“So you think Matt may still be alive? Maybe he has Ellie?”
“Maybe,” Dillon said, knowing that every minute they didn’t know was costing them both.
And then Sara’s words finally sunk in and something huge tightened inside his chest. The man I love, she’d said.
After everything that had happened, she still loved him.
And he loved her. Enough to want her safe and away from him.
Forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Sara woke the next morning, instead of feeling relaxed and happy to be home and in her own bed, home with her husband, she woke with numbers tumbling madly in her head. Almost sixty-two hours since she’d last seen Ellie. Nearly three days since she’d held her child.
Who had her? Was she safe, was she with Matt or a stranger? Was she being fed, rocked? Was she scared?
Was Ellie, Sara thought curling into a ball, even alive?
Dillon walked out of the bathroom fully dressed in black fatigues, carrying a small rucksack, obviously ready to go somewhere.
She sat up and their gazes met. Her chest constricted as though a steel band were squeezing the breath out of her. So, here they were, twelve months later and things were still the same. They’d come full circle. Minus a child. “Dillon, please. Don’t do this.”
His mouth dipped into a frown, and before he spoke, she knew exactly what he was going to say. “I have to.”
“Why? Why can’t you let someone else do it for once? You don’t have to single-handedly rid the world of bad guys.”
“If I don’t find Cummings and prove my innocence, I’m going to wind up in prison. And the minute I’m locked up, Cummings is going to find you. And then he’ll kill you.”
“Let somebody else find him.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean, you won’t. This is no different than before.”
“We’ll talk about that when I get back. A man, woman, and child were seen leaving Rosarito, Mexico by boat earlier this morning. The man fits Matt’s description. The child’s less than a year old. A woman was holding her, so the source wasn’t sure of the baby’s age.”
Sara’s body snapped to attention. “What source? Who?”
“I told you I had people looking for them. The trio hasn’t tried crossing the border yet. If we don’t have them by four this afternoon, we’re holding a press conference.”
“And yet, you’re leaving?”
“I’ll be back in time for the media and if I hear anything, no matter how small, I’ll call you.”
She got off the bed and stood before him, wanting to plead, but mostly wanting to understand. “What if you don’t come back? What if Cummings kills you?”
“He won’t.”
She stared, full of helpless anger and a frantic kind of sorrow. Dillon wasn’t God, after all, and his confidence was no guarantee. She slumped in defeat and finally, finally, caved and let him win. If this was actually winning. “I can’t live like this. As much as I love you, I just can’t.”
“Tell me, what makes now any different than all the other times I’ve gone on assignment? We’ve been married for a long time, and it never seemed to bother you before.”
“This isn’t an assignment. This is personal. You never took chances like this before. You belonged to a team. A good team that worked together and covered each other’s backs. Who’s going to cover your back now?”
“Me. As long as Cummings thinks you still have the flash drive, or that you can testify against him, he’s not going to stop until you’re dead. So, yeah,” he said, strapping on his gun, “you’re right. This is personal.”
She shook her head. “But you don’t have to do this alone! You’re not the only one who can stop him!”
“I’m the one with the most at stake.” He paused, shoved a hand through his hair, and somehow she knew he was about to say something she never wanted to hear. “Sara, look, when push came to shove, I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this. I didn’t want to say this now, but, dammit, I can’t do this either. I’m sorry.”
The anguish in his eyes went soul deep, and her heart, well, her heart just simply broke. So this was it then. Part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him not to go, even as another part wanted to scream in frustration. “I’m sorry, too,” she said, her voice flat. “I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. I love you, I’ll always love you, and I’m just sorry that my love isn’t enough.”
“I love you too. Love has never been the problem. And I’m not saying good-bye. Not to you or to my baby. Maybe if I were a different man, I could keep you with me. Take that chance. But I can’t stand the thought of you or my child dying because of me or my job. There’s no guarantee there won’t be another Sanchez in my future.” His voice caught and he had to swallow. “That night, in the cave, you called me something. And you were right. Where your life is concerned, I am, and always will be, a coward.”
“I didn’t really mean--”
“Yes. You did.” His next words scraped up his throat. “And you deserve better.”
“You can’t seriously mean that.”
He looked miserable and battered. “I’m sorry.”
Sara stared mutely at his face. Her legs started to shake. Tears burned her eyes. “Don’t I mean anything at all to you?” Her voice broke, tinny and small, and the tears fell down her cheeks. “Me, or Ellie?”
Dillon let out a long audible breath. “Of course you do, both of you, and Ellie will always have a daddy, and I’ll be…but you need…that doesn’t mean--”
“Don’t go,” she interrupted, tears dripping off her chin. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“I have to. I’ll always have to. And I can’t go off on some mission and then one day come home to find you or my child dead because someone who hates me is trying to get even. I’ve already done that once, and God help me, Sara, I can’t do it again.”
He reached out to capture a tear on his finger. “I love you more than life itself, but after that, it still comes down to the fact that I’m a man with a job that doesn’t lend itself to happily ever after. And I don’t know how to do, or be, anything else.”
He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Right now I’m facing a prison sentence. I have nothing left to offer you. Not a lifetime of growing old. Not a rocking chair on the front porch. Not a single damn thing, Sara, and sometimes love just isn’t enough.”
The smallest spark of hope she might have had died. He wasn’t going to give in. Her hands fisted and she shook her head in disbelief. “Then I guess you’re not the man I married.”
He looked at her for a long moment, picked up her hand and uncurled her fist. Meeting her eyes with tears in his, he kissed her palm, and then placed something cool and round in the middle of it.
When she looked down she could literally feel her heart breaking. Shattering into little, tiny, miserable pieces.
Sitting there, in the palm of her hand, shiny and bright as their future had once been, was her ring.
