ELIZA CLUNG TIGHTLY to her husband, Pierce, pressing her body against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, her arms around his waist, pulling him in. Charleston International Airport was teeming with comers and goers and waiters that Friday afternoon. Businesspeople arriving home for the weekend, and others, like her, heading out.
Pierce gave her a tight squeeze—more akin to a pat on the head than a desperate hug filled with the emotional angst of having gone through this before, pledging to see each other again and then not.
She savored the contact.
“You’ve got your driver’s license, your boarding pass is on your phone and there will be a car waiting for you in Palm Springs. If your name is not professionally printed on a card, get a cab instead...” He’d started walking the five feet to the security checkpoint line. Once she joined the queue, he’d leave her.
“Remember, don’t make eye contact with men you don’t know, and—”
She shook her head. “I got it, Pierce. I’ve been keeping myself safe for a long time.” Having lived the majority of her adult life alone, she wasn’t worried.
“The world’s changing, Eliza, and California is not Shelby Island. Not everyone you meet is your friend, nor are they all safe for you to bring home.”
She knew that, too. Had a very careful vetting system and security measures in place for the guests she hosted at her successful Shelby Island bed-and-breakfast in an antebellum home just thirty miles down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.
She’d also been doing that alone for the majority of her adult life.
“I promise, I’ll stay alert, babe,” she told her husband—because she knew that these reminders were his way of supporting her choice to go.
“Just watch yourself going to and from the studio. You’re going to be all over national television, and who knows what kind of crackpot could come out of the ozone? You’re a beautiful woman and...”
She wasn’t. At five-five and a hundred thirty-five pounds, she wasn’t as tall and skinny as the California TV beauties. She wasn’t blonde, either. On good days, her brown hair had a bit of a shine to it. Mostly it just fell, all mousy-looking, around her shoulders, wherever gravity took it. But she loved that Pierce found her as good-looking as he had when they’d been an item in high school. Hard to believe that had been nearly eighteen years ago.
They’d reached the end of the line. Which was moving quickly. She stepped to the side to let a family of five pass. Mom, dad and the kids. That would never be her.
She looked up into Pierce’s big blue eyes—the only soft part of her military-trained cop husband—and melted when he met her gaze with all of the depth of his heart. That look...some days it seemed it was all that was left of the sweet, sensitive boy who’d left her just-turned-sixteen self to go off to basic training.
“I love you, babe,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
There. She took a deep breath. Came back to herself.
“I’ll see you in two days,” she told him. A promise. A pledge. A hope.
And a worry.
“Don’t worry about getting your bag when you come back,” he said. “I’ll park and come in.”
She nodded.
He kissed her. Just a peck. She wanted it to be more personal and might have pushed him into it if she hadn’t had a guilty conscience.
And off she went. To join the queue of strangers. To fly across the country to meet more strangers, to appear as one of eight contestants—all strangers—on the nationally syndicated Family Secrets cooking show—and to search for the one stranger who knew her from the inside out.
Literally.
A stranger Pierce Westin knew nothing about.
* * *
FROM A VANTAGE point against the wall, mostly concealed by a pillar, he watched her through security. And for as far as he could see her.
Because Pierce would never get enough of seeing his beautiful wife. It wasn’t just her big brown eyes, soft cheekbones, and lips that set the world on fire that drew him—though he loved all of that, too. No, it was just...her.
And the fact that she was in his life again. Married to him.
Some nights he woke up in a cold sweat and still couldn’t believe that Eliza Maxwell was his wife. He’d lie there, touching her shoulder, looking at her sometimes for more than an hour, to avoid going back to sleep. When he slept, she was, like the rest of his few good childhood memories, completely out of reach.
The fear that rent his gut when she turned a corner and was out of sight would be with him until her return.
And he would work his tail off. Protecting the people of Charleston, paying it forward—so that the law enforcement of Palm Desert protected her.
He might kid himself that he risked his life every day as a kind of penance—to pay for the sins of his past. But deep down he knew better. There was nothing he could do—ever—to make up for what he’d done. No way his soul would ever be out of debt.
As he reached his patrol car, the fear inside him increased. He wasn’t afraid of the job. On the contrary, his time on the streets, looking out for bad guys, taking them on, taking them in, was the only time he ever really felt comfortable.
What he feared was greater than mere physical death. It was the fear of a man who knew that he wasn’t good enough for the woman he loved.
Who knew that...someday...he would lose her. Again.
* * *
THERE WAS A little gathering for contestants Friday evening down in the lounge. Hosted by the hotel, there’d be wine and