Lexi listened to him talk for a long time. It was as if the floodgates had broken, as if once he started, he had to tell all of it, right to the end. He told her about his last conversation with his wife Wendy, and how Darren, his boss and best friend, had stood by him afterward. Darren had never doubted him, even when his one-time friend, an agent named Stryker, had suspected him of being involved in the murder of his own family.
She’d stretched out on the bunk beside him at some point, laid her head on his pillow. "How could this Stryker person possibly have suspected you?" she whispered.
"The obvious reasons. It was a bomb. They're my specialty."
"But your own family..."
He stroked her hair, and she realized that she now lay in the crook of his arm with her head on his chest and her arm around his waist.
“Stryker knew Wendy and I only married because of the pregnancy."
"You didn't love her?"
"I did," he said quickly. "Just not the way... " His words trailed off, and he tried again. "We were friends, good friends. Things got out of hand once, when we were both feeling lonely and drinking a little too much. Wendy got pregnant. So we got married."
"But it was working out," she guessed.
"Yeah. Kids have a way of bringing people closer. Two years in, we decided to give Justin a sibling, and Jackson came. It's hard to explain it… but you'll know what I mean someday when you have children of your own."
That hurt. It hurt beyond belief, but she swallowed the pain, fought it into submission. Talking would do Romano a world of good. She wasn't about to change the subject.
"How did Stryker know about how things were between you and your wife?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"He was in love with Wendy himself. Hell, sometimes I thought she might have wished she’d married him.” He lowered his head, hiding something that must’ve crossed his face.
Lexi couldn't imagine any woman falling for another man if Romano was the competition.
"She never said so, though. Never did a thing to make me think that." His voice was sleepy. Long pauses came between his words. "She was too kind to risk hurting me… and she was loyal." His hand stilled on her hair. "A lot like you," he said. It was almost a whisper.
The last pause drew out. In a few minutes, she realized he'd fallen asleep. Exhausted maybe, from the sudden release of such long pent-up emotions. A soul-deep sleep, she could tell. His chest expanded, lifting her head with his deep inhales.
She sat up, staring down at his relaxed face. "The only person to blame for what happened is White," she whispered. "You did your job. You did what you were supposed to do." She ran her fingers through his hair. "They're at peace. You're the only one in hell. You need to see that.”
His eyes were still closed, his breathing deep and even. He slept as if comatose, and she thought it was his body's response to the emotional release of sharing his past—the past that had almost destroyed him.
She didn’t imagine he'd never talked about it before. But he had now. And she was glad.
She slipped silently away from him, pausing to pull the covers over his still body. She ached for what he was going through, but she also knew that his past was coloring his judgment of the present. There was no danger in going to the house. There were no men hiding there, waiting for her return. Not when White believed they were in New York right now. The guy at the diner was looking for them. He hadn’t found them. Even Romano had admitted the chances of anyone still at her house were slim. But he was being overly cautious.
And it would be kind of ignorant of her to think any of that caution was personal. It was fear of failure that made him so careful. He was afraid another death would be added to his list of imaginary sins. He was afraid of what that would do to his soul and maybe even to his mind.
But she was convinced there was no danger.
She needed to go home, and her reasons went way beyond her desire to make sure Jax was all right. Although, her cat was among the top three.
Romano wouldn't understand any of those reasons. She wasn't sure she understood them herself, entirely. But she had to go back. There were some things she needed to think through and she couldn't do that here, with this wounded hero and his pain so close, so reachable.
She had things to work out, things about herself and her relationship with her father. Things she hadn't wanted to delve into before, because they were too painful. But it was time, she realized. It was past time. And the only place she could analyze and dissect those things was back there at the house where they'd spent the last days of his life together. The place where her memories of her mother shone most brightly. The place that had become her haven and her heart. And of course, there was Jax.
