Max’s audacity took Kellen’s breath away. She shoved at him. “Damn you! You could have told me you knew I wasn’t Kellen Adams!”
“I didn’t know you weren’t Kellen Adams. Not for sure.” He didn’t grin or gloat. “Not until this moment.”
She would have had to tell him. It wasn’t a secret to be kept between a husband and wife. She had wanted to tell him...but this confession would hurt. She eased away, out of his arms. “What do you know?”
“It’s not a matter of knowing. I’ve suspected, surmised, done investigations. I would like to know, to hear it from you.”
Kellen had been Kellen for so long, she didn’t even know how to explain what had happened, why it happened, how it happened. Briefly, she supposed, was best, and without a display of grief and tragedy. “I was married. He beat me.”
Max tried to put his arm around her again.
“No.” She stopped him with a gesture. “You can’t do that. You can’t be nice to me. Not if you want me to tell the story.” Because she would cry the old tears again.
He took his arm away.
She continued, “My cousin was Kellen.”
“Kellen Rae.”
“Yes. She came to visit. She realized what he was doing to me. She was determined to rescue me.”
Max’s focus never wavered. “Who were you? Tell me.”
“I was—am—Cecilia. I was a coward, afraid to face him. My husband, Gregory Lykke, the only son of a proud and wealthy New England family. Crazy, all of them. Murderous and cruel.” She reminded him, “You met his sister.”
“She deserved that death.”
“Yes.” Kellen nodded. “Gregory suspected I was going to leave him. He tried to kill me and himself. He killed my cousin instead. And himself. I ran.”
“And lived on the streets and eventually saved Annabella, met me and we fell in love.”
“That’s the whole story.”
“And you kept Kellen’s identification papers through your whole ordeal.”
“I had to keep her papers. She was so practical, and those papers proved she had walked on this earth, gone to school, graduated with a degree, been on the verge of life!” She took a long breath. “I didn’t mean for anyone to think I was Kellen. I mean, not forever. At first I was simply trying to get away from the Lykke family, from Gregory’s horrible sister and his weak mother. Then I found you, and I began to feel safe.”
“And I looked at the papers and assumed you were Kellen, and when you found out, you ran. Ettore shot you, and when you recovered consciousness, you used the papers to join the Army.”
“That made me Kellen forever, because lying to the federal government and the US military would result in jail time.”
“Yeah.” He put the truck in first gear and pulled back onto the highway. “Let’s think on that. Then let me check my connections and we’ll see if we can make all this legal.”
She gave a brief spurt of laughter. “Of course. Your connections!”
“One more question—there’s no one else left alive in the Lykke family, right? After Gregory’s sister died, that was it?”
“They’re all dead. A scourge wiped from the earth. They can’t hurt me now.”