Chapter Fifteen
Ellis didn’t call Boyd right away, much to Kirsten’s irritation. Getting a cursory idea of what Colleen Fredericks had been up to was more pressing to his way of thinking, and he was the law enforcement officer here. He knew.
He wasn’t avoiding something uncomfortable. Even if that’s what she thought.
Really.
According to the web, Colleen Fredericks had left the FBI for private sector work in public relations.
Exactly two weeks after Ellis had first spoken to Zach about Hope Town and moving Kirsten there.
Yeah, he didn’t like that timing.
But according to everything he could find, she still worked for the shoe company and resided in Raleigh. There was no obvious connection between her and the psychiatrist’s assistant Sarah Conway.
Someone would have had to help her create an undercover identity. And that someone no doubt came from the FBI—considering she’d worked in an FBI office, and Zach, the former undercover agent, thought her fake identity looked like one he’d create.
For all Ellis knew, Boyd could have been the one to help Colleen. Back then, Boyd hadn’t told Ellis he was being an idiot for avoiding the woman at his wife’s behest, but Boyd hadn’t exactly thought it was a sensible course of action.
But Boyd had been a single man and fully agreed that he couldn’t understand what priorities were different when you were married.
Of course, Ellis had realized in retrospect these past two years, he hadn’t exactly had his priorities straight then either.
Ellis wished he could have some of that old rose-colored glasses thinking though. The belief good guys were on one side and bad guys were on the other. Instead of everyone being one step away from becoming a bad guy.
He sighed and glanced over at the kitchen where Kirsten was putting together some kind of lunch. She was humming and making them food, because she remembered, and thought she still loved him. Claimed to have been planning to welcome him home after the undercover assignment he shouldn’t have taken.
Maybe he didn’t love the way she kept calling him afraid of things, when that wasn’t the issue at all, but…she was here. She was okay. It was more than he’d been able to hope for lately, even with the threat hanging over their heads.
So he felt honor bound to at least kind of go through with reaching out to Boyd. Carefully. And with some information under his belt first.
He turned his attention back to his computer and set about checking in on what his old friend was doing. He wouldn’t dive in headfirst with a phone call. Couldn’t.
No matter what Kirsten remembered.
Boyd was indeed still in Nashville, still an FBI agent. He’d been involved in another undercover case that had taken down some more human traffickers. Gotten some press for that one last year.
Ellis found himself smiling in spite of himself. His friend was a damn fine agent.
And not your friend anymore.
But maybe Kirsten had a point. When he’d stopped returning Boyd’s calls and emails, he’d been in a dark place.
His injury. An assignment gone wrong. And even if Kirsten hadn’t actually been dead, Boyd thought she was, and there had been a death of sorts.
Coming out of it two years later might be a bit far-fetched, but Boyd knew how much Ellis had loved Kirsten.
He’d harassed him about it enough.
Ellis didn’t have to lay it all on the line. Certainly didn’t have to give any hints Kirsten was alive. That part of the witness protection story could stay intact.
He could give Boyd a call and see what shook out. Just like the meeting with Dr. Leigh. Testing waters, looking for signs.
Kirsten came over to him with a plate. She’d made a sandwich out of some canned chicken and bread that must have come from the freezer and divvied up a can of fruit between them.
She had her own plate and sat down next to him on the couch. It was all very domestic. All very before.
Except they were holed up in this tiny mountain cabin in Wyoming, isolated from the world. And a threat against them.
He had to remember the threat part. Even if she remembered and this suddenly felt like everything was okay. Even if she said she loved him, and it seemed to make everything else pale in importance. Even if they’d…shared a bed.
What had he been thinking?
Maybe that it’s been a long-ass time since you had a chance to touch your wife.
He sighed, took a bite out of his sandwich. “I’ll call Boyd in a few hours,” he told her.
“Why wait?”
“Because the man has a job?” Granted, FBI agents didn’t always work a nine to five, but still. He needed to…steady himself for essentially lying to his old friend.
Kirsten wrinkled her nose, just like she used to. “I guess that’s a good enough excuse to procrastinate.” She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “What about Colleen?”
He told her about the job and life in Raleigh. “I’ll need to dig deeper on that. See if it’s just a paper trail or if she’s really had a life there. But she left Chicago when we did. I don’t like that for coincidence.”
Kirsten stilled at that, tried to arrange her features in some sort of brave expression, but he knew her too well.
“She doesn’t know where we are, and we don’t know what her endgame is,” he reassured her.
“While it’s hard to discount that she’s connected, we don’t know in what ways.
If we untangle it, maybe we stop this before anything bad has to happen.
It’s all going to be over soon enough. One clue leads to the next.
You recognizing her was such a big clue. ”
Kirsten nodded. She’d taken maybe two bites of her sandwich, but she set the plate aside like she was done. He frowned, worried that she wasn’t eating. At least she’d slept some, but she needed to take care of herself. She needed—
“Ellis.” She turned her gaze to him, her brows drawn together, concern in her gaze. “What happens when this is over?”
KIRSTEN KNEW SHE’D taken him off guard. Maybe she’d taken herself off guard. Something about remembering made the future feel more…real, more plannable. She’d always been someone who liked to map out where she was going.
Until she hadn’t remembered where she’d been, but now she did.
And she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life stuck up in this cabin waiting for someone else to solve a mystery. Even if the wait was short, there was a whole future out there ahead of her.