“This is my way of trying to…of taking care of you. I’m letting go.” He turned away.
She didn’t fall apart until she heard the front door close, heard the Corvette roar away, and then she hugged her arms around her waist and lost it. Sinking to her knees, she rocked back and forth as huge sobs ripped from her chest.
Slowly she let her ring, and everything it stood for, slip between her fingers onto the floor as she said a final farewell to her dreams.
<><><>
Dillon pulled into Jake’s driveway and turned off the engine. He had to find Cummings fast and knew Jake would help him.
Sitting for a minute, he tried to clear his head, but Sara’s face flickered in his mind, and all he could see were her somber brown eyes and the anguish on her face as he’d walked away.
Walking away was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Every beat of his heart told him to stay. His honor told him to go.
And nothing felt right. None of it. Stay. Go. Half in. Half out. Nothing worked and he sat there wondering what the fuck, and wasn’t that a real kick in the ass for an educated man, an expert in psychological tactics, to think.
He couldn’t change who he was. What he’d done. But his choices had cost him and maybe, just maybe the price was too high.
You can’t live the rest of your life playing the ‘what if’ game and you can’t keep blaming yourself for your family’s death. Sanchez killed them, not you.
The ‘what if’ game. What if he was wrong? What if leaving Sara had been the biggest mistake of his life? What if he stayed and nobody ever tried to harm her?
But what if they did? What if next time she died?
“It’s suddenly too big a risk to care, because maybe, just maybe, they might die? Well guess what, Mr. Special Forces, everybody dies sooner or later.”
But he did care. How could he say he loved her one minute, then risk her life by staying, in the next?
It’s not always about you. You take chances with your life you have no right to take.”
Was that it? Was it?
Was it okay for
him
to die, but not her?
What kind of hell had he put her through every time he took an assignment? How many times had she gone to bed wondering if he’d be there when she woke up? How many times had she kissed him good-bye so that he could go off and fight for his country, only to possibly die in some third world shithole?
Every time he left, she never knew if he’d come home alive or in a box. But she’d handled it every time. She’d stayed.
And he’d left.
And he’d been way, way off and really, really wrong.
It didn’t take a degree in psychology to realize how stupid he’d been. Stupid and blind and stubborn and entirely too defined by his job. This was the woman he needed like he needed his next breath, the woman who made his life whole. The woman he loved more than his own life.
All a man really had in life were the choices he made. And, just like the day he’d married her seven years ago, Dillon chose Sara. Love was more than a choice, more than a feeling, it was a commitment. One he couldn’t walk away from. Not now, not ever.
Feeling a sudden desperation to tell her, to fix this, to try and make things right, he jumped out of his car and ran up the walk to pound on Jake’s door.
He needed to call, beg and plead even. He needed to ask Sara to wait this out, see what happened, and ask her to…he scrubbed a hand over his face. Hell, right now he just needed to hear her voice.
He stormed past Jake the instant Jake opened the door and went straight to the phone and dialed. “Don’t have a new cellphone yet. I need to call Sara.”
Jake followed him in and asked, “You got news? You hear something?”
Dillon held up his hand. “Give me a sec.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw Aaron lounging on the couch, saw Jake sit down with a look of concern.
The phone rang once and suddenly his hands started to shake. He gripped the receiver harder. The phone rang twice.
Come on, Sara, answer.
<><><>
Sara was sitting on the side of the bed, with nothing inside her but a solemn hope that her baby was safe. That this nightmare would end soon and end well.
The slight noise didn’t click at first.
She had her legs drawn up, with her chin on her knees, just sitting there feeling hollow and alone when she heard it again.
Subtle, but out of place. She cocked her head and listened.
It came again. Faint, it sounded like the clack of a heel on tile. Coming from…she strained to hear…coming from the kitchen.
Had Dillon changed his mind and come back?
No, no, she would have heard his car. Plus, Dillon would have announced his arrival. Would have called out to her. And whoever was out there now didn’t want her to know it.
A pulse of terror shot her heart into her throat.
She heard the noise again.
Closer now.
In the hallway, outside the bedroom.
As silently as she could, she got up off her bed, never taking her eyes from the open doorway. The bedroom window was right behind her. Nailed shut. Damn it, she’d had Dillon nail it shut years ago--in case of a nighttime intruder.
And now here she was, trapped in broad daylight because she’d been afraid someone might break in while Dillon was gone.
No way could she make it past the intruder and out the door.
The footsteps drew closer. Just outside the door now.
Her gaze darted around the room looking for somewhere,
anywhere
to hide.
The closet was too far away.
She’d never fit under the bed. Too much junk.
The bathroom. She could lock the door and...
He was closer, she could feel it. Any second now, whoever was out there was going to be in her bedroom doorway.
Her pulse pounded harder. She inched closer to the bathroom door. And came to an abrupt halt when the phone on the nightstand shrilled.
Just then, the man appeared.
A scream froze in her throat.
She was equal distances from the phone and the doorway. If she ran, maybe she could make it.
She ran.
<><><>
The line picked up, Dillon heard a loud thump, then a muffled shout and the line went dead.
What the-- ?
Realization hit and everything in him went to ice.
Holy Christ.
He dropped the receiver and looked at his two friends. “Cummings has Sara.”
<><><>
The kitchen was on the side of the house and toward the middle. Jake and Aaron were going in through the back, and Dillon was taking the front.
He gave the signal.
The two men nodded in acknowledgement and slipped around to the back of the house.
The front door opened quietly and Dillon entered. To get to the kitchen he had to go down two halls, make a right, and then the kitchen was on the left.
Moving quietly down the first hallway, gun palmed, safety off, he advanced toward the kitchen.
He stopped when he heard the senator’s voice.
“--kill you, you bitch!”
“I told you, I don’t know where it is.”