She closed her eyes and turned away from Romano, silently apologizing for what she was about to do. But she wouldn't be gone long enough for him to wake up and worry. She was just going to get close enough to the house to assure herself no one was there. A ten- or fifteen-minute walk. And in the morning, she'd tell him what she'd done, and what she'd found, and he'd stop being so stubborn about going there.
Hell, who was she kidding? If it looked safe, she was at least going to feed her poor cat. And scoop the litter box. And make sure he was warm and safe. And maybe pet him for a little while.
She guessed she’d better leave Romano a note, just in case he woke before she returned. She scribbled on a scrap of paper and left it on the little table.
Making barely a sound, she picked up her clothes. She pulled on a pair of the heavy socks he’d bought, and then a sweatshirt. She added one of the heavyweight hoodies, and topped that with his jacket. She took the flashlight, too.
On tiptoe, she slipped into the front of the RV and then out the front passenger door, rather than using the one in the back, where he’d be more likely to hear or feel the blast of wintry air on his face.
And then she stepped away from the camper, stretching her arms out to her sides and inhaling deeply of the clean night air. Snow fell softly but thickly, dusting her face and clothes. It wouldn't be a problem, though. She could find the house blindfolded.
She took a step, then stopped, blinking at the unfamiliar surge of feeling that last thought had evoked. She was strong and sure of herself, far more so than she had been before her adventure with Romano. The time she'd spent with him had changed her in a significant way.
She glanced back at the camper, remembering the way he'd looked lying there, asleep and drained and even a little vulnerable. Maybe she was changing him, too.
*****
Romano dreamed of his sons. Jack was playing in a square patch of grass, his cherub cheeks bathed in golden sunlight. Justin was running around him, arms out, making airplane noises, swooping and diving at his little brother and making him giggle even harder. He heard their laughter, saw the sparkle in their eyes.
Then he saw himself and the vision became a memory. He was running and the boys got up and ran with him. He'd been teaching them how to play football in the back yard, the weekend before…
He stopped thinking and just looked, watched the scene unfold in his mind's eye and devoured every second of it. It had been so long since he'd been able to see the boys like this, alive and happy. So long since he'd been capable of or willing to remember, because the pain of remembering was more than any human could bear. He’d kept the memories buried, sealed. But now, it was like being there again. So real. The redness of Justin’s plump cheeks and little Jack’s cupid’s bow lips, and the way the wind ruffled their dark curls. The comic size of a regulation football when clutched in the small hands of a four-year-old.
“Boys, time to come in."
He turned at the sound of Wendy's voice. She stood at the back door, smiling as the kids ran toward her, both of them begging to stay out just a little longer. It was such a familiar scene, one that had played out a thousand times in real life. But it didn't have the feel of a memory anymore.
Smiling, Wendy granted them an extra half hour in the back yard. They raced back to their game, and automatically Romano started toward the back door. He had to talk to Wendy. There was something…
"You called them inside," he said.
“They asked for more time.”
"Yeah." Romano smiled. "They always ask for more time."
"And I always give it to them.”
He started up the back steps to go inside. He could smell the lasagna baking in the oven. Wendy caught his gaze and shook her head. "You need to wake up now."
He frowned, saying nothing, just staring, confused.
"It was my time, not yours," she said softly. "And it's not Lexi's time yet, either. She needs you. They need you."
He tried to argue, but when he opened his mouth, the words that came out had no form, no substance.
"It was my time, not yours," Wendy repeated. "Accept it, and go on."
And then it was as if the lights went out. Blackness descended, engulfing everything. He couldn't see Wendy anymore, or the house, or the yard. He couldn't hear the voices of his sons. There was only darkness, and the unearthly howl of the wind.
It took a full minute for Romano to realize that his eyes were open. He was awake in a pitch-black camper. It had been a dream, for God's sake. Just a dream.
He sat up in bed, pushing his hands through his hair, gnawing his lower lip a little, just to be sure he was really awake. Seemed he was. And his first instinct was to call to Lexi. To hear her voice answering him would be reassuring. It would confirm everything was all right. Just as it should be.
