Chapter Forty-Nine

Dane walked out into the darkness and breathed in the cool night air. Unfortunately, the tension was still there in his whole body. He was being forced to leave his child’s life in the hands of others. People he loved like family, and knew would risk everything—as he would—to get Tobey out safe. It just…wasn’t the same thing.

He needed to be there. He needed to know his son was okay.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said behind him.

He was happy for her support, but a silly twinge of envy shuddered through him. She was going after her child when he was being denied the same opportunity.

“It’s not right,” she whispered as she came around and snaked her arms around his waist, and held him tight.

He stubbornly held back, until she kissed his chin. Unable to resist the comfort of her, he gave in with a sigh. “No. It isn’t,” he grumbled, not ready to give up.

“I know you want to be on Tobey’s team,” she said, “and I wouldn’t stand in your way if you wanted to push it further. But…I don’t know these other marshals. I’m sure they’re very good. You trust them, so that would be good enough for me. It’s just…I need you with me.”

Dane went still at her words.

Lena and Kenzie needed him.

But Tobey needed him, too.

Dane needed a moment alone.

The rest of the team had already taken the small cabins closest to the bathhouse. Which left the three empty cabins at the end of the row. He walked Lena to the cabin next to Angel and Colton, kissed her forehead, then walked away without a word.

He wasn’t angry at her. It felt good to be needed. But at the moment, he could only think about Tobey. If something went wrong…

Before he realized where he was going, he found himself at the lake. He walked out onto the dock and sat down. The moon reflected off the surface of the water, making pretty silver patterns. But he was in no mood to appreciate the beauty.

“Christ,” he said to no one. He was so tense he wanted to hit something. He pulled up a splinter of wood from the dock with clenched fingers, broke it angrily into pieces, and tossed it into the dark depths.

He was so focused on the ripples in the water he didn’t hear the sound of footsteps on sun-warped wood until they were right beside him.

He looked up to see Thorne sitting down next to him.

“You know I’m right,” his boss said.

Thorne came off as a little harsh, a little rough. It was probably how he had coped with walking away from his wife and child all those years ago.

Dane understood the pain, having done the same thing himself. But that was where they were different. He’d had no choice. His family was being threatened. Dane had known the only way to keep them safe was to take himself—as well as the danger—out of their lives.

It was different for Thorne. As far as any of them knew, he’d willingly accepted a covert, black ops job that would mean walking out on his wife and child for good. He hadn’t been forced into it. His family had never been in danger.

Dane couldn’t imagine how anyone could do that if they didn’t have to.

“I made a decision, and it was the best one for everyone,” Thorne repeated with a defiant tilt to his head.

“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself as much as me,” Dane said, tossing another piece of wood into the lake.

“If you fucked something up and it got Tobey killed, you would hate yourself for the rest of your life. I won’t set you up for that kind of regret. Trust me, it’s unbearable.”

Damn it if he wasn’t right. He’d known in his head his boss was making the best call. His heart just wasn’t ready to accept it yet. He knew Thorne wasn’t making this decision to punish him. He was protecting Dane from the possibility of failure.

“You have regrets, boss?” Dane asked.

“Many.”

“How did you do it?” Dane asked the question he’d wanted to know for years.

“Do what?” Thorne asked, though Dane was sure his boss knew exactly what he meant. He was just stalling.

“How did you walk away from your wife and Samantha?”

Thorne let out a breath and shook his head. He didn’t answer for a long time. The still night stretched out, until finally he spoke again.

“At the time I was offered the position, it wasn’t that difficult to walk away from my wife. My previous job had me away a lot, and she was constantly suspicious. Bitter. My work finished off a marriage that was already struggling.”

Dane could understand that, but he’d had a child, too. Whatever happened between Thorne and his wife, his daughter had paid the ultimate price.

“As for Samantha,” Thorne said, “I figured it would be easier for her if I was completely out of the picture. If I’d stayed in her life, she would have been used to punish me. I wouldn’t get to see her. My wife would fight me at every turn, even if we divorced. With my sensitive job, I didn’t have time for a battle, or to give Samantha the life she deserved. I thought it was better just to disappear.”

Thorne plucked a piece of the dock away and tossed it into the water, hitting one of the rings Dane had created on the surface.

