Anything for Her(90)

Her hair was wet and plastered to her head, her face blanched, the raindrops on her lashes reminding Nolan of tears. Her hands were knotted so tightly together in front of her, the knuckles were white.

He shook his head. “Say that again.”

It didn’t sound any better the second time. “Someone is looking for us,” she said. “Whoever it was found Dad and was asking questions.”

“Wait.” Oh, hell. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to tell her. At the same time, the relief was huge. Nobody from their past was looking for Allie or her mother. He’d been the one looking, stirring up something he didn’t understand. “This is all my fault,” he said.

“What?” Eyes huge and dark, she gaped at him.

“Allie, come here.” He held out a hand.

With new wariness, she stared at his hand, then raised her gaze to his face without taking a step forward.

“Please.”

She was trembling, he saw, when she nodded and then came to him. Once he had her small hand in his, he drew her forward.

“I did something stupid, Allie.”

The green-gold was almost lost, as dilated as her eyes were. “You told someone?”

Oh, man. He’d give a lot not to have to admit what he’d done. But she’d understand. Surely she’d understand. And she’d be relieved, too, he wanted to believe. “You know how curious I was,” he said gruffly.

She had gone so still, he wasn’t sure she was breathing.

“You told me you’d gone to high school outside Tulsa. You even told me the name of the town.” He was beginning to feel desperate. Oh, hell, he thought again. “Then when your mother had a different story, I called the high school in Fairfield. They had no record of an Allie or Allison Wright.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I was going to confront you.”

“But instead you hired an investigator?” Her voice rose with each word. Her hand writhed within his grasp, trying to free itself. He didn’t want to let her go, but he did. She retreated a couple of steps.

“Not at that point. Sean said high school yearbooks are online. He’s right.”

“Online?” Allie looked and sounded as if he’d punched her in the belly.

“I’m afraid so. I looked through the one for the year I figured you’d have been a junior.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yeah. I found you, Allie. But, surprise, surprise, you weren’t Allie Wright at all. You were Laura Nelson.”

“Then...when I told you, you already knew?”

“All I knew was that you and your mother had left Oklahoma and changed your names. You kept being resistant when I asked you about your background. I thought I could find out what had happened back then.”

“So you hired a P.I.”

He grimaced. “Yeah. That’s what I did.”

“How could you do that?” Her shock and hurt went deeper than he’d ever dreamed they would. “We were seeing each other, and you were having me investigated?”

In her words, it sounded even worse than it did the way he’d framed what had at the time seemed like a rational thing to do. Possibly paranoid, he would admit. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know he had one very hot button, which she had pushed.

“It was...actually during that week when I didn’t see you.”

Allie gave her head a small shake. “I can’t believe this.”

“I’m sorry.” His throat felt raw. “It was a shitty thing to do. My only defense is that I have a big thing about being lied to. You know why.”

“You never came to me and said, ‘I know you’re hiding something. If we’re going to have a relationship, I need you to be up front with me.’ Instead, you hired an investigator?” Her voice had risen again, in exactly the same way, ending up shrill and disbelieving.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was going to tell you what I’d done, Allie. I’ve been dragging my feet because I knew you’d be pissed or hurt or both. I don’t blame you.” His urgency grew as he watched her face. “Once I got the first report from the P.I., I knew I’d gone too far. I called him off.”

“What if his questions caught someone else’s attention? What if the very fact that he was poking around has put us at risk again?”

Guilt was a huge, indigestible lump in his belly. “What would make you think anyone else even noticed?”