She needs you.
He gave his head a shake, trying to rid himself of the haunting memory of that dream. It had been so real. He cleared his throat and very softly, not wanting to wake her, he said, "Lexi? You awake?" He waited, remembering with a flush of embarrassment the way he'd poured his heart out to her earlier. The way she'd held him as he’d told her every single thing he'd vowed not to talk about with another living soul. And how she'd listened, and seemed to understand every word. And how sharing it with her had made him feel like maybe he could survive this hell after all.
There was no answer. Okay, so she was asleep. He shouldn't feel such an intense need to hear her voice, anyway. It was ridiculous. As ridiculous as the crushing disappointment of falling asleep with her in his arms, then waking up to find her gone.
She needs you!
Romano rolled his eyes at his own apparent mental instability. But he decided there was no use fighting it. He got out of bed, reached for the gas lamp nearest him and turned the knob. The flame grew brighter, reaching its yellow fingers into the corners, chasing shadows away.
He stood up and turned toward the bunks. He'd just look at her, assure himself that she was okay, and maybe he'd be able to get some sleep.
Only, she wasn't there. The bunk was empty. The sight of it was like a blow between the eyes and he took an involuntary step backward at its impact.
He swore, then checked the bathroom, and swore some more. The camper was as empty as her bed. And her shoes and jeans were gone, and so were the jacket and the flashlight.
“Dammit, she's gone to the house.” The note on the table confirmed his suspicion, when he finally noticed it there.
I’m hiking to the house just to take a look. Be right back. Promise.
Okay, okay, calm down, he told himself. So, she'd sneaked out while he slept. So, she'd done exactly what he'd told her not to do. So what? It didn't mean the world was going to end.
He gathered his clothes, picked up his gun. She'd been right from the beginning. There was barely a snowball's chance in hell that White had left men behind to watch the place. She'd be all right. She'd be fine.
He squinted through the RV’s windshield, frowning. And then he reached past the steering wheel to switch on the headlights.
But even their blazing white glow couldn't penetrate the blizzard blanketing the night. He couldn't see a yard in front of the RV. Not a yard. Sometime while he'd been sleeping, a brutal wind and blinding snowstorm had kicked up. And Lexi was out there somewhere. A chill of foreboding slipped up his spine, and again he heard his dead wife's meaning-laden whisper. She needs you.
He swore. It couldn't have been this bad when she'd left. Couldn't have been, or she wouldn't have gone. Lexi was too smart for that. This was the Adirondack forest, for God's sake. She wouldn't have gone out there alone in a storm like this. He could only pray she'd reached the house safely before the blizzard had unleashed its fury. And that no one had been there waiting for her when she had.
He pulled on every sweatshirt that remained, including one of the new hoodies, and fished her pills out of the glove compartment in case she needed them. Then he snatched up his duffel bag. Hunching forward, he headed out into the storm.
*****
Lexi made it halfway, she figured, before the snow began flying horizontally instead of vertically, driven by an ever-strengthening, frigid wind. Within minutes it had shifted from a softly falling snow to a full on blizzard. She lost her bearings. It was stupid, to get lost in a place she knew so well. All she had to do was follow the fire trail, for God's sake. Problem was, she could no longer see the fire trail, and the flashlight was a joke against the power of the sudden storm. The bitter wind turned wet snowflakes into razors. There was no light, no darkness. Just snow. She couldn't even make out the shapes of the trees she moved among, until she was nearly inhaling their bark. There was nothing to guide her. The wind moaning eerily through the boughs overhead seemed like the voice of her father. Condemning. Scornful just as he’d always been.
Yes. He had been. Unreasonably, miserably hateful toward her, even before the dementia had set in.
All her life, really. She’d never admitted that to herself before. Down deep, she realized that she’d always thought of herself as somehow unworthy of him. Everyone said he was a great man. She heard it all the time, saw proof of it in the awards and certificates that had lined their home during the height of his career. He’d invented vaccines that had saved countless lives. He was practically a god. To a small child, a great man who hated her was proof she must not be good enough.
