Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(3)

Yeah, hope was a very dangerous thing. More dangerous than a loaded .45 aimed right at your head. And, shit, he should know. Because thanks to his splintered hope, he’d lived through that horror too.

All because of a man he planned to confront as soon as he walked out of this hospital.



She should have listened.

Raegan stepped out of the hospital room, rubbed a shaky hand against her forehead, and drew in a deep breath, desperate to settle her racing pulse. Nothing helped. It felt as if a jackhammer were chipping away at what was left of her heart, the pain nearly as intense as the day Emma had gone missing.

She pressed her hand to her chest and focused on breathing. He’d tried to warn her. Alec had tried to keep her from rushing into that room and getting hurt all over again, but she hadn’t listened. He might have decimated her once, but he still cared. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have waited for her here at the hospital. He would have left as soon as he realized the girl in that room wasn’t their missing daughter.

“Excuse me, miss?” The officer outside the door stepped toward her. “Are you okay?”

Tears burned Raegan’s eyes. Tears of pain, of frustration, of trampled hope, but she blinked them back, breathed deeply, and pulled herself together. “Yes,” she managed. “I’m fine.”

She turned away and swiped at her eyes. One look and Raegan had known the girl wasn’t Emma. Her hair had been too dark, her eyes too round, and she’d been missing the small, strawberry birthmark on the outer edge of her right eye that Emma had been born with. Raegan had known not to get her hopes up. Had known the chances were slim, but she’d hoped anyway. And she’d go on hoping regardless of what Bickam or Alec said. Because hope was all she had left these days.

Be tough. You can get through this.

Lifting her head, she drew a deep breath and smoothed her blouse over her slacks. She was no worse off than she’d been this morning, right? This didn’t have to wreck her. She wouldn’t let it.

She turned away from the officer and headed back down the hall toward the lobby, her heels clicking along the tile floor like an ominous warning. Her pulse was still too high, but as soon as she got back to the office and dove into her work, she’d be fine. Maybe she’d even cut out early and get a drink before she had to meet Jeremy and his friends for dinner.

Her footsteps fumbled when she spotted Alec sitting on a chair midway down the corridor, massaging his forehead as if he had a whopper of a tension headache. Her treacherous heart squeezed tight, thumping a bruising rhythm against her ribs as she stared at him.

They’d been divorced nearly three years, but every inch of her body still responded to him as if they’d just met. Her skin heated, her mouth watered, and a low tingle spread through her belly and inched its way downward until her knees were literally shaking.

He stopped his vigorous rubbing and lifted his head. And when his sky-blue eyes caught hers and held, that heat in her skin combusted.

He pushed to his feet, watching her carefully. Swallowing hard, she forced her legs forward and told herself not to get worked up. This was Alec. The man who’d told her their marriage was a mistake. The one who’d trampled all over her heart. The one who’d left her alone and broken when she’d needed him most.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

Dammit, she wanted to hate him but couldn’t. He’d been as broken as she had when Emma had gone missing. He’d simply dealt with it in a very different way. One that now—years later—she’d accepted but would never understand.

“Yeah,” she managed, slipping her hands into the pockets of her trench coat because she didn’t know what to do with them. “I’m fine.”

He nodded, but she could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. She found herself wanting to lean into him for comfort. Found herself wanting to scream at him for being here when she was emotionally wrecked and physically drained. Found herself wishing so many things between them could be different.

Nothing was different, though. This was her reality: a missing child, a failed marriage, and a life left tattered and crumbling around her when all she was trying to do was move on.

He slid his hands into the front pockets of his worn jeans, the movement pulling at the black Henley over his strong shoulders. A low pulse beat through her belly as she studied him. He was just as gorgeous as he’d always been—blond hair, a lean, muscular body he obviously still took care of—but the years had aged him in ways no thirty-two-year-old should be aged. Fine lines that hadn’t been there before creased his temple, and she could see a hint of gray in the blond scruff covering his jaw. Dark circles marred the soft skin beneath his lashes, telling her he hadn’t slept much recently, and worry churned in her belly at the thought he was drinking again. But one look at his clear blue eyes told her he’d exorcised that demon from his life, at least. The guilt, though, she still saw swirling in their cerulean depths.

She hated that she still loved him. Hated that she wanted to comfort him the way he’d never let her comfort him. Hated especially that even after all the misery and heartache and time apart, he was still the one. The one who made her heart beat faster and her palms sweat. The one who could rock her world with just one look. The one who would forever ruin all other men for her from now until the end of time.

“I saw you on the news the other night,” he said in the awkward silence.