Soldier's Christmas Secrets

“There are twin beds in this room.” He opened the door to the right of what looked to be a bathroom. “The other room is off the kitchen.”

“Thanks.” She went inside and gently set Lizzy on the twin bed closest to the door. After removing her winter coat and boots, she tucked her daughter into the sleeping bag on top of the bed. She straightened and turned to find Hawk standing close.

Too close.

In the darkness she couldn’t see his face very clearly, but she had often wondered about the deep scar he carried along his left cheek. Catching a whiff of his aftershave, she found her pulse kicking up and her knees going weak.

It was the same brand James used to buy.

“Excuse me.” Moving abruptly, she ducked around him and left the bedroom. Her heart was pounding erratically and for a moment she feared she was losing her mind.

In that brief instant, she’d thought the man standing beside her was James. Same height, same weight, same aftershave.

Impossible. James was dead. This was nothing more than her overactive imagination playing tricks on her. Hormones reacting to a familiar scent.

She wasn’t interested in a relationship with Hawk.

Yet for the moment, her life and Lizzy’s depended on him. On his strength and ability to keep them both safe from harm.

TWO (#u761bb363-ccd6-5b9f-b8a2-37fd1d710fbe)

Battling guilt, Hawk silently followed Jillian into the living room and began making a fire in the wood-burning stove to heat up the cabin. He hadn’t meant to frighten her, but given the way she’d bolted out of the room, he knew he must have. He’d worked hard over the past several months to remain nonthreatening. To provide help without getting too close.

But discovering Lizzy was his daughter had changed things. He’d wanted to peer down at her tiny face while she slept. He’d wanted the right to bend down to kiss her forehead and whisper good-night.

Unfortunately, his life, the life he should have had, remained far out of reach. Maybe forever.

Not that it should matter. There were more important things to worry about at the moment. Like who’d sent professional assassins to Jillian’s home. To kidnap them? Or kill them? Kidnapping he could understand, because it would be a way to use Jillian and Lizzy as leverage against him. But killing them made no sense.

It occurred to him that if his real identity had been uncovered, then the assassins would have come directly to his house, not Jillian’s. Which meant his current identity was safe.

For now.

Yet he knew his recent probing into Rick Barton’s past had not gone unnoticed. Senator Barton was a powerful man in Washington, DC, but very few knew the truth about how Barton had climbed the ranks. Hawk must have gotten close enough to discover certain information about Barton to trip someone’s suspicions.

Almost two years had passed since he’d begun to remember his past, yet it also felt as if it had only happened yesterday. His memory had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. He hadn’t even remembered Jillian right away. Memories and images had come to him in bits and pieces.

He was the only special ops soldier who knew the truth about what happened in Afghanistan, and even then, he didn’t have a good memory to guide him. The other members of his team who’d been with him that fateful day were gone. Powerful men had tried to silence him once. They wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. It was up to him to expose the truth.

Too bad he had no idea whom he could trust.

When he finished with the fire, he stood. “I’ll make coffee.”

Hawk went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet that housed the coffee maker. He filled the carafe with water and added scoops of coffee from the can he kept in the freezer. As the coffee dripped, he did a quick mental inventory of his house back in Brookland. He had no doubt that at some point the professional hit men would go back to the scene of their failure, eventually identifying him as the one who’d helped Jillian and Lizzy escape.

They wouldn’t find anything personal at his place. He didn’t have a home office, preferring, instead, to work in the small space he rented in the strip mall not far from where he lived. The only information he kept at his office was related to his clients. All of his personal paperwork, most of which had been expertly forged two years ago, was kept in a safe deposit box at the bank.

For years, he’d thought his secret was safe. Until now. How long before the hit men put two and two together to figure out that Hawk Jacobson was really James Wade?

Based on the extensive governmental resources he believed Barton had at his disposal? Not long.

Feeling grim, he realized they’d be forced to move locations first thing in the morning. And go where? He had no clue.

“I can’t drink coffee this late,” Jillian said. He glanced over to find her standing on the other side of the room, her arms crossed over her chest as if she didn’t dare get too close. “But I think we need to call the police. Now. Tonight.”

He didn’t answer, mostly because he wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted, needed to tell her the truth, but this didn’t seem like the proper time or place.

She wouldn’t appreciate his view that going to the authorities could very well be like stepping on a rotten log, allowing professional hit men to pour out like termites.

“Calling the police is what normal people do,” Jillian insisted. “Just because you happen to be a private investigator, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t let the authorities know that two men came into my house with weapons with the intent to kill me.”

“Actually, we don’t really know what they intended to do.”

She scowled. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t intend to play nice with their guns.”

It was a good point. He decided to probe further. “Does the name Senator Barton mean anything to you?”

She blinked in confusion. “Senator Rick Barton? Not really. I mean, I know he sits on a committee related to the Department of Defense, but I can’t even tell you what state he’s from or what he looks like.”

“He sits on the Armed Services Committee,” Hawk corrected. “He’s a senator from Virginia and happens to be good friends with Todd Hayes, the current Secretary of Defense.” He waited for some sort of recognition to dawn in her eyes, but she only shrugged.

“Yeah, okay. That sounds right. I’m not totally up on all the players in our government, but whatever. I don’t see what either of those guys has to do with your decision to postpone calling the police.”

“Powerful people in high places can convince the cops to turn a blind eye to what might be happening under their nose.” He hesitated, the holes in his memory making it difficult to say anything with certainty. All he remembered was seeing Major Rick Barton deep in the hills where he wasn’t supposed to be. He sensed there was more but couldn’t bring the fragments of his memory together into a full picture.

Now she looked annoyed. “Oh, come on—” She abruptly cut off what she was about to say when Lizzy began to cry.

“Mommy! Mommy! Bad mans are coming to get me!”

Jillian spun on her heel and charged into the bedroom. Hawk stayed where he was, unwilling to add to Lizzy’s frightened state. He knew she’d watched him holding a gun on one of the intruders and was reliving that scary moment in her nightmares.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. He needed to think. To understand what was going on so he could plan his next steps. A good soldier always had at least one backup plan.

Several things bothered him. Why had Barton decided to send hit men after Jillian tonight? The fact that James Wade had married her five years ago wasn’t a secret. The army knew about Jillian, they’d provided her benefits while he was overseas, and he assumed they’d provided death benefits after he’d been pronounced dead, despite how they’d obviously never found his body.

So why now?

And why not wait until the dead of night rather than 10:30 p.m.? The two guys had been professionals, but they were clearly not prepared to face an opponent like Hawk—someone with equal or better training than they had. Whoever provided the intel must have mentioned they were facing a grade school teacher and a four-year-old child. Not a soldier.

The burn of anger at the thought of those two men getting their hands on Jillian and Lizzy was difficult to ignore. But anger, much like indecision, was the enemy.

He took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. He toyed with the idea of calling Mike Callahan, a former private investigator he’d once worked with. Mike had recently gotten married and had taken a position with the sheriff’s department. Mike owed him a favor, and Hawk could easily collect. Not that he’d really have to use the favor as leverage. Hawk knew that Mike, or any of the Callahan siblings, would help him out, no questions asked. That was the type of family they were. The Callahans had welcomed him into their home and made him feel like he was one of them.

Still, he preferred to work alone. At least for now. But he wouldn’t risk any harm coming to Jillian or Lizzy.

What he really wanted to do was to stash Jillian and Lizzy someplace safe while he continued working the case. Should he send her to stay with the Callahans? They were about the only people he trusted. Yet at the same time, he didn’t dare let Jillian and Lizzy out of his sight.

Not when he knew that he was the only reason they were in danger.