Watching Over Her. Lisa Childs

then an older car, with rust around the wheel wells and on the hood, pulled up across from them and parked at the curb in front of the house.

      “That’s his wife,” Maggie said as a red-haired woman stepped from the car.

      Nobody else was inside the vehicle, so seeing no threat to Maggie’s safety, Blaine opened his door. “Mrs. Doremire.”

      She jumped as if startled. But then, in a neighborhood like this, it probably was strange for someone to call out her name. It was probably strange for anyone to even know her name. She slowly turned around and stared at him. “Yes?”

      “Tammy,” Maggie called out to her.

      The woman peered around him and noticed Maggie inside the SUV. She smiled and waved. “Hi, there. Mark will be thrilled that you finally came over to visit.”

      “Is he here?” Blaine asked.

      Tammy turned her attention back to him, and her brow furrowed with confusion. “I’m sorry...”

      “Blaine.” He introduced himself with his first name only. If the press had mentioned him in any reports about the bank robbery, it would have been as Special Agent Campbell. “I’m a friend of Maggie’s.”

      And, really, friendship was all he could expect from her—even though he wanted so much more. He wanted her.

      “I’m sorry,” Tammy Doremire said again, as she crossed the street to the SUV. “Mark isn’t here right now.”

      “Where is he?”

      She sighed. “He’s at one of his folks’—probably his dad’s.”

      “Dad’s?” Maggie asked. “Mr. and Mrs. Doremire aren’t together anymore?”

      “They split up after Andy died,” she said. “It was too much for them. So Mark keeps checking on them, like he checks on you, Maggie. He’s trying so hard to take care of everybody since Andy’s gone.”

      Maggie’s voice cracked as she apologized now. “I’m sorry...”

      It wasn’t her fault that Andy had died. It was whoever had set the damn IED where the convoy would hit it. But Mark’s wife didn’t absolve her of guilt. She only shrugged.

      “Sometimes he’ll stay the night at his dad’s,” she said, “so you’ll probably want to come back tomorrow.”

      Maggie nodded in agreement. But Blaine had other plans.

      “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Doremire,” he said as he slid back behind the wheel.

      She nodded, but her brow was furrowed again—as if she’d realized she hadn’t really met him. He had only told her his first name.

      “We’ll come back tomorrow, then,” he lied.

      “Why?” Maggie asked after he’d closed his door. “You can tell Mark has nothing to do with the robberies. He’s too busy taking care of everyone.”

      “Where does Andy’s dad live?” he asked.

      She shook her head.

      “You don’t know?”

      “I didn’t even know they had gotten divorced,” she pointed out, and that guilt was in her voice again, as if she considered herself responsible, “so how would I know where either of them is living now?”

      “One of them might have kept the house where they lived before Andy died,” he said. “You know where that is.”

      He felt a flash of guilt that it might have been the house where Andy had grown up—a house where she and Andy had shared memories. It would be hard for her to go back to that.

      “I know,” she admitted and then confirmed his thoughts when she added, “but I don’t want to go there.”

      He wished he didn’t have to take her there. But he had to find Mark before his wife had a chance to warn him that a man, a friend of Maggie’s, was looking for him. Because then the man would run for sure...

      * * *

      BLAINE CAMPBELL CARED only about his job. He didn’t care about her or he wouldn’t have made her give him directions to Andy’s childhood home in southwestern Michigan. He wouldn’t have kept her in the car to go with him. He wouldn’t have made her keep revisiting her past and her guilt.

      Everything had fallen apart since Andy’s death. And that was all her fault. If she had told him the truth earlier, he wouldn’t have reenlisted. He wouldn’t have needed the money for the damn ring she had never wanted.

      Blaine Campbell had taken it as evidence against Susan Iverson. She hoped he never returned it.

      Maggie stared out the windshield at the highway that wound around the Lake Michigan shoreline. She had always liked this drive—until she had traveled it up for Andy’s funeral. Then she had vowed to never use it again.

      She hadn’t wanted to go back. It wasn’t home without her best friend. She had to make a new home for herself and for her baby. But she was afraid that she hadn’t found one yet—at least, not one where they would be safe.

      “Andy’s been gone awhile,” Blaine remarked.

      “Nearly six months,” she said. But sometimes it hadn’t sunk in yet. Sometimes she still looked for his letters in her mailbox or an email in her in-box or a call...

      “Did you even know that you were pregnant when you learned that he’d died?”

      She nodded. Since her cycle had always been so regular, she’d taken a test on her first missed day. She hadn’t been happy with those test results because she’d known that Andy would insist on marrying her. He had always been so old-fashioned and so honorable. But now he was dead...

      Blaine’s gaze was on the road, so he must have missed her nod. She cleared her throat and replied, “Yes, I had just found out.”

      “You’re strong,” he said.

      She nearly laughed. Had he already forgotten how she’d screamed her head off that first day they’d met? She wasn’t nearly as strong as she’d like to be. If she was, she might have saved Sarge. “Why do you say that?”

      “Some women might have lost the baby,” he explained, “because of the stress.”

      “I was fine.” She hadn’t had any problems then; she hadn’t even had morning sickness. She was more afraid of losing the child now.

      As if he’d heard her unspoken thoughts, he reached across the console and squeezed her hand. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised. “I’ll keep you both safe.”

      Andy had made promises, too. He’d promised that he would return from his last deployment. So Maggie knew that some promises couldn’t be kept. She suspected that the promise Blaine had just made was one of them.

      He didn’t believe that, though. He thought it was a promise he could keep and his green eyes were full of sincerity as he shared a glance with her. Then he turned his attention back to the road and to the rearview mirror. His hand tensed on hers before he released it and gripped the wheel.

      “Hold on!” he warned her as he pressed harder on the accelerator.

      Maggie instinctively reached out for the dashboard, bracing her hands against it, just as the SUV shot forward. “What’s going on? Why are you driving so fast?”

      She had felt safe with him earlier. But not now.

      “Just hold on,” Blaine said again, as he sped up some more.

      Tires squealed as he careened around a curve.

      “What are you doing?” she asked again—with alarm.

      But then more tires squealed and metal crunched as another vehicle slammed hard into the rear bumper of the SUV. The SUV fishtailed,