But the truth was, he was just a mean bastard to her for no reason at all.
Her nose and cheeks burned, razed by the blizzard's claws. It hurt to inhale the frigid air, and her lungs screamed with every breath. She felt her heart trip over itself and begin to gallop. The cold and the fear tried to send her into tachycardia, but Lexi fought it. She forced herself to remain calm and tried to take slow, deep breaths. She ordered her body not to betray her now.
She'd left her meds in the camper.
Her hands were wet and slowly going numb, and her feet had long since mutated into solid ice chunks. She couldn't feel them anymore when she stepped on them, so she lurched along, trying to find her way.
But there was no more sign of the fire trail, and she wasn't sure whether she'd have known it even if she'd somehow stumbled onto it again. She only knew she wasn't on the trail now. Somehow she'd veered into the forest. That was obvious by the trees that loomed into her vision with every few steps, towering, but too far apart to provide shelter from the wind-driven snow. Panic chilled her even more deeply than the cold. There had to be a way to get through this.
She squinted in the snow, trying to see something that would give her a clue which way to go, and finally decided to backtrack. She found a shallow indentation in the snow that marked the place where she'd stepped. Then another. Slowly she started back.
She was shaking so hard her teeth rattled and her muscles burned and the flashlight beam jerked and danced in crazy patterns. She pulled her hands up into the sleeves of Romano's jacket and wrapped her arms around herself, huddled into the hood, and bent into the wind that screamed in her ears as she forced herself to keep moving.
But in only a few yards, the footprints vanished. The blizzard had already filled them in.
Keep moving. Just keep moving, Lexi, or you'll die out here.
She tried to obey the voice of reason, did for a while. Until it became impossible. The tachycardia came on full force. Her breathing quickened because her brain wasn’t receiving enough oxygen. She gasped, sucking breaths of freezing air into her lungs.
Dizziness came as she'd known it would. She groped for a support, her hand sweeping through the falling snow, finding nothing to grasp. And then the snowy ground reached up to surround her face. Its cold was an icy slap, an injection of awareness. She managed to pull herself up again. But her rally didn't last. She staggered forward a few more steps only to collapse against the skin-scraping bark of a massive pine. Her stinging face pressed to the trunk, she tasted its fragrance with every breath.
*****
Romano knew which way she would have gone. He left the headlights on, which would help for a little while. As soon as he stepped out of the camper, the cold bit right through every layer of clothing he wore. Damn. It was frigid, killing cold, with this wind behind it. She wouldn't last long in cold like this. No one would.
Romano snapped himself out of his worry by mentally insisting she'd made it to the house. She was inside right now, and she was warm and dry and safe. He envisioned her wrapped in a blanket, warming her feet by the fireplace, that fat yellow cat purring in her lap.
Only the ever-growing knot in the pit of his stomach kept insisting that wasn't the scene he was going to find.
He managed to stay on the fire trail. He was snow covered and shivering before he'd reached what he judged was the halfway point, but the extreme cold only drove him on. Maybe he even picked up his pace, calling her name as he went. It seemed that the storm abated a little. That the wind eased and the snowfall slowed as he moved on. Or maybe he was just going numb and his senses were dulled.
He kept thinking of Lexi, lying in the snow, dying. He kept picturing himself discovering her lifeless body, and it was tearing his insides apart. Dammit, she hadn't done a thing to deserve any of this. She'd been dragged into a situation beyond her control, and now she might die because of it.
No. No, she damn well wouldn't die, because he wouldn't let her. He was going to do it right this time. He wasn't going to lose another person he cared about. Not again.
He swallowed hard, realizing that he'd just admitted he cared for Lexi Stoltz. He hadn't wanted to. But the woman made it impossible to keep a distance. She'd wormed her way under his skin, and yes, he'd let himself care.
She was out there, somewhere. He wasn't going to quit until he found her.