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The Jeep was still warm when Kelsey climbed in. She pet Magic, who started to jump into the front seat to greet her. Only Eric's quiet "stay" kept her from hurtling into Kelsey's lap.
Eric maneuvered out of the condo complex.
She clicked on her seatbelt as Eric yanked the car into drive.
"Do you think Daniel's safe?" she asked.
"He's perfectly safe, I promise."
"Okay." Her voice cracked on the word, and she told herself not cry even as she imagined her little boy, missing her the way she was missing him. If anything happened to Daniel, she'd never survive it. "But I mean... These people who have him—"
"You couldn't choose a nicer family." Eric's voice was as confident as it was gentle. "And they're already falling in love with him."
"Okay." She could trust Eric with this. She knew that. She also knew she was putting him and all his friends in danger. Carlos was ruthless when he wanted something. "I should take Daniel and go. If Carlos doesn't find me when he gets here, he'll think I slipped through his fingers again."
The very thought of leaving Eric had tears filling her eyes. How could she still have tears left?
"That's what you do, huh?" Eric's voice was harsh. "You run away. Is that why you left me ten years ago? Second thoughts?"
"Don't be a jackass." The quick flash of anger surprised her. She thought of the cowardly woman she'd been at the hospital the day before. No, she wouldn't be that person, not with her husband, a man who should respect her. She was sick of his judgment, his accusations.
He glanced at her quickly. His voice was gentler when he said, "I'm just trying to understand."
"If you don't by now, Eric, you never will."
He turned the Jeep toward town, the only sound in the car the huffing of the dog in the backseat and the rumble of the wheels on the asphalt. Snow fell outside, soothing and steady.
Like her husband.
For years, all she'd longed for was to be with Eric again. Her love for him hadn't faded, but perhaps while she'd been gone, she'd romanticized him, romanticized their relationship. She didn't remember these long brooding silences, and she couldn't recall a time when he'd been anything but polite to her. Had she blocked out the unpleasant things, or was Eric different now?
Of course he was different. The years had changed him. His job had changed him.
Missing her, not knowing where she was... Yes, that had changed him, too.
"You could have called me." Eric's tone was measured. No accusation, no sadness. "I would have come, wherever you were. I would have been with you. I would have protected you."
"I know."
He kept his focus forward. She'd never seen this much traffic on the little two-lane road that went through Nutfield. "Where did all these people come from?"
"Storm's coming. People are shopping, getting prepared."
"We need anything?"
"I took care of it. We should be fine for a few days."
They were inching slowly through town with nothing else to distract them from the pachyderm between them that felt more corporeal than the dog in the back seat. How could she make Eric understand? "I know you would have come," she finally said. "You would have quit school, abandoned your dream, to be with me. But I didn't want that for you."
"You were my dream." His jaw was clenched like he was fighting the urge to say more. "It would have been fine. I could have gone to school—"
"No, you couldn't. You wouldn't have been able to go to school somewhere else. Don't you see? You would have had to give up your identity. Your family. Your future. Fake IDs don't come with transcripts. This wasn't the federal witness protection program. When I changed my identity, I paid a guy five hundred bucks for a counterfeit driver's license, birth certificate, and social security card. Every job, every brush with the police, every time I've been asked to show ID, I've cringed, knowing eventually, somebody would discover my secret. I couldn't go back to college, even if I hadn't had Daniel. Under my new name—"
"Carrie Anderson."
The name caught her up short. But of course, Daniel had told him. "Right." She'd intended to buy new papers in Manchester after she'd left her son, after she'd made that critical call. The one she could never make now. "Under that name, I had no high school records, no job history, nothing. I couldn't ask that of you."
"I would have—"
"I know that." There was more to it. Maybe she didn't want to explain the rest of it. But he deserved to know. To know who she was, what she'd become. "You don't understand what it was like. I wasn't the same person. I went from being this...this successful pre-law student to being property. I went from feeling loved and cherished to feeling like a whore."
"Don't say that." His words were quick and harsh. "Don't ever say that."
