girl’s ponytail. “Good morning, little monkey.”

  His niece glanced up at him with wide, startled eyes. It stung to realize his brother’s child didn’t remember him. But why would she? She’d been a toddler when he left.

  Peyton sidled behind her father and gave Connor a wary peek. Crouching to his daughter’s level, Grant stroked her back and said, “Peyton, can you say good morning to Uncle Connor?”

  She gave a timid wave and whispered, “Hi.”

  Grant stood again and flashed a lopsided grin. “Give her five minutes, and she’ll be talking your ear off.”

  Connor winked at his niece. “I look forward to it.” Then to Grant, “You’re here awfully early. Did I miss the memo?”

  His oldest brother shrugged. “We were up with Kaylee by five, so we figured we’d come on into town. Mom said she’d help me with the kids today so that Tracy could go to the hospital for a while.”

  Connor nodded and clapped his brother on the shoulder as he moved past him to pour himself and Darby mugs of coffee.

  When Darby appeared a few minutes later she was already dressed, and her wet hair said she’d grabbed a quick shower. She sent the room full of people a half smile. “Looks like the party started without me.”

  Julia stepped over to her and gave her a hug. “We didn’t want to wake you, sweetheart. You needed your rest.”

  Darby gave his mom a peck on the cheek. “I got a little sleep last night. Thanks.” She turned to the marshals, adding, “I’m completely well again, so I’ll be going to the hospital today.”

  Marshal Jones raised his mug in acknowledgment. “We’ve already been working on a plan for the day.”

  Connor stumbled over Toby as he headed back across the kitchen to hand Darby her coffee. “Forget the Gales. I think Toby’s got a secret plan to kill me.”

  Darby scooped the cat into her arms and kissed Toby’s furry face. “Baloney. Toby doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Right, sweet boy?”

  Over the next half hour, Julia fed the family a huge Southern breakfast, complete with veggie omelets, cheese grits, bacon, biscuits and fruit salad. Darby gave Toby his breakfast, and the marshals briefed everyone on the protocol for the day.

  When it was time to head to the hospital, Raleigh whistled for quiet, and Connor’s family gathered around. “All right, I’ll take Tracy and Darby in to see Savannah now in Darby’s car. Connor, you wait here with Jones. He’ll drive you over in a couple of hours.”

  Jones nodded to Connor’s mother. “Thank you for breakfast. That was the best omelet I think I’ve ever had.”

  Julia beamed. “Old family recipe. I could tell you the secret ingredient, but then...”

  “You’d have to kill me,” Jones finished for her, his grin saying he’d heard that line many times.

  “Something like that.”

  Tracy gave Grant a kiss as she gathered her purse. “You sure you don’t mind watching the kids?”

  “I’m sure. Tell Savannah hi for me.”

  Tracy nodded. “Keep a close eye on Peyton. She’s getting more adventurous and doesn’t know her limits.”

  “Will do,” Grant said, balancing the baby on his hip.

  Connor followed Darby to the front door. Even though he knew he’d see her again in a few hours, parting ways with her still caused a hitch in his chest. The memory of telling her goodbye four and a half years ago, believing he’d never see her again, scraped through him like sandpaper, because he knew all too soon he’d need to tell her goodbye again. Permanently. Unless he could convince her they belonged together, that being a family was worth all she’d have to give up. And did he even have the right to ask so much of her? Would she even consider giving everything up for him?

  The support and love of his extended family through the past several days, facing Savannah’s transplant surgery and all the extra security measures his presence required, made him appreciate his parents, his brothers all the more. How could he give them up a second time? How could he ask Darby to give up all the people she loved to be with him? She’d said she couldn’t let herself love him again, but last night her eyes had said something quite different.

  He pulled her close, brushed the hair back from her cheek and simply stared into her eyes for long seconds, memorizing their color.

  She tipped her head. “What is it, Connor?”

  He sighed. “Just...savoring this moment. You.”

  “I have to go now. Raleigh is waiting for me.” She canted forward and gave him a quick kiss. “See you soon.”

  He let her slip out of his arms and watched her hurry to the car. Tracy was already in the backseat, and seeing Darby approach, Raleigh finished a conversation with Jones on the sidewalk and climbed behind the steering wheel to drive. When Darby reached the passenger door of her Honda, she paused to give Connor another smile and wave.

  His chest clenched painfully, and without thinking about what he was doing, Connor bolted through the front door and jogged across the lawn to the car.

  Darby blinked her surprise when he appeared at the side of the car. “Connor?”

  He leaned in to give her a long resounding kiss. “I love you.”

  Sadness filled her gaze, even though she flashed him a smile. Knowing he’d put that sadness in her eyes was a bitter pill to swallow. Realizing she hadn’t responded to his admission stung. He bit the inside of his cheek, vowing not to pressure her. He needed to give her more time.

