Risky Return. Virginia Vaughan

believed me that Missy wasn’t a runaway.”

      “I might have changed my mind after seeing those.”

      “I’m sorry, Kent. Please, I just want to go home. My head is killing me.”

      She feared he was about to give her the you-need-to-go-to-the-hospital spiel again, but he sighed instead. “I can have a deputy take you home.”

      “That won’t be necessary,” Collin said. “I’ll take her home.”

      Rebecca wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Collin had swooped back into her life all of a sudden and she hadn’t even gotten her equilibrium back enough to process his return. Now, he was offering to drive her home?

      He held out his hand and she took it, but as she stood, the world around her began to spin. Her knees buckled and she fell, but Collin was there in a shot, wrapping his strong arms around her and keeping her vertical. She soaked in the smell of his musky aftershave as she leaned into him.

      “I’ll help you,” he said, his voice gentle and reassuring.

      She allowed him to guide her to his car, but as she slid inside she realized she didn’t have the food she’d come here for. She pressed her head against the back of the seat. She wasn’t up for any more shopping today. Hopefully Missy would be okay until the morning.

      Collin slid into the driver’s seat, started the car and turned out of the parking lot. She still couldn’t believe she was sitting beside Collin Walsh. It was too unreal to be anything but a dream. And how many times had she dreamed about this man reappearing in her life through the years? Now, he had.

      She reached out and touched his arm just to reassure herself this was real. He covered her hand with his and the weight of it against hers convinced her it was. Collin Walsh was back in town and back in her life.

      He squeezed her hand but the furrowing of his brow told her he was worried. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

      “I will be.” She moved her hand and turned away. She couldn’t sit here drooling over Collin. She had to get back to Missy. But his reappearance in her life was something she hadn’t planned on. “I didn’t know you were back in town,” Rebecca said. In fact, she hadn’t heard of him being back in their hometown in years.

      “My mom passed away a few months ago. She’d been in a nursing home for years. I thought it was time to clean out her house and put it on the market.”

      His mother. Of course. Rebecca had visited with her often, keeping tabs on Collin and his jaunts around the world in the army, reading the letters he’d sent home to his mom until her health forced her to be moved. “I’m sorry about your mother. I always liked her.”

      He gave a slight smile and glanced at her. “Thank you. She always liked you, too.”

      If only her parents had been as easygoing as his mother, things might have ended differently between them. They had never liked Collin, even going so far as to forbid Rebecca from seeing him. That hadn’t stopped her. Nothing could have stopped her from marrying Collin Walsh back then...and nothing had.

      And she’d paid a big price for doing so. She’d lost her husband, her baby and her happy future.

      “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in the store,” he said. “Honestly, I was trying to decide if I should say hi or not when I saw that man grab you.”

      So he’d considered not even speaking to her? It stung her to know she meant so little to him when she’d once loved him so much. But she was grateful he’d been there. She didn’t know what her attacker would have done if Collin hadn’t intervened. Would he have used that knife he’d flashed at her? Or had this attack only been a warning? She wrung her hands and looked out the window. Was he out there somewhere following them? She was suddenly very glad Collin had offered to take her home.

      “Thank you for helping me.” A thousand questions popped into her mind that she wanted to ask him. She’d thought about him often throughout the years, and wondered where he was and what he was doing. “Did I hear you joined the army?”

      “I did. I even became an army ranger.”

      That was impressive.

      “But I left the service three years ago. I’ve been working private security ever since.”

      “Like being a bodyguard?”

      “Sort of, but on a global scale. I was overseas when Mom passed away. Fortunately, her sister was with her when she died.”

      How terrible that he hadn’t been able to be there with his mother. However, she knew his mom had suffered from dementia and hadn’t known anyone for several years. Still, she couldn’t imagine not being home when her own mother had died of cancer five years earlier.

      “What about you? What are you doing these days?”

      “I work for the court system. I’m a psychologist specializing in child welfare. I act as a representative for children who come through the courts, usually those who’ve been removed from their homes and gone into the foster care system.” It wasn’t the career her parents had hoped for her, but she enjoyed her work and the kids she helped. Only now, helping one of them had placed her life in danger.

      She glanced out the window again and still saw no one behind them, but would she even know how to recognize a tail if she had one?

      Collin reached over and covered her hands with his right hand again. “No one is following us,” he assured her. “I’ve been watching. Whoever it was that attacked you is gone.”

      She gave him a warm smile. He always could reassure her.

      “I knew you would do good things,” he told her. “You always had a good heart.”

      But not good enough to keep him around. She grimaced at that thought as their past and present collided. She had to keep her focus on today and what was happening now. “I enjoy my work. I’ve gotten quite close to some of the kids I work with.”

      “No kids of your own?”

      She stared at him. How could he even ask that when they were still technically married? The day he’d left, her dreams of family and children were placed permanently on hold. “No, of course not.”

      She pointed out her driveway and Collin pulled into it and got out. She got out, too, her balance steadier but still off-kilter. He held on to her arm as he walked her toward the front door.

      “Are you sure you’re okay to be alone? You don’t want to go to the hospital?”

      “No. I’ll be fine. It’s only a cut. I’m more shaken up than anything.” She pulled out her keys. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, to ask him, but none of them would come out. He’d come back to town not to see her, but to clean up his mother’s house and finally sever his last connection to her and this town. She wouldn’t intrude on his life. And she wouldn’t drag him into her mess. She forced herself to move away from him.

      “Thank you for your help, Collin. It was good to see you again.” It didn’t sound like enough after all they’d been through. They’d never even talked about their marriage or the baby they’d lost. It had all just seemed to fade away in the years they’d been apart.

      She glanced up at him and thought she saw something more in his eyes, something he wanted to say. He stepped closer and her knees weakened, and it wasn’t from the bash on her head. He still had that power over her. But he didn’t say whatever was on his mind. Instead, he stepped back away from her. “It was good to see you, too, Rebecca.” Such simple words and yet they stung her. It was really true. Everything they’d ever had was over. She turned, her hands shaking as she pushed the key into the door and stepped inside. She leaned against the door as she closed it, heaving a sigh as she closed the door on her life with Collin as well.

      She opened her eyes and a scream escaped her lips.

      * * *

      He