One where she remembered who she was.
And who she was married to.
“Maybe we need to figure this out first,” he said carefully. And he probably wasn’t wrong, but…
She stood, needing to move. He still had food on his plate, so she couldn’t clear dishes. She just had to pace.
“I like my life in Hope Town. I like working at the bookstore. I like…” She inhaled deeply, looking at him, trying to find some anchor to what was moving through her. “I don’t know how we go back to Chicago.”
“I’m sure you can stay,” Ellis reassured her. “It’s not a traditional witness protection program. I’ll talk to Zach for you. Once it’s safe, we’ll figure it all out. You don’t have to worry about it yet.”
She noted her we. His you. Oh sure, we’ll figure it out. But not we’ll stay. Just putting it off.
Maybe he didn’t like Hope Town. There was no doubt in her mind that not being an FBI agent anymore would be a struggle for him.
Which begged a few questions. He’d been in the fringes of her life for two years, always there, but she didn’t know much about what he’d been doing, even if he knew every inch of what she’d been doing.
“What about you? How have you been…earning a living?”
“Medical leave at first,” he said, pointing vaguely at his shoulder. “Then savings, for a while. I do some freelance work for Zach’s security company when I need to these days.”
It was hard to imagine that life for Ellis. He’d been so dedicated to his job. So driven by it. She had never actually believed desk work would suit him, but she’d hoped he could find a way to meet that driving need and not throw himself into undercover work once they had a family.
Now they had no family and he didn’t have the job he loved. He’d only been stuck in Wyoming to watch over her, and once this threat was gone, he wouldn’t need to. “You…you probably want to go back to the FBI.”
He took his time with his response, looking down at his plate.
“I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. I didn’t leave on the best terms. Once my medical leave was up…
they tried to work with me, they gave me the Alaska cover, but I couldn’t actually be there.
I had to be here. So I quit. They don’t usually take quitters back. ”
She sat back down next to him, needing to reassure him.
“But they would. You were such a good agent.” She reached out and put her hand over his in what felt like a natural move.
Like there was a part of her—the part she’d forgotten—that hadn’t experienced two years without him. “Once we’re safe, you could…”
He was looking down at her hand over his. Then shook his head, and it broke her heart.
“That job meant so much to you.” And she felt like she’d somehow taken it away from him, even though it wasn’t her fault, she knew.
He shook his head. “Too much. It meant too much to me.” He put his other hand over hers. “Nothing means more to me than you. I won’t let it. Not again. If this is a second chance, I swear to God—”
She pressed her mouth to his before he could finish. Overcome with emotion. Overcome with love. Overcome with the need to have him not…hurt over this.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said firmly. A promise to herself as much as him. “Together.” Maybe he was right, and they could wait on that. Threat first. Future later.
As long as they were together.
But that didn’t seem to ease the look of pain on his face any. “You don’t have to be stuck with me,” he said gruffly. “You need to know that.”
Stuck. She didn’t know how he could think that. “Did you go on that last assignment because you thought I was stuck with you?”
“No, I just needed… I needed…” He couldn’t seem to articulate what he needed. Because it hadn’t been about need. It had been about fear, and he didn’t want to admit that to himself. Even after all this time.
She opened her mouth to say it, then shut it. She didn’t want to do what she’d done before—hide everything that might upset him, but there was a time and a place. She’d already told him what she thought, so why repeat herself when he knew?
“You think I was afraid of becoming a father,” he said stiffly, surprising her by bringing it up.
She held his gaze seriously, determined to meet the moment, not fear it. “I do.”
“That was not a cognizant thought I had.”
“It doesn’t make it untrue,” she told him gently.
He didn’t move away immediately, but she could feel him withdraw. He took his hand off hers, shifted so there was more space between them.
She could let him withdraw. She could fall back into that old habit so easily. But she hadn’t suffered two years of trauma to fall back. She took the hand he’d withdrawn.
“You felt indebted to Jason, but you didn’t love him. If he loved you, he didn’t show it. It’s pretty damn natural if you had some concerns about fatherhood.”
“And I’m telling you, I didn’t think about that.”
“Because you shy away from the things that scare you. You bury them in work. In being…useful and helpful and doing good things, and scary things, so you feel brave there when you’re not inside.”
Carefully he pulled his hand away from hers again, pushed to his feet. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make an excuse to leave. Probably to go work, but something she said must have gotten through to him, because he didn’t end up saying anything.
He shut his mouth and stood there, looking a little lost.
So Kirsten did something she’d never done before. She pushed. “You were both put in an extreme situation, with tragedy at its center, you and Jason after your mother died. But fatherhood doesn’t have to be that way.”
He looked down at her then, angry and hurting. “But what if it is? What if tragedy is all there is?” he demanded.
She swallowed, because she understood that… He had experienced these past two years so much differently than she had. Yes, they’d both suffered, but his was a knowing kind of suffering. A trauma and a tragedy that had a different heft than hers.
And still…here they were. Together. She stood, faced him. “Then at least we have each other. That’s not a tragedy.” She cupped his face. Wouldn’t let him look away. “I love you.”
Some of that tension in him softened. “I love you too.” He swallowed hard. “But I don’t know how to be what you need.”
Need. What did she need? He seemed to think there was something more, and there never had been. “Then just be what I want. Yourself.”