"See?" He couldn't even stand to hear the word, but if he understood all she'd been through, all she'd done... "You don't... I couldn't..." It was impossible to explain. Impossible because she didn't want Eric to know. What would he think if he knew everything? "How could I come home to you as if I were the same person? You always made me feel valued, treasured." Her voice cracked. She swallowed the emotions. "Thanks to Carlos, I was worth less than the dirt you'd scrape off your boots."
"You weren't, though." He hit the brake in the stop-and-go traffic and turned to her.
She met his eyes for a moment, then ducked away. She couldn't look at him and talk about this. She'd never be able to overcome the shame. And if that were the case, what was she doing with this man, this good man?
"I would never have seen you that way." His confidence, his vehemence, had her shaking her head.
"Such big words. But do you know how the police treated us when Misty and I escaped? Like prostitutes, that's how. Worthless garbage. I'm convinced if they'd acted faster, they might have rescued my sister. But we were whores. We didn't matter."
He inched ahead in traffic. "So you expected me to treat you the same way."
"Maybe you wouldn't have, but—"
"Maybe?"
Her voice rose, cracked. "I didn't know. How could I know?"
"You could have expected the best of me. You could have tried."
Expected the best of him. That's what she'd done, all those years ago when she'd agreed to marry him. Because she'd known Eric was one of the best men she could ever know. Over the years, she'd wondered...how many times had she wondered what he would have said to her, how he would have treated her if she'd simply gone home? On good days, she imagined him folding her into his arms and declaring his eternal, unconditional love.
But on bad days, the scenario she imagined was very different. Scorn in his face. Hatred.
She'd never had the nerve to risk the second reaction, no matter how badly she'd hoped for the first. "Knowing you were here. Knowing you'd loved me... What if I called you, what if you came to me, and what if when you learned the truth, you looked at me like those cops did? How would I have survived that?"
His frown, the quick shake of his head, told her he didn't understand. He probably never would. He reached across the car, took her hand. "I had a good idea of what you'd been through. I did enough searching. I figured you'd been taken by the people who took your sister, and I knew what kind of people they were. I searched for you—until you faked your death. Over the years, I never stopped believing. I never stopped loving you."
Tears filled her eyes, and she sniffed.
He glanced at her. "There are some napkins in the glove box, if you need one."
She managed to open it and pull out a napkin and wipe her tears without letting go of his hand.
Maybe if they could just keep holding on to each other, they could survive this.
She composed herself, studied his face as he inched along in traffic. His eyes were red as if he were fighting tears as much as she was giving in to them.
"Years passed, though," he said. "Years and years, and still..."
"I never thought it would be a decade. I thought that with the information I'd stolen from Carlos, I could bring him down. I thought it would be six months, maybe a year, maybe two. And then Carlos would go to prison, and I'd come back. I thought, if I brought him down, then maybe you'd believe... you'd understand. You'd forgive all I did. I thought, by then, you'd have gotten your degree, and we could be a family. But then two years turned into three, then four... I figured too much time had passed. You'd have met someone else. Gotten married. Forgotten all about me."
His face showed no reaction. "So you moved on."
She scoffed. "I raised my son. I had no choice but to figure out how to live, how to support us. And I kept trying to find a way to bring Carlos down."
He glanced at her then. "But there's a man, right?"
She met his eyes. "What are you talking about?"
He stopped the car, though the one in front kept moving in the traffic crawling along Crystal Ave. He stared at her, and the moment stretched before he said, "I saw that...that expression on your face when you described your home. You're in love with somebody."
"I'm in love with Daniel. I was thinking about my son."
"Oh." He blinked twice. "That makes sense." He focused ahead and let up on the brake enough to catch up with the car in front of them. At this rate they'd never get through downtown Nutfield. "You're saying there's nobody else?"
"Never."
He turned to face her again, held her gaze, and then nearly smiled.
After everything, her optimistic heart fluttered with joy.
But of course, just because she hadn't moved on didn't mean he hadn't. "How about you?"
She studied him, waited for the quick answer. He didn't give her one. Instead, he let go of her hand and pulled into an empty parking lot.
She didn't want to know. She wouldn't be able to survive if he told her there was somebody else.
