Marked By The Marshal. Julie Anne Lindsey

of failure cooling on his shoulders. “Yes.” The word was a knife to his chest. Sand was never put away for what he’d done, and now Kara was in danger because of it.

      “I didn’t mention it to her,” West said. “Didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was, but I figured it was worth a phone call to see what you thought.”

      “To see what I thought?” Ryder snapped. “I think a damn fugitive threatened my—” He stopped short. His what? She was nothing to him anymore, and he’d allowed it to be that way. Caused it to be. “Kara.”

      “All right. So, what happened with Sand? I thought he was arrested.”

      “He was. Another marshal took over my cases while I relocated a family for witness protection. He caught Sand on a lark. A call to the tip line actually paid off, but the marshal was new and overzealous. He didn’t have the right evidence to make his case, and Sand’s weasel of a lawyer got the whole thing whittled down to parole and time served.” Ryder had been sick when he came back to town and heard they’d had Sand and didn’t lock him up. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Ryder got busy preparing a watertight case against Sand for the murder of Sand’s first wife. The crime that started it all. He was darn close to having everything he needed to make sure Sand never saw sunlight. Then Sand’s parole had ended, the ankle bracelet had come off and Sand had gone MIA. Until now. “I won’t let him get away this time,” Ryder promised.

      “Well, let’s hope that’s true. Meanwhile, I can’t ignore the possibility there’s a murdering arsonist in my county. I put Cole on patrol in Kara’s neighborhood and added a deputy to Memorial Park. What are you going to do?”

      A low swear slid off Ryder’s tongue. He gave his forehead a rough scrub. Kara had unequivocally expelled him from her life. She’d packed his bags and set them on the porch with a note telling him he had to go. Her heart couldn’t take watching him waste away any longer in pursuit of one fugitive. It wasn’t worth it to her. Was it worth it to him?

      Sadly, yes. It had been. Putting Sand behind bars had become symbolic of Ryder’s ability to be a marshal, to protect his family, fiancée and anyone else in his charge. He’d bound his self-worth to the apprehension of this man, and he couldn’t catch him.

      Ryder yanked the zipper on his duffel and slung it over one shoulder. Now he had to go back and protect Kara from a danger he’d inadvertently caused her. West wanted to know what he was going to do? There was only one answer. “I’m coming home, brother.”

      “Good,” West agreed. “For what it’s worth, and at the risk of sounding like Mom, it’s long past time for the two of you to talk. I hate that Sand is the reason you finally will, but I’m glad anyway. Kara will be, too.”

      Ryder barked a humorless laugh. Yeah. Kara would be thrilled to see him. He’d stewed in his losses every day, but she’d gone on to find love with someone else, apparently. “Did you say she has a baby?”

      West didn’t respond. They both knew that was exactly what he’d said.

      Did he have to protect the new man in her life as well? His gut fisted at the thought. “How old’s the kid?”

      “Only a few months. A girl.”

      Ryder let his eyes drift shut, momentarily frozen in remorse. “She’s married, then?”

      “Nope. Rumor is that the guy left her when he found out about the pregnancy. That was just over a year ago. Only guy she’s dated since you, I believe, assuming the gossip mill’s still working fine.”

      Ryder clenched his teeth. “Best oiled machine in town.”

      Now there were two men in Shadow Point he wanted to get his hands on. “What kind of jerk does something like that to a woman? To his child?”

      “Not one worth having around,” West said. “She’s better off without him.”

      Folks had probably said the same thing after she’d kicked Ryder out. They wouldn’t have been wrong then, either.

      He grabbed his key, badge and sidearm, then headed into the sunset. There’d be plenty of time to fixate on all the ways he’d ruined his life during the three-hour drive back to Shadow Point. Right now, he needed to get moving.

      * * *

      IT WAS AFTER ten when Kara put on her second pot of coffee. It had been twelve hours since her hasty exit from Memorial Park with Casey, and Kara’s nerves were still in bundles. Casey, on the other hand, was sound asleep in the nursery. Kara was glad for her, but personally, she couldn’t shake the sensation she was being watched.

      She’d locked all the doors and shut the windows the moment they’d gotten home. She’d even pulled the curtains in an effort to stop the heebie-jeebies crawling over her skin. Nothing had worked. On any other night, she’d have poured a glass of sweet tea and sat on the porch swing to unwind from her troubles. Tonight, she was a prisoner in her home. A very hot home.

      The central air was set to seventy-seven, the lowest she could afford to keep it on her public teacher’s salary, and she was dressed accordingly. A worn-out pair of cotton shorts and a pre-pregnancy tank top. The perfect pajamas for nights like these. Though hers were being tested at every seam by the added pounds of stubborn baby weight, she wouldn’t complain. Those pounds were hard earned and well worth the prize.

      Kara poured a cup of fresh coffee and sank onto a kitchen chair. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. If things had turned out the way she’d planned, she wouldn’t be shaking the willies right now over some man in the park. She’d be sharing a late-night snack with Ryder Garrett, and laughing as he told her all the ways he could keep that man from ever looking her way again. And he’d mean it. Kara smiled against the rim of her cup. She’d never been afraid of anything when Ryder was in her life.

      Let it go, she chastised herself. You shouldn’t want him. Ryder had chosen a life of compulsion, danger and near madness over her. Based on that alone, she shouldn’t love him anymore, but all these years later she still couldn’t go twenty-four hours without thinking of him. Ridiculous. Especially since he’d left town and never looked back.

      The sound of a car door drew Kara’s attention back to the moment, and she was irrationally glad to have something else to think about. Even the possibility of an unwanted guest. Kara padded across the living room carpet for a peek between the curtains. There was no movement on the street or in her driveway. Whoever had arrived or gone in the car had already done so, and the neighborhood had settled back into the hazy calm of a sweltering summer night. She checked the door and window locks again for good measure, moving methodically around the first floor, then up to the second.

       It was nothing. Just a neighbor coming or going. No reason to overthink this.

      The tug of sleep pulled at her muscles and eyelids as she tested the final window. She rubbed the fine hairs on her forearms, smoothing them where they stood at attention, sent on alert by the goose bumps covering her skin. She’d reported her weird exchange at the park to the local sheriff, a man who had nearly become her brother-in-law once. What more could she do? Thankfully, he hadn’t judged her for her paranoia. Instead, he’d promised to look into it and to add a night patrol to her street. She really couldn’t ask for more, especially considering nothing had actually happened. Kara had dealt with pushy men all her life, ones who leered at her and said crude things. She imagined all women had, but it was the first time she’d been confronted so blatantly with her baby present. Maybe that was what had upset her so much. The idea her baby was there. That he’d wanted to touch her. Is her daddy at work? Was that his creepy way of asking if Kara was involved with anyone since her ring finger was bare?

      Kara moved to Casey’s room for another look at her sweet princess. She needed a nice vision to replace the man’s face burned into her mind. He’d had a slightly crazed expression like the one Ryder had worn at his worst, during the sleepless weeks of obsession over a fugitive named Timothy Sand. Ryder was barely human in those days, distant and monosyllabic. Like an