2. Felicity
FELICITY
Ididn’t breathe until I reached my car.
Even then, the first breath hurt.
I slid behind the wheel, shut the door, and locked it like that thin sheet of glass and metal could protect me from the man standing on the sidewalk behind me.
Hersh McDougal.
No.
Blaze now, apparently.
My hands shook as I shoved the key into the ignition.
Sixteen years.
Sixteen years since he climbed into an old truck and left with a duffel bag, a crooked smile, and dreams of becoming an Army Ranger.
Sixteen years since I stood in my bedroom window and watched him drive away, telling myself he would write.
He did write.
My stomach twisted so hard I almost doubled over.
He wrote every week for a year.
I knew that now.
I’d known it for sixteen months.
My father died two years ago, and eventually I went home to clean out the house.
I cleaned out the house I’d sworn to never live in again.
I found the cedar box hidden behind old paint cans in the garage.
Dozens of letters.
All addressed to me.
All unopened.
All from Hersh.
For one full year, he had written to me.
For one full year, my father had hidden every word.
The last letter still lived in my purse, folded until the creases were soft as cloth.
I didn’t need to read it.
I had memorized every line.
Soon as I get leave, I’m coming home to marry you.
I already bought the ring.
I love you, Flick.
Always.
My vision blurred.
“No,” I whispered, blinking hard. “Not now.”
I could not fall apart in a café parking lot.
Not with Hersh standing behind me.
Not with the FBI telling me never to draw attention.
Not with a cartel looking for me.
And definitely not because the only boy I’d ever loved had grown into a man who looked at me like I’d ripped his heart out and walked away with it.
I glanced in the rearview mirror.
He was still there.
Tall. Broad. Dark-haired. Bigger than I remembered.
The boy had been handsome.
The man was dangerous.
Not dangerous like the men hunting me.
Dangerous in a worse way.
He made me remember who I’d been before fear and loneliness became a daily routine.
Before new names.
New towns.
New rules.
Before every unexpected knock made my blood turn cold.
I gripped the steering wheel and forced myself to pull out of the parking lot.
Do not look back.
I looked back.
Hersh stood near the curb, unmoving, his eyes on my car like he could see straight through the lie I’d just handed him.
My chest ached.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, even though he couldn’t hear me.
Then I drove away.
The streets of Eagle River rolled past in a blur of sunlit brick buildings, old oak trees, and the kind of small-town charm that should have made me feel safe.
It had.
For six months, it almost had.
That was the cruelest part.
I had started to like it here.
The little café with the good black coffee.
The bookstore two doors down.
The river behind the house, the FBI had placed me in.
The quiet mornings.
The way people waved even when they didn’t know you.
For the first time in months, I had almost let myself pretend I might survive long enough to testify and get my life back.
Then Hersh McDougal had walked across a sidewalk and said my name.
Not the name the FBI gave me.
Not the last name on my paperwork.
My name.
The one that belonged to the girl he used to love.
My phone sat in the cup holder.
I should call Agent Michael Jones.
I knew I should.
Running into someone from my past wasn’t a small problem.
It was a disaster.
Witness protection came with rules.
No old contacts.
No familiar places.
No emotional decisions.
No slipping.
And I had slipped.
The second Hersh said Felicity, I should have denied everything.
Instead, I answered.
That’s me.
Brilliant, Felicity.
Absolutely brilliant.
I turned onto the narrow road leading to my temporary house and tightened my grip on the wheel.
Maybe it would be okay.
Maybe Hersh wouldn’t push.
I almost laughed.
No.
He was a Ranger.
Of course he would push.
He had always pushed when something mattered.
And once upon a time, I had mattered to him.
The thought hurt so badly I had to press one hand against my ribs.
I still remembered the last time I saw him.
Nineteen years old.
Sunburned nose.
That cocky half-grin.
Standing beside his truck like leaving didn’t hurt him as badly as it hurt me.
“I’ll write every week,” he’d promised.
I had believed him.
Then the days passed.
Then weeks.
Then months.
Nothing.
Not one letter.
Not one phone call.
Not one word.
By the time I left for college, I’d convinced myself he had found something better.
A better life.
A better future.
A better girl.
Except he hadn’t.
He had written.
Every week.
And I had hated him for silence that had never belonged to him.
A tear slipped down my cheek.
I wiped it away hard.
“Stop it.”
I wasn’t that girl anymore.
I wasn’t the girl who waited by the mailbox until her father yelled at her to stop embarrassing herself.
I wasn’t the girl who cried into her pillow because the boy she loved had forgotten her.
I wasn’t the girl who lost everything alone and never told a soul.
My breath hitched.
No.
Not that memory.
Not today.
I pulled into the gravel driveway and froze.
A package sat on the porch.
Brown paper.
No label I could see from the car.
No delivery truck.
No mail carrier walking away.
Just a box where there should not have been a box.
Every bit of sadness inside me vanished beneath a rush of pure, cold fear.
My foot stayed on the brake.
The house looked the same.
White siding. Blue shutters. River trees moving behind it in the breeze.
Peaceful.
Quiet.
Wrong.
My fingers fumbled for my phone.
I backed out of the driveway without taking my eyes off the porch.
The tires crunched over gravel, too loud in the silence.
“Come on,” I whispered as the call connected. “Come on.”
Agent Michael Jones answered on the second ring.
“Felicity?”
My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “There’s a package on my porch.”
Silence.
Then everything in his voice changed.
“Where are you?”
“In my car. I didn’t get out.”
“Good. Leave. Right now.”
My heart slammed once. “Michael?—”
“Do not go inside that house.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good. Drive back into Eagle River.”
A bitter laugh scraped up my throat. “That’s where I just came from.”
“Listen to me,” he said. “There’s a place called the Last Stand Tavern. Go there.”
My stomach dropped.
No.
No, no, no.
“Why?”
“Because I know someone there who can keep you safe until I get there.”
I already knew.
Some horrible part of me knew before he said it.
“Who?”
“Blaze.”
The road blurred in front of me.
Of course.
Of course the universe would do this.
“Blaze,” I repeated carefully. “What kind of name is that?”
“Former Ranger. Good man. You can trust him.”
I almost laughed again.
Trust him?
I had trusted Hersh McDougal with every broken, foolish piece of my teenage heart.
And now I had to walk into his town, his tavern, his life, and pretend I didn’t know exactly how his handwriting looked when he wrote the words I’m coming home to marry you.
“Felicity,” Michael said sharply. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Go straight there. Don’t stop. Don’t call anyone else. I’m on my way.”
“When is the trial?” I asked, because anger was easier than fear. “Because I’m getting really tired of running.”
His pause told me enough.
My throat tightened. “No.”
“It’s been pushed back again.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
Six months.
I pulled onto the main road, one hand pressed against the steering wheel, the other gripping the phone so tightly my fingers hurt.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I whispered.
“I know.”
No, he didn’t.
He didn’t know what it felt like to disappear while still breathing.
To have no one looking for you.
No one missing you.
No one knowing whether you were alive or dead.
Except now, someone from my past had seen me.
Not just someone.
Hersh.
The boy who had written me letters I never received.
The man who now lives in Eagle River.
The man I was about to ask for protection while lying straight to his face.
“Go to the tavern,” Michael said. “Blaze will keep you safe.”
I swallowed hard and looked toward town.
The Last Stand Tavern waited somewhere ahead.
So did Hersh McDougal.
So did sixteen years of pain I had no idea how to survive.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Then I hung up and drove toward the one man I had spent half my life trying to forget.