One Tough Marine

By now, Abby realized, she shouldn’t be surprised at discovering another one of her late-husband’s infidelities. Matt had spent a year in the South American country, his intel unit attached to a peacekeeping unit assigned to the struggling democracy after a coup attempt. Matt hadn’t been the type of man to go a year without sex. In fact, danger would have been an aphrodisiac.

After Sanselmo, he’d begun keeping secrets at every level of their relationship. The beginning of the end.

“Sanselmo was hell,” Luke said bluntly. “Lots of bad things went down after the attempted coup. Marines died.”

“I know,” Abby murmured, distracted by Stevie wriggling in her grasp. She turned him in her lap to face Luke.

Luke smiled at Stevie. “Hi, big guy. My name is Luke. I knew your daddy.”

Abby tried not to flinch. “I haven’t told him much about Matt. He’s not old enough to realize something’s missing.”

Stevie touched a small gold pendant in the shape of a hawk that hung from Luke’s neck. “Bird.”

Luke looked down at the sticky fingers tugging his necklace. “That’s right, it’s a big bird.”

Abby smiled. She’d given the pendant to Luke for his birthday almost six years ago. Hawk was Luke’s unit nickname. It had fit—strong, smart and always watching out for the people he cared for.

“I have to have some clue what he was into, Luke.” She stroked Stevie’s hair, shuddering at the memory of the masked man’s threat. “They told me if I go to the cops, Stevie will suffer. I can’t risk it.”

“Sons of bitches.” Luke’s lips thinned to an angry line. “I think I know who they are, Abs—who they work for. But I swear, I don’t know what they want you to find. If I knew, I’d give it to you.”

“Tell me what you do know, then.” She laid her hand on his arm. “This is what you’d call a need-to-know situation.”

He sighed. “In Sanselmo, we were looking into American involvement in a drugs-for-arms black market. Some Sanselmano national guardsmen were trading government-issue arms and ordnance to El Cambio rebels in exchange for cocaine.”

“Is that how they got so close to pulling off the coup?”

Luke nodded. “El Cambio has controlled the coca production in Sanselmo for decades—only game in town. A lot of money up for grabs. Worse, there were American arms found during raids.”

“No way Matt was involved with trading arms for drugs,” Abby said bluntly.

“Maybe not. But his connection to Janis Meeks—”

Abby winced at the mention of the woman’s name. She’d taken a few body blows over the months after Matt’s death, as one story after another came to light.

Other Marine wives had warned her infidelity was common—part of the fog of war—and assured her that what happened overseas during a long tour of duty didn’t have anything to do with Abby or with Matt’s love for her. But she knew better.

Besides, since Sanselmo, she was pretty sure Matt had been cheating on her stateside, too.

“Matt might not have realized what he was facilitating,” Luke continued. “The timing is interesting because the Feds are on the verge of indictments against Voices for Villages. Maybe Matt had something incriminating on Meeks or her organization that’s coming to light now because of the impending charges.”

“Like what?”

“That’s the question.” His gaze on Stevie’s fingers fumbling with his pendant, Luke changed topics. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant that night after the funeral?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

His expression reflected guilt and regret. “I guess not.”

She looked away, the memory of that night as vivid in her mind now as it had been the very next morning, when she’d awakened to find Luke had gone, leaving her with nothing but a note on the pillow and a little life growing inside her.

What if she’d put a call in to his unit overseas when she’d gotten the results of the pregnancy test? He couldn’t have left Kaziristan to race to her side and play daddy to a baby he never intended to make. And she’d have never wanted him to feel obligated to be with her just because they made a baby together.

But what about now? Didn’t Luke deserve to know that the little boy she was trying so desperately to protect from her husband’s past was his own flesh and blood?

“I don’t know what to do,” she said aloud.

“Where is your car parked?” Luke asked, the question catching her off balance.

“About a block down the street. We walked from there.”

He frowned. “You don’t drive a dark blue Pontiac G-3?”

She shook her head. “Silver Honda Prelude.”

Luke crossed to the front window. Parting the curtains about an inch, he peered outside, where the sun was making a last dying stand against twilight.

“Is someone out there?” Abby asked.

“Not anymore,” he answered tersely. “But we have to assume they’re around here somewhere, just to be safe.”

The urge to cry returned, but she fended it off. She didn’t have time for tears. “What should I do, Luke?”

“Right now, we don’t have a clue what Matt might have taken, or where he’d have hidden it. If he took anything at all.” He let the curtain drop and turned to her. “Right?”

She nodded. “I’m sure he had a dozen places he could stash something he wanted to hide, but he never shared that kind of information with me.”

He came to stand in front of her, capturing her chin with his fingers and giving a little tug to make her look up at him. “I have some thoughts on that, but right now, let’s get you and Little Bit home safely. You two can get a good night’s sleep while I look into some hiding places Matt might have used.”

The thought of returning to her mess of an apartment was almost more than she could bear, but she hid her despair from Luke. She wasn’t about to start leaning on anyone again, no matter how broad and tempting the shoulders.

“I need your address. You’re not staying at your apartment alone tonight,” Luke said.

“Wait—” Panic rose in her gut in greasy waves. No way was she sharing her tiny apartment with Luke Cooper while he played knight in shining armor. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You need a bodyguard.” His tone was so reasonable she wanted to punch him. “If not for you, then for Stevie.”

“I can protect him myself.” God, she sounded foolish. Sure, she knew how to use a gun, but she didn’t have one in the house because of Stevie. And while she was physically fit and knew a few self-defense moves that might get her out of trouble if some jerk tried to mug her on the street, she couldn’t outfight two military-trained enforcers armed with Colt .45s.

“It won’t hurt to have backup, right?” Luke crossed to a desk near the entryway and pulled a pen and notepad from one of the drawers. He wrote something, tore out the page and handed it to her. “My cell-phone number. I’ll be a couple of minutes behind you, but call if you need anything.”

“I will.” She gave him her address as she rose, shifting Stevie to her hip. Luke jotted it down on another piece of paper.

“Drive by here on your way out and I’ll see if I can spot anybody tailing you,” Luke suggested as he walked her to the door. “I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

She slanted a look at him, wondering if he realized just how hollow his promises sounded after what happened between them three years ago. Although he hadn’t really made her any promises that night, had he? There hadn’t been many words at all, just kisses and touches and a raging fire she’d thrown herself into without a second thought.

For him, it might have been nothing more than a few hours of shared grief and release.