Annie laughed a little. “Yes, it crossed my mind.”
He looked serious again. “Those files told me everything I needed to conclude you weren’t a thief. You’re that same woman, even after all the crap flung at you. I love you. Not just because you’ve changed your world to make things right in every way you could, but because I can see the strength in you. You’ve been forged in fire, that’s for damn sure. It’s made you sharp and extraordinary, and still somehow so kind.”
He touched her cheek, a gentle sweep of fingers. “You’re an amazing woman caught in a terrible web. Don’t let it swallow you. Please. You’ve paid your penance.”
Annie blinked back the tears only he seemed to wring out of her. “I’d hate to play poker with you. You’re a ruthless man. But the truth is, I think I love you back.”
His smile made her giddy inside. “You think?”
“Shea and Jesse fell in love in a week,” she murmured, more for her own benefit than his.
“It happens. Not often, but it does.” His calm self-assurance comforted her. Tucker wouldn’t tell a woman he loved her if he had even the slightest doubt.
“It’s been crazy. The past few days…life in general. I can’t keep up with anything.”
His steady gaze lit with a flicker of humor. “And yet some things remain consistent. For example, did you know that Chinese food heats up in a microwave, good as new?”
“Does it?”
He nodded. Rose. Offered her his hand.
Near midnight, they finally ate their reheated dinner in bed, with Letterman in the background. Worn out, they touched from hip to toes. All Annie could think was how incredibly lucky she was.
WHEN TUCKER ENTERED THE HOUSE, his mother was waiting in the foyer. She looked her elegant self, but he was reasonably sure she’d tried calling Christian and was concerned.
She hugged him, smiled, searched his face. “You look tired.”
“It’s been a long trip.”
They walked to the staircase, where Tucker left his briefcase, laptop and hat, then went to the kitchen. It was just ten, and he’d skipped breakfast, knowing Irene would want him to eat with her. Leaving Annie behind had been hard, but she’d assured him she needed the time alone.
“You realize,” his mother said, after they both had cups of coffee, “that you haven’t told me if you found her.”
Tucker looked at the spread on the table, all set out and waiting. A fresh fruit salad, all the fixings for the waffles he deduced the housekeeper had put in the oven to keep warm. Most likely next to the crisp bacon. “Let’s eat,” he said. “I’m starving, and it’s a long story.”
Irene went to the stove and pulled out the platters. He found the pitcher of orange juice in the fridge. They fixed their plates as he tried for the hundredth time to come up with an opening line that wouldn’t upset her further.
Finally, after a few bites and verifying that Martha was upstairs changing linen and wouldn’t overhear, he put his hand over his mother’s. He hadn’t realized, until Annie, that he only did that for two women. “I did find her. She was in Montana running a large-animal sanctuary.”
Irene slipped her hand out of his grasp. “It took you all that time to recognize her?”
“No,” he said. “It took me all that time to figure out what’s been going on. I started out looking for the woman. When I got there, I knew I had to search for the truth.”
Tears came to his mother’s eyes. Of course she knew. Not the details, he’d have to give her those in painful doses, but Irene was an intuitive woman. Bali had likely tipped her off. “He’ll never come back, will he?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’d hoped,” she said, using the linen napkin to dab at her tears. “I wanted so much for this to be someone else’s fault. But I left him with Rory, and for all that I’d once loved the man, he had his demons.”
“Mom, please. You did the best you could. There’s a time in every person’s life where they have to stop blaming their upbringing or the circumstances and take responsibility for their actions. Christian’s a grown man. He knows right from wrong. This isn’t about you.”
She tried to smile at him. “I’m his mother, sweetheart. I’ll always be his mother. And he’ll always be the child I left behind.”
ANNIE HAD TAKEN A BATH, but the jetted water and the space to relax hadn’t helped at all. Her thoughts were going in circles. For every argument to wait for the attorney to come up with a plan, there was a counterargument for her to cut through what would be an unknowable amount of time and take matters into her own hands.
She’d found a leather club chair that fit perfectly when she curled her legs under her, and sipped yet more coffee. The chair faced the big window in the living room, and the panorama of city life spread out before her seemed more like an art exhibit than reality.
It was odd to be alone. How had Tucker become a familiar and comforting presence in such a short time? That she missed him so much surprised and frightened her. Between each chain of thoughts about Christian and the bookies and the law were gaps filled with only one thought on a continuous loop—Tucker loved her.
That was the most astonishing thing of all. It outweighed all the fear and doubt and self-recrimination, and every time she started to think she didn’t deserve him, his voice came to scold her. He was a smart man who knew his own mind. And he knew exactly who she was. All of it. All the things she’d hidden for so long.
Then she’d get back on the cycle of doubt and peddle that sucker until she ran out of steam.
In the end, the deciding factor came down to the fact that he loved her. Ironic, but that was the swing vote. Or perhaps, that she loved him. Either way, she knew what she had to do. For her, for him. For them.
She pulled out her cell, and called the number she’d looked up two years ago but never used.
TUCKER’S EVERY INSTINCT rebelled at what was happening. Ever since Annie had told him her decision to go directly to the district attorney and offer herself up as a bargaining chip, he’d had to work harder than ever to keep in mind that Annie was her own person. And she had a right to do something he considered unbelievably reckless. That was the trap he couldn’t seem to escape. He, the man who would take a bullet for her, wasn’t the one in control.
And now she was the centerpiece in a sting operation to blackmail the two bookies. Money in exchange for her silence. She’d give them recordings they believed Christian had made, then disappear forever this time. That’s how it was supposed to work.
He’d just spent the most nerve-racking three days of his life. And Annie? Jesus, she was a rock.
“You’re going to be surrounded by our people, Annie. Remember that,” the FBI special agent told her.
Tucker knew Doreen Wellman believed what she said. Which didn’t make it true.
Everyone else―Peter, the assistant D.A. in charge of organized crime, the supervisory special agent who ran the task force trying to nail Dave Bell and Mickey O’Brien, the bookies who’d been running roughshod across New York for over fifteen years—had cleared the room while Agent Wellman checked the wires in Annie’s clothes.
It was something new, nothing like what he’d seen in the movies. This wire was literally the size of a fiber-optic strand, so slender it was sewn into Annie’s bra, virtually invisible. Also untraceable by any technology out there. Or so Tucker had been told.
He wanted to sit back and let events unfold, focus on being supportive, but for Christ’s sake, Annie was walking into a viper’s nest.
As