What Should Have Been

What Should Have Been
Helen R. Myers

HER PAST WAS STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER…She' d heard Mead Regan was back in town. But nothing prepared single mother Devan Anderson for her first heart-stopping glimpse of the man who' d changed her world forever one passion–filled night…only to vanish from her life.Mead didn' t want a hero' s welcome. He' d left home prepared to die for his country. Now a woman who seemed hauntingly familiar was tempting him to risk much more than his life. But he wasn' t the man he once was–the man Devan seemed to remember.The question was…was this a good thing?

“Can you answer one question?”

Devan froze. It had been six years since she’d felt such a mix of emotions, and she was terrified of what he would ask next. Once, she’d made herself his for the taking. She’d risked everything to hear him speak to her and her alone…touch her as she’d never been touched…encourage her to be free, to be truly herself.

But just as he’d changed, she had, too.

She turned back to him. “What?”

“Did you know me? I mean really? Were we…friends?”

Friends? For a night, he’d been everything she could dream of wanting or needing….

What should Have Been

Helen R. Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

HELEN R. MYERS

a collector of two-and four-legged strays, lives deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She cites cello music and bonsai gardening as favorite relaxation pastimes, and still edits in her sleep—an accident learned while writing her first book. The bestselling author of diverse themes and focus, she is a three-time RITA

Award nominee, winning for Navarrone in 1993.

To my dear friend

Darese Cotton

This one’s for you because you asked most and loudest

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“M ommy!”

Blakeley’s cry had Devan dropping the hot pan of garlic bread onto the kitchen counter. Ripping off her new sunflower pot-holder mittens, she threw them after it, sending one skittering off the edge of the granite top, but she let it go. All she cared about was the panic in her child’s voice.

By the time she yanked open the back door, Blakeley was scrambling across the stone patio. At the same time she flung herself into Devan’s arms, the little girl also locked all four limbs around her and clutched handfuls of her glittery autumn-motif sweatshirt.

“Sweetie, what on earth…? What’s wrong?”

“There’s a man out there! A stranger in my park!”

For once Devan didn’t correct or reprove her four-year-old daughter for her habit of calling everything she had a personal attachment to as “mine.” Instead she lifted her gaze to confirm that the back gate on the chain-link fence was open. That was enough to send her imagination into overdrive. She’d warned Blakeley repeatedly never to open the gate on her own, let alone venture beyond it without her—especially into Mount Vance, Texas’s woodsy Regan Park. The headstrong minx had inherited too many of her genes, all the wrong ones!

“Are you all right?” she demanded, hugging the child closer until she could feel her small heart through her light red jacket. She inhaled that unforgettable but fading baby scent to help calm her own pounding heart. “Did he touch you? Try to hurt you?”

“No.” Blakeley’s voice wobbled with emotion. “Because I ran. He scared me, Mommy. He just stood on the other side of the creek and stared.”

She’d gotten as far as the creek? Devan couldn’t believe she had let her out of her sight for that long without glancing outside. Her impulse was to dial 911, but she reminded herself that in the meantime, the creep could be getting away. She needed to find him, to see if she could identify him. The police would need an accurate description.

Just then the front door opened and her mother-in-law Connie poked her head inside. Devan had left the door unlocked expecting her at any minute to pick up a box of outgrown children’s clothing for a church fund-raiser this weekend.

Setting down Blakeley, Devan grabbed her jacket from the hanger behind the back door and called, “Connie, lock the door and call 911! Blakeley, tell Nana what you told me. Lock this door, too.”

“Where are you going?” Blakeley cried, her blue eyes huge.