“But you didn’t trust me,” she said.
“You didn’t trust me, either,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have raced here to make sure I didn’t kill Margaret for vigilante justice. You still suspected that I might be a killer.”
“I didn’t know who you really are,” she said.
She hadn’t known what he really did for a living, but she should have known what kind of person he was. Since she hadn’t, there was no way that she could love him.
“How did you figure out where I had gone?” he asked. “You had all that information for years, but you never put it together. And then I took everything to present to the district attorney. So how did you realize it was Margaret?”
“CJ told me.”
He laughed at her ridiculous claim. “CJ? How did he figure it out?”
“You told him,” she said, “when you told him that you were going to get rid of the bad person so he’d be safe.”
He hadn’t even known if the little boy was truly awake when he’d told him goodbye. It was wanting to make sure that goodbye wasn’t permanent that had had Brendan going through the proper channels for the arrest warrant.
“You said bad person,” she said, “not bad man, like we’d been telling him the shooters and the bomber was. Since Margaret was the only female I’d talked to about your father’s murder, it had to be her.”
He glanced to that car where his stepmother sat and waited for him. He needed to question her. But he dreaded leaving Josie after he had nearly lost her. He couldn’t even blink without horrible images replaying in his mind—the burly man slapping her so hard her neck snapped and then the gun pressed to her temple …
Josie shivered as she followed his gaze. “I need to get home to CJ. I need to make sure he’s safe.”
“You don’t need to go home,” he said. “He should be here very soon.”
Her brow furrowed. “How? Is Charlotte bringing him?”
“Charlotte couldn’t come.” He wondered if the former U.S. marshal had had her baby yet. “So I sent someone else to get him from Mrs. Mallory’s.”
She clutched his arm with a shaking hand. “You shouldn’t have trusted anyone else, not with our son.
“I sent the only person I trust,” he said.
She shivered again as if his words had chilled her. He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, but he hadn’t been able to trust her—any more than she had been able to trust him.
The arrival of another vehicle, a minivan, drew their attention to the driveway. He smiled as an older woman jumped out of the driver’s seat and pulled open the sliding door to the back. A redheaded little boy raised his arms and encircled the woman’s neck as she lifted him from his booster seat.
“Looks like CJ likes his grandma,” he murmured.
Josie gasped. “That’s your mother? She really is alive?”
The dark, curly-haired woman was small, like Margaret, but she had so much energy and vibrancy. She would never be mistaken for fragile. She was the strongest woman he had ever known … until he’d witnessed Josie’s fearlessness over and over again. She would have taken a bullet in the brain before she would have ever led Margaret to their son.
Almost too choked with emotion over seeing his mom and son together, Brendan only nodded. Then he cleared his throat and added, “My dangerous assignment is over now.” And given what he now knew he had to lose, he didn’t intend to ever go undercover again. “So I’d like to have a relationship with my son.”
“Of course,” she immediately agreed. “I’m glad he’s met your mother. She sounds like an amazing woman. She gave up so much for you.”
Just as Josie would have for their son. For him, Brendan’s mother had given up justice for all the pain his father had put her through.
He nodded. “She is.”
Josie smiled as the little boy giggled in his grandmother’s arms as she tickled him. “I would like CJ to meet my father now—if you think it’s safe.”
“It’s all over now,” Brendan assured her. “Margaret knows that. Anyone who worked for her knows that now.” The burly guard was sitting in the back of another car. Agents had apprehended him as he’d hightailed it out of the house. “It will be safe.”
She bit her bottom lip and sighed. “For us. I’m not sure how safe it’ll be for my father though. I don’t want to risk giving him another heart attack. It’s bad enough that he was attacked to draw me out of hiding.”
And that was probably his fault, too—Margaret’s wanting to make sure no other O’Hannigan heirs stood in the way of her greed. He needed to interview the crazy woman and find out who she’d been working with—who she’d bought.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He couldn’t apologize enough for the danger in which he’d put Josie and their son.
BRENDAN WANTED A relationship with his son but not her. Would he never trust her? Would he never forgive her for deceiving him?
He had deceived her, too. Of course he’d had his reasons. And his orders. He couldn’t tell her the truth and risk her blowing his cover.
Now she understood why he’d been so angry with her when he’d realized she had initially sought him out for an exposé. It hadn’t been just a matter of pride. It had been a matter of life and death.
After all the times she’d been shot at and nearly blown up, she understood how dangerous his life was. That was why he’d kept apologizing to her.
He’d said he was sorry, but he’d never said what she’d wanted to hear. That he loved her.
She sighed.
“Everything all right, miss?” the driver asked.
She glanced into the back of the government Suburban where CJ’s booster seat had been buckled. Her son was safe and happy. Of course he hadn’t wanted to leave his daddy or his grandma, but he’d agreed when she’d explained he was going to meet his grandpa.
“Yes, I just hope that my dad is better.” That he would be strong enough to handle the surprise of seeing her alive and well.
The older man nodded. She hadn’t noticed him during all the turmoil earlier in Margaret’s house. He didn’t have a scratch on his bald head or a wrinkle in his dark suit. Maybe he hadn’t been part of the rescue. Maybe he’d been in the van that they’d passed as they’d left the estate.
“Thank you for driving me to the hospital, Agent …”
“Marshal,” he replied. “I’m a U.S. marshal.”
“Did Charlotte send you?” she asked. Brendan had told her why her friend had been unable to come to her aid herself; she was having a baby. She hadn’t even known Charlotte was pregnant. It had to be Aaron Timmer’s baby. Josie had realized her friend was falling for her former bodyguard shortly after he’d been hired to work palace security, too. Had they married? She’d been so preoccupied with her own life lately that she hadn’t gotten the specifics of what Charlotte and Princess Gabriella had endured.
“Charlotte?” the man repeated the name.
“Charlotte Green,” Josie explained. “She was the marshal who relocated me in the program.”
The man nodded. “Yes, she didn’t tell anyone else where she’d placed you. Not even her partner.”
Josie shuddered as she thought of the man who would have killed to learn her whereabouts. He must have been working for Margaret O’Hannigan.