Dane’s own marriage had been strained to the point of breaking, as well. He’d felt bad walking away. Who knew? They might have had a chance if he’d been able to stay. Maybe they could have gone to counseling and found a way back to each other again.

But he had been changed by what he’d had to face at work. The decisions he’d been forced to make. Then the ordeal with the FBI, and facing the choice to “die” and go into Witness Protection. He hadn’t a clue how to get back to his old self, so how could he expect her to love whoever he became after going through all that?

Walking away from Caroline hadn’t been easy, but it didn’t break him. However, it had been torture to leave his son that morning.

He still remembered promising Tobey they would watch his favorite animated movie when he got home from work that evening. All the while knowing he wouldn’t ever be back. He’d had to fight the urge to hug his boy goodbye with more emotion than his normal morning routine.

It had been the last time he’d touched his son. The memory was still something he couldn’t summon without his throat getting tight.

The morning he left, he hadn’t wanted to alert his wife or make her suspicious, so he’d done no more than a casual peck on the lips and, “Have a great day.”

She’d responded with the same words and a frown, knowing his days at work hadn’t been great for some time. He wanted her to say something more. To tell him he shouldn’t go. That they could move far away, or that she trusted him to do what was best for their family and would stand by him.

Instead, the frown was replaced by a brittle smile. The one she presented to the world to prove that everything in her life was perfect. Even when it was falling to pieces around her.

He’d sat in the driveway for a few minutes, looking up at the fancy home he’d purchased with dirty money. At the time he hadn’t known, but that wasn’t always an excuse. He should have looked deeper. He should have suspected something wasn’t right.

They’d showered him with gifts, promotions, and bonuses. He hadn’t realized his soul was being purchased by two men who had no souls of their own. By the time he’d figured it out, he was deeply embroiled in their crimes.

It shamed him to know he hadn’t acted right away when he found out what he’d gotten himself into. It had been such a shock, he’d been certain he had it wrong. Three months later he contacted the FBI and learned they were already well into an investigation.

But Thorne hadn’t been faced with anything like that. He hadn’t been forced into his actions.

“I do regret leaving the way I did,” Thorne said. “And I definitely didn’t realize what I had missed until I got Samantha back.”

That made more sense. Dane knew from experience how unpredictable love for a child could be. He’d thought he was ready when they had Tobey, but those emotions were way more powerful than he’d ever expected. He hadn’t understood how he could love that loud, stinky, bundle of wrinkles so damn much.

Thorne had left before Sam was born, so he hadn’t felt that overwhelming love before making his decision. He wouldn’t have known. Things may have ended differently if he had.

“Your situation is much different than mine,” Thorne said. “You did what you had to do to keep your family safe. I looked over your file before I approached you. Your wife wasn’t willing to move, even after you explained the danger.” He leaned back, resting his palms on the wood behind him. “I’m sure you think it was because she didn’t love you enough, or that she was stubborn, but I doubt it was like that.”

Dane thought it was.

“Regular people don’t respond to the possibility of danger the way you think they should,” Thorne said. “They disregard the warnings and deny the inevitability of real danger.”

Dane nodded. “Yeah. I’ve seen the movies where the scientists say everyone should evacuate but no one listens.”

They shook their heads together. “It’s almost always like that, I’m afraid. It makes our job much more difficult. We’re like those scientists.”

“But with guns.”

Thorne chuckled. “Yeah.” After a long silence, he took a breath and moved on to another topic. “Tobey knows you’re not dead,” he said with a sigh.

Dane grimaced. “It couldn’t be helped.”

“I know. But it means we’ll have to have a chat with him about his safety, and hope he listens better than the people on the news.”

“He’s a smart kid. I think I can get through to him. If I have the chance.”

“You’ll have the chance.” Thorne smacked Dane on the leg then got to his feet. Fortunately, it was Dane’s good leg.

“Since he knows…” Dane swallowed, afraid to ask and have his hope destroyed.

Thorne smiled. “It means he won’t be so shocked when you show up again, later in his life.”

Dane closed his eyes and pressed his lips together as emotions flooded through him. Those were the words he’d hoped for. Permission to reach out to Tobey someday, when he was old enough to be discreet.

Dane hadn’t kept his promise to watch the movie that evening, but hopefully, one day, he could make up for it.