Whitney dropped her car keys onto the seat. “What did you say?”
David held the door, his expression full of sympathy and regret. “I served with Lucas. I was assigned to his unit.”
Whitney swayed on her feet. Putting a hand to her temple, she said, “No. That can’t be possible. He never mentioned you.”
David held her, his hand on her arm. “It’s true. I wanted to tell you right away, but everything got so crazy.”
Now she was mad. Pushing him away, she glanced back at Shelby and then whirled, still trying to absorb what he’d just admitted. “So when were you going to tell me, David? You’ve been here a couple of days now.”
He nodded. “Yes...and I’ve been threatened, held at gunpoint and interrogated at the police station. Not a good time to blurt out something like that. Then today I headed to the clinic to get a tour, but I got busy helping the crowd in the waiting room. I planned on calling you tonight.”
“After you volunteered in this clinic today,” she pointed out. “If I hadn’t run into you here, I don’t think you would have told me at all.”
“I planned on telling you tonight,” he repeated. “Look, it’s been kind of wild since I got here. I had to get settled and I had to get things straight in my head. This wasn’t easy, coming here right after I got back stateside. But I’m here, and I’m willing to explain.”
“Yeah, well, you do have a lot to explain.”
She’d had more than enough of dishonest men in her life, but she also yearned for any information regarding her brother. Her anger misted into an intense pain that she didn’t want David to see. Turning to grab her keys, she said, “I need to get Shelby home and into bed.”
“Wait.” David held the door again. “Lucas made me promise, Whitney. His last words were about you.”
Whitney’s anger and despair dispersed like a mirage floating out over the horizon. Tears pricked at her eyes. “What...what did he say?”
David touched her arm again, this time to comfort her. “He said a lot of things, but mostly that you were strong and tough, but he’d feel better knowing someone was looking out for you.”
She blinked and took in a breath. “And he picked you for that task?”
David’s smile was soft and bittersweet. “Yeah, for some reason he believed in me.”
Shelby whimpered and held out her arms. Whitney wiped at the tears in her eyes, but she wouldn’t fall apart in front of her baby. “Why don’t you follow me home so we can talk, okay?”
David let out a breath. “Good idea. I’ll be right behind you.”
She nodded, and wondered if that statement meant for longer than tonight. “Lucas,” she whispered as she slowly drove home, her heart breaking. “What have you done?”
* * *
Thankful that the rusty yellow vintage Chevy truck Miss Rosa loaned him had made it across town, David stood in front of the tiny fireplace, staring at the unburned logs Whitney had placed there, while Hunter lay by the table, staring at David. The stucco house was tiny and neat with a minimalist decor that spoke of Whitney’s efficiency. A floral couch with deep cushions and one lone blue chair by the hearth. A small round coffee table holding magazines and a green plant centered in front of the couch. A few pretty pictures and decorative mirrors scattered on the cream-colored walls.
On a side table, he spotted a picture of Shelby as a newborn. Then he noticed some sort of colorful contraption in the corner that had all kinds of fun toy attachments to entice a baby.
Hunter had his own bed, too, near the fireplace.
The sleek dog stared up at David with eyes that wanted to like him, but David was pretty sure Hunter was waiting for the next command. Or maybe his next meal. David hoped it would be dog food and not his arm or leg.
“We’ll get to know each other more,” David told Hunter. “Just you wait. We’ll be best friends soon.”
Hunter didn’t move, but his ears perked up.
David took another glance at the baby picture. A little girl dressed in white and pink. Tiny. So tiny.
Whitney had a five-month-old baby. Born in November of last year, if David’s calculations were correct. If Lucas had known before he died, he’d never mentioned it. Had he withheld that particular bit of information for a reason?
David couldn’t judge Whitney, but he sure was curious. To hide that curiosity, he studied the rest of the house and hoped he’d find some clues. Hunter’s gaze followed him as he strolled around the long rectangular room.
Across from the fireplace wall, a small kitchen island with two tall stools opened to the white-and-blue kitchen and a side door to the carport.