  “You need to get inside.” Raleigh sent him a warning glare as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine didn’t catch, but a metallic click came from the undercarriage.

  Raleigh growled a harsh curse, his expression sheer panic.

  A tingle of premonition raised the hair at Connor’s nape.

  Even as Connor recognized the threat, Raleigh was shouldering his door open. “Get out!”

  Connor had already grabbed Darby’s arm. He yanked hard as he instantly stumbled back from the car.

  The Honda exploded in a searing fireball, and the powerful concussion threw him to the ground. He clung to Darby’s arm, pulling her with him as he crashed to the lawn. When she landed on him, he quickly rolled on top of her, shielding her from the secondary blast of the gas tank going up.

  For a few stunned seconds, he simply lay on his parents’ front yard, ears buzzing from the volume of the blast, and he held Darby against him. Safe. Darby was safe.

  But the numb moments of shock
and relief quickly shattered as Grant burst through the front door of the house, screaming, “Tracy!”

  With a nauseating dread, Connor glanced at the burning shell of the Honda. Horror slammed his gut. Tracy hadn’t made it out of the car. His sister-in-law was dead.

  Chapter 15

  Through a numb veil of surrealism, Connor processed the nightmarish scene. Grant charged toward the burning car, screaming for his wife. Marshal Jones stopped him, virtually tackling Grant to keep him back from the conflagration. Marshal Raleigh staggered into view from the far side of the car, clutching his arm and clearly suffering significant burns to much of his body.

  Beneath him, Darby moved, a strangled sob racking her body. “Oh, my God...Tracy!”

  Connor shook himself from his shock. He searched Darby’s face and arms with a frantic gaze and searching hands. “Are you hurt?”

  She lifted wide eyes to his, her expression reflecting the same anguish and disbelief that gripped him. “I...I don’t think so.” Her attention shifted to the front door, and she gasped. “Oh, no, no, no! She can’t see this!”

  Darby pushed on his chest as he turned stiffly to see what Darby had seen. Peyton stood behind the glass storm door, straining to see what had caused the commotion. Connor’s heart seized. Peyton, whose mother had just died. Because of him. Because he’d returned from WitSec. Acid pooled in his gut, and bile climbed up his throat.

  Darby shoved to her feet, staggered to the front door and swept Peyton into her arms as she disappeared in the house with the little girl.

  “Call 911!” Jones yelled as Stan raced out the front door. “Raleigh needs an ambulance!”

  Connor struggled for a breath, grief and guilt crushing him. A keening moan reached him, raising the hair on the back of his neck. The agony and despair of the sound sent chills through him. Slowly he turned, knowing the source of the cry and hating himself all the more.

  Grant strained against Jones’s grip, still trying to reach his wife. Swallowing hard against the bitter taste filling his throat, he staggered over to his brother.

  “Grant,” he rasped.

  His brother’s wild eyes darted to him, desperate, pleading. “T-Tracy.”

  Jones moved aside, rushing to help Raleigh, as Connor pulled his brother into a firm hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  Grant swayed and dropped to his knees, but Connor clung to him. His brother’s voice was choked with tears as he repeated, “Why? Why?”

  Connor knew why Tracy had died. Knew her blood was on his hands. Knew he could never make amends to his brother for the pain he’d caused.

  All he could do at that moment was hold his brother, cry with him. Then get the hell out of town and disappear again before anyone else he loved got hurt.

  * * *

  “I have to get to the hospital,” Darby said to no one in particular.

  Grant sat across the living room from her, his expression shell-shocked, devastated. He held Peyton on his lap, his daughter crying softly and burying her face in his chest, while he stared blankly into near space. Connor’s parents were taking turns with Kaylee, who seemed to sense the grief of her family and fussed inconsolably.

  Raleigh had been taken to the hospital by ambulance with serious burns on the right side of his body. The local police and fire crew were still on the scene, but Marshal Jones was dealing with the situation and managing things outside. Darby had given her brief statement, for what it was worth. No one had seen the perpetrator plant the bomb, but everyone in the Mansfields’ living room knew who was responsible. Finding proof would fall to law enforcement.

  Darby’s thoughts spun in a hundred directions. She was as shocked by what happened, as full of anguish as everyone else. But in light of the morning’s tragedy, one need separated itself from the confusion in her mind. An overwhelming urgency to be with Savannah. In the wake of the horror of the car bomb, her maternal instincts screamed that she needed to be near her daughter.

  Savannah was still waiting for them at the hospital. Her baby was in an isolated room, receiving high doses of poison to ready her tiny body for the transplant. Even if the hospital staff wouldn’t let her in the room, wouldn’t let her touch her baby, she wanted to see her child and assure herself Savannah was safe.