He shifted the car into park and met her eyes. "I never told anybody about you, because... Well, it didn't seem wise. People were always fixing me up. I refused so many blind dates with women, a friend tried to fix me up with a guy."
The very thought of it made her laugh.
He smiled, but it faded. "So... I dated some. Women," he clarified, which made her smile again. "Movies, dinner, a couple of church things."
She swallowed, braced herself.
"But there was never anything to it. Two, three dates, and I was done."
"I see."
"Nothing... It was just dates. No..." He swallowed. "Nothing happened with them. I mean, I never even kissed them."
The words penetrated. Never even kissed...? "Seriously?"
"Our wedding vows meant something to me. There's never been anyone but you."
How could she have ever doubted this man? She leaned forward, unable to keep her distance any longer. The dog huffed in the backseat. Snowflakes landed on the windshield. The car was nearly silent, warm from the heater and the desire she couldn't temper.
His mind seemed to be going to the same place.
He placed his hand on the side of her face and claimed a kiss. It was sweet and tender and nearly made her cry.
Just like that, he pulled away. He might as well have slapped her.
He turned away, jaw tight.
"What?" Her word was harsh. "What have I done now?"
He faced her again. "Daniel is eight. Which means either you were still with Carlos after your sister died, or he's somebody else's kid. Which means, once again, you're lying about something."
"Ah." She couldn't help the smile. "I can see why that would anger you."
He crossed his arms and glared.
"Or," she said, "Daniel isn't eight."
He dropped his arms. "Wait. What?"
"I told him to lie about his age."
Eric seemed to process that. After a moment, he asked, "Why would you do that?"
"Because Carlos is looking for a nine-year old. I figured that one little lie would protect him better than anything else could."
"Huh." He nodded slowly. "But...he's tiny."
"Yeah. He's always been little for his age."
"I should have... I was like that, too," Eric said. "Until I hit puberty, people always thought I was younger than I was."
"Otherwise, I would have gone the other direction, told him to tell you he was ten. Because he's super smart." She failed to keep the pride out of her voice. "Eight seemed easier to pull off."
"Does Daniel know who his father is?"
She looked down, shook her head. "No."
"But he knows his father's not a good guy. He must know something, if he was willing to lie about his age."
She met Eric's eyes again. "He doesn't know anything about Carlos. I told him I had to take care of something and I'd be back for him."
"But he lied. Why would he do that, if he didn't understand?"
"He's nine, Eric. I told him it was important and that, eventually, he'd be able to tell everyone his real age. He trusts me."
Eric nodded slowly, processing. "So the story..."
"It's all true."
"And there's nothing else?"
Oh, that she could tell him everything. She'd have to. Soon. But not yet. Not when they'd finally come to a place of peace. She looked at her hands, folded in her lap, and tried to think of how to answer.
"What?" he said.
She met his eyes. "There's a lot I haven't told you. Details I just can't..."
He reached across the console and took her hand. With his other hand, he lifted her chin until their eyes met. "You'll tell me, in time. There's no rush." He pulled her as close as he could with the center console between them. She tucked her head against his neck and inhaled his woodsy scent. She felt warm, safe. When he spoke, she could feel the vibration of his voice on her cheek. "Maybe if I quit being so angry," he said, "that'll make it easier."
She surprised herself with a short burst of laughter. "Wouldn't hurt."
"I'm sorry."
She backed up, met his eyes. "I knew you'd have given up everything for me. I didn't want you to do that. You understand that, right?"
"Not really."
"I thought you'd move on."
"Then you don't know me very well."
But she did. She knew him very well. After everything they'd been through, he deserved better than her. But he wanted her.
And for all her plans to leave him, she knew she couldn't do it again. She wouldn't. Somehow, this was going to have to all work out. She had no idea how, but she also knew she'd never have the strength to walk away from Eric again. "Can we just...?" She paused, collected her thoughts. "I know it's ridiculous, and I know everything is up in the air, and I know there's still Daniel, and I have to figure out how to get him back and get us safe and..." Her voice trailed off. "I don't know what's going to happen, Eric. I just know I need you. I don't want to leave you again."
He brushed her hair behind her ears, looked deep in her eyes. "Whatever happens now, we're in it together.