Down the short hallway where she’d taken Shelby, he’d noticed what had to be two bedrooms with a bath centered between them. Simple and clean.
He figured Whitney was a bit more complex and intriguing than anyone knew, and he had a feeling he’d see a different side of her once she got Shelby all tucked in.
When he heard her coming back up the hallway, he noticed her faded jeans and white T-shirt. Her personal dress code must be efficient, too. But that long, shiny blond hair made her all woman. She probably had no idea that the casual outfit and loose mane of hair made her look attractive. Way too attractive.
She gave him a wary glance as she headed barefoot to the kitchen. Then she called to Hunter. The dog came trotting, his brown eyes giving Whitney an adoring stare. He was an impressive animal with a pretty white coat spotted with tan.
After feeding Hunter and giving him clean water, she turned to David. “I have water, soda and coffee.”
“Coffee,” he said. It had been a long day.
She reached for the coffeemaker, and he walked over to a bar stool and sat down. “So...you trained here and now you live here?”
She didn’t look ready to divulge anything, but she finally said, “Yes. I lived in the dorms—a big condo located near the training center—last year when I first came here to train. But I had to drop out when I got pregnant.”
“Did Lucas know?”
Her expression turned somber. “He died before I could tell him. I was in my first trimester.”
“Okay, that explains that.”
“It was hard, burying my brother when I had a new life inside me.” She shook her hair off her face as if to shake away the grief. “But I managed to keep going. I had to, for Shelby’s sake.”
And she was doing that now, he thought.
“I’ve waffled between regret for not letting him know sooner and relief that he never knew. Lucas would have moved heaven and earth to come home, and I didn’t want him to jeopardize his military career on my account.” She stared down at the counter. “But he might be alive today if I’d told him about the baby. He would have found a way to come home.”
The torment in her eyes ripped through David’s heart. He knew all about that kind of guilt and regret. “You couldn’t have predicted this, Whitney. I know it sounds pat, but he was doing what he loved, and he was good at it. He wanted you to feel the same about becoming a police officer.”
“I do,” she said. “So much so that I came back to try again, and now I’m renting this house from the people next door. The Carters. Marilyn is my babysitter, and her husband’s a mechanic. He owns a garage here in town. I owe them a lot. They encouraged me to go to church with them, and I’m glad I did.”
“That’s good,” David said, relieved that she had decent people in her life to help her out. “So you came back to start over, but you couldn’t live in the dorms with a baby.”
“Right. I’m only here temporarily. We all got involved in a big murder case right after we graduated, so our assignments to police stations across the state have been put on hold. One of our own was killed. Our master dog trainer, Veronica Earnshaw, was found dead near a gate to the puppy yard. Someone shot her. We were all in shock, and then the chief explained we’d been put on retainer by one of our wealthy donors, Marian Foxcroft. You met her daughter, Ellen, yesterday. We were all ordered to stay here and help solve not only Veronica’s murder but also the suspicious deaths of two rookies and the murder of an officer’s wife five years ago. That officer had been a rookie at the time.”
“Wow.” David could see the stress and strain in her eyes, but he was glad she’d be hanging around for a while. And he sure wasn’t leaving now, either. “How long are you staying?”
“Indefinitely,” she said. “I’ve extended my lease here for another month.”
One month. He would probably be gone after that anyway.
“Where do you want to go once this is over?”
She busied herself with measuring coffee into the filter cup. “I’m from Tucson, so I’d like to go back there. But you probably already know about Tucson. My mother and Lucas are both buried there.”
He listened, treading carefully. Did those two men from yesterday have anything to do with the murder case? He knew she couldn’t reveal details to a civilian, but he wondered if she was in danger from more than one source.
He’d talk about her brother for now since that was why she’d let him follow her home. “Lucas told me he was from Arizona, but he never mentioned Tucson. He said his family moved around a lot.”
David had confided in Lucas about his own deceased parents, too. They’d had that in common. But now wasn’t the time to mention that to Whitney.