  Connor sat beside her on his parents’ couch, holding her hand, deep in his own troubled thoughts if his dark frown was any indication. She tugged on his arm to get his attention. “If the Gales did this, who’s to say they haven’t tried to hurt Savannah?” A chilling dread spun through her as she raised a panicked look to him.

  “Hunter is with her. He’d have called if—”

  Her grip tightened. “I need to be with my baby.”

  He blinked once, slowly, then jerked a nod. “Wait here. I’ll talk to Jones.”

  Squeezing her fingers, Connor rose from the couch and craned his neck to look out through the front window at the assembly of firemen and police in the yard. The scrape of a kitchen chair drew his attention to the breakfast nook, and he headed that direction, disappearing from her view.

  Darby shivered as the sights, sounds and scents of the bomb blast replayed in her head. If Connor hadn’t pulled her out of the car a split second before the explosion, she’d be dead. Like Tracy.

  Another wave of agonizing sadness and disbelief swamped her, making it difficult to breathe. How could Tracy, one of the kindest, gentlest souls she’d ever known, have been stolen from them this way? She was an innocent bystander. Her death was unfair on so many levels.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Connor’s raised voice pulled her attention to the kitchen.

  Snippets of Jones’s tense reply followed. “If you...our orders...never...”

  “...doing your job, this never... Why didn’t...”

  “Damn it, my partner is...hospital because...”

  The volume and verve of the argument grew, drawing the attention of Connor’s parents and Grant, as well.

  “...know that! My brother’s wife...” Connor shouted. “What do you want me...”

  “...do things the right...or get the hell out of here...”

  Darby’s pulse, already jangling thanks to the morning’s trauma, ratcheted higher. She wiped her hands on her pants and gritted her back teeth as she listened to the fighting and watched the flood of emotions that filled Grant’s face.

  “...going anywhere...my daughter still needs...”

  “...screwing around with people’s lives...I have a family, too, and I...”

  Clenching her hands into fists, Darby shoved off the sofa and marched into the kitchen.

  “You want to leave?” Connor yelled as she stormed into the breakfast nook. His face was tense, and he’d pulled his shoulders back in challenge.

  “I want you to take a hard look at what happened today, and think about it the next time you—”

  “Stop it!” Darby shouted, adding her voice to the din. “Stop this fighting, right now!”

  Jones and Connor both turned startled looks toward her.

  “Do you two really think this shouting is helping anything?” She huffed angrily and divided a glare between them. “Stop yelling at each other and figure out how to keep it from happening again!” She aimed a finger at Jones. “Do your job and protect this family or get the hell out of this house! But don’t you dare try to take Connor out of town before he donates his marrow.

  “My baby is lying in that hospital, completely vulnerable. Her body’s defenses have been reduced to nothing in preparation for the transplant. If she doesn’t get his bone marrow now, she doesn’t have the strength or the immunity to recover. She will almost certainly die.” Her voice cracked, and she paused to catch her breath.

  “Darby...” Connor took a step toward her, and she shot a hand up to stop him.

  She pinned a hard star
e on Jones. “My daughter is waiting for me at the hospital. Are you going to take me or should I drive myself?”

  * * *

  By the end of the day, a new team of U.S. Marshals, Marshals Morris and Ramsey, had been assigned to help Jones protect Connor and the rest of the family.

  Darby and Connor divided their time between the hospital and his parents’ house, where they helped Grant, who remained withdrawn and shaken to his core by his loss, take care of his children. Darby helped Julia make arrangements for Tracy’s funeral, and Connor prayed it was the only one the family had to plan for years to come. The sooner he gave his marrow and got out of town, the better.

  Dr. Reed scheduled the transplant surgery for the day after the funeral so that Connor could attend the service with his family. As the family gathered at the cemetery, the sun shone with almost mocking glee, in harsh contrast to the mood of the crowd saying goodbye to a mother and wife taken far too early.

  On the plot next to Tracy’s, Connor noticed the headstone that read, Connor Morgan Mansfield, Beloved Son and Brother. A chill slithered through him, imagining a service like this one held for him a few years ago, how Darby had felt burying him. He glanced at Grant’s devastated face, considered how he’d feel if it were Darby in the casket, and shuddered. How in the world did he ever make up for the pain he’d caused his family, the heartbreak he’d put Darby through, no matter how noble his intentions of protecting them?

  While the minister and funeral director spoke off to the side, waiting for mourners to assemble, Darby, who held two-month-old Kaylee, turned to Connor. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, and her cheeks were damp with tears. “Connor,” she said softly, “if you’re alive, who did we bury?”

  He jolted and jerked his gaze back to the headstone with his name. “I...I don’t know.”

  He hadn’t questioned the marshals about the details of the plan when he’d entered WitSec. He’d assumed they’d told his family there wasn’t a body left to bury after the explosion and fire.

  “Friends and family,” the minister began, “today we gather to say goodbye to Tracy Mansfield, a loving and joyful wife and mother...”