She hit the brew button on the tiny coffeepot and then started putting away clean dishes from the drainer sitting by the sink. “Yes, we went from base to base, but we finally settled in Tucson. Our dad was military, too. He was wounded in Desert Storm not long after I was born and came home and later died of heart disease. He and our mother divorced when I was around ten, and she never remarried. She died of breast cancer about five years ago.”
David didn’t know what to say. “Lucas didn’t talk much about that, but I knew your parents were both dead. He said you were his only close relative.”
She took two bright red coffee cups out of a cabinet. “He had a hard time with it since he was the eldest. He was twenty and I was only fifteen when Dad had a massive heart attack.” She brought the coffee over, pulled out what looked like homemade muffins and handed him one. Blueberry. “After Mom died, Lucas became the typical protective brother.”
David smiled. “You mean overbearing and always bossy but also loyal and fearless?”
She nodded and nibbled on her muffin, then turned to pull some leftover cold chicken out of the fridge. “Yes, you do know my brother. He vetted all of my boyfriends. It got worse when he joined up. I was out on my own by then...but he always worried about me.”
“He was proud of you,” David said. “He worried about your choice of professions, but he loved you. And he came around on the whole K9 officer thing in the end.”
“He told you about that?”
David saw the rush of embarrassment in her eyes. She seemed to value her privacy. “He needed to vent a little. Lucas was like that. He had to figure out things on his own terms.”
“Yes, we’re alike in that respect,” she said with a wry smile.
“I’m gathering that.”
“I guess this is kind of weird for you.” She stared across at him. “I can’t believe he made you promise to come here. And frankly, I can’t understand why you are here.”
“Isn’t that obvious?” David asked, the baked chicken reminding him that he was starving. He had to smile at Hunter. The dog lifted his nose in the air. Maybe he liked chicken, too.
“Nothing about this is obvious,” she retorted as she shredded the meat and handed him a plate. “Why are you here?”
She had the direct-questioning thing down. He pitied anyone who had the misfortune of being interrogated by her. She stared at him with a blue-eyed vengeance.
David didn’t know how to explain. “I made a promise to a dying soldier,” he said. “But...Lucas was also my friend.”
Her eyes looked like a cloudy sky. “So you always keep your promises?”
David realized one thing, sitting there with her. Lucas might have sent him here, but Whitney would be the reason he’d stay. “I try,” he said. Then he bit into the tender chicken.
“Finish eating,” she told him. “And then you and I are going to have a serious discussion.”
* * *
Whitney stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She wouldn’t give in to the tears or the regrets or the frustration. Nothing could bring back all the people she’d lost. Her parents, her brother, the father of her child.
And now she had to deal with a man who’d traveled around the world to find her.
Unbelievable. The odds of that same man being all tangled up as a witness to a possible drug smuggling ring were hard to imagine. It only forced them together—for now.
Of all the trains in all the towns...
He had to be on that particular one.
He could have been killed, and then she would never have known about her brother’s last hours.
So she looked at herself in the mirror and decided to get over being angry at David. She should be thankful that he’d been so determined to find her. And that, like her brother, he was a true gentleman and a protector.
He’s a good man. A kind, caring man who helped save a lot of lives during the worst of circumstances. He tried to save my brother. He tried to help me.
And David was probably feeling a lot of guilt pangs, too.
She could do this. She could go back out there and let him talk, just talk. And maybe she’d finally be able to talk about her life, too. It would be nice to share things with someone who would be out of her life soon anyway. No repercussions. No drama. If she didn’t count the facts that he’d known Lucas and that he’d come a long way to honor her brother’s wishes.
Time to find out a little bit more about her new protector.
But when she opened the bathroom door, she heard Hunter emitting a low, dangerous growl. Thinking he might have David pinned against a wall, she rounded the corner. “Hey—”
David wasn’t anywhere in the living room or kitchen. And the door to the carport was standing open.
Hunter gave her a let’s-roll glance and alerted. Something was definitely going on out there.
Going to the hall closet, Whitney unlocked her gun box and hurried to the open door. “David?” she called in a low whisper. “David, are you out there?”